No, not at all. >> Thank you. I'm going to call the May 5th workshop to order. Roll call, please. >> Council member Nordby, >> here. >> Council member Woods, >> here. >> Council member McKenzie, >> here. >> Council member Schwarz, >> here. Mayor Mongi, >> here. Have >> a motion to adopt the agenda, please. So moved. >> So moved. Council member Schwear. >> Second. >> Second. Council member Norby. All those Oh, I had a two chance here and I grabbed the one that's way on the side. Council member Woods. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> I. >> Thank you. >> All right. You got two topics on the agenda tonight. Uh first one up is review of the 2025 financial report with the city audit firm LB Carlson LLP. And we have Well, you want to kick us off, Dan, or you? >> I would love to kick us off. >> Here we go. Thank you, Randall. Uh, mayor, council members, you know, I can't believe it. You know, do you really realize how fast time goes by? This is the fifth um presentation of the financial statement since I've been here. Um, and I the first thing I want to say, and I mean this from from from my heart, um, if it wasn't for the leadership of our city manager and city council, we would not be in the position that we are. Um, I think you're going to see once again that we have very good financial results and you're going to there's some graphs that um um our uh auditor will go through that'll really show you how much we have changed in the five years. Um it's pretty staggering. Um we've really put ourselves in a really good financial position and it's really due to the leadership that we get from city council, our city manager and all of our department heads. Um, I can't emphasize enough, you've heard me say it before, they are very frugal. Um, and they do one heck of a great job. And so it's uh I'm I'm just I'm just part of the reporting of it. Um, it's really a whole team effort and the city does one heck of a great job. With that, I'm going to turn it over to our auditor, um, Jackie Heagle. um she's a principal with LB Carlson and she will walk through um the findings um and some information regarding um how we finished uh the year of 2025. This year uh we have a PowerPoint u so you don't need to be digging and looking at uh the big books that are all sitting in front of you. Um and then after this is all done we will have a short quiz. Uh so be please pay please be paying attention. Yeah, I love quizzes and there and there'll be scores that'll be made public. Um, no curve. I always I do well on curves. >> Right on a curve. >> Uh, so with that um I and and again um Jackie and her team um do one heck of a great job. Uh this past year we actually had two of the individuals who were here the prior year which in the audit world is uh uh quite a quite a feat on it on its own because um they the turnover is great. Um but they do a tremendous job. Um and I think it's the philosophy that uh exists within uh and the culture that exists within our own organization here at North St. Paul. We welcome the auditors. Um we're very cooperative. uh we learn a lot and uh we open the books completely open um and be very very transparent. So with that, Jackie, if you want to take them away and show them what you found. >> All right, sounds good. Well, good evening and thank you for having me. As Dan said, my name is Jackie Heaggel and I'm a partner with LB Carlson and in charge of the city's audit for the year ended December 31st, 2025. Um so you did receive in your packet a few documents. One's that annual comprehensive financial report. That is the large document, the financial statements. Um, we do as auditors issue an opinion on that, but all the information in there is the city's responsibility that will be submitted to the GFOA uh for the GFOA award. There's also the special purpose report that summarizes the audit findings or the audit opinions I should say. And then lastly is the uh the management report which is our LB Carlson document that summarizes the results of the audit. And that is what my PowerPoint presentation walks through. So if you are wanting to follow along, you can in the management report or like I said, we do have a a PowerPoint this year. So starting off on the first slide then just summarizes a little bit as my role as an auditor. As an auditor, my responsibility is to issue an opinion on those financial statements. But like I stated, the information in those financials, it is the city's responsibility. um our opinion you know issues that they are fairly stated at year end in accordance with accounting principles as part of the audit. Then we also test the internal controls and the compliance over that financial statement audit as well as with that Minnesota legal compliance. So each year the office of the state auditor releases what's known as that legal compliance manual and those are the specific statutes that as auditors we're required to test for each year. So they release this manual and th that those are the statutes we go through from year to year uh with the city. Moving on to the next slide then summarizes the audit results. Um for the audit results over that financial statement, we issued an unmodified opinion which is a clean opinion. That is the opinion you're looking for as part of your audit. For the internal control and compliance opinions over that financial statement audit, we had no findings to report for the 2025 year. And for the audit results over that Minnesota legal compliance manual, there was the one comment to report there and that's with the payment of invoices. It was a similar comment that you did see in your prior audit as well. Uh but just making sure that the city is paying invoices within that 35day payment period. So there's a statute that you do need to be paying them within 35 days of receiving the invoice or the goods or the service. Um so two of the 40 that we tested were not paid within that payment period. Moving on to the next slide then uh this summarizes some of the other observations and recommendations not findings but like I said some other observations. Um these a lot of these are the same comments you have seen in previous audits. Um so some of them will sound familiar. Um the first comment I just want to note is just some of the funds have deficit balances like negative balances in the fund balances. So as part of our report I do just want to point that out. Um there's three special revenue funds and one of the enterprise funds that have a deficit net position or deficit fund balance at year end. Um so just reminding the city to continue to monitor funds. Um from time to time there could be reasons why a fund does go deficit. Most of those are TIFF funds. So with development, you will be receiving the revenue with the development. Um and so it just takes some time to get that revenue back through that tax increment financing. Um but just a reminder to monitor those funds. They should continue over the years to become positive. Uh the enterprise fund that is a deficit is that next comment just with the fiber optic fund um many of you are aware um that does have that deficit uh unrestricted net position at year end which the city has continue to monitor um I think a deficit of about 1.8 million at year end. The third comment there relates with the deposit and escrow reconciliation. Um, so every year as part of the audit or just throughout the city's finances, uh, the city does receive some customer deposits and escrow accounts and making sure those get fully reconciled by year end. If you remember, this was a comment in 2024's audit. Um, the city has started that process. So, in 2025, there has been progress made. Um, but I did want to leave it in here to comment on, you know, to continue to make progress. We're hoping by the time we get 26 as audit, those accounts are all fully reconciled um by the audit of next year. The next comment is a new one uh in this year's audit and that's relates with the alternative dissemination of bids and requests. Um so a city when you go out for bids, you can do it in your public your official newspaper, but you also have an option to use a website or some other industry trade journal. Um, but if you do go that route, you have to make sure you're