This transcript features **Mayor Jim Michalski** presiding, with **City Administrator Ellissa Owens** providing the bulk of the administrative and financial reporting. *** **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** I call the regular meeting of the Moose Lake City Council to order. Start with the Pledge of Allegiance. **[00:00] Group:** I pledge allegiance to the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Is there any additions to the agenda? **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** They are on your desk. One will be 6Q pickup broom and the second one will be 6R sprayer, skid sprayer. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Any other additions? Motion to accept the agenda as an end of. **[00:00] Council Member:** So moved. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor? **[00:00] Council Members:** Aye. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Next is a consent agenda. We have the minutes of the November 14, 2018 regular city council. Any questions on that? And then we'll go on to the financial reports. One city accounts payable for December 2018. City financial statements November 2018 the liquor store profit and loss statement for November 2018 any questions on any of those documents? Do we have a motion to approve? **[00:00] Council Member:** So move that we approve them as written. **[00:00] Council Member:** Second. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor? **[00:00] Council Members:** Aye. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Next we have public comment. This time is reserved for comments from the public on matters not listed on the agenda. Is there any public people like to speak? Okay, we'll move on to the department reports. Police chief. **[00:00] Kelly Lake (Carlton County Sheriff/Law Enforcement Lead):** Another busy month, but getting a lot of results. We've had some pretty big cases that got charged out this month. Officers are working very hard. I'm very happy to announce that we raised over $2,000 for the shop with a cop event that we're hosting on Monday, and we worked with the school to identify 11 kids in need and have been in touch with their parents and guardians. We got some volunteers—forced volunteer, my daughter and some of her friends—to help gift wrap the presents, and it's going to be a neat event. So we just got the new squad car back from the installer today, and it should be getting lettered tomorrow with our police logo on it. Looks wonderful. Looks like it's a lot of room and should serve us well. We did complete tobacco compliance checks. And unfortunately, one business did fail. Sold cigarettes to a juvenile. So the clerk was cited under a state statute. And then there's an administrative fine to the business. I don't know what the final bid that we got for the charger, but the last I looked is $2,200. So I didn't, I was just trying to find out what the exact amount was. So that's about all we have. Any questions from the council? **[00:00] Council Member:** Who gets to drive the new one? **[00:00] Kelly Lake:** Thank you. Not me. **[00:00] Council Member:** Thank you for your job. **[00:00] Kelly Lake:** I get it in three years, but yeah. Thank you. Thank you. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Public Works Superintendent report. **[00:00] Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** Yeah. Busy month. We obviously everyone knows we don't have a lot of snow, but we did focus a lot of time this month on our shop project which I'll touch on here in a second, but we'll start with the water department. Distributed 3.3 million gallons drinking water in the month of November. The main city water meter that regulates the water coming from our wells that services town got taken out of service the middle of November for regular service and calibration. Right now we're just running on pump hours and pump times and we have a pretty decent spreadsheet narrowed down to within a lot tighter array of numbers than I thought we were going to get. The spreadsheet is really working out good for us. It's taken a lot of the guesswork out of it. So we're still right on track. We're saving water like crazy. So that's good. Sewer department collected 13.8 million gallons of wastewater. Our November discharge was completed, well, just barely into December. But for the majority, it was in November. That was 31 million gallons of wastewater. We're still on our track to meet our phosphorus limit at the ponds. However, we're extremely close to exceeding that limit, but we're doing everything we can to stay under that threshold for the PCA. Our flow meters are supposed to be calibrated once every year. We're scheduled to do that right away at the beginning of January, both our mag meter at the lift station and our open channel flume, which regulates the flow out of the Windermere Sanitary Sewer District. Street department, like I touched on, very little snow and ice removal. But a couple of things we're working on: that shop update like I talked to you about. The roof work is complete, so the nail holes are all sealed. Should be good for quite a few years yet now. And the framing and insulating the back of the shop is completed this week. Drywall is scheduled to start on Monday. Electrical, with your approval tonight done later in the meeting, is supposed to start week of the 26th of December so we're moving right along. To touch on that "no snow" and that kind of thing for winter, I'm gonna bring up again like I do every year: the frozen water and sewer line policy. City of Moose Lake, as we have seen, some frost depths of 24 inches already, which is a lot for this time of the year. So the way things are going, the frost is creeping down and we all know that leads to frozen water and sewer services and no one likes that. For the public: the policy is on our website. If you don't have access to that, I'd be more than happy to get you a copy. We don't like being out there when it's cold no more than anyone likes being out of service. So if there's any questions, get a hold of City Hall or the Public Works Department. Any questions? **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Thank you. Next is the technology library report. **[00:00] Steve Divine Jolinski (Librarian):** Nothing new this month. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Okay. City engineer report. **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** On your table is the minutes from our last meeting. For the capital improvement project, the engineers and Phil drove around and reviewed street conditions, the pavement conditions, put together a rating of all of the roads based on that. They're going to continue by putting together ratings based on utilities, traffic flow, whether it's gravel or not, all the different things that they're going to look at, and then they will provide that to us for our final review before it's completed. So they are still working on that. On Wood Drive, they're still working on the draft report that we had talked about last month. And then one of the things that they brought up that I had not considered was providing the residents on that road petition. So we had talked a little bit about the assessment being higher than we had thought. We had also talked about a lot of senior citizens being on that road, so it would defer the assessments. One of the ways that we could look at sitting down and negotiating a deal with the residents that are there is having a petition signed by all the residents that they would pay for X dollar amount for an assessment. Then we could pick maybe a dollar amount that the council felt comfortable with as well as the residents, and maybe that would be a better way to move forward. So we will look at that when the draft report is done. The trail School connection: we're working on applying for safe routes to school. The water model project: they had brought up they thought that a couple of water main valves may be closed. I think at this point we've decided not to investigate that and try to not hopefully not break a bunch of water valves. They're also narrowing down whether or not we need some of the things that we have with our system including pressure reducing valves and booster station. I think we talked about in spring trying to run our water system just without the booster station and just try and test it out. So try to do everything when it's a little bit warmer, but that'll give us a good idea on whether or not we need any of those things. So I think that's pretty much it for the bigger topics. Any questions? **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Chamber of Commerce updates, Lois. **[00:00] Lois (Chamber of Commerce):** I was just down at the school and saw the curling team with their gold medals and a lot of the kids were having their photos taken with them. They had group photos too of the hockey teams and the basketball teams. There were three of the team members there. It was still pretty cool. The kids got to take the medals and hang it around their own necks if they wished. Just before I left, some of the adults were getting their photos taken with these fellows too. The only thing we have on the agenda right now for the Chamber as far as upcoming events is the annual dinner on January 12th, Saturday at the Sioux Line Event Center. It starts at 6 o'clock. A lot of prizes and should be a lot of fun. So we're all invited to come. Anything else you wanna know about, any questions? **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Thank you. Happy holidays. We'll move on to previously discussed business, 2018 flood. **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Unfortunately or fortunately, mostly unfortunately, our insurance is going to cover cleaning the lift stations, which means that FEMA is not going to pay for it. And we have to pay for our deductible in order for them to pay for it. So we're not going to have that covered 100% like we had thought. But then again, we were probably going to clean the lift stations anyway. So it's better than nothing. We did have a couple catch basins that had washed out and deteriorated that we were submitting and we had to have our engineers draw up plans basically for replacing them. So we've got that done and that work will not be done until the spring when the thaw is done as well. So we're still moving forward with the flood stuff. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Okay. Moving on to new business, A, Mark Skelton resignation letter? **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Yeah, it says resignation, more retirement. After 40 some years down at the municipal liquor store, Mark is going to retire. So I would ask that you accept his resignation and then we can get that posted and the personnel committee can talk about how we want that to look moving forward. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Is there a motion to accept the resignation as submitted? **[00:00] Council Member:** I'll second it. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor? **[00:00] Council Members:** Aye. **[00:00] Council Member Walter Lower III:** I just want to comment on Mark—what an outstanding job he's done. I mean, who wants to be a manager of a liquor store for 40 years? It's a tough job. Outstanding job out there, Mark. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Yes, he'll be missed. **[00:00] Council Member:** Is the city doing a plaque or anything for him or has there been discussion about that? **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** We have not discussed that. We certainly can. **[00:00] Council Member Walter Lower III:** I'd like to have some type of discussion with the council, maybe just not the personnel committee because I'm also on the liquor store committee, possibly exit interviews of the employees of how things are run there, what could be done more efficiently effectively. **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Do you want the liquor committee to do the exit interviews? Or myself? **[00:00] Council Member Walter Lower III:** I feel more comfortable that way. **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** One of the things that I was also thinking about is I think that position probably should move towards a salaried position. Honestly, I don't even know the last time that a job description was even done for that job. I think we'll probably need to review that as well. We have two assistant managers that have been there for a very long time. I think we will be okay if we take two weeks, three weeks to figure out how we want to move forward. So, yeah, I'll set up a meeting with the liquor committee and Mark for his exit interview with me. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Does that sound good? Okay. Next we have a resignation letter from Steve Divine Jolinski. **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Yes, I received this on the same day. Steve, do you want to come out? **[00:00] Steve Divine Jolinski:** No. **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Steve is going to be moving on. He's accepted a new position. He wrote quite possibly the best resignation letter I have ever seen in my life. So thank him for that. We would need to accept this one as well. **[00:00] Council Member:** I so move we accept Steve's letter resigning. **[00:00] Council Member:** Second it. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor? **[00:00] Council Members:** Aye. **[00:00] Council Member Walter Lower III:** Same thing, you know, kudos to him. Outstanding jobs he's done. It's been a tough job because his field is more into technology and that's where the libraries are moving. He's done a fantastic job and we wish him well. **[00:00] Council Member Kris Huso:** Definitely. Thank you, Steve. You held your head high and you did your work honorably. **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** So unlike the last one, I would like to get this one posted as soon as I can. We have a job description ready to go. The only real question that I have is how do we want to handle interviewing? We do have a library board, but we also have a personnel committee. **[00:00] Council Member Lou Ohly:** Yeah, me and the mayor were part of the interview, but I believe there may have been a library representative on there. **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** My only fear is I don't like when interviews have a lot of people staring at the applicant. How would you guys like to see this move forward? **[00:00] Council Member Lou Ohly:** It was one representative from the library board, the mayor, myself, and the city administrator. **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Okay, so I will pass that along. In their bylaws, I don't think they're in charge of hiring. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Yeah, we're the city employees. **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** I don't have a problem with that at all. I would say it would be wise to maybe give them the applications and let them review them, but for interviewing, I would say one is probably sufficient. Okay? **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Okay. Moving on to liability coverage waiver form. **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** This is just part of our insurance renewal that we have to do every year. We check the same box every year and we just need the council to approve this. **[00:00] Council Member:** Motion to approve. **[00:00] Council Member:** Second it. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor? **[00:00] Council Members:** Aye. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Next on the agenda is the application to conduct bingo for the Kiwanis. **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Yep, local organizations are required to have local approval for gambling. This is just for one event on January 26th. **[00:00] Council Member:** So move that we accept the application for the Kiwanis for doing bingo. **[00:00] Council Member:** Second. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor? **[00:00] Council Members:** Aye. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Then we have the Arrowhead Transit Contract. **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Same contract, same dollar amount. I just want to make sure that we are okay to continue paying for the entirety of it. It's already in our budget. **[00:00] Council Member Walter Lower III:** No, with our aging population and people depend on this, I think it's very important we provide it. I would just like factual figures to go with it. A yearly report on riders? **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** We can bring the report for next month on the ridership. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Is there a motion to approve the Arrowhead Transit Contract as written? **[00:00] Council Member:** So moved. **[00:00] Council Member:** Second. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor? **[00:00] Council Members:** Aye. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Then we have the joint resolution of the Moose Lake School District and the City of Moose Lake regarding safe routes to school, resolution 18-12-01. **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** This is a requirement of the Safe Routes to School application. This is a project that benefits the city and certainly the school as well. **[00:00] Council Member Lou Ohly:** So move that we accept the resolution 18-12-01. **[00:00] Council Member:** Second. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor? **[00:00] Council Members:** Aye. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Next we have resolution 18-12-02, resolution designating polling location. **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** This is required by law. Katie typed it up and put it in the packet. **[00:00] Council Member:** Motion to accept resolution 18-12-02. **[00:00] Council Member:** Second. **[00:00] Council Member Kris Huso:** I have a question. What does this mean, "that part of the city located in Todd County"? **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** God, that's my mistake. I used another city's resolution, so I'll change it. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** With the change? Okay. All in favor? **[00:00] Council Members:** Aye. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Next we have the public workshop electrical quotes. **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** We have one from Nyland Electric in the amount of $5,450 and another quote from Regions in the amount of $6,160. This will run electrical throughout the back of the shop. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Nyland's low, right? **[00:00] Council Member:** Make a motion to accept the bid of $5,450 to Nyland Electric. **[00:00] Council Member:** Second. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor? **[00:00] Council Members:** Aye. **[00:00] Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** Just to let you know too, to check with the power plant because they do have funds available for LED lighting. **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** I already spoke with Harlan, but yep. They've done an awesome job being financially responsible. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Next, move on to the 2019 Minute Mart LLC tobacco license. **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** This was the last outstanding one that we had. **[00:00] Council Member:** So moved that we accept the application. **[00:00] Council Member:** Second. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor? **[00:00] Council Members:** Aye. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Next we have the commercial vehicle regulations in surrounding communities. **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** I had said in the last meeting that I would look into other communities regarding commercial vehicles parking in residential areas. Very few had regulations for parking them in residential areas. My suggestion is still not to do anything yet. I think as it stands right now, we are still just one resident against one resident and I don't think that's where the council should be—picking sides. **[00:00] Council Member Walter Lower III:** My big concern would be, you know, if they had a loaded semi driving it on our streets, it's gonna cause more damage to the surface. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Okay, for now, we'll just move on. Next we have the school property small area plan. **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** This was the final meeting for the presentation of the land owned by the school. We ended up with 228 surveys from residents providing feedback. The next steps are that ARDC is going to work with the Planning Commission to put together zoning specific to this area. The EDA, the school, and the city are all working together to start the process of marketing it for sale. **[00:00] Council Member Walter Lower III:** Has the city or the school district been contacted by any other commercial interests? **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** We have had a few conversations. The biggest problem right now is we just don't know how much to list it for because the school has not had an appraisal done yet. We need to have the property surveyed first. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Next is the detective position memorandum of understanding. **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Our attorneys drafted the MOU. We would need to accept it, and the union would need to accept it. I'd like to try and get this done. **[00:00] Council Member:** So moved. **[00:00] Council Member:** Second. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor? **[00:00] Council Members:** Aye. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Next we have the 2019 annual appointments openings. **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** I would like to take all of the terms that are expiring and post them in the paper to give the public an opportunity to volunteer. The January meeting is when we approve and review all of those. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Next we have the Historical Society Financial Statement. **[00:00] Council Member Kris Huso:** The Masonic Hall was wondering if there's ever been any financial statements given to the city for the Historical Society. I have not seen one. In case something happens up there, the city carries the insurance? **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** We own the building, so we have insurance on the building, but they have to have their own liability insurance too. I can ask about those couple things. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Okay, then we move on to ordinance 164, establishing a franchise fee, second reading. **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** This is the second reading. The purpose of this started because the city is over 70% tax exempt and our roads are in need of repair. This franchise fee on gas providers (Minnesota Energy) would be applied to all properties whether they're tax-exempt or not. For the average resident, it's about $3 a month. But for the very large users like the prison, the hospital, and the school, that is where a lot more revenue is coming from. If we were to do this just by using property taxes, this would be an 8.7% increase to all homeowners. **[00:00] Council Member Lou Ohly:** So the residential rate was $2.14? Is there a difference with commercial? **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Nope, it's a flat fee for the meter. The per-therm rate is what impacts the large users more. **[00:00] Council Member Walter Lower III:** I would just say this is exactly what we have been looking for. 20-some percent of people pay 100% of the bill, and that's completely wrong. This is much fairer than land taxes. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Do we need to open a public hearing? **[00:00] Council Member:** Moved. **[00:00] Council Member:** Second. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor? **[00:00] Council Members:** Aye. Is there any public comments? **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** The only ones that I've heard from are the prison, MSOP, hospital, and school, and none of them are opposed. **[00:00] Council Member Kris Huso:** Is there a way just to issue this to those organizations and not for residents? **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** No, the gas companies are not allowed to single out individual locations other than by how it's delivered. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Is there a motion to close the public hearing? **[00:00] Council Member:** So moved. **[00:00] Council Member:** Second. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor? **[00:00] Council Members:** Aye. Is there a motion to approve ordinance 164? **[00:00] Council Member:** I'll second it with the numbers that were discussed here tonight. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor? **[00:00] Council Members:** Aye. Next we'll be going to the pickup boom. **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** We have some extra money in our capital fund. The pickup boom total is $5,660. My suggestion is that we would purchase this through Caterpillar. **[00:00] Council Member:** I so move we accept the cat bid. **[00:00] Council Member:** Second. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor? **[00:00] Council Members:** Aye. Second thing was a heavy duty skid sprayer. **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** This one from Northern Tool and Equipment is $3,149.99. **[00:00] Council Member:** I'll make a motion to purchase the North Star skid sprayer. **[00:00] Council Member:** Second. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor? **[00:00] Council Members:** Aye. We'll go to the committee and board meeting minutes. Fire District, Power, EDA, Planning Commission, and Park and Rec. Any questions? Announcements. City council meeting Wednesday, January 9th at 4 p.m. EDA meeting January 9th at noon. Water and Light December 18th at 3 p.m. HRA January 14th at 11 o'clock. Fire district January 8th at 6:30. Park Board January 7th at 6:30. Library Board January 14th at 1 o'clock. **[00:00] Council Member Lou Ohly:** Can I say a closing word? I want to thank everyone that I've served with for the last seven years. It's just been a pleasure working with these council members. We've just been all on the same page. Mr. Lower and Mr. Juntunen are gonna serve the community very well. So thank you. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** Thank you for your service. I enjoyed your humor. Do we need a motion to recess? **[00:00] Council Member Lou Ohly:** I make that motion. **[00:00] Council Member:** Second. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor? **[00:00] Council Members:** Aye. We will return at 6 p.m. for the Truth in Taxation public hearing. **(Recess Ends)** **[00:00] Council Member Lou Ohly:** I so move that we reopen the meeting from the recess. **[00:00] Council Member:** Second. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor? Aye. Next, we'd like to open the 2019 Truth and Taxation public hearing. **[00:00] Council Member:** Second. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor? Aye. Budget presentation. **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** General property taxes for the general fund are remaining the same as last year. Local government aid increased by $2,470. For expenditures, we removed the election budgets as there's not an election. Health insurance ended up at 3% or 4%. Police department has contractual wage increases. The cemetery has an increase to fix some of the graves that are sinking. For capital improvements, we budgeted for a new squad and equipment, a new plow and sander, and repairs for rooftop AC units at the community center. Our city portion of property taxes are lower than Barnum, Carlton, and Proctor. The total levy dollar amount I recommend is $618,459, which is a 2% increase. **[00:00] Council Member Walter Lower III:** What was the average wage increase? **[00:00] Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** I believe the average wage increase for employees was 3%. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** At this time we will take a motion to close the public hearing. **[00:00] Council Member:** So moved. **[00:00] Council Member:** Second. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor? Aye. Then we'll need a motion for the annual levy dollar amount. **[00:00] Council Member Lou Ohly:** I'll make a motion for that amount to be $618,459. **[00:00] Council Member:** Second. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor? Motion carries. Then we'll need a motion for general fund revenue and expense budget. **[00:00] Council Member Lou Ohly:** I so move that we accept those figures. **[00:00] Council Member:** I'll second that. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor? Aye. Motion carries. We have a motion to close the regular city council meeting. **[00:00] Council Member:** Second. **[00:00] Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor? Aye. Motion passes. Thank you.