the Tuesday April 2nd 2024 meeting of the Eden Prairie City Council is now called to order please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance i al to the flag of the United States of America for IT stand na indivisible andice all it's customary at the beginning of each meeting that I read an open Podium invitation to our residents open Podium is an opportunity for Eden per residents to address the city council on issues related to Eden per city government prior to each council meeting which typically occur the first and the third Tuesday of each month these open podiums occur between 6:30 and 6:55 here in the council chamber if you wish to speak at open Podium please do contact the city manager's office at 952 949-842-0774 office Mr Geto we have um a city certificate to talk about this evening we do mayor uh we're pretty excited about um some recognition um that the city is receiving um due to our um low salt design in Eden Prairie so I believe I actually I don't know exactly who I'm inviting come on up um I believe we have some Representatives here to um walk through um some of the recognition that we're receiving tonight thank you thank you well thank you mayor and councel uh my name is Connie foron I'm a low salt strategist with Bolton and bank and uh for the past about 30 years my passion is to be um understanding and finding ways to drive down the use of salt because salt or chloride pollution is one of the top pollutants of concern today in Minnesota so I am very familiar with Eden Prairie's uh maintenance department we've went through a lot of training together over the years they do a fabulous job and as I've been training winter maintenance people and plow drivers about 20,000 of them over the years they all trained me and what they told me it's not all my fault Connie you know what about that intersection what about that bridge what about that ramp and I thought ah they they're on to something I never knew what to do with it until my company was acquired by Bolton and mink a few years ago and I woke up to a living in a sea of a thousand Engineers planners and people that design all the things that are salted so I said how about if we design for better winter performance and they said tell us about it and we moved ahead with this initiative called low salt design first of its sort we spent about a year doing internal development of these ideas and then we were ready for some pilot cities and guess who raised their hand the city of Eden Prairie of course and so I've had the just the great pleasure of working with them this year um explaining our ideas looking at their problem sites um having many discussions about how we might do something different in the winter and it's so inspiring to me so I just want you to know you should be very proud of your city staff they showed up they brought their ideas they brought their challenges uh and you're moving ahead you're leading the nation right now in moving these IDE ideas ahead so thank you for the opportunity to work with you and your staff should be very proud of them and I'd like to present a certificate keep keep talking and I'll come down I'm going to read it to you okay uh this is um a l Salt Solutions leadership award it's for in recognition of the city of Eden Prairie for your leadership and exploring new approaches to Chloride reduction low salt design will improve winter safety and reduce the need for salt your Insight during this pilot program helps refine low salt design guidance that will benefit many so on behalf of Bolton and mink like to give this to the city may pass off in the middle to looks good good [Applause] color so mayor as you come back I was going to mention we do have multiple representatives from Bolton and M and then also a big part of this project is uh Lori hack who's our City Water Resource coordinator uh as well who's a big part of this project along with working with many other divisions in the city um but she's a big part of this I noticed in um last week's um snowstorm in preparation that the pre-s salting those um stripes in the road right um had been done across the cities so that um yeah that is it's pretty pretty cool I'm assuming there's data out there that shows that works I mean anecdotally it feels like it does so I'm assuming since we've adopted it in our own internal staff Robert know how well it works so do you um Robert off the top of your head it's okay if you don't have it do you have a a sense on the reduction percentage of salt that we're using based on these obviously this winter very little but on in a normal winner um do you have a sense on what we might be uh saving in salt usage well just anecdotally I can tell you that if you were to look at what the salt spread rates are on maybe a Mot roadway or a henpen county roadway they might be at 3 to 500 lbs of salt per Lane Mile and we generally try to stay around 100 to 150 so I mean if you spread that out over 540 miles in Eden Prairie I mean it adds up to tons of salt each year that you can reduce if you're just a little bit more proactive and it takes more effort it takes training it takes getting out before the storm um but it pays off at the end of the day from Financial standpoint environmental standpoint and just employee morale because they do such a good job I mean it pays off in in every way so that's great and in all fairness to the county I mean they need to be well maybe be pavement often in areas that maybe we can choose not to be but