This transcript depicts a Bayport City Council meeting discussing a speed limit study, a cemetery expansion, and water usage. Based on the names provided in your context list and the dialogue cues, here is the attributed transcript. **Note on Attribution:** There are discrepancies between the provided list and the transcript (e.g., the transcript mentions a "Councilmember Carlson" and "Councilmember Dahl" in the roll call, and names like "Susan" and "Connie"). Based on the provided context list, I have mapped the roles as follows: **Mayor Michele Hanson** (the lead), **Matt Kline** (City Administrator, referred to as Adam/Matt), **John Perroti** (Consultant), **Councilmember Carl Bliss** (referred to as John), **Councilmember Katie Hill** (referred to as Susan/the researcher), and **Councilmember Orin Kipp** (referred to as Connie). *** [0:00] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** crash problem at any specific intersections or um specific streets so that's you know the staff's recommendation at basic just looking at the data was that we don't recommend that the speed limit be changed and we don't recommend any additional signs but we go off of the data you know we don't we don't live here we don't we don't hear from the residents though so i've heard from several council members that you've heard consistently from people that there's it needs to change i've lived here 20 years and i've been there for 10 years i've never been approached by anyone who's said that we should lower the speed limit so anecdotal interactions are good [0:46] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** and we rely on that but i'm i mean i'm also data driven and i'm not seeing the need for this change period um i did support in the uh spot correction at the corner of mr bells for a stop sign there i did support the 95 crossings and extra lighting because the you know we had information that people were going too fast and we had a fatality um if there is a point or two solution intersection that we could address but i also heard in you know already tonight that if we need to do the study to get it to change to 20 then that's [1:34] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** what we need to do i also heard last time that if it's just a formality to make it happen we should do it whatever we can do to slow people down let's do it um i i just that's not how i make decisions is to just act without information so and the data to support it so um john perroti what kind of information are we going to glean from this study that will allow us to pin you know these two intersections we can um study those and the impact of that's happening there but what else will this study accomplish what other kinds of information will we [2:20] **John Perroti:** get from it that could be useful yeah mayor that's a good question so when when it comes to lowering especially to 20 miles per hour what the study does is comply with the statutory requirements to do the study which i think sounds maybe a little bit as i say it that way um like is there real value in it well the value there will be specific analysis that the council can reflect on and digest in the decision-making process but there's also an element of this study that is just simply if you will meeting the requirements of the of the statute to do the study so it does collect information [3:06] **John Perroti:** puts it in one place presumably that information then is being um you know processed by the individual council members to inform their decisions moving forward so it's a way to collect the stat this the the law the various laws and guidance that we have on st on on speed limits put it in one place for the council members to use in decision making going forward so i'm sorry susan do you have you have more things that i don't know if you were through [3:53] **Councilmember Katie Hill:** yeah i mean i one i think have shame on governor walls for putting in a statutory requirement on cities to govern and uh if something's a foregone conclusion if you do the paperwork that you automatically get to make decisions and you have to jump through that hoop that's just an unnecessary burden to every city that has this under debate but besides that i mean i don't want to study conducted to just put a stamp on something that we as a as council may or may not think needs to be done based on you know anecdotal conversations so um that's i mean i am a proponent of safety but i'm not i'm not a believer in spending taxpayers dollars when it's done not substantiated so what i think you should do mayor is [4:39] **Councilmember Katie Hill:** start at my house on 4th street drive 30 miles an hour all the way down to the school and see if you feel safe no way in heck are you going to feel like that's a safe speed it's just not 30s flying on these surface streets why uh so it's so it's again this is this is not supported i mean we've bayport's been here for 100 plus years and we've had this speed limit we don't have any data to support this i've tried driving 20 miles an hour for the last month because i'm like okay let's see what this is like i'm not sure making a unilateral decision for the entire city to drop to 20 miles an hour can be substantiated [5:25] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** so well that's why we're doing this study to decide which street should be 20 miles an hour but um i can randomly just go can you sorry michelle but can you randomly go one street twenty one street i mean i don't wouldn't it be across the board or would you randomly just pick third streets twenty fifth streets twenty well for example main with an e we can't change to 20 according to our meeting last time right so there will be a little bit of randomness just because of that three streets within 95 main street and fifth avenue everything else if we i remember correctly from the last discussion was unilateral 20 miles an hour [6:11] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** and i guess i'm not comfortable waiting until someone does get hit by a car going 30 miles an hour and then we make a change to be safer i feel like if we have the opportunity we should be doing it but it's not unprecedented other cities are doing this too i understand minneapolis and st paul i'm not sure i i'd model bayport after two larger metropolitan well they have neighborhoods just like we do you know little small neighborhoods that you shouldn't be driving 30 through hudson's main drawings i have so many intersections that don't have stop signs north hudson is very comparable and north hudson's main drag is 25. [6:56] **Councilmember Orin Kipp:** yes and my goal is to prove that i feel that's an adequacy i guess the other thing is i have never in the years i've lived here i haven't had anybody in all the years i've been on the council come up to me and talk to me about the speed limit or speeding except for on 95 and then i had call after call stop on the street stop at the holiday station if they wanted to find me they found me they stopped at the daycare that was 95 and that i heard all the time other than any of the other streets i really have not had people come to me about them and i do i take children's safety seriously and i think you all know that that's what i do for a business um i wouldn't want to see [7:42] **Councilmember Orin Kipp:** anybody get hurt i just i guess i go back to is it going to make i guess john he didn't really give me a whole lot of extra no no no offense john i just feel like what you told me i don't feel like we're gonna learn any more than what chief eastman or the other things we've seen for five thousand dollars maybe i'm just i don't know i guess that's mayor and members of council i i hope you can let me just step back for a second i hope i'm not being perceived as trying to sell you anything no we're just this is the cost of the study if the council would like to go to the you know consider lower speeds [8:28] **John Perroti:** and um and from there it's really your your decision and and um you know so i you know the study would as i say it would summarize the laws it would meet the requirement to do these studies it would the study would go into enough detail that you would know which streets are either able to be lowered for speeds or speed limits or you know once some that might be optional or whether there's a recommendation to go system-wide so there are those aspects of it on your system you you get to decide whether or not you have a speed issue that you'd like to try and address by lowering speeds that's completely within your purview to do and john i'm sorry i didn't mean to insinuate you're pushing [9:14] **Councilmember Orin Kipp:** it i just no okay i'm sorry i'm sorry i just thought okay is it going to be worth it if you're saying what streets we randomly would want to lower well i think it'd be more confusing as a town if you have a street 20 miles you keep another street at 25 or 30 and that's what i was understanding that we could decide as a council what streets you're saying would warrant no no it wouldn't be random at all but there would be certain streets those mentioned tonight are good examples and they might be your only streets that would maintain uh you know if you were to if you were to decide to lower um those streets main fifth and what was the other one uh um high [9:59] **John Perroti:** 185 right would not be able to be lowered but um yeah so there would be there we would look at all of them to see if there are others that need a primary commercial component for instance like um down on is it second that uh yeah on second is it is possible possibly another street that would be primarily commercial in nature in certain segments of it so we'd want to look at those to make sure does it make sense to lower that one and if so is it the whole stretch or just a piece of it those are the things that need to be fleshed out in the study okay see to me that just seems like it'd be more confusing for residents to have well but anyway that's me yeah and you [10:44] **Councilmember Orin Kipp:** may and you may not be the only one to hold that opinion and so that's important you know there there's a there's a component of the study as well we didn't really mention tonight but that uh it gets into uh what the public involvement components you know of changing your speed should be and that's an important piece of it okay thanks john thanks john real quick that achieved can you tell us on the council how do you actually do this study what mechanical instruments do you use i'm not sure i understand the question well of course we had our speed sign which affects the drivers just like people see the speed signs itself