Based on the context provided and the content of the dialogue, here is the transcribed townhall meeting with speaker names added. [0:04] **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** I’d like to welcome everyone to the regular meeting of the Moose Lake City Council for Wednesday, June 16th, 2019. The first item is the Pledge of Allegiance. [Pledge of Allegiance] [0:37] **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** The next item is the approval of the agenda. Do we have any additions or changes to the agenda? Hearing none, do we have a motion to approve the agenda? Have a second? All in favor say aye. Opposed? Motion carried. Item number two, the consent agenda. We have the minutes for April 10th, 2019. Any discussion or questions on the minutes? Administrator, do you have anything? Hearing none, do I have a motion to accept the minutes? All in favor say aye. Motion carried. [1:26] **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** Moving on to the financial reports. Number one is the City accounts payable for May 2019. Number two is the city financial statements for April 2019. Number three is the liquor store profit and loss through April 2019. Any discussion or questions? [2:17] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** They are a little bit different than last year. We just started separating them out into beer, wine, and liquor. Prior to separating them out, we put them in a miscellaneous line. Now that we've started the summary, we split them up into disputed liquor. This is the first year that we'll have the entire year's worth of purchases for beer, purchases for wine, and then sales for beer and sales for wine. That'll allow us to compare. [3:05] **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** Any other questions or discussion? [No response]. I'll take a motion to accept the financial report. All in favor say aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Item number three, public comment. This time is reserved for comments from the public on matters not on the agenda. Please keep your comments to three minutes. If you’d like to speak, would you come up to the podium? [3:49] **Tyler Prescott (AmeriCorps):** Hi there. My name is Tyler Prescott. **Tiana Johnson (AmeriCorps):** My name is Tiana Johnson. **Tyler Prescott (AmeriCorps):** And we're part of AmeriCorps NCCC, which is AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps. What we're doing here is we're working in the Willow River, Minnesota area right now working at One Heartland. Part of our job as project outreach liaisons is to spread the word about what we're doing in the area and let you guys know what we're doing and if there are people that we can help in the future. What the National Civilian Community Corps is, is an 11-month service term that 18 to 24-year-olds serve in. We go to communities that would benefit from our assistance and we help them in five areas. We work in urban and rural development—it could be tutoring kids in after-school programs. We work in natural and other disasters, doing disaster cleanup work and emergency shelters. We do infrastructure improvements, building houses for a community, and environmental stewardship and conservation, which could be building trails or energy conservation like installing solar panels. We do a bunch of different stuff. We're just here to kind of let you guys know what we're doing in the area and if you guys living in Moose Lake, Minnesota—anywhere in the community or nearby communities—could benefit from our help as well. Tiana will talk about what we're doing at One Heartland. [5:20] **Tiana Johnson (AmeriCorps):** Right now, we're working with some infrastructure and fixing up the camp. It’s a camp that focuses on about five different areas that need improvement, like social problems in the community. What we do is we serve as counselors, we help the kids in the community, and we help kids with health issues like severe obesity. We're also helping to improve the grounds overall. We're just here so you can hear about what NCCC is. We have these things called "Requests for Proposals" that just kind of tell you more about what our organization is and how to apply if you know of sponsoring organizations. That's just an organization that could benefit from our help. The last thing I want to say is the only people who can take part is if you're a nonprofit organization, government organization, or a tribal organization. We work with nonprofits as well. [7:12] **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** Yes, I would love that. We’ll get in contact with you guys. Maybe send out a press release. How is your organization funded? **Tyler Prescott (AmeriCorps):** We are federally funded by the government. It started with the CCC, the Civilian Conservation Corps, that came in and tried to help during the Great Depression. This is the continuation of that. **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** So you are more domesticated, helping out the environment here? **Tyler Prescott (AmeriCorps):** We travel all across the United States. It's not just in this region. Thank you guys for listening very much. [8:22] **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** Moving down to the Law Enforcement report. **Kelly Lake (Sheriff/Law Enforcement Lead):** Please see the report for April 1st to April 30th, 2019. This was actually a very, very busy month. A couple of things that we've been working on include the mandatory training required for officers: use of force, tactical blood-borne pathogens, and weapon retention. I also met with the new County