This transcript features the Lake Elmo City Council Workshop from April 14th, 2026. As Mayor Cadenhead was absent, Council Member Jeff Holtz presided as Acting Mayor. [6:31] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** 6:31. It is Tuesday, April 14th, 2026. This is the meeting of the city council workshop for the city of Lake Elmo. We are now in order. First item on the agenda. As Mayor Cadenhead is not here to celebrate his birthday with us, you can all sing in your heads happy birthday to him later. But broadband franchise discussion. Mr. Michael Bradley. [6:32] **Mary Klene:** Oh, I'm not Mike Bradley. I'm Mary Klene, the production and content manager for Suburban Community Channels. Um, I have been with SEC for as long as we've been using beta tapes. And for those of you who don't know what Beta Tapes are, it means I've been with the organization for a very long time. Um, but the reason that I've invested so much of my career into community television is my steadfast belief in it. It is a unique gem unlike any other medium. And during my time at SEC, I have seen Lake Elmo's growth just explode. And all along the way, we've served as a partner to keep you connected to your community. I know some of you in this room, but those of you who do not know me or know what we do, I'm going to show a brief video and then I'm going to touch on some of the points. SEC or the Ramsey Washington Suburban Cable Commission is part of a joint powers agreement with nine member cities. Obviously, they're listed here, Lake Elmo included. We are a small but committed staff. We have just three full-time employees, me being one of them. And we rely primarily on two part-time employees, our production and technology specialist. We also have an AVIT consultant and we use cable casters and freelancers. Our master control manages the cablecast system that brings your meetings to your residents. We have the cablecaster that's here in the chamber. That cablecaster works with—that's Kenny there waving—that cablecaster works with a person who's always on duty during live meetings at SEC to make sure that there's a signal, to make sure that the live stream is going, and to make sure that it's recorded. SEC hires and schedules the cable casters. We provide technical support for your chamber. So, if something goes wrong in the control room or here in the chamber, we help provide troubleshooting for those issues. We manage it. We manage your video on demand and channel playback. As I showed in the video, Lake Elmo, we facilitate about 58 meetings a year, which is 80 hours of content. And overall for our nine member cities, we usually cover just under 250 meetings. The cable commission provides expertise and decades of expertise in administration of cable franchising, decades of experience managing public rights of way. We act to ensure equitable rates and customer service. So here's an example. Just last week, it was after hours and a gentleman was knocking on our office door and I went to speak with him and it was a Comcast customer who was frustrated because his internet, cable, and telephone services had gone down. Well, I had just learned shortly before that inadvertently a fiber was cut. So, I was able to explain to him what happened, what steps were being taken to restore his services. And you know, sometimes people just like a face to talk to or a person. Now, typically customers will call our business manager, Cindy Arco, but people do show up at the commission from time to time. When fibers get inadvertently cut, we also help restore the connections to our city halls. We also develop and promote award-winning content and we have worked for decades with Mike Bradley. [6:40] **Michael Bradley:** That's the best one. [6:40] **Mary Klene:** Indeed. SEC also provides coverage of your community events. So, congratulations. Last year, you had your centennial celebration. We produced a promotional video ahead of that celebration. We also covered the event. We covered light up Lake Elmo. We cover your community meetings. So, your water information meetings, crime prevention, we cover those. He's not here tonight, but Mayor Cadenhead and I—several years back we did a profile. It rained the entire time, but it did not dampen the experience because it was so much fun getting to know him and getting to know his perspective of the city. People love to know their local officials and this is a way for them to get to know city officials they might not otherwise. Uh, we do business features. So during COVID, I reached out to Lake Elmo's business community. How can we help you? We did several stories on businesses who shared their unique challenges, how the community could help and how they were helping. We produced candidate forums again, to promote civic engagement and keep your residents informed. We also produce recruitment videos for city departments and city services. And as I mentioned in the video, much of this is award-winning content. The commission is funded through 5% cable franchise fees, 2.75 PEG fees, but people are consuming their content differently. We've seen a 43% decrease in revenue, and we simply need to modernize our funding model. I hope to continue bringing Lake Elmo and all our member cities all these services. You continue to grow. We want to grow with you. And I just hope that we keep it not only local, but hyper local. And Mike Bradley is gonna—I'm gonna let him speak here. But I do love to hear feedback. Good constructive criticism. If you have story ideas, if you want us to schedule something, please. I love to hear from people. I put some business cards back there, but please reach out. This is how you can see our content and of course on your city channel as well. So, thank you again for your time tonight. [6:45] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Thank you. Any questions for Mary? [6:45] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** We'll save them. Thank you, Miss Klene and Mr. Bradley. [6:45] **Michael Bradley:** All right. Well, good evening everybody. Um, thanks for having me back. You might recall I was here a couple of months ago to talk about broadband franchising. Um, I did bring a few slides just to give you a little bit more information on that and thank you for that. I think Mary did a nice job really at the end there, especially of talking about what's happening in the franchising world when it comes to franchise fees generated by the operators using your public right of way. And with cable television, they're obviously going down and going down significantly. When I saw 43%, you know, that's a significant drop in what used to be a fairly static revenue source for the city and for the commission and SEC-TV. I want to talk now about, you know, when we talk about the future of franchising for local governments, in my view, the future of franchising really is in broadband. And it's really easy to see when we talk to our kids or maybe for some of us grandchildren. When we talk to them about what they want to see, they're not interested in what's on cable television necessarily anymore, right? What do they want? They want to know what the internet situation is. What's the Wi-Fi? What's the Wi-Fi password? That's the future. I think there's no question about that. [6:48] **Council Member Nick Dragisich:** No commercials on the internet. [6:48] **Michael Bradley:** Right! Oh, I—with my kids, they have zero tolerance for commercials of any kind, whether it's on the radio—or there's no such thing as a radio anymore either for them, it's all Spotify or whatever. And same thing with television. It's funny. It's funny for those of us that can remember—I can still remember commercial slogans and jingles and all that kind of stuff, but yeah, kids don't don't want that. Um, but anyway, I did want to share with you what we did recently in South Washington County as far as the first broadband franchise in the state. Wanted to point out just a few benefits. As you can see, there's actually two slides on benefits because there's so many benefits from broadband franchising. I'm just going to mention just a handful of them if that's all right with you. The first is making sure that everyone in your city has equal access to the same quality of service of broadband. So when you franchise a company, you're going to make sure that they provide the same quality of service across the entire footprint. There's not little spots of good, bad, and real bad. Okay. The other one is the buildout of the city. Requiring a reasonable buildout of your city over a period of time. So, in in the case of South Washington County, your neighboring commission, they negotiate a five-year buildout by the broadband company. They also negotiated some public benefits. So, they negotiated internet service for local government buildings as well as some dark fiber connections. What is dark fiber? Dark fiber is fiber that's not lit, meaning it's up to the city to get service over that wire. So, it's a connection without the internet service. [6:52] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** And would that be like in future development areas? Is that where they— [6:52] **Michael Bradley:** No, it was for actually it was for the city itself. [6:52] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Oh, okay. [6:52] **Michael Bradley:** So, I don't recall the type of building. Let's say it's a public works building. Okay, we're building a new public works building on the outskirts of town. We want that building served. It's not presently served with anything yet. And so we have this agreement that that line is going to be constructed and then that can connect into the city network once it's done. [6:53] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Does that make sense? [6:53] **Michael Bradley:** Yeah, it does. Yeah. Thank you. Good. Some of the other things is we negotiated customer service provisions. Now, Mary just was telling you about how she helps residents get relief when they can't get answers that they need from the operator and in that case the cable television operator because they have a cable television franchise. But now if you have a broadband company here and you have a neighbor who can't get through on a billing issue or there's a connectivity issue, where do they call besides the, you know, the 800 stand in line number? Who do they call then? There's really nobody to call. There's nobody. So, the state doesn't handle it, right? The FCC doesn't handle it. Who handles it? If you have a franchise, you handle it—or Mary handles it for you actually. And that's part of the benefit of being in the commission. So, it's important to have those customer service provisions. How quickly are people going to get service delivered to them? How quickly are issues going to be resolved? Those types of things. [6:55] **Council Member Nick Kragness:** Can you say more on that? When you say who handles it, we handle it. In other words, each city then uses its staff because it has the franchise and the wires are in a right of way that under contracts. Therefore, the city is— [6:55] **Michael Bradley:** Yeah. The local franchising authority handles it. That's in your case, that's your commission. They handle the complaints from the entire area for their nine cities. [6:56] **Council Member Nick Kragness:** And then does the franchise agreement then call out who repairs? Like which staff are responsible for going out and making that repair? Because— [6:56] **Michael Bradley:** Well, it doesn't get into that kind of detail, but it does require the franchisee to provide information to the city and the commission on who we can contact to make sure that we get relief. So we have a local person that we can contact because potentially it could be a third party, it could be a crew that specializes in that but it's not Comcast. It's not ex-company that— [6:56] **Michael Bradley:** Right. Well, it'll be somebody through the franchised company. [6:56] **Council Member Nick Kragness:** Okay. Thank you. [6:56] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Can I just jump off that real quick, too? So, if more cities end up doing this and franchising and then there are more customer service calls for the SEC, does the SEC envision them having to expand workforce to take on more of this customer service or do you think the volume from previous experiences where you're handling customer service that the volume actually isn't going to increase that much? [6:57] **Mary Klene:** I was going to say, you know, it's an unknown. But I mean if it got to the point where it required more then we have to invest, you know. [6:57] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Yeah. [6:57] **Mary Klene:** And because we do the customer service currently—do you get a lot of calls or are they usually able to handle it at the company level before having to figure out "Okay I'm not getting the answer I need here. I need to talk to my cable commission."