also publishing in your official newspaper or your minutes for up to six months simultaneously before you use that other option. So, I know that's an area the city's exploring and looking at. So just making sure that you do a little more looking into that statute and if you choose to go that route that you truly are publishing in both the official newspaper and your other alternative for that six-month period before you just go one route if that is the way uh the city does choose to go. And then the last comment here relates with the uniform guidance revisions. Uh uniform guidance is what governs the federal funding that local governments receive. um your city the threshold to receive a single audit is a million dollars. So your city did not meet the threshold where you would have a federal audit, but we've been putting this comment in all of our local government uh management reports as a reminder that some of the guidance has changed with that federal funding and the uniform guidance. Some of the thresholds as far as if you're purchasing equipment with federal funding has changed. Um, so just making sure in general cities are aware of the policy changes and then you if you do have your internal federal policy, there's probably some wording changes that do need to get updated with that. Um, and like I said, you haven't met that threshold of a million dollars to receive a full single audit. Um, but still an area that the city should review. Um, and we can help get that policy updated to be in compliance with the uniform guidance. With that, then we'll move on to some of the financial information. Uh, starting first with this graph or table that summarizes the governmental funds of the city. Um, so this summarizes all those governmental funds. The top portion of that table shows the fund balance uh by that classification, what we call the non-spendable fund balance, dollars that are restricted, committed, assigned, and the unassigned. The bottom portion of that table then shows it broken down by what's called a major fund verse all the non- major funds combined together. So in total, if you're looking at your governmental funds, you saw an increase of about 2.8 million from the prior year. Most of that, if you're looking at the top portion is in that unassigned fund balance went up about 1.4 million. Uh most of that is due to the improved financial position in the general fund as well as that improved financial position in that MSA capital project fund in the current year. And you also saw the restricted fund balance go up. Most of that is in the street fund and is a result of the city receiving bond proceeds but not having spent them all as of year end. So the unspent bond proceeds are restricted at year end for future capital projects. Next table here then summarizes all the governmental fund revenue of the city. Um in total the city's total governmental fund revenues were about 15 million. Um that saw a decrease of about 1.6 million from the prior year. If you're looking at that table, you're going to see most of that's in that intergovernmental row down about 1.8 million. And that was due to if you remember in the prior year the city uh recognized the coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery funds or you might know it as the ARPA funds that the city received. Um you spent those in the prior year which saw that increase in revenues in the prior year and now back down to the normal level that um you would have seen in previous years. So that was down about 1.8 8 million and then you saw the offset in property taxes going up about 600,000 in your governmental funds. Uh mostly related just directly with the levy that's approved by the city council. Next graph here then summarizes the governmental fund expenditures from current year to prior year. Um in total those expenditures were about 15.3 million in total in your governmental funds. a decrease of about 400,000 from the prior year. A couple of the bigger swings, if you're looking in that table, you saw your economic development expenditures down about 1.2 million. Um, and that relates directly with econom economic development payments in the prior year that you did not have in 2025. And then that was offset by the capital outlay. They saw an increase of about 575,000 in capital outlay expenditures uh directly related with the street improvement projects that are ongoing within the city in 2025. This next graph here then summarizes the general fund year-end fund balance for the last five years. So it shows it in those buckets of uh fund balance, the unassigned dollars, assigned and non-spendable. So you can see the majority is that yellow line, the unassigned dollars. Um, so for the general fund for the year end 2025, the total fund balance was about 6.9 million in the general fund, which represents an increase of about 890,000 from the prior year, which was compared to a budget that was approved by the council that was projecting a decrease of about 20,000. So overall, the general fund came in about 900,000 better than anticipated in the city's budget. And you can see based on that graph, the majority of that is in that unassigned dollars at year end of just under 6.8 million. The next slide then shows a graph um that we present of those unassigned fund balance as a percentage of the expenditures. Um, so the current fund balance of the city establishes that the city will strive to maintain a minimum unassigned general fund balance of 50% of the subsequent year's budgeted expenditures. So if you're looking at this graph, that red line graph, that's what the city's fund balance policy has been for the last five years. So currently 2025, that policy is at 50%. And then the green line graph shows what is that actual calculation of what is the actual unassigned fund balance as a percentage of expenditures. Um so you can see for the all the years the as the graph illustrates the city's been in compliance with that fund balance policy of the general fund. um specifically at December 31st, 2025, that unassigned fund balance for the general fund was at that 67% of of the subsequent year's budgeted expenditures compared to that policy of the 50%. Um so overall that general fund is meeting that policy and is in a good healthy financial position. Moving through some more discussion specifically on that general fund. Uh this graph here shows the general fund revenues comparing it to budget. Overall the general fund revenues ended the year at about 9.5 million. Um that was an increase of about 215,000 from the prior year and about 33,000 under budget. So very close to budget um considering the 9.5 million of actual revenues. Um couple budget variances I'll point out if you're looking at that graph. uh license and permits you're seeing were under the anticipated levels. That was just due to lower building activity than was anticipated in the city's budget. Um and then that was offset mainly by that all other area which was about 300,000 over budget. Uh most of that was in investment earnings with investment earnings coming in um stronger than anticipated um throughout the year. When you're looking current year to prior year, those general fund revenues were up about 200,000 from 2024. Couple areas looking there. You saw your tax revenues up uh directly related with the levy that's approved by city council. And then you saw that offsetting in the license and permits uh revenue was down about 150,000. Once again, uh just overall the permit activity being down in 2025 compared to 2024. Moving on to this next slide then shows very similar information just of those general fund expenditures uh by the city functions but overall the general fund expenditures ended the year at about 9.3 million increase of about 1.5 million from the prior year but about 940,000 under budget. Um, so when you're looking at this graph and seeing some of the budget variances, um, you're going to see public safety expenditures were under budget. Most of that was due to vacant positions within the police protection department. Um, you also saw expenditures under budget within that inspections department. And that's directly related with the license and permits being under budget. How the inspection department uh, expenditures