This transcript features the Lake Elmo City Council meeting. As noted in the dialogue, **Mayor Charles Cadenhead** is absent, and **Council Member Jeff Holtz** is presiding as **Acting Mayor**. The "Miss Monuso/Meruso" referred to in the text is **Ashley Muros**, the city’s Sustainability Specialist/Green Team lead. *** **[00:00:00] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Uh, next item on the agenda is the approval of the agenda. Absent of any motions to amend, I will entertain a motion to approve. **[00:00:25] Council Member Matt Hirn:** I move to approve the agenda. **[00:00:27] Council Member Nick Kragness:** Second. **[00:00:29] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Probably no discussion. All those in favor of the motion, please signify by saying I. **[00:00:32] Council Members (Unison):** I. **[00:00:34] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Motion passes because I did not say no. Presentation C. We have a presentation on sustainability from the green team. So, Miss Jensen, no, no, no. Miss Muros. **[00:00:45] Ashley Muros (Sustainability Specialist):** Hello. Uh, good evening, council. So, let me pull up my presentation first. Okay. So, tonight the city is receiving an award for participating in the gold leaf program with the MPCA. So, ahead of receiving our award, you're going to hear a short presentation from Kristen Morose about both the gold leaf program and the green step cities programs. Uh this is meant to be a refresher on the program since the city has been participating um for a number of years now from back when we were uh when the program first launched. Uh so after that presentation uh we can do a quick photo and then I'll come back up and give some sustainability updates on the work that we're doing and uh then I'll let you get back to your scheduled meeting. So with that I will introduce Kristen Morose, director of the green steps and gold leaf program at the MPCA. Thanks. **[00:01:35] Kristen Morose (MPCA):** Hi, good evening council. Um, excited to be here. I'll get to the presentation momentarily, but I gotta um get you through some slides here first just to give you a little bit of background, a reminder about the green stuff program and um how Lake Elmo has been participating in that program uh over the years... [Detailed presentation on Step 5 status and Gold Leaf Challenge] ...And so, those are the two actions that I am excited to present with you tonight. And I will show you our award here is a tree, which is very fitting because one of your actions was tree-related. And as you take actions, you get a little leaf that you can plop in the top like Plinko. Uh, and shake it up if you want and your tree grows over time. So, really emphasizing that. Um, taking um, you know, add additional actions um maybe as quickly as possible is really the goal of of the program here. So, with that, I think we're going to maybe take a little break and hand it off. **[00:02:10] Ashley Muros:** Yeah. **[00:02:11] Kristen Morose:** Okay. **[00:02:12] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Um so, yeah, we can pause if you guys want to take a photo or we can take it later and then I can continue to go with the sustainability updates that I have for you. **[00:02:20] Kristen Morose:** And I should also ask if there were any questions before we pause to do that. **[00:02:25] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Make the call. **[00:02:26] Council Member Matt Hirn:** Let's do it. **[00:02:27] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Okay. Do it. I know. The one thing that's hard is like they get stuck in the bottom or they're upside down. I don't need—Okay. Okay, you ready? [Photo break] Thank you. **[00:02:40] Kristen Morose:** Thank you. Yeah, that's mine tonight. I just want to sit. **[00:02:45] Ashley Muros:** Okay. Um, so as Kristen laid out, we we did start a green team last year... [Update on Fuel Cloud, grass species research, Tree City USA, and the 2026-2027 Comprehensive Plan updates]. And if you have any questions on any of these programs, feel free to to reach out to me. So, thanks. **[00:05:30] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Thank you, Miss Muros. Any questions for staff or for Miss Morose? Thank you for your efforts on this. Thank you for putting the team together and thank you for coming all the way out to Lake Elmo. **[00:05:40] Kristen Morose:** Hopefully we can have you back for more leaves. **[00:05:42] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** One leaf a trip every time. **[00:05:44] Council Member Nick Dragisich:** That's not a lot. **[00:05:45] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** That's not sustainable or good for climate change. A certain amount or you don't get any. Do we have any public