This transcript is from the **2021 State of the City** address. While your provided context includes the 2026 council members, the speakers in this specific 2021 recording are **Mark Loftus**, **Representative Angie Craig**, and **Mayor Josh Hoyt**. [0:00] [Music] [0:10] **Mark Loftus:** good morning and welcome to farmington's state of the city address for 2021 my name is mark loftus i'm currently serving as the interim president for the dakota county regional chamber of commerce it's nice to be back in farmington where i worked for seven years while i was at dakota electric so it's good to see some familiar faces and places it's great to have all of you here today we know we're watching this live on youtube and facebook and also on the city's community access channel for those of you who are new to the chamber welcome for those of you who are long time members thank you for your continued investment and participation and support we are committed to business and community strength throughout dakota county before [0:56] **Mark Loftus:** we begin today i'd like to take a moment to recognize public officials who are in the room here with us today first of all from the minnesota legislature senate district 58 senator zach duckworth is here from the dakota county board of commissioners mike slavic is here from district 1 serving the farmington and south dakota county area from the farmington city council we have several members council member steve wilson is here council member katie porter council member joy pearson and council member katie bernhjelm who is a new member also besides being on city council as a new member of the dakota county chamber board of directors so happy to have her involved in our chamber [1:43] **Mark Loftus:** from the farmington schools we have two representatives school board chair melissa sauer and superintendent jason berg are here and from the metropolitan council wendy wolfe is here the dakota county regional chamber of commerce is a dynamic network of businesses and individuals organized to deliver opportunity for our members we steadfastly serve cities and townships throughout dakota county including farmington we work steadfastly with the business community on advocating for public policy providing professional networking and development enough development opportunities and encouraging development we're in the process of updating our strategic plan which will increase our digital communications [2:29] **Mark Loftus:** and access this year we're also working on new initiatives to help business leaders with support and networking as well as workforce development transportation and economic development during the past year if you've a member of the chamber and have been following our activities you will note that we have had a lot of online virtual live programming and of course that's very successful but we'd rather be in person so we just had our first event a live in-person event uh on april 9th our annual women's leadership forum that was a great event look for more online presence in the future as that becomes more possible so we really appreciate the city [3:14] **Mark Loftus:** organizing this event today for the state of the city and it helps foster relationships with the business community with the school district and many others now it's my pleasure to introduce the u.s house of representatives member from this area from district 2 serving serving this area in congress representative angie craig representative craig was first elected in 2018 began serving in january of 2019 and was re-elected in 2020. [3:47] **Mark Loftus:** representative craig serves on several committees are of strong interest to this part of minnesota she's on the small business committee transportation and infrastructure and agriculture these are all topics that are of vital interest to this area i first met her when she was a corporate executive in human resources at st jude medical so i'm happy to see her here today and to welcome her and introduce to you representative angie craig angie [Applause] [4:24] **Rep. Angie Craig:** well good morning everybody it's so good to be with you here today and i i want to say especially zach again congratulations i called zach to congratulate him after uh [4:34] **Rep. Angie Craig:** his win and service to our community congratulations again mike it's great to see you here and um i'm really honored to be here i i've got the distinct pleasure of saying a few words but then also introducing the farmington mayor so uh before uh we begin with that though i'd just like to express my gratitude to the entire city council for your service and for inviting me to be here with you today city council members bernhjelm porter wilson and pearson thank you so much for the opportunity to participate i also want to give a shout out to the city administrator administrator david mcknight for his service we've built a strong partnership in this community and in many of the communities around dakota county and around the second [5:19] **Rep. Angie Craig:** congressional district before i introduce him though i'd be remiss if i didn't uh say thank you to josh hoyt uh josh uh has become a great ally in service to dakota county and farmington he moderated my town hall this week which is always fun because when i walked in tonight i said i told you i'd get it from the left and the right so it did not disappoint so that's uh that's the life of a member of congress from the second congressional district i also just want to say before i make my remarks about congress and what we're doing there from a local perspective that josh i promise you that i am also working on lumber prices so as as i was driving through lakeville and farmington this morning [6:05] **Rep. Angie