but [11:30] **Councilmember Carl Bliss:** ours was the trailer what kind of systems do you use so that we know the effects of it how do you do your study well um you know i think you're asking a question that maybe i'd have to have one of the traffic engineers come back and answer chief i they were here for the last meeting and uh didn't they weren't available for tonight i apologize if you want me to bring them back next month mayor i'd be glad to do that matt thank you john man i think what laura's trying to ask is is there a speed component specifically radar component with the speed study john which i don't think there is oh no if that's the question chief no um [12:16] **John Perroti:** it wouldn't be it would there wouldn't be that sort of it's more a study of of use like land use if you will or you know the type of traffic on a particular street that's the type of study we're talking so it's more of a desktop that's where the intersection the safety review component of this proposal is very different they actually go out and do traffic counts on those intersections that we have been talking about with the speed component it's more of a desktop analysis based on mapping based on land use and based on the laws thank you i think that's an important piece that everyone needs to know appreciate it and that is if you could reiterate that chief then that there is not a speed component [13:04] **Councilmember Carl Bliss:** is that correct that's what john said correct there is not a speed component of your study it's more land use and so i imagine it's lines that you're counting off in numbers something like that which we from our study achieved that as well in addition to this however the speed signs do affect people they see it one day and then they slow down when they get to it so that has an effect obviously but we did give you the numbers in the area mayor i have been with the city for fifteen years and we will do whatever the council wants us to do but we have you know for lack of better terms we have very serious two very serious fatals [13:38] **Police Chief Jay Jackson:** and that's opened our eyes to things but as i mentioned to council member carlson i do think it's a random few people so i just wanted everyone to understand what your study would would achieve for everybody thanks john thank you adam go ahead um the one thing that we kind of touched on uh madame mayor i just want to make sure the council is clear as far as the schedule we didn't really discuss it tonight but it was discussed last meeting when the study would be would take place staff still builds very strongly in waiting until the traffic stabilized through the summer the other part of that is the public engagement that mr prody referenced we would definitely want to make sure that the public has [14:36] **Matt Kline:** the opportunity to not just be notified of this potential change but has the opportunity to provide feedback as it's kind of been you know referred to already or noted we have not heard from the public since i've been here and talking to the other staff there hasn't been a large uh feedback number of amount of feedback provided about the city streets a lot of it has always been highway 95 so that that's just something that we would want to make sure that we diligently conduct is getting obtaining that that engagement with the public so i'm not sure how that fits into the timeline uh if the study is opted for but we just want to make sure that that is considered well thank you adam michelle [15:23] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** well i just think it's interesting that everyone keeps bringing up how they've heard so many complaints about the speed limit on highway 95 what's the speed limit on highway 95 it's 30. it is 30. they think it's too fast michelle i guess i shouldn't have said speed i my concerns that i heard were people not stopping in the crosswalks okay letting pedestrians cross so i did misspeak when i said okay that's yeah but yeah i think adam just said that i was like well [16:05] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** so i think what we need to do as a council is figure out i don't want to spend this money if we're going to get the study back and only two of us are going to say we want to reduce the speed limits because then we've wasted that money because again i'm going to say it we're doing the study so that we can lower the speed limit that's just the way the red tape we have to go through in order to do it people are going to learn a whole lot to 20. [16:29] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** well we're still going to have to pay him something to do the 25. i don't know if you heard it i need to jump anything yes yeah go ahead john sorry um well go ahead ethan i think you've been waiting longer than i have but it's okay um i guess i guess going back with what adam said i think the public engagement is 100 something we need to do before we go forward with the study and spend the 4 800 so let's get that on the books whether it's next month the month after and let's get something out there because again i understand the studies and people sitting at a desk and doing something that don't even live in our community but when i go around and i talk to people and you know there's there's all kinds of new young families and and any time speed limit is ever brought up people are always in support of it up in inspiration i mean they got kids [17:15] **Deputy Mayor Ethan Gilmore:** flying through there too i think i think that's the only play i think they do have speed limit signs up there but at any rate it's anyone i've ever talked to i've never heard anybody say no you shouldn't you shouldn't lower it down whether it's a business owner a resident um and you know i maybe it's me talking about it and bringing it up i guess maybe people don't feel comfortable calling the office or or just bringing it up to a council member when they just don't know what the what the feel is so we got people in and actually talking about it well it'd probably be virtual zoom but i think for sure that should happen before we vote on actually doing the study i guess that's what i'm saying that's a really that sounds great i would go along so i appreciate that ethan i really do um that would make me feel much more [18:01] **Councilmember Katie Hill:** comfortable and confident in that they're not only talking about whether or not they think that we should be lowering it to any amount but is this their priority for um an un you know it's a it's an unfunded area within our budget this year and so i mean i'm i'm not equating safety with numbers we have invested um quite heavily in 95 but i feel that that public outreach instead of conducting a study to just push something through is not the right way to represent the members of our community or manage our budget and so i'd be all in favor of pausing this for a couple of months to get that kind of feedback [18:47] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** so but that's not going to change anything you know from a budget standpoint correct well if people chose not if they voiced that this is not what they want to have happen then i think it would at least reduce the overall study maybe we would still do spot of analysis of some intersections if they you know continue to pop up but maybe it's not this unilateral study to push through a 20 mile an hour speed limit so so from a financial standpoint and i agree with a lot of what's been said here and and i'm um for the most part on the same page as everybody and agree with what council member gilmore said but and i and i've said this before and whether my comparisons are appreciated [19:33] **Councilmember Carl Bliss:** um in analogies or not i guess i don't care but um we're talk just so you get things out there we're talking about five thousand dollars with with if i had to spend five thousand dollars for something unbudgeted out of my pocket that's a problem as a household um we're talking a city of you know a couple thousand people um tonight we're gonna we're gonna spend you know 50 some thousand dollars money that's already budgeted on a consumable item for public works this is something we could spend five thousand dollars on that would would be here in perpetuity 100 years down the road 20 years down the road it's not so i i i'm really weary of of some of these and i realize and i don't mean to [20:19] **Councilmember Carl Bliss:** downplay and spend money willy-nilly but to me this is a pretty nominal amount of money um that we're talking about we buy police cars fire trucks public works vehicles hand over fists as fast as we can buy them and when we talk about no excuse me when we talk about five thousand dollars for public for like direct public safety we we put the stop sign on and and i'm wary of that i'm not and i did not suggest it's all monetary but yeah you did you did i'm sorry susan i'm going to call you out there that you you mentioned money a couple of times it's a consideration we're responsible for every dollar we spend and the whole nation is in so much debt and we can't okay i'm gonna [21:04] **Councilmember Katie Hill:** we're not talking about the nation i'm not gonna i'm not gonna have you put that on me susan i i didn't mention anything about that all right we i'd kindly ask you to allow me to finish as well sure thank you so if we were to pause this a bit to get the public input of their reaction yes go forward we really want this no we haven't seen this as a problem whatever their their reaction is i'm more than open to hearing from and having that input simultaneously it would allow us to have that summer time data that sch has recommended if the study is then you know gone if it's pushed through then [21:50] **Councilmember Carl Bliss:** we would have that new data with the statistics that they recommend gathering to have a full visibility of what this impact would be it does delay the potential of the study by a little bit it does then adhere to sch's recommendation and we could you know have a bigger broader picture than anecdotal conversations right so i i and and i apologize but um i do the anecdotal things count um i know what i see as a parent picking a child up every single day from the elementary and um and and with all due respect to chief laura and her team does a great job [22:36] **Councilmember Carl Bliss:** there was a person speeding in front of ethan's house for weeks and weeks on end and it took a long time to catch this guy and i'm not even saying the speed limit signs would have would have affected that scenario but um and and i'm fine and i guess i'm fine with waiting i just yeah i i'm hung up on