? [6:58] **Mary Klene:** Yeah. Usually we're able to manage it or at least point them in the right direction. [6:58] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Miss Klene, can you go to the microphone? [6:58] **Mary Klene:** Sorry. I'm sorry. The cable commission would like to hear your voice. Yes. Um, so typically we are able to handle the volume and if we can't handle the issue ourselves, we can point them in the right direction. Currently, it's been a manageable scenario thus far, but you know, if it required more, then we'd have to look into more, but it's kind of like I said, an unknown variable right now. [7:00] **Michael Bradley:** If we're getting inundated with calls, that's telling us there's a larger problem. Right. Okay. And we're able to deal with those larger problems too through franchising because we have penalty provisions. [7:00] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** And do—I mean does that have pretty good teeth too where it can get them to move? [7:00] **Michael Bradley:** Oh yeah. A franchisee does not want a notice of franchise violation. [7:00] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Okay. [7:00] **Michael Bradley:** Yeah. And that's worked too over the years with cable television. So with the cable television franchises, you know, we're not doing it all the time. Sure. But we have done it over the years and—and that brings the issue to the forefront and the issues get resolved. [7:01] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Yeah. I suppose just knowing that that option is there, they're trying to avoid it obviously. [7:01] **Michael Bradley:** They for sure want to avoid it. Um and actually that was the last benefit on this slide was the liquidated damages. That's the penalty provision, but wasn't one of the ones I was going to talk about. But the customer service is important. I think the senior and disabled person discount is a really nice benefit for your residents. So those people that are seniors or disabled will get up to 10%—or no less, excuse me, no less than 10% discount on their services. Um so there's a lot of benefits to franchising. And you know, and just to kind of remind you what a franchise is, a franchise is a really unique document. It's an ordinance and it's a contract. Um, it allows the company the privilege to do business in your city and to occupy your right of way, you know, permanently, okay? At least while they're franchised. Um, and allows them to provide services to the residents. And in return they pay—well actually on that last slide there was another one that I was supposed to go over. It was the consideration and the consideration that we negotiated was a 5% franchise fee. 5% franchise fee is the same that the current cable television operator pays. So that is another significant benefit to the city and to your—to your commission. Um, and when you compare franchising to permitting, there really isn't—there's just no question that franchising is better than permitting. And franchising, by the way, does not eliminate permitting. Okay? It's an addition to permitting. So, you'll be continuing to do the permitting, but you'll have this overriding document that has these other benefits for your residents and for your city. [7:05] **Council Member Nick Kragness:** Am I correct to presume—because it's not just city right of way. We have residents where the driveways and access is on a county right of way. We do have some residents where their access is actually on a state highway. So, it it would still be the city franchise, but it applies to all government right of ways? [7:05] **Michael Bradley:** It's to your local government right of way. If they need additional authority from the state or county, they'll have to get that. And we'll still do the permitting though because the permitting is in our city. And that doesn't change the consideration that's due. The consideration that is due is franchise fees on all revenue from broadband services. [7:06] **Council Member Nick Kragness:** I guess the example I'm thinking of—and I know we have residents that don't have broadband that are on city streets. What I don't know is as an example say on the gun range on 10th street for those residents who are on the south side they're on a county road if they have broadband. I don't know if the residents along Highway 36—there's a couple driveways there. I don't know if they have broadband, but that's where the question— [7:06] **Michael Bradley:** Yeah. you know, and that's something, when we start doing the franchising, that's when we can really figure out what are the needs that we want to address and we we know what the kind of the big ones are. But these other ones where you're drilling down to specific neighborhoods, it's a perfect time to talk about that with the franchisee, you know, and say, "Okay, what about this area?" And we, you know, this is an important area that needs to be addressed, you know, hypothetically speaking, as far as what we're talking about here. [7:07] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** I was just going to ask when you mentioned that they would have to figure out the permitting then if it was a state or or county level easement, they're—construction, they figure it out? [7:07] **Michael Bradley:** Right. [7:07] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** And "they" being Intrepid or the franchisee? [7:07] **Michael Bradley:** The franchisee. Correct. Not your public works department. [7:07] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Got it. Thank you. [7:08] **Michael Bradley:** Um why are we talking about broadband franchising now? Um and really I think I went over this with you before, but there was a significant case that came down called Ohio Telecom versus FCC. And that's where the Court of Appeals ruled that broadband is an information service, not a telecommunication service. And when that decision came down, we internally we were looking at well, you know, if broadband isn't a telecommunication service, and we know it's not a cable television service, and in federal law, there's kind of three buckets where these services fall. It's information service, it's telecommunications, or cable television. So, we know it's not cable television, we know it's not telecommunications. The court ruled that it's in this bucket called information services. But in state law, we don't have a bucket for information services. We have a bucket for telecommunications. And if it's a telecommunications service, then we're prohibited from franchising the company. Okay. We still can permit but can't franchise. If it's a cable communication system, which in Minnesota law is defined broader than a cable television system, then if you find that a broadband system is a cable communication system, then we as cities are required to franchise. Okay? And so that's really where our choices are under state law right now. Telecommunications or cable communication system. And one you can't franchise, the other one you can. One there's no benefits really to your residents other than your permitting. The other one there's lots and that's your choice as a city on where to fall. So we did this reassessment. In our view cities have a very good argument that broadband systems are cable communication systems. We know that there's solid case law in the eighth circuit probably better case law than anywhere else in the country frankly that broadband is an information service and that the edge services provided over the system are also broadband information services. What I mean by that is a lot of these companies will offer broadband internet access but they'll also offer a product called voice over internet protocol (VOIP) service and under precedent in the eighth circuit those services like VOIP are also information services they're not telecommunication services and it gets a little bit confusing right because sometimes it's voice and you think phone you think telephone. Um that's not the way the cases hold in this area. [7:12] **Council Member Nick Dragisich:** Yeah, Mike, if these are not telecommunication systems but information systems, is a franchise fee limited to 5%? [7:12] **Michael Bradley:** It's not. It's a great question. Yeah, the franchise fee limitation for cable television services is in federal law and it's in that bucket that I call title six and there is an expressed preemption of local governments. We can't charge more than 5% franchise fee. Um here with in the broadband system, cable communication system, title one, um there's almost no regulations affecting broadband systems and there's no cap. What we did in Woodbury and South Washington County is we just did a balancing of sorts where we thought, okay, maybe we could ask for more than 5%. But it seemed to us to make sense that knowing that this was also going to be passed through to residents that we charge basically the same franchise fee even though it's on different services broadband versus cable television—that it made some sense to go with 5%. [7:14] **Council Member Nick Dragisich:** Yeah. And I wasn't suggesting more than five. I just I was thinking I remember five being a telecommunications act but I didn't think it applied in this case. [7:14] **Michael Bradley:** Yep. No, that's—you got to listen to Nick. He's he has a lot of experience in this area. [7:14] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Do you know—do you recall when that process was happening at the city level when they were dealing with the fees that are collected from that? Were they making decisions to say, "Hey, we need to set some of this money aside because when they are digging, we're now going to be responsible for moving lines because the franchise agreement says certain duties we have. So, we're going to start to build up money for that as a city." [7:15] **Michael Bradley:** Yes. As I recall, we had that conversation. Council member J [Holtz], do you recall that? Usually in a franchise agreement, they're responsible for moving the lines if you have a public improvement or some other need for them to relocate their line. [7:15] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** So, I had my memory was completely the opposite. Okay, solid. [7:15] **Michael Bradley:** Yeah. they're they're generally responsible—the provider will be responsible for those costs. [7:15] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** I take back my question. [7:15] **Michael Bradley:** It's a good question. What other questions do you have? [7:16] **Council Member Jeff Holtz:** And did you say Woodbury was kind of the kickoff city for testing this out—and how's that been going? Any roadblocks that were unforeseen? [7:16] **Michael Bradley:** Uh, none so far really. Uh, we just did an amendment to that franchise, but um, none of that changed what I just shared with you as far as the first broadband franchise. Um, I understand construction is on its way and um, I haven't heard if there's service being lit up yet, but it's moving forward. [7:16] **Council Member Nick Dragisich:** And how does—and now this is a might be a dumb question, but how does—because this is fiber internet we're talking about, correct? So, how does that work to get to people's houses? Does the fiber go into the house or is there just a main line and you have a router in your house or how does that work? [7:17] **Michael Bradley:** Yeah that that's kind of a fun question really. Um, it it will work on the outside. Do you have a house? Yeah. So, on the outside of your house, there's a box, right? Um, might be by your garage or somewhere like that. And that's where the phone line comes in. There'll be a box for that. There'll be another box for where the cable line comes in. Maybe on the other side of the house, there'll be a place where the electricity and gas comes in. Um, it'll be similar to that. The cable line or the fiber will be delivered right to your house and there'll be a demark place at your house. [7:18] **Council Member Nick Dragisich:** Got it. Okay. [7:18] **Council Member Jeff Holtz:** So it was discussed and it was mentioned, you know, 43% drop in revenue. Miss Klene, for the commission—is it—so in the case when Sawashko did this, did they then put in the franchise agreements how the revenue is then distributed based upon here's a percent that's going to their cable commission as a substitute for revenue stream or or how—how is this solving then the the revenue stream decrease that you were mentioning? [7:19] **Michael Bradley:** Well, I can speak to that. Um the franchise fees in that area, all the franchise fees go to the commission and then they are returned in part to the the member cities and it's done through the budgeting process. I think it's also maybe done through their joint powers agreement as well. Um, but it it will be an issue that will need to be, you know, continue to be looked at as we enter in kind of to this new generation of franchises. [7:19] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Are other members of the SEC looking or considering or discussing this? [7:20] **Michael Bradley:** You know, I've spoken to Oakdale. Um I I think I'll be going back to Oakdale sometime soon about that. Um, you were quick enough to get me to come back a little bit earlier than they did. Um, and I'm not sure where the others are. White Bear is, I think, in the thinking about its stage right now. I can tell you that there's there's about 20 cities now that have said that they're moving forward with franchising and have started notifying the broadband providers. [7:20] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** So, not just considering doing— [7:20] **Michael Bradley:** Not just considering doing—Yeah, they are doing it. And you know, a reasonable question then is to ask well how are the broadband companies reacting to that? You know are they just agreeing for example and the answer is they're not just agreeing they are questioning the authority that local governments have to franchise. And so that's a process that's going on right now. Um and may continue to go on you know as we go through the spring and into the summer. You know what are—let's see—what—well I already went over the benefits. What are the risks? I think that's a legitimate question to ask. What are the risks by going into this? I think there's primarily two risks really: there's one, the risk of possible litigation over the authority of the local government to require a franchise. You know, in our view we're just following state law—state law as the cable communication system has to get a franchise. We're requiring a franchise, get a franchise. And if they want to bring that to court, okay, fine. We'll have a binding precedent across the entire state of Minnesota that says you got to get a franchise. Fine. Um, it's a when you when you look at your insurance, I always encourage the local governments that we're working with to look at your insurance coverage to make sure you're covered in the event that litigation was brought. Um, so far all of the cities that I've worked with have said that they they are covered, okay, for that risk. The other risk is that a company decides they're just not going to come. We're just not going to build in your city. Okay, that's that is another possible risk that you should know of. Or at least maybe they'll initially say, you know, because council member so and so is requiring a franchise of us, we're not going to come. Okay, that is a risk. So, it is good to know the risks. Now, like I said, I went through the benefits. So, and and you can say right back, it's like, well, yeah, I did require a franchise and I want a franchise because I want customer service provisions. I want everybody to be served. I want everybody to have the same quality of service. I want our seniors and disabled folks here to have discounts on their services. Those are all good things. Um so just know that that can be raised. [7:24] **Council Member Nick Dragisich:** You mentioned the minimum for that discount is 10%. Is that something that's negotiated in the franchise? [7:24] **Michael Bradley:** It is. Yes. [7:24] **Council Member Nick Dragisich:** Is there a max? [7:24] **Michael Bradley:** Uh no. [7:24] **Council Member Nick Dragisich:** Wow. What constitutes disabled? Is that based upon a statutory definition? I know we have disabled for property tax purposes, we have the VA has a certain definition for thresholds. [7:25] **Michael Bradley:** Yeah. We we intentionally left that vague so that we could work that out later. [7:25] **Council Member Nick Dragisich:** Yeah. Thank you. [7:25] **Council Member Jeff Holtz:** That's a great question though because we thought about