This transcript has been formatted with speaker names based on the context of the Lakeville City Council meeting. [0:00] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** thank you [0:29] [Music] [0:37] [Music] [1:08] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** pledge allegiance foreign [Music] [1:27] [Music] [1:36] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** citizens comments this is an opportunity for anybody to address the council for up to three minutes in particular if it's not an issue that is on the agenda okay moving on um it's item number four any additional agenda information Mr Miller **City Administrator Justin Miller:** nothing tonight I'm here **Mayor Luke Hellier:** okay I will now move on to presentations introductions uh five the Lakeville fast pitch softball Association donation for Aaronson Park and Mr. Hennen **John Hennen (Parks & Recreation):** good evening mayor and Council **Mayor Luke Hellier:** good evening **John Hennen:** so over the years the city has been very fortunate to have some great working relationships with our Athletic Association clubs and Civic groups throughout our community such as the Lakeville Fastpitch Softball Association, Baseball Association, lions and rotary to name a few these groups have contributed their time talent and funds over the years to enhance our Park facilities taking them to another level and in that Spirit tonight we have with US representatives from the Lakeville Fastpitch Softball Association who will present a check to the Marion city council for some improvements at Aronson Park **Mayor Luke Hellier:** very good are you guys going to tell us what they're for **Steve Schumacher (Lakeville Fastpitch President):** uh yeah so hi Steve Schumacher I'm the brand new president of Lakeville Fastpitch **Mayor Luke Hellier:** congrats **Steve Schumacher:** as of yesterday [Laughter] but yeah you know Lakefield Fastpitch just wants to say you know thank you for the continued partnership um you know what the city you know and working with us and really helping us out and you know it's just a token of what we um you know just a continued partnership you know all throughout the years and you know just want to keep continuing to improve Aronson you know it's it's uh it's definitely a destination um park for Minnesota softball and a bunch of the other clubs around the around the Twin Cities um so our donation of twenty five thousand dollars uh to go toward you know improvements at Aronson including you know the irrigation on fields one through four **Mayor Luke Hellier:** awesome very good thank you very much [Applause] very good thank you Council any other comments Joshua **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** I am I'm sure the irrigation system is going to be well needed I mean it's a every time I pass those fields it's they're being used so I can only imagine at what kind of upkeep it takes so thanks for the dedication back as well to make sure that the fields are usable for everybody so thank you for your work on that **Steve Schumacher:** yeah appreciate it **Mayor Luke Hellier:** and if you could have one more tournament before the season ends because anytime you've had one this summer it's rained for three days straight so we could use one more big dump so if you want to just put some on the calendar but okay there we count on rain **Steve Schumacher:** yeah yep **Mayor Luke Hellier:** well I just want to on behalf of the city of the council thank you for the continued partnership and and and for the donation we appreciate it and we continue I enjoy working with you so thank you very much um anywhere else okay uh moving on to item 5B fire department recognition and I'll turn it over to our fire chief Mike Meyer **Fire Chief Mike Meyer:** good evening **Mayor Luke Hellier:** good evening **Fire Chief Mike Meyer:** I'm gonna invite Mike Jones and his family I want to join me up here uh thank you for allowing us to recognize Mike Jones for his years in service of dedication of the fire department in our community Mike joined lfd in 2002 where he served 22 years as a firefighter at station three uh he was also station engineer and a board member on the relief board and I'm going to let him introduce his family and maybe share a little bit of his thoughts and his journey with the fire department **Mike Jones (Retiring Firefighter):** thing I'm lucky to have my wife Linda here this evening my father-in-law Jack mom my oldest daughter Haley most of her family were committed for other things going on this evening um she's got two grandsons Jack and Parker that would have loved to been here so they could have been over to the station and plan an engine her husband Logan's home with them and my middle daughter Alexa and her husband Ryan and their oldest son Oakley and Milo and then my youngest daughter Mackenzie and her husband Jake and our granddaughter Belle Louise that's coming **Mayor Luke Hellier:** very good **Mike Jones:** he came out because he's going to be uh um Isaac **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Isaac Michael oh very good **Mike Jones:** as far as uh my time on the force I'm proud to have been able to serve the community and give back I think I was fortunate I think most most firefighters when they start they want to try to make that 20-year Mark um there's a couple of goals that I had and that was one of them um I also uh always thought it was really neat to our our annual banquet or whatever uh and the award of firefighter of the year would be given out I was fortunate enough to win that one second goal I had uh making the 20 years and being able to do it on a straight shot and be fortunate enough to not sustain any injuries or anything like that and have to take any time off was another big plus um none of that would have happened without you know the department it's like family you know my fellow brother and sister firefighters but probably more important just as important if not more time so that when we get called to respond everything goes off without a hitch like a well-oiled machine now plenty of and then you do your job but afterwards when you're riding back to the station or when you're at home that's when you get time to think about you know hey what did we just do you uh you can't undo what you see or experience and that's when the family portion of the fire department and your real family come into play to help you deal with those things I mentioned training for the fire department tough part for the families there's no real training for the family then how do we how do we support our