This transcript features the Moose Lake City Council meeting from July 14, 2021. Based on the context provided and the dialogue, I have identified the speakers, including the Mayor, City Administrator, City Superintendent, City Engineers, and the Police Chief (identified as Darren, whose contract is mentioned at the end of the meeting). [0:04] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: I'd like to thank everyone for coming to the regular meeting the Moose Lake City Council for Wednesday, July 14, 2021, and I'd like to start with the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We do have some guests here this afternoon. I just want to remind everybody that it's on the agenda that it's a 15-minute period for anyone presenting or speaking. Just a reminder, and I try to stick to [0:51] that pretty close. And if it gets to the point where we hit the 15-minute mark, then I would ask the council members to either close and make a decision or have it as a discussion item on another agenda at the next city council meeting. So just a reminder for people that are new here and haven't been at a council meeting before, how it's run. Thank you. Under the agenda, we do have some additions. If you go to six, New Business, on the second page, we're down to R, and that will be [1:36] Lakehead generator disconnect. [1:48] Then item S will be Greg, and that's the Depot and ATVs. One more addition—let me tell everyone—catches up under Information Reports and, excuse me, Reports and Correspondence, number seven: information from Byron Custer. And I have a handout that I'll give out at that time. It will not be for discussion, but for information for you and review and discussion at the next city council meeting if the desire is there. [2:33] Anything else, Katie? Anybody else? Council members have any other items? Do you have a motion to accept the agenda? [2:47] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen**: So moved. [2:48] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: Second. [2:49] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: All in favor say aye. [2:50] **Council Members**: Aye. [2:51] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Opposed? Motion carried. Moving on to Consent Agenda under eight, Minutes: we have number one, the regular city council meeting from June 9, 2021. Number two, we have the special city council meeting under June 29, 2021. Do we have any discussion or questions on the minutes? [3:21] Hearing none, do I have a motion to accept the minutes? [3:25] **Council Member Kris Huso**: Motion. [3:26] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: Second. [3:28] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: All in favor say aye. [3:30] **Council Members**: Aye. [3:31] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Opposed? Motion carried. Next, we have under Financial Reports: number one is the City Council for June 2021. Number two is the City Financial Statements for June 2021, and number three, the Liquor Store Profit/Loss Statement for June 2021. Before I ask for a motion on that, Ellissa is going to give us an update report. [4:07] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: Here are members of the council. Financial reports in the packet bring us through the end of June. With that in mind, I wanted to provide a brief mid-year update of the city's financials and highlight a few notable figures within them. Taking a look at the budget year-to-date report in the packet, the year-to-date amount for the General Fund might grab your attention. We expect the General Fund to reflect a negative balance at this time. It's an annual trend that we see year over year. As mentioned, this brings us through June, and July is the month in which we will see the property tax disbursement and the LGA funds that come into the account. We're expecting about $450,000 for the first property tax disbursement in July, and in addition, we're expecting [4:54] about $400,000 of LGA funds. So with that in mind, those will be receipted during this next month, during July actually, and so you can expect to see the General Fund year-to-date amount flip into the black on next month's report. Another notable on that same report, on the far right, is the percent of budget column for expenditures. We're halfway through the year, and we've utilized 53% of the budgeted expenses thus far. It's about as close as you can get in budget lines, so an excellent number to see. Regarding budget activities in the office, Katie and I are going to be meeting, starting to meet with the department heads next week. So we will start and initiate discussions for the 2022 budget [5:41] and get that ball rolling. In addition, I wanted to make mention that some bond payments were made in June. You'll see those in the payables report within this packet as well. You can expect to see one more large one in July for our PFA bond that will be coming out. It's always two times a year; it's always really notable when those come through here. Searching through the packets, in addition to those, I've been working pretty extensively within the campground pools this season. We've been implementing the new reservation system online. We've received some really good feedback from users, the community, and the campground hosts themselves. They really like it. [6:27] We've only received a little bit of resistance to change, but that was to be expected. The hosts have been doing a fantastic job. I got a little curious; I wanted to do an analysis of where we are now versus last year at this time. So what I've determined: in 2020, throughout the entire camping season, we received $107,431 that were generated in reservation charges. So at this time, at the end of June, we are at $122,162 in reservation charges. So as of the end of June, we've already [7:13] surpassed last year by about $15,000. We've got about two months remaining in the camping season. Additional opportunities—I anticipate that's going to taper off a little bit—but because people have been making reservations for August and September and they've already paid for them, which is part of the revenue that we've seen so far, but it's still wonderful to see. Still really good. I got a little curious after these numbers peaked at the beginning of July; even with just the first week and a half, two weeks in July, we're looking at about $8,000 on top of that initial $15,000. So we're almost at $23,000, and we can just continue to see that trend upwards for the rest of the season. So that's excellent news. [8:01] Another highlight I wanted to mention: the Fourth of July fireworks fundraiser conducted by the Moose Lake Area Chamber. We are all aware of the additional cost burden this year to the city for the fireworks display. The Chamber, through local businesses and community members, raised just over $6,000 in donations that they are going to donate to the city to help cover the cost. The donations brought the city's out-of-pocket expenses down to about $4,000 roughly. In years past, it's been about $7,500. So that was huge, and a big thanks to the Chamber and to the community for supporting that event. That was wonderful to see. The last thing I wanted to share was [8:49] simply just a communication point that I'm going to begin working on an analysis of the wellhouse project. So with the final contracts close to being approved, I'll be able to determine where we stand, whether it's over or under budget for the project, and I'll be certain to share the results with that when I'm done. [9:11] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Thanks, Ellissa. I appreciate that. That's confusing about that campground—that’s surprising. [9:17] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: I'm not surprised. I'm so happy with it. I—but I also, I've talked about this a couple different times—I think we could put a million more sites in and we'll also be full for the Fourth of July. So, but that's a good problem to have. [9:33] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Absolutely. [9:35] I'd like to see us put it as a city, put a thank you in the paper and on our possibly the Facebook page to the businesses and people and the Chamber for the all the donations for the fireworks. You know, just for everyone's information, I think it's a good idea. Katie, did we have a Chamber meeting at noon? And Katie thanked the Chamber and all the businesses and everyone that donated, but I like that idea too. So, we will be posting something in the paper and on our Facebook page and our website. [10:14] **Taylor Hansberry (Deputy Clerk)**: Part of the—there was different levels of sponsorship, and one of the levels of sponsorship was a free month of advertising on the Chamber's website because they have nice sections for that now in their new website. [10:23] And then, oh, I was going to write thank you notes to all the—obviously I can't do the people that donated like a dollar here, a dollar there, but I can do the businesses. I was going to write thank you notes to all of them also. So that was huge. I was really happy about that. [10:41] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Yeah, a lot of support from the community. And a big thank you to Katie and Ellissa for doing a lot of groundwork effort and working with the Chamber to get that done. It's greatly appreciated. Thank you. Any other questions from the council on the financial reports? Hearing none, do I have a motion to accept the financial reports? [11:06] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: So moved. [11:07] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen**: Second. [11:08] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: All in favor say aye. [11:09] **Council Members**: Aye. [11:10] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Opposed? Motion carried. Moving on to number three, Public Comment. This time is reserved for comments from the public on matters not listed on the agenda. I ask you please keep your comments to three minutes. Hearing none at this time. Moving on to Departmental Reports for A, the Police Chief Department Report for June 2021. [11:32] **Police Chief Darren**: Mayor, members of the council, attached is your police report for June, totaling 213 calls for service. We didn't have any calls to MSOP and only one to DOC [11:56] last month. Additionally, we spent about one hour on the Department of Corrections call that ourselves initiated. We had 48 extra patrol, 32 traffic stops, 41 community engagement calls. We responded to—24 were assists to other agencies, 66 calls for service, and two medicals. In the first part of this month here, last weekend, we had a small protest at MSOP. Ended up being pretty peaceful, and they weren't there very long and then they dispersed and moved on. So hopefully we'll be done with that. Just an update: National Night Out is going to be on August 3rd from 4:00 to 7:00. It's going to be at the city park. I just confirmed with Kyle today, though, if it's a rain day that we're going to move to the hockey arena. [12:44] And you know, we've got a lot of people from the community here donating a lot of things for that prizes. We're going to auction off some stuff that we were working on some of that today. You know, Katie's going to get some of that stuff picked up, so it should be good either way, rain or shine on that night. One thing I just wanted to bring up for you guys to think about: we have it in the budget for a new squad in 2022. Been making some calls regarding our state bid for the squad cars. It's really hard right now to go ahead and order because they don't even have the pricing out yet on—and they don't know when you're going to get it or whatever. They're just kind of up in the air. During the search, I found out that there were four of them at the Saint Cloud Tenvoorde—Ford has the pursuit interceptor squads there. [13:32] And they do have one in the dark. Maybe something for you to think about. That price is about $38,544 for a 2021 model. I tried to get to them, though: what do you think the prices are going to be for 2022? Are we going to see a big increase? And I couldn't even tell you that because, you know, you'd be putting out an order, we don't know when it's coming or what the price is going to be. I'm fine either way because it wouldn't go into service anyway until 2022. So if we bought it, it would be part—but I'm guessing it would be cheaper buying the 2021 than going after that 2022, and then it gives us time to build it. So something for you to think about if we want to go ahead and purchase that. I think we do have the money there to buy it now and have it sit. So something for you guys to [14:19] think about. I would just have to, you know, get hold of the dealership if that sounds—because I don't know how long it will stay on the lot. [14:26] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: Something that we had talked about as an idea is if we budget for it in 2022, pay it out of 2021—we have the money that we did not spend from 2020 in a separate, like, dedicated fund. We could use that money for this squad and reimburse that fund in 2022, January 1st, if that's what we decide to do. We don't have to do that; we can take this out of reserves. We've got options. So if this is something you guys want to move on, it makes me a little nervous to see what 2022 numbers are going to be if we see the [15:06] trend of the last couple of years. [15:08] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: So what vehicle would we be replacing? [15:11] **Police Chief Darren**: It's really not going to be—the one we have now would currently just move into a spare squad and everything set up the way it is, not taking anything out of it. I'll continue to drive the older Tahoe, and so keep two in—like right now, even for the Fourth, we only have the two squads, so it's kind of tough to get around. So the other one will be a completely backup squad that we have now. [15:37] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: Whatever miles have our ones we have now? [15:41] **Police Chief Darren**: The Tahoe that I typically drive is at 100,000. I think the other one we have in right now is at about 65,000 to 70,000. So by January—I said even if we did buy this [15:53] other one, it would sit until the first of the year. So either way, it's up to you whether in the business end of it you take and buy the one that's probably a little cheaper now and not knowing what the '22 is going to be because I was surprised that they even had any in stock here right now. So I'm just going to leave that to you guys. [16:21] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Are you open for a little discussion right now for the council? Any questions for the Chief? [16:27] **Council Member Kris Huso**: Some of the stuff it comes with? Because a lot of the ones are making all the wiring harnesses, everything's there run to like the corner lights and stuff, but then we would still have to put some—all the other equipment like a cage and that. [16:43] **Police Chief Darren**: But some of the things I've already talked about, you know, we're not going to add into this one the things that—you know, the light bar and some of these other things that you really don't need are going to be the bush bumpers. Talked to the other officers and, you know, the patrol—yeah, we were pushing cars all the time, but here they're not used that much. So there's a way to save on some of that stuff. One of the computer mounts and systems will probably pull out of one and put it into the new one. But we'll have to buy some additional things, though. [17:11] **Council Member Kris Huso**: Yeah. [17:12] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: Something else. You could either put it in this year or then—yeah. So either way. [17:21] **Police Chief Darren**: Yes, to be the Ford Explorer pursuit package. So just like similar—we have a little bit body, different body style, but that's what it is. I mean, I've checked on some of the other ones. I can't even get a quote on a Durango, and the Tahoes are a lot more expensive. So this is probably the our cheapest and we've had this in the budget—the monies—since 2020. [17:43] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: It's going to be budgeted for in 2022, but we do have money that we did not spend in 2020 that can pay for that. We can pay for it for the short term and then essentially reimburse that fund [18:03] in 2022. [18:05] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Council, it's a budgeted item. I mean, it depends—do you want to wait now or spend $5,000 or $10,000 more? Or I mean, we've done other things to be creative, but I think that we have budgeted for the item. I think that would—I agree. I think that we know we'll be doing this in 2022 so and we don't know what the increase is going to be for the availability. [18:29] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: And we've done it with Phil's department as well; he's come across it. I want to save money. [18:37] **Police Chief Darren**: Yeah, like I said, it wouldn't be used now anyway. It's going to sit 'til we have it into 2022 and it would just be there. So I would probably agree on your line of thinking that it's probably saving money to getting this one now, but I'm fine either way. [18:56] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: You have a motion? [18:57] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: I'll make a motion we go forward and purchase the 2021 Ford for $38,544.21. [19:07] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Have a second? [19:10] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen**: Second. [19:11] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Any further questions? Discussion? [19:14] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: Right now, we probably should just output it and have it ready to go for January 1. But again, we'll just reimburse whatever the cost is from 2022. So we'll budget for this—and actually, we can budget for it a lot more accurately because even to equip it right now, we're probably going to be sitting waiting for parts just like everything else that we've tried to get right now. Or anything in your automotive industry, everything is—you're getting piecemeal pieces coming into you. So maybe we'll—once we have a dollar amount for everything extra, we can bring that maybe next month or whatever, and you guys can approve that at that meeting. So this way, there will be no huge time rush. [19:59] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Who owns this? Where's it sitting at again? [20:07] **Police Chief Darren**: It's at Saint Cloud—Tenvoorde is the name of the place. And it's a brand new squad; it's just that they have it sitting in the lot yet. [20:16] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Okay, all right. We have a motion, do I have a second? Any further questions? Discussion? All in favor say aye. [20:26] **Council Members**: Aye. [20:27] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Opposed? Motion carried. Thank you. [20:30] **Police Chief Darren**: Thank you. Appreciate it. [20:40] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Moving on to Departmental Reports for the Public Works Superintendent Report. [20:44] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent)**: Mr. Mayor, members of the council, summer is flying by and we are busy. It's good busy; we're getting a lot of things accomplished. But we'll get started here. We're going to jump around a little bit, so sorry in advance. Water department: distributed 4.9 million gallons of drinking water in the month of June. The wellhouse has been online now for across—gotta be about 45 days or so now. It's working really well. I like it; Tom did like it. It's a big upgrade from what we have. It’s very good. The Birch and 4th Street intersection is getting blacked out today along with the site prep for the new [21:26] wellhouse. Douglas was—I was told it was going to get base course on tonight; I kind of doubt it. So they'll be doing that tomorrow. The old wellhouse is demoed—the old, old wellhouse is being demoed. The water tower painting project, that's scheduled to start next week. We've talked about that; I haven't got any questions, so I'm assuming we're good. If anyone does have questions, please feel free to let me know. And then the 8-inch water main tap for MnDOT, the maintenance garage, was done last month as well, which was—it'll be kind of neat. There'll be a little user—we'll be able to work with them a little bit on a few things as far as salt usage and water [22:12] bills and so on and so forth. So it would be kind of neat, another option for us. The Sewer Department collected 10.4 million gallons of wastewater in the month of June. Treatment facility had a discharge in June, a small one of 17.9 million gallons of wastewater. All our parameters were met, so that was great. PCA is happy with us. We did receive a new NPDES permit—a draft permit—which I believe I put the application in about three years ago for that. So it's good to see that we're—not kidding, it was literally three years ago, so that's good. Sent it to Tyler, our city engineer at SEH, and he reviewed it as well and we both found some changes in it, some differences from our old permit. [23:00] My opinion: I like this one better. It gives us a few more options for operator options and I think it's going to make things a little bit easier on my end, especially on meeting the phosphorus limits. There is some additional sampling, but you really can't control that unless you want to put together a case to fight them. Really, it's just easier to take the samples and monitor the bonds in the wastewater that way. So I was happy to see that come back and I was happy to see it come back the way it did. So it's going to definitely benefit us. Lift stations are being cleaned this week; in fact, should be done right? Yeah, we worked late last night, work late tonight, so we're getting things done. Lining project is kind of in the mid-process here. Last [23:47] year, if you remember, our lining project was extremely streamlined. I mean, they were here for, I think it was 20 hours from start to finish and it was done and they were gone. This company does things a little different; they do it in stages. The first stage is done, the cleaning process. Actually, we're waiting for the liner installation right now, and then it should be happening—I think it's the end of July, third week of July sometimes right in there. Yeah, something like that. And the manhole work, the rehab work, will happen about a month after that. So we're just slowly moving along. Pothole drilling as usual on a monthly basis—just take one swing all the way through town, check it all out. If anyone has any concerns with that, [24:32] reach out to me, we'll see if we can get it done sooner. Campground seems to be running smoothly on the maintenance side. Obviously, money things are doing really well there, so that's awesome. Cemetery—that's running smoothly as well. Definitely busy in both those areas, but it's really good. So we're going to circle back to the Water Department. We have the old wells, which are the wells we just got done using a month to 45 days ago, right? And there's been some discussion and some questions asked as far as what we want to do with them now. Katie's done an awesome job getting grants to seal these wells, which is great. We do have [25:18]—I think, Ted, you and I had a conversation about keep—at the beginning of the project, which I don't know, we're talking months ago. I requested that we keep initially the best of the old wells available for a length of time after the project. And now the question is: the both of them, keeping both of them? But I know that Katie got the grant money to seal them and that if we don't use that money, the grant is given back, evidently. [26:01] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: I don't think he's giving back money. No, I'm just kidding. I—I don't know that the MDH will think negatively of that, but I can't imagine that they'll think positively. And just for everybody's reason why I asked that—I did that—because these are brand new wells. We have 40-some days of confidence in them. The old wells, we've got—I don't know—40, 60 years of confidence in them. There is a problem with one of the old wells where it is not restoring like it should? [26:40] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent)**: Correct. It's not restoring like it should and the drawdowns are more than they should be, and they do have a higher level of manganese in them—that’s well number two. And the other well is still fairly good, but it's the oldest one? [26:59] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent)**: Correct. Which is how old? I think 1952. So in their—their life expectancy at best is 60 years maybe. [27:14] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: Yeah, I think I should just clarify a few items, though. Katie did a wonderful job getting grants. She got two $10,000 grants to seal wells, but they are both for the old city well on Douglas Avenue. That is all the old, old ones that got filled in on Monday and the building is gone as of today—two days ago, today. [27:43] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: I thought one was for the old sucker... no? [27:46] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: So, little too many "old" wells. Sorry, yeah, we have a lot of pots of money floating around, so I do not blame you. I had to look it up to clarify it. You had an estimate of $35,000 to demo the old, old well and seal everything. And so we applied for two $10,000 grants that had to be applied for a month apart. So they're both getting applied to that. So to your other point, Ted, we did—and the specifications for the new old wells specified to leave them above grade two feet, welded cap onto them, and leave them in a condition that they could be reused. And that work has already been done. They've been cut off, they've been left, a cap has been welded on them. So we did do that the way we had described it almost a year and a half ago. [28:38] And so that building is gone as of today, and we're going to just leave a little bit of concrete slab around there in case Phil needed a working area. So you still have the "new old" wells, and you still have the ability to cap them when you want. But since you had no money for them, we said, "Yeah, maybe we'll let them sit for a year or two or three and make sure your new wells are working correctly," because you can always go back and abandon them later. And at that point, we could also apply for the grants a second time around. So I would advise not abandoning them right now to let the new system work. And if you [29:09] want to abandon them in the future, let's go apply for the abandonment grants and see if we can get another $10,000 paid for via grant. [29:19] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: That's right. It's all coming back to me. So yeah, sorry, just to clarify before you get— [29:25] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent)**: No, you know, that's good. It has for everybody to be done and every all of us to understand, and I couldn't remember exactly what the whole discussion was a year and a half ago. It's good to go over it and everybody understand and know where we're at and clarify it. It's great. [29:43] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: So you win, Ted. We'll keep the wells. [29:47] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen**: Yeah, I think we're on the right—on the same page. It's more understanding than winning. No, I'm just kidding. [29:57] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent)**: Yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you. So that's all I have for now for this portion. [30:03] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Thanks, appreciate that, Phil. All right, moving on under Departmental Reports: Technology and Library Report. [30:10] **Taylor Hansberry (Deputy Clerk)**: The big thing I have for the library was they—I think they made $1,800. Maybe Lou said this last month? They made close to $1,800, if not a little more, at their book sale. So they're just trying to figure out some creative ways to spend that. I think they talked about replacing a couple of the computers in there that are used for, like, kids programs and then a card catalog computer. So utilizing the money for those. Laura was going to work on some quotes, but I have nothing else, nor do I have anything for technology. [31:06] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Great. Questions by the council? Hearing none, thank you. Appreciate that. Moving on to a Liquor Store Report. Elaine is gone, I believe, until Friday, so she obviously is not here. And I have not had a chance to ask her how sport went. So okay, that's on my next week to-do list. Very good. So, council have any other things they would like to ask on that? [31:38] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: To report back—are we getting an ice machine? [31:43] **Taylor Hansberry (Deputy Clerk)**: So we did get somebody from Airserve to come down and give us a recommendation. But because it was so close to the Fourth and eight days and whatever, I just said, "Let's just get through July and we'll talk about it in August." But yes, that is on the agenda in August. But every time I've gone down there to talk to her, it's a zoo. So it's really hard to actually talk to her about it. [32:11] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: That must be good, though. [32:13] **Taylor Hansberry (Deputy Clerk)**: It is a good problem to have, but it is busy and I know she's mentioned it a few times to me, too. We just can't seem to connect. [32:16] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: All right, thank you. Moving on to City Engineer Report. [32:20] **Matt (City Engineer - SEH)**: So a number of these items we're going to be talking about later on, so I'm going to blow through this pretty quickly. Trunk Highway 73: we obviously approved the bid to Ulland on June 29th. They're expected to begin, or at least starting to bring material and machinery down here. I think it was the 26th, 29th, somewhere around there. They are contracting. Wells: the wells are coming along. The demo just happened of the old wall house and the old, old well [33:04] house. Patching is in the works, so things are starting to get cleaned up. So it'll start to look put together again. We discussed—which three of them are four of them actually are included in this later on—but we discussed a bunch of change orders and Matt's currently working with Lakehead on a number of them to try to come to some type of agreement. So expect some change orders possibly in August for the wells. Water tower painting: our kickoff meeting actually got rescheduled to July 19th. So I think you're going to start to see people on site very shortly after that. And I have not a very good drawing, but a decent drawing of what it's going to look like if you guys approve that. Sew Line Trail is super close to being done. There's a few things they have to like pick up some cones and do some small other things, and then that will get closed out and then we will request reimbursement from the DNR for the $150,000. [34:20] And Phil is working with Tyler and the wastewater