it too. You know, how detailed do we get? We chose not to get real detailed. That doesn't mean that a franchise here couldn't be. That's just what we chose there. Does that make sense? [7:25] **Council Member Nick Dragisich:** Yes. I just think we should elevate that senior citizen discount. [7:26] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** I second that. Yeah. I mean, Charles just had a birthday today. He might qualify, right? [7:26] **Michael Bradley:** Just the last thing I'll mention here and that's on price impacts because I think somebody mentioned price impacts and a concern with price impact because there's a franchise fee and a couple of things there. Um the way we handle the franchise fee and I think the way we would handle it here too is we allow the company, the franchisee, to pass through the franchise fee to residents just like the cable operator does, just like Xcel does for electric and gas. Um you know there's probably an argument that we could not allow that but I think that invites litigation more than anything. So, I think to be consistent with how we've dealt with the providers that have franchises now, I think it makes sense to allow that continue to happen. Now, does that mean that the company absolutely will? So, I can tell you I've had conversations with operators that broadband companies that have said they're not going to pass it through. Their business model is "we want to be different than our competitors," meaning the cable industry, and "we want to give one price and that's what you pay." So if it's 75 bucks it's 75 bucks. Okay, that's what they say. Now will the 5% franchise fee not allow the broadband companies to build out quickly? And there's no real good independent studies that are out there on that but I can tell you from experience with cable television when cable television really started growing which was starting in the early 1980s. In the early 1980s I remember all the cable television providers paid franchise fees. Um let's just say they had no subscribers in 1980. By 1990, they had 50 million subscribers nationwide. So, did the franchise fee impact the buildout of cable television systems? I think the answer to that is no. And I'm of the opinion personally, not being an economist or having done any big studies on this, but I think the answer is going to be the same with broadband. [7:29] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Do you almost think maybe it did impact it, but in an increased it way in the sense of with that franchising now the utilities are going everywhere. Now it's available to more people as a result of that. It actually did impact it, but not in a negative way. [7:30] **Michael Bradley:** Not in a negative way. Positive way. Could have. I think also, you know, when you look at local cable franchising and Mary's commission, they required in the late 1990s, they required cable system upgrades. And what happened as a result of those cable system upgrades, it allowed the provision of broadband. And that was a huge development because we went from, you know, no penetration for cable television to really massive penetration, right? Meaning residents served in just a short period of time. If you look at that same time for the phone industry, phone company went from 100% penetration. There was a time at least some of us can remember that we all had phone service. We all had a phone on our wall, right? There's a reason why there's a phone jack on your wall if you have a house that was built. You know— [7:31] **Council Member Nick Dragisich:** Nick, that's a thing that you hold and you pick it up and there's a cord and then you— [7:31] **Michael Bradley:** I got another slide just as an aside. I have another slide that I when I do presentations and it's a harvest gold kitchen with a phone, phone on the wall with the cord and everything. Well, anyway, my point is phone subscriptions went from 100% down to 25%. Like that. And I really believe that in part that was due to the local requirements that these companies upgrade their systems. Phone companies, by the way, aren't subject to local jurisdiction. And I think that's, you know, at least arguably that's why when you get DSL service in places, probably here, you see some with lightning fast service depending on how close they are to the thing, right? Um and others that have terrible, you know, close to dial-up speeds. [7:32] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** So, hypothetically, if we have our discussion and we let staff know, sure, let's move forward. What would be a reasonable time frame for next steps? What would be an unreasonable time frame from how Sawashko did it? What's reasonable from legal standpoint, from staffing standpoint logistics? What does this look like? [7:33] **Michael Bradley:** Well, I'll tell you what it looked like exactly from the city of Woodbury. City of Woodbury made the decision. As soon as they made it, they referred the franchising to their franchising authority, which is the commission. Same thing here. Um, the commission immediately started the connection with the providers. Once the provider said that they were willing to get the franchise, then we went through the time and expense of going through the franchising process because there's a franchising process that's laid out in statute. From the time that we published notice, which is the first step of the process—we have to publish notice once a week for two successive weeks—from that time to the time that we negotiated and adopted the franchise, it was 59 days. Thank you. So, we are prepared. I can tell you that we as a commission are prepared. We'll have a franchise application ready to go. We know the process. We know how to do all that. So, we're ready to go and we have a good template from what we did in South Washington. So, we're ready to go and ready to go quickly as long as our dance partner is willing to go. [7:34] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Additional questions for Mr. Bradley or Miss Klene before we have a chat? [7:34] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Yeah, I have one more question. So, when it comes to the risks, you were saying that one of the risks could be that a company would look at the franchise fee and go, "You know what, we're not going to bring our service to that city." Is that correct? [7:35] **Michael Bradley:** Correct. [7:35] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Now, have there been any cities that have adopted that franchise and the companies have avoided said city? [7:35] **Michael Bradley:** No. [7:35] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Okay. Okay. So, a couple of follow-ups on that. And maybe some of this is more discussion, but I'm just trying to understand a little bit more as well. And I think it's tough. That's why you have me here. And it's tough because I know this is new. So there isn't a lot of this information. Woodbury for example, right? So Intrepid is coming in. They're the wholesaler. They're the one that is—they're putting in the infrastructure for other ISPs or information service providers to use. Is that correct? [7:36] **Michael Bradley:** One or more—one or more information service providers will use the infrastructure that Intrepid puts in. [7:36] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Yeah. So, Intrepid is the—they're the franchisee, correct? [7:36] **Michael Bradley:** They are. [7:36] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** And then they're going to rent their infrastructure to these different information service providers. [7:36] **Michael Bradley:** Yeah. It's not a rent, but—yes. Eric was—you know, the best way that I can describe what Intrepid does is they kind of white label their products. If you know what white labeling means, basically they're providing the service. They're providing all the services, but the company that they work through—which I don't think this is a secret—it's T-Mobile. Then T-Mobile resells basically that service over the—but Intrepid is the franchisee. There isn't multiple franchises. And I guess that was one of my questions—there wouldn't be a situation where multiple companies would want to come in and put in infrastructure? Do you see that being a possibility, two Intrepid-like companies wanting to come in and put in infrastructure? [7:37] **Michael Bradley:** I don't see any reason for that. Correct. I can't explain all the economics that are going on right now. Uh we are seeing companies like Intrepid. We still see Quantum Fiber, which is here. [7:38] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Yep. [7:38] **Michael Bradley:** Um and so that's two fiber-to-the-home companies. Now, Quantum Fiber was just recently sold as you probably know. Y—and the deal closed in February. So Quantum Fiber is now—it used to be run by Lumen and now it's being run by AT&T. Okay. Perfect. So you're going to have—I mean you have—you probably are going to have multiples. Now the economics breaks down at some point for these providers. Right. Correct. [7:38] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** And so all right again. So Woodbury is the example, right? Intrepid is the wholesaler—or they're the one that's going to white label it. They're the franchisee. How many—have they had information service providers already approach them and say, "Yes, we do want to—we want to white label. We want to use this infrastructure"? Have they already had those companies approach them and ask about that or is it too early in the process? [7:39] **Michael Bradley:** I don't know all the ins and outs of Intrepid's dealings and who's contacted them. I know they have one. [7:39] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Okay. And where I'm going with this is I'm trying to figure out if I think it can be a really positive for the end users if there's more competition, right? And so in general with the free market, government should stay out of it for the most part, right? It's going to make it worse. Now in a situation where—I and I think sometimes this industry it can be a little bit more monopolistic where if there's only one provider we do run into issues, right? And so that is where having a little bit more government regulation is super important. What I—and I think—could actually happen as a result of having a franchisee who does put in this infrastructure is I actually think it's going to create an opportunity for more of these information service providers to want to come and compete. I'm speculating that that could be a result of this and I think that would be a positive. Um you know from the cost perspective I was asking about that last time—if it was just one person franchising it I I would be very concerned that that cost gets passed through, right? Because now they're in control. But if the wholesaler has three, four ISPs that are using that infrastructure, now they have to compete. And so that is going to be a differentiator. So I guess that's something—I think this could be a really good opportunity to get all these benefits that they're talking about. I I'm a little concerned about that happening if it is just one company, but through this infrastructure, I do think it's going to bring in more competition actually. Um, and I kind of moving into discussion there. Sorry. [7:41] **Michael Bradley:** Well, your point's well taken. I mean, the Intrepid system is built for that. For multiple providers using the system. It's an open access system. So, it has—it can have multiple providers. [7:42] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Okay. Um, I know I sent you some of these questions here. So, kind of capture the multiple providers or is it just—whatever their system can handle? [7:42] **Michael Bradley:** Just whatever their system can handle. [7:42] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Okay. The question again probably hard to answer because you know it's in the process but you mentioned all right obviously you said hey there's going to be better buildout standards, better system performance standards—again you know my comment that I said was okay hey you know I'm a little concerned about that. Typically the free market handles that better than government can handle it but again if this is a situation where as a result of that infrastructure coming in instead of having just Comcast being the provider for an area, right? You know, so like with my business that that was my option, you know, I had one option. So that's what I have to go with. So with this, I don't think the franchisee necessarily is going to be the one that leads to the better customer service, the better—well hopefully the better infrastructure, but I think it's going to be the information service providers that are utilizing that system that are going to be forced to provide better services. Is there a contract with Intrepid or whomever will require it? [7:43] **Michael Bradley:** Correct. Yes. And that—that is happening as a direct result of this is the contracts between the infrastructure provider and the user of it, the company using it. In their contracts, they're required to uphold the standard terms. [7:44] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Yeah. Okay. So, does this apply to broadband that is already in the city or only to future installation of broadband? [7:44] **Michael Bradley:** Yeah. No, that's a great question. Actually, it's the first one on this bullet point that we're looking at here. It applies to everybody, all broadband-only providers. [7:44] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** So, Comcast, who has lines here, will have to come to terms with the franchise? [7:44] **Michael Bradley:** Comcast is different. Comcast is in this Title Six box. Title Six has restrictions on cities that Title One does not have. And right now the way the FCC has interpreted Title Six we cannot regulate—we as cities cannot regulate the non-cable services. Even though the infrastructure itself is broadband. [7:45] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Correct. And I'm not saying it makes sense. I mean, no, it makes zero sense whatsoever. But kind of follow up on that, too. And so—no. Yes. Thank you. Because Comcast is in Woodbury, correct? [7:45] **Michael Bradley:** Correct. [7:45] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** So, now there's two—again more competition, right? Because Comcast is going to continue to deliver their services. Intrepid is coming in with their infrastructure. They're going to be able to directly compete with Comcast now. And that's going to hold Comcast to a higher standard, which I think every resident would love to see that. [7:46] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** As Intrepid looks to build out with fiber, has Comcast made a statement about converting their