all right it is 7 o'clock we will call the city council meeting of March 18th 2024 to order ask everyone to silence their cell phones and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all all right I am Kathleen ruin acting mayor mayor whan is unavailable tonight and joining me tonight are council members Peter vicory Claudia Lacy our city engineer Alison fski director of Public Works Gary Peters our director of administration Ali pus our city CL and myerhoff also to my right City administrator Jasper kugo Director of Finance braying Grim our community development director David Abel our City attorney Sarah s Sala and our chief of police Paul Falls um our first order of business is to approve the agenda do we have any changes to our agenda no no I need a motion to approve the agenda I make a motion to approve the agenda is written there a second second all those in favor I all those opposed motion passes 3 we do not have any special presentations tonight and no one has signed up under person to be heard are there any changes to the consent agenda no okay under consent agenda we have a approve work session meeting minutes from February 21st 2024 B approve city council regular meeting minutes from February 21st 2024 C resolution number 10-24 approved claims D approv property lease agreement for Trista Fields e approved conditional offer letter for Miguel Montes de Oka Public Works maintenance worker F accept the resignation of Jonathan Gan Public Works maintenance worker effective March 22nd 2024 G approve summary from City administrator performance review H approve amendment to Public Works 2024 equipment Capital Improvement project I approve capital Improvement equipment purchase J award street sweeping services to Carefree Services Inc K award Park Trail overlay Paving to jbt Black topping L Woodland Cove 11th Edition items 1 two three M Woodland Cove 12th edition items 1 and two n resolution number 16-24 approved change order two for city project 01- 2023 Street reconstruction and utility Improvement project and O is a resolution number 17-24 approve Professional Services for pavement management plan motion to approve the consent agenda items so moov a second second all those in favor I I all those opposed motion passes 3 we do not have any public hearings thank you for [Laughter] coming all right now we move on to business items item a authorize city council members for fire district subcomittee Jer thank you AC mayor and uh members of council um you may have heard uh there's been a little bit of movement regarding the the formation of a fire district um one of the things that mound we had a we had a kind of a preliminary meeting um well I guess almost two weeks ago now uh where Mound minist the St bonifacious all kind of met say hey what what should we do um how do we want to proceed uh both the Fire Chiefs are saying we should start moving down this path um for maybe council member vicory and council member Lacy this is something that's been talked about for almost well almost 10 years now um there's been a plan and a a study and we're kind of at the end of that 10y year window and it said well by then you should have a a fire district probably starting so we were kind of waiting on the fire chiefs to say now is the time and and they've kind of signaled that so one of the things they asked from us is to to form a group that could participate in the meetings and what I'm proposing is keeping that consistent with what we've done with the um St bonasus advisory committee and the mountain advisory committee with having um council member acting mayor rkin and then the mayor on that so um right now uh we don't anticipate uh there's no like costs to this but if there are costs those would go back to city council at some point in time um really I think we're we're just working through the logistics of how this happens um how you form a district um what kind of legal implications there are uh what kind of notice period that type of thing so um very preliminary stages but I think it's important to to have a defined group and then make sure that defined group is um reporting back to Council on a regular basis as things develop so I would also be on that group too I I failed to mention that so it'd be the three of us um so that's what we're looking for uh tonight just authorizing that fire district subcommittee um I'll entertain any questions anybody may have what cities would be involved yeah so that's a good question so right now um we participate with st Bona facias which includes Lake toown Township Watertown Township and us so there's four cities there the townships unclear how that we'll all check out if that's going to be a contract for services deal or or what but Mound provides services for what is it minona Beach Spring Park uh Shorewood uh Mound obviously and Minnetrista so those five cities oh shwood yep yep so part of shorwood on Enchanted Island very very small part so okay otherwise Excel here provides um the you know Shorewood proper so it could be up to seven six cities um at the most so but um it's yeah following the plan that was kind of adopted or looked at in the past this is kind of The Next Step um one of the big big questions you know do we want to have do we want to give the district taxing Authority or not um which means that they would be under the special uh taxing districts like what um like Min or uh um yeah yeah mini High Creek Watershed District mosquito control you look at your taxes that would be there'd be another line item on there so or it could be a jpa situation where the group sends us a bill and we pay it similar to what we're doing now um I think either of those models Minista would gain some um some say in budget right now we don't technically have any say in budget um we've been lucky we've had a very good both groups have been good to work with they listen but they