comments or inquiries for tonight? **[00:05:55] Julie Johnson (City Clerk):** No. **[00:05:56] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Uh E is approval of minutes. Has everyone had a chance to go through the minutes for February 17? Absent of hearing any changes, I entertain a motion. **[00:06:05] Council Member Nick Kragness:** So moved. **[00:06:07] Council Member Matt Hirn:** Support. **[00:06:08] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Motion to what? **[00:06:10] Council Member Nick Kragness:** Motion to approve the minutes from the 2/17/2026 city council meeting. **[00:06:15] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Thank you. and support. Okay, we have a motion and a second to approve the minutes from February 17. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. **[00:06:22] Council Members (Unison):** I. **[00:06:24] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** None are opposed. Motion passes. Item F, consent agenda. [Reads items 1-6]. All those in favor of—oh, we need a motion. **[00:06:50] Council Member Matt Hirn:** I move to approve the consent agenda as presented. **[00:06:53] Council Member Nick Kragness:** Second. **[00:06:55] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** There's a motion and a second on the floor to approve the consent agenda as written. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. **[00:07:00] Council Members (Unison):** I. **[00:07:02] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** There are none opposed. The motion passes and the consent agenda is approved as provided in the packet. Item G, regular agenda, class and compensation update. **[00:07:15] Jennifer Doyle (Administrative Services Director):** Yes. Good evening. Um, in front of you tonight is a request to move forward with a compensation study... [Explains the need for a refresh of the 2022 Baker Tilly study and introduces the recommended vendor]. Brandon Fitz Simmons from Flaherty and Hood is here to present the scope of the proposed project and answer any questions you may have. **[00:08:45] Brandon Fitz Simmons (Flaherty & Hood):** All right. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council members. Well, unfortunately, I don't won't have a shiny reward to provide to you after this presentation... I took the sustainable route. There are three of us who could have presented from the firm and I was it because I live in the friendly confines of Stillwater. So uh it's good to be to our neighbors to the west... [Detailed presentation on Phase A through H of the compensation study]. Any questions? **[00:15:30] Council Member Matt Hirn:** Yeah, I was just hoping uh if you could maybe kind of dig into—you mentioned that the report would be customized. I guess I just would like to hear a little bit more about how do you go about customizing it? I know obviously a lot of that benchmark data, but maybe like an example like how would how would it be customized compared to like if Stillwater did this, right? **[00:16:00] Brandon Fitz Simmons:** Yeah. So we for example have done Stillwater and Oakdale... [Explains looking at tax capacity per capita and lack of a police department for Lake Elmo]. **[00:16:45] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** What would be some of the limitations that you've seen for cities similarly positioned to ours where it's a difficulty that's arose during your study? It's something where you had to have some back and forth with council or with staff where you think that that's something we should be aware of to put on our radar of potential hurdles. **[00:17:05] Brandon Fitz Simmons:** Yep. So I think two things with that. One, it can become personal... [Explains potential pushback from employees regarding wage freezes or unions going directly to Council]. **[00:18:20] Council Member Nick Kragness:** What's a a reasonable goal you have for how many comparables to have? **[00:18:25] Brandon Fitz Simmons:** Yeah. Now, what's ideal... the utopia is usually 7 to 11... I think right now, we're probably going to look at the 10 to 15 range based on your growth. **[00:19:15] Council Member Matt Hirn:** Maybe just on the opposite side of the the example that you gave... what happens when it comes back and we're underpaying and then we have to we have to also compromise that with well, okay, now we got to look at the budget. How does this work with how we're trying to manage our increases in the tax levy? **[00:19:40] Brandon Fitz Simmons:** Yeah. So, one, we sort of know though you tried to a band-aid fix, you did have a market problem there for you, a recruitment retention problem... we're spending many hours with Nicole and Jennifer running the numbers... we may have to phase it in. **[00:21:00] Council Member Matt Hirn:** And and do do