nonetheless um it's resulting in savings well not just in cost but also certainly in environmental impact so thank you so thank you for all the advice you've given um our great staff and you are correct we um we have the best staff and we are early adopters on on any new Innovative creative idea that we think could better serve our residents so nice to hear that confirmation back all right moving on we have um approval of agenda and other items of business business and just to add to that uh council member Naran has one council member report to add and then um I I think mine is already on there city manager performance review is already on there so just the addition of council member and Ryan anything else to add to the agenda if not is there a motion to approve the agenda move to approve the agenda is there second second all those in favor say I I oppos all right minutes we have the two meetings and if it's okay unless if you have questions please ask about either meeting but if not um if there's somebody that would make a motion to approve the workshop and the council meeting held back on March 12th let me ask first any any additions or Corrections or edits okay would somebody make the motion to approve both move to approve the following city council minutes Council Workshop held Tuesday March 12 2024 city council meeting held Tuesday March 12 2024 sir second second further discussion all those in favor say I I opposed all right consent calendar we have items a through n are there any items on the consent calendar you'd like to learn more about pull uh to question anything if not is there someone that would make a motion to approve items a through n I'll move for approval of items a through n on the consent calendar second any further discussion all those in favor say I I opposed all right moving then U Mr Geto we have two um fairly straightforward public hearings this evening we we do mayor thank you um so the first and we've had this recently and you heard a little bit about this at the workshop is a um City's support of pass through funding from the state of Minnesota Department of Employment and economic development deed um businesses in Eden Prairie can apply to deed for different um Grant programs in this particular uh grant program the Minnesota investment fund uh requires a city public hearing prior to the city passing a resolution supporting that particular grant program you may recall that another Corporation in Eden Prairie nve recently was before us with the similar request and uh when when you say that it's um somewhat housekeeping it is it isn't it's housekeeping due to the fact that obviously we would support um these dollars going into businesses and Eden Prairie to support their job growth employment growth and also any Renovations that they' be making to their uh properties but also it is it's an important thing to support our growing businesses in Eden Prairie you may have noticed that they also have um your support for an application for the job creation fund as well nve did the same thing El devron is asking the same thing as well but that doesn't require a public hearing and you approve that on the consent agenda so in this particular case it's $3.7 million of a grant that they're looking for to do Renovations and expansion um on their new office building again that office building El devron building you also approved as a land use um item on a previous agenda that came to the city council in the Golden Triangle um very close to the um light rail station that's in that area um I do not I do know that they're not representatives of alron here tonight but I know you're very familiar with their project with their operation so staff could answer any questions that you may have about the program but again it's it's state law that we need to hold a public hearing so anybody in the public um could comment on that application and then we ask that you adopt the resol resolu resolution supporting that just a quick question um so these Grant proposals come from the business come into the City and ask us then on their behalf to submit so if that's accurate yeah or but then but just a quick followup to that um do we any business that came to us um we would just pass through and and submit and hope to get the grant um are there U reasons that we would not want to submit 27 of these in a year I I guess I'm just curious about the process that's a good question mayor I think we're approached typically from the company we're we're not necessarily filling out the application we're providing a resolution of support and I know we've done this probably in the last 12 years maybe 10 times and there hasn't been a single reason we would not support that but but we do um have to you know council is that last line of your decision so there could be a situation where you don't but there hasn't been one great that's good good to hear yes question one question so this fund is only used for uh development of buildings or also used for like hiring employees so this particular one council member Nan the Minnesota investment fund I believe is only for Capital um Renovations or improvements to your building so so this fund cannot be used for hiring five people or 10 people in a company that's correct but but I believe that the application that was on the consent agenda for job creation that one can I see thank you sir so Council you can ask questions after we hold the public hearing if you wish or now um otherwise I'll open it up so this