Craig:** i appreciated that that was probably a really big deal to you and to those of you in this community so that's something that is kind of uh adjunct but we've asked the administration to look into the root causes of the dramatic price rise in price of lumber prices so you get to see what members of congress really get to do so a couple of things number one i just want you to know how proud i am to represent this district mark thank you for that kind introduction it is just a diverse congressional district and that's why i serve on the house committee on agriculture that's why in the last congress i served on tni and why in both congresses i serve on the house committee on small business [6:51] **Rep. Angie Craig:** because we know especially during the pandemic just how important that work uh has been so earlier this year my colleagues and i uh we passed the american rescue plan that was an ambitious recovery package obviously in the last couple of years we worked with the previous administration to pass some relief bills too but one of the most important aspects of the american rescue plan to me was that the dollars that were going to dakota county the dollars that were coming to farmington not get caught up in saint paul politics this this time it was really important to me that those dollars come directly to our local communities and i subscribe to the belief that [7:36] **Rep. Angie Craig:** if the federal government is appropriating dollars you know best how to spend that money whether it's a grant program for your local businesses at the school district level you know best what you need the most and so again a priority in the latest bill for me was one comes directly to our local communities and number two that you have more flexibility like replacing lost revenue um in this plan no offense zach about keeping it out of st paul but uh you can talk to me about that later but by enacting uh this american rescue plan we thought this was the best way to get our economy running just as quickly as possible another one of my key priorities was to make sure that we [8:22] **Rep. Angie Craig:** got money to the schools to be able to safely reopen and i'm so pleased that so many of our schools are back to full time uh my my youngest son we have four boys in case you hadn't read the bio which means uh about 20 years ago we were really really busy in my house and today we're just busy watching them grow and prosper and make mistakes like every young man in america makes every once in a while but our 18 year old isaac is a senior at rosemount high school right now so he's just about to graduate we wanted to get that 130 billion dollars to our k-12 education system i'm really pleased to that we put together the paycheck [9:08] **Rep. Angie Craig:** protection program it is not perfect i'm on the oversight committee of the house committee on small business and we helped draft the original paycheck protection program in a perfect world we would have had additional oversight it would have taken you know more checks and before people got those loans but that also would have slowed the program down and for those of you who are small business owners i know that it was a really important program and then to to remain flexible to keep coming back and improve that program has been a really really important part to me and then finally the most important thing that we can do right now is get vaccines in the arms of minnesotans because that's how we get back to normal just as [9:54] **Rep. Angie Craig:** quickly as possible i'm concerned we've got a 6.6 positivity rate a lot of that positivity right now is within the younger population is these variants b117 and others the uk variant spread throughout our communities it's something that we all need to continue to pay attention to i'm now on the energy and commerce committee and i'm telling you this because uh it's an exclusive committee in the congress where i get to work on health care i'm one of those members of congress i spent 22 years working in two healthcare manufacturing companies and mark mentioned that i was the head of hr i was for four of the 18 years that i worked at two companies prior to that i had responsibility for health policy for reimbursement uh for working with the food and drug [10:40] **Rep. Angie Craig:** administration and so um it's really uh exciting to me to now be on energy and commerce which has jurisdiction over health care in the united states so looking to reduce the cost of health care reduce the cost of prescription drugs so josh i just want you to know whatever you need we're going to fix america's crumbling roads and bridges we're going to put forward an infrastructure bill and some of you not going to like how we pay for it you know i heard the president last night talk about you know 50 companies american companies who pay zero zero percent in taxes in this country and the question is do you pay zero percent taxes because in my mind that's not fair [11:26] **Rep. Angie Craig:** they're not paying their fair share uh we the 2017 tax cut and jobs act it didn't close the loopholes that they're still running uh trucks through so i think it's going to be really important because these are going to create local jobs and to me that's what it's all about let's create local jobs in america that cannot be outsourced let's build the middle class up in this country let's build our economy from the bottom up from the middle up let's do that so i am just so pleased to be here um josh it's it's such an honor um and and a couple things as i introduce you that i want to add um sort of a personal prerogative here obviously josh is a long time farmington resident he's a local business owner [12:13] **Rep. Angie Craig:** a marine