[00:00] Mary Supple: We'll wait for the clock to flip over and 659. I was thinking it says 659. So, I thought it would turn—I—We're about to start. I was watching the clock to turn over to 7 o'clock. All right, I think we're gonna—I was going to say it must have just turned right before we—All right. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'm calling to order this regular city council meeting of the city of Richfield. It's June 24th at 7 PM. If you're able, please rise and join us for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [00:01] Mary Supple: So, our first order of business is one that I look forward to each year, and that is the Gene and Mary Jacobson Citizen of the Year presentation, and it's a process where people put in—um, in April, they turn in nominations and then the Human Rights Commission looks through and chooses our award recipient. And this has been going on for a number of years. And I think Mr. Jacobson is going to tell us more about that. But I am very excited to honor Tena Smith this evening and it's a very well-deserved honor and I've been looking forward to this presentation. So I'm going to call up Mr. Kim Jacobson to tell us about the award first and then he'll introduce Miss Smith. [00:02] Kim Jacobson: What we can for others is a kind of a rare occurrence. My dad—he fought in World War II as a Marine and he loved my mom so much and he treated her with kindness and he treated his children with kindness and he treated his work in Richfield along with the other councilmen, council people, and mayors that he worked with to give us skating rinks and pools. And I have to say though that I'm concerned about the generating tornadoes driving down Lyndale because of the—I saw it on the internet. It's got to be true. Anyway Tena, if I could come over and give you this award. [Applause] If you want to join him up at the podium. [00:03] Kim Jacobson: You know, I fumbled. I was given this little thing to read, and maybe I should do it right now while you're standing. Is that okay? The Human Rights Commission has awarded the 2025 Gene and Mary Jacobson Outstanding Citizen of the Award to Tena Smith, my new friend. Tena started Miss Te's Helping Hand in 2020 to collect donations and help support those experiencing housing instability. She spends major holidays serving meals and handing out donations to those who need. Not only does she bring things that she thinks people will need, but she also takes time to learn people's names and bring them what they ask for and help and wish. Would you like to say a few words? [00:04] Tena Smith: I will. Um, I just want to say I thank everyone for this. I was shocked when I did receive the email as usual. I'm very humble. So, I try to keep everything I do kind of undercover, but now it has expanded which I'm happy. Um, the community has been awesome. Um, like I told everyone, it's reached out to where people from Maple Grove, um, Brooklyn Center, Brooklyn Park are reaching out, um, from seeing everything from, you know, the news airings and just people talking, the word of mouth. Um, I just try to encourage everyone to know that they're humans. Um, they're down on their luck. Um, and for people to know, you know, we're able to, you know, go take a shower when we want to. We can go to the bathroom when we want to. This is something that they don't get to do. Um, a lot of them say, you know, they're on drugs or whatnot. Yes. But like I say, people are doing it inside their home. The only difference is it's just not being shown or broadcasted. [00:05] Tena Smith: Um, I also just want, you know, just to make sure that people are still showing kindness cuz it's something, like he said, we've lost in this world now. It's it's an ugly place. So, just showing that, you know, and building a rapport with them is something that I've grown to love. Um, is something that you don't see often and it kind of makes them scared as well because they're like what are you going to do or what are you—you know, it's always an objective which is not. Um, also you know bringing my kids to help. Um, they're in the background. My oldest one, she's in the forefront with me and has been all these years since we've been doing it. Um, it is something that I'm going to continue to do. Like I said, with the community's help it's grown bigger than I thought it was going to be. Um, I'm just blessed to be able to do it and continue, you know, to take the volunteers with me. [00:06] Tena Smith: Um, you know, the donations that, you know, I ask, I make a post and they're—they're on it. Um, soon as I finish an event, they're in my inbox. They're like, "When's the next one?" I'm like, "You know, I'm getting that one together." Um, it's just that it is showing that, you know, community love is real and it—and it's there and I couldn't do it without everyone. Um, like I said, it's just—I've met some wonderful people. When people drop donations off, you'll be surprised. And they're like, "Oh, I didn't think, you know, or you know, I didn't think you were this way." I'm like, "It's me." Or when they see me on the streets, they're like, "Aren't you the girl that helps the homeless?" I'm like, "It's me." They're like, you know, "I'm glad, I've heard nothing but good things about you." So, um, but I do—I just want to thank the community and I appreciate everyone. Um, I'm gonna continue to do this. Uh, continue to make a good name for us and uh, keep pushing it. Kindness matters. It does. It really does. Thank you. [00:07] Mary Supple: If you would like to have um everyone come up and have a picture with the whole group that came to support you, we could stop the meeting for a minute and have a picture. Thank you. All right, ready? One more. [Applause] Good fortune. Next, we are pleased to welcome our Hennepin County Commissioner, Debbie Gautel. [00:08] Debbie Gautel: You know, I remember these days. This is the fun part of your job when you get to do something like this. It's nice to see the family all come out, too. It's nice to see you kids. Thank you for supporting your mom. It's great. Well, I—I just want to first of all, it's wonderful to be here back in Richfield. This is home for me, and it's wonderful to be working with you folks. I really appreciate it. And is that my clicker? Uh, thank you. Appreciate that. Thanks Michelle. Um, I do want to say there's a shout out here—and they're not expecting it—to Judy Moe and Raven Moe because a long time ago, and I wonder if they even remember this, they put a bug in my ear about accessibility in Hennepin County. [00:09] Debbie Gautel: And what they talked to me about was how hard it is for the disability community and specifically some of the disability people in your group told me that getting to closed caption was just nearly impossible in some of their devices. So I'm happy to announce today Hennepin County for the first time is live streaming our community meetings on YouTube. We already live streamed it. Now we're doing it on YouTube. So you have closed caption. It's regularly there. So, we're adding this in addition to our current streaming tool providing residents in Hennepin County to the county website. We're providing this second method so Hennepin can increase access to live and achieve um official county business to a wider audience across the communities. Residents can now access both live streaming and archived materials on Hennepin County's YouTube channel. So, we have some archives. Um, the handle is at Hennepin MN. So, there you go. [00:10] Debbie Gautel: And we do listen, it took us a year to