This transcript covers the Birchwood Village Canvassing Board meeting and the subsequent City Council meeting held in November 2024. Note: While the provided list identifies Jennifer Arsenault as Mayor, the transcript context reveals she is the **Mayor-elect** being certified during this meeting. **Margaret Ford** is the presiding Mayor/Chair during these proceedings. **Justin McCarthy** is a sitting Councilmember not explicitly listed in your staff context but identified in the roll call. **Therese Bellinger** is referred to throughout as **Becky**. [0:18] [Music] [0:28] [Music] [0:46] [Music] [1:04] [Music] [1:39] [Music] [2:29] [Music] [2:46] [Music] [3:00] [Music] [3:08] **Margaret Ford**: Right, good evening everyone. Um, we are the canvassing board for the city of Birchwood Village and we're here tonight to certify the election results from the November 5th, 2024, election. And um, I'd like to call the meeting to order. Um, Becky, could you do the roll call? [3:20] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Certainly. Do we have board chair Margaret Ford present? [3:23] **Margaret Ford**: Wonderful. [3:24] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Um, board member Ryan Hankins? [3:26] **Ryan Hankins**: I'm here. [3:27] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Board member Justin McCarthy? [3:28] **Justin McCarthy**: Here. [3:29] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: And board member Kathy Weier? [3:31] **Kathy Weier**: Here. [3:32] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: All here. [3:33] **Margaret Ford**: Right, great. Um, our next item is unfinished business which I don't believe there is any, so we'll go right to the new business which is certifying the results of the election. Um, and it looks like um, for mayor, uh, from our exhibit um, from Washington County, Jennifer Arsenault got 354 votes. Uh, for councilmember, Ryan Eisele got 372 votes and Bridget Sperl got 352 votes. And so those were the people who have um, been elected to those spots. And so I would like—I'm going to do it in two parts—I'm going to first do a motion to accept those results and then we have a resolution, so we'll do belt and suspenders and get it done that way tonight. So um, I'd like a motion to accept the Washington County results. [4:35] **Justin McCarthy**: Justin will move to accept the results. [4:38] **Margaret Ford**: All right, may I have a second? [4:39] **Kathy Weier**: Kathy, I'll second. [4:40] **Margaret Ford**: Kathy second. Any discussion? [4:43] **Kathy Weier**: I'm sorry, on the resolution... and I just pulled this from last year, it says that the forgoing resolution was presented by board chair Margaret Ford and seconded by board member blank. So does that mean you have to make this just the motion to accept? [5:02] **Margaret Ford**: We're going to—I'll do the resolution second. Okay? [5:05] **Kathy Weier**: Okay, right. I just wanted to make sure and then we'll make sure you put Kathy in there. [5:09] **Margaret Ford**: So the first—so Kathy would go in here? No, no, this is the—we're doing two things: motion and the resolution. [5:17] **Kathy Weier**: We're not doing the resolution? We're just—don't worry, no, not yet. Got it. Okay, thank you. [5:22] **Margaret Ford**: All right, Kathy second. Uh, any further discussion? All in favor? [5:25] **Council Members**: Aye. [5:26] **Margaret Ford**: Opposed? All right, that uh, those results are certified. Congratulations everyone. All right, and now we will um, we will uh vote on the resolution 2024-44... Ryan Eisele and Bridget Sperl elected councilmembers for the four-year term ending December 31st, 2028. May I have a motion to pass this resolution? [6:13] **Justin McCarthy**: Why don't you move? [6:15] **Margaret Ford**: So then Margaret Ford moves to approve the resolution. May I have a second? [6:19] **Justin McCarthy**: I'll second. Justin. [6:21] **Margaret Ford**: Justin, right. Um, all in favor? [6:24] **Council Members**: Aye. [6:25] **Margaret Ford**: Opposed? Motion carries, resolution passes. Should we—may I have um, a motion to adjourn? [6:32] **Ryan Hankins**: So moved, Ryan. [6:34] **Margaret Ford**: May I have a second? [6:35] **Kathy Weier**: I'll second, Kathy. [6:37] **Margaret Ford**: Kathy. All in favor? [6:38] **Council Members**: Aye. [6:39] **Margaret Ford**: Opposed? Motion carries, meeting adjourned. Thank you. [6:45] [Music] [19:15] **Margaret Ford**: Hello everyone, welcome to the November 2024 City Council meeting. Um, I'd like to call this meeting to order. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. [Pledge of Allegiance Recited]. Our first order of business is to approve the agenda. May I have a motion to approve? [19:49] **Justin McCarthy**: I'll move, Justin. [19:51] **Margaret Ford**: May I have a second? [19:53] **Kathy Weier**: I'll second, Kathy. [19:55] **Margaret Ford**: Kathy. All in favor? [Aye]. Opposed? Agenda approved. Um, I would like to now open the public forum. Is there anyone who would like to address the Council? [20:12] **Barton Winter**: Barton Winter, 75 Oaks Lane. And um, I have a couple of issues. A few. Um, starting with uh, the hockey rink and the skating rink. So we're getting into that time of the season and um, couple things that um, I'm interested in: one is not for now, but the uh, figure skating pleasure skating rink is not level and I pointed this out to the Mayor and I have asked that we consider when we have the opportunity to level this out so that it's much easier to flood. So it's—it's high on the side closest to Lake Avenue and so that that side usually stays in grass for quite a long time. Um, another issue is um, a tree that we have which um, you can see close to that backpack, but there's a clump of birch trees right there in the center of the photo and I—I consider those trees to be really um, in the way. And uh, I would like to see them removed because when we get a lot of snow, that area is uh, right in conflict with the place where we want to put the snow. And also that tree is—uh, the limbs are constantly overhanging the walkway with the rubber matting and uh, also we put picnic tables there during skating season and it's also in the way then. So it's kind of like right getting into your face, etc. Now maybe some of the branches have been trimmed but um, it's still a problem. So that—that's my feeling. Wasn't put there in consideration of how well we can use the rink. Um, I'm—I'm also interested in um, putting a white surface on the rink. Now there's the possibility that we could buy a very large tarp similar to what they use on backyard rinks and put that down and it's like a completely enclosed bathtub kind of situation where in the past we tried putting sheets down, uh, but the sheets were not forming a um, watertight area. So that—that's fairly pricey. It's about $2,500, but it would serve. And they—they consider it only to last for about a season but maybe we could use it for more than that. But once you um, you flood over that, you freeze on it and then you trim the upper part against the board. So we're thinking about white, and white is very helpful. Um, I guess uh, another consideration is um, I just want to point out that I—I've I did mention to the Mayor and to Ryan uh, about parking on Cedar by our new neighbor at 160 Cedar and I don't know how much longer he said his driveway is going to be ready soon or but anyway... I'm not sure why he was allowed to do that and you know, to me it seemed like a great imposition and um, not—not real legitimate. I'm not sure why he said his driveway wouldn't cure within a fairly short period of time, uh, and he's suggesting it was more than a week. So anyway... um, I hope we can resolve that. It doesn't seem like it's going to last too much longer but uh, I would certainly um, object to that as a—as a routine kind of thing from—from them. Thank you. [23:55] **Margaret Ford**: All right, is there anyone else who would like to address the Council? All right, uh, seeing no other uh, people um, who would like to address, I'd like a motion to close the public forum. [24:03] **Kathy Weier**: So moved, Kathy. [24:04] **Ryan Hankins**: I'll second, Ryan. [24:05] **Margaret Ford**: Second. All in favor? [Aye]. Opposed? The public forum is closed. All right, announcements. Becky, could you let us know what the announcements are? [24:14] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Certainly. We have a Truth and Taxation hearing coming up on December 10th at 6:45 at City Hall. Um, upcoming upcoming deer hunt dates are November 21st and 22nd and December 13th and 14th if needed. Um, we did some rescheduling of the Planning Commission meetings for November and December. The November one will be held on the 20th and uh, December 19th is the date for that. And then finally, yoga began at City Hall on Tuesday mornings from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. Um, and they are accepting donations for the use of Village Hall. [24:52] **Margaret Ford**: Right, thank you Becky. [24:54] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: You're welcome. [24:55] **Margaret Ford**: All right, our next item of business is the consent agenda. Are there any items that uh, councilmembers would like to have um, pulled for further discussion? [25:05] **Ryan Hankins**: I'd like to pull out C, the uh, calendar. [25:07] **Margaret Ford**: Okay. All right, with the exception of C... sure, you can... um, with the exception of C, may I have a motion to approve the consent agenda A and B? [25:21] **Justin McCarthy**: Justin, I move. [25:23] **Margaret Ford**: May I have a second? [25:24] **Ryan Hankins**: I'll second, Ryan. [25:26] **Margaret Ford**: Ryan seconds. All in favor? [Aye]. Opposed? Motion carries, consent agenda is approved with the exception of C. Ryan, did you have a—a comment? [25:35] **Ryan Hankins**: I guess the comment I have on the calendar is, um, is that normal to do that in November? It just seems like there's only I guess two of us here that would vote on this. I wonder if this would be better to leave for for maybe January? [25:51] **Margaret Ford**: I—I've done—but like I—I have no objections to that if—um, if it's—if you want to keep coming to meetings, you're welcome. But like, you know, my only concern is, is does—does it need to be in place for them to have an official notice of the meeting? [26:10] **Justin McCarthy**: Can we amend it? Could we just amend if we change our mind? Okay, let's just do that then. I'll move to adopt um, the Council meeting schedule and official holidays for 2025 on page 43. [26:22] **Margaret Ford**: All right, may I have a second? [26:24] **Kathy Weier**: I'll second, Kathy. [26:26] **Margaret Ford**: Kathy. All in favor? [Aye]. Opposed? Motion carries. The Council meeting schedule and holidays for 2025 are approved. Right, our next item is City business. Um, our first item is to accept councilmember resignation for Mark Foster and to appoint an interim councilmember. All right, um, our first item is um, approving resolution 2024-43, Mark Foster resignation. [27:00] **Justin McCarthy**: I'll move to approve resolution 2024-43 accepting Mark's resignation. [27:06] **Margaret Ford**: Thank you, Justin. May I have a second? [27:08] **Kathy Weier**: I'll second, Kathy. [27:10] **Margaret Ford**: Kathy. All right, all in favor? [Aye]. Opposed? Motion carries. And so now—so now if—if we had said no to that, does he have to like—he has to move back for two months? How does that work? Then—then um, then he got his phone number here. Well, and I would like to um, put on the record thank you to Mark Foster for—for his service to the city of Birchwood, and um, maybe before the end of the year we can come up with a formal resolution. All right, enjoy the new house too. So nice new house. All right, our next—our next item of business is to appoint and swear in um, councilmember, new councilmember Ryan Eisele. When do we swear? Well yeah, we're doing it right now. Um, we—I—are you—are you ready to take the oath of office, Ryan? [28:10] **Ryan Eisele**: I—yes, you are. [28:12] **Justin McCarthy**: We want to do—we want to appoint him first? [28:14] **Margaret Ford**: We should—we have to—oh, we have to appoint first. Okay. I—oh, I got—I got out of order with my—with my excitement here. [28:22] **Justin McCarthy**: I'll move to approve resolution 2024-4 appointing Ryan to fill Mark's vacancy. [28:27] **Kathy Weier**: And I second it. [28:29] **Margaret Ford**: All right, all in favor? [Aye]. Opposed? All right, motion carries. Ryan, you were now appointed and now we're going to swear. Okay, all right. You have the oath right there in front of you. All right, you—uh, go ahead. [28:43] **Ryan Eisele**: I, Ryan Eisele, do solemnly swear to support the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the state of Minnesota, and to discharge faithfully the duties of the office of councilmember of the city of Birchwood Village, Minnesota, to the best of my judgment and ability, so help me God. [29:05] **Margaret Ford**: Congratulations! Congratulations, Ryan. Can you sign that, pass it on over to... and yeah, welcome to the team. All right, our next item is engineering updates. Thank you, Marcus. [30:04] **Marcus Johnson**: All right, thank you Madam Mayor and Council. Um, let's see what is first on the agenda... Lift station. Okay, lift station bids. We're currently taking questions. Contractors are looking at the specs and plans. That'll close um, I believe it's on the 2nd or 3rd of December... Fourth? It looks like fourth, the memo. [30:35] **Margaret Ford**: Fourth of December. [30:37] **Marcus Johnson**: Yep. Um, and then the plan is to bring those to the December council meeting to discuss and then hopefully award uh, the low contractor. [30:46] **Ryan Hankins**: Oh, what's the deadline on the RFP um, for the grant? Uh, for the lift station... for the—oh, contractors, Ryan, is that—? [31:02] **Marcus Johnson**: Yeah, it's on the—on that date in December. Okay. And you just said it... yeah, 12/4. So we don't know until—I think it's at like 9:00 normally—um, who's throwing bids in or anything. We can't see any of that until it's closed and then all that information that's held in Quest is released to us. We'll have a quick—it's like a five-minute ordeal where we go through all the bidders, make sure that we're not missing any um, certify the list, and then that's the end of the meeting. So and then we'll draft a summary for the city to be in the agenda that day and then—and then... [31:54] **Margaret Ford**: Okay, you make us a recommendation? [31:56] **Marcus Johnson**: Yep, basically. Yep, we'll have to cross-check it, but we're pretty much required to go with the low for the most part um, unless if there's something that we see in the bids. [32:05] **Ryan Hankins**: Cross-check means you validated to see that it met the requirements? [32:08] **Marcus Johnson**: Correct. Yep, yep. [32:10] **Justin McCarthy**: Marcus, can you speak a little bit to this issue with the KSB pumps? How—how difficult is that? [32:16] **Marcus Johnson**: Uh, I think we're working through it. I think we got a couple um, of—of suppliers that found their way to go through that process. Um, essentially the—the short or the shorter is, is what this funding... everything has to be locally supplied. Not that's a bad thing but it—um, as far as internal parts, there are very select pumps and other stuff that are made, supplied, made, um, and sourced all in the United States. So it just kind of limits us. [32:51] **Margaret Ford**: What is—what is a KSB pump? [32:53] **Marcus Johnson**: It's a—it's a brand. Um, oh okay, okay. [33:01] **Ryan Hankins**: What is meant by locally supplied? Is that local area or everything in the US? [33:05] **Marcus Johnson**: Everything in the states, US. Yep, yep. [33:07] **Ryan Hankins**: How does the funding work on this one? Is it a—once it's done, the EPA pays their portion or do we get those funds in advance? [33:14] **Marcus Johnson**: I believe it's once it's done, the EPA pays the portion um, Rice Creek... I believe once we get the bid results, they'll just—I believe they just send us that money portion. Yep. [33:30] **Ryan Hankins**: Okay, so put a portion down for these... um, I think the city has to front everything essentially and then it's re... as far as—far for Rice Creek or for the whole project in general? [33:43] **Marcus Johnson**: For the—the federal part of it, that's—the city has to front it and then you're essentially reimbursed for it, okay, from what I'm remembering. Um, and then it's a—they do a check of making sure that like, we'll have to—we'll have to list everything that comes in for the project, we'll have to have a supply sheet and then like, go back and that'll all have to be submitted to them. The pay apps will all have to be submitted, all that stuff. They review that and then they'll release a check. [34:19] **Margaret Ford**: Okay. Are there any other questions for Marcus on the lift station? Thanks. Thank you. All right, our next item is um, Oakridge Drive drainage issues. [34:31] **Marcus Johnson**: Okay, so at the last council meeting we discussed getting a boring at or two borings right—right at that low point to discuss a um, infiltration system. And I—I talked with our water resources engineer and it is an option, but he—Bolton & Menk doesn’t recommend that we go that route because they are known to fail pretty rapidly for that small of a system. [35:10] **Justin McCarthy**: I had... rapidly? [35:12] **Marcus Johnson**: Uh, it can be anywhere from a couple years to 10 years, which for an infiltration system is pretty low. And what happens when it fails, it can it be repaired? Yeah, it—it can be um, usually just hold—continues to hold water, so it'd be like a—a ditch. [35:36] **Justin McCarthy**: So do you... so for that type of a thing, like what's the cost of one of those things, you know? Um, you're probably looking... well, depends on how extensive you want to go I guess, and—and as far as the—the landscaping goes um, but I think it would be really tight to—to do it while tying into the right-of-way. [35:57] **Justin McCarthy**: I guess—I guess my point is, is right, is that your recommendation is 130,000 okay, and I'm trying to weigh costs and benefits here because yep, putting in that drainage that we were talking about is 80,000 for example. I mean, and you're telling me that this solution you're saying is—is—is much superior? Right, it—it makes sense for me for us to say, okay, well maybe we'll spend a little extra money for a solution that lasts. But if the difference is—is 10,000 versus is 130,000, I mean that's a different calculus. [36:31] **Marcus Johnson**: Yeah, I—I guess how I see it is, is it's kicking the can down the road. It's—it's a temporary solution until we figure out how we want to manage storm sewer for the streets aspect of it. The 130,000 is worst-case scenario. Um, I think that we can kind of match somewhere to... Chris, can you pull up my screen? I mean, it—my—my recommendation is to—to adjust the CIP... [37:05] **Margaret Ford**: What's the CIP? [37:07] **Marcus Johnson**: The—the Capital Improvement Plan, that roads plan... [37:10] **Margaret Ford**: That roads plan. Yeah. [37:12] **Justin McCarthy**: You have the boring quote here though. [37:14] **Marcus Johnson**: Yeah, the boring quote. Boring quote. Boring quote is here. So that's—that's—that's solely just to see if we're even feasible to—if we can