Good. >> Welcome to the Mount City Council. It's uh Tuesday, August 12th, uh 609. We're in Mount Council chamber council chambers. Can we rise 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. >> All right, before I go into the agenda and the amendments, I just want to make a quick comment. Uh recent statements have been made online by persons formerly associated with mound that have been discriminatory uh content and impacts individuals and the community. As mayor, I want to state that discriminatory content ba based on race, color, creed, age, religion, national origin, marital status, disability, sex, sexual orientation, familiar uh status, status with regard to public assistance, local human rights commission activity, or any other basis protected by law is unacceptable. This goes beyond the city's values and policies and it has no place in our community. The matter is currently under review by the city staff and city attorney. Uh as a community, we can work better to ensure all members of of our community live with their lives uh in dignity and free of discrimination. All right. So we have our agenda and we do have two amendments. One is 4F which is the resolution approving the application to conduct offsite gambling permit and then what we just talked about in our parks commission number 10 which is uh the city of mound agreement for park programs. So I got the agenda with those >> uh amendments. Do you have any other amendments? No. >> Okay. Can I get a motion to approve? >> I'd like to make a motion to approve the agenda with amendments. >> Can I get a second? >> Second. >> Um, >> okay. Two seconds. Any other discussion? >> Wait a minute. >> Yeah, we need to pull. >> Did we want to talk? >> This is just the agenda. >> It's adding. Okay. It's adding to the agenda, not the consent agenda. Correct. >> Y. >> Okay. >> And then uh so I got a motion. Two seconds. Uh uh all all those in favor please say I >> I >> I those opposed. All right, that passes. Now we have the consent agenda. So yes, if someone wants to read through those first, go ahead. >> Um what were we amending again for my >> four 4 the American Legion? >> Yep. All right. Okay. Uh consent agenda items A through F. A, approve payment of claims. B, approve minutes from the July 22nd regular meeting. C, good Stewart grant agreement. Um D, approve resolution 2566 authorizing central B business district parking maintenance role to be certified to the county auditor at 5% interest. Levby 26075 and um action on resolution 2567 approving concert permit for Mama's Happy Fall Market at 2336 Wilshire in Stonegate Shopping Center on September 10th through September 13th and F um resolution 2569 approving application for off-site gambling for uh Legion Post 398. All right. So, we have our consent agenda. Does anybody want to pull anything? >> Yes, I would like to pull C. >> Okay. So, we're going to pull C for discussion. Any others? >> All right. So, we'll go ahead and uh go ahead and approve the rest of them. Uh AB DE and F. Can I get a motion to approve those? >> Motion to approve the consent agenda. A B D E FG. >> No. Just that. >> Just that. >> No G. >> No G. Okay. Uh, got a motion. Can I get a second? >> Second. >> Any other discussion? >> Uh, roll call, please. >> Council member Heric. >> I. >> Council member Mcini. >> I. >> Council member Pew. >> Hi. >> Council member Castellano. >> Hi. >> Mayor Holt. >> Hi. >> All right. So, all that passes. So, if you were here for that, you can stay or leave. Uh, okay. So, now we're going to pull C. Do you want to talk about that? >> Yeah, I think we need to. Um, based on what I've read here with the actual application, I don't know if you want Tyler to say anything. I believe he's here. >> Well, so you want to pull it for >> I just don't know that we can agree to it and I think there's a time limit on it. If we decide to sell edgewater, I don't want to get into having plants planted and then we're in violation of the agreement with the county, which is the first document that's in our packet. starting on page 1963. >> All right. Any other discussion with council? >> So, if we don't approve this, uh Tyler, are you here? Tyler, do you want to come out? >> He's somewhere. >> Come on up. >> Just give us your name and address. >> Tyler Piper, 5504 Church Road. >> Okay. All right. So, do you have questions on time? >> Yeah. I mean, I reached out to Ellen Stones, which I believe is the grant manager with the county. Is that correct? >> Correct. >> Okay. And she did not call me back. So, I don't really know if we can move it, say, to one of these other parks that we were discussing earlier. >> Um, do you have any sense of that? >> I don't think that would be an option. >> I don't believe so either because I believe the grant that you submitted was very specific to Edgewater. >> Correct. to address storm water runoff and uh other u site conditions as well. >> Right. So, I mean, I think that's a that's a big issue with this document. Um I'm concerned that if we agree to it, then we've got a bigger issue. >> Do you still have 30 days for us to make a decision or when did the time start ticking? Well, the time started ticking officially when I received the council approval that if I won the grant, I could move forward with proceeding with the grant. So, I mean, orders for plants have been tentatively placed. I mean, I haven't charge it completely, but that was part of the agreement and so that stuff has to be moving because we're moving at a timeline. If I may speak freely, I'd just like to address a few things with Edgewater in particular is that this park when it's filled in will be an attraction. So I mean that checks off one of the things that was discussed in the workshop. Number two, when it is filled in part of the grant is it's complete volunteer and myself as the manager led. So in terms of mowing time because 75 to 80% of that is going to be filled in by garden that I'm managing it would be whatever 1/56 of their time potentially it's weed whipable as well. And along with that, you know, talking with the neighbors, we had sent out public letters to these individuals around the neighborhood and sought public input. And so, I'm just coming up here as a citizen, someone who's put in time beyond, you know, what I would normally put in for a project to make this community better, that we take it off the list of the ones you were considering to sell. and perhaps on the parks and open spaces commission I could work with you all but I think there is something wonderful planned for this park and I think it's a mistake to take it and put it on the table right now for selling when we can move forward with something where the city is getting a huge discount from a grant that we all worked for there were plan adjustments that were made from your specifications and the park and open spaces commission and I just feel like all the things that are in your goals align with this park being created this is what we are doing to try to make this community better. And so I'm not begging but asking you to help me move forward with this so I can make the community better. And we have demonstrations of it across the community at the uh church community gardens at Belmont where I've managed that for about five or six years now. So I get the value of a piece of land but I also know my son who's three visits that park and I do know I've seen other kids walking through there and I've seen people use it and it's as a taxpayer of mound. I feel like that's an investment that my taxpayer money is well spent. >> So I again want to ask in the friendliest way, please take this one off the list so I can move forward and make this a better place for mound. That's we have the same goal and I think it's a mistake to have this on that list. >> What What was your original timeline? Like I remember I asked you cuz I was the only one who voted no >> against your project >> in part of it because I knew that we were going to be talking about selling it, right? So no nothing against you and I actually love your work. >> Um >> but I remember you said something was like a 3 to five year that we can't touch it for the grant if we do this. it it is a seven to 10year and you have to manage it for at least seven years and it will be a 10-year commitment and part of we brought this up in the last it should be in the last minutes or meetings or whenever we discuss this but part of why how I addressed that was saying I've demonstrated that work at Belmont and so that's been about a six like I said five to six year commitment thus far and I have no plans to stop and part of the grant was to build in volunteers hopefully from different organizations in the community that would be a part of that as well so that's a community source project and so in terms of timeline it'd be about 7 to 10 years then yes if if we want to sell it I think it could be sold um there are demonstrations I've done in my yard of the rusty patch bumblebee being here and so we are within a realm of an endangered species so I mean that's something also to consider when we're giving away park land is that we are in a very very unique space in the United States in terms of one of the last hot spots for this insect so just throwing that out there but In terms of edge of water, I want to be very particular about that is if you're looking for a community to be interested and use it and be active in a park, I'm bringing that with the community and I really really want to move forward. >> And the the grants is about 5,000, right? >> The grant is city commitment is about 1,500 and the grant is in total 7,000. >> 7. Okay. So, hypothetically, if we say you go forward to this and then let's just say hopefully we wouldn't do this, but let's just say we we change our minds a year from now. Is it just we have to pay the back to grant? >> It would be a return of the grant and I would have to I mean, we would probably have to review the legal documents of the the grant before I give an honest answer. This this agreement says the grantee shall maintain these materials which are the documentation records that are required by the county allow access during the period of this agreement for six years. >> Six years not 10 years. There we go. Okay. >> Which was again within what I've demonstrated for Belmont and again having outside support. I think Dustin I know you were being asked a lot about input but has there been much maintenance you guys have had to do with the patches at Belmont beyond? >> No. None. So hopefully that can serve as a demonstration that we can do this and we can do it on paper thin budget and make it work. >> Okay. >> Um I want to be very clear, you've done a wonderful job with this grant. I have read all the way through it. Um and it's certainly not a personal issue. It's definitely um a financial decision in an effort to you know help the city financially and from a work standpoint as well as um making sure that we're effectively using those resources in other parks. So it's it's not my concern here is you know if we agree to this grant then we're on the hook and if that's something we're willing to assume then >> so basically and there is no two weeks that we can't talk about this in two weeks and give you a better answer. >> I have to have a commitment. I would need to get back to you. I really don't want to say like I have an x amount of time because I basically started contracting to begin the reimbursement period. So, I mean, in terms of moving forward and doing a fall planting, I think I may be able to get an extension, but it would be I wouldn't want to move forward. Let me just say that if there was the possibility of be on table. So, that's why pretty clear-cut. I'm saying if we can take that off the table, I'm ready to move forward. But if there's any chance of it being sold, I don't want to put the city on the line for $7,000 if you have to return the full total or if it's just the city commitment even. Then it's $1,500 wasted plus 100 plus hours of my time, >> right? >> Yeah. I mean, I don't know. This Ellen Sones, you know, I called her. She did not call me back. She's the grant manager. So, she should be able to tell us one way or another if we could use it in an alternate location. I mean, I realize your grant request is very specific to that location. >> Well, and and this is I'm trying to speak just to this grant in particular, but as someone on the parks and open spaces commission, too. My issue with selling a property like that, we'll just stick with Edgewater is I think it was $180,000 on there >> maybe, >> possibly, and split between and then who could possibly move in there. It's a lot of possibility, but the issue is that's a short-term solution. And if we have long-term funding issues, what park do we sell next? And then after we go through this aid, if we're still under budget, what is our game plan? Because if we sold these off and we're still needing to finance for the water treatment plant, then us as taxpayers have lost a resource, whether it's undeveloped or not, that we can't get back. And so I I think I would like to save that topic for a different time and stick just with Edwater is that I for me to move forward, I can't have any ambiguity. I need to know if we can turn this park into something special or you're considering selling it. And that's I have to I have to know that by this meeting and that's why I was hoping it would stay in the consent agenda, but bummer it didn't. So, um >> I think we should move forward with it. I mean, I'm agreeing with Mr. Piper that I mean, financially it's it's a lot of money, but it's not going to move the needle long-term impact for us. I mean, there's a lot of other things to discuss like uh pick on Sherman again or Bluffs, you know, like the ones that are just kind of more likely to be useful, you know, stuff like that. So, >> do we know if there's any other financial liability other than just the 5200 that they're granting us? >> If we accept the grant, I mean, the worst case scenario is you have to pay it back. >> Is that what the >> Is that the >> That would be the only If we don't meet up to getting the plants in the ground and maintaining it, which is basically all self-reported, but yeah, if we were to fail to meet those requirements, >> I think there's a thing in here we have to notify within 30 days or something if we're terminating it. >> Yes. But that's what I asked. When did the 30 days start? >> I and I didn't have the papers in front of me. I I I wish I could tell you. >> I mean, are we within the 30-day range still? >> I don't know. I I I know I've contacted her about reimbursements, and she said basically, we're ready to move forward, but until you get approval from your other partner, city council, I wouldn't recommend it because things could happen. So, I mean, I'm in the window that I can sign the contract. I don't know what the what the timing is on how long that contract is open for me. I would guess 30 days. It's not an open-ended extension. >> So, again, I wanted to sell this originally. >> I know. I I agree with you. I mean, I >> I was the only one who said no. You said you'd prove me wrong. >> I think you're gonna um I don't like that we say the four of us say go ahead and then he spends all his time >> Yep. and energy and stuff. Even though I don't agree, I think we should sell the lot, >> but I do think that we need to, you know, at least stand by word that we said back in January that you could do it and now you spent all this time and energy on it. It's going to look good. Again, I I have no problem with that. that the whole reason why we're talking about this this workshop before this meeting was you know can we you know reduce our uh you know parks by what was it six to eight is that we're looking >> we have 38 >> we have 38 parks a lot of parks >> that are named >> so >> parks >> again I can go either way whatever you guys want to do but >> I feel a little bad that we told him yep >> go ahead in January the four of you guys said this >> well this is also we talked about making the good improving our >> he will improve it. You won't need to mow it much if any, right? >> Well, we want to leave walking spaces in between so people can enjoy >> very little public works time. >> This isn't like mowing Phil Brook or something. You know, I mean, >> if nothing else, this kind of does go with what we just talked about is we're repurposing this park. Okay, now we got seven more to think about. >> It'll get visited more. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So, it sounds like I I don't know. What do you guys want to do? Well, I mean, I'm torrent, too, because we all appreciate >> Yeah. >> what you do and what you've done, Tyler. And this this is kind of frustrating because I don't want to see it be a casualty of you know forward planning that you know I don't want to this to fall between the cracks but I I just know how much um I would like to help our residents in with Mount's financial situation. Um, so I'm I'm really torn and I'm torn mostly because I really do appreciate all the hard work you do and have done for a lot of our >> our parks. So, >> I don't know. >> Um, do you want to make a motion or what do you >> uh I mean if the narrative is that we want to improve the parks and make them better, then I think we need to prove it, which is what Mr. Piper is asking. So, I mean, I don't I really have any question that we should just stay on course and move forward with it and improve that park by doing this. >> Council member Pew, >> what do you ask me to vote or >> Well, do you want to do you want to >> I want to move forward with the park. >> Okay. >> I'm going to say I'm going to move forward. I think we can tell him in January that we're, you know, again, I' I'd love to sell it, but when I think in my head, >> still sell it if you know, we will have to reimburse the county for the 5250, which is nothing in the scope of things, >> right? >> I just I also don't want to >> I think if we if we move forward with him, we got to take it off the list. We can't just be like, >> "Yeah, >> here go plant it." And then we're going to rip it all up in two years. >> Yeah. >> Then there's a lot of other things on the list. We can do that. >> Yeah. Well, in that case, then I would like to make a motion that we don't proceed with the grant. >> Okay. So, she got a motion that we're not going to proceed. Do we have a second? >> Okay. Hearing none. So, that's done. So, I'll make a motion to proceed with the grant. >> Second. >> Second. >> Second. >> Okay. Got a motion and a second. Uh, all those in favor, please say I. >> I. I. >> All right. Those opposed? Nay. >> All right. That passes. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, council. [Applause] All right, number five. We got comments and suggestions from anybody that's present that their item is not on the agenda. We're going to have an open discussion about the lid. Um, [Applause] and then we are going to talk about the the park, but I don't think we're doing an open meeting for that, right? No. >> So, if anybody wants to come up, you got give you three minutes. All right. Hearing none. Number six, we have Orno Police Department. >> Oh, I'll see. >> Oh, you want to come up? >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> All right. Give us your name and address, please. >> Sure. I'm Sophie Rutder. My address is 4970 Bartlett Boulevard. Um, I live directly across the street from Carlson Park, which is a fantastic park. Um, so I'm basically here because of your proposal to sell parkland. Um, selling our small lakeside parks might seem like a one-time payment and a few new property tax dollars, but that's trending some something price trading something priceless, something and something fleeting. These spaces aren't just grass and benches. They are community front porch to the lake. They give everyone, not just those who live on the lake shore, a place to gather, launch a kayak, or simply see open water. Once they're gone, they're gone forever. Um, converting these to single family homes doesn't truly grow our tax base in a meaningful way. But it does shrink public access and erase the lake views that make our city special. Parks like these are rare and irreplaceable. Let's not give away a public treasure for a short-term gain that will never match its long-term value to our um residents. Thanks. >> Thank you. >> Were you here for the workshop? >> I was. Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yep. I saw I've got a list of all the parks. Yep. Thanks. >> Um and the other thing too, I don't know how you found out about this, but we have uh RAVE which is on our website and so with our next uh joint planning and parks meeting or sorry uh parks and council meeting. Yeah, >> we'll be shooting that out. So, >> okay. you can >> the workshops you you just kind of watch us I guess but if we have uh any council meetings and stuff you can participate as well too. So >> okay >> but thanks for coming. >> Thank you. >> I if I may Mr. Mayor I I'll add to uh e notify on top of the website if you go to the website right on top there's an orange button that says e notify you can be notified of any public meeting that you want. So >> meetings like the workshop earlier fall under public notifications you can be notified of that too. So that's >> for everybody. So, we just uh upgraded our website. Part of our whole thing with our council priorities for this year was to get the word out better. Um, obviously somehow you all came here for something, but the word's getting out. But, uh, we're going to um, we're working on that. How many emails we got on there now? Do we know? >> I've got signed up for it. I've gotten a lot. >> I've gotten it, too. Yeah. if you can go in and specifically sign up for whichever news and highlights you'd like to be notified on. >> Yeah. >> So, goes out regularly. >> Uh the other thing too I would say just quickly uh with our road construction too um you know they they do give the Henipin County notification. No, that's a different thing but again we'll we'll try to pass on that as we can as well as we have a Facebook website too. So follow that. Um, orno police is not here, right? >> Sergeant Spencer's on vacation. >> Okay. Oh, he told us he was. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So, we have the report if anybody wants to look at that. Number six. Does anybody want to talk about that >> at all? No. >> All right. We're going to go to number seven. Approve resolution number 2568. Authorization to award bid recommendation for the Las Lake Commons phase two improvements city project number PW2510. [Music] >> Thank you mayor and members of the council. Matt Bowman, city engineer. Um on August 5th, we held the bid for the Last Lake Commons phase 2 project. Uh we had five biders and then there were several alternates within the project which we've talked about before. the different pieces that we we may choose to add or or not move forward with. Um the low bidder with the base bid was Pimber Companies. They are out of uh I think it was Monomony, Wisconsin. They have done several projects for the city before in the past. Um not necessarily a park, but a couple lift stations that they've done projects like this as well. So we recommend awarding to them. So I think the point for discussion tonight is if there are any of the alternates that we do want to move forward with. So you can see the prices listed there for each one on the top line. Um the different pieces. Our um alternate one was an additional um wayfinding sign that was removed. It's out by Casaten in the trail crossing. Um that was combined with several of the aderondac chairs. I think there was eight of them that we bid together. Um alternate two was to replace a section of the trail down by the lake which is currently asphalt now. potentially change it back to concrete just kind of keep a similar um aesthetic to the whole area instead of a little bit of trail asphalt trail in there. And then the alternate three was the replacing the boardwalk deck the boardwalk decking um kind of the harbor space there. So that that's wood now. We were looking to move that to composite. So that was about 40 just under $48,000 there. Um the bids were competitive. Um like September was a low bidder. they were 32% below the the high bid. Our engineers estimate was a little bit low. So, we were 16% lower than the low bid, but with five bids there, that's generally the the cost to do the work. Um, in uh the long-term financial plan, there's with inflation, there's $884,000 in there allocated for that. So, this is going to put us a little bit over that with with all said and done. Um, so I guess the our recommendation is to award the base bid, but if you guys want to entertain any of the alternates, we're open for that. And then you have a resolution to to move forward with >> Okay. Does council have any questions? >> Uh, yeah. So the the resolution is only for the base bid. Um, but we could modify the resolution to >> any and or all. >> Yeah. >> Is the right way to say that? We could we could include any of the alternates if that's what you guys wish to. >> Um I guess I just have one question on the add alt to um how like for the the trail to be concrete. I don't know if you have a snapshot or something that we can put up really quick of the park, but how much exactly of the trail is that? I can't kind of visualize it right now. >> I could share the GIS here. >> Sorry, put you on the spot. >> Yeah. alternatives resolution just base. >> I guess the point that I'm asking to to clarify too like for the base any of the alts for pimber are also cheaper than oh almost almost all cheaper than others. So if we were to dissect it and put it off till later, it might not necessarily save us any money. >> So we put in 850 for the project, right? >> Yeah. So it comes under, but I'm just saying the resolution is just for the base. >> But if we want to discuss if we want to add any, you know, we're probably going to spend more on it later if we don't. >> Yeah. So this >> add it now >> up on the screen. That's that's the trail the section of trail there. >> Yeah, you're right. >> Okay. That's going to be concrete now. If we went with alternate two, we would change that to concrete. Right now, it's not included in the base bid. So, it would just stay as is. >> It would stay as is. And like what kind of grading system do you give that? Is it like a like as as far as the condition that it's in now? >> Uh, I'd say it's 60 to 70%. >> Okay. >> That's the part that >> like new. Yeah. >> That's the part that continues on in back. >> Yeah. On on the other side. >> And it is tar or asphalt over there too, right? It's asphalt on each side here. >> No, >> bear with me as that loads up. But it's asphalt going all the way out to the county road that way. And then once you get through the >> I'll ask which alternate is that one? >> Alternate two. So it's about 10 $10,356. >> And then what's one again? One one was to replace >> is the aderond deck chairs >> signed >> signage >> was to so there's a sorry this is >> I'm just thinking if we move things off till later we just keep learning it's gets more expensive but I'm just >> well for >> for the sake of discussion >> for the anorand chairs I'm absolutely against them they're not age friendly um but also if we work with our part the partner we should have which is the historical society there are grants for the wayfinding signs Okay. >> So, that's a cost we can get through grants. >> So, over the next year, we could work on better chair options. >> Yes. >> And signage. >> Better signage options. >> Uh, >> don't worry about the tar >> for now. >> Yeah. Can I jump? It's just >> I was just bringing it up for discussion. >> Yeah, it was just one way finding sign that was kind of off of the project. So, that's where my mouth is complaining about. Yeah. >> Y >> because it was down for about a year. So there are several within the base bit that we are we are including and keeping within their >> wayf finding sites. >> So you mentioned Pin Brook has done some other projects. Do you know which ones? >> Uh I didn't have a chance to speak with them directly. I was actually on vacation last week but Brian kind of handled all that. So we we we've had good working relationship with PERA on several projects before. Can you go back to what you said about the wayfinding signs that there are some that we would still do? >> There are I think three that are part of the park or around the park. One one new one and then there are two where we're just replacing the panels because they refer to um they refer to the harbor district. So we're changing those to say lost lake comments and do some other small changes to them to replace the panels within the wayfinding the structures. >> Yeah. Because I I think that um you know I I guess my hope was that we would decide what type of wayfinding signs we were going to do. There had been a comment from the um survey of doing historical and it's different if you're doing historical versus you know businesses or whatever. And so what would these >> Yeah. So I think there's two different So wayfinding sign is just a big panel that kind of shows you where you are in the world and what's around there. >> That we have the we have four interpretive signs that are going to go around the park that we need to still kind of work through what's going on those as far as the historical items and the other the other things we talked about. See, there's a whole there's a whole format that you should use when you're doing historical signs um to ensure that you get the history correct and and the way it's phrased and that those are the ones we can get sign grants for. Um so I I would want us to defer the signs until >> all the signs >> all just one you're saying. I think I think we need to make sure as to what kind of wayfinding signage we want to have and there's all different kinds and um you know we've we've talked about having them but we haven't talked about are they going to be historical are they going to be um um you know I don't know what are the other things are they going to be businesses so you know we have to be consistent once we start down that path so that our signage is um all done correctly. >> So you'd be saying like defer >> defer >> all one for sure. >> Do you want to add around any shares? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And I might need Scott to help jump in here. This since those are pieces of the base bid. I think we have to award them. We could potentially work with the contractor to to not move forward with them, but I think we need to stick with awarding them as part of the base bid. Otherwise, >> um >> so a dis delay the installation. >> Yeah. >> Is that what you're saying? >> Or the creation and installation. >> Yeah. Potentially. >> We haven't decided what actually we're going to put in the science. >> Right. And and that's part of the >> that's what we were talking that's what what's going on those >> interpretive panels is to be designed yet. So that's where we're going to work through with the historical society and whatever >> different groups here to to get that done. And that they're basically just flat panels we put on the information that we we see fit there. So like the panels could be there without >> Yeah. So we can delay. >> We just put in >> kind of this fixtures this fixture that will hold it. >> Okay. >> Over the winter we'll put we'll figure out what how we're going to design the content inside of it >> and then we'll put the >> question. >> Um is there is this like just pinching pennies here? But is there like a significant difference if so alt two says replace the trail with concrete? Is there a reason why we wouldn't just replace it with pavement again? It was more just it was to kind of frame this park is everything around it is concrete besides the obvious the three rivers trail. Oh >> yeah. >> Yeah. >> So back on the signs the RFQ require did it include the main sign that now says mount it did say Mount Harbor District. Is that included in that bid for that to be changed? >> Yeah, the big one on the county road that says Harbor District. We're replacing those plaques to say Lost Lake. >> Okay, perfect. Okay. So, base bed, alternate one is >> the the off to the side wayfinding sign and then the aderond deck chairs. >> Okay. >> Alternate two is the replacing the trail to concrete and then three was replacing the boardwalk. >> Okay. >> And I think the boardwalk's got to go. >> Don't you agree? >> Um, so you're saying >> to not include >> Yeah. So add all >> If you don't do the boardwalk, it's going to look terrible. >> Yeah, it's >> it's pretty bad. It's Yeah. >> Yeah. >> It's not the most expensive world not safe >> addition, but it's I don't know. I could be in favor of that. Yeah. >> We still need to Dustin I think can chime in here, but we still need to add to the CIP to take care of the rest of the structure, >> right? >> Yeah. But for this, like if we add, you know, X, Y, or Z, it still comes in under under budget. But >> so we have 850 accounted for this. >> Do we want to skip alt one for now? >> I would. Yes. >> Like my my opinion would be to skip alt one but add two and three. >> Okay. >> Personally, >> so we got that. Are you guys okay with that? >> As part of public. >> Yeah, sure. Want to come in? Come on up. >> Sorry, Matt. >> Give us your uh >> on your toes here. >> Give us your name and address. >> Joanna Con, 6045 Chestnut Road. and I'm also the chair of the parks commission. Uh clearly a lot of people are here tonight and I just want full transparency before this vote on phase two of the project. Um we have been developing the idea for Lost Lake Commons for four years now. It started early 2021 and the final concept of Lost Lake Commons was approved in I believe March of 2022. So the final phase that was approved three years ago is not what they're voting on today. Many things have been taken out. And when were they taken out? >> A month ago. >> June. >> With no consultation with the parks department with no consultation of any citizens that have uh taken surveys, done the focus groups at our farmers market, spoken at our parks meetings, with no consultation of any former or current parks commission members. This was a non-transparent move on the part of city council. They took out many amenities that people have wanted and have asked for for years. So, they're voting today for the very basic amenities for this park. Lighting, signs, a walkway, things that we could expect no matter what people are asking for in a park. They have $850,000 to spend. That's always what has been budgeted. As of January of 2025, according to the minutes from city council, all the things that we had originally wanted and asked for as citizens, such as a fire pit, such as an art block, such as a hammock installation, such as a rain garden, those would're all going to fit within the budget. So, what they're going to vote for now is cheaper and not as good. And they're going to claim that they're saving all this money for us. Sure, they're going to save a hundred grand. They're trying to fix the water problem on the back of the parks program. The math does not add up here. So, they're going to go ahead and vote yes because who's going to vote against the lighting? But I just want you to know that US citizens are not getting what you asked for and you're not getting what your tax dollars are there to do. And this park, the centerpiece of ground is not going to be as good as it was supposed to be despite the past four years of work that we have all put into this program. It's very disappointing to see. >> All right. Thank you. All right. Any other discussion on responses to the comments? >> I have a question for maybe not for Matt, just directly, but this is just phase two that we're voting on tonight, but just so everyone and refresher for me too on what's going forward. What did we add for 2.5 and 3.0? cuz you know we didn't say kind of forgot what >> two and a half is the artwalk. >> Yep. >> Right. >> Yep. >> And what that's going to look like the Can you pull up the the the >> So like phase one is done. This is phase two and then we still have you know if or what capacity like 2.5 and 3.0 like it's not it's not done. Yeah, you give me a second. I don't have it. Okay. Right up my finger. >> Well, the artwork was taken out and the hammocks were taken out, but there was also um minimizing the use of natural um um plantings um and trees. And if you look at the site right now, there's three trees in the middle of the site >> and that's it. Um, and so we took down a lot of the vegetation and then there was the proposal for a substitute for the artwork. >> Now, we didn't vote on it, but there was a proposal. >> Yeah. So, >> it's to it's to include >> TBD, >> a reference to Tonka. >> Yeah. For those of you who aren't here, we did have a discussion around Tonka Toys and taking the area that they had discussed for um an artwalk and using that same area to kind of memorialize um Tonka toys and their efforts to the community. Um I disagree with Joanna's assessment. Um I realize they have spent a lot of time and work. Um it is the council's discretion to determine how we spend the citizens money. um the questionnaire that she's referring to that was put out on social media um and through what was it the >> I think Bolton May put it out. >> Yeah. Um that was very leading at best and a lot of the questions were leading and a lot of the comments were against what they were discussing to do. Um we had a discussion as a council about the fire pit and about the hammock stands. Um, we are trying to be very responsible with your money. Um, and we are trying to get this park completed. And I think probably what a lot of you are not aware of, this park will cost us somewhere north of $2 million, which is very, very important to the community, both money and um, the location and our efforts to make this park look the best that we can at this point in time. And to Kevin's st comment, there are still additional phases where once we make the determination on whether or not we want to place the Tonka toys type interest down that one side, if you can help me out there with the pointer. >> Yep. >> Um, we decided not to put in some of the bushes and stuff until we made the final decision. >> Um, a lot of this work that's going to be done is the preliminary work necessary to support phase 2.5 or is that what we're calling it? >> Yeah, that works for me. So, um I think the council has been very responsible in the decisions that we've made. Um they have been up for discussion. >> I don't think we have anything on the calendar yet either, but we were >> right >> planning to have another joint workshop, right? >> Correct. >> With parks. So, you know, um if I'm remembering correctly, you can jump in if I'm not, but I don't know if 2.5 or three was, you know, the fire pit or um the hammocks or not or the additional um shrubs and all that stuff or not. It was just not yet. >> We were talking about possibly just going to 2.5 and not having a three. >> So, yeah. So, three was going to be the the shelter and then finishing out the concrete here in the plaza space. Um, part of part of the original three was some of the work down here that we're actually getting done in this phase. So, there is going to be some trade-offs there and that was one of the things we talked about that with the without the crystal ball. That looks like that cost has gone down a little bit because we're getting some of it done now. But yeah, that that was three here. Um, so then two and a half was the the art walk. Um, and then that still sounds like it's moving forward, but it's the maybe the main thing that came out of there is the um the hammock post. >> Yeah, but I think it's, you know, safe to say it's moving forward, but not yet, >> right? >> Yeah. But I think the question also becomes this was supposed to be an events park, a park where people would come together and have we taken out stuff that would allow people to come together. You know, is it going to physically be a space in which people will say let's meet over there and have lunch or um or let's go to the food truck event or let's go to the concert. Have we removed articles that no longer make that a friendly space to welcome those activities? And I think that we have done that. >> Like which um which things? >> Well, I I think the plantings and um you know, it's just sort of barren to me at this point. Um the seating is all around the um the amphitheater piece which is good but we still needed other places for people to collect be able to sit and gather which was part of the hammock thing but we didn't we didn't really substit we took out the hammocks we didn't really substitute it other than the anorand deck chairs which no one can sit in and get out of. Um, so you know, I think I think that we did some short planning in one meeting. We we replanned a park that had had years of people talking about. So it was sort of, you know, it's sort of disrespectful to the people who had given input and put their, you know, best thinking forward in making a unique park because in one meeting we decided, well, let's take this and this. I just thought that it was poor planning on our part. Planning that we shouldn't have done, but that's me. >> So I I mean I'm under the impression that we're still adding more chairs later, right? >> That's all one that >> Yeah. >> Do you have the picnic tables in there or joint workshop? >> We we don't have those part of the bid. I think that's something that >> that's what we're going to add later. >> Public works. Yeah, we could easily kind of coordinate getting some different pieces like that. They're not nec we're kind of more focused on the infrastructure pieces that you know the things with footings and that get buried and >> and picnic tables I think are easy to add at any point. >> The intent was to get that work started. >> Yeah, we're we're here so we can get it done this fall. >> So part of this whole problem is me because I wanted to push this forward faster. Right. Um we we have been talking about this for too long, right? And I think all of us can agree we're sick of the dandelion field, right? you go to get ice cream and then you go look at dandelions and you got the one picnic table right now. It looks a little bit better. You know, now we've done some road work and stuff. The next thing just so the public knows is we're going to re re uh pave the the farmers parking lot. Right. Mountain h owns that. Jesse said he'll do it by fall by the end of fall. Don't even go back on. >> He's working on it. Um we want the whole downtown to look nice as a whole. And we could keep kicking this and kicking it and kicking it, not doing it, but the finance committee, we put money in to pay for this phase two. Phase one was a 700 grand that our Tesla gave us for the land. Okay? So phase one was paid for by the big building right next to it. Okay? So when you say $2 million, just know that >> however you want to count that in your head, that's fine. But that's that was paid for by the property. Now, again, I know people say, "Well, that property should have been $2 million." whatever that was paid for. The second thing we budgeted for because we want to get this done. We want to kind of move forward and actually do get this thing done. >> And we have more developments that are bringing money. >> We have two new developments >> that are bringing money to it. >> So, yes, we took out a fire pit, right? The five of us agreed. >> I think we all are agreeing. Tell me unless you didn't. You wanted a fire pit. >> Well, we didn't necessarily take it out. We we postponed it because people were hming and hawing on gas or wood and we're like, well, let's just finish phase two and then just >> wait on this. >> And what we also did is if if anybody were was at the uh um the tree lighting, Christmas tree lighting ceremony was phenomenal last year. That whole brand new concrete uh walkway all the way down to the harbor. Um we had uh removable fire uh pits basically and it was it was great. And so we're thinking, you know what, do we want a permanent fire pit that, you know, 14-year-olds can go down there and screw around and start a fire and, you know, do we want to do that? Do we want to do glass and then we, you know, we we cover it and we can hit a button and it's all good realistically, are people going to do that? What's the cost of a fire pit? So, we just said we're not ready for the fire pit yet. Maybe we'll do it later and in phase three. Maybe we will, maybe we won't. I don't know. What we did do is we're saying, well, if we're going to do this big concrete area, and if you can kind of highlight over that big concrete, you know, meeting area, per se, >> we're doing that. That's going to, you know, think of how big the concrete to the left of that is, that walkway. This is going to be a big area for people to kind of get >> where the gravel is. >> Kind of where the gravel is roughly. >> We made >> we made it less square. >> We we circled it, per se, make it look a little bit more friendly. Uh we did keep that little reserve pond thing. We kept some trees. We got some bushes um on the south. Well, those other trees, other bushes on the top. >> Yeah. >> On the south side, we we did that. We added the concrete there, too. So, if we ever want to do music in the park every Thursday night at this new park, we have a spot for the band shell to hook up, right? People can be out in the in the grass and bring their picnic table. supposed to be more of an open park feel in general. That was the whole point of this thing. Um, this is this plan has gone through I think three different of us people sitting up here. >> Um, I'm pretty sure it was three of us if not more. Um, it's been around >> and and I personally I was like we need to get this done and I'm sick of looking at data lines. Sick of it right now. Oh, you look at it. The grass is growing. We're trying. And then I know we're not paying them until they, you know, get rid of the weeds, but >> it's gotten better. >> It's a little bit better. Yeah, fall is tough. Um, and then yeah, we're we I think we canned that whole right side for now. That's why it's highlighted and tanned. That's the future artwalk. What is that going to look like? Are we going to bring in some Tonka stuff? Are we going to do some West Tonka Historical Society? We're going to do some mound stuff. I We don't know. We have no idea yet. We haven't We haven't got that far, but we have a whole winter to figure this out before the spring. We're getting this whole thing set up. Lights, electric. I mean, takes a lot to build a big park like this. This is a lot of the building bases of getting this park done. >> That's why we said we called it two and a half. Now, phase two and a half is going to be this artwalk. Maybe phase three next year. We're going to talk about it in our budget meetings coming up. you know, if we can allocate some money for that and then finish this hangout and then we can move on. So, yes, we did get rid of the fire pit >> for now or maybe forever. I don't know. >> We got rid of the artwork though, too. >> We got rid of the artwork for now. And you know, the comment on, you know, you're not getting what what you paid for for the 800 grand or whatever. We just bid this out now. This has not been bid out before this. So, we don't know. And as you can see, the top bid was 1.2 million. The bottom bid was 837. So we just bid it. So we don't know what we would have got for our money for before if we added these other things. >> So >> how much money are we getting from the current developments, the new developments? How much >> we got? We already got our seven for the land. >> Yeah, >> this this 850 we we put into the budget. >> No, I'm saying but we've got Benitaka Flats and the development behind the post office. They're both supposed to be contributing to the fund for parks. Oh, like a when you build do a new bill like park syn dedication I don't know. >> Yes. So how much money is coming out of the what did our test give us? >> 700 for the property. >> So what we're talking about tonight was >> contribution towards the >> plus plus we have some tiff money coming in. >> Right. Um, I guess my my just to add on to what I had said previous was like adding alt two and alt three just for my personal opinion and then to save alt one for when we have our joint workshop or meeting with parks. Like I don't want to pick what kind of chairs go in the park. I don't want to pick what the wayfinding signage looks like. I know you don't want a backach. That's fine with me. But the purpose for for putting off alt one is to discuss it with parks later, not just amongst us. >> And then I think two and three should move forward. >> I mean, again, three is the the the decking, >> right? >> And if you've been down there, it's I mean, it's old cedar. >> It's old. >> Uh needs to be replaced eventually. And if we're going to do this brand new beautiful park, >> I don't know why we would not do that part. >> Again, we did budget. We could do them all and just be done with it. We budgeted for all that. So, >> I don't think we're considering just putting those eight aderondex. Aren't we going to add additional seating down? That's why I want to say Yeah, we need to do picnic tables. I mean, we >> for for all that. Remember the the other proposal that they had with the different picnic tables, but we weren't ready to say, "Okay, we like those, we like those." Remember, all this is going to be built in the fall anyway. It's all It's already August. >> So, by the time we actually start getting some chairs and stuff for next year, >> that's going to be the more important part. We don't want to throw them out there in the middle of winter anyway. Do we know will they complete this work in time for our holiday kickoff in November? I don't know the date. >> Electrical since we >> Yeah. All of the >> barring that they can get all the equip all the the poles and all that stuff. They should be able to get it in. So that our completion is to get it done by um sometime in November. >> Okay. >> The there's going to be need to be some new grass that has to come in. So that's more likely to to germinate in the spring and and along the strips and edges and stuff like that. But the majority of the site then the interior will hopefully be good and growing. >> I'm thinking more like lighting that we would be putting in for the holidays. >> Well, we just want >> we just want to make sure that that concrete walkway >> and the concrete >> is going to be open so we can we have some ideas on what we want to do for that and to bring >> Yeah. And those are just the ballard this the shorter ones. So those shouldn't be too hard to get in and get those done. So, anything that they do is not going to be a big mess down there. >> Well, >> I mean, it will be >> push to get Yeah, we'll push to get it cleaned up, get it all seated. That That shouldn't be a problem. >> It's a weekend before. Uh >> I I don't have the date. Exactly. But yeah, sometime it's the Saturday before. So, >> good. >> So, it sounds like we want to do base with alternate two and three for Peber. Am I hearing that? >> Uh, personally, that's okay. I would pick counc >> um I'm going to I'm going to hold on to my thought for a minute. >> Okay, >> I agree. >> You're good. Okay, councy. >> I agree. >> Okay. All right. We got You want to say something before we vote? >> No. >> Okay. All right. Uh someone want to make a bid for that or a motion for that? >> Um I'll try to not butcher it. Um, I'd like to make a motion to approve resolution 2568 accepting bid for Lost Lake Commons phase 2 project 2510 in to include base bid alt 2 and alt three not alt one >> for pimber companies >> for pimber companies. >> Okay, got a got a motion. Can I get a second? >> Second. >> Any other discussion? want to say anything? >> I'm going to vote no. >> Okay. So, but no discussion. All right. We got our motion in a second. >> All those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> I. Those opposed. >> I. >> Okay. It says 4 41 approve. So, okay. Now, we're going to go to number eight, Harrison Bay Lake Improvement District public hearing. Can we ask