e e e hereby callor the Roseville Economic Development Authority meeting for Monday February 24th 2025 Mr executive director would you call the role please member gra here member St here member schroer here member bow here president roow here uh and with us at the dasas we have our City attorney who's uh going to fill in if needed for the Eda right Rachel tyy uh and then also our city manager who is the executive director of the Eda Pat trudon on my uh left on the other end of the Das uh we also will have uh guests and staff participating as uh items come up on the agenda I would remind folks uh and this applies to both the Eda meeting as well as the council meeting that follow this uh we do have a copy of the meeting materials in a binder in the back of the room for members of the public uh to access uh if needed and we do have extra copies of the agenda on the back table uh with that uh binder also which are available for people to use for their own personal use um we'd ask folks if you have a cell phone to uh silence it or otherwise assure that it doesn't disrupt the meeting this evening uh and I think with that we can proceed to the Pledge of Allegiance so we'll ask folks to stand if they're able I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right next on our agenda is approval of tonight's agenda um I guess I'll just ask is there any objection for members of the Eda as to the agenda since there is only one item on it no hearing no objection I think we can proceed with the agenda as presented um that then brings us to public comment we will provide an opportunity for general public comment at the start of the council meeting which will immediately uh follow this meeting uh so we'll that's usually our practice on Eda uh nights is to do the uh the general public comment at the start of the council meeting uh that then brings us to our business items and our first business and only business item this evening is to receive updated information uh from our consultant stantech related to our housing market study that we've been undertaking uh and uh get a presentation from stantech on some of the new the newest information and some options uh for the council to consider and we have our community development director Janice gunlock with us this evening uh to introduce this item welcome Miss gunlock thank you president Ro members of the board um before I turn over to stantech to give the presentation tonight I just wanted to make a few comments to ensure that there's not a misunderstanding of what's being asked of the Eda um tonight and more specifically what's not being asked of you um this information is just information we're not asking the Eda to establish any new policies regarding housing production or preservation and we're not asking you to allocate any funds to any programs this is just information at this point um the prioritization exercise we're asking you to engage in is important only in the sense that we don't want the study to reflect anything you don't want in the study so we recognize that the eda's housing goals May align differently than with what the market study says that we might be able to absorb here in Roseville and so um we wanted to make sure that um in the case of housing policy the study reflects other sort of Market forces um or or non-market forces that are relevant in the Eda making certain decisions and so for example um there may be infrastru Ure public safety concerns that impact your decisions on housing policy and we don't want the study to reflect certain preservation or production strategies that don't align with um what your wants and desires are for the community um we also recognize that as you go as you receive this presentation tonight that there are certain preservation or production efforts that are not practical here in Roseville or may not be politically palatable and again we don't want those reflected in the final study if they are not in alignment with the Eda or council's goals um but I do want to touch on one last purpose of the study and it was to better understand where we where we might want to spend our local affordable housing aid funds also referred to as laa um this is our housing sales tax proceeds that the legislature created a couple of sessions ago we are collecting those proceeds we do have to spend them by year four of their receipt and if we don't spend them they do have to be returned back to the state but the state law is very prescriptive on what those funds can be spent on primarily affordable housing or homelessness prevention and so to the extent practical that this study uncovers um needs that align with how you might be able to spend that Laha funding now you've got some information that can allow you to more meaningfully spend it or program within that allotted period of time as opposed to sending it back to the legislature so I just wanted to make those comments before I turn it over to Tom who will go through the implementation strategy or the strategies for implementation and um he also has some updated information from January there's a lot of stuff there so we didn't want to spend too much time on that given the prioritization exercise and trying to wrap up the study so with that I'll turn it over to Tom and he can go through his slides and then we can certainly help address questions collectively unless you have questions for me I just wanted to clarify once again we're not also being asked to do the actual prioritization exercise this evening that would be a follow-up activity this information this evening is to inform that for then for the Eda to take that back as a sort of a homework assignment that's correct we did pass out the worksheet because we wanted you to do that on your own but we also wanted to make sure you understood what all the various strategies are before you're asked to rate them or but you can certainly reach out to me with any questions in addition to asking Tom any questions right so with that I'm going to turn over to him thank you thank you Janice hello and welcome back hello pleasure to be with you again um I I'm looking forward to this conversation and as as Janice teed up really well the purpose is to um you know we've we've spent sometime identifying some of the housing needs in Roseville um which can be addressed in many many different ways which have different budget implications they have different Staffing implications some of them are in comp in competition with each other for resources some may not be some of them have little resource requirements um I don't I have not done a housing study where I've assembled a menu of strategies that are as suitable for a specific location that has quite this number of strategy for your consideration um I want you to understand that given what we've learned about Roseville any or all of these are are suitable for addressing housing needs specific to Roseville but of course you know we expect that as you move forward and make priorities for implementation there will be some that you know at a minimum are of most interest initially and some that you know either you're not interested in at all or that that you know put on a get put on a second tier for a time so as again as Janice said uh the purpose tonight is to talk through these with you and make sure that you understand the character of each of these strategies and um and you know some of the implications for implementation for resources so that you're in a good position to think after the meeting about which of these am I enthusiastic about and which of these do I think you know address the most pressing needs and which of these do I think are the most easily accomplished those kind of um considerations so I do want to full screen this full screen mode and I do want to um I reread this this was where we left off at at the last conversation I do want to come back to it I reread it and it it still seems like a a really fair summary of some of the um some of the assets and needs and opportunities that we have here in sets up for for the strategies in the subsequent pages so as I said last time you know unbalance of all the things we learned Roseville is an extremely desirable location in in my view it's got characteristics that will be durable um difficult to move from that uh loc uh location of desirability to a location that is not seen as desirable in the region just because of your distinct natural assets your location respect with respect to the downtowns and and such another asset is your existing broad diversity of housing types that meet a lot of community needs needs existing organizational infrastructure and expert and I particularly want to note the expertise of your uh Community Development staff that have um have overseen this process but also have given really valuable input at times and and sharpened some of these strategies and some of the analysis as well I think you're very fortunate to have staff that have this level of skill with respect to Housing and Community Development in general um another asset is already having made some regulatory changes that open the door to housing some of the constraints are land availability as you know um your opportunities for new development are more scarce just the development context in general is becoming more expensive to develop harder to make a development pencil out of course that's true everywhere um rent level as an rent levels and home sale prices have risen putting strain on a lot of households and um local cdc's themselves housing uh affordable housing organizations are are in a some of them are in a place where they're somewhat stressed and and um less capable of bringing resources to some of these things at the current time we don't expect that's going to be a long-term situation um key needs affordable housing options despite the fact that there's that you have provided a tremendous amount cultivated fostered a tremendous amount of affordable housing in the last 5 or 10 years um it's still uh it's still a community need there are a lot of folks in your community that are paying over 30% or or over 50% of their incomes on housing so that remains a need um the era of your housing stock has uh means that some of those housing units have maintenance needs at that point in time uh you have elderly residents and financially precarious households that that are needy and um you would benefit from some strengthening of the networks that you have you actually have a rich set of networks that support this work but some strengthening of those networks uh would benefit you opportunities uh a locational opportunity would be to uh cultivate new housing at or near Roseville like or rosale as has been done at some of the other Regional malls um you you have opportunity for additional small scale infill housing and some of that is small scale multif family some can be just single family um an opportunity to preserve the you have a you have a rich supply of older apartment buildings so there's an opportunity to um to continue to to stabilize that and maintain its condition and preserve its affordability um you have an opportunity to do additional targeted uh zoning changes to ease smaller scale infield production um and and as as Janice referenced you have an opportunity to leverage this new resource uh the Metro sales tax resource so with that I want to start with a um sort of an overview of um housing strategies as well as we put together a set of um strategies that particularly relate to homelessness and um precarious uh financially precarious households um after this we'll go back and and talk about these one at a time but I wanted to say a few things about about this diagram in a more General way you can see it's divided between production strategies you know the creation of new housing units of different kinds that meet needs preservation strategies uh to address some of the needs that we've talked about and others and uh a capacity building strategy related to Euro Housing Trust Fund um you'll see that some of the bo are darker colored and some are lighter colored that's that's a way that we're um making note to the fact that some of these strategies are things that you have already been doing the ones that are lighter colored are strategies where you have already in some way been active in that strategy and we may be recommending that that continue or we may be recommending that there's a way to strengthen that strategy but we want to be careful to reflect back to you all the good work that you're already doing um the other thing I will say is that as you move from the left side of this diagram to the right side of the diagram the the strategies uh further wrer strategies um that require a more empowered approach they may uh require property acquisition um things of that kind uh certainly uh probably more financial support As you move right so those are the more assertive public sector strategies um and the ones on the left are are um are less so um I think that's where I'll leave off with just the general overview and and just come right into the strategies then are there any questions at this point okay um I'm going to jump back here just real quick and note these initial three strategies are part of a Continuum of strategies that are um very uh commonly seen you know um fostering market rate apartments and often times there's no public sector involvement needed at all sometimes there may be to provide a little bit of financial support um inclusionary units in new apartments it is a way of um requiring that a mark Department build has some footprint of affordable housing units within that apartment building and the ren restricted affordable housing in in um the dominant example of that is is some of the housing that you've seen here that um is built foundationally on tax credits these days almost almost always and then a layers of other funding that allow that to be established for a 30-year period or or something similar to that at a certain rent cap and affordability level so those three we're going to start with talking about I like to I think it's valid to um in a city like Ro Roseville to say um you benefit from additional market rate Apartments it signals to the metropolitan area that you're continuing that you're a desirable location you're continuing to renew your housing stock it's it's not just sure of and vness Heights that that get the new Suburban amenitized uh apartment developments this is an attractive location for that as well so um you know it's competes with land for other housing types the land is scarce but and you have some being developed right now but but it's desirable to see some marker rate Apartments uh in the mix um often times this requires no City Financial support uh occasionally um the developer will come and say because of extraordinary acquisition costs or um you know maybe there are site conditions that need to be remediated to put us on a fair footing with a green field site we we want to ask you to consider some financial support and um that that certainly can be supported uh by public policy if you choose to do it um the second in this sort of Continuum the inclusionary units and new apartments um this is a this is a strategy that is widely practiced around Twin City suburbs all three of the suburbs to the north of Roseville um are practicing this in some way shape or form um so it it typically um Builds on a policy that says um either we want all neww apartment development to have a certain percentage of affordable units in it or if an apartment development is coming to the City of Roseville um to ask for public sector support in in that instance we will require a certain amount of affordable units to be built into that the um the uh complimentary policy that needs to be in place for that to work is the willingness to provide City funds to support those affordable units usually it's in the form of uh tax increment financing or a tax abatement where that money those resources come back to the city in subsequent property tax uh payments but that's that's generally the way these are are set up you have received uh you have seen an awful lot of affordable housing development recently uh so I don't see this as being a priority strategy uh given that you're you're You're Building affordable housing in a lot of other ways but some some uh be some feel that having those affordable units in a mixed income format it's a real there's a real benefit to that so for that reason you may want to consider it this is the um tax credit housing where rents are capped at 50 or 60% of area median income um tenants will be income qualified as well um to not earn a certain more than a than a certain income uh there's a there's a real pipeline of these developments happening uh around the Twin Cities very they're very competitive um Roseville may have one or two additional sites that are attractive for this in the next five or 10 years and so I would not be surprised if if a tax credit developer comes to Roseville and say we're interested in this site and here's the type of development we're interested in doing they're likely to be 50 unit buildings uh with the with the tax credit structure that that is most utilized now your your Dominion projects were a lot more they were using 4% tax credits but 9% tax credits are a little bit more common and those are generally tend to be about 50 unit um buildings typically the local financial support is one of those value capture approaches either tax increment Finance or or some kind of tax payment and typically there's some additional funding that the local government may need to contribute to make these penc all out not always but often times so they're fairly resource intensive um but they they achieve 30 years of affordable housing uh to switch gears now to uh a strategy that doesn't require resources and a strategies that you're already pursuing um when you make it uh you adjust your zoning ordinance to allow accessory dwelling units you're adding to the mix of housing locally you're adding some smaller units that may be more affordable but they they occur as a property owner wants to do them they're not a subsidized um housing unit they occur as a a a property owner wants wants to build something like like this and and gain from the rent the rental stream so again this this is a strategy you're already doing we did a um little zoning code research on your zoning code and have identified um the the strategy if you wanted to build on it is to take a look at some of the constraints on it and is there a set of those constraints you would be interested in relaxing and in the instance that you did relax some of and we've identified some of those here in the instance you did relax some of those constraints you would probably see more development so that's that's what um the this strategy would look like we spent some time with the uh the zoning code in general to think about are there Provisions in the Roseville zoning code that if they're relax could result in additional Housing Development or Redevelopment or infill development and did Identify some that we are going to um uh that you can consider and that we're going to attach to our report as an appendix I've uh outlined a few of those areas here um allowing more smallscale multifam by right in certain zoning districts you know a number of cities around the region have experimented with that um increasing the maximum density for multif family housing in certain zoning districts um you we're going to need to strike the third bullet there with the uh allowing minor subdivision applications to be reviewed and approved administratively because we learned that that's state law it's not local law but the the fourth bullet um considering um re relaxing some of the storm water requirements for small multi family projects so that the the um requirements are more aligned with single family development than uh than an apartment building for example which should make some of those we talked to a developer um who was active who said I would I'm really interested in doing more smallscale multif family in Roseville but some of the impediments to me are some of these kind of um Provisions in the zone and cod so we specifically look uh at those uh to see if they're um see what they were if they were subject to uh relaxing them and are teeing those up for you to think about this again these strategies again are are a strategy where no financial resources are required it's more of a policy and Regulatory changes um now we're moving into uh strategies that are certainly make more assertive use of Municipal powers and authorities um it was a really interesting part of the research as well we um I don't remember if I said on the the cover member um memo that I sent to you that that we interviewed at least 19 um people who who are working on housing strategies or or informed the analytical side of the report and discovered some new interesting assertive ideas for how they've used their local authorities to advance some of their housing needs and um so a couple of them involved um cities that uh went out and actually purchased a single family home home property in the middle of a neighborhood maybe it was the the most um uh disinvested home on the Block and varying based on what they identified was their biggest need they uh got that lot ready and sold it for redevelopment and um sometimes they met goals of other programs along the way Richfield you know you're probably familiar with Richfield and and it has a tremendous amount of homes small homes that are pretty similar and their program focuses on taking out one of the weaker homes on a block and seeing it uh a home developed that's larger and um owner occupied and larger but still compatible in design with neighbors bloomington's program uh they've got fun to do this with uh 27 new construction homes uh and they're targeting it to different types of developers some are going to be um I think some will end up being Land Trust homes but some will be just privately owned homes um that fit into the neighborhood they're encouraging people to come to them with a developer and they're pairing this program with um with a a program that Fosters or builds development capacity for emerging developers who are taking some of these on as some first small scale development that they're doing so they're trying to meet multiple St Paul has a program like that as well trying to meet multiple purposes with that so that just opens the door to a lot of creativity and sort in sort of an infill ownership setting you know to the extent that you're really interested in ownership strategies these are strategies that you could consider uh I think the last one in this group nope second the last one in this group is Hotel the housing conversion where we have we saw some of this during covid pandemic where um hotels were struggling um the case study here that we're elevating is henip County buying some of those hotels and doing some emergency housing um which I don't think is is what what you would want to do here but since the that immediate need um expired they have transitioned those to permanent housing units um I don't know the degree to which they all have kitchens and bathrooms in some cases they may be sro's some cases they may be large enough units that they were able to get a small kitchen in them um but that's an example that we've seen um in Han County take on know that you have some hotels that are older properties and and it could be considered here we also found a link to a set of national case studies and I think there may be a dozen case studies in that link of other cities that have taken on this approach if you're if you're transitioning to smaller units like this clearly it's going to meet some needs that um you know that are met by smaller unit rentals you're going to want to have a a strong partner and service provider be in this endeavor with you um that's also um that's also true of some of them that we'll see later in terms of the homelessness strategies this is the