we have future discussions about how those two should play together as this process is going about where you get some feedback from council? **[00:21:15] Brandon Fitz Simmons:** Yeah, I mean this is a good point here. Let's talk raw... proactively in the middle of a study, do we come to the council? No, because I'll be again trying to be real practical working with councils. I don't like going to councils with sort of a halfway here's what we're kind of sort of thinking. **[00:22:15] Council Member Matt Hirn:** Yeah. Uh, one with that. So with the 2022 study that we did with Baker Tilly, how often do we feel that that type of study does need to be done? The more comprehensive, right? **[00:22:30] Jennifer Doyle:** Four, five, six years is probably when you really want to. **[00:22:35] Council Member Matt Hirn:** Is there—I guess why wait now then? Even though I I don't know if I want to do the whole thing. I guess why wait at this point if we're doing the study? **[00:22:42] Jennifer Doyle:** This would tide us over for another couple years. **[00:22:45] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Absent any further questions, I'll entertain a motion for discussion. **[00:22:50] Council Member Nick Kragness:** Motion to approve the Flaherty and Hood agreement providing compensation update services. **[00:22:55] Council Member Matt Hirn:** Support. **[00:22:57] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** There's a motion and a second on the approval of the Flaherty and Hood agreement. Any discussion? **[00:23:00] Council Member Nick Dragisich:** Perhaps you could um talk a little bit about the benchmark positions. I'm not sure everyone's on board with you know what you what what you're exactly describing. **[00:23:10] Brandon Fitz Simmons:** Yep. So when it comes to benchmarking... [Explains hierarchy and representing every department]. **[00:23:55] Council Member Nick Dragisich:** So you compare these job descriptions with Lake Elmo with the other cities make sure they're comparable with benchmarks match up pretty well. **[00:24:05] Brandon Fitz Simmons:** Yeah. So we're real methodical in that. **[00:24:15] Council Member Matt Hirn:** I I know I had a lot of questions on it, but you know, I do support this... I think in a situation where we're talking about compensation, obviously, um it's probably best to outsource that so there's no questions about fairness. **[00:24:50] Council Member Nick Kragness:** I would also comment that I'm familiar with Flaherty and Hood for many years... I have no qualms about your qualifications. **[00:25:05] Council Member Nick Dragisich:** I'm in favor of it. I mean in full disclosure, you know, I ran management consulting for Springsted... so very familiar with it. I built the computer models for it. I agree the benchmarking does matter. If it's off, the report is junk. **[00:25:35] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** I support the motion. This is a part of our budget to begin with... I expect a quality report and um I look forward to seeing it. Seeing no further discussion I'll call a question all those in favor of the underlying motion please signify by saying I. **[00:25:55] Council Members (Unison):** I. **[00:25:57] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** There are none opposed the motion passes. Thank you for this. Item two, storm water management utility code review, Miss Miller. **[00:26:05] Nicole Miller (City Administrator):** Thank you, acting mayor and council... we added it into our 2026 budget based on that discussion and then um I just wanted to bring it back to make sure that um council was on board with the scope still. Nate [Stanley] is here to answer them. **[00:26:40] Council Member Nick Kragness:** Motion to approve the scope for review of storm water fee as provided by Bolton and Menk. **[00:26:45] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** I will second. So, we have discussion. **[00:26:50] Council Member Nick Dragisich:** Yeah, the storm water utility has a large number of issues that we've talked about and this proposed analysis doesn't solve those. It it it patched around the edges of them... what about the HOAs that have storm water ponds that they pay themselves for? ...We have 25 people who receive a discounted storm water fee that nobody knows why... let's put together an RFP that addresses all of those issues and do one study and get it right. **[00:28:15] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Would it be fair to say your analysis is is putting the cart before the horse? Because what I'm hearing is running the numbers is part two if you're not if you're not reviewing the underlying policies. **[00:28:30] Clarissa Hadler (Finance Director):** Um just as as additional information, staff is already working