all right we'll go ahead and call the meeting to order uh if we could stand for the pledge of allegiance 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 like to welcome everyone the sun is actually shining for one day i think which is nice uh jenny if you take the role council member thorson here council member peterson here council member wong here council member cole here mayor furlong here quorum is present uh motion to adopt the agenda so moved your honor by council member peterson second second by council member cole you need a discussion if not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries uh we have no presentations and at this time uh turn over to city manager for the consent agenda thank you mr mayor and council members the consent agenda contains several separate items which are acted upon by the city council in one motion once the consent agenda has been approved all of the individual items would have also been approved any city council member may request that an item be removed from the consent agenda for further discussion tonight we have 13 items on the consent calendar a the april 19 2022 workshop minutes b april 19 2022 regular meeting minutes item c general claims item d hra claims item e eda claims item f the supplemental agreement between the city of north st paul and minnesota's teamsters local number 320 item g approval of off sale liquor license application for merwin liquors item h approval of on sale and sunday liquor license for nsp hospitality doing business as max diner and i would just pause there to say that if the if that liquor license were to be issued today they would need to meet the six foot fencing as we discussed in the workshop so we will be looking at alternatives for something less than six foot fence so that when they're ready to come and receive their liquor license it might be something more manageable for them item i a resolution supporting statewide policies and resources for public safety mental and physical injury education prevention and treatment item j purchase 1-0 underground 10 kilovolt i'm assuming wire kv item k purchase of decorative street light poles item l purchase of wood utility poles and finally item m approved cameron muix application for position on the planning commission and that concludes the consent agenda at this time if any councilmember would like to pull any item they can do so this time if not a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved moved by council member cole second second by councilmember wong in your discussion if not all those in favor signify saying aye aye opposed motion carries this time the meeting is open to the public uh i do not have a slip for uh brandon brampton if brandon if you want to just come up or you just approved your liquor license and if you want to just give us uh maybe a couple minutes of an update that would be update sure um and welcome thank you thanks for approving the license construction continues uh june 24th is the target date now where i'll take the keys from the contractor things are moving along we're really excited i'm sensing some excitement in the community as well um i don't know i don't have much to say do you have any questions for me at all we're just anyone anywhere so the uh so the outdoor patio we did uh uh the six foot fence is in place right now but we're looking at changing that so by the time i think you're ready for the fence that'll probably be changed yeah just to let you know other than that uh welcome and we look forward to seeing the opening in a few weeks yeah thank you um and if anybody wants to take a quick tour and see what we're up to down there i know please reach out i'd love to i'd love to show you how everything's coming along so we really do appreciate it thank you thanks marina appreciate it do you have one john small welcome john mayor council john small 2750 chisholm avenue the last council meeting i was absolutely flabbergasted at the lack of information that was available for the aerial project there wasn't any information as to where the sidewalk was going to go there wasn't anything on the cam on the screens showing the project the layout with where the the sidewalk was going to be there was nothing and the city engineer was asked for by a council member what what is it going to look like well nothing absolutely nothing and i don't think there's still anything available that plan or plots out the sidewalk where it's going to be as it goes up the hill is it going past ninth on the top past the uh apartments or does it stop at nine does anybody know i'm assuming we do have that information in the the manager if you want to [Music] i'm assuming that as well you know i can't tell you where on the webpage it is but if you want to get in touch with uh with me or somebody on staff in the morning we'll try to direct you to the right place on the web webpage well the newsletter that came out on wednesday as it usually does had a rendition or a picture of ariel from 17th to 11th but that's it but i'm certain it goes further than that the sidewalk is and and the project but you know there wasn't anything in that newsletter that was anything more than 17th to 11th sorry i have that for you uh and so i decided to go talk to the neighbors over there and very nice group of people didn't have a clue uh where's the sidewalk going to be well i don't know well it's going to be out there and it's going to be from the white line to the curb in that area they didn't know one individual did though tom garrity and he's pushing the sidewalk it's his idea that this be actually come to fruition that there will be a sidewalk on it but the rest of the people had no idea and when i heard about the sidewalk i knew the city engineer knew that there was going to be a sidewalk that was not going to be a traditional sidewalk with a boulevard between the sidewalk and the roadway it was going to be right on the roadway so at least one person knew what the project was all about they had a public hearing yeah senators were all invited they had informational meetings yeah and so you didn't reach