foreign [Music] foreign we'll call the city council regular meeting to order for Monday April 17 2023 would everyone please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance Supply foreign here council member bernance here council member lean here councilmember Wilson here councilmember Porter here all right any changes to the agenda Molly Nick Leah Katie Steve Lynn I have one change where I'd like to move 9 11 on the consent agenda under new business to 12.2 okay thank you if there's no other changes to the agenda we would look for a motion to approve as amended motion motion by Steve second by Katie all in favor say aye aye all right on to item five which is our announcements and our accommodations under item or under agenda item number five we have two proclamations uh the proclamations are for April 2023 to be proclaimed as fair housing month under the 2023 fair housing month Proclamation uh in it this is accompanied inside of the the agenda packet for this evening um the Saint Paul Area Association of Realtors is a professional organization of over 8 000 Realtors um they had brought forth a proclamation um essentially saying that within the city of Farmington that we Proclaim that we don't have any acts that show discrimination that we practice Fair standards um and that are and that we don't take any actions that would involve zoning and or establishing districts that would be does discrimination against or on the basis of race color religion sex uh family status sex or sexual orientation national origin and disability and provide Equal Housing opportunities for all the second Proclamation as noted in the agenda under item five two is the Arbor Day Proclamation we would be proclaiming that Wednesday April 26 2023 is Arbor Day and I believe Kelly will have some notes or some events that we have planned for that day in our community but again historically we do the Arbor Day Proclamation as a tree City in the state of Minnesota so both of those items you will find in the agenda as proclamations for the month of April moving on to citizens comments which is item number six if there are any citizens or residents in attendance that would like to speak at this time we reserve this for your opportunity all right seeing none we would move on to item number nine which is our consent agenda I look for a motion to approve the consent agenda as amended motion motion by Holly second second by Nick all in favor say aye aye moving right along we'll go to number 10 which is our petitions uh agenda item number 10.1 is a request for comprehensive plan amendment to re-guide PUD from Park open space to low res low density residential and Jerry do you have this one thank you mayor city council members uh the requested for you tonight is for a comprehensive plan Amendment for a parcel up located next to 19927 Aitkin Road uh the applicant is Jacob Steen on behalf of Carrie hannafield who is a property owner as well as she owns 19927 Aitkin Road as you can see on the map uh 19927 Aitkin road to butts Aiken Road and the subject parcel tonight um is located adjacently to the West uh this comprehensive plan amendment is to re-guide uh this parcel from Park open space to low density residential uh the owner is looking to eventually combine and subdivide both properties into three separate buildable Lots there's a sketch plan in your packet that the Planning Commission did review at their February meeting um the review of the subdivision will occur at a later date and it's not a part of your um the current request tonight so this parcel is 3.24 Acres um steep slopes heavily wooded and it was planted as Outlaw D in the Vermilion Grove subdivision to the West um it is surrounded by Park Wetlands to the west and then 19927 Aitkin road to the east um it's currently zoned for R1 low density residential but it's guided for Park open space and 19927 Aiken Road is zoned R1 and guided for low density residential so both of these Parcels need to be guided for low density residential before any subdivision can occur um staff does support this request as it'll align with 19927 Aitkin Road in terms of zoning and its future land use regardless if the subdivision does occur as you can see down below in the future 2040 feature land use map outlined in green is the park open space parcel and then directly uh to the east is 19927 Aitkin road which is guided for low density residential the Planning Commission did hold a public hearing on this last week there were no public comments and the commission did recommend the city council approved the amendment by a vote of four to zero so the requested for you guys tonight is to approve the requested comprehensive plan Amendment and the attached resolution to re-guide this parcel from Park open space to low density residential and the applicants are in the uh room tonight too if you have any questions for them thank you sir um Steve any questions I do not other than is there Trail adjacent to this area or is there no development it's to the trails to the north trails to the north okay thanks Nick I'm good okay um I don't have any questions I was able to watch the Planning Commission meeting and I appreciated their discussion on it so um with no further public comment I don't have any questions thank you thank you Holly no questions Nick um I luckily already kind of harassed you before this but my concern was uh the Wetland buffer and how far that was set back from the property land or property land I lived pretty close to there so um it's deceiving where where the boundary actually lies because