don't technically have to so it's been good but we would technically get a little bit more say I think um in how the budget is formed are there other advantages then to to doing the district definitely yeah so there's there's an economy of scale um you know St Bonnie and and Mound have been really good at figuring out what equipment they should buy and they're not buying redundant equipment like there's one ladder truck between the two agencies um so there's things like that that have already been kind of worked out but this would officialize that a little bit more um formalize the training they've been doing and in the long run it would help us because we're using bones so then we would have as Jer said the voting power on what spot how it's spent and then if we do put a public safety building in Woodland Cove like we talked about it would be easier to man it pulling from both versus it would be in St Bona St bonus's um District but how would we staff it appropriately and the biggest the reason that both the Chiefs are looking to move forward with it now is that they have firefighters who live in Minista but not in their District so St Bonnie is going to lose potentially a firefighter who's moving from an area that's covered to a different area of Min that's no longer covered mountain is also going to lose one of their firefighters who's moving to a different area of vrista so it will help with retention because then they can continue working because it would be one District which is the big thing that I think is pushing the Chiefs forward with it at a faster Pace thank you definitely yeah so it's something that I think we've known needs is going to happen at some point in time and we've been waiting on the Chiefs to both kind of indicate now is the time to start and this will be a long process um so just timeline wise the earliest this could ever form and be established is I think July first 2025 likely we it'd be better to do I think in my opinion we'll have to work through this but um 11 2026 then you can go through and you can have your the the district itself if it's a taxing Authority could then um hold a budget preliminary Levy final Levy similar to what we would do would be run in parallel so and then they could adopt their own first budget and then that would be active on 2026 and no the reason it takes so long is if we do do a district has to go to the legislature they have to approve it so we have to go to next year's session Y and Jasper's working with hening County to find out appro just very high level cost for residents versus what we pay now versus what all the homes would pay because it can be assess based on your home value just like it is now but it would be everyone so instead of just you know certain part of them an interest so that goes to St bones and the other part goes to Mound so it just be everyone in the district would pay the same rate based on their home values so the good news is it would come out of our Levy and it would be a separate line item on your taxes so instead of the 73,000 that we pay each year in our lby it would be a line item so residents would Clearly say this is what you're paying for fire Services now instead of it just being rolled into arms so transparency wise I think it would help with the residents knowing what the services cost and are there guidelines for this like like with cities or the you Le cities kind helps put guard rails on how you do things they can this this is this has been done of a bunch of time so there's some good guidance on how to do it for sure um the big question will be the form or the type of District we want to have if it's going to be a jpa or if it's going to have taxing Authority and I I'm not sure what the preference is from other communities but I think from our community it's been stated that it's a taxing Authority model a joint Powers agreement so hopefully more to come soon with this um yeah what we're looking for is a motion tonight to approve the the subcommittee and then we can report back accordingly any other questions get a motion to approve so move second second all those in favor sign signify with i i all those opposed motion passes 3 all right next we have um resolution number 18-24 regarding various housing bills thank you acting mayor rkin um so this is very timely as there's numerous bills kind of um moving their way through various committees at the Minnesota Legislature regarding um zoning preemption of of what the city can do for zoning um the the land that's within their boundaries um these are fairly ex extreme I would say um as far as what they would limit us to be able to do so there would be a right for some of these now these are all working through committees there's amendments um that have been added so they they've changed slightly and they changed pretty quickly um but really what what the what the Crux is is they're removing the some of the rights the city has to determine what can be done in certain areas of the city and really it's related to housing and the kind of minimum units per lot um you know and they break it down into the different classes of cities so we're a fourth class city which means we're less than 10,000 people but we're rapidly approaching that number correct so and likely we won't be considered a third class city until the 2030 census so they kind of go the census dates they don't kind of extrapolate I believe um but even if even as a fourth class City some of the um Bill language that we've seen so far is saying that at a minimum you need to offer two units per lot so what that would mean is that like any single family lot in like Hunter's Crest or Woodland Cove that was developed as a single family lot for one unit um if passed we would then there there would be a right for the Builder or the developer to put a duplex on there if they chose as you move up the classes of cities