get there. So, you know, we had—we actually renovated the whole inside of—the guts of our programming and everything. And as we did that, I said, "Well, make sure that we can go on YouTube and we can make sure that all the caption comes up at the same time." That's so important so that everybody has access. So, I just want to say thank you and um, I'm going to move on into my presentation and I want to thank you. Every year I come out here sometime through the year and invite you to come look at—is it the next one? Hold on. I can't see which the next screen. Is it the middle one that advances? Should just scroll. Okay. I've got to find the side. [00:11] Michelle Friedrich: We can also make it larger. Yeah. Can you—I'll let you do that. Yep. Make it into—it's not into screen mode. This is the edit mode. Give us two seconds. There we go. [00:11] Debbie Gautel: Okay. And then you can also just go like that. Yeah. Or which one is it? This one. I would use this key. Which way? This. Okay. All right. All right. There we go. Now we got it. I did want to mention that today we did pay tribute to Melissa Hortman, Chair Emeritus and—well—Speaker of the House Emeritus and her husband Matt. Um, a lot of you probably know that she will be laid to rest in the Capitol Rotunda on Friday. Many of us knew her. Most of us knew her and several of your colleagues were with me at the Humphrey dinner where she was at. Um, so I just want to acknowledge how much we're going to miss this—her great leadership, the things she did, how unassuming she was, how gracious she was, what a fabulous negotiator she was, and she was known as being very strategic and how much we're going to miss that too. So, we—we paid tribute and a couple of my colleagues weren't there. We'll be doing another tribute to her on July 8th. So, um, I just wanted to make mention she was a good help for the city of Richfield, for District 5, for counties, for hospitals, and for our state. So, she will be missed. [00:12] Debbie Gautel: So, this is District 5. Um, and you can see Richfield up on the map. This is the district that is now my district. And you see a little bitty corner of there—up there—that's actually Minneapolis. And so I always liked as when I was uh, in the seat where the mayor was referring to Minneapolis as Richfield's largest suburb. So I just want to say feel free to use that in future reference for—for that. Um, and then the mayors always get tickled about that out of Minneapolis. Anyway, but I wanted to um, go into begin with a moment to talk about where dollars actually go. Let me get to my right slide here. Our board made up of seven county commissioners functions much like the council here does. We steward in $3.1 billion annual budget across the board of a range of topics. That was our last year's budget including human services, public health, public safety, public works and resident services which include the libraries which we have here and our wonderful elections here too. And so those—that's a lot what we have and a lot of those dollars much like what the city has are actually restricted dollars. Dollars that come into the coffers that we already know have to go specifically to certain things that we have to provide for residents. [00:13] Debbie Gautel: Disparity reduction is driving the principles um, enables all the—this great work that we're already continuing to do through our HR. We steward considerable investments in housing and economic development. We bring some of that here into the city of Richfield. We do this on behalf of a 1.3 million—a million—excuse me—diverse residents. That's one in five Minnesotans actually call us home here. So, and affordable housing, excuse me, I'm going to go to the next slide of this is a great project. Affordable housing creations, housing supports are some of the most important investments we make to increase the quality life for our Hennepin County residents. In 2024, we were the primary funder for affordable housing development in Hennepin County. We're first dollars in and that makes a lot of difference to some of these developers who are trying to get some of these projects off the ground. We awarded $19.5 million in capital funding to create and preserve affordable housing. We funded 23 projects—1,493 affordable rental units, many of those fully accessible. Ten projects created 69 affordable homeownership opportunities. We awarded grants totaling 17.3 million through local affordable housing aid. That helped restore and boost local nonprofit capacity to develop even more affordable housing. There's so much more work to do in this space and we're making some large strides to bring down the cost of housing and make it more accessible and more affordable for our residents. [00:14] Debbie Gautel: Elevate Hennepin. This is another wonderful program that I love touting. Elevate Hennepin is a resource hub connecting local entrepreneurs to expert advisers at no cost on a wide range of topics in just one piece of the broader strategies we're—we're growing to support entrepreneurs and businesses at every stage. Thousands of businesses have used Elevate Hennepin, including more than 3,262 entrepreneurs who have access to over 41,712 hours of no-cost one-on-one advising on cohort learning opportunities. 222 businesses have launched as a result of this effort, some of them right here in Richfield. And today at the board, we just moved through at least through committee—it'll be at the board meeting, our next board meeting on July 8th—would be dollars for those who want to invest in owning commercial properties as a business venture and dollars to help first-time young developers who are trying to become developers and putting small development projects together. So that's kind of exciting to hear about that. [00:15] Debbie Gautel: Um, one of the other things we worked on is we work with our schools. Although we have no jurisdiction, we are great partners with our school, the school-based mental health program in Hennepin County program. Um, and I'd love to share just how much it really affects our students. A recent study from the University of Minnesota showed a significant drop in self-reported suicide attempts among 6th to 12th graders. I think a lot is due in because of these great efforts that we're all putting together for this. Researchers believe school-based mental health services resulted in 260 fewer self-reported suicide attempts by Hennepin County students from 2004 and to 2024. We're providing services to 6,600 students yearly. And this program is—is in every district and in every public school countywide. Despite potential funding cuts to these types of programs at the federal level, Hennepin is committed to maintaining these essential lifelines for our students. So, we're going to find every way we can to make sure we don't lose those. [00:16] Debbie Gautel: And last month was Mental Health Awareness Month and Hennepin County is working to build out mental health supports across our entire continuum of care. One crucial space where we can—where this can happen is during police-police interactions. Starting in 2019, the police embedded social worker program has become an essential new response method serving all municipalities in Hennepin County with nearly 50 social workers. In 2024 alone, Richfield police made 124 referrals to the embedded social worker with 44 referrals to range of county social services. And of course you—those who've been here a while—know that we were one of the first adopters of that. We were the pilot along with a couple of other cities and