the the monetary part of this and and that we can't shuffle 5000 and i'm not saying we should do it now but boy when that when 5 000 comes up that we're talking about and that obviously gets my dander up when we put the brakes on over that amount of money and john i respect your passion and your point of view so thank you john thank you susan and john i will take [23:22] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** some sorry susan go ahead but i i brought up the monetary thing too but a lot of it is because i want to make sure that it's something that our residents want so i guess going with ethan's forward and get the public input that's what i'd like to hear i guess too not so much even because of spending the money john but just making that decision of lowering it to 20. [23:52] **Councilmember Orin Kipp:** so i guess i just wanted you to make make you aware that i was the one that brought up the monetary thing a couple times so i just want a second what john said it's a little frustrating that we're having such a long debate over five thousand dollars and that's about the safety and i don't feel safe now that i know the speed limit is 30. [24:16] **Councilmember Katie Hill:** i didn't know it was it just it's crazy that it's 30 on our city streets but um and then as a researcher i think how are we going to gather this data and how are we going to know what the residents really want i mean what is the actual plan for that because if we do a you know come to the march meeting and tell us your thoughts that's just as anecdotal as ethan and i going to woodies and talking to people you know so i'm just like i'll take your kelly sheets yeah so i'm like how do you i think it's at least offering the opportunity the opportunity to you know um but then you're gonna [25:01] **Councilmember Katie Hill:** hear both sides like you do every time so how do you how are you gonna weigh that and what's that gonna do to your decision i mean i know what my gut's telling me from living here and driving on these streets so i just i mean i think we should get input i'm just not sure what we're going to do with the differing opinions that we may get i don't know how that's going to change anybody's mind but adam you know unless you actually do a real research project but that's it's not worth it for this i don't think adam well i'm not i i don't have the background in research projects i come from our hanson uh what staff has preliminary talked about to discuss um for the public engagement is to solicit the feedback in multiple multiple outreach mediums and [25:47] **Matt Kline:** have an actual survey where we may have to send out a a letter to every house with instructions you know there's going to be the informative part here's what's being discussed here's the the background information you know please respond sometimes somehow try to solicit the response from as many residents and drivers as we can well obviously we're not going to be able to get you know 100 response we may not get you know 10 um but at least then we'll have some if people don't care enough to respond um typically when we've done similar things we haven't done very many things that impact city-wide uh decisions such as this other than [26:32] **Matt Kline:** possibly taxes every year and for that as the council members who've been on the council for a while i don't since i've been administrator with the city there hasn't been a single person who showed up for the choosing taxation hearing you know trying to get this public input is challenging but something like this that will obviously impact every driver that has to drive through the city we want we want their feedback it's part of the requirement we have to have the public engagement portion and so we're open to you know other suggestions uh from either councils what we can talk to sch about what has been done in other communities um there are a couple other communities that have done this as not just minneapolis st [27:18] **Matt Kline:** paul but we will be reaching out to them to find out what they did you know to use the best practices and see what was successful staff's job is to present the information and make a recommendation based on that information that we have so that's that's what we we want to do we part of this requires the public input the public engagement um so we don't just want to make sure that that this is that we have that um this isn't something that we want to you know bounce around every couple years change the speed limits so this is a significant decision for the city so setting up a survey like that would cost some time and effort and money too uh yeah the amount of money we [28:04] **Councilmember Katie Hill:** haven't i don't have a estimate on that um the amount of time yes this will take staff time um we would we would ask for at least you know at least a month um to coordinate it but if this sounds like it's a priority for the city council so we will you know find time it's not a scientific way to gather data yeah just so we all know it's not representative of anything by doing that you'd be better off pulling 100 random addresses and asking those people what they think just that would be more scientific i mean can we you know we've got a we've got a [28:38] **Deputy Mayor Ethan Gilmore:** city facebook page why don't we put something up there and put out a few of the options uh you know don't change it change it to 25 for this amount i mean can we put numbers out these are public so it's not like we have to hide we can say if we want to go to 20 it's going to cost 4 800 to the city you go to 25 it costs x amount and if you keep it the same it cost x amount do something like that and put it on facebook because right you're no one's going to send back a letter to the city i mean it's just i think i assume you meant a letter to direct them to go on a website right you are going to yeah it would be go to this website go to the city website and yeah respond yeah people don't do that either i did research for years and it's hard to get them to do [29:35] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** that you're better off emailing me we don't have the bayward sounding board anymore although there is a new one that easily somebody could put on there and i guarantee you would get some engagement back on that no i don't know like i said i'm not a research person i don't know how scientific that is but um to me the people that are on those things are the people that care most about the community and i guess those are the opinions that i would that i would try to help steer the community with any of those people that that are involved in care you know so something like that there's a lot of people not um i think a multiple approach we have the city facebook we'd have um the twitter account we have a city newsletter that we should be having one that's due to go out [30:20] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** sometime soon anyway so and that's at least one piece of item that we already pay for and it does hit every single household so at least people would be aware that this is a topic they should you know one would hope that people would be checking the agendas that we now post in advance of meetings well in advance so that people can keep up to date um but i guess at this point um i'm just i you've heard what i i also had to say and i respect everyone's opinion that's why there's five of us on a council and so i'm posing um if there is or more discussion please go ahead otherwise would someone like to make a motion to [31:06] **Councilmember Orin Kipp:** direct counsel our staff in one way or the other can i ask one question sure adam you said that no matter what we would have part of it would be to get the input right from residence was that a element of it at some point whether it be before or after or engaged before if we made a decision i just want to make sure i understood that you said that with all the process we would at some point have to engage the city yes the the public engagement is a requirement of both [31:51] **Matt Kline:** uh both proposed changes um the john correct me if i'm wrong but the down to 20 you know below the 25 requires a little bit more but there's still a gay public input portion of the republican engagement portion uh to move to 25. [32:10] **John Perroti:** yes at least it's yeah and i can't tell you exactly right now if the 25 miles per hour actually requires it but we certainly recommend it okay well so to me it only makes sense to put the horse before the cart and get the public's opinion or whatever however we're going to do it before we as a council decide to make that change instead of deciding to go forward with the study and then engaging the city and they saying they don't aren't interested in it so i guess just logically that seems like the process we should take but [32:59] **Councilmember Orin Kipp:** i agree it looks like jonathan came out and that makes me feel more comfortable and whatever the outcome and final result is is i just didn't want us to pay to conduct a study to push something through because we felt it was the best result for the city i i just like to take steps so but um again i pose it to the council to make a motion of of how they want this structure i could ask adam a quick question um as far as the public engagement like you know how how fast you think we can do that can we do that in one month two months should [33:38] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** we give it two months um like i said we can set up things people can you know if we put it out there maybe people call down and talk to the people at the city and say yeah we are in support of it or send in letters or do whatever to show the support or not support i guess if it goes the other way um so so what do you think i guess i would ask adam how long we think we should do that should it be one month or two months or any other council members you guys have any ideas lengthwise what you think we should do for the public engagement i think it depends on what methods we're going to use and i don't know if that's regulated or we decide how we want them to engage do we know if we're told how we have to do that by the state [34:21] **Deputy Mayor Ethan Gilmore:** i'd have to check with with sch on what just specifically what make sure the specifics are met um i guess i would i would be interested in knowing what you know the length the duration of opportunity to provide feedback um i think there you're gonna get you know if anybody does care they're gonna respond relatively quickly um if it's if we're soliciting responses um i don't so i don't think you know more than a month for the actual