system to fiber? [7:46] **Michael Bradley:** That's a great question. I don't have any evidence one way or the other yet. I don't know if they've made some statement with the competition. [7:47] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Yeah. [7:47] **Michael Bradley:** My guess is they will try to lock in customers in that area for longer periods of time with really good deals. [7:47] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Ask one more question. Sorry. As far as for future development, how is that handled with the franchisee? Is it included for perpetuity? If we 30 years from now have future development, they're on the hook for bringing that infrastructure? [7:47] **Michael Bradley:** Yeah. Yeah, we address what—we address annexed areas for example, but otherwise the franchise is for the entire corporate boundaries of the city typically. [7:47] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Thank you, Mr. Bradley and Ms. Klene. [7:48] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Let's have a chat. So, thoughts. [7:48] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Kind of gave mine already on it. [7:48] **Council Member Nick Dragisich:** No, I think it's a good opportunity. Um I was—was there anything in there about how long it would take for the infrastructure to build out here? [7:48] **Michael Bradley:** As I recall, yeah, as I recall from our discussion last time, it's a multi-year process and they set the terms for five years for it to be built out. [7:48] **Council Member Nick Dragisich:** Okay. And is that for the entirety of the city? Okay, got it. I mean, I think it's a great opportunity for us. So, I would be totally for this. Um, I don't really have any—anything else to add. [7:49] **Council Member Nick Kragness:** Before adding this franchise to the city, the thing that gets me is not just the customer service, because I—customer service matters. We all have stories about certain providers, not going to say any names, where that could be improved. Uh, and I think that is a value gained. To me, the big thing is helping to ensure that there are areas of our community that have broadband. And I find it absolutely abhorrent in the year 2026 that we have areas that don't have it when we're a second-ring suburb. Like, that's just inexcusable. So, I think this is a very good vehicle for it. I think the interesting conversation because that 43% drop in revenue for a quality partner of ours, the SEC is problematic. Fully agreed this revenue stream has to be modernized. I hope say hypothetically we move forward. I don't want to see a situation where in the SEC well Elmo is helping to improve the revenue stream but no one else is. So I I hope and you mentioned other cities are going that route. I don't want to be the only ones helping that process, but I’m optimistic it'll be many entities helping that because that revenue is necessary for a good provider that has been our partner for many years. [7:51] **Council Member Nick Dragisich:** You know, I think it's a good opportunity for us for two reasons. First, Matt, you said just like when we moved to Lake Elmo, you had one provider. Yeah. Take it or leave it. Yep. And um that's what it was, right? And it's copper. And the other thing is if you go out in the rural parts of the state, the state of Minnesota's been paying for fiber to the premises. I mean, I got friends who live in the middle of nowhere on the iron range. You got fiber to their house and I'm sitting with copper at mine. Um, and so, you know, I think that by going to broadband and providing competition, two things. First, it'll expedite the opportunity for fiber. Number two, it'll provide competition, which will keep prices more competitive. And you know it will also say improve customer service because now you have the ability to change. I mean you can go to satellite now I see you know as on TV but I don't know how good that is or bad. I'm not sure but I mean it's still not the same as having the fiber. And so I I don't think we have anything to lose in this deal. Um personally unless I'm missing something. I mean, yeah, we're going to put fiber in our right of way, and anytime you add more to your right of way, that creates, you know, additional challenges for the city. Um, but our choice is to be, you know, have one provider, which is never healthy. [7:53] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** What are the—what piece of information would staff like to know from this discussion? Because what I'm hearing is, yep, there are some risks that we want to work through, but general consensus is let's move the ball. What are things that would help you for the next time? [7:53] **Nicole Miller (City Administrator):** Um, I don't think we need anything else. I I would work with Mike Bradley and Mary to figure out the next steps and when we would come back to council. [7:54] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** I would just add—so one concern—Council Member [unnamed] last time when we had this discussion she did raise some concerns. So, I think it would be important to have Sarah there as well for those conversations so she can bring that perspective of the risks um because she obviously raised some of those concerns. Um but again, I mean, it sounds like it's a risk-reward situation here. So, we got to figure that out. [7:55] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Then we would likely be covered, we would be covered by the League of Minnesota Cities regardless. So, um I think a very good conversation down the road is then that the piece for the senior and disabled discount. I'd be very looking forward to how that plays out, what discussion we can have because we do have a large population of seniors. I have no idea what our population is of disabled people. Um, but we do often hear from our seniors about cost of living. So, I think that is a very advantageous item that can come out of this. Above and beyond that, good chat. Thank you, Mr. Bradley. Thank you, Miss Klene. Enjoy your evening. Next up, community forecast and the 2050 comp plan. Mr. Schroeder, please explain the broadband incorporating into the 2050 comp plan. [7:56] **Jason Schroeder (City Planner):** Okay, good evening. We're here tonight to talk about the community forecast for the 2050 comprehensive plan. As you may know, the system statement starts the process for the comprehensive plan and there's a limited time to appeal the system statement. Majority of communities do not appeal the system statement. And one thing that we found out recently is that our population numbers—we knew they seemed low—but that they were low because of the White Bear Lake case; that the Met Council took that into consideration and lowered numbers for a few cities around the area. So that was something we learned later on. And so the issue before the council tonight is we have a couple ways to work through this: should the city amend its 2040 plan to adopt new projections? So we have a current plan. We've been talking to the Met Council. This could be a way to make our population numbers more accurate to what they actually are. And then also the strategies because this would not address the 2050 number. So how to work through the comp plan and that 2050 number and the planning efforts that go along with that through this whole process with the 2050 comp plan. The system statements are released and they address transportation, land use, water resources, parks, trails, and there's others. Um and then once it's released, communities have three years to amend and update their comprehensive plans to comply with these regional systems. Here is the 2050 system statement just for—we want to focus on population and households. So the 2030 number that they have for us is 15,200. Um and then the 2040: 16,900 and 18,900. So this is concerning when we get this because it appears that our 2025 number is going to be really close to that 15,000 number. So the implications of forecasts is this guides our comprehensive plan understanding our need to accommodate the regional growth households and population employment. It also assists with our sewer planning and all wastewater planning, and then there's concerns that if these numbers get locked in at a lower number that other agencies may use it to keep us from growing or it may prevent us in some ways when they're doing review memos. Just give you a timeline of events. September 22nd is when they officially release the system statement. That's kind of the time where they release it and then you can start the process with the comprehensive plan. So we met and discussed it internally and we wanted to know what their data sources were and the trends that informed their population household estimates, and then what happens if development exceeds the forecasted growth because we believe that would occur. So, a couple days later, we met with the council sector rep. And what we learned is that the primary changes the forecast were due to regional trends—that they just believe that the trend regionally is going to decrease in terms of population, people moving out. Um, and the White Bear Lake issue was not talked about at that meeting. Um, there was openness from the Met Council on adjusting forecasts as we go along. So the conversation was, "you know, it's not very difficult to amend your population when you need to and there's processes that we go through to do that." So you wouldn't be penalized or punished for growing. Um so we followed up asked questions just to kind of understand their methodology. Nothing about White Bear Lake. Um and then the clarification like—could we adjust the forecast? And really the only issue was as long as the—there was sewer capacity we could increase population and the interceptors are in different areas with different— [8:03] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Director? Yes. Do you have a hypothesis why at two different instances when discussing the change in the trend the White Bear Lake issue was not cited by them as changing their trend? Like on the 28th and the 29th at both instances their methodologies for regional forecast—the White Bear Lake issue was not cited. [8:03] **Jason Schroeder:** It's difficult to say because talking to—I believe the board member—she wasn't aware until much later and it's possible that the sector rep wasn't made aware of the memo too. So it's unclear and I'm assuming that the person that did the projections was made aware of it because how could they do it without knowing that? And I believe that memo did come out later. It just wasn't shared with us even when we asked questions related to it. Because we did ask questions like is the issue with the White Bear Lake lawsuit a reason why these numbers seem low? They don't seem to be correct. [8:04] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Back up one slide at the bottom you talk about the clarification—forecasts could be adjusted unless regional systems could not support growth. So if we're actually growing faster than what their projections are showing, they may not be building enough sewer capacity for that growth and we could have our growth restricted by sewer capacity. [8:04] **Jason Schroeder:** That that's correct. And then the question is there's different interceptors in different areas. So if you look at the southwest corner when—if you remember High Point Crossing wanted to come in with this sewer open space. Well, at that time there wasn't the capacity. They had some construction projects that they needed to complete for that to move forward. So that area in the southwest is almost built out and is almost at sewer capacity. It's a little bit different for the 180 acres and then obviously there's a lot of unbuilt Musa area to the southeast. So that was concerning because that was a caveat of, well, you know, this is one of the things that could prevent you, but it's hard to know what the capacity looks like when you have different areas and interceptors. The period of appeals for the system statement closed. We did not recommend an appeal. The ability to—because we were under the impression that we could adjust our forecasts as needed through the process. And also this whole time we were talking about leading up to the comp plan, we really needed a better understanding of our land uses and what those population numbers would be going forward because when we talk about the numbers, they're—we believed they are too low, but it's not like a big adjustment. We could decide to reguide areas which would reduce our household population and that has independent of like trying to get our numbers lower—might think, "okay, well, but this area is better if it's commercial, right?" So, obviously, you still need sewer there, but the household population would be a little bit different. So, we wanted to go through that process to understand where we were. So then on January 15th, we received the White Bear Lake methodology memo from the city of Hugo. Um so they were very concerned and they essentially stated that we should be concerned and that they could possibly prevent growth. So we compiled permitting data and then the development pipeline were sent to the Met Council countering the low forecast. And then after we met with them, the council forecaster sector rep acknowledged that the—they looked through the data. We have pretty good data with the permitting data in the forecasts specifically—the forecasts are very detailed—and they agreed that a solution is needed for more reasonable forecasts. So one of the things that we provided were just the permitting data for essentially the last 10 years. It's single family, detached and attached. And what you're missing here is apartment buildings because we didn't have very many of them. But we are going to see a trend towards apartments and single family attached. But we're still over—I think the projection if we end up at 18,900 was like under a 100 units a year going forward. So we'll probably see more than that. We project to see more than that. So this is the next slide that is really interesting. I think it made it clear to them just how low the numbers are. So one of the things that we do on our financial side is we have development projections to track sewer availability charge, water availability charge, and then permitting fees that we think we're going to receive in the next 20 years. We have every parcel that's in the Musa with their acreage and their density ranges kind of worked in to estimate what we would get on those properties. We don't look at areas outside of the Musa until they're in the pipeline. So if we know an OPD is coming in, we'll add that to the chart and then we can plan for it. So we put this together: units per year. You can see at the top column we're over 226, 278, 491, 316, 413—some of this a