went down to the both drive down there. His son went down with him. Oh, okay. So, he went down early and I didn't go down. How long does it take you to get there? Um, you about 8 and a half 8:45 depending. No, coming home though because of all the traffic was a lot longer. And if I drive by myself, it's a lot faster than Andy has gone for a year. Hi, Andy. Yes, you take forever. Yeah, he likes to tool around the gas station looking for snacks. That's for sure. I have been in front of like you've seen the IKEA commercials, right? When she's like, "Start the car." Okay. I have been in the driver's seat in front of the doors of a gas station looking through the window going. How about you guys? Part of our road trip experience is getting snacks. What's his goto? Oh. All of it. Um, he likes the Is it like the the crisp like the cheese crisps or something? Is his favorite? Um, anything really. It doesn't. There isn't one. What's yours? Hurry up and get there. Get out of the car. Done. Let's go. You're one of those. [ __ ] police. I'm looking around to see what kind of knickknacks they got. always coming up with spoons and shot glasses by the state to round out the There's some nice truck stops in Iowa and Missouri. There are there are spend the day. There's like one that's supposed to be really big that you could What's the name of that one? Oh my god. I've never been to one. Okay. Well, you and Andy can drive down together. I'll see you three days later with your your shot glasses and okay. Um and on that note, if it's 5:30, I will call this work session to order. First, we've got the city manager report. Good evening, mayor and council. We have some updates. Andrew is going to be helping us out on the first couple here. So, uh the countyy's planning a seal coat project on Jonathan Carver Parkway. So, Andrew. So they right now tenatively they're planning for Saturday morning July 26th. Um they're doing it on a Saturday to because they're going to have to close down the road. So they're going to start about 6:00 a.m. and they need to get through the roundabout and then they're going to open it up and then finish the rest. So hopefully by about 10:00 that morning everything is going to be open to at least one lane of traffic. Um but it will be shut down. uh for a few hours while they get through that portion. So, they're going to set up road closing signs about a week ahead of time, the normal deal. Um they're going to send us some detour plan so we can get that out to the community so people can be aware of that. But, um I think like the pits closed down on Saturday and some of that other stuff. So, hopefully it's a minimal disruption to people. But uh so that will be happening. Hopefully it doesn't rain for that plant day. Otherwise uh they're always going to do it on a weekend morning just to limit the amount of traffic. So I have a question then too. So does the school get notifi notified? I know we're not in school right now, but are there any like sports or camps or anything that might be happening at the elementary school might affect I don't know their normal process for when they close down roads who gets notified. Usually it's like fire and sheriff's office and those types of people. Can we check on that though because that'll come back to us if it if it does happen. Yep. Thank you. Andrew, because they're like spraying the tar down. It I'm Why can't they just close down one lane in each direction instead of a full closure? um just to get through the roundabout just because they um just that traffic mingling or however they close it down, I guess. So, okay. It's kind of But they're going to close down from 212. Nope. Nope. Oh, just it's going to be closed from uh Ironwood to 4th hard closure for 4 hours. Okay. So, be the entirety of JCB. Okay. So, people either have to go around. Okay, that makes sense. Okay, just for a few hours. Is there a larger area of the project? They're doing the whole entirety of JCP basically from um 61 I think. Yeah, Boulevard, Levi Griffin Road. Okay. But the full closure is something I would Here's the map. I don't know the roads that No, that's fine. They're doing the whole stretch of JCB. Basically, whatever they have fixed in the last or repaved in the last 3 years, this is kind of a program that after 3 years, they do a chip seal to help prevent the pavement. Okay. Wrecking. That looks like it might be. But you said the full closure is only from Ironwood to Okay. That looks like it's Yeah. to Old Carver Road. They'll get us a better map and all that stuff. 150 ft south of Fourth Street to the 61. So that is the entire length for number eight, which is the section we're talking about. Okay. All right. Sorry. Pass it around. Um, so that's that project. And then we have Creekide Park schedule updates that we just got today. Um, next week they're going to start the sanitary sewer extension through the park, so we won't have to rip that up again. uh in the future when the Southwest extension starts. Um the following week they're planning on seating some of the pavement work that they have left, sports court surfacing, pickle ball mats, all that good stuff. Um looks like the shelter is also going to start the week of the 20th. Um that'll take a couple weeks and then they'll just have normal punch list cleanup items. But um you know the grass not getting seated until late July, it's going to take a while for that to come up. So I would assume we keep the park closed for as long as possible to let that grass get established. Is it going to be watered during that time? It's not going to be watered. It might be. I told them to hook up to the hydrant there and set up some temp irrigation. Okay. To at least get some of it wet. But I feel like just before you were with the city in Ironwood Park, we kind of it might have been the same timeline where we seated kind of late in the season and I don't think July is optimal for grass seed ice. It's not. I don't want to set us up for failure there. So just a couple of things that so we don't have irrigation in Creekide Park. So we can't irrigate. I think the and this is still developing but I think there is an option where we could keep the dog parks closed and then just have it provide access to the pickle ball court. Can I add we don't have irrigation. We don't have water in Creekide Park. Correct. So it's not that we're skipping irrigation. There's no water there. Can we have one of I mean the fire truck. Can we have one? They've got a water truck, tanker truck. Can they go down and water them? Yeah, I mean you could. It's just a these are pretty these are like several acres worth of area. So and the other thing it's not our seat yet. It's not the cities. I mean it's still the contractor's responsibility to deliver the project. It's their contract. So, um, you know, we as staff have little involvement in telling them how to run their job. If the seed doesn't take, they'll have to replant it. If you start watering, void our warranty. Oh, gotcha. So, do we have a like a year's warranty like we have for JCB? I'd have to look it look it up, but we have some type of warranty. I don't have it off hand, but All right. Well, then you got ideas. late January. I don't know what that is because if it is something where there's some of the trees that are getting shown signs of stress too. So they'll have to replace those and all that stuff. Okay. Thank you. No, good questions and dialogue because I feel like it comes back to us as the city of like, oh, why do you have to resold it or why you take out the trees? scientist just there to understanding that the contractor will eventually make it right. There's also a little bit of a