were also under budget. Looking at the public works area, that bud that function was under budget, just lower expenditures in the street maintenance department. And then overall, the general government function was also under budget, which is overall city consulting costs coming in less than anticipated in the city's annual budget. Like I said, overall the expenditures are about 9.3 million in the fund, which was an increase of about 1.5 million. Uh most of that why you're seeing that increase is in the public safety area and once again that's uh due to how the city recognized those coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery funds. You spent those funds last year. So some of your expenditures, your public safety expenditures were moved to that pandemic response fund in the prior year because you were tracking those funds in a separate fund. So now all those public safety expenditures are back in the general fund. So overall, you've always had the expenditures. It was just the fund they were presented in, which is why you're kind of seeing that little blip in that public safety area um go down for 2024 and back up, you know, to its normal level in 2025. With that, moving on then to this next table summarizes the enterprise funds of the city. So those are those business type activities. Um the top portion of this table shows that net position of the enterprise funds by the classification what we call that net investment in capital assets and then the unrestricted net position and then the bottom portion of that table shows it by each of the individual enterprise funds. So overall looking 24 to 25 you saw the net position in those enterprise funds go up about three million. Um, if you look at the top portion of that table, you're seeing all of that is pretty much in that unrestricted fund balance. And that's just due to the overall improved performance in all these enterprise funds. Um, and we will walk through and talk about each one. I have a graph on each one here, which you're going to see is very positive operating results in all the various enterprise funds here. Starting with the electric fund. So this is a graph of the electric fund for the last five years. Um it shows the blue bar graph shows the operating revenues with the operating expenses in that yellow bar graph. The green line shows operating income and then the red line excludes any depreciation. So it's the income before any depreciation on your capital assets. And that's consistent on all these graphs as we walk through. But overall, the electric fund ended the year um with total net position of just under 14 million increase of about 1.8 million from the prior year. If you're looking at your operating revenues, you saw those go up about 760,000. Most of that is directly driven by the consumption. Saw increased consumption in 2025. If you're looking at your expenses then your operating expenses, you also saw that go up about 400,000. And um most of that's in those purchase utilities which is directly related as your consumption goes up your purchase utilities expenditures also go up. Um but at year end had operating income for 2025 in the electric fund of about 1.6 million and that's before any transfers made to other funds. So overall this fund did transfer out about 430,000 to other operations. Next graph then shows the water fund. Also very positive operating results for 2025. Overall the total net position in this fund saw an increase of about 700,000. Your operating revenues were pretty flat compared to last year. Just a slight increase of about 15,000. The expenses you did see a decrease of about 150,000. Most of that was just decreased professional services and some supplies and materials being down in the current year. Um, but overall the operating income for the year was about 780,000 and this fund also did make transfers to other funds of about 180,000. Next graph here shows the surface water fund. Once again, very positive operations in this fund as well. saw an increase in that net position of about 211,000. Um overall you saw a slight uptick in that operating revenue about 25,000 mainly just the number of customers and the approved rate increase in 2025. Um operating expenses also increased slightly mainly in the materials and supplies within this fund. um but at year end had operating income of about 255,000 and at year end also made transfers to other funds of just under 58,000. This next fund then summarizes that wastewater fund at year end. The net position in the wastewater fund saw an increase of just under 400,000. Um the operating revenues saw a decrease of about 125,000 from the prior year. Most of that was just in connection charges in 2025 compared to 2024. Um and then your operating expenses saw an increase of about 50,000 mainly in purchase utilities. Um but overall end of the year positive with positive operating income of about just under 480,000. And once again, this fund was also able to make transfers to other funds totaling about 123,000. Last couple funds I have here. Then this one summarizes that fiber optic fund. As I commented previously in my presentation, that net position uh had a deficit in net position of about 424,000 at year end. um but did see a slight improvement from the prior year of about 58,000. Um so like I said, as this has been deficit, you've seen just that small increase in improvement year to year if you're looking at that green line. Um but overall just important for the city, you know, to be aware of this fund and continue to monitor what the future plans are of this fund. Um but you're continuing to just see that small increase each year. And then the last fund is the solid waste fund and that had total net position of about 500,000 a small decrease or decrease of about 140,000 from the prior year. Um, looking at those operating revenues, small increase about 17,000 mainly just in the number of customers and then you also saw your operating expenses increase about 60,000 mainly in the professional services area. Um, but after all the activity saw operating loss of about 140,000 in this fund. uh but the fund was still able to transfer out about 60,000 to other funds and overall had a decrease in that net position of 140,000. Then the last slide I have here summarizes those governmentwide financial statements. So when you're looking at a local government financial statement, you have all the individual funds, all the governmental funds of the city, all the enterprise funds of the city, um as well as the internal service funds. They all roll up together in what's called a governmentwide financial statement which gives a snapshot of the city as a whole. And this uh financial statement includes it's a full acral basis. So it includes all the capital asset activity of the city. It also includes any long-term liabilities of the city. So any bonds or debt you're paying um as well as those pension plans where you're required to show those unfunded liabilities of that perra pension plan. um as well as any OPED which is other post-employment benefits that the city has for a liability. So that's all shown on the statement of net position um the snapshot at year end. So look in 2025 to 2024 um you're seeing an increase of about 6.6 million in this overall net position. Um you're seeing in that table the top portion there's the governmental activities the business type as well as that discreetly presented component unit. Um so overall the governmental activity saw that increase of about 3.3 million. Most of that's in the unrestricted net position. That's just due to the improved financial performance in those governmental funds in 2025. Um as well as your business type activities um increase that 3.1 million 3.2 million all in that unrestricted area. Um which is consistent with the discussion we just had as we walk through each fund. the improved financial performance of each of those funds. And then you saw your discreetly presented EDA fund go up about 96,000 from the prior year. So overall positive net position at year end and saw that improvement of about 6.6 million from the prior year. So with that, I can open it up if there's any discussion or specific questions. >> Any questions at this time? Um, one, uh, Dan, our