if you look at the satellite picture it's you know The Cattails stop and where's what's considered Wetland so we don't encroach uh any rules of the Wetland Conservation act um but I think you kind of satisfactor the answer that there is a 75 foot set back there so um and then buying that is that fairly large Hill that would probably be difficult to develop on anyway right so there's a pretty ample space there that you won't get a lot of disruption in the native habitat that's right there so that basically absolves my concerns on that one so I appreciate it the only question I had is in regards to the Wetland buffer if it is not currently posted and or staked per the lat Longs that in the event of a development that it will be marked to preserve and I mean I know the plot has the last Longs and stuff on it but if we don't have the signs out there to put them there because we do have ordinances about um how to or what can and cannot be done within those buffers so right and I'm sure we can do that when it when they move forward the platting process we can put that in there as a condition of approval all right thank you uh without any other comment then I would look for a motion to approve the request the comprehensive plan Amendment and attach resolutionary guide parcel ID 14-82500-00-040 legally described as Outlet D Vermilion Grove from Park open space to low density residential so moved second motion by Katie second by Steve call the roll please council member bernance yes councilmember lien yes councilmember Wilson yes council member Porter yes mayor white yes thank you sir thank you thank you foreign moving on to new business we'll go to item 12 1 under Park and Recreation Department's 2022 annual report good evening mayor and Council we're excited to be here tonight to present the 2022 annual Parks and Recreation report um we're going to go over a few accomplishments the department had over the past year with me tonight I have Missy colbeck one of the recreation supervisors and Jeremy Pierre parks and facility supervisor I want to thank Missy for putting the annual report together we thought it turned out really awesome thanks to her we just provide her with the information some of the pictures and she takes it from there so thank you Missy for all your time and efforts on on this project so we celebrated a milestone in 2022 Dan theoborg celebrated his 35th and year anniversary as a full-time employee with the city of Farmington he was hired as the second full-time Park maintenance worker for the city so 35 years later he's still here um a couple of his highlights he mentioned to Missy um over his career was he got to help put the trout beds in at roundling River Park if you were out in the park uh last year the water was really low you could see the trout beds there so that was one of the things he really appreciated doing also he was one of the first people that got to go on the Target Field uh Outfield and a tour of the field when it was being built because it was part of a course he was in so Dan has seen many different changes throughout the city in the department over his tenure but we we wanted to celebrate his 35th Anniversary and we hope for 30 five more for him so congratulations to Dan don't tell him I told them that um and then welcoming new staff this year uh thank you again to city council for authorizing two full-time new park maintenance workers in 2022. uh Austin started in June of 2022 he worked for the city of Eagan as a seasonal maintenance worker prior to coming here and then John he started in November of 22. he worked for the city of Apple Valley and Cottage Grove both have been great assets to the department um great workers asked lots of questions pitch in um help so we we've been really fortunate to get both of those guys and then Emily Scheer she joined us full-time in August she had worked on and off for us as a seasonal worker for 10 years that picture there was probably when Emily was 15 or 16. um we hired her when she was 15. the little girl sitting on Emily's lap is Cindy and Dave McMillan's daughter who also worked for us for a number of years and just celebrated her 21st birthday so that picture makes me feel real old um Emily's done a great job for us as well we look forward to her coming back soon um but the three of them have been great assets to our team and we look for them staying with us for many many years okay Community Partnerships is a huge part of Farmington Parks and Recreation a former council member asked me when she was meeting with staff what's one word to describe Farmington and immediately generous jumped my mind and that fit for a few years ago it fit for 28 years ago when it started and it still fits for now we we are very blessed to have all of those folks listed there all those businesses all those individual individuals donate time talent and muscles to us to get things done here in the city of Farmington um what's really fun about these pictures is most of these programs are new the first one is literacy night and we hadn't done that that's that one's old but we hadn't done that the pictures not old but literacy night is an older vet I should clarify that um we hadn't been able to do that because of kovid so this is the first time that we were back was 2022 and it's a really fun night where we um are at the schools for literacy night and we play little games with them and then promote all of our camps and programs for the summer the food truck event is a new one that Kelly and Emily have been working with Empire Township the spring one here