on at least a couple of the items that Council Member Dragisich mentioned... it would be good to get everybody on the same page so that we're not creating an RFP for something that staff has already done a bunch of work on. **[00:29:15] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** For the other two [HOAs and equity charges], is that something where external assistance is needed? **[00:29:25] Clarissa Hadler:** I mean that that's up to you guys... there's additional discussions that need to be had around that obviously we're going to start those next week and then there was more of the structure of the fees. We're certainly not qualified to do that and that's why we had brought in Bolton and Menk to do that portion. **[00:30:15] Nate Stanley (City Engineer):** Yeah. So, the way the fees calculated, there's a hand—there's eight um categories right now. The intent of this review was to take a look at those... looking at what other communities are doing... we can certainly wait. **[00:31:30] Council Member Nick Dragisich:** There are cities now that include the impervious area streets in their impervious area calculation... because you put in a big commercial development, you add turn lanes... and it generates a lot more runoff. **[00:32:15] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** I thought you were retired. **[00:32:16] Council Member Nick Dragisich:** That I was tired. No, I'm awake. **[00:32:18] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Retired. **[00:32:20] Council Member Nick Dragisich:** So, but those are those are some of the things... The other point when we talk about you know surface water and capital improvements the ordinance itself says that the revenue from the storm utility shall not—can be—but *shall* be used for capital improvements in developed areas. It's not an option. **[00:33:45] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** I will call the question. All those in favor of the underlying motion [to approve original scope] please signify by saying I. All those opposed? **[00:33:55] Council Members (Unison):** Nay / No. [Motion fails]. **[00:34:00] Council Member Nick Dragisich:** I will make a motion to undertake a review of our storm water utility. Um first to look at the charge system and to make sure it's fair and equitable... and ask Bolton and Menk to provide us with a proposal to do that. I would suggest also then ask that the finance department continue its work on the fees and the funding of projects... and that we ask staff to come back with a recommendation how we deal with the HOA storm water agreements to treat everybody fairly. **[00:35:15] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Second. Any further discussion? Seeing no further discussion, all those in favor of the motion, please signify by saying I. **[00:35:30] Council Members (Unison):** I. **[00:35:32] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** There are no opposed. Council reports, Mr. Dragisich. **[00:35:35] Council Member Nick Dragisich:** No further reports. I caused enough trouble. **[00:35:38] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** That is factually true. Um I do not have a report at this time. I look forward to the mayor returning from out of town so he can take his leadership role as mayor. Uh but I do not have anything further. Miss Miller. **[00:35:55] Nicole Miller:** Later this month we'll be having our annual employee recognition... and then we will be launching our second employee survey. That's it. **[00:36:05] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Miss Doyle. **[00:36:06] Jennifer Doyle:** No report. **[00:36:07] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Miss Muros. **[00:36:08] Ashley Muros:** No report. **[00:36:10] Clarissa Hadler:** You guys, I just have to tell you the number of improvements in efficiency with our new software is mindblowing. Thank you again for your support. I would also like to thank anybody who has already signed up for our new payment system for utility billing. **[00:36:45] Council Member Nick Dragisich:** I just want you to know that I personally appreciate that effort. **[00:36:50] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Director Tholen, welcome to the chambers. Would you like to introduce yourself? What would he like to know, I guess? Are you a Gopher fan or a Badger fan? **[00:37:05] Pete Tholen (Public Works Director):** Gopher. **[00:37:07] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** You are good to go. Thank you. Give the man a raise. **[00:37:10] Pete Tholen:** Third week here. pleasure to be here. looking forward to time here at city of Lake Elmo now. **[00:37:25] Acting Mayor Jeff Holtz:** Seeing that and there's no further items on the agenda, this meeting is adjourned at 8:33.