This transcript has been formatted with speaker names based on the context of the White Bear Lake City Council meeting. [0:00] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** ...and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Right. Right. I would entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the regular city council meeting from November 25th. [0:20] **Council Member:** Second. **Council Member:** Second. **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Motion to second. All those in favor say I. **Council Members:** I. **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Any oppose? Motion carries. Minutes are approved. Item three, adoption of the agenda. We have a few amendments. First one, we are going to move two items from the consent agenda. So items 4 H and 4 I will now become 8 C and 8 D respectively. And we are going to remove item 5A, the citizen police award. [0:48] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Sounds like one of the recipients um had some troubles with the weather. So we're going to reschedule that and we look forward to giving him that recognition very soon. And with that, are there any other corrections or amendments to the agenda? **Council Member:** Move to approve. **Council Member:** Second. [1:03] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Motion a second. All those in favor say I. **Council Members:** I. **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Any oppose? Motion carries. Uh the agenda is approved. Item four, consent agenda. I'd entertain a motion to adopt the consent agenda as amended. **Council Member:** So moved. **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Do I have a second? **Council Member:** Second. **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Motion to second. All those in favor say I. [1:18] **Council Members:** I. **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Any opposed? Motion carries. Consent agenda is approved. All right. Item 6A, the 2026 final budget tax levy and truth and taxation hearing. Miss Crawford, whenever you're ready. [1:26] **Carrie Crawford (City Manager/Finance Director):** Thank you, uh, mayor and members of the council. Um, tonight we, uh, I'm going to present the 2026 general fund and other operating budgets, as well as a 2026, uh, tax levy and 2025 revised uh, general fund budget. After the presentation, the city council will hold the truth in taxation hearing. And finally, the city council will um adopt the budgets and the tax levy. I will just note we're having some technical difficulties, so the presentation's a little bit smaller on the screen, but at least we have it up there. Um so the purpose of a truth and taxation hearing or TNT uh is to provide a summary of the next year's general fund again or our operating budget, explain property tax implications of the budget and allow for citizen comment. Uh staff spends the entire year um monitoring the present year's budget and preparing and drafting the next year's budget. So, just that here's a timeline of our annual budget process and dates that are in bold um are where the city council is included. [2:36] **Carrie Crawford:** And throughout the year, the public is invited to engage with the city, its elected officials and staff through many different ways. And here's just a few of those ways. Um I know we've taken probably three uh phone calls um before tonight's uh presentation regarding next year's budget. So uh which is a little bit less than than last year. An important step in uh in financial management or long-range planning is uh ensuring that both our um our capital improvement plan and our financial management plan and our operating budgets um align with core strategies uh of the city council and city leadership team have identified in our current strategic plan which was done in 2024. [3:19] **Carrie Crawford:** The city council and staff will update the strategic plan uh next spring, first quarter. [snorts] And so the core strategies in our strategic plan are a safe and welcoming community, maintain small town feel, engaged community, responsive leadership, a complete community, support redevelopment to revitalize local economy and business districts, excellent services and values, and dedicated and supported city staff. There are several of several of the strategic plans goals and objectives relate to long-range pl uh planning and capital improvements. And I'm not going to go through the other uh piece of the slide. Um but just to show you that several of our goals and objectives uh do align with uh or do call out for strategic or excuse me financial planning. [snorts] And so staff has prepared a budget that does align with the strategic plans and needs of the community. Uh like every year, staff followed specific budget commitments when creating this year's budget and they include a um support a public safety model that is oriented to being proactive and preventative and prepared while meeting the staffing um while meeting the staffing support and facility needs. Maintaining a 10-year capital improvement plan to ensure funding is available for future projects and capital replacements. Maintaining a 10-year financial management plan. [4:38] **Carrie Crawford:** Maintaining a fund balance of not less than 35% of the following year's budgeted operating expenditures and gradually eliminating reliance on local government aid to support uh general fund operations. Notable revenue changes in the 2026 general fund or our operating budget include uh franchise fee revenues um decreasing from Xcel Energy as well as Ramsey Washington Cable Commission or SCC as we refer to it. Um and those are based on customer usage. That's uh nothing within the city's control. Um but those revenues are decreasing. [5:17] **Carrie Crawford:** Non-business licensing and permit revenues trending downward with the completion of school district um projects and no new significant development projects that are planned. Uh local government aid funds have been retained in the general fund at the same level as in 2025 to help reduce the tax levy. I realize in the slide prior I had said, you know, we're trying to wean off of that. We did retain those um in this budget to to help offset a tax levy. The Minnesota DNR share—uh, should say shade tree grant. My apologies for that. Uh funding reallocation to match planned expenditures and 25 and 26 ambulance revenues have increased um which is a good thing based on 2024 actual and 2025 year-to-date receipts. And then interest revenues uh based on the current year's receipts have slightly increased. [6:03] **Carrie Crawford:** When we look at our 2026 uh notable expenditure changes, salary adjustments for the city's compensation plan and labor contracts um which includes um benefit factors and a 3% cost of living adjustment. Forestry management uh as outlined in the the DNR shade tree grant on the previous slide. Highway 61 median maintenance and required safety measures. Uh that is to meet compliance with um MnDOT standards. Required Minnesota family uh leave program expenditures added have been added with a 50/50 uh cost share between the city and its employees. Website hosting and federal ADA compliance add-ons and additional personnel that we will talk about uh in a further slide. [6:57] **Carrie Crawford:** So when we get to uh the discussion of a property tax um levy, the property tax levy supports operations in the city's general fund. Revenues and expenditures within the budget impact the general funds fund balance and it is it is essential that cities maintain adequate levels in their fund balance to mitigate risks of revenue shortfalls or unanticipated expenditures and future financial stability. So the city of White Bear Lake analyzes its fund balance uh through a few calculations. One is the state auditor uh recommends that city keep cities keep a minimum of five months of operating costs on hand uh and accessible to cover unanticipated costs. And so again that's 30 that's that bullet point of 35 to 50% of expenditures um for the following year. Our projected balance for the end of next year is 43.23%. So that's within that range. That's also within the city council's um policy of of that 35 to 50%. And then um secondly, the fund balance availability to pay claims in the first half of any given year. Um the city uh the city's 2026 budget um does meet that at 64.42%. [8:18] **Carrie Crawford:** Uh the city council adopted a preliminary levy at their September 9, 2025 city council meeting. Um just for those listening, once a preliminary preliminary levy is set, it may be reduced before final adoption, but it may not be increased. So therefore, the city council did set a ceiling and asked staff to uh sharpen our pencils and find any potential reductions before the final tax levy is adopted. Um this graph shows that that staff has worked hard over the past few months to do just that. Um so we started out our preliminary levy talking about it in percentages was 9.97 and tonight uh the final budget projects 8.92% um preliminary or excuse me final levy um which is higher—8.92% higher than the 2025 final levy. Um that proposed levy increase uh reflects a uh an increase of um 1,230,000 and it's attributed to everything that's on that slide. [9:04] **Carrie Crawford:** So, uh looking at it from a percentage standpoint, uh 6.33% of that is for general operations, including um existing personnel and benefit expenses. Um we are the city—uh, all cities are—are very service-heavy and therefore they're very employee-heavy and so that's always going to be the bulk of of any any budget. Uh 1.75% for debt service for the most recent street reconstruction project and equipment certificate for a fire truck replacement. 0.27% for the public safety facility debt service and 0.57% for one IT technician position and the salary and benefits of that. Um, in addition, there are—is an addition of two firefighter positions, full-time firefighter [clears throat] positions that are also included, but they do not have an impact on the uh tax levy for next year or the addition of the tax levy because we have reallocated um salary from part-time firefighter expenditures to um full-time. So to cover those costs, but just to be transparent uh to let you know that they are also in a budget in the budget. [10:36] **Carrie Crawford:** Um this uh I realize this is small, it's even smaller tonight, but this is an attachment in the city council's packet um reflecting a bunch of numbers. Uh the taxable market value in White Bear Lake grew by 3.31% from the previous year, the net tax capacity grew by 3.79% and again a total preliminary levy uh is growing by 8.92%. The bottom half of the sheet that is not on the screen, but it is in the city council's packet—uh, if there were no changes to a property's market value, and we'll get into this in a little bit, um but that tax levy would truly uh feel like 5.16%. So uh that's because uh it's 8.92% because our as I just said our taxable market value is growing. So the city tax capacity rate uh will be at 31.97%. [11:43] **Carrie Crawford:** Uh here is this slide is a comparison of revenue collected per capita with some comparable cities that the city has traditionally looked at over the past several years. This includes the 2026 preliminary levies which of course are subject to change. Um many cities are are this month are required to hold the these final meetings. So these are preliminary numbers from September. Uh, White Bear Lake has a greater population than some of these cities, yet a much smaller tax levy. So, this means that our total per capita revenue collection is at the bottom of the list at about $665. And it is worth noting that in 2025, 2024, and 2023, White Bear Lake was also at the bottom of this list. [12:22] **Carrie Crawford:** When we look at this in a little bit different way, uh the chart on this screen shows five years of levy history for comparable cities including uh again including estimated preliminary uh levy increases for 2026. Uh so once again this shows that White Bear Lake remains right at the bottom with where we