corps veteran and was elected i was teasing him the other night uh you know by writing ballot to the city council that was an amazing feat on your part and then of course after one term to be elected to the role of mayor of this great growing city you know this is tough what you're doing here is tough i joined saint jude medical when it was about a billion dollars in revenue which seemed big right but over the course of the next 12 years we built it to 6 billion and so my point to you is this the decisions you're going to make here about where you grow and how you grow and how that changes the culture of a community to me reflects the challenges that we had growing a business as well josh [12:59] **Rep. Angie Craig:** represents the city on a variety of boards and organizations in dakota county but i wanted to let you know uh this morning josh that your work on suicide prevention for veterans and i know this is so personal to you it's so meaningful to me uh we have been working very closely on mental health and illness with the va here in minnesota in minneapolis it's a really personal issue and you have my absolute commitment that i will keep working on these issues as long as i am a member of congress and with that in mind i wanted to let you know that i i have put forward mike i called joe atkins yesterday i have put forward as my number one priority in the appropriations process for surface transportation and [13:45] **Rep. Angie Craig:** infrastructure that we fund at the federal level the dakota county veterans memorial trail and this is a way that we can honor our veterans and raise awareness of veteran mental health uh and just thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning josh so with that without further ado i am looking forward to an update on the state of the city of farmington josh hoyt mayor [14:18] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** mayor good morning that's a that's a good lead in there i appreciate that very much so uh starting with the dakota county regional chamber of commerce and mark loftus thank you very much for putting the event on this morning obviously our hearts are [14:30] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** are continuing to be with maureen scale and failure for the the issues that she's going through and we wish she could be a part of today but also wish her a speedy recovery this presentation is available via live stream through the city of farmington's facebook page our youtube stream and also as mentioned charter spectrum channel 180. [14:50] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** on behalf of the farmington city council i would like to express my gratitude and appreciation to all of our attendees and our distinguished guests and to everyone watching via live stream or broadcast and to those that were instrumental in putting this presentation together i'm going to go back through our distinguished guests a little bit here congresswoman very much appreciate your work in the district specifically the funding through cares act and the american rescue plan a direct benefit to our residents to city in our ability to continue operations so that residents residents didn't really see a difference in our operation we're able to continue in other ways new protocols and and it wouldn't have been possible without the funding so we appreciate that and more specifically the second round that's coming uh senator zach duckworth where are you at [15:36] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** sir he just stepped out oh perfect time i'm going to come back to him i have a good point for him thanks to representative pat groffalo even though he's not here in attendance the work representing our residents at the state commissioner slavic i don't know if there's enough words your consistent support of our community your your hard work at the board level to continue to bring dollars into our city most notably you know up to 230 000 of reimbursement through solid waste it's a huge impact because we hear from our residents and we appreciate that work also your board support um we have uh later on the spring and or later on this summer we have our downtown sidewalk project we got up to 130 000 there so again constantly being a good partner and advocate at the county level [16:22] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** and it can't go understated we appreciate your work thank you very much uh metropolitan council member wendy wolf we appreciate your work in the district and look forward to building relationship and continuing the work over the years to come to our school district superintendent jason berg i appreciate our our partnerships most recently our project on 202nd street and the extension with the city of lakeville to board chair melissa saucer i appreciate your partner partnership and look forward to our our joint work session later this year uh to city administrator david mcknight and my peers uh council member bernhjelm council member porter council member pearson and council member wilson on behalf of the residents of farmington [17:07] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** i thank each of you for your dedication representing our city our residents and your interests and our interests in your work a special thank you to the city of farmington communications team lauren siebenhauer tim klausler and network administrator peter gilbertson for your contributions to today's presentation now the state of city is presentation is typically a look back over the previous year in a celebration of the city's progress additionally we will provide insight and information on the work planned for this year unfortunately mayor todd larson was only unable to present his