[0:00] Mary Fasbender: The Hastings City Council meeting to order. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge 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. [0:21] Mary Fasbender: Welcome and let the role reflect. We do have a major a full quorum tonight and everyone is present. Uh determination of quorum. Um I already did that. Sorry. Approval of minutes council. Is there any um corrections to the minutes of August 18th? [0:41] Mary Fasbender: Okay. At this time we will hear comments from the audience. If you'd like to speak to the council, please step to the podium, state your name, address, and we will hear your comments. [0:49] Lee Wickbolt: Thank you, mayor and city council, for this opportunity to speak. My name is Lee Wickbolt. I live at 807 Vermillion Street, apartment 3. I'm here to speak on the issue of certain protesters I sometimes see gathering along Vermillion Street. First, I want to say that I don't think the First Amendment necessarily covers illegal type of behavior. I'm going to cite Minnesota statute 609.772 subdivision 1 crime. Whoever does any of the following in a public or private place, section three, engages in offensive obscene abusive boisterous or noisy conduct, or in offensive, obscene, or abusive language tending reasonably to arouse alarm, anger, or resentment in others. Okay, that's that part. Um, Hastings has always been known for being a peaceful, relaxing community. And for that reason, I think local law enforcement can do more in upholding this specific statute. That's all I have. Um, thank you for your time and God bless. [2:14] Mary Fasbender: Thank you. [2:19] Justin Dascis: Good evening, Mayor Council. My name is Justin Dascis. I'm with Damascus Consulting Development and I'm here tonight to touch on the proposed amendments that were brought forth in front of this body recently on your cannabis ordinance and policy and just want to hit on the two main points that this body kind of consider as part of last memos. And the one is the local requirement of full OCM approval before you can get local licensing in the city. Then the second item is increasing the cap above the number two that you currently have. And so as we look at first the OCM approval, why that's really important is because this is really just kind of leveling the playing field to bring the city hopefully in line with the vast majority of the other communities out there and also what the state statute and the state legislature did to update because the local requirement as the ordinance is interpreted that you have to essentially have your full facility built out with walls, painting, cameras, you name it before you could obtain your local license. And since you've capped the number and there's a finite number, you're really skewing this and you anyone that's looking to ren heavily renovate a building or in my client's case build a brand new facility. No one can make that investment because you'll get beat out by someone that will take a former retail shop or something and just get approval, put some cameras in. Nothing against that or anyone else, you know, free market, but it shouldn't be skewed. We shouldn't be penalized for trying to make the biggest investment in the city. And the city's been wonderful to work with on site plan and going through. We want to make this investment, but we can't because we know we'll get beat. I mean, it's not even that we can't. We'd even do the shovel if there was a hope, but there's no hope to build a building in a year, whatever, and try to get a license hope when it's still there. So, the vast majority of communities, over 90% have updated their ordinances. They didn't include it or their verbiage was a little more open, so they didn't have to require that. So, we really implore you to, you know, hopefully revisit that and go forward with changing that requirement. um that you know we file the application just like we do in the other municipal and get that local retail registration and then once the facility is built out like any other business you get your other approvals. Um, and then also on the cap number of two, we've already applied early on, but we're kind of now on this catch 22 with other people applying, and I'm all for free market, but the fear is if you keep the number capped at two, and even if you address the other issue, you know, we'll be first in line, we'll camp out overnight to get that license, but we also just want to make it fair and equitable. So maybe that's looking at increasing it. I know you haven't doled out those licenses or at least we just ask for a fair chance to open it up. If you could amend for the other one to allow folks like us or others that want to again heavily renovate somewhere or take their time even to get their capital stack if they're a local person um so they can meet the requirements to actually secure a license. And so um I think the city and Johnny has my contact information. I'd love to come back and present further have dialogue because I really think this is a win-win. We're looking to make a main investment. We're not asking for any special exemption, just the a fair shot like everyone else and not kind of skewed for being a new development, if you will. So, wanted to bring those points, offer myself up, see if we can continue the dialogue because we really like to invest in the city of Hastings. So, I appreciate your time. [5:22] Mary Fasbender: Thank you for your comments. Anyone on Zoom for comments? No one on Zoom. Okay. Any council items to be considered? Okay. Consent agenda. Council, I would accept a motion for the consent agenda. Uh, first by council member Haus and a second by council member Pemble. Any discussion? Council. All those in favor of the motion state by saying I. [5:52] Councilmembers: I. [5:53] Mary Fasbender: Opposed. Say nay. And that motion prevails. Tonight under down we have under community development a downtown parking study. And for this item, we will have our community development director, John Hinzman, along with his intern, Amelia, to report. [6:11] John Hinzman: Thank you, mayor. I won't be up here for long. I just wanted to point out that uh Amelia has been serving with us as the community development intern over the last summer, and this is her last obligation here in that duty. I just wanted to thank her for all the work that she's done and uh we've had a lot of great work and we couldn't have done what we've done without you. So I know you'll do well in the future and just wanted to thank you before you started. [6:36] Amelia: Thank you. Great. Thank you John. Hi good evening. So tonight I'm presenting our downtown Hastings parking study for this past summer. I presented this last week at planning commission. Um and there's no actions. Um it's just a presentation. Um so background on the study itself. Um the study has been being conducted since 2017, 2021, 2023, 2024. It is a study that looks at what we currently have for public and private parking downtown. And I would go out