you can see was fabulous turnout and a lot of fun the fall one not so good it rained and it was cold and and yucky out um the next picture is a brand new one this year this past year 22. uh story time in the park with the libraries and it was really fun and a ton of people came out to walk our Trails some story Marshall bus line just it took charge at all of our music and movie in the park events by face painting and offering tours of the bus and giving away free popcorn so that was a fun deal and Muddy Waters so they've been in town for a couple years now and the seniors have done a few programs with them but Emily really did a lot of programming with them this year it's been very successful the classes were full with waiting lists and we're hoping that they're full with waiting lists again for the summer some of our Capital Improvements thank you for that this past year we were able to purchase several pieces of equipment and they'll definitely be helpful coming in the future we got a spreader we bought used from the city of Lakeville um you can use that to spread fertilizer sand dirt on the ball fields try to level them out big piece of equipment that we got was the forestry Mulcher that we'll use to cut the wheels down and the Buckthorn it works great you can drive right through the the brush and it just drops it below it as mulch it doesn't the one we had before would throw the stuff like a grenade going off so that's been awesome tool cats we use in the winter um plowing snow in the summer they use them with a bucket attachment the forks put a new dump box on our dump truck the garbage Packer garbage truck that we got it's been work has been great um guys go out do a garbage run back it up to a dumpster lift it up everything falls in there take to the wash bay rinse it out park it and it's ready for next week or the next time we're going to do a garbage run so that's been awesome Gator we use that mostly in the summer watering the flowers downtown and all the baskets the more we got last summer the grounds Master replaced a gang mower that we had game more is basically we had a tractor to pull behind and when you pull straight out you'd have to do a big circle and come back didn't get to use it a ton last summer obviously as it was so dry but that should really make us more efficient should cut down on the mowing time when we we they gave it to us for a week we were able to mow the parts in like three days uh send usually two mowers out to go trim everything out with this thing being able to cut as tight around everything we're hoping to be able to just have one person doing that and everybody else can be working on something else parks and trails um some improvements we made um the Flagstaff Metals master plan uh we did the Arbor Day at Prairie Pines the trail replacement at Mystic metals they put in a rope barrier too so looking forward to hopefully there won't be any Willows growing into that trail but I know that we've talked to other communities and that's worked well for them and hopefully that we'll be able to continue to do that in the future um fishing pier we made improvements at the lake in Julia Doc and Prairie View both entrances were kind of not level we leveled them out so they had access to them replaced all the boards on the decks the bridge is at um by the ice arena accoutre's entrance we raised the railings up I believe it's 48 inches that they have to be we did the one at Rambling River the previous summer we painted all three of them that turned out pretty good and in the Sunny Hills playground developed was completed and then also over the winter we flood the Elementary School rink Farmington Elementary they were real thankful this winter they run events out there we brought some benches and some Nets and we got letters from the kids and for the parks guys and stuff and that was that was great to have the appreciation of that Ice Arena first picture we have there um didn't make too many improvements at the rink but we did buy a skate sharpener last summer what's great about that uh seasonal kids working on the weekends they can put a skate in hit a button sharpens the skate there's no adjustments or any tuning that they need to do to the machine so they pretty much come out perfect every time had the East parking lot in the west parking lots the East one was paved and the West one was redone um going to start that project up here pretty quick it'll be nice once we get some lines in there and then we get the drop off in the front too that'll take some pressure off the the west parking lot a lot of people come in there and this winter was without lines it was kind of jungled but um it'll work out really well Building Maintenance Ted's been going through fire station police station City Hall Senior Center he did some at the ace Arena a couple weeks ago replacing the light bulbs with LED light bulbs they repainted the conference room at 170. and we dug a trench at the fire station now they put up camera there Parks and Rec continues to offer sports for all ages we um find our heaviest involvement in little kids the little ones as you see the little guy with the football um also kind of a fun thing that was brought back this year for the first time in maybe five or six years was uh the opportunity to pie your coach in the face um if you were able to throw so many t-balls into the big five gallon pail your throw and your arm was that good that you got as the number of balls in there needed you got to pie your coach in the face and it's it's a big Challenge and a lot of fun for