Based on the context provided and the content of the dialogue, here is the transcribed townhall with speaker names added: [0:02] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Okay. Call this August work session to order if we join for a moment of silence and pledge of allegiance. [0:21] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all comments any Okay. Uh, moving on to discussion items. [0:44] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Fisher property site planning. I'll turn over to Allyn and Zach for that. **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** Good evening, Mayor and Council members. we've advanced the project to the next phase where we've acquired the property the process of demoing the property and concurrently we're looking at a master site plan. If you recall when we last went to council identified one possibly two uh public property and then what time place for redevelopment. [1:16] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** So as a way to optimize the land uh in the existing utility infrastructure and access and mobility uh we've brought on and Brian Harris who's participating here to to assist in that effort. So tonight he's going to go over some site plan options. He's also going to review with you his experience in other communities to kind of give you a flavor as as to what we could consider here. So uh he's got some uh we're going to pass the uh control here to him and he's going to take the lead. So, Brian, please. [1:49] **Brian Harris (Consultant):** Thanks, Zach. Uh, can everyone see the screen, the air photo that's up right now? Is that a yes? I think that's a yes. Um, this is just for context. This is the parcel, the Fisher parcel that we're looking at in concert with the city- owned piece. That's the water tower uh that extends all the way along 179th Street here today. There are plans here for a fire station I'll get to in a second, but a lot of this starts with access and understanding that there'll be uh no allowed access off of 149th Street and that potentially this access is most likely to get closed uh in the future. Uh so very limited access from the south and from the east. So most of [2:36] **Brian Harris (Consultant):** our access is coming from Dodd Boulevard as you'll see in these concepts. Can everyone see the concepts, Zach? Is that all right? Everyone see those? Chat, thumbs up. Yep. Okay, perfect. Well, let's start with these. There's really um there's two core concepts to look at here tonight. The second one has sort of versions within it, but uh the main one looks uh to take that remaining piece of property that you see back in here. Um that long skinny piece that's down along Casani and 179th Street. Um but it's responding to the most current site plan for the new fire station in in this location. And a lot of this is um due to access and response time needs to that access out on Graanby then to get to uh 179th or Cassan 9 and out. So this [3:24] **Brian Harris (Consultant):** location worked really well for the fire station. Um they've sort of maximized the site that they could utilize here and then created a um an area here for a backage road or a connection road in between. So in this concept we're looking at doing two things. is creating this um separate site here to the north that would be um uh higher density housing. It could be market rate apartments, senior living, a variety of different things, but in that general form kind of four stories over one level of underground parking and then surface parking to support that. And then to the south and the remainder of the site, um we are looking at creating that satellite water treatment facility. [4:05] **Brian Harris (Consultant):** rough order of magnitude on some of the square footages to date is about a 20,000 ft building. Uh a need for a clear well site of this size. Uh roughly about 75 by 120. Um and then this area for the back wash basin. There's a need for a access drive and a small amount of parking to that. Um but the components that we studied with this were trying to create some intentional separation uh with no direct connection here. um from from the public standpoint to this facility through here. All access would come through the water tower site uh to that satellite facility in this location. And then the bulk of the remaining site could kind of be utilized as additional uh public works storage, [4:50] **Brian Harris (Consultant):** more temporary layown space, other things that'd be needed or necessitated for uh the public works um facility and operations there. So, this one looks at the first site um trying to develop a what we see as pretty standard U housing, residential housing kind of around the back side of it. So, I'll just go through all these Zach and then we'll take a pause. Does that sound okay? [5:13] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** That sounds good. Thank you. **Brian Harris (Consultant):** So as I said in the at the start of this concept 2 has sort of versions an ABC version within that and they all are predicated on sort of minimizing the amount of site need for that water treat treatment facility here to the south. So again uh the same uh elements are designed here for a 20,000 ft building the clear well need the backwash basin and and circulation and access for all those in that location. uh all that access would come through the water tower site and we would create essentially two uh developable parcels on the remainder of the land back behind there. And what we've looked at with these various options are different land uses potentially that'd be better fits [6:00] **Brian Harris (Consultant):** in those locations. The first one looks at um either owner occupied or a rental rental town home product that's more of a rowhouse type look or a combination of that and and backto back housing in this location. and then combined again with uh a similar sort of four levels of of residential development over one level of underground parking as well as site parking with that. And then the modifications that we show here for the others sort of play with that ability to toggle the need for additional uh public works storage space or uh options for maybe a smaller depth parcel here to the north. that could be more of a sort of commercial or maybe medical office type of space. But, you know, back to that [6:45] **Brian Harris (Consultant):** point about access, these sites, if they wanted to lean commercial, are really going to be needing to be destinationbased cuz the primary access would be off of Dodd and that's out here at Cedar. That's a 3/4 intersection off of off of that location. So, uh it's limited in its access. doesn't mean it can prohibit uh commercial development there, but it really would need to be destinationbased in that location. So, what you see here is the private roadway extension as well as a shallower depth. [7:14] **Brian Harris (Consultant):** We don't need as much depth if that's a residential uh as a residential site would need. So, if this is commercial, we're okay with a little shallower site. We even talked about the potential for a roadway connection there to the north. Um and then again, that idea of that 4 over one, a non-connected site here. So, two individual sites uh about 2.3 2.2 acres roughly for those development sites. And then here again, we looked at another T, if I just kind of toggle this between two and three quick, you can kind of see a slightly expanded commercial program to push that a little bit more. And then an expanded residential program in lie of some of that uh storage area for the um the public works area. So [8:01] **Brian Harris (Consultant):** those are sort of the ideas that are at play here. It's sort of this remainder site that sits in the back here. This, you know, approximately four to, well, it's probably about 5 to 6 acres generally back in here. Um, we did look around at a couple other locations. Um, the new one that's off of, uh, Yankee Doodle Road in Egan has a a brand new sort of senior co-op building kind of right behind the backside of that fire station. uh today. Uh other sites we looked around in Eden Prairie. It's sort of a mix of uh this is a smaller fire station, albeit, but it's a kind of a daycare facility along with some adjacent uh backtoback town homes nearby. [8:42] **Brian Harris (Consultant):** Uh Burnsville, similar component here with that that fire station, more town home use, a little bit of commercial component, and then uh residential uh piece nearby. and then Maple Grove mix of apartments uh smaller scale apartments again kind of by that uh adjacent to that fire station site. So it's not uncommon to have residential adjacent to a fire station site in that location especially where we're really lacking some access I think from um the outside end. So, I'll stop there and um maybe entertain any questions from council and and staff. Zach or Allyn, if I missed anything, um let me know if I want to we should touch base on anything else. [9:31] **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** Um I guess I'll Excuse me. when we 2A and 2C was uh basically maximizing as much redevelop space fire station. **Councilmember John Bermel:** So I don't have any questions. I think this is right on the mark of what I was hoping for. [10:02] **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** For me, the biggest thing is I some of these do eliminate that public works storage that continues to be a conversation. So, I'd rather not have one of those projects because we're trying to figure that out. So, the there are a few that were commercial but then smaller residential that maintain that. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Yeah, I think that one makes sense, but at the end of the day, we don't really have to decide until it's marketed and someone proposes something, right? It's just... [10:34] **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** Yeah. I mean, we're just trying to get a good idea from the council. Do you want any commercial in there? I think, you know, Brian talked a lot about the access and the visibility. It's listed as commercial office. I have a hard time thinking this would be a fast food restaurant or anything that sort of visibility. It's going to be your office. Maybe some destination commercial. Um but maybe your doctor's office maybe an office condo type project. [11:00] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Yeah. I mean to me it's very similar to the 40 where you have maybe a CMT and whatever then I don't know if that's what we want to try to strive for to try to you know if we can market it that way. I'd like to have the balance of the site because you know it just helps with the overall site. But yeah I don't well we could use our fifth Taco Bell. [11:25] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Notice at least one person who had a conversation with staff about a concept for a commercial destination event center in there. I mean, I would love for that to have a little portion of commercial. I don't know where that conversation went. Maybe they're the only ones. Um, but so, um, if it's possible, I think that'd be ideal to keep some of that commercial. [11:52] **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** The public works storage. Is that a building or it's just out? **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** It's outdoor with like cover stores. It's not even that. Yeah. We just have So we um it's just basically outdoor storage. So like water main break material, other