those um requirements get larger it might be four units per lot or eight units six units per lot um depending on how big your city is so uh there's a few other states that have passed legislation like this as of late Washington state is one to be examp an example that I've looked into and um you know it's very challenging for municipalities who you can understand I think I'm looking at Peter you know you've gone through the comprehensive plan process it's a decades long planning process that you know we may or may not like as a city but it allows us to kind of determine where things happen at what pace you know where infrastructure is built up and certain areas to accommodate what we think is going to happen this would just open all that up somebody could build an apartment complex in the Northwest side of town and on a 40 acre you know egg preserve parcel and just we'd have to I don't know it's unclear who would who would be responsible for infrastructure so it it's very messy it's it may work for built out cities a little bit better than us but this isn't just the henpen county Metro Area thing this is a Statewide thing so it'd be every little town everybody would be um required to to make these changes so the resolution you see before you tonight is is opposing all of these bills in general um as they change and just the idea would be if we do adopt this we would then share that with the the I don't know there's four subcommittees um two in each of the Senate and the house that we would share this with um we would do a little marketing campaign like on social media and our website because I don't I I honestly don't think residents know the implications of this and how it might affect the you know feeling of your neighborhood or your the culture of the city and all that um we're you know one of the examples I I use is like you know a large lake lot on Lake minona could be purchased then they could put up a multifam house on it or you know like an apartment which it I mean that might be okay if that's what we have at zoned you know we just I think we're saying we want we want to have say in what happens in the city so a lot of these bills are kind of pushing that away from us so um I think it's been very clear League of Minnesota cities is opposed to this they've been pushing and talking to the to the legislators about this who wrote the Bill there's several versions of it Y and it's bipartisan right now now so it's both um it originally 5 years ago it started off as a republican Initiative for the first couple of years and then um kind of relying on this housing first study that they did saying that a lot of the stuff that we were doing were driving housing prices up under that um I don't know guys but now there's bipartisan support so both Republicans and and Democrats are are uh you know in support of this so and it's under under the idea that there's housing needed in Minnesota um so that's that's essentially what was what was said and and just last week the Senate housing and homelessness prevention committee Advanced it so it's it's moving forward it is I think the last I heard I think LMC just sent out a bulletin today saying that it's been incorporated into I think the Senate Omnibus Bill so the Omnibus Bill if you don't know is just has a whole bunch of bills associated with it and there's some form of it it's it's definitely not as bad as what it was originally but there's still a lot of things that we would we would be losing a lot of rights as City and one of them is it's subjects building permits to a 60-day rule so you have to do everything prove it or deny it within 60 days there's yeah the emails we get from the leag if you read them it's yeah I'll make your head spin yeah so this is just a resolution um I borrowed it from our neighbors over over in Shorewood um they they recently adopted this last week um so one of the things that the league of Minnesota City said you adopt a resolution you know reach out to your legislators we we've reached out to our legislators about this already um our Representatives but I think it's important that we get it to the people on the committee so they know that you know cities are really opposed to this I think the marketing piece locally is good because I don't I I'm fairly certain not many people and the general public know what the implications of this may be so that that's the the the the Crux of it I can entertain any questions I know um acting mayor refkin also is well versed in this and David as well um he's he's aware of these things and you know it kind of throw could throw a lot of our planning that we've done over decades you know kind of out the window so I don't know of any really good that can come from the the build I'm open if anybody so we just contact Andrew Meer we Andrew knows it's getting enough other residents to start making it known to other Representatives how bad this will be and how they don't like it because I know the city I haven't seen any cities that are happy about it um no but the representatives on both ends don't seem to care so it's going to come down to making them aware that they're constituents that vote for them are really really unhappy about this yeah I think it's been portrayed as a win-win for you know more affordable housing and and they aren't thinking about these things where we're on the edge of the metro and we don't have the infrastructure to handle this and of course we've worked for years with the Met Council to to shapee all this and we just go out the window so I think it's good to get the other side of that out as much as possible I'll make the motion vict is making a motion do we have a second second all those in favor I I all those opposed motion motion passes 3 so Jasper you will get that done and Ally will get it posted great right uh next we have city project 01- 24 2024 Street Improvement project