Attorney to go over some of the expectations that they have and that we may have within our office. Another mandatory training day is set for September. "Moms and Hags" is set for Saturday, May 25th, at the Emergency Response Center from 10:00 to 1:00. It's always a fun event with games for the kids. Another thing I talked about is meeting with FirstNet. FirstNet is a cell phone provider that works with emergency response and cities. Pretty much what it does is, in case of an emergency where cell phone towers get overloaded, law enforcement, public works, and cities go to the top of the list. Hopefully, there will never be an interruption in case of a large event. We did the numbers and it's $42 more every month. I think it’s something you might want to look at; it’s not a lot of cost for assuring us communication. [10:37] **Douglas Juntunen (Council Member):** Is that for all of our phones in the city and also our computers? **Kelly Lake (Sheriff/Law Enforcement Lead):** That’s for everything. Just $42 dollars a month for public works, for your cell phones, everything. For our squad computers, it takes care of everything city-wide. It actually puts us in the top tier even when it's not an emergency, so we'll have better data and better service because we're on the top of the list no matter what. [12:20] **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** I think we should do this. It’s just a matter of if you want to do it now or wait. **Kris Huso (Council Member):** I think it's great. I make a motion that we switch to FirstNet. **Walter Lower III (Council Member):** Second. **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** All favor say aye. Motion carried. [13:12] **Kelly Lake (Sheriff/Law Enforcement Lead):** Next, we need portable radios. The problem is they're not making parts for our radios anymore and they're going to stop supporting them. We were able to get ours fixed, which is good, but if you have a certain model, they won't fix them, which is very frustrating. Portable radios are incredibly expensive. I did submit a grant through Enbridge for $7,500 to purchase new radios. They received it, but we missed the spring deadline, so we're looking at the fall. I contacted the representative for this area and he said he was going to follow up with Enbridge. I think we have a pretty good chance. [14:14] **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** What was the cost of those radios? **Kelly Lake (Sheriff/Law Enforcement Lead):** Approximately $6,000 each. This is a grant we can apply for yearly. [15:01] **Douglas Juntunen (Council Member):** Is this the same condition for the Fire Department this year? **Kelly Lake (Sheriff/Law Enforcement Lead):** Theirs is cheaper. They don't have the encrypted channels and 800MHz like we do. They're probably looking at $3,000 or $4,000. I’ve been meeting with the Sheriff's office to see if they're working on a package deal. We also had a bomb maker presentation at Mercy Hospital for medical professionals. It was very well attended and well received. We also worked the Chris Hawkeye concert at the arena. I was a little hesitant about the situation, but they did a great job. There were approximately 475 people and there were no problems with the beer garden. It was a well-run concert. [17:25] **Kelly Lake (Sheriff/Law Enforcement Lead):** Finally, this last week has been crazy. We executed search warrants for controlled substances at a couple of different locations and recovered stolen property tied to three or four burglaries. Two individuals and a woman are in custody. Our team has handled over 100 cases already this year. We're really blessed to have an investigator and a crew of guys who are incredibly hard-working. [18:22] **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** Thank you. Moving to the City Superintendent report. **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** Members of Council, for the month of April, we produced 4.1 million gallons of drinking water. The collection system collected 21.9 million gallons of wastewater. Last month during the dry season, we only collected 14.5 million. That means 7.4 million gallons is mostly groundwater leaking into our pipes. That’s a huge problem. It's the sewer main that runs through the town; that’s going to be a project. Discharge at the wastewater facility was completed—that was 41 million gallons—and we passed all samples. Station calibrations were completed in April. We had a surprise MPCA inspection. It was a last-minute phone call. He went through everything, including records going back five years, and so far he likes everything he sees. [20:18] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** Street department: street-sweeping is completed, pothole filling is done. Storm sewer repairs start next week. For the cemeteries, we hired Wyatt Martin Lane. He is doing an exceptional job. He knows more about cutting grass than I ever thought there was to know. We had CIA in there to do cleanup, and the cemeteries are looking very nice. There's a lot of maintenance up there, it's unbelievable. We also replaced the door at the Riverside Cemetery which had been broken for years. Any questions? [21:50] **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** Good job, Phil. Technology and Library report. There’s a report from Shelby in your packet. Rory, you have something? [22:38] **Rory (Technology):** I got a price from Dell for a larger hard drive. We need it to keep our video content. Right now, I'm using my personal computer's hard drives, which I built in 2016, and I'm down to maybe a summer's worth of