and look at how what spaces are being utilized during certain times of the day, understanding where we're having the most utilization, what spots are not being utilized, so we can have a better we have better information going forward uh to allow further development or any other comments or questions um the public might have about parking. This is the the kind of the study area. It goes uh to the east to kind of the train tracks, goes far west to Fifth Street, goes um or goes south to Fifth Street, goes west mostly to Eddie, but then cuts kind of around the confluence parking lot and then north up to the river. For zoning of this area. It's mostly our C3, our community regional commerce um zoning along with downtown core, also some of our R2 single family residential, some R4 high density residential, and then also a tiny bit of industrial within the area. So, for the existing conditions of the parking study, we have 1,549 designated parking spots within this area that are public and private, not including driveways. Um, for our public parking supply, it's at 1,003. And since the last study that was conducted last summer, a few changes have been made. Um, we stopped counting Tyler Street from third to fourth. and then also kind of adjusted just the numbers of the block 4 alley which will come up quite a bit in this presentation. Um there's a gravel area behind the substation there that is being heavily utilized despite it just being some gravel. It is not striped for parking. So that's also where our numbers kind of come up a little bit off because they're not striped for parking, but people are really parking back there. So making sure we have an eye on that condition as well. So, for parking utilization, this is an example of the map I would follow, just if you were curious. Um, I was able along with John to survey the area 13 times between May 13th and August 13th. We had three surveys that were done Monday to Friday before 12, nine surveys that were done weekdays after 12, and two on the weekends that were conducted by John. Um, this just shows the average utilization for weekdays before 12 being 37%, weekdays after 12 being 36, and weekends being 40. So, this is where it's going to get to be a lot of words, but overall parking utilization, this map shows that anything that's in the darker red is 75 to 100% utilized on average, no matter the time or the day. The orange being 50 to 75%, yellow being 25 to 50, and white being 0 to 25. This is a list of lots that had an average of 50% or higher utilization for public and private with most of the lots that are being that red or orange color being focused on our um second street, main street, downtown corridor. But there's also a few examples that are outside of that area that do get pretty high utilization. These next few slides are going to go through and break it down for the different categories that um we observed in terms of categorizing what time you were going through. So this is weekdays before 12. Um I did one study that was on a Monday. Most of our downtown businesses are closed on Mondays. So after that I stopped going on Mondays because it just wasn't fair to skew it on a a day that most people are just not downtown. As you can see again, we've got that cluster um around Second Street, but also we have some pretty high utilization up here closer to city hall um with a lot of utilization on Fourth Street right outside and then also our city hall parking lot. This is weekdays after 12. So, the afternoons and the mornings of weekdays look pretty similar. It's usually just a little bit of a higher utilization um and a little bit more spread out um closer to lunch and a little bit after. And then weekends, weekends are a little bit tricky. I don't work on the weekends, so there were fewer samples to go through, but again, we're seeing high utilization downtown in our kind of main downtown parking lots and roads on second. So this is our top 10 public parking areas. Um I chose to really zoom in on our public parking. We have the most control over that. So understanding what we can do and where we can look to see where our highest utilization is. So again, the block for alley and the gravel has the highest percentage of utilization because it's not striped. It I've seen up to 20 cars there. Do we say 20? I went with 11 because it was kind of a good way to understand if it's really how high it's being utilized without again it being striped. A little bit tricky to understand exactly how high it's being utilized. Then the following spots, Sibly Street north of second, the parking lot under our trunk highway 61 bridge pretty consistently being used and it's um one of the few covered parking lots which also makes it pretty high in terms of utilization. Second Street, Eddie to Vermillion. Second Street, Sibly to Ramsey. Sibly Street, second to third. Um, our block three, Levy Parking lot. Again, pretty typical high utilization for one of our largest parking lots. Ramsay North to Second, Fourth Street, Vermillion to Sibly, and Second Street Vermillion to Sibly. Um, I know it's a little tricky to just hear it, so the maps are more helpful in that area. So, this is our top 10 most utilized parking areas. Again, it's following a lot of our trends uh clustered around Second Street, clustered in our downtown. This is comparing our 2017 to 2024 um parking um studies with the orange being the average number of spots utilized with the blue being the number of total parking spots available. As you can see, our parking supply has stayed relatively consistent. we have been increasing in utilization which is pretty good but also it's nowhere close to being even 50% full. Um and then this is um a comparison that's been carried on for a few years but it's super helpful to understand our downtown in comparison to a Walmart both building and parking lot. um within the planning field, we've seen a lot of um just future research going into understanding why there are so many parking spots within a Walmart. People are willing to park pretty far away, walk all around Walmart, but you ask people to park two blocks away from downtown and it seems a little outrageous. So just understanding that there is a little bit of science going into this about sight lines and understanding how distances in a small downtown feel dramatically larger than a parking lot and a Walmart. Some topics that came up um to put into future studies um understanding the utilization of our accessible or handicap parking spots. When we hear that there isn't enough parking downtown, understanding is that coming from a real need of having more designated handicap or accessible parking spots. Do we not have enough to work with the aging population or are we having just typical complaints about I want to park right in front of the store I want to go to? Just understanding if it's a purely accessibility standpoint or a desire to be closer. Um, I think it would be helpful to record one significant downtown event to compare. Um, we've had