that's how this program all—all started is because you were willing to take a chance and partner with the county on this. So I wanted to special thanks to Richfield. Hennepin County proudly partners with Richfield to refer residents and a range of social services including mental health, drug treatment, housing and employment services. [00:17] Debbie Gautel: And then child well-being. This is a specific committee that I have served on. We had a consent decree because of how poorly we were performing. We have since gotten out of the five-year period and we have graduated out of that. But there's still lots of work to be done and we have decided that this child well-being advisory committee is so important that we will continue this work. It was established in 2017. The child well-being advisory committee helps guide and advise county staff and updates the County Board on progress toward child safety and well-being outcomes for our kiddos. Since this time, the child well-being advisory committee has supported an ongoing transformation of the county services supports for children and families, especially within child protection systems. Our—our idea is in prevention. That's where we're trying to get upstream to prevent even having to have those calls. [00:18] Debbie Gautel: So, we help guide these great outcomes. Right now there is a focus on our native communities as they have the highest levels of reports into child protection. We're trying to get our arms wrapped around why that is, what we could do in prevention or upstream work on that. Stay tuned. There's more to come. We're going to continue this work even with the impending cuts that are coming our way. There's still lots we can do by just shifting and—and moving resources into other places. Our biggest—our biggest job is—is being the safety net our human services. This is a huge portion of what we do. It's—it's people-facing work at Hennepin County. It falls under the human services umbrella. We manage such life-saving care as access, aging, disability services, mental health, substance use, reports of vulnerable adults and child abuse, economic supports, child supports, overall well-being as discussed in the previous slide, not to mention all the waiver services, the disability services, the fact that we have Hennepin clinics, that we have a hospital, safety net hospital. We have all these things to try to offer and to try to hold up our community, make us a better community, make us a holistic approach. [00:19] Debbie Gautel: One of the spaces that Hennepin County can also make a huge impact in our cities and communities is through community grants. We do a lot of community grants. Hennepin County's many grants that are available to the cities are the tree canopy restoration, business and apartment recycling, youth activities, capital grants for recreational facilities. I'm proud to announce that Hennepin County Board passed um, our grant recommendations for this year on June 10th and we allocated $10,000 to the Richfield Ice Arena to purchase skate aid, hockey equipment, rental skates, rink dividers to enhance recreational opportunities for all our—our local youth. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. We've brought a lot of dollars into the community and I know you've got the Wood Lake Nature Center coming. So, make sure I get some more um, responses to some of those grants for some of that wonderful programming that will happen when that—comes to fruition. I'm excited. It was at the ground breaking. It was so wonderful. [00:20] Debbie Gautel: So, well while talking about all these grants, we got to talk about trees. I think I've seen this a lot. This is a really old photo. I got to go plant another tree. Um, at Hennepin County, our goal is to plant a million trees by 2030 in collaboration with our local partners. We estimated that 576,000 trees will be planted—have been planted since 2020 by year's end and 2025. Um, some of the really great things I want to highlight in this program are the $500,000 is available through our healthy tree canopy program annually—excuse me—annually to cities, school districts, affordable housing providers, nonprofits with up to $50,000 available to cities. We also have wholesale trees purchasing opportunities for the city within the Hennepin County. Cities have purchased 575 trees from us during 2025. And that has another whole caveat. We look for a lot of those—those formerly incarcerated folks too who want to try to find a—a way into an avenue into a job. We have a pathways program where we teach them forestry and they go out and they run our—our—our tree bed nursery. It's a gravel pit tree bed and they learn forestry at the same time and many times they are hired out by other establishments, landscaping firms to be doing some of the same great work that we do. [00:21] Debbie Gautel: Um, probably as you're well aware it's construction season in Minnesota. While there might not be our favorite time of year, by staying informed on recent road closures, and there's been many, and project timelines, you're able to reduce a lot of stress related to the inconveniences. The MNDOT I-494 project taking place across the communities of Edina, Bloomington, and Richfield is an extensive multi-year, multi-million dollar project that will stimulate our local economy with good paying jobs, improve traffic flow, reduce congestion, and enhance the traffic safety. So, just want you to stay updated with Hennepin County's 2025 transportation activities map and the MNDOT Department of Transportation I-494 project map. I just keep telling everybody every time you look at that and you get stuck in traffic to say, "Okay, there's a whole lot of people that got good jobs that are helping our economy stay afloat through these times with this inflation." So, um, grateful for some of that. I'll just have to put extra time on my—on my travels. [00:22] Debbie Gautel: Um, lastly, in partnership with the public works department, we wanted to include the map and listed some of the future infrastructure projects on the horizon. I won't go through all of these line by line, but all these projects can be easily found in Hennepin County's website GIS web maps for both transportation activities and capital improvement projects. I want to extend my thank you to the collaboration between Richfield and Hennepin County to make these improvements possible. You're a great city, a great collaborator with us when we're having to work on—on all these different types of—of projects. And we really appreciate the partnership that we have and the continued resources that you bring, helping us do more outreach to your community. And because of all the hard work that you have done, some of the projects have moved up on the list. Penn Avenue has moved up on the list to a future date. And so stay tuned. Hopefully everything will go through and go smoothly for that. And with that, I just wanted to say thank you, Mayor Supple, thank you to the council members, and thank you to the city staff, city manager. Um, and I'll stand for any questions. I also brought you the snapshot book. I'll pass those out as—on my way out. [00:23] Mary Supple: Any questions or comments? Thank you so much. and thank you for your partnership. We always know we can count on Hennepin County and you're a very good representative for us, so we appreciate that. Um, are there any questions that anyone would like to ask? Um, go ahead, Council Member Burk. [00:23] Walter Burk: Um, especially happy about the Penn Avenue project and it's nice to see the signs up and