This transcript features **Mayor Clint Hooppaw**, Councilmembers **John Bergman**, **Ruth Grendahl**, **Tom Melander**, and **Chuck Goodwin** (who appears to be the member filling the fifth seat during this session, though not on the provided partial list), along with City Administrator **Tom Lawell**, City Clerk **Christina Scipioni** (addressed as Pam), and **Alex** (City Planner). [0:00] [Music] [1:03] **Clint Hooppaw:** All right, good evening. We'll call this meeting to order for the January 11th, 2024, Apple Valley City Council meeting. Uh, welcome, everyone. Um, as your items are called this evening, please come forward uh to speak. With that, we will start our meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance. Excuse me, I would like everyone to rise and join us in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Our next item is to approve the agenda. And Tom, do we have any changes this evening? [1:49] **Tom Lawell:** Mr. Mayor, Council, good evening. Uh, yes, we don't have any additional items to add, but we would like to suggest on your regular agenda—uh, we do have an applicant in the audience for item 5B and just for their convenience of that applicant, we'd like to move that as the first item under regular agenda. So if we can swap item 5A and 5B, that would be uh recommended. [2:07] **Clint Hooppaw:** Sounds good. We have a motion to approve with that those items swapped? [2:12] **Ruth Grendahl:** So moved. [2:13] **John Bergman:** Second. [2:15] **Clint Hooppaw:** Motion from Councilmember Grendahl, a second from Councilmember Bergman. All those in favor indicate by saying aye. (Aye) Opposed? Agenda carries. Next item is our audience participation portion. This is for items not on the regular agenda. Uh, do we have anyone who would like to speak this evening? All right, seeing no one, we'll close this section and move on to the consent agenda. These items are considered routine and will be enacted with a single motion unless a council member or citizen would like to pull anything. Councilmembers, any items to pull from consent? Our audience, any items? All right, we would take a motion to approve the consent agenda. [2:47] **Chuck Goodwin:** So moved. [2:48] **Tom Melander:** Second. [2:49] **Clint Hooppaw:** Motion from Councilmember Goodwin, a second from Councilmember Melander. All those in favor by saying aye. (Aye) Opposed? Consent passes. So we'll move on to item five, which is 5B in your agenda, and Alex has this item. And that's an action on the ordinance amending chapter 155 of the city code regulating signs in plan development 290 Zone 3. Also includes waving of the second reading. Um, I'll just uh throw it out here out front that I will uh be very light in my discussion on this evening. This evening I'll be abstaining from this item and you know, just for the good of the public and the why—I also work for Wings and they're the applicant this evening. So, um, we will abstain from the final vote. [3:32] **Alex (Staff/Planner):** Thank you, Mayor, for kicking it off. So the action before you this evening—uh, I'm not going to read through the whole thing. This is the action that uh Council has recommended that the City Council act on. So we are looking for action on the ordinance amendment and additionally, the Council may take an action in uh with perhaps altered um provisions of this ordinance if they so uh see fit. Again, this is recommending waving the second reading. The applicant is Wings Financial. They're located at 14985 Glazier Avenue, prominent location in the northeast corner of Cedar Avenue and 42. Wings Credit Union had applied for a variance previously for this sign location, which is on the northwest corner of the site. I'll zoom in on that in a moment. The variance went to Planning Commission for two different meetings. Ultimately, due to the provisions of a variance, the Planning Commission was unable to recommend approval for the sign variance but did seem open to additional uh discussions about the sign height and sign area for the proposed sign at that time. They told staff to work with the applicant and the application for amending plan development 290 subzone 3 came forward. I'll detail a little bit more on PD 290 in a moment. So the sign location, if you aren't familiar with it, is at the northwest corner of the site at the intersection of Glazier Avenue on 147th Street West. PD 290 is one of the city's oldest zoning districts, perhaps one of the first—or most likely the first. It's actually significant in area and is in the northeast corner of Cedar Avenue and 42 and it goes all the way over to Galaxy Avenue with uh some of the bank property pieces there. Also includes the site uh sites of Applebee's, Buffalo Wild Wings, etc. Across from 147th, there is limited retail within this zone and the city has really stuck to keeping this as an office area within the community. There have been a number of uh applications and users that have sought to come into the area over the years and the city has really stuck to keeping our