part too, Brent was starting to talk about it that the dog parks could stay closed or pickle ball could potentially open if you are open to that. Just looking for some discussion and feedback. Um, the dogs are going to I love those doggies, but they're going to rip it up, right? So, no, the dog parts would be closed. that's already planned for sure stay closed. Okay, good. So, the question is, do we want to open the pickle ball courts? I would be okay with opening the pickle ball courts sooner than like with the general message of stay off the grass that isn't growing yet. But is that the only risk to having it open? Yes. Okay. Well, you can manage that with Sage. Yeah, that's fine with me. Yeah. Okay. And then uh moving forward uh southwest area infrastructure project. So that's the extension of utilities down to 11 and 40. Also uh road improvements to coincide with the development of the summerfield development. So just again it give you a sense of the scope of this project. Pretty massive. Uh our team has been meeting with the county uh mainly Dan Lis and Aaron Schmidt. Have you been going to those Andrew? Uh but our bigger team we're meeting every three weeks is Andrew, myself, Aaron Smith, uh Lynn, and then uh Erin and Dan Lis. Dan is uh heading uh this project up as kind of a special project. Dan Lis was our city engineer for three or four years, maybe five. Um now Erin Schmidt has that role. Dan is a a masterful logistics and planning organization. So, the project is big enough to uh need one person to kind of manage the whole thing. So, more to come on that. Uh the 10-year staffing plan update uh will be presented at your next work session for review. Uh after what seems like five years, we're finally got a date from Excel Energy to uh repaint the light poles downtown. Um so, planning for that in August. Um we haven't talked about it in a public setting, but just wanted to note uh uh Kelly Trimble's retirement from the fire department and fire chief and um we'll be planning a recognition event at a future council meeting and then wanted to kind of publicly welcome Tim Walsh as interim fire chief. Uh met with Tim today for about an hour and a half and talked logistics and planning etc. So, he's been very involved, but he uh is gay to come to a work session and do two truths and a lie. All right. We're going to reintroduce. Did he bring that up or did you bring it up? I brought it. Okay. I'm a good girl knows her when I uh that's all I have for the report. All right. Uh council requests Christie. Uh okay. So, back in January 2022, we approved the housing action plan. Um, obviously, we had looked at it for quite some time. There's nothing in the packet. I just let Brent know that it was something I wanted to talk to the rest of the council about. Um, so when we're looking at and and I I think I was actually the one who made the motion to approve this. So, this isn't because I don't like the plan, but as times change, I think one of the things we talked about is that we would review it again and see how it still works with our city and and if we're still if it needs any adjustments. Um, one thing that I was looking at, um, you know, the housing market at that point was, it's cooled a little bit, but it was really, really stiff a couple of years ago and prices were so high, interest rates and everything. And we talked about our housing stock here and what we had and, you know, having things that are um, under, you know, well under 500,000. You know, do we have this for for folks who can't afford um, any of the higherend homes or the middle to higherend homes? and that we still had a place for them here in Carver. Well, now we have um three different buildings that are either here or going in for affordable housing up on the hill. Um and one of the things if and again maybe this is something we can just noodle because again you don't have this right in front of you. So something maybe to look at and see if you want to read through it. But one of the things in the tools part of this that we talked about was reduction in sewer and water connection charges for developers. And so as we go into some of these more these big growth projects that we're doing south of town and different things and we talk about our water rates and we talk about what the city's bringing in for funding. Um, is it making sense that we are giving reduction and and lowering prices for those housing units at this point in time when we we have a fairly good percentage of affordable housing now because um because the CDA CDA buildings have went in up there um or whatever their acronym is at this point in time. Um, still CDA is it? Okay. Um, so I just wanted to talk to the council about whether we think giving this red reduction while it helps one group, are we hurting now the rest of the folks in Carver who are coming in, whether it's new developers, how is that affecting our bottom line when it comes to all of our water rates and all of our sewer connection charges? Because I mean, we get a lot of heat as council and staff about our water rates and all of those things. So, I just thought if those if this is having an effect on that, maybe it's something we want to take another look at because I know that I we just had another big jump, you know, in some of our previous work sessions and council meetings, we've looked at how the numbers are going to keep going and keep going and keep going until we get to this certain spot. And I mean, one of my questions was when does this end? Like when do these huge rate jumps end? So, if this in here in this this one of our tool section is um is taken away from that where we could be having a reduction or keeping our amounts steady for our residents. Now, maybe it's something we look at this this part of it just isn't working for us anymore. And I did before I just wanted to um talk with Erin here too to have her comment anything about how these connection charges and Lynn's not here tonight but maybe affecting any of those numbers at all. So I think Erin and Brent Canon will jump in but that was the same question that I had when we were going through it. First of all, I don't think we have anything affordable on the horizon. Um sorry. Um but that was baked into our plan. the connection fee waivers aren't taking away or raising any residents prices, but I don't know if Aaron or Brent if you want to check in on that. Do you want me to just the fee waver? Do you want me to give a quick Okay, so the fee waiver program that we adopted in 2022 is based on the amount of of affordability in a building. So, it's based off the area median income and if you provide units at 80% area median income, you pay 80% of the fees. If you offer a 50% area median income, you pay 50% of the fees down to 30. So if you offer a 30% AMI, you pay 30% of the city fees. So the CDA used it. It can't be used for anything that doesn't demonstrate affordability. And then the CDA had to record a document that they would provide these units for 30 years. And if after 30 years they're no no longer affordable, they'd have to pay us back those fees. So, it's a tool that's used strictly for affordable housing. So, the Enclave or Somerfield can come in and say, "I want the fee waiver." There's a catch, too. Correct. Yep. So, uh I don't think we have anything on the horizon for affordable units. So, I don't know if there's going to be an application for the program. So, that's where we're at right now. So, the CDA is the only group that's used it so far. So, because we have it available, if someone were to come in and use it, then how does that affect our any of our rates for any of our other residents that are here? So, we