response is necessary um but it will take uh a week or two to you know get the plan and get the plan in place um so i i would say because we don't have a meeting you know i think it'd be tough [35:15] **Matt Kline:** to get all the feedback all the engagement done by or done by march um i think that's too short okay um it could be april that we could we could try to get that um had to check with sarah on the the newsletter but to make sure you know we might have depending on when the regular things are coming out we've got the news that are going out you know facebook we can we can do in a week we can start soliciting that way we'll have the website updated um but we want to talk with staff uh talk with sch about um you know the plan we we don't want to just be haphazard you know hey everybody we're talking about speed limits tell us what you think you know we want to have this a little more organized so we haven't spent a lot of time on on that matt and i had a couple of conversations [36:00] **John Perroti:** so far adam and mayor st i think um i think the answer to uh councilman hanson's question is that the statute i think just addresses informing the public when a speed limit change is made and so the soliciting input on the front end i don't believe is a statutory requirement i think that's something that that i i think is a good idea and it sounds like many people on this call believe is a good idea and so i don't think there are specific statutory requirements for how to solicit that input i don't think it's a requirement so that would make it easier it gives us more flexibility that we don't you know we don't have to [36:46] **Councilmember Katie Hill:** ask certain things certain ways and get a certain you know amount it would just be for the council's benefit councils you know information so thank you john i would i would like to be involved in developing whatever questions we develop to ask if that's okay just with my research background i think i could probably be helpful to make sure we're not being biased and giving them the facts and all that and not give them the facts i'm just kidding no when we give them the facts and giving them the best system and if there's uh expertise needed to how to market this across the different channels that would be in my realm so also happy to help [37:33] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** yeah i'll uh i'll reach out to council members and let you guys know where we're you know get more feedback on what we're proposing all right we still need to have someone make a motion or do we just provide direction to council verbally what would you prefer adam um i i think at this point um the council if you'd like to make a motion to direct staff to solicit you know public input on on the speed limit um and i guess have when would the council like that information back by to make if the council is going to vote to do the study and we need we need [38:18] **Matt Kline:** a deadline to bring that back i think april would be the earliest that we that we would propose doing that but the decision that was on the agenda tonight we need that decision still in the future um right i i would be okay with may even if if people aren't comfortable or some of us aren't comfortable doing this study before the summer anyways i guess it's not well i guess i'd rather do a good job and give you guys enough time or michelle enough time whoever to susan to do it um correctly so i guess i'd make a motion to direct the staff and whoever counsel helps to um solicit opinions from [39:06] **Deputy Mayor Ethan Gilmore:** or not opinions i don't what would you call it put back input from residents um and maybe have it prepared for the council by our main meeting is there a second fourth seems reasonable i'll second that okay thank you connie thank you john with that adam roll call please thank you madam mayor councilmember carlson aye house member dahl aye councilmember hanson aye house member gilmore aye mayerson ours i as all thank you council for a good discussion it's always nice when we can [39:52] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** have good conversations not always agree and come forward and um i am only one of five votes so i don't ever mean you know to monopolize anything but i do appreciate you hearing me out in this and um i hope that we get a lot of feedback and that we get a good solid decision to move forward so thank you all very much that takes us to new business which is to consider a resolution approving a conditional use permit and site plan review for an expansion of burial sites including upright column area structures within saint michael cemetery located at 706th street north and sarah [40:37] **Sara Taylor:** would you please present thank you madam mayor can you hear me okay yes we can great adam if you could please share your screen with the exhibits um that were attached to the staff report that'd be great and while you're doing that i'll start out in 2008 the church began planning for a future burial expansion area in the southeast portion of the property which is indicated as parcel a on the survey that was attached to your packet the objective was to offer additional grave sites for both creaminess and casket burial sites including upright column various structures before proceeding with the expansion the city identified several discrepancies at the cemetery which needed to be resolved including varying zoning classifications inconsistent property boundaries [41:23] **Sara Taylor:** and existing graves that were located in unimproved city rights of way those things have been resolved and rectified and recorded the church intends to proceed with plans for the southeast expansion area since st mike's was in existence prior to adoption of the zoning code it's considered a legal non-conforming use and may continue to operate as a cemetery however the city's zoning or rezoning approval in 2010 speculated that no structures shall be constructed on the property without first obtaining a conditional use permit and site plan approval from the city and so that's what the church is requesting from us tonight if we could move to the master plan which is sheet mp1 this is a master plan layout for the [42:09] **Sara Taylor:** expansion area traditional casket graves are shaded in green cremains are indicated in blue and the color area are indicated as gray kind of crescent shapes located adjacent to the creaminess areas the burial sites will be accessed by one main circular drive and connected by a series of walkways a minimum 20 to 30 foot setback will be retained along all property lines to ensure an adequate buffer in particular from the adjacent residential property there on the southeast corner the proposed impervious coverage for the expansion area is 18.7 percent which is well below the maximum of 35 percent allowed in the sewing district [42:54] **Sara Taylor:** uh substantial stormwater management upgrades will be implemented as part of the project as specified by the middle sinclair watershed district sheet mp4 depicts the two-sided upright column barrier structures up to ten columbia are proposed offering a total of fourteen hundred niches six six hundred of the smaller niches will accommodate one creaminess and eight hundred of the larger niches will accommodate two creaminess each column area will be just over seven feet in height and consists of 388 square feet of area the column barrier will be constructed of a combination of granite and masonry stone as shown in the picture [43:40] **Sara Taylor:** by allowing for multiple premiums niches in one structure they're designed to maximize the use of space and decrease the cost of maintenance associated with individual grave sites if we move to the phasing plan due to unspecified demand for burial sites and the potential financial implications the overall expansion project is planned in multiple phases this sheet depicts phase one as shaded in blue including the utility extension walkway stormwater treatment access road plantings and landscaping along the perimeter phase one is anticipated to begin this spring and be completed by fall of 2022 phase two improvements are shaded in beige and phase through phase three are shaded [44:27] **Sara Taylor:** in green at its meeting on january 25th the planning commission discussed and held a public hearing on the application no public comments were received following discussion the planning commission voted 5-0 to recommend approval of the application to the council since the planning commission meeting the cemetery has requested some leniency with the construction timeline for the access road due to costs after discussing the request staff feels a fair compromise would be to allow sale and use of the four column barrier in phase one before full construction of the access road as long as the walkways are installed to access the central plaza area and the road is completed no later than june 1st of 2023 as such staff has revised the [45:15] **Sara Taylor:** resolution to reflect this revision and i believe adam you have a copy of that with the proposed revised language thank you because the expansion is consistent with the existing cemetery use the column barrier will not alter the character of the neighborhood and the land use is in harmony with the city's comprehensive plan staff is recommending approval of the cup as discussed both matt and john have also completed a review of the application and together we'd be happy to take any questions at this time also the project representative landscape architect greg johnson is present and available for technical questions great thank you sarah is there are there any questions from the council [46:18] **Councilmember Carl Bliss:** i have a question on the uh on the mp do mp2 drawing the west storm water basin the very large one that seems like it um you know goes past the that current empty property into where where there are currently grave sites or am i seeing something wrong you know there's a there's a sharp north to south line on that stormwater basin but if you look to the left there there's dashed lines that kind of go with the contour of that storm water basin so i'm just curious if it's proposed that the stormwater basin moves towards hazelwood [46:49] **Greg Johnson:** part of the hazelwood property yes i'll take that this is greg johnson from lox and landscape architect there currently is a low spot right where the stormwater basin shows right there um the stormwater basin will will collect a little water uh the water will not stay past 48 hours and part of that low area shows you know to extend over to the hazelwood cemetery but basically that's existing so we're not