office orientation for this portion particularly as it relates to being next to our office facilities and the county office facilities as well. Specifically in this center, you'll notice there's PD 290 subzone 3. Staff worked with the applicant specifically to apply for a zoning amendment to this section as that would only apply to the six properties you notice there. The "six properties" is a bit of a misnomer; it's only three buildings within the area, so there are only essentially three users affected. Two of the users are owned by Wings—Wings Credit Union, sorry, the "Financial" comes to mind just how long they've had that—and then the second is the Commons One building, one of the oldest office facilities within the community. This is a photo of the existing sign. Uh, I'll get into a little bit more on this later, but one of the reasons why this is being changed is due to a rebranding by the company and secondarily because of some roadway realignments that are occurring for 147th with a roundabout. They will affect the area of this sign and therefore it is being seen as kind of an opportunity to uh update the sign and bring it with current branding. This is the proposed sign. Uh, the sign is 20 feet high and 80 feet—so the red box around the right graphic shows how our ordinance reads. The square foot needs to be measured that creates a box around the whole thing. If you were to be able to take the two items separately, it would be around 69 square feet. That was where staff didn't have as much of an issue, and neither did the Planning Commission, with the area calculation as simply by the uh way that our ordinance reads, it was going to calculate larger. For context, limited business and office zones allow 8-foot maximum height and either 40 feet for a single tenant or 60 feet for a multi-tenant building. I noted that there were some changes uh proposed to 147th. The realignment is going to be affected; it will affect uh the existing sign and the proposed sign. Uh, the reason we've included this graphic, which was created in conjunction with the property owner and our city engineer, was to show that a proposed sign can fit on the property uh after the realignment occurs. It will meet the 13-foot required setback um and to essentially find a final location for what that sign would be after that realignment occurs. I'm not going to go through all the details of this; it's included within your packet. Essentially what staff was attempting to do here was compile a table of our neighboring communities both in office and in retail zones and their sign heights and areas. One major piece of note that I do want to point out with the table is the retail zoning is not for highway retail. There are a number of communities surrounding us that have highway retail zones where those signs are significantly taller in size and area. That is due to the speed of the adjacent roadways. Uh, in the packet I did go through a little bit more on the detail and the sign principles of kind of going through when you're adjacent to high-speed roadways you need larger, bigger, taller signs so that users know how to interact with them and where to go. Um, if there are questions about the table, happy to answer them at the end. But uh for the moment, it this is meant to be more illustrative for the Council. The proposed amendment that is before you this evening is for a 20-foot high, 80-foot sign, which is what the applicant had sought. When the Planning Commission reviewed this at their uh public hearing on December 20th, they had stated some discomfort with the 20-foot height. Uh, they went uh specifically and made a motion for a 14-foot maximum height in 80 square feet. Uh, similar to the action the Council has this evening, our City Attorney had advised that they needed to act on that original application, have a denial, and then could make a motion on a further action. There were four of seven Planning Commissioners present and they voted unanimously to recommend denial and then unanimously to recommend the 14 feet as the maximum height. All were comfortable with the 80 feet. Um, I'm sorry, I do want to go back on one note with that. One of the reasons that they listed on that is they did not feel that the maximum height of 20 feet was in line with the pedestrian nature of the zone. Our highest signs in town are at 24 feet in height and uh at the same time, they did want to respect the campus that Wings has built within the community and therefore allow something larger than the average limited business zone since this did only affect that plan development. So this evening, uh, that concludes where I have prepared. I have other pieces of information if they—if the City Council would like to look at any of the graphics that the Planning Commission did. Believe the applicant is present with their own presentation as well. I do want to reiterate the Council has asked that the Council act on the application as submitted, and then if uh that passes, discussion is done. If the action were to be denied, then