[Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] All right, I think we're ready. Good evening and welcome. Tonight is Monday, September 8th, 2025. This is a regular meeting of the Minnetonka City Council. I will call meeting to order and ask you to stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [Applause] Miss Larson, would you please call roll? >> Wilbur >> here. Calbert >> here. Romey here. Kley >> here. Foster Bolton >> here. >> Shaq here. Wearsome >> here. Next item is approval of the agenda. It looks like we have an addendum. Mr. Funk. >> Uh, thank you, mayor. Good evening, council. I do have one item for your consideration under tonight's agenda. related to item 14C, items relating to the 2025 preliminary tax levies and the 2026 preliminary budget. As you know, the packet was posted last Thursday. This addendum includes additional public comments that went out after the packet. So, that is in front of you for this evening. There is no other consideration and staff recommends approval of the agenda as amended. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Funk. Council, is there is a motion to approve? Council member Calbertt. >> Thank you, Mayor. I move approval of the agenda as amended >> and a second. Council member Romey, >> I'll second. >> All right. A motion by council member Calbertt and a second by council member Romey. Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Wilbur, >> yes. >> Calbert, >> yes. >> Raley, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shack, >> yes. We >> yes. Motion carries. Next item is approval of minutes and we have three sets. We have the July 23rd, 2025 special study session minutes. We have the August 11th, 2025 regular meeting minutes and the August 25th, 2025 regular meeting minutes. Think we can do those all at one time if anyone has any comments um and they'd like to make. Otherwise, a motion is in order. Council Calbertt. >> Thank you, Mayor. I um before the meeting today, I did um give Mr. Funk a few uh minor uh changes to the August 25th meeting minutes, but with those changes, I move approval of the August 25th regular meeting minutes. >> Thank you. Is there a second? Councilor Shack. >> Thank you, Mayor Mayor. I'll second. >> All right. We've got a motion by Council Member Calbertt and a second by Councilor Shack. I also had one correction that I shared with Mr. funk today and I believe that was done. So, um, Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Wilburn, >> yes. >> Calbert, yes. Rome, >> yes. Kley, >> yes. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shaq, >> yes. Wearsome, >> yes. Motion carries. Um, item six is special matters. And we have one special matter tonight. That is a proclamation for Hispanic Latina uh, Heritage Month. I hope I Latin uh, I think I said that correctly. And um council member Shaq said she would read that uh that proclamation. So thank you. >> Yes. Thank you, mayor. Whereas Hispanic Latina Heritage Month is celebrated from September 15th to October 15th each year, recognizing the profound contrib contributions of the Hispanic and Latina communities to the culture, history, and progress of our nation. And whereas the city of Minnotonka is proud to celebrate the vibrant contributions of Hispanic and Latina individuals, families, and organizations who enrich our community through their artistic, educational, economic, and social endeavors. And whereas the historical roots of his Hispanic and Latina heritage are deeply intertwined with the broader narrative of our nation's development, reflecting a legacy of resilience, innovation, and community spirit. And whereas this month recognizes and celebrates the accomplishments and struggles of Hispanic and Latina people in the face of continued in inequity, racism, and xenophobia. and the city of and whereas the city of Minnitonka is committed to fostering an inclusive and respectful environment where the cultural diversity of all its res residents is celebrated and cherished. Now therefore, be it resolved that the city council in the city of Minnotonka does hereby proclaim September 15th to October 15, 2025 as Hispanic Latina Heritage Month and call upon the people of Minnitanka to recognize the contributions made by members of the Hispanic and Latina community and to actively promote the principles of equality, liberty, and justice. Thank you, Council Member Shack, and thank you for doing a better job with that pronunciation than I did. I was coached today, but I still managed to drop the ball on that. So, thank you very much. Um, next item is >> uh, Mayor, >> yes, >> a point of order. I just wanted to make sure. So, um, we had the only, uh, set of minutes that was on the screen was August 25th, but there were two other sets of minutes. So, I just want to make sure that we pass them on. >> We did. We did >> because I I didn't say that. I said August 25th, but >> we had three sets and we did them all at one time. >> Got it. >> Very good. So, I think we're covered. >> Um, thank you. Um, Council um Calbertt. So, the next item is um reports from city manager and council members. So, Mr. Funk, >> again, thank you, mayor. Good evening, council. A few items to share with you this evening. First, this past Saturday, the city hosted its fall special community drop off and recycling event at public works where Minnitanka residents could dispose of appliances, tires, and other large household items. A real special thank you to our staff. We have staff involved from numerous departments that uh get involved in making sure that day is successful. And as always, it was busy. So again, thank you to our community that participated and for our staff that made that possible. Excuse me. Absentee voting will begin this Friday. Excuse me, not this Friday. The following Friday on September 19th, in person absentee voting will be available daily in the council chambers from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. And then there'll be extended hours will be offered closer to the election. All this information will be on our website. So anyone that's interested are on elections and all the updates on elections, please go to our website and find the latest information. Coming up on Saturday, September fir 21st, please join the cities of Minnotonka and Hopkins as there's a joint effort between the two cities to celebrate Latin American Heritage Month from 2 to 5:00 p.m. in downtown at the downtown park in Hopkins. There'll be music, there'll be food trucks from Nachos Mexican Restaurant, dancing performances from Costa Rica ballroom. Uh the event is free and encourage our public to attend and really want to acknowledge our friends and partners over at the city of Hopkins to working with our staff on this event. And then this Friday is the last movie in the parks for the season. The movie playing is called IF. And so for those that are excited to go see IF, it starts 15 minutes after sunset and it's located here on the campus at our civic civic center park. And so with that, mayor and councel, I turn it back to you. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Funk. Uh council members, anything that you would like to report? Council member Kley. >> Thank you, Mayor. So, this weekend I attended um Resource West fundraising event on Saturday, and I would just encourage people to um donate to Resource West. It's a community nonprofit organization that support um families by doing case management, uh working with families. Um they provide some child care assistance and resources um just for families in the community. Also, we received a card for um community um mediation restorative services. They're having a fundraising event on September 30th. I used to do uh mediation for this organization. Um I was trained in mediation and restorative services. Um I think it probably about three years ago and I served on their board for probably about a year. And so I would encourage people if they have time to also um attend this community mediation restoative services fundraising event on September 30th from 5:30 to 8. And if not, you don't have time to attend it, you can always go there and donate um because this is another community um organization who support u mediation services um when we have issues in our community. maybe neighbor to neighbor or maybe family um just different um housing issues. I was trained in going to court Henipin County um when we were having a lot of those evictions and I think it was in 2019 2020 no 2019 cuz it was co people were standing in place but there was a lot of um mediation um services that was happening at that time because people were not able to um pay their rent and so I would just encourage us to support this organization as well. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Council Member Kley. Um, council members, anything else? >> All right. I I've got a couple things. Um, one, you know, we as a region and a nation are all reeling from the Annunciation Church uh tragedy. And um last week um I received an invitation from Mayor Fry's office to participate in a press conference. Um they didn't want me to speak, they just wanted me to show up and I did that. And um it was specifically calling for changes to gun laws in in Minnesota. um to add some restrictions to logical things of to ban um assault rifles to um reduce the allowable size of magazines for guns um and um and I attended that because I think in this time um guns are such a complex issue and they're so divisive um and so there are so many opinions um but the reality of it is we have to do something children in church were praying and they were murdered by somebody who had an assault rifle who um was had no trouble securing that gun. That person had um no criminal history. Um but um assault weapons um are not only um designed to kill. They're designed to um pierce um body armor that our officers and our public safety officials wear. Um they are not necessary. I'm a hunter. I own guns. Um and uh but I don't need an assault rifle. And I think, you know, I've had a lot of conversations with people um some people viferously on the other side of my opinion, but I believe that if we don't have the nerve to take action on something that can protect the lives of innocent people, then we're to a certain degree complicit. And I'm not so naive to believe that, okay, banning assault rifles and large magazines um is going to solve the problem. There is no one solution. People say um people who are opposed to any uh restriction on guns say, "Well, it's mental health." And you know what? They're right. It is mental health. Um it is a it is a host of issues. All I know is that society and professionals and clergy men and clergy women and uh I mean people have been working on mental health and societal problems forever. And guess what? They're not going to there's no end there. It's a journey. There is no end in sight. So we have to make incremental changes to reduce the likelihood that our kids are going to get killed by guns. So, while I know it's a politically political hot potato, I really believe it's something where leaders need to take a stand. And so, I stood with my um some fellow mayors there because I think it's important for us to do something. I know that not everyone in this room agrees with me. Probably not everyone on this agrees with me. Maybe they do. But, but the fact of the matter is if we are afraid to take action on something so fundamental, then then maybe Maybe uh maybe our citizens need different leaders because we need to have the nerve to stand up to do the right thing. Um the tragedy and at annunciation um has just I mean I'm really shaken by it. The fact that it happened in our region um I have a friend who lives in Minnetonka. Um um Sophia Fortress who is the young woman who's fighting for her life um is a family member of of his family, extended family. I'm not sure exactly the relationship, but I mean this strikes very close to home and it's very important to me that we have the nerve to um to do something. So that's why I showed up there and um and I wanted to let everybody know that. So with that, we will move on. So um the next item is citizens wishing to discuss matters not on the agenda. So, this is an open mic opportunity and if you have an item that you'd like to present, just come forward and um state it to the um to the council. We will take no action tonight, but we want to hear what you have to say. And if there's something that requires follow-up, staff will um will follow up. And then we also are kind of working to um manage time better. So, we do have a timer. We request that you keep your comments to uh uh about 3 minutes. And uh and so if there's anyone who would like to make a comment to the council, please come forward. State your name and address. The timer will come forward. Is >> this also for announcements, mayor? >> Yes. Yeah. This is if if you have something you want the council to know about, um please come forward, state your name, address, and tell us what's on your mind. >> Welcome. Thank you. >> Uh thank you. Thank you uh city council members and it's a honor to be here in the service of our fire and first responder forces. A serious honor. Thank you for your service. Uh I I'll try to keep it under two minutes if possible. I didn't prepare for this so much. Uh I kind of fell across this opportunity to present this to you all. Uh my name is Lawrence Badson. I'm a native of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Born and raised. I graduated actually from Hopkins High School which is technically in Minnetonka. So, this kind of works. Um, I've been living in Israel for the past almost 25 years of my life, uh, with a wife and four daughters. Um, October 7th, 2023, I was at home, uh, getting ready to go to prayer on the Sabbath, uh, and also Jewish holiday when the missile sirens started to go off. Uh, living in Tel Aviv, it's rare where you know that something serious that's happening if missile sirens are going off. Um, and it will forever leave a scar on not just the uh state of Israel and the Jewish people uh but really humanity that day. Um, in the followup uh we connected in my wife and I to one of the many communities that was attacked on that day, Kibuts Karaza. Uh and then in followup to that with uh fundraising and rehabilitation and rebuilding efforts, they invited us to an exhibition uh in October 2024 that was uh by far one of the most powerful exhibitions I've been to. I would say second uh to the 9/11 exhibition in New York that told the stories about the 64 civilian deaths that were killed that day, the first responders, the um the rescue forces, the military, the police, the paramedics. uh very powerful that humanized the deaths that took place on that day versus just talking about the attack which everybody hears about with all the attacks and all the atrocities that are taking place across the world. Uh and it was at that exhibition that my wife and I decided that I'm an auto parts salesman. U but we decided to create a project called the surviving project to bring this exhibition a firsthand experience where you hear the stories from those that that were there on that day. uh bring this exhibition to the United States of America, which we've uh fundraised for for the past 11 months and been working on. And I'm happy or with great honor to say uh we'll be launching it in St. Louis Park September 25th until October 11th with ticket sales for $10 each. Uh it's a personal opport it's it's a personal it's a it's a very powerful opportunity as opposed to waiting for a museum uh to experience this exhibition uh and hear from the stories and gain resilience from the people that died and hope for the future for for peace and against violence anti-semitism. Tickets can be purchased at it's through their eyes is the name of the exhibit. It's texhexhibit.com and I just wanted to come here to personally invite everybody from the community to the exhibit and sorry for taking up all the time. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Badson, for being here. And uh good luck with that. And um um you did send me a flyer. I will share it with my fellow council members, and I'm sure that they can share it with um um other residents. So, thank you for coming forward. >> Thank you. Is there anyone else who has an item that is not on the agenda that would like to come forward tonight? Is there anyone? Okay, seeing no one, we will move on to the next item and that is um bids and purchases and we have none of those tonight. Um so then that takes us to the consent agenda items and the consent agenda are items that are typically routine. So, I will read these items into the record. If anyone either in the council chambers or at um or council members want to pull one of these items or one or more of these items, they can do so. Then we will act on the items that have not been pulled collectively and then um the per the item or items that have been pulled will be reported on and voted on individually. So, um, item 10A is a resolution amending and replacing the existing conditional use permit for cemetery use of the existing properties at 3,300 and 3228 Woodlon Avenue. Item 10B is a resolution authorizing execution of required documents for participation in the Minnesota paid family and medical leave PFML program through a private carrier. Item 10 C is the collective bargaining agreement between the city of Minnitonka and Minnotonka professional fighter fires AFF local 5522. And finally item um 10D is mayor's reimbursement of travel expenses and I will just comment on that. that is to attend the transportation alliance meeting in Washington DC where we will be um meeting with our elected officials to encourage funding for improvements to Highway 7 which I think everyone believes we need. So that's the purpose of that trip. So with that, does anyone want to pull anything or shall we um move um Council Member Shaq? >> Thank you, Mayor. I'm prepared to make a motion, but I did just I had a question that I received an answer for regarding 10A and I find it very interesting. I'll just make a quick comment on it. I asked, you know, how many creanes could this expansion accommodate? And my quick math in my head that I got in the answer is it really could accommodate close somewhere between at maximum 5 to 600 sets of crees depending on how people use their niche and their unit. And I that um is really impactful to me because it's a very efficient way to deal with remains versus a full burial plot. So um I thought this was an innovative request and I think it is a a sustainable one as well. So >> thank you. Thank you council member Rome. >> Thank you. I'd just like to follow up on a comment um with that as well before making a motion. Um, you know, that is, uh, the Groveland Cemetery is in Ward 3. It's right next to Groveland School for those who know it. It's, uh, was established in the 19th century, I think around 1871. So, my kids who went to Groveland went there several times throughout their school, uh, elementary school to do etchings and also just learn about history. So in addition to the sustainability and the space efficiency, um I just want to recognize the volunteers who keep up that association. It's an all volunteer association. The grounds are kept beautifully especially compared to you know kind of other city cemeteries that we see around um in other communities nearby. And so um this is also an economic issue for them. And for me, the other thing that's really important about this is that it helps us to keep our history alive. So I go through that cemetery often on my way to Lakews. I walk to Lake Winss and things like that and it's right near Groonka Park. And you're the earliest headstone from there is from 1863 and it was a soldier who died, a sharpshooter from Minnesota who died and uh he was the first one buried from Hannipan County. From there, we see uh gravestones from um lots of babies in the late 19th and early 20th century, those who died before vaccines were available to cure childhood illnesses all the way through the 20s and 30s. So really, you can actually literally walk through the history of our community and also our country when you walk through um that graveyard and the memorial. And so I think this uh will help us to continue to study our history, remember our history because if we it's a walk through our country's history as well as our community's h history and and kind of our ideals and aspirations and accomplishments as a country as a democracy. So uh just wanted to put that in there. Thank you to ifal volunteer association, the Grolin Cemetery Association if they're kind of listening to that. And these days I think uh everybody and all of us could could stand to take that walk through history and appreciate uh what those who came before us uh fought for and and also uh you know went through uh in in favor in terms of this democracy in terms of supporting our democracy and uh with that I will make the motion to uh uh let's see I think for can I make it for all three agenda or all four >> we didn't pull it So, um, so you'd be motioning for all all the consent agenda items. >> I would make a motion to consent all the re, uh, consent agenda items, please. >> Is there a second? Council member Wilbur, >> I just want to make a quick comment. >> You may do that because I'm going to make a quick comment, too. So, okay. Just so just so you know. >> All right. Um, I just wanted to say that um how thrilled I am that we were able to reach an agreement with our new firefighters union and um how much we value our firefighters and so hopefully they they feel that. Um and I second. >> All right, we've got a motion by Council Member Rome and a second by Council Wilburn. My quick comment um and I am very thankful for our firefighters and their service. So, thanks for being here tonight and um I think this is going to pass, but um you know, I'm not going to make any any false uh predictions, but but I just wanted to say regarding the cemetery one, um I've been around long enough to know that we've dealt with expansions of the cemetery, and that's always a bit controversial because you're you're moving the cemetery closer to residents homes and not everybody wants to live next to a cemetery. So, we've had interesting conversations on that. But, but my question um with the cemetery and this new expansion was exactly that. This is really um this is really a land use decision and we're talking about an opportunity to increase density and use our land more efficiently. So, that will increase the capacity of the cemetery and require um it will put have less pressure on on future expansion. So, those are all good things because this is a valued community asset. So, um I I'm supportive and I just want to make that comment. So, we've got a motion and we've got a second. A motion by Council Member Romey, a second by Council Member Wilburn. Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Wilburn, >> yes. >> Calbert, >> yes. >> Rome, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shack, >> yes. We >> yes. Motion carries. Item 11 is consent agenda items requiring five votes and we have none of those. Um item 12 is introduction of ordinances and we have none of those. And item 13 is public hearings and we have none of those. So that takes us to um item 14 which is other business and we have three items under that and the first of which 14A is a resolution regarding the 2025 through 2029 economic improvement plan program and that is Miss Wishnack >> and yeah thank you mayor I'm gonna it is Miss It is Miss Wishnack but I'm going to jump in first. >> All right Miss Mr. Funk go ahead. Yeah, thank you. My my apologies, mayor and council for um jumping in. Uh you're correct. U Miss Wishnack was going to is going to lead 14A. But before that, I'd really like to to spend about the next 10 to 15 minutes really kind of setting the stage for items 14A, which was just introduced by the mayor, which is related to the 2026 through 2030 economic improvement plan. Uh item 14B is the 2026 through 2030 capital improvement program. And then last 14 C is more related to our operations and debt service. And so really collectively all three of tonight's agenda items are really ev revolving around the 2026 budget and property taxes. With all three of these items, it's going to summarize the action before you this evening for all three of those. Again, this will get rehighlighted during uh those present separate presentations on 14A related to the EIP. There is a resolution. And so staff will be looking for your support to adopt the resolution approving the 2026 through 2030 economic improvement plan. Uh item 14B is also a resolution and that is a resolution to adopt the or approve the 2026 through 2030 capital improvements program. And then last 14 C there is one uh well there are three resolutions. Uh the first resolution is setting a preliminary tax levy. Also, it there is a preliminary budget approval and then consenting to a special benefit tax levy of the Minnitaka Economic Development Authority or oftentimes we'll say the EDA. There's a second resolution under 14C which is setting the preliminary 2025 tax levy collectible in 2026 for the Basset Creek Watershed Management Tax District. Then last, there's a resolution cancelling a debt service levy for taxes payable in 2026. So staff will cover all those uh coming up in the presentations, but again just really wanted to set the stage for uh your consideration as you work through tonight's budget conversation and presentation. I want to start off again just with a reminder of our mission statement. It's always important I think as we talk about the city's budget. Uh I think we all know the significance of the city's budget. It is um our document that really sets into motion outlining next work's work and everything from our operations, our capital improvement planning, our economic improvement planning that I've already noted. And so just given that relevancy, it's also important that we understand and we really present to the community what is our mission statement and that is to provide quality public services while striving to preserve and enhance the distinctive character to make Minnetonka a special place for everyone. And then our vision statement is Minnitanka is an inclusive community committed to excellence where all residents, workers, and visitors are welcome in a beautiful, sustainable place supported by quality, dependable city services. And then last, we have our guiding principles. I won't read through all of those um but I think it's important just to really highlight some of the bolded uh lines on there. I know people at home can read these and hopefully those in the audience can read these. It's really related to a beautiful, sustainable, and healthy environment. uh delivering excellent public services and provide affordable opportunities, upholding community trust through proactive and inclusive public engagement, transparent communications, and stewardship of our financial, natural, and capital assets. And then last, that we lead our city into the future uh nimly by anticipating community needs, pursuing service, innovation, and adaptation of new tech, new technologies. Partnerships is also a very key component of our guiding principles. As you know, council, we have a strategic plan. I uh I know you're very familiar with that, but again, that's one of those guiding documents that help in this decision-making process. Our six strategic priorities, our financial strength that is led by our finance director, Darren Nelson, safe and healthy community led by our fire, excuse me, police chief Scott Borboom. Sustainability, resilience, and natural environment that is led by Leslie Yeka, our natural resources manager. Livable and wellplanned development is led by Julie Wishnack, our community development director. Infrastructure and asset management led by our public works director, Will Manchester. And then finally, community inclusiveness led by Jace Alexander, our senior DEI coordinator. Uh when we build our strategic plan, um we do have a very robust team in place and our team uh involves around 72 employees and with that on the next slide we talk about our plan where we break that down even further. So strategic plan as I just noted has six strategic priorities. Those are supported by 18 desired outcomes. And then further supported more on the operational or executional side is distinctive steps um 72 of those in fact uh that we really uh embark upon throughout this entire year. Really proceeding forward with the council's vision and ensuring that we're meeting the the community's priorities. a little bit about where where we've come uh year to date. Uh this really this project really started back earlier this spring in quarter 1 uh back in March where directors presented to the council in a study session that was followed up in April with a community and business survey. Then in May there was the official 2026 budget kickoff session. So we had a some time in a study session really talking about priorities and what is important to you as council and getting direction from council. Then in June we had our first conversation regarding the capital improvement plan and the economic improvement plan at a study session. Again later tonight in item 14A uh you'll hear from Miss Wishnack on our again kind of re uh summary discussion on our EIP and then also with the capital improvement plan. That's 14B. Uh so that is again coming back to you. Then in August uh just here a few weeks ago we did have an operating budget study session discussion um and we talked about tax levy impacts and direction from council in August. So here we are tonight uh after about five months of uh budget discussions prior to this evening but it doesn't end after tonight. So tonight is the preliminary levy uh with the resolutions that I had noted for your approval. Then in November, uh, we will be ask staff back to you, uh, to talk about a couple different things, really more so on our enterprise funds where we'll take a look at our utility and special revenue accounts. And then in December, there will be the official public meeting and adoption of a final levy, and that's at 6:00 on December 8th. We do have a backup date in case of weather and if there's other information that needs to come back to the council that is scheduled for December 20 22nd. Is there a lot on that page and I think we often talk about uh council mayor and councel about our budget time frame and we do spend as a city uh considerable time developing our budget. There's a lot that goes into our budget and I think you'll hear that from Miss Wishnack and from Mr. Nelson coming up just in terms of the uh data that we have in terms of how we assemble the budget and all the different pieces that go into ensuring that we're meeting the needs of our community. I would be remiss if we didn't talk about financial strength. As I noted, this is one of our pillars in our strategic plan and it's an important one because we are committed as a city to making sure that we're financial that our financial strength is uh solid that we are looking long term and we have three distinctive desired outcomes. One of those is high level creditworthiness. That's an important one because we are, as you know, council, we are a city that continues to maintain our AAA bond rating. And that should give reassurance to our community uh for any any one of our residents and businesses that um as a leadership team of council and staff that we look to ensure that our financial um financial portfolio is strong and that we're budgeting and expending expending um having expenditures really again meet those needs in a way that sustains oursel and that we're financially healthy moving forward. And that's one of the biggest ratings that we can get is a AAA bond rating. uh there are very few cities in the state that actually can claim AAA bond worthiness. So again speaks to the city's level of financial strength. We also as a desired outcome want to improve alignment between service expenditures and identify priorities. Uh the finance director and myself we've been participating in a national core group focusing on re-engineering government budgeting. uh we're emphasizing strategic priorities and really that's transcended into that bullet second bullet point noted there and that is really looking at priority based budgeting and so as we look next year in 2026 for the 2027 budget we're in a process of really be making our budget more granular in the sense of time budget expenditures differently to actual programming so we're excited about that and I think that just really increases our level of transparency regarding uh the services that we provide then last expanding sources of revenue for our cap improvement projects. Um, council, I don't have a slide here this evening, but we can bring it up if uh if there's inquiry in terms of our grants. Uh we've really made a concerted effort these last couple years of really focusing on um revenues outside of property taxes and uh really a credit to our staff uh Sarissa Faulk, our senior management coordinator who has really been working with our directors and again a credit to our directors in terms of seeking out grants and really looking for revenues outside of just property taxes being the only source of revenue. a couple noteworthy metrics. Uh, one is in that upper leftand corner of this graph is our net governmental fund balance, percentage of revenues. Uh, the Mendoza line, if you will, if you put that in baseball terms, uh, is greater than 30% is considered very strong. And so, so again, we're well above the 30%, uh, you can see our percentage is noted there. So, again, our our balances are strong here at the city. And then another big metric in terms of looking at fiscal health is your debt as a percentage of taxable market value. Again, that red dash line is 75. So the the goal is to be below that one on this chart, not above it. So being below 75 is considered very strong. Uh what you want to look at is that green line, which is the net direct percentage of taxable market value. We're at that 0.203%. In short terms uh we have very low debt and it's reflected here in this graph. The next slide again with items 14A, B and C which is related to our economic improvement plan, our capital improvement plan and then our operations. There are numerous planning documents that go into really determining the needs of the community. It's worth noting that uh these are documents that really aim at at the city's long-term planning efforts. I'll quickly go around uh this and starting with the lower left is our trail master plan. So again, we take a look at future trail planning looking at all the trails in the city at connections of those. We know trails and sidewalks are important connection that's noted in our strategic plan. We have excuse me, we have our climate action and adaptation plan, our CAP. Uh also there are um priorities and projects noted in that that play a role in uh in our annual budget. Next is our community and business survey. So again, we want to get a temperature of our business and residential community again needs and really look to our residents to tell us and shape us what's important to them. We have also our public safety master plan. Again, you're very well familiar with that and we'll dive more into that in our operations here in a minute. We have our strategic plan that I noted. We also have our natural resources master plan and some of the park master planning that comes into play. We also then have our park open space and trail system plan, our post plan with recommendations uh in there. We have our comprehensive plan. Uh that's something that Moose Wishnack and Community Development rely on and their efforts. And then we also have facility planning. That's part of our debt and as we look longterm for some of our facilities and assets. So again, a lot of different puzzle pieces as I call it as we look at the city's planning efforts and really taking elements of all those different plans and ensure that we're again being forward thinking and really meeting the needs of the community long term. As part of our budget process, as you know, we do solicit public engagement. Uh this again is a quick snapshot of the different tools that we use. Uh we use our Minnitankka memo and we put articles out in the Minnotonka memo in the last couple months. We've also used our social media channels both on Facebook, Instagram, uh and numerous other uh social media channels. We have a number of those that we utilize. Uh council, you did receive some feedback in your packet and then along with the agenda as well. So the public does get engaged and I know often times we look for more engagement. Uh this year we had very little correspondence related to our our budget process. We've had some emails that you've received and I'm sure we'll be taking those into consideration later, but we do our part on the city to be transparent about it and make sure that we're reaching out to residents and ensuring that residents can be engaged with what's being presented. The next slide talks about the survey and I mentioned that here a few minutes ago. We do ask a number of questions on our community survey because we do want to get feedback from the community about taxes and about the budget. Uh those are noted there. Question 29, for example, asks the question, when you consider the property taxes you pay and the quality of city services you receive, would you rate the general value of city services as excellent, good, only, fair, or poor? Uh the answers there are to the right side of that, which is between excellent and good. Roughly uh 88% of our residents speak favorably. Question 30. If you could increase the property tax levy, which one of these major areas would you prioritize for the increase? Police and fire protection, street maintenance, parks and trails, or some other city services? Um again, I know you've seen these responses, council, but for those this may be seeing this for the first time that's been evenly spread uh between police, fire, streets, parks, and trails, and other services. So certainly not one distinctive category that jumps out. Um, everyone loves everything. So that's uh perhaps what speaks to that a little bit. Um, and then question 32 is what services would you be willing to see cut? And so that's noted there. Uh, unsure is 6%, nothing/cut waste is 18%, parks and trails 33%, transit 7%, kind of across the board 9%, police 11%, community events 2%, recreational program 6%, and administration 9%. Another question worth highlighting here is what do you like least about living in Minnetonka? And the reason we asked this question is again we're looking for cues from the community if there's something that we should be investing in something that we should be not only investing in perhaps uh taking a look at in terms of enhancing. Uh some of the responses there is uh well actually the the question that received the most was nothing. So I think again signals that most residents really value what we're doing here at the city of Minnitankka. Taxes is something that comes up then second. So high taxes is certainly something that comes up and council. I've had conversations with all of you as you interact with residents that does come up uh about taxes and tax levy and again that's why we're here tonight is to talk further about that. Next slide. Um I know you've seen this again before. Uh just really I want to start in the middle. Uh perhaps you've seen a stool there before. So we got a new graphic seeing if you're watching I look got a thumbs up on that one. So really as we talk about property taxes because property taxes um can be confusing. The property taxes in Minnesota are confusing. The city budget is big and so we try to do our best to really provide this down at a more uh level that people can understand and really kind of wrap their arms around. So when we talk about property taxes again I turn your attention to the middle graphic. There are really four components of property taxes here in the city of Minnitankka. And those four categories and I'll just go around that graphic. It starts at the top, general fund operations. Again, that'll be addressed under item 14C. We'll dive deeper into operations. Next, going clockwise is the economic improvement uh program. Uh really, that's tied to the HRA levy. Uh Miss Wishnack in 14A. Tonight, we'll talk about the EIA program and how the HRA levy uh works into the programming and the um different u implementation programs that have um that the city manages. Next we have debt service. Uh again we'll talk briefly here in 14C where uh debt service plays a role uh in the city. And then last is the capital improvement program. That is 14B. So really again our three agenda items that I spoke of earlier really sign really align with property taxes and why those are packaged together here this evening. Moving to the left hand side of that chart is our tax dollar allocation. So, taking those four components um or I might say interchangeably four buckets of activity. The largest is at 78%. That's that largest blue piece of the pie. That is our general fund operations. And again, we'll talk about that in 14C tonight. The next one moving clockwise is 17% that is capital improvement programming. That'll be covered in 14B. Uh and then we have debt service which is 4%. Uh that is going to also be covered under for item 14C this evening. And then last is our HA levy which is 14A which is the economic improvement program. Uh it says 1% that's rounding. It's actually even smaller than 1% but again we do round it up. It's just a rounding thing. Uh that levy is 300,000 and we'll again we'll talk about that in greater depth coming up. on the right hand side of it again really kind of setting the stage a little deeper for this evening is uh what is being presented to you this evening council for your consideration is a property tax increase for 2026 in the amount of 7.935% and so again we'll be spending time as staff really going deeper into breaking that down uh to put that into further context of that 7.935 8.1% is for operations and to further break that down. We have our general fund operations at 4.8%. Our special revenue accounts which is the ice arenas and the marsh at.7%. Our investment into public safety at 2.6%. And then with capital uh that is a reduction of almost a percent. So 0.9 uh Mr. Nelson will will talk walk through that here as well because we'll see you'll see council there's an increase in operations and a decrease in capital and that's really somewhat related uh to our investments with Axon and so we removed some capital improvement and shifted that over to operations so that's why you see general operations part of that explanation of the 4.8 8 is related to that and then also subsequent is the reduction in capital and then with uh potential debt. Uh we did talk in our study session about uh future investments for our facilities and looking at a um a step in type of scenario to for future debt service and that being at 7.735%. And then in context a 1% levy increase is roughly 551,000. Next slide. So, this is a 10-year look back at our history of the property tax levy. Again, uh there are four buckets. Um I know three are shown here. One is blue is the CIP, operations is in the orange, and debt is in that gray with the HA levy at 300,000. That's such a small little line on that chart, it would be hardly noticeable, that's why you don't really see it. But those are those four bucket categories. Uh so not only does this do a look back to 2015, uh it does then look ahead to 2029 and we do our long-term financial management planning and we take a look at again our our really biggest categories of our capital improvements, our operations, and our debt and do some forecasting. What this graph really illustrates, and I'm not sure if the mouse will will show it here, you'll you'll again, this is looking at that information a little bit differently. The previous graph was in dollars. This is related to the tax levy in uh percentage. So again, this goes back to 2021 and we do forecast that out to 2030. You'll notice in kind of in the middle area that's circled. Uh that really reflects the investment the city has made in our public safety master plan and that started in 24 and we estimate that to go out to either 29 or 2030. We have more decisions obviously every year we make decisions regarding our uh investment in public safety master planning but as we forecast it today that's what this looks like. The difference between that blue and orange you'll notice there's a blue line and an or orange line. That blue line represents if you rewind the clock one year ago and this is what was shown to you. So this was the forecast from one year ago is the blue line uh with newer information when we're one year further into the public safety master planning. That orange line is the new projection. So we're we're think we're going to be performing better than we thought about one year ago. Next slide, please. Just some notable budget items for this evening. Again, you'll hear from staff coming up as we get more granular. uh financing our facility improvements is challenging and then we've talked about that in numerous study sessions this year just with our upcoming needs with potential fire station improvements uh with investments to other public uh excuse me to other public facilities whether that be Williston or the marsh or the um lake uh excuse me the uh Glen Lake uh facility as well uh we've talked about so certainly numerous uh public facilities including opus so we know there's public capital needs and financing for those long term is challenging. Uh along with that, the legislature did not approve the city's bonding request for the Opus or Marsh. So, we've been asking for bonding dollars the last couple years. Uh if we would receive some dollars that would provide us better flexibility for some other project, but that has not yet to come fruition. We are looking to submit and have submitted a request however for this year in 2026 in the upcoming legislative session for 5.33 million that would assist with reconstructing fire station 2 as we've identified fire station 2 as a priority and if we were successful in receiving those state bonding dollars of 5.33 million we would be required to match those. Uh another thing that we've talked about is a sales tax uh potential sales tax conversation that moratorum has been lifted uh council and for those that living listening to this session there's been a moratorum on cities implementing local option sales tax that moratorum has been lifted. There was no new legislation approved and so the the legislation as it's been written for many many years is in play. Uh we'll be discussing I think further council on what that might look like for the city of Minnetonka as we prepare for longerterm financial capital improvement projects. And then last noted on this slide is the property tax levy is about the only option remaining. So as we look at these projects and we look at trying to be creative, there is going to be pressures on the tax levy. I think we know that. And so that's part of how we're looking longterm financially at how we can best manage the city's resources given the needs that we're looking at uh here in the city. Next slide and I'm just about done. Uh we do show this to you uh is our comparables. So we like to give you a uh staff likes to give you a snapshot of what's happening with other cities. Uh it's always nice to know what's happening with our neighbors. Um again every city has their own story. I think Mr. Nelson has said that previously. uh where we are standing today as I start off the presentation uh staff is recommending a 7 point basically 7.9% levy increase. Here's what our neighbors uh have signaled to us. Uh uh Brooklyn Park actually uh informed us today that there are they're likely double digit. Um so I can't give you a specific uh amount in there. That's why it's not on the graph, but they're at this time they're looking at perhaps double digit increase as well. Uh we break down Minnitankka slightly differently as I noted earlier uh just to show for Minnitonka if we were not having our investments in public safety. Uh and if we weren't looking at potential long-term bonding really our general fund operations at business kind almost business as usual if you will is at 4.6%. Uh you can see how we stack up against other cities. Again we don't break down their levies like we do but again want to give you a flavor for how we compare to many of our neighbor and comparable communities. The next slide then uh illustrates a 20-year average. So we did uh we do a look back. So we went back to 20 2006 and again this is just comparable information. It's benchmarking information really just to give you a sense of over the last 20 years. How has Minnetonka's levy uh been reflective to other cities? And in that 20-year average, the increase um well, over those 20 years, the collective increase has been 99%. Uh Minnetonka is at 96%. And so what that graph really illustrates by all those different colors is yearbyear that for Minnetonka that we we kind of fall in the middle of other cities. Uh we're we certainly I think as a value of our community, don't want to be the highest tax city. Uh we value uh services. We put a high value on our services. We have that commitment to excellence and that's reflective of probably where we stand in this graph. So this shouldn't be surprising I don't think in terms of of who we are as a community and what we invest in and what we want to be in as a again as a high service highvalue community. With that I again spent some time setting the stage and now I'd like to turn our attention to item 14A if we can mayor and have Miss Wishnack really start diving deeper into the 2026 to 2030 economic improvement plan. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Funk and Ms. Wishnack. It is your turn. >> Thank you, Mayor and Council members. Um, I'm going going to do an overview. As you know, we've talked about this in our study session, but for the public's sake, we want to make sure there's an understanding of what the document includes. So, again, to reiterate what Mr. Funk said we'll be asking for a motion to adopt the resolution uh to adopt this 2026 to 2030 economic improvement program document. This is what the document looks like. Um for those of you who weren't around when it was established, it is kind of a companion piece to what uh Mr. Nelson will talk about in a capital sense. So we had a always had a robust capital improvement planning process, but we didn't have that same companion document for the things that we were investing in in terms of programs throughout the city. I think that was um kind of an enlightenment when we would send out reports and there would be just lots and lots of text about what we were doing and efforts we were um doing on housing and transit and all of those different things. and it wasn't very condensed into one document where somebody can pick it up and say, "What is the city doing about economic improvement in the community?" And when we talk about economic improvement, we're not only talking about I think there's maybe a misunderstanding. This this is only about economic development. It is about economic development, but it's also about the development of housing. Um it's about redevelopment, how the city looks at tax increment financing. It looks at transit. All of those things are contained in this document um to make it more holistic in terms of the financial inputs. And as you saw Mr. Funk's graph about how much value the the property values have increased in Minnetonka, uh some of that has to do with a forward thinking uh a document like this does for a community. So it it describes the city's intent for economic development activity. It's not required by law. You are not required as a city to do this, but it shows you those future investments, shows you the charts, the dollars and cents of it, where the money's coming from. And again, it's not infrastructure, but more programmatic um as you look at the document. The other thing that is considered is all of the items that Mr. Punk mentioned in the strategic plan are considered when we put this document together. So all of those pillars are reviewed as we look through the document and then programs are analyzed but for the city's funding uh they would not exist and that there's alignment with other city documents. Again that kind of fan uh PowerPoint slide that Mr. Mr. Funk showed about all the different plans, but is there a plan that the city has and that could be the city's comprehensive plan, the housing plan, etc. that shows us that there's alignment to that program that we have. So that but for the city's involvement, we wouldn't have the program. And I think that's an important point of this document. Then finally, uh what area of economic development is addressed? Again, it's transportation, housing, business redevelopment. There's some tax increment financing explained in there as well. Um, and then does the program serve uh the community and is it currently under commmitted? So you'll see some notes about are we concerned about funding, is it a grant related program, that sort of thing will be identified in each page of the document. So if you broke it down and you just said, okay, where is the money coming from and where is it going? So I'm going to start on the right hand side of the screen. So there is fund balance in what's called the development fund and that's about half of the funds that you're dealing with in this document. There is also your HA levy which deals with about 22% of your programmatic um things in the document. Then there's the affordable housing trust fund. As you know, that balance goes up and down as you approve different projects and different things that you're doing with housing. And then there's an other category that's 18%. Uh, think of those as things like grants that help businesses. Maybe we had a Minnesota investment fund grant from the state of Minnesota that helped a business. That's in the 18%. The programming itself flows through and these are the uses that you identify in the document. Housing is 37%. Obviously, that's the largest of the categories. You do spend a lot of time talking about housing, um doing programs, that sort of thing. So, that is the number one area. Then we move into development and redevelopment and then tax increment districts. business is at 15% and then transit at 5%. And the total dollars and cents, so the um the different funding sources is all in the back of the document. So you can kind of see the forecasts of what we're thinking for each of the program areas and then provide that kind of analysis of the fund balances in each of those accounts. So if you want to dig even deeper into some of these numbers, you can do that. um you just have to kind of go right to the end appendicy section. So the different fund reviews in the EIP include a number of things. Again, the development account, the fund balance sitting there today is about 4 uh million19,000 and that development account pays for things like pre-development services. Perhaps we're talking to a developer about investing in Minnetonka and there's a special study or there's some kind of maybe environmental review is probably a common one I can think of. Is the site polluted? If so, how how much is it going to cost to clean up the site? That sort of thing. We help developers identify um because obviously those things are needed and um take care of the community as development occurs. Then in the libo communities account um this is primarily where homes within reach was originally funded. There is some fund balance in there for about $673,000. It is committed to homes within reach. Those were prior actions of the city council. There were five homes identified to be purchased with that fund balance and we're down to about two additional homes. So, there's still money left for purchasing uh in the homes within reach program, the affordable housing land trust. If people are listening and don't know, homes within reach, that's the another term for the land trust. Um community development block grant, the documentation that we changed to the pool in 2025, that's in the in the document. The affordable housing trust fund as of today is about $2.5 million. If you recall, the mil mills twin homes received about not quite 800,000. Ammani construction with the homes on Roland uh the twin homes that is 244,000. And then Pathways Project, you approved additional dollars to support that program because we were out of funding for the Pathways uh which for those who don't know what the Pathways is, it's a down payment program to help people uh depending on the income level that they're at, helps them purchase a home in Minnetonka at a much more robust level than our original home um down payment program. The HR a levy uh basically for this year talks about housing. Um it used to go toward Southwest light rail. Um and then business assistance as well. Fund balance there is 1.259 million. Um there are 443,000 committed to housing loans today. And so those are things like home enhancement uh loans for people that fix up their homes. All of those sorts of programs are under the housing loan area. 100,000 um again was committed to pathways. 118 is for business and marketing. Think thrive magazine um outreach that we're doing that sort of thing. There's also emergency business assistance. So if a business runs into problems or issues, definitely they can access those emergency dollars. I'm doing this somewhat of a commercial. If you're a business and you need help, please call us. And then uh the last payment to Southwest Rail was made this year uh for 75,000 local affordable housing aid. Usually we just put Laha here, but I hate calling it that cuz nobody knows what that is, but it's really the extra sales tax money that the city will receive. So we received 321,515 in 2024 and then we'll receive this year 800,422. So as we talked about during our housing session in July, uh likely we'll do one project with those dollars um in a one-time expenditure so that uh we can document for the state how that money was used in an easy and understandable way. uh so it's easy to track. So there were a couple of conversations with the EDAC. Sorry I had I had to squish all of this on this slide. Sorry it's a little messy but March 20th, May 28th and then also August 14th. So three times the Economic Development Advisory Commission looked at this document and they first started out slow. They look at what happened last year. They look at big issues on their minds. What is it that we're missing? what's happening in the community? What are they hearing uh from people? At the time they were talking about some federal funding concerns and we were talking about CBDG and we talked about um direct funding resources being at risk. We also talked about sales tax and tiff and all of that and trying to talk about local and regional sources were likely not at risk. Um at that time they thought we should reach out to local nonprofits and try to check in. We did all of that work. We shared that with you about how people were feeling in the nonprofit world. And then also we had the Elevate Henipin program. Um we talked about that and commissioners were talking about um funding that was available for participating Elevate businesses. So again, if you're a business owner and you don't know what Elevate Henipin is, call us. We'll explain it to you. We'll talk about the free services that are provided for businesses. A there's a little promo picture of someone who's been helped by the program. Um they are now providing resources for folks. Um and they have access to low barrier financing which is a new service that they're offering. So that's really great to hear. And then the commissioners also asked about pathways because they were seeing the fund balance run down for that particular program. So they were recommending to you to to go ahead and replenish that. And so they they were having a conversation about that. And then also talking about revisiting the village centers. Um we had a kind of an exercise after the last comp plan where we went through each village center in the city or neighborhoods uh to drill down and talk about what exactly is going on in that neighborhood. Whereas the comprehensive plan is so broad that they um really felt it was important to go back to each neighborhood and have a more deep dive in the conversation. The city council then provided us feedback in June during your EIP study session. You talked to about that pathways program. Um we also shared that we hadn't had any prepayments to date. People were in the program. They're having stable home ownership in the last couple of years of this program. We talked about homes within reach. Uh we were talking about staff was optimistic about properties coming to market and um also shared that homes within reach were purchasing homes in other communities and as we said there's two more that they have funding for. Um there was a question about the $7,500 loan program. Um and that funding ended in September. We shared that with you. And then we talked about other state programs as well as city programs, which was just what I talked about with the home loan programs. And that um during that funding of the $7,500 loan program, there were about 25 people or home households, I should say, that were uh assisted during that period. Other housing topics mentioned, uh there was some mention about social housing. Uh there was housing at the legislature. there's a continuation of that conversation about tracking condo warranty law. All of those things were mentioned, but there wasn't actually a program identified or anything, but I just we always keep documenting what your conversations are so we don't forget um from year to year what the council was feeling as they discuss this. And then finally, in business, we uh talked about continuing to explore non-traditional ways to connect connect with the business community. We talked about bulletin boards. We talked about religious organizations. Those sorts of outreach methods as a way to get out uh and talk and connect to businesses. We kind of continued the conversation even though we weren't talking about the EIP specifically. We continued the housing conversation in July when you talked about all things housing. And so the things that relate back to this document were the H homelessness encampment policy and ordinance. and we talked about how that was going to come back to you at a later time as a policy. Uh we talked about the legacy housing initiative which was the council expressing some interest in seeking new ways to do affordable housing. Um the next steps we thought about were financing and legal research and then we come back to you and report back and then rental registry. The council noted concerns about shortterm rentals and then we're going to come back to you with some research for that issue. So those were primarily the things you talked about. These are the initiatives in the document that are identified for work for next year. So again that HR a levy um funds 100,000 for continued housing rehab and down payment 175 for pathways 25 for homes within reach. That's the administrative uh fee just to kind of exist not to buy new homes but that other funding would support that. Then in the affordable housing tr fund still continue to talk about Noah preservation opportunities. Um discuss our scattered site acquisition for affordable home ownership production redevelopment of certain sites. We had identified the sites that the city owns and the pathways money. And then in the initiatives the encampment policy explore manufactured homes for affordable housing. We mentioned the zone co-work which is a zoning work rewrite that we have in process. Then the rental registry, the resource guide, and then we talked about the lease at bail for transitional housing. And then in grant applications, if you didn't remember, we did receive the 150,000 for rental assistance for Minnotonka community members. In business, we are going to continue to survey do the survey followup. So, we're going to uh connect with partner economic development organization. We're going to solicit other organizations marketing materials so that make sure we're continuing to spread the awareness about our services. Um, and making sure that we highlight the nocost and lowcost resources for businesses, strengthening even more our Thrive magazine, which is seems to be the most preferred communication source from this survey. So, we learned that and trying to storytell a little bit more to celebrate the businesses we have in the community. We continue to identify contacts at large corporations. We talked about that during the strategic plan, commercial marketing analysis and review that the commercial analysis I'm talking about that we recently conducted. Continue with the business canvasing. were out there. Um actually they were out the other day and did quite a bit of outreach um in the Cedar Lake Road uh and Hopkins um crossroads area. So that was a good outreach effort. Uh coordination with sustainability efforts with businesses and what they're doing in terms of investment continue our work with the Wisetta Chamber and participate in those quarterly quarterly leadership meetings and then uh continue to lift up that Elevate program. If you didn't, there's a whole supplemental section that talks about all the demographics and all the people that have been helped by various programs in the EIP. So, if you can't remember the numbers, just refer to that as your resource to see who's been helped. Sorry for the long presentation, but here it is. The summary slide uh really is to um adopt the resolution approving the 2026 to 2030 EIP. again focusing on administrating existing programs with available fund balance. Explore manufactured homes for affordable housing. Complete the homelessness encampment policy. Explore affordable housing opportunities on Belmont and Well, wellin, those two properties we own, and implement the new initiatives in response to the transit study, business survey, and commercial market analysis. The AIP does include that forecast for the levy. Now, you don't approve the levy with this action, but it's just the awareness where that money is going to. Later on, you're going to recess into or you're going to recess your regular council meeting, go into EDA, and then you would officially do the levy for HA. Lot of technicalities, but mayor, I'm done with my presentation on EIP. Mr. Funk, do you want them to make a motion each time we go through or do you want them to do it at the end? >> If I may and counsel, uh, thank you, Miss Wishnack. uh per the agenda. So 14A is uh as Miss Wishnack presented the 2026 to 2030 EIP. We would look for your approval of that resolution at this time and then mayor suggest if there's any public comments you want to take on 14A that you could do it also at this time. >> All right. Um I will ask the council first if they have any questions. I mean we've seen this before, but are there any questions that you want to get asked tonight before um I seek uh public comment? Anyone? All right. Well, good. Well, then if anyone in the audience would like to comment on the economic um um the EIP, um please come forward, say your name and address, and uh um let us know what you want to know. Please keep your comments brief, but um uh we'd like to hear from you if you'd like to comment on this. Is there anyone? All right. I'm not seeing anyone, so we'll bring it back to the uh to the council for comments or a motion. Council member Calbertt. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um I'll I'll make a brief comment and I'm happy to make the motion as well. I just want to thank staff. Um I'm the liazison to the economic development advisory commission and um so I you know attend those meetings and um that commission always gives really thoughtful feedback. um they have a lot of professional expertise in the issues that affect um this program and so I learn a lot and um so I want to thank them for all their thoughtful feedback and um I just think we have it's such a great document. Not every city has it. I think we're really lucky to have a document like this that that lays it all out and um I just want to thank the um development staff for all the hard work that they put into it and you know administering all those programs and also trying to explain it in layman's terms um for the people that don't know all the acronyms and um people listening tonight. But um with that um I'd like to make the motion to adopt the resolution regarding the 2026 2030 economic improvement program. >> Great. Thank you. Council Calbert. If are there other comments, Council Member Kley? >> I have a comment. Um I talked to city manager uh Mike earlier today in regards to my comment. Um, and I know we have seen this document and um, we discussed it and um, you know, I also want to thank staff for putting so much time and work into the documents and um, the budget. However, um, I know I've said this before and I'm going to restate it again and it may or may not make a difference, but I do want to state it. Um, I talked about and I continue to talk about if we're going to continue to um fund Homes Within Reach or the affordable housing program, then I also feel like um we should simultaneously support the $7,500 um continuously as while we are supporting um Homes Within Reach. And then in addition to that because we know that the 2026 2030 economic um improvement program EIP continues to um we will be this is like a four or five year document that shapes how things are done in our city. I want to make a comment because today this was really interesting um as I was in training today um reading through the governor's um guiding principles and priorities for the state of Minnesota, it really resonated with what we were getting ready to talk about today. And so I just wanted to read this because this is something that I said to Mike earlier today and it just really captured what I was thinking and I was like, "Oh my god, it's right here." And I asked Mike, Mike, why don't we state these type of things in our guiding principle papers and documents? Um, and I know I talk about it, but we never really say it in our documents. We um put programs in place like pathway programs. We do we talk about elevate elevate hen and pin program all the different things that we are doing but we never really state the thing. So today when I was reading documents this is what I just pulled pieces out but this is what the government um governor's um guiding principle stated. It says ask how your actions and reinforcing reinforcements are removing structural inequities. This was part of their guiding principle. Then the priority for the uh Minnesota state said, "In all of our work, we will seek to end discrimination and eliminate disparities for people of color and indigenous community members, women, members of the LGBTQIA plus community, people with disabilities, immigrants, and people in all zip codes and all economic statutes." So, as I was reading that, I was like, "Oh my god, this is what I just was talking to Mike about. They named it." And I'm like, "We never name it in our city. We talk about it. We put things in place to address, you know, inequities." And I'm proud that we are doing that. But I always feel like um one thing that I told Mike today, what stood out to me is when I went and I was like really bolstering about our pathway program because I was so proud of that program that we created. But when I went to Minneapolis to talk to folks about this program, they said, "Kizzy, that program is good, but who is it good for?" And I've been sitting with that ever since they said it to me because I understand no matter what we did in our city to offer affordable housing for people to have home ownership, people of color still cannot afford to live in Minnetonka. Why? Because $75,000 is not deep enough for a half a million dollar house. Why? Because people of color do not make that kind of money. And so what I asked Mike to do or to suggest for our city staff to talk about what is the income of people of color. What are we making compared to white folks? Then we will address the disparity piece that the state of Minnesota is talking about. And I think we all have a responsibility to do that. And because we all have a responsibility to do that, I'm bringing it back to Minnetonka because this is our city and we care about it and we want to be inclusive. And so that's why I'm saying it. I know it may not make a difference today, but I would like to address it in our future or future study sessions or something because we're just not there. We are doing good things. We've done a lot and I'm really proud of that, but we're just not deep enough. And I don't know how we get there, especially with budget being so tight. I acknowledge that. Um and I am thankful for all the things that we've done. But um as Julie said, this not this does not only impact housing, the EIP, but um the workforce or businesses, transportation, all of the things. But when we talk about this, there is a disparity for all the things with people of color. So the housing, the transportation, the um businesses, all of the things when you look at who has the widest gap is the people of color. So that's all I have to say. >> Thank you, Council Member Kley. Um are there other comments from council members? Council member Romey. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, I just also wanted to kind of go on record thanking uh the development staff, community development, because, you know, just acknowledging as well how much Minnetonka really is hitting it out of the park in terms of our affordable housing production. Um, we can always do more and we should always do more, but in terms of our Met Council targets, we are, oh, Julie, maybe you can correct me here because I'm doing off the top of my head, you know, 100 100% and up. um above on track for our MET council targets. I think the mayor said several times, if every community in Minnesota was meeting their affordable housing targets the way Minnotonka was, we would not have a housing crisis. Um so housing as as somebody who has two young adults um who have just graduated is a universal issue. um housing attainability. Uh attainable housing is something that we all need and and um this is such a a small part of our budget overall, but it does such great things um for so many people. And again, I just want to thank a lot of the innovative thinking in terms of tiff pooling and some other things that Minnotonka has led the way on um that have allowed us to create thousands of affordable housing units over the last few years. Um, and that is something um, you know, to applaud and to continue. You know, everybody knows my personal bugabar is social housing that I want to see us doing more of where you income qualify in and you don't dis income disqualify out. Um, and you know, we can address uh some of the things that council member Kley does, but I think we have to focus not on all people, attainable housing for everyone. Um and uh that's you know important for all of us and uh including people of color and um including anybody from a disadvantaged background. So uh thank you again staff for the terrific work and let's keep it going and let's keep thinking out of the box and finding innovative ways to address this really difficult problem. >> Thank you council member Riley. Any other comments from from council members? Um, quickly, I'll I'll I'll try and be brief. Um, one, you know, I think this is a very innovative program. Um, the fact that we have an economic improvement plan and we've had one along for a long time now. I think it's quite an innovation and it it really it really puts our values in in action and on paper and I think that there um that I I think that's outstanding achievement and I'm proud of that. I'm also proud of a lot of um the all that we do for affordable housing and some of the things that were commented. But I do appreciate Council Member Klay holding our feet to the fire because we know that there are disparities and uh we are working to close those disparities. But I think that um focus and and and maybe maybe there are things that we can amp up some of the things that we do to make it more effective to close the disparity gap. The racial disparity gap I think is is something that we should be doing. Um as you heard from several council members, we kind of all have our things, you know, the things that we focus on. And Council Member Mey um commented on social housing and I think there's a lot of things in this program. We're committed to excellence. We want to do it well. But one of my things and I was pleased about the comments of um looking at different types of housing construction and manufactured housing as potentially a source for lowerc cost affordable housing. But I have to fess up. I read an article in the New York Times this weekend um that talked about and you've heard me say this before, don't roll your eyes too much about 3D printed houses. And there's a there is a um a development in Texas that's going up with 3D printed houses. And um they're really they look pretty much they're not traditional houses, but they're similar. They look quite similar to traditional houses because they have regular roofs on. They all have metal roofs, but the article said that the houses cost 30% less than the typical house. And because of the 3D printing and the material that's used, they're about 30 to 40% more energy efficient. So, you know, um, as we look at things to try now, my gut says because the pictures in this article, you know, showed a whole development there. And my guess is that if we said, well, we've got we own a lot in Minnetonka and we'd like to 3D print a house there, um, it would cost twice as much as a regular house because getting that equipment there for one house probably would be quite expensive. But but you know, I really want us as a city to continue to push technology um as a way to drive the cost of housing out because we need more housing. We need more affordable housing. We have to think about ways to get non-traditional. Um so I just wanted to make my comment. Hope it wasn't too long. Fascinating article though. I recommend it and I will I will um I will get a copy and share it with the council um through through Mr. Funk. So um any other comments? So, we have a motion and a second. Um, we do do we have a motion or a second? Let's >> Okay. Was there a second? Council member Kley, >> I have one more comment. >> Go for it. I also want to say I forgot about this. I left my document at home that I want to bring. But this weekend, I got a chance to go look at a home in Shorewood. I was out driving with Janiah practice driving. We saw a open house and we went to go look at a single level home in Shorewood. It was off of Highway 7. I forget the side street it was off of, but anyway, it was like a twobedroom and it was really nice laid out. And I went to go look at it and I realized that um I was like, "Well, how much is I'm thinking like 500 500 something thousand or you know." And then the guy it was new construction so he was like, "No, it's like 1 million." And I was like, "Wow." You know, and so I was like, "Oh, these are the type of homes that we've been talking about for Minnetonka." And this was a PUD. And um he asked I asked him, I said, "Have you tried to build in Minnetonka?" And he said, "No, because in Sherwood and I think it was another city, I want I want to say Excelsier, he's been successful in those cities." And he said that you know these homes are for well he didn't say particular who but he said the people all of them was sold was 15 homes in this area that all of them was sold except for three. And he said um they're bought cash and he said it's elders who sell their homes who then go purchase those homes. And I was like oh wow that's really nice. And you know and so anyway >> there are people my age and older you know those kind those kind of people Ky that just so you know >> yeah but anyway it was just it was just a thought process and I said well you know we are rewriting our zoning and maybe you know come back to Minnotonka maybe he can build some of these type of homes in our city because I know that there's elders who want to have a onelevel home and um I just thought they were nice and I probably can't afford well I won't be able to afford it no time soon maybe one day But I just want to say these are some nice homes and I'm hoping that more developers come and um develop in our city. So >> great. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. So, um let's see. So, we have a motion. >> I'll second. >> Council member Kley. Uh second. So, we've got a motion by um Miss Wishnack, did you have >> just a question or clarification? So, there was mention uh by council member Klay to ask for the 7500 to be reinstated for homes within reach homes for a loan program. Um I assume it wasn't mentioned by anybody else. So, I just want to make sure for the record that we weren't changing it. If you do want to change it, we just need the council to indicate that. >> Well, I I Well, council, do you have any any comments? I'm couny >> that was funding that was uh from another source that was discontinued. Is that correct? The state or was that local um met council? >> Actually uh mayor and council member it was um federal funding through the community development block grant program and if you remember there's a time frame attached to all of that and that's why the funding expired. Right. >> Council Wilurn. So is that 7,500 total >> per unit? >> Per unit. Okay. >> Mhm. >> And would we be able to ident? >> So some options you would have is to just identify a certain number, right? You could just say I want to spend 50,000. I want to spend 100 thou whatever your price range is. And then we would have to identify the source. So either you would have to take it out of sorry I need my computer back. Um you would have to say it comes out of going to fund balance here either the affordable housing trust fund or fund balance from the loan programs that you have you know whatever wherever you wanted to take the money from but you'd have to identify the source. >> Yeah. >> Uh the levy. Yeah you could. We'd have to change the resolution, but yes, you could do the levy, too. >> Sure. Okay. She's shaking her. >> I just had a question. Is this Now, refresh my memory if you would, Jewel, Miss Wishnack. Um, if I recall correctly, that CDBG funding expired because it wasn't taken up. Is that correct? We left We It expired. We had to give some back because we couldn't >> make any loans. >> That is correct. Okay. So, the time frame was about two years to get the money expended, but 25 homes or households take us up on the loan program and the remainder of that money had to be sent back to the federal government cuz we it wasn't used here at the local level. Okay. >> Correct. >> Despite our best efforts. >> Yeah. And the only caveat I would say I would out of all these funding sources, I would not use the LAA or the local housing aid just because of the tracking issues. So, thank you. >> So, um Council, >> I have one question. So, is there a way to um receive funds without changing the levy? >> Mayor and Council Member Klay, you would have to just identify what source. H levy would be one source. The affordable housing trust fund would be one source. um fund balance from the loan programs, you would basically in that case reallocate what you were spending money on. So there's kind of there's it's multiple choice. So it's not one answer. And I'm I'm going to follow up if I may with um um so as we look at the EIP fund review in front of us. Um you know we've got development account, we've got live livable communities, but we have the affordable housing trust fund and we have programs identified there, but I believe that the programs identified there don't take up the whole fund balance. And you mentioned that as a potential source. So, if we said, "Okay, we're going to take um you know, we're going to take a couple hundred thousand dollars out of there or something to uh um that we could do that. We could identify some money for the um the program with um we'd reduce the affordable housing trust fund, but we would not influence the levy. Is that correct?" And and do you have an opinion on that? >> Correct. So, um you wouldn't have to do that if you said affordable housing trust fund. Let me give you some numbers though. >> Please do. >> So there's 66 homes, 65 homes in the trust fund or in the trust I should say. >> Um 25 of those took advantage. So I'm just going to use round numbers. So if you had 45 homes and you wanted to get um 70 7500 available to all of them, that would be 337,000. If you wanted to do, let's say, half of them, that's 168,000. >> So, and that funding doesn't expire. That's not money that goes away. That can be kept >> in sometime type of time frame. >> All right. So, we we don't usually make these do this on the fly like this, but um Council Member Shaq, >> thank you, Mayor. I mean, to me, I I think this is a worthy endeavor. I think we're kind of flying by the seat of our pants a little bit because we have this resource, we have resources, we have the loan program balance, fund balance, got the affordable housing trust fund balance. seems to me it would make some sense maybe to do very limited survey or outreach to um the existing Minnitonka homes within reach community to see if there's a need for this and what the level of need is and then amend if necessary. and we just did it on the um pathways program to really make sure we're making an informed decision about what what the appetite for this is and what the um and how much money we need and we can address it that way. That would be my suggestion. >> Um and anyone else want to comment otherwise? I will say I like that suggestion. I mean designing programs on the fly is probably not the way we want to do it. Um, and we do have some fund balances um to work with and but we're setting the preliminary le levy tonight. Uh, we don't want to go up from there. We want it to be ideally want to go down from there, but if if there's there's enough time between now and the final levy determination is made, we can probably move a few of the pieces around. Is that correct, Mr. Funk? >> Yeah. Thank you, Mayor and Council. Um so tonight the action is not the action is to the approve the resolution which actually approves then the >> uh 2026 to 2030 EIP economic improvement program. >> That's the action. The separate action later is the EDA levy. What I'm hearing you say is some potential interest in looking at that $7,500 program. If there isn't interest in um increasing the levy to pay for that being the funding source, then I would suggest, as I think council member Shaq suggested, bringing this back to either a future study session or another council meeting where staff could bring back more information and then you can decide and have a more thorough and robust conversation on if you're going to implement it, how much, and where those funds are going to come from. I'm uh any comments, Council Member Kley? >> So, when you say um increase the levy, you talking about the tax levy? >> Yes. >> I don't want to increase the tax levy. I'm I was wondering if there was a way we can pull money from other areas versus increasing the tax levy. It sounds like there is. And so, um, I think what, um, Council Member Shaq was stating, if we could, well, cuz basically tonight, if we we approve it, then we don't have we don't have another opportunity at this. It's a kind of a done deal. Is that what you're saying, >> Mayor Wome and Council Member Kley? No. What I get what staff is suggesting is maybe saying a little bit differently is so tonight you're asked to do two things with the economic improvement program. One is to approve the plan as it's been presented. And by approving the plan as it's presented, um while it's approved, you can always come back and modify it and amend it. We do that all the time with the capital improvement program. So in item 14B, uh you'll be asked to approve the uh capital improvement program. That too gets amended throughout the year. So we start by with an initial approval. That doesn't preclude you from coming back and revisiting it at any time. The second action you'll be taking tonight is later on is approving the tax levy for the HR, which is the uh housing redevelopment authority. That's a $300,000 tax levy. Historically, that's been what we've uh budgeted. Uh we budgeted $300,000 in 2025 this fiscal year. What's being presented is $300,000 tax levy for the HR for 2026. So you could increase the tax levy as to use the an so you go above the 300,000 but we would need to modify the resolution later for that action. What staff is hearing is that that's not the preferred revenue stream. So that action will come later but again you could approve the EIP tonight and always come back and amend it whether that's between now and the end of the year or even into 2026. And if I'm reading the um expressions of my fellow council members and the head nods, it sounds to me like there's not an appetite to make our overall levy levy or probably even the HA levy larger. We're um we feel like we're we're asking enough. Um, but if there uh we are open to moving things around because we think that council member Koki made a valid point and if we can accommodate that through some further timely conversations and um do it in a in an appropriate way that that seems to be the preference of the council. So I have an I have a motion. Did I get that second yet? >> Council member Kley, >> I'll second. >> All right, we've got a motion by Council Member Kley. I mean Council Member Calbert, a second by Council Member Kley. Um, any other comments? We've had quite a few. Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Wilburn, >> yes. >> Calbertt, >> yes. >> Rome, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shaq, >> yes. We >> Yes. Thank you all. So, next, um, 14B is a resolution regarding the 2026 through 202030 capital improvement plan. And by the way, I apologize. I had an old copy of the agenda that had the years wrong. So, I when I introduced that last time, um when I introduced the EIP, I read the wrong years, but I think I was corrected. Um so, anyway, so um item 14B and I will turn it over to Mr. Funk, and I think he will be assisted by Mr. Nelson. >> Yeah. Thank you, Mayor Worome. Uh councel, I'm actually going to turn it very quickly um over to Mr. Nelson. Uh I think earlier when I spoke with the mayor, I was going to introduce this, but we decided uh to change up the lineup a little bit. So, I did a more overall uh presentation at the very beginning. So, at this point, I'd like to just turn over to Mr. Nelson, and he'll go into more detail regarding the 2026 to 2030 capital improvements program. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Nelson. >> Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, council members. Uh before you tonight is the 2026 to 2020 or the 2030 capital improvement program. Um as Mr. Funk mentioned, we will need a motion at the end to um approve this this document as we did the EIP here as well. Um so the strategic um as Mr. Funk mentioned as well too the strategic plan plays a vital role in the development of the CIP um document and ensures that u we provide safe efficient sustainable cost-effective and well-maintained infrastructure equipment and transportation systems throughout the city. Once the CIP is adopted, all the 2026 projects will be added to the the 2026 budget, which will then be approved by the council in December. Um, all the future projects within this document, 2027 and beyond, are plans that are subject to change and will be updated in future CIP. So, it's really truly bringing after this document is approved, bringing in those 2026 projects into the budget um for authority to move forward with um um implementing those projects moving forward. So every CIP project they have within your document is um is assigned a a priority and so there are three priorities within the document. The first priority is public health and safety and to meet legal mandates. So anything that involves around health and safety of our of our residents and our in our city. Um that's a a a high priority for us and a and a priority number one for us. And the second priority is to maintain and improve efficiency of existing systems and coordinate with related projects. So this is to maintain our current infrastructure that we have um making sure that it it maintains in in good working order. And then we also coordinate with other jurisdictions as well too. So we coordinate a lot of times with Met Council or the county or the state on a number of different projects and such. And so we try to get um our best bang for the buck on on projects that involve multiple juris jurisdictions on that end of it. And then our third priority is expand existing um new services and community betterment. And so these are um kind of that that less required and more kind of that that um just to kind of enhance or to have the wants or or not necessarily all the needs on that end of it and such. And so there aren't necessarily a lot of um category 3 projects in our CIP. It's mostly mainly one and two type of projects on that end of it. And obviously all these projects are within the constraints of limited resources. We only have so much so many dollars to go around. We have to prioritize what's important. Um and we for sure want to get those priority uh one and two projects done. Um on the front end as Mr. Funk mentioned about the strategic plan, obviously our infrastructure and asset management is a big piece of our CIP. Um and then the financial strength of is another um emphasis to within our uh CIP as well. Um so our desired outcomes for the for the infrastructure and asset management improve uh reliability efficiency of utilities and and facilities safe quality well-maintained roadway systems and enhance safety walkability and connectivity of the trail systems and I'll kind of mention as we move into the financial strength of that piece I got an example down the road of um how we want to expand the sources of revenue for the capital improvement projects as well. That's one of our desired outcomes um within this within this document. So, a little bit of background on the CIP. The capital project improvements are projects that require acquisition, construction, replacement of infrastructure, other assets. It's a multi-year pro program that allows the city to plan and for current long-term needs. A lot of our infrastructure projects take years of planning on the front end of these before we can actually u put a shovel in the ground. Um project areas include buildings, parks and trails, equipment, technology, streets, storm drainage, and water and sewer utilities. And as I mentioned earlier, the CIP is not a budget. Um the budget will be adopted um later this year, but all these items in 2026 will be brought forward into that 2026 budget um for funding um so we can move the projects forward in 2026. Um and obviously this is an integral piece of our of our strategic plan. The CIP is and the council um may recall back on June 16th we did review this the CIP. So we went through um not necessarily page by page but we had an opportunity to go through all the all the projects within the CIP which there are over a 100 projects um in this year's CIP plan. Our CIP also includes um an emphasis on environmental sustainability and our stewardship efforts. Um this was from a couple years ago. We um sustainability is obviously one of our guiding principles and over the years we hadn't necessarily called that out and so we u made a concerted effort to um kind of distinguish which projects that have both a sustainability and a stewardship effort with some of our symbols within our document um on that end of it and such. So um we continue to look at that within our strategic plan. Obviously, sustainability is one of those. Um, stewardship as well. And so, we want to make sure that our projects all go through that lens of making sure that we're um thinking about and ensuring sustainability and stewardship in our in our projects when applicable. So, what is a CIP fund? Um, as you can see, u this is a look back over the last 5 years of what the the capital improvement programs have have funded um for 2026 to 2030. It's it's about $165 million worth of projects over the next 5 years. And you can kind of see how that's eb and flowed over the years. In 2025, it was up to almost $212 million. Um there is a little bit of a a caveat on why it dropped from 212 down to $165 million. Uh there are a couple projects um kind of joint projects we have in the CIP that we pulled out the joint funding because they were substantial dollar amounts. For example, the Excelsier uh road project, rehab project from uh County Road 101 to Williston Road. Um that has about a $25 million or so um Henipin County um contribution for that project. And so it kind of skewed the numbers a little bit to include their funding um in this project. Um and then also we had a a Three Rivers Park District Trail along Hopkins Crossroad that had substantial funding. So we still show our share of that funding. uh we just pulled out their shares because it it skewed the numbers um pretty dramatically on that end of it and kind of wanted to keep it comparing apples to apples here. [Applause] So here's kind of a breakdown too between um different categories or our projects. And so um you can see between street improvement there the biggest section that kind of light yellow color is 45.2% and if you kind of opposite side of that the municipal state aid street improvements is another 9%. So that's some state funding we received for um from the state for uh fuel tax and such like that. And so if you add those two together, we're up to, you know, 55% just dedicated to streets um throughout our city on that end of it. And then if you look at the infrastructure that's a lot a lot of times underneath the the streets, the water and sewer utilities, storm water, those types of things. Um we have 13% for water and sewer sanit sanitary and another about 4% for storm water. So, you know, almost 75% of our of our CIP is kind of dedicated to um streets and infrastructure improvements on on that end of it and such. Then obviously parks and trails open space. We have a big emphasis within the city on on those items. And so those are a big part of our CIP as well. [Applause] So if we look at the tax levy for the CIP over the last um number of years looking back to 2019 and looking forward to 2030 you can see since 2019 our CIP investment from a tax levy standpoint has been relatively flat. Obviously in 2021 um that was on the on the cusp of COVID. So we um pulled the reinss back and tried to reduce the our levy as best we could not knowing what the future had in store. um and then have been trying to kind of recoup that levy over the last several years on that end of it. But with um the implementation of other programs, um public safety master plan, those types of things, we've tried to um get by with what we can on the CIP. And so um you can see in 2026 our levy is actually dropping by about $500,000 compared to 2025. And we're doing that um partly with um some reserves that we in 2024 um we ended the general fund year with a a surplus in our general fund. And so our council policy with excess fund balances that that allows us to transfer those dollars those excess dollars above our threshold of 40% of the of the fund balance to kind of CIP funds for one-time purchases. And a lot of times that's our CIP area. And so we've been able to transfer dollars over to our CIP to help kind of supplant that tax levy that hasn't been there for the last number of years on on that end of it. So um that helped us get through to there um with with that because we weren't expecting that in 2024. We had actually kind of come last we were down to kind of basically that bare minimum of fund balance within our general fund and didn't necessarily have any more forecasted transfers out. And so that 2024 allowed us to not only reduce the 26 levy but it helped um 27 and 28 levies as well too. Even though they are increasing there are transfers scheduled out in those out years as well too. So um but as you can see in the out years we are um forecasting increase in the CIP levy itself uh which is about um as Mr. Funk mentioned earlier probably about 15 to 17% of the total tax levy um within the city itself. Um so going back to one of the strategic plans of or the desired outcomes is to expand the sources of revenue within the capital improvement um plan or pro program. Um we always seek partnerships. Um I think the council has seen our our grant tracking spreadsheet that we've put together over the last year or so. There are a number of different grants um and opportunities that uh we have come across to help supplant both the operating budget and the capital improvement um budgeted. And one of the prime examples of that is the Hopkins Crossroad trailer that we completed um within the last year. I think we've completed that project. Uh that was a $5.4 million project and with all the funding from federal, state, and and county dollars accounted for about $4.1 million of that project, which was a substantial trail, substantial project. Uh being able to supplant all of those dollars is then able to allow us to do other trail expansion throughout the city and to to we have a long list of trails to to expand on. And these extra dollars help kind of speed that process along as as best we can. And other examples include the new rooftop and ground array um solar installation projects that have recently come online. Uh those had state funding as well. And we'll hopefully get uh we should get some um federal um tax credits on those as well along with uh we had a relief grant for um some emerald ashbor replacement and the Groinland Elementary School. I think has been on the council agenda recently as well too about some funding um for some storm water improvements of that that area. So, as I mentioned earlier, there are a lot of projects within the CIP. Um there are actually 112 projects within the the 2026 CIP. Uh I won't go through all of them tonight. Uh but I did want to touch just on a couple of the kind of the high priority or the most notable projects as well too. Um our trail improvement plan is always always a big one. There's a long list of of trails we need to to still build out over the next number of probably decades unfortunately on that end of it. Um but in the next year we will be expanding having a trail expansion along Minnitanka Boulevard um from the marsh to Tonka Tonka Wood Road. Uh some of that preliminary work is being done now I think with the utilities doing some utility work there um with that trail going in next year at at this point in time I believe and then future segments um with that Excelsier um boulevard project that will be a complete redo of that road but we also installing um a trail on that entire uh length of or that entire segment as well too and so that'll be a big project um in that area over the next couple several years on that end of it with scheduled that 2027 and 2028 I believe. Um drones as first responders is in our CIP that was in the news recently with that with the police department. Uh that project is funded for the first year in the CIP and we will be looking to probably move that over to the operational side of things um in 2027 and beyond. Um and then looking at local street rehab projects, we um our street rehab projects are big projects these days um and they're multi-year projects typically on that end of it. So, the Kinsel neighborhood is next up on that and I believe that is scheduled for next year's 27 as well. Um, so that'll be a a big project and a big um un a big um a big project in that area is what I'm trying to say on that with with especially with water, sewer and those whole those whole things. It's it's very expensive and very um timeconuming. Then obviously the Excelsier Boulevard, the next one is the Excelsier Boulevard project um county road 3 from 101 to Williston. So that's that joint project we talked about with Henipin County. Um there again trail expansion, water, sewer and storm water um streets, the whole nine yards being done along that along that um span. And then we'll continue with the water meter replacement program. Uh we started that kind of in earnest last year and I think we're got a good year going this year and we're actually scheduled to reduce that from a six-year project down to a four-year project. So um every residential meter and I assume probably commercial meter will be touched um over the next uh four years as well too. So so those are couple some of the u big projects within the CIP. Obviously dozens and dozens of other projects as well too but these are kind of the kind of the ones that rise to the rise to the top. So with that um I'll turn it back over to the mayor and council and for questions and comments. >> All right. Thank thank you so much Mr. Mr. Nelson and U. First of all, council, any questions on the CIP? Council member Shack. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, I have one question and and I talked with Mr. Funk about it a little bit earlier today. Um, I'll just give one overall caveat though or or thank you, which is um it's a real testament to public works and um the maintenance crew on their ability to keep up our fleet and our equipment in a way that has allowed us to really keep the CIP needs way down. So, I'm so thankful for them. we've been able to um delay some purchases for many years I think and that's really helped us out. Um so I appreciate that. Uh I just had a question because we did talk about it in the study session and I know it's been a topic from several people who have reached out to me particularly in W 2 and the Cullen. Um Mike or Mr. Funk, could you just explain briefly about how that page is set up particularly considering we do know that we didn't get the grant that we were hoping we could get um relative to Cullen and what the future kind of um next steps would be to get that get that kind of vision completed. >> Mr. Funk, thank you, Mayor. Uh Council Member Shack, I'll give a brief overview and then if I I'll lean on Mr. Manchester if I miss any important points as well. It's his team has been instrumental uh in this project to this point. So with the project page that council member Shaq is referring to is for the Colin Lake improve for Colin Lake. Wish we had a Colin Lake I'm sure for the Colin nature preserve. So with the nature preserve there was a identified future capital improvements and uh from a timing standpoint uh what's ideally what happens first is we go through master planning and so we go through a master planning effort and as you know council when you go through a master planning effort we really get into details about what projects could occur in in that area. So in regards to Cullen uh there's been u I think anticipation of a parking lot. There'll be eventual trails to the property, perhaps some sort of um restroom facility, but it has not been fully identified. And so that planning process is underway and it's starting. But ideally from a project management standpoint, you would go through a planning process first, identify the projects, and then you seek the seek and secure funding for those projects. That being said, we had a real good opportunity for grant funding. there was some opportunities to pay for some of those improvements. So, we have not yet gone fully as I mentioned through that planning phase. However, we don't like to pass up an opportunity for grant dollars if we can get them. And so, that with that project page, uh we identified that the main funding source would be grants. And so, ideally, if we would have got the grant, we would um you have some timing aspects with getting grant dollars. So, we still have that planning effort play out, but knowing we had grant dollars secured for a potential project. Because we haven't received the grant dollars, we're still going to proceed with the planning phase, still identify what projects are going to be um um implemented or approved for that for Colin. And then once that happens, we we're still keeping the project page because we'll need to identify then a future funding source. So, I think the the bottom line is in that full answer is uh the project isn't going away. We we certainly didn't unfortunately get the grant funding. Uh we're aware that we're going to continue with the planning efforts and then identify those future projects and then eventually attach a funding source to it. Uh we'll look at future grant opportunities and if there's an opportunity to write a grant next year, we will certainly do that as well. And then I turn to Mr. Manchester if I missed anything in that explanation. >> No, I think Mr. Funk covered it well. Very good. Thank you. Um any other questions? Council member Calbertt, >> I actually forgot to ask this question earlier today. So, um, in learning about our our just regular fleet vehicles, um, we have really done a great job in increasing the number of electric and hybrid vehicles. And uh the background report talks about um that the vehicle purchases are reviewed annually for EVs and hybrid options and the you know federal policies about rebates and this and that and the other has changed. Um, is there any thought that it's going to be harder to to keep uh, you know, as we replace our fleet vehicles or um, is it just kind of going to be the same as it's been or what are the thoughts, >> Mr. Funker? Well, or Mr. Manchester, excuse me. >> Yeah, I can take that. Uh, Councilman Calbert, mayor and council, we, you know, continue to track it. There has been some rebate changes recently and so, you know, we'll continue every year. we have a specific number that comes up for replacement and so we'll look at them individually and see what we should replace them with and the cost and everything that goes with it. But there were some tax changes this year that certainly would change the price. But we don't we haven't seen the state contract yet on what vehicles are available and what those prices will be. So, you know, there could be a change to that as well. It could be very positive based on what's available. So, we'll just continue to track it and see what those numbers are. Go ahead, Council Calbert. >> Thank you. And I just so uh as many of you know, my day job is at the uh city of St. Paul, which is still recovering from a cyber attack. And so I just wanted to say that um I am very glad to see that we have money set aside um for uh overall business resilience for cyber threats. And it I I will just say it is any amount of money we spend on this is money well spent. So I just wanted to mention that. >> Thank you, Council Calbert. Any other questions? Um council members, >> council me, >> more of a comment. Um I'll just uh restate now that I'm asking for funding, but Mr. Funk and I had spoken this morning about uh going forward in the future and just putting a marker down on that um as ways that we can look at somehow tracking our uh climate action adaptation planning and and kind of how we're uh looking at uh kind of our CIP and EIP but mostly CIP uh through that lens as well and and figuring out how we're going to wrap our arms around and start forwarding um those initiatives. going forward. So, I look forward to kind of discussing that and advancing that over the next year, even though it's not, you know, we we didn't have time to get it done this year. >> All right. Um, other other comments or questions, council? Um, I've got a I've got a uh one one and a little bit of a comment to follow up on Council Calbert's comment. Um, as I look at the CIP property taxes bar graph, um, you know, we're we've really been kind of bouncing around, but basically our expenditures for the last six or eight years, um, have been basically 10 million bucks roughly. Um, and it's bounced up and down. And then, and then we look at the out years and it it's gone up to, um, close to 14 1375, something like that. And um I don't need a commitment, but I also know that I've been doing this long enough that I know that as we tighten the numbers down, you know, some of those longer bar graph numbers kind of get a little shorter as time goes on. And I could was just wondering if if um my impression on that is correct and we anticipate in those out years that might we might be able to trim that because that is a fairly you know if we compare 2026 which we know is a is a lower year um but take it out to uh 2030. Um that's a pretty hefty increase and I was just wondering if we have some in not a commitment but some enthusiasm for maybe tight tightening sharpening that pencil a little bit. Um, Mr. Funk or or Mr. Nelson, anyone? >> Yeah, I'll start. Uh, mayor and council, then Mr. Nelson can also uh weigh in and look for him to weigh in. So, mayor, uh, council, to your point about um, capital improvement planning. Um, I think, as I noted earlier, and I think it's just worth re-emphasizing, one of the things that I think the city does a really good job at, and I say that not trying to pat ourselves too much on the back, but really what we're good at doing is long range planning. uh we we do that in numerous documents whether it's uh the conversation we just had in our economic improvement plan and even with our capital improvement plan. So and really what staff tries to do and and this does again tie back to our uh one of our pillars in our strategic plan that's asset management and so we really want to be thoughtful about all of the assets we have in the city. So our our plan is robust. There are there I mean it goes without saying there's a lot of dollars in our capital improvement plan because it looks at replacing everything from radios in the police department uh to squad cars to fire trucks um assets that we don't see every day such as water and sewer pipes um and roadways of course and so it is there's a lot in that as we try to manage the city's assets and part of managing the city's assets is we we uh we look at make we look at what that replacement could look like and with any CIP as each year progresses, uh, we learn more. And so it's harder to look out three, four, five years. And so we also want to make sure we we um are not missing anything. So it's it's probably bigger than it will eventually be. And then as uh we continue to update these plans every year, they get more fine-tuned. >> Great. >> And Mr. As I suspected. So thank you for that. And that's not saying I mean I understand, you know, predicting four or five years down the road on things. I mean, if you look at the history that we've been through, um, you know, uh, we didn't have tariffs for four four years ago. We didn't have a lot of things that are affecting costs. And so, you know, it's but I really respect I agree with you. I think we do a great job. Um, but but clearly I like to see those numbers get a little smaller. So, and I think we all do. And then the only other thing I wanted to say was I I appreciated Council Member Calbert's comments about cyber security. Um at the regional council of mayors today we talked about AE AI and um cyber security and uh a pres um a presentation was made from um um an expert from Comcast and he shared with us all of the ways that um systems are under duress. And I mean frankly it was a very interesting presentation but it was depressing. I mean, there's a lot of bad people out there that are trying to do a lot of bad things to all of us and to cities and everything else. And so that that cyber security is an issue that makes my head spin. But I mean, I really think that investments there are critical because um the the risks are real. So I don't want to belabor it, but it was a very interesting presentation and when I get a copy of it, I'll be happy to share it with you. So um let's see. Um Council Calbert. >> Yeah, I just want to say one more thing. I you know we we do get a few comments. It was relatively quiet on my email this year, but you know people ask what we say no to. And if you want to see some of the things that we've said no to, this is this is actually the section. And um you know we do have a lot of needs. Um we also have a lot of wants and um instead of you know just forging ahead with everything we want and even everything we need we've we've space things out including um you know looking at um public safety facilities um you know uh just looking at our ice arena and um our p our public works facilities, our roofs um the marsh. Um there are many there are many many many things that um we could we could just spend money on and um we could just continue to do it. And I just want to thank um public works for their creativity and resourcefulness. I know that uh council member Shaq was talking about, you know, our our uh fleet, but I mean that goes for everything that public works works on. And um you know they really keep the city running and they do an incredible job and we have well-maintained uh we have a well-maintained city and well-maintained infrastructure and um that just goes to show that um they do stretch their dollars and we have talked um on the council about all kinds of ways of funding um really critical needs uh including including fire stations, um, road infrastructure, and there are some real disappointments in the legislature on the way that they voted on certain things that really wouldn't have made a difference to anyone else in the state except for