final state of the city in 2020 so this time i would ask everyone to join me in a round of applause as we thank mayor todd larson for his 20 years of service to our community and the residents he represented during his tenure [Applause] [17:55] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** if i was todd i would drop the mayor larson joke right there and we'll start here so today's presentation is going to be starting with our historic past and leading into our future this photo is from pre 1879. now in 1872 farmington was the second community in dakota county to incorporate and organize the municipal government next year farmington will celebrate 150 years of incorporation we look forward to 2022 and celebrating our proud and historic past while looking ahead to our promising future here are a few pictures of farmington through the years and our evolution from a rural railroad community to a thriving suburban city and historic downtown district 1907 here is an image from third and oak [18:44] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** looking north and you'll see most of these next slide these next slides will all be from a similar perspective 1928 again on third and oak looking north 1950s third in elm looking south 1975 third and oak looking north and 2020 third and spruce looking north now coming into current progress we're going to go through a little bit of our residential development progress up first you'll see fair hill estates it started in late 2019 this development is located on the southwest corner of highway 3 and 190th or 195th street [19:29] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** this is a 224 lot development with various types of home you have slab on grade single story you have two two-story walkouts modified three stories this is a great residential development that's going to help help the city build out the northeast side a few pictures there going through the progress to today's date coming next we have regita fields again a development started in 2019 this development exists on the west side of flagstaff between highway 50 and the school this development has 61 lots again most of them are two-story split levels some with walk-outs coming soon we have our whispering [20:16] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** fields development that's going to fall in between the high school and the regita development this new development has 119 lots again all of this is on the west side of flagstaff so commissioner slavic you know that we've got some work to do at 50 in flagstaff and we look forward to putting that on future capital improvement plans sapphire lake going to east farmington again starting in 2019 extending into current sapphire lake is 131 lots now this development will be pretty notable because it's going to between the storm water ponds and the scenery with the wooded areas it'll provide more of that wildlife natural rural feel while still being part of a thriving suburban community and additional phases for sapphire lake extending to the south [21:05] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** now going through our historic growth and population projections this comes from our 2040 comp plan but i found it important to make sure that we go through this for a number of reasons this chart is an illustration of our historic growth and population projections from 1970 to 2040 according to the u.s census bureau and met council the chart is significant because it illustrates the exponential growth that farmington has experienced between 1990 and 2000 when our city nearly doubled in size from fifty nine hundred to just over twelve thousand it's important because that provides a great context for those residents who may have moved into our community either during those periods of growth or shortly thereafter when a city grows this fast over a short period of time there are significant burdens that get placed on both the municipal services and the [21:51] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** infrastructure that's something that farmington knows and we've worked through we feel like we're on the back side of that looking forward to our future growth some dates and items of interest in 1998 this is when pilot knob was extended from 190th street down to county road 50. [22:07] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** now this alleviated a lot of traffic off of aiken road this allowed for additional residential build out to the south of what is now 190th and pilot knob we come into 2002 this is when the city constructed the maintenance facility and the police department again those residents moving in after 2002 would have thought it always existed they didn't know that we had a small police department in city hall downtown where now the rambling river center sits going into 2006 we built fire station number two again adjacent to the municipal service center and the police department in 2008 we constructed a new city hall and 195th was extended to become 190th street into highway 3 that included a bridge [22:53] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** that allowed access over the railroad again for those residents that have moved in here since 2008 it's good to know that that road did not exist prior to that time 2015 we constructed four roundabouts on 195th street from flagstaff to highway 3. what used to be four-way stops quickly turned into ease of access through all four of those intersections at flagstaff pilot knob aiken and highway 3. [23:22] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** following are slides of our city of farmington team member introductions accompanied by their 10-year working in farmington we employ 154 full-time and part-time