those little ones so we'll keep that around um also in Recreation this just continues to show our Partnerships we partner with the library as I mentioned before um on the story trailers but also story time in the park and the geocaching event um we partner with our own fire department and police department put on safety Camp um you can see the Farmington Ambassador is partnering with us at our little princess Camp the teenagers aren't really partnering with us they're just watching they don't want to participate but they didn't want to go away either they were invited several times to play and they didn't want to play but they sat and watched so that was all good and then we have a picture of how fun it is to work for us at the puppet way again so tell all of your neighbors and kids and anybody who's 15 and older to apply for us those are two of our summer staff from last year doing puppet shows again I work a lot of special events and so does Emily um we you can see kiss the pig there which is a a favorite in town I was just so enamored with story time you get another picture of story time in the park it's just so much fun um the little tiger pep Fest is always a big event the Halloween Walk and of course the uh secret holiday shop and this year we had the entire girls basketball team from the high school volunteer how wonderful is that some some other special events include our trains and Treats of course our movies and music in the park our party in the park and our pond and park cleanup Oh I thought it was done Rambling River Center um I love the Rambling River Center uh you can this picture on the left is probably one of the last fun fridays we were able to do before our bus was pulled we're looking forward to that new van thank you to everyone who so generously donated it is paid for um you'll hear more about that next year because it got paid for the last month got paid for in 23. um we got new railings which you know they don't look all that fabulous in the picture but they they're a big deal we like our new railings we also are very excited about the generous donation from Minnesota landscape I'm gonna say it run and I don't have my Minnesota nice landscape um they donated all the Landscaping so all the boulders and The Rock the tree and then we had the bench put in in honor of our 40th anniversary you can see some folks enjoying our 40th anniversary there um our Advisory Board did a fantastic job with all the fun events and thank you all for coming over to that enjoying launch and celebrating with us and our big donation for 2022 was The Sixteen thousand dollars from Midwest Bank for the new fan so a lot of successes in 22. um we did have some challenges and opportunities as well uh graffiti is a is a ongoing challenge for us we're putting uh cameras in Prime locations in the Parks and with the Wi-Fi build out that will really help us um have Better Eyes On The Park um we uh knocked down the bath house at Evergreen Knoll Park um we have some work out there left to do but with that coming down a chair opens that space and um would be great for some new amenities in that Park uh we started the Jim Bell Park and preserve uh Master planning process um halfway through the the process we switched gears and thought we'd better look at our current Park system and what we need to do to bring that up to speed uh look at the master plans that haven't been completed and look at aging uh structures whether it's uh playground equipment shelters Trails basketball pads tennis courts Etc so moved in a little bit different direction there and then Emerald dashboard um we've talked about that over the last few months um we have 117 Turf area Park trees that do have emerald ash borer that's just areas within the park that could be um in in the way of the park not on the trails or in the wooded areas we did treat some of the trees last year we did take some down and we'll continue to do that as well as we go forward the Rambling River Center Advisory Board in the Parks and Recreation Commission we can't say enough about those two groups of people um they are very helpful they have great ideas they're there for the betterment of the center and the department nobody has a vested interest in one thing so thank you to the Rambling River Center Advisory board and the Parks and Recreation Commission for all their work over 2022 all the members of the Rambling River Center Advisory Board are the same um as in 22 and we the only change in 23 was Betsy Casa went off the commission but did serve on two terms so thank you to to all of them who have served and we'd be happy to answer any questions you have sorry Steve you didn't make the um the picture there oh that's okay next year Nick questions or comments oh I was just very happy to see how you guys put this together again I remember my first one last year what I think I like about this most is if you look at the year over year looks like almost every program is doing well on the upside so uh whatever you guys are doing seems to be working at drawing them in and hope that uh Trenton kind of continues um don't be surprised if I come to call for that Buckthorn chipper Holly first uh annual report that I've had the opportunity of sitting on this side of but I will say that the Park Central system was one of the primary reasons that we selected Farmington in as our home back in 2012 uh and so I love seeing um how the services that you offer and the programs that you offer are are things that really connect with families from Little all the way to you know full grown into um