[0:00] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** staff or public at the regular meeting location in the city council chambers is not feasible due to covid 19 pandemic and closure of city hall to members of the public as a result of foregoing the special meet council meeting will be conducted solely by telephone or other electronic means as provided in minutes statutes 13d .021 and no in-person meeting will be conducted in the city hall chambers city council chambers i think it is important to recognize that using a video conference is not as good as in person meeting but it is necessary under the circumstances we are doing the best we can to maintain transparency and due process [0:46] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** i would appreciate everyone's patience and cooperation as we work through the meeting please stand for the pledge of allegiance [1:06] **Councilmembers (Unison):** 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 [1:20] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** thank you uh seeing that this meeting is being held remotely when i call your name please indicate your presence council member balsanic [1:30] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** here [1:32] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** council member brox [1:34] **Councilmember Jen Fox (Brox):** here [1:35] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** councilmember fulch [1:37] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** here [1:38] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** councilmember lightfelt [1:40] **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** here [1:41] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** councilmember lund [1:43] **Councilmember Lund:** here [1:44] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** councilmember vaughn [1:46] **Councilmember Trevor Vaughn:** here [1:52] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** let the role reflect all council members are present in a quorum has been established council members are there any corrections to the minutes from the regular meeting of september 21st seeing none they are approved comments from the audience uh for public comments we have an interactive feature during the meeting for the email comments they have been forwarded to the city council and their receipt is acknowledged please recognize that items not on the agenda will not be discussed this evening we ask that attendings use the raise hand feature and they will be invited to speak one at a time [2:38] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** i also want to remind everyone that the public comment period is not intended for an extended dialogue is there anyone here that would like to speak to the council at this time just checking i see no raised hands council members are there any additions or corrections uh or any items to be considered sorry okay seeing none counsel i would accept a motion to approve the consent agenda [3:15] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** so moved your honor this is tina folch [3:24] **Councilmember Jen Fox (Brox):** second [3:26] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** remember fulch and a second by council member brock's counsel do we have any discussion clerk flatten please call the roll [3:35] **City Clerk Kelly Flatten:** also member bond yes membership yes member balsanic yes member lightfield yes remember lund yes council member brox yes [3:55] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** air fast predator yes and that motion prevails tonight with us we have under community development the sieben ridge tc land general steven drive for this item we will have an introduction by community development director john hinsman welcome john [4:10] **John Hinzman:** thank you madam mayor and city council members tonight before you we have two actions related to the sieben ridge subdivision i'll i'll go through those uh briefly here and then we can discuss those in a little more detail uh so first i will share my screen here to get a better idea of what we're looking at here [4:34] **John Hinzman:** okay we're looking at this 40 acre parcel here general sieben drive west of northridge drive and fall brook drive we've got two actions related to sieben ridge tonight the first of which is a preliminary plat approval but the preliminary plot approval does it allows for the creation of future single family home sites the preliminary plan involves civil plan development as well as utility development plan for roads putting all of these together into a document and then the final plants come forward in succession and actually subdivide the property to put it into place the preliminary plot is a very important document from the standpoint of a civil plan review we have grading [5:21] **John Hinzman:** infrastructure streets storm water ponding and other things that we have to make sure are where they need to be for them to work correctly we need to have all the eyes dotted and all the t's crossed for it to go forward here so that's what we're looking at for the preliminary plant so with the preliminary plaque we're looking at that development also along with this tonight we have what's termed a site grading and development agreement what this does that this allows the site development of grading and grading only to occur at the developers risk final prior to final approval of the civil plans and i'll add more detail to that in a minute here so we've had our planning commission take a look at the project here uh and in fact the city council has also [6:07] **John Hinzman:** looked at this too we've had the annexation of this project take full take place in february of this year and at the last meeting the city council approved the rezoning of this property to r2 so that would allow for the development to occur and the planning commission also reviewed those items at their august 24th meeting on a 5-0 vote they recommended approval of the rezoning and the plat for this development during the public hearing we did hear a few comments related to adjacent mining activities and their effect on the development itself in january of this year we did have the planning committee of city council also take a look at the conceptual plan for development of this property and they were generally supportive of that at that time so this is we're going to look at the preliminary plot to begin [6:52] **John Hinzman:** with here here's the the map of the development and here is what we're looking at for creation of 116 home sites so general steven drive to the east here we've got northridge drive which would continue west as a collector road to the site along along northridge drive there would be a trail section along the south side of the roadway and fall brook drive would extend west from general sieben drive at this point would also have a sidewalk connection along this area here and along what's termed uh will be from west point drive up to northridge so there'll be sidewalk connections and trail connections through the development when we take a look at a preliminary plan we're taking a look at general design of the roadways lots [7:41] **John Hinzman:** public infrastructure ponding etc on this and we find that the plat itself is well designed it provides for extensions for future development to the west to the south uh when when opportunities exist for those to come forward as well for the development and we also take a look at park dedication we've had our park and recreation commission uh look at this and they've recommended cash in lieu of land so when we take a look at this this is the plan for development and what we'll be looking at in the near future here would be what's termed the final plaque which is just a small portion of it which would be developed immediately and that would be nine lots along fallbrook drive down here this again would be something that we're working on at present [8:27] **John Hinzman:** and uh we hope to bring back to you in two weeks for your action so we take a look at the development and how it sits 116 home sites all together 58 traditional single-family home sites and 58 villa home sites again a villa home is a is a single-family home site a little bit smaller and lot size uh that would have a a smaller footprint single-family home availa home sites would generally be south of northridge drive and along ridge point drive and north of fallbrook so kind of in this area here and then the single-family development traditionally would be along fallbrook and surrounding that to the west and to the south here so that is what [9:14] **John Hinzman:** we're looking at with the preliminary plan itself uh one of the things that we looked at with the preliminary plat was we had some questions related to mining within your packet there was a letter that was submitted by the applicant mark ginther of tc land that provides a little more information on that we take a look at the aggregate operations they are operating to the south of this development at present they are located within integer township outside of the jurisdiction of the city of hastings they can produce noise there's blasting that occurs uh has historically ranged from once a week to once every three weeks future mining operation could be expanded to the east as well so we want to make sure that folks that are going to be purchasing homes within [10:00] **John Hinzman:** this subdivision here are well aware of the possibility for these type of activities to occur and mr ginther of tc land also shares uh our concern with uh wanting to notify folks as well and we do have a requirement within the uh the preliminary plot recommendations or conditions for approval that provide a mechanism for notification there so uh we do have those operations that occur uh we want to make sure that folks are well aware of those operations as they move forward when we take a look at the other action tonight that we have which is this site grading and development agreement this is a little bit different agreement than what we've had in the past [10:45] **John Hinzman:** typically what happens is we will have a preliminary plan a final plat in what's termed a development agreement which encompasses all aspects of development from street development grading utilities etc because of the