our credit rating recently changed. What is it now? >> It's, uh, double A+. >> Uh, with this report, uh, do you foresee any problem with us keeping that credit rating? Are we on track? Are we going the right direction for that to maintain that? >> Yeah, I mean, I'm not part of any of those discussions that you have with your bond ratings, but I mean, your general fund does have a positive, you know, had a strong performance in the current year. you're meeting your fund balance policy, your enterprise funds all, you know, had positive improvement in the current year as well. >> Okay. Thank you. So, uh, Council Member Nordby, part of our discussion when we went for the bond rating that, uh, eventually, uh, raised the, uh, you know, our grade. Um, part of it was, uh, the emphasis that we have a 50% fund balance policy and that we're above that. Um and Brian and and I um filled out all the questions that they had and one of the components that that uh they were concerned about is can we maintain that 50%. Um as you can see the results of this is at 67%. Um my comfort level is I wouldn't ever drop it below 60%. Um but yes, I think what uh at the end of the day, what the results of 2025 shows is that we definitely will maintain that double A+ um unless something um drastically goes wrong during this year um which so far hasn't hasn't shown that it it's it's happening um because next year we'll be going out for another bond issuance. So, >> well, thank you Dan for your leadership on this. And Brian, you know, we we've been working really hard over the last few years to be able to get to this point. When you watch the news, all you hear is bad news about budgets and money and different things like that. So, it's really uh really great that we're able to be in this position during the time that a lot of other places are in. So, it's greatly appreciated. I do kind of wanna again if you have any other questions do kind of want to tell you the next workshop that we're going to have Brian and I um have have discussed it and um we're we're going to talk about some of these numbers and how they look. You're seeing the end result but obviously our 10-year plan has some of these positive results um in the plan. Um they're performing a little bit better. Um, so we're going to take a look at that and put it in the context of of what we had predicted versus what the end results were um on a net uh change in our position. We're also going to be looking at uh all the the funds cash balances and how they change from 24 to 25. Um we'll also be looking at uh how we're doing so far for the first quarter of 2026. Um and then um to kind of point out, you did see one of our enterprise funds does did have a a very good performance this past year. for our electric fund. Um we are going to come in with some analysis and kind of show you um we'd like to try kind of a tempor or not temporary but a a uh first step um and trying to ease the electrical um costs that occur during the summer months and putting a cap on um the you know kind of the energy charge uh additional um charge that they give um part of theirs. and we'll show you the results of what that potentially would do based upon the consumption of 2025, what it would do as far as a reduction in in revenue um and and seek city council's approval that we can actually try to implement that this year when we go into the summer rates. Um and then we'll break down what what changed in that $1.8 million. Um because you'll you'll see some different components that make up that 1.8 um component to it. Um, but I do want to kind of bring to your attention just a couple of pieces. I um because we've talked about it as we definitely go through our budget component to it that um you know when we look at our our revenues here you can see again we have a heavy dependency on property taxes and intergovernmental um and you can see that made up you know 70 you know 75% um of our governmental revenue. Um, so there's a heavy reliance on on that component to it. Another kind of slide that you know this is this is what your leadership has has done in the time that I've been here. We've gone from a 3.5 um million dollars unassigned fund balance to 6.8 million um where we're at 67% of our subsequent year's budget. um that that's due to your leadership and putting ourselves in a much better financial position which then translated into getting a better bond rating. And then one kind of other piece um two other pieces that I just want to kind of point out and we'll be talking more about um these components as we as we move forward. Um the electro fund we will come back and have more of a discussion. Um it's just one more component. Um the solid waste fund as you can see that we've had losses on onto that if you remember that's been done per plan strategically. Um we knew we had a fund balance. We don't have a lot of capital um tied up into this fund. Uh we were buying down some of that fund balance until we went out for an RFP for um trash and recycling which we are we we have. Um we're in the process of interviewing. We've interviewed one of the vendors um per city council's direction. We're interviewing the other one actually tomorrow. Um and hopefully being bring bringing something back in front of the city council for approval in in June. Um uh it's playing out pretty nice right now that we you know hopefully the rates um will pull us not into the negative. will be break even or a little bit of positive but without having an impact on our residents. Um so the plans that you have accepted and approved are working and we'll be showing more of that coming up in our next workshop. Um just want to kind of give some of those highlights of of and again the credit goes to city council's leadership and to Brian as our city manager the leadership and again can't forget our department heads uh because they do one heck of a job day in and day out. Yeah, I know. Last year we started that sneak peek doing it and, you know, seeing where we're at, which I really like because it, you know, keeps it in front of mind what we're doing. So, it's great. Appreciate it. >> Any other questions uh for uh Jackie uh our auditor from LB Carlson or myself? >> Appreciate the report. Very clear. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Jackie. changing of the guard. >> All right, the next topic up is the uh alley improvement process discussion. We have community development director Ken Roberts here to discuss. Have a good one. Thank you. >> Thanks again, Dan. Thank you. >> Thank you. How long is this meeting going to go? That's a big cup. >> He's getting comfortable. That's a good sign. >> You got Ron coming to the front row. This is >> Yeah, >> you're used to that in school. I'm sure they had you over in the corner. >> Mayor, members of the council, alley talk. >> Alley talk. Mhm. We had trash talk last time, so it's alley talk. Here we go. >> And really what it is is discussion. We want to have a discussion as staff with council about public alleys and the concept of private improvements made in public alleys. And what brought this to our attention recently is we were approached as staff by property owners that abuted alley that is under improved with gravel and they said well we want to put some black top down. What do we do? Staff looked at each other and said we don't know. we don't have a process in place documented any place what they should do what the standard should be should the city even allow it so we started looking into it and we thought well we better bring it to council and see what you all think uh so as I said we don't have any policies or practices or processes in place we think as a staff it's in the best interest of the city to get some of those things in place so as we get these questions in the future we have a road map of how residents can proceed and the staff can proceed. So the purpose really for tonight is to start the discussion and get direction from council on what type of review process and requirements the city should have if private property owners want to make improvements in a public alley. And so you may ask, well, what is an alley? might know conceptually what it is, but the code defines them as a thoroughfare through