last production strategy and it's it's a less of a production strategy and more of a um uh uh supporting homeowners but what it is is once again this is the city of the example is the city of Bloomington once again they have gone out and purchased homes and they actually own 41 homes in across Bloomington and they are the property manager who is renting these homes for 5 years to a tenant household and their idea is that there's a whole group of people who would like to be owners but maybe they're they don't have high enough credit rating maybe they don't have a down payment saved up but they've got steady jobs they've got other characteristics that are supportive of that they can rent one of those units for five years from Bloomington pay a rent and pay an escrow on top of that and at the end of that five years they get the accumulated escrow to go out and make a down payment on on a home in the meantime they have had um attention paid to their credit ating if that was an issue they've had some homeowner uh coaching and they've also maintained a home as a renter for 5 years so they've been building up the skills to do that they've been building up the capital to do that after they leave that home is rented to another family that stays there for five years so you can see um it's a recycling program and build a capacity for households to move into Home Ownership I I just thought that was really inspiring so those are the production strategies maybe I'll I'll pause there because I don't think I've allowed anybody a chance to ask any clarifying questions on any of those questions on the production strategies that have been outlined I did have a a question just and I can't remember exactly where this fell but um talking about looking at um increasing density in our zoning code uh in certain um types of districts and I was thinking about uh of course we're getting a new uh sort of system statement plan from met Council and I think there's already discussion about how that's going to have increased density requirements across several different categories including most likely roseville's category um so it's almost something that's going to be built into the system in a sense because of that and so I just wanted to make sure I wasn't off base in in thinking that was kind of out there no I think that's right and and if I was going to give a couple of um a couple of more specific examples we did talk to the developer who's um who's working on the site behind haror mall and he had good things to say about working with the city on that development um he did and I think it's going to be a four story development he did say that that um that development just pencils out for him um but it it have penciled out more easily if a five stories was developed or was allowed there are other sites around Roseville that may be viable for multif family if five stories is allowed instead of four stories so there are these increments like that sort of at different scales that can make a difference for attracting new development thank you other questions uh C could you just please explain um I was unfamiliar with the term uh small scale by right o where's that I see the Meer wrote it down as well yeah I think if I understand that that's where you don't a lot of our multif family you have to get a conditional use approval um as part of the process so I think the idea is that rather than having to have a conditional approval it would just be allowed in the zoning code okay thank you so I believe that's what by right means that's right and and um for a particular developer developer that I interviewed it made a big deal to this individual if he was if he was going to need to come and go through a public hearing process um as opposed to having it be allowed by right you know with you know City staff review you know still toensure quality but but not going to a a public meeting so those are certain changes you wouldn't want to make those across the board because some things absolutely need to go to a public hearing but those are certain considerations that can be made that you know on the margins can ease um ease um process and invite more developer more development and just uh to the height on the development near harar and Target um I think one of the challenges that the the council you know worked with on that particular proposal was that it was very very nearby existing single family homes and so there was a lot of discussion about the relative height you know adding a story and and and making the development pencil out better versus some of the impacts that we had to to weigh of you know of the neighbors whereas perhaps if somebody wanted to do five stories or some other you know height say on the site of rosale right the adjacency issue isn't the same so that may or may not be you know so that's where perhaps by right something could be done that couldn't be elsewhere in the community so I I get the sense that we need to kind of maybe look at some of those and and make sure we're not over restricting some things yeah anything else on these uh just on the Water Management one y um the concern is some of our areas we've been working with water management for quite some time in residential so to remove some of those restrictions is has to be done very carefully because we do not want to go backwards we've been putting tanks underground we've had flooding under on Fairview under the 36 for years now that's abated because of some of our work but that would be something to keep in mind with that absolutely and none of these are um like as a something you want to just take in impose across the board without careful thought absolutely yeah I think the um the reference in this case was um if you have a set of town homes um you know covering an acre of land I think that this developer thought his his uh storm water requirement might be a retaining pond where if you had a set of single family homes could be almost as dense wouldn't require the same storm water so you might find and I and who knows I don't have the details of that so I can't verify that but but you might find that there's instances where it it adds flexibility um now we're on our preservation strategies this is one that um Noah preservation refers to naturally occurring affordable housing these are your older apartment buildings um they're meeting an important need they need to it's very important they stay maintained well that stay responsive to their residents but they're meeting an important need and we also know that um there are certain risks with these older properties uh they can uh fall into disrepair and you're keeping after that with your inspections regime uh they can also be acquired by uh typically an Institutional Investor um in this scenario and and and then um rehab to a more of a luxury format and those affordable rents go away um where I see that and and there are local cdc's Aon is really a leader in this area that has learn to bring tax credits and other financing to older apartment buildings compete with the PRI that private developer on price invest to bring that value down to a level they can still afford that um to uh rent those at affordable rates so there's a there's a well established program that works in some instances um this is I think I'm going to go back to an early comment it's not wrong for some older buildings to get significant reinvestment and rehab and to see that renewal of the housing stock this is more of a concern I feel where you are seeing this trend sort of wholesale Trend and you're losing you know significant share of your you know traditionally affordable apartment stock um so you get to to think about are we at that place where this becomes an important strategy I'm going to add that some of the work you've done um in tenant in your tenant notification ordinances can um create time and space so that for certain buildings if you want to invite a nonprofit developer to come in and compete for that building that can be a critical step in creating space for them to say okay is this a building that we would like to rehab and keep it affordable and bring Investments to so there's a little bit of a relationship between those two just on on this uh question um or I don't know if it's a question but anyway um it seems our experience in this area because we have had for some time a multif family Loan Fund to help with rehab um and it doesn't seem to be something that owners have really taken advantage of it's just been kind of sitting there um and I'm wondering if that's partly because people are sort of hedging their bets and wanting to hold out the opportunity to to you know have one of these institutional investors you know buy the property and and Rehab it and and they can get cash out of it and you know and and it's not as complicated or difficult as trying to maintain the affordability through some of those Avenues so I'm wondering if if this strategy almost has to become an an acquisition strategy to really work in the sense of it doesn't seem to be that in the marketplace people are taking advantage of existing loan programs that have been there for some time um you know and then we also had a situation where we actually created a tax increment financing District somewhat proactively on a site that we were trying to you know preserve the ability to maintain affordability and we ended up having to you know close out the district because the owner didn't want to go that route and and you know we we tried to get him connected with Aon and things like that so it seems that you almost have to control the property to make this type of strategy work if I'm you know unless I'm unless I'm oversimplifying or or exaggerating the pain that we've had trying to do this yeah well I mean so you've got I mean that that's really a great way to sort of talk across this issue you've got multiple uh positive efforts going on here you've got your rental licensing you've got the um tenant notification you've got your multifamily loan program and and then this is sort of another strategy that is you know much more assertive yeah I might be curious so we didn't do um we didn't uh do any res research on your multif family Loan program but uh it it could be that could also be an area of research to look at um you know have some interviews with with folks who you think might have maybe would have wanted to take advantage and and talk to them about why they haven't and maybe you've done some of this research already talk to some other cities who have a multif family Loan Fund like we identified here the Richfield has one but I think they were one of the things they told me is that they've been having some trouble getting people to take advantage of that as well um so you could do a little more research on that program but your your point is well taken that um it's hard to know what's going on there sure and there's competing interests obviously every you know people want to preserve their economic opportunities can't you can't necessarily Force somebody to to absolutely do something altruistic all the time yeah absolutely uh Land Trust homes is a um is a a program that you're also involved in um it's resource intensive initially to uh acquire that home to own the land underneath that home to do the set of improvements on the home and then to sell it at a loss but so that that home can maintain that affordable price for household earning 80% or less a very immediate income in perpetuity so it's very resource intensive initially but it then it serves as an asset for you for decades um in conversation with your staff um they thought a uh a strategy Associated this with this could be to more clearly identify a sustainable funding source for this that sort of puts it on on a track to just continue at a production level that you think is appropriate for the City of Roseville I'm not sure how familiar you are with um with this it's a little bit of a movement in manufactured home parks you're you're again I mean there's so many of these areas that you're already doing proactive work in in the proactive work you're doing in in your one manufactur home park is in the area of providing some loans uh to Residents there where they're very have a very difficult time getting bank loans for improvements and repairs to Manufactured Homes um also it's in um offering to bring resources to upgrades that the common area needs so you've been very proactive this strategy is about something that's slightly different different and that is conversion of a manufactured home park to a cooperative and and it's kind of a perfect corlar to what the the Noah strategy is some entity has to compete for acquisition of the manufactured home park on the basis of price has to write down that value to a level that the um the occupants of that manufactured home park are are paying uh a reasonable rent that Accords just to the care and upkeep and maintenance of that facility now in perpetuity if they're and and sold into their ownership now in perpetuity they can maintain a price that just aligns with how much it cost to keep the place up the market demand for that no longer drives the price to a higher and higher level so there is a lead or organization nationally and a lead organization locally that has been in integrally involved with all of these conversions um and you know if this is a a strategy that's of interest to start to network with rockusa at a national level and I think it's North Country do you know the North Country Cooperative is the is the local organization that has worked with with the conversions that have happened in Minnesota I think there been maybe 15 conversions already in Minnesota and uh Richfield and Fridley are two of them that we note here rental licensing uh by all accounts you have a a strong rental licensing program I always like to talk to cities about a tiered program as a best practice and that tiered program uh supports a really light oversight regime and a light fee for rental property owners that are good citizens that attend to complaints um and where there's work that is identified for them get it done right away and a graduating regime where those who have a harder time with it or consistently getting complaints not attending to those they're in a regime where they get inspected more frequently um and their rental licensing fee is higher this is a a tiered program does not cost more because you're assigning fees that at a level that pays for the additional oversight but it is some it is some administrative work to set it up on that basis I don't know you know the responsiveness of rental property owners in Roseville but if you find that um you're struggling with some and expending you know in ordinate amount of resources on some you might consider a tiered licensing program that puts PE rental property owners in different tiers how are we doing on time am I running along okay we're gon to go faster tenant notification we've already talked about you have a a very solid ordinance uh in that regard I was impressed also by the um by the range of locally funded Home Maintenance re and Rehabilitation programs that you've um that you've set up in Roseville that that address some things that County programs and state programs don't address again if there's a strategy in in you know building that it might be to identify some some steady reliable funding sources that you want to use uh uh for that program uh another ownership format is an ownership format that is part of associations and this is uh again something that your staff has has uh learned to implement but there are are sometimes in the common space and the utilities upgrades needed that they may not have set aside enough Capital reserves for and the state legislature sets a system in place uh regime in place called housing Improvement districts that allow you to to advance that money for those that deferred maintenance and and make make it up through um through revenues that they pay over time if they want to opt in it they it's on their on their request they want to opt into a housing Improvement area for that purpose so just that to continue to um to do that as you have needs in the community um you've established the Housing Trust Fund I think it did it fairly recently I know that's was part of the sales tax regime there benefits to having that the the strategy here is just uh to use the opportunity to think about are there other funding streams that you you want to uh dedicate to this depending on you know this menu of housing strategies that you want to fund and and which ones need um dedicated funding uh you you may want to build that fund with some additional um funding sources we learned a lot just we're really happy to have the opportunity to learn a lot um in the homelessness uh area about what makes for strong homelessness program and what we learned is um is having a a large number of resources that typically are provided by your partners whether those are social service mental health health um facilities large number of resources you can tap on paired with a case management approach because every household that's homeless every household that's precarious has different needs um so you have a lot of you have unusual for a city your own um staff that provides uh a case management approach to this area and they get referrals from the schools and other places um and you in Ramsey County and in in other relationships you also have a large uh pool of resources so you are in a very good place um to to attend to these needs in in some ways that are best practices we did Identify some some gaps and we do have some recommendations for where you might um put some additional resources or attention um some of the things we learned about weaknesses in that resource pool are in some of the programs that Ramsey County provides it's a wide range of resources but in some cases there's a backlog in being able to um devote those resources and when they're needed at a certain time I'm not sure if there's a a city role in trying to plug that Gap but certainly in your relationships you can continue and maybe in your um your common cause with other Suburban ramsy cities you can continue to advocate for that and maybe there maybe in some of specific areas there is a municipal role that you could fill we didn't come across any the second area that we um identified is in the area of discretionary resources that your own social workers and case managers can utilize um it's not uncommon for them as you probably know to come across a need someone that's in crisis and to need to go buy some groceries for them to need to need to do an emergency rent payment while you're pulling in some longer term resources and to have those discretionary resources in the short term can be critical rather than and can be time efficient rather than looking around for who can help with this who can help with this um and they do have resources in the churches in other areas where they can get those things but those are two areas that that you ought to um consider to be um potential areas where you can devote some resources on the programmatic side on the fisical development side where are we at we allocated an hour we're almost there okay we need time question yes on the physical let me on the physical development say I'll be very quick with this there are two cities that have purchased a facility for transitional housing or for a shelter continue to own and do the property management on that and had Partners come in and do the shelter management or the transitional housing management so those are models in your um in these examples you can look at the last thing is is settled um the sacred settlement and there was um we we had a wonderful conversation with the pastor there and the per the director of sa of sacred and um there was a specific suggestion by the pastor he's going out to other churches in Roseville and other churches in other areas but the churches he's going to in Roseville he's really valued the partnership he's gotten from you all on that project and he thinks it would be persuasive what as he's talking to other churches if he could go along with someone who represents the city to be able to say the city supports this here's some of the ways that we've helped with the um uh Prince of Peace I think is the name of the church sacred settlement and you know we um so as a partnership to go out and encourage other um communities to do that it's a model that's working it could work further okay so that's that's the last of those examples any questions on the homelessness strategies uh or the um just prior to that I think there were some of the the uh I can't remember what it was preservation strategies thank you uh from the council or the Eda right apparently we know everything you you are extraordinary we'll take that win I'm I'm going to just show you what these last two resources are this is a resource the resource implication slide here that acknowledges that these don't all need funding and where they do need funding the left column is tax increment or tax abatement where they do need funding if that funding in that can can come in that column where it's coming just from the property then it doesn't compete with other properties so you can take a look at that and then the final one is the questionnaire that you're requested to fail out afterwards and how I would suggest you do this is is take your is put an X in your the in three to five strategies under high impact the strategies that you think could be highest impact in Roseville of all of the strategies put three to five X's under low hanging fruit under the strategy you think could be most easily accomplished and put 3 to five X's under personal interest in terms of strategies that you could see yourself just as a human individual who cares about these things dedicating some time to to work you know working on this particular strategy so that's how that score sheet works and then it becomes really interesting as you come together and you sort of put your put line that up together and see where the clusters of exsar all right questions on that process all right I think we got it well we appreciate the presentation this evening and and I I hopefully we didn't kind of give you the bums Rush there at the end but I think it was you know helped fill in a lot of the information that that will help us to to do this exercise so we do appreciate that and all the work you've been doing all along on this whole process so thank you again for that well I appreciate it as well thank you y very good uh there being no more business before the uh Economic Development Authority this evening is there a motion to adjourn so move second been moved by council member gra it's been seconded by member schroer by a hair uh discussion none on a motion to adjourn all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed that passes unanimously and our Eda meeting is adjourned at 6:57 p.m. we'll take a few minutes to transition to the council meeting e e right hereby call to order the Roseville city council meeting for uh Monday uh February 24th 20125 at approximately 6:59 p.m. um the roll call Will stand as called previously for the Eda meeting with all members present uh I would just once again by way of introduction introduce our City attorney Rachel tney who's now functioning as a City attorney in this portion of the meeting and our city manager Pat trudon who is once again back to being the city manager for this portion of the meeting and we are all council members instead of Eda members uh so hopefully everybody can keep track at home uh we did the Pledge of Allegiance uh at the start of the Eda meeting so we won't repeat that here uh the next item on our Council agenda is to approve tonight's agenda I'll just double check with staff are there any changes from a staff perspective I believe there might be this evening yes uh item 7 C which was to consider request form an abatement for unresolved code violations at 1240 Ryan Avenue can be removed the violations