lateness of the year and because of the desire by mr ginther to get a head start this year so that he can have models available for the spring parade next year he's looking to do grading as soon as possible and in order to accommodate that we put together sort of an interim development agreement which really looks at grading activities only grading activities would be allowed to continue per this agreement at mr ginther's risk there is the risk as we move forward that we have not approved the final plat [11:31] **John Hinzman:** uh nor the development agreement for this site so mr ginther is encompassing some risk but into speaking with him i think he would he wants to move forward with the grading activities to meet his target goals from the city standpoint we want to be able to alleviate the risk the best we can and so we have certain items that are within the site development agreement itself so that our risk is minimized within there these are going to be things such as looking at sureties for the development and letters of credit and so forth so that we can ensure that the grading activities as proposed take place and again these would be r these would be limited to grading activities only [12:17] **John Hinzman:** so mr ginther conceivably could start grading there upon uh the dotting of all the eyes crossing of all the t's with this agreement and the plans and start that prior to the final plat approval by the city council and uh as i've said the the final plat approval here we are looking at bringing forward in two weeks on the 19th and that would be for that first nine lots of the subdivision as well as the development agreement for all the other utilities here so we are working as as diligently as we can with our public works department to review the plans uh there's been a couple of wrinkles that have come up that have been noted within the staff report itself uh in the last couple of weeks dealing with ponding areas and uh questions of whether they would [13:03] **John Hinzman:** infiltrate the way that they would uh that we had anticipated they would additional borings have been completed plans have been developed by the developers engineer in general terms we're supportive of those plans or we're going through the final detail review and approval of those as we speak on the ponding issue the other issue i noted within the report was northridge drive and a a small encroachment of that right-of-way and sidewalk onto the property to the north uh we've come to agreement with the developer ad to a way in which that can be that could be taken off of the property to the north so that all of north ridge drive can be constructed within the plat itself so we're comfortable in moving forward with that [13:49] **John Hinzman:** again with the preliminary plant we're we're asking for a pool of approval of this with a number of conditions on this a very important condition is that there's the final approval of all the civil plans grading drainage erosion control utility plan by the public works director and the public works director and city engineer are working very hard with the developers engineer to to work through those final issues there so before you tonight two actions preliminary plot for the entire development 116 lots and the site grading and development agreement we do have before us mark ginther the developer of the project if you have any questions for him and i can stand for any questions at this time as well thank you [14:38] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay thank you john uh council any council member bosonic i see your unmuted [14:43] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** thank you your honor uh john and mr ginther i see that one of the streets is named westview drive i it's not earth shaking but we already have a west view drive and it does go north and south and it's about what 10 blocks to the east and suddenly we have this little west view drive uh is there any any problem with that council members or staff in terms of uh suddenly having this appear [15:25] **John Hinzman:** yeah council member sonic i can offer some clarity in that too yeah that's something we noted as well that westview drive can't happen twice within the city especially considering the prominence of the first west view drive so we do have a condition on this that that westview drive be renamed west point drive [15:49] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** okay that's great when they go to print the new hudson book or if people are using gps's uh it it could uh really be a problem i'm glad the ordinance is there thanks thank you your honor [16:04] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** thank you councilmember balsanic uh councilmember fulch [16:08] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** thank you your honor i have a question for john john i was curious what specifically is the disclosure that the developer has to provide to prospective uh buyers of or i guess they would be builders of homes i'm assuming that they would first buy the lot and then build a house right they're not going to like pre-build the houses and then sell them [16:36] **John Hinzman:** right councilmember i believe that's the case with with the construction from our standpoint we want to be able to ensure that the potential first owners are aware of the potential mining activities and that something could potentially be recorded on the property itself so that it would be memorialized there through not only the initial owner but through subsequent owners as well on the property [17:02] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** so i'm sorry just what does that look like more specifically like i know when i've gone you know through house closings you got what like 100 different disclosures that you go through and i'd hate to be you know going through all those signatures and like oh what's this one right you know like last second and so um do they what specifically is the point of disclosure is that the time of sell when they are signing 100 other kinds of documents or is it um ahead of time just would like to know i think that it's a pretty major um point of contention and and i i kind of hold my breath i'd hate to see that we start selling these houses and then people become upset about the blasting and something begins to go south in the neighborhood so i would rather um that were being as crystal clear as possible way up front as these houses are being sold [18:00] **John Hinzman:** understood council member and perhaps it might be a good time to bring mr ginther into the meeting and maybe he can he can talk a little bit more uh uh in in detail about uh some of the things that he may do in uh in better notifying folks of the activities and i think mark is in the meeting now and unmuted and set to go [18:29] **Mark Ginther:** your honor and council members yeah it's the disclosure is it as that time of purchase it's not at the time of closing so the disclosure the the builder will actually put in a disclosure statement just like you do on a typical real estate document with other disclosures letting them know that there's an active mining operation occurring create some noise has some blasting has some dust so that will be in their purchase agreement [19:04] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** thank you mark okay is it okay is it just a general statement i would i would like to see it be as transparent as possible i had a little texting back and forth with someone i know that lives across the street from there and she had said that it was like daily blasting in the morning like 9 30 or something like that and so um it's not just a little blasting it's a daily blasting monday through friday or on a very much more regular occasion rather than just periodically and so um i i think that we should be firm in that language so that um buyers know that it's not you know once in a blue moon [19:42] **Mark Ginther:** well we you know unfortunately from you know we don't control the quarry operations they have their own operations and their own timing of depending on their demand for their materials can change i did speak with the president of solberg aggregate and their blasting actually only occurs anywhere from five to eight times a year so it is not as often as you think they do have a rock crushing equipment and that might be something that somebody is alluding to that might think it's blasting but it is um you know and i put that i did put that note in my letter as well so that we we had a very good conversation about their operations and what they were doing and and they do put monitors around the community seismic monitors and do some tests and make sure that they're staying well well within the acceptable levels [20:38] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** well there are some regulations then as to how large of an of an explosion it is that they can make i don't know i believe there are but i don't know exactly what they are so they have to monitor that that is correct thank you thank you mark [20:56] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** any other questions counsel any other discussion okay council then i would accept a motion to adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of hastings granting preliminary platt approval of steven ridge [21:18] **Councilmember Trevor Vaughn:** your honor also move council member vaughn [21:23] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** second [21:24] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** council member bill sonic and councilmember vaughn second to that any other discussion council okay cons or clerk flattened please call the roll [21:35] **City Clerk Kelly Flatten:** also member vaughn yes uncle member fulch yes i'll remember about sonic yes remember life though yes remember lund yes council member brox yes [21:52] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** anna fastbender yes that motion prevails thank you mark thank you very much console i would also accept a motion to adopt the site grading development agreement of steven ridge [22:08] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** your honor also move council member balsamic [22:12] **Councilmember Jen Fox (Brox):** second i need a second council member brax [22:15] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** yes