is a public hearing if there's anyone in the audience wishing to address the Council on this resolution tion supporting this application please come forward seeing none council do you want to go ahead then uh close the public hearing and adopt it we can still discuss it if you wish move to close the public hearing and adopt supporting application to the Minnesota investment fund by the city of Eden Prairie on behalf of Eden Prairie based company Al Deon is there a second second is there any further discussion all those in favor say I I opposed all right Mr Geo second resolution thank you mayor and actually this is related to Al Deon as well uh but it applies to many of your development projects we following approval in many cases due to the site and the infastructure improvements that are made we need to vacate um older drainage and utility easements and then have newer easements that may come at a later date so with that same elevon project um you are requesting to vacate part of a drainage engine utility easement as part of that project any questions before I hold and open up the public hearing okay this is a public hearing anyone wishing to address the council this evening on this resolution vacating these uh easements please come forward see none Council if someone want to close the public hearing and go ahead and make the motion M to close the public hearing and adopt the resolution vacating part of the drainage and utility Eastman lying over under across lot one block to Liberty Plaza sir second second although any further discussion all those in favor say I I post all right when I taught sixth grade prepositions that would have been a great sentence over under and across all right payment remember the rabbit runs blank the okay anyway all the good old days all right uh payment of claims um Council any items uh again these are like our expenditures in the old days the checks that were cut but any um items of the multi page list that you wish to question if not is there a motion to approve payment of claims I moove approval of payment of claims as submitted is there second second this requires a roll call vote council member fryberg hi council member Nan I council member Nelson I council member Tumi I mayor case I all right we have one report of council member before my report um council member and Ryan thank you mayor and council members um I want to take this opportunity to uh wish happy birthday to our mayor he was he was the birthday yesterday day late in a dollar or short no your birday yesterday and I really tried to convince our city manager to change our city council meeting to yesterday but he said no April fools yeah so so I think we all want to say happy birthday appreciate that let's not sing though and and and and let's not sing because I'm not a good singer and and secondly also many of you know that mayor case just announced his retirement yesterday as well not from mayor not from mayor yeah that's right he's going to be here for a while um so we also want to say congratulations and wish you a great retirement and we expect you to work lot more house as a mayor I appreciate that very much um I did choose April 1 because it was my birthday and I wanted to work till a certain age um I chose that date to retire from United Health Group so it's been a good run many of you know I had 33 in a third years in the public school system and then 11 years at United Health Group and two years prior to that out of college in a church setting but anyway that's been my 47 year run so it's been um it's been a good one so far I hope to have a few more years left here happy birthday thank you so much appreciate that very much all right um I'm going to um toss the ball here uh over to our attorney um many of you know that um this this in a moment I'm just giving you a heads up many um people residents of our city know that uh we are a statutory Plan B City what that means is we take our basically Charter or our um Constitution from the state of Minnesota it was actually created in 1858 for all cities if cities wish to deviate from that they can choose to hold a charter convention basically um and and write their own uh rules and they can have numbers of people on a council they can have Wards they have all kinds of things we're not that we are statutory Plan B which means we have a city manager that runs the city uh we as a council set the policies and procedures and kind of the philosophy for governor governance and then we set the budget and then we direct um our city manager to go and do the work that we direct him to do um in this case he'll hire the 300 full-time employees and 700 part-time seasonal something around a thousand and he does um a truly phenomenal job but uh once a year we an ually review him and then we set his salary and we backdate it to January 1st this is really common practice across cities across the state of Minnesota particularly statutory Plan B cities of which we do our compare ourselves to quite a bit um and it's the cities that all of you recognize the plymouths and edas and minitonas and Bloomington and wood berries it's there's a group I don't even know probably 30 40 50 in that type of statutory Plan B type setting so we did that at the last meeting because it's an employee uh relationship meeting that's a closed session we're allowed to close our session to the public only for two reasons one is legal conversations and the second is employee conversations of which we have one employee