the middle of a block giving access to the rear lots or buildings. From administrative uh Minnesota administrative rules, they have a similar definition, excuse me, that's a public rightway other than a street that affords secondary access to a mudding property. And most commonly these are down the rear property lines of properties in in all cities but North St. Paul. So I don't know if you can see this on the screen the streets streets in North St. Paul most have a 60 foot wide rightway and then if you look down and they're in the white here in the gray but down the rears of the properties are these little strips of land. They're not they're not privately owned. They are publicly owned. They were platted when the lots were laid out when 20s and 30s and 40s whenever that was just similar to what is done in St. Paul and Minneapolis. And that's that's the alley. That's the area we're talking about. So it's publicly owned, but at this point most alleys in North St. Paul are not maintained by the city. So they're kind of sort of a no man's land in a lot of areas. So again that there are many public alleys in the city. I didn't calculate all of them. Uh some have garages in them. Some have sheds. Some have gardens. Some are grass. Some are paved all the way through. Some maybe only have gravel on parts. There's really no It really depends. They're really a mishmash of level of improve levels of improvement. So here's a an example again. This is South Avenue and Margaret here. Color school is just off the screen to the south. Here's an alley here again showing with the lines. There's some improvement down on this end, the west end where they can get back to this garage here. Similar coming in off of Margaret. Well, these two homes on Mar have driveways right on Margaret for their garages, so they don't care. But these properties back here all have garages and that's an somewhat unimproved alley. It's just gravel. The rest of the alley, it doesn't appear that anybody's using. It's just grass and landscape area. Uh and maybe these sheds could get to them if they needed to, but uh the and this is just one example just to show you the differences. and how alleys are treated or used in throughout the city. >> Do we have any policies about the you know like so you talk about the garages some garages face the alley some some garages don't are there any policies about why when can you can't you about building a garage that goes into the alley? >> No. >> Okay. So if somebody wanted to, they could build a garage, have it face, and the only entrance to it is through the alleyway, assuming that the alleyway is accessible. >> So this lot here is is an example. They >> don't have anything in their backyard, it appears. And if they wanted to now, the trick would be or the important thing is what's the condition of this, >> right? >> Grass. Is it wet in there? Is it a wet land? >> Trees and what's right. I yeah I know there's trees and blockades in some of the alleyways >> that you know for all intents and purposes impassible as they are as they stand right now. >> Yes. >> Which I mean would be a problem if you needed to get back to them for an emergency or public you know emergency services public works or whoever. >> Right. Or commonly electric if there power lines there. I know there's one house that they put a boat back there just so people don't drive through it because people were hightailing it through and not and using it as even though it was, you know, there was nothing there except grass. So for through alleys, I'm going to differentiate a little bit. a through alley in our in my mind and for the staff is going all the way behind or through a whole block street to street versus just a segment which might be three or four houses. So for through alleys, it's our belief that if the city was approached by several property owners and said, "We want this whole alley improved that we should treat that as a street improvement project like any other street in the city potentially with assessments. The engineer would design it. There'd be public meetings, all that kind of thing. And so it would be built and designed by the city and then taken over by the city for maintenance long term if we got a request. I don't know that we ever will, but I I say that only because I think the more common one will be when somebody wants to do segments and that's where what that's what generated this discussion is again three owners wanting to pave part of an alley not all the way through. They don't want to go through. They just want part. >> Got just enough to get to their garages. It's a kind of a goat trail now, especially in the spring. And they're tired of bringing in their own gravel. So they said, "Well, can we put black top down?" And we said, "Well, here we are. We we don't know yet." That's why we're having this discussion. And so then we get into if the city is going to allow private property owners or private owners to make improvements in a public alley. If so, under what conditions, what requirements should the city put in place to make sure that they understand their roles and responsibilities? What the city will or will not do if they do that and what permissions the city should grant or need to grant to keep it legal and some of those kind of things. And if the city says no, we're not going to allow you to do that. Then is the city going to be interested in taking on some of those improvements and maybe doing assessments. So that's I guess that's one question for the council to ponder. >> One question, the one you show with the two houses going in on each side, that's all the farther. Do we do anything for snow on any of those? They're just nothing at all. >> It's all unimproved. >> But the one like your alley >> Yeah. I went through the whole thing. So now >> you're a full alley, right? >> I'm a full alley. I went through the whole Yes. >> Okay. As soon as it was a full alley, then the city does >> takes care of it. >> But is it a full alley if it's paved? And do you do full alleys if it's gravel? >> Nope. >> Okay. Just paved only. >> Paved only. >> All right. >> And and so that becomes one of the distinction. If with the segment, if they wanted to hypothetically just put a bunch of gravel down, compact it, would we allow that? If we're or if the city going to say, "Well, if you're going to do it, we want you to do it correctly with subcutting it out, putting on compact gravel or base, and then paving it to a decent standard so it doesn't fall apart in three years >> at the homeowner expense." >> Yeah. And and that at their expense and that's something we can allow, but we don't have any of those rules written down as a policy. That's the uh discussion. So if if we want to go down this route, there is a series of steps I put together here for council's consideration. If we get approached, uh again for just a segment, the first thing, which is really step two, is we would uh suggest that they have a pre-application meeting with city staff at the site to look it over. Kind of walk it around, look and see what what looks like will work, what won't work. Well, we didn't know about this. How far is it going to go? And kind of the just a preliminary no charge kind of thing. >> Excuse me. Can we get it on the front screen, please? >> Thank you. >> And then with that, it would be uh staff would then give feedback to the proposal, feasibility about the improvements, what they see, what the concerns would be, that kind of thing. I guess one concern I have is differentiating between alley segments and through alleys. >> Um, from the standpoint of at what point do you say if it's threequarters of the people on that block, do you just say, you know, forget it, we're just going to do the entire thing because threequarters of you have agreed. Or do we just do do we make them do threearters of it and leave that one quarter? >> It's so I think we need to treat the two scenarios the same. Unfortunately, >> I think this is a bigger bigger conversation and I I'll use my place as an example. Um behind my house there's this alleyway, but the alleyway isn't really an alley. It's a driveway to an individual's home. However, should something there's electrical can come over, there's power