folks over at SEH to figure out what our new pond capacity is after the lining project. And the rest of these items I believe we'll be talking about later on. [34:33] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: And I think the items that you spoke—we made a decision there, they are in the new business, so we won't need any comfortables right now. Okay. Any question by the council? We want more discussion or information? We move on to Chamber of Commerce updates. [34:55] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: Allison couldn't make it today. Agate Days is this weekend—this weekend. Triathlon, I think it's August 7th. The Nine and Dine is the end of July. Brewfest is September 18th. They're doing a virtual golf event. They had a business expo at the end of June. They talked about how the Fourth of July went. They did reschedule the fly-in breakfast for August 21st. So normally, I think that's in the spring—June maybe. So the need was there; people were requesting it. Something that we maybe should be expecting from the Legacy of Excellence—which [35:53] we've donated to them a couple of times in like the last year and a half—but they're putting on a really cool program with some of their high school students tutoring some of the younger kids that maybe fell behind because of the distance learning. I thought it was kind of a cool program. So they're doing some fundraising and some raffles right now, and I told her to keep us in mind if we have not already donated to them this year. Because that's like specifically what the gambling money is for, is for like kid programs and things like that. So I just keep it—keep your eyes peeled for that. I might have told her to submit her requests later on. But those are the big things that they commented on. [36:38] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: One thing I'm going to bring up is that fireworks—as most you probably know—we had to shoot the fireworks off 15 minutes early because of a storm moving in. And when there's lightning and thunder, if it got overhead, they would have had to have shut down whether they're in the middle of it or if it hadn't started. They were done. So we decided to go early; we went 15 minutes early and they did it fast and got done in 15 minutes. And with all the work that you guys did on collecting money for fireworks, [37:25] it was fantastic. But just to give you an idea: two years ago, because we didn't have it last year, $7,500 brought us about 45 minutes of fireworks. Now, with costs and state laws the way they are, $10,000 brings you about 15 minutes. It has changed that drastically. And I'd call it terrible. We also have a restriction where you have to have a 100-yard radius around the place where you shoot off, clear of all buildings and people. The only place we could find that was close to that was the parking lot right behind the lily field [38:12] fence. And even then, the guy went down and talked to him—I don't know if Darren did, too, but the police or the fire chief did also—and the guy said, "Actually, the homes on 7th Street are very close." Our old JC building, which is our kind of like storage, and the bathhouse and a few of the permanent trailers were within that 100-yard radius safety radius. So we got a problem. I don't know if they'll do it there next year, and I don't know where we can find a place in the city limit where you have [38:58] a 100-yard radius to hold the fireworks. These new state laws are very tough on me. The only thing I'm thinking of as we look farther down the peninsula, past the place where the tents are—but I think the tenting area is farther east. If it's all wetland, then we may run into wetland problems. So I don't know; we're going to have to kind of look to see what we can do. I embarrassed myself with many state facilities asking this year, even if we could use some land that [39:46] the DOC owns along the lake. I asked if we could use some land that the DNR owns. Every—I think the warden at DOC did everything he could not to laugh in my face. But no, I was kidding; he was very kind but respectfully said no. The land across from where we used to shoot them off—Phil and I went out there and, like, the second we got out of the truck, it was like a bald eagle. And I'm like, "Well, there goes that; there's a nest over there." I'm tapped out on ideas. You can't—you can't even be near that nest. So that area right past the walking bridge, there's that field there, which would be perfect. [40:32] But there's a nest up in those trees; you have to be a thousand yards away from that. Even the trail was moved because of their nest. [40:42] **Council Member Kris Huso**: I'd like to see that nest. Last time I went out there, I could not find it. [40:47] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent)**: That nest was out there—I must have been like three years ago, three or four years ago. So I'm not even sure if it's still there. I went out there. [40:57] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Okay, I was going to say I didn't look for a nest; all I saw was the eagle. And I'm like, "Well, there's a nest somewhere." [41:03] **Council Member Kris Huso**: It was still there, but I know—I thought the old tree that was there was gone. But yeah, there's—there's one there. [41:09] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Okay. But the DNR—well, and it's state land, too. I know they may not even want to do it themselves without even the bald eagle. So we just have to kind of look to see what's out there before the end of the summer. I think that a trek out past the tent area into that brushy... see how wet it is. The only other thing that we could do is if I do enough time in advance, we can block off a certain number of sites, but then we're cutting into revenue at the campground. So I don't know if you guys—100 yards... if they're at that late point where they've always been, you almost have to empty the whole trailer park. And it would be—we'd have to have seasonals move and everything. [42:02] They're like every—all their, yeah, camp everything. Yep. [42:15] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: Are these new rules that they've made since Todd Holly is stripping them out? [42:20] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Well, not only that, but the bathhouse is there, and I think this company's insurance policies state, you know, you have to be X amount of distance away from any structures. Yeah, so these are state laws, you told me. In part they are, but they also they have to follow an insurance. So we'll just have to see what we can do and see if they'll do it that same place next year if not. But I know once we develop the old football field into a campground, then that place definitely will no longer be usable. So we'll worry about it next year. That's a heads-up thing. All right, moving on to number five, Previously Discussed Business: Moose Lake Windermere Sanitary Sewer District capacity. And I think that study will be going on with the new lining. Yep, we're working on it with the engineers. There will be more to come. Moving on to New Business 6-A, Hillside Terrace Apartment complex service line request. [43:33] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: So Tori is here for your request. Submitted in your guidance packet I gave is the report that DLI had put together on a service line request with some maps. Tori gave us a better map here. So essentially he's requesting to replace his—is it water and sewer? [43:58] **Tori (Guest/Applicant)**: Yes. [44:00] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: Okay, water and sewer from the old Kathy's Country Corner to the water and sewer main. As noted on his diagram here, the problem that we are running into is that from everything that we have been told, we don't own that section. Where we own is at the intersection of Hillside Terrace Road and—I don't know—Industrial, maybe? Yes, there's a valve there and that's where our ownership stops as far as our records go. And so part of this approval that Tori received from DLI was that he has to connect to municipal services, water and sewer. And that's kind of where the problem is: where he's requesting to connect, we don't believe that we own that. So I don't know if you want to go over anything. [45:05] **Tori (Guest/Applicant)**: Yeah, so yeah, that's when I—so I bought this in March of 2020 and that's what Phil originally thought was the city sewer and water kind of stops at that intersection there. But I noticed a little better on this map here. So this would be where that six-inch gate valve is, and then the planted city street actually comes up here and also comes up here. So there's an area here that's still planted city street. But as far—I mean, the problem is there's nothing in writing, but they think this is a private line. And the whole problem lies is even though I'm connected privately now—I come out the back side of the building, go all the way through mixed court and [45:51] it's only one-inch water and a four-inch sewer—but in order to connect the building, it would have to be a municipal line. So I know Katie and Phil both put a lot of work into this to try and dig up records or see if there's anything and weren't really able to find anything. At some point, they decided the sewer in that planted road is the city's, but because there was no maintenance or nothing beyond that point, they said that's where the city's main ends, is right at that six-inch gate valve. So on this map, [46:39] that six-inch valve is there. They're saying the sewer is municipal all the way to here. So I can continue to run my new six-inch line as proposed, but the water would have to go back to this intersection, which is kind of hard to see on the overhead, but there's a lot going on in that intersection. My real concern is it's either ripping up that road or taking down at least 100 trees. And the big thing up there is there's bedrock. So it might get to the point where I can take down the trees or rip up the road, hit bedrock, and the project would pretty [47:26] much be over. It would be impossible without blasting or something very expensive. [47:33] **Victoria (Guest)**: Am I able to ask you a question? So I'm Victoria for those of you that don't know—Theresa's Pokemon Park. Hey, when you made the comment about those roads there that it was "I don't own those" and it's very clear from property records that that's not my land—and this one even marked a little—the first road that goes up towards Kathy's Country Store or Tori's place now, that's Second Avenue here. It's labeled as Hillside Terrace as incorrect, and I don't own that. So I didn't want to— [48:12] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: No, no, I wasn't insinuating that you owned that. I just was going based off of this what's on this map; it says Hillside. [48:19] **Victoria (Guest)**: Okay, well you said—you made it sound like it was in doubt. The records clearly show that that's the city road. [48:26] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: Nope, I'm not doubting that we own that road. I am only doubting that we don't know what's underneath that road. [48:32] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Okay, are you talking road going all the way up to the building? [48:37] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: Both. Well, so if you're driving down that way, you can go straight; the park is over to the right. Then there's the entry sign, you can keep going straight. It's up there about 75 yards or so, 50 yards straight. Or you can veer to the right and go up towards this country. That first section is not my property, it's city-owned. It's actually Second Avenue on the map. [48:58] **Tori (Guest/Applicant)**: Yes. [48:59] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: So that's where I always get confused because it's always listed as—but I will also say until this came up recently and talked to Phil, I had no idea that that was. [49:11] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: And so you know, when we did that trenching, you know, worked with you on trenching in there, that you were—you made sure you knew that's not our road. [49:21] **Tori (Guest/Applicant)**: Are you talking to me? [49:22] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Yeah, what trenching was that? [49:25] **Tori (Guest/Applicant)**: Remember the drainage problem along that road, that that was—it was breaking up so bad. And the only thing that we did—Phil, maybe it was before my time—the only thing that I was involved with is Tim Gloval did up on the north side of the apartment building because there was water flowing in. It turned out it was flowing from up. [49:46] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent)**: Are you talking about along the street along that road going up to where Kathy had her building there? [49:53] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Because that right here. Are you talking? Are you going back right in here? [49:57] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent)**: Well, let's see where's this. This is Industrial and—oh, just where that culvert was put in. Well, that's—that's well this is—this you're talking yes this and this—these are not city. [50:11] **Tori (Guest/Applicant)**: Correct. Correct. They are not. [50:14] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Yeah. Oh, that's right. So he's talking about the Y. This—yeah this and this is. [50:23] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent)**: But this one right here in the front of his apartment, that area there? Yeah, that's all. [50:31] **Tori (Guest/Applicant)**: I own that lot over there. [50:33] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent)**: Correct, yeah. And then Region Electric and Tori has an easement. Through the years, with myself, besides Chris who's been here a little longer, but for 17 years I was told right at the beginning that we don't—never—the city never accepted those lines, water lines, because they're—they're put in from the south from the valley. [51:24] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Yeah, so that—that isn't the problem. That sounds like, Tori, you can't hook up anywhere else but at that place it needs to be. [51:35] **Tori (Guest/Applicant)**: I mean, it's—it's possible I can hook up behind that six-inch line, but it's a real mess there already. And then it's hard to say where the bedrock is unless I took down all—I mean, I potholed all the way down that hill just to find a spot that is deep enough. Because water line obviously you want it very deep so you don't have freezing. And you know, ideally you would like nice straight lines as much as possible. So yeah, my real concern is to dig up the road and get going and hit bedrock or something and then basically at the standstill again and not be able to accomplish what I want to. [52:13] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: So what are you asking from the council? [52:17] **Tori (Guest/Applicant)**: Well, I guess ideally if there's any way we can make it work where this would be considered a municipal line if we could work together, as far as a maintenance agreement or something where it's— [52:32] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Are you saying along farther past that? He's still in your city road from this—this valve here. Let's say it's like right about here to where he's going to hook into. He wants us to take over clear ownership of that. How big of an area is coming, how long is that? [52:51] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: Um, I can see here, but I don't know what the distance is there. [52:56] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen**: Why would we have to take ownership of it? Why not go get into it if it's yours to begin with? [53:05] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: That's the problem is they—I can't do a private connection. [53:11] **Tori (Guest/Applicant)**: He can't; it has to be. They won't define... but even though I'm connected to a private line now, they won't let it happen again. [53:23] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: I guess the line that you would want to connect was owned by you, but you can't connect to it. Is that a the line—state thing? Yes. [53:38] **Matt (City Engineer - SEH)**: I'm looking for... Phil or... what makes it a private line? That run there from the valve up to where he wants to... [53:49] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent)**: City never accepted it when it was put in. It was not done to city standards. We were talking—we were talking probably, I don't even know, 40, 50 years ago. [54:05] **Matt (City Engineer - SEH)**: Then who does it? [54:07] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: Because it is not part of the city inventory. [54:11] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent)**: It was never accepted because of—there was things that were put in substandard at the time. We're talking so long ago that none of us—I know the person who did it, Don Dean, but I don't know the council who did not accept his work. [54:27] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: I don't know the exact word. 50 years ago they didn't accept it? [54:33] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent)**: Yeah, I haven't seen... [54:36] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: So what if it were brought—I'm sorry—brought up to code at that time to put that stretch in there, that that were then up to the standard that you would expect? So you're saying what if they—what if they replaced... yeah. [54:53] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent)**: I about you—I'm trying to get a better understanding. If it was replaced and it was up to our engineer—they're sitting right behind you—our engineered specs that we would probably accept it. So from that—from the valve up to where Tori wants to cut into it, if that were brought up to current code, is that what you would—that would be a conversation worth having. Yeah. [55:23] **Victoria (Guest)**: Okay, I'm sorry. Yeah, I was just going to tell you: I own the cardinal court park and we have the same instance. We are privately owned, all the water and sewers. So we have the same situation with Farnam. So if something happens in the court, we're responsible for it. [55:40] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: Oh, that's absolutely clear. It's just so now this is under the city on the road, and that's the only reason it's coming up because, frankly, I don't—I really—so technically if—if something broke, let's say something broke in that section of road, you don't legally—you shouldn't legally probably dig into our road. But we would like you—we would allow you to fix it, obviously, right? Right. [56:07] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent)**: Is that line filled in the road? You'd have to dig the road up to replace it? [56:11] **Tori (Guest/Applicant)**: It's on the edge. It's right on the edge. You could be picking—but by the time the hole was open, you'd be in blacktop there. But the problem may be it's already on bedrock down there. Valve is very shallow, it seems. [56:26] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent)**: So the one time I've seen that line dug up and fixed, yeah, a local contractor dug it up, fixed it. They had to mechanically take the repair band apart to get it slid under the water main between the bedrock to wrap around the other side and put it back together and then install it. So, I mean, it's right on the bedrock. [56:51] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: What would be the—let's say Tori had to replace it. What would make it standard or acceptable? I guess I'm asking the engineers and you, Phil. [57:13] **Tyler (City Engineer - SEH)**: Well, sure, obviously we want to help get service if we can. My understanding right now is so we followed ten-state standards, so we don't make up our own standards for your public water because we just—we have to, too, we gotta. Yeah, so it'd have to be of the right diameter, which I believe it's—it's got to be water even short. Well, right now the ten-city standards, you have to have the minimum six-inch diameter main. Correct. But that's what's in the ground. So the upgrade would have to be from a four to a six, and it would either have to be a duct liner HDPE or a C900 PVC. It'd have to be one of those three materials, have to be pressure tested, have the right valving so Phil can isolate it, etc. And then we would, excuse me, tap in a new if—if the applicant just wants a [58:00] service, then it's just a corporation stop to a one-inch copper line, and it's not a like a four-inch or six-inch T or anything to serve the buildings. The other thing with it, though, is once it leaves city right-of-way, if it's going to be a main, then there's got to be easements dedicated to the city so the city can go up and dig it up, repair it if something were to happen to it. So those are the primary things that would have to happen for it to meet what you would call the city standard. Does that help you, Tori? Answer your questions that you have? [58:52] **Tori (Guest/Applicant)**: Yeah, it sounds like more research. I mean, ideally if there was a road that could connect into the existing city main and make it up there as a service, that would be probably ideal for all parties. But I think as Tori stated, there might be other things. I don't know that. I don't think anyone here knows that at the moment, that's sure. But I don't know if there's a way to do some rock probes or something else that might answer that question. And it sounds like you're not looking for main straight for other future connections of other lots or other buildings, right? Just a service line? [59:40] **Tori (Guest/Applicant)**: Yeah, just the service for that building. So you're talking about like a one-inch water and a four-inch sewer. Inch and a half for domestic water and then I have sprinklers or I want a sprinkler system, so I need a four-inch going out to the building. Is there any possible way that you know to connect for me to connect to a private line or, you know what, I've never really done it would burn up through the Department of Labor and Industry and you have to contact them with the permanent submit and just say we want to connect to a private line. You two at the table have to have an agreement for that. I personally just have never been through that, so I don't know if it's—yeah, we can with a bunch of conditions. No, I don't even think about it or I just haven't ever applied for that permit. And you just talked to Children, right? Yeah, okay. And that's all I've really talked to either. So maybe I'll explore that a little more, because if it's possible just to do a private connection, I mean, that's what it is now. I don't see why it's a huge deal, and that would make it a lot easier for everyone, I think. [1:00:27] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: Yeah, and then you choose to document your agreement between each other. [1:00:34] **Council Member Kris Huso**: Do you have records that say that that section by the valve where he wants to tap it, that it is—that it is private? [1:00:46] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: We don't have any records of it at all. [1:00:49] **Council Member Kris Huso**: I don't know—I think we don't have anything that belongs to us. [1:00:53] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: Correct. We would have records of what it was; we would have—sorry, I'm sorry. No, that's okay. That's okay. So I'll give an example why is absence correct? I'll give an example of like the John Brown neighborhood: when Don Crew put those in, he gave all of those records to Spencer at the time and—and so we have all of those; we know what's in the ground up there. So that's— [1:01:21] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Is there any way that we can determine that to see if it meets code whatever is down? The PVC pipe—and I think I've seen it before in other portions where it is a 10-inch PVC pipe at least for the sewer thing anyway. Is there a way that it can be determined? Because it really—dance around, but it really isn't private now. It may have been installed on a weekend when nobody was around, I don't know what happened 40 years ago, but it really isn't the private line. It's not owned by the city. Oh, it's not on—it’s under the city street. It's not on my property. I don't know. I don't know. We won't maintain it if it breaks, so we don't own it. We own to that curb stop is we're the only place that we've ever done any maintenance is to that curb stop. [1:02:07] I have to, you know, part of my job as a mayor when you get to 15 minutes I have to—yeah, because we have a lot of other things. But you certainly can come in and talk to Katie on these items you're just mentioning, and if need be, another agenda item on the council. More than welcome. If it can be solved, we're all for it. Great. Absolutely. I'd like to thank you for coming because they're all good questions and I think some of these are generated by what we've had here and I—I hope you find another avenue that'll work and the less expensive for you because we're all for more apartments. [1:02:53] Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you very much, I appreciate you coming. Before you leave—because you guys are welcome to leave—does council have any questions for them before I move on? I apologize for not asking you guys first. [1:03:09] **Council Members**: No, I don't have any questions. [1:03:13] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: All right, thank you very much. Thank you, gentlemen, you are welcome to stay or you can—you can depart. It's your choice. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you. Moving on to a New Business 6-B: temporary on-sale liquor license, Moose Lake Brewing Company. [1:03:40] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: So the brewery wants to put on their fourth annual—I don't know if they did it last year—the fourth annual Oktoberfest on September 25th, and they're wanting to do it at the arena. So in order to do that, they have to apply for an off-premise liquor license. He was going to give me a, like, a list of all the events kind of going on, but he never got that to me. So if I get it maybe next month, I'll pass it along. [1:04:19] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Question? Is there a movement by the council? It's been a big hit last year, so I think motion... [1:04:27] Chief, any concerns? [1:04:30] **Police Chief Darren**: No, I don't. [1:04:33] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Okay. All in favor say aye. [1:04:35] **Council Members**: Aye. [1:04:36] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Opposed? Okay. Under 6-C: Flagpole donation. I can explain this. There is some pictures of it in here. The Moose Lake Legion would like to donate the flagpole to be installed. And maybe Greg, you're—maybe we're at the meeting, maybe not? I think—no, I missed that meeting, but that's been discussed before because years ago there used to be very small... like old enlargement. [1:05:13] Yeah, so they'd like to—Legion like to donate a flagpole and donate the installation of the flagpole. It would be a steel pole with rope inside the pole, so you'd have an access point and then you would raise and lower the plate that way, kind of like the city ones that we have. They're more secure, so people won't mess with them. I had a question while I was looking at this after you and I had talked: looking at this photo, the flagpole looks giant. And I don't know if it's just the photo, but it looks huge. Is there any way that we can work with them on the size? Just so they're here. [1:05:46] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: Absolutely. [1:05:47] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Okay, perfect. Because I don't know that I want one taller than the trees—that looks so tall. [1:05:52] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: Yeah, and they're—they're open to work with the city and whatever and location. They would like to have new electricity so they could light it. So I—I did go down there on Monday, I believe, and there is space in between the bank-donated some nice benches and the pavilion. There is some, like, green space next to like the sidewalk area. I think it would fit in well there and be close, very reversible, and close to the power. [1:06:33] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: Make sure that you get one that locks, too. Most of those on-the-inside ones will have a lock on it or the handle is removed so that they can... yeah. [1:06:50] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: So we have consensus to work with the Legion? [1:06:53] **Council Members**: Yes. [1:06:54] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Very good, thanks everyone. That's a good consensus. Thank you. Under 6-D: Lakehead Constructors Incorporated pay application number eight. [1:07:05] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: Pay application number eight is through June and it is $83,609.50. [1:07:12] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: We're getting there, guys, we're getting there. Yeah, so we have a motion and or discussion on council on pay application number eight? [1:07:22] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: Motion. [1:07:24] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen**: Second. [1:07:25] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: All in favor say aye. [1:07:27] **Council Members**: Aye. [1:07:28] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Opposed? Motion carried. Under E: Pump House facility change order number one. [1:07:51] **Matt (City Engineer - SEH)**: So this change order we actually already paid I don't remember how long ago, but—so we just need to get it formally approved. It was for a—to add a butterfly valve for isolating the system in the amount of $2,064.89. Was that the engineering mistake...? [1:08:24] **Tyler (City Engineer - SEH)**: I think he forgot to have a butterfly... yet no, no. And I apologize for this one and the fact that it was included in pay application I think number five, and I forgot to have Katie get the sign-off and it went through and I [1:08:37] didn't catch it. So my fault. So at this point you already paid it, I just need approval for Katie to sign it so we have documentation that it actually happened. [1:08:49] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: So appreciated. So we have a motion and a second? [1:08:54] **Council Member Kris Huso**: So moved. [1:08:55] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen**: Second. [1:08:57] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: All in favor say aye. [1:08:58] **Council Members**: Aye. [1:08:59] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Opposed? Motion carried. You're out of the water boy. All right, moving on to 6-F: Compost facility change order number two. [1:09:24] **Matt (City Engineer - SEH)**: So change order number two is for that lovely foundation that was hidden under the garage in the amount of $11,720. So this one goes back to day one of the [1:09:41] project. We started—or I mean that day when they graduate day one of digging—they found an