telling people as they're driving on Penn Avenue that things are going to happen. It's—a lot—something that people have been waiting for as I know you know. Um, is there a way for the public to still get involved with the future development of Penn Avenue? [00:24] Debbie Gautel: Oh yes. Oh yeah. This is—this is just—it's just moved up in the line. The—the outreach and everything will happen. Although I think we have studied this four or five times. I recall that in my—my period um, from being mayor to—to now. But I think you know everything changes with time. What's really going to help Penn Avenue is because of the infrastructure underneath. We know the infrastructure cannot take on some of the redevelopment that we'd really like to see. Once we open—once the city opens up that road and is able to replace some of that infrastructure, the water lines, the sewer lines, and everything that you can build capacity in there to make a denser development. And I think that's going to just—it's going to be another node, you know, as we think of the hub as being our downtown. This is going to be one of those wonderful little hubs out here. And I'm looking forward to it, too. [00:24] Walter Burk: Excellent. Thank you. [00:24] Mary Supple: Thank you. Any other questions, comments? Council Member Hayford Oleary. [00:24] Sean Hayford Oleary: I will just uh, share Council Member Burk's excitement for Penn Avenue. Um, we're grateful for your work to move that up on the list. My—want to ask between now and 2029 is—I am hopeful the county will take another look at their cost share policy um, with regard to roads. Um, and specifically, I'm—your mention of this wonderful tree program jumped out because I believe the cost share policy is that the cities are on the hook for 50% of trees as part of roadway projects even though there's a separate program. So, it feels like on the one hand, the county is being really generous with these grants. On the other hand, when it comes to that everyday routine stuff, we're still seeing a lot of that cost pass. [00:25] Debbie Gautel: But I—I think it's a problem, too, because I think where we—we define a small city. But I have to tell you, you're not the only city that's—that's troubled with this. And there are other cities who have delayed or only doing partial projects. And they're not just all small cities and they have come to me and they are in my district. So, we know that there's some issue here. I'm not sure that at this moment in time considering what's happening in the federal government that we can make a huge difference, but I think it's certainly—I've already started those conversations. I also look at the idea of the diversity and equity when you look at the—the footprint of Richfield and the number of state, federal, and county roads per proportion of people. I think there's something to be said about that and I don't think that that is—I'm sure that's not baked into our calculations and so I think another look at this—and I have had some of those preliminary conversations—needs to happen. I'm just not sure where we'll start it but you're not the only city who's coming forward. But thank you for bringing it up because I'm—I'm not done with it yet either. [00:26] Sean Hayford Oleary: And then I will also just share related to that—and I—I think it's perfectly debatable as what—what role the county might have but I will just share one of our financial struggles as a city is keeping up the landscaping on 66. You may have seen that in the state of the landscaping on 66 but there is no support for that from the county and I certainly understand the argument that that's a local amenity but the county should want a—a green and—and attractive county road as well. So I don't have any solution for that but I will just state keeping that up is a significant expense and it is a challenge for us. [00:27] Debbie Gautel: I had brought that to Council Member Troutman. That was a real unfortunate circumstance because the county is trying to hire all these wonderful small entrepreneurial businesses and that was a small entrepreneurial business that actually let us down and they—they did a really poor job and they didn't come back and fix what they needed to fix and they're no longer around and we didn't come up with any other way to help you out and I know that to be the case and I have brought it up before and I think it got off to a really bad start and that did not help and I don't know that we did the right—enough outreach to the boulevard to people with their boulevards because I saw them full of weeds too. I went down and weeded a few myself. So being the gardener that I am. Um, so I think—I think there was a lot to be learned about, you know, being more careful, maybe scrutinizing, but we still want to use those wonderful small businesses in our communities, but being careful who we pick and choose to do that. So that's a really good point to bring up. That was a failed project unfortunately. [00:28] Sean Hayford Oleary: Thank you. And I will also just a specific compliment. I'm impressed with your Penn Avenue team so far. I really like that they're taking into account the economic development aspects of Penn and not seeing it solely as a roadway project. So I think that's going to be—it's a—a different kind of project in a lot of ways than the previous ones we've done together. [00:28] Debbie Gautel: And I have pushed that with our current public works director. Thank you for your support on that. Absolutely. I'm going to pass these out. [00:28] Mary Supple: All right. Thank you. And I—I do think it's fortuitous that we're going to be um, voting on the youth sports grant tonight. So—so thank you for doing—for that. I appreciate it. Thank you. [00:29] Rori A. Coleman-Woods: I did have one additional comment, too. Uh, I'm grateful for Commissioner Gotel's fervent efforts on the child well-being committee. My full-time job works with Connections to Independence that works directly with the child well-being committee on preventative measures and and uh, how to push things upstream in terms of direct appropriation is really kind of what we're looking for, you know, and there is so much to be done in that space to help fosters. So, I appreciate your help. [00:30] Mary Supple: Thank you again for joining us and come back anytime. We really appreciate working with you. All right. So, without objection, I would like to move approval of the agenda to this—to right now because there may be some changes that will affect Open Forum and I want to make sure everybody's aware of what's going on. So, Council Member Hayford Oleary. [00:30] Sean Hayford Oleary: Um, so I would move approval of the agenda with the removal of item six, which is the item concerning Smoke and Pure Vape on Nicollet Avenue. [00:30] Mary Supple: It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? I wonder if staff could just briefly explain what's happening with that. Yes. City Manager Rodriguez, can you explain or um, City Attorney Tietjen? I'll ask City Attorney Tietjen. [00:31] Mary Tietjen: Um, thank you, Mayor and Council. Yes. Um, the reason for the change in the agenda is we reached out to—sent some information to Council this afternoon that—uh, the legal counsel for the licensee, they had requested that the matter be heard by an independent hearing officer rather than the Council. And so after some discussion and—and talking it through, it was my recommendation that we um, grant that request and—and follow that process instead. So that it'll be going before a hearing officer. [00:31] Mary