out very well if the people that i talked to didn't have a clue except for one person and that was mr garrity actually there may have been two informational meetings there were well i was at both the result of those were i don't feel we're the greatest and there was no talk about that if the sidewalk was on the maplewood side snow removal would be given that because maple wood clears sidewalks north st paul doesn't clear sidewalks so the people on the maple the north st paul side are now going to have to deal with the plow going by and a three foot high snow drift with the snow the consistency of concrete to clear it off their sidewalk and that's just the way it goes nobody thought of that to tell him what the project would do that evening i talked to ron and i said ron do you know what that means if the the sidewalks in that position and he said yeah i know and said well what are you going to do and he said i'm going to have to get in buy another tool cat not a bobcat but a tool cat and have an individual in the public works department to take care of it because he says i can't deal with having that snow piled up on the concrete and having a homeowner having to move it it's impossible to deal every snow that requires plowing of plowing in the street it's going to end up on the on the sidewalk and try to move that if you're just hey there's some very old people in the homes there so consider it thank you anybody on zoom anybody else okay uh this time we do have a public hearing tonight now turn over to city manager start two seconds to put that up we did receive a petition to vacate a portion of cipolla boulevard right of way from eugene burwald who's the property owner really to my way of thinking on kind of three sides of that right of way staff is recommending approval of the vacation and brandy howe the planner from wsb is able to provide some background information welcome brandi again okay this shall be a pretty short presentation um as mentioned a petition was provided to the city to vacate a portion of the right of way of seppala boulevard it's shown in red on the screen the requested portion to be vacated has been used as an access point to the berwald property to the north for roughly 54 years it hasn't been used by the public for that period the area is paved with storm water management and the burwalds also owned the property to the south in order to approve a vacation it must be determined to be in the public interest and the applicant has stated that the vacation will benefit the public by putting the property back on the tax rolls and eliminate future liability with ownership of the property so here is the the legal document by which the vacation would occur um the section bordering the northeast of the proposed vacation was previously vacated so i don't know if this works oh look it kind of does but i don't know so this is the piece that was previously vacated it works nice well you got rid of it how did you get rid of it there's a there's a get rid of button oh [Laughter] this is a slick system i like this that's why the consultants get the big bucks um we looked at the zoning regarding this uh request and really there isn't much to consider the zoning to the north and the south are both mixed oh i'm sorry the north is corridor mixed use in the south is downtown mixed use but they re they allow the same kinds of land uses and the procedure for vacating right-of-way as outlined in state statute it requires a public notification a public hearing and i don't believe it's required but we did it as a courtesy we sent letters to property owners within 350 feet and we didn't receive any any comments i think i got one phone call was just kind of a question what is this and where is it does it affect me and that person was to the west encephalon he had no no comments so staff recommends approval of the vacation request as it meets the requirements of the state statute and it is arguably in the public interest and that is all any questions for brandy if not this time we'll open up the public hearing at 6 40 6 43. do we have anybody on zoom does anybody want to talk to the public in regards to the vacation if not we'll close the public hearing 644 any questions from the council in regards to the vacation of the property if not the motion is for a resolution vacating a portion of the sepula boulevard that's what i have for the title on my resolution here does that be more specific sauron is that oh the resolution's in your packet okay is there a motion for resolution vacating a portion of sepulo boulevard so moved moved by council member thorson second second by council member wong in the discussion if not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries turn it back over to city manager stark thank you thank you mr mayor uh the next item is the consideration of the park improvement plan so at the last council meeting we heard from lloyd presented a good uh good presentation lloyd thank you for that uh so we did have a presentation at the last meeting uh let me just pull it up here um uh so are there any questions regards to the uh as let's be presented again uh that wasn't the plan uh you know there was a pretty robust discussion i was just gonna come back with um there were two items that i know there were questions about one is [Music] that there are two properties depending on the exact title better roughly you know called environmental learning centers ecological learning centers or something one of them is identified as a park the other is not the short answer is we don't know the reason for that but that's something that the park and recreation commission is going to take in in the future and do a little research on try to find out the proper terminology for those two environmental learning centers whether they should be termed similarly to one another and both be considered parks or whether there's a reason to consider them differently there was also a question about park maintenance and um the the budget for park maintenance i think falls under kind of two categories there is i would say seemingly adequate money for