employees and have a combined 1140 years of tenure just in the city of farmington now that does not include our seasonal workers starting with our leadership administration david mcknight david has successfully facilitated the ramifications of the pandemic on the organization and our community again going back as a resident you would not have noticed any changes because our core service delivery was unchanged operations may have changed within city hall but from a residence perspective they they went unchanged continue to work with the transition of the 2021 city council [24:07] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** having three new members and myself being in a new role that in itself is a instrumental part of our ability to provide service oh i apologize we'll go back and david continue to work to maintain our positive financial health including lowering the city tax levy in 2020 and maintaining our double a plus bond rating you know david is a lifelong resident of farmington and his passion for our community extends well beyond his work at city hall david previously served on the city council and does an outstanding job for our residents information technology or i.t they had quite the year they migrated city staff to office 365 so staff could perform their jobs on-site and remotely we also added server and storage capacity at the police station to [24:54] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** provide better performance and disaster recovery within our infrastructure they implemented microsoft teams and the new phone solution which has saved our residents twenty thousand dollars annually now if there was a department of the year for 2020 my vote would be for it the pandemic increased our need to communicate digitally and also work remotely since march of 2020 and our it department was front and center the entire time our communications team i'm going to go back here real quick i apologize noting that in our i.t department we have four years of tenure within the city of farmington our communications team 11 combined years of tenure within the city of farmington they were awarded for their efforts in rebranding city materials with the new [25:40] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** logo they're also awarded for the water tower reconditioning video which explain the project and the new look of our tower they are continuing continuing to capture quality photography and to update our marketing materials communications goes well beyond social media and are currently quarter our current our quarterly current issue we are continuing to increase our methods and forms of communications with residents we welcome your feedback and input on how we can best engage our residents community development a combined 67 years of tenure with the city of farmington community development department is comprised of planning and zoning economic development building inspections and permits heritage [26:25] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** preservation functions and code enforcement community development coordinated the city's 2020 primary election and presidential general election the completion and the approval of the 2040 comp plan the 2040 comp plan is our guiding document for future zoning uses overall plan for the city they started the creation of the business retention expansion program to strengthen relationships with farmington businesses business retention expansion program is is going to be the number one priority of our economic development authority um it started in late 2019 there were over 200 surveys that were sent out to our business owners we garnered 50 responses the input from our business owners is invaluable because it's going to guide us in developing a strategic plan to effectively reach all of our [27:12] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** businesses individually in ways that are most beneficial to them now in those 50 responses we received 43 of the businesses have a tenure in farmington of 10 years or more so it just goes to show that our businesses that come to farmington will stay in farmington and there's a high percentage of them to do that going into our permits issued for existing homes i watch don't want you to get buried too much in the in the graphic here but points of emphasis are your purple and red colors so we start in last august and we look at august 2020 through current day red being in 21. don't have to know the numbers to know that any time there's a big difference in colors there's growth [27:58] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** we go into our construction permit income by month notable points here eight out of our last 10 months have had their single highest monthly revenue since 2017. 8 out of 10. and most notably march of 21 this year it was our highest month of revenue in 10 years again signs of growth as the congresswoman stated earlier it's a it's a it's a growing pain but it's one that we're working through and we're figuring out going into our fire rescue we'll start with our command staff just within our command staff we have 102 years of tenure within the city of farmington fire rescue hired a full-time deputy fire chief to lead in fire prevention programs including proactive annual fire [28:44] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** and life safety inspections and all of our commercial and multi-family residential building we've increased our duty per hours to improve firefighter training increased our equipment usage and maintenance to decrease response times now fire rescue or fire department was one specific example of how kovid made a department more efficient where we used to have combined trainings on monday evenings