have been corrected all right so that item will come off the agenda then presumably uh are there any items that council members would like to change on the agenda or items council members would like to remove from the consent agenda the brief consent agenda this evening for separate consider ation it's not appeared to be the case uh we'll do a quick check in with members of the public if anyone is here for an item in section 10 of our agenda this evening also known as the consent agenda this is our approval of payments couple of temporary gambling permits our over $10,000 purchases uh and an Ethernet Network agreement with the city of or with Excuse me with Roseville schools uh let us know at this time and we can take th that item up earlier in the meeting is anyone here for one of those items this evening right does not appear to be the case uh so a motion would be in order to approve the agenda with the exception of item 7c which has been removed so so moved second right it's been moved by councilor St second by Council mayor schroer uh to approve the agenda as uh amended uh discussion on that motion hearing none all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed that passes unanimously we have our agenda for this evening uh next on our agenda this evening is uh an opportunity for general public comment this will be a chance for members of the public to speak on items that are not on tonight's agenda uh but may be of interest to people in the community or related to City business uh once again as agenda items come forward generally there will be an opportunity for public comment at those times uh but at the start of each meeting we do provide an opportunity for General comment not related to agenda items this evening is there anyone here to uh make comment public comment under General comment this evening right does not appear to be the case uh we'll then proceed uh with the rest of the agenda uh next on our agenda is recognitions and donations we have one item in that category this evening which is a proclamation related to women's History Month I will read the proclamation and then a motion to adopt would be in order the proclamation reads whereas throughout history extraordinary women have made significant contributions to the growth and strength of our city state and nation in countless ways whereas through leadership Innovation Ingenuity and excuse me and Ingenuity generations of women have made significant contributions in science medicine technology business politics entrepreneurship and culture and whereas women have been leaders in securing their own rights of suffrage and equal opportunity and in the Abolitionist emancipation industrial labor civil rights and peace movements creating a more fair and just Society for all and whereas whether serving in elected positions across Ross America leading groundbreaking civil rights movements venturing into unknown Frontiers or programming revolutionary Technologies generations of women that knew their gender was no obstacle to what they could achieve have long stirred new ideas and opened new doors and having having had a profound and positive impact on our community and whereas despite their contributions the role of women in history has been consistently overlooked and undervalued in literature education science and culture and whereas the theme for women's History Month in 2025 is moving forward together women educating and inspiring Generations we celebrate countless pioneering women in their victories and we will continue to work to build a society where our daughters have the same opportunities and possibilities as our sons now therefore be resolved the City of Roseville hereby declares March 2025 to be women's History Month in the city second all right it's been moved by council member shter seconded by council member straw uh to approve the women's History Month Proclamation any discussion on that motion hearing I just like to add it's uh as there's often been things in the uh National politics that um maybe are contrary I still appreciate that our city finds us a valuable Proclamation and that we are able to honor it today thank you uh if there isn't further discussion then all those in favor of the Proclamation signify by saying I I opposed that passes unanimously that Proclamation is approved uh we don't have any items removed from the consent agenda that brings us right into our business items then our first business item this evening is to conduct a public hearing uh to certify unpaid utility charges and other charges to the property tax roles in the city we have our finance director Michelle Petri with us this evening to introduce this item uh for the council for the hearing and the council's consideration good evening um the city certifies those delinquent util accounts that are delinquent in excess of 90 days on a quarterly basis we previously did it annually but we've been doing it quarterly since 2010 so that when properties get sold it is in um the property tax records um so these get paid um a few things to note we sent out 388 letters this quarter um we are not certifying all 388 um we did have almost 30% pay so they are not on this list but what's of interest is that's the lowest number of letters that we've sent out in the last five quarters and the total dollar amount that we are certifying to the county is the lowest in five quarters as well so some of the actions that we have taken in the past year with with regard to solidifying interest rate the collection fee um we are starting to see that that is having an impact and people are making time more timely payments um and with that I'm here to answer any questions or we open the public hearing all right thank you Miss Petri are there questions uh for staff on this uh certification action uh this evening uh council member gr so the list in our uh is the total list no this is after the payments after the pay so this is the scale down list of Y thank you I was going to count it to check but I'm not I was going that might prolong yeah it might prolong the meeting because I've only got so many fingers and toes uh uh with that are there other questions from the council all right uh then we'll open the public hearing this is an opportunity for members of the public to speak to uh this uh case which is to certify these unpaid utility and other charges to the county uh for collection uh as assessments through the property tax system uh is there anyone here to speak to this item this evening all right does not appear to be the case uh we'll then close the public hearing um and would note once again I think at our last hearing the last time we did this we did actually have somebody come uh and had a question about their particular property we were able to pull that one off the list and we didn't certify that one uh and took care of that separately so we do that it the system does tend to uh work in that regard so with that we do have the request this evening to certify the list as presented in the packet uh is there a motion to that effect so moved second right it's been moved by council member gra second by uh counc member St to approve the uh list uh and have those items certified uh by resolution to the county um discussion on the motion as the maker of the motion council member gra uh I'd like to thank staff for bringing this forward because this is an example of real improving our process and uh something that's worked in a fairly short amount of time when you consider government movement so thank you to Michelle Petri and the department for that work right and as the second of council member strong I'd just like to add um the amount of the bills that we are certifying per person seems to be lower than in the past as well which uh speaks to your work um we're not holding some of these people so long before we get um that certified so I think we see that in the numbers um the total numbers as well so again I also appreciate the staff work on this and I think consistency um is how we have uh people pay attention right other discussion on the motion right hearing none all those in favor of uh that resolution certifying those uh charges to the county signify by saying I I I opposed that motion passes unanimously those uh charges are certified or will be certified uh with that then our second item under business items this evening is a consideration of a request to perform an abatement uh for unresolved code violations at 2165 Victoria Street North in Roseville and we have our uh codes official um David England with us this evening to uh bring this item before us Mr England thank you Mr Mayor members of council uh once again we're bring in this property for a request to perform an abatement uh we've done this we've done an abatement or an abatement has been approved on this property once in 2024 uh November 25th of 2024 and in June of 2023 the June of 2023 abatement we did actually conduct we removed Vehicles same similar as is being requested tonight in the November 25th case the property representative uh brought the vehicles that were on site into compliance prior to our abatement um we've sent notice to the property we've also sent uh repeat nuisance findes and citations to the property um as of today there were six vehicles that are inoperable on site um that would be subject to this abatement um and we have not heard any uh We've not received any contact from anyone related to the property as of today or so far today all right thank you uh questions for staff on this requested abatement action right uh is there anyone uh rep presenting the property this evening who wishes to speak or anyone from the public who wishes to speak to this requested abatement at 2165 Victoria Street North all right does not appear to be the case uh Council we've got a request to approve uh the uh requested abatement uh at this property based on the violations that have been observed and are continuing to exist uh Council wish to uh take action on that request I would move to recommend the council second all right that's a motion by council member gra second by council member schroer to authorize the abatement as outlined uh in the staff report presumably y all with that discussion on the motion council member gra it's kind of disheartening to have these properties come time after time I'm wondering if this is kind of an aside is there something the city we can do to I mean it's an unoccupied property it's obviously being in my opinion being used for to store vehicles and to repair them I mean he the the person who owns the property came and stated that um and I think at the time the mayor reminded him that you can't actually run a business out of a residential property so I'm just wondering you know in the future if there's something we could do to to not have these kind of repeat things because it takes staff time it costs money I mean I know we charge for these abatements but I don't know if we come out ahead on it so um a little frustration I'm I'm speaking to there but I support this of course all right uh as the second of the motion council member Sher I agree with everything um council member gra said I you I was thinking that too is if we continue to have a property over and over again do we want to reconsider adding a um another some sort of fee to you know if you think about when we have violations of say you know um under AG smoke or drink that that ratches us up and maybe we should think about doing something like that in this case as well so something to put on the future agenda possibly all right other discussion on the motion council member strong I was going to mention the same thing I think it'd be worth um our consideration as a council to talk about a graduated uh fining system uh especially within a certain period of time like the violations for um alcohol you know within 36 months um we're talking about this is the third time now in in less than two years so um I guess somehow to prove that this is of value and again I would be fully supportive of any way that we can get businesses that are in homes that are not again not doing the work of the neighbors as Mr England is well aware of the property within my own neighborhood that continues to cause trouble um and it's a bit of like a whacka trying to find how to pin that down but I think it's really important that we make sure that our homes are used for housing clearly from our evening we we know that we need to actually House people in our in the houses we have MH other discussion on the motion I too agree that I would like to this on a future agenda discussion of a teared or ratcheting approach to these fines right and I would just add I think we need to make sure that um that you know uh paying these abatements and paying these uh nuisance repeat nuisance fees isn't a less expensive alternative than say renting storage uh to store these vehicles properly off of a residential property so uh I I too agree that we need to have that conversation and I know that our I'm pretty sure that our existing repeat nuisance fee system does have ratcheting up but maybe we just need to review that perhaps specifically related to code enforcement and repeat violations there or more broadly but whatever I think we do have to have that discussion uh because once again we don't want to be the less expensive alternative for this property owner or any property owner to to continue to violate the code and and not uh not operate uh properly within a residential district can I just add one more thing certainly counc uh the other thing is our staff are very patient with these issues it's not like we just go out and they get one notice in their they make many attempts to have this notified it's not it wouldn't be a surprise to anyone if they're paying attention so I think we're we're certainly being more than fair on that correct correct although I imagine the the more frequent the violation occurs the less yeah Gentile we are in that regard as it should be um I should mention this is also we did this as a proactive inspection uh based on what council put in place in 2018 for these type of properties that are subject to abatement we visit this monthly um so that's why this is probably coming back so fast um because we have not received an actual complaint on this property it's been staff initiated so well I would just note that that at least speaking for myself I do a I do a proactive inspection of the property every time I drive to City Hall I I help out in that effort but I try I try not to I try not to uh put too many calls into staff in in that regard anyway uh that being said we've got the motion before us then to authorize that abatement uh if there's no further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed that passes unanimously thank you Mr England thank you all right next on our agenda is to receive an update on the city's volunteer program uh and we've got our assistant City administrator city manager Rebecca Olen uh as well as our volunteer coordinator Rachel bogs with us this evening to uh give us an update on volunteering in Roseville thank you mayor and council member um thank you for the opportunity to come here tonight and provide a quick update on our volunteer program it's been a while it's been several several years actually probably since we've done a formal update to you regarding our volunteer program but we thought this was a really opportune time as we're kind of diving into our strategic plan and developing that because volunteers have a huge impact in our community and and looking at ways we can continue to leverage them throughout our strategic plan is going to be vital um in addition our volunteer program is a strong Cornerstone of our community engagement so we thought it was a great opport Unity for us to share the information the successes the stories the numbers all that for the council to hear so I'm here really just to to lay that Foundation I'm going to turn it over to our volunteer manager Rachel bogs um for all the information here thank you um we do have a couple new council members so I'm not sure if they know the history so in 2014 a full-time volunteer coordinator was hired by the city to use volunteers to enhance program in and services in the last 10 years we are very proud the volunteer program has continued to expand and adapt and the volunteer program allows staff to engage with residents in a different way while also increasing staff capacity to accomplish goals often it's not just about using volunteers to um help a program work at events but it is a different way for us to engage with our residents so a quick overview of the size and scope of our program overall in 2024 we did have 5,446 hours that is the equivalent of 2.62 full-time employees the total value of volunteer time was $ 17,745 we get that number from using the independent um sector's value of volunteer time we I think in Minnesota it is higher than other places in the nation we use that number we times it by our hours and then that is how we get that uh in 2024 Roseville volunteers volunteered at 1,557 different shifts that just means how many times we had volunteers volunteering with us almost all City departments have volunteers roles may include Commissioners police reserves Office volunteers and park and wreck volunteers and a fun fact uh 4 years in 269 days is the average time a Roseville volunteer volunteers we all know we have volunteers who have been here 20 30 40 years but I thought that was nice it shows that we do have some longevity with our volunteers so that's the time from their first volunteer with the city yep on average okay so it's not the number of hours they have actually G that's I just wanted to clarify that thank you um you may not know we are a volunteer our volunteer program is a service Enterprise so if you do not know know what that is uh we are very proud We were the first city in the United States to become a service Enterprise um I took some of this language directly from their website um a service Enterprise is an organization that strategically leverages volunteers to achieve operational efficiency and greater greater social impact and we are very proud usually that's the top 11% of nonprofits that have that um we also use volgistics as our volunteer database for tracking and Report in It's relatively simple but um gets the job done for what we need we have a pretty comprehensive way that we um onboard our volunteers and use the uh process which is seven steps it includes program planning job development recruitment screening placement orientation and supervision we really want our volunteers to have a good experience as well as our staff um in 2024 we had 40 different uh unique volunteer categories and hundreds of separate volunteer roles so what that means is Rose Fest would be a unique category and then under Rose Fest we would have all the different roles um we could not have some of our special events without our volunteers I always like to mention our interpretive Center at the Nature Center is only open because of the 18 volunteers that we have it's 6 days a week and 1,500 hours in 2024 so truly an example of how we very effectively use our volunteers um additionally our arbored which is a lovely space we all know here in Roseville we had 88 Green Team volunteers and they spent over 850 hours last year in 2025 some of these are personal goals and some of these are interdepartmental goals um doing some volunteer satisfaction surveys after events we think we do a good job but we would like to know if we aren't so we can improve um finalizing our service Enterprise recertification and um the expansion of volunteer events with the acquisition of our new natural resource staff it's my understanding we will be doubling those events this year and then increasing the accuracy in capturing volunteer hours we're very confident with the hours we do capture but we feel like there's probably a lot more happening that we aren't capturing so so thank you I have always felt very supportive by Council and staff here at Roseville so I do want to say thank you um especially to Rebecca and any questions there was just one thing I wanted to highlight um when she talks about the volunteer program process particularly with the onboarding I am pretty sure that um Miss bogs like talks to every single volunteer in the city um through that onboarding process and she really it makes a personal ized approach for each volunteer to figure out their skill sets and where to place them so that they have a positive experience and then we also get some some benefit to it so it is a very time intensive situation and with the growing expansion of our volunteer program it takes more and more of her time but without her I don't know that we would have as much of a success as we currently do so thank you I would definitely Echo those things and and appreciation uh I think when the program started in 2014 we had High Hopes And I don't think the program has ever fallen short of those hopes and expectations uh and it's no small part because of the staff person people that we've had in that role uh from the beginning and certainly uh Rachel is is exemplary of that and very much appreciative of of the work she does and I think we hear it constantly from the volunteers too so that's that's reinforcement uh questions or feedback from Council Members council member graph mostly feedback I really appreciate the inclusivity that you do with your program um many I'm I I have never heard anyone complain about the volunteer program they've all had a positive experience and uh it is thanks to you I think that it's a difficult position and you fit that perfectly which we're very fortunate to have in Roseville and I think it's a a really wonderful program I thank you for the work thank you and council member Scher again thank you yes and actually my guess would be we're underestimating those hours I agree because I don't think I've ever walked through Villa Park where there isn't somebody doing something there and there's a few people there I swear they actually live there because it doesn't matter what time I walk through they're there and so and and they all seem to when I talk to them the the attitude and everything it's just really really positive so um it's something that our city should be really proud of so thank you thank you council member strong I just wanted two things one we heard time and again this last week when we were interviewing candidates how many people were referred to apply as Commissioners because of you um you know Rachel said I should and um how great for someone to feel like you value them and um everybody wants to feel valued so really thank you and then the other thing is last summer when I went to an event at the Nature Center there was a young mom um and her I don't know five six-year-old son and I just thought how great that he could be there and you could feel like that was he was as welcome as as she was as the volunteer and she just said she and I think she was actually recently um uh featured in something but she just um just felt so welcome and she just kind of out of the blue decided to call and the fact that it was really important to her and she wanted to show her son how important it was and that he could be there and and join her so thank you for including not just an adult without a child but um a single mom who maybe went to V on to do it otherwise and council member bow I would also note that the great work that's been done not just with the work that volunteers do towards the city but the sense of community that it creates there's been many events we've worked you know many events now that have food afterwards or other things and I they been to a number of those people stick around just as long as they've been volunteering talking about what's going on it's really connecting people from different parts of the city not just their neighbors I think those relationships continue than When Future volunteering we seen out public and there's a lot of other great