our residents. And so I'm hoping that, you know, I'm hopeful as we are talking about, you know, how we're funding this that um there will be uh some slight changes of heart at the legislature about um the way TIFF funding, you know, if we need extensions for that or uh bonding, how they look at bonding bills um so that we have or even sales tax, but just making sure that cities like Minnetonka who have been a net exporter of taxes around the state um can get their bite at the apple and find ways of um supporting our own infrastructure. So I think that there are opportunities out there and I know that um as demonstrated by the Hopkins uh crossroad trail project, you know, we we have a wonderful staff that goes after every grant dollar they can. And I know that we'll be able to find some uh some money to take some of the pressure off of that uh upward uh chart that um the mayor was talking about. >> All right. Um Mr. Funk. >> Yeah. Thank you, Mayor and Council. just to u just to add on to what you're saying. I think you know in terms of that upward trend just keeping in mind and and for anyone again that's that's listening and even for you too council and because we've talked about this in past study sessions inflation is real and and I think we know inflation is real and and so when we do our forecasting when we look at equipment and Mr. Nelson mentioned projects and guest projects is a is a big the biggest piece of our CIP. Uh for example, roads and the tax levy for our CP CIP going to for roads and infrastructure is the biggest piece. And so you look at road projects for example and just the cost of material and labor has just really escalated. And so that's gets factored into that that what you're seeing mayor and council that increased out years. Same thing with equipment purchases. For an example, a fire truck, not too many years ago, uh we were purchasing between six and heaven 6 and 700,000. Those same trucks today are over a million. So, as we forecast out future equipment replacements, whether it's squad cars, uh dump trucks, snowplow trucks, that equipment, we factor in inflation. So, that's that's part of what you see too is just knowing that there's inflation and bigger prices out there. But again, that gets refined uh every year. And then we we look to again look at other methods to uh bring that levy down. Thank you, Mr. Funk. Are there any other any other comments on the other on the CIP? Otherwise, I'm going to ask, is there anyone in the audience who would like to make comment on the CIP? If you'd like to, please come forward, state your name and address, keep your comments brief. [Music] Good evening. Hello, uh, council and staff. Um, uh, Jonathan Kent, 14513 Moonlight Hill Road. And uh I had an interesting conversation with a gentleman who was sitting in the audience uh Dave Pollson. I believe he sent uh some information um via email. Realized that was I believe earlier this morning. So wouldn't expect there to be a response just yet to that. Uh but I did want to call attention to a couple of matters that uh actually directly relate to what Mr. Funk was speaking to uh and actually go speak to quite the contrary to the point he was attempting to make. Um which I think is an important one. Uh but essentially uh the as I understand it and I am essentially speaking on uh Dave's behalf because he had to leave um is uh and I think this question has been raised uh specifically um at the uh some number of months ago at a meeting that Dave was at um but asking the council and staff to look into uh the historical rate of uh the tax increases that the city continues to lean on relative to things like consumer price index. and uh price indexes in general. And the question that continues to be unanswered and I would love to be wrong here and for uh ideally Dave to be wrong is where uh that is factored in in any of this discussion and yes prices do go up but uh what is that uh relative for example this year there is an increase in inflation and then relative to the total increase uh percentage- wise uh of the overall uh tax of levy uh what is that ratio and where is that discussion? And I would like to personally add that uh if you look um and hopefully the I don't know if the camera can show there's almost uh crickets in this audience as you're speaking because nobody is here essentially and no disrespect to the folks who are here. Uh really appreciate you making the time. we're all busy, but um if the city is truly committed to having a robust discussion, a word that I hear a lot um and I think that's well intended, but there needs to be more participation. And of course, you can't force people to come to these things, but in my humble opinion, you may want to consider um insisting that there be a resident quorum. If you have your own council quorum, why not insist that if there aren't enough people here uh at least um given an opportunity to speak or watch, then don't have the meeting because you may as well just have this meeting in private and put out a recording um because it's it's it's frankly a lot of it is rather performative. So, I don't mean to um disparage real hard work. I think there's a lot of efforts to try to engage the audience, but the reality is um if you continue and this is a question that uh Dave raises uh where in the last 20 years has there there been a uh sustained or decrease amount in levies when if you go knock on doors and many of you sitting before me are doing that and that's that's great. And the thing that I continue to hear as I talk to fellow residents is they don't want to see their taxes go up and yet that is the overall outcome. So, thank you for your time. >> Thank you, Mr. Kent. Is there anyone else who would like to make a comment on the CIP? >> All right, seeing no one, then uh I'll bring it back. I just turned that off. Excuse me. Um um look for a motion on the CIP or any com any further comments that anyone would like to make. >> I'm happy to make a motion, Mayor. Very good. Council Calbertt. >> Hi. Uh, I'd like to make the motion to adopt the resolution approving the 2026 2030 capital improvements program. >> Thank you, Council Member Calbert. Council member Shack. >> Thank Thank you, Mayor. I'll second. >> All right. We've got a motion by Council Member Calbertt and a second by Council Member Shack. Um, Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Wilburn, >> yes. >> Calbert, >> yes. >> Rome, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shack, >> yes. Where's some? >> Yes. Motion carries. So, the next item on the agenda is the preliminary levy conversation. We're going to take a five Well, we we'll take a 7 minute break, then come back and we will um we will deal with that uh final business item. So, thank you all. [Applause] I said we'd continue. I thought, well, we'll do it when the big hand is on the four. And it's on the four. So, uh, we will, uh, we'll get, um, continue. Um, our, uh, next item is item 14 C, which is items relating to the 2025 preliminary tax levies and the 2026 preliminary budget. Mr. F. Yeah, thank you mayor again uh and council. Uh turn it over to Mr. Nelson. So this is the third part of tonight's presentation where we'll dive a little more deeper into then our general fund operations and a couple of the other um levy implications regarding that. So with that, I'd really like to turn over to Mr. Nelson uh for his presentation and then of course we'll both be available at the end. So with that, Mr. Nelson. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Funk. Uh, mayor, council members, uh, so before you tonight is a motion, three separate motions for the 2025 preliminary tax levy, which is collectible in 2026, along with the preliminary 2026 budget. Um, and then obviously consenting to the EDA um, economic development authority budget as well on that end of it. Um, we often talked about the 2025 tax levy collectible in 2026. We often refer to that as a 2026 levy even though it is technically levied in 2025 for collection in 2026 is the the official terminology on that. So um it gets a little bit of wordy on that end of it but for kind of shortness we often call it just the 2026 levy because that's the the year we're talking about for collection wise on that end of it. Um then we'll have another resolution for the Basset Creek wershed management district which is related to the the residents in that area. Um and then we'll have a resolution cancelling a debt service levy for taxes payable in 2026. The council approved um calling out a debt service bond at the last council meeting. Um but according to Henipin County and the state statutes and things like that, that bond will be called on October 1st. This is levy is being set in September. So we still need the council to go through um a cancelling of this debt service levy. Um even though the bond is being called in October on that end of it. So, so here's a quick overview of uh the levy analysis for 2026. Um I have this slide um down the road here in a couple slides as well too. But this um kind of reiterates is that 7.935% that you see towards the bottom right hand side of the levy. That is the the total levy increase the city is looking at. The HA levy is $300,000. That's remaining flat. That brings us down to a total combined city levies. All those four buckets that Mr. Funk was talking about earlier in the evening brings us down to the 7.892%. Um but in reality we kind of talk up mostly about the the 7.935% on the city side of the operations um debt service um and capital pieces of that as well. So what's in the operating budget and what does it represent? Um this is the third year of a multi-year program to implement the public safety master plan. So, that's been a big pro big part of our budgets over the last couple years and will be for the next um couple years moving forward as well. Um included in the 2026 budget are uh nine firefighters that were hired in 2025. So, those just came on not just came on board, they came on board in July of this year. Um but we funded those in 2025 as a halfyear um positions on that. So, they coming in on in July 1, we funded it July to December for 2026. we need to fund those for the entire year. And so, u those nine firefighters is almost like adding four and a half new firefighters for the upcoming year. We have to fund the second half of of their personnel cost for the upcoming year. So, that's about $630,000 impact to the the 2026 budget. Uh we have a 10-year Axon service agreement for tasers, body um body, and squad car cameras, training equipment, and records management. And so, that that was an agreement that the council entered into last year. Um, and this is a cost of about $615,000 on a on an annual basis. So, we'll have some more savings in the future when we kind of um transition off of some of the current systems that we have. And both our CIP and our operating um levy budgets will see uh the cost savings in the future years on that end of it. Um, but that has an impact of about $615,000 on the 2026 budget. Also included is um the addition of a community engagement officer of about $140,000. This is um continues with the public safety master um plan uh which called for a second community engagement officer. A number of um public safety engagements um have increased dramatically over the last couple years. Um and this will help um enhance that enhance that service and and continue to build that trust and and and such with the public. Um and then lastly is the drones as first responders. This is um as we talked about in the CIP. Um, this is a $300,000 annually and we will need to include this in the 2027 budget from an operational standpoint. Um, however, it is in the CIP portion of that for for 2026. Um, so outside the public safety master plan, uh, there's this we will um also requesting the third year of the non-UN class and compensation study implementation. Um the budget builds off of a 3% COLA or cost of living adjustment for um non-UN um and u well it's negotiated with the the labor unions on that end of it. Um and then a 0 to 2% market valuation adjustment adjustment for bargaining units and non union wage adjustments. And so this is getting our non-UN um employees into a a a grid plan. um in the past they'd all been kind of looked at individually on an individual basis and it made it tough to do um it made it tough to do studies. It made it tough to do compliance with the with the state on all those types of things. And so um we've got them in a grid plan now and now we're getting them into um our market value adjustments as well too what we've seen with our our comparable cities on that end of it and just the general fund itself. Um obviously the general fund is an operational piece of that we provides it's a service industry that we're in on that end of it. So, it's really heavy on the personnel side of things. I think our general fund um personnel budget is about 78 um close to 80% of what our total general fund expenditure budget. Um so, uh well, there it is in the third B bullet point, I guess. 78% of the general fund is is related to personnel costs on on that end of it. Um health insurance for 2026 is coming in at 8.9% increase. Um I think I put in the in probably in the um council report that anything under 10 is a win these days but um that is truly the case. Unfortunately we've seen um number of pl number of years where we've had double digit increases on that end of it. We have other communities or other cities that are experiencing in even in the 20% increase of of health insurance. And so 8.9 is is good on that. We do split that increase um between employees and the employer. Um typ typically it's about a 5050 um cost share between the employees and just the city portion of that alone would be about $480,000 across the across the city. And then new for uh 2026 is a new Minnesota paid family and medical leave act. Um so this is required um to be implemented for cities and businesses across the city across the state um January 1st. And so this is an impact of about $150,000. And this is a a cost share piece of it as well. Uh we are splitting this between the employee and the employer at a 50/50 um cost share again on that end of it. Um and then we have one additional FTE request within the legal department and that's for a parallegal to assist with um increase in both our prosecution and and civil case load which comes at a cost about $115,000 a year. And that really is uh to help supplement some of the increase um as we've been expanding our um patrol division. We've seen an increase in case loads on that end of it. And um and so our legal department is is seen an increase in their case load and really needs an assistant to help with um those prosecution services on on that side of it. This isn't included in the public safety master plan piece or that percentage of what we dedicated to say, hey, 2.6% 6% is what we're dedicating to public safety in the in the levy. This is not included in that. Um the public safety master plan didn't necessarily call for um an increase in our legal um side of things because I don't believe it necessarily looked at that that facet of it. So this is kind of within our general operational um levy increase request for the year. And then lastly within the the budget request or the levy request is some facility improvements for both the community some community facilities along with a satellite fire station as well. Um back in May of 2024 the council approved the community facilities study where we looked at a number of the um community facilities the Mars Wilson Center community center um Glen Lake Activity Center and such like that. And at that point in time, we had decided, let's look forward or let's look and add 2% to the levy at last year at this point in time or actually it was at the study session in August of last year. Um, and that's where the council decided that it was just it was too much with the public safety master plan along with this to do everything all at one time at that point in time. Um, so we put that kind of on hold and so we reviewed that with the council again in May. Um and there seemed to be a little consensus to um look at at um taking down the Glen Lake Activity Center along with doing some remodeling work here at the community center uh as well. And so we had looked originally um right before we purchased the Marshall, we had actually gone out for bid and we had I don't remember if we had accepted bids or not, but we had received bids anyway on remodeling the community center. And I believe that was in, you know, upper twos to low $3 million range of what that uh remodeling project was. Um so moving forward, if we were to do this, um moving forward, it' probably be closer to that $4 million ballpark, just a finance person at their desk just estimating what costs from 2021 to 2026 or 7 may look like at this point in time. So um so that's that would be included within the there's a 735% levy increase. this would fund a portion of that um debt service to help with that remodeling project. Then we would also looked at um satellite fire stations. Obviously, as we convert more to a full-time career um fire department or accommodation department, uh we need space for firefighters to work out of. And so, right now, we have uh firefighters out of station one here at the city's civic center campus along with um station 5 just came on board with 24/7 firefighters being housed at that location as well. And so, um, as we look to continue to add additional, um, full-time firefighters in the future, station two is probably our most immediate need for, um, for the fire department at this point in time. And to remodel or rebuild, um, that facilities in the range of $2.5 to $9 million based either on a remodel or a complete rebuild. Um, as Mr. Funk mentioned earlier, we did um, put in a request to the legislature for state bonding um, for 2026 session. And so we put in a request for a little over $5 million to help with a a 50/50 cost share at that um for that facility. Um what are your what are our chances? There's $2.8 billion worth of requests in there. So um uh we'll do our best as as we can to um make sure that the Mitaka fire and public safety is is part of that list, but um we can't necessarily hold our breath on that one as well either. So looking back at this slide here again. So looking at the breakdown. So we have 7.935% levy increase it across um kind of our general um operational debt service and and capital pieces of that. Um our staffing and cola that was at $1.4 million as we mentioned earlier. That's 2.6% of the levy increase. Um health insurance that's another.9% of that $480,000. the Minnesota paid family medical leave is.3 and then the new parallegal position is the 2% in there. So that gets us to 4.8% um kind of within our just our general city operational pieces of that. Um the very top line is that 8% of kind of our um cola adjustments for other other services and charges, supplies, those types of things. um minor minor increases for for such uh ancillary items on on that end of it. And then we look at the next line item is ice arena and the marsh. And so historically um the ice arena we have been transferring dollars over to the ice arena on an annual basis from the general fund. We've been transferring um $100,000 over the last um several years on that end of it. And um this year we decided to split that out. Instead of showing it as a levy basically within the general fund and then a transfer out over to the ice arena, we're going to show it as a uh its own operating levy um that will go directly to the ice arena. And then the same with the marsh. And so when we purchased the marsh, we did so with the notion that there was going to be about $2 million of um funds available to help with an operating loss because we assumed that once we opened the facility that we would have an operating loss for a certain amount of time. Originally we estimated that would get us through I believe two years which would have ended I don't how many we've been open two years in May so it's um the end of this year be two and a half years or so. Um we're actually projecting that um that original $2 million should get us through part of next year. And so um I think right now we're estimating we're losing about $300,000 $350,000 um at this point in time for this fiscal year. And so we need about $200,000 we're estimating for next year to get through um 2026. And so that $400,000 that we have um dedicated there on that line item, 200,000 would be to the marsh and 200,000 would go to the ice arena. Reason why we're increasing the ice arena from 100 to 200,000 is that um in the CIP, well not in the 2026 CIP, but in a previous CIP, um ice arena B or rink B is scheduled for refrigeration replacement this coming spring. And so that facility will be shut down for probably a couple months on that end of it, which will impact our revenue generation on that end of it. And we're likely will need additional subsidy to help uh maintain a cash balance in that ICE arena special revenue fund. And that should be hopefully a one-year deal. And then the following year, they those revenues would be made back up again and we should be able to reduce that that levy for the the following year. And the next line is our capital improvement program. as we just talked about in the previous agenda item that is reduced by $513,000 that um is really related to um some of the surpluses that were available within the general fund. Um that's a.9% decrease to the levy. And then our public safety investment, there's that 2.6% or about 1.4 1.5 million of of new investment going into the um 2026 year. And then the facility improvements that $45,000 I really would fund if I looked at I estimated a $10 million bond just to make numbers round. Basically at this point in time we obviously don't know what our exact plans are but we're trying to step into um creating some sort of a quasi savings account here to start with um getting a some projects done with the community center and or a fire station. And so $45,000 is about half of what it would take to make a debt service payment on $10 million over 20 years. So the plan would be is that we step into it in 2026 at $45,000. And then in 2027 levy, add another $45,000 to the levy next year to be able to um have enough um levy capacity to pay um the principal and interest on a $10 million bond issuance. And if it turns out we don't need $10 million, we already have then some dollars in the bank set aside or kind of saved in a savings account um to pay that down or to um issue less debt or whatever we need to do at that point in time. Uh but that would be a 73 a 735% increase in 2026. And so that brings us down to that 7.935% for 2026. So looking at the general fund, uh this is a a snapshot of the preliminary general fund budget and this is isn't a final budget by any means. This is just a preliminary um placeholder for this point in time. Um this is our revenues and expenditures with our expenditures broken down by personnel, supplies, other services and charges um and operating transfers out and such. You can see on the 2026 requested column um our taxes are $47.6 6 million. We have other revenues um that get us to $59.8 million or so. And we're see really expecting to have a um still a continued good year with our licenses and permits for next year. So expecting um um building and and remodeling and um expansion to to continue on that end of it. Um intergovernmental is decreasing a little bit um on that end of it. That would be um either state or federal grants or anything to that nature. Um charges for