lot of the numbers increase has to do with Limmerick and that going through the process. You could see unit totals and then we're basing off a 2.5 or 2.7 really—the 2.5 is the better one for us to use because our average household size is decreasing as we add apartments and townhouses. So if you look at that, if you look at 2030, the population that we have is 18,952. So that is going to exceed the 2050 number that they provided. And that number is 15,200. And you can see our very conservative estimate in 2026 will have 15,127. We won't get the true number for 2025 from the Met Council until about July of 2026. It's always a year behind. So, as you can see in the 2040 number, we're estimating about 22,000 and it's 16,900. [8:10] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Can you just speak to—so the projections kind of beyond a couple years here. Is that just based off of current zoning? Is that based off of permits already applied for? I guess does the speculation become pretty speculative beyond a few years here of what that growth is going to be? [8:10] **Jason Schroeder:** It is interesting. So everything that we have post 2030 it's very speculative right and then everything is pretty good between now and 2030. It's pretty accurate—maybe off a year. Um obviously Limmerick is such a big project for our population because our population isn't that great; it's 15,000, a little bit over that. That could have like a 5% change, right, in total population—it's one project. What we did here was we basically took the unit count and then moved it out to two years. Met Council when they do theirs is they use a one-year delay on single family and a two-year delay on apartments because the start of construction, it usually takes two years to complete and fill the apartments. So, you can see here, this is the projection that we have. Um obviously, the permit numbers decrease as you go along, but you know, there's also large areas that aren't scheduled to be built out till later. So you see like one year is 364. I mean that's because we just took that one project and dropped it instead of trying to like split it over years. [8:12] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Based upon the phasing that's in the comp plan? [8:12] **Jason Schroeder:** Yeah. [8:12] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Is that the intersection of Lake Elmo and Hudson, that area? [8:12] **Jason Schroeder:** I believe Lake Elmo and Hudson—that area is mixed-use commercial, mixed-use business park. Those are high densities, pretty large areas. So that would be something that's not in the current phasing and I'm not sure but there's areas in the village they're a little bit higher. But that area you're referring to is the one that is phased out. [8:13] **Council Member Nick Dragisich:** Chris, could you just restate again? What of these numbers from 2026, 2027, 2028 do we know for sure are already—we've approved, we know is going forward? Are any of those numbers not even speculative? [8:13] **Jason Schroeder:** They're they're pretty accurate. I mean, the one project that's included that should go forward because they're moving through the process is Limmerick, which is over 600 units. It's just a matter of when that hits. But we also have taken their units and we know it's not gonna be—we spread them out. [8:13] **Council Member Nick Dragisich:** But that's what we're seeing there with the 491 in 2027 heavily coming from Limmerick. [8:13] **Jason Schroeder:** Right. Okay. [8:14] **Council Member Nick Kragness:** When Hugo provided their concern—because they're they're in a similar boat, not totally the same ocean, but similar boat. Did they mention concerns at all about the concept of potentially what happens if a government changes a zoning to a lower density and how that might affect the property owner who is an investor or a farmer who that's a taking? [8:14] **Jason Schroeder:** They haven't mentioned that but typically you can do that especially if it's phased out if you need to adjust it. I mean, that is the challenge with this is that we're required to meet a 3.5 units per acre through their plan and we have a certain amount of acreage in the Musa, right? So, it's that's definitely a challenge and it's hard to say, but one of the things that we're able to do through this is have a pretty good understanding of the Musa and we've talked about it. Even if we kind of upzoned everything and everyone wanted to go in that direction, Met Council, you pretty much cap out at around 25,000 in the current Musa. [8:15] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** I was just going to say because I was thinking a lot about that as well and even from like the—you know, legally is there a challenge? But there is again my thought is no there wouldn't be—you know, when people choose to sell their land or not choose to sell their land or a developer chooses to purchase land or chooses not to purchase land it's total speculation, right? And so um that because that was going through my mind is like does that cause concerns from land that's been purchased by developers? And my thought would be no, right? If if these the comp plan does have to change as a result of these new projections. Well, it it changed the other way previously. Now it's going back, right? And people who sold their land two years before it went up wish they would have waited, you know, and so I think it's just speculation. So I don't think—and I guess, you know, Sarah might be able to speak on that better, but— [8:16] **Jason Schroeder:** Typically downzoning is not considered a taking though because you are giving them rights to develop their land. [8:16] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Yeah. [8:16] **Jason Schroeder:** Okay. So after this they reviewed it, the demographer reviewed it at the Met Council. Uh we received an update from Angela Torres who is their senior manager of planning at the Met Council. And what they advised was for us to amend our 2040 plan so that we could use our updated numbers that we feel are very accurate and to adjust that which would essentially increase the number for 2030 and 2040 when you compare to the 2050 plans. So it would raise the forecast in 2030 from—and this is for the 2040 plan—from 6,500 households to 7,200 households and our average household size would be 2.66 for a population of 19,200 for 2030. Um and then for 2040 it would go from 6,500 to 8,250 with a 2.59 household size and it would be 21,400. So that is what we've been told: is if we go forward with a comp plan amendment to our current comp plan, they would carry those numbers forward into our 2050 plan for 2030 and 2040. What they stated is that they don't feel comfortable changing the policy position beyond 2040 due to the White Bear Lake memo. We can talk about that a little bit. [8:18] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** So you're just saying they wouldn't want to go above 21,400. [8:18] **Jason Schroeder:** 21,400. So essentially—yeah. If if White Bear Lake isn't resolved, they don't want to change the 2050 number. So the 2024 number defaults to the 2050 number. [8:18] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Okay. But as you know, we'll be back here 10 years later working on a new plan. [8:18] **Jason Schroeder:** Yeah. So, overall summary for for the White Bear Lake memo is that the Met Council determined it's prudent to withhold its consent of additional growth in local jurisdictions affected by the White Bear Lake Area court decision until the council is assured additional growth does not conflict with court orders that cities must abide. And then if a request is made, it must only be considered after modification of the court order, a change in local conditions or solution to water supply constraints are determined and implemented. So that's the concern that we have is that really—the deadline for this—Clark has a lot of information on this—but June 30th, 2027. So what they're asking us to do is you could go forward with a comp plan amendment to increase your 2030/2040 number and then possibly after the 2027 date amend the 2050 comp plan number prior to finalizing the 2050 comp plan. So the bottom line is: use to allow a higher population projection than the 2040 plan. Uh they agree that the September 25 forecasts are low and that the city has the option to amend Thrive 2040. So you can see the numbers. We just went through them, but essentially the 2050 number would stay at 21,400 and then they are willing to discuss an expanded 2050 forecast in mid-2027 after the White Bear Lake Area Comprehensive Plan Work Group concludes. So if you're looking at amending the plan, that's a question before the council at the workshop. You would see that our household would—they would increase. But some of the numbers—for example the number increases—this is just for the 2040 plan. The population households would actually increase. The population would increase in the 2040 plan. The households in 2040 would go up slightly from 8,200 to 8,250, but our population would decrease slightly because we know that our average household size is decreasing since the last time the plan was done. [8:21] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** All right. So that that's a key takeaway. Ignoring the 20 Imagine 2050, this would actually have a reduction by 900 people for the 2040 because right now our 2040 says 22,304? [8:21] **Jason Schroeder:** That's correct. And that's based on the decrease of the average household. [8:21] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Our current comp plan for 2040 has the 22,000? [8:21] **Jason Schroeder:** Yep. [8:21] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** So it was surprising to us too because the numbers were much higher and then came in lower which essentially is the same as what Stillwater has for 2040. [8:21] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** So this isn't—that's not the number when we did the 2040 comp plan. That's not the number that we were at. Correct? The 22,000? [8:21] **Jason Schroeder:** No, the total number population at—I think it was 11,000. Projected that we go all the way by 2040 to 22,304. [8:22] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** So I just I thought that projection was higher when they originally gave us the numbers that we were aiming for for 2030, 2040, 2050. That was the number. [8:22] **Nate Stanley (City Engineer):** So if I can jump in. So the numbers that are not in parenthesis, these are in your current adopted comprehensive plan. So that would have been the forecast that the city adopted in 2018/2019 when the 2040 plan was adopted. Okay. So, essentially the discussion here tonight is to completely ignore the Imagine 2050—just anything they sent us—and would we be interested in essentially codifying what we see is happening is a faster increase but then we would have an understanding that the 2040 and the 2050 are flatlined until the issue that needs to be resolved doesn't get resolved. [8:23] **Jason Schroeder:** That's that's correct. [8:23] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Hey Jason, sorry quick question because—can you go back to slide five? Because I have a question about—okay. So the population projection is 16,900 here. Am I confused on that? [8:23] **Jason Schroeder:** So that 16,900 is in our 2050 plan that we haven't started yet. They are projecting that in 2040 we will have 16,900. [8:23] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** So that's the new numbers that they gave out to us that aren't official yet that we—and that's the 21,000 number that we're talking about. [8:24] **Jason Schroeder:** So the amendment that they're suggesting from their original system statement is to go up to 21,000. Okay. [8:24] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** And then what was the reduction then? Because wasn't there a reduction from 22,000? [8:24] **Jason Schroeder:** So then the 2040 plan was going to be 22,000 was what we had in our comp plan originally. Yep. So right now as of today— [8:24] **Nate Stanley:** Yep. So Council, yeah, you're understanding that correctly. The images on the screen here, these are from the system statement that was released in September of last year. These are the problematic projections because they're too low. The table contains the 2040 comprehensive plan forecasts that we're basically hoping to go back to because they were at higher at the time. So instead of having this new lower projection, it's basically going back to what we had basically already had an agreement upon with the Met Council back when they approved that plan. [8:25] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Got it. Do we know—did the staffer who did this at the Met Council or their supervisor or their supervisor have any discussions with the court? Because that seems like a pretty big information gap. [8:25] **Jason Schroeder:** So, we've been talking to Gail Cederberg who is our representative on the on the Met Council itself. She was not aware of this White Bear Lake memo. Um they say they posted it. Their notice was just put it on the website without telling anybody about it. Um, so she—basically it's never—it's basically a staff level decision. So basically the head of the community development department was the one for whatever reason came up with this idea and we don't have any idea if they've coordinated with the courts. Uh the feeling is they haven't coordinated with the DNR. That's my impression, but um yeah, we don't have any idea really. [8:26] **Nicole Miller:** Thank you. Acting mayor and council, I would like to add a meeting that was missing from the timeline is our Washington County partners did put together a meeting with county commissioners and then two met council members as well as myself representing Lake Elmo and then Hugo and Oakdale to talk about this White Bear Lake methodology memo. And so our big ask was for them to go back and have the staff policy that was put in place reversed and so um we are still awaiting a response from that meeting but that did happen mid-March. [8:27] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Thank you. I assume there's also our modeling for our utilities and for our building inspectors for the permits is also based upon the same methodology. Obviously 5 years is one thing, 15 years is another. And I am I correct to presume the Imagine 2050 numbers have an impact on our modeling that we have for our utility and our revenue? [8:27] **Jason Schroeder:** They would. So a bad impact. It would—we have modeling that isn't based on 2050 on the 2050 plan. It's based on the Musa and the densities that we've adopted. So, we're projecting that out with concerns about permit revenues and everything else that we, you know, or revenues. We