benefits that are happening the work you're doing greatly appreciate it thank you y and I would concur with the the notion that that that we're probably undercounting those those hours I think one of the challenges probably that we have in the volunteer world the term for it in the Emergency Management world is self-reporting a lot of times you'll get uh you know First Responders who self-report to a disaster and and start doing something and they're not always accounted for in the chain of command and the structure and and so and and it could be problematic from that point of view but I think on the volunteer side of things it's great that people you know maybe that live around Villa Park they see something they show up and they do something about it you know and it's they don't even have to go get credit for it from the city so that's that's really cool that we have that going on in our community and and it'd be great if we can account for it but we certainly don't want to discourage it from happening either so appreciate that and and uh once again I think this this program is is a model uh for how to do this right and for other communities to look to and and I just uh I hope that it continues uh to to grow in in you know use and and participation by volunteers because I know volunteering is changing um you know Roseville became Roseville because of a whole different type of volunteering back you know 30 years ago people would be on a committee for for 20 years and and you know they would just be spending hours and hours and hour is dedicating to that it's not necessarily the way people do that anymore it's a lot more of sort of one and done or plug in when you can and do what you can and so to have a program that can adapt and can work with people where they are I think is really important and I'm glad uh that that that's a part of what we do as well and and I'm sure that will continue so uh thanks also of course to all of our Volunteers in Roseville because the program isn't isn't a program unless we have those volunteers and and you know I think everybody in every Department that interacts with the volunteers would say we can't get done what we need to get done in this community without that so or in this organization so appreciate all the work of the volunteers and certainly it it starts with the the management of that process and and the work that you do so we we appreciate that and uh thank you again and a very much appreciative of the presentation this evening thank you all right and as I say at the end of our interviews of Commissioners now you can go enjoy the rest of and we'll we'll continue with our business and Rachel will call you is what he also said yeah Rachel yeah he does uh with that that brings us to um an update uh we've had our equity and inclusion Commission in place uh for uh a few months now and uh We've uh got an opportunity to kind of have a bit of a check-in uh as was outlined as we established the commission back in uh 20124 uh so I'll turn it over to uh staff to to and I'm not sure if it's Miss Olson or Antonio that's going to that's going to kick it off but whoever it is I'll turn it over to you and look forward to hearing from you this evening sure thank you mayor council members I will kick it off I'm going to provide a little bit of background um I do also want to recognize that we have a member of our Equity inclusion commission here as well so um we're just going to kind of start and we'll tag team this and then if you have questions at the end please let us know so um what I wanted to do is really just start with um the four areas that we're going to cover tonight is we're going to go through a little bit of the background the purpose and scope of this current commission the phases that we've taken to approach the work that the commission has done so far and then we're going to talk a little bit about what an upcoming work plan could look like so I wanted to start with the background and as many of you know you were here you were part of this um but maybe the people that are watching do not know um the the creation of the equity inclusion commission really really started a while ago and it it started when Council tasked all of the commissions to talk about their their scope their duties in their functions and at the time we had something called the human rights inclusion and engagement commission and so they actually proposed some changes to that scope duties and functions which led to further conversation um with Council the community as well as um that commission ultimately what happened is the the scope of that Commission was a little bit different than what what we needed at the time it it transformed and so Council had an intentional conversation about what's the purpose what are we looking for what do we want the people on this commission to do um so they in your packet all of this information is there um but they had this specific conversation about understanding what's the purpose of of this commission this morphed into what ultimately became the equity and inclusion commission with a different scope a different set of duties and functions um there was also an intention to what what is the structure going to look like there was conversation um and I do want to just you know mention that there was a subcommittee that was formed with former council member Aton and council member Scher that did a lot of work on this and ultimately came forward and the council decided that really the commission structure was the best structure for this work to go forward in um as part of that in order to make sure that we were set setting things up intentionally and that they were set up for Success we built in this um kind of just a touch point so that's what this meeting is it's that touch point that check-in to give you all an update to make sure we're all on the same we're we're headed down the right path um if have any changes or anything so with that I am just going to um highlight what that purpose was that we outlined in the ordinance uh for this commission so in that ordinance um it specifically says that this commission is there to serve an advisory capacity to council and staff and the purpose is to apply that Equity inclusion lens to really all those things there but kind of the city operations so the policies the procedures projects programs operations and initiatives so with that in mind some of the other duties that are outlined there under this the the ordinance relate to three key areas and it's one uh providing review and feedback on Department Equity inclusion work plans which are intended to advance Equity inclusion throughout our organization um and also similarly providing the review and feedback on our strategic racial Equity action plan or S reap one thing I do want to call out here is when this commission was formed and when they it was created we had not yet started our strategic planning um and so at the time this was this was where it is um we are now in the process of our strategic planning we haven't quite gotten to the stage where we are creating those Department work plans um it might it's very likely that department work plans will just incorporate Equity it may not be a standalone item um I'll let Antonio kind of talk a little bit about where staff is thinking that might might work um but a lot of this work hasn't really been completed at the staff level yet so it providing review and feedback from this commission hasn't yet taken place so the review and provide feedback on these two key areas was one of the major Scopes and duties participating in the equity inclusion equity and inclusion action team which that team is really designed to operationalize what's in those work plans so again hasn't quite happened yet and then the third is um where appropriate and where approved by Council um to participate and represent the city at um events so that those are the and then there's also the perform other duties um other duties is a sign yes so I'm just going to touch on this a little bit and then turn it over to Antonio but really approached the work uh with the Commission in a couple key areas and starting with with what you see here and we're going to turn over to Mr Montes yeah appreciate y'all good evening how youall doing all right excellent excellent you know I like to have a two-way conversation so I appreciate y'all for entertaining us so yeah so I think Rebecca I appreciate that uh we really wanted to just call out that as we started to have conversations with the the commission and start our meetings we really felt we needed to take some time to lay a really solid foundation not only with the team that was coming together that was brand new for the commission but also for our organization and where we had been so you see that's the foundational building piece we'll talk a bit more about that in a second here kind of following up on that an operational understanding I think most residents know that things like plowing happens at the city and my parks are clear and I can play on safe Parks but there's other things that happen within the city that not everyone is aware of so we wanted to take some time to talk about that and then get into some work planning conversations right so we were trying to find that direction on what would make the most sense so you can move us forward so as you can see on the slides here uh phase one really happened in September and uh through November and that was some history and some background conversations we spent time building some relationships with each other uh equity and inclusion work is about trust so if you have trust then you can have relationship and be authentic in the way that you have conversations and not be worried about saying something that may not sit well with someone but you have enough trust and relationship to have some hard conversations so we've we started there and have been continually doing that every time we get together uh we spent some time reviewing the key work that the city has completed in our equity and inclusion work uh up until this point so things like our uh government Alliance on racial Equity work that started uh obviously the creation of my position the equity and inclusion manager strategic racial Equity action plan so just taken some time to really go through those documents understand where we're at as a city organization uh phase two was December through January we spent some time um in the organizational review so again what do City departments do what are they responsible for what are some of the other commissions and what are they doing in their work right so just kind of level setting some of those uh and then we built a shared understanding of some key language because when we say Equity we like we all went through we have to make sure we're saying the right thing and not the right thing but the same thing right it may mean something different to me than it does to you so just understanding not only the shared language but also some of the city initiatives so we spent a lot of time with Community aspirations and why that work is connected to the work that we're doing right so that would be the phase three or the phase two sorry and then phase three we spent started in February and I think we'll continue this over the next course of the next couple months is really trying to trying to find that work plan that that Rebecca alluded to so you give us the next slide thank you and so as we started our work plan conversations I think there's really three components that are all working together to help us get to where we're going to go on the other end of conversation right so uh as we began our conversations the commission reviewed the ordinance 1676 that created the commission you all are well aware of that ordinance so we started there to figure out to Rebecca's Point what are we doing uh we wanted to learn their strengths so that they could help us Advance our equity and inclusion work because naturally people show up with strengths that they're really good at and things that they um would help us Advance our Equity inclusion work so we wanted to get a good understanding of that and then we wanted to uh work together as a a staff team team to figure out what recommendations can we bring forward to pull in their strengths to help us Advance our equity and inclusion work that's really important here at the city in a meaningful way not something that is kind of off to the side Andor kind of a check the box we wanted something that they'd feel really good about since they volunteer their time to come have conversations with us um and then I think the last component that I would say is that you all obviously are a key part of this conversation is is that we need your direction to make sure that we're going down the right path and the way that we're doing our work so I think that's the last be fair and I'll just highlight so some of the commissioner strengths that we felt really would help us Advance our equity and inclusion work was around data like metrics and measurements uh some strengths around accountability and transparency and then Community perspectives and and what I really appreciated about this after I sat with it and kind of thought about it was is these these really align with the values that we've brought forward in in our strategic plan right around Equity Integrity accountability things like that that we talked about whether they made it into the plan or not officially we talked a lot about a lot of and I think that you see that here in the strengths that they bring to the conversation so uh really excited about that so as we uh work to identify opportunities to partner in a meaningful way I think what we've come up with for a recommendation is is it seems like there's a natural alignment to partner with the equity and inclusion commission um on our strategic plan as you all know here's the draft so we've identified some Vision Vision Values and we're working on success indicators and objectives and I think that there's an opportunity to partner with the equity inclusion on our department work plan so what I'm presenting or proposing what we're presenting or proposing uh is a pilot project that would align the equity and inclusion commission with the administration team as we work through the department work plan identifying tasks metrics and measurements to help us do our work as we move forward we felt like that would be a really good spot to partner in and bring in their their experience their insights their knowledge to help us do our work better right so to have that Community perspective as a part of that so um so that's that component and we're not exactly sure obviously what that's going to look like but I think we'll get there after we get some feedback from you all and the next piece is is uh so we use this often in our work around just engagement with Community which is the International Association of public participation or I ap2 scale of public participation involvement so I just wanted to throw this in there for folks that may be familiar or may not or may need a refresher but we really see our partnership with the equity and inclusion commission as we're doing some of this work to sit in the invol our collaborate space right uh as it makes sense it may go between those maybe there's some consult but we'll kind of move along this grid as we're talking about what makes sense for the work that we're looking to continue to move forward as we partner with them in a meaningful way do you mind if I add something to the last the last slide so under the Strategic plan what we were thinking is as I alluded to before is we're looking to integrate Equity not just as a standalone let's do this separately but really have it as part of all of our operations it's a kind of the way we think the way we look at things but really have an intentional Focus to talk about inclusion talk about how do we make programs more accessible those types of things and so ideally the the work of this commission would be looking at how do we apply that Equity inclusion lens to our strategic plan but because we're still in the middle of Designing that strategic plan and developing it we didn't want to go too big to start with because this is a brand new process and project process for everybody and so really looking at starting something small um similar to how maybe a the Parks Commission may be reviewing some of the department work plans that are related to our strategic Direction on Parks and natural spaces um this would be a commission that's helping align the the goal or the scope of that commission with our strategic plan of applying that Equity inclusion lens to it so we don't have the details yet simply because we haven't created our department work plans yet but that's the alignment as what we're thinking um and then did you have anything you'd like to add on this piece or should we just no I think this was just kind of the question and answer just the feedback for you all to be able to give us some insights and what your thoughts are and it are we on the right path do you want something different so that when the plan is hopefully um I think it was maybe May is is to come back with a work plan to present it to council that has more details in it but right now just needing some feedback and guidance on is this the direction that Council feels would be appropriate when you say work plan you mean the commission work plan not Department work plan yes there's lots of work plans out there my apologies the commission work plan similar to how the other commissions present their annual work plan that's that's what we're thinking got it okay um so just a quick question it appears twice at least in the presentation the dep Department wo is that yeah that's what all the kids are saying yeah that's the whole department is saying it wondering about that whoa whoa yes yes so um yeah there it is there we go I I did want to just ask one question um and this is probably best for staff maybe as opposed to the commission um so we had developed our strategic racial Equity action plan um and I've heard a lot of discussion about sort of the Strategic plan being more covering sort of having Equity as a part of it rather than sort of this separate is the idea that maybe the S re sort of evolves into being more of an integral part of the the Strategic plan and and work plans going forward I would say that's some conversations that we've had internally of how what what's the next step look like I we haven't had that conversation formally in any way shape or form that's something that we thought about something that we didn't know that we were going to have this opportunity with a strategic plan coming forward and so originally I know that when when Mr Montes was hired we haded talked about doing kind of an Sr 2.0 MH um but then this opportunity to do this strategic plan came forward so it might be it it might be natural to just incorporate Equity so when you're thinking about how do we accomplish this goal instead of having a separate goal related to inclusion and Equity it's how do we Inc accomplish this goal thinking through what does equity and inclusion impact or how do we do that so it's it's a conversation I think we still have yet to to have but we have started talking about that so no and and I think that gets to sort of that role that we had defined which was to you know to be sort of the reviewer and commenter or you know provide Insight on the the S re and if the S re sort of evolves into something else we may have to adjust our thinking there so I wanted to to at least have an understanding of sort of the perspective that was coming through on that so I appreciate that other questions from the council council members thank you so going back to B the purpose and scope um I think this was initially the thought and it was probably 2.0 from where the prior HRI i e had been that was the one one more one more ahead M are green it's St me off no the other way oh one more stop so in this model we see the review and provide feedback and it sounds like what you are proposing and I think it seems acceptable but kind of staying in that first box at this point not moving forward to the participate or represent at this point uh council member St I think that it would go hand inand a little bit uh because the equity and inclusion action team would get started after we've developed those Department work plans because the equity and act equity and inclusion action team is designed to help operationalize so how do we actually make these things happen so I think it would be something that would naturally follow but maybe not be at the same time if I'm does that make sense or do you have I don't I'm going to look at him and no I I I think yes I think they'll go hand inand right and I think the equity inclusion action team is about helping build some capacity throughout the organization to help us do this work I'm one person in a relatively large organization so having folks that um kind of sit with us and do this work pretty closely but also bring in the lens of their individual departments to help us think about what does equity and inclusion look like in your space because that's different right what it looks like in Parks is going to be different than what it looks like in Fire and what it looks like in Community Development so the hope is is that we'll have representation from multiple folks from multiple levels of our organization that would be on that action team that then would support the work that you're talking about in the Strategic plan so that it's embedded operationally and not necessarily again something that's kind kind of out on an island because we know we have these core things that we have to do and that needs to get done it's just a part of the services that we have to do so how do we look at equity and inclusion as a part of that in place of it being something that's an add-on or an additional that explains I thought you were implying that this particular commission was the equity inclusion action team as an offshoot from that but that makes sense that they're part of a larger organizational team that is cross departmental um and then when you mentioned that it's with in administration which you know is near and dear to my heart I just think um there's a lot of room for the future this is certainly not in the initial stages but to even when you say operationalize um job descriptions um making sure that those reflect an equity lens or any reviews where um Equity is built in as an expectation that you know have you represented for others have you taken another step how could you have done something more and I think really that's where people don't see it as just this extra thing that's challenging and difficult but really part of what makes us a better organization so thank you other questions comments uh council member gra um first of all when I was reading through everything I it really helped me to get the perspective again and go back to where we started and where we've come to today and it was really helpful to see that you've gone through the S re with the new Commissioners with the gear it was a very much an educational process in my opinion and I thought that was very good and it seemed to be very in intentional to me um from that I had one question about the well and the other thing is having it it inclusive of all the Departments and each department is different as you said Mr montz it's it's important to think of how it how it fits in that department how it fits in this one they're not going to be a blanket one for okay this is is the answer for everybody and that's I think a good role for the commission to be aware of that and to work with the departments on that that aspect but I do Wonder um now we are adding new members so I'd like to know how we're going to get them up to speed with all this information that we've been spending some months getting the current members to and do you have a plan for that yeah we're excited we've