infiltrate. Yeah. [37:25] **Justin McCarthy**: There's your number. The rain gardens can be done through Washington County. That's just—that's just a test. That's not including the design or anything like that. So what is this 130 for? Because you say it down below um, you don't think that we would need to extend the storm sewer, but yet there's a quote for 130 and what is that? [37:43] **Justin McCarthy**: So I guess I'm troubled by this whole thing. Like, why is this even an issue? [37:47] **Margaret Ford**: Well, let—let Marcus explain what is included in this—in this fix for 130. I mean, it looks like engineering cost, contingency... but the 100,000, how would that improve the situation or fix it? [38:03] **Marcus Johnson**: Yeah, so the—the issue has always been here regardless on the severity. The severity is worse because we all—we have smooth roads now, so nothing is holding up the water. It's all just going to the same spot. So what we had originally planned is milling and overlaying this—this section right here. So I'm proposing—at what the proposal is to reclaim the whole thing. We—I—we shot some stuff last week to see, you know, exactly what it looks like and essentially there's just a low point right at the driveway on both sides. So I think that we're going to have to go back in that driveway a little bit to raise it up because, I mean, it's always been a low point. Then we'll be able to lift the road up a little bit to get— [39:07] **Justin McCarthy**: Is his house right at the juncture of the old and the new? Because we reclaimed part of that, right? It was down a little bit, a little ways from what I recall. But from where—so from where we ended—from where you ended, yep. So your solution is basically take some more... do—redo what we just did to raise it up? That would be the best solution. If we'd like to just do another layer of asphalt on top and then also—and also raise up um, Mr. Jackel's driveway. Is that what you're proposing? Really confused by what— [39:41] **Marcus Johnson**: Correct. Yep. [39:42] **Justin McCarthy**: So I guess I'm confused when you say raise it up because my understanding is the reason this is an issue is you just said that the road has become smoother. But isn't this also an issue because the grade of the road has increased? The grade of the road... the grade of the road the same, they're always the same. What you're saying is the reason water is accumulating is because it's no longer being retained by a rough roadway. [40:12] **Marcus Johnson**: Correct. Can we just make the roadway rougher? I mean... so you can... All right, so—so can you maybe... can you just take us through and explain it to me like I'm five, what the proposal here is? Worst-case scenario, similar to what we did on Five Oaks Lane and Oakridge Drive is we'd pretty much go to the driveway—I don't know exactly our limits without seeing it, a survey of it to see exactly what our—what our slopes are. The city has to maintain certain slopes for proper drainage. So I can't say, okay, we can go right at the driveway, but it'd be pretty close to the driveway. There's options of how we can save... [41:00] **Justin McCarthy**: Can you back up? Yeah, just like, what is your proposal? The 130 is reclaiming—walk me through it and— [41:06] **Marcus Johnson**: How—from roughly here down to here. That includes in front of his house? Correct. Okay. Now we—we also got a complaint from someone else, didn't we, Becky? I think it was right across the road, right? Was it right across the road? And that would fix that as well? Yep. Okay. And how much—where the water go—? [41:33] **Justin McCarthy**: I'm sorry, where would the water then drain? [41:35] **Marcus Johnson**: Yeah, so there is storm sewer at the end of um, the cul-de-sac right there. There's a catch basin, so it'll go right to there. [41:44] **Justin McCarthy**: Okay, and how much are we—and how much are we redoing that we already did again? [41:51] **Marcus Johnson**: I—I don't know exactly the—the full extent of it, but 20-30 feet? Yeah, okay. What is that? Makes sense. This orange line, is that the storm... [42:10] **Marcus Johnson**: This is sewer, this is the storm sewer. Yep. Okay. And so... okay and just this drops in elevation down to that point? Yeah. So from then there's a ditch there or something it runs to or is it just into more storm sewer? Just—oh yeah, down—down here, yeah. Just like a ditch. Yeah. Okay. So that's off... is that Mahtomedi there? Uh, it'd be pretty close, I think. Pretty close. Yeah. Yep. Oh, it looks like that actually runs over to... will there be any issue with that person's driveway where I see the yellow line going? That should be... is that a—I think that's a pipe. It's a pipe where... yeah, there's a—there's a sewer pipe. Yeah, that's our—that's our storm pipe. Yep. [42:55] **Justin McCarthy**: So how do we know that this will fix the problem? [42:58] **Marcus Johnson**: Well, I did shoot and we have a lot of grade coming from the cul-de-sac up and then up this way. So there's a lot of grade. It's just... I don't know if—I don't know if when this cul-de-sac was first created or when we extended wherever it got extended, it was just... I don't know what happened before. [43:18] **Justin McCarthy**: I mean, I—I like the idea that we're not significantly redoing stuff we've already done, but I'm concerned that we don't know for sure if this will fix the problem. So Marcus, is there a way to make sure yeah, this fixes the problem? [43:35] **Marcus Johnson**: I—I would suggest that we just get survey of—of it, and then my gut feeling is that we'll just be able to replace 30-40 feet and get it straight-line graded out. I still think we might have to touch up his driveway some. Okay, because his driveway is quite a bit lower if you look like the other ones around it, just ties in lower. Yeah, but if we can just do a larger patch, if you want to call it full width of the street and then we'll mill and overlay over top of that. So it'd save us money and the reclaim process for the remainder of it, but we'd still do a whole new road. [44:14] **Ryan Hankins**: So can you—what do those dots exactly mean on this map? [44:19] **Marcus Johnson**: Um, the—the dots are our robotics that we did last year. So this—like just to recap you some, the red is going to be like the worst-worst streets. Okay. So we do have some issues in that street, so it—it is on our list. It wasn't until 2031, I think. [44:40] **Justin McCarthy**: So this is all awaiting a survey though. So a survey would have to be done before we could determine whether this would work or not? From being over there and trick-or-treating a couple weeks ago, um, I mean there was—it was ankle deep uh, in that driveway. Yep. And like just kind of like eyeballed almost like it's—it's in between two downhills. So how would you get—in my head I'm like, how—how would you adjust the grade that significantly to prevent that from happening? [45:15] **Marcus Johnson**: Yeah, so on it is on two downhills. So you go to that—it'd be the cul-de-sac side High Point and you're—you're pulling grade out... it—go ahead, sorry Ryan. [45:25] **Ryan Hankins**: No, please, you go ahead. [45:26] **Marcus Johnson**: I was just going to say that low point shouldn't be there. It should have never been there, whatever that was. That was existing? They're existing. Yep. But I—I mean just looking, I have Google Maps open right now. I mean raising the road, would you be encroaching on people's like yards? Some yards will have to be repaired. Yep. And like graded to the road. I mean it—it looks to me significant the amount of elevation you'd have to make up to get it to drain to the end of the cul-de-sac. Yep. Um, it's mainly going to be focused in that area because beyond that—that High Point down, it all drains that way anyways. We did check that. [46:12] **Justin McCarthy**: So I guess again, you know, I'm—I'm with Ryan on this that like I don't want to like screw anyone else over either. Right, right. So I don't want to fix his problem only to have his neighbors now have water. Right? So yep, what do we need to do to make sure this is like an acceptable solution for everyone? Is that just the survey you're talking about? [46:31] **Marcus Johnson**: I think—I think the survey and then I'll—I'll actually be able to give you guys solid numbers of what's the... to fully fix this. Um, and then what can we do to save, to lower that 130 um, down. So the if we're looking at like budget-wise, I think budget-wise we were planning for 67,000 this year for—and that was construction cost because that's what we were going off of before. So construction cost is $100,000. That's what I'm—construction cost looking at the extra 30, that's the survey, the engineering that we didn't do last year. Okay, so it be—and that's kind of assuming worst-case scenario. So that's why I gave that breakdown of if we can just do a mill and overlay in spots. Um, we'll do—we can do alternates like that cul-de-sac right here just to finish this area out or to—I mean depending, it's going to depend on the cost of what we're looking at. [47:35] **Margaret Ford**: It seems as though the first step is to get a survey so that we know the extent of the problem. Yep. Okay. And then we'll know how much money we have in the budget. [47:45] **Marcus Johnson**: Correct. And—and where that—where that needs to be allocated for next year and then the—the following year is a whole new yep situation. Okay. [47:56] **Justin McCarthy**: All right. So just so I understand this 100... how much of this 130,000 is that full am... how much of that do you think is essentially waste due to rework? [48:11] **Marcus Johnson**: 100,000? Maybe—maybe 5-10,000. I would say 5-10,000 is the is the basically the—the waste due to rework there and the other thing we're just kind of... is just reshuffling. Yep. Okay. [48:26] **Justin McCarthy**: But that's not including like repairing the driveway and stuff because we didn't do anything but that... [48:30] **Marcus Johnson**: Repairing—we're... but we're talking maybe another 5,000 is on—on that. So we're not talking $100,000 and "screw up"... no, "screw up" is the technical term. Um, we're talking about five or 10,000 here. [48:47] **Justin McCarthy**: And is there—do we need to like handle this a little bit differently going forward to kind of prevent the stuff more broadly? [48:54] **Marcus Johnson**: Yeah, so that's—that's kind of why I broke it down in the memo of like the 100,000 is—is roughly what we would have done like last year. 30,000 is the part that we opted out for the time being. So that would be the actual getting the survey, having me go make sure that we're not having low points, that kind of stuff. Um, and then— [49:15] **Justin McCarthy**: We opt out of surveys? I don't recall doing... [49:17] **Marcus Johnson**: No, I don't ever think we ever opted out. I always had assumed that since we hired an engineer it was going to be engineered, so that might be just my confusion but... [49:25] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Yeah, I—I believe that the direction was to just get quotes. We were trying to—we're trying to match what has been happening in the past, which in the past we just had—had a contractor come in and give us what quotes for what need... [49:38] **Justin McCarthy**: Seems to be an error. What would you recommend we do going forward, Marcus? [49:43] **Marcus Johnson**: The—the thing I would recommend is we... if it's like a sea... we don't need a survey, but I think that we should have a contract—like a written-up contract with completion dates, substantials, have—have them have a bond, that kind of stuff, so we can hold them do some of these things that we need them, plus a survey. Yep. Um, I think that would be worth having like an open house in the next like upcoming months for example, to kind of make sure that we're not missing anything. Um, see if there's any other issues that are going on there. In the soon future, I think we really need to look at our water main. [50:23] **Justin McCarthy**: Could you—could you put—put together a list of recommendations for us to look at and a checklist maybe for us? [50:29] **Marcus Johnson**: Yeah, that would help me kind of out of the timeframe where we can add more to budget so we're already crunching on this one but... yep. Um, it—it seems as though it might be a good idea though to get the survey to start that process. [50:49] **Ryan Hankins**: Absolutely. Uh, I also think we need to do something in the meantime for the homeowner because he currently will be the ice rink that we can all use for the winter. [51:00] **Marcus Johnson**: Yeah, so the thing to do from now would be maybe to look at if you have a local contractor that has a skid loader to just cut a ditch in, that'd be the only thing. There's—there's not going to be a great solution. We could ditch all the way through there but then you're going to have to add culverts to each driveway to get it down. Or I know he said that it would drain—it drains after—after like 48 hours I think, did you say it last time roughly is? [51:30] **Ryan Hankins**: But is it still doing that though because now we have a smooth surface that's keeping the water there? [51:34] **Marcus Johnson**: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so as far... I know the Washington County Conservation District does help with rain gardens. Would it make sense to put in something there to actually drain it for the time being even if it is a short-term fix so that we can actually get the budget behind this to make the permanent fix? [51:57] **Marcus Johnson**: Yeah, I—if that's the case then we'll want to do the the—the boring like tomorrow because most contractors are going to be—I mean, they're wrapping up closing out for the year. [52:13] **Ryan Hankins**: Are there curbs there now? [52:15] **Marcus Johnson**: No. There was? Okay, so there wasn't before, there isn't now. No. That—that's going to be one of my bullet points is how we're be managing um, storm water because if you're relying on bituminous edges, even bituminous curb is not... it's pretty out—outdated as far as you see it in the rural area a lot. But you can't get a constant slope off bituminous curb and then as we found out, you're always patching. It seems that the when the snow plow hits... snow plow it all the time too so... um, like you've seen like um, Mahtomedi going even on the smaller roadways are still doing concrete curb, some of the other ones are doing like an inverted curb or an inverted roadway like this. Um, sometimes having concrete—a concrete gutter through there just so it's—concrete is nice because you can—it's easier to control the slope between this roads. If we did an inverted road, is that road wide enough to actually fit a snow plow or are we just going to end up with a really slick center? [53:23] **Marcus Johnson**: Yeah, uh, inverted roads is like all of the one—these roads are inverted, they have smaller roads than you guys, so it does work. Yep. It's not that—this picture is very drastic on—on it, but I mean it—it'd be no different than like a normal crown is the opposite, you know? Okay. So—so—so uh, Marcus, so to—to solve the immediate problem for the time being and then—and then get—get some good data to go forward when we can then budget for permanent fix, what is your recommendation then right now for the temporary fix? [54:06] **Marcus Johnson**: If you guys have a local maintenance guy or someone to just cut a ditch or a spot for the water to go off the road... [54:14] **Justin McCarthy**: Um, would that be in his yard though? [54:16] **Marcus Johnson**: Yeah, it would have to be. [54:19] **Margaret Ford**: Andrew, would you like to talk about this? Would you like to address us about this? I mean, would you like to comment at all? [54:26] **Andrew Jackel**: Yeah, okay. All right, hold on, hold on. Andrew Jackel, 15 Oakridge. Um, yeah, I think in the immediate I—I think the most important thing is to get the pool away from the edge of the driveway and not only for—for my personal use of it but it—it truly is going to create a—a heck of a hazard when—uh, when we start having freezing. [54:57] **Margaret Ford**: So—so are you okay with cutting a ditch then for—? [55:01] **Andrew Jackel**: I—I would—I would be okay with—with doing that for a temporary solution as long as it gets taken care of in the spring. [55:08] **Margaret Ford**: Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right, all right. Thanks Andrew. Well, I mean I think that makes sense to me to get the survey done and then do a ditch. Do we need to uh, have the utilities located? [55:23] **Justin McCarthy**: Well, and I think Marcus, you need to be involved in the ditch to make sure that it's done in the right manner. [55:28] **Marcus Johnson**: Yeah, the right place, the right depth, whatever. Yep. [55:32] **Justin McCarthy**: So is that something that Jim and Ron could get to do you think, Becky, if we made it a priority for them to do it like um, this week? [55:40] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Jim is out of town okay, this week. Um, I'm not sure... I—I don't know, do we have a local contractor... [55:49] **Justin McCarthy**: Well, Steve Dean... Steve Dean... Steve Dean could do it. Let's see if Steve... Let's reach out to Steve and see if Steve can get it done. We—I don't want to commit him. [56:01] **Margaret Ford**: Yeah, no. I mean, we'll just—we'll just direct you to find someone to do it, whether that's Steve Dean or whoever. [56:07] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: I'll try Ron and then Ron Steve... this is this week? [56:11] **Justin McCarthy**: I think soon as possible say... I think it's not supposed to freeze really this week or next. I just don't want to like... I mean, it's getting cold like it's 32 this morning and like once that ground gets hard like forget it. I think you'd want to do it to both 16 and I think it's 15 is the other side on the opposite side of the road. Check with the homeowner, make sure they're okay with that. Okay. [56:39] **Margaret Ford**: Would you like to make a motion? [56:41] **Justin McCarthy**: I'll move to direct staff to implement a temporary fix with a ditch and then to authorize Marcus to do the um, survey to put in a more long-term solution or... All right, may I have a second? [56:54] **Kathy Weier**: I'll second, Kathy. [56:56] **Margaret Ford**: Kathy. Any other discussion? Further discussion on this? [56:59] **Ryan Hankins**: As long as you locate utilities and we don't break something else, please. Are you... Sorry, one last question. Are you thinking ditches on both sides of the driveway? [57:12] **Marcus Johnson**: Um, it would be whatever side's the lowest. You just have to do one side. One side. Yeah. [57:16] **Margaret Ford**: All right. Um, all right uh, all in favor? [Aye]. Opposed? Okay, motion carries and thank you for your patience, Andrew. Hopefully we can get this... Of course. Yeah, yep. Okay. All right. Um, our next item is uh, Mahtomedi Lost Lake improvements. [57:43] **Marcus Johnson**: Yes, so I there was an open house I attended um, there was a lot of opposition towards it. Um, so what sounded like the City staff is going to revisit the... there's a couple ideas that were thrown out of potentially changing other parts. It wouldn't really affect Birchwood Village at all but um, they did send me since they sent me the HydroCAD modeling of what they're proposing. I haven't looked at it yet