This transcript features the Moose Lake City Council meeting from April 2021. The speakers have been identified based on the provided context of city officials and staff, as well as internal dialogue cues (such as members addressing each other by name). Note: The transcript frequently refers to the City Administrator as "Katie," which corresponds to **Ellissa Owens**. The Police Chief is identified contextually as **Darren Dunning**. *** [0:04] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** 28 2021 number three is a local board of appeals and equalization april 28 2021 are there any questions or discussions on the minutes [0:23] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** hearing them they have a motion to accept the minutes **Council Member:** so moved **Council Member:** second **Mayor Jim Michalski:** second all in favor say aye opposed motion carried under number two consent agenda 2b financial reports number one is a city accounts payable for april 2021. [0:47] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** number two is the city financial statements for april 2021. number three is a liquor store profit loss statement for april 2021. have any discussions or questions on the financial reports [1:09] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** very none do we have a motion to accept financial reports **Council Member:** you have a second **Council Member:** second **Mayor Jim Michalski:** all in favor say aye **Council:** aye **Mayor Jim Michalski:** opposed motion carried on to number three public comment this time is reserved for comments from the public on matters not listed on the agenda please keep comments to three minutes looks like we don't have any here tonight thank you let's move on to number four the departmental reports a police chief department report for april 2021 [1:54] **Police Chief Darren Dunning:** mayor administrator members of the council the test you see the police report for april totaling 82 calls for service two of those calls for msop and zero for doc in addition to those calls for service we spent approximately 30 hours on msop calls and zero for corrections now we should be coming to the end of that portion of it because i think most of you know now that carlton county has been taking over the stuff at msop we told them that we would still finish out the cases that we were already working on or assigned so we still have that one lengthy one that's kind of wrapping up we just got some of the evidence back from the bca on that so i should start moving forward but it's still taking up a little bit of time um one of the self-initiated we had seven extra patrol [2:41] **Police Chief Darren Dunning:** there's only five traffic stops for the month 27 community engagements 13 assists other agencies 30 calls for service didn't have any medicals for the month some of the other things going on i know katie and i met with all the officers from the department and issued out some life-saving awards some letters accommodation for a lot of the officers and just kind of ran over some other housekeeping things and katie ran through a few things from the city's point of view and we still continue to be getting a lot of requests for fingerprints are one of the few doing it around here so we're doing probably five to six uh fingerprints a day coming in so i mean i think it's a good service and um a lot of it even now is a lot of [3:26] **Police Chief Darren Dunning:** people getting done with their nursing and different schooling requiring licenses so they've been calling all over and they seem to be coming from quite a ways away just to have them done we're still working on the atv issues i know i answered one today on some of the routes on there until we get an answer back from the dnr we're still kind of waiting on that one trail we're still able to get them around to hit the businesses that are here still seeing quite a few thinking they could drive down the traffic lane on the state highway we're trying to stop and correct that the dnr did the saturation here a little while back um stopped quite a few and we'll probably be doing some more and i think even another one over memorial weekend [4:11] **Police Chief Darren Dunning:** just to kind of get the message out but overall the complaints that i've been getting um in the past have gone away and those that were calling in the complaints are likely to change so whatever everybody's doing and their messages getting out that the atv traffic's been relatively quiet pretty good **Mayor Jim Michalski:** so yeah i haven't received nearly as many complaints as i did this time last year yeah so hopefully that continues **Council Member:** what is the qualifications for before we were to be on the highway **Police Chief Darren Dunning:** well they can't be on any portion of the state highway going through town so um no not on the shoulder i mean the only way that they can be right now is in direct access across so if they come from one of the other streets you know like if it's on earl ellen's driving they want [4:58] **Police Chief Darren Dunning:** to get across they can go straight across but they cannot run down in other words there's no way they can be running down 73 right yeah so that new trail that we're working on which has already been designated as a trail we had the meeting with dnr they tell us no that's not a designated trail who put the signs up and we're still waiting on the answer for that because it's been marked that it's been cleared that that will get them all the way through town and can drop into the businesses and then use an industrial road to get through here so they come off the sioux line either direction and then come in and hook onto that but we still have the problem of getting them across the mushroom river so they are running on that portion of the shoulder and there are people saying well some of them say they can dive down the highway just like the car yeah county road they can't county road but no state [5:44] **Police Chief Darren Dunning:** yeah most likely yep and most of them you know that we stop think that they're oh no i thought i could i have turn signals whatever else but not on the state highway and even those labeled air head lanes state highway trump's the arrowhead lane so and that's a state law that's **Mayor Jim Michalski:** no i know but you know i still have people that sometimes if you say something they've got more smarter remarks than that's right **Police Chief Darren Dunning:** um next week i'll be giving a talk to the kiwanis club i'm going over a few things i'll introduce them to our new htc social worker that's working with law enforcement we did another drug take back thing and once again loose lake area is at the top for the amount that we get sent back in which is [6:30] **Police Chief Darren Dunning:** excellent just so you have a reference this was just for only a six month period of time we received 117 pounds of prescription drugs to go back whereas carlton county sheriff's office had 86 polk apd 61 fond du lac 18 and thompson township 11. [6:48] **Police Chief Darren Dunning:** and that's consistent every time we do that that we are at the top for the amount of drugs coming back in so people are being responsible turning them in and it's you know good to see so they're not getting flushed down sewer system other than that it's been pretty quiet for the most part so **Mayor Jim Michalski:** yeah maybe just a statement to community how you would handle any emergencies at msop or calls for yeah incidents **Police Chief Darren Dunning:** and we still will do that like we're talking that there's an emergency and active assault taking place or going on and they're not able to control that we will still respond as will carlton county the state patrol everybody will come in until we get it under control so that shouldn't be a worry to anybody [7:34] **Police Chief Darren Dunning:** if there's any type of a threat an escape or on a medical type situation we're going to be on those as well it's just the day-to-day operations that we don't have the staffing to deal with that's you know kind of changed the operation so there's still talks with the sheriff's department on how it's going to proceed from here but um we are not doing that part of it and that's for doc and mslp that's for both facilities **Mayor Jim Michalski:** all right thank you **Police Chief Darren Dunning:** yep thank you **Kris Huso:** chris um no question this the life-saving award that chad received on the 6th was that social worker part of this event or was she available **Police Chief Darren Dunning:** no their actual kickoff date for that they're doing a lot of the intro we don't have the emerald used signed and [8:19] **Police Chief Darren Dunning:** everything yet that are still being drafted so their official start date is going to be june 1st but he has been going on some calls but that was three in the morning and this was relatively quick um you know the incident that you know took place so he would not you know he lives up to crown well so to respond here but those will be the types of things we'll try to get them especially in the beginning until we know what calls we are going to have they're going to pretty much be on a lot of them **Ellissa Owens:** well and he might do more of like the follow-up so how he kind of explained it is there's like two different ways he can respond to the calls however if they're at three o'clock in the morning he's probably not realistically going to be able to get there um but he will do the follow-up with um the person involved so yeah part of what [9:05] **Police Chief Darren Dunning:** he'll be doing too is like the situation here that needs to a person needs to go to the mental health um eval system and get you know put in for some extra help he'll be able to do some of the transports line people up to do that and now his sensor's going 24 7 security here as well and they will be doing transports so again that should keep us from pulling a car if we have to go to st luke's and lose two hours with no coverage here you know it should help a lot **Kris Huso:** okay good question does that person also respond for 4k in the county **Police Chief Darren Dunning:** so they do the whole county right in the future and so one to two year pilot project to see how it goes i mean nationwide they're trying a lot more of this to see how it's going to work but they need to be kind of embedded with us so he will be spending [9:51] **Police Chief Darren Dunning:** days where he's just working out a moose like i think he's called somewhere else he'll go but he came in at our meeting to introduce himself to