This transcript features **Mayor Clint Hooppaw** presiding over the meeting, with presentations from City Administrator **Tom Lawell** and planning staff, along with comments from Councilmembers **John Bergman**, **Tom Melander**, and **Lisa Hiebert**. [1:08] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** All right, good evening. We will go ahead and call this meeting to order for the January 23rd, 2025 Apple Valley City Council meeting. For anyone who wishes to speak to their item or during the audience participation portion, please come forward to the e-podium to speak. Tonight we have some special guests here to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. [1:32] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** And I just need to pull some names up because uh I wasn't quite as ready as I thought I was so... [1:42] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** All right, we have Ari, Paxton, Nolan and Jack. Gentlemen, come on up, and as they come up I would ask everyone to rise as they lead us in the pledge of allegiance. [1:59] **Ari, Paxton, Nolan, and Jack (Scouts):** 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. [2:14] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** Guys, thank you. I understand you're working on a communication badge this evening? Is that correct? You want to pop up back here for a second? I've got a um—I know, I wasn't quick enough at stopping you, but um—a couple of years ago, Apple Valley celebrated our 50th anniversary and so we had some special pins commissioned, so I have a few left here if you all would like to come up and get one as a thank you for leading us in the pledge this evening. [2:39] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** Thank you guys. And 292, correct? All right. We see a lot of you guys around. Thanks for all you do. Thank you. All right, then next item on our agenda is to approve the agenda and Tom, I know we distributed a couple of changes earlier, you want to talk us through those? [2:58] **Tom Lawell (City Administrator):** Yes, we did. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. We do have a few changes to the agenda. You have that before you; first of all, under your consent agenda, you have an updated personnel report, and then you also have an updated item 5A. This is the activity center at Apple Valley High School. We've incorporated one of the separate actions into other documents. So we've got a revision in the actual memo as well as in a revision to the agenda itself and uh would suggest that we acknowledge that tonight as we move forward on these items. [3:31] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** Great, thank you. So we are looking for a motion to approve the agenda as amended. [3:38] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** Moved by Councilmember Bergman and a second from Councilmember Hiebert. All those in favor indicate by saying aye. Opposed? And that agenda passes. [3:48] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** The next item on our agenda is our audience participation portion of the meeting. This is for items not on our agenda. We do have one person who has signed up to speak, so I'm gonna take her first and Halimo, you want to come on forward? [4:13] **Halimo (Resident):** I think you were here last week and it didn't quite work out with timing, so I'm glad you came back. I live in—almost 10 years in Apple Valley and I work at 25 years at Walmart since 2000. And I moved and we need to drive the street, the Apple Valley, you know, and I had one car and broken down. Then until I fixed it, I rented another one, a lease. So the apartment I live in right now, they have rules they’re making. They only took each person on the list, they have the one car. Second car, when I put outside, she said can’t put on the street. [5:06] **Halimo (Resident):** So I keep getting tickets every night when I go to work, only five hours out. I work two jobs, group home and a Walmart, full time seven hours a week each and I am a single mother. I can't afford every day I go to work in the car and I get the ticket every single day and they don't have signs everywhere. They have less than 10 steps to the houses, you know, when I see the Whitney Drive other houses, they have a street, how they put it outside, they don't get tickets. [5:47] **Halimo (Resident):** Apartment I live in right now—if I put it outside, I get a ticket. And can I go to the court if they don't have the sign? City code, how can I read it, Highway? I'm not going highway. Go home, working, and five hours is sleeping every day. Six days at work. Only Saturday day I'm off my life. I don't get the chance, even sometimes landed. So the issue, if they don't have the city sign—they’re not parking. City code, I'm not a PhD holder or go in study in the traffic. How am I supposed to know? That's my issue. So it's not fair that less than ten steps they don't get the ticket apartment and the houses and I get a ticket because apartment today—that's what's my concern. [6:57] **Halimo (Resident):** How can I get a ticket established houses? If I buy a house I'm saving money, I don't get the ticket to the street, but the apartment I get the street ticket. That's my issue. [7:17] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** I just want to make sure that we all understood what you were saying, so I'm just gonna try to repeat that back so that I can make sure we all kind of heard the same thing, give you a chance to clarify if I missed some of that if that's all right. Oh, you're fine. No, and—and—and you do what I do, which is you tend to talk a little fast and so like between the two of