you know adulthood and uh and then again with their seniors right so um it's just uh fantastic that we've got such a well-developed and fruitful uh program so thanks for that really yeah Missy you did a fabulous job as I was scrolling through this I almost text Kelly and good thing I didn't because you did it they should get all the credits you may have missed uh you're calling and marketing and advertising because this is I mean the timelines the I'm very visual learner so this is fantastic I really appreciate it um yeah thank you to all of you for all the work that you do this is one of the most visible departments no offense to any of the rest of you because you all work very hard but one of the most visible departments in our community and one of the ways that we really get to flourish and I I just love it um and thank you to The Advisory Board ramling River Center and Parks and Rec commission um we very much appreciate all the work they do for the community and um Steve also made sure to enlarge that bottom picture so that I could see that he was not in it I think that's what you were doing um so maybe next year it maybe throw them in there somewhere so that I don't yeah thank you Steve no actually I enlarged the picture because you don't like looking at yourself in the right picture yeah thanks for bringing that up um you know I've seen this report before and it's so fun to see it every year and the common theme is just it's people you know either you know from your team creating the programming making the Parks look great um to our residents who want to engage and for you guys creating programs that make them excited to participate you know old and young and of course our our boards and commissions so there's so many different people at so many different levels and it's really the only department where there's just an intersection of generation A diversity of people you know probably a diversity of programs and ideas and you guys never cease to amaze me um you know I guess the only ask is to continue to push the envelope a little bit higher and and make sure that you're all continuing to let us know as a council what you need and how we can support you so that's all I have yeah Kelly Missy and Jeremy I mean you know the entire team um really supports one of the primary reasons that people choose to call Farmington home you know whether it's the parks and trails the programming the Rambling River Center board um people find reasons to move into communities but once they're there they experience things that encourage them to stay and continue to call at home our Park and Recreation Department is one of the primary reasons that people call Farmington home and you know my peers all they hit all the great points young to old various types of programming um it's ongoing Improvement we do things really well we're always finding new programs we're finding ways to be better to increase our touch points with our residents and I I only wish that more residents got involved I wish more not only volunteered you know offered community outreach opportunities to where they participate in events but also to the enrollment I always enjoy opening up the currents and seeing what's coming and like what what kind of class could I take like you know just it's there's always something in there and it's it's it's great to see you know I've been a long time resident of the community and you know had the um the privilege to be a part of the planning for the last few years and it's it's one of the things I look most forward to every year because there's there's always something going on and I think that's the one thing that the average person in our community misses is that there is a lot of programming there are a lot of things to do um and it centers around park and rec so um from the bottom of my heart I I can't thank you enough you guys are amazing thank you thank you for your support absolutely thank you moving on we will go into item what is now known as 12 2 which is going to be our financial review for the quarter ending December 31st of 2022. thank you members of the council um just a brief review of how 2022 it to end it it um ended very positively uh general fund revenues end of the year at 102 percent of budget um while all expenditures including Transporters were slightly above 99 of budget you're in Surplus um well it was approximately five hundred thousand dollars uh reasons for the Surplus permit Revenue exceeded budget by 86 000 intergovernmental Revenue exceeded budget by three hundred and twelve thousand dollars and charges for services exceeded budget by 239 thousand dollars uh moving on to the liquor operations sales increased by 13.6 percent over the prior year uh the operation met both of its Financial benchmarks gross profit was at 25.98 and profit as a percentage of sales was at 8.2 percent and our goals are our benchmarks are 25 and 6 percent um we also increased the cash balances in the community project pod and the capital Improvement pot within the liquor fund um based on those um results and stuff like that uh there was one I guess I'll call it uh wasn't a positive result but each year or we have to um Mark our Investment Portfolio to Market and this year was a significant negative adjustment for 2022 was about three and a half times greater than what it was last year last year we also had a negative amount but it was more palatable uh um when I first calculated it I was um shocked I called in my accountant and we both looked at it and we re-engineered it and we said yeah I think he did it right