everybody and there's contact info they'll be giving he'll have a form of the information that the officers need to fill out so that he gets all the correct information that he would be taking that follow-up so we're not spending hours doing it all right thanks **Mayor Jim Michalski:** thank you very much thank you public works superintendent report **Phil Entner:** mr mayor members of the council um it's spring it's may we're busy it's crazy it's good weather's awesome everybody's happy start the water department water department distributed 4.48 million [10:37] **Phil Entner:** gallons drinking water in one april the well house is now really coming along there's a lot of noise down there there's a lot of things happening um we're we're very busy we have we didn't do our tie-in for the well house on monday which we didn't receive a decent one of the lights for dirty colored water it's a few sections of town shut down for that we did get by with just one service may know the water at that time so we were that one we did well on uh keep in mind though everybody here and the public we have three more of these to do so we're just just getting started with that um but by our next meeting we should be running on that welding house running on that new wellness there we go perfect uh hydrants were flush the last week of april so that's all ready to go [11:23] **Phil Entner:** sewer department collected 17 million gallons of waste wastewater in month april treatment facility we did do our first spring discharge in april of uh 35.9 million gallons wastewater um i believe all the parameters and that were met as well so everyone's happy the pc is happy um we actually our phosphorus limit which was a really big deal it became a big deal in 2018. [11:49] **Phil Entner:** that's really turning out to be a good thing we do have we do do have some revisions to make in our new permit which i just saw came across on my email i think a week or two ago i think katie and ted you got a copy that as well um there's a few changes we're going to do to that that we as a city have the option to do that um the bca provides that permit to us but then we it's not like we're tied to that we have options to say yay or nay um i don't believe anyone was under the understanding we had that kind of ability to change things there is a couple things i'm going to change that's definitely going to benefit us big time we ted and katie and i will be on in communication with that one nothing [12:36] **Phil Entner:** major but it would definitely make it a lot easier for the operations half point that's how the phosphorus removal goes with the primaries and secondaries and everything that happens over the wastewater treatment facility so uh street department top full filling as usual uh every month we're doing that once a month street sweeping is done road restrictions are off so we're starting to do blacktop patching as well that's going to get kicked off here probably probably the last week of may around this well house thing so it kind of just depends on where they're at and what where we have to be just we're a small crew of three so it's it is what it is yeah patching bottle filling uh cemeteries campgrounds and parks so campground's all fired up ready to go [13:21] **Phil Entner:** water's on water's on everywhere everywhere everywhere temporary we have water on is on so the people the cemeteries both of them the campground and they're somewhere else but anyway everything's on everything's running everything's up everything's good didn't have anything blow up arteries everything's looking really good so everything's looking really good for the summer um burials at the cemeteries are happening they are i think we have six in the next four days to do well it's a lot but it's good it's working out very well so yeah other than that i think that's it **Walter Lower III:** good question phil um do we have any idea [14:07] **Walter Lower III:** whether capacity is extra capacity of the ponds yet **Phil Entner:** you know i no we do not have an official number from our engineering company however i think now with the data we have we could probably get a good idea okay i think we have enough data to uh to do that okay we can definitely have that looked at it at our monthly engineering meeting if you'd like **Walter Lower III:** i'd like to see what it is and then hopefully after our next big project to see how it changes see where it's going that'd be well worth to know **Phil Entner:** sure i think we're all going i think everyone leaves are going in a real positive direction there anything else [14:53] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** thank you very much i appreciate it thank you liquor store manager flame [15:04] **Liquor Store Manager:** mayor council people um i just want to start off i haven't been here so we'll start off with 2020 that was rough um i think every we were closed for a total of 156 days in the bar and that really took control on the on the employees but you should be very proud of everybody everybody came together made everything work we made more money in 2020 than we did in 2019 with the bar being open all year so that's a feat in itself um the shutdowns and reopenings and wear masks don't wear a mask you don't want to wear a mask put your mask on uh it's been [15:50] **Liquor Store Manager:** been grueling so i think we all we came out fairly well um but moving forward to this year uh the governor says will be open by july 1st so i'm gonna i was talking with katie we're going to go ahead and plan the fourth of july if some restrictions come about we can handle that because our outside capacity is 170 at 75 and i don't see there being more than that many people out there at one time so we just want to move forward and get over this [16:34] **Liquor Store Manager:** i think that's [16:48] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** you know it affected them with work and not working how to figure out this out yeah yeah so thank you and thank you **Liquor Store Manager:** oh and we're bringing back meat raffle and bingo for all you people out there thank you thank you thank you technology and library report **Mayor Jim Michalski:** katie **Ellissa Owens:** technology the only update that i have is the minutes that are included in the agenda anything new anything a council should be aware of nothing too exciting um rory and i are trying to work through some type of a dropbox feature for folks to submit pictures and videos and and what [17:34] **Ellissa Owens:** have you so we just worked on that a little bit today i've got some more digging that i have to do on my end um but we're going to book sales on june 3rd and 4th at the uh historical society this year fourth first weekend in june very good **Mayor Jim Michalski:** um there was uh something passed well that chambers next week that'll come up for a stroke decided oh yeah so we'll go on to e city engineer um so [18:21] **Ellissa Owens:** it i actually wasn't at this meeting but um i think the only thing that we have not covered yet or will not cover is the uh the tie-in but i think now that i'm thinking about it phil already covered it so all of our projects are moving forward nicely i just got off the phone with the engineer this afternoon regarding the trunk highway 73 trail and the only thing that we're kind of waiting on are some easements which we'll talk about in a little bit here but yeah things keep things are moving along so it's like the water tower re painting starting [19:07] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** 7 19 to 7 30. **Ellissa Owens:** yeah so that's a little ways out yeah i did a listen i drove around after the chamber meeting today to check out some things and it looks like the zoo line trail is being ditched currently so they're starting right up the highway and must be working their way back so the plan is to keep that trail open for use um and i think more so on the weekends than maybe during the week but they're that's part of the agreement is that they keep it completely open for use [19:44] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** thank you very much questions by the council next uh if the chamber coppers update **Ellissa Owens:** updates we had a meeting today um i think the they're going forward with planning events with governor walsh's recent update i think that kind of changed things pretty significantly for them it makes things easier for them which is good another thing kind of off topic but they did approve a donation to the historical society kitchen fund on behalf of dean polson in memorial i guess of dean wilson so that [20:29] **Ellissa Owens:** should be coming going to them i would guess soon so that was very nice of them did you have anything else you wanted to add **Mayor Jim Michalski:** no but just all the events being planned vega days they're still considering what to do with uh with the stampede though yeah sure totally on that i i don't i can't see the stampede going myself but that's just my personal but the event at the arena would go on and we're planning the fourth of july parade as always we have to put on the poster that masks would be appropriate if [21:15] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** you're in a large group we haven't decided yet if it's going to be because the largest concentration of people is between kind of like 3rd street and 4th street otherwise people are kind of spread out and they're still saying if you have a group of 500 people you're supposed to mask even if you're outdoors so we may have to put that on the poster for between third and fourth on on helm and not depending on or a statement that that may change if the governor takes all restrictions off which he made july 1st but we've got to make the posters out [22:02] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** and get that advertised in june so we've planned in a just regular parade um events in the park the same and the fireworks so and we just um allison and i just worked together on some uh a fundraising attempt for the fireworks so we'll see how that goes we just kind of finished stuff a couple weeks ago and i think that she just published it today so [22:33] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** get any questions comments now moving on to uh number five previously discussed business land purchase 413 bridge avenue **Ellissa Owens:** so i discussed with craig anderson who is the owner of the old school purchasing i should be a surveyor with my really nice drawings here but purchasing the highlighted pieces of land so to be clear it is the baseball field that little parking lot right next