lines right there. It's there's city access. But if something happens to piping, water, water breaks, whatever that is, where on that line is it my responsibility or is it the homeowners? So, I look at it. If some of we have some of these gravel um alleyways and they're through alleyways, we should be treating them as if they are our part of our roads. Um, I don't necessarily think we would put it on a resident shouldn't decide that they're going to or they would like to black top it. I mean, I see a bigger discussion here besides just what should we do with we we should create a larger policy regarding this if we have nothing in place now. Um, because a lot can happen just not only on snow removal but I mean like again water piping. Uh what does that look like? >> Property lines. It's >> drainage. >> Yep. >> It's all got to be drained properly. >> And part of those like, you know, the 25 28 there, they probably don't want an alley behind them, those middle houses, you know, because I know I lived in St. Paul on an alley and the only stipulation I had when I moved was I wasn't going to have an alley ever again because, you know, there's a lot of stuff behind you. So some people I would imagine, you know, wouldn't want that. But if it's an unpaved one, then it's a I think it's a big difference between a through a through alley and one that's just partial when it comes to what we're looking at here. If >> I may, the this is a huge conversation and uh yeah, there's so many different ways you can go. And not to mention, Morgan, maybe off the top of your head, what if you did a full alley starting from scratch, it's grass. Could you give a ballpark what a cost that like something like that would be? >> Um because alleys are 20 feet wide normally. >> No, I'm >> hypothetically speaking. >> So I've done uh in other cities. I've never So in my time in North St. Paul, we've never had a public, you know, alley paving project like the city standards here. I have done it in other cities though. Um and at today's pricing uh you know a uh through alley so access on both sides of the block right um asphalt you can't skimp because sometimes trash pick pick up uh is picked up through there those vehicles are very heavy so like the road section needs to be >> kind of close to a road section >> um it's not as wide you're typically handling drainage in the center so there's an invert inverted crown rather than ditches or storm sewer, but sometimes uh alleys are too flat or there's a low spot in the middle and you know there should be a storm sewer pipe in there to drain that out so you're not holding water back there. So I think we've all seen that before and um maybe especially in unimproved alleys that might be gravel. So to actually get to answer the question I I would not be surprised if uh it um over $100,000 $125,000 easy. Was your >> is that per house or for the whole? >> No, no, for the whole for the whole alley, maybe even 150 to be honest. >> Well, the neighbor that own the property part that I live in now, he paid for the sewer culvert at the bottom of the alleyway on the first street end of the property. So when we went through to do the alleyway, we did the petition throughout all the neighbors and then um there was fours and against we divided it all up and went through the people that were for it and against it and we had one neighbor that had had to abstain from it. So it ended up and we we got the alley out of it, but we did not have to put in the sewer because it was already there by the prior owner on 2444. So we locked out there, but everything then the only thing is when they build them, they only put a 2 inch or 3in base underneath and I've been kind of adamant that the garbage trucks don't go up there because you're going to destroy this whole thing. So without the trucks on it, it's has been there for 20ome years now. >> Yeah. So when we started talking about this, how I understand it right now and and again not and I don't believe there's any policy or anything anything on the books that we can look at and say this is how you would build or this is what you do. But my understanding is that if you all lived on a block together and you guys had an alley that was unimproved and you guys all got together and got a petition and everyone signed up to do it, you guys would pay for that to get done and then once that you guys paid for it, it got installed, the city would take over the maintenance of it. >> That's what it is. We all paid our property with of the money that divided out between all our residents. Yep. So, let's just say that came out to be so without any standards in place of how that alley would be built and the city taking ownership of it after it was installed, we talked about, well, maybe it should be built to a standard then. So, down the road when the city has to redo it or do improvements to it, you know, the base and everything is built correctly. But like when you speak of, hey, we put two inches in our alley, you it probably was done that way >> just to keep the costs down, right? >> So now if we start talking about this and the city says, hey, we have to have engineering. And when you talk about all these different garages that people have built back there and how they were allowed, I I don't know how that came about, but a lot of those alleys, there's different elevations. There's, you know, those garages are set so for drainage and, you know, there's a lot that goes into it. So that's why these alleys, these nonth through alleys that go in one or two houses and these people have gravel and they have potholes and they have water sitting in them. Um, and they keep putting gravel in each year, year after year, you know, they are like, "Hey, we just want to pave this so we don't have to deal with that, you know." So these discuss and you know, a resident came in, they wanted to do that. I think it was two or three houses that would be involved with this and they just like we just want to pave this so we don't have to deal with this this you know gravel or rocks and potholes and you know all that you know it's winter or the excuse me spring and you know early winter where we sink in where the frost is coming out of the ground. So um they are two different things. Um, but you know, if we're going to and and that's why for us, I would get asked questions from residents, can I do this? And I'm like, I I don't know. And there has been like since I've been here, there has been one done uh where it's a partial paved and it's it's over off of First Avenue and First Street. um where they have a you know they had a big slope coming out and the rocks would wash out into the into the road and you know and that was done and it was kind of treated like a driveway and the residents paid for it >> you know it was but it was just the residents that were involved. I can't remember if there's two or three residents that were involved with it. So, um I believe I don't know if it was or not, but people would ask me that and without a policy, you know, when this came about, I started talking about it and I'm like, I shouldn't be the guy deciding whether we do this or not. >> You're going to actually have to have this survey because of the height difference from Margaret Street to Helen Street. >> There might be. Yes, >> you're going to have to have it surveyed out to get the grade proper, >> right? And that's where when we start talking about this, it starts getting into be a lot bigger project than just, hey, we just want to pave pave the alley or pave the portion, >> right? >> And going off of what Morgan had said, you know, do these people did they pull a permit, whatnot. I know I know where you're talking about and it looks like a driveway. It doesn't look like it would have been an alleyway. And I think some of these individuals may see those um areas that are considered alleyways as driveways like the one behind my house. Um that said, I knew when I first moved there, they poured gravel just for themselves to keep up with it. Um but that's I think this comes to a bigger discussion is how are we going to as a city? What does this look like moving forward? Are we going to um you know like the one by my house and the the one um that we were just