material that we need to stockpile temporarily on site for different projects and whatnot, shown reuse, those type of things. We lost about two acres of of land down at PE public works that we're trying to recoup right now right now for those water main breaks spoils to it Kendrick gravel it right now they're allowing us to get in there so but that's only temporary obviously so we're just trying to find a home um for [12:38] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** that type of use got it temporary storage as well staging area got it Okay. **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** So, something really nice to look at on the trees on the north. [12:58] **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** All right. That's what I immediately thought of when I thought of storage right there. Um, and what we might have visible to the apartment, any residential facility there. I guess it depends on screening, but I don't know. I mean, I maybe I'm completely off base, but considering those other two apartments on the other side of Cedar just continue to not happen. I just don't see this couple years in general. [13:24] **City Administrator Justin Miller:** Well, and I don't think we anticipate marketing it until the fire station is completed. It's going to be sometime in 2027. But we would probably just I mean our to sit on it until the fire station is done. Okay. [13:39] **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** That's going to be there at that point at that point larger facility as well. So we have a better idea of what we're dealing with at that time than market unless somebody came to us and blew our way with an offer. [13:55] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Yeah. Okay. **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** From a shortterm standpoint, uh, we'll be done with demolishing plans. Then in 2026 when we start construction of the fire station, we'd probably incorporate some mass grading to try to get some economies of scale and balance and that will help a lot too. We'll get some of those u those volunteer trees out and clean it up a little bit so we'll have a better idea what our utility [14:32] **Brian Harris (Consultant):** Yes Brian. I was just going to point out or just want to have a conversation about access again that if this is going to get closed in the future, we will likely need some form of roadway connection back to this. So, likely it wants to become two sites. Um, depending upon how it's all how it all shakes out. Um I I didn't know where the conversation was going if people were thinking this was all one site in total. Uh perhaps that road could bend back to the north here. [15:04] **Brian Harris (Consultant):** Um but again this was this was changed to a full access I think right Zach at this location now off off a dod. So it's one of the factors I think that would happen in the marketplace and talking to potential developments. um the either the need for this connection back out or not depending upon what that user would want to be. [15:27] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** Yeah. So that right in right out that Brian just referenced when that corner developed HPCS you know it's a Dollar Tree Dollar Tree um part of the contract for that allowed the access to go in on the condition of too many accidents at that location that right in right out closes completely. [15:48] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** There hasn't been any accidents, but as far as I understand, you'll notice that it's not your typical right turn lane. Yeah, it's just a right the shoulder. So, that's kind of a thing that's lingering out there a little bit for that access point. We won't know that until the county feels the need to close it. [16:08] **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** Got it. Okay. I did speak with Bermel today and he endorsed much of the same things you were saying. All right. Yeah. We'll see what happens. Okay. Do we want to go right into the water treatment expansion then? [16:24] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Sure. Because we're talking about this, right? **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** We are. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. We just thought it'd be a good time to talk. Thanks Brian. Thanks everyone. [16:57] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** So, uh, talk about water treatment a little bit here I discuss with, um, or Black & Veatch. Uh, he helped us, uh, draft a study expansion. [17:13] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** Um, let's see here. So, um just a little background here, um before we get to it. Uh so, back in 2022, some did a water treatment plan expansion study uh to try to keep pace with the growth of the community. Um so, that um study um look at looked at three options there. Um after that study was completed, we did look at ex um modifying our filters at the existing uh plant. um one for biological uh treatment. And then we also looked at uh using other uh filter materials or uh treatment for the iron and maganese which is in our water. Um both of those [17:58] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** um did not turn out um positive. So we didn't see the the um water treatment um modification gains or production gains that we would have liked. So we're kind of um walking away from those ideas. So um so we with the purchase of the Fisher property, we wanted to re-evaluate those three um alternatives that we looked at in this 2002 study. Um so see this um this graph here shows where we're at with water treatment. So the the line is where we're at with capacity of our existing plant for treatment. So uh 2015 there was a modification to the filters um and we bumped up the the [18:46] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** filters um for a capacity for the plant of 26.5 mg mills per day um that's going to get us to you know almost to 2030 time frame but with the expansion of growth um we will not potentially meet our future demand here in the next couple years um yeah unless we keep really wet uh summers as we did. So this is again based upon our our max needs uh for for the community if we want to treat 100% of the water that we produce. [19:21] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** So with this analysis um you know some of the assumptions are on the right that we've used um the uh uh this is again for ultimate buildout. uh x bold of 85,000 population um times the the peak factor that we see for average flows. Um that gets us to um 30.5 million gallons per day, but with a a safety factor, redundancy factor, we're looking at about 33.1 million gallons of of water production. [19:56] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Question for you on the population for anybody. I mean, we still think that 85 is the right number for that 80 today. Um, is what we're still basing everything on. **City Administrator Justin Miller:** I think density wise, we'll review it again. [20:14] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** Okay. So, with that again, it would be roughly about 6.6 million gallons per day of additional treatment capacity that we would need. uh the alternatives again that we're we're looking at an expansion of the existing plant um that satellite uh treatment plant at the Fischer property and then maxate bypass which no with no treatment uh additions which is basically taking the raw water from our wells and then um a portion of that percentage of that that water will go directly into our distribution lines. [20:49] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** We're still going to treat for um the to health requirements of chlorine and chloride but but no filter filtering the water for iron manganesees and some other other things in the water aesthetic aesthetic issues. [21:06] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** This drawing shows where our current raw water lines are. Um, basically our northeast wells are up in Bunker Hill and then and then basically all the pipe fall follows the old line and do our water treatment plant here. So everything right now is going to our water treatment plant if we were to have a satellite plant that Fiser property is really nicely located along the trunk line out out to the east. Uh so we can tap into that land pretty easily and redirect um a large portion of our wells to that plant. So for on day one uh that that satellite plant the uh the plant could run at 100% capacity without needing additional wells to be [21:53] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** so um Black & Veatch came up with some alternative comparisons here. Just here just more or less pros and cons if you can see these um to each of the alternatives. Um so one is redundancy. So right now we we just have that one water treatment plant. Um if anything were to happen to that that plant obviously there'd be lack of production. [22:14] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** Um and al also the distribution line if there is any problems that we have with the distribution pipes coming out of the plant. There's some risk there obviously. So the the advantage to a satellite plant would be that we have that redundancy factored. So if the main plant goes down, at least we have average winter day demand flows that would uh we could we could support the the city with. Um or if the existing plant go uh has some maintenance issues that we want to take the plant down, we've got roughly about 6 months where we could take the plant down and have that satellite plant um produce the water that we need for for the community. For alternate three, uh basically the same as one. [22:58] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** redundancy resilience is similar to uh um redundancy. So that you know we just have one single plant right now with alternate two we do have the interest resilience that associated with plant. [23:15] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** Um, one thing that we did not study back in 2022, the last study was um, looking at a potential secondary treatment. For example, if we had a PFAS issue here in town, and we had to treat for um, those contaminants, we need a secondary treatment. um um the uh existing plant. [23:40] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** Um if we would add additional treatment or additional treatment fac uh facility at the existing plant be more difficult to add a secondary treatment for PFAS or some other contaminants with uh at that plant with the addition of the of the treatment um builders just they just get in the way of where the existing piping are piping is there's there's some uh challenges associated with that. I'm not saying it can't be done. It's just it'll be a lot more costly to do that. So with alternate 2 um satellite plant um it would be a lot easier to um add secondary treatment at the existing plant and also we can plan easily for [24:25] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** secondary treatment of some other contaminant in the future at a satellite as well. So, and then also uh alternative number three, it is easier to add secondary treatment at the existing plants since we're not adding those those filter. It's just the way the plant currently plays out. It's just challenging to uh add secondary treatment with additional filters. So, for personnel, um we are potentially going to need a little bit more help at the plant with the expansion