Supple: So it'll be removed from this agenda. [00:31] Mary Tietjen: Correct. [00:31] Mary Supple: So anyone that wishes to speak at Open Forum can still speak at Open Forum if they wish to, but there won't be a hearing on that tonight. All right. Thank you. Um, Council Member Burk. [00:32] Walter Burk: May I ask one question about that? Do we have any idea how long it'll take to get a hearing scheduled and get it resolved? [00:32] Mary Tietjen: I believe that staff has reached out already to um, inquire about that and it sounds like we'll be able to set something up fairly soon. [00:32] Walter Burk: Fantastic. Thank you. [00:32] Mary Supple: All right. Thank you. Any further discussion or questions? All in favor of approving the amendment with that item removed, please say I. [Council]: I. [00:32] Mary Supple: All opposed. And we've approved the agenda with that item removed. So next we'll move on to Open Forum. Participants can share their comments in person by voicemail or email and may also request to participate virtually. For information on submitting comments, refer to the Council agenda and minutes page on richfieldmn.gov/city council. Um, given recent events, there have been some concerns raised about asking people to say their address. So when you come forward, you'll have three minutes to address the Council. We will just be listening to you and taking notes and um, if there needs to be any staff followup, they'll get back together with you because you've given us your address here privately. But as—when you're giving your comments, if you could just state your name and whether or not you're a resident of Richfield, you don't have to give your specific address. So, at this point, I'm—I'm going to call up our first commenter is Carol Kelly. [00:33] Carol Kelly: Good evening, council members. Thank you very much for the time. Um, I'm here today as an independent resident of Richfield, and I wanted to address some things that were really concerning to me on the recent post on the city Facebook page in support of Pride. I wanted to first say thank you very much. Um, as you know, with my activities as—uh, within the human resource commission, uh—Human Rights Commission um, it's very important to me that we in Richfield make sure that this community is safe and equitable and welcoming and kind. You know, we heard a lot during the Jacobson Award about a world that seems to be lacking kindness and—um, there was so much—I understand that people have the right to their opinions, but I don't need to know about them. Um, and I feel like in this public comment to be able to say, you know what, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Um, and I don't want Richfield to be a place where people feel comfortable, you know, spewing vitriol against people for how they want to live their romantic private lives. [00:34] Carol Kelly: So, this should be an equitable place. I want to make sure and encourage the city council to—and the city to continue to support all of these efforts whether it's for Pride Day, for Trans Visibility Day—for, you know, we've even seen in the past people questioning why we even have an HRC or why we have to make these proclamations and it's to make sure that people that are othered feel seen. So, um, again, I thank every—I thank all of you for all your efforts in making Richfield an incredibly inclusive place to live and um, want to stand here and make sure that in the future you're not bullied into not saying anything for fear of any kind of discourse or anything else. And—um, and if anybody is listening to this that made those reprehensible posts, shame on you. And—um, again, thank you very much for supporting our LGBTQIA community. That's it. [00:35] Mary Supple: Thank you. Our next speaker is Christina Kelly. [00:35] Christina Kelly: Hi, I am a Richfield resident and I am just here to talk about the ban on menthol cigarettes. I didn't know it was happening until it was already in the news. Um, I don't agree with it. I am a smoker, but it doesn't make sense to me for you to ban menthol cigarettes because it is a gateway for children. That's a parenting problem. Point blank. Children are children. They're going to find a way to get what they want. We've all—if we're honest, we've all been there before when you're a teenager. If you're going to want it, you find a way to get it. [00:36] Christina Kelly: Two, coming up in September, you're going to be able to—if someone won a lottery to sell marijuana, you're going to be able to buy marijuana that has flavored names. I thought there were only two Richfield-owned liquor stores in the city of Richfield, but I was told by the manager of the city that there are four. So, there are four liquor stores that are owned by the city of Richfield that I could go in any of them and purchase over a hundred different liquors that are flavored. There are even Mountain Dew canned flavored liquor that is totally towards children. Are you going to ban that? Um, my other thing is I've talked to a lot of different owners. It is hurting their businesses tremendously that this has been taken away—their sales. Um, there's so much—I just think it's wrong. I don't know why it's not at a state. I can see if it's a state and just—state and down then do it. It's—it's just not right to me and I just wanted my word. Thank you. [00:37] Mary Supple: Thank you. Next we have Jason Armstrong. [Pause] He doesn't want to speak. Oh, he's changed his mind. Okay. Um, Kareem Wazwaz. [00:37] Kareem Wazwaz: Good evening, council members. My name is Kareem and I'm here on behalf of Golden Tobacco. And it's a family-owned small business that's been a part of the Richfield community for nearly 30 years. We've always taken responsibility serious. In fact, we've had one or two minor sales—city infractions, to my knowledge, in the near 30 years that we've been there. Not because we're lucky, because we care about doing the right thing and not sell to minors. The enacted menthol flavor ban, while respectively well-intentioned, is deeply harmful to responsible businesses like ours. Flavored products and menthols represent a large portion of our adult customer sales. Since the ban, we've seen a significant drop in traffic and revenue, which threatens not just our business, but also the jobs of over 10 employees that we hire. [00:38] Kareem Wazwaz: And it's literally the reason why we're opening a second shop five blocks away in the city of Minneapolis. The current policy punishes all retailers equally regardless of track record. It does not distinguish between a business with history of compliance and the others with annual repeated violations. That is not balanced policy in my opinion, respectively. That's a blanket punishment. We absolutely support keeping tobacco out of the hands of minors, but bans like this do not stop youth from accessing these products. They just drive the market underground or to unregulated online sellers or neighboring cities. Meanwhile, those responsible are left to suffer. America has long been a land of personal freedoms to me and we take great pride in self-determination and the notion of self-autonomy. When we have slogans like "my body, my choice," where is that line stopping here? How and why are cigarettes and flavored tobacco worse than fruited alcoholic beverages like this? There is underage drinking that occurs every day in America and the products are certainly marketing campaigns which market to the underage market. I know this personally because I drank UV Blue—just as this what you seen in my pocket—when I was 13 years