thank you acting mayor rkin and Council um included in your packet this evening for consideration is Award of contract for this year's overlay project um we've included um I I handed out to you a summary of the um uh the the bids um that was not included in the packet so you can see we had eight biders for this project this is the overlay um of Nike Road Amber Lane and Stonebridge Hermitage Trail Nike Road um and then we also included uh overlay of Hunter Trail as well just to patch that up so we can get that area redeveloped so um like I said the good news is we got eight bids um you can see there was there was a bit of a range in that and you can you you tend to see that with bidding on projects like this um but we did have uh WM Mueller uh came in as a little bid at 287 10670 um which was under estimates so we we bid the project early so I'm happy to to say that we came in under budget or under the estimate on that um WM Mueller was the paving contractor for last year's Street reconstruction project um so um we we don't have any con concerns with Mueller being able to perform the work um we did reach out to Mueller um well we I don't know if Chris got a hold of them but we we've been trying to get a hold of Mueller to see if they have any indication of when they would start the project so uh we don't have that information at this time but um once we have that we'll certainly um provide an update um to the residents to notify them that they can expect to see work in the area it won't be hugely disruptive with just being an overlay project uh there's a little bit of um curb and gutter replacement but it's it's a a fairly straightforward minimal Interruption project um we've included we've calculated the total estimated cost of the project at $39,375 4 uh that includes a contingency and then indirect costs that have been authorized today plus um the proposed Construction Services which is part B to this this um uh this item in your in your packet this evening so um with that I'd be happy to answer any questions otherwise we would our recommendation is to approve the resolution accepting bids and awarding the contract any questions you get a motion so move a second second all those in favor signify with i i all those opposed Mo motion passes 3 um um next item is resolution number 21-24 city project 0224 payment maintenance project yeah I'll take that M members of the council um this is the second half of this since we have awarded the contract we are going to need a a Professional Services agreement for the construction Engineering Services um with WSB for managing the project as well as inspections and um making sure everything is done um per spec so that is what this is for um we're recommending that with it's a um the indirect cost of it with that will be about 20% of the pro of the project um of the 287,000 I believe we have gone under the last couple of times on this because these projects are pretty straightforward and simple but fairly easy to do there's not a lot of work especially this one this year is going to be a really nice easy project should be in and out pretty quick um two of the bigger areas don't have any impact for sewer water anything like that in the way so no man holes to go around no gate Val so it really makes it easy it's just wide open mill overlay so it'll be really good um so we're recommending uh approving the resolution of 2024 for the Professional Services proposal for um fbsp for construction services for the mid and overway project this year of uh Pro project number 0124 any questions for Carri can we get a motion to approve so moved you have a second second all those in favor signify with i i all those opposed motion passes 3 next we have I'm be myself again here for the 21 uh resolution 2124 for the city project 0224 uh this is for the payment maintenance project we do these pavment projects every year this would be for design bidding construction Administration for it um for that project which is includes um crack filling uh Rea might uh sealant applications crack uh seal coat and fog seal and then we're also including fog seal into two parking lots uh for the city parks one one at uh ly Park and one at slow Creek um this estimated um cost for the improvements this year is $122,250 that is paid out of like every year out of the road maintenance fund um we have um some of the stuff was postponed um to do now it's come forward to get it done so we're recommending that Council approve the proposal for the uh Professional Services um for this project the total design and construction services um is to be SE is no greater than $117,000 um the timeline for the project would be um get everything prepared in Al for quilt by March 18th accept an award to contract May 20th and then have the uh activities done during the summer uh which is what we normally do um nothing strange out of this so I mean it's pretty straightforward there's a lot that we're doing this year and as we go on this will become more and more and more the norm instead of these big projects you're going to see a lot more money going towards the maintenance to keep the roads that we have done in the past D through either Mill and overlays the Recons or the re um Reclamation projects they will need more maintenance to keep them up so we don't have these big ticket items anymore so um as we go forward this unfortunately will be increasing in value but we will get longevity and life out of our streets so staff recommends approving the resolution 2124 to approve the services agreement for the preparation distribution of the quilt package for the 24 payment maintenance project for city project 024 and Gary maybe just for clarification so yeah this under the $175,000 threshold so that's why we can go up for quotes and we do have a good group of vendors that we solicit the quotes from right or yes y yeah we we have and