changing anything past the property line we're just in shaping the saint michaels [47:38] **Greg Johnson:** open wall to accept a little bit more water to uh you know to take care of the storm water that all of our calculations required so that basin would just be uh like a turf grass you know type of a scenario we're not looking at a rain garden or any anything like that no in fact all of the storm water basin shown will just be turf okay so and and so then i think it goes without saying that nothing would be disturbed west of that north south line on the western edge of that property right correct we aren't touching anything past our property line thank you thanks john [48:32] **Councilmember Katie Hill:** any other questions from the council looks like a nice addition actually oh go ahead michelle well i don't have any questions but i did just want to mention that i'm the um liaison to the planning commission so i was at that meeting and there were a few questions that they had um specifically like wondering if the resident in that home there had mentioned anything or showed up at a meeting or anything and apparently no so we haven't heard from them um as far as i know something's changed since the meeting and then again just about timing i guess someone asked a little bit and they were said as soon as possible when they would like to get started with it and there was also a question about if we have to work with the prison in any way to make sure all this was good and [49:19] **Councilmember Katie Hill:** sarah said that's not they were um alerted of the project but we don't there's no we don't have to work with them in any way just so you know what questions came up and sarah also got some positive feedback from the commission about how well she put together all the notes which she always does very thorough and clear and i wanted to second that very nice thank you michelle so based on the uh do you see any any problems or or concerns with going forward with the new adapt the newly adapted timeline for the completion of the road is that does that sound like it works michelle do you have any concerns on that at all the new timeline [50:18] **Councilmember Carl Bliss:** with the completion i'm just wondering i'm just going to circle with the council if there's any concerns regarding that only that only change yeah i don't have any concerns okay um john nathan connie any concerns with that change because after the fact here it would seem like it would make sense that you know if if they're gonna do something to that access road there that you know we would try and maybe piggyback on and have our cemetery project done at the same time [Music] what will your cemetery project um and how will that affect the cemetery [51:11] **Matt Kline:** are paving of the unpaid can that answer that maybe yeah i can't but if you're councilmember dahl it's pretty straightforward as he was gonna explain um essentially all we're doing is grading the current gravel road hopefully uh check out any of the underlying soils make sure that there's adequate base there um grade for drainage somewhat but not a whole lot okay um and then pay of what is currently gravel in the city excuse me in the city cemetery okay the city cemetery not right i was just nothing insane near st michael's down right not plotted sixth avenue which goes to the [51:38] **Matt Kline:** north of st michael's the proposed area there okay okay um you know this is probably um the road that's to the north of the expansion area um you know the question you know keeps coming up you know it's probably just me but who does that road belong to that is a very good question um thank you yeah it is planted as sixth avenue north um but i wouldn't doubt that in the past st michaels actually paved that now if there was some requirement or [52:26] **Matt Kline:** or there was given an easement essentially for saint michaels to use that road and pave it i don't know the history on that but the assumption is that at the cemetery installed that road that would be my assumption when they paved everything else right they also paved that unless the city paid for a portion that i don't know okay okay i was just curious who clouds it [Music] not the city the city does not allow it i was just saying if we were going to do something to improve that road to me it would make sense to have that done with our city cemetery [53:11] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** project but i uh we don't have a plan you know to touch that road i was just okay and i believe i believe the maybe claudia could answer this but i believe the um st michael cemetery roads got paved sometime around 2008 2010 somewhere in there so that road is in fairly decent condition still okay okay any other questions hey well with that would someone like to make a motion [53:57] **Councilmember Katie Hill:** okay sorry i'm i'm not where i need to be to make a motion no me either i'm afraid to move it so we just want to make oh go ahead well yeah is it just approving the conditional use permit insight plan i want to make a motion approving a conditionally used permit inside plan for expansion of burial sites including up to 10 upright columbaria within the southeast portion of st michael's cemetery cemetery excellent thank you thank you is there a second i'll second it okay thank you connie and adam madam mayor council over hanson hi councilmember carlson aye [54:44] **Matt Kline:** house member dahl aye councilmember gilmore aye mayor stayed ours hi as all thank you very much for joining us this evening and looks like it will be a nice addition thank you thanks everyone all right so that takes us to item number two under new business which is to just discuss this evening an update on municipal water demand usage upgrades and conservation there is not action to take on this item tonight but we are going to learn more from matt and mayor members of the council um a couple months ago i had presented some um concerns about the upper zone [55:32] **Matt Kline:** um needing our high usage demand where we have all our mechanical pumps running at the same time and it's become an issue for us supplying water up there so council asked to put together a kind of informational packet and also include some conservation measures along with potential mechanical upgrades that would be needed and so i put together a powerpoint presentation for you [Music] [56:10] **Matt Kline:** so um here we're talking about the city water demand mostly um for the upper zone and there's actually two zones in the city of bayport due to pressure differences the upper zone includes inspiration and all of the bay town township areas um we'll go here [Music] i don't know if you guys seen the our gis before but um it's been very useful okay so the lower zone um is essentially downtown bayport including um the new fire hall and kind of encompasses this area right here and then the upper zone which is um so one water tower feeds the lower zone which is in inspiration which seems counterintuitive but it is and then the upper zone is fed by a water tower out in baytown township and the upper zone includes inspiration um some of the emerald falls um saint frank prep and miller farms autobahn [57:52] **Matt Kline:** yes yeah matt i'm still seeing now now i can see that here we go yeah oh really yeah yeah okay sorry about that i think what did you see before we were just seeing the water zones the the upper and lower you know your first oh the agent yeah okay i must not have hitchhike okay so anyway the the lower zone is essentially downtown bayport um and then the upper zone is inspiration uh synchro prep over here um miller excavating and then miller farms and autobahn um so those are the two distinct areas we should be back to the powerpoint right yes and so the reason you're dividing the two is one is served by a different water tower than the other so the reason that we divide the two up is because the pressure difference um the um the residence on top of the hill wouldn't have enough pressure if we were using the water tower for the downtown area and so essentially there's two zones of pressure and we need an upper zone and a lower zone while everybody is connected the water from the upper tower does not feed the lower [59:34] **Matt Kline:** downtown area because it would create too much pressure essentially or this area is it just kind of a unique thing for vapor because we have the up like literally our landscape is high normal somewhat yeah so down in lakeland they don't have this zone area but what becomes an issue then is when you have a big difference in elevation you get some customers with like 50 pounds of pressure if they're close to the tower and we even have this here and then some residents who are way lower in elevation have like a hundred pounds of pressure and so um that's the same thing that happens here if we would not have that difference some would be really low and some would be really high so okay so back to the topic um again the high water demand so in the upper water zone um we're able to measure usage because it all flows through the booster station our summer to winter ratio is 5.3 times winter usage to summer usage and now in the lower zone it's 1.3 times so um in the lower zone essentially if we say in the winter use 10 gallons of water we're only using about 13 in the wind in the summer to essentially water our lawns that's increased for that herbs outside irrigation whereas in the upper [1:01:05] **Matt Kline:** zone if we're using 10 in the summer or in the winter we're using 53 uh in the summer just to give you a rough idea of what that means now the dmr does recommend a 2.6 summer to winter usage ratio so the upper zone average is about double um which is a lot of water usage in the summer [Music] so here you can tell this is upper zone residential water usage and so we just wanted to see over time put together some numbers to see about the demand for residential usage as you can see in the first quarters so there's green 2017 2018 2019-2020 and they're listed by first quarter second quarter third quarter so you can compare over time we've definitely gone up in the summer but we've stayed relatively even in the winter quarters even though we've added about 120 homes since 2017. [1:02:24] **Matt Kline:** so we also i also broke out non-residential water usage there isn't very much non-residential essentially commercial usage sanctuary prep would fall into this the irrigation meters there's about five to six of them throughout inspiration and miller farms and then miller excavating is also included in this so this is highly variable um but it's also a small portion of the overall water usage uh you