us talking fast, we may never actually understand each other, so. [7:40] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** Um so you're in an apartment off Whitney and there isn't enough parking in the lot for all of your vehicles, so you end up parking on the street and have received a number of tickets. So in the parking lot, the ownership of the apartment won't allow you to park all your vehicles there. Is that correct? That's what I want to make sure I understood the difference. And the concern is that there might be a full driveway down the street that somebody's parked on the street and you don't feel that they might be treated the same? Is that correct? Okay. That's what we wanted to hear tonight. Like we don't—and we can't take action on these things up here, right? We don't have the ability to make a ticket go away from here. That's what the court system is for. But we will talk to the police chief and talk amongst ourselves and talk about where we can put signage and some of those kind of notifications. [8:46] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** We'll make sure we’ll get the police department to talk to you and make sure we understand what generates the ticket and what those rules are. It sounds like there's also an issue maybe with the apartment ownership and not allowing you to park in spots that are available. [9:12] **Halimo (Resident):** I have a video spot call tow and I pay $400 to you. Thank you. Have a good night. [9:18] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** Yeah, you too. Thank you. I'm sure we'll see you at Walmart too. Take care. All right, is there anyone else who would like to speak for the audience participation portions this evening? All right, seeing none, we will move on to our consent agenda and these items are considered routine and will be enacted with a single motion, unless a council member or a citizen requests to pull and discuss them separately. Council members, are there any items you’d like to pull from consent? Citizens, any items to pull? [9:54] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** All right, seeing none, we'll take a motion to approve the consent agenda. Motion from Councilmember Bergman, second from Councilmember Hiebert. All those in favor indicate by saying aye. Opposed? Consent items all pass, and that moves us on to item 5A, which is the Apple Valley High School activity center addition and vacation of drainage easement and Alex is gonna walk us through this one. [10:29] **Alex (Staff Member/Planner):** Thank you, Mayor and Council. So, District 196 in Apple Valley High School has requested two items for this evening's action. The first is the vacation of a drainage and utility easement, and the second is for site plan building permit authorization for an 86,621 square foot activity center addition to the existing Apple Valley High School. Site address is 14450 Hayes Road. [11:06] **Alex (Staff Member/Planner):** [Detailed project presentation regarding zoning, demolition of tennis courts, and relocation of a 54-inch storm main]. [26:38] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** Seems pretty thorough, Alex. Any questions? [26:41] **Councilmember John Bergman:** I don't have any questions, but I understand that there are school district representatives here tonight. Um, I had the pleasure... up here, we are elected officials, plus we are also taxpayers. I started looking at, in particular, the first one because I live the closest to it at Apple Valley High School. And so when I started reading this, I was like, wow, the district is just having to go through hoops and whatever to do things. You probably saw me shake my head with the landscaping and how much the percentage... at times they know that instead of 2.5%, can we go lower as we've talked about before. Um some of the questions that have been answered either by residents or by the planning commission I had, but tonight I'm strictly voting on this what's there... but Alex did answer all those. It's a nice project. Everything else will all fall in place. Thanks. [28:07] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** Any other questions? If not, we'll go ahead and hold the public hearing. Anyone who would like to speak to the public hearing for item 5A? One last opportunity... all right, seeing none will close our public hearing and will look for a motion to adopt a resolution completing the vacation of drainage and utility easement as described in Exhibit A. [28:46] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** Motion from Councilmember Bergman, second from Councilmember Hiebert. All those in favor indicate by saying aye. Opposed? That item carries. And our second is to adopt a resolution approving a site plan building permit authorization to allow construction of an 86,621 square foot activity center at Apple Valley High School. Do I have a motion for that? [28:54] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** Moved by Councilmember Melander, a second from Councilmember Hiebert. All those in favor indicated by saying aye. Opposed? [29:13] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** All right, item 5A is done. We will move on to 5B, which is to adopt a resolution approving a site plan building permit authorization for Eastview High School activity center addition and vacation of drainage and utility easements, and Sydney has this one. We'll see if she's better at the mouse than Alex. [29:29] **Sydney (Staff Member/Planner):** Good evening, Mayor and council members. Tonight I will be presenting to you the vacation of easement and site plan and building permit authorization for Eastview High School activity