family member who's a firefighter so it's a real in my opinion a real tough job that they do and I'm so very thankful for all of them be in there and support me as as well as my fellow firefighters so I just want to say thanks to them for always being there and thanks to the city and for having the opportunity to do this so thank you thank you [Applause] **Fire Chief Mike Meyer:** there's just a couple words I'd like to say about Mike is obviously thanking him for his family and like he said you know it doesn't our fire department doesn't happen without the support of the home front the family being there to allow them to do what they do uh Mike is a talker so if you ever want a good story just ask him he's got good stories and a lot of jokes to tell you but uh thanks Mike for your 22 years and we appreciate that and Linda and family thank you for everything that you did to support your dad during his time **Mayor Luke Hellier:** on behalf of the our the community as well just thank you for your service and you mentioned it and the chief did about sacrifice your family and your kids there are probably a lot of nights that you had to skip dinner or get up in the middle of the night or eat early in the morning and not be there so we're just so grateful for that sacrifice that you've been made on behalf of our community so again thank you and congratulations on 20 plus years in your retirement thank you Council Joshua **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** I actually had a question there's folks here that don't necessarily know what's in the shadow box could you talk a little bit about what's in there and what that represents **Mike Jones:** um basically obviously we have the flag in there um what you see the big items are the are Shields that you'd wear on your helmet it signifies you know your uh your badge number whether or not you're an engineer an officer or a black hat right um the metals are for uh wearing on your your dress blues basically tell you you again that you're part of the department um some of the things that I think are neat uh for me I have one pin there that's a Lifesavers pin and I and I managed to make that work twice the other one just signifies that every five years you get another star and so there's 20 in there and the rest of it's just basically Insignia flag little lapels things for your lapels and stuff so it's a nice box it's a little great memories **Mayor Luke Hellier:** very good thank you very much thank you for your service all right we'll now move on to uh item C our Park and Recreation Department quarterly report and I'll turn it over again to Mr. Hennen um **John Hennen:** good evening again Mary Council this will be the Parks and Recreation quarterly report for the months of May June and July um in May on May 1st we had a groundbreaking ceremony at antlers Park you can see the photos that were recently taken you see the progression of our Park uh the trails are being established Pavilion shelters playground Etc so again the plan is to have this substantially completed November and open up in in 2024. we've talked about this numerous times the Heavenly community park but we continue to work on the plans for that plans and specifications will be completed this year going on for bids January and constructed in 2024. also part of the park Bond referendum is some trail Gap improvements four of the six gaps will be completed this year two next year and you can see the one on the left is from Kenyon Avenue on the west side of 35W River Farm Park cabin is progressing we're just down to some punch list items you can see we're almost finished we'll have a grand opening slash ribbon cutting event on October 14th from 10 to 12. we'll publicize that to the to the community and get some invites out as well some non-related Park Bond projects include the replacement of Foxboro playground and then the construction of Nob Hill Neighborhood Park is is happening this summer and a lot of that those amenities are already installed if it's the playground basketball court shelter Etc so they're actually putting in some Landscaping today so that's moving along nicely on the maintenance side um the the boat launch was completed last year just letting folks know we have that live boat launch launch camera which will allow folks to access our website and take a peek to see how many people at the launch so if they want to stay home if it's too busy they can do that again that's on our website and we also installed some Irrigation in front of the performance stage this spring busy time of the year for the park maintenance department they laid out 95 athletic decks and baseball fields and preparation for the um the summer and they continue to do that ball field dragging mowing on a regular basis and then we worked with LBA on the construction of a storage garage at King Park maintenance also heavily involved with special event setups such as panoprog and the Father's Day soccer cup and numerous softball and baseball tournaments moving to Recreation number of sports that are offered if it's tennis Cricket coach pitch lacrosse you name it they they have that as part of their Recreation program also have a number of lessons if it's anything from yoga to golf to skateboard camp they're all very popular summer lessons also programs such as nature detectives chess Camp safety camps again this is the time of the year that we have all our contractors in and providing these programs to the to the residents also in a Recreation on a shout out to Sean Bartlett who's who's here with us tonight Sean after 15 years as the youth archery instructor coordinator for the South 40 Archery Club he has recently retired but in those 15 years he has provided archery lessons to over 1100 kids so we want to thank Sean for that thank you Sean thank you numerous special events part of panoprog this is a ping pong drop panoprog Ron pickleball tournament July 4th Recreation Department's heavily involved with those events the Puppet Wagon was out and about this summer 96 shows had over 2 600 viewers at 13 different park locations and we want to thank the lake the Lions for the sponsorship of the Puppet Wagon again this year moving over the Heritage Center we have the active adults that are out and about playing Bocce golf biking knitting you name it they're they're doing it over across the street so I want to shout out to those folks they have the volunteer recognition last three months I think it was in May 88 volunteers um we're part of the recognition launch ice cream social and we had our panoproc bake sale after a few years of putting