to the baseball field the football field and the tennis courts for 150 000 and i need approval from you all and then i will move forward with [23:20] **Ellissa Owens:** getting a formal purchase agreement put together with our attorneys i've already contacted straight line surveying to start getting this land survey and get some legal descriptions created so open discussions with the council i should also say that that easement is also included to access that that little garage so that will be in there too fantastic **Walter Lower III:** i think it's a real opportunity for us that we're never going to get it again i'd like to make a motion to uh verse 7. [23:59] **Walter Lower III:** 150 000. **Council Member:** a second **Mayor Jim Michalski:** any other questions discussion hearing none all in favor say aye **Council:** aye **Mayor Jim Michalski:** opposed motion carried thanks cater for the work on that appreciate it **Ellissa Owens:** yeah so happy to do it moving on to number six new business 6a blakehead constructors incorporate pay application number six so this goes through the end of april and it is a total of seventy one thousand sixty two dollars and seventy five cents [24:45] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** council discussion in the emotion **Council Member:** i'll make the motion [24:54] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** instructors do i have a second **Council Member:** second **Mayor Jim Michalski:** any questions all in favor say aye **Council:** aye **Mayor Jim Michalski:** opposed motion carry moving on to 6b police department staffing **Ellissa Owens:** yeah um i'll start if and if you guys have follow-up questions for uh chief dunning by all of these um but what i did here is chief dutton came up with what a three-person rotating schedule i should back up with mike mcnulty no longer being an employee here we have some some options a couple of [25:40] **Ellissa Owens:** different options on how we'd like to staff the police department one of those options is to fill mike's position with another full-time officer that would maintain our 24-hour coverage another option would be the option that is presented here um and that would be a three-person rotating schedule they'd work 10-hour days and it's not set in stone but they would we would be unstaffed for four hours so from two to six three to seven something along those lines so we've got um it's kind of cut off here but it's nonetheless it's a schedule of what it would look like for the officers uh what i also did was i redid our 2021 budget to include [26:26] **Ellissa Owens:** one less officer i guess to exclude an officer and the net effect of that was right around ninety thousand dollars of a cost savings which includes everything from para to health insurance to life insurance all all the applicable taxes um and any potential overtime so um i am open to discussion on this if you guys have any particular questions um i'm sure darren is also **Walter Lower III:** i have something to say on this issue as you all know i brought this up at other meetings some of the counselors or the counselors have heard that some of the people in [27:12] **Walter Lower III:** this room haven't heard everything i don't believe katie was involved on some of these discussions and i know the public hasn't heard this i have a brief uh statement to read here uh to bear with me for that i appreciate it i do take this situation very seriously we have an opportunity to save the taxpayers a considerable amount of money for the use on updating our infrastructure in sewers water and street resurfacing our generation wore out this infrastructure the first 10 road projects will take at least 30 years to complete at one project every three years there are roughly [27:58] **Walter Lower III:** around 80 projects plus an additional 60 water lines that freeze and need replacing we need tens of millions of dollars to fix these issues by not fixing these in a timely manner we are simply passing the burden on to future generations for what we have wore out sales tax is not generating enough revenue to replace these issues in a faster time frame plus our general fund doesn't currently provide enough additional funding to speed up these projects either if we are to do large large projects we are reliant on state grants and that cannot be counted on two city administrators have stated that in order to speed this up [28:45] **Walter Lower III:** a special assessment of up to 30 percent on properties along the street under construction would be required this tax is already too high we as a council rightfully rejected that count that choice our citizens simply cannot afford it although possibly necessary simple simply resurfacing of roads is only a band-aid and wastes money which ignores the problems under the roadway and only exact exacerbates the problem passing it on into the future we need to find more infrastructure revenue someplace if we are ever to if we are ever going to accomplish fixing it without passing the burden on [29:32] **Walter Lower III:** to future generations the police department budget is 52 000 more than what we take in in total property taxes it is three and one third times larger than the public works department we are also not we also now have an additional yearly 40 000 in health care coverage for officers that have recently left which was unforeseen and will more than likely increase in a new near future by another 20 000. we are a small town of a hundred of around 103 1 300 people we are a town two miles long with a tax base of only [30:19] **Walter Lower III:** 28 percent meaning only 28 percent of the city's property is taxable far less than other cities most founders most towns are our size do not even have a police department and we rely solely on the county sheriff very few if any have a daytime police force let alone a 24 7 department with two officers on duty during part of daytime hours when the prison first came to town a large police force was believed necessary by some due to the thought that crime would increase that crime increase did not materialize and crime remains relatively low in town [31:07] **Walter Lower III:** where else are we going to find funding for this increasing business and sales tax would be ideal and nice but that isn't going to increase anytime soon and may even decrease can we find it in other areas like public works or the library they do not have that level of funding and the public works is far too important to be cut it's what makes the town function without it we have no town no we we need to take it from where the majority of the funding is going the police department simply because of the old scene that's where the money is it was my understanding impression that our recent decision to [31:52] **Walter Lower III:** go from a managing police chief to a working police chief we would be able to make cuts to the department it is also my understanding from speaking with past counselors that if if the decision to go 24 7 ever became too expensive that it would have to be reevaluated and bet and brought back down to an affordable cost to the taxpayers it has been mentioned that a crime increase by cutting the pd may lead to devaluation of property or that future events may lead to an increase of crime but this crime increase is an unknown and only a guess what is known is a lack of up-to-date infrastructure will definitely lead to property devaluations that is a given [32:42] **Walter Lower III:** if cutting the police force was to lead to more crime then the situation can always be revisited and changes made if sales tax and revenue were to increase in the future it could also be revisited asking the taxpayers to hire another officer because we have officers that live too far away to respond to on call is not the fault of the taxpayers it is the city council's responsibility to hire officers who are committed to this town and live close by the taxpayers shouldn't have to shoulder another additional expense because of this if the city can't find any qualified officers with any short distance and this does the city and community [33:28] **Walter Lower III:** really support a population large enough to even have a police department do the people living on first second third sue hill etc all the streets in town want to wait three nine thirty fifty plus years to see their roads fixed the 80th project would be completed in 240 years who wants to move or to live in a community that can't fix its infrastructure in a timely manner do we want to leave a massive debt to our children grandchildren and great-grandchildren for what we wore out our federal government is already doing that with the trillions and trillions of dollars they are [34:15] **Walter Lower III:** printing and spending like no tomorrow but tomorrow will definitely come and i for one do not wish to leave the future generations holding the bill i am talking forward and representing the taxpayers that is what i was elected to do this is not enjoyable for me to bring up and i support and appreciate our police department but i find the budget has grown too large for a town of roughly 1 300 with a limited 28 tax base it is unaffordable if we are ever to replace our infrastructure in a timely manner and not place the burden on our future generations [35:05] **Walter Lower III:** if we could save by cutting the police force and get the state to cover the ptsd health costs then we could make a real dent in finding the infrastructure funding needed to be to needed to repair it in a timely manner and still have a police voice i started discussion i started this discussion long before the george floyd protests before the kenosha wisconsin incident before black lives matter protests before all the inner city riots and calls for police reform this is a different situation based solely on revenue and funding in a small community i've based none of this reasoning off of these past events because they do not relate to our small community in northern minnesota [35:53] **Walter Lower III:** and it happened far away i find it unaffordable for a time of our size with 28 tax base to have two officers on duty during the date how can we afford 24 7 coverage at this time we pay our property taxes expecting to be able to maintain our town and infrastructure in a timely manner the size and amount of the pd budget and force make that impossible it is not the job of the city or taxpayer to provide 24 7 protection for every citizen that is the responsibility of the citizens themselves we as a city can only provide what the taxpayers can afford [36:39] **Walter Lower III:** i also have a question