didn't factor in Carver Oaks or Carver Place into any of our long-term documents because we didn't know when they were going to happen. So, it didn't adversely affect any planning that we've done to date. Okay. I would say just adding on to that. So the cap is 250,000 and then the when you're which is a lot of money but when you factor in the million tens of millions that are in that plan the 250,000 did it significantly or even marginally impact the rates. You'd need a a larger um dollar amount to to do that. I'd also offer that the application process is done via the council. So ultimately you decide whether or not you want to approve an application and it can be just done because you don't think it's beneficial or might have an adverse impact to to rates and charges. Um so you I mean if you to kind of just maybe clarify council member Mock's point what you'd really be doing is deciding whether or not you want to keep the fee waiver program because the housing action plan describes it. I would offer in a general sense the fee waiver program gives you the ability to do that. And if you wanted to just eliminate the program and not have the council even weigh in on it, then you could do that. I don't know if that aligns with what you're thinking. Yeah, that helps. So then, um, being that you say, well, the council could say no. Um, because we've said yes in the past, do we have a precedent now that we need to say yes to this? Like what I I fear our city attorney is gonna Yeah, your program documents allow for that. Okay. So it's kind of baked right in there that the council at its sole discretion. So you could say because of kind of the kind of the rationale that you use that you're based on the impending water treatment plant or some other project that you just don't think that the um it's a good financial decision for the council or the city to um do a fee waiver at this time. Okay. And I really brought up to see if anyone wanted to dig further if that's further. So no, I mean the response is we don't have anything on the horizon. I I don't see a need to eliminate the tool. I think it's a good thing to have something that might incentivize uh more affordable homes. I don't think the land use and Carver is going to support it though. I just I don't I don't see a number of apartment buildings come in. But I would if if we were to have an open area of development, I would at least want council to have the opportunity to to have the tool in the toolbox. But the question was answered, is it negatively impacting anyone's rates? Now, today by having this in place, it isn't. Has it impacted anyone's rates in these last couple of projects? It hasn't. So, I don't see a pressing need to make a change to it. Can I clarify then when we say it hasn't mean because it was worked into a plan doesn't mean it didn't have any negative effects. Correct. I mean you I mean it depends. I mean, I would offer that um the impact is in the eye of the beholder. I mean, it could be, you know, we could certainly have um Northland update a model that shows a before and after. Um but we're not, at least based on what I know, I wouldn't anticipate that rates would change more than 5 to 10 cents. I don't know. I mean, I'm not I guess I don't know. So, that's just wild speculation. Um, is this absorbed by the other I want the other developers who come into town then are paying sewer water connection charges and that is part of this like all of this is rolled in together. It's all rolled into connection. So, I would offer that it's certainly not impacting rates because connection fees don't go towards the operation of the utility system. So, it's all new infrastructure. So, um, and as Aaron Smith mentioned, when we produced the long-term plan, it didn't account for those. So, basically, the math didn't include those units. Um, I think in a kind of roundabout way, someone could argue that, hey, if there was an extra $250,000, that would have uh positively impacted what I have to pay as a developer. Um, but I don't we don't have the meth we don't have the math to back that up at this moment. I also just want to share that the CDA budgeting was so tight that Allison shared that the fee waiver was really impactful to them being able to make those projects work. I Yep. I realize that. Yep. So, do you ask you a number off hand? Do you do we have any percentage in your head that you might be able to go with what housing units are affordable and caring with single family? like with yes with our apartments and things like that that went up. So is it 5% is it two? Is it 10? Is it 15? In total it's 171 units. We probably have around 300 households at this or 3,000 households at this point. So however that shakes to be but Carver Crossing did not have the same program at the time. So it's just Carver Place and Carver Oaks. So it's 103 units total that realize that program. Okay. I think knowing that the council and again sorry I'm talking you guys haven't had a chance to comment but knowing that council has an option that we don't get stuck in well we set this precedent before we have to use it again. I don't for me it didn't seem I guess that wasn't clear at this point again couple years looking at a document from a couple years ago. Um, knowing that we can or can't depending on where we're sitting as a city at the time, I think is helpful. I think we I mean, we should know that if the next one when the next one comes in, you could also just fund a portion of it. So, if someone came and said, "I'm looking for $250,000." You could say, "We only have an appetite for $100,000 right now based on plans that we're working on the future water treatment plan." So, you have a ton of flexibility. Just because someone asked for the total, it's not a yes or no whether they get it. you could find a medium where you feel comfortable too. Okay, speaking of medium, I have a question. So, you were talking about the AMI. Um, is that's just for Carver or is it Carver County? I know sometimes that comes up and I just don't remember because Yeah, we use the county and the CDA had to use that information for their budgeting and financing. But there are two sets of numbers that people can use. What are the two sets? The AMI in Carver by itself is significantly higher than Carver County total. Okay. Okay. Unless you guys have any other questions. I'm good with all the answers I have. Any followup needed? I don't unless I'm okay with a program existing knowing that we have full discretion over its use when the time comes. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. All right. uh listening session followup from the public services space and needs assessment. Mayor, here we go. Uh thank you, mayor and council. So going to run through this. So this is a followup not just from the listening session but from the comments uh that we received. We and so this is in prepare preparation for the August newsletter submission. So limited to two pages, but we did feel like it was important to not only put out what we learned, but what we shared so if someone's entering into the conversation uh for the first time that they have a full set of uh what was heard. I'm just going to also run through uh before we get to that document uh what I perceive to be kind of a a coming schedule. Again, this is proposed so for discussion. So if you see something you don't like or you want something moved around uh let me know. Uh the council on the 21st then would consider authorization for architectural services for uh design development and that's essentially a preliminary buildout year meaning not what year you're going to build but is it you know a no year is it a 20 year 30 50 etc. And the reason I would offer that this is important is it's going to really define what your actual cost is. So if you're able to take uh land and grading that's out there uh building and really kind of refine it from boxes to like something uh that we can um I would offer have more robust community engagement. Although I thought uh the PE that we got some great comments on the whole, you know, if we got maybe 15 to 20 like feedback pieces out of a population of, you know, 7,000, like there's more work to be done. And I think that happens when there's more materials uh of significance and detail. So, I would offer this as a a logical next step without um telling people that it's a done deal and we're building it. it it gives an opportunity to look at cost, design, uh layout, etc. Uh in order to do that, uh we need to have a conversation with the council on land review. So, we have a close session plan for the 21st to review the sites that we've looked at and um offer a recommended site. Um, as we go through that, one of the things, and I think most of the council is familiar with this, but at for the city hall project, we hired a construction uh, management professional. Uh, so that allows the city to break off a project into scopes, which is a cost savings. So, instead of having a general and paying that markup, you have an electrical contract, a plumbing contract, uh, framing, etc., concrete. Um and then involving that person or that firm early in the process during design development helps rightsize building components uh construction methods and probably I would say the greatest value was a very uh defined cost estimate. Um we ran into problems with that. That's I um we're going to be looking with council support at other opportunities for construction managers cuz I we want to be in a position where we can uh underpromise and overd deliver on budget and uh as some of you know in the room or probably all at one point we had a a budget issue on estimates with the city hall and so um uh looking to take advantage of some learning lessons for that if we if the council kind of agrees with the schedule, we'd be looking at possible purchase agreement on land uh this summer. The the land is significant because you can't really plan for design development on property that you don't know what the topography is and layout and dimensions. Um and frankly with the real estate environment in the city, even if you bought land and didn't build on it for 10 years, you'd be ahead because prices are increasing exponentially. Um it takes about 6 months plus or minus uh to do a design development report. Uh one of the things that I talked to Andrew Cooper from Martell is what what we'd like to do is organize a um a council and staff visit to uh other public works services facilities in the metro. Um so that uh as you're thinking about this project, you have a line of sight to not just what we have but what other people have. uh both the pros and the cons of those sites so that uh we can all kind of be well informed about current industry trends and people that maybe have recently gone through the same planning exercise. That was helpful when we did. I love that idea. And then finally, you know, once we get that report spending spring, summer, um, into the fall perhaps, depending upon when we get that report to do another, uh, hopefully more with more participation round of in community engagement work, um, you know, newsletters, maybe some videos, open houses, etc. Um, and a lot of this is dependent upon, uh, how you approach some of these other steps. Um and then just kind of moving forward to this draft document. So um tried to take some frame of reference uh from some of the comments we had some feedback about um you know why did Carver plan for a facility like this when the last facility was built and so trying to add some uh perspective related to how the community has changed uh with the completion of 212 and then looking forward to what kind of population uh can uh we can be expecting uh over the next uh 30 years. Um then an overview of the current spaces and then a the table showing um space needs as identified in that. And then uh finally, oh, I did want to mention uh just added a little kind of a caveat here on the bottom of the page is showing that at least at this point uh the city plan would have the fire department assume operations of the entire main facility. Um, I think just to kind of and obviously that can change, uh, but just to give folks a line of sight to like what would happen with that building, what about the fire station? I thought that was a impactful comment during the process. And then a real what I'd like to think is a kind of an unvarnished um view of comments. Um, neither pro nor con, just kind of what we heard kind of summarized. I didn't want to I had some earlier drafts where they're a little bit more detailed. Um but I wanted to be show representation of what we had and kind of thought bubbles if you will. Um but also recognizing that this is a relatively small sample size and and didn't want to represent that uh maybe because six people were for looking at space and six were against or whatever the number was that was representative of the whole. And so uh wanted to kind of show with the design of this that that this was still kind of a work in progress kind of adding that your feedback is welcomed uh to add your voice to the discussion that this is going to be kind of a long tedious process uh where there will be many stops along the way to to provide feedback and point of view. So happy to answer questions, take perspectives, ideas for changes, etc. thoughts, questions, comments on the schedule. I have two on this slide. Vote in the middle, the future fire department. I know we're not going to like have a different or a new fire department, but maybe just consider growing uh fire department space needs. Consider growing fire department space needs. Yeah. What's your in what's the message you want to convey? That that someone doesn't take it literally and think, "Oh, there's a new future fire department." Oh, consider growing consider growing needs for space in the fire department. Something along those lines. Yeah. Um and then um this seems really fluffy. What do you mean by um consider alternative building design? There was some comments where folks were talking about um like energy efficient. No, they were thinking more of do you need a concrete tip up or could you do a pole building or steel building? So, um, that's what that was rather than that's what I thought. Rather than saying specific thing, not spend money on the curb appeal, [Applause] no, I think this looks good. Um, the QR code is always appreciated. Any way to make it easy for people to respond is always good. Um, and I think that this it looks like to me based on what I have in my records that you basically just did a pull out from every comment that we got too. Yeah, that looks it looks like a fair representation of what we've seen. So the share of property tax impacts, what have we done again there to kind of break that out by let's say 8,000 residents by the time this is completed? Have we done anything to We've done stuff informally, but the spectrum of costs are so wild, frankly, at this point, depending upon what type of scope the council wants that um we've been hesitant to like show numbers and then have them referenced in the future and have them be just off by multiple factors. So, um, at some point they'll have to be like the first dip in the toe. And this is kind of a representation of that. Uh, my my goal I would offer that we waited to to do that until we have design development