and I don't think it's worth looking at it until we get um, a solution that they're more likely going to be looking at long term. Um, essentially just a recap is they looked at adding an additional outlet here and what they'd be doing is they'd be lowering this lake a little bit lower on larger when there—there's a larger event happening. So like and the thaw season they—as soon as you would see open water they start lowering it and preparation for um, it that... and so there was a lot of people that weren't really pleased and they want to look at any other option. So it's—it's a whole system of just... [59:22] **Ryan Hankins**: Isn't the other one over that the—not the one we were looking at, but one over is the one where it floods right? [59:28] **Marcus Johnson**: Yep, right here. So it—it backs up through this—through this culvert here, through this... so it's a—it's a whole—a whole system system. [59:45] **Ryan Hankins**: Does that drain into... so if you go up a little bit in your diagram... yep. So the—the little pond north of... is that—I guess north, I don't know... um, does that drain into Hall's Marsh then? [1:00:01] **Marcus Johnson**: So it drains through here and there's a ditch on this side of—okay. It's—so it doesn't—it does not. The—the one thing and I—I walked it the other day and it looks like it's at a lower elevation than what Hall's Marsh's invert is. Like from the ditch to... [1:00:20] **Ryan Hankins**: Yeah, the invert. But isn't there two? I think there's two outlets. There's the normal outlet which apparently is plugged right now. Saw that. Yeah. And there's the higher outlet which is the overflow I was talking about. [1:00:33] **Marcus Johnson**: The lower—you're talking about the low? Yeah. Yep. Um, but again, I—I'm I still think one every resolution is closer to a resolution. I think it'd be worth looking at just confirming that, but I—I walked it earlier this month and that's what I saw but yeah. So they'll be revisiting, recapping, revisiting. Um, they didn't really give... their goal was to do it next year but given how the meeting went, it sound like there's going to be another open house here soon once they talk with the DNR and our City staff. [1:01:07] **Margaret Ford**: Do you think it'd be useful for you to attend that open house then? [1:01:10] **Marcus Johnson**: Um, let's see what—what is proposed at that time. Okay. [1:01:15] **Margaret Ford**: So all right. Okay. Any questions for Marcus? [1:01:21] **Ryan Hankins**: Um, I do have another question for Marcus. Are we in um, in regards to the next thing on Oh no just—just Hall's Marsh and then we'll move on. Okay, okay. We good? Okay, great. Right now now we're um, on to Hall's Marsh maintenance discussion. Well, I have some feedback on this one. So we had gotten a letter from uh, Ruth Jensen regarding some issues with Hall's Marsh with the drainage yep, which you have read as well. So that's something we need to um, reach out to Rice Creek Watershed District on, but they also just sent us the response to the PLOP for the Prebble Lake uh, yesterday. [1:02:08] **Marcus Johnson**: Yeah, to be honest I—I wasn't in the email chain for the drainage so I saw it when I was scrolling through the—okay, today. I haven't got a chance to look at it, I just saw it too. But I'll look at it and if—I'm guessing it'll probably it'd be worth just reaching out to him on it and then I'll draft a response to what they got. [1:02:27] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: I think it sent today, right? Yes, it was sent today but we—uh, probably sit down and review that as well and see. [1:02:35] **Ryan Hankins**: Yeah, they came back with um, and how many of our points they didn't address or did address in whichever way... [1:02:43] **Justin McCarthy**: I like how you frame that: "how many points they didn't address." [1:02:47] **Ryan Hankins**: First there were several. So yeah we'll see. But yeah that also sounds like Kyle had left, in addition to and was it Angie? I don't remember the last... it was Kyle and then it was um, I can't remember her name. Yeah. And—and she left. This is like third or fourth person so... um, so that would be one that I'm curious how much has changed since the last one. So yeah... [1:03:13] **Margaret Ford**: Ruth um, you're—you're here. Would you like to speak out to this at all to us? I mean, you don't need to. I just noticed you're here about Hall's Marsh. [1:03:22] **Ruth Jensen**: No. [1:03:23] **Margaret Ford**: You have any questions? [1:03:24] **Ruth Jensen**: No. [1:03:25] **Margaret Ford**: Okay, all right. Part of it is, and as I sit here and listen to it... I—so the—so just to bring everyone up to speed, the—the latest which probably took some of the urgency out of it is that my understanding is they got some objections to the folks that are up on Prebble Lake to drawing down Prebble Lake and so that plan seems to be sort of off the table at this point for them to do that. And so there's less urgency for them to address our complaints and our concerns as well as um, you know, we—we don't have quite as much leverage anymore for that. Um, and so they were going to—we met in April, I think it was... [1:04:15] **Kathy Weier**: Kathy, we had responded to theirs in September of '23, yeah. [1:04:22] **Margaret Ford**: And they—we met in April here at City Hall and came to an agreement that they were going to basically add Hall's Marsh to their operation and maintenance agreement to take care of and to make sure that the drainage through the marsh is is what it should be. Um, and we have—we just got that back from them like this week. [1:04:44] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Yesterday. [1:04:45] **Margaret Ford**: Yesterday. And so I haven't had a chance to look at it. I don't think Kathy has either and Marcus hasn't, so we don't really know how much based on our past conversations with them. We suspect that there's probably—that they probably didn't address half of what we wanted, if that. [1:05:03] **Ryan Hankins**: Um, I'd be happy if they addressed half. Um, but my guess is they did their usual lip service. So we'll have to take a close look at that. Now there's an separate issue that Bud and Ruth raised which is that the outlet to the marsh is plugged. So um, I don't know what we want to do about that. Maybe just have Marcus interface with them and get them... [1:05:25] **Marcus Johnson**: I'll just reach out to them because at least the plugging and stuff, that can happen—that repair can happen the winter and stuff still too. Yeah. [1:05:33] **Kathy Weier**: That can happen. And then the other issue she had brought up was that the inlet where the pipe goes, they're still water standing in that, which would be back in there. And that—we do know that that pipe is broken, which is likely what is the—as I understand it... [1:05:51] **Margaret Ford**: Back further easement. So I understand it that pipe isn't broken. What it is is there's a tee there where apparently the city had a pipe from Hall's Marsh that was supposed to—or sorry, from Teichmiller that was supposed to drain some of Teichmiller and that pipe is broken. The regular one that flows from Prebble isn't... that isn't correct? That's my understanding. And that that could be wrong, but I was thinking it was the specific one towards Hall's Marsh but Mary Sue I—I know you know this right? Or Jennifer knows this and that... okay so Jennifer from the parks committee and—and soon-to-be Mayor is um, saying that that's... okay, um, but in regards to that one uh, part of the issue with it always having water in it is that we do have that runoff and all of the silt and everything is has not been removed from that inlet. [1:06:48] **Marcus Johnson**: Yep. Yeah and that's—and I think that's part of the maintenance thing. Yeah. [1:06:51] **Kathy Weier**: So the pipe by your house, when the outlet gets fixed and as long as it's functioning properly like they say, that'll drain that... that should help with that too. Okay. Yep. [1:07:05] **Ruth Jensen**: Would you like to speak? Yeah. Okay. Ruth Jensen, 701 Hall Avenue. Um, the pipe itself is not plugged. The culvert... there's junk in front of it. Yeah, okay. But it needs to be cleared anyway. That needs to be cleared. And the—the problem is that they put in a little I don't know 8-inch high curb and there's just a legion of beaver logs waiting to float over that and go into the culvert as soon as we get any rain. [1:07:38] **Margaret Ford**: Yeah, so the—so the device they designed to keep crap out of the culvert is now just accumulating crap in front of the culvert and blocking the water flow. So um, Marcus, that might be a good thing for you to look at and see if that should be designed differently and get with them and tell them to fix it. [1:07:58] **Marcus Johnson**: Fix it. Yeah, we they used to have kept everything away. [1:08:03] **Margaret Ford**: Yeah, we don't have fish problem though. Used to think fish problem was supposed to keep fish in White Bear Lake from jumping... [1:08:12] **Justin McCarthy**: Fish might actually help the ecosystem there. I mean, you know like they're bottom feeders, right? Like carp and stuff's good. Marcus you know what I mean like... [1:08:24] **Ruth Jensen**: Yeah, thank you. I was there um, two days uh, well on the 10th and water was flowing in in from the lake or no from uh, Prebble... it was coming in. I took a little video of it flowing in. Nothing was leaving of course. Um, but just seemed odd. [1:08:52] **Margaret Ford**: Okay, well they are known to... I mean we when they were reconstructing that whole thing they—oops, their dam failed and maybe someone had their sprinklers on. We have—yeah you never know. You never know. So all right anyway, that's all I have on that one right. Well thank you Kathy. Thanks Kathy. Thank you Ruth, Bud. Yeah all right. [1:09:16] **Margaret Ford**: And Justin all right okay. Our next item is D, the 20 mile per hour speed limit throughout Birchwood topic. Um, and I think uh, our last at our last meeting we were—we were um, taking a look at um, the the need to get a policy to change this required by statute. And Marcus, you looked into this a bit? [1:09:41] **Marcus Johnson**: Yeah, so I reached out to one of our traffic engineers that does a lot of these studies um, and so I Becky included the email that he had essentially just doing the city a heads-up of um, other cities have gone the route that you guys have gone and just be—take precaution because it only takes one lawsuit to reverse it and unless if you do the full study um, it would—it doesn't guarantee you that it's not going to get reversed if in the summary of it. So he gave some examples of, you know, the cost differences and then cited um, cited in there a few times um, just to what the look—look out for. [1:10:43] **Margaret Ford**: Um, but so just—just to clarify, Bolton & Menk considered the traffic study that would um, allow us to legally lower the speed limit, and a rough estimate of the cost for Birchwood was $25,000 to lower the speed limit legally on Cedar to from 25 to 20 miles an hour. And there was a question about whether the speed limit could be lowered without adhering to state statute and my reading of that was number one: it's easy to get traffic tickets thrown out if you do that, and number two: you risk state aid funding correct if you don't—if you don't do that. No, I don't know, does Birchwood even receive any of that funding? [1:11:32] **Marcus Johnson**: I don't know that we do. No you don't but right yeah. [1:11:37] **Ryan Hankins**: But it certainly seemed to me like State... we do! I thought we did. I called. We're supposed to be us for communities above 5... [1:11:47] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: No, they changed it. [1:11:48] **Ryan Hankins**: Oh, they did? They changed it? So it's—it's based on um, used to be that. But my understanding is we are now supposed to be getting money because I had called about this okay and they changed something. The state legislature changed something so because it used to be sporadic where every year like when the legislator—legislature felt like it we would get money, but now they changed it so even communities our size are supposed to be getting money. So if we haven't gotten any money on this we should follow up with that Becky and see because it was I and I don't know how much it was going to be. I mean it's probably something really small like five grand or something like that but I mean every little bit helps, right? [1:12:30] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: I do remember yeah. [1:12:32] **Justin McCarthy**: I do too. Yeah, in the budget. So um, because I did call about that. I mean back—back in the day we were looking for any penny we could find for our roads and we still are... [1:12:44] **Ryan Hankins**: And we still are! Yeah, yep. [1:12:46] **Justin McCarthy**: But they would also apply to kind of continue Ryan... it'd apply if we ever got State funding um, that that grants or things yeah that would also be... I—I do believe we need to comply with the law. My question is um, is there a way to do it for less than the $25,000? Is it something that can be citizen-led if they're guided through it and can do the homework or is it—is it a technical thing that needs an engineering firm? [1:13:16] **Marcus Johnson**: Marcus um, I guess I haven't experienced as a citizen-led one okay so I don't really have a whole lot okay um of guidance there. I say try it. [1:13:28] **Justin McCarthy**: Okay. All right just... I mean, we're not intentional... I mean if we—if we have a citizen-led one right Margaret? I—I mean from what I understand right is is when we get into this trouble it's because we didn't have anything, not that it wasn't good enough. Yeah, right. I'm going to guess that there's some wide latitude in what's good enough under this because it seems clear the legislature wanted to give communities um, a little more power and setting speed limits and doing so in a cost-effective manner. And so I think if we lead these folks through it I think I'd be okay going down to 20 miles an hour if we have the policy and if it meets these guidelines in the statute I don't see any... [1:14:04] **Margaret Ford**: I think that's a great idea and I think our—our challenge now though is to um, you know go through that process then you know to make sure that the citizen-led group does the homework. [1:14:14] **Justin McCarthy**: So—so one thing on that right is Mahtomedi had to have done this when they lowered the speed limit on 20 on that same road. So I think going and seeing what they did and using that as kind of a starting point for then okay what did they look at and what are the things... [1:14:32] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: WS WS traffic study? [1:14:34] **Justin McCarthy**: Yeah, yep. It's like an—it's like an 80-page document and we need to find something probably from a city that's a little more similar to is—is... I think at the end of it I don't know this for sure but my gut reaction is at the end of this it's still gonna have to be certified by an engineer... [1:14:52] **Margaret Ford**: And doesn't say that in the statute. Okay and you and I again I—I don't know because I haven't done a city-ran one um, but I'd be comfortable not having it. I—I mean just a city that uses this authority um, must develop procedures to set speed limits based on the city's safety engineering and traffic analysis. At a minimum the safety engineering and traffic analysis must consider national urban speed limit guidance which in studies which I'm guessing we could find, local traffic crashes which we could call the Washington County Sheriff off—Sheriff's Office and just ask them what reports of crashes have we had, and methods to effectively communicate the change to the public. We send out an email and we pull signage. I mean it seems somewhat simple to me. [1:15:37] **Ryan Hankins**: Do we have any roads over 25 miles per hour right now? [1:15:40] **Margaret Ford**: We don't. We do! I mean you know we're not in charge of the road but the county—County Line Road is 30, but that's not our—under our jurisdiction. [1:15:51] **Ryan Hankins**: Did Mahtomedi go to 20 or 25? [1:15:53] **Margaret Ford**: 20. [1:15:54] **Justin McCarthy**: There's a big difference in the requirements yeah between 20 and 25. And I—I mean I think while we're at it we—we consider just all of the roads a policy for all the roads because the rest of the roads are 20 and... [1:16:09] **Margaret Ford**: Sure yeah, I think the idea was the policy would—would govern everything. [1:16:13] **Justin McCarthy**: Yeah and there's only a little bit that needs to be changed from 25 to 20. [1:16:17] **Margaret Ford**: All right, well what's our next steps? Um, you know what, the Road Safety Committee is—is no longer standing... Cora, would you like to address us at all? Did we... but did we disband them? I don't think we ever disbanded them. So I think they're technically still a technically still... they had the authority to go through was it six months? Cora, would you like to address us on this? Are you still interested in—in spearheading this? [1:16:49] **Cora Hankins**: Cora Hankins um, 165 Wildwood Avenue. I was looking through some of the um, paperwork from Mahtomedi and I'm also going to follow up with someone from Mahtomedi who spearheaded the 20 mile per hour speed limit. Um, it says in one of the um, things regarding the um, statute 169 that a local road authority can request MnDOT to perform an engineering and traffic study. So is that something we're interested in doing? [1:17:28] **Ryan Hankins**: Sure! Want to do—do they do it or who gets charged for that? Is that I mean that's—that's the key right like yeah who pays? [1:17:36] **Cora Hankins**: So a local road authority can request MnDOT to perform an engineering and traffic in—investigation of a road. Really the only road we would need would be Hall Cedar um, however MnDOT um, will determine whether to establish a speed zone. [1:17:58] **Margaret Ford**: So—so they then they would say... Well, can—can you tell me what statute you're looking at here or what's your this was based on uh, Minnesota State Statute 169... it was one of the provisions... [1:18:14] **Justin McCarthy**: 169 dot... I don't have that. [1:18:18] **Margaret Ford**: Um, yeah I think we probably—we probably wouldn't want to um, put our fortunes into MnDOT's hands then to make the decision. I think we want to do whatever is required by the statute in order for us to make the decision. Okay? [1:18:35] **Cora Hankins**: Okay. Um, my team members on the Road Safety Committee felt that um, 20 to 25 grand for doing a study is um, really not what not probably what you would approve. So rather than looking at the 20 mile per hour speed limit let's look at what we can do on the roads with the with the bike um, committee putting up um, signs, putting up um, you know things to reduce speed in other ways than dropping the speed limit to—to 20 miles per hour. [1:19:15] **Margaret Ford**: Yeah and I—I think those are that's that's um, those are good objectives and and I would like to thank you Cora and the rest of the committee for the really good work you did on this. Um, however you know we don't have to abandon the 20 mile per hour initiative if we if someone you know if we do if we do have some citizens who would like to explore how to comply with the statute without a formal study but you know I mean or I mean a professionally led study has to be formal but... [1:19:48] **Justin McCarthy**: Yeah so where do you want to where you... [1:19:50] **Margaret Ford**: No I think uh, I think your suggestion's good and I think our—our challenge now though is to see if we can—we can uh, get a group together who would like to explore the possibility of—of doing a citizen-led study. [1:20:07] **Cora Hankins**: I'm willing to do that and help with that. [1:20:09] **Margaret Ford**: All right. Um, would you like us to authorize or continue the authorization of the Road Safety Committee to continue to look into this? [1:20:18] **Cora Hankins**: Um, I'm not sure what we need what we would be doing. [1:20:23] **Justin McCarthy**: Good idea. Well it would be it would be you'd be creating this you'd be creating this study so you would a city that... so you would basically develop Citywide procedures to set speed limits based on the city's safety engineering and traffic analysis. At a minimum you would have to include in this policy the N—National Urban speed limit guidance and studies, local traffic crash information, and methods to effectively communicate the change to the public. So in my opinion what that would be is you would essentially go to the internet and look up National Urban speed limit guidance and studies. I know that there's a lot of those. Probably I think there's a website "20 is Plenty" or something like that. [1:21:13] **Ryan Hankins**: 20 is Plenty. [1:21:15] **Justin McCarthy**: And I think they have some—they have some studies that suggest that um, pedestrian car crashes um, below 20 miles per hour I believe are significantly less severe than ones that are above 20 miles per hour. And I think that you would dovetail that with the um, analysis that we don't have sidewalks in Birchwood and so everyone um, bikes and/or walks essentially on the side of the road, making it potentially dangerous for pedestrians and bike—bicyclists. And then um, local traffic crashes you would just contact the Sheriff and say "Hey what's our crash, what are some of our statistics?" And then just methods to effectively communicate the change to the public, which is basically you know you could have open houses, you could have you know send emails, things like that. [1:22:04] **Cora Hankins**: What was that the national studies? What was that? [1:22:07] **Justin McCarthy**: Um, national uh, it says na—so it's in the packet, it says um, it's the subd 5H of the state statute. So it's um, must consider National Urban speed limit guidance and studies. Um, and I would just start by looking up "20 is Plenty." I think it's a—just Google it, I think it's—comes up with a website that has all kinds of studies and stuff about speed and crashes and things like that. [1:22:42] **Cora Hankins**: 20—20 speed limit. 