they could uh propose something else and the applicant uh would need to uh concur with that finding. With that, if there are any questions. [11:43] **Clint Hooppaw:** Thanks. Let's start with questions for Alex and then we'll move on to the applicant. Ruth? [11:46] **Ruth Grendahl:** Alex, were there any public comments? [11:48] **Alex (Staff/Planner):** Mayor Hooppaw, Councilmember Grendahl, there were no public comments. No public comments against. [11:51] **Clint Hooppaw:** Any other questions for Alex? If not, invite Tom forward and he can give his presentation. So would you mind stating your name for the record so Pam can record it, as if I don't know who you are but, uh... [12:05] **Tom Schanke:** Um, my name is Tom Schanke. I'm Vice President of Facilities and Administration for Wings Financial Credit Union. Uh, and thank you for uh hearing us tonight. I really didn't have a lot um from a presentation standpoint. Basically, there's two things I want to accomplish is is kind of give you a little history as to where—how we got to where we're at today uh relative to the 20-foot sign request that we're asking for and where we're looking to get to. So currently our—the sign that we're looking to get to, or uh that we are proposing, is an offshoot of our newest designs. This was a our newest design built in Maple Grove uh right in the heart of the city up there in uh 2018. This is Lakeville. This is the first time that we used the monument sign design; this was built in 2019. That sign is uh just over 25 feet. This is Northfield, Minnesota. We're in a Target outlot there. Again, I'm just basically showing you this is the design of the sign that we've been using in all of our newest locations. Northfield was built in 2020. This is Baxter, Minnesota—that a 40-foot tall pylon sign. Rochester, Minnesota, 40-foot tall pylon sign. Otsego, Minnesota, we changed out the sign—this is again a 25-foot sign. Thief River Falls, Minnesota, 20-foot. And then our newest sign at our 15025 Glazier mortgage building, which is uh within ordinance and I believe that's 8 feet tall. One of the reasons that we requested 20 feet, and it goes back to the the engineering of this location—once the new roundabout comes to a conclusion or starts to be built... I've been working with Brandon for almost three years now uh relative to this this project, adjusting our lot lines, how it's going to impact our parking lots uh and that sort of thing. And Brandon came back to us and said, "Hey, we got some bad news from the State of Minnesota. Roundabout has to get significantly bigger because the uh regulations changed," which means we're going to have to cut off a lot of that corner. And when they did that, Brandon and his first comments to me was we're probably going to lose most of that berm. So the berm that the sign is sitting on, which puts it at about four feet above grade, would go away. Given that and us wanting to have a good impact sign there, we said 20 feet would be what we would want to have. We put through forward our application for variance, didn't realize that the variance process was prohibited for us to get a variance through Planning Commission, came back with the zoning change to Planning Commission and basically we were under the impression that we could only ask for the 20 feet. Left the Planning Commission with the 14-foot and 80-square-foot um recommendation. We're still not sure what's going to happen with this berm. Um, right now I believe personally that if we were able to come away from here with the Council saying we're not going to approve 20 feet, we're going to approve—we would but—coming back and saying we'll approve 16 feet with the 80-foot sign, I think Wings would be more than happy with that. And that's really the gist of our presentation. [15:39] **Clint Hooppaw:** Great. Thanks, Tom. Any questions? Ruth, go ahead. [15:41] **Ruth Grendahl:** So, um, so Tom, there's going to be no advertising on it or anything? It's just kind of... [15:46] **Tom Schanke:** No, there will be there'll be an electronic reader board portion of the sign. So, I depends on how you define advertising—I mean, probably will have CD rates on there and loan rates and things like that from time to time would be my guess. [16:03] **Ruth Grendahl:** About what percentage of the sign is the reader board? [16:06] **Tom Schanke:** Um, I think it's about 50/50. Uh, I can go back, go right to it. This is the 16-foot sign uh shown on that berm and uh it's less than 50/50. So it's probably of the 80 square feet that's shown there, it's probably just looking at it right here, it's probably somewhere around 30. [16:23] **Ruth Grendahl:** Thank you. [16:24] **Clint Hooppaw:** Any other questions for Tom? Um, Councilmember Melander, go ahead. [16:25] **Tom Melander:** Clarification. Uh, Alex, you said there's only three buildings in this zone, and in the Wings zones, two of them, and it's a PD? [16:30] **Alex (Staff/Planner):** Mayor Hooppaw, Councilmember Melander, that is correct. Uh, the subzone 3 only has three