This transcript is from the **Oakdale Environmental Management Commission** meeting on March 20, 2023. Based on the context provided and the dialogue, I have identified the speakers as **Chair Keith Miller**, **Shannon Breitlinger** (Staff Liaison), **Monica Stiglich** (Resident/Guest Presenter), and **Mayor Kevin Zabel**. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Come here I'd like to call to order the March 20th 2023 meeting of the Oakdale Environmental Management Commission. First item on our agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance so if you everyone would please stand and face the flag. 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. So we'll now do a roll call. Commissioner Wilson? [00:00] **Commissioner Wilson**: Here. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Commissioner Gerding? [00:00] **Commissioner Gerding**: Here. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: And we do have Commissioner Brown as absent. And also we have with us this evening Mayor Zabel as our liaison. Uh, our first item on the agenda here is approval of our meeting minutes and so I would open it to any uh changes edits that we need to make to that to the January 9th meeting minutes. Hearing no changes required I would look for a motion to approve the meeting minutes as written. [00:00] **Commissioner Wilson**: So moved. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Do I have a second? [00:00] **Commissioner Gerding**: Second. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: All in favor of approving the January 9th 2023 meeting minutes of the Oakdale Environmental Management commission say "Aye." [00:00] **Commissioners**: Aye. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: All right we have uh approved the meeting minutes and we'll move on to our new business on our agenda and we have quite a bit here. We have some guests with us uh that will be making uh presentations this evening and the first item on our agenda is the 3M settlement priority two of the work group or priority two work group and there will be a presentation. Anything you would like to say Shannon before the presentation? [00:00] **Shannon Breitlinger**: Uh, no just I invite Monica Stiglich to come up to the podium here and be able to present to us. We have a PowerPoint that will be flashed up on the screen and the EMC does have a very brief memo to provide a background on what Monica will be talking with us about. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Great, great. Welcome, Monica. [00:00] **Monica Stiglich**: Thanks for this opportunity to talk to you. Uh, it's actually a great opportunity because it's potential funding for projects that we could see uh actually uh finished in our community. So as it was stated, this is the priority two for the 3M water settlement. If you recall, just a quick background—there'll be more of that in the presentation—that water settlement was made in early 2018. And in June of 2018 there was a little article in the Saint Paul paper that said, "Hey, we want to get representatives from communities impacted by this water settlement to participate in work groups." I put my hand up; I got put on the group so I've been going to those meetings since July of 2018. A lot of meetings, but it was very, very interesting—both the dynamics of all these communities working together plus the technical information that came into play. The first part, Priority One, was about drinking water. So what we're going to do is start clicking through some slides here. This next one after the title slide is basically just a little bit of a overview of what I'm going to talk about and then here's this priority two background. So we'll go on to the next thing. For what it's worth, I always carry my copy of the settlement language. It's only 11 pages long. Four of the pages are all kinds of you know definitions and who's who and who signed it... you know the real meat of it is only really seven pages long. It was about natural resource damages is what that settlement was about. But first priority was about drinking water as we all know. Just up the road we've got our carbon system that's been taking care of us for a number of years. But priority two was specifically stated that we will have grants for projects and again you can see the wording on the screen and on this particular slide. And again, this is wording right out of the settlement. They talked about a number of different things you know, aquatic habitat restoration, trails, boat ramps (which you're kind of had a discussion about that at one of the work group meetings), restoration wildlife habitat and so forth. So this is the wording right out of the settlement and this is what this second phase of work is going to begin on. And again, the DNR (Department of Natural Resources) for the state and the MPCA (Minnesota Pollution Control Agency) are the two Trustees for these funds that came out of the settlement. In the wording of the settlement it calls for work groups, so they have both government bodies from the affected areas and residents giving input. So they plan on moving forward with a work group to continue this work on priority two. Most of our work on Priority One is pretty much put to bed so to speak. The big deal there was writing a big plan—what were we going to do about drinking water? Oakdale was in really good shape by the way. We were kind of the leader on this whole thing for one thing. People before us decided, "Hey, we needed to have city water throughout," so that's why we've got the water towers, we've got a lot of pumping stations and so on. Lake Elmo didn't have that; Woodbury still has an incredible number of people on private wells; Afton is pretty much all private wells. So there was a lot of discussion for addressing Priority One drinking water and the differences between the communities. Priority two is going to be a little bit different because we had to deal with drinking water first. The vast amount of the funds from the settlement went for the drinking water proposition and again we will be seeing some of those money spent in our community as we get additional carbon treatment put in. It was a big deal for Woodbury, for Lake Elmo and so forth. Priority two though again is this thing about dealing with natural resources. So again they're looking to have a work group to help us with that. So we'll go to the next slide which again introduces us to the next process page. The state will actually be selecting projects addressing this natural resource deal. On Priority One we had a lot of discussion initially of, "Well why don't we just give so many millions to this community, so many millions to that community?" No, that wasn't going to work. We really had to have more technical information to determine what was the right path forward to really methodically spend that money, do a good job with it and still meet the needs of all these people that want to have reliable drinking water coming out of their kitchen sink tap. Priority two is a lot different. This is going to be more of a competitive proposal situation. So that's why I wanted to come and talk to you first—well actually I wanted to talk to Parks and Recreation first—but I wanted to talk to you folks too because you have done a wonderful job in this community putting out a lot of projects. I keep track of you over the years; I've known Keith for years, so I've been keeping track of you know what good works have been done in this community. But in this case the state is going to be picking the projects. The work groups are actually going to set up the framework for how the criteria are set up for how the state's going to select projects. It's not going to be by popularity; it's going to have to meet some criteria. So that's what the work groups are really going to be working on. We had discussions two or three work group meetings ago about conflict of interest. There was a feeling well if we have work groups for priority two, you know they're going to have inside track and know what needs to be done. There'll be some more discussion about that in a little bit but the people that really had an issue with this was, I think it was Newport—smaller community, smaller group of people engaged in understanding these issues. They were also likely going to be the people putting forth proposals for funds. So they said, "You know we're going to be on the work group but we also want to be able to submit proposals." So they came up with a scheme and we'll be talking about that in a little bit, how that's going to be dealt with. Matter of fact the next slide talks about managing conflict of interest. So we will still... if you're on the work group you can still submit proposals. There's going to be a subgroup involved on in this group too and that was another thing I wanted you folks to know about. The subgroup in this case for priority two it's basically going to be informing the trustees (DNR, MPCA) about what plans did you already have in place for your community as far as environmental improvements, natural resource recovery, whatever. They really want to see you know, is there like a five-year plan, whatever. So that will be what the subgroup is. I don't know that the subgroup will actually have meetings but they were going to be in contact with all these stated communities about you know what was happening. So that's how we're actually going to manage it. Work group isn't going to get a vote; the work group isn't even going