old and was rushed to the hospital for alcohol poisoning. We urge the Council to consider smarter alternatives. Enforce ID laws more strictly, increase penalties for violators, or implement targeted licensing measures. Don't shut down the businesses that are doing things right. Thank you. [00:39] Mary Supple: Thank you. Brian Flecky? I don't know if he's still here. I believe he indicated that he may not speak if the item was pulled from the agenda. All right. Next, we have Larry Ernster. [00:40] Larry Ernster: Thank you, Council. Uh, my name is Larry Ernster. I live at 6727 Elliott Avenue South. It's nice to see a crowd here tonight. In fact, uh, I can only remember—you—you—you know you get a crowd when you do a proclamation or you get a crowd like tonight when you uh, recognize citizen of the year, but I have only seen every seat filled to overflowing out into the anti-room in 2023 when you were considering the ordinance to ban flavor—flavored tobacco. The only time—huge popular support for that. Now, what got pulled from the agenda tonight was the revocation of the tobacco license for um, Richfield Tobacco. In support of that—and I support that the resolution—that that license be pulled. In 2023, just for a little history, the resolution that came forward said to end flavored tobacco by the end of July. The Council magnanimously extended that to the end of the year. [00:41] Larry Ernster: Now, tobacco—Richfield Tobacco has had violations of selling flavored tobacco to kids and having illegal tobacco on their premises and illegal cannabis. Now, the owner may say, "Well, kids are going to get what kids are going to get." If it's available, and if they're breaking the law, their license should be revoked. The city of Richfield supported that by removing all tobacco products from the Richfield liquor store and took a financial hit for that. So, um, the owner may say, "Well, it was sold by one of my employees. I have no control over them." But, and that may be true and that employee should be reprimanded, but the presence of illegal tobacco, illegal flavored tobacco, illegal cannabis being on premise is on the owner, not on the sales clerk. So I ask you to stand your ground, pull the license and set an example for the remaining licensees in town so they value the license they have and they support and follow the law. Thank you. [00:42] Mary Supple: Thank you. Is there anyone else who's present that wishes to speak at Open Forum? [Pause] We did have one um, comment that was sent in via email. So if there's no one—did you want to come and speak? All right. [00:43] Susan Hamlin: My name is Susan Hamlin. I am not a resident of Richfield, but I am a constant shopper here and I take advantage of various things like Wood Lake and um, the Veterans Park. I'm here to talk about the tobacco shop that I frequent and buy my menthol cigarettes. I was not here when the overflow participation happened, but I would like to know from the Council, one or more of you, what the thinking was about why. And I've thought a little bit about why you might, but I did some research. I asked about—I asked the Google machine. Uh, what is it about menthol cigarettes that is objectionable? Apparently there's been an increase in menthol smokers. I didn't read that it was a gateway to children smoking. And actually when I started smoking at a very tender age, my folks were my supplier and that—they didn't smoke menthol. But I came from a family that smoked pipes, cigars, cigarettes, and menthol was never ever a choice. [00:44] Susan Hamlin: But it's my choice. You know, it is a fundamental factor and I am aggrieved that this shop owner that just spoke to you who is my retailer um, has lost business because of it. He's a great guy and his employees are great as well. When they had initially asked me for my identification, I asked them if I was too old to smoke. Nope. They were just checking to that—see—I was old enough. I would never say to a child it's a good thing to start smoking. Don't do it. But if you must, be prudent about it, just like you'd be prudent with alcohol use. And I also frequent your municipal liquor stores. And I got to thinking about the deaths that come from smoking and alcohol for children. The National Highway Safety Administration says that one of every four children killed in a car crash is a result of—one of every four from alcohol. Alcohol driving carelessly because of alcohol. [00:45] Mary Supple: You're reaching the end of the time limit. So, if you could wrap up your comments. [00:45] Susan Hamlin: Oh, I'm sorry. I wasn't aware of a time limit. No, that's okay. Um, so I would appreciate just for my own information what—what the primary reasons were that you wanted to eliminate menthol cigarettes. Thank you. And I appreciate your having an Open Forum. [00:45] Mary Supple: Thank you. Um, during the meeting we don't get into back and forth but if you're willing to hang around I'd be happy to talk to you after the meeting so we'll be able to talk to you then. Is there anyone else who's here in person that wishes to speak? All right. Um, City Clerk Friedrich, I believe we had someone that sent in comments. [00:46] Michelle Friedrich: We do. We have one email comment. A comment was submitted by Sloan Martin. They are a Richfield resident. "I am writing to the city council to express my displeasure and disappointment with the basketball hoops at public parks. My husband and I have lived in Richfield since 2017 and chose to stay here for our second home, Richfield Public Parks, accounting for a major reason why. We absolutely love not just how many they are—there are, but the care, attention, and pride put into the parks year round. A truly hidden gem in our area that we deeply appreciate and use daily. [00:47] Michelle Friedrich: We were excited when last year or two years ago, new hoops started being installed because we use those on a very regular basis, specifically at Taft, Roosevelt, and Washington. But we too often find ourselves frozen out from using them due to damage. We feel awful that so much was invested in these hoops, and they're unfortunately serving as an example of why we can't have nice things. Between broken cranks and broken rims, we too frequently have our basketball outings squandered. Numerous times we've arrived at a park only for a hoop to be immovable—excuse me—at seven feet or one completely out of commission at the height of our knees, rim nearly detached from people hanging on. If Richfield is going to have outdoor basketball hoops, the current situation is untenable. The hoops have to be 10 ft durable and stationary. If you want hoops for little kids, make them static at a certain height at a limited number of parks. We're now going to spend hundreds of dollars on a hoop for our home, but that's not what we want. We want to use our public space. I know there's no—there's no magic wand that will refill the budget for these hoops, but I know there's agreement that public outdoor basketball hoops are vital to numerous members of the community as one of the most accessible ways to exercise and be outside. Richfield takes pride in investing in parks, so let's reinvest in something widely used and desired. Thank you." [00:48] Mary Supple: Are there any other comments that were submitted? Okay, we'll ask one last time if there's anyone else who wishes to speak. Thank you to everybody that contributed to Open Forum. Next, we will move on to the approval of the minutes of the City Council Work Session from June 10th, 2025 and the City Council Regular Meeting from June 10th 