we have a lot of really great downtown programming during the summer and those events do make it tricky to park downtown, especially when streets or parking lots are closed. Um, but again, those aren't the typical norm of how parking is being used. So, we don't typically study it, but it would be helpful to understand like how far away are people having to park when we have these huge events. um just as more of an interesting uh thing. More weekend data points. This came up during planning commission. Understanding when there is a big event at the confluence, how does that again fit in with this whole thing? But that's not every day. And so again, understanding how you make it um as representative as possible. And then again, understanding how many parking spots could be striped for the block four alley and gravel. Um it's not necessarily um I don't believe the city's place to figure that out, but uh it is an interesting development um especially compared to last year's study how much more it is being utilized. Um so in conclusion, our average utilization is about 38%. Um our parking supply can handle day-to-day parking demands fairly easily. Our parking utilization is increasing, but this is a great thing because that means people are in downtown Hastings, which is so exciting. Um, fewer spots available means spots are full with people visiting and enjoying our historic downtown. Um, our block for alley and gravel area has increased significantly. The Lake Isabel Flats and Art Space have not strained the surrounding parking areas. um as it didn't come up at all. Our current block 16 or Red Rock or depot park, there's so many names for it. That parking lot is almost consistently at like 35 to 37% utilization. Um as it being the closest parking lot to both of those major developments, it has not seen a huge increase in usage because those two developments came with their own parking lots. Most people are using those parking spots. so that uh parking lot itself is not uh critical in supporting those developments and so downtown Hastings can handle future commercial and residential development so I can answer any questions. [17:51] Mary Fasbender: Amelia, great job. [17:53] Lisa Liefeld: I have a question. You know, I love this presentation. Um but I do have a question for you about this block four alley. Yeah. Now, if tell me if I'm correct here to get into that, it's in the alleyway behind the lock and dam restaurant between the garbage can structure and the Excel Energy substation. [18:13] Amelia: Yep. [18:14] Lisa Liefeld: I assure you, the public is not parking there. It's staff. I had no idea that that was public parking because I'd have been doing it. [18:25] Amelia: So, I know. [18:27] Lisa Liefeld: Do you mean staff for the Legion? [18:29] Amelia: Possibly the Legion. Yeah. Okay. [18:31] Lisa Liefeld: So, so if I—that's why it's utilized. So, my question is this. That is public parking. So, hypothetically, if vehicles were to pull up because there's probably spots for three cars between the substation and the garbage cans as you go in. [18:48] Amelia: So, there's um let me see if I can— [18:51] Lisa Liefeld: But is it public is my question. Because if that's—if that's city owned, I've never been quite certain on the exact ownership of the gravel itself. The thing is is that people are able to get kind of behind and tuck away. [19:14] Amelia: Yep. And so we've seen up to 20 people fit in there. Um, but it's not 20 every single time, but it's substantial in comparison to past years. Um, and understanding I don't know exactly who is parking there, but— [19:35] Lisa Liefeld: So, I would be curious just staff going I would like to find out who owns that property. I guess I always thought it was owned by Excel because that's their substation. So—the parking to the north of the fencing and to the west of the fencing that's where there's gravel on the perimeter of the fencing. So I'm just curious. This is a very interesting study and I love it. But I am curious about that piece of property if that's something we could find out about at a later time. [20:12] Amelia: Yeah. I think as for this um because it was attached kind of in the count with the alley because there were people parking there and because I've been counting it as public. Um because it was—it's—was surprising that it popped, like people were parking there this year. We didn't have it designated as a specific area because it's not really meant to be parking um because it's not striped for it. But um yeah, it's an interesting—it's interesting, but it does show that there is demand for parking in that area. [20:43] Mary Fasbender: Um, so if anything to your point Amelia, I think it goes to show that people want to park in front of where they're going to. So again, a wonderful problem for us to have, right? If you have to walk the distance of a Walmart parking lot to get to your place, probably shorter. That's a wonderful problem for the downtown businesses to have. And we are seeing, you showed a number there. We've kept our numbers. We've increased our numbers of parking spots a little bit. And at the same time, we're increasing the need. The car is down there, but we still have plenty of space. This is just always so interesting for me. And you'll be missed. Good luck in whatever it is. And congratulations to whoever gets to um have you as a future full-time hire. [21:18] Amelia: Thank you. [21:19] Mary Fasbender: So, thanks. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Liefeld. Council member Vihrachoff. [21:28] DawnMarie Vihrachoff: Thank you, your honor. Uh, Amelia, earlier on in your presentation, you had mentioned that a bunch of spots off of Tyler Street were stricken from this. Could you just I'm wondering why. [21:35] Amelia: Um, for the most part, we weren't seeing more than one or two cars there. Um, it's also we do uh I think we count up to it's a it's in the 60s individual spots um in terms of like this lot this street. So it's also just comes down to if it's not being highly utilized understanding where we can kind of cut down. It takes about 45 minutes to walk the whole thing. So it also is just about if we're always cutting over and counting zero cars. Sure. Comparing apples to apples each time. Okay. Got it. [22:15] DawnMarie Vihrachoff: Um and then I just echo what Council Member Liefeld said. We've loved having you as an intern here. I love that the city has internship opportunities. I feel like there have been so many different times over the years that intern presentations have been a great help to city council. I do remember talking to you at one of the Thursday Rivertown events and I believe that you said that you really love Hastings and would possibly even consider moving here and working here. So, just a reminder of that, Amelia, but I do wish you um all the best in your future endeavors. Your—really appreciate your work. [22:49] Angie Haus: Thank you, Council Member Vihrachoff. Thank you, Your Honor. All right, Amelia, I really appreciate