talking about off of First and First with two there two houses and they look like a driveway. Do we look at those areas as okay those those they're not alleyways anymore. They're driveways or um again much larger talk on that but over a through a through alleyway. >> Yeah. There's one on 19th that that they just put a brand new garage there just last year. I mean, it's in the middle of an unimproved, so you know, alley where, you know, there was never a garage there before, but now, you know, it's built brand new in the middle of an unimproved alley. >> Yeah. And and I can tell you that we're not alone as a city on this. I've talked to many other people um about this in these alleyways or easements or, you know, whatever it might be. I mean, it is a it's a very there's a lot of moving parts to it, you know. So, that's why we wanted to have a discussion about it. Can I is it okay if I offer something up? So, um, we've been talking a lot about and there there are a ton of complications here, right? And so, calling out things like drainage and survey and making sure that things are done correctly um is certainly a thing. I do um want to point out that there are potential agreement mechanisms that are available that allow private property owners to make improvements within public lands. Everybody's well, not everybody, but most lots have a driveway that might extend uh across the public rightway on the road so that they can get their cars on the road from, you know, wherever they park them in the garage. Um, that's an example of something that typically doesn't need an agreement. It's, you know, could be called an encroachment agreement or a license agreement, but there is a a mechanism to allow people to do things within the right of way uh or within an alley right of way that's in the rear. It's the same thing. It's if it's public right away, it doesn't matter if it's unimproved or improved in the back of the lot versus in the front of the lot. So, there is uh and it's been done before, right? It's and North St. Paul wouldn't be the only city to to consider something like that in special circumstances where the city doesn't have an interest in, you know, uh putting a a through alley or something uh more than basically just a driveway, right? Um so that can be an option. I Ken maybe didn't go through all the potentials out there, but I just wanted to point that out that it doesn't in every instance it doesn't have to be a public cityowned and operated and designed and city managed, I guess, with respect to repair and snow removal. There are legal agreement mechanisms that might be potentially considerable by the council in a special circumstance for a situation where it's just an access for one property or a couple few properties that might be internal from uh you know a block there. But really there's no interest in the city in doing anything other than maintaining their power lines through there, right? So that that is a possibility >> that makes it a lot easier when it is an approved alley because your utility trucks can get in and out much easier and not getting stuck in the wind or things like that. Um >> I would say on the flip side though, you've got the more roadways we have in the city increases, you know, maintenance costs, increases public works costs. So adding an alleyway, you know, one might be okay, two might be okay. Once you get up to five, 10, 15, then you got to start looking at increased costs within the city to go along with the maintenance, you know, the general maintenance of the, you know, because especially if you're taking trucks down there, the plows and stuff, those alleyways are going to get torn up, you know, honestly. So it's just matter of the fact. So >> mayor also for the say with the example on the screen or any example similar to this if it was staff's expectation if this went through and some policy was set and they want to pay this much or this much all future maintenance and snowplowing would be on the private property. >> Right. Y >> only time it would be public again if it's a through alley all the way through. But even in that case, I think there's still got to be some responsibility on the property owners for a you know, getting it um reviewed for um you know, having somebody come in and you know, do a uh get a permit done on it to make sure that the drainage is correct, that it's the right width, that it's not encroaching on any anyone one person's property too much or anything. >> I would foresee uh city engineer or city engineer directed staff review of um you know surveyed plans or something that identifies what's going on with the drainage, what are they proposing from a paving standpoint and maybe even we not public but maybe even for private um improvements, we still have standards. Yeah. because you know we want to limit and mitigate risk for both the city but also adjacent land owners that you know might be immediately adjacent. We certainly don't want to permit something or allow something that um even if by agreement there's indemnification for the city and the liability and the cost is on the applicant or the person that's proposing it. If there's a way through review and approval and standards potentially that we can mitigate those types of things, that's how I would foresee that happening. >> Yeah. Can you go back to that map one again? >> Like like let's say you know 25 24 decides that they want another garage for their for their boat or something. I mean now would that be Yeah. So now that's right in the middle of the block and that now with that alley so they'd have the right to be able because it's an alley even though it's unimproved be able to put a garage there and do that. >> That be sound right >> meet setback >> without the other neighbors. Okay that's why I was just you know where things that have existed for quite a while I you know things that could that could really change a whole alleyway in a neighborhood. All of a sudden you got cars going back because he decides he wants to have a garage for his boat back there. could get stuck. >> And that is exactly why some of the private versions of this or private versions by agreement might be challenging, right? Because if it's public, then everybody has access to it. Even people that might not immediately have access to it. If it's private and one-third of the area has access to it, but somebody else wants access to it, they can certainly get their own agreement with the city. But what about the pre-existing agreement between the city and the original homeowners? And what um if homeowner number two coming into play damages or it's allegedly said said that they damaged the the uh homeowner one's driveway, right? How does that get rectified? And how is the city in the middle of it? You know, the city doesn't want to be a referee for these types of things. You know, it should be between property owners. So that is that's the challenge between public only and available to everybody or private by agreement and who has access to and who has rights to what. >> What I just described there pretty much happened on 19th because they never had a garage there. Now all of a sudden farther down there's a garage that's that's on this unimproved alley. >> Now the city could certainly regulate that or put um some guard rails on like the one of the earlier questions was can can anybody just build a garage anywhere? And so by code, I think that could be codified such that unless there is an access, you can't build a garage. I mean, you could build a garage that's actually a shed, but not with an access to an alley or a right ofway unless there's something improved there, right? If it's approved >> right now, would it have to be approved if I said I wanted a garage in that spot there? Because it's it's a legal alleyway right now. >> If it's But if it >> That's what I'm saying >> right now. Yeah. Yes, >> but I can see there being um if it's just grass, it's a public alley by plat, but it's just grass, >> that's not necessarily going to uh be something that you can drive on, right? So, that that could be a future consideration for some ordinance controls that you only build a garage if you actually have something there to to drive a vehicle on. I don't I