somebody to close those blinds so I don't know if you have >> Jesse? Can you have someone close up the lines? >> It'll just help with the >> All right. Welcome. Can you give us your name and address? >> Yeah, welcome. Good evening. Bart Hauling, 5513 Sherwood Drive. Uh really excited to be here tonight. Uh I'm a resident with my wife for the last eight years in mound but a fisherman, a boater, a kayaker, a pond hockey player, and a sailor on Lake Mitanka probably for just shy of 40 years uh now. So really excited to be here and wow, what a great time to be in Mount Lot going on tonight. Super fun uh to hear all the discussion. Hey, thank you Mayor Holtz and city council members um for the partnership. I'm here representing Harrison's Bay Association tonight and the proposal that we've got to form a lid for Harrison's Bay. I want to thank you for the partnership over the last four years as we've continued to discover uh a lot about Harrison's Bay. Um and also thank you for the last two to three months as you've really had a chance to dive in and hear a lot from the public around the concept of a lid and what's going on with Harrison's Bay, the challenges we face and some ideas on how to solve those. I do also want to thank the folks in the room. We've got a very actively engaged community uh that wants their voices heard and it's been a really incredible last six to eight months as we've been able to have that dialogue across a lot of folks that surround Harrison's Bay that are part of this community. Uh and you're going to hear more of that tonight, I think, as we get into the public hearing later. Uh my intention tonight is to spend a little time just kind of doing an overview of the situation. Uh recapping where we're at, talking a little bit about the lid. We're fortunate enough also to have a couple representatives from the leadership of the Minnesota State DNR uh aquatic in invasive species team here tonight that will speak a little bit uh about the situation and permitting uh on the lake and then get into the fun with the public hearing and commentary from uh all the folks in the room. Um our Bayer Lake uh this is something that we all value greatly in Mound. It's a big part of our community. You know, the lake is 14,000 acres, uh, over 125 miles of shoreline. Um, and it's part of, uh, our lake life. Uh, it's part of the the draw that brings businesses, brings homeowners, brings visitors in to spend time in Mound every single year. Um, Harrison's Bay is 215 acres of that, but it's one that's near and dear to our hearts. And today the primary responsibility for managing the health and trying to find ways to improve the health of that bay is falling primarily on its residents. So we're here to talk a little bit about that. On the next slide, uh yes, water quality. Um these are some of the biggest challenges that we have discovered. Part of our intent in creating the Harrison's Bay Association was to learn more about what's going on with this bay that's part of our community. To learn about the challenges, learn about what people want to happen with the bay. Uh and what we found is that there are some big challenges out there. Water quality is probably at the top of that list. Um the right now currently the MPCA rates mound as an impaired body of water. Uh you might ask what does that mean? It means that it meets criteria that include internal loading. So chemicals and runoff and phosphorus that's already in the lake getting stirred up and getting reanimated and creating challenges with the health of the lake. Algae blooms. uh the existence of uh aquatic invasive species like carp, agricultural runoff. If you drive two miles west, you know exactly where that's coming from. Got a lot of that coming in this side of the lake. Uh and then certainly the rest of the invasive species that you see on that list there and managing those. Uh we've got invasive vegetation like mil foil and curly leaf pondweed that are not native to the lake. We have invasive carp, uh zebra muscles and the like. um lack of native plants as well and support for native wildlife and aquatic spec aquatic species. Those those invasives crowd out uh the ability for the the natural species to thrive. Uh and then we also have runoff issues. The number one challenge for water quality in urban lakes and we'd be considered one of those is storm water runoff. So c certainly we've got a list of challenges to try to face. Um some things that we've done so far uh in the last four years at Harrison's Bay Association, really trying to build a baseline structure for improving the health of the bay as a community and as an association. We've pursued treatments uh as guided by the DNR uh for invasive plants. We've worked hard to understand the carp problem, worked with the University of Minnesota uh and a variety of different key contractors to understand how many carp are in the bay. We've tagged over 300 carp and tracked their movement throughout the bay and how they're actually stirring up uh and reanimating some of that phosphorus. We've installed three rain gardens to try to manage some of that runoff coming from streets around the bay. We've worked with the city on uh rain barrel projects and distributed over 324 rain barrels and in partnership with the city of Minatrista as well established an education website. really tried to encourage our Harrison's Bay community and anyone who wants to learn about what's going on around Harrison's Bay to get educated. Here's the the challenges. Here's the opportunities. Here's volunteer uh projects that you can jump in on. The other piece of this was key for us was to establish partnerships uh around the different parts of the community that can impact the bay. City of Mount obviously MCWD, Lake Mitaka Conservation District, the DNR, you see the list there really wanted to get a comprehensive set of perspectives on what we can do to try to improve the health of the bay and then also understand who who kind of holds the levers and who can help us uh set the foundation for doing better things uh for the bay. So, next slide, why a lake improvement district and what is it? Uh back in 1973, the state of Minnesota established statutes that allowed uh communities to actually create lids. Uh there are now 57 lids that have been set up around the state of Minnesota, including several here on Lake Mitanka. Uh we've got lids that have been active in place for St. Albins, Carman's Bay, and just newly approved Stubs Bay back in June of this year. They're governed under Minnesota statutes uh regulatory guidance from the DNR. Uh we really do believe that in reviewing the lid and spending the last year getting educated on it, working with the DNR, working with a lot of those partners you saw on the last page, that the the lid strategy allows the community around Harrison's Bay uh and the community of Mound and the city council as well to have a long-term sustainable strategy to kind of pay it forward. Let's try to invest in this asset and improve it. I heard a lot about about that tonight with the parks. The bay is another big piece of that community asset. Um, we believe this is an opportunity to set up a legacy for generations to come to be able to enjoy a healthy bay that is improving, improve recreation, whether again it's fishing, um, kayaking, boating, getting out there and just observing uh, the wildlife around the bay. Um, we certainly want to make sure this is something that has local control, right? We know what's going on in our city. You guys know what's going on in our city. You hear from the community members. We want to have the ability to pull those levers locally to try to improve that asset. Um, we also know that better uh grant access is available for lits. If I went today as an individual and said, I want to get a grant from the LMCD, I might be less probable to get that grant than if a government body or an entity like a lid that's got governance structure. It's got oversight from the city wanted to have that grant as well. There's a much higher probability that grant would be delivered to a body like a lid than it would be to an individual. So there's some great opportunities out there um and limited alternatives as well to try to drive some of these strategies forward. Uh who's managing the problem today? So we we looked at all those challenges, invasive species, the water quality, who's managing it today? And these are all partners that we've we've really reached out to. Um so they're not on this list because they're uh in a bad spot because they're not helping out. There are limited resources and limited opportunities to get engaged uh in each and every body of water. The M CWD does not actually have an aquatic invasive weed program. They don't drive funding for that. They don't have oversight. Uh the DNR, although they're a tremendous partner, and you're going to hear from them tonight, they don't have actively uh out there in the bodies of water, including Harrison's Bay um treatment programs. Uh they'll provide the guidance. They provide a lot of structure to lit itself. And then LMCD has discontinued managing aquat of invasive species. and the AS programs had funding in the past. This year, they've got zero in the budget and there there's no intent to include additional budget dollars going forward. So, as a result, where does it go? Who's out there trying to manage this? Right now, there really are no resources and no one driving uh solutions. And if we don't do something here, uh then who is the big question that we have and not a question that we're comfortable in not having an answer for, right? Because we all care about this thing. Um, another one of the big challenges is individual lakeshore management. So, fortunately today within the the uh statutes and the guidelines that the DNR set out, and they're going to talk about that again uh later, um, property owners, lakes owners are able to use treatments to try to improve navigation from their docks, but that does not extend out into the bay itself. And then it also sets up a situation where individual homeowners can do their own treatments. So, you can actually order Aquacide on Amazon if you want to tonight when you go home. Uh, and you get start to get different concentrations, maybe not a consistent approach toward putting some of these chemical treatments in the lake. The opportunity to bring a lid into play creates that consistency, creates a strategy across the bay that's going to drive for healthier outcomes. Uh, and that's something that we really want to drive toward. So, Lake Improvement District, we believe it provides a reliable structure um that has funding and governance that's led by the community itself to take a long-term coordinated approach to safely manage and improve the health of the bay. That's really at the core of what we're trying to accomplish here. So, how is the lid formed? Just a little background that Minnesota statutes 103b kind of set up the opportunity for communities to come through local citizen initiatives and uh generate a a petition which you have participated in been able to validate uh for cities to set up a lid to address concerns that can't be addressed under normal governmental actions which is what we've seen uh as the case at Harrison's Bay. lids are a special uh type of purpose type of government that's formed very targeted with limited scope. You'll see in the proposal and you've reviewed that that there's a very limited scope. We're going to run through a few of those objectives tonight. Always under the governance of the city which is the LGU uh mentioned in the proposal, a local government unit. Uh and as mentioned uh lids have been formed for St. Albins, Carman's and Stubs on the dates you see on the slide. Um criteria for establishing lids. So, as we got informed around how this might take place and what were the steps that we needed to go through, we got great guidance from the DNR. Hey, these are the things that need to fall in place for you to actually have an opportunity to establish a lid within the community and then start pursuing projects to improve the health of that bay. Um, you can see the rules are pretty uh straightforward. You need a local need in the district, which we have. You have to have appropriateness of boundaries and properties that would be included in the lid. And I'll show you a little bit about that on the next slide. uh the purposes, the things we're trying to accomplish have to line up with what the DNR believes is appropriate for the bay itself. Um technical feasibility of of those things that you're recommending be included in part of the objectives. How feasible are they? Can you do that within the boundaries of this bay? Uh procedures for planning, decision-m structure, uh long range monitoring, how are you tracking the activities of each of those projects and the metrics they're trying to move and are they doing what they said they were going to do? uh and then coordination with other special districts across the board. We can say with the proposal we delivered, we had review and feedback from the Minnesota DNR. You've seen the commentary on that. Uh and on the next slide, they also reviewed the boundaries of the lid, the proposed lid. Um so properties that stretch all the way around Harrison's Bay from 2043 Lakeside to 4778 Northern. It includes 233 properties that fall into three key categories. So lakefront you'll see in blue uh across the the map. Um those properties with gated access you'll see in green uh and then associations that have access to the lake in red and then not listed there. You'll see one property in purple uh close to Satan Bay which is our one business that we have included in the lid uh boundaries, the Metro Lakes Marina. Um so 233 properties and all of those properties are located inside the city of Mound simplifying the oversight uh not stretching beyond one municipality. Um the we did get feedback that you can see in that right box that the DNR did approve those boundaries as as uh proposed. Objectives for the Harrison's Bay lid. Um right at the top of that list probably not a surprise since I've talked about it about five times already. Uh improved water quality. um want to make sure that we're pursuing an opportunity uh probably an audacious goal, but let's get Harrison's Bay removed from that impaired bay list. Let's make sure that we're moving that uh water quality up the the stream as far as uh quality goes, aligning with the MPCA and the MCWD strategy. Uh so that guides everything that is intended within the objectives of a lid. We've got to make sure that we're aligned with what they're recommending for bodies of water across the state of Minnesota and in our watershed district. uh native vegetation support, fish and wildlife support, invasive invasive species control, um community education, some of the things that we've been pursuing already, and then improving that habitat and healthy environment across the board. These specific objectives, they might seem like a kind of a general list, but as part of the proposal, we have to actually drop in those objectives very uniquely and specifically. And any project that lid if it is approved pursues has to fall in the boundaries of those those descriptions of the objectives. If there's something that future lid board members say hey I want to start working on XYZ it's not in these objectives that lid has to go back and repropose repetition and get approval from the lid boundary uh properties to pursue that. So it's a very structured way to say hey the projects have to fit within these guidelines. Uh next slide. Financing the lid. Um assessments come through uh the property taxes in May and October. Uh the annual surveys for lake vegetation management plan have to be submitted and will really drive what kind of funding is required. In the proposal, you'll see uh proposed firstear budget of 31,750. This is really based on historically what we've seen over the last 3 to four years. Those projects could change and vary, but we don't anticipate that it's going to be much larger than that based on historical. Um the lid actually gets to vote on that budget plan at each annual meeting. So regardless of what that budget is, those 233 properties have a chance to come in and say thumbs up or thumbs down on that budget. We don't want to spend that much. We don't think that those projects are perfect or we want to spend more. Boy, we think there's initiatives that aren't on that list that we need to pursue. So the lid actually gets that local control over the assessments uh that drive uh the dollars coming in. I mentioned property tax as the collection. Uh we've used a lot of the patterns for the other uh lids across the lake. Uh the other thing to note, really important to note is property taxes today. uh for as you think about the lid amounts and the proposed amount for the lakeshore owners which would be the highest outside of that one commercial uh metro lakes $150 or a relatively low percentage of total value. We actually looked at the average value of those $233 properties around Harrison's Bay. It's roughly about a million dollars, a little bit over a million dollars. Uh and the percentage of that $150 is actually 0.01%. Um as far as uh the percentage of that property value cost is relatively low and ranges between $50 and $100. Uh lid management uh really important that that lid is an open and democratic process. Uh the Harrison's Bay lid will be an independent organization. It's going to have a board of individuals that help manage all the initiatives that are part of that that uh objective list. That board will be five to seven individuals who are actually part of that community. They have to be part of the 233 properties that are included in the lid boundaries. Um and that initial board uh will be appointed by the city of mound. So you get a chance uh to have influence on that out of the gate. Uh we have provided a suggested recommended list of initial board members, folks that have raised their hand and said, "Hey, I want to be part of that first year." Every board member and and board beyond that will be elected by the lid. So LID not only has control over the budget, has control over who they elect to be on that LID board. Uh all the board meetings are open to the public. Uh residents can speak up on concerns, influence decisions much like we're doing tonight. And budgets are voted on at that annual meeting. Um really something that constructive uh encouragement to participate is going to be part of. Every single individual that's part of that lit is going to have a voice and that's something that's uh a non-negotiable. Um, we did talk a lot about what the efforts would be for the city to help partner with that lid. Talked to Carmen's Bay, talked to St. Alvin's Bay, Stubs Bay, and they estimate the effort is actually very minimal for the city and the city staff itself. Um, some upfront work to to get uh structures set up to post documents uh and then the work to move dollars as those funds come in through the tax assessments. some oversight uh from that perspective but very very minimal work as far as the uh FTEES and hours that be attached guiding principles um every voice matters boards will always listen and these are principles that are actually written into will be written into the bylaws for the lid and they're part of the proposal um decisions will be guided by experts and science if we've learned nothing else it's that we don't know everything uh as we're trying to decide around the bay uh with 233 properties uh we want to lean into the experts with each of those agencies. We want to lean into those folks that do this every day around the state, around the country, and understand what's best uh and what strategies are going to make the most sense. We're always going to review options. Subgroups are going to be created to tackle problems as they come up and different challenges, whether it be recreation, carp, shoreline, weeds, fishing, uh health in the bay. Um we're going to have a representation from all neighborhoods. The current Harrison's Bay Association has skipper captains that are responsible for neighborhoods that that surround the bay. It's a really good foundation for bringing that representation into the lid as well and making sure all parts of the bay uh can get their ideas heard. Um decisions are going to be fiscally conservative. Nobody wants extra dollars spent on things that aren't creating value. Uh board members are always going to be re-evaluating projects just as you do after they're done uh to make sure lessons are learned and then full transparency and uh operation within all regulatory guidelines. Those are our guiding principles that will really determine how that lid functions. Uh I mentioned earlier the petition that went out. So, we had a lot of folks, volunteers out there in the community, all of us having conversations around the bay for the last three to four months, uh, asking individuals about what their most important concerns are. Um, how do you feel the lid might address those or might not address those? Uh, what are the things that you would like to see accomplished, uh, for the bay? Um, and then do you support this lid initiative with information that we put out on the website to educate folks, flyers that went out to everybody that's part of that 233 um, property uh, list on the the bay. Um, from a response perspective, we had 185 individuals who responded one way or the other. Out of the 233, if you think about that as a voter turnout number, that's 79.4% 4% voter turnout, which we feel pretty confident about that we're getting a good perspective across the bay. Um, out of that 233, 61% uh said yes, 18% said no. Many of those nos uh indicated that they were already doing their treatment and it felt duplicative uh to have funding go into a specific treatment uh program through the lid. And then we had some non-responsive uh folks that were either traveling after multiple attempts, have a rental property, they're seasonal. So that was the 21%. If you look at the 143 um as a percentage of the 185, that's 77% of those that voiced an opinion actually approved of the lid moving forward. And I think those the those results of that survey have been certified by the city. Um a couple things that came up in these next three slides and then we'll have our folks from the DNR come up uh that we wanted to address. Uh one of the big concerns that we heard over and over again and I think all of us had as well on the board and part of the association uh hey these assessments are going to have no limits and nobody's got extra budget sitting around in today's world. If I see that assessment at 150 is it going to be 300? Is it going to be 500? Is it going to be 1,200? How does that accelerate very quickly? How how much control do I have over that? Um we really wanted to address that upfront with a lot of feedback from the city council as well. uh and set in the proposal an absol ab absolute maximum of 100% over the initial assessments over the entire life of the lid. So for example, if I'm an owner and I'm on Lakeshore and I have a $150 assessment should the lid pass, it can never go over $300 for the life of the lid. If any future board wanted to try to change that or the association or the lid participants wanted to try to change that, they'd have to go through the same petition process and get that reapproved. So, we really wanted to make sure this is not something that escalates uh and moves forward quickly. It's something that has a cap on it. The other thing that we learned very uh directly from the other lids was that the assessments can vary and the whole goal of this is to try to create a healthy bay that doesn't need some of these interventions and it's actually healthy. the lake shore is functioning well. Uh the the native species are coming back. That means that assessments in some years and have been for St. Albins and Carman's have been zero where the the entire lid community came back and said, "Hey, looks like the survey said we've got uh some of the invasives under control and we don't need these dollars for this year. We're going to have a zero assessment. Take a year off, see where things go next year." Uh so a lot of opportunity to address that. Uh and certainly those assessments are under control based on the proposal. Um, another uh concern that came out there is that there'll be liability to the residents and to the city. So, we did a lot of discussion with the DNR on this. Uh, we did discussion with the League of Minnesota Cities Insurance Trust. Uh, the DNR um there was an assertion that the DNR would transfer liabilities to the city of Mound and the residents of Mound. The DNR cannot transfer its liabilities to the city or the lid or anyone else. Uh we are expected to carry uh liability insurance just like we do for our association today. Uh we've been able to work with Carman's Bay and St. Albins to understand where that might fit. Uh and then certainly every year the lid will conduct an annual review with our agents to determine risks, work with the city, determine risk and make sure that the coverage is appropriate. um the comment that we got from the League of Minnesota Cities Insurance Trust uh for all of the lids that they've provided um city insurance where they've never had a claim submitted on a lid in the state of Minnesota. So just trying to kind of frame that risk. Obviously things can happen but that's where it sits today. Uh the last one just to tee up uh conversation with the DNR. Um lots of conversation about unsafe chemicals being used to treat Harrison's Bay. Um, and I just want to read through some of these truths to make sure it's very clear on record. Uh, Baywide treatments have proven effective in controlling Eurasian mil foil and curle leaf pondweed as overseen by permitting through the DNR across the state. Uh, plant surveys show the diversity and abundance of native plants have improved in the base that have been treated with approved uh, treatment plans through the DNR. Um, only herbicides approved and safe by the EPA and the Department of Agriculture are used and these herbicides are applied