just want to know kind of like how that looks like in the next 10 to 15 years. But if they said you only have this many households, then we would really need to do a deep dive on the land use and figure out how we would restrict that number and reduce it. Possibly having more areas for commercial or whatever that looks like, lower densities if that was the case. But I will say that if we move forward with this amendment and bring the number up to 21,900 it's in line with our projection. So we should be good for the next 10 years. [8:28] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Hypothetically, if we all say the heck with this, no. Um what would it look like with the Imagine 2050? I mean the 15,200, 16,900, 18,900 when our 2040 is zoned for 22,000. Has city staff thought of hypothetical ways as to how we would down-zone certain areas where it might be more appropriate or is that just so far down the road for steps that— [8:29] **Jason Schroeder:** Yeah. So, I looked at that. Um, essentially we try to keep certain densities high enough to meet the affordable housing standards that we have to meet. It's about closing kind of the density ranges because if you give provide someone with a range, they typically build to a higher range. Um, so just kind of working those numbers down. Um, and then you would obviously have to look at land use and then determine um where you could reduce households in certain areas. I think I I would say like the 18,900 you possibly could if you did everything that I'm talking about you could possibly guide it down to around—I think I had like 19,200—so I think they did that um in terms of understanding like what's the kind of minimum that you can have. [8:30] **Council Member Nick Dragisich:** That'd be a quantum change fiscally for the city to basically stop the machine that we put in place as far as development goes. There would be a very big fiscal challenge. [8:30] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Well, there's going to be a fiscal challenge if we keep growing as well, though. [8:30] **Council Member Nick Dragisich:** Well, it's one or the other. [8:30] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Kick can down the road. I mean, we'd be in the same situation if we keep developing. I mean, development does not lower costs. Taxes go up with development. So, at at some point, the music stops on the dance. What if we stop the music now versus stop the music 10 years from now? We're going to have to have the music stop 10 years from now as well, right? So, I just I want to be real clear about that that regardless, yes, there is going to be likely a tax impact if growth stops. There's going to be a tax impact if growth continues and when that growth stops. So, we're not going to get out of that either way. [8:31] **Jason Schroeder:** Yeah. And and staff have not analyzed that from the—as part of this discussion. Um, you know we've not looked at the fiscal impacts today or tomorrow on that. [8:31] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Maybe just to quick to state on to because I was thinking the same thing with—you know, if that was the course we went is "okay well we want to aim for those numbers." What does that look like for the next year or two? Before we have the Imagine 2050 we have a 2040 comp plan. We would have to be looking at making amendments to our 2040 comp plan over the next couple years and pretty—over the next year pretty significantly. Is there issues with Met Council? I mean Met Council would probably have to be understanding of us making amendments to our comp plan if we're trying to meet these new numbers that they originally provided us with. So, I'm just trying to—so, if you're saying when the 2050 plan is adopted at a low number, how would we go about that? Because right now, our population—before we complete the 2050 plan, right, we're going off of the 2040 comp plan right now that was approved by Met Council. If we said, "Yes, Met Council, the system statement numbers that you gave us of 15,200, 16,900, we want to go with those numbers." We're gonna have to take steps immediately to start rezoning and amending our 2040 land usage that we put in the 2040 comp plan to try to stay on track with those numbers. If we actually want to try to not go above. [8:33] **Jason Schroeder:** If the game was like "we need to make these numbers match," we probably can't even do that at this point. There's probably enough projects that have been entitled that that would be a—that would be a big gray area. I don't know how that would work with them. [8:33] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Can you go back to the slide that has all the way out to the year-by-year? So likely we already have ones that are entitled a population of—our 18,900. I think our population in 2025 will be 15,127. I—you know, this was very conservative, right? We don't have the 2025 number. We do have the 2024 number. So, but I mean I'm looking at the units because as you said like Limmerick is a big one as well. And have they already put in for preliminary plat? [8:34] **Jason Schroeder:** They've submitted. Yes. We're reviewing for completeness we'll say right now. [8:34] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** So, hypothetically, and if they—I'm not going to say it. Okay. So, you know, you've laid out potentially 445—oh, wait, we're in 2026—278, 491, 316, 413. Your statement is that those are things that are likely already entitled? [8:34] **Jason Schroeder:** Yes. I mean, the first is the building construction start year. I just I don't I'm just I don't know the question, but you were referring to this chart. The building construction start year is the top portion. So that's 2024. That is units that were started in 2024. That is accurate. 2025 is accurate. 2026 is an estimate that's fairly accurate. And 2027 is where the Limmerick development starts to push those numbers up. But if you take the way the chart is set up—and this is before we knew the Met Council's population methodology because we were working on this very quickly—you would take that 2024 number, which is a population of 598, and then just apply it to the 2024 population and it skips a year and it shows that the population—like after the construction, after everything's done, we expect in two years those units to be occupied. That's the methodology: for the construction start year there's two years to fully occupy those units. [8:35] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** So in 2027 we're showing 491 units built. The population as a result that will be 18,162 years later. [8:35] **Jason Schroeder:** Yep. That's correct. [8:35] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** So we're already pretty much 18,000 guaranteed based on current development plans. [8:35] **Jason Schroeder:** That is true. I mean, just to throw this out here because I know we're not talking about projects that are not entitled, but we have other projects. People come all the time. They know what the land use is. They're looking to develop land between Lake Elmo and Keats and trying to figure out plans for that. So, I see this—if it goes forward, we have a 10-year window where we're going to have a lot of developers looking to develop. We talk to developers all the time in different parcels. [8:36] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** So if we adopt the 21,400, that's not a lot more growth beyond what we kind of have committed to already. [8:36] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Yeah. Well, we'd have to—we have to slow things down quite a bit. I mean, the way the way I'm seeing this is what the—because the Met Council now is aware, at least some staffers are, of the issue—the 2060 and the 2070 plan. We're not—hopefully it means we're not then projecting a 25,000 and 30,000 and 35,000 population because technically absent of that there's no reason that is not a part of the city projections down the road based upon what's available along 36 and buildouts and all additional areas that that is absolutely possible. You obviously can't subdivide two and a half acre lots but the 10 acre, the 20 acre, the 40 acre lots—the city potentially could be 35 to 40,000 when it's all built out. And as I recall, Mr. Schroeder, that's what some of the numbers are that have been given to the White Bear Lake subgroup in the hypotheticals of what's the highest case population numbers. [8:37] **Jason Schroeder:** Yeah. So for the 14 cities we're using the term called ultimate development. So basically where there is no more land to put one more house on. And in conjunction with the staff here we kind of took a wild guess at 25,000 or something like that. We thought when every single piece of land was developed, we thought we'd have around 25 to 26 somewhere in there. [8:37] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Oh yeah. [8:37] **Jason Schroeder:** Based on current zoning. [8:37] **Nate Stanley:** I can add something too also with the—we're not projecting farmland either, just—or rural areas—the rural open space PUD. It's when they actually go through the process, do we add them to this chart? So like there's areas of unsewered that could increase the population. So maybe this is an opportunity and that if we say okay we'll accept the 21,400 now as we work on our 2050 comp plan we can plan our development to slow it down and you know they'll have a plan that says we reached that. But if our residents come in during that process and say no we want to see continuing growth well maybe we have an opportunity to up it—it gives us a chance to get their input and say we can keep it in that 21,400 range through 2040 because that's what the Met Council will allow us or we can have more growth if that's what the community wants. It's part of that discussion we would have. I just think the 21,400 is a no-brainer at this point. [8:38] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Yeah. Can the Met Council keep moving that goalpost so to speak on what our population range should be at? Because I know that was it 18,900 was where they want us to be for 2040/2050? So before they suggested the recommended amendments—could they keep pushing that? I mean 2060, 2070, could they keep pushing that to that 30-35,000? Or once we hit 21,000 we've hit the Met Council's goal and now we can slow down construction with houses here? Does that make sense? [8:39] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** But they—they could and would keep going up, I assume. [8:39] **Jason Schroeder:** I mean I have an answer but I think I would like staff to answer that one. [8:39] **Nate Stanley:** I can answer partly. I think Jason wants to answer too, but if the Musa doesn't expand, you're—it will be built out and then you're basically looking at rural development and then it's a question of—when they do the 2060/2070 plan, are they going to require Musa expansion? [8:40] **Jason Schroeder:** Yeah. So, I just wanted to—yeah, I'll first say that and then I wanted to underscore something Jason said earlier. So, what we have seen in the last two comp plan cycles is that density requirements for communities have risen. So 2040 the requirement was for Lake Elmo in developing areas within the Musa to be at 3.0 units per acre and now you're required to be at 3.5. So you're seeing over time the required density for this area of the metro is increasing and so I guess it could stay the same, it could go down, but what we have seen is that it's going up and I think we might expect that that might continue as well. So that might be reasonable to expect. So that is one thing. I just wanted to underscore the comment about the forecasts being used for wastewater planning. Particularly the Met Council's wastewater staff use these forecasts to plan for capital improvement projects to the regional interceptors. And so we had the situation with High Point where because the Met Council frankly was behind on projects that from my standpoint as a planner I would have liked them to be way further ahead on. Because they were behind, there was not enough capacity for the city to add a project in that was a good project—or at least that could be considered to be a good project. And so, I think you'll want to consider that if in your discussion, you know, for reasons that it might be prudent to kind of land the plane with the density kind of with 2040 numbers is just that there have been kind of expectations on the capital improvement side for where the community will be at. And yeah, so I think that's just important because you can't just snap your fingers and have sewer capacity if the city decides to approve a project and you don't have the forecast to support it. So that would be a big concern I would have. And I think the other piece is just the land supply that Jason built into this—I think that that's why this feels right. It's just it takes into account like what land's available within the Musa. And I think you would reasonably expect your 2050 number kind of as Jason said to be in that range between 22 to 25,000 just based on there not being a ton of land that would develop beyond 2040. [8:43] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** And that 25 is also based on land use policy too. So if you know you increase density and the numbers change, that's where that could come into— [8:43] **Jason Schroeder:** Yep. [8:43] **Nate Stanley:** Yes. But it's also a scenario where we're running out of land in the Musa where it could be built out by 2040. The other the other issue with water is—you know the DNR when we're looking at allocations—and you guys are well versed in that—our 472 million gallons is based on 75/90. They're looking at—and they don't want to do allocations on a yearly basis. They want to make an allocation for what's out here for 10 or 15 years. If we all of a sudden say we want to have a 2050 number of 18,900, you probably are going to run out of water because you won't have the allocation when you grow go past that number. That would be a real concern of mine. I'd rather have a bigger allocation and not use it than have an allocation that stops and all of a sudden what do you do? [8:44] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** No, there's in that hypothetical—because there are a lot of cities that do that. Their allocation is something that was created 15 years ago based upon a long-term projection to that you make the request, hey, our new 2050 number is 21,400. Now, let's do the math with this horrible court case and do it at 75/90. Make the formula. Here's your appropriation. [8:45] **Jason Schroeder:** So they weren't willing to—with their amendments give a 2050 number. Am I thinking of that correct? [8:45] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** That's correct. [8:45] **Jason Schroeder:** My