2025. [00:48] Sean Hayford Oleary: So moved. [00:48] Walter Burk: Second. [00:48] Mary Supple: It's been moved and seconded. Is there any correction, comments, or discussion? Hearing none. All in favor, please say I. [Council]: I. [00:48] Mary Supple: All opposed. Okay, we have approved both sets of minutes. Next, we'll move on to the consent calendar. City Manager Rodriguez. [00:49] Katie Rodriguez: Thank you, Mayor. The consent calendar contains several separate items which are acted upon by the City Council in one motion. Once the consent calendar has been approved, the individual items and recommended actions have also been approved. No further Council action on these items is necessary. On tonight's consent calendar: Item A, consider adoption of a resolution authorizing the city to affirm the monetary limits on statutory municipal tort liability. Item B, consider the approval of setting a public hearing to be held July 22nd, 2025 to consider the issuance of new of a new on-sale wine and 3.2% malt liquor license for SK Food LLC doing business as Ki Mech located at 6420 Nicollet Avenue South. Item C, consider the approval of an agreement for prosecution services with the city of Richfield and HJ Law. Item D, consider accepting the bid tabulation and authorizing the mayor and city manager to take all necessary steps to award and execute a contract with the irresponsible low bidder for the 73rd Street Safe Routes to School project upon authorization from MNDOT and authorize the city manager to approve the contract changes up to $175,000 without further city council consideration. Accepting the bid tabulation is only a formal acknowledgement of the city's receipt of bids for the project. It does not include an award of the contract. Item E, consider a resolution accepting a Hennepin County youth sports equipment grant in the amount of $10,000 for the purchase of skate aids, hockey equipment, rental skates, and rink dividers at the Richfield Ice Arena and authorize staff to execute a grant agreement. Item F, consider a resolution accepting two state of Minnesota solar on public buildings program grants for $67,614 and $68,785 to purchase and install solar energy equipment on the roofs of the Richfield Ice Arena and the Richfield Public Works Building. And I submit these items for your consideration on the consent calendar. [00:50] Mary Supple: Is there a motion on these items? [00:50] Walter Burk: I move approval of the consent calendar. [00:50] Sean Hayford Oleary: Second. [00:50] Mary Supple: It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? All in favor, please say I. [Council]: I. [00:50] Mary Supple: All opposed. And we've approved the items on the consent calendar. Item six was removed from the agenda. So, we'll move on to item seven. And I'm going to turn that over to Council Member Burk. [00:51] Walter Burk: The item for Council consideration: Consider an amendment to the cooperative agreement with Metro Housing and Redevelopment Authority to operate up to five additional housing units under the Family Affordable Housing Program. In 2003, the city approved a cooperative agreement with the Metropolitan Council's Housing and Redevelopment Authority, or Metro HRA, that allows them to own and operate 10 scattered site units of affordable housing in the community. Under the terms of the agreement, properties are exempt from property taxes but pay a fee in lieu of taxes in an amount equal to 10% of the rent paid for the unit. Metro HRA owns and operates 150 units of affordable housing throughout Anoka, Hennepin, and Ramsey counties as part of the family affordable housing program. [00:52] Walter Burk: Metro HRA recently sold five of these homes and are in the process of purchasing replacement homes in various communities. They have purchased two homes within Richfield and are seeking to bring the operation of the homes under the agreement through a second agreement. They would also like the second agreement to provide the option of purchasing three additional homes in Richfield at some time in the future. So the motion before the city council is to approve Cooperative Agreement Number Two between the city and the Metropolitan Council Housing and Redevelopment Authority to own and operate an additional five homes in the community through the family affordable housing program. Is there a second? [00:52] Sean Hayford Oleary: Second. [00:52] Mary Supple: Okay, it's been moved and seconded. I know staff was hoping to give some additional information. So, at this point, if you would like to do that, I'm going to call on our Assistant Community Development Director, Julie Urban. [00:53] Julie Urban: Thank you, Mayor Supple and members of the Council. I actually don't have anything to add, but I would like to introduce Terry Smith, who's the director of Metro HRA, and she is here tonight and can provide some background information since this um, happened many years ago—was first approved—and answer any questions you have. So, thank you, Terry, for being here. Thank you. You can go up here. [00:53] Terry Smith: Thank you. And good evening, Mayor and Council Members. Um, my name is Terry Smith. I'm the director of the Metropolitan Council Housing and Redevelopment Authority. Um, I was around when we purchased our initial 150 units back in the early 2000s. Um, we currently own 10 units in Richfield. Um, they are all managed by a private management company and we've had great um, success with the units in Richfield. Um, in terms of low turnover, the units remain occupied. Um, we work closely with the police department and have had relatively few if any issues in many years. And so because of the high demand for the um, portfolio units that are located in Richfield, we're interested in adding an additional five units—up to five units—in the city of Richfield. Happy to answer questions. [00:54] Mary Supple: Thank you. Are there any questions? [Pause] All right. Thank you so much. [00:54] Terry Smith: Thank you. [00:54] Mary Supple: So the motion has been made and seconded. It's now open for discussion. Is there any discussion? Um, Council Member Burk. [00:54] Walter Burk: Just a comment—I should have said this while you were up there—it's really great to see how cooperatively the organization and the city is working and certainly in favor of affordable housing, especially at the family level. It's definitely a challenge to find housing for families as opposed to individuals. And so, it's really great that what you're doing and that the city can participate and cooperate with that. Thank you. [00:55] Rori A. Coleman-Woods: I'll actually uh, piggyback off of that. Um, working with youth who are aging out of foster care. Uh, they have kids with—u—multiple kids with—and are—and are in need of housing voucher options that have actual houses, not just apartments. So we appreciate your work. [00:55] Mary Supple: Yes. I—I think this is like a—a very sorely needed thing. We have lots of spaces in apartments, but we don't have single-family homes for families. And so, you're filling a need that is really good. And I think it's good to have people um, scattered across the community and everybody living everywhere. So, thank you for that. Any other comments, questions? Okay, the motion's before us. All in favor, please say I. [Council]: I. [00:55] Mary Supple: All opposed. And we have approved the Cooperative Agreement Number Two. Thank you. Next, we'll move on to item number eight, and I'll turn it over to Council Member Christensen. [00:56] Sharon Christensen: Thank you, Mayor. Uh, this is for the uh—to