can see here there's like is the 5 million gallon line and it's kind of sporadic whereas in the residential water usage uh the highest one is essentially 25 million gallons so for this we're kind of focused on the residential properties so with that usage um i wanted to see if per capita usage has actually gone up with the increase in houses and it's actually stayed roughly the same um even with the increased number of houses water usage per household has not really gone up at all so it's just that we're increasing the number of houses so a couple of um special considerations for these um if we look back on the irrigation one for non-residential or [1:03:55] **Matt Kline:** non-residential water usage this third quarter in 2018 here that jumps way up this is when synchro prep added their irrigation meters for a couple of their fields that summer and so there was a high usage there just to get the field started then also uh 2019 if you look here it's always a low year in 2019 both for uh non-residential and residential that was an extremely above average wet year in fact all of these years 2017 18 19 and 20 have been either like 19 way above average or slightly above average we've never really had a drought year with any of this occurring so in fact we've never had a below average precipitation year all the years also include about an average of 40 new houses going in um so the the note here that we would like to reiterate is that usually when a new house goes in they also have um sod um going in and so the sod is allowed to be watered three times a day on these properties so that is definitely a significant amount of irrigation being used um and that hasn't been really accounted for because we have um we don't have a year where there [1:05:28] **Matt Kline:** hasn't been new houses going in lately can i interrupt just for a minute matt are you saying they're watering sod three times a day or three times a week three times a day so three times a day to make sure that it stays wet and make sure that the roots take that's the i've seen it multiple places that is the recommendation for about a month to two months depending on how warm it is out so if you put it in the middle of summer you're likely doing it for at least two months so hey yeah yeah okay yeah they go through a lot of water out there yup um so we also took a look at future potential future development um i know we've talked about the via fields of inspiration there are about 22 [1:06:14] **Matt Kline:** lots left there all those will have irrigation systems although those are smaller lots than what the other inspiration lots are so that's probably not going to be a significant amount of water the hills of spring creek this is the kejanis property that has been talked about the the developer has requested municipal water connection however the city staff has recommended to them that they somehow include if they were if they're going to ask us to for a connection that they would be required to utilize some type of stormwater prawn reuse system for their irrigation we've been told that they are including that in their development plans but we have not seen a set of plans for that yet currently it's in the preliminary stages prelim um has been approved at baytown township for that connection um there's some residential connection or residential development in baytown yet there are about 64 acres around the bay town tower that was the property owner was he essentially uh allowed us to put the tower there [1:07:46] **Matt Kline:** and provide the easement in exchange for for us providing water to the 64 acres that he owned so there is um an allocation there that we need to account for in the future and then there's also various residential and commercial development sites potentially in baytown um most notably along asgood um to county road 14. there's some tracks of land there that could potentially um be like developments like kahanas now any development there would require some major infrastructure improvements from a water utility standpoint so those are just future development possibilities um the current summer water demand and current usage levels uh the boost now this is primarily during the summer so we're talking june july and august uh the booster station is at max capacity normally from about 4 a.m to noon this means that all three pumps are running and that we don't have necessarily any backup pump um if one would go down ideal max pumping conditions obviously we'd prefer that two bumps be running with one guaranteed backup just in case we have a failure um so the demand solutions that we've come up with are water conservation education mechanical upgrades and a combination of conservation education and upgrades so water conservation and education we do currently have water restrictions in place the curtain ordinance calls for odd even day watering by address enforcement of this can be challenging [1:09:43] **Matt Kline:** of course it takes staff time to go out and make sure that everybody's complying with that and it doesn't necessarily mean that it's a good conservation effort essentially if people are allowed ideally people would only water like every third day and we do allow that we also allow what is called a smart irrigation system essentially it's on wi-fi and it looks at the weather radar before and after and only waters when it really needs it there's also a component of of a ground sensor that senses how wet the ground is so there's some great technology out there if people are willing to invest in it irrigation irrigation education last year we sent out an educational email we were able to send it to the hoas who is nice they have the email list for all of the hoas in the upper zone inspiration miller farms autobahn and so we were able to do that they were willing to pass that along to their residents we can also look at increasing the billing rate structure our current structure is dollars and eight cents per thousand gallons for the first thousand or for one thousand to twenty five thousand and then five dollars eight cents per thousand gallons for twenty five thousand over um woodbury has done similar things like this and you [1:11:15] **Matt Kline:** actually have to crease it fairly exponentially to actually cause some conservation to occur so people are willing to pay quite a bit to have a green lawn our other suggestion would be meet with significant water user users um essentially different user times uh this will likely be done with um some of the commercial properties like uh sanctuary prep and some of the irrigation systems in inspiration uh the mechanical upgrades break down i think i've went through this before in my uh first uh little presentation but we can definitely go through it again so current demand would be met with the ability to have a third pump as backup um with the following breakdown essentially we would upgrade three all three pumps to 40 horsepower pumps that would increase our gallons per minute output from 750 gallons per minute to 1200 gallons per minute so essentially what that would do is allow two pumps to pump the same as what we are currently pumping with all three pumps um the cost breakdown there is as follows the issue becomes that the current setup is not conducive to having three 40 horsepower pumps so there's a lot of costs associated with [1:12:47] **Matt Kline:** it the electrical wiring would need to be upgraded the control panel would need to be upgraded and the electricity would need to be upgraded the generator of course and the pumps well the generator and the pumps are both on the cip um at some generators this year and i believe the new pumps were in a couple of years so the rough estimate for all upgrades if we were to do it is about two hundred thousand dollars so next step that city staff is looking at so um preference would be that the mechanical upper grades be done as soon as possible but we're looking at holding off until next year to determine high potential decreased usage due to that irrigation that we talked about with the new sod we'll also be reaching out to the top 10 users to see if potential reduction in water usage and then also some type of conservation efforts with those users we'll continue to distribute emails to the upper zone users via the hoa emails and then we may also explore rate study um to see what it would do for our our water rates to change it to a different grade potentially adding like a middle tier or something like that to try and [1:14:20] **Matt Kline:** um curb some of that water usage um and then we'll also look at updating the 2017 distribution model to reflect the more drastic summer water usage that is occurring uh so with that again as the mayor indicated this was more an informative presentation rather than having any direction given but i'm definitely open to questions if you have anything again we'll be doing a fair amount this summer and it'll be interesting to see the current usage um especially without some of the demands on watering sod for the new houses thank you matt we've talked to quite a few times periodically on and off throughout the years about doing that rate study and so is that currently on the calendar somewhere with our madame yeah it always seems to get pushed off to for other things something always else comes up you know if it's not a street project it's something but we definitely even our financials from the uh standpoint of getting a hold on financials and how much money we actually have for projects um it should it should get done sooner rather than later so [1:15:54] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** it's been a topic for multiple years that i remember so yeah i'm with the mayor i think i think we need to try and address that this year and help nip the problem in the butt a little bit yeah yeah we definitely and make some money too to help pay for all this right yep [Music] this is super eye-opening man i had no idea so i mean i knew that it was different up there but it's that's amazing so thanks for your presentation yeah yeah nice job man yeah the interesting part is that you know there's there's such a big it's it's very unusual to have like a downtown with only like [1:16:40] **Deputy Mayor Ethan Gilmore:** low summer water usage like we have it's only 1.3 times i mean that's almost unheard of it's mainly because there's barely any irrigation systems essentially down in the lower portion um and people really don't water the lawn because there's also a whole ton of shade trees so you don't really need to water your lawn whereas in the top you know there's a lot of wind blowing and there's not many shade trees so my assumption is that over time we would have a decrease