properties. PD 290 is a larger zone uh plan development, but these—the reason why we worked with the applicant to purposely apply for amendment to just Subzone 3—would be to limit that impact so that it could uh emphasize that campus style. Because I know we have to be sensitive about setting a precedent if we do something different with signage here, that it could turn out to be somebody else on the other side of town could put up a sign. But this is just limited to these three parcels. So if we were accommodating to what Wings would like to have, we're not making some precedent that's going to bite us in the rear later? [17:11] **Alex (Staff/Planner):** A legal precedent? Certainly not, no, because of that plan development piece. Whether others may have that same ask because of that—I your guess is as good as mine on that. [17:23] **Tom Melander:** Okay. [17:48] **Chuck Goodwin:** Thank you, Mayor. Now my understanding is that you're looking for 20; the Planning Commission thought 14, but you just said you'd be very acceptable of a compromise at 16 feet. [17:56] **Tom Schanke:** Absolutely. Sound to—the 20 ask was based on that berm going away and being flat. [18:03] **Chuck Goodwin:** Well, it sounds like a good compromise to me. So how do we make this motion? [18:08] **Clint Hooppaw:** We got it. Let's—Councilmember Bergman has a question. We need to act on the motion. We need to take a motion on what's presented. Depending on that action—if that passes the 20, we're done. Yeah, if it fails, then we would go back and take a motion for a different number. [18:31] **John Bergman:** Thanks, Mayor. To Councilmember Melander's comment, I did have that same concern about a precedent being stated or said. Um, Alex and uh [Tim] Benetti um confirmed that no, this is all by itself. The other thing that's different from this and anything else that we have is—a, the building's really tall, I'll just use that as one example, is very tall—but the other thing I I take away from it is one thing I I think that's really cool about this is this corporation um made it a point to make it a campus. It's not one individual building and they put—there's three buildings on there—but it's it's it's done in a campus atmosphere rather than just one building. So I did have those concerns. Thank you. [19:30] **Clint Hooppaw:** Any other questions? If not, let's just move on to the action items, which is the... Alex, do you want to just pop that back up if you don't mind? Thank you. So the action is the one in front of us, just to paraphrase, which is to allow the installation of a freestanding ground sign with a maximum height of 20 feet in a total sign area not to exceed 80 square feet and uh that should also recommend waving the second reading. That's the motion we're looking for to either approve or deny. [20:10] **John Bergman:** Mayor, I'd make a recommendation um to deny and recommend waving the second reading. [20:14] **Ruth Grendahl:** Second. [20:17] **Clint Hooppaw:** The motion? Second. All right, so we have a motion from Councilmember Bergman and a second from Councilmember Grendahl to deny the the 20-foot sign as presented in front of us. Is that correct? All in favor? (Aye) Opposed? So that motion to deny carries. I'll abstain from that one. We would entertain a motion for a different height. Someone has a suggestion? [Chuck] did raise his hand. So Councilmember Goodwin, we'll go to you. [20:47] **Chuck Goodwin:** Well, I'd make a recommendation that um we change the 20 to 16. The gentleman seems to be be fine with that, so let's—that's fine. So is that a motion? Yes, that's a motion. Motion for for 16 feet and 80 feet, that's correct. And also waving the second reading. [21:02] **Clint Hooppaw:** Yes, is that the motion? [21:03] **Chuck Goodwin:** Mhm. [21:04] **Tom Melander:** I'll second the motion. [21:05] **Clint Hooppaw:** We have a—we have a second on that motion. Tom, would you mind coming back up? Because we want to make sure we have your agreement on on that um before we take action. You want something changed? [21:12] **Tom Schanke:** Yes, Wings is in agreement with that. Thank you, sir. [21:14] **Clint Hooppaw:** Thank you. Thank you. Does that light on anything else we cover it? I just want to make sure we get this right so we don't have to do it again and we don't hold something up here. [21:23] **Alex (Staff/Planner):** We're fine. We're good. [21:25] **Clint Hooppaw:** All right. So we have a a motion in front of us. Pam, do we document who first? Thank you. Motion in front of us. All in favor indicate by saying aye. (Aye) And opposed? So that carries for 16 feet, just to be clear. All right. And I'll abstain from that one. Thank you. Thanks, Tom. [21:49] **Tom Schanke:** Thank you, guys. [21:50] **Clint Hooppaw:** Thanks. All right, I'm going to jump us back to 5A. Uh, so we don't forget that one because wouldn't that be disappointing if uh we forgot other half Alex's work—which is to pass an ordinance amending chapter 154 of the city code regulating signs and this also would be