have historically been with these comparable cities. And although we are catching up, our our our levy increase is still less than what New Brighton's was last year and the same as Shoreview's in 2023. [13:10] **Carrie Crawford:** So when we look at um one tax dollar in White Bear Lake, you can think of this pie chart as $1. And so where does that $1 go? And so 22 cents of that $1 goes to the city of White Bear Lake. Uh 37 cents goes to uh White Bear Schools, 34 cents goes to Ramsey or Washington counties. And then seven cents of that $1 goes to other taxing in uh entities such as the Met Council or the Mosquito Control District. When we look at uh that the the blue section, so the city's 22 cents, if you will, and drill down further and take the city's um budget, this is how the city's budget is broken out. We have um police and fire and other public safety uh areas spread out. Um but if you were to combine them, over 60% of the city's general fund or its operating budget um is goes directly towards public safety services. So police, fire, ambulance, um and all of those very important things. [14:21] **Carrie Crawford:** Uh in 2025, the median home value for taxes payable in next year in White Bear Lake is $349,000 uh which is set by the county auditor. Um the city—no city in the state of Minnesota—um well some may have the the um that person on staff. The city of White Bear Lake does not—is not responsible for assigning property values um in in White Bear Lake. Ramsey County or Washington County is responsible for that. But um in 2026 um the median home value in White Bear Lake, as I said, is $349,000. [15:02] **Carrie Crawford:** So next year, a median valued home would pay to the city directly um or the city would receive from that valued home just over $1,000 for the entire year in city taxes. And so for that price, that property owner receives exceptional quality of life um in White Bear Lake if you ask me. Um 24/7 police response, 24/7 fire and EMS response, street maintenance, sweeping, lighting, snow plowing. Um I guess a note: they'll be out at like 3:00 a.m. tomorrow to plow roads, parks access and recreation activities, election activities, access to city publications, access to city um staff and its elected officials um and everything else that that we work hard to provide an exceptional quality life in White Bear Lake. [15:47] **Carrie Crawford:** So, when we—I said I would also present some of our other budgets. Um, our enterprise and special revenue budgets don't have an impact on our tax levy, but we're presenting um all of our budgets tonight. The city council will adopt all the budgets. So, in full transparency, we have many other funds that the city um operates which include—I'm not going to go through everything, but I have them all listed here in the presentation. So, water, refuse, um, surface water, the city's marina (which is managed separately from the city, but is city marina), equipment acquisition fund, municipal building fund, park improvement fund, pavement management, and uh, economic development. And there are uh, a couple on here that I didn't include, but um, the council has talked about all of these funds, which the other, you know, another one includes a sports center, for example. [16:50] **Carrie Crawford:** When we shift um back to this year to 2025, the council's also um being asked to adopt a revised 2025 general fund budget. And so shifting back again to talk about that for a minute, our final 2024 budget reported a significant surplus uh due to higher than anticipated building permit uh fees and ambulance transport charges, interest revenues, as well as several uh personnel um expenditure savings due to position vacancies. Those position vacancies were mainly in our public safety departments. And so that may appear successful. Um the reality is is that again those public safety departments um have been operating understaffed which is not sustainable and hopefully we don't see that for the end of 2025 and going forward. [17:36] **Carrie Crawford:** So uh the city council discussed earlier this year what to do with that surplus and to help offset um the property tax levy. Uh the city council um staff presented and council, you know, I think there was a consensus—officially you'll do it tonight, but—uh retaining 750,000 of that surplus uh to keep that in the general fund again to offset the property tax levy um for next year. 100 and plus $150,000 of that surplus uh we do recommend transferring to the sport center fund to support operations for 2026. Um you adopted a 2025 budget um with a planned surplus. The city council adopted that with a planned surplus of um almost $16,000. The 2025 revised budget anticipates a surplus of approximately $90,000. And again that's that is because of—well the 24 budget was because of vacancies. We have had some vacancies but we have also had some overtime because of those vacancies. So um that's a the summary of the the revised 2025 budget. [19:00] **Carrie Crawford:** Um there are several um property tax assistance kind of, you know, just speaking to the community on this one, not necessarily to council. Um but we have this slide in here every single year. And we do have a handout that didn't make it in time for the packet, but we do have handouts in the back um as well as in the lobby from Ramsey County and property tax resources. Um this is the final side of the presentation. And I just I guess would conclude with—you know, no one—staff doesn't get joy in bringing a levy increase forward to city council. Um but so I would I guess I would just end there and and say that uh staff does recommend the council hold the truth and taxation hearing and subsequently adopt the three attached resolutions in the packet again for the 26 budget and revising the 25 budget, the 25 tax levy for taxes collectible next year, and then uh resolution committing the fund balances for uh specific purposes. So, mayor, I will pause at that point and uh finance director and I stand for any questions that the council may have. Thank you. [20:10] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Thank you, Miss Crawford, for the detailed presentation. Um council, let's hold on questions for now. Uh I'm going to open up uh this for to conduct the truth and taxation hearing. I don't have anyone's name on my list at this time. But anyone that would like to step forward and be heard on this, please step up here, state your name and address for the record, and give us your thoughts. [20:34] **Michael McCertie:** Uh, my name is Michael McCertie. Uh, I currently live at 1973 Campbell Circle. I previously lived at 3764 Howard Avenue. Um, so I'm standing before you here today uh because even though your budget looks good on paper, I had to cut my 401k in anticipation for this tax increase. My property tax is going up $700 this year. That might sound insignificant. I don't know what your guys' economic position is, but $700 in my family is significant. [21:13] **Michael McCertie:** With that said as well, I don't know I don't understand where now we're trying to catch up to these neighboring cities um as far as tax revenue. And I also want to state that the increases over the last 5 years have been significantly over the CPI. Significantly. So I I mean inflation is not an argument. [sighs] Right now, I'm paying twice as much toward taxes as I am gaining equity in my house. And finally, I would like to also take this time um to request P-Card statements, vendor bills, and any other expendatory records that you guys may harbor under your authority pursuant uh Minnesota statute 13.03. And that is my notice. [22:13] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Thank you, sir. All right. Would anyone else like to be heard on this subject? If so, please step up to the podium. State your name and address. [22:31] **Pat Cob:** I've got more paperwork 'cause I'm a old accountant that likes paper. So, Pat Cob, 3378 Orchard Circle, right across from the Y. Um, so my analysis similar to his—on maybe not as much what this year's increase is, but what historically the increase has been the last few years. So my schedule starting with 23, 24, 25, 26. So three years of increases in total, [sighs] my total taxes 5,624 in 2023 is now going to be $7,034. That's $1,400 increase, 25%. Ramsey County is in line with that, 27% over those three years. The school district, this kind of surprised me, they're only up 15% in that three-year period. But the city of White Bear Lake—so in 23, my taxes were $1,045. [23:31] **Pat Cob:** This year, they're going to be $1,555. So, that's $510 increase or 49%. In a three-year period, that's too steep. That's a lot in a three-year period. The the pie chart that you had in your presentation, 22% is the White Bear component of the total for this year, but in 23 it was 19%. So, White Bear is becoming a greater component of the overall tax bill because White Bear is going up at say roughly 50% over three years compared to 25% in total. So, it's a lot. [23:59] **Pat Cob:** Um, [sighs] my my biggest question—'cause I'll give every single one of you, especially Carrie and Lindy and your staff, you guys do a hell of a lot of work for the city. Your packet 394 pages long. I doubt everyone in this room read all 394 pages and analyze the charts. I tried to read some of it and 24 pages of the capital improvement plan for 10 years of capital wishes broken out by fund line by line. There's a lot in there and you've got to do it for planning, but some of the things that are being requested when it says in the 26 column, I don't know if all those things are in this budget for 26 or if they're still wish items from when the capital plan was done or not, but I agree [sighs] with the comment about the the slide that showed where city of White Bear Lake rates per capita $666. My my chart was the different chart where it showed 609. [25:25] **Pat Cob:** I just don't know if that's an accurate fair calculation. When you have residential tax rates at one rate, commercial at a different rate, apartments fall into the commercial rate. How much commercial space does White Bear have compared to New Brighton? Compared to Oakdale? Compared to how many residential homes? Compared to how many apartments? I mean, is—is that calculation really just the residential taxes collected compared to the number of residents? Because if it's convoluted with how much is residential versus commercial versus industrial, every city's different. I—I don't know how you compare city to city in that chart and say, "Hey, we're one of the best." And maybe we are. Maybe the math really does work out that way. [26:12] **Pat Cob:** But when I glance at that, I'm a little skeptical of that, but I fear that that makes it look like, "hey, we're really low. We've got room to spend, so let's get caught up." I don't know if that's happening. I know prior administration, we didn't bond. We had different ways that we financed it. We're getting caught up. There's a lot of pieces that go into this. And 394 pages of a packet prove how complicated this process is. So my biggest question is—[sighs] when I look at some of these on the capital improvement program, I question, do we need 225,000 for monument signs on County Road E? Is that going to make County Road E better? Do we need 250,000 for new sprinkler system at Lakewood Hills Park that—I don't know that Lakewood Hills ball fields get used the way they used to? [27:19] **Pat Cob:** So, I don't know [snorts] how many of the things in this plan compared to, "hey, this ambulance needs to be replaced in year 10. This fire truck's here. This dump truck's here. This loader is here." Those things are easier. You need to be on a cycle to replace them. Those make sense. They're easier to understand. But my biggest question is what's next year look like? I don't anticipate you guys voting any differently than yes on this tonight unless someone comes up with an amendment. But I want to know what next year looks like because that puts into perspective of what this year looks like. When—when I go back to my homework—[sighs] 16%, 18.5%, 8%. What's '27 going