I then called one of my Brokers and said this is what's half this is what I've got have you heard from any other cities and he said yes we've heard from several cities um and he finally we talked about it and he said one basic cause was that the Federal Reserve started to raise interest rates in January of 2022 and they continued to do that throughout 2022 and they raised the rates very quickly and very highly over that 12-month period um basically the result was that ladder portfolios which is what Farmington has where we have money coming in each month could not keep up with the pace of this and plus the longer the investment went out the greater the negative result what was into this calculation so basically if you look in the financial statements that are part of your packet you'll see interest in this is a little charge if you'll see negative numbers there for basically every fund um and this is what I call an unrealized loss we're required to report this on our financial statements um based on the government Accounting Standards boards but it's not a realized loss um if we were to sell our portfolio as of 1231 then it would be a realized loss but we hold when we buy Investments we buy them to hold to maturity to fill the the cash flow model that I have established so yes it looks bad on the financial statements but it like I said it's an unrealized loss and we're required to do it so um that's pretty much all I had to talk about if you have any further questions any detailed questions and I can try to answer those for you thank you sir Katie no questions thank you I know I touched on what you just touched on so I appreciate you bringing that to council again it's still I'm still trying to wrap my head around it but I do appreciate that you're available for questions no it's not something I agree with but I have to do it so yeah of course there's a lot of things gasby does that I don't agree with so thank you Chris thank you I'm good Nick I think I'm good thank you are you sure yeah so I mean I have a question on the street lights but it's not applicable to what Chris is doing so uh no I'm good um I've said this before numbers and I don't uh mix as well as pictures and I mix so uh when I when I look at that this I just I have a an understanding of the effort that is is taken to to bring this together and then also to make it understandable for those of us that don't live in the numbers world so thank you for that I have a great support staff too so give them Kudos also I don't have any questions Chris um as always I appreciate your due diligence and you know digging in and just you know helping not only staff leadership team but also my peers and I uh whenever the questions arise um and they're we're just receiving this there's no action to be taken is that correct no okay thank you sir thank you appreciate it all right we'll move on to city council Roundtable Holly you can start yay um well uh it's been mentioned uh more than once tonight but uh Farmington currents if uh residents somehow missed getting this in their mailbox I would encourage you to come out to City Hall um and pick one up because there's so many unique and fun things that are going on all of the time in this community and I think that's something that sometimes gets lost in the uh chatter that happens outside of the doors here and even sometimes on social media but I would encourage you to take a look at that and find something because there's definitely opportunities for families uh to to get involved and and to participate in community events one of those events is due days it is starting in 66 days uh the countdown ticker is going um and so I would encourage residents too to jump onto Facebook and look for the Farmington due days website because um or the Farmington two days page and then follow that to the website because there are new events that are coming up and specific to this weekend uh the spring musical is starting so uh if you follow High School theater at all um Little Shop of Horrors is the spring Musical that they're doing in the opening night is this Friday night and they are doing Friday Saturday and a Sunday matinee and then again next weekend um Friday Saturday and uh we have a special request putting um our police and fire department on the spot here uh Friday night uh April 28th is a special night where we would like to offer discounted tickets uh to any police or fire to be able to come and see it I don't know if that's something that you would normally do but just know that it's out there and I can get you the information on that um and then last but not least I had a really good time at Celts last uh Thursday night we had a lot of people that came out and did the tasting with the liquor store um Josh Salinger and his staff did a fantastic job along with the celt staff of putting that on I don't um drink but I had a great time so uh I'm sure everybody that did drink had an even better time that's it thank you Nick okay um thank you and I'm not even gonna try and pronounce the names but thank you to uh watt municitorum for the invite to the New Year Festival out there um I guess I told other people I thought I was special in getting the invite but apparently it's open to the public and I was just told afterwards but if you ever get a chance to go out there uh it's actually really neat because a lot of um art and culture to experience out there it was really fun day even though it was cold and rainy and miserable um same as you thank you to Mr Salinger for the invite to the tasting it was a really uh good