uh for counselor jumpman i value opinion but you stated once you found out that i was concerned about us hiring your brother due to nepotism that you would abstain from voting on police issues after hearing that i was confident and made a motion to hire your brother i hope you stay true to your word i hope you don't take offense of me by bringing that up but that was the discussion you know **Douglas Juntunen:** if i could respond to that quickly this is the third time you brought up nepotism with me um and you have a right to do so uh i took an oath uh as a police officer [37:25] **Douglas Juntunen:** and i served the state of minnesota for 20 years and the only thing that i have and did have as an officer was my word and i i did state that anything that would be a conflict with the chief of police where i would be deemed using nepotism would be that word uh i would not vote on that i believe it is more of an opinion that i knew that me voting on the subject which was just brought up would involve that i i do not disagree i do disagree with that statement wholeheartedly after hearing what you're talking about [38:12] **Douglas Juntunen:** i am a taxpayer in the city of blue slate i cannot simply forget 20 years of law enforcement and what that brings to the concept i am the only counselor here that has law enforcement background and i do have experience and i would like to talk briefly and this is just shooting from the hip because i didn't know that you had this uh letter and and thank you for reading this and i know that you're very passionate about that walt and i appreciate that um when i started at carleton county in 2001 the fond du lac police department was a part-time police department and they closed at two and three o'clock in the morning at that time we would position our squads [38:57] **Douglas Juntunen:** on the reservation because that's when everything would happen we'd have shootings we'd have assaults i'm not saying that we had it all the time but that's when the problem would occur because people knew that we did not they did not have service i'm not saying that that would happen here that i have witnessed that firsthand um so i'm just keeping that in mind um you also brought up our projects and thank you for doing that uh counselor lower on how long it would take to complete these projects as you did so i looked at the figure of using eighty seven thousand dollars and i'll try to be short if i can hear the savings of going down four five to three officers would save [39:44] **Douglas Juntunen:** us eighty seven thousand dollars is what we're looking at that would come down to um it would take us seven over 17 years to pay for our first project okay on that figure alone just using that figure alone if you use that figure using losing four hours a day that would mean 2.8 years of us not having a police department 2.8 years of no police coverage that's not saying that the county went down the state patrol income but i want that to sink home 2.8 years to pay for the first project so we can look at uh different sides of the coin and [40:30] **Douglas Juntunen:** counselor waller as they're again very passionate and his figures are true in a lot of ways i look at it from more so the protection side side of things and and i can agree with him and agree to disagree on on just how we perceive things so i thank you for your any time counselors yes sir right **Council Member (Greg):** um i have the tendency to go towards wall some simple factors we start off with that the city can't afford 6 50 or 600 000 police force okay do we as anybody here ever asked our residents innocent if they would mind if [41:16] **Council Member (Greg):** we turned around and asked them to donate 25 a month for every adult person that's down to go towards our police department or would they would like to have our their taxes brought up 10 percent to cover to have a 500 000 police force or 24 7. i mean i've people said they want a police force i'll agree on that point but nobody ever agrees that the fact is that they want to attack secrets so as a consul we have to look at the fact that we're being paid by them so we don't so my point of view is that we have to [42:02] **Council Member (Greg):** come up with some other types of solutions to justify before we can along and say that we can afford six hundred thousand dollars **Ellissa Owens:** to your point a couple of things that are on the back end that you guys probably don't see that i want to bring up um the liquor store is a a really career situation in that they currently have negative dollars because years ago they you guys refinanced i'm not sure who was on the council then but you guys refinanced their debt and absorbed it with the sewer fund that's getting really really close to being paid off which is good because what that means is we can take whatever the liquor store makes in a [42:48] **Ellissa Owens:** year which is roughly a hundred thousand dollars and transfer that to our general fund each year so i would think i don't know i can't predict the future but i would think by 2022 that that number will be positive which is good because then we can transfer that um and going forward then we would have like i said roughly a hundred thousand dollars back in our general fund so that's more than eighty seven thousand dollars right right away uh the other thing that uh chief john and i have been tossing around the idea of is talking to mslp to see seeing if they would be willing to cover an officer and we would take back the um duties i guess assigned with that now we each have our [43:36] **Ellissa Owens:** own reservations about that with how quickly they pulled out of the sewer lining project or the sewer replacement um how many years ago so those are some things that we're looking at on on the back end and and kind of weighing pros and cons and ted and i actually will be writing a letter to our representatives on that subject very very soon i can't guarantee that it's going to happen but we're going to try which that would solve for sure this 87 thousand dollar problem um those are those are a few things that i thought of as you guys were were talking **Walter Lower III:** well then if we were to be bringing in more funding [44:22] **Walter Lower III:** later on then we would revisit this and talk about hiring an officer at that time also at this time it is clearly unaffordable if we are ever going to fix our infrastructure in a timely manner and not pass it on to future generations and that is what we are doing if anyone's going to talk please use your hands okay yeah until okay yes chris **Kris Huso:** i just got a few comments and um thank you um well i appreciate your comments um i think you mentioned that we would be adding an additional officer where we're just replacing an officer so [45:07] **Kris Huso:** i just wanted to clarify that and then um i guess my opinion is is this crying isn't increasing in moose lake due to the fact we do have police protection police on call 24 hours i believe if we go off that we're going to end up being a town like sandstone um sturgeon lake barnum you can go to all these little clean there's no community in this area that i know of that is like moose lake there's no point in that it is as small as moose lake has the two large state facility one a correctional facility one a commit you're committed so they are you [45:55] **Kris Huso:** know they've served their time but they're committed we have a large major hospital we have clinics we have pharmacies moose lake grows because people want to come here knowing their business is going to be safe i wouldn't want to bring my business here if i didn't know that there was no police protection **Walter Lower III:** we're not talking about no police protection **Kris Huso:** well we're talking about police protection between a certain time that's the time like councillor jonathan said is people know that's where the criminals fought they know there's no protection they know the carlton county services from the entire county they know that they're not going to get down here in a fitness fast station the state patrol [46:40] **Kris Huso:** um they're limited to their resources and pine county i believe is huge and they don't have more than a couple officers on one's in maybe the north park one's the south same with carlton county we can't rely on them to get here in a fast response yeah our people would be sitting waiting for an officer to appear and i think the people that i have talked to they would be willing to pay increase their taxes to have 24-hour police protection they count on that they know they're safe in loosely they know because we have the protection the criminals are more likely not [47:26] **Kris Huso:** to come and try i mean i obviously there is crime everywhere but i think it's a big deterrent to know that we have a 24-hour peace protection **Mayor Jim Michalski:** greg had raised his hand and i'll call you **Council Member (Greg):** part of the you know i i'm not saying getting rid of the police department at all i'm saying that we don't want 24. i'm saying the fact is that or to be able to afford 24 hours we as a consul or whatever people have to figure out how it can be paid for and at the moment we don't have that really we have ways that may be coming **Ellissa Owens:** we do **Mayor Jim Michalski:** so we do have it budgeted right now and i want to i just want to [48:12] **Ellissa Owens:** reiterate to you guys that we have not raised the property tax levy i believe enough memory going on three years so we have been doing everything that we can to not raise the levy so that's that's a good thing but **Council Member (Greg):** but we also this last when they evaluated everything most people or a lot of people i should say in this town their taxes for moose lake went up twenty percent that was because their value is true but that's still out of their pocket that's still taxes so you want to add tax to that then it's another story but as far as the prison and the hospital up there and stuff like that looks like does not the people that come here ninety percent of them do not live [48:59] **Council Member (Greg):** in bruce lake they live in the vicinity around him because of the fact that it's here they don't live in looks like so they really how much do they help move slake is another story i don't know you know i mean yes i mean if i was coming when i originally was coming back here i was not coming to moose lake i was coming to the surrounding area in fact i had property and everything else but but somehow whether somebody talked me into and here you are and here i am in the middle of all this which