of the plant. There's more things to to to keep track of, keep uh on top of. So, not full-time employee, but somebody is to help us out in the plant beside our other operators. With a satellite plant, we would um potentially need at least the additional one operator um to to [25:12] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** monitor the the treatment plant. The plant would run more or less autonomously off of SCADA. So with um uh like there's Molly obviously there's always uh human interactions that have to take place on occasion and and water testing and those type of things that have to still take place for the department of health. And then uh for personnel there would be additional u personnel required for for the bypass option as well. uh for operations and maintenance. Um you know, we we already have all the the treatment um chemicals, feeds, and those type of things that we need at at the treatment plant. So, it's it's scalable. We just need to expand our our uh chlorine feeds and those type of things. So, that's that's fairly easily done. Um with the alternate uh [25:59] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** plant expansion, additional equipment would be necessary, you're obviously going to be building plants, you need all new equipment for that facility. The advantage of the alternate plant as well is for our operations. The the plant does straddle two of our our pressure zones. Um so it's easy to throw water around at the different um pressure zones as well. So we have more need in the in the eastern side of the the community. We can we can push more water out out there and vice versa. There's more flexibility in how we operate the system if that satellite plant would be built. Um and again alternate three is scalable um for the bypass um option for water quality. Um if we [26:45] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** expand the existing plant there wouldn't be any change. We to our water quality in the future. And likewise if we had a satellite plant no change in our water quality into the future. were basically using the same type of filtration, taking taking out the same um naturally occurring um uh materials in the water. [27:07] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** And then but for alter number three, we would potentially see an increase in our water quality with that bypass. We would be uh putting raw water out of their community with iron and maganesees in it and interaction. The treated water does have a tendency to precipitate all potentially would have some um water quality issues into the future um at high demand periods without alternate earth. So lot to consider there but is there any questions that fine? **Councilmember John Bermel:** I thought when we had talked in 22 that we didn't think we had enough physical space to add on one is there not accurate uh add on the current facility current facility the treatment filters. Yeah, [27:53] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** there's there's space out there. Okay. All right. So this is the uh cost analysis that the Black & Veatch um looked came up with uh they calculated. So we did we did also talk to a contractor who um builds water treatment plant facilities as well to get an idea from them on our cost and uh just kind of touch base with them. So with the alternate alone expansion adding the additional treatment existing facility uh the general costs are shown here with 25% contingencies and uh engineering legal administration those type of cost uh as add-ons. So we're looking at about $26 million for that [28:40] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** option. Opening number two basically it's a brand new plan. So there everything's brand new if uh with additional uh raw water pipes coming into the plant and then distribution lines going out of the plant. So that's that's fairly costly site site construction fil the filters um the uh high service pumps um clear well backwash tanks those type of things. So, uh, and we're estimating right now at a high level of $44 million for that option. And then open number three is the bypass option. Well, where we get no treatment, but again, we're we have to just to meet uh next day demands that added an additional um pump orders um [29:29] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** storage um clear well, new clear well, new backwash expansion as well. So that that price pay comes in right around 17 million for that option. So with that uh that's high level of what the study has shown. Um you know our whatever um option the council would like us to look at. We still have to do a rate study, see how that fits into future future future. [30:04] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** The um the plant capacity um mentioned the population piece, but does that also factor in potential industrial uses? **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** Well, it does for our comp plan right now. So, it doesn't go above and beyond say if we got a data center that comes in. We don't that's there there isn't any um additional capacity that we've added in for that at this time. So that's that can be scalable. We can we can look at doing more treatment or at least setting aside for more of that in the future or at least plan for something like that if something would come in. But right now it's it's basically part of the plan. [30:45] **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** I misremembered. Do you remember the last time we talked about this that we had to build an alternate site because of capacity? And now I mean I don't even Can you go back to the cost estimate? I don't even remember that being an option. So I'm just like we always now it seems way more sense to just expand one. I mean I get the redundancy thing but we had both options in the last one because it was based upon the option it included the the filter which molies that all talked about. [31:14] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** Yeah. So this it did have these options in there. **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** Yeah, it just seems hard to justify building a second site even with the redundancy such a significant cost. I don't I thought before that it was like a no-brainer, but now I'm I'm misremembering I guess. Um and all of these options are assuming that they bring us to the same max capacity. **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** Correct. 33 33.1 million gallons per day. **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** Um, the other thing that I keep thinking about is that at the time that we first looked at this, it looked like the upward trend of use was is going to be steeper than it is right now. And granted, there's still a risk because that throughout the summer year, right, there's risk there, but there are ways to mitigate that too. how our policy structure the tears for water usage I think has helped but also technology how people are programming their systems has helped as well so it just doesn't seem like we're [32:18] **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** going to reach that need as fast as we thought we were going to in 22 and even looking at last three years pretty yeah the last two years specifically when it's been really wet lately. Uh, and to your point, I think, you know, with like a water smart technology and people, you know, actually a being able to check their water uses on their app and their their phone, I think there that's been really helpful for our water usage to at least level that out a little bit more. [32:50] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** So, but we do see, you know, a lot of growth in the future. We don't know what industrial, you know, uh, facilities potentially equ high demand users. So, it's it's kind of a little bit of a I guess there, but So, what's kind of our timeline on decisions is just kind of a marker in the ground today or **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** Yeah, we're not looking at anything, right? We're just as we continue to site plan the Fisher site, it' be helpful to kind of know. [33:27] **City Administrator Justin Miller:** I don't know if I do. I know. I know. Um, also remember this doesn't take into account any potential annexations. Yeah. Just involves land that we currently have in the city. Y um and I don't know what the price is on the redundancy, you know, how you value that. But yeah, that's very true. **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** Well, besides redundancy, it seems like at some point we're still going to I think our city is going to go f larger than what we calculated here. [34:04] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** So, does it make sense to go with option one, but still reserve that sliver of land next to the water tower for the satellite redundancy system? But at some point based on the model probably going to surpass if we're closer to 95,000 people, right? And does that then that mean that we still need another expansion? Right. **City Administrator Justin Miller:** But yeah, and again we're just basing it on what is in our documents and we're following right now. So, um, if we think it's going to be something a little bit larger, I mean, that's another conversation, um, as we get into the comp plan future as well, too. [34:58] **City Administrator Justin Miller:** But we're just letting you know where we're at with in terms of our options, right? Right now that we have and and we can always talk about the size. There's the 33s, the 35, or you know, whatever. It's just something that we just we with the with the Fisher property, we just wanted to bring this to your back to your attention again and just talk about our our options and what direction you think we need to go in uh in terms of what type of treatment want in the future. We can always talk about size, but we just need to talk about I thought we just need to talk about, you know, where what kind of how where the treatment could potentially go and um you know, just the costing, which that far makes sense. But I you know, if we're think about Ritter Meadows and then that other property that's coming in right next to 2005, I [35:46] **City Administrator Justin Miller:** mean, we'll be long before we're at 85,000 if we're at the same place. I just I wonder if that number is not the right number. **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** Uh to Mr. Miller's point too, so next year we're going to start our uh as part of the comp plan update, we do all our utility updates as well. So um throughout the course of 26, by the end of 26, we'll have a better idea of our need and demand based upon the projections we go through that. Um and to that point, like Mr. homie said um the Fiser piece is uh is a it's a great location from the standpoint that we can pick up our system to the northeast. So to as you would discuss you know no decision has to be made. We can reserve that potentially either for redundancy or an additional demand as we go through [36:33] **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** that process too as well. But we'll have better information for you probably at the end of next year. Oh, something tells me these numbers are going to look a lot higher three years from now. Possibly. You know, I didn't I wasn't involved in doing these. I'm by no means a expert on the cost of water treatment plants, but um like Zach said, we're going to be doing some site grading with the fire