didn't want to use the word improved unimproved because >> Well, that's because because then we're not allowed to have gravel driveways. How can we have gravel alleys? So, I mean, this whole thing is a slippery slope. >> As a staff, we're not ready to throw up our hands yet, but we're looking for some dissect a little harder. >> Yeah, I agree. I think this is a larger project and we do need to dissect it a little bit more. One thing I want to point out before we get down, we did propose some minimum construction standards uh just to make if if we're going to go down this road in private improvements to ensure that they uh that they are done correctly. As Ryan said, we don't want them throwing black top on top of grass. That's not going to work. Excavated, put the proper base in, compact it. Minimum thickness of patuminous. Minimum width. The alley right away is 20 feet usually. So the surface be 12 to 14t wide. Uh leave a little room in each side for setbacks and snow storage and drainage. Clarify that we're not accepting gravel or class five as the surface. Uh and if there's no curb cut at the street, say it at either end that they'd have to install a proper curb cut with concrete. >> So you said not using class five or gravel >> either one for the final surface. >> Well, the we have unimproved alleys right now that are like that. Right. >> Right. But if somebody wants to come in and and do an improvement, >> okay, >> we're saying patuminous or if they really want to go crazy, put some concrete in, fine. But not we're not going to accept just gravel and have them say they're done. is what we're proposing. >> As mayor was saying, if this fell on 2524 wanted to put a garage in, he has to have his property surveyed and his uh whatever he wants to put on the back of that property has to follow the foot the setbacks according to the city off the city property lines on each end of the the rightway, which is uh what 11 feet for the driveway itself and three or four feet off each end each side. Yeah, I think it is 15 or so feet. I'd have to review that. But yes, >> planted alleys in North St. Paul are typically 20 feet wide. >> Yeah. Okay. So they get Okay. Yeah. >> And you can see here that half of them are almost on the alley. >> Some of these are actually on the property, >> right? They're And that's why the value of a survey is >> they're on a worms. >> They're expensive, but the surveys tell a lot of the story of what's really happening, right? People assume they know where the property lines are. We know how that goes. Um, yeah. And just we're saying they'd have to add proper concrete aprons if need be to connect to the street and that they must maintain existing drainage patterns. That was high level standards that we were working from or proposing again if somebody wants to do this. I think too what Ron mentioned before and I and I'm picturing the one on 18th in my head between Margaret and Charles down down on if you come in on Charles to that alley on 18th you're you're level with it by time you get down to the other end they have retaining walls and they have a huge hill so it's all about where does all that water come if we put something like that and all the other rain off and drainage because the street itself of course on 18th is been dredged and is perfectly you know down there but alleyways I remember in the midway We used to take the car and go fast and Joe up and down and bounce. And >> the other thing um depending on the size of the project, depending on square footage and acreage might trip the need for a watershed permit and we know how those are. And so that's again two or three driveways probably not but a through alley probably would for sure >> because because on Helen Street down there that's where the the drainage is off the pond off the coward lake backside there. I just want to clarify um you know in my opinion or my the way that I look at this is let's say we let someone partially pave an alley for three or four houses the city would not maintain that right >> that would still be the homeowner just because they're paving that >> you know it would have to be a through alley that the city would be eventually taking over that's what we >> a neighborhood driveway that's going to be pretty much not an alley >> exactly I mean that's probably a better way to classify it >> there might be I think these exist exist. I think you were actually even describing them. There might be some rear yard platted alleys that are not feasible to make a through alley. >> Oh, yeah. >> Because of the grade, right? There's there's going to be some Yeah, there's going to be some where maybe you could get a few homes access on one side, maybe on the other, but there's just no feasible way to make it cut all the way through. >> To me, this sounds like um we're going to have more discussions. One of the things that would possibly interest me um at the next discussion is having Morgan and Jack come up with what they would propose as a private agreement um that that would cover all the liability um uh uh that covers the city if two people wanted to improve part just so we could see a sample um you know if me and Troy wanted to put an alley behind our houses um what a sample agreement would look like um >> and I'd like to see if we could clarify easement and alley because it sounds like we're can calling them alleys but you know they should be easements because they're not going to go through and they shouldn't go through. >> Does that sound correct? >> Well, that that gets tricky too because if the city was to vacate this and leave easements, then the property lines will go to the center and now you're have fences going out to that center. >> Oh, and I'm sorry I I missed I'm not talking. How do you do it where you It's there for utilities only, but it's not for driving. I mean, I I I'm sorry I missed. >> It's a drainage and utility easement, but I still screw it up. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> We want probably in most cases to keep it open and to Jason's point, we do have a sample agreement >> that Jack or Morgan provided. I haven't shared it with Jack yet, but wanted to get a little more direction from the council. And and essentially what it says, it was from another city, is the city saying, "Yes, property owners, you can do this. It's at your risk, your cost. We're not responsible. If something goes bad, you may have to remove it. All the adjacent property owners that are affected by this, uh, they have to sign off on it and it gets recorded against the title of each of those properties. So the future buyers know that they got permission to do this thing 10 years ago, but it's on their nickel, their responsibility. The city doesn't repair it, maintain it, do anything with it. >> Because la last year when I lived in in the Midway St. Paul, I had to collect for the snow removal because they didn't do snow in St. Minneapolis does it, but St. Paul didn't do it. And I had to knock on doors and try to collect 10 bucks a year for snow removal and it was just about impossible. So I feel bad for anybody has to go down that road. out of time. It sounds like there's some general >> consensus here, but you'd like it brought back, maybe fine-tuned a little. >> Oh, yeah, 100%. >> I got to It got more mucky as we talked. I mean, every time we brought something up, there was something else that >> frankly that's what we expected, but we wanted to get it in front of you. >> It's a good We need to do it 100%. We have to understand it and do it. So, I'm glad you brought it up. It's just going to take some some real uh thinking and some going out to other places and try to understand and you know we have places that are already there that you know they've been using it forever and they're probably not like that one place you could see it's halfway into the alley their garage so I mean there's going to be things we run into that way too where everybody assumed where everything was. So yeah, thank you. >> All right, we got uh three minutes. So, let's do five minutes. Take a break. I have a motion to adjurnn, please. >> So, moved. >> So, moved. Council member Schuer. >> Second. >> Second. Council member Norby. All in favor say I. >> I. >> All right.