done and say, "Okay, you can get this for that and then everyone can make their value judgment." I just worry that maybe the some of the fear here is what people see like in a school referendum where it actually makes a huge impact and what your total taxes are. Um you know that that this may be less than people are expecting a project of this scope to impact them. I don't know that but uh that's that's probably the fear is some large school referendum size line item on their taxes. And you know, a flaw to even that methodology is that it said like, let's just say someone says it's going to increase your taxes by $12 a month. Well, that's that project in a vacuum. It doesn't consider the entire budget that you're also approving. It doesn't consider what uh the school district or county does. So it shows a time and place with this project on its own with several variables that are not committed to fact at that point but it does give you a snapshot of like okay more or less this would be the impact. I have any other questions? I don't have anything else. Um my thoughts were so this document this is to go in the August newsletter correct? Okay. I'm just wondering if like in that first paragraph we talk about population estimates, is there any way that we can use a more like public services specific example? So of like um in 2008 we had one or two snow uh plow trucks. Now we have four or five. And just kind of give like demonstrate our growth because like population growth. I get it. It means we're seeing more rooftops in Carver, but like we're trying to make this more tangible for residents of why we need more space for these vehicles, this equipment. So, I don't know if we pick Paul's brain or if there's a way that we can do a grid of like 2008 versus 2025 and, you know, like one front end voter, two front, you know, like in whatever the equipment is and street sweepers just to make it kind of more tangible as far as the growth that we're looking that we're looking to house, if you will. I like that idea. Um, because I'm waiting for a bug. Yeah. No, we look at this and we think, okay, cuz our brains are, you know, we look at this all the time, right? Okay, 2,000 people and now we know we're this and we're at this. But I don't think every resident I think it's it as a resident, if I was just reading it saying, okay, and this year we had sure we had 2,000 residents and now we have this many. But yeah, we had one snowplow, now we have seven snow plows or we had three employees, now we have 15 something. Um, I think that might be very helpful to the like to the resident, right, who doesn't look at this stuff every every other week like we do or more, right? And I, you know, like we all know that we last did and I say this that we all know because I wouldn't know it off the top of my head without looking. We all know that we did a equipment certificate in last year whenever it was, you know, and we got new stuff. But our residents don't know that and they don't know that the plow truck that plows their street is brand new or if it's been around for 30 years. Is there a way of incorporating that please? Well, say more like are you in my mind I'm envisioning like so what's the year that you're starting from? What's the foundation year? I just pulled out well I sure like maybe it's 2003 when the facility when the facility was built and kind of take a look at it then even though like I think we're going to have to decide on a date and kind of stick with it. I'm sure they built that facility with room to grow in 2003. But I think if we could just demonstrate the growth in the equipment and tools and probably even public services staff, I think there's like physical real estate space and a story there for if you did 2003 to 2025 employees and like vehicles, but there's not if you did like snow plows, skid steer, Like I think that there's I don't I would offer I don't think that there's space to do like an exhaust an exhaustive list. No. So if we did totals if that's the snapshot you're looking for and break it into what makes sense like Yeah. Okay. So we have, you know, at this point we had one pickup truck, right? Or we had, you know, two pickup trucks. We had park maintenance vehicles, whatever that is. We had and we had nine sills or we have nine saps members just something so you can see that little bit. However, those groups just sort of bunch together of equipment. I think even a small snapshot of that is going to help people a lot more to understand what that really that need is than just than this list of numbers here about population. Yeah. And I I think it can be the high level like number of employees, number of vehicles, maybe there's an other, you know, number of I don't know equipment's different from vehicles. I just think it would be good to show that growth because like our regular average carbon resident isn't going to know what a sewer jeter truck is. I know that I'm saying that wrong, you know, but like high level that demonstrates how much growth we've had in that. Well, that's why if you're okay, would you be okay then if it just showed employees, vehicles? Yeah. Cuz if we have to say like sewer, jeter, no. Steer. Um, so when we say vehicles though, I mean, is that we have mowers and things that are in there, right? So, are we just going to I if we're going to say just vehicles so that people realize that's not just pickup truck, right? Vehicles equipment. So, it's not just the number of pickups we have. Yeah. And you be like the And I'm not I'm doing this for just to test your kind of pain tolerance, but the 2003 would strictly just be Paul Schultz's memory. Yeah, understand slap on Paul to remember that like we should find a funny way an asterisk of like this information may or not be accurate. We're relying on Paul Schultz's memory. It's not in council member P's uh former documentation, you know, from that's 1991. Yeah. So, yeah, I I think we're okay. Yeah. With relying on Paul's memory. Okay. I just sometime like I'm just thinking of unintended consequences where sometimes a resident will like put it to you on that like how do you know what you had in 2003? Just wanted to be clear like the response would be a 25 year plus employee said that's what we had but I don't have a document that shows that. Yeah. And you're okay with that? Okay. And then give him Paul's phone number uh and his email and the address. Yeah. Oh, and I was thinking 2007. I wonder who the only other suggestion that I had was if it's I think it's significant that we heard from like nine people in our community of 7,000. I wonder if we can't find a way of putting that into the second to last paragraph. the city reached out to community members in May and June with study findings um community, you know, culminating in a community listening session where we heard from nine residents or whatever that number is because I think maybe seeing that would make me think like, oh shoot, I should share my opinion. They only heard from nine people. We've got a community of 7,500. So, I'm going I don't know. I'm going to disagree with that. To me, I don't think that's necessary. Um, I think as we're encouraging engagement, I don't think it can hurt. Yeah. I I don't know. For me, that one I still don't think is necessary. All right. You want to hi, Eric? I think when you have this little turnout, you know, people don't engage unless they feel something is going wrong. really I would take a below number of responses to to be that citizens of Carver are uh you know this is just part of the process uh and part of the the growth of the city. So I don't see the low engagement as a negative. If if it was a negative we would