night I think I kind of got stuck talking to two people but it was an enjoyable talk for the whole time so I enjoyed that um what was the other one I had written so in the consent agenda tonight we had a memorandum of acceptance on the opioid settlement and um you know in talking about what that means for counties and cities you know there's a lot of different ways that that settlement will probably go and in having discussions with with some people I know about what what's the best use of that money you know it gets down to PSAs being one of the most effective forms of awareness and and things of that sort to to the drug markets and um I don't know if anyone's kind of follows along with that news but recently the Biden Administration declared a emerging threat of something called xylazine or tranq um and so my PSA is basically don't get involved with this one I mean this is one that cannot be Narcan through it's a permanent damage um there is no nothing good about this thing if you know of its existence please help the people that you are involved where you can um and I mean don't be afraid to alert authorities on the existence of this kind of stuff this is not something we want in Farmington this is a terrible terrible thing um that's my way of PSA is the best I can to that kind of thing so thank you Holly um on the note of the Celts tasting which was very fun um I'll put my neighbor Wendy on the spot because she was the employee of Josh's that was there and she did a fantastic job so she's here and I know she wanted me to point it out and that's why she's here but also once in a lifetime my oldest daughter is here I didn't even know she was coming but you missed citizen comments sweetie that's what she came for so sorry about that but it's always fun to see people in attendance um yeah spring Sports we're not going to talk about Mother Nature because we'll just look at next next week's forecast and that's all we're going to focus on anyway that's all I have Steve all right so I like how I mentioned I was at the tasting last week and um you know like Holly I don't consume alcoholic beverages either and you know I told Josh earlier I'm like I had like 10 times more fun than I even expected to have and I already expected to have a great time so you know we joined the club and everything and um what a blast it was just a blah you know I'm still smiling at what a great time it was um I did want to thank Peter our it pro who just completed setting a major technology that we approve so thank you to him um Chief you might know the answer are we we've now passed winter parking rules right you can pretty much Park wherever you want to which is primarily the the street in front of your residence right but I mean in front of your residence for example without the fear of being ticketed except for in scenarios where there might be road conditions which would prohibit a reasonable idea of parking in the street correct correct okay all right and then it's possible the chief is going to mention this um but you know in the blink of an eye of Life can change for anyone and I would just say if you run across um and you know the great thing about our police and fire teams they are so out there in the community that it would almost be impossible to miss them they are so Community minded but when you run across military uh Personnel or city police officers or City Firefighters just express your appreciation for their service um and actually their families too both they and their families go through a lot um so that extra thank you to them I think goes a long way to live thank you Leah great yeah um a judge update for you all uh the current assistant County attorney Tory Stewart who would appear in front of the judges that I was clerking for back in the day uh has been appointed to the bench in Goodhue County in Red Wing but we're all a part of the first district so congrats to Future judge Tory Stewart thank you Lynn I too would like to thank Josh Wendy and Cindy for putting on a great event on Thursday it was great meeting some residents that I haven't spoke to before a very good conversation and then also um April 27th at 8 30 we'll start opening the doors for state of the city that the mayor will be presenting and if you are interested in attending that you can go to the Dakota County Chamber website and sign up and anybody is welcome to sign up so hope to see you there thanks thank you Julie I just want to formally welcome Shirley wechsler as our new city clerk thank you thank you John thank you Marion City Council Members as indicated in your staff report there is an event for Arbor Day at Evergreen Knoll Park 10 to 10 30 more a.m on Wednesday April 26th so that's a public event if anybody wants to join in uh along the line of trees you may recall that we had a significant snow event a couple weeks ago heavy snow uh damaged a lot of trees so I just wanted to update you we've touched about 250 trees our Public Works staff working with a contractor eight of those had to be removed and these were all safety concerns branches broken tree split just from the weight of the snow so they've been hard to work at that over the past couple of weeks 4 30 P.M tomorrow via Farmington fix is the last opportunity to report any tree damage that you have in the public right-of-way that will come out and take care of we have moved on from Storm cleanup to hydrant flushing that started today we're on schedule day two will be tomorrow it's about an eight or nine day process for hydrant Flushing updates will be posted via the website you