20 is Plenty? [1:22:46] **Ryan Hankins**: 20 is—20 is plenty. [1:22:47] **Cora Hankins**: 20 is Plenty. Yeah okay. Um, it just seems like this might be a good path to go down just to see whether we can comply with the statute. And it—it doesn't hurt to try it and and see if that flies. Because when I read the statute to me what this is—is saying is is sort of a lightweight version of a traffic study. Instead of a full-blown traffic study it's—it's more or less "We want you to do some homework rather than just set this at 20, but we recognize that you you know you might not have $25,000 to hire Bolton & Menk to do your traffic study for you." So um, to me that makes the most sense. [1:23:29] **Margaret Ford**: But okay. Would you like—would you like to continue on with the Road Safety Committee for another—another bit of time, Cora? [1:23:36] **Cora Hankins**: Sure. [1:23:37] **Margaret Ford**: And if your—your members—your other members don't want to continue, we certainly could call for more members too to join. [1:23:44] **Cora Hankins**: Okay. Okay, that sounds good. [1:23:47] **Margaret Ford**: Okay. But should we make a motion to continue the... yeah I'm— [1:23:51] **Justin McCarthy**: Justin, all right to continue the tenure of the uh, Road Safety Committee. [1:23:56] **Kathy Weier**: I'll second that. [1:23:58] **Margaret Ford**: Any other discussion? [1:23:59] **Ryan Hankins**: Could we just—could we pull this off the agenda for until you come back with um, yes you know and I know you may have questions or need things and that's fine. But let's maybe pull this off the agenda until there's something—is something to look at or is needed from the Council? That sound okay? [1:24:19] **Margaret Ford**: Well I was just going to extend the tenure of the committee so that they can... [1:24:23] **Ryan Hankins**: That's fine and I'm happy to do that, but I guess if unless we have something to move forward on like let's... oh we'll not vote on anything except for just authorizing them to—to operate as a committee. Yeah I'm just suggesting we not maybe don't need an update every month here. [1:24:36] **Margaret Ford**: No no, just I just like them to be able to continue. [1:24:39] **Ryan Hankins**: Yeah that's what I agree with that. I agree with that continuing, yes. But you know... [1:24:43] **Cora Hankins**: So okay. There's one thing I would like to ask is for um, Marcus to do the crosswalk from Owl Street to is it Owl to Birch? [1:24:59] **Marcus Johnson**: That we have as part of the lift station? Part of the lift station. Okay. [1:25:06] **Cora Hankins**: And then still do the stop sign that we wanted at 368 wild—Wildwood. [1:25:12] **Marcus Johnson**: Yeah that's—that's all been decided that's approved. Working on ordering those and getting those going. [1:25:18] **Margaret Ford**: Right, all right thank you Cora. Yep no all that's under control that's—that's ongoing. Um, all the—your initiatives and then this is our last one so um, but yeah you're—you're authorized to continue the good work. Thank you. [1:25:31] **Cora Hankins**: Thank you. [1:25:33] **Margaret Ford**: We haven't voted yet. Uh yes we need to vote sorry. Um yeah you—you'll be authorized in—in in a moment to continue the good work. May I have a second? You seconded. I did. All in favor? [Aye]. Opposed? Right, motion carries. All right thank you Cora. All right our next item is E, first reading of ordinance 2024-1101... um runoff changes. Justin? [1:26:01] **Justin McCarthy**: Yeah, so like—context, yeah. We had an appeal recently that uh, someone used this—city this code section against the home building project. And Marcus I believe uh, indicated that sort of a literal interpretation of the ordinance would pretty much prevent construction of just about any house um, because you know the—the previous language talked about um, you know no construction or alteration uh, should be done so as to increase the rate of stor—storm water runoff from their parcel. There's—there's a lot of problems with this. Like number one: what standard are we using? You know, is this a 20-year storm, a 30-year storm or whatever? The other thing is is that it's quite literally impossible to build with this language interpreted strictly. Um, just by having a driveway. You know generally we want to have our houses above so that drainage doesn't drain into their basements um, and so that's going to—just having a driveway is going to increase the—the flow from their properties onto the road. So um, you know in developing kind of um, a replacement the thought I had is is okay well what are we trying to accomplish with this—with this ordinance? And what I came up with was basically we're try—trying to prevent flooding um, and other undesired effects of the water. So I thought well I mean why don't we just stay that—say that rather than... um, so this is what I came up with um, and the—the like I said in the memo the Planning Commission liked it. They approved it by four to zero. Um, with the exception of this uh, landlocked basins um, I talked to Marcus about this. His—his view is that we need storm sewers and—and while I don't disagree with you, it's a matter of dollars and cents so... um, yeah um, for now I think this—this kind of changing this a little bit and basically I—we sort of leave it to the opinion of the city engineer. So um, you know yeah I'll just stop talking and we can discuss. [1:28:16] **Margaret Ford**: Can discuss. Okay. All right um, I does anyone have questions for Justin? Awesome. [1:28:22] **Justin McCarthy**: I'll move to approve ordinance 20—or I should say I'll move to send it to a second hearing, ordinance 2024-11. [1:28:30] **Margaret Ford**: Right, I'll second. All right uh, any further discussion? All in favor? [Aye]. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you for putting that together Justin. All right our next item is F, a first reading of ordinance 2024-031... um solid and hazardous waste management. All right um, Ryan are you uh, the... I mean I guess I think we should give Becky about... I mean I did a little bit but let's give Becky a good part of the credit. Do you want—I mean I can introduce it if you want but I think you get the most of the credit here so... [1:29:21] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Um, yeah so thank you Ryan um, and Ryan worked on this as well. Uh, and um, F has done a significant amount of work on this... F F foing something or other F O T H some nonprofit that helps with recycling ordinances. So we—we worked with their template and—and then made it work for us? [1:29:50] **Justin McCarthy**: Is that the idea? [1:29:51] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Well they took what we had done and done several revisions. So what you're going to see is 202—24-31 is the combination of 401 and 402 and that is originally Ryan's revisions and then F and then I did some comments that you guys may or may not want to talk about um, and then 2024-0302 is just repealing 401. [1:30:23] **Ryan Hankins**: Right. I have a couple comments if we... um, yes go ahead Ryan. First thing uh, the—402030... uh section three cart placement and day. I'm—I would just like us to consider... there's section three and section four and both of those relate to screening of containers... [1:30:46] **Margaret Ford**: What page Ryan? [1:31:00] **Ryan Hankins**: Uh, in the agenda top of 77 bottom of 76... okay got it um, and it's points—points three and four there: "cart placement and time of day" and "screening of containers." And under um, 3B says "on non-collection days said containers shall be screened from view. If carts are stored outside they should be secured and maintained in a station—stationary manner." And then four says—contradicts 3B a little bit and says—"except on the day of collection refuse yard waste and recycling containers greater than 96 gallons in volume shall be screened from view." I know we had some discussion and disagreement on this issue in the Council before and I'm happy to have a little discussion again. My preference is um, not to criminalize a third of Birchwood but over because I think we have an awful lot of people who don't screen containers. But I know I think Margaret and Kathy you were a little bit more in favor of screening of containers. I would like to pick between one of those two options. [1:32:04] **Kathy Weier**: So—I don't believe I was on that group but well okay so maybe it's is outdoors so let's hope not well maybe I'm wrong well... [1:32:14] **Ryan Hankins**: I think you—you mentioned Kathy that it—it would be nice not to have you know the first thing you see in everybody's sure by the street is people's trash containers. [1:32:23] **Kathy Weier**: I also don't want to make it make us an HOA either so no no no... [1:32:27] **Ryan Hankins**: No one wants that. Yeah. Um, well yeah I—I'm I'm a—I'm a screener. I'm in favor of screening but um, I'm certainly—I'm certainly not it's not the hill I'm going to die on here. Well it's also not the hill I'm going to die on I don't think so... [1:32:42] **Justin McCarthy**: I have a—do have a... I don't know do other council members have opinions? Yeah go ahead Ryan. [1:32:47] **Ryan Eisele**: I was goingon to say um, I I'm just concerned about the screening because number one there's no enforcement mechanism for you know people out for not screening their—their garbage. You know a lot of people are pretty respectful and they keep their garbage next to their house like kind of out of view. So I think that's just an unnecessary step and honestly it's you know how it's going to be... people are going to come up here and yell at us because someone doesn't have their garbage screen. So I can just hear the complaints now like... [1:33:15] **Ryan Hankins**: And it seems as though it I mean it screening now and it's more honored in the breach is what you're saying anyway. So—so yeah it's a—it seems as though it's a fait accompli and hard to—hard to um, enforce. [1:33:28] **Justin McCarthy**: I—I would get rid of both three and four. Like I don't know why we need to be regulating when people put them out. If someone wants to put them out at 2:30 the day before because maybe they're leaving for town or whatever right like who cares right like we're not an HOA. I don't think we've had issues with people having their garbage can out typically so I don't think we need either of those. I don't think it either one of those matters um, do we... is this like for our recycling grant? Is that why we're doing this again? [1:34:02] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Yes. I mean required certain things for that... it needed done anyway like I'm glad you picked it up because I kind of dropped the ball but it needed—it needed done anyway so it's nice to get it as a freebie. [1:34:14] **Justin McCarthy**: We get money for doing this? We get money for putting stickers on our garbage cans? I mean yeah... I—I mean I don't want to complain especially since I think Becky you put in a lot of work on this so I appreciate it and I'm sure that this other group did as well. This is more than... [1:34:31] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: And we also met with Washington County. [1:34:33] **Justin McCarthy**: Yeah, I mean it just seems like a lot of words to say put your garbage in your can and use Birchwood's approved collector. It's just there's a lot of stuff in here that we can certainly cut stuff out and they gave us more than less and that's why there's been opportunities to give feedback. So this is the time and the place if you want stuff cut out. Um, again I think they left that more up to the—I mean we—we have—I mean like we have a section on ownership: the person or household from which the materials originate shall own recyclable materials until until collected and then at that point the authorized hauler owns the material. Like I don't know why that needs to be in our code because... [1:35:16] **Kathy Weier**: Because people will go through and steal aluminum cans or at least they used... [1:35:20] **Justin McCarthy**: And maybe we don't care but I do care if they leave stuff like if they take stuff out and leave it all over because we've had people scavenge and then not put it back which you know this will allow... [1:35:31] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: People three and four are coming out? Can I go back to that—that discussion because before we move on have you guys decided to take three and four out of there? [1:35:40] **Ryan Hankins**: I would like to. [1:35:41] **Justin McCarthy**: I agree. [1:35:42] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Sorry I—I just want to make sure we don't gloss over that. [1:35:45] **Ryan Hankins**: Yeah no that's fine. [1:35:46] **Margaret Ford**: Yeah good point Becky. [1:35:47] **Ryan Hankins**: I would like to take three and four out that would be my preference. [1:35:50] **Justin McCarthy**: I would agree with that. [1:35:51] **Margaret Ford**: What does the rest of the Council feel like? Take it out? [1:35:53] **Ryan Eisele**: I don't disagree that it's a little lengthy but I think it's a big improvement um, take it out... I am not going to go against the will of the group on this one. [1:36:06] **Justin McCarthy**: Do you ever see the—do you ever see that there was it online? It was a—somebody got in trouble from homeowners associations they didn't screen in their RV so they put up a big fence and then had an artist the mural of the RV on the fence right so like malicious compliance right like... [1:36:26] **Margaret Ford**: Well yeah somebody doing that hopefully we're not that kind of village but we are we are and then you had more you wanted cut out what's that you had more you wanted cut out? [1:36:38] **Justin McCarthy**: I didn't want to distract you from where you were going. I mean you know like it just seems like a lot words to say something like I I just don't know that we need all this. [1:36:47] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Page uh, 79... [1:36:49] **Kathy Weier**: 79 okay. [1:36:51] **Margaret Ford**: And it is a first reading so um, you know there people can now get their arms around it and and and cut away for for our final reading next month too. [1:37:02] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: And there's some other things here that well so the one is like liens, we don't pay trash, we don't need that. That's what I thought. Where—where are we on here? Um, that—that's down further so 79... Well so 79 does have there's an error there where we have some Xs in uh, 402 XXX where it's licensing and license responsibility that needs numbers... [1:37:34] **Kathy Weier**: Hold on, I need to find that one. I don't see that Kathy. What's the page number? [1:37:38] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Page 79 is what I have. 79... 4.0 it's the first one that's a number so licensing and licensee responsibilities... so it's 402 XXX. [1:37:51] **Justin McCarthy**: Okay um, if we want to keep it I guess you for... want to take that one? Our—our trash hauler probably does have a license, I would hope so, right? Yeah, but that's what it says it should so I think we just need numbers on that one. Okay, right. [1:38:05] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: The numbering is not on yet. Okay, okay. So once we get all the content then we'll line numbering so don't pay attention too much to the numbering yet. [1:38:13] **Kathy Weier**: Yeah um, and then the next portion I had seen that I was like charging a lien... we don't pay for trash so that wouldn't be something we would assess because... [1:38:25] **Justin McCarthy**: I agree, we don't do that. Don't need to be doing that, right. [1:38:28] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: And I didn't want to take the liberty of removing that but I wanted to call—just take it out. I think that should come out. [1:38:34] **Margaret Ford**: Thank you for doing that, Becky. The tennis will send their hired goons instead... Okay, what else? [1:38:43] **Justin McCarthy**: Smoking from experience. All right, so um, go ahead Kathy. [1:38:49] **Kathy Weier**: That I'm looking for more... oh okay I have a comment or two. "Throwing litter from a vehicle"—they said you can't throw it onto public property, but why would we want to allow it throwing it on personal property? That just seemed like a weird little thing to require. [1:39:10] **Ryan Hankins**: Don't we have another—anything throwing from a car seems like we have a general have a littering ordinance or... [1:39:17] **Kathy Weier**: But they have throwing litter from a vehicle like it's... but only on public property which I thought was odd. What page are you and only from a vehicle? [1:39:27] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: 81 very top of it got 41.21.1 that one yep. [1:39:35] **Ryan Hankins**: Uh, can we just double-check because I'm pretty sure we have some sort of a litter ordinance. [1:39:40] **Kathy Weier**: I think we do too, which that I just think don't think we need to state that you can't throw litter from a vehicle on public property because then it applies you can in onto private, which is weird. [1:39:52] **Justin McCarthy**: You just get rid of the word private just public not property litter things from a vehicle. [1:39:58] **Kathy Weier**: And I would also suggest don't litter. They—they shouldn't be able to toss from a non-vehicle either. [1:40:04] **Justin McCarthy**: That's true, whatever. So if we want to no—no throwing anything onto anything. [1:40:09] **Kathy Weier**: Also other verbs are included. How about we just say "no littering"? [1:40:15] **Justin McCarthy**: That's right there, makes more sense. Quick search, there's—there's already three Minnesota statutes about not littering. [1:40:24] **Margaret Ford**: Yeah that's okay, take it out then. Let's just take it out. This is pretty superfluous I think. Yep, good. [1:40:31] **Justin McCarthy**: Take out three statutes about littering... 