station. [36:58] **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** I don't know like site work on here know that or not. So, and I always just cringe at the, you know, $79 for engineering legal and that's a lot, too. So um well, and 8 and a half million for contingencies is a lot too, right? So, this is at a high level. [37:43] **Councilmember John Bermel:** Unfort we had went back and forth on what are the percentages growing here right now. So it's but I do think I don't think any of us could habitat not doing some sort of treat. We're not no one's mixing water. No, I mean I think three is not that's not an option for me. I don't not interested in uh is that I mean does state just let you do that? [38:06] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** Yeah. So iron magnes it's not a a contaminant that is regulated aesthetic issue. It's just you know your water's going to get a little bit rusty and your your your sink might get a little bit stain rusty side by slow. So that's that's the issue. It's it's nothing that's not health related. It's just more aesthetic issue. [38:39] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** I can't remember the number off the top of our head. I don't even know if we know it all yet, but we do have PFAS settlement money coming in too. And I've always thought that we could probably use some of that for that could go on either one of those sides. When we're talking about um capacity, what what's the difference between having a capacity of 30 million versus 35 million? I mean, it's just the tank that's talking about existing plant. Yes. Everything would just get a little bit larger. So, the filters would get a little bit larger. Maybe an extra pump. The clear wall might get a little larger. It's fairly incremental. think it's you know 15 to 20%. So we're not talking about having more tanks it's just the size of the tank. I mean with an expansion I know we need a right tank but in ter of capacity of that tank it's just the correct. Okay. [39:02] **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** The redundancy question is is our setup pretty typical with regards to not having a redundancy just having one plant? **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** Yeah I mean just look at the plants in the Dakota colony. Apple Valley doesn't have a satellite plan. Um most of them I would I would say a lot depends on how the uh planning of the city you know for example may take like gold as an example 1990s the city say look we want a water plant we got this efficient for a city so you have one plant very similar but then other facilities savage kind of built a couple birds built a couple so I think built a couple yeah so depends on kind of where they started back you know several decades ago about how kind of water treatment and the philosophy And what happens if the plan you can't [39:48] **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** use the plant? Do we have the ability to like tap on other cities or like what's the... **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** So, we we do have emergency uh agreements with all of our surrounding communities. Unfortunately, we're kind of at the top of the hill a little bit. So, it's a little harder to push water from Apple Valley over to us. Um but you know you know worst case scenario is we just you know you have to use your wells and put the well water directly into the distribution system and bypass the treatment plant. So I mean that's worst case scenario. So hopefully never get there but that's what you'd have to look at. Is there a way to have an expansion like I said in terms of how it's connected [40:34] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** system? So that's a good question. You know, I think off the top of my head, almost everything at the existing water plant has two things of it. So, you know, two pipes in, two pipes out, um multiple filters, multiple pumps. You know, there's not too many things at the plant where there's only one thing. There's one emergency generator, but that's backup. So, there's a lot of flexibility already built in at the plant. There's redundancy, but again, it's it's the larger problems that potentially could happen. It's that's where the redundancy of the second plan really comes in. [41:15] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** I know you I know I've asked this question in the past and you've answered it. can't remember. But so we're talking about the maximum daily gallons. What what like what's a typical typical pay? It's quite shy. It's Yeah. So yeah, we're way down in that uh for so for our average day we're we're pushing a little over 10 million gallons a day right now. So that in that average the winter use versus the summer use, it's balanced without our our winter use is down right around seven or eight million right now. [41:52] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** a lot of capacity. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Is it fair to say that has reduced usage? **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** Um I think it's helped a little bit. Yeah, I think the odd even is probably a little bit more helpful and I I really think the water smart system that we have implemented that really has helped with uh people understanding the water usage as well and that that helps us to help the property owner. We can actually, you know, look it out into the system and see where people's waters are watering actually help write letters or knock up the door and say, "Hey, you might check your your system or something." So, I think that's that's all done. [42:44] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Appreciate the update. All right, let's move on to the budget and property tax levy. **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** Mr. Mayor, members, um I'm not presenting anything up there. It's all on your screens. So, um as our population, as you just noted, we're we were at 70 almost 77,000 at the last night council um estimate for 2024. So, um getting really close to what our projections were for full build out before. Um our taxable market values for this coming year for 2026 didn't rise 5.5% roughly 715 million. Um our tax capacity rate as [43:31] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** we structured the budget would come in at 33.1% which um is just a little bit over last year's rate tax rate at 32.7. So um still we are doing we're still lower our 2026 tax rate will still be lower than 2009 tax rate which was 33.9. That was right before the first recession hit. So um showing that first graph just the the trajectory of how the tax rates have moved across the years. Um how we're inching up again. A lot of that has had to do with the park referendum and everything that we've put into the city recently. Um, as we're looking at the property tax levy increase from the 2025 levy, it's a 7% increase. Um, the general fund is 3% of that increase. And the other big portion of it is the building fund. um a million dollars levy into the building fund that's is another 2% of that 7%. Um and as we'll go into those funding sources [44:39] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** and how how those are structured over the next few years um you'll get to see you know the impact of that. We what you don't see in the levy dollars obviously is the the first center bonds the first um of those public safety bonds the fire station ones because as you remember the franchise fees aren't going to be dedicated for those principal and interest. So that's why you don't see any levy do in here. um our debt service funds, if you notice on that chart with the proposed property tax levy, um our existing debt service funds is actually dropping off 647,000 um of the property tax levy. But those park referendum since we had those two those three year price spikes of the [45:26] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** park referendum, we're done with the spikes and now now those will just continue into and the existing um debt flies. So, it looks a lot better on that piece of it, the debt portion. Um, when we're looking at the impact on the median value home, the median value home did go up roughly 3.8%. So, it used to be 450,000 for a medium value home. That is now 468,000 for this coming year. Um, the impact to that median family home with the property tax levy as we are showing it is $61 a year or $5 a month. Um, broke down how that shakes out as far as the what's going into the general fund for that increase. Um, $27 [46:16] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** annually. Um, the payment and I group together the a lot of the capital levy pieces. That's um the other big portion. So, $36 a month a year for that. And then um for the commercial property, so a million-doll commercial property, they're um if they see a 4% increase in their market value, they their 2026 city tax portion will go up $346. [46:46] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** Um primary drivers in the general fund revenues um again property taxes is a large is about half um license and permits we're projecting about $400,000 increase in those based on development that we're anticipating. The safer grant what this 393,000 is um it's the different safer grant started March of 2025. So now in 2026 we'll have a full year of that grant. So this is just an in incremental increase on that. Um we did the forestry grant was something we had in 2025 but I don't believe we've got in 2026 or it was a onetime thing. So um and then just breaking out the charges for services engineering GIS roughly 300,000 we're anticipating in additional revenues. Um and then some changes investment income we're anticipating to be much better than um we had budgeted for 2025 and um so the yeah the general fund [47:49] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** revenues basically what we're changing over the 2025 is 3.1 million. Um expenditures are going to be proposed at 46 million 6.4 million. Um to rec recognize that circular grab 52% of that is our public safety. So public police and fire public works is 15% of that budget. Parks and rec 14% and then general government is 19%. [48:21] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** We're talking about the the drivers of the general fund expenditures. Um the largest piece as you know is staffing or personnel and benefits is our biggest service oriented um providers. So colas and staff increases is almost a million dollars. Um the full-time firefighters as a part of that grant. Again that's the incremental piece for having a full year of those 15 firefighters. Again it's a one for one. Whatever we incur we get the grant covering it. So that's why it shows up on both the revenue and expenditure side. Uh the new positions that uh we are presenting to council for um adoption represent about 322,000. So what we included is staff is [49:07] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** recommending um an information technology specialist starting February 26, a facility technician starting at the same time, and then a park maintenance two positions starting in March of 2026. Um, so those are the positions. There were positions that were requested that did not get included in the budget as we're presenting it to you. Um, and that was uh IT analyst, three police officers, three fire battalion chiefs, and a park maintenance one and a second park maintenance two position. [49:42] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** Um, one