to be? And what's '28 going to be? Is it going to be 8% or is it going to be back to 16%? Because we can't keep going at a 49% over a three-year period rate. [28:12] **Pat Cob:** So, if anyone wants to talk to that, I'm—I'll listen. But, uh, I—I think those are my three biggest pieces and and curious as to—if this goes forward, where do the next years come after this? Thank you. [28:34] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Thank you. Would anyone else like to speak to this issue? All right. Seeing none, I will close the truth and taxation hearing and bring it back to the council. Council, I'm sure you have questions for Miss Crawford, but I'm going to—I'm going to make a few comments in response to the two residents that spoke. First, I want to say thank you for showing up. This is the heartburn that it's given me for four years is taxes are a big deal. It is, but there's 24,500 residents in White Bear Lake and two people showed up at the truth and taxation hearing. So, it's really hard from our—from our standpoint to gauge—what does the general public really think? What's the pulse of the city? So, while I'm disappointed—I'd like to hear from a lot of residents, good, bad, or otherwise—um, we at least heard from two. So, I do commend you on showing up and you posed some questions and a public hearing isn't a direct conversation. So, I'll just generally comment and respond to those. [29:38] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** You—I'm sorry. Sorry, I forgot your name. But, uh Pat, you—you said, "What are the next years look like?" I'm going to—I'm going to paint a picture for you of what my thinking has been as the guy who a month from now no longer will be in this chair and will have zero influence over the next um tax levy. When I came into this role four years ago, I was looking at a history of 10 years of not raising the tax levy $1. And you said other administrations were able to get by. It's—it was my goal to correct that because the way that they got by was to defer maintenance. And that's great until you've got a whole lot of fire trucks and a whole lot of maintenance that suddenly becomes due. And they did that by being in the 20th percentile or the 10th percentile for paying our cops and firefighters. And what's the result of that? We lose cops, the good cops. We lost one and it was so disappointing that we lost. But he took a pay raise for $20,000 more. They're not making 500, 600, 700,000 a year. That's a huge percentage increase that we cannot and will not compete with. [30:42] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** I have supported over the last three years a 20% increase. That's a lot. That's the average. A 20% increase, a 15% increase. And now finally, we're getting closer to reality, just under 9%. So to answer your question directly, what my hope is next year as a resident of White Bear Lake, I'm hoping we continue that trend and we've went through the painful years. So now we can sustain the—the graphs with other cities are very helpful because you need to benchmark it against something. The ones at the far end of that, I think they're nuts. I think they're spend-happy crazies. I'm not trying to chase them, but we do have to benchmark it against something to give us a scorecard. How well is White Bear Lake stretching its dollars? And I'd put our ability and our staff's ability to stretch a dollar up against any city. [31:28] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** We have a fully developed city. We have our own police department, water treatment, public works. Shoreview doesn't have a police department. I don't or fire department or police. I don't know why they're getting to that tax levy. Um that's crazy to me. We do and we control it and we have great great police, great public safety. If you look at our increases over the last several years, the overwhelming majority of it has gone towards pay increases for our staff. That gets us to what I said I wanted to get to, which was just in the murky middle. We're nowhere near the top. Nowhere near. We're just at a salary that passes the smell test so that I can keep a straight face and say that's a—that's a fair salary and you're not taking a huge haircut by policing the streets of White Bear Lake or plowing the streets of White Bear Lake or cutting the grass in the parks of White Bear Lake. [32:43] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Um, and sir, to your comment, I don't know the exact math of your address, but I'll take you at your word that it's a $700 increase. **Michael McCertie:** 16.5%. **Mayor Dan Bolt:** It's 16.5%. That's a lot of money. **Michael McCertie:** It's a lot. **Mayor Dan Bolt:** On an individual basis, I—I don't have an answer for you other than to say on a multi-million dollar budget spread out throughout the community, yeah, there are some winners and losers. And—and that a lot is has to do with how the county assesses your—your value. We could line up several people where there's barely even changed even though the average is 9%. Personally, mine went up a significant amount. In the years where it went up 20%, it didn't go up that much. That's the—that's the mystery that city government has to deal with. [33:22] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** When your taxes are assessed, the property values are assessed by the county and then we set a tax levy based on a percentage basis. Uh we don't control that. I wish we—I wish we did. I wish we had some control over it. So I don't want to minimize the impact that it has on you. I don't want to see you have to cut your 401k, but I'll say for the—for the fourth year in a row, there isn't a marble fountain that we can cut. You pointed out some irrigation things. I trust staff that they're as frugal as they can be. What I care most about is six and a half of that almost 9% is going towards cost of living increases for our city staff, our cops, our firefighters, our public works folks. Um, and I will always defend the budget as long as I feel like the bulk of it's going towards those essential city services. So, um, not trying to stick it to you. I wish—wish I had a better answer for you. [34:28] **Michael McCertie:** One question. **Mayor Dan Bolt:** You sure can. **Michael McCertie:** As far as like the uh sidewalk uh improvements within the city itself or downtown. Have any of the business owners been negotiated with as far as contributing to that expense? [34:36] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** If you're talking about the—the downtown reconstruction project that's coming—Miss Crawford has an answer for you. **Carrie Crawford:** Thank you, Mayor. That project has not started at this point. We've not had any discussions uh with uh any property owners in that area. So the—the—I'll just go back to it so I don't misspeak—that uh 1.75% related to the 2025 street reconstruction is a neighborhood street project uh not downtown. **Mayor Dan Bolt:** And then a fire truck. I'm going to make one final comment because I want to echo what I said before about deferred maintenance. That public safety building was a really expensive but long-overdue project. [35:26] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** I can't stomach it when our fire chief says these are the fire trucks that we need that are a lot bigger than they were in 1962 or early 1960s and we can't have them. We can't have the proper equipment to fight fires because the doors aren't high enough and we can't even retrofit them because the building is 75 years old. So that—that has contributed over the last couple years. It's also one of those things that I don't want to do a project like that on that scale for another several several decades. I hope I've got, you know, teenage grandkids by the time we do that. But that happened over the last few years that was set in motion. So there have been some big significant things and I really do believe that city staff—after I'm gone and next—the next councils will take heart to those big increases over a three-year period and realize that you don't get to do that. [36:19] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** You can't do that and you can't sustain it. Which is why this year this council set a very—very high priority on making sure that the levy comes back down to reality. I'll be honest, I set a target of 5% because it's always—it's almost always going to go up a little bit. Everyone usually gets some kind of COLA—cost of living increase. Our expenses go up. We didn't hit 5%. But I can tell you city staff and this council worked really, really hard to sharpen our pencils. We've come down a full percent over what was originally proposed last fall. And that I think is a testament to the constant fine-tuning to try and suck every last little bit of value for every dollar that we collect. We do take it seriously. So, those are my comments. I do support this budget. Um and I'll defer to council now for if they have questions for Miss Crawford, Miss Kinzer, or what they'd like to do. Council. Council Member Edberg. [37:12] **Council Member Kevin Edberg:** Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I've been here 16 years—gives me some perspective. Happy to respond to some of your questions. You're all valid. So the base years that you use for your comparison is a really important conversation. From 2009 to 2019, our tax levy was 0% increase for 10 years. No inflation. We paid for it with other things, other resources. We didn't levy for it. I—my personal opinion—so for 10 years—your—your data started in 2023. Completely fair game. I think your numbers sounded about right for that three-year period. But in my opinion, you also need to go back and think about—so what were city taxes over the period going back to 2009 and what have those increases been over a 15-year period. So that would be another useful data point in kind of understanding or levelling the—the conversation. Zero dollars for 10 years. [38:21] **Council Member Kevin Edberg:** As a result, we had—I won't repeat what the mayor said—deferred maintenance and constrained uh staffing increases. We were to the point where we were losing staff that we ought not to have lost because they can go make a whole lot more somewhere else. And so as employers, we have the obligation to be competitive, to be reasonable in attracting and retaining uh [clears throat] staff. I personally think that our staff is outstanding. I'm—there might be a—a newbie out there or something. Our staff is outstanding and they go out and do stuff that the rest of us are happy that they are out at 3:00 a.m. plowing our streets, servicing our water breaks, doing all of the things that um—um—that they do on our behalf. And so we have a great community that people want to live in, which takes me to my second point. [39:31] **Council Member Kevin Edberg:** All of our comparisons on how much—how many dollars we pay need to be put in the context of what's happening to the assessed value of the property that you're—that you either own or whatever you're looking at comparing. For me, my uh personal property tax, my personal property assessment went up 40,000 bucks this year. Now, my home is less than the median value, so it's over 10% in—uh—in an increased uh assessment. It is what it is. And I—uh—on other occasions in life, I've had an opportunity to go talk to the assessor about, "hey, here's what your numbers say. Can you show me?" And they've always been able to say, "here are your relative—uh—here are the relevant properties to compare it to. Here's what they are actually selling for in the marketplace." [40:04] **Council Member Kevin Edberg:** And therefore, from that, we impute what the value of your property is. The good news is that I'm 40,000 wealth—$40,000 uh wealthier today because of the assessment. I actually believe their assessed value. Um now, do I feel rich? No, because to access the wealth, I'd have to sell my property. Uh that's not exactly my goal in life at the moment. So, the way we assess and pay property taxes is based on the value of the property. And we didn't hear how much