services uh very similar um from this year till next year. Investment earnings we are expecting them to drop a little bit but they are really still helping us out dramatically. Um if we look back from 3 four five years ago our investment earnings were we were earning 02 or 3% in our um investment our money market accounts and today we're at you know 4.2%. So, it's it's real dollars that we're earning now in our investment um earnings. And so, that is really helping with um the position that we're in as well, too. And if we look at our expenditures um there, that's 59.97 or 59.8 million as well. So, we are um projecting a balanced budget which uh we do every year on that end of it. Then, if you look down further, there's $2.55 million scheduled to be transferred out. So, this is the excess fund balance that was available for those one-time projects from the surplus that was available from prior years. And so, that's not all of that that's available, but that's the amount that we're transferring out in 2026. We do have still some reserves in place um that are programmed out in 2027 and 2028. They're much smaller than that $2.5 million, but there are some additional um transfers that we have programmed out in our long-term financial plan um on that end of it. So as we further break down the expenditures, we can break it down by um department division as well too. Um and this breaks it down by every division within our general fund. And you can look at there's you know the change dollar amount on the second to right column and then there's a percentage change on from 2025 to 2026 as well too. And I can just point out a few of the the higher ones as well too that may jump out at at people. Uh mayor and city council one is increasing a little bit. So there is that's really related to dues um lobbying services uh those types of things that we uh historically have always belonged to. Um there was a change in in um dues and how the the fiscal years calculated and things like that. So we show a little bit of an increase in 26 compared to to prior years for that one. Um legal, so that's going up 19.2% and that's um an increase of $240,000. Um, a lot of that is related to the new position that we talked about, um, within the legal department there. Um, planning is actually going down 9.5% or close to $100,000. And so we what we're doing there is looking at our zone code, our um, zoning project that we're in that's in place. And right now in 2025, we had added $100,000 to the budget for for 2025 and 2026. We're taking that out. Um, we're paying for that out of the development fund rather than within the general fund. And so um there is a reduction in um their the that department or division for 2026. As we look at police and fire um obviously those are the ones the public safety master plan is a driver of our of our budget or a big part of our um increase in our budget and so those are going to be accounted for there is with increased personnel um axon projects um those types of things on on that end of it. uh Mitankka Recreation that decrease by 66,000 that is directly related to the transfer to the ice arena in prior years that transfer to the ice arena was reflected within the Minnitanka recreation budget and so we're taking that out of that expenditure out of their budget um they don't need that they won't have that there that'll be shown as an actual levy amount within the ice arena fund and so that goes away that's why there's a reduction on that one um same kind of holds true for natural resources that one decreased as well in reality What happens there is that there was a big grant from the state um in 2025 and that grant is no longer there in 2026. So the revenues a lot of our grants you were just looking here at the expenditure side of it but there's a lot of revenues that are associated with these expenditures as well within these departments. Natural resources receives a lot of grants those grants are reflected in the revenues up up above um and here 2026 they are expecting to a reduction in that grant that they received compared to 2025. So, um, then we look at, uh, communications. That was an increase of about $170,000. There is a public information officer that, um, the police department had been paying for in previous years in 2025. Um, that position is supervised by the communications um, our communication supervisor. So that position we moved it over um the funding to under the communications division rather than within the police department that to make it that the services align with where the personnel are accountable for on that end of it. So with that here's a a breakdown of this is 2025 numbers. So we don't have final numbers obviously on 2026 yet and we will for the December um session or council meeting. But you can see that public safety is a big portion of our general fund and our operating budget. Um, if you look at there's $24.3 million that are dedicated to public safety within our our general fund piece of that and it doesn't necessarily take into account the CIP as well too that has a big piece of that. Um, if you look at streets and utilities on the other hand, that's $ 8.5 million and the whole CIP is pretty much dedicated to public works on that end of it. So this is a lot of our maintenance type of items, snow plowing, um, just day-to-day street maintenance stuff here. whereas our um big overlay project reconstruction projects are within the CIP piece of it. So uh I won't go through each one of these but you can kind of see the breakdown of where our um expenditures across the different functions lie within the within the general fund. [Applause] So looking at homeowner impacts um trying to explain taxes and tax the tax property tax system in Minnesota as Mr. Funk mentioned is complicated. Um there's lots of different variables that go into place and really you got to figure out which how big is the piece of pie that you're going to pay for um given the the tax levy and given the the value of your um proportionate property to the the remain the rest of the city. And as you can see, we've had some fairly fairly flat growth and actually some actually declines in property values over the last year. Um, compared to a couple years ago where we had single household residentials increased what was it 15%ish range. Um, we don't like to see that. That puts too much it plays with the market way too much on that end of it. So we like to see nice consistent um smaller percentage increases from from time to time. So you get single household residential increasing 4.1%. Uh which is which is good which is a solid number on that end of it. Whereas you look at some of the numbers that are declining. So condos and some of our commercial properties actually declining. Um if you look at our commercial properties um and you're kind of hearing that in the market as well too. You're hearing stories out of Minneapolis and out of St. Paul where you're hearing that commercial properties are declining quite substantially. That isn't necessarily the case here. We still have some good value with our commercial properties. The vacancy rates aren't what they are in some other locations throughout the metro. Uh we still have highly desired properties on on that end of as well too. It's obviously an area that we keep an eye out on and and are are concerned about, but um I think we're in a better position than than most on that end of it. So that still accounts for a good share of our property tax um um calculation on that end of it. And then apartments, we saw a decrease as well too. So, apartments had been increasing pretty substantially over the last number of years value-wise. Um, we've added value, we've added new apartments, so that adds to the the the base as well, too. Um, but we what we're seeing is that there had been some sales and the sales are coming in um less than what the valuations were. And so, that forces us then to um change the valuation of where our apartments are at. Um, it's down 1.2%. Um, fortunately, we do add to our apartment base as well too. We got some projects that are in in the works that we've added recently as well. So, that helps with that. But, um, that's something we're keeping an eye on. But, with lower values in apartments, it it probably helps with maybe rents as well, too, that it doesn't keep escalating rents for, um, people getting into apartments. So, hopefully it's maybe stabilizing a little bit. We kind of see that flatten out um, and maybe not decrease, but maybe not jump as high as it it had been jumping over previous years. So when we look at um the median valued home in Minnitonka that's increased now to five $521,000 um that 7 or 7.935% tax increase has an impact on those property owners of of about $169 or just over 9%. Um I know I mentioned at our study session in August that we w we hadn't received some of our fiscal disparity information from the county quite yet. Um, sure enough, it was the next day I think I received that information. So, um, I did input that into here and did update these numbers. And so, um, from the same slide from a month ago that it had a small impact. So, our fiscal disparities with our values, um, being stable and and declining a little bit, some of that fiscal dist fiscal disparities distribution is getting larger for us compared to what it had been in previous years. We're still a net contributor to the program, but we're contributing a little bit less than what we had contributed before. So that changes the percentages of of our property tax um liability on on that end of it. So for instance, that first line item on the median valued home is 9.06%. Um when I first did the calculation, it was about 956. So it dropped it about a half a percent or so. It's not a lot. It's literally it was like $11 or something of that nature, but it's better than the other way around, I guess, as well on that end of it. And that was holds true for the 25th and 75th percentile properties as well, too. The 75th percentile um the dollar amount was a little bit more, but it was still about a half a percent um change on the on that end of it. [Applause] So, this is just a chart that kind of shows over the last 10 years kind of that tax capacity and that change what we're seeing. Um the light blue is the residential. And as you can see as those as those values have been increasing and our commercial industrial has been flat or reducing a little bit that shifts that tax burden over to the over to the residential pieces of that. Um so that's where we see if you're increasing your tax levy 7 or 8% but the impact is actually 9% is what the feel like is. That's really a reflection of the change in classification of your property tax burden from um residential um from commercial industrial over to residential side of things. And this does e and flow over time. So I mean if we look at it again 10 years from now it maybe grows the other direction on that end of it as well too but this is where we're at at at today's day and time. Uh then lastly look at the H levy. I think Miss Wishn Wishnack uh went over that in in great detail earlier. So I think we are set there at the $300,000 and she gave a a great explanation of where those dollars are going. And so with that, oh slide here on kind of our communication and feedback. Um Mr. Funk showed a slide earlier that all our communication methods. Um we really um have been emphasizing the last couple years of both within the Minute Memo, which we've historically always done, but also within our social media platforms. We sent out a um a notification via Facebook, I think it was on Friday, about um the upcoming budget meeting tonight. Um but we also have Minnitanka Matters where we have we solicit feedback on on the budget there and we really pushed that out um with all of our budget information we put out there throughout the whole kind of year. We kind of kicked that off in um August time frame, but we did solicit a little bit of feedback tonight. It wasn't a lot, but I would expect we'll get more feedback as kind of the truth and taxation notices um come out from the county in November. Uh we should get more feedback on on on there. And so any of our budget documents are out there. So I really encourage the public to go out there and look at that site under under Minnetonka Matters. Um all of our budget information from this year prior years is all out there and they kind of see what's what we have available and I'll see a lot of the information that you're seeing here tonight. Um and we obviously obviously share those comments with the council as well too. So we make sure that they um you're all involved in understanding what the public is commenting and and get a feel for what what we're seeing and hearing. And obviously tonight is not an official public hearing, but um the council is welcome to solicit feedback. And the official um opportunity for public feedback, which we're required by statute to do, is uh will be held on Monday, December 8th at 6 p.m. here in the city council chambers. So, with that, um, I believe that is it. So, I would hear the motions in front of you that we've gone over before. So, with that, I'll turn it back to the mayor for any questions or comments you may have. >> Very good. Thank you, Mr. Nelson, and thank you, Mr. Funk. Um, a lot a lot there. Um, I'm going to ask the council if they have any specific questions and then clearly we will um um as you indicated this is not a formal public hearing but we will take public comment on this. Um, one of the questions that I have for Mr. Funk is um for a resident who's sitting in the audience or watching um on TV um and um are concerned about um their our our tax plans and our tax issues. you know, what what recourse and what things should they should they do if they um clearly they can contact us, they can contact you, but you know, maybe um there are some specific things that um if uh residents want to provide input um and thought their thoughts on what we're doing um um what uh avenues do you recommend? >> Yeah, thank you, Mayor and Council, and I'd look to Mr. Nelson, too, to chime in. Certainly, as Mr. Nelson has pointed out uh tonight's always that opportunity. So there's different ways residents can inter interact and engage with whether it's uh council and or staff. Uh residents can certainly uh reach out to council directly. Uh we do have your uh contact information on the website. So tonight is not the only night that residents can comment. Uh so if uh a resident sees this afterwards or sees something on social media or upcoming Dominican matters residents are always encouraged to reach out and we encourage them to either again reach out to you. Uh they can certainly reach out to Mr. Nelson or myself be happy to answer any questions regarding the budget the tax levy. So that's one method. Uh and then beyond tonight as noted very early on uh in my comments we do have other study sessions coming up. So we do have the November study session. That meeting is open to the public where we still uh will be talking about other elements of the city's budget unrelated to taxes but nonetheless these are all uh connected in some way. Uh so residents can attend our upcoming study session. Uh and then either if it's by email uh certainly phone calls as well uh we do have our um all of our contact information and yours as well is available. So, email, phone calls, we do have upcoming meetings with the November study session and then certainly December 8th uh is the official public hearing. Uh and then and then any correspondence between now and December 8th, as Mr. Nelson pointed out, we will share that with council. So, if uh staff receives any emails, we do forward that to the council. That is all taken into consideration as we frame up for the December 8th final budget and tax levy. >> Thank you, Mr. Funk. Um so council any questions that you have um you want to ask for um staff council Wilurn. >> Um and sorry I didn't ask this this afternoon because I didn't catch it this afternoon. um the the um the levy for the for the community is there a way to have funding for the community center that doesn't affect the levy? Um and I realize like if we if we do fund balances then you know if we use that money for for the for this then it's not available for other things. So, I guess I'm trying to figure out it's I'm less than happy with with spin with increasing the levy to do the community center um improvements even though I know like some of the improvements have to do with ADA compliance and are are definitely necessary but then there are others that are um cosmetic and updating and and so I'm just cognizant of you what we're what we're asking people to pay for. So, >> I can Mr. Nelson. >> Thank you, Mayor. Uh, mayor, council member Wilburn. Um, really we do not have any additional fund balance available within our capital project funds that to really do the community center project. Um what we had done looked at before we prior to us purchasing the marsh is that we were going to do an internal loan. At that point in time um to pay for the community center improvements that got redirected over to the purchase of the marsh along with the the operating pieces of that. So at this point in time we do not have funds available to do the the community center improvements without um some sort of debt issuance at this point. So, other questions? Anyone? Um, I have one. I don't want you've heard me talk about this before, but I did some quick and dirty math while I was sitting here, and I believe, um, Mr. Nelson said that the Marsh basically annual operating loss is about $350,000 a year. And and correct me if I um interpreted that the wrong way, but if that is indeed correct, um it's been kind of my bugaboo um that I really want the marsh to be self- sustaining without using taxpayer dollars. I I I I supported and still support the fact that we bought it, but I really want to get it off the taxpayer rolls. And so I did my quick and dirty math. And so if we look at we have about seven I'm going to say we've got about 7,000 members. And so if I divide $350,000 by 7,000 members I get $50. And so basically if we increased our rate to every member by $50 a year or less than $5 a month, we could erase that loss. Now it's not my job to run the marsh. That's staff's job. But I throw that out as an opportunity to reduce the levy and get the marsh off the tax roles. Um I know that there are people who are critical of the marsh um purchase. Um I think there's a lot more people who are very thankful. I get I get I get thanks all the time from residents. But I'd really feel better about the people who are unhappy that we bought the marsh if I could look them in the eye and say, "You know what? We're covering our we're covering covering our operating expenses. And when I did the quick and dirty arithmetic, um it's five bucks a month. Um I think most residents of Minnetonka can afford that. So I I throw that out as just a a comment and a question. Um again, it's not my job to run the marsh, but I really would like to to see that disappear, and I think I have other council members who would be supportive of that. And so that's a that's a comment. That's not really a question, but if you want to if you have a comment, if you'd like to comment back, please do. >> Uh I'll just maybe comment really quickly. Uh Mr. Mayor, thank you. Uh we will continue to look at that number as we get closer to the end of the year. It's obviously we're getting closer to the end of the year, no matter how we want to look at it, but um we'll again look at that as we get into the November study session and really determine if that where we're at with the marsh on that number, that $350,000 number. I I kind of pulled it off the top of my head at the moment. It's >> okay. I kind of pulled my arithmetic. I I might I I might have pulled mine from elsewhere, but uh it's okay. >> Um but I know it's it's somewhere in that ballpark range, and I obviously know that we're trying to get get there. Membership numbers have been increasing and and revenues um increasing as well, too. And and we'll try to >> And I want to congratulate staff. I mean, they've done a really good job of um of helping make that happen. Mr. Funk, go ahead. >> Yeah, thank you, Mayor and Council. And just to add on to what Mr. Nelson's saying that um if we had pointed this out earlier, again, it's important to note now that tonight you're being asked to adopt three resolutions with this action item. One of those is the preliminary tax levy for 2026. I know you know this, but I want to reemphasize it that tonight's action means you're certifying the preliminary tax levy. That information goes to Henipin County and then for December 8th, you'll approve a final tax levy. That final tax levy in December can be lower than tonight and as you know, can't be higher. And so, as Mr. else had mentioned. Um if you're compelled to approve the tax levy as presented, uh we would come back in November uh at that study session where we look at more of those uh utility operations at our special revenue accounts. We look at the ice arena and the marsh. Uh Mr. OD will be at those conversations and we'll we'll talk through some of the strategies um that they're um that they're utilizing at the march to break even. That that is the it's a shared goal between staff and council to break even. Uh I think as Mr. ODay has mentioned it took the Willis Center I think 7 years to actually break even. Um doesn't mean we can't do that sooner with the marsh but certainly your points are very valid uh mayor and council in that uh breaking even is an absolute goal and uh we can have further conversation in November of what that looks like and and how we can then further lower the the final levy in December. >> Great. Thank you Mr. Funk. So council any other any other questions? Councilor Calbertt. >> Thank you mayor. I I explored this a little bit with Mr. Funk this morning. Um and uh it's probably a question more for Mr. Nelson, but um on the uh I can't see the page numbers anymore for some reason, but um under inflationary pressures uh in the supplemental background report um towards the bottom of the page um above preliminary levy, it talks about how um we're starting to see price increases related to tariff search charges and similar to fuel charges added to invoices years ago. Tariff serve charges are now beginning it to appear, but that nothing is built into the budget to account for any tariff related sir charges. And I know that it's very unstable out there, but I'm just wondering is sort of is this one of those situations where we have to be wait and see because we just have no idea or um you know just thinking about what GFOA might be putting out there in their seminars or webinars or whatever. Is there an approach that government finance officers are kind of looking at to try to grapple with what's coming? >> Uh, Mr. Mayor, Council Member Calbertt, uh, great question. Um, I think it's a lot of unknown at this point in time. Obviously, we've seen we've seen some invoices come through with with tariff search charges on them. haven't been substantial percentages at this point in time, but um also I'm sure there's vendors that are are building that into just their base price as well too. So you may not see us a specific search charge on an invoice. Um but they change from day to day. So it's hard to know what's what the actual search or s um tariff may or may not be at this point in time. And so I think we're just playing it, keeping an eye on what we're doing if we're looking at commodities or anything to that nature that we're purchasing for um construction projects or anything like that. Um we're keeping an eye on it and um making sure that vendors are aware that you know if we're putting something out the bid, this is the bid and you know your your tariff may not be extra extra line on there may not be appropriate um given a bit of a bid award or something of that nature. So, um, it's kind of a wait and see game at this point in time, but it's I think that's the case for for all of us, um, no matter what industry you're in or individual you you are. So, thank you. Are there other other questions? Anyone? All right. Then I I will look to our audience to see if they would like to come forward and anyone would like to make any comments um or have any questions. But basically comments um on the levy, the proposed levy. And if you'd like to, we'd like to hear those comments. Come and state your name and address. And if you don't, we'll uh we'll come back and we'll bring it back to the council and um and we'll discuss this and make some decisions. So I'm not seeing anyone who wants to come forward. So, um I'll bring it back to the council and uh council your your comments about the um the preliminary levy. I I do want to make one comment to um for the audience because we get used to this and we talk about the preliminary levy and it can't go it can't go up but it can't go down. But the thing that happens is we do turn that and Mr. Funk explained this, but uh the one connecting piece is that um we get documents from the government, we get documents from the county that that give us an estimate of what our taxes are going to be. That is based on the preliminary levy. Um then later in in in March, I believe you get your tax statement. Um and it shows where your taxes are and it may be very similar to what was on that um that prelim the black and white sheet versus the colored sheet. Um but but um the preliminary levy is what drives that first estimate. And so then when you get your second tax statement, it's either the same or it might be a little less. In some cities, I think um it's quite a bit less, but I think the way we budget, we it it's pretty tight. Our our our preliminary levies and our final levies don't vary very much because of all the work we put up front. Um, so I don't think it's going to change dramatically, but but those statements, I think people get a little confused about those statements. I wanted to explain that the preliminary levy drives that initial statement and then the final statement is the real deal and that's based on what we pass in December. So, um, I wanted to share that. So, um, council, um, your thoughts on we've we've seen this a lot. We've talked a lot about it. Um any any comments or perspectives? Council member Shaq. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um I just have Well, first of all, I do want to comment. Um Mr. Pollson was here. He apparently had to leave and I did, you know, I've reviewed his email and I do think he makes some good points. You know, he's asking us to talk about why um our levy has exceeded inflation and maybe do some comparison there. And I and as a pragmatic person I can understand the value of that and I think there are you know I I don't have the analysis but what I can say is there are pressures on the city in a way that um you know the the CPI the consumer price index maybe doesn't reflect and some of those things and and I'm not going to probably be able to to give a satisfactory amount of information that Mr. Pulson's looking for. But as we look at this document and the levy that we're being asked to um consider tonight as preliminary, you know, there are there there are three things that come to mind for me and I think it's really important. One is, you know, as a city, we were built in, you know, the ' 50s, '60s, and 70s. That's when most of the city was developed. That means that a lot of our roads and our infrastructure are requiring replacement. now in a way that say Eden Prairie which we're very jealous of because they've managed a much lower level levy um is not experiencing yet because they're a newer city and that isn't really taken into account when you look at inflation that that's you know replacement all at the same time is expensive and we're trying to manage that and obviously I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about the U public safety master plan because We have talked about that, but the alternatives I think are grim and that's, you know, we've looked at response times and we've looked at some of the issues that we have, you know, we had a a council chamber chamber full of people asking us to address crime. I think it was three years ago and some of the changes that we've made in this the spending that we've done is a reflection on that and that's not obviously um included in in the CPI. And then lastly, you know, things like being a leader and having some of the most experienced staff that costs us money. And I think with that, you know, I'm I as Council Member Kelvert talks a lot about the doors that she knocks on and I I don't talk about it as much, but the one thing that people say is they really love how the city is run and they really like like the amenities that are provided. And I'm not naive to think that that doesn't cost us some money as residents. We could choose to be a different type of city, which would be one that didn't provide um trail connections and didn't provide a robust park system, and we've decided to do that. So, um I I feel proud of it. I would like to see the levy come down. And I think if I went through with a and we have gone through with a fine tooth comb. I don't see more than you know a little a little question here or a little question there. It is all very much justified expenses. So hopefully we can find some um improvement over the course of the next several months. But I I'm not delusional. I don't think we're going to get it down by a couple of points. I mean it'll be marginal. But I want the community to know we are listening. We do hear you. And we're trying to balance these things that I talked about um with making responsible decisions on behalf of people with fixed incomes and who, you know, are paying the taxes. And we're paying the taxes, too. And I have a taxpayer at home would who would love to see the levy go down as well, but he's, you know, got to kind of shut his mouth. I think that that particular resident can keep his comments to himself. Thank you, Council Member Shack, and um the unnamed resident. Um um let's see other council other comments. Council member Calbertt. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um so um I share many of the sentiments that um Council Member Sha um just mentioned. And um you know we do this public survey and our residents tell us what they want and people across the city don't value the same things at the same level. So you know some people want this, some people want that, some people are opposed to it, some people are for it. Um but we really try to just run the city really well. And um one of the things that I I really want to point out is the um just the generosity and creativity of some of the leaders in our city. And I think of uh Chief Boraboom, you know, he had the vision to um uh to move forward with um the drones as first responders and um it's an investment on the front end. It also saves several staff positions which save us a lot of money and it makes um the the police department um uh and hopefully also the fire department much more efficient and um keeps officers safe under certain conditions and we'll be able to tell firefighters what fire conditions are. And it's just very visionary. But, you know, he didn't just ask for the drone program. He asked for the drone program and made the economic argument that we would not need as many officers. And then the same thing with with the uh master plan with the fire department. You know, we were on track to hire uh more firefighters yet this year again um for public safety reasons. and we hired nine this past this this this year and um the fire chief instead of just forging ahead said, you know, let's see let's see where we're at. Let's see how the staffing goes and the shifts and all of that. And so, um we're not funding a bunch of new positions this year. Um and uh there are a lot of things if you if you really read the budget that that you'll see that we actually did say no to. We we have been deferring um remodeling this very building for for years now. We don't you know we could have we could have done it but but um we had other needs. So, um, the one thing that I will not be apologetic for is, um, investing in public safety. And, um, I think that the investments, the 2.6% investments that we've made in public safety is actually something that makes me proud because it is not easy to raise taxes on people, but it's also, I think, our great responsibility to keep them safe. Um you know there are a lot of budget there are a lot of pressures that are um forcing single family residential property taxes up and one of them is the the um decrease in commercial and other property values. So, um, residents in single household homes, it it it becomes uh a proposition, but our values went down just half a percent in Minnetonka, whereas it's uh negative 13% in Minneapolis. So, we're very fortunate here and it's really thanks in part to our wonderful staff who do a wonderful job um making sure that we keep um economic vitality all over the city. Um the other thing I just wanted to mention is we the mayor mentioned it, we all mentioned we have talked about this a lot and um there there are always people in the community that feel that you know we don't do enough outreach about this but um part of it is I I think that we do a pretty good job and I and um there are a few people that really watch the budget. one of them is in the audience right now and he writes very thoughtful emails to us and we really do listen. Um and in terms of of um the gentleman who is talking about the consumer price index um you know we're 2.6% 6% of this levy is um because we need full-time firefighters and we we just really need them. Um and we needed the other investments in um public safety. The positions that we're hiring, the new positions, one is in the police department and one is kind of law enforcement adjacent in our legal department. And um those are things that that keep us well-run and safe and um to me they're good investments. So I could go on forever. I will say I'm a taxpayer. I am not a rich person. I live in a I live in a 1954 um a very small rambler on a very busy north south thoroughfare. And um you know my husband's retired and uh we really feel it when when we raise taxes but um I think we landed on a really good budget and we have been discussing this for months and people are always welcome. Our agendas are posted. Um we do put it out on social media. It is in the Minnotonka memo. We do seek input from people and um our phone numbers are listed, our emails are listed and you can write or call us anytime. Um so uh with that I'll just say um it's an uncomfortably high levy increase for things that we actually this is a needsbased budget as far as I'm concerned and uh I think we did a pretty good job sharpening our pencils and I'm hoping we can I you know maybe mana from heaven but hopefully we can sharpen our pencils even more. >> Thank you Council Member Calbert. Other comments from council members? If um if nobody wants, I'll I'll make a couple of quick comments and we can maybe move on and get this done. Um you know, I um I really appreciate we don't have a big audience now, but I appreciate the people who hung in here with us. Um and I appreciate your interest. Um, you know, I as I do this, um, I I listen to what people have said and, um, I heard what Mr. Pollson said and I've heard him speak in past years. Um, and I I don't like to sound defensive, but I like to provide some answers to some of these questions. And so, there's there's a couple of things here. And and I I'm going to be really honest. Um, you know, when we get that graph that compares all the cities, I mean, I get irritated every time I see that Eden Prairie one. And um, and I've I've challenged staff, well, why why is that? I mean, our cities aren't that different, but I think we've touched on some things that make us different. I I'll also say I don't know anybody in Minnetonka who would prefer to live in Eden Prairie. I really don't. Not that I'm, you know, I I like I've got friends in Eden Prairie. I I like the mayor a lot. Um but um we live in a special place and we're distinct and our budget reflects our values and what we really we talk about the strategic plan but this budget reflects our values and and some of the differences um you know with Eden Prairie I mean well first of all it's the bundle of goods that we buy um that's one that's maybe a little bit of a defensive um comment but um you know the CPI is a great tool um the the producer price index is a great tool, but 78% of the money we spend is on personnel and uh we're we're doing high fives because our health insurance costs are going are going up less than 10%. You know, I mean, the bundle of goods we buy is way different than what I buy for my family at my house. And if we could just if we could just buy consumer price index goods, we would have a lower we would have a lower levy increase. But we don't. we we buy a lot of different stuff um that is exp and technology is a big part of what we buy and that is not getting cheaper. So so again I don't want to sound defensive but but the bundle of goods we buy is different. Then the other thing is um and I thought I appreciate council member Shaq bringing up yeah Eden Prairie is a younger city than we are and so old stuff wears out and you have to replace it and we are doing we're we're replacing a lot more old stuff. I'm look at me I'm getting old. I've got things that need to be replaced. Um, and then but then going back to going back to our values, um, there are some fundamental differences. Um, and I don't have the information, but I know that if the street if I lived in Eden Prairie and my street was being redone, I would be assessed and my bill from the city would be 10 grand or some big number, which doesn't cover the whole cost of the street, but it covers a third to a half of what that costs. We don't do that. All of our street improvements are covered in our taxes. That's a big difference. Um, Eden Prairie is in the liquor business. They have liquor stores. That saves that gives the city about a million dollars a year of revenue. Now, I'll tell you what. Um, I could ask my fellow council members, raise your hand if you think we should be in the liquor business. I don't. And, um, you know, so it's so there are differences in cities. There's a consultant that works with the League of Minnesota Cities and other cities and he says if you've ever been to one city, you've been to one city. We're all different. And and I think that this budget and and I'll tell you what, it um you know, kind of goes back to watching Popeye and Shiver Me Timbers because it it's one thing to have um it's one thing to have um an I know I'm I'm old anyway. I I I I I I know that um you know that basically we're talking about an 8% levy increase which is which is way higher than I want it. But then the the the implication because of our values is a 9% um uh increase to the typical taxpayer. I mean that's that's higher than I want it to be. There's no question. But I also think that the budget we've got is real and and I think the differences between cities exist for real reasons. I think our values and the things that we buy and and the position we're in and the val and the things that we offer to our residents um makes this a good buy even um even though the levy is all every year the levy is always higher than I want it to be. But anyway, that those are my parting comments. Um, I I appreciate the hard work that staff's done. I appreciate our our our residents for hanging in there with us. Um, this is always a tough deal and um and we still got some time between now and December. But to me, this is the most daunting task um of sitting at this day is that we we tax our residents and they have to pay money to the city that they don't have a choice on. They have to pay it. And to me, it's a very daunting responsibility and I take it very seriously and I know everyone up here takes it very seriously. So if anyone has any last comments, I'm g I'm done. Or if somebody'd like to make a motion, we'll we'll take the motion. Council member Romey. >> Thank you, Mayor. I'll make a motion to approve a resolution setting a preliminary 2025 tax levy collectible in 2026 and a preliminary 2026 budget and consenting to a special benefit tax levy of the Minnotonka Economic Development Authority. I al Can I >> keep going? Keep going. You're doing great. A second resolution setting a preliminary 2025 tax levy collectible in 2026 for the Basset Creek Wershed Management Tax District and a resolution cancelling a debt service levy for taxes payable in 2026. >> Thank you, Council Member Romey. Is there a second? Council member Wilbur. >> I will second. >> All right, we've got a motion by Council Member Romey, a second by Council Member Wilburn. Um, any last comments, anyone? Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Wilbur, >> yes. >> Calbertt, >> yes. >> Rome, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shaq, >> yes. >> We >> Yes. Motion carries. Uh, next item is appointments and reappointments. We have none. Um, and item 16 is adjournment. Um, Council Member Wilbur, >> I move adjournment. >> Is there a second? Council Calbertt, >> second. >> All right, we've got a motion and a second. Um, all in favor say I. I. >> We are adjourned. But we're not done. Uh we do have an EDA meeting. Um and we will um we will do that quickly. Chief, thanks for being here tonight. >> Um so um it is still September 8th, 2025. Um I will this is a um a meeting of the Economic Development Authority. I will call this meeting to order. And um yeah, keep going because I don't have the agenda in front of me. All right. Um thank you. Um Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Calbert here. >> Rome >> here. >> Kley, >> here. >> Foster Bolton >> here. >> Shaq >> here. Wilurn >> here. >> Wearsome >> here. Um next item is approval of the agenda and Miss Wishnack any comments or Mr. Funk. Okay, no comments. So councelor Calbertt I mean Commissioner Calbertt. Thank you, President. I move approval of the agenda. >> Is there a second? Commissioner Shack, >> I'll second. >> All right. Um, a motion by Commissioner Calvin, a second by Commissioner Shack. Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Calbert, >> yes. >> Rome, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shack, >> yes. >> Wilburn, >> yes. >> Wears, >> yes. Motion carries. Next item is approval of minutes, and we have one set. They are the August 11th, 2025 EDA minutes. Is there a motion? Commissioner Calbertt. >> Thank you, Mayor. I make the motion to approve the August 11th, 2025 EDA meeting minutes. >> And is there a second? Commissioner Kley, >> I second. >> All right, we've got a motion by Commissioner Calbertt and a second by Commissioner Kley. Um, Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Calbert, >> yes. >> Romeley, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shaq, >> yes. >> Wilburn, >> yes. >> Wearsome, >> yes. Motion carries. Um, item five is business items. We have two business items today. The first is the 2026 preliminary HA levy. Ms. Wishnack. >> Thank you, President and Commissioners. This is no different than your council review of the earlier agenda item, so I won't go into a deep detail. Um, you know what the levy is. It's $300,000. You know what the uses are from the EIP. So, with that, if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer. >> Thank you, Miss Wishnack. I'm I'm not I doubt we're going to have any. But does anyone have a question? We don't. Would anyone like to make a motion? Uh, Commissioner Wilburn. >> I move uh the adoption of the resolution for the 2026 preliminary HA levy. >> Thank you. And uh Commissioner Kley, >> second. >> Okay, we've got a motion by Commissioner Wilurn and a second by Commissioner Kley. Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Calbert, >> yes. >> Rome, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shack, >> yes. Wilburn. Yes. Wearsome. >> Yes. Motion carries. Item 5B is the Mills town homes extension of contract for private development. And I also will turn to Ms. Wishnack. >> Thank you again, President and Commissioners. This is uh you had done an extension for the Habitat project on the Mills Church property. Um earlier this year in February, you had extended the time frames. We're very close to issuing the permit for that development. However, we're past our September 1st deadline. So, uh they've asked and request that the city um extend that timeline just a little bit further so they can uh obtain their permits. The new dates would be December 31st of this year for start of construction and December 31st of 2028 would be the final construction. So with every contract for redevelopment, you do have these stipulation of timing um that you track for development so that you're still comfortable with where the project's headed. So I can tell you we are close but not quite there and uh we would recommend approval of this amendment to the contract. Thank you. >> Very good. Thank you, Miss Wishnack. Um council, do you have any questions about this? Um Commissioner Calbertt. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, I think, you know, having gone through everything we've gone through with this project, of course, we're excited to see something happen, but December 31st seems like a pretty difficult start date, like maybe a little bit frozen ground. And um, what happen? I mean, what is sort of the technical definition of start if if the weather conditions really don't permit? So, what kinds of things can they start over there? >> Yes, M. Wish. >> Thank you, President and Commissioner Calbert. The it's really to get the permit activated and so even if the dirt doesn't move technically um if the permit is issued, it's considered an active project and then they're meeting the guidelines underneath the contract uh as required. So, I don't expect that to happen. I do expect dirt to move this this fall yet. Um, but if it doesn't for some reason, yes, they could pull the permit and wait and sit on the permit until the springtime. >> Thank you. Are there any other questions? I can say I I believe I've signed those myars. I think it's moving forward, but anyway, >> there's lots of moving pieces, President. So, >> all right. Well, all good. So, um, is there a motion um to um C Commissioner Calbertt? >> Sure. I will um make the motion to adopt the resolution on the Mills town homes extension of contract for private redevelopment. >> And a second. Commissioner Shack. >> I'll second. >> All right. We've got a motion by Commissioner Calbert and a second by Commissioner Shack. Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Calbertt, >> yes. >> Yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shack, >> yes. Wilburn, >> yes. Squaresome. >> Yes. Motion carries. Item six is adjournment. Um, Commissioner Wilburn, you have >> I move adjournment. >> All right. Is there a second? Commissioner Calbert. >> Second. >> Okay. A motion by Commissioner Wilurn, a second by Commissioner Calbertt. Um, all in favor say I. >> I. We are adjourned. [Music] [Music]