recommending waving a second reading. This one will be a little bit more straightforward. [22:15] **Alex (Staff/Planner):** Uh, so the action requested this evening is pass an ordinance amending chapter 154 of the city ordinance and recommend waving the second reading. So this ordinance amendment was initiated by staff. There are essentially three parts to it. I'm going to introduce introduce each one individually uh by starting off with the current ordinance and then going into the proposed changes. The Planning Commission did review these ordinance changes even though sign ordinance amendments are not required to go before the Planning Commission, uh but as a standard practice, we bring them there. They were recommended unanimously. The first is our current ordinance has that signs above the first floor must be on buildings four stories or more. And those who are aware with the city of Apple Valley know that we have quite a few buildings that are two and three-story where staff has been able to uh interpret around that ordinance is when we have had the change out of signs—a replacement—we've allowed the sign permit to go through. The issue right now is that we are facing two different users—the former Eagle Valley Bank and Health Partners—that are coming forward that are greater than one story but not four stories. Looking back, uh you can debate the intent of this four-story piece at the time, but staff chose rather than having a single applicant come forward with this request—knowing that this uh is something that we should probably correct in our code and we had multiple users—to proactively move forward and change the ordinance. Working with the City Attorney, we've done uh two different things with this. The first is to adjust the sign height to the highest floor when above the first, so that will allow if the city were to have uh six stories, five stories, or three stories and two stories, it's always going to be the highest story that the signs must be on. The goal with this was to prevent having signs on multiple different stories, so the sign is required on that top story. Additionally, you can—we went from two signs uh because again for an unknown reason the ordinance only limited those buildings to two signs per building. With most other uh provisions in our sign ordinance on any single-story building, we would allow you to have up to four signs on the building, so we altered that. Uh, we did state explicitly: signs may not be placed on the same side of building, signs may not cover more more than 40% of the width of the building, and then to cover an issue with uh the entrance of the building, we also added in a provision where identification signs could be up to 8 square feet within 10 feet of the entrances, but no more than 4 foot above those entrances. This is to try to prevent people from placing a larger 8-foot sign slightly above the first story with this intent—uh, it is to allow users to know which doors they're supposed to be entering in these larger buildings, specifically those multi-tenant buildings. The second piece uh is we've long had a directional sign code that uh since my time here, we've had some concern over from particularly some of our industrial users. So our current code allows for directional signs on a site to be no more than four and no more than two square feet each. Uh, the issue has come in with some of our most recent industrial sites that they're using larger box trucks, they're using larger vehicles, and they can't see a two-foot sign. Additionally, for those sites like Scel that have completely screened-in areas, or Dix Valley Service that have completely screened-in areas where no one else can see the sign, we found that we needed to potentially change the ordinance to allow for some additional signage there where they are not intended for that offside view. The other small part to this while we were at it is there has been a court case that found that we have to have content neutrality, and directional signs specifically stated that they cannot bear any advertising information that's not content neutral, so we did remove that provision. So the new increases their sign size consistent with the other identification signs to 8 square feet—trying to keep consistent numbers between things. Uh, specifically uh does not limit the number of these directional signs when they are for the purpose of directing vehicular or pedestrian traffic and when they are for internal operations and cannot be seen. And then for the final part on the definitions, remove that content portion. The final piece is the really easy one. Uh, we've been going through a couple of different variances recently and if you look at section F, it has an A or a B and then immediately went into a 1 and a 2. This likely happened when we changed from the old blackbook to our current. Uh, is a typographical error, essentially. Very easy fix, but while we're in the sign ordinance, a good cleanup item to bring forward. So it switched to the 1 and the 2 versus the A and the