the value of your properties were going up, but that is in my case—the increased valuation is driving over 50% of the increased taxes that I'm supposed to pay. I'm okay with that. It's like—it—that's the way the system works because last year my taxes didn't go up that much. They were far more reasonable. I think the assessor didn't uh pay a whole lot of attention to my house last year. It's been—so he was catching up and that's okay. That's kind of the way the system works. [41:00] **Council Member Kevin Edberg:** Now, sir, your taxes went up 700 bucks. We're accountable for 200—about 200 bucks of that, right? And for a median house, I'll go back to the numbers that Miss Crawford shared. $349,000 median taxing uh median tax income. And on that, the property tax is a little over a,000 bucks—call it 1,100. That's about a hundred bucks a month. And for that we get police and—uh—police and fire and ambulance and a whole bunch of other stuff for a hundred bucks a month. Now you can talk about increased costs. That's one way. Let's talk about value and—is life in this city worth a hundred bucks a month for streets and all of the stuff? That's a—that's a different conversation that we—uh—uh—that we can have to secure that good well-being. Yes, we've made some uh significant new investments in the last few years and the biggest one is the big little building over next door and that cost us 15 to 16 million and we are having to uh bond for that and so we have a principal and interest payment that has started showing up in your bills. [42:04] **Council Member Kevin Edberg:** So in the last two, three years, yeah, I think your numbers actually sounded really—uh—really really close to me. But you have to also compare, am I getting the same basket of goods or have I—am I getting a different basket of goods? And I would argue that—having a better, more well-equipped uh building for housing our police and fire department adds value. It reduces response time and if anybody has a heart attack, we want our paramedics to be able to get there in about 5 minutes because if we can't get them there, that's a bad thing. So that's what we're investing in on your behalf. Whether you feel that's a value or not, legitimate conversation. [42:51] **Council Member Kevin Edberg:** Not yet. I'm not done yet. The um—so the increases that we have been seeing in recent years reflect 10 years of 0% increase. By the way, not a single person ever has come up to me and said, "Thank you for the taxes you didn't levy. Thank you for a 0% increase." Not a single person. So be it. That's—that's human nature. We uh covet when we have an issue and when it's in our favor, well, lucky me. The um—Mr. Cobb I agree with you that the dollars per capita number—the 661 per capita—that's not a precise measure. [43:43] **Council Member Kevin Edberg:** I don't think we extend it as—here is the only measure—but it is a reasonable and calculable kind of way of saying okay compared to everybody else how are we doing and there are other ways and you are correct in that if we wanted to be more detailed we should look at—so what is our relative mix of commercial and residential and all the other property categories. We don't do that. That number uh takes the uh total tax levy and just divides it by the number of people. So, it's—it's—it's a rough estimate. It's not intended to be an accurate one. And you're completely correct that if we wanted to be more detailed about that, we should take residential taxes versus uh number of residents, etc., etc. But if we—but we'd also have to do that to every one of those other cities as well, and I'm pretty sure we would still come out down on the bottom. So that's kind of the—that's just the dynamics of—of how things—uh—things flow. [44:47] **Council Member Kevin Edberg:** The last time I—I'll mention—um the question was asked about the downtown reconstruction process and and so forth. Um this past year we improved—the city owns four parking lots downtown. We paid for those out of other resources um because the city owns them. So the city is responsible for its upkeep. We're going to need to do something about that over the next 5–10 years because in—so that amount that we paid was about 1.5 million not necessarily on your property tax levy. We have some other sources of revenues but we're going to have to figure out how do we avoid putting another 1.5 million out of our expenditures in 20 or 30 years when those lots all need to be resurfaced again. So that's some other conversation that we're going to have to have. The street reconstruction process. [45:36] **Council Member Kevin Edberg:** Building—uh—building owners, so not necessarily businesses, but the owners of those properties will be assessed for a good portion. We're still working through exactly how much is that portion going to need to be—uh—what level of goodies are going to go downtown. Um, Council Member Hughes at our last meeting—uh, two meetings ago, talked about, okay, are there things that we can set things we can hold space open for and do them later? Can we spread out the rate of expenditure to try and make this better? I think that's a wise idea. I'm certainly going to carry that on even though you won't be here to argue for that. I think that makes uh, tremendous sense. How do we stretch out our payments and find some other ways of financing the—the things that we want and need to do? With that, I will stop. But those all are examples of why you're seeing what you're seeing today. And you [clears throat]—I only suggest—look at it over a longer period of time and look at it from the city's value for what you get living in the city council. Any other comments? [46:40] **Michael McCertie:** I'm want to say another word. **Mayor Dan Bolt:** But yeah, you you're welcome to if you could just step step up to the podium here. **Michael McCertie:** Yes, sir. Uh Kevin, may I ask how long you've been in your house? **Council Member Kevin Edberg:** 20—um—93. [46:56] **Michael McCertie:** So you probably don't have a mortgage on it. **Council Member Kevin Edberg:** I do not. I hate that. **Michael McCertie:** Okay. So let me put it in perspective for you. I have a $418,000 mortgage. **Council Member Kevin Edberg:** So our finances are very different. **Michael McCertie:** Okay. So when you're saying $100, you're happy to pay that. I get where you're coming from. But you've also benefited from that 10 years of no tax increase. **Council Member Kevin Edberg:** True. **Michael McCertie:** So you—you've already benefited from that. **Council Member Kevin Edberg:** I have not. Right. I'm coming into this like—now I'm paying for a lack of oversight from a previous administration or whatever you what—what have you. But I suppose I—I felt a little a sense of disrespect there um when you were trying to say that I didn't value our services because I do. I absolutely value even all of you guys for, you know, taking the positions that you have and being a public face like that in itself. I mean there's risk that comes with that and there is, you know, a lot of people to deal with—a lot of people that get angry that get irate—but I'm saying simply, and I'm not saying that irate and I'm not mad, I am saying that in my financial position, this tax levy is a drastic amount because I'm already riding a very fine line in my cash flows. I, you know, just like a business, a household is ran like a business. I have to watch my cash flows. They're starting to get tight. They're starting to get very tight. And with that, I'll—I'll... [48:38] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** I appreciate it. Yeah. **Michael McCertie:** Council Member Edberg, I respect what you say. [48:53] **Council Member Kevin Edberg:** One of the challenges that—this is probably the 35th time in my life when I've sat through a conversation like this in levying taxes. There are things that we get to control as policymakers and as your elected representatives. There are things we don't. We don't get to make the decisions about how what individuals choose to value in terms of what kind of home they choose to live in, where they live in, the home value that they find reasonable and necessary for their lives. That is entirely your decision. Our job is to try and say what is necessary for the community, what is necessary to protect—provide public safety, what is necessary to make sure that we have water that runs and sewers that flow and all of that kind of stuff and do it at what we think is the least cost and that's what we're trying to do. And it's a tough match and it—they don't always come together in an easy way. So I apologize. I'm—I'm—I'm not happy that that is your condition. [clears throat] We're doing—I'm doing the best I can. I'm going to make assumptions that the rest of my colleagues are doing the best we can to try and make this as workable and livable as possible for as many folks as we can. [50:13] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Just one follow-up comment. I—I appreciate that and we do have to end the conversation the back and forth because we got to move on to other business. But I'm going to pick on you and direct it towards you, but this is really for everyone when we're talking about value proposition because this is how I think about it. And when I think about how much I pay in taxes, I want to pull my hair out. But I think to myself, how much did I pay in federal income tax? Want to sit down and cry. And what was my value proposition? I appreciate the military, but there's a whole lot of stuff that I just don't know where it's going. And that's a way bigger percentage of the $100 a month. Then I look at what I paid in state income taxes—although less than the federal—for what it's being spent on, I really, really want to cry. And that's a lot more than what you're paying at the city level. [50:59] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** So, I don't begrudge you for coming here. We can take it. We can take the heat. It's easy to to get to the elected officials—uh, the local elected officials, and say, "get your frustrations out." I'll take that all day long. But I will defend the value proposition for the actual dollars spent that are coming into the city of White Bear Lake for what we're providing than what the dollars that are going to the state of Minnesota and what you're getting or the US federal government and what you're getting. That's what helps me justify it. Otherwise, you just—you'd go crazy. But if you look at the value proposition on a local level, it's better than any other level of government. Is it great? No. Is it perfect? No. But um we're providing essential services as frugally as we can. I don't want to lose cops. I don't want to see potholes all over the roads. I want to make sure that the water that comes out of the faucet is clean. I want to make sure that when you flush your toilet, it goes where it's supposed to go rather than into your house. Those are the kind of things that we're doing. Um we may not be perfect, but I think we're doing a pretty darn good job. So I again—I defend the budget, but I thank you both again for for weighing in on this important discussion. Council. Any other? Council Member Walsh. [52:03] **Council Member Bill Walsh:** Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have a couple questions. Um, you mentioned in the presentation ambulance revenue. I don't know if we need to get that—that slide up as one of the earlier slides. Ambulance revenue is up in 2024 and then up in 2025. We're almost at the end of 2025. So, what does that mean? How do you account for that in 2026? Did we just project a higher ambulance number? What—what does that mean to me when you say am—up in 2024 and 2025? Uh what does it mean for 2026? Maybe Miss Kinser has the answer. [52:35] **City Staff:** Um Mr. Mayor and Council Member Walsh, in that we um increased our revenue. So, it's hard when we're trying to budget for ambulance revenues and some of it we're a little conservative because we don't want to be basing the budget on um revenues that we're not going to be getting in and it's hard to predict