at or below the recommended use rates and only trained and licensed insured applicators are hired for baywide treatments. Uh, the lid decides on the type of treatment as well. We spoke about this a couple months ago when we came before the council that a lot of uh discussion was out there that this is just a chemical treatment plan. It's not that there's nothing that mandates that uh those herbicides are the way to treat weeds. The lid can decide how it wants to treat weeds. If it wants to go out and use the scuba guys to pull those weeds or any other strategy, um this simply sets the structure for the participants in those 233 properties to have some control over how we improve the quality of that bay and and uh take a look at different options. With that, uh, I want to ask, uh, Mike Verhovven and April Londo to come up and, uh, give us a little information around AIS and, uh, management and permitting. >> Thanks, Martin. >> Thank you. >> You guys want to come up and tell us where you're from? Give us your name. >> Uh, thank you, council members, mayor, for having us here. Um, Mike Verhovven. I am the aquatic invasive species management consultant for the state of Minnesota. So, I sort of work um, out of St. Paul, which is where I'm from, >> um to coordinate uh and sort of provide leadership to statewide specialists around the state that manage AIS >> across the state. >> Thanks. >> And I'm April Londo. I'm the invasive species specialist for the metro area. So, I'm the one that all the permits come through and I'm the one doing the evaluations for all the permits. Um, so actually the first thing that I just want to say to get us all on the same page, we're going to try to stay in our lane here, but um, EPA evaluates the pesticides to begin with in terms of the overall health and um, ecological toxicity fate in the environment. Um, and then those pesticides actually uh cost 30 to 60 million dollar and 8 to 10 years um to introduce a new pesticide into a market right before it goes into our aquatic systems. The EPA is also required u between 84 and 124 different studies to satisfy that requirement. Um, so that all goes through the EPA and then they are registered at state levels. In Minnesota, it's the MDA and specifically for the DNR, our job. So, this is where I'm getting back into my lane. We are not we're the regulators, not for the toxicity or efficacy, although we do still do projects like that. Um, we regulate the changes in aquatic plants, whether or not that is nearshore for recreation through APM, so our aquatic plant management program or in terms of managing invasive aquatic plants through our APM program. So, I just wanted to uh point that out there. So in our definition um in statute invasive species means a non-native species that cause or may cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health. So a animal or plant can come in right from another part of the world and they're non-native but in order to get that title of invasive they have to cause these um three different things. Um and they also threaten um natural resources or the use of our natural resources in the state. And Mike's going to talk about how some of those resources are changed when invasive species uh come in. >> Yeah. So the key to underscore there is if there was no impact, who cares? So invasive species are regulated by the state. We have statutes that define them. Next slide. So the two that were mentioned that we actually have what I would call operational management programs for that are laid out in statute are curly leaf ponded and Eurasian watermill foil. A side note is purple loose stripe which many of us probably saw on our drive to the meeting tonight is another species we have a statutory mandate to manage estab established populations of but there is a um an established biocrol so we can actually use a beetle that was introduced through the '9s to manage um that plant. So for curly fine and your Asian watermill foil, they're both I'll start with curly leaf pondweed. Um been in North America since the late 1800s. We think it probably arrived here with common cart. Um and in Minnesota well over 730 lakes. That number is a little old from 2016. I think it's over 800 now that we know in the states. So a wellestablished sort of long present invader. Um and I'll take through some impacts which sort of allow us to say yes indeed this is an invasive plant. So um it's associated with utrification of na lakes in North America. We talked about water quality. Utrification is basically the the process of becoming algae dominated. Um in this context uh it's got a unique life cycle curly leaf pondweed. So it actually grows as a winter ephemeral um which is unique in that it dies in late spring or summer right at the time when our lakes could least use the fertilizer from a bunch of dying plants. And so one of the impacts of curly leaf pond is it has this unique life cycle and flushes nutrients into our systems in that late spring early summer time period. Um it is the number one um uh management priority of lake associations in Minnesota as of 2017 sort of relating to that recreational impact of the plant. Um uh dominates plant communities. Although um I actually spent the last nearly 10 years at the University of Minnesota uh as a research scientist and getting my PhD and an interesting element of curly leaf pond is that probably by using that unique life cycle it's not directly out competing plants which is sort of a sidebar but is fun if you're an ecologist. Um and then it impacts fish usage fish usage in multiple ways both positive and negative. in some of our southern Minnesota lakes. Our fisheries managers have immense concern about control of curly leaf pondweed because it's some of the only vegetative habitat that's there during spring spawning when fish like northern pike that spawn in plants would be spawning. So impacts fish usage in multiple ways both positive and negative. Next slide please. Graian watermill foil a bit less longestablished. I actually have on my desk a letter from 1985 from Lake M from a Minnesota DNR staff who first identified uh Eurasian watermill foil in Lake Minnitonka. And it starts by saying we found uh Eurasian watermill foil in Lake Minnetonka. We think we should do something about it because everywhere else that it is established, it has made its presence well known. And so that keys in on those impacts. So it does dominate over native plant communities, especially again in those utrophic lakes. It's a plant that can tolerate that poor water quality. Um, it does alter habitat for fish. There's this nice study in Wisconsin where they basically cut big channels through your Asian watermill foil um and showed that fish sunfish growth actually increased if they could break up that structural homogeneity of your Asian waterm foil stains. Um, there's been multiple studies on property values, um, including from Washington and a pending study that I'm a part of for the University of Minnesota showing that it impacts likely recreation and then property values. Um, next slide, please. So, the next thing I want to mention is regulation. In in hearing about this and in being asked to present here, it's become clear to us that there is some misunderstanding about how invasive species management happens in the state. And so I want to tick off a few important regulations that guide AIS management in the state. Um 84D lays out the fact that the Minnesota DNR must have a program for managing established populations of AIS, specifically those three plants that I mentioned earlier. Um including providing that technical guidance. Um statute 103G, I'm sorry, 84D also points out that we must work with local stakeholders or local units of government or entities. Um, and I mean, no offense to anyone who wants a lid, but the DNR actually does not care whether it is a lid or a watershed district or a few homeowners that have decided to take a stand against an invasive plant in their lake. Um, it makes no difference in our permitting or granting structure what that local unit of government is. Um but we work with those folks with technical assistance and then on the permitting or allowing of the destruction of invasive plants in a way that is highlighted by 103G both selective for the invasive plant and effective in reducing the abundance of the invasive plants. Finally, uh 6288, which is a departmental rulemaking process, lays out specific criteria, including native plant communities, recreational interference, etc., etc., and importantly, water quality that are used to determine with with every permit that comes to the DNR's invasive aquatic plant management program whether or not that permit should be approved. And so overall there's a we feel as the people trying to implement it a relatively large um sort of statutory and rule-based process that we can lean on to say uh the lawmakers have laid this out and we will do our best to take any permit that is submitted and compare it to those criteria that we have been provided to ask whether or not a requested AIS management action aligns with those criteria. Next slide. Um so we get this question a lot. Um I think there's um very gray area between what you can do as a resident, right? And then these offshore areas in terms of treating invasive uh aquatic plants. So APM actually falls under fisheries. These are uh permits that you get through them. As a resident, you're allowed to mechanically remove, cut, or pull 55 by 50 area or half the shoreline length, whatever's less, without a permit. As soon as you are trying to add pesticide into the water, that's where we get involved. We also get involved if you want to go through a channel of floating leaf vegetation or if you want to take out emergent vegetation. Um that's where we also get involved or fisheries gets involved. And so this the purpose of APM is to balance the native plant conservation with your desire obviously as a lakeshore resident to recreate on the lake that you should right and access your property. Next slide. >> And I want to add that we probably didn't lay this out. APM is aquatic plant management. APM is invasive aquatic plant management. And those are not laid out as acronyms in statute, but those distinctions are made in statute. >> Yep. So, this is where we fall in line here. We are involved in the invasive aquatic plant management realm. The goal of our program is to minimize harmful effects caused by these invasive plants while also protecting our natural resources of the state. So when we get a permit, we look at it in entire it in it its entirety. If it has a survey, we look we're looking at all the aquatic plants. We're looking at the water quality. We're looking um to see if we have partners on these projects, right? Is it going to be just a one-year thing or is it going to be a multi-year thing? Um they're primarily used to reduce invasive plant species at a larger scale level, not solely in front of one's property. And the main goal there is that once you get rid of the invasive plant selectively, our hopes is native plants with diversity will come in and fill that niche. the criteria that we use to evaluate the these applications. Um Mike kind of alluded to this, but the target plant has to be there. Um number one, right? We're not going to be treating in areas where there is only native plants and we try to stick to mono um cultures, which means that there's just that invasive plant there. Number two, the proposed treatment method is selective. So this this word we use quite a bit and selectivity can be treating curly leaf pondweed right after ice off because no other native plants are actively growing at that time. Right? Um or using a pesticide that we know is gentler on our native plants. Right? the timing that we use, the concentration that we use, it's really an art and a science. And then number three, the proposed treatment minimizes potential potential um negative impact to aquatic habitat, including water quality. So, if we have a lake that I'll just give you an example. If we have a lake that has poor water quality, not a lot of um native plants, really low diversity, we most likely will not permit something for a whole baywide treatment because we've found with impeded water quality that that does not work in those systems. So um there's a lot of checks and balances that goes within uh doing these permits. There are instances where as um the IAPM program has it written where specialists can uh write variances to the rule that says you can only treat 15% of your latoral area. um that might be in your bays in Minnetonka or if you just have your one lake, you have just one total acreage. We more often than not try to stay with under that threshold because we know that um if we do there's minimal impacts to everything else um in the water body. In instances where we do issue these variances or these lake vegetation management plans, the people involved have to have a very welllaid out goal section. What do they want to achieve? Is it achievable? Do we have the finances for it? Um what type of lake um is it? Is it highly neutrophic? If it is, we might have to look at some external or internal loading first because light is a limiting factor for plants. So, if we're trying to get more native plants to grow, we need to start somewhere different. So, these plans um sometimes they don't even make it through the signature process. It's just a really good thing to have set in place to say these are our goals as a bay, as a lake. Um, and how are we going to get there with metrics? >> All of this lays out that there is a planning process laid out in rule if you are going to do something drastic to affect to affect your plant community, even if it's invasive plants. >> Next slide, please. I think I think we have >> Yep. So, that covers what we wanted to talk about. Um, just emphasizing that uh the DNR um does its very best to implement a research and science-based practice, evidence-based practice with invasive plant management, and there are there are absolutely tight sideboards on what can happen in this sort of ballpark. >> Cool. Thanks, Mike and April. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate it. Thank you. All right, Barton, you gonna close her out? >> Close it out. Yeah, >> I'll be quick. Um, thank you, Abel. Thanks, Mike. Um, really appreciate the partnership with the DNR. Um, hey, we we really want to encourage the city council to seriously consider saying yes to this lake improvement district for a few reasons. We do believe that it sets us up to have that comprehensive plan, to not have one-off projects that are happening, to build a strategic plan that has a long-term impact in a positive way on the health of Harrison's Bay. We think that that happens through providing a repeatable um predictable funding structure and engaging folks across the entire bay, all 233 that are part of that uh that lid uh participating boundaries. uh we can we'll continue that partnership with not only the DNR but with all those acronyms that you saw in the partnership list earlier because certainly every single one of them has influence on how we drive the health of not just our 215 acres but the the 10,000 that are across uh all of Lake Minnetonka. Um, we've seen over and over through conversations and through the petition that mound residents with direct deed access associations, they are overwhelmingly in in favor of forming a lid and being actively involved in the health and the improvement of the health of the bay. Um, and the criteria and the standards that were established out there to bring this lid uh to your consideration have been met and reviewed by the Minnesota DNR. So, we'd encourage you to uh approve that and say yes to the lid. and we're uh anticipating a great discussion as we go to the public hearing component. So, thank you so much. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> All right. So, I'm going to open the public hearing portion of this. Um there's a lot of you here. There's I kind of tried to rough count, but 50ish somewhere in there. Um if you each have three minutes and everyone comes up, that's two and a half hours. Okay. So, I don't like doing this, but this is about a threem minute deal. So, I'm going to flip that over. When it's done, we're going to kick you off. Sorry. Four against. We don't care. We got to keep moving. Um, if you want to come up, please come up. We al we'll stay here for three more hours. Um, you might need a bathroom break eventually, but uh so the other thing is >> you're addressing the council. Okay? So, don't address the group, address us. We're not going to do a back and forth. Again, that just adds more time. Uh, so just make your statement, address us. And, uh, the other thing, too, is let us know if you're in this area, this district that we're talking about. Um, if you're from Oro, you're from Minnetonka, that's fine. Come up and say something. But it really probably goes a little bit farther if you're actually live in this proposed proposed district. So, um, Here we go. I'm going to open the public meeting. So, if you want to come on up, give you three minutes. >> All right. Can you give us your Yeah, give us your name and address. >> My name is John Range. I live at 2039 Armor Lane. I'm on the lake shore of Harrison's Bay. Um, I was given this award from the city of Mound for outstanding um, civic engagement about 10 years ago because I run a program called the West Tanka Walleye Program. We put in I've signed the front of the checks for close to just under $400,000 worth of walleye being put in the lake. All of this was funded with private donations. So, I have a big interest in the quality of the fishing in the lake and the quality of the lake. I think the danger we have here is this is the danger of a one-sided story. All the people around the bay have heard is we're going to make the lake clean. We're going to make it healthy. We're going to do things to make it better, but they're not aware or of the other risks, the negative sides of this lid. Uh, for example, the negative impact on the quality of fishing. Um, you don't need to be a biologist to know that you need vegetation in a lake for it to be a healthy lake. Harrison's Bay, for example, was probably 95% curly leaf pondweed. And this invasive species um was chemically treated. The entire bay was basically chemically treated for the past 3 years. As those chemical treatments went on, we've seen the quality of fishing get worse and worse and worse each year. We have a fishing pier in Mound. People come to that fishing pier to go fishing. There's a gathering spot. Um they're not going to be gathering there if they're not catching fish. I I think it's also important to note that when the you hear the DNR approves this, what you're hearing is the DNR fisheries department or I'm sorry, the DNR invasive species department is approving this. I met with the commissioner of the DNR, the assistant commissioner of the DNR, um the head of fisheries and quite a few other people and it didn't sound like the left hand and the right hand were on the same page. There's a breakdown in communication within the DNR on the impact that this is causing. You know, you heard earlier that there's pro- fish. Um there's advantages and disadvantages to fish by chemically treating, but we're doing too many chemical treatments. Uh it's too frequent. Um there's supposed to be checks and balances in place that restrict this. So there's that there's not too much, but we're seeing they said earlier, April said we only treat at early ice. Brad Parsons, the head of the DNR fishery, said the permit was only good through May 10th. But we have a sign from June 18th or 17th where Daquat was sprayed right at Harrison's Bay. So there there's there's much more to this story that the people that live on the bay haven't heard and the city council hasn't heard. So I asked you to not approve the lid until more research can be done, more conversation can be done, and both sides of the story can be told. >> All right. Sorry, Johnny. Am >> I running over? >> You got it. Perfect. Made >> it. Now I got to wait for the rest of it to go through. That's our break. >> All right, whoever else wants to come up. >> All right, give us your name and address. >> Good evening. I'm Jane Anderson. I reside at 5060 Edgewater Drive in Mound. Thank you all for your service once again. really appreciate you being here and listening to this. Um, I really respect Johnny Range and and the work he's doing for our bay. Um, and I wrote y'all a letter and I'd like to just recap parts of it. Um, Lake Minnetonka is known for its excellent fishing where many tournaments are held, but it's more than a fishing lake. It's a water ski lake. It's a jet ski lake. It's a host to wake surf competitions. It's a swim off your dock lake. It's a kayak lake. It's a stand up paddleboard lake. It's an e- foil lake. And it's the site of national sailing regatas. Lake Minnetonka is for all recreational purposes, not just fishing. We all share the same goal. A clean, healthy lake where bays where uh loons like to nest, eagles soar, frogs sing, fish thrive, and turtles sun themselves. This is not a conversation of either or. This is a commitment to all. Forming a lake improvement district guided by it a board of directors representing diverse lake interests ensures that all voices are heard. It's a collective. It's not a club of individuals and it is the most effective and transparent path forward. We need structure. We need community. We need representation and we need accountability. Let's ensure that this place is for joy and biodiversity for today and generations to come. Again, if it's not us, who is it? I've lived on Harrison's Bay for 20 years. I've not met one person who doesn't love the bay and and have an interest in its health. Um, four years ago, I co-founded Harrison's Bay Association. The enthusiasm for this ba for this bay has grown exponentially. We we want a collective voice. Voting yes to this lid will give all of the homeowners a stake. It is our bay, all of our bay. It is all of our responsibility to take care of it. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. [Music] All right. Give us your name and address. >> Mary Sherman, 5065 Ren Road. I'm on the lake. My family's been in the house 80 years at least. Not quite, almost 80. I have some um problems with chemicals. I do not like to see chemicals because they still reside after they say they're diminished. They're in the ground. They're just pervasive and you cannot get rid of them. I do not Okay, here's the other problem that I'm having here. I don't own a boat, so I don't have any of the muscle problems. I don't have a dock. I don't go in the lake. I don't weed or um have chemicals on my property for for anything, but you guys do. You guys have a huge park that I think it's Blackstone weeds, fertilizes the property. It's it's um Three Points Park. I have a culvert that goes right to my right next to my property that's coming from your park. So all your chemicals come into the wa water. So I feel that I should not be paying for everybody else's problems. The alternative here is to raise the price on the permits for the boats, for the docks, and for you guys to pay for part of it because you're the biggest ones that are polluting the area for runoff because I have nothing. I do not fertilize. I do not have any chemicals on my property. So basically I want to opt out of this. The other thing I totally disagree with which you should look at here is that everything runs from the park basically into the lake which means all the other houses that use chemicals, fertilizer, weed killer, all of that runs into the lake. So don't be taxing the ta the landlords or the land owners of the lake for everything that everybody else is doing. I mean you're the major one. You must have at least 10 lots on that three points park. So you should be assessed more than anybody. And then all what about the people that have boats on the dock with the docks in between on the commons? They should be charged something too. If you're going to do something then do it honestly. and do it fairly and don't just keep nailing the people that are on the lake because our taxes are skyrocketing. And by the way, you might want to know and and notify your Blackstone people. They they chemically treated it and put like two little signs. Kids with their families were coming and walking all over the park as they did not see it the day they fertilized it. >> Thank you. Next one. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> All right, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, thank you. My name is Mike Stockstead. I have 2132 Overland Lane since 1997. Um, I just recently retired from my position with the state of Minnesota as an administrative law hearing officer. I heard cases of creation and amendments to organizations and groups just what you're faced with tonight. So, I do wish you the best. you're fortunate uh or I'm fortunate because I had attorneys that presented cases um uh brought in witnesses to uh verify the exhibits and so forth and they could appeal my decisions to the appellet court. You aren't that fortunate and I I appreciate that. I'm here only going to talk about the technical things because my sand is running. Um chapter 459 stipulates that the body of water has to be situated wholly within the boundaries of the jurisdiction. the DNR uh DNR map of bays of Lake Minnetonka which is 27-0 uh 133. Uh number 14 is Harrison's Bay. It includes more than the city of Mount. Uh it includes the other side of where the marina and stuff are at where you head down towards Satan channel and about eight or 10 properties past the point as you come around the bend. Uh the other thing that I would notice is that the statute and the rule um 6115 both talk about property owners, not properties. It's the property owners that have to have the majority uh in order to move forward. You don't have that. Uh I pulled this morning just coming up here just wondering myself what what it looks like. I pulled five properties. Four of the five properties had multiple owners listed. The fifth property was a trust. I don't know how they're going to handle the trusts. The rules 65 or 61 uh 15 does have a comment and a note about uh multiple owner properties and including apartment complexes and condominiums and how those are going to be handled. I will also tell you in my 18 years as an administrative law judge, I've never dealt with a organization forming that did not bring forth a bylaw when it came forward. Um that's to me personally concerning. That is my probably biggest concern for this this project. There's always confusing information uh as you're doing something. I I respect the passion of the people that are supporting this. I really do. I think that they have a very good intention. But just a few minutes ago, we heard conflicting information. The maximum assessment can never be increased. On page six of their proposal, it tells you how to increase the maximum uh assessment. And you can do that by a vote of 50% plus one. >> Can I just >> transfer the >> he's not >> the transfer of liability. >> The transfer of liability happens automatically under the statute should the uh lid abolish. So those are things that I'm I'm very concerned about. Um that also the the petition does not list the ordinances and restrictions uh of the of the properties and the land such as no trailers on the three points um access point or the seasonal restriction on the center view uh access point down at the beach. So um I think that at this time it is just not proper. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> All right. Next person. >> Hey, can you give us your name and address? >> Hi, Bill Lour, 5220 Lunwood Boulevard. Been a Mount resident for 25 years on Harrison's Bay for at least six. In the time that I've been there, we are a pitching wedge away from the fishing pier. I can have a conversation from my dock to their dock. I have seen no decrease in the last six years of people fishing there. My wife kayaks over there five times a week, talks to everybody. The fishing is great. They wouldn't be there if there were no fish there. The bay has been treated by the association for four or five years. Obviously, the fishermen are still there and the fish are still there. I love Harrison's Bay. I'd like to see it cleaned up and off the encumbered body list. Um, it's one of those things to where when you have a passion for something, you can't really see the other side. I can see the other side. There's always two sides to the coin. But when you have 61% of the uh property owners who say, "Let's go for it." And then there are 39% who either said no or nothing. That's an overwhelming amount that says it's for it. this is something you can approve that doesn't increase the general population taxes just the people who said I want it again the fishing is good the peer uh the asset is good let's keep it improving you have experts like the University of Minnesota the DNR the LMC uh as well as Stubs Bay Carman's Bay St. in Albins's Bay who have all adopted this type of process for the betterment of the lake. I'd urge you to in mound to do the same for all of us. >> Thanks. >> Thank you. >> All right. >> You're going to get two halves. >> All right. Go ahead. >> Hi, Jim O'Donnell. I live at 1743 Wildhurst Lane. uh 20 plus year resident on Harrison's Bay. Um I'd like to refute uh what was just said regarding the fishing quality of the lake. We are average outdoorsmen in our house. Um my sons, my wife, all of us fish constantly. And I will tell you in the last 3 years, the fishing off our dock has gone down and gotten a lot worse. We used to go out there on a daily basis and you could catch eight to 10 bass. We're lucky if we catch one now. In the last three years, we've gone from having eight to 10 woodduck families to this year, the last two years, we've had one. And the reason is is because the weeds are gone. When the weeds go away, the food source goes away. The wildlife goes away. And yes, you can say that the pan fishing off the public beach is good. Um, but that's about all. Um, yeah, you'll occasionally catch a nice fish, but I will tell you that it's gotten worse over the last 3 years. I've been been there for 20 years and have seen the drastic change in the last couple. Um, I would like to go on the record to say that I am opposed to the LI. Um, my main reason is I think it's an administrative overreach. Um, we don't need an HOA applying an additional fund or additional tax to what we're already paying for in taxes. Um, I don't believe there's a clear long range plan and a pro for budget to support it. Um, when you do a little bit of research on the HBA site, look at the DNR um, letters on this stuff. Um, there's a plan to spend $31,000, but beyond that, there's no phosphorus control measures. Most of the intake for phosphorus is coming from Jennings and from Forest Lake Bay. that's not being controlled by what's in the mission of this HBA. Um, and so there's no clear long range plan and a mission in a budget to support it. Um, and as I said, it's had a negative impact. And then the final point I would make is that the results of the survey need to be audited. I think that point was brought up earlier. Um, I think that you'll find when you look at the results of the ser or the petition that was signed, you'll find that there's flaws in the data. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Thank you, Jim. >> Hey, welcome. >> Hi, Repy. I'm Chant Lane. Um, >> okay. Few weeks ago, I uh voiced concerns about the chemical spraying the lids on the Minnesota Outdoor News. And in um instead of addressing these concern, an individual who was on the board of a lid in North in uh Stubs Bay and is also on the board of Almade chose to respond to a letter to the editor and basically, you know, slandered my name and my business um along with my wife that we built. He did not talk about the lid and the ACE chemical treatments, just a smear piece on a fishing guide who just asked a simple question about what's going on on the lake. This seems more of a self-interest, not a protection of the lake. And as US city council members, are these the type of people you want to be involved with? I would argue that Minnesota or Lake Matanka is the most popular lake in the state recreational, fishing wise. It's a top 100 bass lake in the United States. It should be governed by the DNR, not some individual live groups who think what's best what's best for it. Um, what I would rather see is, like I said, the DNR and fisheries working in tandem. I've also spoken with the DNR of the ACE and the DNR fisheries and I agree with um Johnny before. The left hand does not talk to the right hand whatsoever. The fisheries has literally no involvement on them when a permit gets approved or how it gets approved. The the back studies once it's treated. The people who do those studies have to take a two-day class and basically throw a rake out there and go, "Yep, there's some tail in here. There's some invasive pies in here." But they don't go into a density of what weeds are in there. And I would also agree the fishing in Harrison Bay is not there anymore. We used to put our ice castles out there in winter time for crappies. There's nothing there. And you don't see tournament fishermen over there. There's nothing there. It's more than just, you know, these people trying to control it. It's a public body of water and that's the way it should be. It shouldn't be controlled by these individual groups. >> Thank you. Any anybody else? Hello, my name is Mike Riley. I live on Jones Lane. I have lived on Harrison Bay most of my life and if not, my parents and my in-laws have. So, we live on the very northeast end of the lake. So, we get the wind 90% of the time all year long from the southwest. And the last 3 years, the mil foil gets so thick, we call prop chop. It gets so thick at the end of our bay, you can walk on it. I literally would take a pickup full of mil foil off my lake shore every day. And the people that live down in that corner have spent over $300,000 in the last 20 years dredging that, which everything floats down there and it sinks in the bottom of the lake. And this year I have never seen so many paddle boarders, kayakers on that end of the bay now because there is no mil foil. It is the best thing I have seen since I've lived on Harrison. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> And give us your name and address. Ruth Anne Shaw, 1724 Baywood Shores Drive. Right. >> I live off of one of the canals in one of the green spots. I don't live in one of the million-doll homes. I had a visit from a gentleman who's in the building tonight who came to tell me that it didn't matter whether I signed or not because they already had enough signatures and wanted to know why he didn't want to do it. And I said I was concerned about my taxes. and he said, "Well, it would only be $50." Well, it won't be. It'll be $100. Which doesn't sound huge to some of the tax bills we talked about earlier tonight, but it makes a difference to me. What I found out recently is we will pay $100, but the people who live on the shore will only pay 150. There seems to be a disparity there. I have 30 feet in a canal off of Bailey Shore. I was told by this same gentleman about the immense expense he had spent on removing the mil foil from his property and how his neighbors had to have it dredged once again. Now that group will pay $150 instead of what they've been paying for and all the weeds will be gone. I will pay $100 and still be using my break. There seems to be a disparity in how this is priced out. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Hi, my name is Phil Bullman, 1717 Finch Lane. Uh, I've lived on Mound on the Lake since uh, ' 91. First house was over on Emerald Bay and I've been on Harrison's since 1998. Uh, beautiful place when we first got there. Um, we had some weeds, but basically native weeds. In the past, probably in 2018, 2019, all a sudden this curly leaf showed up and the mil foil. I I don't know if they kind of helped each other, but the mil foil, it was out of control. Every weekend, boats racing through chopping up mil foil. We'd have to go out there, we'd spend hundreds of hours getting rid of mil foil, getting rid of curly leaf, all other sites of types of weeds. The Harrison's Bay Association formed in 90 uh 2021. I was initially a board member because I wanted to see improvement in the bay and it was it's been amazing. Uh Harrison's Bay right now is as good as it was in 1998. Um if you speaking of fishing, if you look at Harrison's Bay, I fish off my dock often. I have noticed no difference in fishing. I fish at night because that's the best time to fish on Harrison's Bay. No difference. In the winter, our bay has hundreds, hundreds of ice fishing shacks. You go over the next bay, West Arm Jennings, there's one or two. Why is that? People don't put their shacks out there unless there's fish there. So, I dispute this fish uh story. As far as the judge, there are a lot of properties that are under trust. My property is under trust. My brother-in-law is a lawyer. He suggested we do that. that's for taxing and uh other purposes, wills and that type of thing. Um I think they ask for 150 on this amount is very minimum. That's a trip to Target. You know, if it like Barb was saying, if it if it goes up twice as much or 100% it's $300. I looked into having my property I've got 130 ft or 102 feet of lake shore. It would be $1,500 minimum. That's 10 times what this would cost. Um I think the administrative time as far as the city council will be minimum. We've got the Stubs Bay, we've got Carmen's Bay. We've been talking to them what they look at, how to form this, all the layers needed, the help from basically we're just asking the city council to help, you know, get these funds on property taxes of the people involved within the lid. This lid, I think, is a great idea. It's it's something that's moving us forward as a a bay, as a city. I think that, you know, Mom's doing a great job with the schools now. You look at Zillow, all the schools are nines and tens. When we moved out here initially, the schools were not that good. Everything's moving forward. Everything's going, you know, positively. And I appreciate you guys for your time. I know you're all volunteers. And uh I will be too on this lid. I'll be a hopefully a board member. All right. So, thanks. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. give us your name and address. >> Hi, thank you for listening to us. U my name is Daryl Lifson. I live at 5395 Baywood Shores Drive. Um I'm just kind of came to this meeting to understand more about what was going on with it. Um my husband's been a fisherman. We've been out here since uh his family since 1969 and I've been here since 84. Um we've noticed that the fishing has gone down a little bit. Not sure if it's coming from treating anything. Not 100% sure. There's a lot of sanitizing of the yards, I should say. Everybody's super perfect. I like to keep mine really wild. Um, which has been tough because there's beavers and things like that. So, they've definitely taken three dozen trees down and um, a lot of ducks come in there. Um, I've had a lot of liies and things. I'm just concerned about what the chemicals would do in the long run to the wildlife that is there and you know where are they going because there's so many yards that are so perfect cleaned up and they kind of seem to come over into our area and um because there's nowhere for them to go and I don't know what's you know the fishing you know it has seemed like it's not as good as it used to be but I don't know if that's a weather thing but I'm I'm open to both sides I'm not quite sure. So that's why I'm at this meeting today. So >> thank you. >> Thank you. >> A lot of us want to talk tonight, huh? >> Hi folks. Um I'm Sean Gila at 4878 Edgewater. I've only been around for about four years. I don't know most of you. I'd like to get to know you over time, but I have met with two of you individually and we've spoken about the importance of the limited role of government. think in those conversations, those of you two might know who you are, uh we talked we talked about like covering needs, not wants, and primarily focusing on needs, not wants. Now, I'm also a proud supporter of the Harrison Bay Association. I've been donating my time and my money for three, four years, but I'm against the lid. The reason being is I think this is a want, not a need. When I think about the cost of this, I volunteered to give more money. I've asked how much it would take to keep this going without being governmentally funded. I didn't get the answer. I'm looking for that answer and I'm willing to give more money, more time than I think a lot of us probably would be. This should not be a tax. That's all. >> Cool. Thanks. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. >> What is your name and address? >> My name is Jim Doyle. I'm the president of the Twinsies chapter of Muskies, Inc. I happen to live in Spring Park on Black Lake. So, I look at Mountain, but I don't live in it. Um, I'd just like to make a point that we participate extensively with the DNR, the fisheries management side of the DNR, uh, on helping stocking, um, tagging of fish, collecting information, assessing the fishery, advising them on, you know, how the quality of fishing is, that kind of thing. And it is not on a bay by bay by bay assessment. It's the whole lake. The fish move around the whole lake. We have noticed at different times, I can think of two situations. Crystal Bay was essentially wiped clean of weeds in attempts at mil foil mitigation that dramatically impacted the fish are there for a while and a year or two later the weeds come back. Yes, some fish move in. But if these lids continue and to spread across the lake, it's just a more commercialized scale of of of treatment. And there does appear to be a lack from other people's comments as well from our discussions with the h the fishery managers, fishery production people, mid-level and upper level fishery management, a coordination between all the groups discussing here's the treatment going on in this lake and how does that impact broadly the the the habitat across the lake. So considering Minnotonka, you go from this end of the lake where there's weeds grow to about 8 ft and you go over to the Weisetta end and you're getting 28 29 ft deep weeds. There's a very different environment from one end to the other and a one sizefits-all. We're going to do this in little pieces just doesn't seem a holistic method of managing the the fishery. So most other lakes are managed as a much larger whole organism than than than what is being proposed here. So, >> right. Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> Let me run it out. You're only getting three minutes, dude. >> Take a breath. My name is Ed Rockwell. I live at 4888 Edgewater Drive in Mound on Harrison Bay. I am here to oppose the Harrison Bay Association proposal to convert to a lake improvement district. The conversion is unnecessary and carries significant opposition and risk from the lakeshore community and the city of Mount. Many residents are strongly against creating yet another layer of government and additional bureaucracy. If this is passed for Harrison Bay, you will be paving the way for all other bays to come to the city and request for lake improvement districts. This will add additional staff time, tax dollars, additional oversight that the city of Mound should not be responsible for. Remember, this is a public water that should be managed by the state, DNR, and the LMC. The city's responsibility ends at the shoreline. There are nine Lake Manitka bays that are in the city of Poundland both uh and another city. Now think about managing these lids. They are Harrison's Bay, Cooks Bay, Satan Lake, Emerald Lake, Lost Lake, Phelps Bay, Priest's Bay, Jennings Bay, Holstead's Bay, and Langden Lake, Dutch Lake, and part of Saunders Lake. Approving this will be a precedence for all of these bodies of water to approach the city through the direction of the LMA and have the city be responsible for these lids, including the liability for their actions. This is a lot of risk that the city will take on. Expect this to come in the future if this lid is approved. Another entity like the LMCD should be in charge of this. I will remind you that the city of Mound has been paying the LMC a yearly payment. This payment averages around $32,000 a year for a total of the past 21 years of over $700,000 of mound tax dollars. And for what? As I understand it, the payment is going up by double digits. Our tax dollars also go to the DNR and the state of Minnesota. This would be double or triple form of taxation on us Lakeshore owners. We already pay way more than other homeowners living in Mound. So, a very large percentage of this payment already comes from the Lakeshore homeowners. If the city of Mound approves this lid, it would extract $30,000 from Harrison Bay yearly. All of all of the other bays in Mound follow suit u due to this approval, which they absolutely will. That would be on the average of $30,000 times nine bays plus three lakes, which is $360,000 extracted from homeowners per year. In 10 years, that would be $3,600,000 extracted from your homeowners. And if this is not approved, that would that money could be uh spent by your constituents here in Mound and surrounding cities. And that would contribute to the tax dollars that the city needs. This lake is a state-owned public body of water, not a city asset. Mound should not be using its staff time or resources to oversee taxing entities whose goals like increased chemical use in the lake may not align with all mounds residents or values like good city water, roads, safety, and parks. This sets a dangerous precedence that could draw the city into future legal and financial disputes and lawsuits. This is not about eliminating Harrison Bay Association. It's about drawing the line at giving them taxing authority and the ability to use city channels to carry out a plan that puts our lake, our fish, the city, and our property owners at risk by using harmful chemicals in our lake. If this lid is approved, legal responsibility and environmental liability shifts away from the DNR and state of Minnesota for their actions >> onto the Harrison Bay lid. >> Can you wrap it up? >> Yep. uh the city of Mound and the 230 lakeshore owners dated access properties being forced into this unwillingly. This means if anything goes wrong, whether it is overuse of chemicals, damage to the lake, or future health problems from using the lake, we the taxpayers and the city of Mound will now be the ones accountable. All of your constituents in the city of Mound will have to pay with higher taxes. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Ed. All right. Can you give us your name? [Music] >> All right. Give us your name in Irish. >> Karen Casey and I'm a resident of Orno. Um I'm here as the acting chair of the newly formed lid for Stubs Bay and um I am in support of the Harrison Bay lid. Um, a few months ago I stood in front of the Orno mayor and council presenting our proposal on behalf of the more majority of our lakeshore residents to mitigate and manage the quality of our our bay and um and the destructive non-native invasive weeds. Same thing as Harrison. I also presented the facts to correct misinformation and that had been circulating. one of which clarifying that lids add significant liability to residents in the city that was just brought up. Hence why I'm standing here. In my effort to correct this misinformation, I referred to a recent email that was sent to us from the LMCIT, the League of Minnesota Cities Insurance Trust, who underwrites almost all of the liability insurance for cities in Minnesota, stated that the lid poses little liability risk to the city. I went on to remind the council and mayor that all lids must by law contract with licensed, trained, and insured contractors, implement treated plans that are approved and closely monitored by our very own Minnesota DNR, and if herbicides are used, they are all EPA approved and reertified every 15 years. I then added that baywide herbicide treatment programs under the Lake Minnotonka Association have been going on for well over 10 years. There has been no litigation. After I finished, the mayor and city attorney looked at each other and asked, "What really is the risk?" There was a moment of silence. Their conclusion was minimal. There is no excessive liability. So we ask ourselves, what is the real risk? It's doing nothing. Allowing AIS, aquatic invasive species, to take over and create an unhealthy and unusual bay, unusable bay, mats of non-native weeds, increased phosphorus levels, excessive algae, algae blooms are real dangers to swimmers, boers, and the aquatic life of Harrison Bay. The Harrison Bay Lid is the only financially sustainable means to address the problem and restore a healthy Minnesota native ecosystem. There is good work to be done and there is no other solution. Thank you. >> Thank you. Sorry. >> You want to wait? >> Okay. >> He's going to do it. >> I'm going to wait. >> I'm going to wait for the mayor to return. >> Should have put tower up for him. >> I should have put a tower up for >> for the mayor. >> Yeah. Maybe a break. >> You guys have been here for a long time. >> 2135 over land. >> Sherry Wallace, >> would it be possible to turn the microphone volume up just a tiny bit? >> I'll try to talk close to it. Can you hear that better? >> Turn the mics up, please. We can't hear back here. I think they're as loud as they go. >> We can't adjust it. >> Is that as loud as they go? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> I'll try to talk really loud. >> Love the suspense. >> Nothing done yet. >> Poor guy. Hi. >> Did you do it? >> Ya. >> Okay. Yeah. Sorry. I could >> No, I'm waiting. >> We've been down here since 5. So, >> Sher Wallace, 2135 Overland Lane. Um, my husband and I have lived on Harrison's Bay for 13 years. Uh, four years ago, I met Jane Anderson. We came together over concerns for the water quality in Harrison's Bay. It wasn't just about the invasive weeds. It also was about the green water and the gross carp. I dove head first into these issues and spent time talking to the experts. James Whisker at the watershed and I spent hours together where he taught me about what is driving the water quality issues for our bay. I attended workshops on carp management by the U of M and I became a Minnesota water steward through freshwater.org. I'm a lifetime learner and have enjoyed learning about these issues and I'm still learning. I'm learning about a lid. I'm learning about what a lid is and how it works. Before we launched HBA, Jane and I developed a mission statement which included maintain, protect, and improve water quality, wildlife, fishery, and recreation on the bay, provide education to the community, advocate with state and local agencies for the protection and improvement of our bay, and provide opportunities for fellowship and community. And then we got to work. Through connections on the bay, we recruited board members and volunteers to help us in our mission. These are passionate residents who love the bay and dedicate their time to protect it. I am very proud of our accomplishments. I know Bart went through a lot of these uh accomplishments. We've spent time understanding the invasive weeds and how best to treat them. We've researched the carp problem and know that we have four times the healthy level of carp and we worked with LMC D to get uh after dark bow fishing approved. We've partnered with the city and sold 320 rain barrels I think was on that slide. We installed three rain gardens. You've heard all that. We have a website that educates res residents on clean gardening practices and how to keep those chemicals from coming in the lake. We've lobbyied the watershed on Painters Creek cleanup to prevent phosphorus from coming into Lake Minnetonka. Um and most importantly, we've developed a group of passionate volunteers that want to conserve Harrison's Bay. As a community, we are up against some tough issues that will only increase if we do if we don't do something. Rain events are larger, which means less rain is soaking in and more storm water and pollutants it carries are flowing into our bay. The carp are reproducing and the population is growing. Did you know they can live 60 years? We we studied one of them. Studies at the U of M and the watershed have found that when carp are managed to a healthy population, water quality improves. And as you heard, managing invasive vegetation is important to the health of the bay. As a community, I think we can make a difference. Okay, I'll wrap it up. Everyone's time is limited with family jobs, volunteer opportunities. Establishing a lake improvement district will support the long-term conservation of Harrison's by allowing volunteers to focus their energy on conservation projects, not on knocking on doors and asking for money. The majority of our Bay community has said via the petition, which has been verified, that they want to dedicate their money to bay conservation. We don't know what threats are in the future for Harrison's Bay. It's our front yard and I feel lucky to wake up every day um and live here. We're at a fork in the road and it's up to you, the city council, to decide where we go from here. I hope you will decide to honor the wishes of the majority and give the volunteers the resources they need to continue their work. They there aren't other agencies waking up tomorrow and saying, "What can we do to improve Harrison's Bay?" You saw that. They're not doing it. So, we need to do it ourselves. >> Can you wrap it up? >> If not us, then who? >> Okay. >> Please approve the lake improvement district. >> All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. [Applause] All right. Can you give us your name and address? >> Pat Pel. I don't have much of a voice, but I'll do my best. >> Yeah. >> Pat Pelster, 5032 Edgewater Drive. um been proud residents of uh Mound since 2007 and lived on Edgewater most of that time with my wife Kay. A lot of kids coming down the road. So, very quickly, a couple quick things. We've talked about all the agencies that manage Lake Minnetonka. None of them manage our bay. They all take their hands and say that's not my responsibility. Now, as I think in your position, what a lid might be. It's a lot like your planning commission, your finance department, the parks and rec department. You have a precious, precious resource here. It's a gorgeous, beautiful bay that we all love. We might fight over who's the best fisherman, but we all love the bay. Somebody needs to take care of it. It's It's never gotten off the list of the impaired water yet. And I think the only way we can do it is with a lid. You've got a committed group of people here willing to work with you and carry this through. We need your help. The city is the lid. And if you think of it in that terms, that's your resource. The bay is your resource. take responsibility for it and find a way to make it as good as we can like everything else you're trying to do in a city. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. [Applause] >> Good evening. My name is Eric Evansson. I'm the director of the Lake Mitanka Association. who do not live on Harrison's Bay. However, but the Lake Mitanka Association is strongly in support of the formation of lives. I can't be more eloquent than your last speaker by saying when he said, you know, if if if the Harrison's Bay organization doesn't happen, who's going to be responsible? Who's going to take care of the bay? I have over 40 years experience in water management. I've received numerous state awards for the work I've done. I've received national awards for it. I've even had the privilege of speaking internationally about watershed management. So, it's something I'm somewhat familiar with. One of the points that was made here tonight that I want to underscore is um that by forming a lid, the citizens of Mound, the citizens of Harrison's Bay will have access to clean water council funding. They will have access to legacy funding. They will have access to Bowser funding. This is the funding that comes in not in thousands of dollars but hundreds of thousands of dollars. So the comments about how are you going to fund this is going to be you're opening yourselves up to an opportunity to a great deal of funding here to start working towards this thing. And you know while I may not always agree with some of the direction that um uh um Cindy or or they they've taken in the past I do agree with their passion and their ability to pull these things together. This is a very well uh uh assembled um uh presentation tonight. I also want to address some of the issues that have been raised by fishing. Um I don't like anecdotal information. So when somebody says me, well the fish aren't aren't doing uh we're not catching that much fish anymore because of the treatment. Well, I have also talked to experts in in the areas of fishery management and what they're going to say is that fishery management is extremely complex. Water quality, water chemistry, water temperature, water depth, all impact fisheries. Vegetation type, vegetation density, vegetation diversity affect fish. Lake shore and lake shed development of fake fisheries. Lake use, lake geomorphology, and the balance under predator species, the presence of AIS and past fishing practices all affect fisheries in a lake. Are they right? When you when you treat a lake and the invasive weeds die, they're right. the fish are going to go away. Will they come back once the natural eco equilibrium is restored? Very likely. I've talked to fishermen on the lake and their comments to me are before we had all the problems with mil foil on the lake. I knew where to fish. I know where to fish now because I knew where I used to fish back in 1986. So that's there. The comments about herbicides and the dangers with it. There has never been I we've been doing herbicide treatments with the late men association. We've been doing herbicide treatments. We started testing them back in the early 2000s. It's now been well over 20 years when we've been doing these things. Um there's never been a fish kill on Lake Matonka caused by the herbicides. I don't know if there's been a fish kill in Minnesota in my in my memory associated with herbicide uh treatments on lakes. However, there have been numerous fist chills on the lakes associated with um algae blooms and excessive phosphorus and excessive nutrients in the lake. So the the the the concern about the use of herbicides and the control of this thing is very unfounded. Now I will make a commitment to you if at some point you can make a commitment to me. I am willing and I've talked to my board about this of hosting a round table. We'll invite the the fisheries people, the the the the the anti- uh chemical use people and everything if we can get an inkling or a commitment from the city to make sure that somebody from in leadership would be available and I will bring in national experts in this area. We'll do a one day because it's it's not something you can do in a couple hours. You need to have a full day of discussion on this thing to really understand the issues and we'll commit to hosting one if we can get a commitment from yourself and other communities around the lake to send leadership to this one day con this one day round table. So thank you. >> Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. [Applause] >> Any more Give us your name and address. >> Dan Johnston. I live on Harrison's Bay. Uh, three points. >> What's your address? >> Uh, we've owned our place, my wife and I, since 2008. >> What's your address? >> 1901 Shorewood Lane. >> Thank you. >> I uh I came from Fargo and we always had a lab in our basement. My dad had this first soils and plant testing visits in North Dakota and so we always had a lab and so I majored in chemistry. I didn't do that for a living. Uh ended up going to medical school. I'm a retired anesthesiologist. I used to work at Abbott. Anyway, I've spent tens of thousands of hours fishing and hunting all over Mexico, Canada, US, and I regularly fish off my dock. In 2008, I used to catch walley off the end of my dock. I'm a I'm pro lit by the way and uh I've been a member of the HBA since uh 2020 2021 or so when Jane Anderson and Sherry Wallace started this. I I noticed that the fishing started dropping off uh over the years be before the HPA started treating for weeds and I saw an explosion in carp. So, I know that that's also a problem, but I also think that there's problems with the wave boats. I think the waveboats are disruptive to the the bottom of the lake also. And I think there's a big study going on at the University of Minnesota right now. It's not just the shoreline, it's the bottom of the lake, too. I've also been concerned over the years about all of the ice fishing houses that are out in Harrison's Bay. By the way, uh Harrison's Bay is only 20 ft deep. And apparently the the disruption from the wave boats goes down 20 ft. So they shouldn't even be using wave boats in in Harrison's Bay. I guess we'll see the results of the University of Minnesota's study. But I I think that the the way boats are are likely to stay. I don't think they're going away. And I know that this this is a complex problem for for Lake Minnotonka and there's a lot of different uh entities that are involved in this trying to manage this lake. I think that the lid is is at least a start and uh I hope that it passes because I think something has to be done and nobody seems to be stepping to the plate to deal with managing the resource that we have. Um the carp were disruptive and I think that they've been reigned in to some degree now and I started catching more fish off the off the end of my of my of my dock. Uh, I am concerned that I've never seen a DNR uh, person out on Harrison's Bay checking limits. I think that there's a lot of people that are out in these ice fishing houses that are harvesting whatever they catch. I don't think they actually follow the the limits and that's been a concern of mine for years actually. You know, I would like to see beefed up regulation and monitoring of what's actually going on in the ice fishing houses. Um, other than that, I I submitted my letter to everybody. I don't know if you got a chance to to read all of them or not, but anyway, I hope that we can do something to manage the resource. One of my grandfathers was a game warden in Rosa County for for 40 years. And so, I think it's a responsible thing to to to manage plants and animals. And I'm a person of science. I don't believe in opinion. I would rather see the hard facts and and believe in the science. >> Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] >> I guess I'll go. >> Yeah. >> I'm not sure if I want to give this to the manager. It's a document from the DNR. >> Sure. Thanks. And I'd like to give I sent this in an email. I don't know if I got to everybody. I only got replies from one or two. Anyway, this is a sign I took photo of Center View Beach and it's DNR approved. >> Before you start, go in front of the mic. >> I'm sorry. >> Yeah. Other I'm very nervous. >> No, it's fine. the video won't re won't get your voice. Uh okay. Now give us your name and address. Okay. >> My name is Scott Matson. I live at 2045 Arbor Lane, Minnesota. I lived on Harrison's Bay for 39 years. I strongly oppose the Harrison Bay Lid. I want no part of an HOA association of any kind. I especially do not want a HOA that governs a public waterway. I believe this is wrong. Public water belongs to everyone in the state of Minnesota, not just the lake shore corners. Many people have brought forth meaningful concerns about what is wrong. Um what is going wrong with uh this lid? Um some of the things I was going to talk about have already been talked about, so I'm adding as I go. But I have a a concern involving the posting of chemically treated areas in public waters. I have a document which I just handed over uh that states, if I can get it out here myself, sorry. Um all chemically treated areas and public waters must be posted with notice signs before treatment. The signs which are provided free by the DNR inform the public that the treatment has occurred and list the water use restrictions. The rule specifies that the treatment area must be posted in such a way that people entering from any direction can see the signs. At a minimum there should be a sign facing along shore at each end of the treatment area. a sign facing Lake Wart, another facing every inland every 100 ft. Thus, a 100 ft treatment area would need six signs, one of each end perpendicular to the shoreline, one on each end parallel to the shore facing the Lakewood, and another for each end placed parallel to the shore but facing inland. and treatments occurring 150 ft from shore or greater are considered offshore. Treatment signs should be around the perimeter of the treatment area to inform water users of of the use restrictions. The DNR recommends attaching treatment signs to buoys. Now, I I went down to Center View Beach, one sign in the middle of the beach, and and you can read the sign what it says. I got to I got to bring it up here. I'm sorry. But the sign says I got to find it here. I'm sorry. Um, this the sign says well he I got it. I got the sign says there's restrictions. There's no restrictions on swimming drinking water duties >> from in Can I even read my own? >> Yeah, this is it. I'm sorry. This is but anyway no restrictions on swimming but there is it says do not drink water from treated area for the one I said is 4 days after uh domestic uses I'm sorry but that if you look at that sign I can't read it I'm sorry >> you want to just hand it to us We're We're out of time. >> I know it. But >> yeah, >> you gave us a copy of that. We saw that. >> You saw the copy. >> Does it make any sense to anyone here? Would you put your children into swim? I witnessed children in there on on 918 or on >> June 8th is when this photo was taken. >> Get him to go back to the back. Um, can you go back by but your time's up? Oh, >> I really want to get this across. >> You have to go to the mic because we can't hear you. >> I I stopped a lady from she was walking her dog and she went to that beach and and alongside there's a public launch there. >> Yeah. >> She went to water her dog >> the day the day after they treated this stuff. >> And what I'm saying is it's not safe. Um, >> I noticed I got No, there were there were children at a daycare there. I I sent Mr. Kathy there the video and the picture of the ch children playing there on nine the sorry the day after the treatment. >> The treatment >> those kids were swimming it. They were in a a summer camp, summer camp, and these kids were swimming in the water the day after treatment. And and that sign, if you look at it, you can swim, but you can't feed your livestock. >> You can't water your lawn because it's not safe for 4 days. I got you. >> I got to be fair to >> I know you got to be fair, but I don't understand why Bart got to do a whole presentation. >> So, we listened to that last week or last time. I'm sorry. I don't want to get crazy, but it's it's so frustrating. >> All right. I appreciate it. >> I appreciate it. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Um, just so you know, just so everybody knows, Bart, >> he he' made the presentation. He's applying for the the deal, so they we they give more time. So, that's just how it works. Uh, but anybody else want to come up? >> You give us your name and address. Patrick Selter, PLM, Lake and Land Management, 1511 Mar Street, Shockby, Minnesota. My name is Patrick. I do the applications. Um, I've been involved with these applications on Minnitonka since 2005 when we did the international research. Just for a point of clarification, the signs that these gentlemen have shown are not our signs. Our signs and our treatments were done on May 1st, 2025. Not referenced. There are IAPM or APM permits that were performed. Ours were done May or June 5th, just for the record. And that's all I have. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Right. Can you give us your name and address? >> Britney Magdal, 3710 Lee Road. Me and my husband have lived on Enchanted Island Phelps Bay for 10 years now. And this proposal may be for one bay, but once the president is set here, others will follow. Phelps Bay could be next. And that's why I'm here. We've all heard the same talking points repeated tonight, word after word from those in favor. That's not a healthy debate or conversation. That's coordinated messaging. And when one side is reading from the same script, the council should think twice before handing them tax and authority and chemical control over a public body of water. I'm a fishing guide. I'm on this lake almost every single day. The anglers here tonight who've spoke know this water in the ecosystem in a way you can't learn from just a few messaging or some small sample studies that have been done. Yet somehow these lids act as though they know better than people who live, work, and fisher every day. A lid puts control in the hands of a few, allowing blanket herbicide spraying that kills all plant life in a treatment zone, disrupts habitat, and harms fish and wildlife for months. Once you create one, the model spreads bay by bay until control of the lake is fractured and oversight is gone. Keep the city out of creating lids. A yes vote here won't just affect this bay. It's a precedent that will eventually reach mine and others to come. Thank you. Thanks. >> Thank you. >> All right. Anybody else? >> Do you know who I am? >> Oh, yeah. We know who you are. >> Go ahead. >> All right. Come on. >> We got to stay in track here. >> Keep give us your name and address. Barbara Schmidt. I live at 50 Landmark Drive and I am an orno resident. I had the privilege to go to an a Minnesota DNR meeting that was called by Mr. Ron Sherah on July 24th, 2025. And I did send all of you a packet of some of the findings that we discussed in that meeting. And now I'd like to just highlight a few of them. These are other ones. You have that whole packet to look at, so you probably have more than you need. Um, one, we found that the DNR was surprised at the number of chemical treatments across the two divisions that were permitted for specifically Stubs Bay and Carman Bay. We did ask for Harrison's Bay. Did you get it? I don't I'm not sure. I didn't receive it in time for this meeting. The DNR data shows that an 80% increase in Stubbs Bay chemical treatments in the first half of 2025. This is more than 2016 through 2024 combined. This proves lids do not combine treatments. Their existence may in fact be encouraging more chemical treatments. The DNR data shows almost 700 700 treatments in Carmen Bay since 2016 through June of this year. This equates to somewhere between 65 and 85% of lakeshore owners on average repeatedly dumping chemicals year after year for eight years without pause. This proves that native plants are not coming back. nor is chemical use going to be curbed unless there this loophole law basically is what we're calling it is changed and limits are put on chemical permitting and the top of the DNR leadership was there and they are very concerned about this and they did not know how many treatments were going on like this and that's just the tip of the iceberg these homeowners are also dumping on their own without permits so we need to know what's really being dumped into the lake. The DNR is not recording all chemical information in their public data, which you can look on your packets and see that they don't list it always. This needs to change not only for possible cross-pollination and accumulation of chemicals, but for the public health and information as well. The DNR did acknowledge the need for education around runoff, clean water, and the enforcement of their own 15% latoral treatment boundaries. They're not enforcing it enough. It appeared that there were many variances along with what seems to be overpermitting on a regular basis. And they admitted this. The DNR is not regularly testing post treatment, cross treatment, nor are they checking the silt. And they have never checked the silt. And we know that there's chemicals there because they're using a forever chemical. Uh this needs to change if we're to ensure the health of the ecosystem for all life including humans, pet and native species and aquatic environments are extremely sensitive. So we need to be checking them. The DNR was not forthcoming about the use of the chemical proellicore when asked by Henipin County Commissioner Heather Adlesen. Oh yes, there's many legislators that are involved in this. This PAS chemical has been flagged to be pulled in Minnesota by 2032 and it has been flagged in New York, Vermont, and was never allowed to be used in California, and it's been used all over. I know it's been used in Stubs Bay. So, there's a bigger issue here and there's bigger people looking at it, including senators, representatives, and I'm sure I I don't know if you've been contacted yet, but I'm sure you will be. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Hi. There's your name and address. >> I am Kaia Pelstring. I live at 5032 Edgewater Drive. My husband Pat and I bought our home on Lakeshore Drive. I'm sorry, uh, Lakeshore property in Harrison's Bay in July of 2007. We have six adult children, eight grandchildren, and twins on the way. Summertime in our home is a family time, creating lasting memories, enjoying lake activities, and time together. We are concerned about Harrison's Bay extremely poor water quality rating by numerous Minnesota agencies. Impaired rating given by the Minhaha Creek wershed district. Impaired rating by Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and a D-rating by the Minhaha Creek Wershed District in Henipin County. We worry about the safety of our children and grandchildren enjoying the lake if the water is toxic due to environmental causes. They're not being addressed by the city, the county, or the state. This is why we joined Harrison's Bay Association four years ago. Getting concerned Lakeshore property owners organized and working on the conservation issues together through research interviewing knowledgeable people and fundraising efforts. Harrison Bay Association has coordinated our efforts with the US EPA, the Minnesota DNR, LMCD, MCWD, and MPCA. Do not squander this incredible resource of the Harrison Bay Association that has dropped into your lap for free. Do not let the volume of the opposition derail the opportunity of the severity, the importance of the severity of this problem. They are not offering any other solutions. Harrison Bay is impaired. There is no lower rating. Immediate action is needed if Lakeshore property owners do not fund the solution to this problem. Is the city of Mound going to fund raising the water quality of our lake? Or do we sit back and wait for Harrison Bay to get so toxic that the state and county finally recognize it and alloc allocate cleanup funds to mount? Remember, if Harrison Bay Lid doesn't pass, there's no guarantee that this association will continue. The volunteer group will disband. Now, imagine you're entertaining at your home and have a grease fire in your kitchen. You grab the fire extinguisher and prepare to put out the fire, but one of your guests stops you and says, "There are a lot of toxic chemicals in that fire extinguisher. Don't use it." Another guest says, "That's an expensive piece of equipment. Don't use it." But they don't offer you another way to put out the fire. They do not have another effective solution. The fire extinguisher is only needed for a short amount of time to get control of the grease fire. Then other methods of cleanup will be used. The fire extinguisher chemicals are no longer needed. Right now, Harrison Bay is our burning kitchen. It is in dire need of help and we must act fast to save it or as a burned house, it will be unlivable. The pollutants, invasive weeds, invasive carp are creating a hostile aquatic environment. In conclusion, um so it's time for you to decide. The Harrison Bay has met your criteria. Harrison Bay Association has met your criteria for more than 50% lakeshore property owners voting yes to the Lake Improvement District. Let's follow the lead of other successful Lake Minnitankka lid programs and make a difference in the quality of our lake now before it's too late. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. [Applause] >> Hi, I'm Pat Furlong. I live on Edgewater Drive 5044. Go ahead and set that thing. I won't take three minutes. I've listened to all these people. I don't know where Ed went. Where's Ed? >> Right here. >> He's back there. Good to see you, Ed. >> We're on totally opposite sides. Part of the reason is Ed lives on the open end. He lives on the really clean end. I know people here that live on the closed end. They got a totally different perspective on the whole bay. If you live on the closed end or if you live on the open end. I happen to live in the middle. Okay. Whatever these people have been doing for Harrison's Bay, keep it up. Harrison's Bay is cleaner, brighter, and prettier than it's ever been. And Ed, I'm sorry. You're a fisherman. Your buddies are fishermen. I don't fish. I could care less about fishing. I hope everybody back here hears me because in the past with people speaking, they couldn't hear. Okay. >> I am all for the people that have been helping been working and helping to get this base cleaned up. It's getting better, but it's got to get better. Thank you. >> Sound good to follow? >> About halfway. >> Uh Randy Olsson, 3375 Warner Lane in Mound. I live on the island. I don't live on Harrison's Bay. I I spent a lot of time in Harrison's Bay. I've been coming to Lake Mananka probably for 60 of my 66 years enjoying it. Um, if our if our goal is to make the water clean and clear, then let's just dump the chemicals in and kill everything and start from scratch because this is what this is what we're trying to do. We haven't learned from our past experience that chemical being presented to wildlife to water to um ask Roundup how how how chemical how herbicides affect people and people losing kidneys. It's ridiculous. People keep dumping chemicals into a lake to make it cleaner. It's not making it clear. You're killing the lake. You're making it clear, not clear. That's all I have to say. All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Anybody else? >> My name is Dylan Aroski. I'm at 4973 Points Boulevard. Um, I guess the start of this was probably 2016, 2017. I was fishing on the lake. I've been a fisherman since I was two years old. Big walleye fisherman. Um, I seen them applicating, you know, with the 2-in hose, max application, spray in the bay. Um, it wasn't um Harrison's, it was another bay, but I saw posted signs and read what others were saying about, you know, no swimming. Actually was there for 24 hours, no feeding um pets water, um nothing like that. that don't feed your lawns. I've known some other people have had issues with taking water um and fertiliz or and watering their garden and plants have died because of this application. Um, it just kind of bothers me that people don't like to think of the whole ecosystem of what we have going on and these impacts can have dramatic changes and how did we actually get here and not realizing that mechanical means of removal was a standard procedure for all this time to get rid of weeds and somehow that just gets sidetracked and it's too expensive. Oh, it's a lot cheaper and quicker just to dump a bunch of poison on here and kill everything. The daquad is a toxin. It's toxic to animals. It's toxic to plants. We need to have more discussion with the DNR in front of you guys so we can get the clear understanding of what are we actually putting in here and what is it doing to the lake. What is it affecting? Because that just gets kind of sidetracked of, oh, just listen to the DNR. They know what's best. Well, you know, the MPA had 3M regulating what they could dump in and what is happening now. Like we're huge lawsuits and things to follow. This could be something that could be down the road. We don't know the long-term effects of the daquad. We know that the European Union has banned this in 2018. So, we should have more conversations. We should bring in the fisheries from the DNR and have them up here talking and what is going on, you know, related to the whole ecosystem. If you're taking out these weeds, you are eliminating something that can absorb the phosphorus from the runoff from the creeks. So, the water clarity has gotten better with the zebra muscles. Yeah, it's invasive. Everybody in here is invasive according to the DNR, right? The earthworms are invasive. The black lace trees are invasive. You know, regardless of fort nailing was built out of it, right? It's invasive. It's bad, right? Well, not everything is bad as the DNR would like to propose it to be when it's invasive. So, eliminating these weeds is going to worsen the water quality and clarity of it. So, the association started with all this funding. Well, when did this start? 2013, 2014 when they started giving a million dollars a year in funding divided up per county, Henipin County got around $400,000. These bays were getting a chunk of this money and now this funding is drying up. So the association is desperate to try and retain this funding that has been going on provided by the government. So now, you know, they're desperate to create these lids and try and tax people. It just, like I say, I could go on and on, but I know my time. I appreciate it. And I just want to make one more point that I think I did send an email to you guys about um there was a change act or for banning the chemicals and that is up to over 1500 verified signatures and I think the council needs to understand that why are we just taking out these 200 some lake shorefront owners and not including all of mound residents into this conversation. We have access to the lake. We have rights to the lake. you know, we should have a say, not just the select few having all the power. So, >> thanks. >> Thank you. >> Anybody else? >> She's standing out. You know, I'm only going to give you three minutes, right? >> Three minutes. That's all I get. Right. >> Give us your name and address. >> Three minutes. I don't get an extra five seconds. >> Um, uh, good evening. My name is Paula Larson. I live at 5713 Lynwood Boulevard. Um, one thing that we all can agree on here, all of us here, is we all love the lake. That is our jewel here. Uh, Mound is a quaint city on the shores of Lake Minnetonka. That's one thing none of us can argue about. We all love the lake. But I just want to mention a couple of things here. One is DDT guaranteed by the government that was going to be okay. That almost eliminated all our eagles. Agent Orange that was supposed to be okay. My husband died from exposure to Agent Orange. guaranteed by the government this is going to be okay. Uh mil foil weed harvesters, you know how what a failure that was. And do we dare need to talk about Lake Langon, our sewer plant that was put in in the late 70s. There was going to be no problem with mound sewer on Lake Langon. Well, we all know we're still suffering with that. Got the chemicals on the bottom. It killed all the yellowheaded blackbirds. It was a total disaster. We're still paying for it, trying to clean it up. Keep in mind, Lake Landon goes down Lake Landon Creek to Lost Lake into Lake Minnotonka. What I'd like to say tonight is to the five of you, your duty. You are council members. You need to take care of our money. You need to take care of our residents. I heard tonight that the wonderful energy from the Harrison Bay people should be directed at LMC. They're the culprits here. I have been to LMC. We pay L just like that gentleman said. How many thousands of dollars do we pay him? Back 24 years ago, Dr. David J. Ardorfer did a huge study was employed by LMCD to tell what they should do to keep our lakes pretty nice. What do we need to do? Three types of water in our lake. All kinds of stuff that has failed. We need to go after LMC. They're taking our money and then they'll tell you they don't have the money. I've sat there and argued with them. We need and as council members, what have we been told all the time? Our responsibility ends at the dirt on our lake, not in the water. We've been told this over and over again. Once again, it is not your responsibility to enter into this big argument about the care of Lake Matona. That's LMCD's problem. And I would like to say that the 143 ambitious people out here on that petition, 14344, I've heard two different numbers. Those households, bound has 4,429 households. You have 4,286 other people you need to think about. Turn this over to LMC. Thank you. Thank you. By the way, my son caught the biggest bass recorded last Monday. >> Oh, look it. We got Ben Brandt from LMCD. >> I'm Ben Brandt. I live on 6233 Lady Slipper Circle, Mound, Minnesota. I am Mound's appointed LMCD board member. >> Nice to meet you all. uh here to just uh share my opinion and the LMC's opinion on the the lid formation. Um we we do support the formation of lids, but it's a a broader scale of we encourage residents, property owners on the lake to pull their resources uh put their collective efforts, resources together and do what's best for the lake in their backyards. I feel like that's what the Harrison's Bay Association has been attempting to do for the last four years. Um it's been fun to partner with them personally and as a board on multiple uh initiatives that they've undertaken. Most recently the carp bow fishing at night. Um, from an LMC standpoint, we do not have the resources to do lakewide uh, herbicide treatments, uh, much less back it with scientific fact that is supportive from a safety standpoint, from efficacy standpoint and a, uh, ability to do it equitably across 14 different cities that uh, share property line along the lake. Um, so that that brings us to our current position of we would support residents pooling their resources, coming together, uh, and and doing what's best in their opinion in their backyards. Um, which is, I believe, what the HBA is trying to accomplish today with the lid formation. Um, I think the city issue that needs to be decided by U5 is how that's done. Is it is it continued on to the future uh through donations and private funding or is it done through a tax levy? And um we've seen the stats. 60% pro want it, 40% don't. I personally, you know, understand the state statute that that says they're good to do it. Um I I think personally I I would debate if that's a high enough percentage or or not. Um but that's a a more of a question for you guys, not for the LMC, not for me personally. I don't live in Harrison's Bay. Um and if there just from a a future of the LMCD, I've heard and listened to all of your guys' comments tonight. I I was here at the June presentation by the HBA as well listening. Um we tax the city of Mound. Over the last six years, it's been on average of $20,000 to um facilitate our programs such as code enforcement, dock use, um dock variances, uh safety on the lake. Uh we we uh help fund the solar lights, the red and green solar lights on the uh navigation buoys on the lake um and many other efforts, but um we don't have the financial uh budget to to do lakewide um AAS management. We're not the experts of it and we have a limited staff to to be able to even handle something like that with any kind of expertise. So, we're not in that business anymore. Um and if there's future opportunities to do so, I'm certainly open. My email is on the web our website. I will listen and talk to anyone that wants to talk about future LMCD initiatives and strategy and bring it back to our board um with with full effort and intention. Um but that's that's not the discussion tonight. Um and just wanted to share my position on the the city and the the debate. >> Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Thanks. Anybody else? >> Hi, my name is Jim Tyson. I live at 1295 Elwood Avenue. It's on Forest Lake. Uh I am opposed to the bid. >> You're Forest Lake Horno. >> That is correct. >> Okay. Um, I understand invasives. I understand that they are a real issue and there needs to be tools to manage problems. I just don't support the lid for a variety of reasons. Ben just talked about 61 support, 39 oppose. So, the 39 voices are unheard in that structure. Three main reasons I oppose. The lid is essentially it's an HOA for a public body of water. There's been talk about the liability. I have the state statute and I give it can give it to you for record. You can interpret it for yourselves. There is liability placed upon the residents and transferred to the city upon u dissolving the lid. The extensive use of chemicals and the unknown effects. We talked about daquat. Daquat has actually been banned in Europe and England for over 20 years. We don't know the long-term effects of these chemicals, but we're going to take that risk. Should the city of Mound have the jurisdiction to manage the public body of water? What level of involvement? And what's in the best interest of the city residents? There are five bays on Tonka that have high fa high phosphorus levels. Harrison's Bay is one of them. There was discussion about the U of M report that just took place and I have a link on here. Hopefully it goes to public record and people can look at that link if they want. Quite an amazing document that was put out there about the disturbance that the wakeboard votes are causing. In the DNR advisory that was provided here, they use the term bioturbation and they're talking about the carp disturbing the biological bottom of the lake. I would suggest this has far more to do do with the surf boats than the cart. I'll point out there's 225 acres on Harrison's Bay. 198 of them are within the what they call the latoral zone, which is the zero to 15 ft. If you go and watch this documentary, they're going to they tested at 9 foot and 14 foot and the major disturbance that happened at 14 ft. They then did drone cameras and looked at an hour later in that sediment pool that was still in the lake an hour later. Very disturbing. Quite honestly, I think they should outlaw them in Harrison's Bay due to the nature of the large percentage of the Torah area. We talk about liabilities. Let's talk about Tonka toys. So, signing up for a lid, you're going to accept liability for what's going on in this body of water. Are you also accepting what happened with Tonkat Toys? U I want to talk about the treatment of the rhetorical area. Um if you look at Harrison's Bay, there's it's about 7 ft deep. Okay. So the calculation is incorrect. The weeds don't grow down to 15 feet in Harrison's Bay. So recalculate it based on the true latoral area. recalculate it based on taking a percentage of Spring Park Bay off of there and then use it as 15% of treatment in the area of Harrison's Bay, not based on the standard 15 ft. I want to talk a little bit about LMA. >> I'm going to stop you. We're up. >> Thank you. >> I'm going to LMA is promoting this and you need to look at LMA. I'll I'll provide my documentation for public record. I'm assuming that it will get recorded. LMA is the largest promoter of this and you need to ask why. Why do they at a $260,000 annual budget have $410,000 in reserves when they're trying to help the lake? What they're helping is promoting LIDS. There is a problem. I acknowledge that. Help us fix the problem. >> Thanks. >> Thank you. Did we finally get them all? >> All right, give you 10 seconds. All right, I'm going to close the public comment period. >> Thank you guys for all your >> thank you responses. Uh so this part now we're going to discuss as a council what we just heard and what we want to do. Um so again unfortunately the public part is done. This will be uh on us now. So, um, from what we heard, does anybody have any comments or thoughts or steps? >> I have a couple questions for our LMC rep if that's still okay. >> Well, technically because he's the LMC, I'll allow it. >> But if it was Yeah, >> I don't know that you're going to have the answers, but thank you for coming and staying through all this, too. Um, >> do you see anything ch So, as far as the LMCD is concerned, do you see anything changing in the future if there are are more lids? Would LMC LMCD not be in a position to, you know, like like fund them or or finance them or something, but like to be that mechanism of collecting? I mean, they're not a taxing authority, but do you see any capacity of LMC service changing in that way? I don't Our budget is funded by the the levy to the cities. Y um so if if we were to take on I I'm not suggesting this, but if we were to take on a lakewide invasive species management program, it would be a higher tax to all residents of all cities. >> Like that's where it would come from. >> Yeah. And that's probably not fiscally responsible or feasible at this point. >> Yeah. And then uh my only other question too um so the AIS budget line for LMCD is zero. >> What what was it like in the last few years? I mean was it pretty nominal then too? >> It's it's changed a lot over the last six years that I've been on the LMC board. Um when I first joined we were um had just placed a stop on the harvesting program that operated the the harvesters. I think it was three of them throughout the summer. Um that harvested for mil foil, harvested for the uh curly pond leaf, pondweed. Um that budget alone was like $130,000ish dollars if I remember correctly and that was discontinued in 2018. Okay. >> Um since then we've reallocated the AIS funds um to we put it in a reserve fund for for a couple years while there was a three-year moratorum before we t decided to totally discontinue the harvesting program. sold off the equipment. Um there are still harvesters operate on Lake Mntanka, but it's private companies that that do it. Um for three years, we had about $80,000 dollars, I believe it was, in an AIS fund that was available for uh emergency uses, navigation uses. Um if there was uh navigational hazards by matting racial autom foil acryle leaf we could have contracted a mechanical harvester hand harvesters um or or hand removal companies to to come clear up that from a navigational standpoint. Um we also had a program uh that helped kickstart uh aquatic invasive species funds uh and that was intended to uh help support groups such as the Harrison's Bay Association. Uh we helped Stubs Bay, Forest Lake um with some Kickstarter funding that allowed them to do their initial point intercept surveys on the um uh the plant surveys that would basically say what population of curly pondweed, what population of region water mil. We were in direct partnership with the LMA on those efforts as well. Um and we got a lot of really good responses and and helped a lot of bays um with those efforts, but we saw a initial uh high interest and it kind of tapered off. So we've since then discontinued uh that fund and uh decided not to tax the levy or tax through the levy the cities anymore for it since it's it's out of our expertise and um the interest wasn't there. So, we actually discontinued it to allow for the levy to stay lower for the cities. >> Okay, >> cool. Thanks. >> So, if you have virtually no money left, what is your purpose? >> Yeah. Um, a lot of it is is code enforcement um and doc use variances. We see a lot of uh very technical uh disputes, complaints, uh applications for permanent docs. uh property lines, where they can put a dock, how far out in the lake they can put a dock. Um that that's a big part of it. Uh we've recently uh as of this year uh updated our code to help enforce rental watercrafts. Um that's been a direct impact to Mound and the operations that operate out of Cooks Bay Surfside Launch. >> Thank you. >> Um >> Yep. Uh we've also recently uh updated our code for watercraft for hire operations to make sure that that's uniform and consistent. across the lake from operated watercraft for hires and nonlicensed. Um uh we've also like as I said when I was up here previously um helped fund all the uh solar lights on the navigational buoys for nighttime safety and uh also helped uh fund overall safety on the lake uh through donations to the the Hen County Sheriff's Water Patrol office so that there's a dedicated officer on the lake at all times throughout the summer among many others too. But um we have a staff we have one executive director and a a staff of three at the office. So it's a pretty limited full-time staff and then the 14 cities that have property along Lake Minnetonka each appoint a board member. Um so I'm one of 14 volunteers. >> Thank you Brady. >> Yeah. So to that point, I don't know if you can answer this on the spot, but by my calculation, you said there were 14 cities and I'm sure they all pay varying different amounts to you for the levy, right? >> Yeah. >> So, but even if you just took 30,000 as an average, that's almost a half a million dollars. Where does that money go? Is there a budget that we can go out and look at or I'm just curious if you can't answer? >> I I believe our our 2026 proposed budget was sent to the city and the the hopefully distributed to the council back in May or June, early June. Um and it was ratified um through our board meeting in in I think the first one in July. >> Okay. >> And that just a simple budget >> and that's on the website. We can go grab or on your website. I mean >> I I I'm not I'm sure it is on our website somewhere. I but it was shared with all the cities and I can get it to you tonight too. But it's it's a full breakdown P&L. >> So your income is the levy from the cities. Is there any other income coming in from LMC such as tax dollars from the state >> uh >> or county? >> No, we we do take donations for the Save the Lake fund. >> Um and that helps fund just smaller >> projects, but um yeah, each city's taxed based off of their uh estimated market value. >> Okay. >> And then um there is a cap. So >> um I think Mound pays uh 5 and a half% of the the total levy. >> Okay. So when they send I I get all the all all the emails, right? And I think Jesse gets them too. >> Um and then there's a public comment period >> that they said, "Hey, if you want to complain about this," so >> I complained. I said, "You I'm sure you saw it, right?" And I copied your whoever sent it. >> And you know, it went up a lot. Went up a lot. Um I will say the last couple years it didn't right on on purpose because of the as >> yeah we actually a decrease in the levy from 2023 2425 budget and had to go up this this year for 2026 budget. >> So we're we're working on that. >> Well nothing I can do now because they already approved it. But um you know on the budget side we're trying to you know fit that in. You know what? Ours went to from was it 30 to >> uh off hand I believe it's it was 18,000 a year levy for the last three years and then it increased to 25 or 26,000 in 2026. >> Okay. >> So over over the last six years it was an average. >> So bottom line it went up >> last year. >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> Sorry I didn't mean to turn this into a budget discussion. I need to ask you about weeds, >> but but but where I think I wanted to go with that was and I talked to you before this too and I said, "Hey, could could we pay more?" And then we all cover it. Right now, the problem is I live on Langden, right? So do you, right? You live on pree. >> Um you're on the dock program. You live inland. >> I don't live on a lake. >> You don't live on a lake, right? So, like, do we now make all of Mound pay for this one bay or or for >> or all the bays? >> All the bays. All the bays. Right. Yeah. Now, obviously, you know, you'd have to hire it across the board, but you know, I don't know if I like that answer either. So, >> does LMCD covers, >> right? >> Yeah. Does LMCD cover Lake? >> No. >> No. Okay. Thank you. >> So, >> yeah. Anyway, well, I appreciate you coming up again. escape while you can. >> Any other questions? >> Thank you for again, I'm happy to have these discussions with anyone from the public or you guys any time to Yeah. >> help make a better LMCD. That's what we're here to do is protect and enhance the Lake Manka experience. So, >> and just remember he's our appointed LMCD rep. So, I don't know if it was last year. I think it was last year, right, that you got appointed for another three years, >> I believe. So, >> or is that this year? >> Anyway, >> last year. >> You got a couple more years, right? >> I think so. Couple more. I think so. a couple more years. Um, and we like you, so you're doing good. >> Well, it's been great working with you guys. It's been great working with the Harrison Bay Association on their initiatives. Um, this lid discussion is is very entit interesting. And I mean, I have my personal beliefs. I, you know, the chemical discussions come up a lot tonight. I don't personally believe in chemicals, but I understand that it's it's potentially a viable way to treat a lot of square footage of lake. I personally, I'd rather hand pull it. Um, >> right. But, um, that's my personal preference. That's not an LMCD position. That's personal. Um, >> how hard would it be to fire up the old pullers again? >> We've we've sold them. So, they're they're probably a $200,000 piece of equipment >> and take management and labor to run them and maintenance. So, >> yeah. >> Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Okay. So, you got that piece of information. Anybody else have other comments you want to talk about? Are you ready to move forward one way or the other? >> I'm ready to vote. >> Um, so I think that the best course of action with regard to looking at the rules and the regulations that that are out there is to um because the decision has to be made within 30 days. There's also something talking about taking 10 days from the a public hearing. So I think the best course of action would be to have the actual you can have discussions about where you want to go. The resolution is is in the public packet so that following the rules so it can be viewed by the public but then have the decision made at at the earliest at the next meeting on it. That would help that would follow the rules out there. >> We can't make a decision tonight. >> Well, we don't have to make >> I'm looking at the rule right now and it says you have to do within it says no sooner than 10 days but within 30 days. He's he's the public hearing. >> So the so you have the public hearing because it's you know this this is has been the way and this is all statutory and by the rule based okay and so you know this process has been been very segmented. >> Yeah. >> And that's what it does here too when it >> now I don't see the thing is I don't see a penalty for it doesn't say a penalty for um for not for if you make a decision tonight. It just says that this is how they want it done under the DNR rules. >> So, could we make a decision tonight so at least everybody knows where we're at and then come back on was it the 28th or whatever and then put on the consent agenda. >> Yeah. What I think you could do Okay. >> What I think what Yeah. What I think you you would do is you would make a you could make your decision tonight and then have the and then have a formal the formal approval would be the resolution. And I think then you could at the next meeting the consent agenda. >> Okay. >> That'll give us time too that if you do >> so you get >> if you I mean because we have we've seen a resolution four. If you do do a a decision not to form it then it'll give time for staff to put the resolution together. >> Okay. But if we do four then what? >> If well if you do four then we'll put the we'll still the resolution is there but we will still put that on the consent agenda for the next >> okay >> next meeting. >> But technically we some still change the vote. >> Yeah. That's going to >> It's always a possibility. >> I mean, that's always a possibility, but what's >> we're not going to do another public meeting for >> No, no. There there's just one public meeting. I mean, I'm sorry. One public hearing. It's still a public meeting. >> A public meeting, >> but there's only one public hearing. The public hearing is done. Um com that. So, no more public comment. And