discussion council okay kirk flatten please call the roll [22:20] **City Clerk Kelly Flatten:** remember vaughn yes yes liverpool sonic yes remember life though yes number one yes yes [22:36] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** affair yes and that motion prevails mark we're very excited to uh have you come to the community and i think the community is exciting to see some new housing coming in too [22:52] **Mark Ginther:** well thank you honor i appreciate everybody's support so yeah looking forward to it hastings [22:58] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** all right tonight we also have a resolution for a site plan expansion of exist of an existing building uh schlumkin services 1904 vermillion and john you are welcome to uh give us an update on this [23:14] **John Hinzman:** okay thank you madam mayor and city council members i'm going to share my screen here and show you what's before you tonight we are looking at uh 1904 vermillion street which is a pretty sorry looking building if you've seen it in the past uh unfortunately uh the the shlumpkas larry and susan schlumpka have purchased the building and will be doing a substantial rehabilitation of it which includes a reconstruction of part of the building so when you look at the aerial map here you'll see there's this garage portion here this will be demolished and a new garage portion will be put on the other side this will make it more distant from 19th street which it is basically right on top of right now as we look at the property this is what it looks like today or just a little while ago there's been some improvements to it and um this is the site itself so when [24:13] **John Hinzman:** we look at what the schlumkas are proposing to do it'll be two businesses within the building uh in the in the front of the building here will be coldwell banker real estate office and then schlumka services will be in the back of the building here with this new expanded uh uh warehouse or truck storage area that's in here i did note within the site plan itself that uh the plans were sent to mndot for review we did get those back late this afternoon uh mndot did not have any substantive comments on there we thought there might be something related to driveway entrances which uh there was no comment down so that all that is good planning commission did review these plans on september 28th they did recommend approval on a six to zero vote with a pretty limited discussion so let's [24:59] **John Hinzman:** take a look what we've got here this would be the way the existing building would like or the new building would lay out with the extension going this way a new landscaping added over here this is what it would look like a little little better looking than what we see today on there with the exterior materials added combination here uh primary of lap siding and stone within the building itself and also the addition of windows so this would be a great improvement to the corridor and we're very thankful for the schlumpcus for making this investment so before you tonight is the uh is the resolution here for site plan approval and i can stand for any questions [25:40] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** thank you john councilmember folch [25:45] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** um thank you i'll make a motion to approve as presented [25:49] **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** i'll second that your honor [25:51] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** councilmember fulch with a second by council member lightfield any discussion council member ball sonic yes stan yeah let dan go first [26:05] **Dan Wietecha:** particularly germaine to it but but more of a heads up to clark flatton when you're calling the role uh councilmember lund had to leave the meeting and and probably will not be returning so just a heads up [26:21] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay council member balsanic [26:24] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** thank you your honor john what does this do for the vermillion corridor study [26:32] **John Hinzman:** you know it i think it's consistent with the type of development development we wanted to see along vermilion street we're looking at under that study was uh ways in which people could make continual investments into the corridor by taking tired buildings or buildings that were not economically viable and to create those into something that was viable so absolutely consistent with that [26:59] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** okay next question there's an awful lot of uh asphalt around the building i will there be construction vehicles heavy equipment what exactly is going to be parked around there [27:10] **John Hinzman:** a council member there will be some vehicles associated with shlumka services that will be there vehicles only there would not be any uh any storage of other equipment or other supplies in that area would just be parking of vehicles [27:32] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** are we talking about uh dump trucks or flatbeds or anything like that or are we just talking about uh your standard vehicular traffic trucks and you know pickup trucks and uh suvs and automobiles and [27:49] **John Hinzman:** councilmember i i think it's going to be more of the truck variety as far as dump truck goes or something that large or that much weight i don't believe that's the case i think it would be more you know trucks service vehicles maybe something slightly larger than that but certainly smaller than a dump truck [28:13] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** well then will these vehicles be coming in and out on a regular constant basis daily uh you know just how much activity are we expecting [28:22] **John Hinzman:** a council member uh they'll the trucks will be there the offices i believe for shlompka services will be there as well so i would anticipate that there would be a daily activity during the week of of employees coming in and vehicles taken out someplace else [28:51] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** i'm merely bringing this up because there are residences to the west looking at my screen here i just want to make sure that it's going to be a fairly soft business in terms of noise [29:04] **John Hinzman:** yeah a council member i would imagine those truck trips are going to be going immediately onto vermilion street and so the impact from vehicular traffic truck traffic to the neighborhood via west 19th street or areas further west there i would be very surprised if uh if there would be an impact from those vehicles [29:28] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** neighbors notified within a certain radius of the project one [29:33] **John Hinzman:** council member they were not uh we don't have a a standard uh site plan notification for when when this type of construction occurs so no they were not [29:45] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** okay thank you your honor [29:47] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay thank you councilmember both sonic councilmember leifel [29:52] **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** thank you you know john in the past this has been used as obviously it was a place of business most recently um vans and such coming in and out throughout the day correct so the traffic impacts onto 61. we're not really seeing that i wouldn't imagine that's too much of a concern compared to what we've been what it's been utilized for in the last number of years [30:22] **John Hinzman:** yeah councilman you're correct i think the last business in here was one hour plumbing so i think it typic a very similar type of operation in which you had work service vehicles coming and going from the site on a daily basis [30:38] **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** i just wanted to clarify thank you john and then i i just want to say to echo what john said earlier about this being a great improvement i think we're very fortunate that larry and susan and srilanka have decided to do something like this here in hastings i've known both of them for quite some time and i can imagine this will probably turn out to be one of the one of the nicest looking buildings that we're going to see on vermillion street if it's any indication of how they've done their business previously so i'm excited to uh welcome them to the hastings business family thank you [31:21] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** councilmember lightfolk councilmember both signing did you want to say something else [31:26] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** yes i i did have one other question uh the real estate company that will be moving into a portion of that building are they relocating here from one place in hastings to here or are they coming in brand new [31:40] **John Hinzman:** councilmember that's a good question i and i don't know the answer to that one actually i know uh susan schlumpke is a realtor with cobalt cobo banker burnett or that wrong but she's been a realtor in town for quite some time i'm unsure of where she offices at presently [31:53] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** okay i just i just like to keep track of the new businesses that are coming into town uh were over 60 in the last 10 12 years thank you [32:04] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay uh city administrator dan would like to say something [32:10] **Dan Wietecha:** just uh clarifying that um her current office is off of south frontage and westview so she is just relocating [32:26] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** uh any other discussion council councilmember lightfell [32:32] **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** and to clarify a bit to that it's not just so much of a relocation currently renting space in the professional building up on the corner of west view and uh frontage road so a little bit more than just a relocation that's just an office space inside um of an office building so looking at i believe quite a bit more revenue here for the city and so it's a little bit bigger than that we're not looking at an empty building i guess that's important to note [33:04] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** sure thank you councilmember okay uh council i would accept a motion to adopt a resolution of the city council of city of hastings granting site plan approval to construct a building addition at 1904 for million street [33:23] **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** silver jenner council member leiffeld [33:26] **Councilmember Jen Fox (Brox):** second council member brock's [33:28] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** counsel any other new discussion kirk flatton please call the roll [33:34] **City Clerk Kelly Flatten:** council member vaughn yes both members yes yes remember yes remember lund yes yes [33:51] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** afa spending yes and that motion prevails again we we welcome slumka services and uh susan as a realtor to hastings looking forward to see the construction of that building for this time we have an introduction by city administrator dan waticha [34:11] **Dan Wietecha:** thank you mayor the care cares act where we're close to coming down to the uh the home stretch there's a little uh over five weeks between about five and a half weeks until the deadline of november 15th obviously our regularly scheduled meetings and there shorten up that that window a little bit more the city received a little over 1.7 million dollars in cares funds [34:46] **Dan Wietecha:** the initial discussion uh in early july emphasized one making sure that we covered uh city expenses that were incurred and two wanting to put money out into the community particularly helping helping businesses in the community early on there was some discussion about one of the provisions in the federal guidelines that provision allows basically an administrative presumption that public safety payroll is eligible uh we that we would not need to specifically document uh a call that ems went on was was specifically a covid call or a meeting that the chief attended was specifically related to covid we can simply assume that public safety is doing uh public safety work during this this health pandemic partly i think because it was the start of the discussion there was some real reservations about that question about if that actually was legitimately allowed under the grant emphasis on wanting to make sure that we had other priority uses for it covering city expenses and putting it out into the business community like i mentioned um and some other concerns to it uh so we set that presumptive piece aside and really tracked actual actual uses to date um just two weeks ago u.s treasury came out with a confirmation that that presumption is valid so if there was question about if that was a legitimate way to use the funds uh that was uh definitively answered uh just two weeks ago um the other piece i would point out is [37:06] **Dan Wietecha:** we really have worked towards those those priorities of covering city expenses and putting money out into the community um uh those two priorities what we're left with right now is about 281 thousand dollars that has been unallocated that number's a little bit in flux because some of the spending is based off of estimates but uh it's pretty close with limited time left about five weeks five and a half weeks i am recommending at this point that the city council would use that presumption that public safety payroll and use that for the remaining balance of the the cares act funds if council wants to do something different pushing it out into some additional grants or i know that there had been some discussion about assistance to the school whatever we might look at it has to be pretty quick um if it's something that with the grants and application program i think we need to do something much more streamlined and direct than something that would have applications and lead time to it so certainly a concern to the the timeliness piece i believe that the council has accomplished its goals at getting money out into the community and if at this point council is inclined to presume that public safety was doing eligible public safety work claim that remaining 280 thousand dollars what it effectively would do is add to city fund balance which acts as a the cushion for uh revenue uncertainty in 2020 or 2021. [39:06] **Dan Wietecha:** uh with kovitz still upon us obviously it gives us some contingency here's some some funds that we could use beyond that november 15th date because it's now in in the city's coffers if things are good financially it could allow us to go deeper on the captain improvement plan cipcep priority list and pick up some things that right now are squeezed out of the budget so i really recommend taking advantage of that flexibility and claiming those public safety dollars if the council wants to do something different uh really would need that direction this evening so that we could set some other wheels in motion but with that i can certainly stand for any questions [39:52] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** thank you thank you dan uh councilmember sonic [39:57] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** oh i'm sorry your honor i am still on because of the last vote okay i'm off [40:07] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay just checking council member lightfield [40:11] **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** thank you honor dan i have a couple questions um so if i i mean in reading all the things that we've been doing recently over the last last number of months obviously covering the eligible expenses incurred by the city being a top priority and then secondly was providing economic support into the community i guess my question would be if we're looking at this money and i i do feel that it's important that we take care of the city that to me means um everyone within the city as well as not just the um the expenses of city hall so looking at this i guess my immediate thought is where were we last year at this time in regards to payroll expenditures to where are we today in the 10-month period of 2019 when there wasn't covid where were we in payroll and are we in more than that at this point in 2020 because then i can say okay yeah we had extra expenditures in payroll as a result of coving so i'm just trying to separate the two to say okay our day-to-day for the last 10 months compared to last year so that i guess that's my first question and i can't imagine that you'd have an answer to that but if maybe some some input on that dan [41:40] **Dan Wietecha:** um two pieces of input ems wages are going to be higher uh we put in place the duty crews as well as we've had some additional overtime i can't give you numbers other than to say that i know ems is higher um overall payroll wide is going to be lower because we we had throughout the year several vacancies and hiring freezes and we didn't hire some some part-time seasonal help didn't open the pool so overall payroll citywide is going to be less um can't cannot speak specific to um police or fire but ems itself is is going to be higher than it was last year [42:36] **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** okay thanks dan i appreciate that and then to look at this money and say we we've been talking over the last number of months about um licensing in the city what can we do to help the small businesses and we've done um quite a few things i don't think i don't think we're done however i think there's obviously still more we can do and allocating a portion of this for the fees that are due in december because anyone who eats local hangs out local knows that the next few months things aren't going to get better for these businesses as their patios get shut down and as it gets colder out and their capacity isn't growing inside i feel that this is something that we could absolutely use and put back into the community which comes down to our um you know second concern of both two very important concerns of uh providing economic support into the community i'd like to see about that i know we keep doing the waiting game let's wait and see let's wait and see it's not it's not better it's not getting better and it's certainly not going to get any better any easier in the next number of months for you know all of the wonderful small business owners that we have in town so i'd absolutely like to see that we talk about allocating money towards towards that because then dan and my rate that that basically comes back into the city then right we allocate it to the businesses for their liquor licensing for december they use it for that and then don't they pay us that [44:17] **Dan Wietecha:** the the second half of the liquor licenses are due december 31st although we could give some grant economic assistance of an equivalent amount i'd be real leery about specifically tying it to that from the cares dollars directly because of that november 15th deadline um the the those liquor licenses being afterwards i'd be a little bit cautious with that um and also uh as i'm sure you appreciate and you mentioned we we do have a number of other restaurants that do not have liquor licenses we have a number of other businesses in town that are not restaurants also [44:59] **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** and i get that i guess my question then dan to that is what else can we do to support that this is a fee this is something you know um tobacco they pay a fee right i don't i've driven by there a number of times it doesn't appear that anyone quit smoking during covid um they might have gained a few customers under the um stressful situation the liquor stores also appear to be equally as busy if not more so unfortunately than previously so i guess my question would come down to what else can we do i mean this is a fee that we charge as a city that's a revenue we're going to take in from our small businesses well i i don't know what fees perkins let's just say perkins i don't know i don't know what they pay they're they're a restaurant they don't have a liquor license what more can we do for these other businesses if it's more than just talking about the liquor licensing i don't have an issue with that my issue is allocating this towards payroll that's where my concern is i i don't feel that that was the intention the way i've read the cares act what i'm reading here i think it's a