um but we don't really have time to wait for that well and we have to be aware of all those other new developments that may be wanting our water so it's so i i can talk to that too um yeah [1:17:26] **Matt Kline:** so as far as the new developments you know with the with the kahanas property that would prob that in the property that was allocated around the um beyton water tower those two would be the last properties to connect unless there was some major upgrades to the system now the issue there becomes none of those other properties are probably big enough to say fund a new water tower or an even a new um city well and so it would become cost prohibitive unless they all pooled together essentially um to upgrade that part of the system so i don't know where that leaves them so [Music] well very good wow that's a lot of water usage that's for sure so thank you and we'll revisit this topic in upcoming meetings so right anyone else have any final questions or comments on that presentation okay then we'll move along um to our city council liaison report so michelle um i'll turn it back over to you did a council um planning commission did they cover [1:18:57] **Councilmember Katie Hill:** other topics besides the uh the area okay okay just that and i'm still um part of the cable commission until we hand the torch over since i'm the chair we haven't voted elected a new chair yet but we haven't met either i do believe the newest um citizen rep got a tour of the facilities i don't think ethan got in on that but he's the new cable commission rep then we'll both be at a zoo meeting in february to kind of get everything handed over so very good so ethan do you that's your upcoming responsibility anything else on your plate or no i like i said just when i get to meet [1:19:44] **Deputy Mayor Ethan Gilmore:** with uh michelle and she'll hand it over and go from there i guess yeah i'm excited yeah thank you john um middle saint carey watershed was just budget stuff and a couple specific projects outside of bayport so nothing really payport specific super thank you connie um yeah the library board met the 19th of january um jill just wanted me to remind people that they're now open for appointments although she said they've had several people that'll just walk in which the number of appointments have been low enough so it's worked out um but she said the curbside um is still the most popular [1:20:32] **Councilmember Orin Kipp:** way right now for people to get their books that they need to read um and then they are accepting applications right now until february 12th i believe it is for janelle sinclair's um position as the clerk um that closes the 12th let's see what else oh we elected a new well i can't vote but they elected a new um president library board president that is clean shoot um she'll take over now for sarah wagner and oh jill wanted to just um let us know that they're still doing it's called sprouting melodies it's pretty become pretty popular with the kids and so they've decided to go with it another month into march and they'll be accepting registrations for that about mid-february and then also um the program which is called um united in music which is which is kind of a twin tween program for like kids six to eight grade there's about six kids involved in that so they're going to continue with that a little bit longer too um otherwise she said everything's going well and we will meet again here in february so and actually sarah um anderson joined us at the last library board meeting [1:22:15] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** i guess they're going to send one person from the foundation each meeting to join us and guess i know what we're doing so that's all i have very good thank you connie i attended two meetings this month one was the relief association board's annual meeting where they elected officers and every month they review their finances and general business and then that's followed by a member meeting so um attended that and then i also was invited to a washington county mayor's uh meet and greet with um our congresswoman betty mccollum the topic was covid uh different she was interested in what the different communities were doing to respond to covid for their businesses so um just general discussion and and no action out of it but it was nice of her to make time to meet with the viewers around the area so um that was it for my extra activities this month so with that i'll turn it over to the um to adam and the staff thank you madam mayor um i will start by calling on chief eisinger thank you adam madame mayor and council members uh for the month of january we had 61 calls that's compared to 91 in january of 2020. um our 2020 [1:23:18] **Fire Chief Gabe Kinney:** total calls were 946. our monthly drills were forcible entry fire investigations and the fire inspections and new plan reviews are ongoing our members did complete their second shots last weekend first part of this week we'll they'll finish off went well just a few of them had some reactions to the second shot at our washington county fire chiefs meeting emergency preparedness plan uh ongoing now and then city of lake elmo came out and toured our fire station they're looking at building a new combined fire station and city hall so we're real pleased that they came to take a look at our station and as mayor store mentioned we had our annual relief association with that i'll stand for questions if anybody has any any questions for the chief very good thank you chief eastman you're up good evening madam mayor and council and welcome councilmember uh gilmore um very brief here on the 28th my staff i've been out i had major shoulder surgery and i'm working remote until the 13th doing emails online training calls and what have you but on the 28th our staff had taser training which wasn't included in this it was a [1:25:09] **Police Chief Jay Jackson:** last minute situation we decided to implement since we were getting together to do narcan training which is new and i'm proud of that stillwater's been carrying it and we're generally the first ones on scene and i can over the course of my tenure remember there were at least five cases where i could have been able to um provide that and so i'm happy that we'll be trained in that and carry that we finished our 2021 inventory training schedule and for miscellaneous our 2020 total incidence of calls self-initiated responses was 9246 and as of date for the city administrator report we had 305 for 2021 and i was prepared to talk about the speed trailer results of sixth street but i i think we covered it if not i certainly stand for questions any questions for the chief chief i'm just curious how that total for 2020 compares to 2019 do you know the 9246 i don't have that handy honestly but i need to look yeah i'm guessing that it went up considerably over we had a lot more else service um you know whether it be questions or business related you know um which would be included in that i think it'd be interesting to see that for because it looked like fire is going [1:26:39] **Councilmember Orin Kipp:** down and i'm guessing your guys are going out but it'd just be kind of interesting to see what the trends are i'll add that next time thank you sure any other questions for the chief let's be recovery chief that's all i have yeah thanks questions thank you great thank you chief um yeah uh councilmember hanson the one thing i was just going to kind of piggyback off of the total call number a couple years ago chief eastman and i were looking at them and it really seems to vary year to year just depending on what types of calls are are happen to be um i was actually surprised how much it [1:27:25] **Matt Kline:** varies um you know overall there can be some trending you know up or down or you know plateau but um unlike fire uh they're i haven't seen the same you know projection it's it was interesting so gps are yeah chiefs can uh provide those historical numbers for you i did want to add that we got our there was a few of us that got our shots uh today actually i got my first shot today so i was happy to be able to participate in that that is great news all right with that uh matt klein director klein and we are members of the council um just a couple things the weather varying weather changes has obviously made it a challenge to maintain the ice rinks they're not looking so good right now but hopefully there's some cold weather they've been used a lot since it's been warm but that also makes it really challenging to keep good ice on there um i know we haven't flooded in a couple days just because it's been 30 degrees out so of course though when it gets cold and we can make good ice the kids aren't going to want to be on there but it's a fine line staff has also been busy taking down holiday lights reading utility meters and doing some tree trimming we've also worked on rehabbing the inside of pump house number two so we've definitely been busy a couple of the major things that we've been working on mostly for the summer is [1:29:01] **Matt Kline:** sidewalk cutting and replacement we'll be looking at we've been doing an every other year thing with either cutting or replacement so last year we did cutting to make ada compliance if there's not enough replacement areas this year it's likely that we'll do another set of side bunk cutting we'll have to look at that um closer to spring sealco project um there's a few areas in the city that will get a seal coat this year um we're getting a bid or a quote from the same manufacturer that we've used for a couple of years it's a specialty thing so um and then sewer televising and cleaning i've touched base on this a little um the sewers have been cleaned i've previewed the video um if any of you wanna take a look at it i'm more than willing to let you look through 30 hours of sewer tape it's pretty entertaining so there are about seven areas that are going to recommend for either um excavating where we need to make some maintenance work done or sealing these areas with our normal lining and we'll look to do that with the street project there are also about 30 blocks where we need to make a priority every year what we've been doing is waiting three years essentially the league minnesota cities [1:30:32] **Matt Kline:** recommends cleaning three years um so that's what we've done the last couple years um there are about 30 blocks within the city that should get cleaned about um if not every year every other year just because of intrusion so we'll have to make that a priority here um and make sure we fit that in um that's about all i have oh one other thing um i did get an email today from garden expressions they usually do