of the other just for the park maintenance too. Um, what are they looking for? What is there? You know, uh they mainly they do um things that don't require CDL. So they're driving the trash trucks that some light Boeing and um so if we if we did factor in all of the positions that were requested, we would be looking at 11% ley increase versus 7%... just to give you a perspective. Um, back to some of one of the other costs that was new this year as you're all aware that new Minnesota paid leave act [50:28] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** family leave act um what in the general fund that amounts to roughly 100,000 um the total cost of the city including our enterprise funds and funds is 155,000. So, um just one of those things that we we get to um do another um requirement um we did and what we built into the general fund um as we were talking last year if you remember we were trying to build up a safety net or a designated fund balance so when the safer grant safer grant doesn't get renewed we don't have a cliff happen. So what we're incorporating into the general fund is a designated fund balance of 600,000 this first year. Next year we'll do another [51:16] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** designation of 600,000. So we'll build up to 1.2 million 1.8 million at the end of 2027. So we're not um when the safer grant funding goes away, we're not going to see a huge jump in our levy. So that was the purpose of structuring it that way. Um, we did have, as we're looking at the 2025 adopted budget preliminary year end 2025 estimates, um, you'll see that 1.85 million transfers out. That was the public safety aid that we got in 2023. Initially, we did part of it to the equipment fund and then we put this 1.8 in the general fund. So, we decided, you know, what what would be best served with this? Um and that was put toward the land purchase of the fire station five one of the funding sources. So that that is a budget amendment that um you'll see adoption council did approve it through that whole funding source scenario for that land purchase. Um but that was that was a piece of it. [52:22] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** Um and as the fund balance as we're looking at that we are planning to use the fund balance reserves um for the onetime costs and as Zach mentioned um we have a community development 2050 comp plan update in 2026 we'll be doing that and as well as the engineering the comp plan traffic study another piece of that so those two together is 175,000 more use balance instead of spiking the levy for those two one-time purchases. Um, as we look at the estimated impact on our general fund reserve balance, the way we're proposing this levy of the $34 million, we're estimating that our [53:09] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** ending fund balance um, compared to 2027 expenditure, so that's our fund balance policy, would be 49%. Still perfectly within the top end of our fund balance policy of 40 to 50%. Um, if you notice that that chart, the lovely chart, the general fund fund balance, the big spikes in 2020 and 2021, that was all that CARES money and um that influx of money that created those big swings in our fund balance. [53:43] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** Um, as I mentioned before, we're proposing the levy. One of the big increases is in the building fund. We've got a lot of activity happening in that fund. We'll go into that more in our CIP discussion. Um, but a lot of it at the art center, the central maintenance facility, heritage center, and the police station um work that needs to get done. Um, equipment ser or equipment fund. That one, this one is a big We're um we're looking at doing another 400 a $400,000 levy for that, but we are also staff is recommending increasing the liquor fund transfers for this for 2026 of $ 1.5 million into the equipment fund and then another 1.2 million in 2027. Again, as as we looked at the liquor fund is very cash heavy right now, almost near four million. So, we've got ability to use those funds and makes sense to utilize them instead of incurring more levy that we don't need to at this time. [54:54] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** Um, the park improvement fund, we are recommending a levy of 700,000 and um that stays pretty flat for the next next few years. payment management. Um, and this one gets we levy it and we pretty much spend it. Um, that fund doesn't sit on a whole lot of fund balance. So, we're got to the tax lady and they have 2.1 million. Um, technology we're recommending 250,000 um for 2026 as a levy. We had a operating levy last year 30 300,000 and as you know our we grow and our needs go with technology I'm trying to keep pace with that and so we don't short change ourselves in technology side that we [55:40] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** don't get expanded we don't get we don't get any problems with uh bugs and those such things um the trail improvement fund and this is another thing where staff is going to be combining the park improvement and trail improvement together at the end of 2026, I believe, is what our our um goal is. So, um those will emerge. It makes more sense. Gives more flexibility to the staff saying if the park project if something doesn't um if it comes in under budget and they've got a trail that comes in over budget, you know, there's just more flexibility having that as one whole fund. They act it acts the same. Um, so with the trail improvement fund, we are recommending a levy increase to $850,000, which is $300,000 more than the 2025 levy. We do have a big uh project, the Clamoth Trail Retaining Wall project, which could be a large um levy increase for just that project in the 2027 year. What's the cost on that? [56:47] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** It's called 1.5 request to do with water technically the retaining wall. **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** What is an adjacent filter? Uh I don't know if that's for water for say that's the source of it but I don't know that we [57:19] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** So, um, as we're looking at our projected future tax levies, we do have a big spike and as we look at those kind of things on the trail, 2027 is a is a big spike in our future tax levby projected again 14%. And then it drops down to 4% in 2028 and 2% following there. So, if we're able to spread these projects out more, um, if that's a possibility, we could we can avoid that spike. Um, the debt portion of our levy still stays pretty flat at roughly 23 to 24%. So, um, again, as we continue to still do build on billing and when reaching build out yet, that's going to stay pretty steady. [58:07] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** Um so and I included so the general fund summary we're looking at that the spreadsheet um summarizes it departmentally and um revenues categorically. Um so the revenues roughly a 7% increase at 3.1 million and our expenditures a 6.7% increase at 2.9 million. So um again if you're looking at the bottom of that the restricted fund balance for at the end of 2025 that's 775,000 600,000 is for the fire um the safer grant portion and then 175 is the use of so um if we're look if you want to look at the next piece the the sources and uses of funds detail that's gives you the perspective of how those funds are performing and the fund balances within [59:08] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** each of them. Um, but this is where we're trying to keep the the hills and valleys and the spikes and the peaks and valleys um ironed out as much as we can. Um, we've got a lot of cost of the building fund of that first page there. again that $1 million tax levy. You've got um the CMF building piece of that at the loan is 1.6 million. There's just there's just a lot of costs that are happening. Um and if you look at that fund, the ending balance, we're we're just trying to keep it reasonable. And if you look at 2029, that fund balance does get to a negative 510,000. Without some serious increases or some shifting of those projects, um that's what kind of levy impact we could need to see some more growth in the this city's levy for that piece equipment fund. Um again, we're trying to keep that one as as flat as possible. [1:00:11] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** We've got a lot of costs coming in as I as I mentioned with the liquor fund contribution increasing these next couple years. Um, and the tax levy still needs to be as we're growing and we're still trying to meet the needs of these equipment pieces that purchases that are happening. So, if you look at the expenditures in the equipment fund, I mean, it's roughly 3 million, $4 million, eight gets up to $5 million in 2028. Again, trying to spread this out. Um, if it's determined that we need the ladder truck, that's that's something that we're going to be doing. That's 2030 purchase, but um we'll be looking actually for council authorization because that's our two-year build out at least. So, when we get authorization for it for 202, but the first one pot of money that would go out for that be 2028. [1:01:09] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** That's one possibly um issue equipment certificates because the life of a ladder truck is 20 years. You'll often see that with equipment that they'll issue equipment certificates instead of loving you for it. What's a equipment certificate? How's that different? It's it's under the it's the similar um do it with the alongside our bonding, but usually you can get the equipment certificates for a shorter period or longer period. It's just Yeah. Then you're paying principal and interest on the certificates kind of like you would do with a bond, but it would different marginally. you know, we would not follow our go strategy if that's what we, you know, follow that. That's where we would say, you know, we'll let you or what we need because a lot of trucks going to get purchased boom in this time period. [1:02:06] **City Administrator Justin Miller:** People here at the city at that time are going to be sharing in that cost. Julie's kind of wrapping this up. There was just a couple things I wanted to note. Um, I know it the memo shows a pretty big spike in the tax levy for next year. I guarantee you if you went back to all of our budget memos at this meeting for the past 10 years, it always shows a pretty big spike for next year. We always mitigate that. So, um, that's a worst case scenario due to that. Um, you'll also notice kind of in the the beginning, uh, some of the big increases were NL1, the communications fund. Some of that is due to we're getting fewer and fewer franchises and dollars as more [1:02:52] **City Administrator Justin Miller:** people cut the cord and we can't get that off the internet. It's only on true tape. And so that's something we've been monitoring for a couple years and so that's we're going to continue to do on our communications efforts that we currently have. um put some tax dollars in there. We'll find other sources for that. And then on the equipment side as well or the the building side as well. Um those are just some some big finishes that are coming up that we have not historically been levying for this to this team. Um it does show the negative a year or two out, but that that Julie highlighted again that that doesn't concern me too much. I think makes decisions between now and then. a lot of our