loophole absolutely but i i don't know that it was the intent and i really want to personally and everyone can disagree with me that's fine i want to stick to the intent of providing the economic support into the community so i'll leave it at that and let someone else speak thank your honor [46:17] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay thank you councilman lightfield councilmember brax [46:21] **Councilmember Jen Fox (Brox):** thank you mayor and um i i will hardly understand what on point councilmember lifefelt is making however as i'm reading the presumption of presumption is just that you're presuming that because of kovid there's additional employee hours and dollars that had to be spent to go towards responding to the emergency and that's what makes it a legitimate expense so i don't have a problem with that and i know that a lot of other cities are doing the same thing you're using the remainder left of their care's money to pay for their own payroll because they're unsure of next year so i guess i don't have a problem with that um i understand what you're saying and i understand that we i feel that we have done a lot obviously there's obviously more we can do for our businesses and i'm not gonna say that i that that is not necessary but i i understand where this recommendation is coming from and i think that since we made a priority to take care of our our own staff and our city needs that it can be a legitimate expense especially because the rules have kept changing and now we understand and know that that presumption is is not something we're going to be audited for it's a fair and honest presumption so i don't have a problem with that now that we have the guidance from um from the treasury and we are on solid ground i guess [47:49] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay thank you councilmember brock's councilmember folch [47:53] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** thank you your honor i concur with council member leifeld um when we look back at the previous uh memorandums and of information that were provided by staff in regards to the cares act you know staff have already outlined you know what their expenses are in regards to payroll again just as a reminder um there were for the dakota county communications center did uh flag those calls uh that were coveted related and um and at the time that this information was provided to us between fire police and then um other staff who had um kept you know time logs um like for instance john hinsman you know within doing community development types of work at a total of 454 thousand dollars and so just to be clear that the month that the city had the city staff have already earmarked those funds that were specifically coveted related and so this would be above and beyond um that amount and then to go along with what council member live felt was just saying in regards to um the uh the on sale liquor licenses for the restaurants and so um they if you look at uh as she was beginning to you know explain you know we only have like there's truly there's like four areas that we have license fees for businesses there's tobacco and that was a couple hundred dollars a year um massage therapists i think that was thirty dollars a year on sale liquor licenses which was forty four hundred dollars for the year um and then then regular liquor stores which is off sale and i don't remember what that was but we all know that the liquor stores are doing pretty darn good and so it's really the on sale liquor stores or the i'm sorry the on sale liquor licenses that are for the restaurants and um that we are questioning here um i am on a league of minnesota city's list serve and today there was um some dialogue about what are cities beginning to look at for liquor onset liquor license fees for this next year and there were a few responses that cities are already beginning to do a 50 reduction for this upcoming year knowing that um the we are currently at the restaurants are only at 50 capacity there is absolutely no indication in any time soon that we're going to see the governor lift those restrictions for the restaurants um and so i guess the difference between perkins and Establishment establishment that have on sale liquor sales is that we don't ask perkins to kick in an extra forty four hundred dollars for the year for selling omelets and french fries right you know it's it would be the liquor license piece and so at least it would help provide you know an even playing field if we did um do a 50 reduction for this upcoming year uh for the restaurants and their looking liquor license fees and what we had discussed was um you know we uh when you look back at what we have accomplished in the last few months um the city was able to do the refunds uh that were initially given i want to say it was maybe like the last two or three months where we refunded what would had already been paid for on those types of license fees and then we did make the decision and as a group um to waive the july payments that were due and those were the twenty one hundred dollars per on sale liquor license establishment and then so this would be the december allocation um and so excuse me i'm sorry again this is where i get a little fuzzy about when we're looking at calendar years and so the city operates on the calendar year um financially but the slicker license on this on silicon license so this one that's in december that would actually be for the 2021 budget if i'm not mistaken or i can't remember if that would be for the 2020 fiscal year but regardless we could um we could give them um so just to talk about you know talk it through how is it that we could still do that waiver the thing is we can't have we can't we can't recapture revenue loss right so if we wait if we wait until i don't know november 1st or i'm sorry let's say december 1st to waive the december 31st fees well then the city would no longer be eligible to have an offset you know for that compensation because we are concerned about making sure that the city has um revenue coming in for budgetary purposes so if we were to make a grant to specifically these particular businesses for the 2100 well then they i'm just you know throwing it out there that we could give them the grant and then they could pay or i'm not sure i mean that would be a dan fleegle if we could um if we could just make that decision now to give them to grant that allocation towards them but then we like waive you know the fee in december i don't know exactly how that would work you know legally but i mean if there's a will there's a way and i think that um that it merits further discussion because i don't think any of us um feel that it would be it would be fair so to speak to to charge the 100 percent of the on-sale liquor license fee um moving into the next year knowing what the conditions are and how that word there were nowhere close to you know coming out of this in the next few months so um that's what i have to say for now thanks [1:03:52] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** councilmember councilmember vaughn [1:03:55] **Councilmember Trevor Vaughn:** thank your honor i think what uh dan is trying to tell us here on this um this ruling really helps on the public safety side of it we're able to use those dollars for it i look back at where we started the process with the cares funding and i think we took care of the city services which was priority for us we then went into support and business grants which we took some of the funds to give to the dakota county for businesses to help support them i give the committee credit we gave options to the nonprofits to get out and help the rest of the community that way we got to take care of in my opinion as the residents and right now we have really pinched these dollars down on the operating budget by allocating these dollars into the public safety it's going to help our city staff maybe trying to take the dollars that they were going to have to use for those funds to help offset some cip stuff that we had to cut going into next year's budget so i'm not ready to i think it's a good variety to spread this out i think we've helped the businesses i think we've helped the nonprofits i think we helped our city stability but i think the next one is that there's an indirect um savings to our residents and i think we can do that by making sure that we allocate the rest of the money over to the public safety any dollars that we were going to use for that go into the city tax base so we can use that for our capital improvements so we don't have to raise taxes for that service and remember a lot of the facilities that example dan talked about with the water park was closed but there are still expenses there's still an asset there that we're going to have some expenses we didn't have any revenue coming in so we need to use some dollars to offset the heating cost and the wear and tear in that facility roof and so forth so i think this is the best way to do it especially about the timeline we are on i think the money should go to the public safety and um with this the rest of the cares funding thank you [1:05:56] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** thank you councilmember vaughn council [1:06:01] **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** your honor can i ask a clarifying question there from council member vaughn i thought i just heard you say something about using this so that we don't have to raise taxes i'm sorry did i mishear you [1:06:17] **Councilmember Trevor Vaughn:** no but part of the thing i think what i want to try to clarify is that the residents we have to raise taxes to pay for services and infrastructure and cip and so forth by this ruling in my how i understood it is going to come in and offset public safety dollars so then we can use the dollars that we're going to use for public safety into our city reserve fund so we can use that so we don't have to worry about raising the taxes to offset future expenses [1:06:44] **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** thank you councilmember appreciate your clarification on that another option to that would be if we use this money towards the schools and maybe help offset that tax hike instead i mean we do know that the school is looking for money i'm a little concerned that we're cutting our dates