169-42... [1:40:35] **Margaret Ford**: Yeah we don't need another one-eight and 169-421 Department of Redundancy Department. Good call. [1:40:43] **Ryan Hankins**: About spitting? Yeah I also felt like it was just very wordy for the additional requirements and provisions. I'm not sure how much is—is this of this is required, but there's a whole lot going on here. 401-310 just the length of said document um, I was—I was not sure if we are able to cut any of that because this stuff I just don't know what to do with it. This stuff looks like kind of the stuff F added. [1:41:20] **Justin McCarthy**: Yeah yeah, I assumed as much. I'm not sure how we can take it out. Well I'm not for the money which is why we're doing it. [1:41:27] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Are any of these required? Is what I'm asking? No no kidding. Say it again. In order—in order to receive the grant? [1:41:37] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: No no no no no no. They are there to assist us with the revision. Let's make it—let's make it... there are certain things that Max Dalton from Washington County said, you know, "we should keep this or that," but this is really up for grabs for us now and then I'll bring it back to them. Okay, so it's really for Birchwood Village to design. They're using industry standards and they've worked on a number of this different municipalities. So they took words that they think have worked universally and gave them to us to decide if we want them or not. There's nothing that like you have to do this or you won't get the grant. They want us to look at our ordinance and—and make it current. That's what we need to do to get— [1:42:25] **Justin McCarthy**: I mean I looked at this and made some tweaks um, and cleaned things up a little bit. I wonder do a couple Council members—I don't know that I need to go through it again, but I do a couple Council members want to kind of take the knife to this a little bit separate from me? Or do we want to... I mean a little hard to do in meeting. I mean like just as another example, 40232 Carts: "The authorized hauler shall furnish and deliver carts for MMSW and recycling in small, medium, and large sizes." Well what if they have a fourth side now? They're all fourth side, now all of a sudden they're violating our ordinance. "Carts will remain property the contractor"—why do we care, right? Um, let's tighten it up Justin but we don't have to do it in this meeting. [1:43:10] **Justin McCarthy**: Yeah I don't think we need to go over all my nits in the meeting but I just think that there's like 15 pages of garbage collection ordinance and I mean I just worry... [1:43:21] **Ryan Hankins**: Up being our longest ordinance. [1:43:23] **Justin McCarthy**: It's our longest ordinance and it just won't be enforced. Nothing will come out of it. No it people won't read it if it's... [1:43:30] **Margaret Ford**: People won't read it. It's just like literally we need three provisions: Like Tennis is our—like the city council has an authorized collector and you have to use the authorized collector, put your waste in—in—don't litter, and that's it, right? [1:43:47] **Justin McCarthy**: Would you like to do that? Sure. Okay great awesome. Justin work on this and um, yeah and then I'll make a motion to—to uh, approve the second reading for—um, ordinance 2024-0301. May I have a second? [1:44:06] **Ryan Hankins**: I'll second. [1:44:07] **Margaret Ford**: Okay. Do we want to—do we want to wait for a second reading because do you think that... [1:44:11] **Justin McCarthy**: I think that would be wonderful and I think this is out here since... [1:44:15] **Margaret Ford**: Okay we've had a lot of time to consider these. I think we're okay with your judgment on this Justin. Okay, okay. Um, so I would like to make a motion then to order a second reading after Justin... Justin will take care of the—the edits... um, public hearing. May I have a second? [1:44:31] **Kathy Weier**: I'll second, Kathy. [1:44:33] **Margaret Ford**: Kathy. All right any more discussion? All in favor? [Aye]. Opposed? Right, motion carries. So we have two folks that are patiently sitting here. Do we want to ask them if there's some... Are you waiting for a particular topic? [1:44:54] **Mike Wagner**: Okay yeah. [1:44:56] **Ryan Hankins**: Good yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think that's covered. I think that's covered for tonight. Yeah. Do you have any more questions about it? [1:45:07] **Mike Wagner**: Welcome to stay. [1:45:10] **Margaret Ford**: Okay where... could you just—would you just tell us where your property is so... could you go up—could you go up to the microphone and just introduce yourselves and yeah thank you thank you. [1:45:22] **Mike Wagner**: Yeah uh, Mike Wagner uh, 711 Hall Avenue. Um, we're the last house in Birchwood Village before it becomes Mahtomedi. So the—um, Hall's Marsh... the road that goes out to—um, several houses that are on the lakefront um, which kind of divides the marsh from White Bear Lake um, runs right—um, next to our property. Uh, although there is a kind of an adjoining adjacent wedge in between, so the road isn't directly on the edge of our property, but there is sort of like a part that fans out but it meets up at the road. Um, and then on the other side of that road is the drainage ditch that was talked about earlier that um, kind of feeds the water from um, Lost Lake into White Bear Lake without going into the marsh. So we're—um, basically the last house on the Hall Avenue side that faces... [1:46:27] **Margaret Ford**: Um, is it—is it 711 Hall Avenue is that your... okay. I'm just looking at the map here. Is your driveway like a little bit in Mahtomedi? Is that the house? [1:46:38] **Mike Wagner**: Uh, it—the our driveway or our property line extends into the road and I think it actually cuts into Mahtomedi slightly is it's sort of a V. Well they—they needed to re-redo the water pipe to the fire hydrant and so when they redid the—um, the trail they actually dug up the—the pipe and took out the end of our driveway and—and repaved it and put in culvert which made it look like part of the trail. So we had an issue with that which is uh, you talked with them and they put the—they said they could do a cutout. That's why we have that little island where mailbox is. [1:47:33] **Margaret Ford**: Yeah. [1:47:35] **Mike Wagner**: Yeah uh, that was like the end of the trail... all of a sudden it's like there's not a trail here yet so uh, that's kind of where we're at where—re the—um, we're right at that sort of intersection where the Road E in—in our driveway and... [1:47:56] **Margaret Ford**: Yeah. Well as you heard um, there there's uh, kind of new information that Council's going to be grappling with about about the Marsh and you know, hopefully we'll—we'll come to it to a conclusion. All right, well thank you for—yes thank you. [1:48:11] **Mike Wagner**: Yes, I remember I before I think there was sort of like a—a metal fencing a grate that was further back... it was like six feet away from where the—the culvert inlet was and I haven't gone to look at it lately but I don't think that's there now. And that's part the reason why I think things are making their way into the inflow. [1:48:38] **Margaret Ford**: Yeah. Yeah, right. Thank you. All right have a good night. Don't forget your purse! Thank you. Oh yeah. [1:48:51] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: So Margaret um, we did the approve the second reading for—um, ordinance 2024-0301 F right so we need to do G. [1:49:00] **Margaret Ford**: Yes, we're going to do that right now. Okay, okay. All right um, and now we have—um, item G, first reading order 2024-3-2: "scavenging of recycled materials prohibited." All right um, we have our first reading. Um, is this Ryan is this one that you had? [1:49:15] **Ryan Hankins**: This is just a repeal and because 401 is being merged into 402. Okay. And uh, just as a little bit of background there was all kinds of stuff in there about a joint powers agreement that hasn't existed for years and it just didn't make any sense to Birchwood and so I think repealing it and merging it into 402 is appropriate. [1:49:38] **Margaret Ford**: Okay great. So all right um, I'd like to make a motion to order a second reading and public hearing on this repeal this ordinance stating uh, the need for the repeal. May I have a second? [1:49:50] **Kathy Weier**: I'll second. Um, any further discussion? All in favor? [Aye]. Opposed? Motion carries. All right our next item is H um, 2025 budget discussion. And I always just like to include the budget discussion at this time of year on the agenda in case anyone from the public is here to want to—to uh, weigh in. Um, uh I I I see Jennifer you're there. If you're not here to weigh in on that then that's okay um, if answer if any of the Council members would like to weigh in at this state we next month we'll—we'll you know finally you know do any tweaks and—and uh, approve it. But is there any comment today from Council? All right hearing none um, we can move on. All right our next item is I, planner salary discussion. Ben, thank you for your patience and waiting this long. [1:50:50] **Ben Wikstrom**: Thank you Mayor and Council. Uh, well [Music] I—I know you do have the budget item next month coming up so I thought I would introduce this. I've spoken to some of you about it over the last few months um, I was hired in April of 2023 and at the time I think it was Kathy who said "Could we revisit this in a year?" So it's been a year and a half now. And at that time my proposal uh, amount uh, based on some information you know if you remember Mr. Thatcher was the engineer and—and the planner and he didn't quite know how the—the time broke down and I had kind of submitted a proposal based on what Becky hidden—I had talked about and I had actually had a call with Mr. Thatcher a little bit later with a mutual acquaintance of ours. And so I put together that proposal and I—and I was asked "Well, could you cut that based on what Mr. Thatcher had said and would you be willing to uh, revisit it any year?" So um, I said yes, I'd be happy to do that. And so it's now been a year and a half um, I enjoy the city and I think I've heard all good feedback. I know you've got a new Council coming in but you all know my work other than Mr. Eisele um, so I thought this was because of the budget and because of uh, being familiar with it. I—uh, and I think if you talk to staff and my fellow consultants and everything they'll—they'll give you that positive feedback. So my request was to go back to that original um, contract amount that I had proposed because I found if you see in the memo I wrote, the hours that I put in was pretty accurate for what I had based that on. So um, I don't know I'm just respectfully requesting that you uh, consider that but we needed to revisit it anyway after—after a year. [1:52:43] **Margaret Ford**: Thank you Ben um, for for doing this. And um, have you been able to um, bill back any of your time at any of these projects recently? [1:52:54] **Ben Wikstrom**: Yes okay. Um, I don't know the what the totals are but there are a few projects that Reese or Becky have asked me to keep track of. It's a little—a little difficult. Some of them um, like a couple of these appeals I don't really know it's not really fair to some an applicant to build back to them when it's someone else making an appeal. Uh, but the applications... remember there's a lot split a few months ago and mhm... um, so whatever hours I put into that it's expected that... I think our—I think our application fees are really low. I don't—I mean really low compared to some other cities but I don't know if there's an escrow that—that's drawn from if they're just told um, "you're going to be billed for staff time." And then other ones where people have had me walk through sort of a lot split or something like that where we don't have an—an application process... um, I think there was one right on—right on that end of Hall Avenue that they split a lot and I ended up billing back—I mean it was many months worth of emails back and forth but it was eight or 10 hours or something. So there are avenues like that. And we had talked Becky and I had talked about like building permit reviews or something... is it appropriate to attach a review fee to that that people can expect rather than only if it blows up or becomes complicated or something? Um, but so I don't know where all has led but I have kept track of hours on applications and things. Okay. [1:54:40] **Justin McCarthy**: Yeah. Um, I—I just kind of I'm thinking that this is we—we tried an experiment here to have him on retainer um, but I'm not sure that experiment is really working. It's just becoming very difficult. Um, so I guess my preference would be to just go back to just billing the homeowner directly and having him on an hourly rate that we just you know charge the homeowners. Because it's just too difficult like it—it was the idea was is that you know we would have him on retainer then he would be there to help residents, but it seems like it's kind of being taken advantage of in terms of like there are certain projects that are just monopolizing his time and using up way more. And then we said well okay for those projects let's recruit that directly, right? And I just don't think that's working and I just think um, if this is really what's going on here I just think we need to start because there's no incentive like a financial incentive for people to not monopolize your time. So I would just—I would just propose we go back to what... what would your hourly rate be? Are you willing to do it on an hourly basis, Ben? [1:55:53] **Ben Wikstrom**: Yeah I—I certainly can. I do it in other cities. It's—it's much easier on a fee because you don't keep track of 15-minute phone calls and yeah try to estimate how many emails you had and um, but uh, yeah if that's what you'd like. Sure. [1:56:15] **Justin McCarthy**: What—what my hourly fee would be... I—I—I think we charge something, it's in our fee schedule now... I—I think for my time? Yeah yeah. I mean because 100 an hour I think what we charged 100 but I mean but you know certainly I'm not putting on the spot you can—you can propose your right... [1:56:37] **Ben Wikstrom**: I—I mean I'm all over the board. My other communities... one I've—I lived there for 20 years and I do it sort of as a favor and I charge $85 an hour which is all below market right. Uh, the other ones are uh, 105, 120, 140 uh, and one... well and then another one that I'm on actually a fee and they estimate when they charge people back it's 125. [1:57:08] **Justin McCarthy**: So okay. It's all over the place. All right, what would your proposal be for here you think? [1:57:15] **Ben Wikstrom**: Um, I think I mean based on... I will say it's a difficult... [1:57:24] **Justin McCarthy**: Sorry, I know I'm putting you on the spot. No I... you don't have to decide it tonight either Ben, you can think about it. [1:57:30] **Ben Wikstrom**: Yeah if you want to think about it Ben I'm sorry come back to us. Yeah yeah. It would be in the 125-135 range, something like that. I think is—is fair. I think it's a—I think it's a good rate for someone of my experience. Okay. If you were—if you had a firm or a you know like Marcus's firm Bolton & Menk, their senior planners I think are much more than that. I'm an independent so I don't have that overhead and I'm not reporting back to my company so it's going be a little lower but... okay yeah. [1:58:11] **Margaret Ford**: And then then I'd like to talk to Becky too just about kind of how much has been build—build back and—and and on what projects and what the frequency is. So I'll—I'll check back with you on that too and then um, all right we can consider. Does anyone else have any thoughts on this? [1:58:26] **Ryan Hankins**: My—my comment is I know we had put a contract in place with you and I would just it would probably be wise just to update the contract if—if we're going to move to a different—different building schedule. [1:58:38] **Ben Wikstrom**: Certainly will when—when we come to... [1:58:41] **Margaret Ford**: Yeah. Yeah, okay. Sometimes we try things and it just doesn't work. This is one of them. [1:58:47] **Kathy Weier**: Right. Kathy, did you have any questions? Um, well if we do go back to the hourly rate we will need to account for him attending meetings and other things that I would anticipate will be to be some keep the money in there for that. That was—that was part of what I had taken out of or I didn't propose. I think you did not uh, you don't charge for that but we should be paying you for that. [1:59:12] **Justin McCarthy**: So Ben do we... yeah never mind. We took—we took out the—or we didn't... I didn't propose the hourly meeting fee. I think I had proposed mileage and I think we had said "you know what?" and I had said "you know what we can just all that." But I thought it would be fewer meetings, right? Um, exactly. On an hourly rate that gets... [1:59:35] **Margaret Ford**: I—I guess what I was kind of thinking of is is rather than have you come all the way out here too you could—we could do Zoom or whatever. [1:59:43] **Ben Wikstrom**: Yeah that way you don't have to... yeah sure. If you've got cost... I—I know there have been some you know a few uh, touchy items and Rebecca has always said it' probably be better if you showed up even if I'm sitting here and not ask a question but it's—it's always good to... [1:59:58] **Margaret Ford**: Yeah the touchy things mate... your physical presence is probably better. But like... because you're very intimidating Ben! [2:00:06] **Ben Wikstrom**: Yeah yeah. It's teasing. [2:00:08] **Margaret Ford**: Yeah. All right, well thank you so much and I then we um, we'll consider and and then yeah we—yeah and put on the agenda for the next meeting kind of to make some decisions. But in the meantime yeah we can chat too and with Becky. [2:00:23] **Ben Wikstrom**: Yeah if you got any questions okay or any feedback positive or negative let me know. [2:00:29] **Margaret Ford**: All right. Any—thank you. All right thank you thank you