um day-to-day park maintenance you know mowing trash collection all those things there is also in the um i don't recall if it was in the recreation budget or the parks budget there is currently 25 000 for um capital improvements um and you know i've tried to go back through past um expenditures and see the kinds of uses that are there and those are um you know play features uh when they get worn out or other you know physical um physical amenities that the parks that are replaced so again that in the current budget is 25 000 a year previous budgets it was hovering more around the 35 000 mark you know because i don't have the history i can't tell you if that is adequate or not but i can report that that's what was in there those were the two questions that i pulled out of the discussion so otherwise i don't have any updates i'm not sure if if lloyd did or not either updates no you want to come up go ahead just maybe see if the red lights on or green light green light is gold there we go thank you mayor city council members at our last meeting um [Music] we talked about the i lost the train a thought go ahead john work with me where were we honest what was he issued again the environmental learning center oh yes um we had a discussion and jill brought up some candid points the parker rec commission has in the past thought that the postal credit union on the north end by the church was part of ours when last fall it became my liaison park so i had mentioned well let's solicit for a naming of it but then we understood that maybe it wasn't part of our park system so we're going to do some research find out what we should do with the park the environment environmental learning center we know needs to be updated so we're going to work on that with the park plan and we'll do some research like i said with the park commission and figure out whether we want this into the park system there were some valid um statements from what some of the council members and some of the commission members as to updating that because there's uh trail and there's some benches over there so some of the park commission members were in favor of actually bringing that to becoming a park so we're going to review that in upcoming meetings put that on her agenda have some discussion and then send it back to the city council i guess lauren uh city attorney what because it's not labeled a park and some of our readings what is what do you have to do it to make it a park i don't know what review of the title work was done i mean that's where you'd start um sometimes in resolutions stuff will be dedicated to you as a park land sometimes you've just purchased land and turned it into a park so i don't you just start with the title work okay but that's again where i'd start because one of the common features when you have developments and it doesn't always occur this way sometimes you get cash in lieu of actual land but sometimes when land or when stuff is developed you get a park dedicated as part of that plat that would show up on either the platte or the tidal work um other times you've just purchased land or it's been donated to you so i i would start with the title work but to me it's just drainage it's a drainage area and we're calling it a park because it does have some sort of aesthetic value you know you can walk around it to passive park it's or a passive walkway and we just call it a i don't think we even call it a park we call it environmental learning center does it really matter well it matters in terms of what you ultimately want to use it for if what you have is a drainage and utility easement then you can't start putting playground equipment on it right so that comes back to the title work okay but which is easy enough to order i mean correct me if i'm wrong though i mean there's there's nothing magic in the word park um when we do the title work it it may be a dedicated park some funding sources i think i've heard the term legacy used some funding sources basically say if because we put this funding source into it this has to remain a park forever it's built in the title if you want to make it not a park you've got to you've got to find other park land to swap for it but on the other hand if the city had a lot in downtown that used to be a parking lot and said you know we're lacking some green space in the community and so we're just voluntarily going to landscape this and put in some picnic tables and benches and we're going to call it a park that's still a park just the the the ability to convert it back into something else is is more flexible than if it's like i said a legacy or if there's some title um restriction restriction that would say it needs to remain apart yeah which it just comes back to the title work so we just needed to figure out the title of those of those two parks no no now i know whack with uh southwood back when it was southwood park nature preserve it turned into nature preserve but that took a lot of research and development and that's probably 15 years ago that we had that discussion right would you like it on our agenda so we can move it forward i think we would need just to look at that title work for and i think staff could do that okay that's the starting point okay can i say something about that uh go ahead don so i know what's going on come on up time if you can enlighten us what it is like somebody i know you're the historian here like somebody said a store a drain storage a lot of storm sewer runs in there i grew up where holiday station is yep so i know what it did back in 40s we're talking about the other one over by target well i thought you were talking about the ecology garden garden no no environmental learning center but that's still the drainage there too but the one by the post uh court ideal credit union the water drain drains on that air too because remember in 2019 i mean 2011 it was full it was full right arm sewers were full right and then storm surge says they're seven feet high at night so and that's where all the water they they store the water until eventually it runs back to maplewood and back to uh back