consider the appointment to fill a vacancy on the Transportation Commission. Terms of several city advisory board and commission members expire on January 31st, 2025. Terms for advisory board and commissions are for three years. The city council directs the City Manager's Office to conduct—conduct an annual recruitment seeking applicants to fill the vacancies. This recruitment includes a press release and information on the city's website and social media platforms. Applicants were interviewed at a work session held on November 16, 2024. The Transportation Commission had an unexpected resignation after all positions were filled. During the recruitment process, Council designated alternate candidates as there were not enough open positions for all applicants. The recommended alternate's application was submitted to Council for their review. The recommended action would be to uh, approve the—by motion—would be to approve the appointment of Jacob Olsen as Transportation Commissioner commencing on June 24, 2025 and expiring January 31st, 2026. Is there a second? [00:57] Rori A. Coleman-Woods: Second. [00:57] Mary Supple: Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? I would say it's been a good process to have the alternates in place and we've actually used it several times this year. So, I'm glad that we had the problem of having so many applicants that we had to pick alternates. So, it has worked out well for us. Any further comments or questions? All in favor, please say I. [Council]: I. [00:57] Mary Supple: All opposed. And we've approved the appointment of Jacob Olsen. Thank you, Mr. Olsen, for your service. Next, we will move on to the City Manager Report. City Manager Rodriguez. [00:58] Katie Rodriguez: Thank you, Mayor. Uh, you may have heard by now, but our Deputy Chief Mike Flity is retiring and his last day will be tomorrow, and he has requested that we um—that he slip out the back door. So, he does not want a lot of fuss, but I'm going to—I'm going to—um—I—I can't do that completely. So, I just want to say thank you um, to him uh, for all his—his years of dedicated service and um, he and I would be at a lot of community events together and he was my model for community engagement. Um, I—I once went with him for Out to Night Parties and he was great and he would just—just be completely there and present for those people that were chatting with him and I really respected that. He's been a pleasure to work with and so I would—I will really miss him. Um, and I'm—I'm going to keep it short so I don't get in too much trouble, but you and I think we would like to add our best wishes to Deputy Chief Flity. He's been a wonderful public servant and we appreciate all he's done for Richfield. [00:59] Walter Burk: I'd like to also add that um, in my time on the Human Rights Commission that he was nearly always there and uh, he was a pleasure to work with in that—in that context and he was a model of uh, engagement between city staff and—and the community. He was really a model for that and uh, it's a—it's a shame he's so modest. It'd be nice to get him in here and give him a proper farewell, but uh, so that's what he wants and that's fine. So I—I second what you said there. Thank you. [01:00] Mary Supple: Next, we'll move on to Claims and Payroll. [01:00] Sean Hayford Oleary: Motion to approve Claims and Payroll. [01:00] Walter Burk: Second. [01:00] Mary Supple: It's been moved and seconded to approve Claims and Payroll. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor, please say I. [Council]: I. [01:00] Mary Supple: All opposed. And we have approved Claims and Payroll. Next, we'll move on to Hats Off to Hometown Hits. Council Member Hayford Oleary. [01:01] Sean Hayford Oleary: Um, probably taking somebody's, but I will just say I'm very excited for Fourth of July and grateful for the Fourth of July committee again for all the volunteer work bringing that together. I know many of us will be in the parade and I—I—I'm not going to say anything about the weather. Um, I'm grateful for their service. Um, I also would uh—Manager Rodriguez's comments about Night to Unite remind me that the registration form is now open. So, I'm going to remind some folks to do that, but that is open to both block captains who have an organized neighborhood watch and just people who want to do that, even if they don't have a neighborhood watch. Um, it's really just a fun opportunity to get to know your neighbors. So, I'll be reaching out to some folks and remind them and encourage them to do that. Thank you. [01:02] Walter Burk: Council Member Burk. So, I'm sure residents receive one of these. This is a—a reminder from the city about Richfield's water quality. And as we often find out, we have great water. It's no surprise. Some of the best in—the best in the state. And so, I just want to take this opportunity to thank the Public Works Department and especially those who work on our water quality. I want to thank you very much for that and give you some extra public recognition. Thank you. [01:03] Rori A. Coleman-Woods: Council Member Coleman-Woods. Um, you know what? I want to uh, send a shout out to our city staff and the work that they've been doing this week to keep us safe as elected officials. Um, so thank you. I appreciate you guys. Thank you. [01:03] Sharon Christensen: Council Member Christensen. Yes. I'd like to do a shout out also to the um, uh Richfield 4th of July committee. They are uh, working really hard to get us a great year this year and um, they do need help. So, if you could go on the website is uh—www—uh, I believe it's richfield4th.com and there's a place to sign up and tell you all about all the different activities that there are whether you know it be the uh, street dance the night before, the VFW pancake breakfast the next morning, the wreath laying at Veterans Memorial, the parade and of course the uh, fireworks and also a family movie event at the STEM field the um, night after that. So, thank you. [01:04] Mary Supple: I wanted to thank everybody who attended the State of the Community event and thank all the people that were part of putting that together and the staff. Um, it was fun to get together with the community and I just wanted to put a resounding thank you for that. I also um, wanted to thank everybody that was involved in the um, Juneteenth pop-up event at the Richfield Farmers Market. And so I know Britney Bartlett had a lot to do with that and I know a number of other people helped her. Uh, there was music by The Daily Norm. There was a storybook hike, Juneteenth buttons and several Black-owned businesses. And so it was a fun event and I look forward to future events. Um, finally, people have talked about the need for volunteers for the Fourth of July. So I think that's been covered. I do want to do a shout out to everybody that go—that has organized the Entertainment in the Park. Um, they're over there doing it right now, so we're missing it. But on July 8th, you could join us there and there's a whole list. You can go on the website of all of the different um, times that people come. They're Tuesdays that'll go through August 12th. Um, at 11:00 it's things for kids and at 6:30 it's for adults. So please join us for Entertainment in the Park. With that, I would entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting. [01:05] Sean Hayford Oleary: So moved. [01:05] Walter Burk: Second. [01:05] Mary Supple: It's been moved and seconded to adjourn the meeting. All in favor, please say I. [Council]: I. [01:05] Mary Supple: All opposed. We stand adjourned.