how many ambulance calls we will have and how many people will be paying their bills. You know, sometimes it takes a little longer to be getting that in. But when we factored—so '24 was conservative and we had more ambulance calls and we were receiving payment and then in 2025 it's been the same. So we increased it um by 3%—that's what the rates went up. So then we had increased the revenues by that assuming that they'll hold on. [53:23] **Council Member Bill Walsh:** So the—we increased rates—but—so—but you didn't increase expected participation or does the—is the anticipated revenue just match the rate increase? Or did you say we're going to have more... **City Staff:** We estimate—we make our calculation of the average cost that we receive for an ambulance. You know, we take all of our revenue and we say that somebody um calls—there were—we average it out. We multiply it by an estimate of what we um charge. So, the rate increase is in there and then we come up with an estimate of how many calls we think they're going to be. **Council Member Bill Walsh:** Okay. **City Staff:** So, it's—there's some estimates to that, but it seems to be going up and I believe that that's going to hopefully stay the same. [54:19] **Council Member Bill Walsh:** Okay. Um, my other question is, um, and I'm looking at—I don't know if this—I think this on the slide, but the first page of the budget doc that you included in the packet—kind of the big summary. Um, just looking at that—that last line or almost the last line—revenues over under expenditures. And so you can see the like like 2025 budget as as uh we we heard was, you know, we budgeted for $15,000 to be over. We ended up way more than that obviously. So then this—this projected budget—oh no then we revised it down to 90 which was the next step. So it's just—I just want to point this out and ask this question I guess—but so the projected revenue over under expenditures for the 2026 budget is—is a negative 380,155. So just—just want to make this clear and you can help me if I—if I mischaracterize this. [55:05] **Council Member Bill Walsh:** So we—we are—and I always struggle with this—we're—we're passing a—an unbalanced budget tonight and we're—we're—we're using carry forward essentially from 2025 because it's in the bank. Um and I—and I support that. We—we as a council we agreed to do this and it's I think it's the right thing to do. Um so we're—we're shifting some money from 2025 on the bottom line to help us through 2026. But—but if you really look at expenditures and revenues, we're 380,000—we're going to spend 380,000 more than we plan to bring in. Good news is we have—we have a surplus to—to make sure that doesn't, you know, go—go over. But just—just setting that up for next year's budget, you know, and—and I've been—I've been saying this for a long time—I—I'm not happy. And I'm not saying anybody did a bad job, but and I know you're trying to budget for to be at 15,000 over, which is a really tiny number on the amount of the budget that we're doing. That's—that's 0.1% I think. I don't know what that is. It's really small number. And I—and I appreciate you trying to do that. And I just would keep continue to encourage to try to budget to that—to that perfect, you know, money in, money out as close to—to even as possible because what we're doing is we're borrowing it from the citizens and—and it's great that we have $900,000 extra, but we took that out of everybody's property taxes last year and we didn't use it. Now, we didn't use it for all the right reasons. You know, I'm not criticizing the management. Um, you know, you give—you have positions that are left open. Um, and it's, you know, it's better to be under than over obviously, but I just want to continue to encourage you guys to try to hit that number right on. And we're 380 over. So, we'll make that up. But, uh, but if we come in at zero—close to zero—then we're going to have a $380,000 challenge right from the beginning—at the beginning of the budget process next year, which is fine. I mean, let's just—we'll deal with that next year. We have money this year to do it so we don't have to go back to the property taxes uh to get that in advance. I just want to make that point. Um... [57:06] **Carrie Crawford:** Council Member Walsh... **Council Member Bill Walsh:** Yeah, go ahead. **Carrie Crawford:** To elaborate on your last point right there. So, um, 300—so, that 380 that we're budgeting under, um, is helps offset the tax levy. So, just to I guess for the—those watching or in the audience to put in perspective, if we were to present a balanced budget, our tax levy would be probably closer to 12% if—if we [snorts] did that. So, using cash and—but trying to get as close as possible really does help um help keep the tax levy low. But just to put it in perspective, you know, about $150,000 is 1% of our tax levy. So, 380,000... So, just to add to what you said. [57:51] **Council Member Bill Walsh:** Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate that. Yeah. And that's—and that's a I think the right decision. We—we could say—certainly a city council could say, "Hey, there's a million left over from—from 2025. Let's—um—it's one-time money. Let's find a capital expenditure to—to—because we have 10 year capital." As Mr. Cobb pointed out, we have 10 years of wish list. We could easily have put that towards that." Uh but we chose to—let's try to lower the blow as much as—we didn't succeed in lowering the blow for some of the people in this room. And I appreciate that. We did—uh—we did lower the blow a little bit uh with that money. Um, those are my questions really. Uh, just—I'll just if I can add my comments in—in defense of a tax increase, I guess is what we're doing. [58:36] **Council Member Bill Walsh:** Um, the only thing I'd add is—is and that comparison chart to the other cities is interesting. It's not—it's not re—it's not—we don't have to have it in the presentation. I think it's fine that we do. We're certainly not chasing the other cities. There's no one in this dais that is chasing the other cities. As a matter of fact, every year when we have these exercise, I think, man, we're going to move up into the middle of that list and we never do, which is sad. It's a sad commentary in the whole metro area. I think we're moving up and everyone's moving up with us and we're—we're—so we'll never catch them and that's fine with me. We are at the bottom of that list. I'm intrigued by Mr. Cob's idea that the mix of residential and commercial and and in the per capita number. I'd like to look into that. I don't know the answer to that whether that's a fair comparison. We've been using it a while. I think it is fair because—here's the—here's the thing. There's a lot of things we don't do in White Bear Lake. [59:21] **Council Member Bill Walsh:** So, in my defense of of the tax increase—if—if I support the—like the mayor said, um we're a people-intensive business. Government is people. We don't—we don't sell a product. We don't have manufacturing. We're people. And so, when we have to pay people more, um it costs more. And that's—that's the driving force behind this. And we got a building we built certainly and we—we've got a fire engine to buy and we got firefighters, but it's people. So, so as we raise the pay for those that—that we already have on staff, if—if in a perfect world, I'd say, who can we cut? What are we doing right now that we don't have to do anymore in government? If you want to lower taxes, you have to stop doing things that cost money. And that means you have to get rid of people that do those things. And that's been the—it's not a frustration—because—a frustration as a budget cutter. What do I cut? There isn't a lot of things in this budget. I've said this before, uh to—to say, "All right, we have to do this. We have to add two firefighters. Who can we get rid of to offset that cost so that your taxes don't go up $700." [1:00:20] **Council Member Bill Walsh:** I don't know who those people are because there's a whole list of things we don't do that a lot of the cities on that—on that sheet do. You know, we don't have recreation staff. You know, we're lucky because the school district does that. We don't have communication staff and the current staff wants communication staff and they've been asking for it for years and this council has been saying no and holding off on communication staff. But City of Eagan has a communications director that makes $150,000 a year. Um and and then several people under them—and they're—they're bigger than us. Certainly they're—they're—they're bigger than us, but lots of cities have communication staff. We have resisted. We really don't have economic development staff. We have a community development department, but we don't really have what's called economic development... **Council Member:** We do. **Council Member Bill Walsh:** Well, not—not in the—not—not like other cities do. We don't have huge departments full of people that do economic development. And we don't have a port authority, you know. We don't have a library, you know, and because you know, we have the county library. We don't have an airport, you know. Um, we—we—we do police, we do fire and ambulance, we do streets, which has an engineering department. We deliver water, we take away sewer. [1:01:29] **Council Member Bill Walsh:** Um, by the way, water and sewer is fee driven. There's a whole another presentation. We're going to—we're going to approve the fee schedule tonight, too. Right. So, I did this last year. I think the average White Bear family household has about a $500—you can add $500 in fees that you pay to support what we do in the city that isn't in this general fund budget. That isn't part of your property taxes. I think it's another $500 you can add in sewer, water, all the other fees we do. Um, we have a license bureau that mainly breaks even. We have a sports center that has broken even for a long time. This is a—a new thing in the budget. You saw that $150,000 that we have to support it with. I think we're going to be looking at that strongly in the—in the—in the near future, whether we want to keep doing that, what that means. We have a senior apartment that breaks even. Uh, actually, it—it has a surplus and takes care of itself. [1:02:16] **Council Member Bill Walsh:** So, my point is if I could find something to cut to offset the increase, I would. And I've tried—and—and some years have offered amendments to do that. Um, and I think there's some—there's going to be pressure in the future with some of the—the new hires that—is—that are—that are—that are wanted. Um but—but we are on the low end of that—uh—uh—property tax thing because we don't do a lot of things that other cities do and—and I want to keep that going and try to pay the people we have already like the mayor said. We've got them to the middle of the pack. It's been expensive. We've been hiring full-time firefighters. We've been doing that for—I don't know—seven years, six years. That's expensive. We got one more year of that uh to do and that could level off then. Um, but uh we're—we're doing—we're doing the minimum in White Bear Lake. And uh I would add—I would agree that we're getting good value. So I'm going to vote yes tonight. And—and I've look—I—you guys know I'—I've—this is my 10th year on the council. I think I voted five—five property tax increases and I voted no five times. So this year I'm voting yes. Thank you. [1:03:21] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Any other comments from the council? **Council Member Hughes:** I do. **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Council Member Hughes. **Council Member Dan Hughes:** Yeah, I guess um Mr. Cobb, you were kind of asking what's going to happen next year. And I guess I would just telegraph, you know, it's still going to be another—I mean, I'm looking at a 9% increase just in order to keep things going. Um, you know, it's one and a half on what is going to be a downtown street reconstruction program, but it's not the downtown one. It's—it's the residential right next to it. It's probably not one and a half, but