projects throughout the years just come in a little bit lower and so we build a little bit more of a fund balance by the end of the year. So um you know all in all as I talk to my colleagues and others around the county um the 7% and one of the lowest funds that cities are proposing right now still high. I get that but as we look at it it's pretty much [1:04:02] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** You talk a little bit how your just explaining how we're easing into this the fire fires post safer drain. Talk about like I know we're spreading that out, but can you talk about like how it'll be in the next couple years and then what it'll you know what it'll hit when it's gone basically. [1:04:21] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** So by holding on to or designating the portion of our general fund balance like we said 600,000 each year. So we're holding on to general fund fund balance setting aside in 2026 27 2025 26 and 2027. So 600 in each of those years. So we have this pot of money that's been sitting there and we're not touching it. So then when the safer grant goes away, we've got 1.8 8 million available to fund those 15 firefighters for that next year. And then so we're then just spending it. And so we're and being able and it wouldn't they wouldn't cost us $1.8 million, but being able to spread that money then for the years when the safer grant's gone in 2020 that the funding sources there, it'll help feather out the levy increase that we have to add. We get decide every year we're going to use 400 this year, 700 the other year. There's no strings on when we... **City Administrator Justin Miller:** No it it it just it's it's draw down on it to Yeah. Right. [1:05:36] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Did that help? Yeah. Yeah. I didn't understand the 600. Now I understand. I thought we questions... [1:05:52] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** I mean there for me in this... I mean obviously 7% uh this is much uh more appetizing than what we had this past year. I know that comes with some hard decisions in terms of staffing for this coming year, but I do think uh folks need a little more relief this year after the increase last year. Um but it seems like we're still putting forth money in the buckets for that pay as you go strategy. [1:06:29] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** This we haven't taken out last year we ended up having to remove some of our contributions some of our funds right at the end of the day we we reduced our contributions to some of those funds and and I think it was um part of it was that we increased the liquor contribution we use that instead and reduce the levy piece and and that's why we're looking at that funding source because you know once those debt obligations for the liquor are Um it it's just a cash cow. **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** I'm saying there was zero levy dollars in the building fund, communications fund or equipment fund for 25. That's Yeah. And that's what I was thinking. I knew we had decided we made a a decision to not do that, but you know, we've been working towards the this strategy of uh keeping a more sustainable levy model. I appreciate everything that's in here. If you look at those three levies alone, that accounts for about 3.4% of the 7%. [1:07:38] **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** My biggest questions around the building fund stuff, but I think we're covering just curious what those projects were. What tell me what they are now or we can weigh the CIP portion. be that makes sense if that's Y. [1:08:04] **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** No, I'll just say what Doug always said. Be really nice if we came in a little bit under what you propose. We usually do. I know. Somebody find some more money under a rug somewhere. That's right. [1:08:20] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** All right. So, um, so real quick, the plan is to bring this to your council next week. Okay. Tuesday night. Yep. This is what we'll try. It'll be regular business. I mean, it won't consent. Yeah. Got it. This is what will go into what goes on to the property tax statements that are mailed out. [1:08:56] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** Okay. CIP, this is um again large report. So um I'm going to just hit some high points on it and we can talk to those points like you asked in and move on. Um, we do have the the county um joint projects also that come into play with this. And I'm just going to um hit on in the memo portion we've got income 27 the 210th Street and County Road 50 at 1.3 million. That's the advance from the county. And then the Interstate 35 and and County Road 50 interchange the county's advance is 3 almost 3.8 8 million. So, those are just the estimated um advances with Scott County [1:09:43] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** and I know there's discussions about as far as timing and how the county would like cities to do certain projects so that when that interchange happens at 50, it's not all happening at the same time, I think, was the goal that point. [1:09:59] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Yeah. So, Commissioner Holberg's here. I don't Commissioner Holberg, did you want to talk anything from your perspective on transportation stuff now or you want us to go through it or um what did you want to just share? I know because it's a lot. [1:10:15] **Commissioner Mary Liz Holberg:** Yeah, that's why I'm here tonight. Um and I you know maybe we just go through the presentation and then if there's any questions. So Okay. I mean, nothing. We have a sort of plan, but there's a lot of unknowns um with some really big projects coming that we're going to have epic disruptions and how people in Lakeville get around and front end of planning and talking that we do hopefully will mitigate some of the challenges a couple years from now. [1:10:52] **City Administrator Justin Miller:** This really council... I don't know if you want to go through every section. We certainly can, but if you have questions about specific projects that we have timed up, um that might be a better better way to do it. I know we highlighted the key transportation projects um in the memo question about projects. We probably haven't answered those. [1:11:20] **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** I have a question that the street improvement fund I know keeps increasing and capital is it considered capital project street uh maintenance payment management few years ago we we changed our strategy with that liquid dump down a couple years after a new street uh goes in. Do we have proof of of that working? And is that part of why these costs keep increasing? **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** Um no that that act that uh uh rejuvenator product that we've been using actually the the budget we knock back that budget down for this year a little bit. Um we have tested that material over time and we [1:12:05] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** have brought out there. Other cities have also done some uh testing. We've had some u independent testing done by um the state of Minnesota as well too. So it seems like it's it's a good product. And I mean it's a really it's long-term projection. The product's been on the market for 50 years. I mean it started in California west maybe 30 years ago. I mean there's a lot of pains that have really jumped on in li of sealed wood. So with all the challenges associated with sealed wood. So it's it's it's some it's it's a good product we feel. Um um and it uh we feel that it was going to extend the life of our pavements but but we wouldn't have realized any of those savings on pavement at this point. [1:12:50] **City Engineer Zach Johnson:** Right. I mean the the streets that we're reconstructing or overlay we we don't have that product down on on those streets. So it's the it's the newer pavements putting it on. So hopefully we get the longevity um and pay back [1:13:10] **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** Uh if that I can focus on transportation briefly. Um so uh for transportation uh I you will see in your packet on the last page the map and I just kind of highlight the projects to kind of let you know. Uh what Commissioner Holberg is doing is we're making a concentrated effort to kind of uh uh frontload our projects in 26 and 27 in an effort to try to address any potential mitigation options so that when we get to the closures in 28 we'll be ready. So some for some perspective at this point we are anticipating that [1:13:56] **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** County Road 50 between the ramps more or less is going to be closed during the construction season. The reason for that is MnDOT has developed some pretty strict guidelines where they don't want to have uh regular traffic traveling underneath bridge construction which is you know any kind of anything that could fall down potentially do that. We would still open up the highway then for winter. We call it winter suspension but for winter operations. So it would be seasonal closure but during that we would anticipate some other improvements. Uh so for for a point of reference before we did the 50/60 roundabout we did a similar exercise which led to the installation of traffic signals at Ipava at 175th street and 165th street. We are [1:14:43] **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** going through a similar exercise currently this month. We should be getting results back from our consultant uh in September uh at which point we'll have about a week or so to maybe rep prioritize the map as you see it today and we'd be able to come back at September's work session to give you an update. Some of the areas that we're looking at are County Road 46 um intersections with Jaguar, Buck Hill Road um on the west side looking at County Road 5 as far as either uh uh changing timing for signals looking at potential turn lane improvements. New signals would go potentially at County Road 60 and Orchard Trail Old Wild Wings. Uh, right one second. Allyn, can you pull up the map that I Are you sure? I That's right. [1:15:45] **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** Yep. There's... There's one of the counties doing analysis on this one. Um, so you'll see zoom in there now. But what we've tried to flag on those locations are existing signals. Uh whole access intersections. For example, you'll see uh kind of the top center of your screen. Uh Jaguar and 165th is what we would call a side street control. Uh that may warrant a four-way stop. So, we're looking at oper we're looking uh mitigation options would be installation of new traffic signals, installation of turn lanes, installation of allway stops, potentially widening roads or shoulders for additional temporary paving. Uh also could look for programming of traffic [1:16:51] **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** signals. And we also want to make sure we take a concerted effort to look at routes, open air routes for our pedestrians that are multip users as well. So, um, signals that we're looking at potentially advancing for 26 and 27 would be one at County Road 60 there and Orchard, which was the Buffalo Wild Wings. Uh, we're looking at the impacts as far west as Judicial Road. Uh that one is tenant of the program for 2030, but we'll see the impacts with the traffic analysis. You'll see that the intersection of 50 and 