to be looking at what the proposals are. We're just going to be setting up criteria basically. Okay, so I wanted to go on to this next thing that shows the structure. In the case of Priority One, which is kind of this left column, we had the two work groups: the government 3M and the citizens. I was officially on the citizen work group but I also end up being the liaison to the government 3M work group because they wanted to make sure the conversations were very different at the meetings. We had the exact same agenda but we met on separate days—Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday morning—and the conversations were very different. There was a lot of concern from the resident groups about making sure we still took care of people that were on private wells... it was really pretty down to earth when it came to things about like the actual dynamics of the projects working. The government group was the one that really knew what was going on there. There was also a subgroup here called the drinking water supply subgroup. Brian Bachmeier was our representative there and actually he was a major leader for that effort because we had the experience here with the carbon system. So he was a real leader as far as informing the other communities about how these things work, what kind of manpower our financial data supporting that operation was kind of baseline for a lot of the communities. So that was how that worked. But in priority two again they're still going to have the two work groups. I don't even know if we really necessarily need it but that's what they're setting up right now. And again you can see there's a subgroup called the ecosystem services and recreation subgroup and again they're soliciting what is actually happening in the communities and so forth. So they're looking at this to be a shorter time frame and again they'll be a little bit more discussion about that but again they're wanting to have feedback on you know what should be the viable projects that go forward. So again and the the structure of the work groups: communities will select representatives for their government work group. Our City Administrator already said she's going to be involved in that work group. I will be involved; I've already submitted for being the resident. And again I was glad to do it because again I was already familiar with the process we went through on Priority One for how did you sort through all the possibilities and give some criteria for what work needed to go forward. Plus I'm just really interested—for what it's worth the Oakdale disposal site was in my backyard so I've always known it was there. I got the letters way back when that they were digging everything out so I've been keeping an eye on this for a number of years. But anyway so here's the role of these work groups: provide feedback on priority two goals, evaluation criteria, you know what kind of language are we going to have for those proposals coming forward. But notice we will not discuss specific project ideas or proposals and again that's to avoid that conflict of interest. Okay so when we go forward with this, remember that wording I showed you from the settlement? The thing about the boat docks? We're kind of skeptical about that and the Priority One work group meetings and so these were some revisions that we felt were really more appropriate going forward. Okay so again, restoration of resources... that whole thing about fish tissue. By the way I asked the question, I mean the fishing lake that we have in Oakdale is really Tanner's Lake. Is there a fish advisory on it? I mean it's sunnies and crappies basically is what you're getting out of there. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Yeah. [00:00] **Monica Stiglich**: Yeah but I wondered about that because I know when my boys were little we used to go fishing in Tanner's Lake. But is that the only lake we really have? I mean we have a lot of ponds and low-lying areas but that's really the lake of the town really. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Yeah I mean they call some things lakes—there's Armstrong Lake but... [00:00] **Shannon Breitlinger**: Not fishable. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Yeah, yeah... ponds. Ponds. [00:00] **Monica Stiglich**: Okay anyway this you know this whole thing about eating the fish... I mean that's that's been in the news for decades to be mindful of that. But this is the kind of thing that we're trying to hone in on with the work groups to hone in on okay what are the really the viable proposals that that could receive funding. Okay so if we look at the next thing here's project evaluation criteria examples. Again if you notice this first thing it says projects that can demonstrate impacts by release of PFAS, which is why I asked about any advisories on the fish out of Tanner's Lake. You know that would be something... I'm not sure that I could actually list natural resources impacted by PFAS. You know the fact that we have a huge dump site area by Old Highway 5 you know that can't do much with. You folks are probably in a better position to you know think about that you know. Did we ever have things impacted by these this category of chemicals? Projects that clearly benefit multiple resources or services... so you can see the other thing they want to say is they don't want to have projects that are going to need funding every year. They want to have a project you go in, you do it and it goes. They don't want to have to, "Oh I need another 10,000 bucks this year." They really want to have things that have you know a finite beginning and end you know and then put it to use kind of thing. Okay so that that's some criteria again that's been put forward by our facilitators to consider. Okay then this whole thing about the RFP scope... this was an interesting one: should projects be allowed on private property? I don't know. I don't know who would step forward and say a PFAS affected them but who knows. But again the level of detail they need on the proposals... again we had some experience with this back in Priority One on the drinking water projects. We knew it was going to take us a period of time before we really had the final plan for each community to move forward with. There were several communities that said, "You know we know we're going to be tearing up streets, we know we're going to be putting in City plumbing in these streets, we would like to get advanced funding." So they had a special set up for a period of time where people could get early money because they knew they were going to head in a certain direction—specifically in Woodbury and Cottage Grove they knew they were going to be dealing with you know taking people off of private wells because again with the development that was going on they knew these water lines would be going in so they were making sure that you know they were getting back in. They aren't going to have that sort of situation here. I mean the proposal will be the proposal you know. There's going to be a finite number of dollars available for this priority two. So again the idea is we want to hone in on good projects that are you know show an impact and have a beginning and an end. Okay so again there's there's a lot of these points that they've got on these slides. Again this was back a while ago and we had this presentation at our Priority One work group and so again that's they were just trying to kind of feed the system so we could have some of these in mind. Okay so if you look at these priority two versus Priority One approaches: again pretty bit different focus. Priority One: drinking water; priority two: natural resources. Priority One projects were awarded based on drinking water needs of each community; there was a huge technical assessment done for each community that was involved in that whole system. Again there's going to be limited funding for this natural resource one—they're going to be again judging the proposals. In Priority One only communities or counties could apply for project funding and so priority two: non-governmental restoration organizations and so forth can apply. So this is really opening up the door for a whole other bunch of people that could step forward. And again, work groups were used to understand all the key needs of the communities and again the work group in priority two is basically going to help with the criteria and give feedback on you know what the goals should be. Okay so here we go again with these work group memberships. Communities will be invited to join the new priority two government work group if they have experienced these injuries or are located—this is a little different than Priority One—in the East metropolitan area and downstream locations of the Mississippi and Saint Croix Rivers. We know this material got to both rivers. It turns out Watershed District did a project years ago and they diverted rainwater away from the Tri-Lakes in Lake Elmo and that's what carried the Washington County Landfill and then the Oakdale landfill by surface out to the east and south. Unintended consequence. So there's been work going on about that one too. Okay so if we go to that next slide, look at there's a long list of communities. Not all these communities were in Priority One but again there's a feeling that they were impacted natural resource wise and so we're basically they're basically being tapped on the shoulder and saying, "Hey you can participate in this in this priority two work as far