it's probably one. And that's a yearly thing. Every year we've done that. So every year you need that—add that on—and there'll be another six, you know, around for—for general operation. Um, and there'll probably be some other nickel and dime stuff in there. And so that's—that—that—that's without doing anything really. [1:04:10] **Council Member Dan Hughes:** Um, which, you know, property taxes are public and so is my address. You can go look at mine. It sucks. I'm not sitting up here—not—I mean it sucks. I looked at mine this year and was like, "who is voting for this?" And here I am. Um because like Council Member Walsh, I can't find anything to get rid of that—that makes sense. Um I mean there—there just isn't anything—there's not—there's not a lot of extra there. We do go through that CIP. We go through that in the spring and we had a lot of good fun with that this year trying to figure out what some of that stuff was and how we could get rid of it. And I was asking a lot of dumb questions like, "what is this stupid thing?" Because it—anything that had a six figure on it. I was like, "what is this? Do we need it? Can we get rid of it?" So it does get gone over. All 350 pages of the budget? No, I got to admit I'm not going through and like looking at what what some of those charges are. But on the over-under, yeah, we're going through everything. Every single bit of it. [1:05:07] **Council Member Dan Hughes:** And we spent four hours talking about it just a month ago, another four hours talking about it in August. And then again that CIP meeting was—um—was—I mean those are the some of the stuff that you got to go in and listen—and—and—because that's where we're really talking it up and trying to figure out like really where is the priority and where isn't it. Um you know we're—we're a city as—and—and—and what we—the value we provide—you can see it is in the road, it is in the park, um it is in the police and fire and so you start thinking like what do you not want done. And I did kind of bring that up once. How about we just don't do something? And you know, there wasn't a lot of willingness to not do something. And not because they want to do more, but because what they're doing is appropriate and right and—is—and—is—and—is driving—um—it is driving what you ask for, right? I mean, this is—this is a governmental organization, right? That gets paid for by all of us. And so in theory, all of us get together and say, "Hey, what do we want to provide for ourselves in a group format?" And what we want to provide is police. What we want to provide is fire. And so we all chuck money into it. And then we all get that back out. [1:06:21] **Council Member Dan Hughes:** And so what they're providing is the thing that we have all in theory said we want. We want the city to provide that. Um, and yeah, there's not—there's not extravagance. I kind of wish there was because I would—I would go after that, you know, we would all go after that. Um, so I'm going to support it as well. I—I tried not to last year and—um, you know, you just—I wish I could find it. I wish I could find 3% to bring it down because that's real money. You know, it's 3% isn't like 3% off the cost of my shirt. That's—that's $3. This is—3% is real money. I get it. And I wish we could find more of it. And I look forward to sitting in your seat next year and asking the remaining members that are up here and the new ones, "what are you going to do to lower my tax bill 'cause I couldn't get it done. So do it for me again." So. [1:07:22] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Very good. Any other comments? All right. I would entertain a motion to approve the resolution adopting the 2026 budget and 2025 revised budget. **Council Member:** So move. **Council Member:** Second. **Mayor Dan Bolt:** I have a motion, a second. Any further discussion on that? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. **Council Members:** I. **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Any opposed? Motion carries. The resolution is approved. I have a second resolution. I'd entertain a motion to adopt the resolution adopting the 2025 tax levy for taxes collectible in 2026. **Council Member:** So moved. **Council Member:** Second. **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Have a motion, a second. Any further discussion on that? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. **Council Members:** I. **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Any opposed? Motion carries. That resolution is approved. And entertain a motion to approve the resolution committing fund balance for specific purposes. **Council Member:** So move. **Council Member:** Second. **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Any further discussion on that? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. **Council Members:** I. **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Any opposed? Motion carries. The resolution is approved. Thank you again, Miss Crawford, for the detailed presentation. And thank you for members of the public for weighing in. We do appreciate it. [1:08:25] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** All right. [clears throat] Item seven, unfinished business. A second reading of an ordinance establishing the 2026 fee schedule. Miss Crawford. **Carrie Crawford:** Thank you, uh, mayor and members of the council. We had a thorough discussion at our first reading, um, at the last city council meeting. This is the second reading. I'm happy to go over anything again, but I thought in the interest of a snowstorm, I would focus on the budget escrow fees because that's what we spent quite a bit of time talking about. And, uh, Redevelopment Director Lindall uh, can help with with this piece as well. [1:09:02] **Jason Lindall (Director of Community Development):** Sorry. Thank you. Sorry about that. Um, so on page 10 of your fee schedule um discusses uh proposed building escrow fees and we did revise the language from the first reading that's on your screen. And it's also again on page 10 of the fee schedule, but wanted just to elaborate that this would come into play um for new construction for when um when uh someone needs a certificate of occupancy and that is new construction or reconstruction—a new—um—new uh house if you will. So um and again you know if occupancy is required to complete—is required um prior to completion—a temporary certificate of occupancy could be issued with an expiration date, but once—once someone is in that structure it's really difficult to get things finished. And so that's when these would come into play at the discretion of uh of the the building official. [1:10:04] **Jason Lindall:** And again, escrows just help ensure that property owners and contractors follow through in a timely manner and don't create a code enforcement issue in some cases. Um, they will be collected um, again only on unfinished items. The building official will evaluate the need of an escrow upon a final inspection and a permit holder would be made aware of of these at the time of a permit being issued. So that's before their project starts, but they wouldn't need to get an escrow at that time. It would be only towards the end and again only if necessary. So um with that maybe I'll—I'll—I'll pause there in case Director Lindall has anything to add. Um otherwise we can go to your next slide or the next slide. [1:10:54] **Jason Lindall:** Okay. So, mayor, members of the council, um just to again echo uh what Miss Crawford stated, um we did go back, redraft the language to try to make it more clear and concise and targeted. This is only addressing new construction of single or if you do a duplex because our residential neighborhoods—a certain portion of them allow for a duplex—and it's only in cases where um we get to—they get to the end of the project and there are some outstanding um—um—item and generally these things are outside the home. It's just the list that's uh included in the fee schedule. And so what we did is we went back and looked at the city's record of new homes or uh tear-down or reconstruction of homes um over the last 5 years. So this is '25 year-to-date back to 2020. And of that there were 32 total new homes constructed. And if you look at this list, um, six of those passed on the first time that they did a final inspection. So, we're really talking about, you know, those items that, you know, required two or more here. So in this case uh 26 required more than one inspection on that [clears throat] list and 16 or um 16 required more than three in—uh—inspections to get to a final uh approved certificate of occupancy. [1:12:18] **Jason Lindall:** So um again this is a tool to help provide um an escrow to ensure that those um—uh—improvements are completed. It is staff's hope that in the instances that this escrow is asked for that that helps reduce the numbers on this list which then turns into you know less in—you know—less instances where staff are following up on on new construction of those homes. So uh again what we did is we tried to sharpen the language to make sure that this was more clear uh to the—to the reader. Um and uh we tried to give you some examples of the instances when this—is—would—would have been used over the last 5 years. And with that I'd stand for questions. [1:13:27] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** So I just want to clarify: when would this escrow come into play in the context of these first, second, third, fourth—the hierarchy of these inspections? Help me understand practically how that would play out. **Jason Lindall:** So, mayor, members of the council, the—the way this is the escrow um is proposed—is it would not be required at the beginning of when you issued a permit. It would only come up in those instances where the applicant or the—the permit is requesting a—a temporary certificate of occupancy or the building official decides that one is necessary to keep the project moving along. And so it's only at that point that they could ask for an escrow. And what we will have on our permit form is an indication that there's a potential for an escrow if you need a temporary certificate of occupancy and—but it won't be asked for until that point that it—that would actually be required. [1:14:32] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** So I don't know if I'm following—I guess I'm looking for more of a practical example. I'm build—I'm going to build a house and it's all good and I'm ready for inspection, but darn it, the contractor for the driveway didn't quite get out there. "Hey Jason, come on out. Inspect my house." Not you, but you know what I mean, right? [1:14:48] Um well, "sorry. You don't have your driveway poured. So here—here's your—here's your temporary certificate, but you have to—you—you need to put up this money in the escrow account." Is that how it works? Or is it "Well, let's have a conversation. When's the contractor going to be out?" "Well, he said 2 weeks." "All right, why don't we—why don't we hold off two weeks um and we'll see where we're at then and we'll come back again." In practice, in the real world—because this is just stuff on a sheet—which I—I know that's what we're passing—but I want to understand what it means in practice. [1:15:20] **Carrie Crawford:** Mayor, I'll take this one. Um so yes to everything you said—that's when it would come into play at final inspection. Your driveway is not done. It would be situational based on the building official. If it's—you know they're okay—say—we—the building official issues—is—issues you a tempo and you can say "here's my schedule. They're coming tomorrow to pull it or, you know, to pour it and it's going to cure and won't park there and all these things." I highly doubt an escrow would be required in that situation. If it's 6 months um or—or something falls through—I mean it—it's hard to answer because this will be very situational um as we said and I think you even said in the first—during the first reading—we're going to work with our—our community members and we're going to be very reasonable as we always are um with—with—[snorts] our—with