so close here that the county hasn't made any decisions that concerns me i don't it scares me to think that it's entirely possible that the school district could be left without any funding from the county and here we sat on 200 and some thousand dollars that could have helped and you want to put money into public safety there's nothing safer than a healthy school district so i'd like to maybe see that also as an option that we have thank you [1:07:31] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** thank you councilmember lifeville councilmember vaughn [1:07:34] **Councilmember Trevor Vaughn:** your honor maybe staff can help on this i've heard the school district thing multiple times and are great partners have we ever got a request from the school district that they are looking for cares dollars um formally from the funding or is it just the option of trying to offer to the school district for that so i would just want to verify it as a city have we taken a request from their school board that they're looking for funding i think dan would teach you can answer that [1:08:14] **Dan Wietecha:** yeah thank you um way back at the start around june late june early july i'd have to dig back on on finding a correspondence but we did have a request from the school district for three hundred thousand dollars they itemized some costs but they didn't specifically say here's what the 300 would pay for but they did request 300 000 my understanding is they subsequently withdrew that i did speak with superintendent mcdowell last week and he asked about uh what the interest or likelihood was at the council level um tough for me to give him an answer i was going back to here was the conversation three months ago um when the council had reluctance to it i i was open with him and told him my recommendation was going to be that the remainder would go to public safety [1:09:04] **Councilmember Trevor Vaughn:** and one clarifying dan was that coming from did the school board vote on it saying let's go ask the city for these dollars or was it just the superintendent saying we're interested in money if you have any extra the cares funding i i'm unaware about a school board vote i don't know if they did or not okay but i just wanted to verify confirm that your honor because i just got to make sure that the school board is asking for these fundings and as as a request not just should it be great and then to withdraw it i remember the one letter but that's all i remember seeing for the request on it so i'm a little cautious about taking dollars to the school district without having a formal request for that thanks [1:09:51] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay thank you councilmember vaughn yep council remember lightfield [1:09:56] **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** thank you can i request them that we get clarification on this i'm sorry dan i'm not comfortable with the to my understanding comment so when i read in the memo for tonight it talks about in july the school district requested the 300 it's giving us some pretty detailed information and then it does say and later withdrew its request but now i'm kind of hearing that we're not 100 sure that that's accurate i am concerned and i'm not sure which direction councilmember vaughn was going there with his last comments so one moment so if we can just um clarify that one who did request it i assume the school district and when and why was it withdrawn or was it that seems reasonable right [1:10:37] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** sure well it says that it was stated for busing devices face shields and disinfection and they heard disinfection yeah and they later withdrew it maybe they got a grant or something for it i don't know i can't answer that question either your honor so councilmember fulch [1:11:03] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** thank you your honor during the friday chamber business calls uh it was explained uh the last one's been a few weeks and so but uh by commissioner mike slavic he had said that the school districts had taken a little different approach collectively within dakota county and that they together had gone to the county and asked for their portions on since the county received a considerable amount of funds and so um as uh dan has outlined in his memo they our school district 200 had requested 734 thousand dollars of funding i uh texted commissioner slavic and uh at the beginning of the meeting here and he had said that um they're looking at only doing a partial funding um that they're looking at perhaps doing what another one of the counties had done and doing up to thirty dollars a student he said which is what scott county did and so they're taking it into consideration but it wouldn't be the full allocation and when i had spoken directly to our new school district administrator he had indicated that per grade it was going to cost a hundred thousand dollars alone just to give all the kiddos uh a chromebook and so times 12 right you know so 1.2 million dollars and just laptops theoretically and that's not all the other things that they needed for busing and ppe and disinfectants and all that stuff and so i mean they're they're in a huge hole and so i i agree i mean it's really startling i'm not exactly sure i haven't been following what the school board's been up to but i mean when they're talking about having a huge deficit what 1.7 million dollars um i'm not you know yeah that's probably kind of come around in a school referendum or some kind of means to you know try to make up the the difference so it's significant and then the way that cares dollars um works is that if we were to make an allocation to another local governmental jurisdiction it would just be that that government has to use the cares dollars in conformity with uh the rules that are around the funds and so that they too can only use it for those items that are allowable so um so they could use it for i mean obviously they have um quite a few uh expenses that would be eligible to cover that amount and so i think that um it is um worthy of of discussion and and helping uh the school district and in some capacity um so there is that and uh and and and i really do think that we should right now be having this uh conversation about what to do with the onset liquor license fees for december you know it's already what what is today october 7th 8th something like that what is it it's the fifth thank you time flies when we're having fun and so it's only what yeah two and a half months out three months that um we they would have to make that payment and as um we've heard repeatedly from our business community is that they're trying to plan ahead you know to keep things under control and and i and i've heard you know from them that they're so fearful about now that the cold weather is setting in and that people won't have the the options to be sitting outside for their patios um so just you know what that's going to mean to their business sales and so um i think that if if i would feel more comfortable in being in waiving those fees knowing that the city is still going to recoup the costs right if we if we if we make that decision to give the 2100 to i'm sorry i think it was like about 20 restaurants that have the on sale liquor license fees then that money comes back to the city and we're still whole we're not um we don't have revenue loss and and so that's why and it's only a total of 43 000 so if we're sitting on what are we sitting on to 81 281 thousand dollars this is only forty three thousand dollars and um and i think it would you know it would go a long ways um so that our business business community knows that we're still doing what we can for them and then it also keeps us whole as a city um and moving forward and so um so i'm i'm looking for you know just other input um so we haven't heard from um council member brock's or council member lund i hope he's okay uh councilmember valsonik did you want to speak oh no okay [1:05:58] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** you know i understand where everybody's coming from but i you know we have or i should say staff has really worked hard in allocating these dollars and i think the council has done our homework and we've allocated we've helped these businesses or social services i'm really cautious i i i'm fearful for our city and what expenses we're going to come up with so i know that sounds terrible i'm a small business owner i get it um but i'm also also fearful of what we're going end up with in the new year or even the end of this year so i mean how can we help everyone we we've done a big portion of that already for these businesses um i think public safety is our number one factor for our community and these dollars are being spent you know to to help with that so i know this is going to be mixed uh a mixed vote or mixed motion or unless we try to come up with other suggestions but we don't have time for that as dan stated we need to make a movement today for these dollars if i'm not correct right dan the teacher figure how to unmute um if there were an interest in giving support to the schools i think you really need to start that today [1:07:38] **Dan Wietecha:** so we can call the school tomorrow draft a joint powers agreement run it through their board run it through our board uh it just somewhere there's some lead time just because there's some legal complexity to it um uh if it were uh the other example i heard of uh giving forty three thousand dollars in grants to uh licensed establishments um we could pull the trigger on that much more quickly it doesn't have the same lead time if it was strictly here's a grant an alternate version to that which takes a little bit more time would be uh instead of giving a grant and then having them pay it back take the money on the front end you know is this presumption and now it's part of the city's general fund and you can do as you see wish could subsequently in november i believe i'm trying to remember back to when we dealt with this back in may attorney fleegle waiving the fees falls under some sort of emergency ordinance or ordinance piece so it isn't something that we just do in a meeting but conceivably in november you could waive that that second half fee and just they're not having to you know you're not giving