we've been there it's it's a it's a niche group and uh the ones that we do get are very good so can I jump in here too um so this is this is proposal is earlier than the council's typically seen and uh the reason being is um you know Gary's talked about wanting to get this quote package out earlier so that the these contractors aren't getting their dockets full um so the intent is to get on this Cadence similar to what we have with the street Improvement projects so that Council would be seeing these earlier in the year so we can get the quote packages out earlier and um you know get as many quotes as we can but as Gary indicated we do have good vendors we just want to make sure that they're not too busy to look at minista's work as well get them while they're hungry [Music] yet any questions for Gary or with that can we get a motion to approve so moved you have a second second all those in favor signify with i i i all those opposed motion passes 3 that concludes our business items yeah I think uh I think an or city clerk has some PNP election report so she can tell you what PNP stands [Laughter] for just had sit here okay as you know we had the presidential nomination primary on March 5th um and so we started the day with 6,525 registered voters in Minista um at the end of the day we had 820 votes cast on Election Day so that's about 12 and a half% um which is pretty normal for this kind of election I mean it really is so um in absentee early voting we had 46 total in the 46 days we did it so I guess it's like one a day um so we're done with that so now we just have the state primary coming up August 13th and absentee starts for that on June 28th and goes up until the 12th of August so that's in nutshell did we get any wrs any chaha NOP no Mickey Mouse no thank you and then I have a couple things if I may yes um I'll give a little brief update just on the City events that we have coming up as it's kind of Q2 is when it kind of happens we have um recycle day May 4th from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. so mark that in your calendar the time um 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and then on May 7th we have the uh state of the city address out at Burl Oaks that starts at 5:30 goes to 7:30 we're also going to be doing a um uh uh commission uh appreciation event there so we kind of do that our initial one um that we're going to pair with that um there is a cash bar at this event just so everybody is aware I'm not sure we had we had I think we had close to 100 people show up last year so it was a really good showing I don't know if the cash bar had anything to do with it or not but we just say that it's available um and then on May 18th uh from 11:00 a.m. to 2: p.m. we have Tris to day so make sure hopefully the the weather Paul's in charge of the weather that day so hopefully the weather's good and we have a good turnout there on June 4th from 530 to 8:30 is the city bus tour now that's kind of a first come first serve uh deal I think there was a small I think it was like $10 or something $5 it's I can't remember well to look back there it's a small amount to cover the the the um food um but it's a really good event I thought I found it really interesting um to drive around the city and kind of get lost a little bit even um but so that we haven't that's not open to the public yet we'll do some postings on that so people can sign up and state of the city is limited seating likely P up but he register for that too that was out in the messenger right it was yeah yep so those are the events that we have coming up here so pretty event heavy um we're going to start planning for the tree lighting event too U Ali and I just had an internal conversation about that and I think we're going to start doing um I think in April May do monthly meetings just to kind of get that organized to see so there might be some questions that we come to city council uh about like if we want to expand certain things I know um there's been some firework talk um as some other communities do that um Trails just you know maybe a hay ride thing or something like that so we'll talk about it um everything you know we we do go get some donations but it's not 100% funded through donations so um we'll have some more conversations about that and then uh spent a little bit of time at the the Capital One for a hearing to get some money for the trunk Highway 7 uh Coalition that we have so kind of getting some seed money to get um some things done with that didn't really go that well uh they kind of said they didn't want to set the precedent of funding these types of organizations as they've never done that before apparently uh so that was uh brought forward by Senator uh so we'll see uh maybe there'll be some some way to maneuver some other existing funds to get that done is that's a that's a group that just was formed using legislative money to do to have mot do a study about safety along that Corridor so we really need the group The Coalition itself to kind of be organized to stay on top of those things so right now it's just kind of a a mashup of all the cities and there isn't like a true leader of the group yet so that money was to to to get it maybe an executive director or a part-time executive DOR director similar to what a lot of the other coalitions Corridor coalitions have around the state so if that doesn't get funded there might be an ask in the future to see if the city of Minista along with all the other cities on the quarter want to contribute um to fund that so um and then uh City at the hill day what uh there's it was a pretty good meeting the governor actually showed up and did he talked so that was the first year that I've I've had him do that the go usually the governor is invited and then somebody else shows up on his behalf cuz it's in the middle of a legislative session this has been yeah I guess