i am not comfortable to be and stuff but because i understand that i catch it from home the fact is that we have to have 24 [49:44] **Council Member (Greg):** hours and i'm you know and she's a bean counter so i have a problem at times so but i mean it is not the point that i don't want a police department it's the fact that i want to figure out some way that this city can afford it now whether or not what we do is another big ballgame i mean we just bought we just spent 150 000 for a piece of property which i believe that's going to will start after a year from now paying itself off within five years that will be gone plus the fact is that the campground at heart makes money every year **Mayor Jim Michalski:** walton and then chris **Walter Lower III:** yeah [50:32] **Walter Lower III:** when chris says we'll be voting for having the same size police force when we went to a working police chief so my impression that we would be able to get rid of an officer but if we vote for another patrol officer we might as well just go back to a managing police chief and chris is right our town is different than other ones we have a 28 tax base most other towns have a much larger tax base than that we operated this police department for over 100 years without 24 24 7 coverage you know and i understand you know constantly gently counselors huso's opinion they have been in involved with the police business and [51:19] **Walter Lower III:** their family's house for their hunter for their entire lives i i expect them to uh want to see the best for that that that is their livelihoods but i'm talking for the people of moose lake and the taxpayers that cannot afford this we will never ever get these roads and sewers and water lines fixed unless we find more money to start doing it i do not think phil wants to spend the rest of his life fixing pothole after pothole after pothole it is ridiculous this cannot go on it's gone on far too long it's what has put our infrastructure problems where they are we do not have enough money to fix them and we're never going to unless we do [52:05] **Walter Lower III:** something to change it if there's **Kris Huso:** chris i think that her arm again i just want to comment that this isn't an addition it's not going to change the budget that we approved so and i guess i i'm kind of confused because the police isn't my livelihood at all it's so i guess i i take kind of a smack because it doesn't i don't profit from any police department so i'm not trying to offend you it's just that your family has been in the police department and i imagine that's the way that you willingly i'm looking for the safety of the community that i reside in and the people that [52:51] **Kris Huso:** i have talked to i would like to continue to see 24-hour police coverage i'm just relaying that i was elected official that is what i'm related **Mayor Jim Michalski:** greg yes can we table this for a moment um i have i would like to speak before entertaining this done i mean let's go with the question a person on a council could bring up their table and they could go to a vote to see if it's table but i'd like to speak first before you do that first of all you know and i respect what you were saying greg about the community and and uh has to be paid for and stuff um thanks goodness because of [53:38] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** of our excellent city administrator that is budgeted and that is with another police officer this has grown over decades it is not something that happened in a short time as it has grown different councils have approved how this has grown and because of that you can see the community supported that over decades otherwise people would have been voted out purposely to get rid of certain elements or or portions of the police department um [54:24] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** so to me it's been supported for decades by different councils by different mayor and so forth and and also the sometime in the year in the 2000s i think daryn knew that already left and moved on the police department did go back to like a three-fourths day or they did not have 24-hour coverage and as soon as that started for like about a three or four year period there was crying crying crying crime during those hours that we did not have coverage and christian may be remember that and that's why we went back to a 24-hour [55:10] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** coverage it was constant and the calls would go into the county the officers would respond when they had time but then the crime's over things are gone people it's already happened very few of them were solved it didn't get solved until we got a 24-hour police department back where they were here started investigations caught the people kind of cleaned up an element that had moved in purposely because they knew when they were off and there were many break-ins there was robberies there was even intimidation on the street walking down elm which was reported [55:57] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** to the police and to the city at the time so it got to be a terrible element going on and it took a full-time police department to clean that out and the people asked for that so they the history is there that once we did drop back we had a problem request was to get that coverage back because the county couldn't respond in time so we did and it cleared up that element the element is gone granted i don't know what would happen if we did but i'm guessing the same thing would happen again from myself or myself [56:42] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** with what is going on in the nation i know you mentioned that there's a lot of unrest and there's a lot of things going on and i think the community would be safe with a 24-hour coverage i agree on uh it's a big chunk of the budget and i think that's our responsibility to manage it i i disagree on not doing grinding and overlay i think since 2005 we've done different 15 different areas of the city grounded overlay and they lasted a good 10 years some of them are starting to break up which is normal i know that infrastructure needs replacing i think we're planning a large one [57:28] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** but if you think we're going to get get that done with 87 000 more dollars you're wrong it won't happen it's too expensive i think we can do what we can with infrastructure but i personally think we should be doing grinding and overlay like we did in the past 10 15 years the the citizens complained about different roads especially on industrial road if you remember that chris and the large section was done and that portion is still in excellent condition it was not completed all the way to the end you put at the second i call it the co-op building but now it's the feed store and uh [58:16] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** whatever yeah from then on if we didn't complete it but that should be done to me the same thing the overlay was perfect it's worked perfectly and if they will they will disintegrate you should pick them to me for those projects that are out 10-15 years because it's too long to wait the worst roads and the worst infrastructure should be done first this is just to me things that the council needs to discuss and yet you guys have to get this all into this whole decision you brought a lot of it up so have the other council members so as katie [59:02] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** to me this is a discussion that has to be with that those are my opinions on that i'm just one vote also i i normally want to wait till all of you have spoken so that you're to me you as council members should have that right and i'm glad that you did each and every one of you um with that i'm gonna i'll step back and let you guys decide what you want to know what you want to do with here with emotion whether it's to move ahead or if it's to table it yes sir yeah you want to buy some few things **Police Chief Darren Dunning:** yes sir first of all i would like to have seen counselor lauer give some discovery so we can take a look at that three-page letter there's a lot of information in there that's inaccurate [59:49] **Police Chief Darren Dunning:** i'm trying to keep this professional as far as greg's you know comments about the monies that the state is still looking at passing a bill to reimburse the cities for any of those health care expenses that we're currently seeing so that would drop it drastically by me coming here councillor lauer you know said that they wanted a working chief believe me i'm working and it's you're paying a lot less than your previous chief just because the negotiations we did when i came here so these other health expenses we also took about 12 000 hits of the police budget this year we're probably bringing in 15 to 20 000 a year now with all the fingerprints that are going on we went like i said down from a chief a sergeant an investigator and a full-time [1:00:35] **Police Chief Darren Dunning:** clerical to a part-time clerical no sergeant no investigator um and everybody that i've talked to in the community because this has already been leaking out is pro we want our 24-hour coverage police department um so i think it's a very small number that you're referencing compared to what the actual community here is thinking um i know for a fact that i get calls from different companies all the time asking about how is it for you recruiting it's not a problem for us here in the city it's like we have people coming from all over with really good experience wanting to work here and if that changes i can see you're going to lose and it's already been referenced we're going to lose people and you know that's not a threat to anybody but it's just like [1:01:22] **Police Chief Darren Dunning:** we believe strongly that needs to be here the citizens here you know need that point for our coverage just the other night we would have a dead later teen female because of an attempted suicide at three in the morning if we didn't have an officer on it that's worth a hell of a lot more than 70 000 so if that's what the city wants you know they know but i just wanted to hear my opinion that it's valuable and i appreciate council hours concern for that and i am too as far as what the budget goes but i just read another article 60 of all officers killed in line of duty are in small town america less than 11 000 people so they still need the services they still need the training they still need the equipment that all the big agencies have so you can't [1:02:08] **Police Chief Darren Dunning:** cut