them a grant of 2200 but they're also not needing to to make that 2200 payment to the city so it just frees up cash flow on their end i don't know if that helped it really a matter of if you're wanting to work with the school that direction needs to come real prompt uh if it's more with the the liquor licenses there's ways we could could drag that out a little bit longer i'm sure the businesses would like a quicker decision but it's not as pressing from a deadline [1:09:48] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay councilmember sonic [1:09:50] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** well thank you your honor i did we're talking about you know do we want to or do we not want to give money to the school district somebody needs to go to him and say do you need any money you know they asked they put in a request they withdrew it and they went to the county and i think they did that because they were eligible for more money through the county than they would have been through us and at the time and talking to a school board member i i i i think the way it was explained to me is that they were concerned that if they got money from the city they wouldn't be able to get it from the county their the county had more money so they went to the county so there they are they haven't come back to us right to ask for any money or so you know before we say let's give them some i guess i'd like to see it you know from somebody what they need talk to the send somebody to a school board meeting uh a staff member uh uh talk to the superintendent get it on the agenda over there and say you know the clock is ticking uh if you want some you better ask for it now in terms of the businesses in town uh i i feel very sorry for them i really do uh there there are so many that uh it's not just the bars and restaurants it's the uh the other walk-up types of mom and pop stores husband and wife stores and i'm not so sure i've heard some complaints from some of the store owners in the historic district that uh you know with all of the cone with the cone zone that we've got there on 2nd street it's really turned off some people from some shopping down there and and even if they wanted to shop you know parking spaces are far and few between uh so you can't just pull up in front of the store so i think we got to take a look at that not just in the historic downtown but all over uh uh you've got uh stores up in in the midtown area uh you've got stores up on the west side uh you've got stores you know all over uh and then priority grocery stores maybe not uh restaurants well we've helped them out maybe they need some more but we need to take a look at the other small businesses uh less than what is it less than 50 employees i think we're we can you know give the money out to them so but yeah i'm kind of wandering off here but if we're gonna deal with the school district let's find out what exactly they want or do they want anything and then go from there uh and we've got a meeting coming up here in two weeks you know maybe if they do want something then uh we could do something to help them out uh a question for dan i know you you're wanting to get on the mic but you know it was supposed to be at least 10 percent for helping out businesses right so what percentage have we contributed out of the cares fund uh to local businesses [1:13:54] **Dan Wietecha:** thank you councilmember bosonic i think he's figuring or dan thank you um a number of pieces there the uh 10 percent is not a requirement it was something that was in one of the proposed state legislations but then because the the the mechanics of how it came down it did not come through that ledges from that legislative piece so anecdotally there was that that target but it was not a carry through requirement to it uh we're a little bit over 40 percent about 42 of the the total funds out into the the business and nonprofit community um a couple comments on as well as i've got the mike a couple uh partial answer on uh some of council member balsanet's questions about the school district i i think that yes part of the reason that the the school district went to the county was deeper pockets i believe there were also some factors that all of the school districts jointly put in a request i'm looking at the letter right now and it's listing seven or eight nine districts uh so uh the feeling that having a consolidated and consistent front uh would would help their case rather than some piecemeal approach i think also a recognition that school district boundaries don't match up with city boundaries so a better fit approaching the the county from that standpoint um this hastings uh school district's share was about 730 000 requested of the county if council member fulch's uh figure of thirty dollars per pupil is accurate that's about a hundred and twenty thousand dollars so about 600 short of the request uh so is there still a need or desire i think probably yes and also acknowledged that superintendent mcdowell called me last monday or tuesday and inquired of the council's interest or appetite at providing assistance it was not a specific request i don't believe as we inquired earlier that was a vote by the school board but there has been uh at least some sort of overture question to it [1:16:30] **Dan Wietecha:** thank you dan councilmember sonic did you want to continue [1:16:34] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** i was listening so intently to dan that uh i forgot what the heck my next question was so if oh yes all right if uh all right when we get to the november deadline and we haven't allocated those funds we lose them or or what on november i'm sorry okay go ahead [1:16:59] **Dan Wietecha:** yeah go ahead thanks i'm sorry i started jumping in uh on november 15th whatever funds we've not used would uh go to dakota county to use by december 1st and whatever the county might not use by december 1st reverts to the state of minnesota to use by december 30th at which point it would return to the u.s treasury [1:17:28] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** oh somebody along the way i'll find someplace to spend it i'm sure well uh i hope it's us hopefully it's us well yeah uh exactly uh yeah the clock is ticking five and a half weeks or thereabouts can we get an answer from the school district by the next council meeting go ahead dan maticha [1:17:58] **Dan Wietecha:** um thank you mayor i i'm sure that i can speak with superintendent mcdowell i do not know the school board's schedule if you actually wanted a vote i just i don't know what their schedule is prior to our next meeting but we can certainly talk with school representatives [1:18:22] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** well the other thing is you know what i mentioned earlier the other small businesses we could put out uh potential grants again and say we are uh you five thousand ten thousand i don't know what but we could put it out there and see uh you know who's going to apply we could put some stipulations on it that say if you've already applied you can't do it a second time or you can go ahead and apply but uh you're a lower priority than anybody new that that is now applying i mean i can't i can't believe we didn't allocate funds to everybody that applied did we uh dan can you answer that [1:19:15] **Dan Wietecha:** joe excuse me um we on the the heart grant we allocated funds to if not everybody nearly everybody who was eligible i know we had a couple of applicants that were outside the city limit so not eligible the money that we piggybacked on the county's program not only did everybody who was eligible some some didn't meet the eligibility requirements but everybody who is eligible uh was funded uh the county actually assisted the city but the county increased their amount in order to make sure every applicant was funded um i i also want to caution the administrative realities of putting together a application-based program i i really don't think you're going to be able to pull that off in time with with the deadline [1:20:13] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** probably not i'm just you know throwing ideas out so that we can get you know thinking a little bit outside of the box uh my suggestion would be to put the grants out there and available for businesses uh we need to take care of the city first uh it let them apply even if they have already and even if they have received uh funds you know you know we all know i mean we've said it the weather's getting colder nobody's gonna want to sit outside there is a restaurant that can put up its igloos uh which m may help them out but it's gonna take a lot more space to get fewer people in if anybody tries to do igloo or tent type things i would say let's take care of the city businesses first let's put those applications out and available let the bars in restaurants uh let you know malloy park uh emily's you know all of them uh go ahead and apply and let's help them out because the numbers are going up on the covet uh we saw you know the problems they're having even at the white house uh and uh you know this is not going away we're not going to see a vaccine for probably another six months and even if it is available it's going to go to the health care workers first before it's available for the general public [1:22:10] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** maribel sonic yes uh councilmember layfeld [1:22:15] **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** well just to finish up we know that there is going to be another stimulus package coming out and whether it'll have the same rules and regulations i don't know from the federal government but they're moving a little closer to it my prediction is right around election day it's going gonna pass so you know whichever politician is out there you know can beat the drum and say look what we did for you but let's help our businesses first that's what we need to do okay thank you councilmember bosanna [1:22:58] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** councilmember lightfeldt [1:23:01] **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** thank you honor um so just to clarify i i do have information that would suggest that the school district withdrew their application because they were under the impression that they weren't going to