projects before it's full. I priced out something that would take us into the future—a "mega" hard drive or server box. At some point, if the city gets a beefed-up computer, we can hook this hard drive up to it. This is necessary if we move toward a server for public access stuff in the new year. Portable hard drives break down, and I’ve already lost one. This new system would have a RAID configuration for redundancy, so if you lose one drive, you don't lose the data. [25:53] **Douglas Juntunen (Council Member):** Could we start with fewer drives to save money? **Rory (Technology):** The box itself is $900, and then you add the drives. The biggest thing is we're in an odd place where we're using someone's personal computer to do city work. **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Is 100% of this going to be used by the city or 75%? **Rory (Technology):** About 90% of the stuff on my computer right now is the city. We also do stuff with the school, but most public access stations have school content. I need the workspace for my projects this summer—baseball games, these meetings, band concerts. I don't want to run out of space because the computer starts to crash. [29:45] **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** The total is $2,786.56. If the city purchases it, do we pay sales tax? **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** No, if the city purchases it, the cost would be around $2,478. **Douglas Juntunen (Council Member):** If we reduce it to four hard drives instead of five, what does that do to the cost? **Rory (Technology):** I'm not exactly sure, but the RAID system needs a certain amount of drives for that redundancy. [32:07] **Kris Huso (Council Member):** I’ll make a motion to approve the purchase of the station and drives for $2,478. **Walter Lower III (Council Member):** Second. **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** All in favor say aye. Motion carried. Thank you, Rory. [33:03] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Moving on to City Engineering. The Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) is done and includes costs for each project. I’d like to present that and the assessment policy at the same time next month. I’ve asked the engineer to come next month so we can have a public hearing for both. I'm requesting we set that for 6:00 PM on Wednesday, June 12th. [34:52] **Douglas Juntunen (Council Member):** I just don't want to be presented it at the public hearing and then have to make a decision immediately. **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** I can move it back to July if you want more time to review. The sooner we do the assessment policy, the sooner we can plan road projects in our budget for next year. I'll move the hearing to July. Also, regarding the water model project: next month we’ll be going through pressure-reducing valves and booster stations. We’re trying to figure out if we need all that equipment for the new wells. We also need to do some testing on the sewer lines down at the campground because they’re close to the wells. [38:20] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** One thing I'd like us to do this summer is talk to MSOP. They have that line that was put in back in 1935. We should start communication with them about connecting to the brand-new line we put in four years ago that they never connected to. **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** I agree. We need to look at their budget. They think they paid us off to go away, but that old line is 700 years old—or feels like it—and it’s going to break. [40:32] **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** Chamber of Commerce updates. **Kris Huso (Council Member):** We met our new executive director, Allison Jones, but she won’t start until late August. This Saturday is the Business Expo at Riverside Arena from 9:00 to 1:00. Also, on June 15th, there’s the fly-in pancake breakfast. [42:07] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Regarding old business, work on the catch basins will start next week. Also, the Chris Hawkeye concert—as the Sheriff said, they did a very nice job. The park mobility and roof replacement at the pavilion looks really nice. **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** The bank paid for a bunch of electrical work and 20 picnic tables with their logo on them. A big thank you to them. They also fixed the spelling on the pavilion sign. It's been wrong for 40 or 50 years. [44:17] **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** New business. 2018 Audit presentation. **CLA Auditor:** Hello, I’m a Principal with CliftonLarsonAllen. I’ve been auditing governments for 28 years. I want to say, I find this city very interesting. I learned a lot about softball fields and drainage today. Just to jump in, I saw a program in another city for a "Junior City Council Member" where high schoolers get a scholarship to attend meetings. It’s a great way to get young people involved. Anyway, looking at your 2018 audit. The actual audited statements aren't 100% finished as we're waiting on some data from Carlton County, but this is the tentative report. Regarding communications, there were no disagreements with management. We are required to report on internal controls. There are three items, the same as 2017: one is segregation of duties, which is typical for a city your size. [49:23] **CLA Auditor:** Your net position increased by over $600,000, so your net worth improved. In the general fund, your fund balance increased by about $144,000. You have about eight months of reserves, which is very