B. With that, I stand for any questions. [27:26] **Clint Hooppaw:** Questions for Alex? You could have had 25 people look at that—they all would have missed the A and the B. So then I commend our City Attorney. All right, are there any questions for Alex? If not, we'll take a motion to a pass the ordinance amending chapter 154 of city code and waving the second reading. [27:46] **Chuck Goodwin:** So moved. [27:48] **Ruth Grendahl:** Second. [27:49] **Clint Hooppaw:** Motion from Councilmember Goodwin, a second from Councilmember Grendahl. All those in favor indicate by saying aye. (Aye) Opposed? That item passes. The next item is from Pam, and that is uh a less happy item, and that is to accept the resignation of a Planning Commissioner. [28:06] **Christina Scipioni (City Clerk):** Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. Planning Commissioner Keith Dickman notified the city of his resignation from the Planning Commission and staff suggests formal acceptance of Mr. Dickman's resignation at this time. This will create a vacancy um in the three-year term expiring March 1st, 2026. Council may wish to extend an invitation to individuals interested in serving on the Planning Commission to submit an application to the City Clerk by Friday, February 16th. For our listening audience who may be interested in volunteering to serve on the Planning Commission: the seven-member Planning Commission is a standing committee with the full power and responsibility to investigate issues related—relating to planning and land use on behalf of the City Council. The Planning Commission discusses and evaluates development and building proposals, conditional use permit applications, variance requests, proposed changes to the comprehensive plan or zoning map, and related planning issues. It conducts public hearings when necessary and votes on recommendations which are then sent to the City Council. The Planning Commission meets the first and third Wednesdays of the month beginning at 7 p.m. at the Municipal Center, and members must be uh residents of Apple Valley to serve on this committee. The application is on the city's website. If the City Council is ready to start the process for filling this vacancy, staff suggests the Council make a motion accepting Mr. Dickman's resignation from the Planning Commission, directing staff to post that vacancy, and in then inviting individuals interested in serving on the Planning Commission to submit an application to the City Clerk by February 16th. And I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. [29:56] **Clint Hooppaw:** Thanks. Are there any questions for Pam? We'll start with Councilmember Grendahl. [29:59] **Ruth Grendahl:** Thank you for—like you said earlier, contributions that Keith has made to this city are just um incredible. And I was disappointed to see this in our packet tonight. How many years did Keith serve? Do we know? 20? Roughly 20? [30:16] **Christina Scipioni (City Clerk):** Mr. Mayor, I believe the number I I I believe he mentioned was over 20 years, approximately. [30:21] **Ruth Grendahl:** Thank you, Keith. And I know absolutely need a motion to open it up for um new applicants. So moved. [30:30] **John Bergman:** Second. [30:31] **Clint Hooppaw:** So Councilmember Grendahl has a motion to uh accept the resignation and open up applications. Uh, do we have a second? Second from Councilmember Bergman. And Councilmember Melander had some comments if you want to feel free to do those before we take the vote. [30:46] **Tom Melander:** We uh we had a um an award ceremony of sorts when uh our dear departed Tim Burke uh finally resigned the Planning Commission uh a couple years back, and and Tim was another terrific member. I served with both of those gentlemen for quite some time on on planning, and uh Keith is a special kind of guy. He's he's got a—he's an executive position with a large company. He's traveling a lot. He's got a family. He's still found time to give 20 years of of thoughtful uh careful uh considered um service to the city, which is which is just terrific. And I like Keith a lot personally and he sure has done a great job for the city. Uh, I would suggest that at a minimum we do some sort of a of a thank you letter, certificate sort of thing for his service and and work out whether he can make it here or not, but to see that he gets that because he certainly... [31:47] **Clint Hooppaw:** Nice to recognize him in person if we can. Yep. Thank you, Tom. And thanks, Keith, if you're watching. Councilmember Goodwin? [31:55] **Chuck Goodwin:** Well, my comments are along the same lines as as Councilmember Grendahl and Councilmember Melander. 