Ben. Appreciate your work. [2:00:35] **Council Members**: Thank you. Thanks Ben. Ben. [2:00:37] **Margaret Ford**: All right. So is this on for next meeting then again on the... do we just want to I mean what what is everyone else's feelings about this particular matter? Are we okay just moving back to a straight fee? [2:00:52] **Kathy Weier**: Yeah, well I do think though we—yeah and and with the proviso that we include monies in our budget for—yeah for meetings and stuff. [2:01:03] **Margaret Ford**: And—and the question being like does anyone feel like they want to keep the current...? [2:01:10] **Kathy Weier**: It well the only thing I would say is that it would be interesting to know now that we are billing on projects... I think it was the idea was you know everyone kind of gets a—a basic—a basic one or two phone calls and then after that if the project expands then they're billed right um, but how that's working I mean I to know just to how much money is coming in to do that little bit of research. [2:01:31] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Yeah well we—we—we just recently implemented that so we've probably only got a couple of months of data. [2:01:37] **Justin McCarthy**: Okay, yeah. Um, the other thing is is he does give what like a half hour free I think or you know minimal amount so he doesn't start charging resident right away... we're going to get charged right away so there—there will be some discrepancy. We're not going to make up everything. [2:01:54] **Ryan Hankins**: When you say Ben um, that our fees are lower compared to other cities, which are you referring specifically to our valuation based permitting fees or some other fee? [2:02:08] **Ben Wikstrom**: No, like land-use permit uh, zoning up or a variance application really like because I other cities they 1500 okay doll plus maybe an escrow... [2:02:22] **Ryan Hankins**: Okay. All right because I had seen a thousand was seemed a little high to me but that may have been a year or two ago... like I would like to would you could I—I talk to you a little bit maybe we revisit those? Because I don't want to be behind other cities on those. [2:02:37] **Ben Wikstrom**: So okay it varies widely. I shouldn't say... [2:02:40] **Ryan Hankins**: Yeah I know and my—I may go look at two or three and get bad data points but okay because I—I do think that those fees are an area where we don't always recoup cost. I just don't like to move where I feel like we're outside of what the city is really charging in terms of like covering our costs. [2:02:59] **Ben Wikstrom**: You'll probably find—I think you will find some larger cities have lower fees but they have seven eight staff members and it's expected that that's part of there... [2:03:09] **Ryan Hankins**: Yeah it's those medium-sized ones or smaller ones who utilize consultants where those application fees and escrows are a little higher. All right, let—let's look at those a little bit too in the in the next month or two. I think we should look also at appeal fees for these appeals. If this is costing staff time and money um, how many appeals have there been? Is it just two? [2:03:33] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: I'm aware of two. The—the Drews and the one that's in progress now. [2:03:39] **Ryan Hankins**: Is there anything in addition to that? [2:03:41] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Well I don't know what you would consider the uh, Tony Nicholas? No that was not really an appeal okay okay fine ongoing something... [2:03:52] **Ryan Hankins**: I—I'm yeah I'm kind of with Justin here. I'm reaching my limit on free appeals pretty quickly so... [2:04:00] **Kathy Weier**: Yeah I do think we should bump up the escrow fee as well so that we recoup that faster would be good. [2:04:06] **Justin McCarthy**: So the appeals have been one of the most time-consuming things I think that I've dealt with in the city. [2:04:11] **Margaret Ford**: Yeah makes sense definitely can and I think we need to get Alan and ask him what we could build back in an appeal yeah because I don't know if we can I don't know that we can build back an appeal the same way we can just build back something else. [2:04:26] **Justin McCarthy**: Well yeah I mean true who carries the cost of it? Right, correct yes exactly. I mean I think in some respects like if they win the appeal maybe we don't bill them, but if they lose... well it's kind of like... and then which can you build the other party then? I mean if the city screwed up right whoever loses why should they yeah why should they pay right? But if we maybe we were right right I mean we could have the Birchwood wheel of appeal. Well um all right well uh Justin you were saying you'd like to maybe maybe move tonight on this but I Becky do you have an opinion um on this too? I mean Ben—Ben you you like a—you you like you like a retainer any any consultant loves a retainer with with yeah understanding that you can get burned on it a little bit but but but you're willing to do hourly um but right now we kind of have a hybrid right? But we only have a little bit of data to see how that's working. [2:05:32] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Yeah that's yeah I don't really have an opinion. I guess whatever works. [2:05:38] **Ben Wikstrom**: The ones that are... many of the inquiries I get are... I'll respond to an email. I do—you probably are aware—I probably write more than I shoot on a lot of this stuff, you've seen it. But that's fine, I'm not going to keeping track of that. But then I get response "Well thank you for your response, I have a few other questions." "Oh thank you, I have a few..." and it's difficult for me to then go to Becky and say, you know, "I had an extra 45 minutes for these people because I was over the half hour." So it's those that kind of get lost in the shuffle where if someone got a bill from the city for 80 bucks because they were emailing me, they would say, "you know, what are we doing?" But we—I think they've been doing a good job of making people aware... Sure you can inquire directly with the planner but it can't go too far, right? [2:06:26] **Ryan Eisele**: Okay, it's hard—it's hard to I think for people to expect that just some normal emailing back and forth would result in them getting a bill. And do you have uh, from those emails that you have been receiving is there consistent questions that we potentially could have put on the website so that people can get their information prior to having to contact you? [2:06:51] **Ben Wikstrom**: Uh no, I wouldn't say consistent. Nothing is... [2:06:54] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Project-specific. [2:06:55] **Ben Wikstrom**: Yeah. [2:06:56] **Justin McCarthy**: So Ben is it mostly homeowners? Because—because like for me it's like I'm more willing to help the homeowners than I am the contractors. Because if you're a contractor you're professional, you should be able to read building code right like you should be able to read zoning code and figure out what you can and can't do. And you know if you're a contractor calling going "Hey what can I build here?" it's like well that's kind of your job to know that right um and what percentages kind of... [2:07:23] **Ben Wikstrom**: It's probably uh, it's probably 50/50 but often the contractors are calling on behalf of a homeowner. [2:07:31] **Justin McCarthy**: Um, that's what they're hired to do right is to like know the zoning codes right right? So I mean we get—I get a lot of calls or emails on uh, what—310, 312 Wildwood or whatever it is... Realtors right or something like that. Those are probably forwarded to me half the time. [2:07:53] **Justin McCarthy**: I guess I would prefer we just not respond to that because we're not... we can't give legal opinions on what you can or can't build. I would just direct them to city code and say this is—this is city code yeah here you go. [2:08:06] **Ben Wikstrom**: Um, an—an example from this week and last week... uh, someone has a non-conforming garage in you know front setback, side setback. They'd like to rebuild that. That's fine, you can do that as long as you don't increase the height and you don't increase the non-conformity. "Well our roof pitch runs north-south right now and we're thinking of doing it east-west so the views might be different." Okay well I'd probably need to get a legal opinion on that. "Well can I have my contractor call you?" Okay and then that turns into a you know—I can show you my phone—it was probably a 50-minute conversation last Friday. It's pretty frequent that we're referring people to Ben. That's—that kind of stuff I would say more than—more than Marcus even. [2:08:58] **Kathy Weier**: Yeah even if it is a half an hour those add up. [2:09:03] **Justin McCarthy**: Yeah that's I mean if you're in a 50-minute conversation that should be billed. Yeah. [2:09:08] **Ben Wikstrom**: Yep. Right and those are the ones that it's hard to keep track of because I'll get sometimes you know five or six of those a day right and it's none of them were more than 20 minutes but going back and building all that is difficult. So that's why I love the retainer but I understand if you right it's what... [2:09:28] **Kathy Weier**: A spreadsheet? [2:09:29] **Justin McCarthy**: Yeah. I mean that he has to carry with him everywhere that's what it turns into. [2:09:35] **Ben Wikstrom**: I—I do it at the end of the day, right? I go back and okay well is um... [2:09:41] **Margaret Ford**: Is—is something that we'd like to kind of do a little looking into and what is it is it what half an hour we give them now and then if it's yeah anything beyond that so that's not working for you it's just difficult because I don't know what's going to turn into a project or an application. A lot of times it's "okay I help these people with a lot of questions" like this garage I'm talking about... I expected that that would turn into an application either for a variance if necessary or a building permit. And just today... this guy's very smart, he's very involved, he knows a lot of stuff. But just today he said, "you know what? I check prices of materials, this probably isn't going forward please don't spend much time on it." So now I've got a couple hours in on that, right? [2:10:29] **Justin McCarthy**: Do I—that should be billed regardless you know. I agree to the resident—to the resident. I mean the there has to be some notice obviously to say "Listen if you're going to sit here and use our planner's time you get a half an hour anything after that if you're asking questions we're billing you." Yeah you know because we can't subsidize that right we just don't have a bu... we need to tell them that that in the call though too right? So we just need to communicate that to them and then we need to collect that. It's—that's—I know it's an uncomfortable conversation... [2:11:03] **Ben Wikstrom**: I do those job see my... [2:11:05] **Justin McCarthy**: I'm not saying this shouldn't happen, this should be this way. [2:11:08] **Ben Wikstrom**: My number is published on the website which is fine, I get a lot of calls and I don't ever start the call by saying... [2:11:15] **Ryan Eisele**: Why don't we—stop why don't we stop that process and change that process so that instead of people calling you, they're having you call them and providing their information before you they get a call from you or something? I'm—it seems like this is a—a process that's kind of open to that's very easy to abuse maybe not abuse, I don't think because I don't think this is intentional. But I mean I at the same time if I'm the resident though I expect that there is City staff available to answer some things, right? It's... [2:11:47] **Justin McCarthy**: Yeah but we just don't have the money to to subsidize all that that's the problem right? And so at some point we just have to be frank with our residents and say "Listen guys I can help you for half an hour but after that I have to bill you." And I think you need to communicate... to be honest I think you just need to communicate that with them because you know to a certain extent some of the problem here is is self-inflicted I think on your part. Because I think you just need to be clear with them and say "if it passes a half an hour I can help you with little things but we I'm—I'm not authorized to do any—any work other than that." [2:12:30] **Ryan Hankins**: So—so—so what you're saying here is even under an hourly rate you're still going to offer 30 minutes on the city's dime to residents? That's what he's saying. That's what we do now, right? [2:12:44] **Ryan Eisele**: Well I want to ask if that's the way that's going to work going forward is are we—are we offering 30 minutes of hourly work on the city's dime going forward? [2:12:56] **Ben Wikstrom**: The other communities that I have to keep track of hours there is a line item I guess just General City Business. And in the communities the one who I have similar hours to this one it ends up being whatever eight nine 10 hours a month where it is just phone calls here and there. And the City expects that there are going to be—it helps them in the long run because they're not inundated with questions you know of a you know a city administrator who doesn't have that answer. So—so it helps but it's just billed as that. If it's just short—one response to email or a phone call that lasts 15 minutes um, so it's General City Business. I don't bill every resident. If it turns into an application for a uh, land-use permit or land use of any kind or—or a building permit even, I say "Here's how much time I spent on that." It's those ones that get stretched out and don't turn into an application that I have to say, "Oh you have to bill so-and-so for an hour and a half." [2:13:58] **Justin McCarthy**: mhm... and the City will say "Who what's this about?" [2:14:02] **Ryan Hankins**: So why are we different? Like why are we using so much of your time than these other communities aren't? [2:14:09] **Ben Wikstrom**: I don't think you are. I think I'm saying that—that 10 hours is—is just those short phone calls right. The ones that... okay the ones that spill over and get longer are the ones that now in the last couple months I've been asked to keep track of... those are different. And there's some that track over months right? It's someone will email me and say "Could you answer these questions?" And I do and then a month or two later "Okay I've done some more research, what about this?" It's—I don't know how to keep track of those or bill those. So um, I don't know and—and the the appeals... even—even the you know uh, Avery on Cedar Street it was a Marcus thing the drainage, but before that it was "We're not happy with the building height, we're not happy with the setback, we're not happy with all that," right? So do I at the time we weren't keeping track of that but would I lump all that back in to and to whom? Um and the one we're about to hear on—on Lake that's been how many hours have we spent on the phone? I don't I don't either I—I'll go back and look but it's—it's a lot um and at the beginning those first couple of months that I was here the—the 117 Wildwood, the Nicholas one was... I mean that was a lot of hours yeah yeah. [2:15:38] **Justin McCarthy**: I mean I guess my point is is you said that in other communities you have about nine hours or so 10 hours a month just for general questions, but here you're saying that it seems like in Birchwood you're saying that you've got you know 22 hours a month doing that kind of stuff. [2:15:53] **Ben Wikstrom**: No I don't think it's all doing that kind of stuff like if you get a variance application part of it is I wrote a report, I did the research, I've set visited the site, all that kind of stuff um and I have been coming to one sometimes two meetings a month which if I'm keeping track of that now that's you know more time so it if there's about eight 10 whatever sometimes 12 or 14 hours a month of emails and calls... if there's one application and then if there's two two inquiries from residents that I'm keeping track of and saying "Hey I spent three hours with them," that's the kind of stuff it just adds up. And then you know uh, whatever permits I get from Theresa to review uh, those are separate. So it's all it's a bunch of little stuff. The General City Business... I mean is someone sees my number online they call me and we talk for 15 minutes, or someone emails me and I respond to them and they email me back and I respond again and that ends up being a half an hour which doesn't get to that threshold... those are the ones that add up in a little way. And then the applications, the reports, the site visits, the meetings... those are the other... [2:17:10] **Justin McCarthy**: You know how do your other communities they just bill it hourly? How do they solve this problem? [2:17:15] **Ben Wikstrom**: Um, how do they solve the problem of... I mean they're not—they're not all trying to recoup their costs. We might be. Some—some want me to bill uh, only things that have had an application meaning a building permit, a variance, CUP, whatever. [2:17:34] **Justin McCarthy**: mhm... [2:17:35] **Ben Wikstrom**: And then others... well let me think... others I one—one community I have office time where I sit there for four hour... I don't have that community anymore until recently... I'd sit there for four or five hours of a month or a week one afternoon a week and people were expected "Oh the planner is going to be here today" so they'd come in but then that would lead to other work um but they don't often bill directly back to residents who are asking me questions like that. [2:18:03] **Justin McCarthy**: So so they can all take different forms, right? So I guess back to my earlier question... so most of your communities it sounds like they just pay for you to be on staff to answer these kind of questions right? And then they may bill when there's a permit that comes in right? And so I guess my point is is that um, you know are kind of um, if we were to pursue that arrangement what—what would we—what would we be talking about, right? Yeah from you for you. [2:18:41] **Ben Wikstrom**: Um, like half retainer and half... yeah basically like you're on retainer you can just answer general questions but if there's a permit then you bill hourly. The one—the one example which is similar... I don't I wouldn't say I bill hourly. It is a retainer totally a retainer. And then what they did is they averaged out how many—how many hours when they went to the retainer and they call it you know just the flat fee. Retainer actually means a month ahead of time but doesn't matter. They they said uh, "Go average out your last I don't remember if it was 12 months or 18 months or two years" and they said do that... they said, "Give yourself a 10% cushion in case it gets busier um and that will be your flat fee." And then when it's project-specific let them know in my hourly. All I do—all I turn in for them is: Here's my flat fee, same every month. Here's how much time I spent reviewing building permits. Here's project-specific like these were the applications that I wrote reports on or interacted with the applicants and then here's my mileage and meeting fees. The total... I'll give you the number just you I know you don't know specifics but it's a $3200 flat fee every month and then whatever I show under that for project-specific is called "pass-through hours" where they bill that applicant. So they recover that 