as submitting proposals." So all of these governmental bodies have been contacted. Again our City Administrator's already spoken up and say yep she's going to be on the government group. I've spoken up. I don't know if anybody else has submitted an application to be on the resident work group; I'll find out when we have our first meeting you know. They haven't... they're saying maybe next month we'll have our first meeting for that resident group. When we started on the Priority One work there was a second person from Oakdale his name was Bruce Johnson—tragically passed away doing some yard work, fell off a ladder, very tragic death. They concluded I did enough talking, we didn't need a second person from Oakdale anyway. These are all the communities that are going to be invited again because there is a feeling that you know the PFAS impacts could have been there. Onto the next slide talks about the resident work group... it's getting formed this year. Okay and again they said those of us participating in Priority One could continue, which I said sure I'll be glad to, and then potential new members. So again when we have our meetings I think they're saying we're going to start um in in next month. The window to apply has already closed; that was announced in the St Paul paper, it was on the website. By the way do you folks look at the website for this water settlement? There's a really, really good website they put together—I think I've got a web address further down in my notes here... well actually there's part of it right there for getting the gov delivery. But that website has got just a ton of background information; it's got all our meeting minutes, all the presentations that we looked at for four like four years and it was quite the journey. I mentioned to Keith before it's lovely being retired but this really kept my brain active because there was a lot of technical information in there. The whole thing about you know it's just not a river underground you know how the water flows, how they measure things, all the health impacts. I think we had the health presentation at least four times and again part of it was because the standards were changing. Matter of fact the EPA just put out a 400-page proposal for tighter standards for this category materials. I will start perusing it, I don't know about the thousand pages of backup though. Yeah 1400 pages... so our April meeting for the Priority One work group is going to basically the state folks are going to give us their their run through on it. So there's there's a lot of concern about that because again as the standards get tighter that means more wells need treatment basically. Again we already know in Oakdale because we said there's I don't think there's 30 people that have private wells left at all. There's some people that are you on one of them? Yeah I think there's a few houses right at the end of Old Highway 5 and Century, there's a handful of houses there and there's some houses up along Olson Lake. Are you one of those? Aha yeah well you know the good news was the flow of water was going south and east so it wasn't going in that direction so you know the everybody you know people got their well sampled all that sort of thing. But for the most part we did pretty good in Oakdale having people covered with the city water. I've been drinking it since 1974 and I'm still here. Okay so here's what they're going to be doing about the work group meetings. Ever since the whole covid thing kicked in... up until the point of covid we always had live meetings. The city of Cottage Grove very graciously hosted us, they've got a nice big meeting room down there in their city hall and we would have live meetings and it was really great because that whole interaction... I've got some really terrific friends out of working with this... but the interaction we had really helped move this thing along. Since covid we've been doing Zoom meetings now we're doing if people want to show up they can show up down at Cottage Grove or they can participate by Zoom so it's it's really mixed. But since we got such good relationships started it was pretty effective. They're going to probably offer the same thing again: you can either come live or do it by Zoom. There's advantages to having it all these ways but they're looking at only having a few meetings because they figure that we'll have a pretty good idea on how to set this criteria, how we should have the proposals laid out for submittals. Okay so here's this thing about the subgroup that I mentioned and again this is going to be—you can see it—technical recreational natural resource environmental staff from priority to work group communities and counties, the watershed districts. And here's here's this thing about what the role of that subgroup is going to be: it's going to be about their planning efforts. So I don't... is there like a five-year environmental plan for Oakdale or anything like that? [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Well we have a ten-year plan for as part of our comp plan on resilient cities and so we've contributed a section to that. [00:00] **Monica Stiglich**: Great. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Yeah and we we just have an annual work plan for the commission that's great but we take into consideration those more long-term goals. [00:00] **Monica Stiglich**: Sure sure. That is terrific and I and again I've been keeping an eye on you guys for years since I've been a resident all these years and uh there's been some really nice work done I mean from the cleanup of Tanner Lake to just all kinds of events and so forth that have happened in the city. So that's what they're looking for here to see you know is there specific stuff that's going to do enhancements and so forth moving forward. Okay and again if you look at the next slide, examples of planning information: here's you know master plan for the point Douglas Regional Trail, the Dakota County has something you know... watershed plans always have to be in place. So I mean this is the kind of thing that they're going to be collecting and part of it is just to keep the state folks, the actual trustees that will be deciding who gets funding, just so they have an idea of okay what are the efforts that are going on already. Okay so on the subgroup what to expect: state will invite organizations and communities to participate in all formal meetings you know and again initial survey on available natural resources. So I'm not sure if this is going to go to the city administrator exactly what the channel is going to be. Christina is very much aware of this again she's been to these meetings also and she and I have had a couple discussions about it. So again we had agreed that again I talked to the Parks and Recreation folks—I don't know if I need to talk to the tree board or not, it's a group that could—but I definitely want to talk to you folks to let you be aware that okay there was going to be requests for information. So again having those plans is really, really good. Okay so the evaluation process: once people actually put in proposals again that that will be a Minnesota state government internal committee that will be meeting to decide what's going on. The DNR is taking a lead on this part; MPCA basically kind of did the lead for the drinking water along with a heavy representation from the Department of Health. But again this whole thing about being able to screen what are going to be good proposals you know that should be funded this way. And again notice the work groups will not provide feedback on proposed projects again to avoid the conflict of interest. Okay and again back to that work in subgroup conflict of interest—all our meetings were public. Usually it was the government work group meeting that was actually videotaped and shown... I don't know I never did find it on I went through all the cable channels never could find it but probably on YouTube. But these were public meetings and again with the Zoom call we did have members of the public calling in pretty frequently actually during the Priority One work. So again everybody can you know put in proposals as far as funding goes, so that's what was going on. So the next steps: and again this presentation I can't remember if it was December or January, you can see the next steps for priority two were to recruit the new members. It's going to be April and we actually start our meetings to again develop that criteria that whole framework. But look at this: it's going to be September through December is when DNR is going to open up the request for proposals. So I wanted to come early so you had a number of months to think through okay what are potential projects you know whether as a commission you put your minds together on this thing, solicit ideas from the community, however you want to do it. But it's an opportunity; it's an opportunity to get some funding. They one of the criteria that we talked about already is, "Hey is there other funding that you could have gotten for some of these projects anyway?" And if we can have more than one source of funding for a particular project that's going to bode well for a proposal. So you know they're we're trying to make the most of this money. Again the vast majority of that those settlement dollars wound up going for drinking water—perfectly appropriate. I want everybody to turn on the kitchen faucet and get a glass of water and know that they're they're good to go. It's it's been a long