can rolled bid opening is this week and we also have a Spruce Street pre-construction 2023 pre-construction medium occurring this week so we'll have a much better idea of the contractor's schedule after that meeting thank you Kelly the public engagement phase for the Rambling River Park master plan started last week so on the city's web page under current news there is a link to the survey about the park and also a social pinpoint map so I would encourage residents and visitors alike to visit it um fill out your comments before April 30th um at www.farmingtonmn.gov we will be having an open house in the park probably on Wednesday May 31st we'll get you that firm date um as we get closer to the event and then just want to welcome Anthony Barrow he was approved today as the newest Arena and park maintenance worker he will start tomorrow in a full-time capacity so welcome Anthony thank you Chris kicked off the 2024 budget process today I'm so let that's ongoing we also have a capital improvement process ongoing and just a little cleanup stuff with the on it I haven't heard from him lately but I'm sure I will again so but that's about it thank you Chief I just want to thank everyone for the Easter egg hunt again even though there was a foot of snow on the ground it just seemed like people kept coming and coming coming so we partnership with the Dakota County Fairgrounds they let us use the grounds for free the Farmington ambassadors volunteers from the school our relief Association auxiliary and our firefighters and probably a lot more that I'm missing but uh very good event it went as smoothly as it could with a foot of snow on the ground and hundreds and hundreds of kids running after eggs so thanks for everyone involved and we had what like 650 pounds of food maybe maybe more right in there it was a lot it was a lot of food so it's awesome correct to the Food Shelf the food crap yeah yep yeah the event um or if you wanna add any more to that but it's always a big drive for the furniture food shelf and we ended up with I think it was 650 or 700 pounds of food donated so a truck bed full chief yeah we are speaking of big events we're probably just over one month away from the police department's Police Week open house uh we too will be collecting food for the food shelf doing the stuff the squad thing again uh but it's always a super fun event weather permitting of course we'll have a bunch of bounce houses hopefully uh helicopter or two some SWAT trucks and of course everybody's favorite scene stealer the the canine will be there uh draws the air out of every room he goes into how it goes I guess um but yeah it'll be uh Saturday May 20th from 11 A.M to 2 p.m we'd love to see everybody come out thank you sir no no okay uh let me see here we'll start with uh Hiawatha Broadband um it won't be long here I would say probably within the next few weeks you're going to start to see a lot more of their mobilizing across the community again this is um this is a company that has come in and over the next 24 months will provide fiber access and essentially to their goal is to meet 100 of the home so they're going to get into several of our Parks free Wi-Fi access for our residents but with that process there's a little bit of a disturbance you know you will have utility markings you're going to have you know the presence in some of your front yards and you'll see them in the roadways but get get comfortable with them and get used to them because they're going to be around for the next two years there's a lot of fiber to be put in the ground throughout the community but rest assured when we get on the back side of this this process not only we have more competition in town but we're going to have free Wi-Fi in our parks uh as Holly mentioned due days is fast approaching that's June 22nd through the 25th mark your calendars now we have the committee has worked hard to improve on last year's event uh we had a huge draw last year so we're looking for even more this year but again that's what you said 66 days it's 66. it's knocking on the door it'll be here before we know it uh and then you know this this kind of segues into a little bit off of our park and rec because you know we had an employee who was mentioned but also we have our our Relay for Life event that will be held July 20th through the 21st at Bachmann Middle School um and this year's event hits a little bit closer to home for the city of Farmington team um anyone across the community and outside the city of Farmington is more than welcome to join you're welcome to register your own team set your own fundraising goal all proceeds go to the American Cancer Society and as a reference point the Relay for Life in the American Cancer Society has 78 percent of every dollar gets donated back to either family support or research so there's a there I believe they're a four-star organization but a lot of each dollar goes goes directly back to the families who are affected by it so um the city of farmington's team I personally will be walking for 24 hours this year my goal is to go over 50 miles but again anyone is welcome we do have I think 13 teams registered now and about 50 um participants registered so you can find information at Farmington Relay for Life on the Facebook page through Instagram there's multiple sources for it but it'll be a great event for an unbelievable cause and with that we look for motion to adjourn motion motion by Katie second by Steve all in favor say aye aye and we're adjourned at 7 50. 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