the last 5 years or so but so that was good a lot of good information really heavy on the housing stuff that we've already talked about um quite a bit there's some ESS language which I was hoping we'd never get have to talk about esst again but there's already some esst language change it's that earns sick and safe time um you know a lot of the things that we did to kind of cater to what we have going on here um one of the changes that's now I think moving forward is uh that if we offer sick all of the sick has to be for the esst allowed absence absence so that would essentially say well everything we did before we'll just get rid of and just rename sick ESS because apparently that's what they wanted so that opens up a couple different maybe potential challenges here um with uh cuz that the allowed uses for ESS are more broad than our sick so you could potentially utilize some large Banks of sick time that have accumulated over a long period of time uh for ESS related items how does that work if you have a joint bank for sick and vacation well it wouldn't really affect what we do with our PTO it would be the unions yeah the PTO they are still separate so you know if we would you know one of the things we'll talk about in two years when we're negotiating Union contracts again or you know PTO if we want to P push the the transition to PTO or talk about that um but so there's there's a lot of things that are changing um housing would probably be the biggest thing that we're seeing right now at this legislative session obviously we're going after bonding money we met with a few um representatives and Senators regarding our bonding requests um if you follow MMB the Minnesota um management budget release their banum report and the the Surplus increased significantly so they actually moved the amount of money that the stake can bond for up um I forget the the total amount but I want to say it's like around 150 million more and everybody's like well that money should go towards everybody in local government is saying that money should go towards local government because right now the governor's only allocated about 40 million towards all of local government bonding requests which isn't much if you can imagine we have an 18 a half million request um one of the representatives we talked to said that they talked to three different cities and those three cities together had over 150 million just for those three cities in bonding requests so as you can imagine um there's way more projects the money to go around so anything that we can add to that great they are um the governor is prioritizing water infrastructure projects which is good because that's what we were requesting so we will see um we will know a lot more by miday uh uh so we'll we'll see that's all I can say but the meetings were good everybody was receptive um it's just there isn't that much money to go around that's all I have any other staff reports well I can give you a little update on the gusby center so they had a board meeting on March 14th on the next one's April 6th um they have I as I said last time uh interim director but she's really getting everything organized and it's kind of exciting they have figured out that they um utilized 4,430 hours from volunteers last year um they are implementing a whole bunch of new programs Fitness um real estate um issues for seniors like downsizing and um protecting them from Real Estate scams um there's so there's lots of classes for seniors that adding Advanced Care planning because a lot of times they're going into different care facilities and um they really don't know how to plan or their children don't know how to PL to them um skilled nursing versus private nursing all these kind of issues um and then of course um there's going to be classes on specific health conditions diabetes is very popular topic um they're going to make sure they have at least one lunch per month with music that's very popular um um they're working on some additional fundraising projects and they did enter into a um a partnership with macun already which is kind of nice so they raise about 25 thou um the gby center raises about 25,000 a year just on this little bake sale that they do and they offer you know these baked items and kind of day bake and the seniors can just drop in what what they can and I was really surprised that they did $25,000 on so now they're doubling the size of it um and they're picking up four times a week from mcons so that's really generous and really nice so if you walk into mcon thank Ryan for um helping out the BL Center um that's really all I have now they're still working on kind of updating their Facebook page their their um website so um the C room director has been really a fun and exciting person to work with that's really all I have oh oh one more kind of little thing um so went to the Planning Commission meeting and uh David L I believe was in here this evening um he is um doing a 5,000 foot commercial building in Woodland Cove and his plans I guess it's four particular four units um they were really beautiful and the it was it was nice to see the U Commissioners all um kind of Rave about how nice it was to see the the mockups the colors the what they were going to be using the the materials so it's fun to see that and he's local it's kind of nice too nice local person's going to really care about what he does here that's it well I'll be attending the Sarah Creek or pioner Sarah Creek Watershed District meeting on Thursday so nothing to report till then okay and I as we talked about Jasper I myself and Lisa attended the um district meeting with m in St B that's already covered that so something I have to report any other updates all right if that is there a motion to adjourn moved is there a second second all those in favor signify with I all those opposed motion passes 3 meeting is [Music] adjourned