all the hard work you you've done on this study, but also I want to comment more on the Thursday waterfront uh markets and music. Uh, I have heard from so many vendors how much they've loved speaking with you and their weekly talks, their every other weekly talks with you and how they are so um happy that you're a part of the city right now and that they're just thrilled um about your future. Um so I just want to wish you the best and thank you so much. I always love the Walmart parking lot um option of kind of choice. So um I really appreciate it. But thank you again for all that you've done. [23:32] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Council Member Haus. Council member Liefeld. [23:34] Lisa Liefeld: One final comment. I really feel that these interns help the rest of the staff step up their presentation games cuz I'm not wrong that these young interns always give us a wonderful PowerPoint presentation. [23:49] Mary Fasbender: Well, they're new and innovative. That's— [23:51] Lisa Liefeld: I'm just saying I think they're helping the rest of the staff. And I see John Hinzman over there nodding his head, so he's smiling. Amelia, thank you. It was great. and we do wish you all the best and maybe we'll see you in the future. [24:04] Amelia: Thank you. [24:05] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Mayor. [24:07] Dan Wietecha: Mayor, some— [24:26] Mary Fasbender: Oh, yes, of course. All right, my light is on. [Laughter] I'm so sorry. I'm like, my light is on. Okay. Sorry, Dan. I'm so sorry. [24:44] Dan Wietecha: Nope, not a problem. Just in reference to there's a question earlier about ownership of some gravel property behind the substation. Uh according to Dakota County's geographic information system, GIS, uh that property is owned by Excel. [24:59] Lisa Liefeld: Oh, it is great. [25:01] Dan Wietecha: So, it's not public parking. It's really just a matter of people finding close spots. [25:06] Lisa Liefeld: Okay. Appreciate the clarification. [25:10] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Dan. I'm glad you had your light on. [25:12] Dan Wietecha: Follow the rules. [25:13] Mary Fasbender: Oh, you are following the rules. I'm not today. It's a Tuesday. I'm used to Mondays, right? Okay. Again, thank you, Amelia, and thank you, John. Under administration tonight, we have a resolution to approve a preliminary 2026 city property tax levy with a preliminary budget and setting truth and taxation hearing. And for this item, we will have our introduction by our city administrator Dan Wietecha. Welcome Dan as we know you are here. [25:40] Dan Wietecha: I am. And as pointed out, interns really step up our game on the the presentations. I'm going to have to open with this is not my presentation. It is a a a uh recycling of the one that we had earlier this evening with our budget workshop. I am not going to take up an hour and a half going through this. Uh I will skip through pieces of it. Um but uh do think it's important to go over uh highlights of the budget proposal publicly before council might take some action on the recommended resolutions. Lot of information here. I'm just going to hit highlights obviously. Um we are proposing a 8.4% increase in the property tax levy. Uh that's about $1.6 or $1.7 million. Uh that is um averageish to what we're seeing uh proposed across the county. Uh other cities unofficially um nobody's voted yet are anywhere from a 5% increase to a 19% increase averaging a little over 10. So we're in that middle range. Um uh but uh although it helps to see what others are doing really it matters what what are we talking about here in Hastings 8.4% on the median value residents. Uh median value being half the properties are valued less and half the properties are valued more. So basically your your average household uh uh on that average house that is a $162 per year increase. Uh so I think it's from about a what was it around $1,700 to a $1,900 annual tax bill. Uh that breaks out to about 13.5 dollars per month on the increase. Part of that's due to the levy amount itself. part of it simply the increased valuation of properties. Uh we're also seeing uh uses of some other revenue increases as well as uh using some general fund balance and other fund balance and that's maintaining with our uh policy saying there's a a range that we should have for fund balance and if we go above that uh we we not trying to hoard money. Uh so a matter of spending it down appropriately. Uh and you can only spend it once so it's onetime money. You can't use it for stuff that comes back year after year. Um, yep. There you go. Uh, $1,900 uh tax bill on the average value house. Um, based on the uh preliminary figure, if voted tonight uh or or potentially next meeting, uh that sets the cap. So between now and December uh as we update some things there may be some uh uh figures that right now we've got estimates or maybe things change. We've got a couple of contracts to negotiate with unions. Um uh whatever is set as the preliminary levy uh is the the maximum it could be uh come December when setting the final budget. You could stay the same or you could decrease it. Um, again, $162 per year increase, $13.50 per month. Uh, we happen to be benefiting from fiscal disparities. A property tax sharing uh arrangement um uh this year happens to reduce what the increase would have been. Uh so, a little bit of an advantage there. Um a lot of these numbers are repeating. Anyways, key pieces. What's what's new in the budget? What are we getting for that money? Uh there are some staffing pieces. Uh and this is not uh all the staff that uh was requested uh by the departments. There there's some real workload issues and some areas that some people are overworked or some services were just not able to to do at the level we'd like to. But uh adding a half-time uh administrative support position for the police department. Uh that would be strictly working with uh data requests and redacting uh records in response to those data requests. Uh adding some hours uh some weeks to the existing aquatics manager position. It's seasonal uh but going beyond the season that they're open. It helped to have a little bit of prep time and wrap up time on the shoulders of the season. uh increasing a uh front desk position at public works from 32 hours a week to 40 hours a week. Uh that would help with some of the uh internal dynamics uh in the department of public works as well as uh working with the the updated website and some of the communications to the public about activities in the public works department. The other piece I think is good to note with uh staffing is bless you, we have a uh fourth building inspector position that's currently vacant and we do not intend to fill it. So there's some cost savings there. Um health insurance uh is a bear. uh we are looking at a 20% increase uh and uh as a percentage that means that uh portion certainly borne by the city as employer and also a portion borne by our employees. Um uh we're