understanding is there because there isn't a 2050 number in the 2040 plan. This is a way to amend the 2040 plan to a more accurate number while we have the time ability to make an amendment. I mean, do you think they would be open to the 2050 number being 21,400? Like you said, where, you know, that's kind of where it is right now. The 2040 number is 19,800. So, yeah, we're not getting their original 18,900, but we're also saying, hey, we're not going to go above 21,400. They're giving us an opportunity to slow down our development, which we've asked for for years. And I just I can't imagine trying to get at least something. [8:46] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** I think the slow down development, if you wanted it to end at 21,400 by 2050, then you would just have the development phased in and land uses match that projection. If that's—we have time to do that with the Imagine 2050 and make those changes to the land use, right? So if you amend it and everything goes based on what they've told us, the 21,400 would be the number for 2040. You would have a 2050 number that would default to 21,400 and then the decision is whether you hold back land in phasing. You could build out to the 21,400. You could phase everything in almost in a current phase and just build it to 21,400 and stop there. Um you could phase it out and know that you can't really meet 21,400 because you change land use guidance and phasing and if you don't allow the phasing to move up then they're going to hit a limit within that 2040 time frame. If that makes sense. I hope that's clear. [8:47] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** No, I think that does. I just don't know. Maybe I'm not saying this right too though cuz like I'm wondering if—their original number 18,900 for 2050. The recommend amendment was "hey we're not even going to give you a number for 2050." Technically it's going to be the 21,400 but we're not going to even give you a number. We're going to reconsider that number after the White Bear Lake situation is figured out. Would they be open to an amendment where 2030 is 19,200, 2040 is—I'm just going to make this up—20,500 and 2050 is 21,400? So instead of us having to risk this number going up further after the White Bear Lake case is figured out and going from 21,400 in 2040 to now they say, "Okay, hey, White Bear Lake is figured out. You guys can have as much water as you want. We want you to get to 25,000." Now, now we've at least taken an opportunity to slow down the growth, cap it. And I just—because I go back to like—I mean my main frustration with this is why do we have to—I know some of the answers to this—but why do we have to be told when to develop, how to develop from a different level? The city should decide that, right? Development should happen when development needs to happen or wants to happen, having someone else come into our local community and tell us how to develop it. Now, yes, I understand the shared resources, etc., but we fought really hard saying we don't want that. We want to slow this growth down. So, I think if we're given an opportunity to to minimize that, I think we have to take whatever we can get with it. And I'd rather err on the side of going too low and asking for more down the road. [8:48] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** So what I'm hearing is for the 2030 no matter number no matter what. Yeah. The 19,200 seems practical. And I would like to add I think we need to use that as a discussion point with the DNR in the 19,200 is what we asked for on a 75/90 because that would be far more of appropriation than what we have now, especially since we know we can show to them the properties that are already in agreement. 21,400—start to do maybe discussions as to how we can maybe slow things in terms of additional phasing in the comp plan. Is that along lines of what you're thinking? [8:49] **Jason Schroeder:** So, one thing I just want to bring up though is the 2030 19,200—I'm just showing this slide. That would be a 10-year. If you were try to slow it from the 21,400 and reduce it at 2040, that's only roughly a thousand units in 10 years. It would be a drastic emergency brake—it almost would make more sense to build it out, you know, and get the revenue and start getting the tax base and have a plan to say this is where we want to stop if this is the direction you want to take as opposed to slowing it down and then getting to like 50 units a year when we could just build it to the way you want it and then you have your tax revenue and you know this could be built out and locked in at what you're saying. Go for the 21,400 at 2030. [8:50] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** No, I'm saying make sure—like I wouldn't try to have a 2050 at 21,400 and then try to bring the 2040 down if that makes sense. I believe that was the discussion. So, I think it makes sense to have the 19,200 because we're close to that in terms of our—where we're headed. Go forward with the 21,400 and then if you don't want more growth, you would have that 21,400 plan for the entire MUSA if that's the direction you want to take. [8:51] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** So we could ask for the amendment to say, hey, we actually do want you to include for 2050. We want you to include our number is 21,400. Please don't leave it blank. That's what I'm hearing. [8:51] **Jason Schroeder:** So that's what I'm hearing is your solution. If if it's we don't want to grow, then at least we would align the numbers to where we think we're going. It would give us time to modify the land use. It could look at phasing and just figure that out. And then you would basically end with 21,400 if that's what the council wanted to do. We haven't done a study in terms of how that would affect the city's finances, but that— [8:51] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** That would be pretty close to what the full development from the 2040 comp plan though, right? Like that would be— [8:51] **Jason Schroeder:** Yes. Yes. [8:51] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Within 500—within 800 of that. [8:51] **Nate Stanley:** If I can add why that might make some sense as well, it's just that you would have an adopted comp plan that's in effect between 2030 and 2040 when most of that growth is occurring. So you will have less, you know, in this in this hypothetical scenario, you would have less vacant land when you're preparing your 2060 comp plan that would be potentially needing to get guided at a higher density. So— [8:52] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Help protect from that, right? [8:52] **Jason Schroeder:** So, if you're really—if the goal is to kind of, I'll call it land the plane, but like, you know, get to that end goal, I think, getting the development if it does, if it can and will occur, getting it now does make some sense. Just from that numbers perspective. [8:52] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** It's better for us to do it at three or three and a half per acre than potentially four or four and a half an acre down the road, which would really tick people off. [8:52] **Jason Schroeder:** That's where the Met Council started. They actually started at four units per acre this cycle and so many communities voiced their concern—folks like Nicole and Jason were reaching out to the Met Council—that they ended up moving it back to 3.5. [8:52] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Gotcha. Do you need further feedback from Council? [8:53] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** The only other thing I would add is, you know, there's article in the [Star] Trib. They're back at that increasing density in existing cities bill in the legislature allowing the accessory dwelling units and things like that and this could affect our plan. I mean, you know, when when you build a mud apartment in your backyard, your mother-in-law moves in, it can affect that plan. [8:53] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Not happening. [8:53] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Not happening. Do you need further feedback from us at this time? [8:54] **Nicole Miller:** Be careful here. I'm sending her a letter [to the] YouTube. Yeah. [8:54] **Jason Schroeder:** So I think just clarification as we move forward because we are working on the comp plan. Um we will start that—so the alternative forecast number we you do not want to use that and just use the 21,400 currently as a 2050 number— [8:55] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** And identify the 2050 as 21,400 as well and that we talk with the DNR using 19,200 for an appropriation. Okay, since we can now show because of the data that came from this, we can show that that's a number. [8:56] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Again, my—so I I think that is great. Again, I just want to be clear if there is any way we could get that 21,400 number down closer to the number they are offering us, I think we should take whatever measure we can. So if again I—you know based off of those predictions by 2030 we're already close to that 19,000 number. Um you know is there a way to bring that 21,400 number down to 20,500? You know, it just—I am having a hard time figuring out how I'm going to explain this to people who come up and ask me, "hey, you had an opportunity to drop the number" and we're taking steps to try to mitigate it going higher, which I think is great. I just if there is any other way to drop that lower, you know, and if that means we have to make amendments and change land use sooner than later, like I would like to do that, but maybe it's just not possible. [8:57] **Jason Schroeder:** I think the challenge to that is that we approached them with data and said these are real numbers, right? And this is what we think we're going to—we're talking about very minimal. I mean, I think it'd be difficult. I mean, you want to reduce 500 people. I don't know what the rationale is. I think like they've given us an option to kind of work this into a very—range and then you know if we were to say well our numbers are showing this is the density. What could happen is we could either just end up with just areas that are commercial business park where you wouldn't want them and that's what we are talking about like with in terms of land use guidance. So I I don't know—this is what they are using their projections, household averages. Um— [8:58] **Council Member Nick Kragness:** What I would answer if to that resident—because yeah we'll get the question absolutely as the question should be raised—a response I would provide is number one: because I've had the statement come up "oh you have to meet this population." No you don't. It's the zoning has to provide for that possible population, but our densities have so much of a range in each zone. 21,400 is just a number within those ranges. It could end up being 19,000 based upon what gets approved because what came in. Now, obviously developers come in and want the most, right? and then maybe density bonus. But my response to them would be we—that's a number but the ranges within each zone still it's a give or take probably a thousand. [8:59] **Jason Schroeder:** So I think that begs the question is if that's something you want to do in terms of giving us a range that we can work on when we move forward because we have to establish land use guidance and density ranges. We can tell we can tell you there's this many developable acres. this is the range and this is what we should expect. There are some issues with netting that get complicated with storm water ponds. So it's very difficult to get exact but if we could work in a range for um for that 2040 number/2050 number— [9:00] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** I mean can both of those be a range of 20,000 to 21,400 if it—because again our densities allow for that range anyways so it's just codifying what already exists. It's not— [9:01] **Jason Schroeder:** And we'll know that too. If we can't meet 20,000 because the density doesn't line up at 3.5, we would come back to you and say, "Well, the lowest that we can really do is this number. Do you want to take a parcel that you really believe should be residential and just make it commercial and it doesn't really make sense?" I mean, that's kind of the challenge with the population. [9:02] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Thoughts? [9:02] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Yeah I I um I I I think that may be the best compromise that we can really come up come with. You know, again, I just—put like a range in there. I just—one maybe point that I just want to make here as well is like I know sometimes these numbers when we say "oh hey it's we're only going from 21,400 to 21,000" like what's the—why does that even matter? Well, you know, in an 800 unit development of quarter acre lots that could be 400 half-acre lots, right? So it does make a big difference in what we're talking about as far as like from a development standpoint for the time—and that was a huge push back when this originally came up with the Met Council where we had to increase the population density where people are saying "well hey like you know Lake Elmo it fits these 1-acre lots, I can't believe we're going from two to one, I can't believe we're going from one to half, I can't believe we're going from half to a quarter." And so yes it may not seem like a lot when we say you know only 400 less but that is a big difference in a development that's going to go in. Now we're saying hey you can develop 400 homes here instead of 800 homes—that's a big difference um so I just I I think that sometimes when you have these large numbers it can be like well what does that even mean? That can mean a pretty big difference of somebody's neighborhood that's going in next to them of what that looks like. [9:04] **Council Member Nick Dragisich:** [If] they're all in four-story apartment buildings— [9:04] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Assuming they're all going be single family right they're all in four-story apartment buildings you know not not an issue— [9:04] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** I think we have covered so what I'm hearing is if we can get a range in there council member Hirn will take you golfing. I tried. Legion Avenue Properties. Yeah, there was a fire there. [9:05] **Adam Swanepoel (Public Works Asst. Director):** There was a big fire. I don't know if you saw it. [9:05] **Council Member Jeff Holtz:** Successful fire. Successful. [9:05] **Adam Swanepoel:** While this is being pulled up for those watching, yes, there is the fire department did an amazing job. Uh we were out there on Saturday. Uh it was well attended. It was responsible. It