old foundation from an old building that used to sit on that lot. No one knew it was there. We had to paint—we had to direct them to remove it obviously because we needed to put wells and piping etc. The only reason wasn't paid already is because of this spring when we resumed and did the water main connection, we thought there might be more of it that we'd have to remove. Ended up there was not. So this is amount that we agreed to last fall, late last fall, we just didn't pay it until now. Thankfully there was nothing else to remove this spring. So it's work that's already been completed; we just haven't paid for the change. [1:10:11] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: They have a motion and their discussion on the change order number three? Are we on two? [1:10:17] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: Two. [1:10:18] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Around two, not jumping ahead. Sorry. Over there. [1:10:21] **Council Member Kris Huso**: Motion. [1:10:22] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: Second. [1:10:23] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Second. And this is the DOC and basement foundation. All in favor say aye. [1:10:30] **Council Members**: Aye. [1:10:31] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Opposed? Motion carried. Under G: Pump house facility change order number three. [1:10:49] **Matt (City Engineer - SEH)**: We're getting there, don't worry. Yeah, we connected to the water mains out in Birch and 4th as part of the project. When we got out there, we found that the water main was shallower than expected, about five and a half feet or so to the top of the main, which generally we designed for eight and accept anything about seven or so. When we saw that shallow, to protect your infrastructure, we instructed the contractor to insulate the water main to protect from freezing into the future and for the connection to the the new wellhouse. So that was the price to put in two layers of three-inch styrofoam board insulation along your existing automation and portions of the new web. This is for [1:11:37] $2,384. [1:11:41] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen**: Motion. [1:11:42] **Council Member Kris Huso**: Second. [1:11:43] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Second. All in favor say aye. [1:11:45] **Council Members**: Aye. [1:11:46] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Opposed? Motion carried. Under H: Linkstop Phone Technologies pay application number one. Did I say that right? Now for me, say that again... didn't sit you for institution. I was just testing you guys to see you know I don't know I've heard it before otherwise they wouldn't. Good job you guys did a good job. So this is pay application number one in the amount of $16,578.26. [1:12:22] And this was for mobilization and I believe cleaning. Any questions or motion? [1:12:35] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: Motion. [1:12:36] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen**: Second. [1:12:37] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Second. All in favor say aye. [1:12:39] **Council Members**: Aye. [1:12:40] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Have you actually put any in yet, Phil? [1:12:43] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent)**: Nope, not yet. [1:12:44] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Okay. Now to I: Northland Constructors of Duluth pay application number two. [1:12:51] **Matt (City Engineer - SEH)**: So pay application number two is for $20,344.44. If you look in the—on the first page of the [1:13:07] of this item, there's one item that went over what we anticipated and that was for a riprap. But we needed it, and so this contract went a little bit over budget. But I anticipate if they clean up everything we'll close this out next month and go for reimbursement. [1:13:30] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Very good. We're real close. We have a motion to accept the paid application number two? [1:13:40] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: So moved. [1:13:42] **Council Member Kris Huso**: Second. [1:13:44] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: All in favor say aye. [1:13:45] **Council Members**: Aye. [1:13:46] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Water tower design proposal. [1:13:50] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: So when we started going through to figure out what paint coloring things that we wanted for the water tower, I emailed you guys out a better photo—I should have included it in here and I didn't. But essentially it's a dark base with a white top, I guess with the same color for Moose Lake asking what you guys thought about that. And I think the majority of you guys responded to me saying that that was a nice design. So what we did was we got a quote from Central Tanks who's doing the painting, and their increase for the cadet blue [1:14:36] is $6,500. And it's going to go right where it's like—it looks striped on your photo there. That'll be blue base, white with blue looks like. And it's like the darkest blue that I could pick from. So I just need approval on that if that was okay. [1:15:02] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: Question by the council: Did you say "Welcome Moose Lake"? [1:15:08] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: It just—we're just replacing what it says which is, I think, just Moose Lake. I think it says "Welcome". [1:15:15] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: So I think this is a picture of it well. [1:15:19] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: I think one side says... one second... "Welcome" as well, and the other side of things. So we're both right. [1:15:26] Coming in. [1:15:34] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: So the colors aren't contrasting? The blue and the blue Moose Lake—are they the same thing? [1:15:39] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: It'll be the same color. [1:15:42] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Do we have a motion to accept the proposal? [1:15:46] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: Who did? Yes. [1:15:48] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen**: Second. [1:15:49] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: All in favor say aye. [1:15:50] **Council Members**: Aye. [1:15:51] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Opposed? Thanks Katie, good work on that. Moving on to K: Utility maintenance agreement, Carlton County, County Road 10. [1:16:11] **Matt (City Engineer - SEH)**: This agreement is in conjunction with the trail project. We have to essentially agree to maintain the storm sewer that they'll be putting in because of the trail. [1:16:21] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Phil knows about this. Phil loves it. I just need approval. Where is this going in? [1:16:32] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent)**: Right at the highway in—kind of in Hoffman's. It's Hoffman's permanent easement that we just got from them right along there. Well on that stretch, County Road 10 parties sure is. [1:16:55] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: All right, very good. One more thing right here's one more thing. [1:17:02] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent)**: No, we already talked about this. It'll be 20 years from now they'll be up somebody else. [1:17:08] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Oh yeah, right. Get your shoulders stop. Do we have a motion to accept the utility maintenance agreement? We don't want to but... Chris, you made the motion? Yep. Got a second. All in favor say aye. [1:17:35] **Council Members**: Aye. [1:17:36] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Opposed? Carried. Under L: Fourth Street reconstruction estimates. [1:17:41] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: Okay, so last month, just to give you guys a story: last month we decided to do a couple of things. We got a quote, an updated quote for what was in the CIP plan for 4th Street from Douglas to house number 212. That's included in here. The cost was like $800-something thousand dollars. We then—I at the time I thought it was [1:17:56] close to 600, which I knew there it would be increased but... I then was curious to know what Elm to the campground would be. So we do that 4th Street one time. Well, it's $2.5 million. So I shredded that one and we went back to the drawing board. We were in a meeting and I then asked them to get a quote for from Douglas to up to the campground—so essentially just getting rid of Elm because that's really the expensive block—and seeing what that would be. And then I thought about it, like future-wise for the next few years, and if we do an expansion to the campground at that time, in my opinion, is is the appropriate time to redo from [1:18:41] Birch and... well Couliard technically. So wrap that into the bond payment there. So what the final product that I—that I am recommending is from Douglas to Birch. It's two blocks, three intersections. It's 1.333—yep, 1.3. I anticipate at the end of 2021 we will have just over a million dollars in sales tax. We will then be able to accumulate whatever we get in 2022, and we've got some other funding sources such as, like, the gas franchise that we can use. So I think we'll have [1:19:26] enough to cover that two-block section. Tyler's going to talk about some of the reasons why the estimates have gone up based off of recent bid council and openings. [1:19:42] **Tyler (City Engineer - SEH)**: Thank you for having me tonight. So yes, a little bit of sticker shock with these estimates. We're opening some bids on various projects throughout northern Minnesota recently, and prices have gone up quite a bit. Your piping utilities, sanitary water main, storm sewer, have all almost doubled [1:20:13] as opposed to what we saw a couple years ago. Bituminous has gone up; you're receiving, you know, over $100 a ton for bituminous where a couple years ago you're maybe getting that $60 a ton. I've just heard the other day that there's big acreage shortages as well for Class 5 and whatnot. So that's some of the reasons why you're seeing these increases in costs. If we look solely at what was in the CIP report from Douglas to that house 212, I ended up including the intersection at Douglas in this estimate for utility connection reasons and just improving that in there. So that's why that's a bit higher as well from the CIP report. [1:21:02] And again, just inflation as well takes into account because the CIP was done two years ago; there's just general price increase with that. We did these estimates assuming the typical section that was used in the CIP report, um, with a 28-foot wide road from face of curb to face of curb, curb and gutter along the entire thing. Four-foot boulevards on both sides with five-foot sidewalk on both sides of the street. So, you know, there's room there, too, for the council to make decisions. Do you really want sidewalk on both sides of the street? You can do it on one side of the street. The 28-foot wide street allows for [1:21:49] typically one-side parking, parallel parking, and then two-way. So there's, you know, things that you can look at to adjust those. If you want to replace street trees—there's a lot of trees on that road right now that would all have to come out to get services in, to get the gutter in. You know, if you didn't want to replace trees, that would be a savings. Street lighting—I actually don't think I added street lighting into this estimate, but that's another thing to take into account if you want streetlights; that's an added cost. So there's—there's a lot of—a lot of reasons why those prices have gone up. This is kind of worst-case scenario. Let me give you that sticker shock. Hopefully, you know, in a year prices come [1:22:37] back down a little bit either maybe at the end of the season or whatnot. But just taking our conservative approach with it just so we don't have shocks later down the road. [1:22:50] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: So I guess, um, what kind of question right away: let's say that we figured out all these things we're talking about. When are you looking at going out for bid on it? Well, that would be when we want to go out for a bid on this. Well, um, are we like if we're saying next year, would we go try to be ready by January? [1:23:32] It would have to be early December, of course, before the holiday season. [1:23:38] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: So some of the things—no matter where we do a road, some of these things are the first time some of us are making these decisions, such as sidewalks, trees, street lighting, things like that. But in my perfect world, a way to avoid these continued conversations street after street that we do is just to pick a standard that this is what we do unless there's an extraordinary circumstance where it doesn't allow for a sidewalk on the north side or whatever we decide. But a general idea so that they know what to—to estimate for, [1:24:17] we know what to expect, the citizens know what the road's going to look like, etc. So I think the first thing that we should talk about is whether or not you guys want to see—I—I would not recommend doing the entire Fourth Street from Elm to the campground. The only way we can afford that is if we bond, which we could do, but we could not pay cash for Fourth Street to house 212. In my opinion, it's not enough of a project; we're going to be disrupting that whole neighborhood anyways. We may as well just finish that block, in my opinion. So that brings us to the [1:25:04] third estimate, which is Douglas to Birch. And so that would be my recommendation is to move forward with planning those two full blocks with all three intersections being reconstructed completely. So I guess first I need to know kind of what you guys are thinking in regards to that. [1:25:27] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: Just a quick question. So it's dirt right now going up into the campground—would we do an overlay until we decided to have a big job down there? Or would it stay dirt for a year? [1:25:38] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: My idea with Couliard is to keep that as is and fully reconstruct that when we redo [1:25:51] the campground so that when we bond for whatever the improvements are in the campground, we include that in the bond. Because realistically speaking, mostly used by people entering and exiting the campground—very few coming from the park, maybe a couple, but—but mostly campground figures. [1:26:15] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: Well yeah, you're right, you're right. But the majority of it is campground, so I think we have a strong case for—for doing that. And then if we do that, taxpayers are not paying for that because we would take revenue made from the campground to pay for that bond. [1:26:33] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Let's just say it could be a couple years, though. [1:26:38] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: I—in my perfect world it will be 2023, but that's my perfect world. Okay, so but I—I maybe we could add that as an add alternate just to see what it would cost. Just curious just in case, and then you could decide whether or not you accepted it. [1:26:54] **Tyler (City Engineer - SEH)**: Yeah, because that's the other part is this is preliminary processing that you know you don't know until the bits come in. Yeah, if they come in very favorably, yeah then you may want to