3200 from the applicant? [2:20:21] **Ryan Hankins**: You're not involved? [2:20:23] **Ben Wikstrom**: No, it's just pass-through hours and that's pretty common. I don't like... I don't know how Bolton & Menk does it for you. Do they have a—a just hourly project number though assigned to every little how does Marcus bill? [2:20:41] **Justin McCarthy**: Yes, if Marcus gets a half-hour phone call from somebody... [2:20:45] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Yep. [2:20:46] **Justin McCarthy**: It'll come through with the the address. [2:20:50] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Okay, the address. So then we build a back that way. Okay. [2:20:53] **Ryan Eisele**: I guess I want to remark here a little bit that my concern here is preliminary budgets are kind of in place at this point and we're talking uh, about an increase... I think your rate is roughly $19,000 a year up to a rate of $28,000 a year. And that—the reason I think we're one of the reasons we're talking about moving to an hourly rate is because I think there's concerned with making increases to a that can be increased at this point. And I don't have—I I don't mean to say I begrudge you what we agree on is a fair rate for your services. I think that the this part of the discussion here—correct me if I'm wrong—is that there's just some concern... we're trying to find a way to um, not put $9,000 into the budgets that we kind of didn't plan for and finding out if we can just build that through a little more effectively or efficiently or... [2:21:55] **Ben Wikstrom**: I—I was I thought the budget was finalized in December, that's why I'm coming... [2:21:59] **Ryan Eisele**: Finalized, yes. Preliminary, no. [2:22:02] **Justin McCarthy**: Also I've—also been asking about this for sure a number of months yeah and that's... [2:22:11] **Ryan Eisele**: Not the point I'm trying to make. [2:22:14] **Justin McCarthy**: Marcus agreed so... or Marcus I'm sorry Ben... [Music] So I do like the idea of the pass-through thing though that I feel like that would be able to more easily recoup expenses. Because we do have items that you are being used for for you know permits etc. where we can keep the flat fee where it is and then build through those. And then definitely we should put on the budget for next year the adjustment needed. Um, we—certify—have to certify our budget in September unfortunately um and we can go down but not up unfortunately. Um but I—I think that might be a good way to potentially get him additional fees on top of what he needs because it sounds like we've been short-changing what... what is that budget number for next year and... [2:23:09] **Kathy Weier**: Uh, it would be the 68,000... I don't know I got look 618,000. [2:23:19] **Ryan Hankins**: Well you—you want the line it planner oh for the Planner yeah it's your current it's your current it's 19-2 and so so so... [2:23:31] **Justin McCarthy**: Um yeah but—but that's just it. That's why I want to explore this idea of you know it doesn't really matter what you agree on if you effectively charge for the pass-through then you can pay him as a retainer, right? Yeah yeah. So but you have to—you have to effectively do that. I'd say give everyone half an hour like we you know what I mean? And then just start billing. I mean I that's the only way I can see to go forward is we just have to to start billing people for some of this these services. And like I think there is—I think some folks would kind of complain about you know subsidizing building projects that they're not involved in, you know what I mean? I mean so um, if—if I'm not getting building permits why do I have to pay for somebody else's building permits and somebody else's planner use? [2:24:25] **Ryan Hankins**: That's the same excuse people use for playing for schools so I'm not all that concerned about everyone covering their for fair portion of something. Yeah. Um but as far as like those who actually are moving with a permit like I don't want to begrudge people the opportunity to get information before they move forward with something. They could have grandioso plans and then determine that after talking to Ben that "Oh yeah I—I didn't think of this I need to process that." It will save us time in the long run if they know what they're doing beforehand and it's a good practice. I mean I always encourage people to talk to Ben because I want them to have that information before they get down the pipeline and find out they can't do something or we end up in lawsuits again. So Ben being involved from the get-go from our perspective it reduces risk in the long run. [2:25:22] **Ben Wikstrom**: Yeah I think it does and and that's why... but you know the prelimin—preliminary talk is you know on the city and on the taxpayers in general, but then if it's a—if it's more it needs to get billed. [2:25:35] **Justin McCarthy**: Mean on the other hand that's what we've been trying to do, right? If half of these are contractors right like seems like these guys come in and basically just ask you "Well what can I do?" It's like well you can go to the website and look at our code and figure out what you can do too! You just say you can do whatever you want as long as it's within the code. [2:25:54] **Kathy Weier**: Yeah could we... could we in order to... code was easier... in order to kind of work this could we and continue to provide the half hour up-front, could we increase the rate um, that we're billing after that half hour significantly to subsidize that first half hour? So let's say you know to to crunch numbers here a little bit yeah Ben builds us back at 130 bucks an hour, we build Ben's time out at 170 or 200 bucks an hour in order to subsidize that first 30 minutes for people that use that. [2:26:33] **Justin McCarthy**: Yeah I mean I guess that was kind of where was going is like if we keep your rate the same and just say we'll give people the first half hour and then you bill them the rest... I mean does that mean it make it up to you? Is that keep my—my rate the same in the hourly? Or do you are you saying like a hybrid's your retainer... it would be basically you have—you have a half an hour with the planner, after that we bill you whatever rate we're going to charge and it goes to you. So the retainer is expected for all those kinds of things... yeah just half-hour pass-through if we... and then the pass-through is everything after that you—we you bill. Yeah so you make up the—you make up the shortfall that way is that does that make you...? [2:27:31] **Justin McCarthy**: I mean I don't mean to like put you on the spot but like you know what I mean? Because I'm fine giving them—giving people some latitude here because I think for homeowners it's really important. Because I don't expect homeowners to know code, I don't expect them to know what they can and can't do, but I expect contractors to know that. I mean if you're—if you have a—a license in the state of Minnesota to do building, you—you ought to know what the code is and you've probably seen it enough times. But I think these guys get lazy and they—they call up and—and that's just how they do business like "Hey when—what can I get away with?" Like go—go look at the code! You know... [2:28:16] **Kathy Weier**: We do have a couple of pretty convoluted code sections and that's—and that's great to know. And like bring that to our attention and we can fix that. So if there are specific sections and that's—and that's the other thing Ben like you know I'd like to see more of that from you like "Hey I think they're well-written the CUP regarding impervious yeah or land disturbance permits it's—it's a lot." [2:28:43] **Ben Wikstrom**: Yeah right but it's well done. It's well convoluted and same with the Building Height calculation. Yes, that's been—there's been eight or 10 of those in my time here where people are just like "Can you help me through this? I don't..." And—and contractors... yeah yeah I—I don't have it in me I guess figure it out yourself. [2:29:12] **Justin McCarthy**: But what do figure wrong Kathy? [2:29:16] **Kathy Weier**: I was going to say except in the case that they figure it completely wrong and then we have issues of the neighbor complaining about something and then we have to redo we get get something happening. [2:29:28] **Ben Wikstrom**: Yeah me and this seems like it seems like we're getting a little off in the weeds here... [2:29:34] **Ryan Eisele**: I I have a question. So what other small communities do to mitigate this and what I mean by that is like what other tools do they use? And I've seen I guess other communities use like one-page explanations of like "Hey this is what your grade needs to be" or like "this is what your footers need to be"... like kind of simplifying things for—for homeowners so you wouldn't be burdened by those questions. [2:30:05] **Ben Wikstrom**: Yeah I mean there are uh, application checklists or informational handouts on certain things. You're never going to cover everything. [2:30:15] **Ryan Hankins**: No but I just—but I think help us help... I think we have some of that. Well Ryan put together that was building in the city of Birchwood. Ask him to summarize it. That one's pretty good I think that's a good guide. [2:30:31] **Margaret Ford**: Yeah I think Ryan you were Hankins was working on uh, a building in Birchwood pamphlet or something and I don't know what ever happened to that. On the web page! On the web page yeah. So I mean maybe that's just the first conversation is: Have you looked at the pamphlet? And look at the pamphlet if you still have questions, then call me. [2:30:57] **Justin McCarthy**: Perhaps we should put that right next to his name where it's a "Quick Check Here First." I mean I—and I'm fine—I'm fine with half an hour, but after that I think your time needs to be recovered. I just think that has to happen. [2:31:14] **Margaret Ford**: We have that policy in place so... [2:31:16] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: We have that policy. [2:31:17] **Margaret Ford**: So I guess the question is is given that... I mean is—do you still need more? [2:31:22] **Ben Wikstrom**: Well we—we have that policy in place though, but that goes still toward my retainer. [2:31:27] **Justin McCarthy**: Oh no no! That should go to you. [2:31:29] **Margaret Ford**: I—I hope so and I agree. [2:31:32] **Ben Wikstrom**: I'm saying right now when I keep track of things... [2:31:34] **Margaret Ford**: Oh okay so then that goes to the retainer? Yeah I know. I mean I think let's change that. [2:31:41] **Kathy Weier**: Yeah he's getting his monthly retainer. Well that's why we're talking about it because we were trying to see whether that retainer is going to cover it, but apparently no. We at Birchwood our heavy users of our—of our experts and so—and so let—let's try to make it fair for Ben and our citizens. [2:32:04] **Ryan Hankins**: So can we keep the retainer where it is on our budget and then do the bill-through for any of those above and beyond projects that it goes to Ben? Is that a possibility? So Ben sends us a bill and then we get the money from the applicant and send it back to Ben for those that are above and beyond the half hour? [2:32:28] **Justin McCarthy**: No what I think what Ben is saying is that right now after a half an hour we bill them, but that goes towards Birchwood's budget cover his retainer. And I think what the Council is suggesting is at least part of that money should go back to Ben, right? So just like I said: he would say he would bill us, we'd get the money from the resident and we'd give it back to Ben. I think that would be a... is that what we're saying? [2:32:55] **Margaret Ford**: That retainer number is probably a pretty good like we were talking about 8, 10, 12 hours whatever plus meetings and whatnot. Yeah yeah. Why wouldn't I just tell them to go to Ben then and Ben just well directly? Because it should come through the City if it's our... [2:33:14] **Justin McCarthy**: Well I'm not understanding. [2:33:16] **Ryan Eisele**: Well it's—it's like—it's like Marcus doesn't—doesn't bill them directly, we—we bill them. [2:33:23] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Correct. Yeah we have to bill them because it has... [2:33:26] **Ryan Eisele**: We do bill yeah. We—we would need to bill them, but he's not a retainer either. But I'm talking about hourly billing. Do you think...? [2:33:36] **Ben Wikstrom**: So I would think it'd be weird personally if I were working with someone and got a bill from him when I'm working with the City. [2:33:43] **Justin McCarthy**: Absolutely! That's I do think the bill needs to come from us and that we take his bill and then... [2:33:49] **Margaret Ford**: We used to have that issue with our past engineer. And if we do that, Ben, we need to be very clear when you're talking to these people that: "Listen, I'm authorized to give you a half an hour, which I'm happy to do, but beyond that I have to start recovering costs and I have to bill you at this amount of per hour." Because what I don't want is a lot of... and and I think it needs to be clear that regardless of whether or not you file an application for building permit... [2:34:20] **Justin McCarthy**: And I—I would even go a little further than Justin and say the bill is like per—not per person, it's per property. And so if you're getting multiple calls on—on 310 and 312 yeah that—like yeah they got their 30 minutes, but the next builder that calls doesn't get another free 30 minutes there, like that's... [2:34:41] **Margaret Ford**: Well in Realtors and stuff like that, we just should not be handling those calls. We should just—we just say no. I mean, we don't hand that right? We just... Realtors, we don't give advisory opinions on that to—to non-residents. And—and if you just legal liability we don't need! Because listen, if we tell them, "Oh yeah, that should be okay to build on that," and then they buy the property and then try to build on it it turns out it's not doable and you say, "Oh well actually you need a variance," then all of a sudden they bought a property in reliance on what we told them and now we're legally screwed. So do not be doing that. I really would beg you not to be giving... just show them where the code is: "Here's the code. You can make the decision on your own. I'm not going to advise you on this." Um... [2:35:28] **Justin McCarthy**: So would this work for you to keep your retainer as it is and then—and then you know bill—bill that extra time after the yeah I half hour per per I incident? [2:35:46] **Ben Wikstrom**: I will say yes. I don't know in practice how it works. [2:35:49] **Justin McCarthy**: Why don't we—it's an improvement any what you can think on it. I mean we don't need to... [2:35:56] **Ryan Hankins**: I think it's a—I think it's fine. It's a good... I think if I'm the one telling them "You have a half hour of my time," that probably will limit some yeah. I mean bad for me I make less money than... [2:36:09] **Justin McCarthy**: But get part of it is is that because you're so open and accessible people take advantage of you. And I think that you know by telling them "Listen the clock is starting," it—it hastens the conversation and people to the point quicker. [2:36:26] **Ben Wikstrom**: I—I would envision what it ends up being is one or two longer you know two- or three-hour conversations or meetings or something a month. And then if there's a variance application you know doing all that due diligence and writing the report that ends up being whatever eight or 10 hours or six you know depending on the... I'm—I'm happy to get build back maybe just three or four things a month. I would hope one of them maybe I'm happy uh, to let's do this but maybe not 18 months again and let's—let's... it's easy to adjust your hourly rate mid-year because that's not something we budget for. If that needs to change a little bit then let's just change the hourly rate a little bit and get you more quickly to a fair point. [2:37:16] **Justin McCarthy**: So that's seem okay, Ben? [2:37:18] **Ben Wikstrom**: So that seems all right. I will try it, we'll see. I—I haven't quite build like that before but I'll keep track of... [2:37:25] **Margaret Ford**: Hopefully simpler than our height code! [2:37:28] **Ben Wikstrom**: Yeah right. [2:37:29] **Kathy Weier**: The one thing though you talked about maybe the variance fees, CUP fees, all that... coming up with the escrow... [2:37:37] **Ryan Hankins**: Let's look at that too. Yeah that though is part of my hourly stuff expected to come out of that escrow that people I would think so, yes. I would think so. [2:37:47] **Margaret Ford**: So like if people have deter that amount is what is the hourly rate? There's money there for he hasn't figured it out yet. [2:37:54] **Kathy Weier**: I—I do think we take whatever his hourly rate is and add a little bit so we do recoup some of our fee. [2:38:03] **Margaret Ford**: Yeah that would be fair. That's a good idea. [2:38:06] **Justin McCarthy**: All right so you're saying so you're saying so if he says 100 we say 115 whatever it happens to be so that we... [2:38:13] **Kathy Weier**: I like that idea. Recoup some... [2:38:15] **Margaret Ford**: He says 125 to 135 is what he said. Okay sorry. [2:38:21] **Justin McCarthy**: So 125 we could charge 150 whatever it happens to be where we bump up slightly so that we are accounting for some of those that are half hour over a long period of time. Great. [2:38:34] **Margaret Ford**: Is that—is that okay to do? [2:38:36] **Justin McCarthy**: I think that's okay. I think it's okay to do. We're just... we do that for our—um, inspector. [2:38:43] **Margaret Ford**: As long as we're not like moving the money to... I don't know whatever we do the... [2:38:48] **Justin McCarthy**: It'd be for the admin. No, it—it stays—it just stays within this ecosystem, right? It's a heck of a band I appreciate it if we're done. [2:38:59] **Margaret Ford**: Yeah so no action right now, correct? Gonna come back do we—do you want to just come back with a proposal on hourly rate and how this would work maybe? And then if you could tell us the—uh, rates that you notice for other communities. [2:39:15] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: She—he has Kathy we've got a... [2:39:17] **Margaret Ford**: Jotted down. No not his hourly rate, his grows and... [2:39:23] **Justin McCarthy**: Yeah he's doing it now if we're going to review it again in six months or a year or whatever. [2:39:28] **Margaret Ford**: Well let's review it... I'm comfortable with the between there, the 130 for me. Okay. Is that fine? Yeah okay. And then we see... I—I don't know when you want to review and see how it's going. [2:39:41] **Ben Wikstrom**: Win is a little... [2:39:42] **Justin McCarthy**: We review it when you're ready to review it. [2:39:45] **Margaret Ford**: Plan on like or ask her bring it up when you see my summary there of "Here's how many months I was zero to five and five..." [2:39:53] **Ben Wikstrom**: Winter is a little bit different. Yeah. [2:39:56] **Justin McCarthy**: So we have to—we have to average it over... those are the lower number of time—number of months... we same for reviewing in July so that we can get any adjustments made to that September... well we start in August and then September we have to certify next summer next summer for the additional review. [2:40:17] **Ben Wikstrom**: Okay. And I don't know I don't know how to uh, bill or address the current appeal. I think that's