center addition. Specifically, the two requested actions for tonight are the vacation of drainage and utility easement, as well as site plan and building permit authorization for an 84,700 square foot activity center addition. [30:06] **Sydney (Staff Member/Planner):** [Detailed presentation regarding site parking, private utility vacation, landscaping requirements, and building materials]. [36:51] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** Thank you, nice job. Any questions? All right, seeing none, we'll go ahead and open the public hearing for the vacation of the drainage and utility easements. Anyone who would like to speak to the public hearing? One last opportunity. We will close the public hearing and will look for a motion to adopt a resolution completing the vacation of a drainage and utility easement as described in Exhibit A. [37:11] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** Motion from Councilmember Hiebert, have a second from Councilmember Melander. All those in favor indicate by saying aye. Opposed? And we’ll look for a motion to adopt a resolution approving a site plan building permit authorization to allow construction of an 84,700 square foot activity center addition at Eastview High School. [37:56] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** Moved by Councilmember Bergman and a second from Councilmember Grendahl. All those in favor indicated by saying aye. Thank you, Sydney. Nice job. We're done with these. Um, we do have representatives from the district here and anything you guys would like to add? But um thank you. Thank you guys. We'll move on to 5C, which is to adopt a resolution approving a site plan building permit authorization for activity center pool and other amenities at Redwood Park and Alex is back. [38:21] **Alex (Staff Member/Planner):** It's the all-planning agenda this evening! [Laughs]. [Detailed presentation on Redwood Park reconstruction, the 2024 referendum projects, inclusive playground features, and new pool layout]. [53:57] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** Alex, thank you, nice job on this one. I think we're all excited to see this kind of move forward. Any questions? [54:02] **Councilmember Lisa Hiebert:** Um, I just wanted to say thank you. Uh, this is very exciting, um, coming from the parks advisory committee to be here and part of this right now is extra special and exciting to see this come through. And a lot of credit to all the staff and the parks committee to really listen to everything that we heard from the residents of what they wanted to see in this park, from having the pool, the inclusive playground... this is really transformational and really exciting to see this happen in our community. [54:43] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** No, thank you. And yeah, thanks to you and the Parks Committee for doing a lot of that. You're probably gonna be excited to make a motion then to adopt a resolution. [55:02] **Councilmember Lisa Hiebert:** Yes, I would like to make a motion, so moved. [55:07] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** Motion from Councilmember Hiebert, a second from Councilmember Bergman. All those in favor indicate by saying aye. Thank you, Alex for that. Um, I know the scout group here is working on a communications badge. Maybe there's a connection with [Parks Director] Eric Carlson to talk a little bit about the monumental communications effort that went into just even this project. So with that we will move on to our staff and council communications and we’ve got a couple things to talk about, don't we Tom? [55:46] **Tom Lawell (City Administrator):** We do. We're going to call up our Park and Rec Director. This is the last meeting before Midwinter Fest, so Mr. Mayor, members of the council and those watching at home, we have Midwinter Fest coming up Saturday, February 1st, starting around 3:00 in the afternoon. All of the favorites that people have come to expect will be there. We'll end the evening with fireworks. [56:45] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** What time do we start? [56:56] **Tom Lawell (City Administrator):** I believe it's 3:00 or 3:30. Fireworks are at 7:00 if I remember right. Just a note to the community that we do have a vacancy on the Park and Recreation Advisory Committee and that application period is currently underway. Deadline is next week, Wednesday, January 29th. [57:27] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** So that deadline is next week just to be clear for those who are interested. Thank you. Council members, any items? [57:43] **Councilmember Lisa Hiebert:** Yes, I would just like to publicly acknowledge and thank our Apple Valley Police Department and all their effort and hard work... I think they did a really fabulous job of keeping the public informed of the tragic outcome of the situation with Mr. Zong. So I just again wanted to say, you know, great job of keeping people informed. [58:08] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** Thank you. All right, we'll move on to our calendar of upcoming events. Our next informal city council meeting is Thursday, February 13th at 5:30, and our next regular city council meeting is Thursday, February 13th at 7:00. Do we have a motion to approve the calendar? [58:24] **Mayor Clint Hooppaw:** Motion from Councilmember Bergman, second from Councilmember Melander. All those in favor indicate by saying aye. That carries. And do we have a motion to adjourn? Moved by Councilmember Hiebert, second from Councilmember Melander. All those in favor indicate by saying aye. All right, we're adjourned. Thanks everyone. Have a great night.