60 is circled. Uh the county is in the process of completing an analysis with consultant and uh they're going to speak for me if [1:17:38] **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** I misspeak. Um they're making a concerted effort to make some mitigated improvements yet this year. Those would uh maybe be considered low hanging fruit. So it would be pavement markings, uh maybe some signage, things of that nature. Nothing geometrics, but the point would be to get those and they've studied tons of rounds. We're trying to figure out what it is that's that's kind of creating the issues there. So, we want to be able to get those in yet this year so that we can evaluate them over the fall, the winter, and the spring to see if larger, higher hanging fruit is warranted and that we can implement those things in advance of a closure in 28. [1:18:20] **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** Uh you'll also see on the northwest side of the freeway, Canyon Avenue, Think Home Furniture. Uh that would be a new traffic signal as well. Um, so that that's kind of the exercise that we're going through this year. I'm sorry, yet this this month. Um, in the past we have we've had great collaboration and partnership with our county friends. Uh, again, there was cost sharing that led to those uh temporary permanent signals along Ipava. We did the roundabout. Um but so the projects that you see on your map, we've kind of identified short of anything new that comes out of this mitigation exercise. This next month we're going to look at really trying to advance those so that those that we can get in place in 26 and 27 are done so [1:19:07] **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** that we're trying to prepare ourselves for miss anything at that high level. **Commissioner Mary Liz Holberg:** I don't I don't think so. The other thing I'd like to at least raise and um tomorrow uh when I was looking at your expenditures and levy and um the cost share on the city portion of this project, we were very uh grateful that it um got a earmark of sorts by lead or not by legislation for the state share of 40.8 million. But there's still at least 20 million that would be the County Road 50 portion that that all goes to the freeway. So great amount of [1:19:52] **Commissioner Mary Liz Holberg:** money, but it's really not helping the county or the city taxpayer in this project. And so uh I tomorrow's our legislative um workshop for our agenda in 26. I expect that the county will continue to have that the county city portion as the number one priority for bonding. It has to be general fund bonding, not trunk highway bonding as it's a county road. Um and so we're looking for 10 million from the state which would then um divide in half what you show in your current documents as city share for that project. But the other thing that this exercise is going [1:20:38] **Commissioner Mary Liz Holberg:** to tell us is what are some of those kind of um not direct costs but indirect costs related to that. We may have an opportunity to look at modifying our legislative agenda and get uh better information on this. You can see um pretty big impacts. I don't know if any of you are aware of the day that the accident occurred on County Road 46 and the southbound uh traffic coming off the freeway was not allowed to cross to the uh east and within a matter of minutes the frontage road was backed up bumper to bumper from home furniture to McDonald's. Nobody could get out because [1:21:24] **Commissioner Mary Liz Holberg:** there was no traffic control at that intersection. Then 35 became back. It didn't matter. It did take. So, we know even the little hiccup um right now can put the area into gridlock and um months of 50 being closed underneath the freeway is going to be really really really challenging. Very... I don't... I mean, we all know the variety of reasons but when you factor in there is no frontage road on either side of the freeway way between 50 and 60. Um, you know what the where people are going to go... who... I mean they're going to try [1:22:10] **Commissioner Mary Liz Holberg:** every trick in the book to get around to get over to Cedar. We have all this traffic coming at us from Scott County. Where are they going to go? People are going to try and get on that freeway north of the construction, right? I mean, so I I just think this is going to be epically challenging. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** What's your sense you know if we approach the legislature again make sure bonding we're not successful is the intention to keep the target 2028 or do you think that would delay... **Commissioner Mary Liz Holberg:** I mean you you all know this every year you delay a project with inflation it just keeps getting more and more expensive and we [1:22:56] **Commissioner Mary Liz Holberg:** know that the safety um safety impacts on this particular on the freeway are four times but the average is statewide. So I I don't I think we have to keep moving myself. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** I don't what do they think a twoyear construction cycle on this? **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** Yeah. Uh so a couple of things. Uh, Commissioner Holberg also talked about the county uh the county the needs on the County Road 50. Next Monday uh sorry, next Tuesday night uh you'll see on your agenda um a resolution of support. The county also is continuing to uh find some other alternate funds. So they're also applying uh for the Minnesota Highway program uh which would be $10 million. Um we're encouraged by that. We have been successful in that program before. It did use uh $7 million towards the construction of County Road 70 several years ago. So that's a program [1:23:58] **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** that we've had success with. So in addition to this, the county continues to explore other options. We have a meeting in another months to find the results of the build um uh uh application as well. We are looking at probably a two-year build at this point. Uh we're basically looking to move traffic to one bridge during one construction season while we build this one and then we'd ship traffic onto that one and build the other. Um we've looked at three different scenarios, but I think our highest level of confidence is that's that's the best approach is to do one bridge each year, try to minimize the impacts. This isn't even addressing any of the state needs as well as the pavement preservation project that they're working on as well. This is just our interchange. [1:24:47] **Commissioner Mary Liz Holberg:** Yeah. So, I'm just thinking like if you're a commuter for the next five years, you got one year of break in 2027. That's it. Now, and then because when Burnsville's done... **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** During the summer seasons, yeah, the winter seasons, it would open up. **Commissioner Mary Liz Holberg:** The other thing that I've spoke of before is we have this infusion of money coming into that trans active transportation fund that went directly to TAB. Um, I just sat through my 14th uh meeting. I call it one of my extra credit committees. Um, but we're working really hard to allow for uh applications to come in on road projects for the pedestrian portion of it. Given that um that that area of expenditure is uh much more flush with money right now as a result of how they called out um how that pot of money had to be used. In all likelihood that first round of grants is [1:25:50] **Commissioner Mary Liz Holberg:** going to be somewhere uh likely north of $35 million. So that would be another funding pot. And if you look at the current pedestrian conditions, the cracked sidewalk under one side of the bridge and really weird pedestrian crossing places and um the improvements that this project will have for pedestrian, you know, so again, there's there's some opportunities to keep working that amount of money down. And the county's uh policy is that all external funds go in first before we do the cost share with the city. So every every dime that we get for the project benefits both county and city taxpayers. **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** I know the the other thing they're looking at is up by Kwik Trip Starbucks. That lefthand turn on northbound. You know, that one will likely what they're looking at is turn that into double turn lanes instead of single. [1:26:57] **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** Think now stacking next to every morning. That frontage road is stacked up down around the corner, if you will. So um and on top of that, we saw some development in the north medical facility. So, and then just if just if I might, the roundabout minimal improvements this year. Um, Zach, I don't know if you all know this, but he's my star witness for what's new in roundabouts given he served on statewide committee about roundabouts, but I've been pushing to look at dedicated right-hand turn lanes. This intersection by a country mile is the highest crash intersection in the whole county road system by like it's not even [1:27:45] **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** close number two. And so um and then that is of course going to inform they're looking at eventually a roundabout at 50. Um and so hopefully we can learn and get this one to reduce some of the crashes. I mean, the good thing is the crashes are minor um unlike other intersections, but there's a lot of them. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Thank you. Um any other projects that that uh have question that you want to talk about? **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** Um, other than that, it's uh it's a lot of our argument management. Uh we do have some alignment studies program for 26 to take a look at future extensions of County Road 60 east of Cedar. Um uh the uh the rail facility is is still programmed for construction next year. [1:28:43] **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** So um everything is on target. There's there's a lot going on. Um and then we're going to take a look at 27 as well. um park projects we have are our our partnership with the county extending Lake Marion Greenway and the North Creek Greenways. Um and then um for I'll let I'll let you talk about the facilities, but anything on a utility, a park and recreation or transportation. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Um the study area doesn't really include 70. Um, but I I imagine there's quite a bit of truck traffic that's going to use other means to get on to 35 during this uh time. Where are we at with what we're going to do with cash uh next to the water tower and improving the the on-ramp? [1:29:32] **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen:** Uh, no changes at today. Uh, we still continue to work with that developer on some options. Um but nothing significantly different than our last conversations. The the uh industrial park is a large component of our of the county's application to talk about that. That's where that freight characteristic comes in and kind of helps us score a little bit higher. Um but we'll look at Kendrick as well. Uh we do have program improvements in there down the road. But maybe we look at advancing that or scaling in that depend on the usage. [1:30:13] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Any other questions? I'll just say I'm ready. Any questions on CP? Just the building. Yeah. **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** Okay. So, if you go to page 22 in your packet on the CIP, um at the very bottom of that is where the facility breakdown starts. So, got it there in a second. Um 185,000 for the art center. [1:30:42] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** Big chunk is the 1.6 million like I mentioned at the CMF. Um 1 million of that is the um design I believe for the um expansion. We just just um we didn't go over that one tonight. Um but then we've got a cooling unit at CMF for 420,000. And then an AHU replacements 200,000. That's the main part of that CMF. What page you think? Uh that's at the bottom of page 22. But it's it's it's 40 in the That's what I say on the PDF. On the PDF 40, but on the documents 22. [1:31:18] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** Okay. **City Administrator Justin Miller:** So you'll sorry you'll see you know some of that obviously um there's a million dollars for CMF expansion that will obviously that decision is not made simply by approving the CIP. So that'll be a discussion that is yet to we'll come back for a separate discussion on the timing and all that before we enter into a contract there. [1:31:50] **City Administrator Justin Miller:** Likewise, there's some other things in here that um obviously we're still having some conversations on them that the need of. Um we have very good facility staff. They're also very proud of their buildings and want to keep them up. And so um just get to talk a little bit more. Some of these might drop off or get pushed out. It's one of the major renovations happening at Heritage, the roof. [1:32:19] **City Administrator Justin Miller:** And yeah, if you look down just a little bit further, the next page, um, a lot of the fire station, the first center construction finishing, but then um the 4.4 4 million water treatment facility. 4 million of that is design element expansion. **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** So that will change. So that will change. But I think mayor the basis of your question was how much of the tax levy increase. So a lot of these aren't tax levy impact. So um a lot of the building fund a lot of these projects are funded through other so majority what I call the building fund general fund contract is things that police heritage center and public works basically garage doors roofs and heating and cooling. [1:33:09] **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** This is kind of an aside but there seem to be new formats to some of these new and I like them. I I like the uh sources and uh uses document and I like how this is set up too because it just helps me really understand the whole picture from each building standpoint as well as funds. I mean, so I really like what you've done with that. [1:33:34] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** Well, that's all thanks to the software planning. So, we're getting away from all our spreadsheets and our word documents and using this great software that I think almost every city in the state uses. But it's been it's been great. **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** We like it, too. [1:34:03] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** I don't have a question. This takes me more than to digest. So, I be going through this more as we go through the process. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Yep. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. [1:34:22] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** Julie, do you want to get into the second quarter report? Yeah, this will take very short estimated five minutes and I can keep it to that. Um, basically, so when you're looking at the revenues for the general fund, we're at 45%. The reason for that is, you know, 50% of our tax. So we get in June well we only get 70% of that 50% in June and then we get the other 30% of that 50% July. So that's why it looks a little funny as far as revenues go you would expect it to be 50% but um county holds on to that portion. So um otherwise though looking at the other revenue sources were um not doing too badly actually. You know building [1:35:08] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** permits are a little bit under projection. Um but if you look at what we've got through July 31st, 130 single family units, we budgeted 300. So a little bit less than we would hope. Um but again, this will be the busier tie now through the end of the year. Town homes are actually um ahead of schedule. So we've got 138 when we budgeted 150 um for 2025. So um not too alarming on the revenue side. Everything's falling into place there. um expenditures. The departments again are doing a great job. Overall, the total expenditures are at 48% of budget. Um and $2 million greater than same time period last year. Personnel is under budget coming in at 47%. Again, um some of that's seasonal or or the way the timing goes, but the majority of our personnel are uh full-time, so that's a good sign. Um also it's triggered by any vacancies that are still um not filled but um also part of it is we had a lot of the software implementation costs you know [1:36:22] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** there was costs associated with that in um personnel as well as the other software trust itself. Um just highlighting that let's say the other piece um nobody as far as being overbudget again it's uh nothing alarming um timing wise like information systems they're at 63% of their budget. Again, a lot of the software subscriptions are things that they do that happens in the first part of the year and so it it tapers off that um fund balance projections and then a change in the fund balance. We're still sitting good um and that was the part of the is not shown on this but again we're expecting to come in at roughly 50% um at the end of 51% at the end of 2025. [1:37:16] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** the way things are projecting out um for our funds. So general funds performing as we would expect nothing alarming. That's the bottom line. The looking at the um communications fund again as Justin mentioned you know this their the revenue source on this fund keeps dwindling it's dwindling in every city. Um and that's why doing a levy for the first time for communications fund. But um we are sitting at a fund balance at the end of um June of 1.3 million. [1:37:54] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Considering ESPN and Fox are going to charge $40 a month for their streaming sports. I would not be surprised if all of a sudden cable starts ticking back up a little bit because horrible than streaming. I'm very curious to see next year if that happens if it turns around or at least stem the title a little bit. [1:38:16] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** So, um going into the liquor fund, uh even though as you've all heard, sales are um lagging nationwide um is still healthy. Um the gross profit percent um just underneath our adopted budget and we figured that we'd get 27.6% 6% gross profit. We're at 26.6. Um, but a wonderful uh note with the liquor fund is um THC sales are much higher than we ever than we projected. Good or bad, but that was a surprising thing to see that um it's already surpassed what we budgeted at the halfway mark. [1:38:58] **Councilmember John Bermel:** Um our weekly updates with store sales, does that include THC sales? **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** Yes. So um nothing outstanding or or special with the liquor fund. Um, again, you know, so you look at personnel services, they're 40% budget, so you they're doing doing really well as far as management of um the time and all that. Uh, water operations in case we've got their wets uh wet spring and summer that we've had. Um, so operating revenues are a bit, you know, lower than you would hope at at 32% of budget, but again, operating [1:39:43] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** expenses are 38%. So, it's in line with um what you would expect when there's less water being used. Um, and a net position in the water fund 9 um or I'm sorry, it's it's it's in line with where we would hope that it is. So um sanitary sewer fund that one actually the um revenues are at 59% of budget which is which is good. So that one is doing well and expenditures are in like 43% of budget. So um that one that one is holding strong and street light operation 52% of budget for revenues um which is good expenditures a [1:40:30] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** little higher at 59% but that's street light replacements that took place um we're a little bit above uh what we budgeted so but again um that fund can handle it the uh going back to the water fund that should mean a stable or flat rates for next year, right? Water for 2026. [1:40:55] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** We'll be going over that. We're working on that right now. Just starting to work on it. We go over that budget with you in October in the race setting. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** So, just seems like a positive place to be where you're under budget for operating and you're over revenue. **City Administrator Justin Miller:** But we're also planning on some big costs coming up and that's the piece that'll driving some of the rates, you know, as we anticipate those things happening. [1:41:25] **Finance Director Julie Stahl:** Environmental resources um fund is doing well. Revenue is 54% of budget and the expenditures way under at 26% budget. So um too alarming there in strong position again as well. Any questions on any of those? **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Thank you for that. Okay, moving on items for future discussion and committee or city administer updates. **City Administrator Justin Miller:** In the vein of budgets and whatnot, um staff uh began a conversation with fire relief about uh sharing the some of the uh fire state fire aid that we received to support the uh fire relief boards uh mentioned and it's intended to support fire department as a whole. So um started that conversation last week and um now the fire relief board has an initial starting point for that discussion and [1:42:38] **City Administrator Justin Miller:** that will continue on through the season hopefully to have some kind finalized version of that agreement by the end of year. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Where are they on the contribution versus the still ongoing? [1:42:54] **City Administrator Justin Miller:** Good question. I think with the state's uh approval of an increase in the u annual uh maximum to 20,000 it it kind of just stopped the discussion because changing over doesn't benefit the p their pension as much um as going with that defined benefit of 20,000 per service year. Um, now they don't have that. That's not proof. Currently, we're at 15,000. Uh, but I think as part of the the sharing of the state aid, that's going to be part of the discussion. You know, how do we phase in those contribute that sharing, but also how do we have a three-year plan? For example, we're increasing their aotment to ultimately their goal is to get to that 20. [1:43:48] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Good. Any others? Okay, then I'll take a motion to adjourn. **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** Second. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** All those in favor say I. I...ger. Thank you everybody. [1:44:05] **All:** Thank you.