that on hold the Art Center we had the Arts crawl it was the first time we did a downtown Arts crawl on on May 13th this was a free event with 25 local artists and live music downtown was very successful for the first year and then as the mayor and councilman we had our concert series at the performance stage at casperson Park June 21st was the first concert and we had about 1100 individuals that attended that and the last concert is August 30th of this year also at the Art Center we have Raku firing some pottery classes painting classes and then a number of performances at the Arts Center which include the Mean Girls and Hansel and Gretel just to name a few just looking ahead we have the fall program registration that started August 10th fall brochure went out in the mail August 18th which is Friday the actual National Peach day or month I think today um at the Heritage Center so they celebrated that and then like I mentioned the last concert at the lake is on August 30th and that's a tribute to Johnny Cash so if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer any of them **Mayor Luke Hellier:** I was like yeah Michelle **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** um for those persons that don't necessarily read the local paper yeah there was a um a request of the made of the public for the boat launches and maybe you can elaborate on that um yeah and hopefully they hear this broadcast **John Hennen:** in preparation for that question I have a visual here so um Jack do you want to throw that up on the screen please perfectly he paid me well I'm teasing yeah so what we're having a problem with is uh folks that are boaters out there are power loading their boats onto a trailer and what you can see when that when that happens is you create a cavity or a drop off behind the launch and then you create a sandbar effect behind that so that if that happens on a regular basis then an individual comes back and they back their trailer in too far it drops off into that that cavity area so we're asking boaters to not power load their boat uh onto their onto their trailer these are going to be signs that are going to be placed out at both launches and unfortunately we're going to have to get a piece of equipment with a long arm a backhoe to bring that sandbar back in to fill that hole we've had to do that in the past so we're hoping we can get folks attention and if they would just please discontinue power loading onto the trailer that that'd be be terrific **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** so is there any possibility with our cameras showing people um actually you know when it's open that it was um deter people if they realize they're on camera and yeah we would know that they had done this yeah but I'm not sure if we'll Point them out but maybe we could just uh yeah if folks take a peek at it and see that someone's doing it maybe they're going to share with them that we prefer that they don't do that yeah **Mayor Luke Hellier:** I honestly it's been a long time since I voted how in the heck do you get your boat up on the trailer if you don't **John Hennen:** well you can you can use a little bit of ass you can slowly get up to the trailer and then take your you know the the Rope or the the crank and just hook it up to your boat and then reel it in **Mayor Luke Hellier:** yeah other questions a lot going on thanks John thank you okay moving on to item six the consent agenda Mr Miller any items to highlight **City Administrator Justin Miller:** thank you Marion Council two items I'd like to note tonight item six C is a donation from Minnesota energy resources this is an annual program they send out to our Public Safety teams and this year we've been awarded a two thousand dollar Grant to the fire department that will help purchase carbon monoxide detectors and then item 6f as a resolution approving a joint Powers agreement between the city of Lakeville and the city of Farmington there without a chief building official for about 30 days in a transition period they have to have that tissue permit so they reached out to us we'll be able to provide that service and we'll be doing it I just did a cost um for us at the same cost **Mayor Luke Hellier:** very good um any items that the council like to take off the consent of for further discussion okay if not I'll take a motion to approve the consent agenda **Councilmember:** I move to approve the consent agenda **Mayor Luke Hellier:** is there a second **Councilmember:** second **Mayor Luke Hellier:** okay any further discussion on the consent agenda CNN will take a Voice vote all those in favor say aye **Councilmembers:** aye **Mayor Luke Hellier:** opposed consent agenda passes we'll move on to item seven uh resolution calling public hearing on unpaid special charges and I'll let Mr Miller give a brief overview **City Administrator Justin Miller:** or I'll take this Banner account so this typically would have been a consent item with the new agenda software just looked through the cracks and got added but this is simply setting the date for a public hearing to adopt um special to a adopt fees for those who have not paid for various things that we have to clean up lawn grass things like that the date of the hearing will be October 2nd and that'll be a time when anybody who is being assessed these charges can have an opportunity to speak **Mayor Luke Hellier:** any discussion about the public hearing okay I'll take a motion to approve or an emotion driven **Councilmember:** move to approve resolution calling public hearing on unpaid special charges **Mayor Luke Hellier:** is there a second **Councilmember:** second **Mayor Luke Hellier:** any further discussion all's in favor say aye **Councilmembers:** aye **Mayor Luke Hellier:** aye opposed motion prevails moving on to items eight nine unfinished a new business for a discussion anything counselor you'd like to bring up okay uh moving on to item number 10 announcements our next regular meeting uh mind you is Tuesday September 5th uh 2023 right here at the council chambers and our next work session is next Monday night August 28th at the Public Works facility excuse me the water treatment facility on the corner of 105th and ipava at 6 30. any other announcements okay I'll take a motion to adjourn **Councilmember:** still moved **Mayor Luke Hellier:** a second **Councilmember:** second **Mayor Luke Hellier:** okay I was in favor say aye **Councilmembers:** aye **Mayor Luke Hellier:** aye op post we are adjourned good job everybody [Music] thank you [24:07] foreign [Music] [24:49] [Music] thank you [Music]