add something on. [1:27:07] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Just my opinion on the sidewalks: I would like to see what we have already back in place—sidewalks on both sides. [1:27:21] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: You're getting—you're getting ahead of me, you're getting ahead of me. This project, the third estimate here... [1:27:25] Council, what if you guys would like to see something else? Chris, I mean, you're looking at the different things that we can do. This seems to fit in as the best choice so that we could maybe at least do something. I mean, we can help them stay in business. [1:27:54] **Tyler (City Engineer - SEH)**: Yeah, we appreciate that. Yeah, we don't keep them busy enough, Chris. [1:28:01] **Council Member Kris Huso**: I mean, I agree. I just with the how many of the campers come through down Elm and actually go down that way. Do they come in—come up like by our office? [1:28:12] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: Yeah, because I see them coming down First Street around... I see them coming in from the side. So I'm just—I mean, every road is right on the side. I see what... so I don't sit out there anymore, but when I did sit out there a lot, in my opinion, um, a tight road—I just wonder if that's the most utilized way to the campground. Yeah, I don't know, though. If we redid Elm... are you talking about redoing Elm? No, I'm just wondering is that the best way, because I mean, I see them coming down every road is bad. I don't think we could make a bad decision on the road. But I guess are you asking if—if we should repave Couliard? Is that what you're asking? No, I'm just wondering if [1:28:58] that Fourth Street is actually mostly used. [1:29:02] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: I don't think it's—I don't think it's used... um, that's not I don't think how the CIP was put together. But it's—it was taken into account the condition of the road, the condition of the water, and the condition of the sewer, and probably the undersized storm sewer. There is a portion of it that took into account the traffic volume on it. But the reason that it's at the top of the list is because the utility infrastructure I think is what brought it to the top. Because the water main is undersized and the sewer, I think a portion of the sewer main is undersized as well. And definitely some drainage issues I believe that are happening. So, I mean, we can't go [1:29:44] wrong, right? You have to do every street. But I was just wondering if that was the... we're doing it from campers coming, those are most utilized. Nope, I am not doing this for campers. Um, I wouldn't—I'm not recommending this for campers, I should say. Um, this is just number one on the list. [1:30:17] **Council Member Walter Lower III**: Walter. I guess I got one concern. Are we going to be able to stick to our three-year timeline with all these cost increases here? I don't think inflation is going to stop anytime soon. [1:30:25] Will we be able to do another project in three years? Will we be able to be able to stick to that? I think now that $87,000 that I had brought up from taking from the police department budget—you can see how important that is when we're trying to do these projects right here. $87,000 in three years would have been an extra $261,000. In 10 years, that raise increases and everything would have been closer to a million dollars we would have been able to put in towards these projects. I think we're in serious situation here that we do not have enough money to do these projects. And now we're looking at whether or not we're going to be able to stick to a three-year timeline. [1:31:10] That'll push back everything farther and farther and farther. Would I like to see the two blocks done? Yes, I would. I'd like to see it done over the one and a quarter... one and a quarter blocks isn't even worth doing. Two blocks isn't basically worth doing for shutting down all the streets and all that stuff. And then when are we going to fix the rest of Fourth Street? The rest of Fourth Street is trashed. Or is that going to have to wait, be moved back to some other point on the list, to be done in a 120 years or something like that? [1:31:54] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: You guys are asking questions, so I don't know where for the rest of Fourth Street is on that list. I do know that number one on that list was Fourth [1:31:56] Street from Douglas to house number 212. The remainder of Fourth Street on that end of town is only the section from Elm to Douglas. So it's only one block, but it is a very expensive block. And I—I get where you're coming from. However, I—don't—I get real excited when I talk about this, so I need to limit myself here. But in 2023—well let's... no I don't have it here. Um, as of June 30, the liquor store owes the sewer fund only $97,000, which means we will start to make an actual profit in the liquor store [1:32:41] likely in 2023. So in—in my—if—if I were you guys, I would take that money that you make in that liquor store, which will be right around $100,000 give or take, and I would put that into a separate fund very similarly to what we have with the sales tax and use that for road projects. So that will be an additional, let's say, revenue source that we've not had since that liquor store has been built. And so is it going to double your—your revenue? No, but it's certainly going to help. It's going to help build that. The money that you guys can—we can all spend on—on road—road projects much quicker. [1:33:30] We just don't have that currently. So we're really, really close. I—I said 2023; I'm at 2022 in my head, it's already 2022. But so am I—am I frustrated that this will potentially deplete our sales tax? Yep. But does it discourage me enough to not recommend this? No, I think that this is a wise use of money and we have opportunities in the next couple of years to build it up again fairly quickly—more quick than we have the last three years. [1:34:03] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: It doesn't come into the account that things come up, like having to replace two [1:34:16] wells at over a million dollars. There may be something else that comes up that takes the money out there. We can't count on it. You can plan and plan and plan, and then reality sets in. And I think, you know, that running the business, things can change like that. Whoever planned that COVID would be shut down for a year or have to have wells that cost over a million dollars? Those are realities that we're going to have to face. Right now, the state of affairs throughout this—this state and the country, I'm glad we have a police department that decides that we have to tell you the truth. I'm very comfortable with that. And I think, [1:35:01] uh, other communities—and I know Minneapolis, people won't even go downtown anymore. I don't think taking the money from—if you're going to take money from one department, you have to to me do it in a logical way and the percentage from every department, not just one. Because to me, it took decades to build every department to where they are for a reason. And the reason they were built up is because the community wanted them. And taking from one, I think is not right. I think you would do something, you take it from a percentage from every department. I will also say that this number is—it says "draft" on here for a reason. [1:35:47] This is not the final number. There are ways that we can strategically—if you guys want to—save. So one of those would be—which I know Ted's feeling on this—but one of those would be: do we want sidewalks on both sides of the street? And again, when we go into these decisions, I want—I want everyone to think of this street, Fifth Street, Sixth Street, Seventh Street, First Street, Second, every street. If we can keep them as uniform as possible, I think that would make all of these decisions much easier going forward. So I'm just going to run through my list that I have, and you might have more, but um... do we want sidewalks on both sides? [1:36:34] Do you just want sidewalk on the north side, or do we just want it on the south side? Okay, that's one. Whatever side you choose to have sidewalks, if you decide to have sidewalks, do you want it a boulevard style or do you want it to be right next to the curb? So it'd be curved sidewalk, whereas right now we have that green space with trees. That's my next one: trees. Right now, we have a lot of trees that are beautiful—beautiful and wonderful, very expensive to maintain. So um, we have to think of it kind of from that aspect, because now we're kind of burying the repercussions of all those trees and now we have to remove them when they're done, dead. I don't think [1:37:21] street lighting is in here, but street lighting would be another one if we want to add it or if we don't need it. I don't think we have any except for on light poles or... no, the power poles right now. What we could do is we could take that on ourselves and just replace that; it doesn't need to be a part of this project if we want it replaced. So those were the big ones that I could think of that we had talked about. [1:37:58] **Tyler (City Engineer - SEH)**: Yeah, I mean also just general street width. Are you okay with the 28-foot wide street? Is that—do you think that's enough parking room to have cars drivers? Do you have that? [1:38:09] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: No campers going through? Do you know what we have? [1:38:13] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent)**: It is 28, I believe it's 28 um between Douglas and... C for Douglas for getting the streets. It's wider as you go west towards downtown. [1:38:34] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: I think that—I think on one side at one point the—the grass... you know, there's no trees here anymore. I think they took the boulevard out at one point and that would be along that big parking lot up here by the power... the old, which the old stream was. But there—I don't think there's a boulevard but next to that sidewalk anymore. I think it was fading out and widened for at some point. I don't know why, but it was. [1:39:10] **Tyler (City Engineer - SEH)**: Yeah, and there's—in all those decisions, too, we've done this many times and we have pros and cons of a lot of those decisions that we can help share, too, if you're trying to make up your mind. [1:39:14] You know, we've—there's a lot of things here to discuss. Should we be setting up a working meeting? [1:39:27] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: In my—in my perfect world, I would like to make some of these decisions sooner rather than later so that we can move forward with the... I mean, these are just estimates; we've not even done any planning as far as the utilities go, which is picking sidewalks and things like that. [1:39:45] **Council Member Kris Huso**: Well, I think every street is going to have different, you know, areas where it's not going to be standard. [1:39:55] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: I guess I would just like to create some type of—uh, normal, like standard, so that when next [1:39:59] time we're going to review Sixth Street, we don't have to pick—do have these same conversations again. So that's my only, I guess, reason for—for making this a bigger deal than maybe it needs to be. [1:40:15] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: But one thing about sidewalks is we no longer have the school down here and there isn't as much traffic of small kids walking back and forth. And I think some of those sidewalks were designed over the years because of access to the school. [1:40:34] **Tyler (City Engineer - SEH)**: Probably right. It's one thing I'd just like to add in: Katie's been referring to this, but think of this as kind of a city-wide standard, not the Fourth Street standard. And yes, Chris, you're absolutely right, [1:40:44] there will be differences. But in general, most communities will set a standard because you have so many streets that are the same width, the same right-of-way, same everything. You can always give yourself a variance to that standard. But to be thinking of it so that the next time you do a street it doesn't look totally different and you have a whole bunch of political, you know, backlash at you going, "Why did they get two sidewalks when we got one?" or "They got a streetlight and we didn't?" So that's why I—I would say if you can't think of it in the bigger picture of think of a standard that would apply for 80% of the city. It's not going to apply everywhere. And think of it that way. So it's beyond the Fourth Street thinking, and then you can apply it, as Katie said, into the future and—and change that if you want in the future. [1:41:31] And while money is usually number one on, like, my priority list, I don't think that we should think about this in dollars and cents. I think we should look at this as, like Matt said, what do you want this to look like across the city? Because um... I—I—I don't think that let's say just doing one sidewalk, I don't think that it's going to cost enough to significantly drop this number to a manageable number. It's just not going to. So don't think of money when—when you're thinking about these items, except for the trees. I think there's so many items. [1:42:12] **Matt (City Engineer - SEH)**: Well, and to add to that, though, the [1:42:16] sidewalk goes beyond the initial cost. You have initial cost savings if you only put one in, but we also have the maintenance of that sidewalk, the panel replacement that Phil's going to have to do. Right? Look around your city; you could have a separate sidewalk program and just go fix sidewalks. Right? So if the number of sidewalks is cut in half, that liability—that future liability—would also... so there are... same with the street width. Less pavement to maintain, less pavement to initially buy. If you want to allow on-street parking, most communities would want to, you know, but 28th is kind of that sweet spot if you still have two lanes of traffic pass an ambulance and whatever. In smaller cities you go wider than that, it's more comfortable, everybody likes it more, but you pay more for it and you pay more to maintain it. So it's [1:43:04] those kinds of decisions is what, you know, we'd like to council be thinking. [1:43:09] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: I would just bring up that we also have trees that are 60, 70, 80 years old that are dying. And when we're going to be doing these projects, we need to look at, "Okay, should we pull those trees out?" And if we're going to do that boulevard, do we want something smaller there? Do we just want grass there and no trees? Because we run into the problems with all these lines; tree roots are going to the lines and then they become the homeowner's problems. Now is the time to be discussing that because it's just going to be the next council's issue or the next person that takes your job or somewhere down the line. I kind of like Ted's ideas, maybe having [1:43:50] a... [1:44:04] [1:44:06] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: I'll send you guys a couple of days. If you guys have anything that doesn't work, just let me know. But just be thinking about sidewalks, boulevards, not boulevards, trees, street lighting. Be thinking of, like, the aesthetic things that you want this community for the most part to look like. [1:44:33] **Council Member Kris Huso**: Well, and does that kind of go along with when we did the vacation project, kind of standard thing? Yeah. [1:44:41] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: All right, so you will