talked a little bit about that it'll be some work outside of the commission meetings right to get them up to speed I don't want to slow down the work of the commission and with the moment in the relationship that we built to say hey let's start all over again so it'll be some one-on ones Andor small groups whatever works best for the new Commissioners that come on board to ensure that they get up to speed and get all the conversations that we've had good thank you yeah other uh comments questions uh C power I'm glad you brought up working in smaller groups uh well guess I'll get that later uh following on what um ccil member gra said when you reviewed the S I actually watched that video and that and also looking the minut are you comfortable with and if I look at this there's already been a handful of questions from Council Members I look through all these minutes um and I or commission members oh sorry commission members thank you um and so I'm wondering if the structure of this as a commission works and you just noted that um you know you want to get together with smaller groups and get them up to speed but you know commissions are bound by open meeting laws and I know in back in June when this was actually discussed it was um quite some debate amongst the council to figure out should this be a commission should this be a committee what should it be on and now we're also talking about reviewing focusing on the S re and I'm just wondering if we should also revisit as a council does this make sense to continue this as commission or could they be more effective as a committee to allow this interaction that can happen in a committee form other than than a uh commission form and so I think that's worth us investigating we with these new commission members coming on this may be a challenge to get them up to speed and we might just want to start with I believe it was discussed um I believe it was council member strong that stated it you want to set up this group for success and you know one of the points of this check-in was to make sure that we had the right form for this commission to make sure that the success was possible I think it's an important thing for us to take a look at you know we can May evaluate looking at doing a um if you will a uh crawl walk run kind of approach and you know I wonder if we set by making it a commission you know set the bar too high you know out of the gate to make this as effective and as beneficial as possible just thinking through you know discussions of going through the Strategic uh plan going through the S re and things like that those can be done with commissions and looking at the minutes you know from the past meetings and looking at the videos of the past meeting meetings uh of the commission I just don't see a whole a lot of interaction from the commission I see a lot more presentation from staff um which is fine but if you look at our other commissions it's much more of a questions and things back I expect that to change with new commission members but it is a concern I have with this as a commission right now and I'm just wondering if there's a better structure that would make it um allow it for it to be more successful and allow for it to work with the goals it still has mind not changing the goals and I don't know if that's something staff can respond to but especially since it was kind of a question to the council I think just first thought is that I get a little bit concerned about changing too many things at the same time because you know here we're adding new members trying to get fully staffed up so to speak and and I don't know that that's the right time to also change the the type of group it is um so I I would just say maybe we need to have that evaluation several months down the road after we have some more EXP experience uh with the full commission that's just my thought I don't know other council members um council member schroer hasn't spoken yet butc um thank you um actually I um thank you for your comments um commissioner B it's I think what we knew from when we put this together that we would it was evolving and that we were part of the reason we wanted to have check-ins and to talk it through is thinking okay is you know it's kind of like the decision tree is it working great if it's not well then we need to do this so I think you have some valid points about um you know that we take a look at things um so I you know so yeah I I think we did and that was one thing we all agreed on is that you know as we were moving along this path that there might have to be some um changes as we went so um when to do these things is that's a that's a difficult thing to do um and then also um you talked about utilizing the commissioner strengths and I and maybe I I was a little concerned about that because right the scope of the um commission is stat well not static but it's spell out and and then your strengths of your Commissioners are changing and so um you know as people come in or leave or whatever and so I could you speak a little bit more about what you meant by utilizing their stren finding out what their strengths are are and then utilizing them versus this is the work that we're tasked to do and then having people work on it it's a good question I think for me when I think about the initial call out of what we were going to focus on I don't know that we foresaw the opportunity that we have in front of us now with the Strategic plan to maybe take a little bit of a different approach as we're thinking about impacting our organization around equity and inclusion um so when you see here the equity and inclusion work plans that was a call out because uh we didn't have the Strategic work plan and or like a formal way of doing work plans at Department levels all the time in a predictable way so that was a way that we knew we could say hey we're going to we're going to Center equity and inclusion work in a way that makes it like tangible and it's it's out there right and I think when we have a strategic plan and an opportunity to change some of the initial ways of doing it to your point um that was something that interest me and when when I say strengths I I hear what you're saying in terms of like when you get new Commissioners are you going to totally change your work plan and stop doing this uh that's not my intent my intent is to say we're working around data we're working around metrics we're working around some of the other what's the other thing that folks called out transparency and accountability right I think that those pieces will be things that we can kind of wrap around and how do we get there or do something meaning for them that may change because the Strategic plan work May last us a year right and then we'll need to figure out something else else that we can do as a commission so I don't I don't foresee it being something that we would change regularly um but I think for folks that come in and volunteer their time and are really passionate about something it's important to do work that they have skills and strengths and interest around instead of saying hey you're going to do this and you're not excited to do it right I think that's how we lose engagement from community and and and something I just want to keep in mind and let me just follow up on that because we had why we had to evolve into this is because our one commit they had some strength but it wasn't what that that commission was supposed to do and so they went off and did what they wanted to do versus what was tasked to them to do so I'm a little concerned that people say well I don't want to do what you told me to do this is what I want to do instead because this is what makes I'm interested in and it doesn't minimize what they're interested in absolutely for sure I just want to make sure that doesn't um end up going off in a direction that isn't actually tasked in the commission true so that's where I'm concerned if there is you know they start going down a path and of course that'll be part of your job is to say that's not part of what you're task to do yeah that's fair so well and I think there's a difference between uh strengths and interests sometimes you know I think the the idea of trying to take advantage of people's strengths where they can focus on a particular part part of the work is different than than necessarily an interest that goes over here when the work is over here so that would be maybe just a a quick response to that but I did want to get back to council member gra perhaps in response to a prior conversation well po I'm going to com on all because also we're we we changed the structure of the commission so we have a work plan in place it's very different it's much more directed from the council than it was 20 years ago when I was on the Human Rights Commission it's very it's a different thing uh changing from a commission to a committee after 5 months is not at all what I had in mind commissions take a long time to get established we've only had the Commissioners on for five months really so I think to even have that conversation is way premature in my opinion um I think that this is going to be at least a couple year thing process before we really have our feet on the ground with this type of thing this isn't work that's like some of the other commissions so I think that you have to understand that as a council member it's probably fair to say that um the other commissions have all been working for years and years and years and so it's a Well oiled machine exactly we're not there yet with this commission uh Council memb joh um and I agree with the mayor that uh if we change too many variables how do you determine success if you want to have an experiment you can't change everything you we have to keep have control you can't see um any change you know you can't really realistically measure something if if nothing stays the same and we are adding new Commissioners I think we need to consider the value of the members that we are having on the commission already for their time their effort and I appreciate the attention to detail that um Mr montz is putting um and making sure that there is a level set and you need a base um you you don't invite a whole bunch of brand new people to your house and expect to have a successful event you have to have the people that you know who know you and then build from there you can't you can't just start with a whole new staff in a day and expect that's going to be successful and we just interviewed a whole cast of folks who are interested in being part of this valuable work and for us to say now oh we're going to change that I think it's really important and um not to diminish being new we've all been new on the council but I think we had this conversation a number of months ago and we chose um by a majority of votes that we were moving forward as a commission and I value that we continue that work so we see a constant throughout this and so we can see um some kind of results we've asked we've told you what it is it seems like you're on that path it it's going to take a couple years for it probably to come to fruition but hopefully we're going to see a lot greater success in what that product is when we did have it more Loosey Goosey and we didn't know and we didn't provide direction that was constantly a concern where people were saying I don't really know that you value what I'm doing but we didn't always know what they were doing and we've made it very clear and so I think it's it's rude um to interview a bunch of people and then say changed our mind we need to have it be consistent as much as everything else we need to be that Level Playing Field and we can't be the ones who keep changing our minds about what we're looking for and we have to realize this is a long game this is not a short get it done this isn't the kind of work that you would expect it to be and I'd say that if we walk away from this now I think we do a disservice to the people involved and we send a message to our constituents that maybe we equally don't care about Dei at a which we hear at a national level and I guess we can make that decision but I think I hear again and again that people want that and the amount of people who applied to be on that commission proves that our city and our people want Dei part of what we're doing and the me and the mayor even said at during one of our meetings last week that we are not walking away from Dei and I think we have to show that commitment by sticking with this well I just want to be clear too I don't think anybody's suggesting not sticking with this I think that that has not been suggested at all here I think it's just there are some questions about potentially how we move forward so and I don't want to speak for other people but I I did want to just note that that that may be a bit of a mischaracterization um council member B yeah I follow that I think that is a mischaracterization for saying I was basing what my comment was on comment based on watching I think I watched almost all except maybe two meetings uh in preparation for this of the equity inclusion commission and just seeing how they were that group was working and struggling in some cases in like the commission setup and the way that commissions have to work and function and whatnot and it just brought to me made me think like this may be able to be more successful in a different form that was the reason it's not so much you know I didn't want to stop this or do it in completely the opposite I was going based off Council minutes for you know understanding why we're having this check-in so I looked at that it was to make sure that they're having the success and that's the lens I went into looking at those videos and seeing like you know is this the success are they having success do they have the tools the structure the Direction all those things necessary to achieve the goals that the council the city set out at that time and looking at it I definitely saw some struggles and looking at the minutes too you know seeing some of the issues I know in January you know we started talking about one thing and then it rambled into something a different discussion which is fine in a committee but not so much in open meeting laws and so questions you know things like that made me wonder like is there a better structure and do we just you know do we set it too high again out of the gate you know trying to build like council member uh St said this is brand new it takes a long time to develop and to make these commissions work I'm just wondering if there's a better way to incubate it first than later fine if we want to keep it as a commission I don't have a problem with that I was just trying to find the right vehicle and the right um uh tools to provide them with the success that they can have is not to diminish or to lessen it or to suggest otherwise instead it was to the opposite to make sure that it can succeed and I just just to that point I think that the challenge also that the new Commissioners have is they've never been on a commission before um they may not completely understand all the the things that we know about open meeting law and all that kind of stuff which is fine I think honestly going off topic isn't necessarily a violation of open meaning law so much as it is just a a need to have some conversational discipline that that can be developed a skill that can be developed over time uh and and I think honestly perhaps a a lack of asking questions or or conversation just can come from sort of being new to working together as a group and and the the the you know the expectation and things like that so I definitely understand that it may take some time for people to get more comfortable having conversations and I'm sure that is something that Mr montz continues to work to to Foster but sometimes people need to be drawn out and it doesn't always happen in the first or second or even fourth conversation uh sometimes it does take some some time and I think it it's one area where um when I do the uh chair training for chairs and Vice CH chairs once a year one thing I try to emphasize is the role of the chair to make sure that everybody gets a chance to have to be a part of the conversation and if somebody isn't necessarily very active that there's a way to try to bring them in and and certainly there's a staff role in that and there's there's definitely a leadership role in terms of the chair and vice chair um uh but it also takes a while to just kind of develop a working Rapport uh and so I'm I certainly want to give that the benefit of the doubt and not and not necessarily want to uh to to make uh too many changes necessarily uh yet uh but I think we need to continue to pay attention and continue to be intentional about how we work you know with this group to make them as successible as they can be uh one thing I've uh thought about is is the notion for and this probably applies to not just this commission but any new Commissioners is to kind of you know attend another commission's meeting and see how they go you know parks and recck is always fun so I always recommend that one um you know because because and and I hear P W's pretty good too but uh Finance is fine so anyway we've got we've got a lot of opportunities so and that's something that can be helpful for somebody who's new to being a commissioner whether or not it's this commissioner or anywhere else um and so there are those things that maybe we can as an organization continue to encourage people that are in new appointments to to to learn the process and and see how it works you know with the with the well oiled machine uh so that they can better integrate into it and and so that that's some thoughts I have I know council member shorty you had some thoughts yeah and I I just wanted to make a comment about the um commission versus the committee if I recall Miss Olsen did a presentation on the those two and actually there were some great strengths for both of them and so there W so so basic and it wasn't saying that um one was better than the other because they both had strength so there was a a a consideration a possibly going to committee as well it was definitely a back and forth yes it was definitely a back and forth so so so I mean to your point is you know looking back at her presentation or whatever looking at the strengths and weaknesses it would be okay is it still the best option or not so I to your point and again what is the best setup now that we've had a little bit and that and I think part of that might be you know maybe to go back and revisit that again too maybe the two of you could look at that and see if that's something you that make sense or not so anyways I'm not saying we should or shouldn't but I'm just saying it it it was quite uh back and forth and I think it it took a while for us to land on one it wasn't like definitely one and definitely not the other so so I guess they um when we as we're evolving um it again it's always think of it as the lens we're trying to figure out a better way to succeed versus just because we made this decision at a certain point does it mean that um as we get more information in that we can't improve it or change it so so again you know and I and I take you you know what you said from the point of trying to be more successful versus um any uh negative um feelings on that so but thank you for just bringing that up because especially being a new um council member too you didn't get to hear all that big debate back and forth but again me first firsthand yeah yes firstand so so anyway so so I'm not I'm not taken aback by this suggestion because again we were all I think a number of us were on the fence on it at one time anyways so anyways thank you right I think staff had some thoughts perhaps or questions mayor I'll let you finish your conversation we're just looking for further Direction on particularly next steps y uh what council member graph um I think you're on the right track I do remember the conversation about the committee and the and the uh commission and I was never in favor of committee committees are a lesser thing than a commission and uh commissions have rules to them they're in our code it's a very different thing to change this after five meetings would be very precipitous of us I think that would be not appropriate so I just want to make my my point clear I don't want to use staff time to go back and revisit commissions and and and committee and all those things that just does not seem where we should be headed we should be headed to do what they have been talking about and forming a work plan and forming our new commission that's where we should be headed not revisiting old things that we already discussed less than a year ago and voted on as a council so I want to make my point very clear on that appreciate council member Str I'd like to Concur and also point out um it is not good use of Staff time to revisit something and a majority of the council at that time voted for this to be a commission so it is not maybe there was on the fence I don't recall being on the fence about it I recall being very firm that I felt this needed to again this is part of our code and to to say something less than that is takes it part of that away and we voted a majority so that means at least three people either sitting here now or or not present but three of us out of five said that that's what we wanted to do and we for us to change it now because I get it watch them shows you watched the videos you watched the the meetings but I don't know I don't think I feel like this is kind of like we're we're trying to um change things in the middle when we just had all these folks who came for interviewing for something which now we are we're changing the job and I think we should move forward I appreciate the plan I think the plan works well it's a great step we have to build the building blocks you can't build a building without a foundation and you need the foundation so thank you for working on it I'm sure there's a lot of group hugs when Antonio's around we may need to have one this evening um and and I just want to say I want to be I want to be clear so I think I think I think the five people or the three people that that voted for the commission versus committee are still on Council they're sitting here um and and my point isn't necessarily that that like or the point I don't think that was being made was that it was that it was that everybody was on the fence about it necessarily it was a close vote and there were very strong opinions on both sides of it and I don't think that any of that you know should be lessened by this I think it's completely fair to ask the question and so I don't think we we should necessarily be be um you know going going to extremes to to question whether asking the question was even a good idea but I think we did have the conversation I think we did have the vote and my point of view is um that if we want to talk about changing the format I I don't think we're at a point yet where we really are knowledgeable enough to know whether we should or not U that's my perspective on it you know I think it's valid to say let's keep keep seeing how things go if issues do arise if things don't you know seem to be working the way we've got it set up we should talk about making a change um I do know that I think you know some of the Committees that we've had also you know they go up and down in terms of involvement engagement participation and things like that and so it's not the perfect solution either um we just have to keep trying to figure it out and so I think our objective is to make sure we're continuing to uh set up our organization uh these volunteer Commissioners uh and and everything else for Success um and and we still have a lot of growth to do to get there because we're still we don't even have the full commission yet we're going to make some appointments here uh and then hopefully we can we can get to that point I do see that our our commission member does want to participate