everything. But it—it's going to be situational at the building uh official's uh discretion. Um and you know, we don't—this is one more thing for us to follow up on too, right? So the—the goal is that—thing is things are done when they say they're going to be done when—when they're needed to be done, but ultimately we don't—we need them to be finished so we don't create code enforcement issues out there in the community right off the bat. [1:16:33] **Council Member Kevin Edberg:** Thank you, Mayor. So I get the scenario and I appreciate the mayor's questions about in the real world. So we assess—we—we impose the escrow. How is the decision made that the escrow is no longer—is going to be kept by the city because it hasn't been done or there is some other resolution? What—what is it that triggers release from escrow and what happens if that doesn't occur in the real world? **Carrie Crawford:** Okay. Um so from my experience um —uh— there—let's say we have to uh use that escrow to get that driveway poured. **Council Member Kevin Edberg:** Oh. **Carrie Crawford:** So that's—so we do it—when we—would—that's—that's the point of the escrow—of that cash—is if it's not going to get done then we have this escrow and we're going to go out and get it done again. So there aren't code enforcement issues right off the bat. Right. A driveway is a little bit tricky because it's—just—it's a little tricky situation, but um that would be an example. We don't want—again it's another thing for staff to follow up on. We don't want to have to do that, but this would be in cases where we absolutely have to do that. [1:17:52] **Council Member Kevin Edberg:** Okay. So the idea is they either get it done in which case they get the escrow back or if it's not done and is in danger of becoming a code enforcement issue then we secure a contractor to do the work—whether it's to their liking or not—it'll meet—it'll be done to a level that meets city code and we spend escrow and if we need more we send them a bill or... I'm just trying to understand the—how does this really—how—how does money really move. **Carrie Crawford:** Yes. **Council Member Kevin Edberg:** Okay, cool. Thank you. By the—I appreciate the clarity that was brought to this through this language and the the work that's been done since our last meeting. We had a—a wide-ranging conversation. I appreciate the clarity and it—it meets my test for—for—uh—knowing when it is imposed. [1:18:48] **Council Member Dan Hughes:** Okay. Just so I'm clear because I'm looking at this list. We're going to do final landscape. We're going to bring somebody in to put in trees. We're going to bring somebody in to put in a rain garden. I—I guess I'm not real excited about that. I—I mean, I—I get maybe the sidewalk and um curb cut and some—I don't—I don't know. I don't know final grading. I don't know why we're doing that. I just feel like some of that stuff is, you know, you're sitting on their private property and um I don't know, some of that kind of is a little squidgy for me. [1:19:30] **Jason Lindall:** Mayor, Council Member Hughes, the grading and—uh—just the couple examples that you listed, grading and and—uh—rain gardens would be to correct stormwater issues so we're not—so the property is not creating flooding the neighbor's yard. That would be a code enforcement issue that we would have to go in and deal with. So uh and again these are all things that the applicant has been—has said—submitted in their plans that they are going to be doing. Some of which they're required to do for—uh—to meet—you know—to—to get their permit issued. So that would be the only reason. It's again—none of this is for fun. We hope we never have to use it. Um but we would be in communication uh with the permit uh with the applicant if we had to use it if we had to obtain the escrow and then had to use it. [1:20:20] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** I—I appreciate the clarity because it was unclear the last time we discussed this. What certificate of occupancy? Is that just a guy who just wants to read his driveway? No, it's new construction. It's when you need your certificate of occupancy. Here's where I struggle with—and I—I want staff to push back and say, "Dan, you're just totally wrong." I get this as a tool for undeveloped communities where a builder comes in and specs 50 homes and that builder just isn't getting around to putting the driveways in. And you know what? If that was the case in White Bear, I'd say absolutely take 50 driveways times $8,000. You want your certificate of occupancies, you better get those driveways poured. We don't have that in White Bear. It's a guy or a family who's building a house and—the statistics are helpful because it sounds like we don't have a major problem with this. This isn't—this isn't a huge thing. So, I'm just wondering while this is a tool and it's used in other communities and it really applies well for new developments and new neighborhoods, we're—we're building in a solution to something that isn't really a problem. [1:21:30] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** It's nice to have for those extreme situations, but there's not a lot of those extreme situations. And I can see the average resident one, not fully understanding it, and two, creating unintended consequences for the many situations where a person who's just, you know, doing new construction, buys a tear-down, wants to build a home, and is having issues with the contractor, and wants that driveway put in just as much as anybody else. And now we're forcing the homeowner to put up the escrow. And it might not be their fault. They may be pulling all the levers they have to pull. And I don't know if they just have 8 grand sitting around. I don't want to just assume. I understand contractors, it's a business. But we're putting the burden on a homeowner. And I don't just want to assume that because you tore down a $300,000 home and spent $800,000 on the construction that you just have cash flowing all over the place and you can just put that up. So that's what gives me the heartburn of this. I understand everything you're saying, but before we go and pass a—a tool for onesie-twosies and not a huge problem, I don't know if I'm convinced that this is a—a big enough problem that it requires broad-sweeping solutions. I will note that I have every confidence, like I said at the last meeting, that staff isn't going to come in heavy-handed and use this as a club. That's true today. Is it true 5 years from now? Is it true 10 years from now? This is a big change and staff changes and conditions change and cultures change and once it's on the books it's harder to scrape it away. So those are my concerns. [1:30:10] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Here's how I'm seeing it. When we—when we require an escrow, we actually have no desire to then take that money and go fulfill the work and complete the work for them. We want that as a leverage point so that they go and do it and give them the money back, right? That's our goal. That's the home-run scenario. **Carrie Crawford:** Yes. **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Yeah. Okay. I—I say that because to message to everybody, if we go down this route, we don't want to be in the business of putting people's driveways in or going—going onto their lot and building fences around their pool. It's—it's a leverage point in the worst-case scenario. If we have to push it to the extreme, we're going to do it. That's why the escrow is there, but we really want them to just get on the ball and do it themselves. Okay. Just want to make that clear. Council Member West. [1:30:32] **Council Member Heidi West:** Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, I, you know, I appreciate also the clarity. I had questions about what this was all for, when it was used, how we were going to use it, and and all of that. So, um, this makes sense to me how it—how it could be used now. And, um, thank you for all the questions beforehand, too. That helps. The way I—and I also don't want to increase an administrative or financial burden on anybody who wants to move into our city. Um, that is not ideal and I'm sure not—like—our goal. I do take a look at all of the different houses that required a multitude of times to actually um pass their final inspection. And it may not be a lot, but we're a—like—a built-out city, so we don't have a lot of new construction. Um, so this—that's a pretty—pretty significant number of houses. Only six passed the first time. So I'm just thinking—if it were my neighbor um that was having this issue. I mean, they're already done with the internal. This is—we're talking about the external part where everybody sees it. And again, it—it affects um neighbors. So, I—you—know, I think it's reasonable. The way you're talking about how it would be utilized is reasonable. Um it's an encouragement and potentially even an assistance. I catch your point though, mayor, that we don't want to be the ones that are subcontracting to get stuff done. Um that's not the purpose. Um but certainly an—another lever to help the city get the work done so that the homeowner is happy, the neighbors are happy, the city is happy. So I—I would support this. [1:32:31] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Any other thoughts on this or on the proposed fee schedule? All right. I would entertain a motion to approve the ordinance approving the 2026 fee schedule. **Council Member:** So move. **Council Member:** Second. **Mayor Dan Bolt:** A motion and a second. Any further discussion on this? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. **Council Members:** I. **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Any opposed? Motion carries. Ordinance is approved. I'd entertain a motion to adopt the resolution approving summary publication of the ordinance we just passed. **Council Member:** So move. **Council Member:** Second. **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Have a motion to second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. **Council Members:** I. **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Any opposed? Motion carries. That resolution is approved as well. [1:33:26] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** All right. Item 8A, conditional use permit for variance request at 4496 Lake Ave South. Mr. Lindall. **Jason Lindall:** Mayor, members of the council. Thank you. Um, as you mentioned, uh, this application comes from the VFW Post 1782 um, located at 4496 Lake Avenue South. The request is for an amendment to their existing conditional use permit um to add 14 boat stalls to their existing uh uh boat slips, excuse me, to their existing dock. Um that necessitates a—also—a parking variance request to accommodate the additional parking that's needed as part of those boat slips. Um the planning commission reviewed this at their last meeting. comments from that uh summary—both minutes um from that meeting and comments summarized in your—are summarized in your packet. The comments were really only from the applicant during that public hearing. The planning commission and staff are recommending denial of the application. The variance vote was 3 to 1. Uh the conditional use permit vote was 4 to 0. And in this case, uh PC member Bill recused himself uh from this vote uh—uh—because of his relationship with the VFW. [1:47:32] **Jason Lindall:** Um so then in your staff report um—it—we went through this in more detail at the planning commission level but it's also detailed in your staff report the various findings that uh staff made uh to come to a recommendation of denial. Um and so I'd be happy to uh answer any questions on that if the council uh has those. But with that, um, I'd stand for questions and the motions for the resolutions that are in your packet. [1:48:05] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Thank you, Mr. Lindall. Um, I do understand the applicant does have a representative here. We typically hear from them. So, if that representative would like to offer comment, you're more than welcome to come forward now. Please state your name for the record. **Justin Frogner:** Mr. Mayor, council members, um Justin Frogner, Senior Vice Commander of the White Bear Lake VFW and a resident of White Bear Lake. Just wanted to share that the Veteran of Foreign Wars Post 1782 is a nonprofit organization made up of military veterans who served in overseas conflicts and their families. We advocate for veterans' interests in Congress, host community events, provide a place for veterans to connect, support their families, and access benefits. The VFW provides scholarships, including the Voice of Democracy and Patriot's Pen. We have donated over $49,000 locally this year to veterans' organizations in the White Bear Lake area, including $7,500 to the White Bear Lake Area Food Shelf, $2,250 to the White Bear Lake Area Public Schools and Recreations, and among other local organizations. We performed 10,654 hours of community service last year, receiving a national recognition. We facilitate Ramsey County Sheriff's means to contribute to the safety on the lake. [1:50:22] **Justin Frogner:** We partner with Bear Boating for an efficient means to continue offering seniors, military service members, veterans, and people with disabilities something to enjoy and look forward to. The White Bear Lake VFW's operations allows us to contribute to the community as mentioned and be able to assist veterans and their families during hardship, which is largely funded by our slip fees. Our slips are in high demand and our members who are—are or become slip holders—are expected to participate in community service projects throughout the year. The White Bear Lake Conservation District has approved the request. 