there by st john's hospital right so i thought you were talking about the one on the old side we are talking about both what we were talking about that one okay because that was the old soccer garden at one time too so it feels like we just gotta figure out the title work and whatnot okay thanks go ahead um the ecology center which is where the city put in the the new bus garage that's part of the watershed district the ramsey county ramsey ramsey washington metro county anyway the water district and the uh the water district does a lot of maintenance there it's all planted into wild vegetation they seed they fire at least in the past they have so i would never consider it a park okay so i have to say okay thank you yeah i think we just got to figure out the title work and what what it looks like okay any other questions the only other thing i'd add is there was some question about what does the park improvement plan mean in terms of like a spending authority um and to me really it's a tool for you to use when you do your annual budget uh when we as a staff start and and bring to you a the capital improvement plan you know whether whether there are things in here that rise to the level of of being in the capital improvement plan so it's really a tool for you to inform yourselves when you're doing the budgeting and those things in terms of prioritizing so you know i would anticipate when the parks and recreation budgets are done you know staff as a starting place we'll look at the park improvement plan um look at the you know the funding that's been proposed in the past and and try to find some priorities that seem to fit with um a their kind of level of prioritization or importance and then b how they might fit in with the budget and bring that to you in that context other than that i don't have anything to add okay any other go headline we we did discuss the fact of uh doing deferred i think it's deferred maintenance and they use the analogy of like a fire truck over the course of several years they defer they build up money well then it was the same idea that we had talked about at the meeting last wednesday that we maybe start thinking about how long it's going to take for swings to go out and start building if i fund for maintenance on that over the course of 10 15 20 years good sounds good guys are doing a good job thanks for your help uh any other questions for city manager or lloyd since he's here if not the motion is to approve the 2022 park improvement plan so moved moved by council member cole second by councilmember peterson any other discussion if not all those in favor signify by saying aye oppose motion carries turn it back over to city manager stark i don't think we have anything else but if you want to add anything i don't have any report for you tonight well you sound better than you did uh last time we saw you thank you i feel better you look better and you sound better well i don't have all those squiggly spots all over me either yeah and we figure out how to how to remove those so [Laughter] wow there's a button so we'll move on to reports of council commissions and committees and council member call all right as light addressed we had a meeting on the 27th at 6 30 for the park and rec uh covered a lot of topics one of them again was reviewing the the park improvement plan and uh and again a lot of thanks to every commissioner on on the park on the park plan as well as lloyd um lisa and jill for all of their all their dedication to getting this thing finally over the hurdle so um thank you for uh mr mayor and council for for the approval tonight there was a lot of a lot of emotion a lot of blood a lot of sweat a lot of tears that went into getting this thing finally put together and they're excited to move forward they're excited to bring programs to council for uh with recommend recommendations for spending and improvement and doing what they haven't been able to do for over two years um they're they uh the the park and rec commission used to take pride in coming in front of council on an annual basis and saying here's what we did this year here's the great things here's what we look to do next year here's our goals we haven't done that in over two years either so they're they're excited there that's this is this is a big hurdle uh lloyd addressed some of the some of the topics that came up um i called the target lake pcu pond i called it a lot of different things the north st paul environmental area we just need clarification as to what it is and we we address that brought up as to the number of ball fields in which the city has the usage of the ball fields uh the usage of mcknight field and and it's still early i mean it's it hasn't been nice um plus it's been raining but how how does how does that look um you know that still falls under the park and wreck so there's some questions about that and where we can or we can go to diversify the space and repurpose some of the space if it's not necessarily all being used um and take take a look at those directions there was some discussion around the sign for rotary park i believe that's going to come to council shortly rotary park has to have it wasn't in the consent agenda was it no they have to lay up concrete pad or something to get the process started by a specific date in order for their uh funding money their their grants that were approved to get going so um i guess i was surprised that it wasn't in the consent agenda because that was one of the things we talked about but i know that the clock is ticking i think it's the end of the month so we probably still have another council meeting in order to get that addressed um also um [Music] some communication about um some confusion about the usage of the changeable sign at casey lake uh the parking rec would like to review the guidelines for who gets to have or what the guidelines were and who who can post things and who can't post things there was a lot of confusion over the easter holiday regarding the easter egg hunt that normally the park and record had put on um and you had to read in the real small caption that