healthy. Most organizations recommend at least five months. Regarding revenues, taxes and intergovernmental revenue make up the biggest pieces of the pie. [52:30] **CLA Auditor:** Your debt went down as bond payments were made on schedule. The liquor store had a great year; revenues were up $31,000. That’s six years in a row of profit. The sewer fund is closer to breaking even than it’s ever been. The water fund is also stable. The Motor Vehicle fund had expenses exceeding revenues, but that’s a tough one to control. Overall, the city is in a solid position. Your staff is amazing to work with. [59:32] **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** Thank you. Next item, the Sunset Cemetery entrance easement request. **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** This is an easement request for the entrance of the cemetery. Mike is here to discuss it. The neighbors would prefer an easement off the entrance rather than trucks driving down their road. **Mike (Petitioner):** Thank you. I’m looking for a small easement to get onto Highway 61 through your property. The residents asked me to request this because the current road is dangerous and narrow for trucks. I signed a statement saying I won't work during funerals or on Memorial Day. [1:01:51] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** The Cemetery Board discussed this and they are against it. They’re concerned about dust and traffic during funerals. They’d rather see you put in a different entrance on your own property. **Mike (Petitioner):** It would only be 50 feet touching the road. I’ve talked to the county about an additional entrance onto 61, but they suggested using the existing driveway. **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** I wouldn't be in support of this. I think the cemetery should be a quiet place. I have family there. **Douglas Juntunen (Council Member):** I agree. We should support the Cemetery Board’s decision. **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** It sounds like we don’t have consensus to move forward with the easement. Mike, you can talk to the county again and come back if something changes. [1:08:13] **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** Moving to the hiring of Angela. The selection committee has selected Angela for the position. I’ll take a motion. **Kris Huso (Council Member):** So moved. **Walter Lower III (Council Member):** Second. **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** All in favor say aye. Motion carried. [1:09:54] **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** Item 6C, part-time police officers. **Kelly Lake (Sheriff/Law Enforcement Lead):** We’re looking to add Jake Kristofferson and Ben Neff to the part-time list. The nice thing is they are already licensed, so we don't have to pay for mandatory training. **Douglas Juntunen (Council Member):** I’ll make a motion to approve. **Kris Huso (Council Member):** Second. **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** All in favor say aye. [1:10:48] **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** Item 6E, annual bridge inspection. The county says the bridge is still in good shape. Item 6F, the "Ragnar Relay" approval. This is a 200-mile running relay. They’ll be passing through town over a 12-hour period. They just need a letter saying we’re okay with it. They aren't causing a big congestion like the MS 150; it's just individual runners. I don’t think we need a police officer there for 12 hours for that. [1:13:46] **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** Item 6G, the Aqua-Terra quote for a dump trailer. **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Phil has been asking for a dump trailer. We have money in the capital budget because we didn't buy the snow pusher. **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** We need it for the cemeteries and other departments. **Douglas Juntunen (Council Member):** I’ll make a motion to purchase the dump trailer. **Kris Huso (Council Member):** Second. **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** All favor say aye. Now, the leaf vacuum, the "Cyclone Rake." **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** It's for the leaves in the cemetery and the streets. **Walter Lower III (Council Member):** I’ll make a motion to purchase the Cyclone Rake. **Kris Huso (Council Member):** Second. **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** All in favor say aye. [1:18:17] **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** Next is the Police Chief contract. Do I have a motion to accept the contract? **Douglas Juntunen (Council Member):** Motion to accept. **Kris Huso (Council Member):** Second. **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Kelly, I want to thank you. You do a very good job and you care deeply about this community. [1:20:14] **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** Finally, the Wastewater Treatment Facility Operational Award. This is a certificate of commendation presented to the Moose Lake plant and its staff—Phil Entner and his crew—for exceptional compliance during 2018. This is the first one we've received of this type. **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** Thank you. **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** You guys deserve a lot of credit. Committee and board minutes are in your packets. Any final questions? Hearing none, I’ll take a motion to adjourn. **Kris Huso (Council Member):** Motion to adjourn. **Walter Lower III (Council Member):** Second. **Jim Michalski (Mayor):** All favor say aye. Meeting adjourned.