send out dates for us to... will be a working council meeting. And I imagine at a working one, you do not make motions. I believe you make decisions and bring that to the next city council meeting. So we want to definitely [1:45:07]... yeah. Great. Anything else? Any other questions? Thank you very much, I appreciate it. Next item M: Gambling permit, Moose Lake Erie Historical Society. Historical Society wants to hold some events looks like September 18th, October 16th, November 13th, and December 11th. [1:45:51] **Council Member Kris Huso**: So moved. [1:46:00] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen**: Second. [1:46:01] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: All in favor say aye. [1:46:02] **Council Members**: Aye. [1:46:03] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: To Jerry. And before we move on, we did agree on the area: the three intersections in the two blocks. So that's what I'm going to focus on—that was consensus. Okay, I just wanted to confirm that. Okay. And gambling permit, American Legion Post 379. This was for over the Fourth of July? Absolutely. All right, that's a great idea. [1:46:25] Memorandum of Understanding, Human Development Center. [1:46:32] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: So this is the agreement that all of the communities in Carlton County that—well I guess that have police departments—go into with the Human Development Center. And that's that social worker that works down here—is it one day? [1:47:04] **Police Chief Darren**: Yeah, comes down here one day a week and maybe as needed. This is something that's normal to do. [1:47:11] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Any discussion by the council? Do you have a motion to accept? [1:17:15] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: Motion. [1:47:16] **Council Member Kris Huso**: Any seconds. [1:47:17] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen**: Second. [1:47:18] **Police Chief Darren**: Thank you. We've been using a lot this week, and it's really paid off. It's limited our time. You know, she had to go out with a party that we've been dealing with multiple—multiple times and getting some court hearings and some other things related to that. So she's been down here a lot, and we're just calling them directly when we go to the calls. So we're getting some use out of it. [1:47:50] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Good. Thank you, appreciate it. Now we have two items that are closed. We'll have to close as to them, so we move on. We'll skip P and Q and go onto R, which is Lakehead generator disconnect. [1:48:04] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: Hoping you're going to start. No, I don't [1:48:08] even know how to start. Okay, I'll start. This is not included in the original, I guess, bidding documents that—that Lakehead had submitted for. So this is a change—this would be a change order. So we would have to pay $19,333 to have a generator disconnect installed on the wellhouse. And Phil's going to explain what that form at baby they're both going to explain what that would do for us. [1:48:47] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: Good question. Was a thing about other people's bid that did on this? [1:48:56] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: So all of these change orders—like the butterfly valve that would have happened regardless of who would have got it, the insulation that would have happened, and obviously the the basement that would have happened, too. Thank you, Phil. [1:49:15] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent)**: Okay, so just explain what this would do. So use a generator, plug it—no, I'm just kidding. It's—so this is a little different, okay? So some of the equipment we have in town—our big lift station—we have a standby generator. No problem, it's already hardware. Power goes out—boom. Right? Now everything's fine. Our little lift stations: they have the industrial receptacles, the plug and heavy-duty. Hook it up—electrician was all here, right? So they all have receptacles, not like your wall but a big heavy-duty or probably a 480-volt. [1:50:11] **Matt (City Engineer - SEH)**: Emergency? Correct. Just a—but it's a big plugin. Plug it in, plug it into the generator, fire it up, where you go. Right? This building is too big to put a plug-in place system they call it on there. So what they call it is a curved key system or a curved key. What you need to operate—you can hook up to a portable generator with just a plug, correct? But it's all hardwired and landed wire. So typically on the water side we don't worry too much because we have usually a [1:50:28] tower full of water, and we lose power for an hour or two we're usually okay. Right? Not a big deal. This is more of a what—uh, flood if you lost power for multiple days, tornadoes, something along that back. Right? So it's more of a like—I call it temporary solution, but long-term temporary solution to where if you're out of power for 10 days, two weeks, whatever, we could hook something up, get water back onto the city, and things are still moving. They're not great, but we still have water and things are—things are okay. Um, regardless whether we put this in or we don't, and we were to get an on-site generator [1:51:13] in here to run for multiple days whatever, regardless we still need to hire an electrician to land the wires whether we put this plug in or not. It's not something I can just go plug in like the lift stations I can; that's not a big deal. This is totally different. This is... no. Um, so there's a little bit... this one for me is difficult. Um, as an operator of your utility, I like as many backups as I can get. I like—give me 10 of them, great, I love it. It's a lot of money. However, um, we did have a map to take a look at a couple things with their electrical engineer and I don't know... [1:52:00] **Matt (City Engineer - SEH)**: Well, so I'll just add one thing real quick. Um, as Phil said, you're going to have to hire electrician if you had to have a backup generator. The difference here is instead of going into the door and ripping your electrical panels apart and connecting it, it's going to be hardwired to the outside of the wall. So you just connect the wires at the offset. So it's saving you ripping your electrical panel apart and dealing with the door that might be open in the middle of winter. That's—that's the difference here. Um, Doggy Broadway a great point, I just wanted to hit on the three change orders you approved tonight were ones that number one we directed them to do, and we being Tyler and I and Mark Wallace who's out here reviewed all of their costs and made sure they were in line with how they bid the project in standard prices. Otherwise [1:52:45] we wouldn't recommend them. Um, so there was one even that we got knocked down before we presented to council. This one—to your point—all we did is said, "We might want this, we don't know, give us a number." So I would tell you it might be worth your time to look at going and getting another quote for it. We don't have to use this; this is just a convenience because it's the electrical contract that's—that's done everything on site. My gut feel is that this is a high quote, going on what my electrical engineer who wrote the two-sentence spec for what to price us on... we feel it's probably almost double what it needs to be. Now we haven't given that [1:53:31] feedback to the contractor yet, but just knowing it's—it's PVC, it's wire, it's an actual switch and a bunch of labor. [1:53:41] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: This is something a local contractor could do once this project is totally complete? Or is there complications with the construction and the way things are laid out? [1:53:52] **Matt (City Engineer - SEH)**: We talked about that. I don't know your local contractors in Moose Lake, so I can't answer... [1:54:02] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: What do you mean local? If there's someone in town? [1:54:07] **Matt (City Engineer - SEH)**: I don't know would this be... [1:54:09] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent)**: Would this be an electricity... yeah, a separate contractor could. I just don't know—is there one in Moose Lake? I don't know that answer. We probably have all of them available from here. So I [1:54:18] mean right... [1:54:19] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: I think yeah. So we talked about, um, just getting an estimate from the local contractor here kind of to compare. But I think one of Phil's concerns in a lot of our buildings—and I don't know that we want to start off this way on a brand spanking new building—is—I should get closer to my mic before I get yoga—is when you have multiple electricians, they all do something slightly different, right? And so it gets a little messy when you have multiple contractors of the same trade in—in a building. And so I think the appeal to staying with the same contractor is they [1:55:04] did the work initially, so they—they know what they did when they—they wired it. So I think that was the, I guess, the advantage of staying with this contractor. From—there's nothing to say that we can't go get a quote from Ralph or Parsons or Hunter or... I don't know if we did this probably. But um, we certainly can, but then you're just getting multiple electricians in a brand new building. [1:55:38] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: Or we could also go back and try to negotiate yeah before we approved anything. [1:55:46] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: We have not done that because we wanted to bring this to the council and see if there was an appetite to even do it, even if the cost is less. Because there an appetite to do it or not? [1:55:57] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen**: We're in reading the timeline like how soon would you like to have the stuff? [1:56:02] **Matt (City Engineer - SEH)**: Well, the building and the electrical is done, right? And it's right and everything's running. So there is—there's no rush from that standpoint. You're not going to save any money if you approve it tonight versus next week because the—the building is—you're still going to have to cut a hole through the wall, you're slowing up open up the panel and wire it and run the copper... great point. [1:56:29] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: I can understand Phil's request continuity with using the same contractor. I guess it wouldn't be smart to ask him, "Do you have a more reasonable bid on this?" if you think that that it's that high—double? I think it'd be worthwhile to ask him we think it's too high. [1:56:51] **Matt (City Engineer - SEH)**: So Matt just obviously explained to us that he thought that this is about twice what it should be. Had I known that we—yeah, I think we should definitely just kind of I say twice when I look at the labor... materials only. Haven't considered is what did they budget for drilling a hole through the wall and fixing siding on that. That's the only one I didn't count for you. So maybe "twice" is a slight overstatement, but even that, there's not that much there to repair. Right? [1:57:17] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: I mean, and we just saw that with the road project that the information was great. Um, your engineering estimates and your—your ideas and then what you see in the field [1:57:22] going up for bids. And I mean, I think it might be smart just to kind of off the bricks on this for a minute and—I mean, that if especially if the recommendation is that's a little high, or go back and talk to them and say, "Hey, what can we do here?" Because we're kind of the ways that we don't always part. Um, regardless, I think there's some smart for the city Moose Lake to do um from an operator standpoint. I love it because like I said, I like as many backups as possible. And when that one day comes and we need it, we're really glad we have it, right? I think we all agree with that. Um, that's a lot of money. [1:58:02] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: So I think the direction that we need from—from you all is whether we should go forward with spending more time on seeing if this is the final quote or if we can get the same [1:58:07] product for less. And to further clarify, that $20,000—is that what they have? If it gets down to 10, is that—is that a reasonable number or not for—for the council? Right. And if the answer is in all that, people that are not placing anybody's time, right? [1:58:28] **Council Member Kris Huso**: Council. I was to say I think in an emergency, you know, we've experienced it with the flood, you know, when you're down and you need a generator of some gold... you know, even $20,000 that you've spent before would have been, you know, saved on—saved on what all transpired after. So I would like to see them try to get this bill or this quote down [1:58:53] and—and then go from there and go back and talk to them. Because yeah, they said the same person working on something and it's—it's better. Everybody does something a little bit different. [1:59:08] **Matt (City Engineer - SEH)**: Yeah, and this will also have a prime contractor markup on it. So Lakehead is your contractor; you're contracted with Hunt. So there's—there's going to be a 15% markup built into that number that—that's within every change order the prime gets by contractor allow a markup on different things. Which is exactly why we did the storm sewer directly with KTM. [1:59:33] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: So I guess that's the other question that I would have is: could we talk to Hunt directly and say, "Listen, if we close this project out and then [1:59:39] the day after decide we want to do this, what would that price be?" So if we go directly that you have nothing to do give us that dress. Yeah, right, right. Because there's also nothing to say that we have to have this done, you know, right now. [1:59:58] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: So I guess looking for consensus. Greg? I would work on a better price? [2:00:04] **Council Members**: Yes. [2:00:05] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: We're throwing around a lot of numbers here and then we're picking apart the Police Department, so that kind of... yes. I guess you got consensus. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. [2:00:26] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: More item S: Greg, Depot, and ATVs. [2:00:33] **Greg (Depot/Historical Society Representative)**: It goes back to what people have actually come—because I'm there that much they complain—and the different people that work there. ATVs have not been what you wanted through necessarily cordial guests. There are times that we asked Phil to come up and we do relevel the parking lot because it seems it's a joyable time to see how many times they could put circles and stuff and stuff. So um, most of the people up there that [2:01:11] put up with it, they're more on the line that it wouldn't bother them at all if they weren't even allowed. Currently, they park there on the weekends, if I'm understanding this right? Yeah, there's times when they come in there, there'll be 15 or so of them and stuff. They'll be parked in every willy-nilly way that if you wanted to drive through and get to the museum or the event center, you'd have a hell of a time getting through. So I think one thing was important to me from the Historic Society: in the morning before they get there, they have customers going through the museum. And as soon as the ATVs, there's no room for customers to come even to visit. [2:01:54] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: There are none well the [2:01:59] point is, you know, they take up the first part of the parking lot if there's any number of them. Yeah, but it's—I guess it's a food of thought of which way do we want to be in which way... I mean, is there another spot to put them? [2:02:18] **Council Member Kris Huso**: They have—they have some parking on the south side of town which I very seldom never see them in that one park that they've partnered on. [2:02:29] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent)**: And that's the one that's close to the canoe landing? [2:02:33] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: Oh, it's actually—that’s actually in the Moose Lake township. Yeah, that's like the—the DNR one because that was the one... you're talking about the hospital? Yeah, across from the hospital. Yeah, yeah. I think isn't [2:02:45] that more for bicycles? And I think that... well I have no idea what it's like. [2:02:51] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent)**: I think it's supposed to—I think it connects to the Munger, but it also connects to the way that they come into town and lead down on the four-wheelers. [2:03:00] **Police Chief Darren**: That was that loud like on the third. I mean, nice—I know what you mean, because they got those signs where they can only be so far and it was full. But um, one unloaded a trailer there on the third when I was there, got off it on a wheelie, flipped it over backwards riding a lot. I mean, I stopped 37 of them in one day out there for the same type of stuff. So it's whether or not you want to keep them in that lot whether you have other activities going because we can't watch them all the time and there's a lot. And with the trailers, it fills it up. [2:03:36] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Well, they have parking on the—that dirt lot out by the freeway? Yeah, they can park in there. I mean, could we just close that down and direct them that way? I mean, because I'm wondering if you had a big party there, it's a wedding reception or a anniversary whatever, um... how would we, you know, people are parked and gone and then you have these people coming in and there's nowhere to park. How would we get those vehicles out of there? [2:04:09] **Greg (Depot/Historical Society Representative)**: If we actually—what happened is we started to happen now with the fact that if we have things like people passes about them, we wanted to be period. We had gentlemen that directed traffic and stuff and so... and there were a couple of ATVs that they were a little upset, but they were just... [2:04:31] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: Is that a state or county parking lot? That's North County? [2:04:38] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: I believe Tony... the one by the freeway? I imagine, you know, sometimes when I drive by there it's completely full, but that was when COVID was raging. If they wanted to close down the one up there to people, maybe they could look at using the north one if there isn't enough room. I guess my question is maybe they could make it larger. [2:05:02] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: Did we ever specifically allow ATVs to park in—in the Depot parking lot? Like, was that ever like a... or did they just start going in before all of our time here? [2:05:14] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Yeah, I don't recall. It goes way back into the probably 90s sometime when um the ATV club and—and—the snowmobile club, you know, they kind of—they would snowmobile first and added ATV, and they set up—they did the ordinance where they could drive a town, they did they designated staging areas and the Depot was one of them. So if we change that, we would have to make a motion that it is no longer a staging area because there's signage up there right now for ATV. [2:05:48] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen**: Yeah, um, I agree with that. It's always a mess there when they come. I think if we did a motion right now that we would just make a lot of people mad. I think this is a good discussion with the ATV club. You might be pushing people out of there, you know, once they load, you know, they might go... so if you want more fuel and those kinds of things like that, I would just think about it, but it is an issue. Greg's right, I mean, it's crazy in there on those weekends and stuff. But I guess if we plan around the other events for now, and if there's going to be something, we close it down. My other question is, um, the 30 however many ATVs you stopped, how many were from around here and or part of those ATV clubs—those local ATV clubs? [2:06:40] **Police Chief Darren**: Probably not many. Very few. [2:06:44] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: So probably none. While I think it's worthwhile—I think it's a wonderful idea to talk to the ATV clubs about this—is it going to solve the problem? I don't think so. I guess if the council—if the council decided to move to close that as a staging area, the council has every right to do it. And it may be something that we talk to them about and then we bring back. Maybe when's your next meeting with them? [2:07:07] **Police Chief Darren**: We don't. But we—I know we do have an event set up—um, I can't remember the date in August—for where we're going to have the ATV clubs up there at the Depot on the trail. DNR is going to be out there, we'll be out there, fire department's going to be out there. Maybe some vendors, hot dogs, water, and stopping and talking to all the ATVs along the way to [2:07:21] kind of get more of that message out and get them to join some of those clubs so that they understand that. And I have had several meetings this week alone with MnDOT again and a lot of different people are moving forward. I think we're getting close to getting that trail all the way through now the city here and working on some pedestrian issues. It looks like we're getting funding thrown our way for that, too. [2:07:44] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: Um, is the—that ATV event before our next city council meeting? [2:07:54] **Police Chief Darren**: Our next city house in video... I'll see if I have it on here. [2:07:59] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator)**: Just because I'm wondering if maybe we even just push this to September if it's not. So then we give them a chance to at least talk about this and let them know that this is something that we're going to be talking about again. [2:08:12] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: You know, also we got to take into consideration the businesses that profit from these ATVs and side-by-sides. We want everybody to be safe and we want to have the business that are negatively affected corrected. Um, you know, you know, I think there's a lot we should think about. Get the clubs, see if we can locate a different area perhaps staging um for next year. I mean, it's kind of... [2:08:44] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: Yeah, everybody would bring that point out. That's good. It's hard to change in mid-season—that's what we talked about last year. Right in the middle of the season to try and make a change... I mean, yeah, we could throw up "close" signs and shut it right off, like you'd have to go somewhere else. But it's always better to [2:08:52] get it pushed through in the winter months when it's not the busy season. [2:08:58] **Police Chief Darren**: August 28th is the day that events and we'll have some meeting before that. [2:09:05] **Council Member Kris Huso**: Well then if we can figure out another place to have signage up, so you know, we're not just blocking it off and saying... you know, because then we're going to fight people parking on the sides of the roads. Yeah, so if we can find another place to say, "Oh, they come up here and then okay we gotta go there," you know, they're going to be right irritated they gotta go somewhere, but at least they know they can find somewhere close. [2:09:27] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: I think we have one more issue to talk about with ATVs and that is—uh, what's happening on that Earl Ellens Drive going by the arena. [2:09:38] **Police Chief Darren**: Guyal's having more and more problems with ATVs literally going right through his signs, right through his taped area, literally right through the tape going right across the parking lot. So we have an issue there with the rural elements, too. And I know if the trail is completed back there, our next thing is to cut that trail off there because it's getting worse and worse and worse. Because right now the way it would be set up is if we were even getting a bridge in to come across the Moosehorn to keep them off the state highway, that turn would be down Earl Ellens and hooking up to the trail right behind, you know, building there and then it runs all the way down to Cenex where it would pick up into Industrial so that they're off the main drag. So now [2:10:24] we would have to just get creative on how we're going to route, how we can keep the speed down there. Because his problem is that they're just starting to race down Earl Ellens and sound like he had a couple close calls with pedestrians. [2:10:45] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Yeah, and—and then going right through his barriers to get to the stores or restaurants or gas stations. It's pretty brazen. [2:10:55] **Police Chief Darren**: I mean, you might have to get into where we're either following some kind of poles or something that they have to stay on that back side of them or something to the effect that we have to control where they go. Because once they come off that over that bridge, you're going to have to make that left to cut down with that trail where they do now. But we just need to [2:11:09] have a defined area where they're going to have to be. Um, because I talked to Guyal as well, and I guess that's more issue to come. [2:11:19] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Yeah, and I mean, you know, my thing with MnDOT is they're like, "Well, we've never spent money on an ATV issue." Well, this isn't an ATV issue; that's a state highway issue because that's what they're running on. And now they're kind of getting that picture and we've got a lot more people—I'll bet you there's 50 people involved in this right now from all different avenues. From pedestrian ATV traffic safety towards Zero Death is in on it now as well, and they're trying to throw some funding for overtime to go enforce it. We're still looking at an ATV to try and get some of those things done. Hopefully we're—I think we're getting there, but it's—I think we're better than we were [2:11:55] last year. [2:11:59] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: When they get stopped or whatever, how often do they actually get a ticket? [2:12:05] **Police Chief Darren**: But they—it depends um, you know, on the violation because a lot of them... so I've stopped there were four little kids, probably under the age of eight, riding in the back of one going right down the main drag. No helmets on, nothing. So probably cite those people. Again, a lot of it now is that education piece. I know a lot of the DNR officers, they just cite, cite, cite, and one of them stopped close to 100 in a weekend. [2:12:35] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Yes. What's that mean? Because we told us—told me to do it—50 miles an hour up 73 up here? [2:12:43] **Police Chief Darren**: Yeah, those the speeds... those kinds of things. If they just don't—aren't familiar, it's just like, "Nope, you can't be out here." We give them the best [2:12:41] route to get around. And again, if they're cordial... if they're... we get a lot of complaints where the ATVs are flipping people off and almost getting into fights and... yeah. So it's—but it's better this year than last, and I think some of the changes that we've made and directed is getting there. The enforcement piece—we might be re-educating somebody every weekend because it's new people. Some are going to be repeat, but there's a lot of them. And I think it's being made statewide aware, and I think we were going to get a hold of our representatives as well. So I think that needs to happen because everybody through MnDOT is—it's such a big issue that the funding has to be there and the state's going to have to provide it before somebody gets hurt. [2:13:31] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: So does that [2:13:35]—I mean, the only way I guess it's like you're saying that it changes is if you have some open conversations with people. [2:13:49] I mean, I've talked to some of them out there except most of them are, but the older ones are okay. I've had a couple of kids that wanted to get a little smart, but you know... [2:14:02] **Police Chief Darren**: I'm sorry, I'm a little older. I could have an officer up there and our guys should know this by now, too, is to get up there early. Because your presence controls how the rest of the day goes. So if you're in there, you're visible, even talking or stopping to a few, then it usually controls the day. You know? So we'll try and work on that, get them up there early, you know. We don't accept this culture. [2:14:26] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: Well, thanks Darren. I know you've done a lot of work on it this year, and it's greatly appreciated. Thank you. Thank you, thanks. [2:14:36] Moving on to number seven, Reports of Correspondence. I have some, I think from Byron Custer. It's informational only. His trails out there and tree removal on that land, something he's proposing. This is informational only this month. Give you guys some background of what he has looked at. He brought it to the Park Board and presented it, so that's why I'm passing it out to you to give you some information on the background. And it's [2:15:22] we'll put it as an agenda item but whatever. If the council is not interested in discussing it, it won't be here. If you are, that will be your choice. [2:15:51] So just informational, and we're not looking even for discussion this month. And moving on to Committee and Board Meeting Minutes under eight: 8-A, Days of Moose Lake Water and Light Commission for May 25th, 2021. B is the Moose Lake Economic Development for June 17th, 2021. 8-C is the Moose Lake Park and Recreation July 12, 2021. Under 9: Announcements. We have the regular Moose Lake City Council meeting Wednesday, August 11th at 4:00 PM right here. Moose Lake Economic [2:16:38] Development Authority Wednesday, July 21st at 12:00 PM, the city conference room. Moose Lake Water Light Commission—we're going to a meeting Tuesday, July 20th, 1:00 PM. That's a little earlier at the city council chambers right here. Moose Lake Housing Redevelopment Authority Board, Monday, August 9th, 11:00 AM at the Hillside Banner office. Moose Lake Fire Area Fire District, Tuesday, August 10th, 6:30 PM, Emergency Response Center. And Moose Lake Park Board, Monday, August 2nd, 6:30 right here in this room. With that, we have item P, which is Darren's contract renewal, and Q, which is Katie's contracting rule. [2:17:25] So the city council will meet in closed session pursuant to Minnesota Statute Section 13-D.05 subdivision 2A they have a personnel discussion. The meeting will take place in the council chambers of the community center 3D 13 elemental. So we need a motion to recess to close. [2:18:10] **Council Member Kris Huso**: Motion close. [2:18:12] **Council Member Lou Ohly**: Second. [2:18:13] **Mayor Jim Michalski**: All right. Oppose? The emotion carries.