that's Mr Geto um so we did that at the last meeting um and I'm going to give it over for a moment here and then I'll take it back I'll give it to our attorney who will talk about kind of why we have done this process like we have sure thank you Mr Mayor uh you haven't left me a whole lot more to explain you did a very good job Sor um as you know all as a default all of the council's meeting must be open to the public under Minnesota's open meeting law like you said one of the reasons we can close a meeting is to evaluate the performance of an employee who's subject to your Authority um and so like you said uh we did that at the last meeting uh we held a closed session where you evaluated Mr Geo's performance and said his salary um the law requires that at the next open council meeting that you give a summary of the evaluation um at the open meeting and so that's what this agenda item is intended to do great so Council I I intend to read the summary and then um we can either make the motion on his salary and or or whatever you want to do uh give you an opportunity to share thoughts if you wish you nobody has to um often council members do say a few words maybe about how we feel about our city manager so I'm just giving you a heads up on that but um I will read the summary of our closed session from our last meeting so the title summary of closed session held March 12th 2024 the city manager's contract provides for an annual performance review by the city council in conjunction with the salary review at its meeting on March 12th 2024 the city council held a closed session to eval valate the performance of the city manager for the prior year in the Clos session Mr Geto summarized some of the city's accomplishments in 2023 under his leadership including success with fiscal and budget management that has preserved the city's triaa Bond rating allowed for a very modest tax levy increase relative to other cities while maintaining high city service levels he highlighted achievements in affordable housing sustainability enhanced Community engagement and successful community events he also highlighted staff's efforts in exploring additional state and federal funding for City projects Mr Geto also discussed upcoming goals for 2024 including City projects and continuing to enhance and expand community events and engagement the council then considered and discussed Mr Geo's performance giving him overwhelmingly positive reviews each member of the council praised Mr Geo's excellent performance they stated that he is a great communicator he provides valuable mentor ship they commented on Mr gel's fiscal management the outstanding loyal staff that he has assembled and the positive work environment the city employees enjoy under his leadership they also commended his ability to work with a bro broad range of community members and businesses in the city they encouraged him to continue efforts to increase diversity in City hiring and to explore additional technology that could be implemented to enhance citizen engagement the council then discussed Mr Geo's salary in light of his EXC performance review the council determined to increase Mr Geo's salary up to $230,000 and to provide $2,000 in employee health insurance premiums and PTO contributions or deferred compensation um Council um why don't we make the motion since I've already worded what's in here and then I'll give you an opportunity if you wish to to add a couple thoughts so is there somebody that would U Move the requested action move to approve an increase in the city manager's salary for 2024 to $230,000 and provide an additional 20,000 in employee health insurance premiums and PTO contributions and deferred compensation or deferred compensation um that's okay just want to be clear because yeah that or might matter in that case um all right um is there a second any further discussion just on the motion all those in favor say I I opposed all right um Council anyone wish to add additional words um regarding um Mr Geo's uh summary annual summary of his annual performance I'll go um unless Lisa want to go sure I'll go first you want me to go first yeah oh well just that everything I think obviously we really enjoy working with you and because you're your your because of your expertise your your willingness to always help and your patience I appreciate that especially because I'm the newest one here and sometimes there's you know I know you probably shake your head at the questions I ask but oh well so um but yeah I just really enjoy working with you and I know that all of us do so thank you Miss council member and Ryan um Rick you know when we go to the City Council meetings outside and I see how people watch you respect you and I hear how great you are and you are truly I mean it make us feel good when other people say other city managers say wow you have an awesome City and you're awesome city manager it's really awesome additionally some other thing mayor K said I just want to repeat you know your reputation is very good um you you you performance is awesome um you know I always you know I always ask are we the one of the lowest tax rate cities and you maintain that to be third or fourth among meanwhile you keeping very high performance of the city um the maintenance of AAA Bond rating mayor was saying uh Great Park system you manage all these people such a way to give us in a awesome city to live in and uh we're lucky to have you and I think you certainly uh deserve the salary