on that kind of stuff and i think i speak for the bulk of our people here in the city of slavery **Walter Lower III:** yes sir well everybody that i have spoken to disagrees with that about spending this much money and talking about the money there could still be 24 24 7 coverage if he did not have two officers working during the daytime hours we could still cover 24 7. we do not need to have two officers working at the same time during during the day all the other years before past decades we never had two officers on duty at the same time and like i said this is simply unaffordable if we are ever going [1:02:54] **Walter Lower III:** to fix our infrastructure and not pass that burden on to future generations **Police Chief Darren Dunning:** but this isn't the 1950s i mean things have changed in the 60s 70s 80s you know the requirements technology everything is you know increased dramatically you know the training that everybody has to have the constant changes you know it's uh and me coming here tonight is you know i want to like see a decision made um on that uh by waiting you're going to continue to pay a ton more overtime even just for the rest of this month so it continues and continues so it's like it's up to you guys to make that decision i would agree if sorry go ahead all right who raised your hand **Kris Huso:** chris sorry i was just going to say i'd like to make a motion that when we [1:03:41] **Kris Huso:** proceed forward in replacing the officer that has left us immediately **Mayor Jim Michalski:** there's been a motion so it will let's do the next part and then one second **Council Member (Greg):** and for my discussion purposes okay so that was my my turn to make a motion was it not [1:04:23] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** or if i had something to say i would [1:04:39] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** right until i spoke in my opinion like everybody else and i understand that so then then i then i should have the floor right i guess i raised my hand or going by i was going by column blue raise their hand next i can't i can't i thought after that last meeting we tabled it for this one so i guess there's motion to me on the floor so i know she made a motion and i got a second grade i had to call it but i i had no choice we have a motion and a second any other discussion from the council any other discussion [1:05:25] **Council Member (Greg):** i would my discussion part would be that i'd like your table to appoint them that people have more time to actually think about what's actually happened so far [1:05:47] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** and i guess we could rehash this over for the next 12 months i i don't think summer's coming and i think this is and especially during the summer to have another summer the replacement officer on duty um with summer months it's even the town triples so i i guess that's my comment though would also yes certainly commented by me on correct me by wrong that if we are filling a position **Douglas Juntunen:** does the police chief not have the ability if someone's not working out to in first year i believe to someone's not an investor employee uh well within that period for next [1:06:35] **Douglas Juntunen:** year's budget as well if that decision is made the council can make that decision not that we'd ever want to take somebody's livelihood but i believe that we've already done that with the library position uh the council made a tough decision there uh and that's all i have to say is that we would have the ability to make a decision a different decision if the sport says **Walter Lower III:** any other comments or discussion from the council i'm willing to know if the councils are willing to go from just that just to having one person on during the day and taking that second person and putting their mind during the night so we could be 24 7. [1:07:19] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** if if that was uh because of motion made if the person wanted to change their motion [1:07:36] **Ellissa Owens:** make sure that i understand what you're asking um and if i understand it correctly we could not do that the position that we're hiring for is a patrol officer and they would work a 12 hour schedule versus chief jumpman works four or five excuse me five eight hour days [1:08:09] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** greg do you have any statements and i'm asking you because of what happened because of what happened okay any further questions discussion um council hour had made a suggestion of any change to emotion all right we have a motion and a second or there's no other discussion asking all all in favor say aye **Kris Huso/Doug Juntunen/Mayor:** aye **Mayor Jim Michalski:** i oppose say no **Walter Lower III/Greg:** no **Mayor Jim Michalski:** we have a 3-2 split motion passed [1:08:51] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** you know for the council this is the kind of discussion that needs to happen and it's a good discussion no matter how the turnout is because it does affect what you do in the future with your budget how you plan your budget how you the next year when we do planning in in august and september if you're looking for ways to cut the budget i would suggest other waste and in the direction we're going just as an example of like when the school did a budget cut they cut every department by 10 percent or five percent they didn't look at one department to make all their [1:09:38] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** their money from because it does affect one department more than others and granted some departments have a lot of money and a lot of budget where you can do it but if you if you look at it and want to do it in a fair way to get more money for projects i would look at cut across the whole city all departments so that that one department takes the heavy load because you can really destroy a department you can destroy morale you can destroy the whole process that built that department over many decades so just a suggestion something to think about there's a couple months before we have a [1:10:24] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** budget again before we start planning for the the next year but there are other ways and there are ways to make money and as time goes on we may see some success is we don't know what the legislature would do with the insurance that would immediately bring back in 40 000 right now and possibly another 20 in the future you know that that right there would be 60 000 and uh this the way we restructured that payment with the liquor store which we had to do to save money that will end which will bring in another hundred thousand back into our excuse me [1:11:17] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** that'll bring it back into our budget that we don't have right now which which we did have at one time and it was taken away right away we're talking 160 thousand we could possibly go back in the road and go back projects or infrastructure projects so we have some real good possibilities there one of them is a for sure thing and that is the liquor store which is a hundred thousand the other is dependent on the legislature which is i think everyone know um up in the air so with that i'm going to move on to the next subject 6c the 2017 caterpillar [1:12:02] **Ellissa Owens:** 450f motor back home um so this was emailed out to you guys um a little bit in advance just so you guys had time to ask ask questions ask full questions ask me questions we do have this budgeted for in a couple of different places um we have 157 000 budgeted for this in our capital 2021 capital funds we also have roughly 60 000 saved from last from 2020s capital funds so we've got we've got more than enough um money saved for this we knew that this needed to be replaced within the next i don't know year and we were not looking for in fact i told [1:12:49] **Ellissa Owens:** phil to not go looking and this kind of fell in our lap so i'm going to let phil talk about the details of it because he went and looked at the machine but before maybe before i do that i like you um have the rings here i just want to reiterate to you guys that um we are we are doing really really well with all the things that we have going on in our city uh budget budget-wise we're doing very very well so i understand that the police department looks like it's the biggest budget but we've got things implemented that we've never had before like the sales tax we've never had that money coming in before the gas franchise [1:13:34] **Ellissa Owens:** fee we've never had that coming in before very soon we'll have the liquor store revenue that we can transfer we've never had that before well since i've been here anyways we've got some of these things in place and they take a while to get the ball rolling and i was just talking to phil about i finally feel like that ball is rolling um so i don't want you guys to feel nervous that all of a sudden you know we don't have money we are doing perfectly fine in fact we are doing really really well and i'm very proud of the work that i do here and that all the employees do here to stretch our dollar as far as possible for you guys um i think we all do a very very good job here so i just wanted to let you guys know that do not be nervous about the state of our budget we are we have budgeted fine i'm sure there are hiccups but there are hiccups every single year there's always unexpected expenses um this is not one of those unexpected expenses though um you know before we go into that it just hit me that i missed i forgot two things that i should have stated um you do not have a capcom director anymore in fact that funding went back [1:15:09] **Ellissa Owens:** is back with us the same with a contract for ten thousand dollars for the cemetery right we don't spend that anymore that's back into our budgeting correct we are making advances in our budget across albeit small small but they're 10 000 here 10 000. they're they're adding up they're starting to make a difference and it is because katie is listening to what you're saying about the budget in these large projects so when when she looks at all these different elements like i brought up the budget to really think about it again when she looks at those during last year [1:15:55] **Ellissa Owens:** and started putting all this responsibility onto the street department it saved literally twenty thousand dollars to begin with and maybe more um phil can't get any balder so we're good i had a white mirror actually i could i had to lighten it up you're doing 157 000 in