have had more responses. Yeah. And to be clear it is what it is. That's more engagement than we've had in months. Right. But like soliciting more, I think the city did a lot to solicit what we have here. So I get the desire to have more, but I think we went through uh a lot of effort to try to engage people to to give us their feedback. And you know, some of this is also supportive. So, I think it's a I think it's a good sign that it didn't ruffle too many feathers that the city is moving forward with this. That's That's not I'm going to die on. Yeah. All right. What is there any concern about bringing then a proposal for architectural services for design development to your next meeting for review? Okay. At what point do we need to have the what year basis level are we looking for discussion? That would be like what year is in construct year or what year do you build out to? Well, yes. Ann, but I'm thinking more specifically when we have these architects on board, we're going to have to tell them we want 20, 30 or 50. When do we have that discussion? That's your next meeting. Okay. I mean they they would need a framework of uh design a building out for I'll just use a number that's not available 25 I mean you could say that but 25 years then the whole building kind of program would be designed around that doesn't mean you can't change it just means like your full investment would be in what a building would look like at that point and then how you would grow onto it but everything would start from that point so if you could specify that um that would be very helpful to the process. Okay. Can I ask a question there? Maybe I just don't understand something. Are we not putting this out kind of projecting as far as we can this a 50-year plan? Aren't we looking at real estate to support that? We are looking at real estate to support that. the um and again that's up to the council. Y um but the we at this point don't have feedback from council on do you want to plan for a 50 if we if you share that with us at your next meeting uh we can direct the architect to do that but I don't have that feedback from the council. Okay. But for property we're looking for Okay. All right. Understood. Any other questions? Okay, thank you. Thanks. Um, I'll write preliminary bus transit discussion at Harbor Station. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. We're going to have a discussion tonight. Uh, part one of a two-part conversation. Part two will be at the July 21st city council work session. So, we're going to be talking about conversations, which is something we've talked about fairly frequently in the past couple years just with trends that have changed through COVID and then understanding that our grant dollars are coming to a close. So, a little bit of uh feedback or not feedback history of Harbor Station. It was originally funded by what we refer to as a CAMAT grant or the congestion mitigation and air quality act. There was a ton of funding sources that came together for the project to be under construction. So it was a CMAC grant, the CDA contribution while they were building Carver crossing, it was a land donation, the Carver County Highway Department, and the city water and sewer fund. So there's a lot of partners coming together to create this grant program that funded Carver Station. So these grant dollars are coming to a close as we have worked through several years of Carver Station, which was not anticipated at day one. So originally in 2015 when Carver Station opened grant dollars were anticipated to provide service for three years. 2025 is the 10th year of service out of Carver Station largely due to low numbers of wrership. So CO definitely played a massive part of of this. Uh we were projecting much higher numbers in 2015. Uh so we've been able to extend the grant for several years beyond what we thought was going to be 2018 for closeout. So Erin, that was just we got a lump and when it ran out the lump of money ran out. That's why ending. Yep. So we haven't run out yet. We're anticipating uh early probably 2026, probably in the first month or two of 2026, funds will be expended. For clear messaging and expectations, we've been working with Carver Station to have the discussion that fix route service will end December 31st, 2025. Just so it's not February 13th, we're going to shut down service. It'll be a clear break at the end of 2025. And I want to be really clear that Southwest Prime and Prime MD are not impacted by Carver Station changing, growing, evolving, etc. That's a separate contract that we have with Southwest. So, not part of the discussion tonight. A service that we'll continue to offer should the council choose to do so. What about special events like State Fair and Renaissance? Yeah, that's a good question. I would say based on our relationship with Southwest with Prime and Prime MD, I think we could be good partners and share that together. It's not defined right now in neither of our contracts, but with the success of them, I would like to say that Southwest would probably partner with us if we continue to have the parking space available. I also mentioned that the building and the parking lot belong to the city. So, everyone end of the day, everyone's come and gone conversation and the parking lot are city property. So, uh, when the service ends, we suddenly have 400 parking stalls in town, which has been helpful for a lot of reasons. Like, it's a lot of overflow for Ironwood Park, Carver Elementary, event parking, um, construction parking for Carver Place and Carver Oaks. So, just keep that in mind at the end of the day. Those will continue to be city property. So, what we're looking for at the July 21st meeting and looking for some feedback from you about what's next is Met Transit will be here. So, the transit group from that council will come in, give an overview of what they offer, what they could provide to the city of Carver, uh, some information about what transit will look like moving forward. So, we'll talk through what it will look like when the operations grant does end, what happens with Carver Station, what does it look like, options for funding local transit in Carver going forward. So, there are people that rely on Carver Station for transit. So, we want to have the conversation, what does it look like moving forward past 2025 when there's no longer service directly out of cover station and our options for future transit service. So, going over all of this information with Metransit just to give you an overview, a really clear vision of what they're working on, what they could maybe provide if we want to enter into an agreement with the transit texting district. So, all of that information. So right, what we're looking for right now is just feedback, questions you might have for Met Transit that they could start thinking about in the next two weeks before they get into this room so they can be prepared with some information if you want data, some facts, etc. Do you know what wrership per day is right now? How many rounds? Not off the top of my head, but it's I think one hand of writers. I actually looked at the report that was in last month's and I just did like the top and what we can see in that grid that we're all familiar with. The top number was uh 203 passengers in June of 2023. That was the first highest. Then 168 in October and November of 2023. And then the highest one of this year was March with 141 passengers for a month for a month. So there were 21 work days in March. That's 6.7 passengers a day. And I assume that a passenger is a passenger to and from each. So it' be three people. Just to sit up kind of in the preliminary discussion