and and reputation and all these things so thank you so much and like Lisa said helping me as well um to do my job better because you do help me a lot and thank you and uh appreciate it and I hope you like your uh race please don't leave council member Nelson anything you don't have to but you may yeah no I think we all probably have a couple kind words um Rick you do do an excellent job managing the city and the whole Community much less us greatly appreciates the facts that our city has some of the lowest taxes with some of the highest Services year after year for everyone and there's no one that really doesn't touch having that available to them as a community member and so I'd greatly like to say thank you and we do appreciate it go ahead House member in government I found through the years I've sat on the council there's two type of people there's bureaucrats and then there's leaders um when I look at Rick and work with Rick Rick's a rare combination of three key elements one is his knowledge of the many years he's done this one is his leadership ability and one's his amazing communication skills which I think is sets him apart from others that I know in his position that I've met when you put these together there's no question about it that Rick is a strong leader thank you yes I agree with all that and well said um I'll just uh add that we in Eden Prairie are I don't I don't even know if I was going to say arguably I don't even think it's arguable we're a top five City in the state of Minnesota if not number one or number two in so many categories uh I know PG's always wanting to be number one in everything I think we might be but I I'll I'll just say for right now we're top five in almost everything um we also in you know in terms of reputation in terms of people wanting to live here in terms of our quality of life in terms of our survey results we truly are recognized by our residents as that top five top three number one and in that sense we need to be compensating a leader of our Community who is also recognized as being one of the top two three five number one maybe I think but um city managers in the state of Minnesota so we need to compensate in that range that that was what we talked about I think as a council um you don't you don't pay your leader 27th you know most salary in the state when we're number one in everything you we want to keep him here but we also want to compensate him thoroughly so uh Rick you um everyone said it you're amazingly competent I love the fact that you are so relationship based and relationship capabilities as a strength of yours um so we're all um pleased um that you're here I hope you stay a long time um I've super enjoyed working with you I hope I get that opportunity for the few more years to come at least in my term hopefully you'll be there longer than I but all right um anything Mr Geto you want to add uh just briefly uh mayor and council members it's uh I remember well obviously being in this profession I knew when I interviewed for this job I interviewed live you know at a televised council meeting so you have to deal with that and the fact that your review is live on TV as well but um but just the only comment I want to make being the the face of the uh employees of the city it's the employees here that make this such an excellent community and City to work and you mentioned earlier the the 300 uh full-time and and 700 part-time um those are the people that make Eden Prairie the great place to live and work and dream uh being the person that's on the day representing them to the council is something I appreciate doing but um it's a testament to their work simple as that so that's the kind of statement that a really strong leader makes so I I appreciate that and you are right it's our amazing employees that being said we all know in organizations like this that that top leader sets the tone set the philosophy set the whole expectations and so you um you've been here now 13 years I think um that's a that's a lot of time to draw people in other words this organization reflects you now and so if it was not a good organization if we were having troubles if we were having complaints from residents all the time that would reflect you but it's exactly the opposite we get rave reviews of our uh staff and we have I think the best police and fire departments in the state of Minnesota I think we get recognized for that and we have the best maintenance we have the best Road snow removal group in the whole state we we just have phenomenal staff and I yes you lead that and it's their you know they deserve the credit but so do you because you you assembled that group so um we're and you make us um you know our we're citizen government um we get you know we we get the complaints if there are complaints but we get the praise if there's praise we try to throw it back onto you all too because it's you that make us uh look good and and really help us do our job better so we hope that we can support you um as well as we can as well the whole support all of our thousand staff all right Council anything else all right I believe we have come to the end of our meeting is there anything else to come before the meeting this evening Mr Geto or councel if not is there a motion to adjourn tonight's city council meeting make a motion oops go ahead and move to adjourn the city council meeting tonight council member would you second it second all those in favor say I I oppose this meeting is adjourned