19 independent environmental studies were conducted without issue and the DNR's approval is pending. Extending the dock to 300 ft brings the VFW in line with the conservation district's allowable ordinance and the rest of the marina. It allows us to offer more of the only transient boat parking spots in the marina. During the last planning commission meeting, two members commented that they were supportive of the extra boat slips but wanted to push it to the city council to make the decision because of the parking. [1:51:14] **Justin Frogner:** Following the planning commission meeting, we took another look and found some discrepancies in the math we would like to—like considered. For example, our outdoor seating chart was overestimated and our transient slips were included in the total boat slips which are meant for boaters to come directly from the lake to eat and do not necessitate parking accommodations. Also, some slip holders are local and further mitigate parking constraints by choosing to bike or walk instead of drive. Parking in many areas of White Bear Lake are tight. Very few businesses and parks have appropriate parking which leads people to park in nearby neighborhoods in the area. Others have been able to make it work. We ask that we are offered the same chance because we are more than just a restaurant and bar. We are an established organization with a long history of giving back and want to continue to grow with community. Thank you. [1:52:05] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** Thank you, Mr. Frogner. Council, we have questions for staff comments on this. Council Member Walsh. **Council Member Bill Walsh:** Um, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just on the—a couple of questions on the public parking ramp uh in the Boat Works project. I couldn't see my—my—it's getting [snorts] late. My eyes aren't working anymore. I couldn't see your—your slide. The VFW doesn't have any spots in that public parking, right? They weren't part of the one of the businesses that bought slots in that space right? **Jason Lindall:** Mayor, members of the council. That's correct. **Council Member Bill Walsh:** And then there's—there's no—one of the things that the planning commission said—I happened to attend the meeting—sort of the—one of the messages was, "we love this, but you're four—you're four spots over. Please go find four more spots like in the neighborhood and then come back to us." And I guess that sounds good, but I don't know that there are four spots out there to get. And so—so the—my other question would be: we've accounted for every single spot in that—in that parking ramp, right? There's no—there's no extra that they could take advantage of? **Jason Lindall:** Mayor, members of the council. That's correct. [1:52:23] **Council Member Bill Walsh:** And then—and then if you could—if you can bring the map back up uh with the—you have red boxes over—keep going back there. So the new zoning code says we can count parking adjacent or I think abutting—is that the word we're using? Abutting the property. So you've got the west side circled with or with a red square and you've got the north side with a square. So we're counting those. What about those directly north there? There's four more to the north. Now, I get it. Technically, they're not abutting the VFW. They're abutting the park. That's our park, right? Is that our park? **Jason Lindall:** Yeah. [1:53:01] **Council Member Bill Walsh:** Um—uh—I mean I guess—I guess while technically not abutting, um if we counted those in the mix, we'd add four more spots right there uh to the north. It's a little—it's a little parking lot that people just park in. Um, not necessarily for the VFW. Certainly, you can use—you can—you can park there and walk around. You can go—the public dock is there. The public swim—the fishing pier is there. Um, I—I'm just—I guess—I guess I'm getting I'm sympathetic to the request. I'll just—I'll just say that. Um so maybe I'll just ask a question. Maybe it's a question. What—what—what do you—what does staff think about those four? Is—am I—is it just they're not abutting? [1:54:21] **Jason Lindall:** So, mayor, members of the council, the—the way the ordinance reads to consider um public parking adjacent to abutting a business—is that the parking, like you said, abutting the business on the same side of the street, you know, within the property, you know, along the property perimeter of a business can be counted towards that credit. It then also goes on to state that if there is parking across the street um in an area that is um can reasonably—is not going to be used for development—um, that if there was parking across the street that could be credited um as well towards a business. In this case, what staff looked at this and that um that provision of the code and said, "Well, there is a public park there that does have some use to it." And so, we determined that those weren't eligible to be counted as credit towards this business. [1:55:36] **Council Member Bill Walsh:** Yeah. Thank you. Let me just say from the—from the outset, um I'm glad the staff has the recommendation in this packet that they do. I think they looked at the letter of the law and followed it and gave that recommendation to the planning commission and that's what I expect and what I want. Frankly, I tell people all the time and they say, "Well, we talked to staff and they said no." I said, "Well, they said you didn't meet the requirements. That's their job." You know, now—now we're different. We're a political body and we can make a decision that's different than the staff recommendation, but I don't want to discount the staff recommendation. I expect and appreciate the recommendation that says you didn't meet the requirements. Um, we said no. Um, now I'm going to ask that we overrule that tonight. Uh, but that—but—uh—I—I appreciate the—the recommendation. [1:56:21] **Council Member Bill Walsh:** The planning commission was—was interesting and I just watched but—uh—they're sort of supportive of it. It was like one of the comments was, "we've—we've—got troubles with parking in this area." Obviously um a lot of people are over. We've had—we've—we've struggled here with parking before and um we've ignored it and we've approved things that have been over parking limits and one of the comments was, "we just—just don't want to add to that anymore." And I appreciate that. I mean that was a reasonable position to take. Um I guess I disagree though. I'm—I'm comfortable with this very small addition to that problem and that challenge of—of—too much—uh—too many cars for the spots that are there. And—and—uh—I'm willing to do it especially I think in my mind I could count those four to the north uh or some of them. I think the other point that's new from planning commission is the transient slips that are for transient uh for boats to come from the lake—that have no parking by definition. You're driving on a boat from, you know, Mahtomedi uh and docking there and coming to eat at the VFW or maybe going to Kowalski's or doing anything else. So that could help the formula. I don't know if it gets us all the way to four new spots, but when you start adding those two things together, we're getting really close to being actually in compliance with the previous variances that are already there. So, I guess that's a long way of saying I'm comfortable with it. [1:57:41] **Council Member Heidi West:** Thank you. So, so in your brief conversation this evening, was—um—was it clear how many of those would be transient? **Jason Lindall:** Uh mayor, members of the council, I'm sorry, not—not to me. Um but I'm sure the applicant can uh uh help us with that. And I guess I would just say it seems like the context of the discussion here is um if the use was different there's that could help impact the parking requirement—which talks about if the number of seats were a different number or the number of boat slips was a different number the parking requirement could also be less. [1:59:26] **Council Member Dan Hughes:** I just wanted to respond back to the—your initial question of—where—of—of the transient slips. And I would just note that in their own written narrative that is in our packet and as part of all of their paperwork, they wrote in here originally that four of the slips will be reserved for short-term parking of the initial 12. So, it wasn't like this came up tonight that they decided, oh, we're all of a sudden going to do short-term. This was part of their original plan—that four of those slips would always be for um short-term parking for the general public or for VFW members. [2:04:21] **Council Member Kevin Edberg:** So all of our calculations are based on assumptions about use. We established when we did the Boat Works project and the the public parking ramp—we made assumptions about the relative use of that parking space at different times of the day, different uh months of the year. And we came to a a proposal um that said, "here are how these businesses that are in the—in—in this area of the triangle um can share these spots." And if our assumptions are right, we're not going to have—we're not going to have tons of empty spots and we're not going to have people circulating forever waiting for somebody to—to—to pull out. What's the current status of parking at—at—uh—at the Boat Works ramp? Do we have excess capacity uh or were the uh assumptions that we made 10 years ago um reasonable and have proven themselves over time or uh are—did we actually underestimate the the necessary use and and parking in that area? **Jason Lindall:** Um mayor, members of the council, I'm sorry I don't have hard data to give you an answer to that question. [2:10:54] **Mayor Dan Bolt:** ...I defend the budget, but I thank you both again for for weighing in on this important discussion. Council. Any other? [clears throat] We provide essential services as frugally as we can. I don't want to lose cops. I don't want to see potholes all over the roads. I want to make sure that the water that comes out of the faucet is clean. I want to make sure that when you flush your toilet, it goes where it is supposed to go rather than into your house. Those are the kind of things that we're doing. We may not be perfect, but I think we're doing a pretty darn good job. So I again—I defend the budget, but I thank you both again for weighing in on this important discussion. Council. Any other? [Meeting continues]