looking at ways that we might reduce that over the coming months but uh right now it's looking extremely uh steep. Couple other pieces to to note in there are we provide services and that means employees and wages and uh as we saw about a month ago. We updated the uh police officers union contract and even though we'd done a a wage study just three or four years ago and wanted to make sure we were competitive on police which is extremely competitive we were already falling behind. So, uh, that union contract had a catch-up piece in there. Need to catch that here in the budget. Uh, but it also means, uh, in parallel to that, we're wanting to make sure that we're not falling behind and we're staying competitive on our wages across the board. Um we're also seeing like like everybody in our our day-to-day lives that uh there's inflationary increases uh in uh some of the services or contracts supplies that we purchase and uh those have an impact on the budget. Uh a couple of highlights uh for capital improvements and capital equipment. Um because we buy expensive stuff, you know, $4.2 million for uh the annual neighborhood project. Uh we're—there's a map coming up here in the screen—but we're looking at continuing to maintain our our streets and and utilities and uh investing in those. Uh there's also much smaller projects throughout our our infrastructure that are important to keep up on and uh uh continue to maintain every year. Uh there's also uh buildings and equipment that we maintain. uh a new roof for the the public works building or investments in our parks. Uh we also a couple years ago uh began putting all of our fleet vehicles onto a 5-year rotation. It's actually cheaper to do that than to drive them into the ground. Um uh and have to maintain those. Uh so it's maintaining that that rotational basis for for fleet vehicles. Uh but those are a few examples of some of the the capital more expensive items and uh utilities. Um maybe I should have started with this slide or a slide coming up. PFAS water treatment dominates every conversation and it certainly dominates our budget conversations. Uh we are looking um all things equal, we are looking at a 37% increase in water rates next year for the next treatment plant. We've still got a third one to do plus how do you continue to operate them beyond that? Um we're proposing to phase that in uh instead of all at once, let's do it 10, 10, and 10. Still a lot of money uh but a little bit easier to swallow. It also gives us time to continue uh seeking legislative support or grants. Uh continue working on the environmental studies to see if we can get a connection to the East Metro 3M settlement funds. Uh but a chance to um uh continue seeking the funding for uh expensive project. Uh we are uh looking at three projects that we would issue debt for that we would bond for. One of those, as we do every year, is the neighborhood project. Uh, one of those I just mentioned was the eastern water treatment plant. Uh, and, uh, the other is, uh, to drill well number nine and the associated pump house that would go with that. Um, which gets explained a little bit more detail here in a a slide or two. Promised, here's the map. Uh this is the neighborhood project that we're looking at next year on West Fourth Street and Pleasant Drive in between Fourth and Highway 55. Uh this is one of the worst sections of road surface uh on Pleasant and particularly under Fourth Street. Uh we're seeing uh a lot of aged utility issues and water main breaks and uh really needing to get that replaced uh before it becomes a problem. Uh the other piece that I think is worth noting with this is um couple years out in 2028, we are looking at uh major construction on Vermillion Street, Highway 61. And uh just anecdotally, locally, we know that this route here on Fourth and Pleasant will wind up being a unofficial local detour. and want to make sure that we um uh get this construction out of the way before uh people are uh detouring through here avoiding other major construction. So trying to get this button up ahead of the 61 project. Um PFAS and nitrates, we're looking at the eastern treatment plant uh next year. It's the second of three. It is located on city-owned property in the industrial park. Serves wells number six and eight. Uh these two wells uh happen to have the highest concentrations of PFAS and nitrates of all our wells. Uh but as discussed many times before, we need all three treatment plants up in order to have the whole system uh uh working and having clean water. Uh it—it's all connected underground. So it's—it's just one step. Uh the other piece which you may remember is this was the plant we were going to start with. Um so it's shovel ready. The plans are are 60% complete. Uh really just a couple months to finish them up and and move it forward. Um uh we've set this one aside, moved forward the central plant because we got some significant money from the 3M settlement towards it and would rather have uh outside money paying for projects than than our our residents and businesses. But this plan—anyways—that's why this one's further along and and shovel ready. It is estimated at a little over $22 million. That includes the connection to the veterans home which is currently on its own private well and also contaminated with PFAS and needing a solution. Um easy one would be connect to our system uh as we get up and running. Uh we do have a million dollar uh planning and design grant already. That's why we're at 60% uh design plans. Uh we've also been told that we are fundable for $5 million of emerging contaminant grants. Uh but uh that still leaves a significant price tag to completing the project and we're looking at uh rate increases phased in over the the coming year. Hopefully uh we'll—we'll find some room to bring in other money or even some cost savings on construction that can help lower those numbers. Um uh the other piece I think is noting that it is—we're recommending starting this time next year late summer uh 2026 and that allows us to do a couple of things. One, it makes it easier to phase in that water rate increase because if you're starting construction in January, you can't really wait a whole year for the the rate increases to come in. So that later start gives us some ability to phase in that impact on our residents and businesses. It also very importantly gives us uh time to um look for other dollars. Uh we met with our lobbyist uh couple of weeks ago. We met last week with Representative Dipple. Uh we're meeting next week with Senator Seeberger. So continuing to have that press for um uh funding from the state that also we have the uh environmental studies that uh hopefully we'll have some positive news uh coming forward on uh additional connections or what—connections of additional wells for the uh east metro uh three settlement 3M settlement funds. So having that 8 month wait uh gives us time to do additional uh work on making the uh the finances hopefully easier to swallow. Uh well