haul. For what it's worth the state brought in two consulting firms. One of them on the title page for this presentation there's a lady's name and she's from ABT. That's actually a person's name and they were really key years ago when we had that big mess down in the Gulf of Mexico... they came in from the Deepwater Horizon remember there was a huge multi-billion dollar settlement... well how did those funds get distributed? Well they came up with a framework: "Here's here's how you know the criteria, here's how you're going to submit proposals." They help facilitate us through the meetings and getting that put together for Priority One and now for priority two. The second consulting group they brought in is a company called Wood and they were the technical consultants. They were the ones who had the understanding of the underground water modeling; they have people on the national committees about this category of chemicals so they know what the latest state of the art is as far as how do you treat it, how do you measure it, how do you define it because it's it's it's not just two or three chemicals, it's a huge category. So that these two organizations did a marvelous job helping us getting through the whole drinking water proposition. ABT is going to help us again facilitate us through this proposal for the natural resource proposal funding. So that's what I wanted you to know. There's money to be had. It can be a few hundred dollars, it can be a few thousand dollars, whatever. But it's it's... I want Oakdale to recognize that you know we can participate and and do some good with some funds that are available. Okay any questions? [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: I think you said the work groups are closed for applications right? [00:00] **Monica Stiglich**: The resident work group they had an application online for it and they it wasn't it was only open for about a month I think and I know when I did the parks presentation last month was the very day that was the last day that it was available to get in. But again the work group is really just going to be setting criteria and so forth. I can come back and talk to that if you wish during the summer I'd be more than happy to do that. [00:00] **Commissioner Gerding**: Are the subgroup applications still open? [00:00] **Monica Stiglich**: The subgroup really doesn't have an application process. They're going to remember that long list of communities that I showed? They're actually going to tap all those communities on the shoulder probably through their administrators and say, "Hey what do you have for plans in your community for your natural resources?" So the subgroup isn't really... it's really not going to have meetings you know and they had that right here in this presentation. Okay? [00:00] **Commissioner Gerding**: Okay. [00:00] **Monica Stiglich**: But they'll be looking for okay you know what did you have in the way of again enhancements in your community as far as your natural resources. Parks group actually had an interesting question for me when I presented to them and it was: did they ever measure for any of these PFAS chemicals in the ponds? And I don't know that they did. Do you have any insight on that? [00:00] **Shannon Breitlinger**: Uh, I'm not aware of anything done with ponds in Oakdale. [00:00] **Monica Stiglich**: Yeah because I mean Lake Elmo was a real big deal you know I think Eagle Point Lake was a real... but again over in Lake Elmo over 200 ponds in Oakdale so yes we do we have lots of ponds and I'm not aware of anything being done. And I live on a pond and I know nothing's been down there. Because when you think about it I mean are any of the ponds used as... I mean other than like maybe a occasional kayak or canoe? I mean is there any motorized boats? Is there any really fishing or you know you really don't see— [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Not allowed on most ponds. [00:00] **Monica Stiglich**: Right, right for good reason. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: But ponds do drain into wetland areas. [00:00] **Monica Stiglich**: Yes. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: And are some of them are connected to larger ponds as well. [00:00] **Monica Stiglich**: Yeah that was the interesting thing by the way, talking about what was surface water and what was the underground waters... in my backyard out by Old Highway 5 I mean the groundwater and surface water are the same thing because that is such a low-lying area back there. So low-lying that you know it's virtually the same. And luckily you know I remember the year they dug out most of the stuff out there and thank goodness they did, thank goodness they did. So we don't have you know anything really... I mean it's it's whatever the residual that's left in those soils and so forth it's really still being problematic. But there's a lot of discussion about you know keep on working on that too. Anyway, I was just glad to see that our citizens in the city of Oakdale said "Yes" to both of those voting propositions for the new Public Works and the police station. So that's going to be again moving forward. We had to get Public Works moved so we could use that same site to build additional carbon capacity. So lots of interesting reading! I urge you if you haven't done it before, go to that website... you know the 3M water settlement website. Again you can get a feel for the amount of hours and work that went into a good technical discussion. It started out by the way—I think in full disclosure—I am a 3M retiree. There were several other 3M retirees on that citizen work group and one gentleman said, "Well there's got to be 50 ways to treat water," and I looked at him I said, "I don't think so." And that's when this Wood Consulting Group came in and they basically said, "No, not really. Carbon is really the only known." We are now looking at ionized—it's kind of like a water softener with beads, the ion exchange—Cottage Grove actually ran a pilot study. But as far as having a approved means approved by the Health Department, because they're in charge of drinking water, carbon was it. And we were basically the leader for a good bit of the country actually. So that that's something to be... I'm very proud of it and very glad it happened because like I said I've been drinking Oakdale water since 1974. So okay that's what I've got. I'll be glad to come back when there's more information as far as you know what the application, the proposal process looks like. And again that that criteria that I can talk about with you... I can talk about that you know and for anybody that happens to watch these sessions on television, I'll be glad to talk about those. And again I don't get to vote on what gets funded, I can just tell you you know what what the criteria and so forth are going to be. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: What do you think the time frame will be on that criteria? Your first meeting will be in April? [00:00] **Monica Stiglich**: Yeah they're they're looking... they're going to have us working probably monthly meetings right through the summer to get that all hammered out. I think the state has a pretty good idea how to do it again based on our experience with Priority One. They've got a pretty good idea on a how to how to make this role and I think if they have enough carryover of Priority One people who we already had to you know go through this once we can really accelerate. But they're looking to have you know this fall people being able to put in proposals. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Okay yeah we're good to know that criteria as soon as it's available. [00:00] **Monica Stiglich**: Yeah absolutely, absolutely. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: And we can start thinking about projects based on the the information that you've given us and looking at that more background material on that too but uh you know it looks like it it the the scope is outlined here and it's pretty broad. [00:00] **Monica Stiglich**: It's very broad. And especially on improve and enhanced outdoor recreational areas included, that's pretty broad. But will there be some priority as well given to projects that I imagine they would wanna you know have projects that are PFAS based as much as possible? That was on that one slide that basically says, "Hey you know if there was anything impacted by PFAS that that would get more get more points so to speak." Yeah. So and that's appropriate. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Yeah. [00:00] **Monica Stiglich**: So again if you can go through you know the the records of the city whatever and and see what you can come up with. Again you folks have been doing some nice projects around here for a year so you're used to the the project type work kind of a scope. So I think I think there's some real nice opportunities here. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Yeah great okay yeah. [00:00] **Commissioner Gerding**: Thank you for coming or do you have a question? Another comment on the question... so comment: thank you for your long-term advocacy commitment to this. This is hugely helpful for us to distill it to piggyback on what Chair Miller had said. My question... I can't remember what page it's on... is something about the scope. So it kind of takes off of that. It's we didn't really cover phase solicitation but that was one piece of what was on the slide. And this might be cart before the horse, but you know I'm just thinking about our comp plan as a city, our work plan as a commission... everything is so intersectional in terms of what we do. And so I'm just wondering as written, if projects are—I think you use the words start date and end date or an ending in the beginning—if they are that finite but yet so many projects would factor in multiple things within them and aspects of just... I guess and maybe this will become clear over the summer but if there's any guidance or a way in which applicants can think about how to think about all of these things. Because it doesn't sound like a sustainment piece even though it might be a multi-year award right is favorable. So I'm just kind of putting that all in my head like: how do we package—? [00:00] **Monica Stiglich**: Yeah you know that's that I think that's going to be one of the lively discussions when we get into our work group meetings. Okay? I think it's going to be a lively discussion because again they want... they really wanted to see stuff that, "Okay we awarded you money and in one year we can come back and say yes you know you know we we put this money to good use." But like you said there could be you know phase one, two, three... you know again it's... my answer is: it depends. There it is—it depends. Yeah it's not... there's a lot of gray in this oh and again this this was our consulting firm having some conversations with the state agencies and saying, "Okay here's how we're going to try and give this a little more framework going forward so we can get to dispersal of funds as soon as we can." Because there there's been people really chomping at the bit to take advantage of because there's... I think it was 20 million dollars in the settlement that was specifically earmarked for this. The rest of the money basically is going to get especially unfortunately the way inflation and the price of you know prices have gone up so bad they're going back in and re-calculating continually based on you know the cities getting their their bids in for these these systems. Because again Cottage Grove, Woodbury had to do huge carbon systems to deal with all this and like I said and now with the federal EPA saying we're going to tighten up the limits that's even more wells. So thank you. It depends. It's actually been a joy; it's kept my brain active. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Okay thanks so much for the time. [00:00] **Monica Stiglich**: Well thank you for your time and coming here and this was very valuable presentation for us thank you you're welcome. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: So the next item on our agenda is the review of our 2023 Washington County Recycling Grant projects and uh are liaison with the staff our staff person here uh Shannon Breitlinger will provide us with that information thank you thank you. [00:00] **Shannon Breitlinger**: Yes March is the time of year when we talk about our Washington County Recycling Grant—go through some of the outcomes of the previous year and then discuss the next year's application cycle. So you'll see here in this memo in this bulleted pointed section at the middle of the first page we have a whole list of outcomes that were achieved with funds from last year's grant. Some of these things are continuing projects so you'll see for example we continue to offer food scraps pails to residents to help them sign up for the food scraps drop-off program. We did a lot of educational promotion of a variety of recycling tips and waste reduction strategies through a number of channels. Most of those were implemented with the editorial calendar that the EMC puts together every single year. We also sent out another round of postcards about the biz recycling program to eligible businesses in the city. So those things probably looked relatively familiar from previous years. Some new things that we were able to achieve with those grant funds: as the county is working towards launching the food scraps pickup program, they are phasing out these starter kits. It's not guaranteed that Oakdale is going to get this new program exactly when it launches and so we use grant funds to purchase more pails—almost identical to the ones that the county had been offering—so we can continue to hand those out and encourage residents in the coming years to try out composting just to give it a shot in their own kitchens. A couple of other newer things that we did: the Community Development Department has been doing a number of business retention expansion and attraction visits to local businesses and they made sure to include promotional material and content around the business cycling program in those conversations. So more than just relying on targeted advertisements they did very specific conversations with some of these business business owners to say here are the resources the county provides. And then we also bought a number three in fact dual stream waste bins for the Nature Preserve. So these are waste bins that have both a trash and a recycling component to them. They are designed to be placed outdoors where they will most be used and our goal is to start very, very small with the opportunity to collect recycling in parks to see how that goes. Obviously recycling is picked up by our haulers when it is hopefully less contaminated so the ideal is that only recycling will go in those recycling sections and then will be picked up by our hauler. But a lot of that is to be determined. So the hope is that we can do a pilot in the coming year of those three recycling bins to see how that actually functions and get some information for understanding the feasibility of putting recycling in other parks in the future. So those were some of the the great things that we did last year. I also want to throw out there we did for one week offer pumpkin recycling around the holiday time. That was the first time I think that the city has offered that or at least has the first time it's offered it in recent history. It was really successful and I think that that's something that we would like to try and talk about continuing in the future. So that dovetails very nicely with our goals around composting. For the 2023 year there are quite a number of things again that are carryovers that we want to continue to promote and then a few new things that we have applied for. You'll see on the second page of the memo these are the four projects that we have applied for already. The application is still in the review process with the county; they have the final say in in all of these applications or all of these projects so nothing is finalized until we receive the grant agreement. But these are the things that we have said that we are interested in funding for this coming year. We'll continue to promote all of the education that we can. That's a huge part of the theme for the 2023 EMC work plan is education and helping people understand and be aware of resources. So that is project number one for this grant. Number two is we will continue to talk a lot about composting. We like I said have all of those compost pails that we purchased at the end of last year, we'll continue to give those away at the markets this year, and then we will try and make sure that residents have a better understanding about how to utilize backyard compost bins as well. So I think right now the county is currently doing its compost bin sale; that's something that we are hoping to promote through social media and make a residents aware of how to utilize those services over the coming year. Project three has to do with single-use plastic. This is something that the EMC has talked a little bit about in the past and I'm hoping that we can maybe play that up a little bit more in the future. So July is a time where people think about trying out going plastic free or at least reducing their single-use plastic waste. Ideas for the grant funds include being able to purchase some reusable bags for the farmer's market, potentially coordinating some sort of information about low-waste cooking, doing something so that people can understand that this is a time to think about their single-use plastic use in July. And the last project is one that we do need to vet with the Public Works team and we've started to have those conversations so that's already happened initially. But in the past Oakdale has done a cleanup event. A number of counties in Washington or a number of cities in Washington County do annual cleanups events for their residents so there's a lot of peer support that we could potentially have in learning how to do this. But the proposal is to do some sort of a community cleanup event in the fall. Again Public Works would need to be involved on the front end and all throughout the process to determine eligible items and location and that sort of a thing. So we'll continue to have conversations with them with help and input from Washington County. But that is the the fourth project itself that we've applied for. We will probably receive information about whether or not these projects have approved in the coming weeks; we'll get the grant agreement drafted, City Council will have the ability to adopt that agreement and kind of move the formalized process before we receive grant funds. But this is kind of where we are at so far. Any questions from the commission? [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Great. Well I guess I have one question or comment here. I think uh we'll see if we can get funding to help with the city-wide cleanup event. I think that's something we have done in the past and I think we did it in conjunction with Tanner's Lake cleanup many years ago and uh and it was quite successful as far as the amount of waste that was collected as I remember. So um yeah I'm hoping that we can do that again this year and fall would be a good time for doing that. Um yeah I and yeah we have been talking about uh Commissioner Gerding has been following the single-use plastics and I think doing something with regards to that would really be beneficial as well. And I think even you know I think as tying that into the educational element as well because there's a lot of alternatives to plastics for storing food etc. and that uh we could have more education about. Yeah I like the plan and uh let's hope we get a grant again this year. Any other comments Commissioners? [00:00] **Commissioner Wilson**: Well I am curious is there a dollar amount associated with each of these four points? [00:00] **Shannon Breitlinger**: There is and that's predetermined by the county based on a number of factors including population size of each of the um the towns and the cities that apply for the grant. Yep. So we go in and say hey we're interested in four projects and then it spits out a number and says this is what you can receive. [00:00] **Commissioner Wilson**: Okay. All right thank you Shannon. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: The next item are on our agenda is the review of the draft bicycle and pedestrian plan and an update on this and uh just mentioned that uh in the past the commission has participated in a SWOT analysis uh with the consultant on this and um and that personally I'm very interested in this plan being a biker that bikes nearly every day in the summer in Oakdale. So looking forward to this plan and also tying this in with the uh the rapid bus transit line as well and making sure that people have an option, a car free option for getting to that public transportation. Um yeah do we have um do you want to go ahead and take it from there? [00:00] **Shannon Breitlinger**: Yeah yeah so I think what I want to do is just provide a very quick update on what we've done so far with um the community development or the community engagement piece of this project and then I would ask that the commission provides any feedback that you may have on specifically this draft Network map that was included in the packet materials. So very quickly so far with this plan we've done a number of things. We've done a traffic stress analysis, there's been a bus stop inventory. The EMC reviewed a number of maps that were created to show existing facilities and existing regional plans that might impact oakdale's bicycle and pedestrian network. We also talked quite a bit about what the project's community engagement would look like and the commission provided great feedback on a lot of the materials that we used in the open house and the pop-up workshops. So you'll see here in this memo with the community engagement: we did that mostly over the fall of 2022 and a little bit of that this early winter of this year. We had a lot of really great feedback from a number of different individuals. I was very excited that we also got to do a couple of focus groups with Tartan high schoolers and we had our Wiki map that informed this network map put out there to a number of local schools as well so we got some good responses from a younger demographic as well as residents here in Oakdale who are homeowners and above. So I'm I'm happy with the community engagement that was done. I am hopeful that it is somewhat reflective of the needs of the community and our consultant did a lot of really good work to take that community feedback and turn it into a number of actionable pieces that are in front of you today. So you can see here we have a draft Network recommendations map. This outlines different types of facilities like paths, sidewalks, shared use paths, that sort of a thing that are being recommended to implement here in the city. And a lot of that comes from this other map that's a heat map—shows you where people said that they wanted more walking or biking paths. So there's a direct connection between the recommended facilities and what people said they wanted to see in the city. The other guiding document that was included in tonight's packet is a outline of draft goals strategies and actions. At one of the previous commission meetings you all did see those very high level draft strategies and goals. We heard from City Council that those were going in the right direction and so our consultant fleshed them out a bit with different actions. Those actions do connect up with the network recommendation map and they will inform the next process of this plan which is to create our updated bike and pedestrian plan—at least a draft of it that will include all of this content that we've seen so far. And it will also have a table that will outline different projects that are being recommended as well as ideas about whether they are short, medium or long term; funding sources; any notes about things that might be a particular context for each project. If it's going to be difficult to put a proposed path on a specific road that will be included in this implementation schedule. And the plan, the draft itself, will be made available to the public to provide comment on; it will be made available to our City Council to be commented on. So there's it's not like the consultant is going to put this thing out and say that's it. There will be more time to refine what's in itself before the final plan is then presented to City Council and then City Council has the ability to adopt it. So that's where we are right now and what I would be looking for from the commission is: as you were taking a look at this draft Network recommendation map, does it feel right sized to you? Are there any um particular paths or recommended paths that are jumping out as a priority to you? Anything that you feel like would actually be kind of difficult to implement? [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Well I'm a little confused about the title of this map "existing bicycle and pedestrian facilities." So there's nothing proposed on this map right? [00:00] **Shannon Breitlinger**: There is. So everything that is currently existing is a solid line. So the solid green lines are existing shared use paths, the solid yellow lines are existing sidewalks. Then the things that are being proposed, those are the dotted lines—they don't exist currently, they're being proposed for construction. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: You don't have any dotted lines. The only dots we have are the yellow dots but those are the mark crosswalks. [00:00] **Shannon Breitlinger**: Did I print off the wrong map for you? Maybe I printed off the wrong map. I did! Yeah I did... good for me. Okay well here on your screen—oh okay you have the map that you were supposed to have in your packet. What a win! So please refer to that instead as you can see this map has some dotted lines. I can give you a chance to just take a look at it. I will say of note we got a lot of feedback that Century Avenue is a place where people are desiring any sort of facility. The ideal would be a shared use path but even a sidewalk would be nice. So the recommendation here is to put a shared use path along that stretch of road. We have a couple of recommendations close to Willowbrook... so there's already going to be a whole entire plan for the trails in that neighborhood but we've had a lot of of individuals express interest in having that be quite connected. There was some concern about having connections all the way up to the Gateway State Trail so there's a couple of options for that—some of them are a little bit harder to achieve so our consultant will help us think through some of those difficult areas. The other sections of recommendation you can see here: trails along Granada. When we presented this to City Council there was particular interest in getting a trail, a shared use path, on 10th Street so that Tartan high schoolers have connection to like Caribou and Starbucks and all of the stuff that's over there on the corner of 10th Street. And then last but not least there will be some trail connections here with the new Gold Line station coming in or at least I should say there's a recommendation to have a network right where that new transit stop will be. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: How do these recommendations get achieved? [00:00] **Shannon Breitlinger**: That's a good question. That will be part of what the consultant is drafting up for us. So he calls it an implementation schedule. It'll provide some feedback on which of these recommendations are the most feasible, which ones we're going to take the shortest amount of time versus the longest amount of time, which might already be funded by alternative sources, which will require internal funding... that sort of a thing. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Well I do like that 10th Street has been addressed as far as going towards the high school and then you know eventually when you get down to Century if Century's addressed because then it's also possible to get to 3M easily. And uh I think that Century... personally I just avoid it now and never bike it. So having a path there would be nice because it is a straight shot. And uh and I don't see anything... well there is already a shared use path going all along Hadley which is nice, except when you hit Stillwater Boulevard and it switches sides of the road and that can be a busy intersection at Hadley and Stillwater depending on the time of day. So it can be dodgy to get to if you want to stay on the path. Yep and I I generally don't—I just keep going on the shoulder along there. But unfortunately yeah there's only a shoulder until the railroad tracks there and so you need to cross over at some point if you're gonna have any shoulder at all and uh so I don't know. I'd look at that intersection as being something where I don't know what they can do there but uh yeah. [00:00] **Shannon Breitlinger**: Yeah our consultant did hear from the community engagement feedback that residents are most desirous of paths that are going to be disconnected from the road so something that has a buffer between the road itself and the path. So the consultant is not recommending any bike lanes that take up a portion of the street or a portion of parking. Everything that's recommended is going to be a separated facility. And our City Council did have some comments to make sure that they that are a consultant understood that connection is important, but there are some places where getting that connection is going to be difficult from a right-of-way perspective, from just the the width of the road. So our consultant has been asked to take a look at just are there standards when it comes to how wide a road is of feasibility of putting in then a separated trail. So having those connections would be great but there are places where it's easier in places where it is more difficult. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Yeah well I do like that there's an effort being made to connect North and South especially you know with the Gateway Trail being a nice recreational trail. If there's more opportunity for people to be able to bike there rather than have to drive and park on the Gateway near the Gateway. So um yeah maybe have to look at this a little more detail but I think it's heading in the right direction. And yeah I think with Willowbrook going in there to have as much connection with with that development is good too. [00:00] **Commissioner Wilson**: Also to that point, Chair Miller, we've pulled you've pulled it—wow, take two—projected to pull in the Tri-Lakes area too, which is DeMontreville, Jane... and like DeMontreville and Olson specifically are the two and that's that's a big thing up there on 50th just north of north of Willowbrook. So that's nice to see. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: And I think that you know having um a shared use path um rather than on the road is is a good approach for encouraging more people because I think people feel safer on a path than on the road and so I think that's a a good part of this plan and uh I I'm good with that approach you know. There are some roads that have very wide shoulders like 10th Street going east where I mean part of that up to Inwood is there is a shared use path already but then beyond there's there's not but I I think that's out of Oakdale. But it's it's a way to get to that more wider shoulder to be able to go towards the Saint Croix. So that was one of my questions previously about connecting with you know the other cities and that and it looks like there are connections um uh from what I see like I said with the Gateway and with uh going east and also going west into the Saint Paul so yep looks like that's been taken into account and then also getting to the Helmo station. So I like like those things about this draft. [00:00] **Commissioner Gerding**: Good and I'll just again echo the need for a plan for 120 or Century. It's our community is spoken and this plan really addresses those voices. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Agreed. [00:00] **Shannon Breitlinger**: Yeah well next steps: I believe that our consultant is still scoped to have one more meeting with the commission. I'm not sure if that's actually going to happen or not so I will get confirmation on that but the commission will see the next draft of um this kind of holistic plan so you'll have the opportunity to provide feedback on it. I'm 99.9 sure you will see the right map and not the wrong map in the next iteration of this so you know plan on that. If you have any more comments in the meantime please feel free to let me know and I will make sure they get to our consultant. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Great thank you Shannon yeah I'll take a more in-depth look and let you know if I have anything further as other Commissioners please do so as well and uh yeah I think it's headed in the right direction I think we need have the improvements uh and be a more bicycle and pedestrian friendly community I know it's uh going to be more difficult and the reason I'm I've kind of always been an on the road biker but um the shared path with the increased uh traffic going through with all the developments and like Elmo and now Willowbrook and that so um yeah I think it's good to be planning that way to have it be a safer off-road type of biking on a on a nice path and uh yeah and with a shared path it's you know it should be wide enough to have both pedestrians and bikes on it yeah. All right well thank you very much it's good to see the progress on this and uh the weather it's not quite bike season yet but it'll be here soon and that's be nice to have this uh like plan moving forward. Okay um this concludes our new business and I just like to kind of summarize that the review of our recycling grant and our this uh bike and pedestrian plan as part of our commission's work plan for the year and it's also directly relates to our City's comprehensive plan so uh and those are noted in our our minutes I won't go back over what part of that but part of the comp plan but they they directly relate to the goals in that comp plan so. Next we have a monthly our monthly review of our editorial calendar of our communications uh for this month and for the next two months we're going to review. And uh this has been something we initiated 2021 yeah I think so yeah and it's been improving all the time and um we've had in February and March already a lot of promotional things put out on social media and other venues um and I'm glad to see that we've we've covered the Arbor Day giveaway and the rain barrel and compost bin sale as well as the watershed conservation grants to property owners. It's good to get that out there ahead of the season so they can start thinking about rain gardens and water and rain barrels and things like that so and also native plantings that uh the watershed provides grants for it. [00:00] **Shannon Breitlinger**: So I will put it out there: April is kind of a broader focus on environmental stewardship and I know that the commission has obviously adopted a number of drains around Walton Park has had them adopted for a couple of years now um so as you are going out and cleaning the drain if you have any desire to take some pictures or have somebody come with you and take a picture of you that would be a really good thing to utilize in some of those posts that go out on social media just to make it a little bit more personal to Oakdale residence itself so that is my ask of you. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Agree. I forget who has March and April I will send the list out again yeah I can do that for you. That was going to be my ask. [Laughter] Um yeah that would be great and I think that um you know we need to keep making that aware of the adopt a drain and adopt a wetland as well those projects and I'll be happy to um do something for adopt a wetland and I've mentioned I live on a pond that goes into a wetland and I've adopted that so um be happy to take some pictures for my during my spring cleanup that would be great yeah. [00:00] **Commissioner Kari Moore**: Quick comment: thanks for the post on March 10th I think that was a Friday about the conservation grants available to to homeowners and residents. Also a shout out to City staff for helping um us as a family personally think through how to sustainably implement several rain gardens on our property. City staff has been amazing at looking at schematics and scope and plans and so just a shout out just for the how this collaboration actually feels living through it—it's been wonderful and I cannot say enough about the partners involved in this whole watershed process so it's been great. Yeah we're nearing our final design scope—very exciting! [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: It's very exciting. So any other comments on the editorial calendar for March April and May? And I'll just point out that May is biking bicycling and walking month and uh there's a bike to work day in May as well as National which is part of National Bike to Work Week and then um and it is National Bike month so some opportunities there also to get some pictures of Commissioners out on the trails here. [00:00] **Commissioner Kari Moore**: This might be cart before the horse and I know we're not even thinking about July August or September but in my head I am. And so to the the presentation um from Monica earlier: is there any space on the calendar to maybe just do a plug or share what we had all learned and talk about in terms of projects or grants or I don't know but there might be something depending on the theme of those later summer months. [00:00] **Shannon Breitlinger**: Yeah I mean I think you know the the nice thing about the editorial calendar is that it's always subject to be edited so we can slot that in wherever you would like to. I know that um August we will be kind of revisiting the conversation about water conservation so that might be a good time to do that as well if that lines up nicely with the timeline for this priority two work group to present some more detailed information that could be a good time to do that. The commission had also requested that somebody from the watershed district come and do a presentation so again that month might be an ideal time. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Great thanks. Are we going to have the environmental fair or what we were thinking of doing at the Discovery Center? [00:00] **Shannon Breitlinger**: Yeah that's I think something that still needs to be ironed out but it is on the editorial calendar and uh June I want to say I think it's also something where you know if we can figure out how to make that work with Summerfest as well there are obviously a number of community tables at Summerfest um so there might be space to have something a little bit more targeted from an environmental perspective but again that's that's a conversation that uh we can have with City staff who are running Summerfest. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: All right well thank you Shannon will yeah this is a a working calendar it's a living document so as we think of other things we can add to just bring those up and bring those to Shannon and uh get them in the calendar. So uh next is our commissioner updates and I have a couple of items but uh if other people have items so go ahead I don't know. Well there are two things coming up um one is the Resilient Cities and Communities uh group they're part of Alliance for Sustainability um they're putting together on Thursday March 30th at 6:30 p.m. a Zoom meeting with the Washington County cities and they will be talking about various environmental issues, resilient cities issues with the cities and it's a time that I they usually have some presentations by on relevant topics and then they also have the city's report on what's going on in their city so um it's a good forum to find out whether other cities are doing and also get usually some pertinent information from experts in different areas. And then the Environmental Commissions Conference for 2023 is going to be Saturday May 20th from 9 a.m. to 12:30 at the Ridgedale Public Library in Minnetonka and that's uh an event of all the commissions in the Twin Cities are invited to that and uh again they usually have some good presentations and generally have small breakout groups on different topics like recycling, solar energy, various things. So again a good forum for seeing what other commissions are doing and having conversation to get more details about that in a small group and I know Commissioners have attended that in the past. So those are my two items. [00:00] **Commissioner Kari Moore**: To piggyback on Chair Miller, the commissioner conference... I believe they're still—are they still calling for—not RFPs but are they still calling for presentation topics? [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Yes they're looking for something okay yeah. Well if there are no other updates um would ask for our City Council update from our mayor. [00:00] **Mayor Kevin Zabel**: Good evening Commissioners. [00:00] **Commissioners**: Good evening. [00:00] **Mayor Kevin Zabel**: Uh on the city council front to be honest a lot of the work lately has been administrative work so we've been polishing up some ordinance language, approving liquor and garden center licenses for the year, um moving the annual Street project forward—so that's always a big one for the city—as well as vacating some minor easements along development projects. So it's been a bit uneventful but that's okay. Um some upcoming events that might be of interest to the EMC: the City's Arbor Day tree giveaway is coming up April 29th. That's always a really cool event where we give out 200 trees to be planted around the city. Um please note registration will open April 3rd so it's a first come first serve sort of thing and I know those slots tend to go pretty quickly. So any residents interested um mark your calendar calendars for April 3rd. Park Cleanup Week is April 24th through the 30th. If any residents are interested in signing up and adopting a park um please visit the city's website for more information. All contact info is there for them. Um and our community spring planting is coming up May 6th and we need more volunteers. This year's planting will be planting dozens of trees along 40th Street by Goose Pond Park so that was a hole in our tree canopy that the city Forester noticed and the tree board is very excited to fill that in. So the planting event itself will run from 9 to 11 a.m. and lunch for volunteers will be served at 11 a.m. until noon. So please come on out bring your gloves a couple hours worth of work but makes a big impact on on the community. Um one last thing following up on your comments about Century Avenue that you made during the bike and pet plan: the newly formed Century Avenue Coalition will be meeting later this week. This is a collaboration of city, county, and state folks. I will be representing the city as well as our City Administrator, but this is an organized effort to get that project moving along. So we will all be sitting down and tackling things like land use and pedestrian and bike traffic and all of those all of those topics that come along with a very large project such as Century Avenue. So stay tuned for updates about that. Uh that's it are there any questions for me? [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Well I just comment that yeah it's great that meeting this week already. [00:00] **Mayor Kevin Zabel**: We are yeah. So Washington County was in last month and you know asking cities you know what what do we want this group to look like and we felt very strongly that there had to be elected and staff representation on this group. So we're kind of coming at the questions and concerns from our residents from both angles. And it's time to move you know there that that project has been lingering for a very long time. Um there are some very big safety concerns with that corridor—we all know them far too well. And with the influx of state and federal funding in terms of infrastructure, it is time for Ramsey Washington County to step up and take that money. So we're... it's a basketball tournament I guess it's March Madness... we're making a full court press. So we want that money and we want to get that project done. Yeah or at least going I should say yeah. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Already thanks everybody thank you thank you. All right um and also at this time um we have other people here at our meeting and the audience and I would if you have some a question or a comment you'd like to make at this time you can come forward to the podium and give your name and address and uh and and speak. [00:00] **Monica Stiglich**: Hi Monica Stiglich, I spoke earlier at the meeting. Uh my address is 2939 Granada Lane North, resident since July 1974. When we uh built our house here there weren't streetlights, there weren't sidewalks... we've come a long way. Luckily where we built the curb was in the storm and sewer were separated, city water was in. The city has come a long way and it's it's really good to see the activity. And even as mentioned that Coalition on Century Avenue... I was just thinking about the easement issues and everything else that are going to have to be duped out with with a lot of property owners along the way on that. But uh the city's done a remarkable job and the efforts of this group are again I I read I read the magazine City magazine when it comes out it's it's important because not many people go online. I don't particularly what I do occasionally... again with the water settlement issues I was talking about earlier I've really been doing a lot of deep dives on all those matters but not everybody does that. So some of the printed matter that gets sent out I really encourage: don't forget you've got to send out printed matter periodically to people. I think the reason why those two items were passed in the last election for the Public Works and the police facilities, I think it's because of that mailing that was sent out because otherwise people may not have even gone in to vote. So don't forget! Yes we got to do the electronic thing but don't forget people need to see stuff in their mailbox too and it will it really does make an impact. Every way you can communicate you need to. Okay thank you. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Thank you. Well we're now at the end of our meeting just say that our next regular meeting will be Monday April 17th at 7 p.m. here in the council chambers. So with uh with that I would look for a motion to adjourn our meeting. [00:00] **Commissioner Wilson**: So moved. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Do I have a second? [00:00] **Commissioner Kari Moore**: Second. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: All in favor of adjourning our March 20th 2023 meeting of the Oakdale Environmental Management commission say "Aye." [00:00] **Commissioners**: Aye. [00:00] **Chair Keith Miller**: Opposed? [Silence] Meeting adjourned.