our our planter ornament or our planters throughout the city they'll also be probably they'll be uh giving us a quote for the median plantings so if anybody has any recommendations i'm open to it we're looking at preferably some type of native plant no taller than two feet tall and then something colorful preferably so afton's had looked nice all throughout last summer so when i checked with them and on what they had but they seem to uh they look nice great that's all i have that will be a really fun addition this summer to have that additional beautification so great thank you madison thank you my mayor assistant administrator taylor thank you adam um madam mayor and council the winter e-news edition was circulated on december 31st uh the next print newsletter is slated [1:32:06] **Sara Taylor:** sometime in march the habitat management plan for the clean water land and legacy project is now complete over the next few months i'll be pursuing a grant to assist with buckthorn removal and restoring native plant species on the site and we'll also be working with the conservation district to develop a bioinfiltration plan for the site as we discussed the planning commission met on january 25th to review the cemetery cop which was discussed earlier on tonight's agenda due to a lack of business the commission will not meet in february the conservation easement for the two remaining outlaws in the inspiration third edition was approved by the minnesota land trust on january 21st staff is in the process of reviewing the final document and we anticipate this to be presented to the council for consideration in march finally on january 20th i attended the highway 36 transit technical advisory work group meeting the focus of the meeting was discussion of the draft technical recommendations in response to transit service types travel patterns modeled scenarios and ridership forecasts gathered from the public engagement they've been doing and the next meeting is scheduled for with that i'll stand for questions great any questions for sarah um i might have been mentioning me in passing or maybe i'm just making it up is there an opportunity to maybe bring goats in to to help with the brush and buckthorn and stuff on our [1:33:39] **Councilmember Carl Bliss:** site down by the river it's a pretty uh effective and you know green way to handle things council member doll i'm so glad you brought that up i am so excited about it i will need to bring notes in matt and adam constantly make fun of me for bringing that up but i think it would be a great um opportunity to educate the public on the good work that goats can do and there's a lot of grant opportunities out there for education purposes to partner with schools and for a learning experience so i'm super excited now that the management plan is complete to pursue some of those opportunities so thanks for bringing that up good you have a goat advocate here if [1:34:25] **Councilmember Carl Bliss:** you need one you need to lean on those two guys a little bit thank you thank you i want to clarify for the record that we were not opposed to the goats we teased sarah about her level of excitement for the goats i'm pretty excited too so i'll take half the teasing that sarah takes and uh yeah it'll uh even out that way i think we supported the goats we are we are advocates for the goats as well they've been using them up on the prairie and inspiration for years so yes cool thing any other questions for miss taylor great thank you okay uh with that i will [1:35:12] **Matt Kline:** make mine quick um we as staff we're still doing a lot of uh end of the year new year uh filing of reports documents with the state with the county um there's been quite a few that were we only do them once a year so we're we're learning that uh with some of the staff changes um the the new city website um that's something that we're there's been quite a bit of work going on um we have we did have had a little bit more of a delay um right now it's the third week of february which is right around the corner um but we're we're working on implementing the online payments um sarah and i have all-day training on the 10th and 11th of february to basically to go over how to administer the website um so that'll be uh i don't want to say it'll be exciting but it's one more step closer to actually having a new website we are we are still very excited about it um and i will i meant to send out the link to kind of a preview of it um i will actually do that right tonight uh to send that to the council right after the meeting um so you can see it uh work has begun on the 2020 audit we have the field work scheduled in march the first week of march they're doing a lot more online submissions as opposed to three or four full days of field work they're going to be here a couple days still so the office staff and myself have been preparing uh materials for that and then uh there [1:36:45] **Matt Kline:** has been um as the as the council saw there's been several comments or inquiries made from some of the bay town residents that i've responded to regarding the current joint powers agreement for water extension water service extension um the council will need to decide at or formally act to add that potential prop the property that matt referenced earlier to the the jpa if the council remembers the last time that the kahanas property was being discussed we amended the jpa and did make it easier to add add additional properties without having to amend the document itself and also at that time the city council imposed a surcharge on the baytown properties for their future their future water infrastructure needs but so that will be coming as soon as we as matt said we haven't seen a formal plan set yet um so we're still in the preliminary stages of that but when that is available then we will bring it to the city council and discuss the various factors both the items that the public has brought to our attention as well as the impact on bayport uh and so with that i will stand for any other questions um we did cover quite a bit a few things tonight so again thank you for uh thank you to the council [1:38:22] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** and staff any questions yeah adam have you heard anything about uh any complaints or anything about tennis as our new waste hauling company or is that gone pretty smoothly um there's there's been uh growing pains or there's been a little bit of not necessarily any significant complaints of the service or the customer service or the just um if as the council may recall there were i'll say maybe about 100 carts left over from republic that the cities had to collect for republic to have them come get them they either weren't left out or they were missed when republic was collecting theirs so there's been a lot of feedback on little things such as that there was uh you know the council has been copied on a couple of them one there was the inquiry about the recycling but that just for the public's information recycling is required by their city code all residences in the city are expected to segregate their trash from the recycling the city doesn't police that but we do encourage it and obviously try to make that as simple as possible for the residents um with the one of the other we've had a couple inquiries about the pricing i do believe right i know that the residents just received their first bill for republic um as the council was already aware having gone through the whole rfp process and the selection of the new service the pricing was going to increase significantly one way or the other [1:39:50] **Matt Kline:** if we had if the city had stayed with the republic it was looking at a much higher increase price increase so the value that the council thought by switching to tennis they weren't the very bottom uh cost they were i think it was two dollars more per month but the value and the reputation uh was was better um so that was the reason for the the tennis decision um we haven't heard anything negative about the service itself um you know we're still getting some feedback so it's still coming in uh every couple days uh the kinks that we're working through um as far as there's some accounts that we're still in the process of either they weren't set up correctly or they weren't transferred correctly you know getting the right cart sizes um i think there's going to be probably through the first quarter we'll we'll be experiencing some of those but there hasn't been about to my attention any any significant complaints of of the decision or of the the new service so good and just for the record my bill went down five dollars for the two months period so you said everyone wasn't you said there's going to be significant increases no matter what mine went down so we switched to what seems like is going to be a better more hospitable company and my bill is smaller so so far so good for me um i'm curious though why the city needs to [1:41:48] **Councilmember Carl Bliss:** pick up republic's waste bins that they didn't get the first time around is it because our residents didn't do what they were supposed to do or yeah well we it's it's part of it's because we can get get it done quicker we you know it's still a i'll say a burden on public works staff to have to go you know with their truck to go get a bin or two um but instead of it's actually better for our roads to keep the you know the trucks from having to drive through every day so we worked out with republic that we collected um for the first two first three couple weeks that if we were notified of a cart remaining we don't know why it was either the resident left didn't leave it out or left it somewhere where it wasn't able to be picked up we agreed to go collect those and then we've been compiling them or making them available for republic to come get them that was we were not happy about it but it solved the problem for the resident the quickest um instead of having them clutter up the residence driveway or street so especially with the potential of snow sometimes it was just better to get it just city go get get it to get it out of the way quicker okay thank you thank you adam [1:43:08] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** there any other uh questions or comments if not would someone like to make an uh motion to adjourn i move we adjourn thank you michelle is there a second well second thank you john uh adam please call the roll your mayor councilmember hanson hi house member doll hi councilmember carlson aye house member gilmore mayor stars aye aye all right great thank you all very much thank you guys tom you were awful quiet tonight thank you good night i was just soaking it all in