number nine—this has been planned for over 15 years. Uh we—I think it was at least the third maybe the fourth site that we looked at. We actually had to go out and drill test wells in order to find a site, you know, was the aquifer—did—produce enough water. But the purpose to it is based on our existing population and our existing water use, some projections because we—we didn't put it in place 15 years ago. So some projections to it, but it's based off of our current usage. Uh making sure we have firm capacity. So, if a well was down for maintenance, do we have enough ability to give people water, fight fires, uh be able to to have a fully operate operating system, and that's the reason that we're looking at adding an additional well. Um the site was identified and it's in our comprehensive plan uh for the last 15 or so years. Um try to minimize the footprint of that site to it's just the wellhouse backup generator uh but not ongoing um maintenance and chemicals and operations. Really trying to minimize it uh and make sure that uh it fits into the neighborhood as best it can. Uh although this is a preliminary architect's rendering, this is uh the—the western plant. So this one's two plus years out. It's—it's still early to be talking about it too definitely, but it's certainly on our minds. Uh the other piece that I—is important to note, why are we talking well nine? It's for firm capacity, but uh where we had it on our schedule for '27, uh we're recommending moving it up to next year, 2026, in order to put additional pressure on the state. it—it's easy for us to say, "Hey, here—here's a need for PFAS treatment" and it's easy for somebody to respond, "Well, it's not really a need if the well doesn't exist." So, we want to take that argument away from them since we know that the well's coming eventually. Uh the other piece that it's not for this year's budget, but uh we need to plan ahead is uh we're looking at a fire engine in 2028 and it's because they need to be ordered three years in advance. They just they're built from scratch and they're custom-made and uh uh just a lengthy process. So, on your agenda later tonight, if you're uh ready, would be approving a purchase agreement so that we could um uh put in an order now uh for something we would receive in late '28 or maybe even early '29. We wouldn't have to pay until delivery, but uh we would be expected to pay at that point. Uh $1.25 million. um because of the significance of it and wanting to make sure we're responsible with our budgeting. Don't necessarily need to nail down all the pennies right now, but want to make sure we have some idea how it'll fit into the budget in three years. Uh we've currently identified uh between five and $700,000 in our debt redemption fund right now that could go towards this that basically recommending state earmarked for it. Uh that amount could increase over the next three years. It basically is um excess proceeds from other bonding projects. So if we had that $4.2 million neighborhood project on West Fourth Street and Pleasant. If it comes in under budget, that savings goes into this debt redemption fund. So, that's where those—those monies come from. And expect that there might be some more money that could apply to a fire truck in the future. They're intended—the leftover money legally needs to be towards something that could be bondable or issued debt. So, uh, it really it fits a major project like this, one-time projects, not ongoing operations. Uh, the other piece to it is, um, if you look at, there was a slide earlier said, here's some of the big expensive CIP items for the '26 budget. There's a half million dollars for a public works building roof. Uh, $300,000 for a new dump truck. And the point to this is if we still have to come up with another half million dollars in 2028, it's just going to have to elbow its way into the CIP in order to say maybe this is a year we're not doing a roof because we're paying for the other half of a fire truck. So, a matter of trying to fit some of those larger—larger projects and pieces together in order to fit this in. I do think that the fire truck's doable. Uh but uh obviously you're making a decision not—not unlike other decisions, but you're making a decision that a future council is going to be uh living with the the decision that you make tonight. Other piece that we—we've really uh emphasized the last couple years is communications around uh our budget. Uh we want to make sure that the public is aware of what's in here. And even though I'm rushing through it a bit tonight—um—because we just spent an hour and a half, it's not right to just say, "Hey, there's a resolution. Are we ready for a motion?" It's still important to get the uh high level and some of the details in front of the public and and taking some time this evening. Uh there will be a press release going out later this week if council uh votes the preliminary levy this evening. um making sure as we have in the past, we've done interviews on uh uh HCTV and KDWA using social media. Uh the newsletter, um we have the budget at a glance uh handout that that sort of gives you just what does it cost for a police department, what does it cost for a fire department? and uh it just helps to try to uh humanize it and make it easier to—instead of a $48 million budget—what's it mean for just me as the average homeowner? Um so just really wanting to emphasize uh getting uh that transparency and information out to the public. I think one of the key pieces in that communications plan is recognizing that there's pieces in here that tie back to the city council's strategic plan and priorities that you guys said a year ago. You said we want to emphasize operational effectiveness. Uh we want to address water treatment. We want to make sure we're maintaining our assets, our infrastructure, our buildings, our equipment. And there's definitely examples throughout the the budget recommendation that address these priorities and are are furthering them. And I think that's an important piece of why—why does it cost so much to run a city? Well, we want to be effective. We want to make sure that we're improving our operations. We want to make sure that we're um uh fiscally responsible and sustainable over the long run, not just in an individual year. We want to have clean and healthy water. Uh so this strategic plan I think is also important to note. Next steps if you're ready tonight, September 2nd, there's a couple of resolutions in your packet uh to adopt the uh preliminary levy and preliminary budget. Again, that sets a cap. Uh so it could be less when you vote final in December. Uh but if you need more time, if you want to think on it, if you had some questions that you want staff to research, we can bring it back in two weeks on the 15th. Uh we've got till the end of the month. Uh the other piece is coming up at the end of the year. Uh uh December 1st, we would have our truth and taxation hearing. Um somewhere in mid November. Ahead of that, uh, Dakota