our 2021 capital budget set aside for a voter additionally we have 60 a little over 60 000 uh that i set aside from our 2020 that we did not spend from our 2020 capital um projects that we did not end up spending so [1:16:41] **Ellissa Owens:** um we've got over 200 000 set aside for a loader this loader um is from mndot it's a 2017 how many hours does it have 400 and it's right here so 400 ish hours it is basically that's about as brand new as you can get for a used machine um a brand new machine with all the attachments and everything that this one has would retail for 180 000 if we bought it brand new roughly so uh i don't know why don't you talk about **Phil Entner:** so first i will i'm gonna apologize because if i was knew we were gonna do something like this [1:17:27] **Phil Entner:** i would have been here a couple times talking about it instead of like oh hey guys guess what because i don't like doing that um but like katie mentioned this did just fall in our lap um this 450f i actually demoed it would have been 20 20 450 f last winter this is the exact not the exact machine the same model same everything as what i was trying to propose for a new machine so to have this exact thing other than four years older fall in our lap it's it's huge especially for the for what we can do here as far as saving money um i think we're it looks like we're at 105 000 for this machine we are part of all this too would be [1:18:13] **Phil Entner:** getting rid of our other loader which i would recommend selling that on consignment through caterpillar they do charge a fee that is what we've done previously with our old equipment that we that we have sold um and they've done pretty well for us um used equipment is actually really hot right now um they're having a hard time so i think this is all it's it's it's all really good it's just happening really fast so that's kind of that's kind of the gist of this i did run up and run this machine at mndot headquarters about a month ago i think was a day or two after the last council meeting i ran up to midnight headquarters and ran it grab through the whole gamut and the whole works and everything turns out fine i did have ziggler including their service reporter for their inspection [1:18:59] **Phil Entner:** report in here that's in the packet any questions because all it's all pretty much in there go ahead **Council Member:** do you like the machine **Phil Entner:** yes actually i understand that i've had a discussion with you so it's probably on there [1:19:34] **Council Member (Greg):** myself especially after the fact that when we turned around and sell the other machine we're getting a red machine for less than half this is a unique situation it is it really is because these the situations like this don't happen every day i mean this is essentially by the time we're all done buying and selling and all this were 70-ish savings well no i'm saying yeah seventy seventy to eighty yeah a hundred thousand dollars this comes with all the attachments this comes with more than what you guys would have gave me in the beginning you know i'm excited i'm very excited yeah yes and they all come with it instead of having to buy them separate correct so that's huge too right [1:20:23] **Ellissa Owens:** and just just the budget again real quick yeah um just to explain it again so we have over hundred thousand dollars saved set aside for um for this loader um from between 2021 and last year's capital money yeah so 217 thousand dollars we've got set aside so um we i can comfortably say that this is no problem as far as our budget goes this was 100 budgeted for um i just never thought we would get it for all right council questions yes chris **Kris Huso:** just more of a comment and i guess it's just i'm gonna make it because it's [1:21:08] **Kris Huso:** bothering me um and nothing because you feel but you know we had before the police department thing we agreed to pay 150 000 for some land and now we had such a big discussion over 86 thousand dollars that was in the budget already and that was you know about our discussion and then it comes up to this backhoe you know and hundred five thousand dollars we don't think anything because we're saying it is in the budget i just can't wrap my head around how easy some decisions are for land and we're putting a dollar figure on the public scene [1:21:54] **Douglas Juntunen:** all i have to say thank you any other questions yes sir i would just like to thank anybody with a kitty or phil whoever really did their due diligence here you saved the taxpayers a lot of money so thank you both very much and i don't know ted was involved or whoever but that that's amazing and those are the big savings that we've talked about and that's why when walt brings up a big concern about money and greg talks about it and all of us have our him but that's again ted brought it up this is why we're here we are a representative of the people and i would say kudos to all of you that have done that that's that's a great job and that's meaningful and like we talked about oh probably late last year was [1:22:42] **Ellissa Owens:** what i want to do every single year is we always have a few thousand dollars left over in our capital funds and what i want to do with that every year is exactly what i did with it last year is put it into a separate fund so it doesn't just get eaten up into the general fund um it's separated and i can see it on our gl and i know what what it's there for um so i want to keep doing that and that may be another way for us to i mean we're not going to do a road project with that but that could help pay for part of a road project or um if something like this ever presents itself again it's thinking thinking things like that differently than we've done them it's not easy but now that we've done it i want to keep doing that we're looking at a savings of 95 000 [1:23:29] **Council Member (Greg):** yes sir this is what i was basically trying to get at the point or the discussion but it isn't a matter whether it's the police department it's a fact of the amount that the money that is there is it or is there some way of improving that i mean because of the fact yes within the police department i never argued at that point but i do bring up the point of that are there other alternatives in ways that we have not been so called it so that's hope i can confidently say that i've lost sleep over this subject or i know because i've had some [1:24:14] **Ellissa Owens:** discussions i truly cannot think of any any other way um to uh be creative with the police department um and i'm not saying that there's not a possibility i just i [1:24:38] **Council Member (Greg):** our new chief has taken over into things that have improved and i guess what i'm thinking in that direction is that i believe that things that went into the right direction and gotten better only that i still believe that we have to keep trying yeah we've got work to do for sure yeah i agree we don't know what direction the discussion will bring to something well this is part i mean it'll really stir something hardcore discussion for really anybody exactly what all the different directions you could go so i mean it only yes i'm coming from one direction and what i understand is yeah a little bit on dollars and cents believe me there has been longer [1:25:25] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** discussions in this room on this very subject in years past and chris can attest to it a lot longer than what we did tonight this afternoon believe me it has been it has been quite a quite a bit of discussion and not easy and but you know what they're necessary and things grow things change and they will in the future too and i appreciate hearing all this but unfortunately i still think we're going to be putting a tremendous business with tremendous burden on future generations for fixing what we wore out and it [1:26:11] **Walter Lower III:** wasn't about not giving people police protection it was about responsible spending of course people need protection but uh i just find it almost impossible to fix our infrastructure projects in a timely manner like i said the 80th project is going to take 240 years it's nothing that is easy and you know what every single community that was formed about 100 years ago have a 100-year old infrastructure and that's probably more than half the communities in minnesota and they got the same problem they're facing it [1:26:58] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** and it's not easy and it's not going to be a quick short um solution to it and that's in the reality of it in 1918 after the fire they replaced all the water lines the sewer lines and the streets in town and they paid it all off by 1933. [1:27:21] **Walter Lower III:** i don't know why we're going to have such a horrible problem doing it when they were able to do it but they weren't spending a super large chunk of their budget from the police department they didn't have a super huge government to fund yeah but you remember the the population is remaining half of what we are right now and it didn't have any state facilities either that took away the land that land if it was in the city limit would have been in the tax rolls **Police Chief Darren Dunning:** full fringe benefits for tarleton county deputies 137 000 a year so if you look at what we're spending compared to equal coverage and them not being here that's what carlton's at we're gonna we get off schedule here [1:28:08] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** we're we're in the back hole like thank everybody's equipment we have is there any more discussion on the backhoe this 2017 caterpillar 450 f low tobacco if not do we have a motion to accept that bid and purchase this some equipment **Council Member:** so moved **Council Member:** second **Mayor Jim Michalski:** any further questions discussion all in favor say aye **Council:** aye **Mayor Jim Michalski:** opposed motion carried and i skipped the steps we were we did a vote and it was a split vote on staffing but we also had an individual brought [1:28:53] **Ellissa Owens:** forward to show the position so chad is a current um part-time employee and he's one of those that expressed interest in um and working for us full-time i did bring this forward to the personnel committee so that they had an opportunity to figure out if this is the way that we wanted to hire build a position should it should it go that way or i guess look at the different options that we've got i included chad's cover letter resume and then a certificate there so my understanding from the personnel committee was that they would recommend [1:29:38] **Ellissa Owens:** moving forward with hiring um officer paters patterson um however i would request that we move the i'm not sure how the schedule works out right now he's taking us he's taking two weeks vacation just to fill for us and he's plugged into our schedule for this month if he's not and he has to go up because he would for insurance reasons he would have to go back to fond du lac for whatever period of time we would have within a couple days more overtime spent than it would be for the insurance so if we leave we'd have close to 15 shifts left open for the rest of the month if we don't put him on so i guess i'll leave that up to you guys if you want to hire him hire him at all hire him immediately or hire him with a [1:30:24] **Council Member (Greg):** june i'm not sure how the schedule works out but a june start date just due to insurance reasons yes sir i guess i would say hire them at the moment as long as that might believe that's the direction you know you conceded that we're going to go so i would say higher i guess yes **Douglas Juntunen:** i guess as i was looking at him we've already considerably put time in with him so i believe we should go that route to hiring from the park dr full-time he also does come with some [1:31:10] **Kris Huso:** training certificates that will be useful within our police department which will cut back on other training that we have to pay for so i think our investment in him is already there so i'd like to take a motion i [1:31:45] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** we always do the motion first we have to that's by rubbing word rules and i have to ask for a second and then ask for a discussion do i have a second to the motion **Council Member:** second **Mayor Jim Michalski:** okay open for discussion uh to answer your question walt he lives in cloquet so about a half hour **Ellissa Owens:** i also would recommend that we start him out because of his experience at a higher step than if he were to have no experience and that is this appendix a from the contract um i've highlighted uh step c and what his [1:32:30] **Ellissa Owens:** wage would be should that be what what is the difference between the previous like november nothing we did the exact same thing for the last officer i mean when he's replacing what was he at when he's done he was at step key with with longevity and an additional dollar an hour so [1:33:02] **Kris Huso:** any further questions or discussion did you want to include that with your motion chris um yes i can include that who would start them at step c on the wage grid who did the second again **Douglas Juntunen:** do you prove that as part of your second yes **Mayor Jim Michalski:** all right i'll ask again any further questions or discussion and i believe 30 minutes is what we put down as our response time that we want our officer to respond if they're called we as a liaison do you remember well we have do we have a limit we have people further than that we have people [1:33:48] **Police Chief Darren Dunning:** that live in esco currently um i'll let ron before i got here i think that was lifted to my understanding um we went from miles to minutes and then we kind of took that out because there were so many different areas that they were coming from okay we i think we set a reasonable distance just like dragon walter saying here these are one of those cost saving things for us and administrator bloom mentioned is because he has all those things we've already been able to eliminate paying for a firearms instructor laser instructor he's a fto he's a background investigator so those are all the things that we don't contract out for anymore so having that experience is saving us money and every step we take for that we've also done the same thing with a part-timer that's a defensive tactics instructor [1:34:33] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** we're not contracting that stuff out anymore so just want to throw that in thank you all right um just any of those side comments not going on air at all if they're not in a mic okay so there's a lot of talking that people are not going to be able to hear okay so i'll remind people to come up thank you um put that all in favor say aye **Council:** aye **Mayor Jim Michalski:** opposed me all right thank you we have that recorded all right um also uh phil congratulations on the back hole and thank you very much for the work on that and um just to [1:35:20] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** mention i think a few said how much you're saving the city and that's greatly appreciated thank you thank you to kate that was all phil moving on to 6c riverside arena overhead door excuse me did i skip one resolution i did d resolution 2105 dash jordan miller pt police officer **Ellissa Owens:** so jordan miller is a part-time police officer for us and we are required to pass a resolution for for some care requirements so that's all this is so that is to utilize him as a part-time you got it okay council [1:36:08] **Council Member:** while the promotion will be approved resolution 21-05-01 for part-time as officer jordan millers do you have a second **Council Member:** second **Mayor Jim Michalski:** any further question discussion did you hear the question this question appearing now now in favor say aye **Council:** aye **Mayor Jim Michalski:** opposed mostly carried now moving on to 6c riverside arena overhead door **Ellissa Owens:** um this was something that we also budgeted for kyle recently got me a couple of different quotes so they're they're one one door is a good door and then another door the more expensive one is a better [1:36:55] **Ellissa Owens:** insulated door he did mention that the better insulated door isn't really necessary for the purposes of the arena because we want it cold so it's not like a typical garage door um so i don't know if you guys have any specific questions on the garage door we did budget seven thousand dollars for it so it came in significantly below what we had budgeted for so we've seen the lowest one is the 2800 the dc garage door sorry age 79. i don't have pages online uh yeah okay [1:37:48] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** any questions by the council this was a budgeted item and we're coming way under what was quoted for the budget discussion enter promotion **Council Member:** i should approve the dc garage door for 28 hours have a second **Council Member:** second **Mayor Jim Michalski:** any questions discussion all in favor say aye **Council:** aye **Mayor Jim Michalski:** closer carried moving on to number 6 f trunk highway 73 loop trail phase one request for advertisement approval **Ellissa Owens:** okay so we're getting closer with the trail the next step is advertising for it [1:38:34] **Ellissa Owens:** there are a couple of easements that i have to get signed so if you if you make a motion to approve just make sure that it includes pending those easements getting those easement documents signed so in your packet you've got um what what route the trail will go so there's a little bit of a change from probably the original um route that you guys had and that being that they decided to mndot is actually requiring us to go through uh the stoplight on 61 so that we are only crossing the road once so it required a little bit more engineering for a culvert but that was the biggest change from start to finish the [1:39:22] **Ellissa Owens:** engineer estimate is 1 million voted on here one million two hundred thirteen thousand seven hundred sixty four dollars and twenty cents of which uh most if not all of that is covered by grants which uh the grants are all listed in the engineer minutes so if you guys want to reference those if you get any questions but at this point i just need a request for approval so that when i get those events we can go for advertising for this project **Mayor Jim Michalski:** questions under motion any questions discussion all in favor say aye **Council:** aye **Mayor Jim Michalski:** hi folks mr kerry thanks katie good job on that [1:40:09] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** that's a big project to get going with all that grant money all right we are moving on to number seven um are we we're not doing presentation here we're just chief do you want to **Ellissa Owens:** chief junton and i actually read through these with the officers uh with the exception of the last one there um so i don't know that we need to read through them necessarily like they're just included for your yeah but they've already been awarded their letters here yep so **Mayor Jim Michalski:** i think what i'm just going to read them because i think it's very well worth because these guys deserve things life-saving medal officer travis b letter of appreciation officer travis [1:40:57] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** c letter of commendation officer chad leonard commendation officer jason letter of appreciation officer jason letter of commendation officer ray letter of appreciation officer ray life-saving metal chat answer chad i think that's pretty impressive thank you chief for the work and canadian thanks to all the officers for what they've done and this these things that they have been awarded reflect their dedication to the city of moose lake and to the people that they helped during this situation so it's a greatly appreciated the officers and well deserved thank you [1:41:43] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** pass it on thanks anything from the council comments thank you moving on to eight committee and board knitting meet excuse me meeting minutes eight a moose like wandering light commission march 16 2021 eight b moose lake area fire district protection district april 13 2021 eight see moose lake parks and recreation may 3rd 2021. any discussion on the committee or board meeting minutes [Music] i'll move on to announcements regular muslig city council meeting wednesday june 9 2021 4 pm in this lake city council [1:42:31] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** chamber right here usa economic development authority wednesday may 19 12 p.m in the conference room lake water and light commission regular meeting tuesday may 18th at 1 pm the city right here chamber new psychology redevelopment authority board monday june 14th 11am hillside manor office moose lake area fire district tuesday june 8 6 30 emergency response center moose lake park board meeting monday june 7th 6 30 pm city council room right here anything else [1:43:18] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** council anybody presents hearing thank you everyone thank you