in the conversation which we always encourage your participation in the conversation come on up and and have a seat uh and and please introduce yourself for the benefit of the public and and we'd love to hear from you so my name is praj I met I think I met uh councilman gra and mayor you interviewed me M um I I love the conversation um I have a lot of thoughts and I don't know don't want to ramble um one I think would be really helpful to define the scope of this commission which to be honest is someone on the commission I still don't know what the scope fully is um you I also would like a little more clarification on you know your uh opinion on the meeting minutes what happened in January because again I don't know like the exact rules of a commission what's in scope and what what's not in scope so for me to you know be a better commission member I would like to know like what you found wrong in January because it would just give me better information going forward because I think the hard thing is we're looking at you know strategic racial Equity action plan but Equity inclusion is very very broad right if you're on the Parks and Recreation Commission your scope is Parks and Recreation you'll understand the parks how we do things in the park Equity inclusion is everything right I mean when I first came here I saw we had the Economic Development Authority is that in our scope because I think housing is definitely very Equity involved is that something as we as a commission can discuss I just feel like the clarity from city council isn't very clear so then that's what's going to create you know whatever rambling happened in January which I think could have been me cuz I was talking about something very specific there I just don't know if that's in our scope or it's not in our scope if that makes sense right sure and and I guess you know maybe I'll I'll start so um very much what this commission is about is is looking at what the city does as it relates to equity inclusion so that's everything from plowing streets to providing park services to to the Eda all those things um but it's really you know focused specifically on on how equity and inclusion relate to the things that the city does um and so when we talked about the Strategic racial Equity action plan as one of the things to focus on that was kind of how we as an organization had been defining what we do with respect to equity and inclusion um and we sort of set ourselves some some uh small number of objectives and goals to try to be manageable and in achieving those I think now we've got the challenge of having just completed a a strategic planning process which takes you to the 30,000 foot level and opens you up to kind of everything uh and we've got to kind of as an organization we're not putting it on this commission believe me get it down to some manageable things that we can do and I think it would seem that the role of this commission would be to apply that Equity lens to to as it was kind of talked about here specifically the work plan of one of the Departments as a starting point and then maybe grow from there to look at more broadly at the rest of the organization um one of the conversations we had last year as we were establishing the commission was you know uh looking at each request for Council action of of a council meeting you know from Equity point of view um and I think we all kind of realized that that could really bog down our process if if the the commission had to proactive review future requests for Council action before they could come before the council so the thought was maybe there's an opportunity to pick some of those over time and look back and and have that as kind of the process with respect to those um but I don't think it's all completely yet defined and I think that's an opportunity for the commission um it just has to be sort of in the perspective of it can't be sort of necessarily bigger than the box of what the city does as its business um because that's what we're all here to to deal with um so that's kind of the overarching framework for it and then the how it works is something that I think staff the council and the commission are going to have to be working through and and my perspective is that I would encourage all commission members current and future uh to continue to be willing to talk and to to be part of the conversation because we the last thing we want is a commission that you know gets together and meets and nobody says anything that's that's not that doesn't help the process so I think that's that's where I'm coming from anyway uh council member B you had some thoughts well I just point uh I did I'm curious if concerns I mean did everyone in the ethics or the EIC uh go through ethics training or do we have some new commissioner training new commissioner training or ethics training we we did do a new commissioner training including the ethics stuff that's also coming up I believe in Council the ethics training is once a year and commission members attend it typically in April in April yeah so that'll be coming up and that will help yeah you can look at the minutes uh see it was not you okay um I getting more clarification um I'm little concerning that you know it's been five months we're still asking for knowing what the group the commission does and need clarification that's fine I wonder if it makes sense uh tonight to you know as a council to give a little bit more Direction uh to the commission maybe direct more so you know work more on the Strategic racial Equity action plan and you know review that and I'm still unclear what direction you're wanting from us mainly because the you know we've given the scope in the charter um you know we've had a lot of discussions and meetings I wasn't on the council at the time but there's a lot of discussions so I'm still unclear what's confusing or what you're looking for as a commission I I think it it might be best maybe that the council doesn't do that this evening but rather we have established the scope duties and functions through the ordinance I think it might be appropriate for staff and the commission to work together and help develop those understandings um if that makes sense mayor and council member what I would suggest is I think what the commission needs is what do you want them to focus on because as um commissioner stated Equity inclusion is so broad even when you talk about our strategic plan even if you're talking about Administration so do you want them to work on Department work plans um and is that appropriate for them to dive into maybe one or two of the tasks that are in those Department work plans or are you interested in them focusing on equity and inclusion in a different manner because that we're just looking for some direction on where you want them to focus their efforts because of the broadness of the concepts well I think what was from my perspective what has been outlined this evening seems like a good walk step or even maybe a crawl step I'm not sure you know to to start getting into it and figure some of these things out because I don't want to pretend that I've got and or that any of us have all the answers about that yet this evening either because this is a new commission I mean we've we've tried to Define it as best we can in in the scope duties and functions in the ordinance um but I don't know that tonight I'm prepared to say do this or don't do that I think I I'm prepared to respond to what's been proposed here and say sounds pretty good uh let's give it a try let's see how it goes let's hear back how it went and make adjustments as we go forward I think that that's my thought in that regard it sounded like kind of what I was hearing from at least some of the council members council member gr I would totally agree with the the mayor on that um I understand your frustration a little bit on the scope This Is Not Unusual on this commission but we try to make what we're getting is a base right now you're getting a base of information from Mr montz uh a lot of educational part of it you're going to have more of that because we're going to be getting other commission members up to speed but at that point I think at the same time we're going to be getting a more specific work plan and I think the work plan that was described in general tonight is the right one to go to I think Mr Montes and Miss Olsson are exactly on on the right course there so I think lean on them a little bit uh for further information on that at least from my perspective I support both of you in that that mission and uh then then we'll review this after a few more months maybe let the new members have 5 months too to get adjusted to it um I would also say do any work you can on outside of the commission meeting maybe uh familiarize yourself with other things that have been done with the city or what other cities are doing we're not the only city that's working with this information so so put in some time with that no and that might help you come with some other ideas no for sure and I understand your concern specifically because sometimes I'll be honest Antonio like I feel like it is not as much of a conversation versus you just giving us like a speech on what you're doing is your main job and I think that's a fair concern but I think the issue is that Equity inclusion is just so broad so for us to do really good work is just tough but again Rome wasn't built in a day right like you mentioned the commission was made 5 months ago we're still we're going to get new members now so we're still on that path of what exactly do we want to accomplish but you know I definitely have taken time I just met with um David bran the fire chief last week I met with Eric aider because I don't know how a city runs I don't think any new commissioner city councilman when they first joined knew everything about the city right I didn't know Roseville you know firefighters had 24-hour shifts I didn't know how EMS Services works I didn't you know know anything and until I expose myself to that other Commissioners expose them to that I think it's hard to again Define that SC oh this is exactly what we're going to do which is why it takes time you're doing the right thing wait council member strong I know personally in my own work sometimes it's helpful to have a large scale goal and a small scale goal and so maybe it would be appropriate as we look at these big scale to take a little chunk out of it and look at it and go maybe it is time to hey look at these here's what we want to do with our work plans and it's this big ethereal thing but also here's a job description where we've really had a hard time having people of color apply for the position what ideas do you have about how it's worded like maybe if we you mixed a couple different type of approaches it would bring some practicality into what you're doing on a large scale into like that day-to-day and here's how you're going to help we're doing this so later we can do this and I don't know maybe that would be helpful that's how my brain thinks but I have all day long I have the big things happening but I got to keep the little things going underneath and I don't know maybe that would help just see where that focus is and why it's important to have that big goal and help us create what that big goal is so that when we look at those little seemingly mundane tasks you know how you're working is impacting what we're doing and I think that's exactly what uh Antonio and Rebecca were getting at with maybe take a look at one Department's work plan that comes out of the Strategic plan and perhaps pieces of that and not the whole thing depending on how you want to do that and make that you know a manageable siiz thing to kind of have the conversation about and develop some some institutional you know strength and muscle memory about this that can then be applied to maybe little more broader thing to look at or or or other or other aspects of of how the city does business so um you know I think the thing the thing we don't necessarily want you to have to do as a commission is to try to figure this all out yourselves you know I think it it's important to have a guided process and I think that's what your your staff lays on and and Miss ol are all about is making sure that uh that it's manageable for everyone because it's got to be manageable for the organization too you know otherwise we're just setting ourselves up for for trouble one thing I am so glad you came here tonight because that was one thing when they were going to give us the update that was one thing I mentioned to the city manager and stuff was needing a representative from actually one of the Commissioners and so I'm not this nothing against staff because you guys do a good job it just I really wanted to hear your voice too so thank you for coming and and coming to the table and actually and I think this is maybe part of what um commissioner Bower is getting at is having that your voice heard and interact like that that's exact exactly what we need so thank you for being here right so can I summarize Next Step so that we are all on the same page so what we will do from the staff perspective is we will have their work plan they'll start working on creating some kind of work plan that's tied to our strategic our strategic plan unfortunately we don't have our department work plans yet so it may be postponed a month or two because we we're meet I know we're meeting this week to to start those conversations um with that then the next step will be they'll do some work based on the timing of that the the commission will then come back to council to present a more detailed work plan may maybe June depending on when those work plans get finalized and then you guys can provide a little bit more further direction if that's on where they want to go and then moving on from there then they can start working on the the details of that work plan does that capture what we're at and in the meantime we'll be on boarding the new Commissioners getting them up to speed um all that sort of stuff and that timing may work with a joint meeting too I don't know oh yeah I think that would be when the when the work plan comes it would be that would be the work the the commission would come forward and they would present their work plan to you not staff and right right yeah right and so and just the last thing I'll say is is you know i' I think I've said it before but this is new it's new to everybody involved um and I think it's just a matter of you know being having the patience to figure it out and not not not getting so overwhelmed by the big picture thing that that that you know that the commission can't get work done on some smaller tasks as was talked about because I think that's important as well um certainly this this you know this is a subject matter that has as you've said very broad applicability society-wide you know it would be great if if you you seven people could solve all those problems in two months you know wonderful but but the reality is I think you know that's why we want to have the focus on the city's operations the city's business how the city takes into account equity and inclusion in doing our business and developing some some achievable tasks and steps to build the capacity to to to do more in in future you know so that's I think makes sense so regarding the ordinance and like the scope how is scope like expanded so I know obviously right now we're focused on the department work plans as we onboard them but like you know I definitely have Equity inclusion especially you know we were talking about homelessness and housing and affordability I don't know if that's specifically in the equity inclusion ordinance but is that something then we have to come with for you to have approval on to have to be something to discuss or is that something we can expand within our commission because we can say oh well we want equity and housing well I think I think the the city has plans and and objectives in homelessness or housing and to the extent that there uh there needs to be an equity lens applied to maybe propose new policies or something like that that may be an opportunity for the commission to weigh in I don't think that we're expecting the commission to say um sort of broadly the city should uh should focus on homelessness because that's an issue of equity I I think we are already sort of focusing on homeless you've seen a lot of that in discussions and certainly learning more with the Departments um so it's not the commission necessarily role to to to sort of say the city necessarily I I have to put that qualifier on it you know should be focusing on this or that because I think that could that could be too big of a thing to try to try to deal with but but I think to the extent the city has perhaps either has or is thinking about new policies or programs in relation to certain areas of focus there may be an appropriate opportunity for the commission to to weigh in on on equity inclusion as it relates to that that's I guess maybe how I would explain that and to the to the mayor's point I would say that that would probably fall under a department work plan under a couple different departments um however because we're starting small that might not be within that scope right now but my guess is the city is setting priorities they're setting their strategic Direction they're setting the goals and objectives and success and from there based on that each department will create their work plan so that they can achieve those goals MH those types of conversations would happen within the Departments that have more focus on the housing so we can talk more sure a little bit later and certainly it doesn't mean just because the focus is on the admin Department to start with and maybe parts of that plan to start with that at some point as as the the commission gets more you know experience that those other things may may not come into it so you know I think that's to be part of it all right uh I think that wraps up our discussion here we appreciate once again you being here this evening as well as Anton and Rebecca uh I do want to just check with the council we're about a half hour past our typical break time we've got some more business to attend to so why don't we take about a 5 minute break okay e e e e e e e e e e e e all right we're back from a short break here and um I believe we may just barely still be ahead of schedule by 3 minutes so uh no pressure on anyone but uh we are back to have a conversation about uh the proposed Capital Improvements at Rosebrook Park in Roseville something very exciting for the community I'm going turn it over to Parks and Rec director uh Matt Johnson to kick off the conversation here yeah thank you mayor and Council and uh I regret to inform you this is actually quite a bit about water so uh we are talking about uh Crux of this conversation is waiting pool or Splash Pad um if you'll recall I was here in uh at the end of 2023 um we had a couple of Capital Improvements coming forward for Rosebrook Park and we wanted to look at it a little bit differently and um the the Crux of that conversation was looking at rather than replacing the waiting pool adding a splash pad moving some items around and uh superintendent Jim Taylor is going to talk a little bit about that um and we've done some engagement on that we want to share with you the results of the engagement and really propose what we think is our best path forward um and get some feedback for the C from the council as to how we want to proceed uh before we get too far I am going to kick it over to Jim but just for a purpose of orientation I do want to share where Rosebrook park is in case anybody is not totally certain of that it is on the corner of County Road C and Snelling which means it is probably the most visible Park in Roseville because you sit at this stoplight and you look down at all those soccer players having so much fun and you think I'd rather be playing soccer than sitting at this stoplight so um it is very very visible it is a large park it is designated Community Park meaning that we draw from more than just that neighborhood in our Parks and Recreation system master plan and although it is on that corner and can be accessed by pedestrians from that corner um by vehicle you do have to come through Fry Street back here so that's part of the conversation um superintendent Taylor's going to talk talk a little bit about uh just Briefly summarize why we have these Capital needs coming and then we'll start talking about our engagement and our proposed plan okay uh so a little bit about Rosebrook um as you see here we do have the waiting pool as we've talked about today there's two lit uh tennis courts there as well as two lit our only two lit soccer fields um we do have the playground that's orientation is behind the building right now um and then we'll kind of get into each of these here on the next slide on um why we're here today uh so first you know we we didn't have the the we talked a little bit about the playground on there the playground was built in 2000 it was initially scheduled for a replacement in 2021 we deferred that for a variety of reasons um some was just capacity some was because we knew these conversations were going to happen in the next couple years and we wanted to make sure we wouldn't putting ourself in kind of a box from a a a standpoint of the site as a whole um about the pool uh the pool is our the city's only uh water feature um it was built somewhere in the 1970s I I don't know the exact date I don't know if we've ever been able to really narrow that down all the way I'm sure we could ask some people and we' able to find out but um many of the parts on that that pool are original um in 2009 and 2016 we did major patchwor on that uh on the the deck in the surface of the pool um that's now failing um and it's beyond a repair type situation need to be redone uh those cracks are coming back the sand filters on the far right hand side um it's an outdated uh filtration system it's original to the to the pool um it's been discontinued for years we if something goes wrong on it it's very hard to find parts eventually U my staff will find something on eBay or something that's been used and we're able to kind of retrofit it onto the site but we're really one major kind of breakdown from not having the water feature at this point with the system that we have um so as you can see the in the it's been all the way back to the 2010 uh systems master plan it's been proposed to have a splash pad here at Rosebrook Park the layout's a little different we'll talk about that uh based on when we put the park building in as part of the renewal in 2014 um but it's been something that's been discussed since 2010 kind of converting that waiting pool over to a splash pad so a little bit why splash pad versus waiting pool um splash pads are our most uh common requested amenity it's not something we have in the community um splash pads are more inclusive and accessible than the pool especially in our current state um our in our current state our pool would not be accessible we wouldn't be able to build the pool in the in the capacity it is now because there's Zero Entry requirement so one way or another we'd be changing over um less drowning risk with splash pads um there is a concern uh you know from our end that we do have standing water a foot and a half deep um and it's it's a non you know no lifeguard on duty type situation um was considered for Rosebrook in the park systems master plan we talked about that um splash pads typically span a greater age range than the waiting pool right now our waiting pool is for Fairly young children um and families and a splash pad would kind of broaden that a little bit for us um and the splash pad itself will cost about 50% the cost of the waiting pool which we'll talk about as we get a little farther into this um so our current layout um is uh the playground is be I'll start at the the parking lot um because