retainer for now until we figure out we'll have to change our fee schedule and everything for that. [2:40:31] **Justin McCarthy**: But we will! We'll have to look at that, build in some costs for that because that has to happen. We're just losing money. Um, I'm okay just moving forward with this plan right now. I mean um, shall um, I work with Allen then to update the... [2:40:48] **Margaret Ford**: Yeah let's just update whatever we need. I mean unless I don't know Jen do you have any do you have any thoughts? [2:40:54] **Jennifer Arsenault**: I like plan okay. [2:40:56] **Margaret Ford**: She likes the plan. All right let's just go with that. I mean with pass-through for anything above... yeah yeah. I mean it's kind of a balancing act right? I mean we're giving residents a little bit of your time but at the same time for those that are using you more they're going to have to start to pay. Because you know we just can't afford to have you... [2:41:19] **Ryan Eisele**: Feel like this should be annually as well so it's like if you hear from one house every year... [2:41:26] **Justin McCarthy**: But at this point I'm understanding this is a theoretical discussion. No motions have been made, nothing is changing. I'd like you know maybe um, I'd like to make a motion to um, uh have um, uh Mayor Mayor Ford um, work with Ben and our attorney Allen Kantrud to update uh, the contract um, with the parameters we discussed: 130 as an hourly rate with the uh, retainer being uh, the same as it is now. Okay? And then talk about the terms of it how that will work. Okay? Does that work? [2:42:04] **Ben Wikstrom**: Yes. [2:42:05] **Margaret Ford**: Okay we'll work together on that. [2:42:07] **Kathy Weier**: Second. We need second uh, any further discussion? All in favor? [Aye]. Opposed? Motion carries. Sorry Ben um, can you come up with um, or maybe Becky this is better for you I don't know... can you come up with kind of an idea of how much we're spending on these appeals just so that we can level set on how much we need to be charging? [2:42:33] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Sure. [2:42:34] **Justin McCarthy**: Thank you. And if there's outliers in those appeals yeah what those outliers are... so like do you mean one that was—was very expensive and it skews the number of what an actual appeal would cost? There's only been two okay. One was... [2:42:51] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Well Cedar Street right resulted in... [2:42:53] **Justin McCarthy**: I'm sure Marcus must have been 5,000 he told us. The thing is is Marcus has paid different so B is on this retainer and ultimately I think because of that we're this is going to be a cheaper appeal time-wise I don't know that it was that much different though. [2:43:10] **Margaret Ford**: I guess—I guess then the question is is how much time are you spending? Because I'm—I'm guessing not going to be able to recover all of it at all because otherwise we'd have like a $10,000 appeal fee and I don't think that's reasonable. But just to give us some—an idea, a basis of like this is you know... [2:43:30] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Well Becky knows on this Lake Avenue one it's been... yeah I—I don't know I—I'd have to go back and total all the stuff. [2:43:37] **Justin McCarthy**: And then like even things you haven't dealt with like data requests that we've been processing um, and a lot of just... I mean that's the other thing right time reasonable to... [2:43:47] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: The data requests are different. [2:43:49] **Justin McCarthy**: What were you saying Ben you were going to give us a ballpark on the Lake Avenue hours? [2:43:53] **Ben Wikstrom**: Yeah it's got to be approaching 20 by now of just... [2:43:57] **Justin McCarthy**: 20 hours! So that's $2,000 worth of your time essentially you know... [2:44:03] **Margaret Ford**: Well I mean 2500 it's what it'd be nearly 2500 if you do... yeah I guess I was just using 100 an hour because I'm... I think we need to I think we need to look at see what other cities do on appeals and I'll try to take a look at that over the next couple months. Yeah I don't know that they will spell out what they charge for something like that not that I recall in the other codes. [2:44:28] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Well their fees and—and whether they bill any of the time back to the—the appellant or anything like that. So I—I'll look into that. My suspicion is I know White Bear Lake charges quite a bit for an appeal and we charge... [2:44:46] **Ben Wikstrom**: I've only been involved in one appeal until I came to Birchwood. [2:44:50] **Justin McCarthy**: Yeah I'm not surprised we're litigious here. Well yeah we need to—we have a the structure of the fees I think encourages this a little bit so and I don't want to discourage them completely but I want to make it so that people are complaining on uh, with purpose. Complaining with purpose I like it. Yeah yeah. You know one thing I have to mention about the appeal process and I'm just thinking about this um, and I don't mean to open up a can of worms... but the appeal process does say that it has to be brought up within 30 days of the decision making the decision. That hasn't been the case in either one of these appeals because it's just not feasible. Those issues weren't uncovered until well after 30 days after building permits were issued. So um, when Allen responded or we responded to the complaints, we gave them 30 days from the date that they receive the response. So if—just a kind of a heads-up if we're going to look at reworking that code um, I don't think we meet often enough to make 30 days. 30 days is really tight and by the time people realize something's going up it can be 30. [2:46:04] **Margaret Ford**: Given some flexibility on that just the schedule... it's from when the decision was made is what she's talking about the 30 days. And we've just been very flexible because yeah I mean it's difficult because what they're actually appealing is a building permit right yeah which you don't know when it's issued, when somebody pays for it and picks it up, when the work actually starts, and they don't the the person who's appealing probably doesn't see the results of that work for months. Months absolutely. [2:46:42] **Ben Wikstrom**: And the other one the other one that didn't turn into an appeal or hasn't yet is the garage height—average height—for the one on was that Wildwood also? Yes Wildwood... mhm that was a lot of time for everybody to put into that. Which if it's not an appeal and it's someone complaining and I spent whatever 10 hours on it or more probably what do... [2:47:11] **Justin McCarthy**: That's just it's not an appeal why are we spending time on it? [2:47:15] **Margaret Ford**: Because it's a complaint! It's a cost of doing business. It's the cost of doing business. It's a resident complaint have to work through. [2:47:23] **Ryan Hankins**: And then the tight—the tighter all the information is when these permits are are granted though the less scope there is for complaints. [2:47:31] **Margaret Ford**: Well I mean and part of it is we've been kind of treating the—we've been kind of treating the um, 30 days from when the complaint is resolved. So a lot of these they start with resident complaints and then that gets there's it because because the appeal is from any decision of the building officials. And so the decision of the building official is on that complaint and then we're treating the appeal as an appeal of that decision on the complaint. [2:47:58] **Justin McCarthy**: Could so can I ask... to me the complaint process should be very limited in scope. It shouldn't include a review of an administrative decision, you shouldn't be going back for a complaint and reviewing your calculations. That should be an appeal. If somebody is going to go and file a complaint that really should be that—because the homeowner is doing something that they shouldn't be doing. [2:48:24] **Margaret Ford**: So well I mean but—but the point is is that like if I get a building permit and sit on it for 30 days so that my neighbor can't complain about it or appeal, and then I start my work right like mean there's kind of an a fairness issue there of like I—I'd be fine with I think we could reward the appeal thing. I mean that there is gray between a complaint and an appeal though because if someone writes "I have a complaint" right? Or if someone writes "I have an appeal," we're going to treat those completely different. So that's confusing from an administrator... I think it would help to in the complaint I mean let's make an appeal form good thought. [2:49:12] **Ben Wikstrom**: The you know these three ones that these the two appeals and the complaint that we're talking about though, those all had unique I don't know circumstances or... but it was often a complaint about "Oh I think you interpreted this wrong." [2:49:29] **Justin McCarthy**: Then that should I'll tell you Ben I don't think that's a legitimate complaint. I think that you could review your work in that case, but I really think that you should be treating that as that should basically be an appeal. [2:49:43] **Margaret Ford**: Yeah at least two of these though our process may not have been airtight on how it was reviewed... get into yeah I get that okay me and this seems like it seems like we're getting a little off in the leads here I let's Ben like I might be interested in just talking to you offline a little bit about some of this too and seeing if there are things we can improve because I think there might be but this is getting a little it's 9:00 we were trying to pay you pay a different rate and now we're off like taking more of your time so like this is the Crux and this is the Crux of the problem everyone wants to talk to Ben! Okay l thank you Ben and we'll be in touch. All right good night. All right our last item is J, administrator updates. Becky? [2:50:38] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Um, okay so yep we got an attorney resignation from Alan Kantrud... [2:50:44] **Ryan Hankins**: Can I uh, do you have I'd like to just discuss that y finish your... [2:50:49] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: That's all I just informational at this point. I did reach out to the League to try to get some RFPs so I have some samples. I haven't put anything together yet, I didn't know if what where you guys wanted to go with this. [2:51:03] **Margaret Ford**: Yeah and and his last day will be November 30th, correct? Okay. Yeah Ryan please you had a comment. [2:51:11] **Ryan Hankins**: I mean I guess I'm a little concerned that for example we have an appeal we just mentioned and we're yep train-wrecking toward December without a City Attorney. [2:51:24] **Justin McCarthy**: Agree, I'm with you. [2:51:26] **Ryan Hankins**: Is there something interim we can do here? Um, hire somebody at an hourly rate even if it's you know... [2:51:34] **Margaret Ford**: Um, Becky has reached out to the League to find out if they have some recommendations on that. [2:51:40] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Well all I've reached out for is an RFP. [2:51:43] **Margaret Ford**: Oh okay yeah. They they also should you know be able maybe to—to um, to—to see... it seems like maybe we would do we want to authorize posting an RFP? [2:51:57] **Justin McCarthy**: I mean I'm a little concerned that an RFP isn't going to get... [2:52:01] **Ryan Hankins**: Can we have Al come in just for month sit through our December meeting? [2:52:05] **Margaret Ford**: I'd be willing to talk with Alan. [2:52:07] **Justin McCarthy**: Yeah let's do that okay that'd be awesome if we can get him to stay a little bit longer at least until we can put something together. It wouldn't be a bad idea to get I mean the the one thing um, the timing of this is is unfortunate because I don't want to saddle the new Council with "Hey you don't have an attorney in January sorry guys." Um, I don't know maybe Allen would be willing to stay for another couple of months just to ensure a more smooth transition. [2:52:43] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: mhm... I—I'll talk to him okay okay. [2:52:48] **Margaret Ford**: Um, do you guys want me to do anything else then in terms of the RFP? Unless Allen wants to reconsider I mean I guess I would say if let's could we try to make some Margaret you think you might get a chance to chat over the next week or so? And then I would almost say it might be worth a special meeting to get things rolling if we don't make progress with even if we do like if Alan wants to revise things a little bit... like I'd be happy to come in and you know I'll talk with help get this resolved because I'm have some concerns here that this is... [2:53:23] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: I'll talk to him um, as soon as he gets back from his hunting. [2:53:28] **Margaret Ford**: Okay. All right um, I would like to also reach out to the League of Minnesota Cities as well and see if they have someone who can offer legal counsel in the event we needed in the meantime while we are hiring. [2:53:43] **Ryan Hankins**: I wonder if we can't pay who Paul Merwin just—just—to sit in for the have something come up that has... [2:53:51] **Margaret Ford**: Yeah well when we—when we get Paul in it's because we've filed a claim... huh yeah we get sued. But I—I'm I'm hoping they'll be willing to help us while we hire a new attorney if know we have someone leaving we can cross our fingers so we can avoid it. We could at least... [2:54:12] **Justin McCarthy**: So we're asking for free help from the League? Like... [2:54:15] **Margaret Ford**: No no no we would—we would—we would pay them! We would pay them. But I mean as far as like if we have someone who we can contact regarding something that comes up in the interim until we actually get someone permanently. Okay. [2:54:30] **Justin McCarthy**: So I would be asking like for example Paul if he would be interested in doing some consulting work outside of the League but for Birchwood Village through the League. [2:54:40] **Margaret Ford**: Outside of or through? Yeah okay okay. All right just until we can get... [2:54:47] **Ryan Hankins**: I'll wait other of these small municipalities may have part-time city attorneys who may—may consult with us hourly too. It's possible. [2:54:57] **Justin McCarthy**: I just don't want us making legal decisions and find out that we've now put ourselves in place of A really lovely lawsuit because that—we didn't know what we were doing. [2:55:09] **Margaret Ford**: Absolutely and I think that's a risk. That's a risk and I think that needs to be stated until somebody gets in place um, I don't have a resource that I can go to with legal. That's why I would like to reach out to them and ask because they may have had this happen before and therefore can tell us what we need to do. Okay. I also don't think any of the upcoming Council members are former attorneys so... [2:55:38] **Justin McCarthy**: No no, I don't think Bridget was either so that's that's... [2:55:44] **Ryan Hankins**: I believe she was... [2:55:45] **Justin McCarthy**: Bridget was? [2:55:46] **Ryan Hankins**: I believe she was. [2:55:47] **Justin McCarthy**: Oh okay. Oh that's one... [2:55:49] **Margaret Ford**: I don't think she was yeah I think she was in I've heard people say she was but I'm not sure. [2:55:54] **Justin McCarthy**: Yeah well um and I have to say as being a retired attorney um, I had one area I was in and City governance was not it right yeah. [2:56:06] **Ryan Hankins**: We—refer to retired attorneys as reformed attorneys. [2:56:11] **Margaret Ford**: That's right exactly. All right well it's we have work to do on this and it sounds like it—it sounds like we will need to need to uh, work with dispatch. All right all right uh go ahead Becky B technology. [2:56:29] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Okay, B is the technology conversion update. Um, you can read there what's going on in November. Just real quick, next week the 19th is our day that we're porting um yeah yeah. So questions? [2:56:45] **Margaret Ford**: No, I I'm excited though. [2:56:48] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Yeah I'm—I'm really not sure what to expect. Are they have they been good to work with so far? [2:56:54] **Justin McCarthy**: Yeah I mean we're just waiting for this thing to happen so... [2:56:58] **Ryan Hankins**: I will say whoever the new provider is they should make sure it says "City of Birchwood Village" so it doesn't say "Spam," right? [2:57:08] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: I did take a note on it yeah. [2:57:10] **Ryan Hankins**: Yep. Becky called me and it said "Spam" on my caller ID. Oh with my new Microsoft Teams calling plan. Yeah I said, "didn't it say Birchwood Village?" But but so Spam you answer your spam calls? He didn't! I started leaving a voicemail oh and now the iPhones they start like dictating the voicemail so you can watch the person oh yes and so I was like, "Oh it's Becky for Birchwood I see okay okay." [2:57:44] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: So with that... delinquent utility bills nothing special there um we'll assess those the property taxes after the next meeting. Uh, the tree inspection update waiting for the St—for the estimate to remove the 13 hazardous trees. We did send in the sample of the tree that had suspected Oak Wilt to the U of M and we got those results back today and it does not have Oak Wilt. [2:58:15] **Ryan Hankins**: Oh good! [2:58:16] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: So I just glanced at him I need to dig into it. It doesn't have like a worst disease or anything, right? Nope no. I I think so the news is good it's a good new. Yeah right right generally that fungus that my trees had it's gener—like within a certain distance of ponds or lakes has this thing so... yep good news. And then one of the two residents also that we thought had Oak Wilt sent a letter from an arborist saying they did not indeed have it. So we're making progress there. Um, I will say Steve Dean is struggling a little bit with locating some of the trees and giving me the estimate... I think he's just kind of waiting okay um so but he's—he'll get me that. Okay yeah. Um recycling grant update is that next? [2:59:15] **Justin McCarthy**: Yes yeah okay so here's your F here okay. [2:59:19] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Um, so again thanks to for the help with that and then I'll get it to you Justin before second reading. And then we also have got stickers and recycling bins in the parks and I think we're all set yep to finalize this grant after we finish the F-O-T-H stuff. [2:59:40] **Justin McCarthy**: Awesome and that's it. [2:59:43] **Therese "Becky" Bellinger**: Great! I just realized we have a utility bill going out here in December which means I need any information you need for the newsletter by November 21st. [2:59:53] **Margaret Ford**: Okay all right sounds good. All right well thank you everyone. May I have a motion to adjourn? [3:00:00] **Justin McCarthy**: Mercifully I make that motion. [3:00:03] **Margaret Ford**: I'll second. [3:00:04] **Ryan Hankins**: Ryan seconds. [3:00:05] **Margaret Ford**: All in favor? [Aye]. Opposed? Meeting adjourned. Thank you everyone. [3:00:10] **Justin McCarthy**: Wonder if anyone's ever voted against? [3:00:15] [Music]