it just says, I'll read the rule just so you have it in the record. It says no sooner than 10 days, but within 30 days following the holding of the public hearing, um, the council shall formally convene to approve or disapprove the establishment of the Lake District. >> No sooner than 10 days. >> So, at the next zero days, >> just at the next >> Well, it says no sooner than 10. So, it's >> Oh, sorry. No. >> Yeah. No. So, it's basically like a >> you have to do it. >> It's a 20-day period >> kind of. So, that means you could do it at the next meeting or the meeting after that. >> Okay. Well, I think we should leave here with our thoughts. >> Oh, >> like our decision >> and then >> go go go from there. >> Yeah. I I there's nothing says you can't do that. >> This is just that since it's the it's a formally convene to approve or disapprove the establishment, which would mean and you establish it by resolution of the council. >> Okay. >> By written resolution. >> Okay. >> Any other comments from council at all? Um, so I say one thing. What you could do if you make a decision, it can be a it could be a direction to have the city attorney and draft a resolution to do X. >> Okay, got it. >> And then that would be a direction and then formal adoption. >> I'll help you with that. Make it >> any other comments? Um, I mean, I'm ready to give my opinion, I guess, but I kind of feel like a little bit more discussion is beneficial for everyone, too. >> All right, start it. >> Um, I can be the first to make myself unpopular, but um, I'm not one of the blue dots. I'm My neighbors are, you know, I don't live on Harrison Bay. I live right there. My boat's there. Um, I would love for them to pay for that, but uh, you know, it it is it's not like a political, it's not philosophical. Our city code does say our our responsibility ends at the water. So, there is that and that does change if there's more lids or if there's not if there's just one. It still changes. Um, I'm not opposed to it. I don't I couldn't vote yes for it at this point. I just would need time to see how the other lives act. um and kind of see what else we learn in the meantime. I mean, it's not something that if we don't vote for it now that we can't vote for it later, you know, like as you said, I mean, I don't think my opinion is going to change in the next 10 days, but it could change if um I don't if the other lids are doing really well in 12 months or we learn a lot more information. It's just where my head's at. Right. Do you have any comments? >> Well, you know, I I like the idea of the lid because it brings together residents, citizens of our community making a decision of their own about, you know, something that impacts them. I walk every day. I walk to the end of my street spruce and I look at the lake. I look at Harrison Bay. I see the fishing people. I see unfortunately those wakeboat folks and um you know and I hear the wonderful birds singing and and I can see the turtles, snapper turtles along the shore. So I appreciate a lot of what the lake provides for my neighborhood even though I'm not on the lake. Um tonight we focused a lot about chemical treatment, but I know that the lid doesn't have to do chemical treatment. it can have other ways of addressing this. And I think unfortunately it sort of focused like that was the only resolution of what they could do. I think a community does better when everyone's working together and working for the common good. And I think that the lid could be that opportunity of bringing a community together for the common good. They can do something that we can't do as a city and that's we can't do anything about the water but they could. I'm really supportive of Harrison Bay. I have supported every project in the past and I'm not opposed to the lid in particular. I just feel like I need to learn more about it. Um I think there could be some other opportunities too. I don't know how many signatures were in favor. >> It was 60%. >> 60% >> but like was it 150 or 14? >> Okay. >> So I think there's some opportunity to be more creative. um you know on their end I'm the first to offer to do it but I went to the membership page during the discussion as well and there's a spot where you can sign up but I think having like a sustainable membership tab you know if you did if each of those people donated a couple hundred bucks every year or the whatever the 150 was it going to be for for each um it would exceed the $31,000 budget. I would sign up for that. Um, it's not limited to just lake owners, but I think that the $31,000 budget is probably too small. Just being realistic on how the lid's going to if if we did approve a lid, I would think that budget that's just not going to get done what needs to get done. Everything is so expensive now. I don't think 150 bucks per household is going to cut it. And if it can't get bigger than 300, that's probably more realistic. But it's just more reason that I don't I can't >> Yeah, it's more reason I can't vote yes on it right now. >> Okay. Um I think this is a very divisive issue for the residents of Harrison Bay. Um I do agree with some of the comments that Kevin said. Um and some of the other people brought up. I am strongly opposed to taxing the residents with more taxes. Um especially since we're already taxed I know I am and I'm on Lake Langden. I'm not even close to what they're paying. And I really have an issue and I I wanted to talk to Andrew and see if there were Andrew Myers and see if there was any additional information on this statue which I know Scott you've provided us with. I think it's very unfortunate that we're paying all these taxes and where are they going? I mean, LMCD is getting almost a half a million dollars and we have no explanation really and I'm not being critical of you, but we don't really have any details on where that money is going. Same thing with the, you know, I think it was mentioned the Lake Minnetonka Association. You know, it sounds like they've got quite a bit of money if this calculation is right. Someone said, I think they had $410,000 in reserve. Um, I don't like the idea that we're putting this on the residents. And as someone else mentioned, you know, our responsibility ends with the dirt. And I know someone in here said the city had a responsibility. The city does not have a responsibility for Lake Minnetonka. We are told that almost every day. Um, there is a lot of other things that are going on Lake Minnotonka that, you know, we're trying to deal with as a city, but once again, that ends at the dirt. So, I think that's where I am. I'm not really sure which way I would vote at this point. >> I still need some more time. >> Uh, well, I mean, I really appreciate first of all everybody's passion and for everybody who opposes and stands by the lid for all the research who sent us. I mean, my eyes are popping out of my skull. I I you know I've read every single thing that you've said to us and it's been you know it's been really really great reading but in reading everything my gut still tells me there is no upside to the city of mound being involved with the lid. It's a layer of bureaucracy that we would have very little oversight with and and nor should we. As everybody understands, our jurisdiction ends where the water begins. And we hear that all day long, every day. And this just feels way out of whack. And and my biggest issue with this, everybody's f following exactly what you've been told. But I think the statutes flawed. I think that for them to be asking councils who have been elected to represent all of our constituents in lie of this lid that we have no oversight with. Um it it's really it's a real problem for me. Um, and if you look at the 60% who have signed in favor of the lid, but now we have the 40% um that don't. And we were not elected to >> be working with with a bureaucracy who works with another bureaucracy and still answer to our residents. And and that's where my biggest issue is. It's really with the statute and you know we have to go to the higher level levels to do that. So I my vote would be no. It just blurs the lines between elected officials enacting policy that be best serves our residents um you know versus the bureaucracies. Again, I just don't think the city should be playing any role in the development of a lid because no matter what is enacted policywise within the lid, it would imply that the city, >> meaning the council, um approves the actions when in reality we would play a really small minor role in everything that is happening with the 233 residents on Harrison Bay. All right. So, so I'll go up. Uh, same thing. Thank everybody for coming out as well as I mean we got calls and emails and I mean >> for months. >> Yeah, but a lot the last couple weeks. >> Um, and it's just like it's I'll be honest like I I don't really care either way. is I'm like half and half um about this whole thing in general. I mean, we don't live on the lake, right? We're not we're not in your bay. So, we have to kind of put the head on of you guys are coming out. You're you're requesting this. I have a little bit of a problem with it's only 60%. Now, again, I know you couldn't reach other people. Um it's still that's still not a great number, per se. Um, even if you kind of do backwards math and say, "Well, it's 80% of the people that responded and and made a made a yes or no decision." I talked to one guy at uh Spirit of Lakes uh at our tent, remember at the tent, and he came up and don't remember what his name was, but he said, you know, he's like, "Oh, you know, I go back and forth. I'm for it, but then I'm whatever. I don't know if I'll be for it or not, but I think I'm for it." And I said, "Well, you better call them and tell them and change, you know, put your name on the thing." So, that really helps us. I mean, if this thing's like a 90% deal, this is a done deal. It's a lot different. >> It it's it's So, the two things that came down to me were the the taxing authority of this new lid. Um, and and I'm really sympathetic to the uh 14 or 18%. I just that that don't want it. I I just it's hard for me to get past that. They don't want it. Now, the chemicals of this or that. I mean, the if it's all approved, DNR, you know, all you guys are approving it, great. Um, again, I know we heard a lot about that. I'm surprised we didn't hear a little bit more about the taxing part. We got a lot of emails on that that maybe the people aren't here. >> Um, I think you guys have done, you know, a great job the last couple years and I applaud you for it. I I I hope you don't cancel this thing and and I hope you keep doing what you're doing. Um like what what council member council was saying doing this to say new membership or something you know you know here please sign up on our website and give us 100 bucks a month or if you if you sign this thing and said yes I go back and say hey can you please give us 150 bucks a month or a year um and use those names I guess um again the chemical thing it that's not our issue that's not that's not the city's problem right that's it stop we stop at what 90 932 or whatever it right at the water. So, this, you know, once it gets into the the lake area, it's not our issue. So, um I don't know. I I I go back and forth on this thing. I just wish there would have been a lot more people that are just are supportive of it if we wanted to go forward with this. Um again, I I'm sure you all got the same emails and whatnot, but it was about half and half, right? >> Really? I mean, I I went through and I counted them all. It was literally I think about >> now that doesn't mean just because you sent us this email that that we're making only decisions on that but >> you know we're looking at the whole thing we're saying okay >> you know for the 200 plus people in this lid is this a good thing for you but then also what about the 9,000 other people amount that if this is an issue or this you know we do have a problem down the road >> uh that there's an issue there. So the liability part through the consultation with their attorney I think I feel a lot better on and that was one of the two things that I said um that was my issue was the taxing authority and the liability and I think I'm better with the liability part uh but I just I cannot get past the tax part. So I think we're hearing four right? >> Are you say neutral or yes or no? I said I'm in favor. >> Four. >> She was in favor. >> Okay. And you're at least right now saying no. >> And all of our government at the state, the national, we don't have 60% majorities. You know, we're passing federal legislation that impacts your life with one vote. >> Yeah. So, I'm kind of a little, you know, it's it's always to better to have more, but 60% is a good representation. >> You know, 50 is to get to the table, right? Um >> I I I think it's like it's like when we vote two to four three three against two, >> you know, >> I just I'm sympathetic to the people that reach out and said >> I don't want another thing coming out of my checking account every year. >> This is one more thing that I have no interest in it. That's true. >> I'm Whether they're on the lake, whether they fish, whether they do chemicals, that doesn't matter. They don't want 150 bucks and potentially 300 coming out of their checking account. Now, if you do want it, like you said, you'll pay for it. You You benefit from that bay. Um I had a dock over there last year on the dock program. Um I probably would have paid, you know, call me, I'll pay I'll write a check. >> Now I'm on a different pay, but so I >> it looks a lot better. I mean, that's why I said I'm supportive of H of HBA. I mean, I'm very happy with what they've done. I'll make sure I reup. But um the lid is different. >> Okay. So I I think we're kind of hearing >> at least not now. >> I mean you're >> So that would be a resolution at our next meeting, >> right? Is that what I >> uh we're >> Yeah. >> Right. Right. There a resolution at the at the next meeting. What what you can do is >> um regardless of what the decision whatever the motion is made, the motion can be a motion to direct >> the city attorney to draft a resolution for actual approval or denial. or of the establishment. Um, and then we'll bring it back to the back to the uh um to the next meeting. You can put it on the consent agenda. It can be taken off the consent agenda if you don't know uh >> or if someone chang. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> But I think that's the way probably to that that way you can have a vote tonight on it and then there can be a direction we can bring the resolution back. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> Do you want to make that motion? Um, man, I lost track of the verbiage. What's the >> It's It's a It's a It would be a >> direction. >> It's It's a motion to direct the city attorney to draft a resolution and either to approve or deny the establishment of the Harrison Bay. >> Should have wrote that down. >> Just look at the look at the >> to approve or deny. >> Look at page uh >> Yeah. Where was it? >> 2177. >> It's not even Timothy. And then just instead of saying >> already 10 o'clock >> 2177 >> almost [Music] like >> um All right. I'd like to make a resolution. Uh >> no, it's make a motion. make a motion >> to direct the city attorney >> to direct the city attorney >> to >> to uh uh draft a resolution >> draft a resolution >> 4x >> um >> well denying the establishment of the Harrison Bay lid. >> Yeah. Okay. So, you got a motion. Can I get a second? >> Second. >> Okay. Any other discussion? >> All those in favor, please say I. I >> those opposed. >> Oh, I'm opposed. >> All right. Uh, that motion passes. >> And I'll and I'll I'll I'll draft the resolution and bring it back on the >> Sorry, you had to explain it to me like I was >> n Thank you. Thanks everybody for coming out. Appreciate it. >> Yes, >> we're in a live meeting, so no. She voted in favor of the lid. >> In favor of the lid. Yeah. >> Are we the next item that agree? I'm just waiting for Yeah. Okay. Um we're still we're still going. >> Um we're still going. Can you email or call us? We're live right now. >> Yeah, we're still being recorded. >> Hit the >> You guys, we're still in a live meeting. Can you make go towards exit? Just make >> Okay. So now now we're doing number nine agreement for the parks program. Um so that was the the handout that we got. >> Yeah. >> Is that the language? >> Yeah. But here I'll I'll tell you what I want. >> What page is this? what we could do for the motion. Um, but I bet I'm going to be yelled at for not being close enough to the microphone. >> But so you everybody's seen the you've seen the agreement. Um, >> what I what I suggest is that it's a motion to approve the agreement. um subject to the review and approval of the city attorney that author and authorize the city manager to execute the same. So >> regarding what agreement >> Oh, I'm sorry. That one agreement program. >> Oh, okay. There we go. Okay. Sorry. So I I can what I can what I can do is for for uh for Kevin I can >> back Kevin I can I can say the motion and then you can say what I say I'll then somebody can say I'll do the motion that the city attorney says. >> Okay. >> How's that sound? >> I do. >> I just kind of wait until that. >> Sorry if you're watching this later. We have a door that's >> there we go. >> Okay. Now it's >> so um let me forget the verbiage. So this is with regard to the agreement for the programs in the park >> that we saw earlier. >> Mhm. Um, it's a motion to approve the agreement >> subject to the review and approval of the city attorney and authorizing the city manager to execute the same that and I say this this way that way I there's a few few minor tweaks I want to make to the agreement >> and that way too then we when we have a different program we can enter the information in >> in it ADA and then Jesse can sign. >> Okay. So, >> so someone wants to make that their motion. >> Can I say is that what he said? >> Yeah, he say that's why I said >> he he says no >> pulled out the consent agenda. >> This was an added item >> added item which was disagree. >> Oh, thank you. I just haven't read >> I can't find it either. So, that's >> Yeah. And and if you want I can go through it. >> Well, I think you started to go through but I don't think you're >> finished. Yeah. >> Okay. >> I think we agreed that we'll we'll start with this and then we'll we will move forward. >> This is just for >> 2025. >> So, whatever events they're trying to establish right now, they can do that. >> Yeah. Okay. >> And we could amend it in 2026. Okay. >> Or or just scrap it or whatever. Yeah. >> Okay. Okay. I'll make a motion of what Scott, our attorney, recommended for this particular document, agreement, what's called agreement for park programs. >> Okay. Say for and for the year 2025. >> And for the year 2025. >> Okay. Then >> sh second it. >> Council member Pew second it. All right. Any other discussion? >> All those in favor, please say I. I. >> I. Those opposed. That passes and >> uh then number 10 is now comments and reports from council members. Council member >> Well, I had a good time. I got to ride on the little I don't know what that was called. We had this little like truck that carries 80 gallons of water that they can take out on the trail to put out bush flyers. And I got to ride in it on Unity night and >> Oh, I saw you out there. Yeah. >> Yeah. Remember we were at Pelican B. >> Yes. Yes. >> Pelican was it? Pelican Point. >> Yep. >> Uh which is interesting community. Um it's not that old, but I was talking to one of the women and she said that they've had almost um an 80% turnover, but it's it's an older community. I mean, in age, >> you know. So, but um really nice reception and went to about four parties on uh the island with the fire department. >> So, you know, just call and say you want to ride with the fire department, please. I took I picked the fire department. >> I've always done the police for Yeah, >> it was it was a fun night. Good good to see lots of people, you know, neighbors and all the kids. And so we went to a couple of the parks, you know, for like you say when we go in the doors, no one's there, but there were like hundreds of kids >> at these parks. So it's a good point. Yeah. >> Is that it? >> That's it. >> All right. Council Mean, >> I just want to piggyback really quick with what we talked about earlier in terms of um people signing up for the >> um you know, for notices. I also want to remind people that um um that they can now go online to sign up for um payment cloud. >> Invoice cloud. >> Invoice cloud. So you can um have your I really have no brain today. I'm I'm really serious. So >> So you can auto pay your your bill and that's now up and running. That started last week. >> So you can go online and sign up for that. >> Cool. >> Anything else? No. >> All right. >> I do have one more thing. I do want to apologize. I'm always so organized and for >> You're fine. >> No, I'm mortified. So, I really ape or whoever went and printed those. That wasn't intended to be and I'm sorry. So, thank you for doing that. >> You know, the show must go on. >> The show must go on, but I can still be beating my brains out for going, "What in the world happened today?" >> All right. I don't have anything. Um, I guess I just want to say thanks for >> anyone that was involved in kind of the opening statement you made for the meeting. I mean, that was important. I'm glad it was said. >> It was >> definitely needed to be said, but I don't have anything on a personal >> new business to add. >> Okay. >> Uh, Cong. >> Um, of course, we had a police commission meeting. Um, I'll let you fill in because I know you've got some things to do on Wednesday. Um, you know, of course, you know, they gave us a full report, but I don't think it's anything we haven't already heard. >> Um, we are going to address the electric >> bikes and it's one more 7:30. >> So, so we're going to have some sort of local resolution. >> Didn't Three Rivers have like a >> That's great. >> Like a meeting on it or Henipin County or something? >> They had a meeting, but they didn't resolve it. >> They didn't do anything. >> Okay. Three. Sorry. >> Yeah. >> They're not doing anything still. Uh, we're meeting tomorrow morning with I know for sure the chief I know there's another mayor or two. >> Yeah. >> In our area, >> but not Three Rivers. >> I I'm pretty sure. Are you going to that? >> I'm not on the list. >> You're not on the list. Okay. I We We invited them. I hope they show up. Yes. >> I hope they show up. I don't know. >> Because aren't they kind of the kind of stalling us? >> We need the >> Who's still >> They basically more or less aren't going to enforce it. So, we need to get them in the group to help. >> Yeah. what we're going to do, >> right? We had some additional issues at Surfside this past weekend and I want to thank the police department for trying to manage that and deal with it. >> Um, you know, there's still things I think that we probably need to do with some ordinances. Um, it was unfortunate. Um, luckily no one was physically hurt. Um, but I would like to see us kind of try to manage that a little bit more effectively. Um, and that's something that we're going to need to discuss. And I know there were a lot of citizens down the beach that were inquiring and questioning it. And so I appreciate your patience and I know we're going to continue to work on it and hopefully we'll see some results here in the future. Um trying to think other than that. Um I think that's all I have for now. I want to go home. >> All right. Uh I really don't have much besides again I'm going to wake up and at 7:30 it's at uh Long Lake City Hall. Um, so I'd imagine Long Lake may I have to check double check who's on there, but I know Minnetonka Beach, uh, he set it up for everybody and I think we're trying to get the Henipin County too, uh, Heather Eden to come. >> Andrew, did you invite Andrew to that? >> I I have to double check. He did it and he did it via text. I don't know. >> Okay. >> We verbally talked about it and then he texted me about all the, hey, does this day work? Does that day work? I think he would be helpful with the feedback like we've heard from orno police where they're not the statutes aren't keeping up with the >> right >> the times for lack of a better term. >> Yep. >> Cool. All right. Uh I'll take a motion to adjurnn if there's nothing else. >> Well, do we have any other >> Oh, do you want to >> scuff? That's right. >> You guys for enough tonight. There's >> always more. >> Let you off the hook. No, go ahead. >> Hey, we did get our buoy in though. That's a good good thing. >> Oh, yeah. That's a great sent me a picture of it today at about 4:00. >> 4:00 tonight. >> Yeah, it rolled in in the afternoon. So, they got it loaded. >> Yeah. >> Can have we have we ordered a second one or do we need to do something to order that second one? >> As of now that we they want us to put one out there. So, >> so we have to get permission to add the second. Yeah, they they it was >> I don't want to say difficult, but they were a little hesitant to go to the one in the first place. So, we can we'll put this out there. Maybe if we can demonstrate it's working, we can grease them up. >> Right. >> Didn't we put two extra ones out there two summers ago? >> I could have it was a couple years ago. Yeah. Yeah, they don't. And and it does work because it keeps the crazies away from the >> Well, it kind of does from >> Well, and yeah, I think that's important because the sheriff's department needs that so they can eyeball and there's a distinctive point at which they can accelerate the >> jet skis. Any other boats? >> Right. Rather than accelerating on the beach. >> 200 ft. >> Thought it was 300. >> Maybe it is 300. >> I think it's it's 300, right? Okay. Seriously. >> Good. You have a big push down. >> Usually I'll know what I'm talking about. >> Uh, I'll take a motion to adjurnn. >> So moved. >> All right. Can I get a second? >> Second. >> All right. Any other discussion? >> All those in favor, please say I. >> Those opposed? All right. All right, we're journeying. >> He hearing