Erin and I had with Met Transit, there isn't a scenario that we're available or were made aware of where there'd be any chance of continuing bus service out of Carver. So that's it's just a matter of um understanding how maybe the grant closes and uh there there was a inkling of a possibility that uh they had to do some more research where they would consider if the city joined the transit taxing district, they would apply um a in amount of money towards uh servicing crime, which would be a totally different model than they've ever presented. And so it uh we'll probably find out more on the 21st, but it creates a kind of a policy decision for the council if it's available where do you fund that service out of the general fund with levy dollars or do you fund that service as a segregated tax? And again, so many details, so many questions asked, but uh that's never been presented to the city as an option. And so, um, I say that with like extremely like beat of breath because it's like, uh, they're probably anybody the tens and tens of people that watch this are probably going to be like, well, you can't do that. And so, like, it's a kind of a halfbaked idea right now that they're investigating, but, uh, we wanted to at least kind of give you a sense, uh, that they're studying that. Um but just wanted to emphasize that based on that volume that you were referencing there there doesn't appear to be a um path for us to have provide bus transit service on a carver station in the near term. So what about making it a leg? We're going to continue uh Southwest Pride and you only have two outgoing buses a day and you have four incoming buses a day. So using the larger south southwest prime to get folks to chasa y right I mean that would seem to be a minimal cost that transit station to that transit station to keep a like service in place. Yep. We've talked about that too like providing that short trip to one of the larger stations to get people to frankly a broader network too. So it offer probably more transit to people if we could get them to one of the stations closer to the metro area. Right. So another thing happening at Southwest Transit though is the pursuing divesting from Met Council and Met and Southwest Transit, you know, being funded directly by sales tax dollars. if that scenario happens. Um, and I don't know that it'll happen this year. We didn't there wasn't much progress in in moving that forward, but seven or 8,000 Carver residents suddenly becomes a lot more attractive to Southwest Transit for that tax base. So, you know, that's another vector of the future. uh won't happen in a year, but part of our consideration a stop gap getting folks to that to Shazar Eden Prairie and that would require opting into the transit taxing district. No, no, that's totally different. That that's Southwest Transit opting out of uh that transit and receiving funding directly from the state from sales tax dollars. The interesting thing about this discussion is that we're in a unique situation. Like there isn't someone who's in the same situation that we can look to and say that worked really well for them with the facility that we have with Prime being as successful as it is. Like I think we're going to explore probably a couple options to figure out what works best for us. But the folks that we met with at Metransit were super open to ideas and being creative. So, I would suggest that the 21st if you don't have any questions that we can present right now that I think they're open to creative ideas of what feels right for our community. And we've asked uh someone from Southwest to sit in on that so they can provide uh this line of sight to how that intersects with their operation because at this point we can't for bus service we can't contract directly with Southwest because we're not a member of Southwest. So it's we go through Met Transit who allows us to contract through Southwest which changes if Council Member Pchman's comments, you know, come true at some point where the tax structure and kind of governance model changes. That's what we know today. And I just want to be clear, too, like the way that we funded Southwest is kind of confusing that we had money from the Met Council. We defederalized it with Southwest and provided the service. So, if you're getting lost in some of those details, I understand it took a while to figure it out. But moving forward, I think our approach to transit will be more straightforward just knowing who the relationship is with, what where we're giving money, if it's a transit taxing district or a separate state taxing district. So hopefully it'll become a little less tangly because it took a while to figure out. I have one. So when we talk about using prime to get to the next station over like chest that thing is that our idea their idea. Uh it's I don't know who came up with it originally but one of us was probably bound to say it in the conversation. Okay. But that seems like it's they're open to that. We're open to that. I mean I'm open to that but that's something yeah someone could do that now. So if there was a transit bus from Chaza that went to a location they wanted to go to, they could take prime from Carver to Chaza to enter into Southwest network. But we you discussed that with them already loosely. Okay. Okay. Who's got questions for two questions for Go ahead. Um for me it would be helpful when Met Transit is here is to like know who their demographics are or why does somebody choose them. I see them as that they offer doortodoor but you know if somebody needs to be picked up and brought to work. So Met Transit is Met Council's transportation. So think about it the seven county area. Everyone there is served by Met Transit. So Carver is in a unique situation where we aren't included in the transit taxing district right now. So if you think about bus service in Minneapolis all of that is my transit. Okay. So Prime specifically is the doortodoor Uber lift okay model that Southwest offers to us. Got it. Okay. And then um are we still like the last stop like this far Southwest like you won't be able to go to Cologne or Jordan? Okay. Other cities though are asking about that. Wonia specifically is is asking interesting too like who's likely to be the next Yeah. And I don't think the Met Transit folk will have that information. It would be Southwest that would be exploring that relationship. The transit tax like that's a sales tax. It's a property tax. Property tax. Is it almost like they're are they competitors and it's just so that they're both not competing in the same area? Uh, I wouldn't say they're competitors competitors necessarily just based on the volume that Met Transit has. Southwest serves a pretty specific area of the region. So, it's uh Eden Prairie, Chaza, Chanhassen, Victoria, Carver where Metransit covers the rest of the metro. So, that's one of the things we could maybe ask them just a kind of a brief history on. So the seven county area used to be served entirely by Met Transit. I don't know if it was the 70s or 80s but Chan Chasky Prairie form Southwest and there's Minnesota Valley. There are groups of suburban cities like an Apple Valley Burnsville. Exact Valley and they opted out of Met Transit and then you have a different name for it now, but there are probably a half a dozen suburban providers that broke away and since then uh the legislature has decided to not allow any additional optouts. there needs to be special legislation which puts us kind of in a sticky wicket because we would be one of those opt out communities if we uh join or attempted to join Southwest. So, we could ask them to do like a little background on how this