you had the cursor there so uh parking lot has eight spots not adequate for what goes on at that Park between the tennis courts and the and the building is very busy with rentals and the waiting pool um and the soccer fields and everything else so the eight spots that are on that side of the um uh the park are not adequate for what's going on there we have the waiting pool we talked about um the current orientation of the playground is directly behind the building um and and then we have some green space that's open behind the playground so uh if we go to the next slide we'll talk a little bit about um what that concept idea would be and and Matt will get a little deeper into as we talk a little bit about what we're proposing here today so um we're proposing to to expand the parking lot um we believe we can add about 35 stalls to that um so making it over 40 stalls in that area which will take some pressure off the rentals itself take it off Fry Street um and just kind of spread that parking a little more into the park where we'd want it we're proposing to move the splash pad behind the building in the current spot of the playground um and then move the playground just to the east in some open green space that's there um we think this is a better use of the overall space we can really make that Splash Pad playground kind of feel like one unit instead of two separate projects s if we do them together next to each other U Maybe by some theming and some other things color scheme uh we just think that the layout of this will work a little better so that that takes us to about where we were last time we were here um and and again I thought it was important it's been about a year to lay that groundwork but when we left our council meeting um one of the the key things that that came from that conversation was this sounds like a pretty good idea obviously we want to engage the neighborhood that was always part of the plan but while we're talking we should identify fire or their other things all this is really an opportunity to touch this park and to leave and feel pretty good about the work that we did there so we began the process like we always do with a community meeting we sent out about 500 invitations um I will note that we were very intentional to send a specific invitation to the multif family housing across Snelling um knowing again making sure that we're trying to be intentional about the equity impacts of a project like this um we did have 17 residents attend um which is that sounds like a low hit rate it's actually pretty good for a community meeting um and they were it was a really really fantastic meeting I I I love this format uh a lot of very good conversations we did some dot charts and some of the themes that came from it was General excitement about the idea of a splash pad um people like that people who even if they don't have kids of their own their grandkids like it they seem to be very excited about that idea um however there was some concern about is that going to bring more people in the neighborhood and exacerbate the parking issues there was some Nostalgia related to the and that's their word not ours um people talked about their kids swimming in that pool their grandkid swimming in that pool I can relate my kids swam in that pool when they were tiny as well um but I at that meeting there was a general understanding of looking at the site holistically and an opportunity to move forward to meet a need and there was not strong opposition to what we were proposing there was some ask to look at is there a way to do both and and we said yep we'll look into it but really complete understanding and significant amount of um agreement with what we were proposing moving forward in terms of other things and and this this is one of the many charts we had it's not really meant to be shown other than to show that we that there was engagement um we did hear about a couple other things that the neighborhood was interested in one that I think surprised us is we have about a quarter mile loop around the park and maybe it's because we met December 17th which is about the shortest day of the year um but we heard a lot about people using that site year round for exercise and I think this is in line with one of the trends we're seeing in Recreation people want to be out at their house year round they want to be walking they want to do what we would refer to as passive uses and you can only do that in Minnesota when it's light out if we don't have lights there so they talked a lot about adding Trail lighting around the rim of the park and the other point that they talked about and I'll have another slide that shows us a little bit better is there is a bus stop up here on Snelling and sea and this pathway comes down and all the way over to near Rosedale so they said there's a lot of pedestrian traffic and it's pretty Dar dark and sometimes dangerous over there so there was a that was a really big desire and felt sort of like lowish hanging fruit that we could try to tackle to really show the community that we heard them another piece that we heard about is a desire and it won't surprise this Council for more parking um they love the idea of more parking by the building but also mentioned near the soccer fields when there's soccer games going on it is just a busy busy place and wanted us to pursue more parking there so we walked away feeling pretty good about it but again mentioning knowing that it was um a community park we wanted to make sure that our engagement went broader than just that one meeting um and touch the broader community so we did put together a Survey Monkey um uh Community survey that we put out both with signage at the building through some news updates um we ended up receiving 104 responses to it and I'd say it succeeded um we found that 58% of the respondents were 1 to three miles away from the park so it got us outside that inner neighborhood another 25% more were 4 to six miles so the bulk of the respondents were a little further away but they did report to using the park generally about once a month the majority said um what we didn't potentially anticipate is um when you use a survey you tend to have louder voices that are in opposition than are in support and so what we did find is um uh I would say a major well there was a majority of respondents said they would prefer to have a waiting pool rather than a splash pad the limitations of a teex survey doesn't allow you to explain or talk about the whole proposal it wasn't exactly framed as to what would you prefer but but not too much more complex than that um other things that we heard um the playground universally they felt that needs to be replaced it's in dire need of it and frankly we did hear um for a system that has about 96% uh positive ratings on our community survey we got much lower than that I think it was about 72% positive ratings of that Park which leads us to believe we waited too long to do this we we need to get this done we need to be up to that 96% people feeling good about that Park so we know we have work to from those that live further away we had less interest in the parking um issue and less interest in the lighting issue I think those you can kind of figure out why the third way that we tried to engage and this was very intentional was through our Discover your Park series um I see some nods most of you are out at these events we have our red tablecloth and it's either myself Carrie one of our superintendent and usually our uh our commissioners at the table so in addition to to Hawking our various fantastic programs and how much fun it is to be on the Parks and Recreation Commission um they also will talk about whatever our hot issues are so we had Flyers made for this knowing this was going to be an issue we needed feedback on um and had a lot of one-on-one conversations again we found that in those conversations about 3 to one supported what we were doing and even those that said oh it would be a bomber to lose that pool um understood and we didn't get a strong passion against what we were proposing so that was really the Crux of the engagement that was put in and that brought us to all of these different options because when you say tell us what you want us to do they say a lot of things um first and foremost was I've got my uh was the splash pad splashpad versus waiting pool um we did realize after we left that we needed to have better information on what the cost of a waiting pool is and really make sure that we what we were saying was accurate so we did have a company actually do uh a quote for us um on what a waiting pool replacement would be and depending on the bells in whistles they came in with about a $1.3 million quote um and then we we thought maybe we could value engineer that down to somewhere around 1 million but you're talking about doing things like reusing fencing and I don't know that that's going to leave the park the way we want to leave it when we're done but could be an option um Splash Pad we we really doubled down had some conversations with actually multiple vendors about splash pads we do believe that we can do a recirculating system so one in which the water does not just pump down the drain but is actually chlorinated and keep keeps going through for about $500,000 um and we think that it can be appropriate for this space one thing that will definitely be threading the needle is we don't want to build the biggest and best Valley Fair water park here because we're going to exacerbate the parking issue but we know that some neighbors will be bummed about the loss of the waiting pool so we don't want to put one sprinkler up and say Here's your Splash Pad so we're going to have our work cut out for us if we do that to really thread that needle the other piece that we looked more in well we looked more intensely at all this as we sort of brought our plan together uh but the playground there are some flooding issues there we refined those numbers um there also lacks concrete curbing which is our new standard so we do think around $200,000 would really do a playground that's similar in play value to what's there but updated along the lines of what we've done over the last 10 years in our system pathway lighting um conservatively $70,000 we think would do everything on the Southeast and North Side the residents did say that they felt the west side because their street lighting over there was was pretty good we'd obviously if we went through with it get a quote on doing the whole Loop and trying to decide what made the most sense but we conservatively think we can do that for about 70,000 the parking these are the numbers that'll take your breath away a little bit um the parking where the pool is uh would be about $200,000 that's an Engineers estimate at this point in the game but you do have to remember that there would be demo work involved with the pool there and you're taking a site that mostly doesn't have parking and creating new parking so it's not a not an easy thing to do but it is an opportunity where you're theoretically if we were to move forward with the splash pad here you got to do something with that space parking seems to make a lot of sense and might be worth that investment we also looked at parking on the North side um this is the number that surprised us the most because we found out that there's an extreme number of utilities underneath that area and also storm water so if we were to add parking in there um we estimate that probably in the neighborhood of $300,000 by the time we're done with that the other hard truth about parking and you're all tired of hearing me say it is people always want parking and I understand why but you have to be mindful that once you take out green space to put in parking you never get that green space back so although we want to accommodate those parking needs we do want to be thoughtful about not building vast swats of pavement um in line with our sustainability goals as well we did also here uh at both the neighborhood meeting and from um some of the soccer players in the survey that our soccer fields this was no surprise to us are quite wet um and definitely in some need of repairs um if you look across swinging from this park you see Wetlands um that's not because there was a magic barrier and this park was not Wetlands it's because this park was at one time wetlands and is reverting to being Wetlands um the uh Fields were flat they were not specifically crowned which means over time you get what's called a bowling effect where people play gets lower the edges stay high and it form forms a bathtub so when it rains those fields are slow to dry um they do need to be addressed at some point whether it's a part of this project or not we looked at um we did get again I would say a conservative quote where you could do both recrown and SED for $170,000 um could be a part of this but what I'll talk about on my next slide is maybe sequentially it makes more sense doing down the line a little bit so we're not do being so disruptive the last piece and uh council member Bower uh sent an email and I think he caught it astutely we pulled this all together and we talked to the commission and we have our nice little squares on the on the plan here and what we ended up thinking about is I want to make sure that if and when we do this it still feels like one cohesive Park and so Jim and I can go out and we can get a splash pad vendor and we can get a playground vendor and a parking lot maker we'll call it that um and they will they will do their part but I want to make sure that when we leave it feels intentional it feels like it's been planned out so we have high quality construction documents we have high quality landscaping and so what we're proposing is working with lhb who did the Fantastic design out at Sunset Park the one that everybody said it's too small it won't work as a park and has now come together and worked very well um and they are doing an hourly quote that they estimated at $199,000 um historically we've come in well under that when we've worked with them and I would anticipate we'd do that and I think when you're doing uh talking about the number of different components that we're proposing today um I I'd hate to leave and have it feel like uh uh like the squares on the map um I I don't think that's what we want to be doing so with all of that we have to make some choices and we recognize that um so what we're proposing to do today is uh put in a splash pad and remove the waiting pool um I want to be very transparent there will be hard feelings about that um if I thought there's nothing I love more than coming and saying we've got this all figured out and everybody's going to say we're the best and we love you and there will be some bumps along the road if we go forward in this way um but we do think it's the most financially prudent thing to do we think it is a demand that we can meet for the community and ultimately makes the most sense for the site in the long run we also look at then once you pull out that waiting pool as I mentioned adding parking here can really address the single biggest need that we've been hearing which is the lack of parking near the building and um generally a lack of parking on site we can update that playground put in a great new playground and we can add Trail lights for a somewhat reasonable amount of money again to meet that very tangible need that we heard from the community at this point I would recommend that we don't move forward with the north parking I think that's just a high amount of money it is a loss of Green Space it still could be done at a future date nothing that we're saying right now would preclude that from being done but it just seems like it's a little bit beyond the scope of what we're trying to do and when we talk about incremental change that might make more sense the other one that we really went back and forth on is is would we try to do the soccer fields now at once or do them down the line um I I think we're probably 5545 on saying what makes the most sense is programming that into the CIP and doing them a couple years down the line this will allow us to work with our our users the soccer association and say you know maybe in 2027 we're going to have one field out and 2028 we're going to have one field out so that they know it's coming and we can work together on that um but there there's a counterargument to just say just get it all done and move out but I I I think at this point we're not recommending moving forward also being mindful of the pocketbook impact so all of this comes together and I swear as much as you hear me I did not plan it to come in and I actually called Jim when it all added up and I said Jim we got to find another, I feel like a car salesman saying however um we ended up at an estimate and these are engineer estimates at uh 9 $999,000 um we currently have programmed $730,000 within the CIP that can be utilized to cover these expenses um and then what we are proposing which is still what we talked about would be utilizing Park dedication for that remaining difference as a reminder Park dedication funds do need to be used to expand amenities to offset the impacts of development on a new park we did receive some of those Park dedication funds for the development that is right here on my South Side um and then off the map to the north we also did receive Park dedication funds for those apartments so this would be an appropriate use for those Park dedication funds um it also is worth noting and uh as we know all sorts of third party funding is very much up in the air right now um but we did put in an application for a community resiliency Grant um that could help fund the use of a reuse system instead of one that just pumps water down the drain um and also add some shade structures But ultimately as far as we're concerned would reduce the city's impact if we were to get that Grant so all that is to say that's what we're proposing moving forward with funding wise um and then in terms of schedule wise I'm going to gloss over this a little bit except for to let you know that um our plan would be to begin with the site planning uh if if the council's in favor of moving forward we'd really begin with that right away um we'd also issue rfps so we can get a playground of splashpad vendor involved early so they can participate in the community engagement with us this summer we would do our community engagement with that narrow scope of saying we are going to do a splash pad we are going to do a playground but we want to hear from you of what you want that to look like what are the different sorts of sprinklers what sort of play amenities would you want in that um but at this point we're proposing really taking off the table the pool versus splash pad conversation we're hopeful then that if we do that um the pool closes uh Labor Day we are hope that we'll be able to do some preliminary um construction right after Labor Day probably the bulk of it would have to be done next spring um without having a vendor in line I'm very hesitant to uh on a public forum say I have a date but I still would hope that we would have some opportunity for water features next year but I think we'd have to learn more from our vendors as we move forward um we do anticipate that in the engagement process for the design it would be at the collaborate level where we would be hearing from the community and they'd really be telling us what they want in it um and again we've been pretty intentional on how we've engaged to this point so um what we certainly are proposing as a staff side is pretty clearly what I've laid out here and I think that we've vetted that out and feel pretty strongly about that um there are other options one is we could simply put out the waiting pool to bid and what when that number comes back I can come back and say hey this costs what it is do we want to do it um and of course the third option is to continue to talk to Residents and see if we can find a happy median um I will caution I'm not sure that there is one in this case I think there's a lot of strong feelings on both sides um but I do think this is the best way to move forward so with that um I'll go back to this one which might be the easiest slide but I am happy to answer any questions receive any feedback or anything else that would please you thank you counil all right thank you for the presentation and all the work that's gone to getting to this Point uh questions from the council council member St thank you so the property to the south of the red parking the south parking um that has been recently purchased right yep as a multif family unit has anything happened there they are they've done work on the site I should can you you yeah I think they they've moved dirt and they they have if memory serves they've done the subdivision so something will happen but I don't know how far along they are sure so do you know if the tree cover stays is similar to what it is there now uh the the the evergreen trees that are on the South Side are City trees okay um we have some concern about the impact anytime there's earth move but we did go out and inspect them and we do think they're going to be okay um we do know there will be some trees impacted if we were to do the parking I think we estimated five trees three are ash if memory serves Jim which we're you know sort of moving on from anyways I think one's a silver maple and one is a high quality tree that we would hate to lose but um yes and there's one additional Ash over by the splash pad we would uh remove as well just cuz it's we don't want all the leaves dropping right on the splash pad constantly either so right has there been any consideration to Community Gardens because I know that was another high is there anywhere that that I know I saw the note said volleyball space yeah um but that I don't know is that too shaded to consider Community gardening there or so I don't know that it's appr shed um the one piece of feedback that we did get from the neighborhood and I think I teased it out as a bullet but didn't verbally share it um they wanted to be conscious of making sure we didn't program every inch of the park because there's a lot of informal activity that goes on so we do know that by adding pavement which we'll do with the parking we're going to have to treat storm water somewhere so we're already going to impact that um Community Gardens were listed as part of a concept plan I don't know for sure that we have a site for it now um but it's something we could keep in mind in the long run we're not totally ready to um announce it publicly but we are working on some additional Community Gardens not in this area but over on 88 um where we've just procured some rights to um and we are pretty close to locking that up and being able to share that information as well so so we are working on that I just don't know that this is the site for it sure and then do you know is Rosebrook going to be one of the parks that has discover your Parks this year it is and that would be that would be one of our engagement pieces yep it's too bad it's not next year though when it's all done well we might go back you don't know we do like to do that so yeah no that's good to know because but we we um and again I buzzed through it but we do Envision that being uh one of our engagement steps so we'll begin with an initial meeting and then we'll hold a discover your parks and then probably a concept plan um that worked really well this year at Lexington Park so perfect well and then i' just like to reiterate as you mentioned um as someone who went to a lot of The Envision uh discover your parks and you know I'm a pretty regular attendee as some of us are um that the interest in the splash pads across was so so prevalent no matter which Park you were at somebody mentioned it so I mean there is a lot of interest Citywide maybe not as much in this particular space but a lot of interest at other Parks y other questions coms coun B I would second