get it from us that seems like a pretty interesting way to for them to withdraw hey if you're not going to get it well yeah i'll withdraw it and move on and then there is some question as to whether or not they're able to get state and federal or county there's some question there i know i know that but i back to what council member balsanek started saying earlier that i i think we need some clarifying answers from the school district um i know i need would prefer clarifying answers before i were to vote on approving what's been put in front of us i would like to to find out more specifically where they're at um and i lost my train of thought so i'm going to um i saw another mic turn off there so go ahead [1:24:28] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay thank you council member lifeville councilmember folch [1:24:32] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** thank i think you your honor um i just a couple of things about the stimulus bill last i heard from angie craig's rep one of her mounted staffers i shouldn't say there was not local aid in the senate package and so i'm not sure if there is another if whether or not local government aid will be a part of the stimulus bill so we can't necessarily hold our breath on that um secondly what i wanted to say in regards to further grants for the business community that the kovic economic task force again i wanted to remind you of the recommendations that came out of that group in our last conversation uh we had recommended that the 181 thousand dollars that was given back to hedra to pay back for the heart grants that that money be earmarked as contingency that it would be used for the second wave of uh covet as it comes through or if we you know fall back into some kind of bad shutdown recession um and so that that money be can you know like earmark contingencies slash if coveted goes away then um the money be used for purchasing of a parcel for further development on the vermillion corridor and so um i that doesn't seem to um be translating over into hedra and so council member balsanek if you are so um adamant about that i would suggest as a head remember that you advocate for the budget that is being that is moving forward um that that hedra actually make that a line item um for this upcoming year because um i think that it would be a good idea but i don't see hedra doing that uh so far and so um food for thought um i think that we've clearly run out of time to try to do another round of uh business grants as it currently stands i mean dan's made it super crystal clear that they don't have enough time to flip through another round of grants at this point that's why the city piggybacked that extra 250 000 on what the county was doing just to cut down an administrative time and um and all of that and so um i i don't support i'm trying to go down that avenue um again since we're we're clearly running out of time um and i i thank dan for making the suggestion about how we could still possibly waive the on sale liquor license fees um for december um if the city you know retained you know that money and just kind of did a wash and so i understand what you're saying there and so i appreciate that that comment and so i too concur about um having the school district um just reaffirm their their request for um additional you know support and uh at our next meeting and uh and move forward from there so thank you [1:27:14] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** thank you councilmember councilmember vaughn [1:27:18] **Councilmember Trevor Vaughn:** your honor um go back to the original memo here that says you know it's it allows us to use these dollars towards public safety and i think public safety is good for all residents if you're a resident or if you're a business or if you're a school district so i make a motion that we take the rest of the funding that staff is recommending and put it towards the public safety thank you [1:27:49] **Councilmember Jen Fox (Brox):** second [1:27:51] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** council member vaughn and a second by council member brock's uh further discussion council member fulch [1:28:03] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** your honor i just like to remind folks that um dan has not provided the information as to how much money ems is actually out because as i had said they have already attributed 454 thousand dollars worth of uh staff related expenditures that are already included with what's within they're going to be having covered and so we've already you know that base is covered furthermore of that 454 thousand dollars we have never been told how much is that is overtime that wasn't accounted for within the current city budget and so we have zero idea as council members if we're two dollars over what was originally budgeted or if it's two hundred thousand dollars over what was originally budgeted for personnel expenditures and so i mean as far as i can tell the majority of those funds those were personnel costs that were already budgeted and that and so the city is recouping those costs so like for instance if you're if you usually work 40 hours a week right and and so the city already has budgeted you know that 40 hours of a week and shoot like if half your time got you know sucked up dealing with covet stuff right so the city hasn't necessarily been out any money unfortunately your time has been you know consumed with covet but really the city hasn't been out anything it would be another matter if you were um you know and a non-exempt employee that could actually you know accrue over time so like many of the police and the fire personnel they're eligible for overtime and so if they're working 45 hours a week well then there's the five hours of overtime i know that both the pd and the fire department have considerable amounts set aside for overtime expenses so again not knowing you know exactly how much are we out so no one here is saying that we shouldn't support our uh you know our fire and our ems because that's not what's um that's not what we're talking about here what we're talking about is if we if we let's make the assumption let's just make the assumption that all of those personnel expenses were already budgeted for within the 2020 um cycle and so what we would be doing then essentially is if we tack on to that 450 000 in the next an additional 281 000 what is that not so great at math off the top my head so we're looking at like almost 700 000 then that that okay so let's just be honest is the city just gonna roll that 700 000 of general fund you know into the next budget cycle and then that new and then that um i mean let's just be quite honest that would be great because it would actually offset the 800 000 loss that we have local government aid that we're looking at in this next year and so i get it i totally get it but i just think that we should be honest and transparent about really what were we doing with this money as we're moving forward and so i don't think that it's fair at this point to say well i think that we should take the 281 thousand dollars and and you know and attribute it to ems because that's not really what we're doing let's just be you know quite honest we've already covered that base to make sure that um they've gotten everything that they've asked for we've given them not only all the personnel costs but everything that they've come for to help with ppe and locker rooms and audio visual equipment and i mean we were open to doing things for their mobile command so um so i just think that um i i just think that it's uh it's not being true to the spirit to you know couch it is that that we haven't done everything we possibly can because we have up until this point done everything that um our that our ems departments have requested so that's my two bits as we go into having to take a vote right now [1:32:00] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** thank you councilmember fulch there is a motion on the floor without any other discussion clerk flattened please call the roll [1:32:15] **City Clerk Kelly Flatten:** council member vaughn yes membership no sponsor member balsanic yes also member linefeld no councilmember lund yes both member bronx yes [1:32:38] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** fassbender yes and that motion prevails council do you have any announcements yeah do you have do you have the uh hedgerow meeting i do okay thank you i do uh this week actually is fire prevention week the 4th through the 10th the hastings to fire department is promoting serve up safety in the kitchen to educate everyone about simple but important actions that can take to be safe never leave cooking food unattended be alert when cooking and have a kids free zone of at least three feet around the stove the hastings police department is participating in the pink patch project from october 1st to the 31st patches pins and pink glasses are available for sale at police department and city hall with the proceeds benefiting the american cancer society excuse me the city has created a grant program to provide five thousand dollar grants to nonprofit organizations that can demonstrate financial hardship due to coven 19. priorities will go to the non-profit organizations that provide human services or public health services to hastings residents such as food delivery mental health counseling community outreach housing assistance and economic security details will be posted on our website after the hedra meeting this thursday there is a meeting uh with hedra this thursday at 6 p.m october 8th monday october 12th is a planning commission meeting at 7 p.m the parks and rec commission has cancelled their october 13th meeting there is a heritage preservation commission um meeting and that is actually a week early that's september 13th at 7 pm our next council meeting is monday october 19th and we will have a council workshop at 5 30 on diversity equity and inclusion and our council meeting will be at 7 pm i would look for a motion to adjourn [1:35:05] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** councilmember fulch [1:35:07] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** with second memory ball sonic thank you [1:35:10] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** and kirk flatten please call the roll don't remember