20 years. Wow. That's something. Yeah, if we could do something—some kind of a nice something. [32:10] **Clint Hooppaw:** Yeah, I forgot what we did for Mr. Burke. We had a nice certificate and I think we did a declaration, didn't we? [32:15] **Chuck Goodwin:** I don't recall, but we can—we can figure it out. You're really testing my memory. [32:20] **Tom Melander:** Some highfalutin language delivered by the Mayor himself. [32:23] **Clint Hooppaw:** Sure. There you go. There you go. Mayor and highfalutin language? Yeah, those don't go together very often. So, Councilmember Bergman? [32:32] **John Bergman:** Thanks, Mayor. Uh, the same same comments that everybody else has made up here. Keith uh did an outstanding job. Very level-headed, um very considerate, um to the point, um easy to understand. Um, when things were going a little a little astray, I was going to call him commissioner... um, Councilmember Melander um knew that he would—Keith would come through true and uh make it easy for everybody to understand and they'd come to a consensus some way or the other. So Keith, best of luck and uh continued success. [33:14] **Clint Hooppaw:** All right, we have a motion and a second. All in favor? (Aye) Opposed? That carries. And again, thank you Keith for the years of service and the years of great service at that. So you'll be missed. Um, next item is to adopt a resolution appointing an acting mayor for 2024. [33:30] **John Bergman:** I'll make a motion that uh council member uh Goodwin uh continues in that very, very valuable seat. [33:36] **Clint Hooppaw:** A motion from [Councilmember Bergman], a second from Councilmember Grendahl. Any objections? No objections? No objection. All right, Goodwin, will you accept—will you accept this before we take... [33:43] **Chuck Goodwin:** Well, I just want to know what the title is going to be. Is it going to be Mayor Pro Tem or Mayor Pretend? [33:49] **Clint Hooppaw:** You can call yourself whatever you like. Whatever you would like. We're going to call you Acting Mayor for the purpose of this resolution. You can name yourself anything you like from there on out. We will not call Linda and ask her what to call you, however. So um have a motion from Councilmember Bergman and a second from Councilmember Grendahl. All those in favor indicate by saying aye. (Aye) Opposed? That carries. Congratulations once again, Councilmember Goodwin. So, "Mayor Pretend." Staff updates. Tom, what do we have? [34:19] **Tom Lawell:** Mr. Mayor, just one tonight. Uh, we have a Youth Fishing Derby coming up uh sponsored by our Police Department, and I believe Deputy Chief Dalstrom is going to share some information on that to let the community know about this fun event. Thanks, Tom. [34:31] **Deputy Chief Dalstrom:** Mr. Mayor, Councilmembers, um just wanted to invite uh all the kids in the city and anybody else that you know that may be interested in coming out and fishing with uh the Police Department and a few partners that we've picked up along the way. Normally we're the fun police, but in this case we're just fun. Uh, so we're partnering with with the Parks Department, uh Joe's Sporting Goods, the Fire Department, and Minnesota DNR to put on a kids' ice fishing derby on Cobblestone Lake. It's going to be February 3rd from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. And we certainly invite any and all of you to come and uh put on your galoshes and have fun with us. Hopefully, we have enough ice and and the weather cooperates with us, but uh we've got a few fun things. We've got uh a fishing contest for the kids, so there'll be some prizes. Um, everybody that participates will uh have a chance to get some swag from the Police Department. And then um Fire has graciously offered to do a nice safety demonstration, so be good for uh folks that in attendance to learn how to rescue themselves should they find themselves in the unfortunate circumstance of being in the water. And then the Minnesota DNR is actually going to do a little bit of fish biology uh for the kids and talk about Cobblestone Lake and what—what lives there and uh kind of how that lake continues to survive and why it's there. So kind of a fun event. So thank you for a couple couple minutes to uh to advertise for us. [35:52] **Clint Hooppaw:** Great. Thank you. Thanks. Uh, Council, are there any uh communication items? None? All right, we'll move on to the calendar of upcoming events and our next regular City Council meeting is Thursday, January 25th at 7 p.m. And a reminder that the city offices are closed on Monday the 15th in observance of Martin Luther King day. Do we have a motion to approve the calendar? [36:25] **John Bergman:** Moved. [36:26] **Ruth Grendahl:** Second. [36:31] **Clint Hooppaw:** Motion from Councilmember Bergman, a second from Councilmember Grendahl. All those in favor indicate by saying aye. (Aye) Post? Calendar is approved. Next item is to convene and close session under the labor negotiations exception to the Open Meeting Law to discuss the AFSCME union negotiations. Do we have a motion to go into close session? [36:45] **Ruth Grendahl:** Moved. [36:46] **John Bergman:** Second. [36:51] **Clint Hooppaw:** Motion from Councilmember Grendahl, a second from Councilmember Bergman. All those in favor indicate by saying aye. (Aye) Opposed? That carries. We will reconvene across the hall in a few minutes and adjourn from there. [37:01] [Music]