was safe and it was amazing council. Um the Valley Branch Watershed District is one of three watersheds that serve the city of Lake Elmo. Uh Legion Pond, which is adjacent to Legion Avenue, is a 17 acre body of water without an outlet. Over the last 10 years, the Valley Branch has done several amendments to improve the shoreline to minimize flooding in these properties. As a result of the evaluation that was done um about 5 years ago, the Valley Branch has acquired five properties along Legion Avenue due to high water flooding that impacted the homes. They have since hired a contractor to remove the homes which will occur in 2026. Four homes along Legion Avenue are scheduled to be removed um this month into into May and the fifth will be—is expected to be removed later this summer. The Valley Branch intends to restore the site by preserving as many of the existing trees as possible and planting native grasses around the area following a one-year to three-year monitoring of that shoreline. Um they plan to turn it over. The district is offering the property to the city for potential use as a public amenity or open space. If the city declines, the district plans to sell the parcels to on public auction with with conservation easements which place—which will restrict any building on those sites. If the city chooses to acquire the property, they may set conditions with the agreement that would benefit the area um in the future for the outlook. So if that would include just you know right of way access to it um just preserving it for the future to come. Concept plans that were provided by um the Valley Branch Watershed District um show um just a overall view of what it could look like, you know, uh with some of those amendments that we could that we looking as the city to impose on that. Um would just be, you know, some of those things that they could that we could view—that could be a view of this property forthcoming. One of the conditions that are of a concern to the city is the right of way area in there. If we do not um select to take any of the properties or um we select um just to take one or none—staff did meet with the engineering department and the final property on the far right would is it of interest to the city for the purposes of improving that cul-de-sac area. Right now it is a T-bone intersection and staff does believe that improving that to a cul-de-sac would benefit traffic flow through that area especially for emergency vehicles. Additionally to that, to the south of that is additional property that is owned by the city that goes out to a wide open parcel. Um just working with city staff and our planning department, we have looked at that as a possible access or entryway from actually the golf course area as a trail connection point to downtown. Currently, we have a lot of concerns of people walking down Lake Elmo Avenue where there isn't a sidewalk for a good portion of that. Um and this would possibly be a trail connection or an access way from from the golf course area down to Blue Legion area to the Reed area where there's actually sidewalks on 30th to get you to the downtown area. So staff is looking for direction from city council in regards to if they're interested in acquiring their properties. um you know if that involves future discussions with the watershed district to acquiring their properties or if it's just one or none or none at all they would just sell the properties. Fiscal impacts to the city: they are willing to give the property to the city. Um they're more interested in giving all of the property to the city versus just selecting one or none for the purposes of they could really restore that wetland area fully and really prep it for future growth as far as native grasses and things like that. Individually selling those properties off as a concern of theirs because that new homeowner although would be an agreement from no building there may be subject to doing additional mowing and areas where they want to preserve that wetland area. [9:10] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Have they—so in these discussions—the cost for them restoring, they—that's on them? [9:10] **Adam Swanepoel:** Correct. [9:10] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** And are there options for—the Watershed is the Watershed—like they have to follow the regulations. How much wiggle room is there for what that looks like? Obviously there is a wonderful image here but I assume there's probably not too many options here in terms of what can and cannot be done for how that restoration looks like. [9:11] **Adam Swanepoel:** Yeah, that restoration is going to be pretty native, right? So, um I did speak with our engineering. Uh they did indicate like you're going to be restricted to like the trees. Um very limited building at all. Uh maybe a park bench or two. Uh even the trail was likely going to be a mowable area, not any type of gravel. Washouts do occur, they suggested mulch in those areas, right? So I think we would be limited on future of that—it'd be wildflowers, it'd be nature preserve, it'd be more of a visible viewing area if anything. [9:12] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Because that that was going to be my question in terms of it's not going to have active things. We're not putting a pickleball court there. [9:12] **Adam Swanepoel:** Correct. [9:12] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** But in terms of if you're there for viewing a bench, obviously that is on concrete and that's impervious surface. Is that an issue? [9:13] **Adam Swanepoel:** Yeah. I know that's something that we could definitely work with them if it's limited in size, you know, a bench size. 3x6, right? Just for footing purposes. [9:13] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Because I could see like maybe a bench and/or a picnic table—not shade structure that's 18 by 20—but because if I was in the neighborhood, I would foresee this as yes, this is a place you are out and hanging out for literally an hour or two because you're just sitting there next to a—it's a really cool look. It's a lake, but it's a pond. It is very cool looking and it would be very tranquil, especially if they're doing those prairie grasses and restoration. [9:14] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Can we not have a shaded structure there? [9:14] **Adam Swanepoel:** My thought was just because it's additional impervious because the concrete slab and— [9:14] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Okay. [9:15] **Council Member Nick Kragness:** I'll just say straight up, I think it would be all the parcels, do it all at once, but they do all the restoration. Um, I just have additional thoughts regarding because that .3 acres that the city owns to the south and the trail connection. I think that is a very good conversation, but that's additional above and beyond that. Um, I fully support all this. I had a resident ask when I was out there, "Yeah, I heard the city's looking at putting a townhouse there." Like, no, you didn't. No, no, not. But something along these lines. Yes. I I think is brilliant. And I was talking with the homeowner who was right there, Al Copperschmidt. He was a fireman for over 20 years for Lake Elmo Fire Department. And his description was Legion Pond when his kids were growing up: you could literally walk in it and you'd be at knee height in the middle of it. But it's gotten deeper over the last couple decades as there's been more impervious around the area as the thing has increased in how much it floods each time, and it just hasn't lost as much water and it's one of our landlocked basins but it has changed tremendously and now it is an asset in that regard. But I will—I will stop. I said my two cents. [9:16] **Council Member Nick Dragisich:** How's this fence with the park plan that we did recently—is anything mentioned in there? [9:16] **Adam Swanepoel:** So um one of the things that was mentioned in there you know and Mayor Cadenhead brought it up maybe at our last meeting—he's like, "Has the city ever thought about selling park land?" Right. And one of the things that does come up on our parks master plan is like we do have a number of properties throughout the community through in in some of our developments. They're on the back side of properties that aren't developed. They're small. They're not able to be incorporated into anything if it's a play structure or anything like that. One thing unique with this one: it's going to be more your nature, your sightseeing, things like that—more of a passerby. If you look at those features of that trail connection, things like that. But yes, Council Member Dragisich, going back to your question, the parks master plan looks more at minimizing or not taking on properties that are this small in size if they have no value. [9:18] **Council Member Nick Dragisich:** I still think we should take it on, by the way. I just didn't know where it fit in, you know. Thoughts? [9:18] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** I think it's great. Can you explain again who would be—I thought you said something about certain residents taking care of like the mowing of the properties and stuff like that. Can you explain that again? [9:18] **Adam Swanepoel:** Yeah. So, only if they were to sell it off individually. If they were to sell off these lots or they put them on a public site, likely they'd be bought up by one, two, maybe maybe five different people, right? And so then they would all have to do their little mowing plan and things like that. They'd all be separate and you'd have people driving down there likely— [9:19] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** And they wouldn't even be able to put a business on there. It would be unbuildable. [9:19] **Adam Swanepoel:** It's not buildable either by the city or by additional property owners. So anybody else that buys it, they'd be restricted to the same conditions. [9:19] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** Okay. [9:19] **Council Member Nick Dragisich:** They might—you might have five boardwalks out there at some point if it was sold off individually, but they'd be still be restricted to the same things that we would. [9:19] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** And does public works have the bandwidth FTE-wise to take care of a property like this? Would we need to hire a seasonal person or how would that work? [9:20] **Adam Swanepoel:** So with with a concept like this there'll be very minimal—very minimal. Our mowing contractor currently mows our lift station down just south or sorry to the north of this park or this proposed area. Likely they would do any type of mowing if we did do anything there. Likely it just be right along the curb edge to make a curb appeal. um as well as that mowed trail potentially. That would be about it. Um additional trees could be planted in there. Uh we can make that a recommendation possibly. Uh but otherwise we as a parks commission that's one of their philosophies: to continue adding trees to some of our open space or our park areas. [9:21] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** And this is probably way further down the road, but I see some canoes in there. Those be city-owned? Do we have rental? [9:21] **Adam Swanepoel:** Yeah, this is just a concept. Again, that's just something they kind of threw out there as like a potential of what could happen there. A canoe area is not a permanent structure. So that's kind of a concept they threw there. Very quick concept. [9:22] **Council Member Nick Dragisich:** Are the large trees identified on that? Are those the ones that already exist on the properties? [9:22] **Adam Swanepoel:** Uh several of them are. Some of them closer to the curb are newly transplanted ones, but most of those are current ones that are— [9:22] **Council Member Nick Kragness:** Because I would just my two cents would also be not to plant any additional trees that are going to be large because the homeowners on the east side of the street now are like "we now can see the lake." And that's a fantastic view for them. So I wouldn't want to be adding any additional trees that would limit that view. Yeah, unless they're like the miniature three-foot ones that are just for cool, but that would not fit in this area anyways. [9:23] **Council Member Matt Hirn:** I think this completely makes sense to do $500 at the most. It looks like what we'd spend for this. I mean, if the city is—be careful here like—I could I would donate that to buy—I mean this would be a very nice feature. Um I just—and obviously this will happen. I can't wait to hear the parks commission's feedback and suggestions for this. We already got a email from one of them with some great ideas and so I just think that—will I assume that would be part of the process, right? Like this would go to parks commission and they'd give their suggestions and feedback because I think they're going to have a lot of really good feedback and suggestions for this as well. But I definitely am on board with moving forward. [9:24] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** So related-unrelated to that, the 1.8 to 8 acres that the city owns on the other side of the houses on the east side which used to be the old sewer infrastructure for the system they had 30 years ago—what a resident there was asking me about that—what how does that fit in our long-term? Because it's not a public works site, it's technically an engineering site, but do we have thoughts? Like does it get mowed by the city? What is it—an amenity in any way? [9:24] **Jason Schroeder:** Yeah I'll let Jason speak but we do mow it once a year. We have the EDA work plan. We're going to look at all the parcels this year and come up with a plan for each parcel. So, basically, should we sell it? Should we keep it? If we keep it, why? And then how we should approach selling property. [9:25] **Council Member Jeff Holtz:** Seeing as it's completely landlocked, there's no connections to it whatsoever. Thank you. Do you need further feedback from us? [9:25] **Adam Swanepoel:** Uh, no. I think this amazing idea that's very affordable. [9:25] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Thank you. Thank you. Future agenda items, Miss Miller. [9:26] **Nicole Miller:** Um, we did have a change I uh our engineer sent out today. So, um I don't have it pulled up right now, but I do know we went over it earlier. And so, it looks like the only thing that'll be on the regular agenda will be the quarterly goals update, and then a few consent items. So, right now, this looks to be pretty light agenda. [9:27] **Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** All right. Thank you, Miss Miller. Above and beyond that, it's time to go home. We are adjourned at 8:50. Happy birthday, Mayor.