what council M said about the splash part my informal uh phone call of like neighbors children my children are too old now but having uh raised my kids across the street from a splash pad uh they're just God Sons or little ones and everyone that we talk I talk to uh children and parents both wanted a splash pack they were quite excited about that I do have a question about the a couple questions about the soccer field yeah uh those currently are lit um what condition are the lights the field lights that we have right now those something that we need to consider they're in they're high quality uh over time they could be considered for Led but they're they're effective um they're also remote operated which is great so uh we did invest I guess I'm aging myself getting to 10 years ago with the renewal program we did invest in some upgrades to those so those those still function very well over time all of our lights should go over to LED but I think that's a Down the Line type conversation but something yeah yeah we don't have any Eminence of failure or anything like that so and I agree with deferring the parking in the um soccer fields one thing that I will will say is someone whose child is in way too much soccer is there is definitely a shortage of indoor soccer space yep um domes are quite expensive so but it would be interesting to see if the numbers work I also know domes charge an insane amount of money per hour and they're utilized always yep possible if the numbers work and I would encourage you at that future time to look and your budgeting to see if the numbers could work for something that yeah I think that's definitely not although you you're right there's sticker shock on the front end um it's not it's a conversation certainly Jim and I and the staff have had that if we were to do Turf and potentially a dome this would be a site but that's a whole another conversation as you said Thank you right uh council member gra thanks for the presentation great job as always um I think adding the trail lighting is smart I think that's a good thing to do I think you're right about the just think of all the walkers in Central Park I mean this could be a a neighborhood one that would add into that that in our our Park program and have it uh near a bus stop I'm glad they point the residents pointed that out that was smart I wasn't even thinking of that part of it um that parking uh is there parking on the North side it looks like there is there is yep how many spaces are there I think there's 35 35 and then the that potential would be 43 additional um if we were to do that north parking lot which we're not recommending but there's 35 spaces currently there and with the South there's 35 so we'd have about 70 total correct correct y I know that at least from door knocking and I haven't done it for a couple years that was an issue for people along that street and around the corner is that when there are soccer games or things they said it really gets parked up a lot so I think having that that'll help uh with some of the neighbors we hope it'll relieve some I don't want to oversell it because I I do think that there'll still be there'll still be some but yes whatever the closest path is from par to field is I remember in our conversation last year definitely the the north parking lot may not be completely fully utilized when the street is full of cars even you know so oh that's interesting yeah cuz it's it's kind often a little often off the beaten path and the direct path to the field is right from the street so yeah and I think hiring the site plan is smart I think that's you know this is a big investment for the community and I think spending that money to make sure we're doing it correctly and that we haven't just any ideas here are is an important thing the one last thing is about the uh recirculation of the water and I don't know if this works on a park system but I know that for swimming pools now they're moving more towards saltwater treatment rather than to doing chlorinated and the people that I know of changed their pools say that it's a lot easier on the skin and yeah eyes and all that so yeah we've explored all options with this I think originally when we kind of touted this plan we talked about a reuse system and reusing the water for irrigation there while the fields being so wet we don't run the irrigation very often there so then the tank gets full and then what happens the water it starts dumping into the sewer which is what we don't want to happen um from a salt standpoint um for a splash pad I think it's just the corrosiveness of the the salt system it wouldn't work very well what we are proposing and that's what brought the price up a little bit on the splash pad adding a UV system so it's treated UV wise it should hold our chlorine cost down um it help balance the system a lot better than just straight chlorine even so um we are looking at adding a system that'll be a little more efficient um than just straight chlorine um but we kind of explored every option as we kind of worked our way through this and we really feel like this is the most one the most cost effective to the most environmentally sound um approach to to having a splash pad and just looking at that photo of the equipment is like I can't believe you've got got that working this long so so past it's Prime but thanks uh Council mayor shter yes uh thank you um very thorough um I I'm always impressed with how much um back work you guys do on this and the and the engagement you did a really nice job with the community engagement piece and um I a couple of things I think the site planning is a really good idea you know I I like that idea of having it all come together like that and you know the the pool I I'm actually glad because I I do get concerned about the liability side of of that from the city standpoint you right you know it will have less um you know since we don't have a lifeguard there and and so and the splash pad is just a great uh replacement for that and and I really like the idea that it's going to accommodate um a wider range of Ages I think there's some parents that actually like doing it too and and um I but I do also agree that um not doing the north parking lot and and putting off the soccer field for now because it's and and I'm glad you're using some of the park dedication funds because you're right that's very narrow when we can actually use that so it's nice that you find a very appropriate time to use that and and that the CIP um number there so that the whole thing is coming together I think really well so um very much in favor with the you know what you are proposing at the way it's structured so thank you all right uh council member I just wanted to point out for the public uh in our notes it indicated that there is a push button so the water would not be circulating 24/7 but the people would turn it on as they were there absolutely so correct and then there's a Time clock on that as well so we can set the parameters what spash pads only open from 9:00 a.m. to 700 p.m. so we don't have people there in the middle of the night pushing the us I just maybe the public wasn't aware but that was something that was important mention for um just use of energy and everything else and I know a lot of people indicated that there's no um things anywhere like it and um Minneapolis continues to invest in their their waiting pools but again um they're either used all the time or they're never used um and it really seems to very and I do agree with council member Sher as far as safety you know we've had some complaints about some residents feeling like they needed should have a safety phone there and other things and hopefully this addresses that safety feature um and also I think having it behind the building and off the street um adds a level of hopefully a little bit of level for safety for parents whose kids I've seen kids kind of Dodge um in and out through there um as because theyve parked on the street so they can be close and then little kids going into the street and there are some kind of blind Corners in there as people are coming around so I I think I appreciate that it's back and then maybe the parents can utilize the park building for changing and things a little bit more than maybe they do now other questions comments I just had uh a question uh just a kind of a bigger picture question on the total balance right now in the park dedication fund yeah in round numbers yeah uh just over $2 million okay so it's not like we're depleting it down to Zero by doing this project absolutely okay good good to know appreciate that all right well I uh believe the the request is for the council to weigh in on and hopefully support the the plan including the steps of Engagement this year and and all those things uh do we have a motion from the council move second all right it's been moved by council member Schroeder second by council member graph by a hair um discussion motion council member Scher as the maker of the motion no I think uh it's it's a great idea looking forward to it to being installed right Council M graph I just think you do such a good job on community engagement on these projects and that just helps us so much on the council because once these are in people are thrilled and I know Mr Johnson that there are people that are saying they want that waiting pool but after a year or two they're going to be thrilled with that I mean just from the uh Sunset Park that you were mentioning and all that we had to go through with there as far as Community engagement it really paid off and that's what makes your department so successful in my opinion other discussion on the motion I just note in the 2010 uh Vision that we had acquired that property next door um as part of this park plan and um so it's too bad we weren't able to uh do something like that so um I know the the I don't think actually it was desired it was a not actually important to note yes no no it was it was planned in here but no didn't happen but I I do hope that maybe um I know the parks and wck department or uh commission mentioned that maybe we could be more proactive and I don't know that these things come up very often but hopefully we can continue to know and see if there's anything we can do and those opportunities might arise or not arise as we found no I think that was a case where we were a very willing buyer and the seller was not a very willing seller so there was there was a gap yes yes um other discussion on the motion uh hearing none all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed that passes unanimously that guidance is provide and we look forward to the next steps coming forward thank you than you yep thanks everyone all right uh next is a discussion about implementation of the local sales tax in support of the maintenance uh facility project and I'll turn it over to C manre Tron for this item thank you Mr Mayor I'll be real brief and this is a pretty straightforward conversation as as you know we had one of our sales tax referendum questions pass and so if in order for us to effectuate uh the actual collection we need to notify the Minnesota Department of Revenue at least 90 days before we want to start collection we have to pass an ordinance and send some other information all that information is in the pack and we did discuss that on uh January 13th so I'm just coming in at at the meeting in January 13th there was some um thought that maybe we should bring that forward before April 1st for consideration so we can begin collection um July 1st and so I'm just bringing uh the conversation forward I have included the ordinance just as information but if this is something the council wants to bring forward to uh a March meeting so we start collecting sales tax uh on July 1st 2025 for the project if we don't do that the next date uh we would need to keep in mind before July 1st we'd have to send something down to the coun uh to the Minnesota Department of Revenue for collection October 1st 2025 um so we are incurring costs obviously for the sales tax with the architect uh as as one example we have sufficient funds to carry that and till such time where we would get the sales tax and reimburse it so um you you could look at it either way we can have the money in hand here so we have those things or we can look to reimburse ourselves down the road I know there's still some outstanding questions as well about how it's all going to go um so I'm just bringing this forward um and from the staff's perspective I I think uh I don't have a strong opinion either way we can get it done right now and start collecting that but if you want to wait for more clarity on the project that's certainly understandable and we can do that so just looking for some direction right thank you Mr trudon are there thoughts from the council as to timing of the uh implementation of the sales tax Council M gra we are incurring costs because we agreed to have that um architects of the RFP go out so those could be paid out of that sales tax yes absolutely amount well to the extent that um I could feel about city attorney's eyes looking at so next her but I can't see your eyes yeah so as long as it's connected to the maintenance Operation Center correct and the other thing is I think I mean correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like we have to do something with the Public Works building so I I I'm kind of of the mind let's start collecting the tax it's going to be spent one way or the other the rest of these uh items are going to come into play as we go along and we'll collect more information I think as a council we can make those decisions together right uh other thoughts uh council member Scher yeah um I I agree with council member gra because it's it's not uh if we're going to incur expense we already are and so we may not have all our details figured out but we know it's not going to be um yeah the expenses aren't going to stop coming in so I I I guess at this point I don't know why we wouldn't go ahead and and have this put in place other thoughts council members all right any dis any uh objection to this would come back then as something we'd look at in March to be ready for that April first we need to publish the ordinance and all that stuff but yeah sound like there's objection to that Council B thoughts just want to vote that I agree that I think we should begin collecting the sales tax we are incurring cost we are have a maintenance facility that does need uh replacement we will be going forward so we should start collecting all right we have provided direction thank you very much all right next on the agenda is uh request to declare a vacancy uh for one more opening on the Planning Commission Mr Tron yes uh Karan schaen from the Planning Commission uh is resigning and she has two years left on her term we like the council to declare a vacancy as you know you're in the process of recruitment so I think there were three vacancies in the Planning Commission if remember so this just be the fourth one and then as we um um as the council looks to fill those vacancies would fill four vacancies since they have three but we need to officially declare the vacancy for that to happen all right uh questions from the council or a motion to officially declare that vacancy oh second move by move by counc second by council member St uh discussion on the motion no hearing none all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed that passes unanimously that vacancy is declared uh that brings us to consideration of city council minutes we have can we go back to the eight Council direction or no you want no council direction is only there if we have a council initiated item from a past meeting okay thank you so yeah we have that under 11 otherwise okay uh so consideration of minutes uh once again we've got the council minutes from February 10th and from January 27th sort of in backwards order there um uh any uh additional changes or Corrections beyond what we've uh had uh to date or a motion to approve as presented I'd move to approve both second right it's been moved by council member Scher second by council member Bower to approve both sets of minutes as presented uh discussion on that motion no hearing none all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed that passes unanimously those minutes are approved uh that then brings us to our consent agenda our a relatively short one this evening Mr Tron uh can you bring those items forward yes uh thank you Mr Mayor item 10 a approves payments in the amount of 1,217 4861 item 10B approves two temporary gambling permits one for international Union of operating engineers local 49 for raffle at Midland Hills Country Club on July 21st of this year other for the Minnesota Mighty Mighty Duck program for fundraiser with tip boards and raffle at the BDL Club on March 29th 2025 item 10c uh proves the purchase of encrypted radios for the police department uh and for purchase of firef turnout gear and duct duct work cleaning at the rosville skating center then finally item uh 10d approves entering into ethernet transport Network Transport Services agreement with the Roseville School District for the use of City fiber to connect their schools uh the city has allowed the school district to use the city fiber lines for many years the current 5-year agreement is expiring this June this will approval will extend it for another five years the city excuse me uh receives another receives uh $77,400 School District under this agreement and that is the consent agenda right thank you Mr Trant is there a motion on the consent agenda second it's been moved by council member St second by council member gra to approve the consent items as outlined a discussion on that motion no hearing none all those in favor signify by saying I I oppos that passes unanimously those items are approved uh next is the future agenda review and Mr Chin is changing venue for that uh yeah my most wasn't cooperating I'll just stay on here so uh we do have AE meeting next uh Monday and uh we will be receiving a presentation from Twin Cities North uh Chamber of Commerce just a short presentation on their work we look to appoint uh commissioner so um remember that tally sheet to get that information in if you can by uh Wednesday and uh look to have the 2024 cash Reserve fund report and also look to approve um six Hotel licenses we're going to do them in stages um we have a couple more that uh we're working through and I'll probably wrap it up at the March 24th uh Council meeting for those if you remember it starts April 1st is when the licensing period is so uh then uh we have a little bit of a break but March 17th we have an Eda meeting we'll talk about the housing market study again also consider amendments to uh the Tiff node for the harbor uh development then at the regular council meeting we hope to award the contract for architectural services for uh what we just talked about the whole project we also would like to discuss massage therapy establishments and caps um we um consider continue to see a lot of um people applying and just really a struggle to keep on top of the variety of applicants and people so like to at least have a conversation about that and then there might be some more amendments to the code as well so just a beginning uh conversation and hopefully we can get an update on the Strategic plan we certainly can give you uh information that we've been um working on to date we are meeting Thursday Thursday Wednesday or Thursday uh with Mary Kay delvo to work on that for half a day so we should have some good outcomes from that and then I just note the regular meetings we don't have a full agenda but we talked about the ethx training earlier as April 9th uh here in this chamber and we'll get more information about that as soon it's uh as it gets a little bit closer and that's the future agenda right and the April 9th is also the new commissioner training the same evening as the ethics yeah we still try to do that and then we also do the chair Vice chair right training as well lots of training that evening right questions on the upcoming agenda all right thank you Mr trean uh do we have any uh Communications reports announcements or council member initiated items for future meetings uh council member shter yes um I just wanted to thank everyone after a little gentle nudging we got everyone to to send in their reviews of our city manager um and so um we will um council member Brower and I will be working together to get that and then we'll be meeting with Pat to do the initial um you know pulling things together and then um obviously then we'll be meeting as a council then once we pull all that information together so anyways again thank you I will say all the department heads got their stuff in way ahead of the council sounds about right so anyways thank you all right uh other uh council member initiated Adams or reports announcements uh council member gra uh Northeast Youth and Family Service Services is having their annual luncheon on May 14th and it'll be at the bights commons again I will give you all that information again but I thought I get it on your calendar now so you have the information and I will be uh sending out information to the department heads sounds good I like that venue too I thought that really well it's a good venue and going to have a good speaker all right other announcements Communications um I had a lot of comments um and questions about about the status of harar mall and I don't know if there's anything that we as a council can learn from the city manager and uh Communications um about that but I think there's been so many and you know I live by there so I can't really go anywhere without someone mentioning it but the rumors are running wild um I don't know how much of this is reflected in actual things that people are hearing but it's going to be a highrise for seniors um nobody the roof leaks there's rats there's I mean it's like all over so I think it would be good if we maybe understood what recourse we would have um as that moved forward um just because there's been a lot of interest from a lot of people on and a lot of concern and I think given the growing vacancies I think it's it's understandable um I also would like I I would love if as a council we talk about um and I know we're wrapping up this round so it maybe isn't worthwhile right now but I think it would be good as a council to understand um what role we should have in um being part of an act of recruitment for Commissioners if we've already talked with Commissioners in an interview if should we should be encouraging them to change their interest in commissions there's certainly people I take the interview approach like I'm interviewing someone for a job so even though I think they'd be better on this other commission I don't interject that and um so I think it would be good to know I didn't see anything in any of our materials that indicated what our role should be in that but I think it's good I think we should still see it like a job uh interview and so make sure that we're providing I love that we have the consistent questions now so everyone has equal access to the same questions but I I would really love to have a conversation as far as equity and consistency of who's offered what information and how um so I would love to suggest that we put that on a future agenda I think we typically after our appointment process do sort of a a checkin on what maybe needs to be improved so I think that would be appropriate as part of that discussion all right all right other Communications announcements future agenda items if not we only have one other item on our agenda this evening which is adjournment all right mov by council member Str no question who moved that any second second from council member schroer uh no discussion as always noted on a motion to adjourn all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed that passes unanimously and we are adjourned at 9:28 p.m. thank you everyone e e