end result was all constituted. It's not accurate, but it's kind of like think about like parent family organization, you know, like kind of lading up in some ways. Um, but Med Council, Met Transit is the larger organization. And it's not accurate to say that Southwest Transit's an offshoot, but it's a smaller business operating in the same transit space. Yeah. And the model there too also supported further expansion outside of the metro area directly. So I'd say places further from Minneapolis St. Paul the core they couldn't support bus service to Carver as frequently just with the population. So I think that's why the opt out was probably successful was an area that they couldn't serve financially well. So did you have any questions from the council? No. Um, I'm hesitant to sign the city up for a transit tax district. Um, I know that prime is a huge part of transit we provide in Carver and that would be helpful towards that, but we lose a lot of control over what we spend as a city and how taxes are run and how much money is being how much of spending is being passed on to our residents if we do that. So, it's um I I'm open to hear more about it, but it's something that I would be very hesitant to entertain. And that's kind of the basis for the thing is the presentation is more to serve as a quick report and then the council can take that and say, "Okay, I don't want to do this, but I do want to do this." So, so we won't be asking you to make any choices. It's just informative. And then we want to follow up with a separate work session with Southwest to get into any followup and talk about the future of prime um and their cost structure etc. So no else I have a laundry list of questions. Um but for this is probably a question and I can email you this. Um question for Southwest Transit. I'm curious where the folks who are riding this bus from currently are from. When I was on the board, they did reader survey or rider surveys. So, I was surprised at how many folks get on the bus at Carver Station who are from Bell Plane or Wakonia or Cologne and it doesn't make a huge difference, but that was insightful to me. So, I'm curious if they know like who's riding the fixed service from Harbor. I can answer that they do know that. Okay. Yeah. Much to a much greater degree than they used to in the past. They've done a better job capturing that kind of thing. But to be clear, Southwest isn't presenting at the next correct. Yep. Yep. But this is my brain dump on questions that I have that are trends related and I've got 10 minutes to get through this list. 15 actually. Um my so I didn't realize that this presentation was going to be more of a just like our marriage counseling before we break up with them. Um but so like uncoupling uncoupling. Thank you. Um uncoupling. So I just like what are our options for fixed route transit? It sounds like we've already talked through that and there are none. Um what will those fixed route cost the city of Carver? What will cost our residents? Again, that's probably was a good question when I was on the couch Saturday afternoon reading the packet, but not now. Um, my question I'm kind of with you on the transit taxing district, but I'm curious about it and I think I want to know if that would guarantee us fixed route service into perpetuity. Um, I worry about a bait and switch and I worry about two, three people a day and I would have to take their side that that's not a great fiscal decision. So, just kind of curious about what that would mean if we do opt into that. Um, let's see. Questions on what the transit taxing district will cost residents. I've taken a look at what it's costing folks in Chaska and it's minimal but it's still a tax that I don't love. Um, sorry, I'm just going through this. Um, let's see. And then the only other thing, like generally speaking, what I hope to get out of this work session is like clarity. Not, oh, we could or we may be able to do this. Like we're making some decisions right now as to how we're going to go forward. So this like could we put money into prime if we went in the taxing district, you know, like I want to know and be well informed people making these decisions, which I don't doubt will be the case, but just putting it out there. Yeah. And I don't think we'll get there at the July 21st meeting. I don't think you can ask if we enter the transit taxing district, will you fund Prime? I don't think they'll say yes or no, but they could say maybe we'll think about it. We'll get back to you. And then in the future, we'll ask you to make some decisions uptown of what you want to do. Yeah. I do have a question. So, continuing on with prime without this, I guess I need to better understand that in that what a resident pays, what the city pays is a fraction of what the actual cost is to Southwest Transit. They're getting that revenue from that council right now. So, how does it go on? How does Prime go on? You said they were amanable to continuing Prime service, but I mean the cost would change dramatically. I think the average cost per rider is around $42. And our share it's $17 12 to the city, five to the rider. Right. So it'll be an interesting comparison to moving forward like what the tax impact is of prime funding prime through the city versus what it would cost if south if met transit was open to it if we could join the transit taxing district use that money what the comparison would be for a resident. So do we have I mean is that discussion part of what we'll get from that transit though? No I don't think so. I think we could get some general numbers of what it costs to join the trans transit taxing district. Lynn could probably figure out what Southwest costs a resident on an annual basis. You'll get a whole list of ingredients from the Met Transit folks on the 21st that you can use to help talk about Prime when Southwest is here. But I think it be helpful to focus in that the Met Transit folks will have little to no background on how crime works or how it's funded. The only nugget they'll give you is whether or not they consider providing sales tax dollars toward it in the future and transit taxi district dollars. Um, but their scope is going to be limited. And I'm not I think uh Eric Hansen, I don't think he's going to be at the work session. I think they're going to be sending uh a representative. So, I'm not sure they're going to be prepared to opine on what they may or may not do. When we have the prime discussion, we'll have Eric here um and get into kind of the nitty-gritty of um what that is. And I referenced this to the council previously. uh Victoria and Carver met or Dana Hardy and I met with Eric Hansen and talked about kind of a foundation for what that discussion uh should look like and outline of discussion topics and one of the the main points is like the current funding model isn't sustainable for either city. Um and so within recognizing the costs uh that Prime has and Southwest has understanding that their former formula was just based on kind of a ratio of bus of bus users versus prime users where now it's they're actually digging into what those costs are and trying to kind of unpack that. So, um, there's some shrapnel, I think, for both Carver and Victoria to try to figure out how to on board ourselves. No pun intended. Maybe pun intended. It was intended. It was We still don't like any other questions on this. All right. Um, okay. And that brings us to getting ready to adjourn. I would introduce a motion to adjurnn. I'll make a motion to adjurnn. Motion by council member. I'll second. Second by council member sar. All those in favor say I. I. Oppos. Same sign. Motion passes. All right. [Music]