County would send out those preliminary tax notices that would—based on your preliminary levy, based on people's property values, it would tell them, "Here's the hearing and here's the the potential uh impact on your—your—your property." We'd have that truth taxation public hearing for the public. and then uh either that evening, the 1st or uh the—the following—council meeting on December 15th, adopt the final budget. Uh there's a couple other pieces that need extra motions with setting fees and utility rates, but uh those are the big dates coming up in December. With that, I can take any questions from council. I—I know that we spent an hour and a half on it earlier, so maybe you're—you're out of questions, but certainly want to take any that you do have. [49:14] Mary Fasbender: Thanks, Dan. Council member Liefeld. [49:16] Lisa Liefeld: Thanks, Honor. Dan, excellent recap. And I just wanted to state that as you just said, we've spent 90 minutes—um—council did with staff right before our meeting where we talked about this. So, that being said, I'd like to make a motion to adopt the preliminary 2026 city property tax levy, preliminary budget, and setting the truth and taxation hearing date. [49:37] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Council Member Liefeld and Council Member Pemble. [49:40] Dave Pemble: I move to second that motion. [49:41] Mary Fasbender: Okay. And we have a second. Any discussion? Council. Council member Vihrachoff. [49:45] DawnMarie Vihrachoff: Thank you, Mayor. I support this budget. I support this entire process. I just wanted to make a quick couple of comments as part of the finance committee. If council would indulge me, I just want to personally thank city staff that puts an enormous amount of time into this. While this might seem like something that gets passed really quickly up on the dais by all of us, there are months and months and months of work that go into uh coming up with a budget like this. I mean, this is our community. We are your neighbors. We serve the public. We want to make sure that this is something that works for everyone. Um we trust our city staff. We look for ways that we can make different cuts to make um a budget that works best for everyone that is living here. Um, and again, I just really want to thank the—the—the staff and the finance committee and all of their work they've done with thoughtful questions. Um, department heads presenting to us in the past couple of weeks. It's been quite a process and I think this is a budget that we can all get behind. So, I very much support this. Thank you, your honor. [50:47] Mary Fasbender: Great you. Thank you, Council Member Vihrachoff. And I would echo the same thing. I wanted to compliment uh staff and finance committee of council. It—it is more than 90 minutes that we had before this meeting. There's many many days and I do want to thank staff for being conscientious of the dollars that um are taxpayers dollars and how they can best utilize them for the full community. So with that we have first and a second. All those in favor excuse me of the motion state by saying I. [51:24] Councilmembers: I. [51:25] Mary Fasbender: Opposed to that motion state by saying nay. And that motion prevails. Dan's uh also going to give us a resolution to approve the proposed 2026 HEDRA special tax levy. [51:37] Dan Wietecha: Yes, this one really is—is important, critically important details in—in our operations. Uh but really it's buried in a couple of line items in the budget overall. Uh there's a separate uh levy uh supporting HEDRA uh at 0.0185% of market value. That's the amount that we uh recommend every year. And um if so inclined would uh advise that you uh pass this resolution this evening also. [52:12] Dave Pemble: Uh Dan, thanks for putting that out there. I move that we approve the resolution for the HEDRA special tax levy for 2026. [52:29] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Council Member Pemble. Council member Haus has a second. Any discussion? Council. All those in favor of the motion state by saying I. [52:43] Councilmembers: I. [52:44] Mary Fasbender: Opposed to that motion state by saying nay. And that motion prevails. And Dan, you get to authorize uh or have us authorize a signature to purchase that fire engine for 2028. [52:53] Dan Wietecha: Yeah, as—as pointed out, uh this is a purchase agreement for something that we would look at three years from now. It just it takes that long to uh build a fire truck. um uh but need to approve that purchase order now even though we wouldn't see the—the—the truck or the expense of it for a few years. Uh this is part of right-sizing our fleet um uh and uh making sure that we have um uh new and well-maintained equipment uh which helps to reduce costs in the long run. Uh this would replace a 2004 engine. Uh it would also allow us to dispose of a 2000 engine uh next year. So uh rather than holding on to multiple aged and expensive pieces of equipment, try to have um newer uh equipment for better maintenance and reliability. Uh but with that I—I ran through the the details of some of the uh where some of the funding could come from earlier but if you have any questions I can certainly take those also. [54:05] Mary Fasbender: Thanks Dan. Along with that um can you just clarify? We all know that the ladder truck was um sold and we have one on order. Can you just say that that is still in process and it's on the way and should be here? [54:20] Dan Wietecha: I think you just said it. It's—it's of course it's in process and still coming. Um that was ordered a year—two years ago now. Um uh that one uh we actually paid in advance. We—we happened to have—had a significant grant from the state to be used for public safety purpose uh and chose to—to spend it there because it was onetime money. Uh it also by uh prepaying it we had—boy—a hundred plus thousand dollar savings on the purchase price and we were just in a position because of that grant that we were able to prepay that one unlike what we're talking about here. uh that should be delivered next year 2026 and will certainly be in service. And that—that's where I mentioned that um replacing the engine with the '28 engine allows us to get rid of two engines. One of those is waiting until the the ladder comes in so we're not uh under-equipped. [55:24] Mary Fasbender: Thank you for clarification. Council member Haus. [55:26] Angie Haus: Thank you, Honor. Dan, kind of quick question. What um on average will the city be saving by ordering the truck now at a set price compared to what we would order it in possibly three years? [55:38] Dan Wietecha: If we ordered it in three years, we would be getting the truck in six years. So, it doesn't change the the lead time. Um the the $1.25 million is if we signed the purchase agreement last month. I think they said August 1 and we've got good relations and talked to them to let us extend to early September. Um they're projecting increasing 1.75% per quarter which is 7% a year maybe. I'm trying