it was put on by a church not at casey lake so there were a lot of phone calls that came from that and there were some concerns just over the amount of religious usage that was going on on that sign so whether it be the park and rec reviews it or council reviews it i remember when the sign went in it was a slow build and i don't know where we are now but lisa can see it from her house and i can see it out my window um so other than that the next part correct meeting is the 24th at 6 30. uh i addressed the eda last time i was here the next meeting for eda is next week tuesday the 10th at three o'clock here in the building thank you councilmember juan the arts and culture commission is meeting this wednesday and the planning commission is meeting this thursday and we'll probably finalize the sign ordinance and then take a very last look at the patio furniture and i think wrap that up um and that's all i have thank you councilmember peterson the business association luncheon is next tuesday may 10th at noon the speaker will be from anchor view and he's going to discuss uh how they pick nurse st paul and how great our town is and how it's progressing um 19th avenue house student built house is going very good the porch is kind of on and kids are working hard and still looking for that june date or july maybe to get it done so everything's on schedule that's all i have good uh student build house do they give us a time when that's going to be wrapped up at all they're a little delayed because you know materials i'm thinking the first part of july at the latest i'll check with them though i'll i usually i go by there all the time i'll if i see john or tom i'll stop and the neighbors are happy yeah very they're very happy good good councilmember thurston uh general business council member uh call uh just a couple things to touch on the firefighter appreciation banquet that um a big chunk of us attended a phenomenal phenomenal event um they were unable again dudakova to put that together and i believe of these six retirees there was over 130 years combined it's just just great to get everybody back together again and and a lot of smiles and a lot and a lot of good time was had and i learned an awful lot about some of the old stories that was very very entertaining um citywide cleanup on saturday went very well weather didn't cooperate for the first half of the day um but uh yeah thank you a decent treat i've got pictures um the the the turnout was less than that of last year i don't know if it was weather related or if it was everybody got their garages cleaned out last year during covet and and uh and not but uh did see several people go through um i saw a couple council members i saw a council member go through as somebody in the audience go through um so it was it was it was a great event uh and hats off to public works and everything that they've done to pull this event off and in talking to the residents they would love to continue to see it so it was very well run and very well organized uh and candiana won't take your thunder away from the citywide garage sale coming up this weekend number one i have nothing to add thank you uh councilmember peterson yeah the same feeling about the fire department awards banquet that's always my favorite night and a lot of camaraderie it's a great great family and it was very fun the citywide garage sale there's 27 signed up one less than last year it'll begin thursday through saturday and uh oakdale's having one too so you can do two and one come to north st paul and then go over to oakdale so that's good thanks for staff for hosting that and i want to just wish all the mothers out there happy mother's day that is this weekend isn't it yes it is and it's actually going to be nice out council member thorson i just want to say thank you again for the spring cleanup carrie i did a great job the public works our cleaning crew here dory and cesar they also helped that day and council members that showed up and council members that cleaned out one of the lots i here you brought a lot of stuff that they can't take credit for that i went down there i said i can't take credit for that i went down there and i was already done so someone oh someone beat me to it okay it's good to see that that's cleaned up yeah i forgot to mention that it looks completely different now which is the way it should look but it's glad that someone did that whoever did it thanks it was the code compliance staff okay uh so i think that was the wettest i've ever been uh that day standing in the rain and uh it was it was miserable so i i wanna kudos to everyone who helped out that day uh and the people that actually brought all their stuff uh during the pouring rain we had one kind of a semi show up and the crew is a little leery and you know a big big truck showing up and uh but only part part of the truck was full of stuff so everything was fine uh the fireman's also uh appreciation dinner uh jason mallinger did a great job uh recognizing the crew uh and you know what he had said too is that you know it's been it's been two years year and a half that a lot of these people haven't haven't been recognized so it was it was good to get everyone together and all the new firemen all the all the young guys that are are there all the uh the retirees didn't hardly recognize any of the the new people so it was kind of kind of fun to see and again that goes back to not being able to see anybody for a year and a half so i also like to appreciate uh we did do a red ribbon cutting at techydudes i appreciate council member peterson showing up for that uh new business to our community and uh i think they're gonna do well at that at that spot and then that that's all i have unless anything anybody has anything else that they forgot to cover if not uh motion to adjourn so moved by a very close session yep so i'll i'll i'll start that after second so motion by councilmember long second by council member cole any other discussion if not all those in favor signify by saying aye opposed motion carries we are adjourned and we will have an hr meeting here you