to do the math in my head. Um—so it—it certainly would be increasing. It's one and a quarter now. Uh it's crazy how expensive they are, but it would be more expensive if we waited. And uh it's still going to be needed. Uh and um even if we waited three years, it means the truck is six years out. So it's—it's a little bit easier to—to keep with the schedule that Chief is recommending. [56:44] Angie Haus: Thank you, your honor. I'd also like to make a motion to pass um the firetruck purchase as well for 2028. [56:52] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Council Member Haus. Council Member Vihrachoff. [56:56] DawnMarie Vihrachoff: Uh thank you, your honor. I completely agree uh with what has been presented here tonight. I feel like the Chief Townsen gave us a great synopsis and presentation of this. It is a little bit mind-blowing to me the cost of um fire engines today and the price and the time that it takes to actually build these and bring these into their community. This is not an area of course that we want to skimp on. We all see um how hard our first responders work within our community. And again, while this might seem like a simple—like we are—uh approving a purchase order of over a million dollars here, there are so many things behind the scenes that were cut to make sure that this is something that is a priority and that can be paid for um and needed by our community. So with that, I would second that motion to approve that purchase agreement. [57:49] Mary Fasbender: Great. There's a first and second. Any additional discussion, council? All those in favor of the motion state by saying I. [58:00] Councilmembers: I. [58:01] Mary Fasbender: Opposed to that motion state by saying nay. All right. And that motion prevails as well. Well, Dan, I'll let you sit down and then you can give us your PFAS update. [58:20] Dan Wietecha: Thank you. First of the month. Um it's been a busy month um on the—the PFAS front and also looking ahead the—the coming month also busy. Um but I think there's no surprises because you guys took some real important action over the last couple of meetings. Uh in August uh we approved the financing for the central treatment plant. Uh that was through uh roughly $15 million in the East Metro 3M settlement uh fund. Uh another $5 million in emerging contaminant grants. Uh a little over a million dollars in a planning and design grant. One's a couple years old, but still significant towards the price tag. Um uh and uh we also um entered a low-interest loan with the public facilities authority and uh that loan uh is projected to save us around a million dollars in interest versus if we just financed it and bonded for it uh on our own the way that we might normally do a road project or something. So that low interest loan's also uh valuable. Um but we—we took action on that financial financial package over the last couple of meetings. Uh we also had uh bid openings uh for the central plant uh both the water main portion and the plant itself. Uh and uh last meeting you approved contracts awarding those—those two pieces of—the—the project. Um right now uh construction on the raw water main I believe will be starting September 22nd and the treatment plant itself uh shortly thereafter. So uh significant things happening right now. Um uh the other piece that I alluded to it earlier is um we met a couple of weeks ago with our lobbyist. We met uh last week with our state representative, next week with our senator uh in order to start talking about the coming legislative session. And uh we have a couple of requests in for uh state bonding dollars uh basically the eastern and the western plant. Uh with the intent being we're only going to do one at a time, but let's try to keep our options open uh and submit both of them. or there might be other uh financial routes that we could uh see some attention from the—the legislature. We—we were pleasantly surprised to see uh the additional $2 million emerging contaminants grant this past year. So just the point being there might be other funding sources that we could see. uh but—already beginning to plan for and have those discussions have put in request—request—for—visits if there's a capital bonding tour um later this fall. Uh we believe that uh—key people at the state are aware of our project but we want to stay in front of them and a chance to answer questions and give them updates. Um but making sure that's in front. Uh the other piece that we got an update—a couple of weeks ago is we had put in an application—for congressionally directed spending. Uh we asked for 50%—half of the western treatment plant project. uh Senator Klobuchar—submitted that on our behalf, although it's supported by all the congressional delegation. Um as it's gone through the—uh—process up there in Washington, uh it is now about $1.1 million. Uh and it is in the House Appropriations Bill. Uh but again, that's one step in the process. It does not guarantee uh that funding. Uh but uh we're certainly looking at every direction that we can. So uh a few highlights on uh the PFAS front over the past month and looking ahead the next couple of weeks, but if there's any additional questions, I can certainly take those. Thank you. [1:02:46] Mary Fasbender: Thanks, Dan. Council, any additional questions? All right. As always, it's just an update. No motion or anything. Council, any announcements? No. Okay, I do have a few. Uh, summer wreck program at Levy Park, Thursday, September 4th. Music and market with Greg Hall and the Wrecking Ball. Country and Americana, supported by Ruth and George Dawing Charitable Fund. Friday, September 5th, Movies in the Park with Wonka, sponsored by Ardent Mills. Please bring a non-perishable food donation. Thursday, September 11th, music and market with Ren Wild Folk Rock, supported by Ruth and George Dawing Charitable Fund. Tuesday, September 16th, comedy in the park with Tim Harmston, stand-up comedian sponsored by Smeed Manufacturing Company. Wednesday, September 17th, story time in the park. The theme is rhythm, a partnership with Pleasant Hill Library. The Fire Relief Association's annual Booya is Saturday, September 13th. Wednesday, September 3rd, we have a 6 pm arts and culture commission meeting, and this will be a culture roundtable discussion. Monday, September 8th, 7 PM administration committee meeting. Also on Monday, September 8th, planning commission. Wednesday, September 10th, 6 p.m. Arts and Culture Commission. Thursday, September 11th, 6 p.m. HEDRA. Monday, September 15th, 5:30 p.m. City Council. We do have our photos, which is kind of considered as a workshop. and 7 pm regular city council meeting. With that, I would ask for a motion to adjourn. Council member Pemble. [1:04:41] Dave Pemble: So move, your honor. [1:04:42] Mary Fasbender: And uh second by council member Liefeld. All those in favor of the motion state by saying I. [1:04:50] Councilmembers: I. [1:04:51] Mary Fasbender: Opposed to that motion state by saying nay. And we are adjourned.