because of covid restrictions they were spread out during the week more in-person contact more effective training methods overall it was an efficiency that was gained in a time when things were different additional fire rescue we have over 50 paid on-call firefighters these are our brave men and women that respond to our calls within [29:31] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** our community and our surrounding townships we thank each and every one of them for their service earlier this year my peers and and council member pearson bernhjelm and porter were part of the first farmington women's recruitment event and that was held at fire station number one that was significant as as a council that has three woman members to have a a a woman-centered recruitment event just a sign of things changing all positive for our community and coming soon ladder one this truck was in burnsville the other day we should have it here within the week i would assume uh 107 foot i believe uh again you look at a ladder truck [30:16] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** people first think we've got an option to take cats out of trees it's not what it's not what it's there for aerial suppression is the number one reason for ladder trucks that'll allow us to i believe last year we had 12 calls most recently just in the last week we had another call where we had mutual aid in the ladder truck this is going to reduce the response time of getting a ladder truck on scene uh because as every firefighter will tell you the number one thing is getting water onto our fire so this is a huge investment for the residents but it's it's going to it's going to pay its dividends over time we look forward to its arrival our finance department 54 years of combined tenure within the city of farmington most notably the successful bond sale for latter one in 2020 reaffirmed the city's double a plus [31:03] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** s p credit rating now i was informed that there are 325 agencies under the s p and only 41 of them have the double a plus congratulations to our department additionally they were awarded the certificate of excellence the certificate of achievement for excellence and financial reporting for the 11th consecutive year for our city's 2019 annual report that was published in january of 21. the same is anticipated for our 2020 annual report which we should receive in may now within the prestigious national award that that is in our 11th consecutive year there are over 900 agencies in the state of minnesota only 140 of them have received this award and we've done it 11 years in a row so congratulations to all of our team [31:50] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** human resources combined 20 years of tenure within the city of farmington they've revamped the city's medical benefits which saved our taxpayers 200 000 they implemented a new wellness portal and benefits including incentives for our employees and they transitioned to virtual hiring to continue our recruiting during the pandemic our liquor operations 46 years of combined tenure with the city of farmington since 2005 farmington as farmington liquors has reinvested 1.56 million dollars back into farmington that otherwise would have been part of the tax levy huge improvements last year to the schmidt's mac arena we'll go through that with parks and rec one change coming here we're gonna go through a video of our liquor operations [32:37] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** we'll start with our pilot knob store which is currently our flagship store we have our highest rate of sales there going into our downtown location and later this year specifically in july we'll be moving our downtown store to the farmington mall and highway 3. [32:52] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** now this is a great move and we are really excited because this is going to not only significantly increase our square footage over the downtown location but it's also going to reduce our monthly rent expense and it should result in more traffic to the store i know council is excited about that move and that's a that's a big deal for our residents moving on to our park and recreation department not counting our seasonal workers we have 129 years of tenure within the city of farmington i'm going to make one stand out here for dan theobar 1987 our most tenured employee at the city of farmington 1987. [33:31] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** significant because dan started with us and also because the twins won their first world series the park and rec department encompasses the rambling river center as well a lot of our youth programming things that are done in conjunction with community ed in the schools notes of achievement in the last two years the constructions of improvements in the prairie pines park in the marigold park as mentioned with the liquor store profits we had arena improvements which include the replacement of all the rubber flooring installation of a new condenser an oil separator new floor scrubber purchase and can and our compressor overhaul and re relief valve replacement uh we we will have a new park and rec director starting here shortly um coming around the end of may uh kelly omlet will be joining us [34:16] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** um and we look forward to her being a part of the team most notably because our current park and rec director randy distad will be retiring tomorrow will be randy's last day after receiving recommendation from both the park and rec commission and also with city council approval on april 19th we renamed north creek park to distad park and greenway randy thank you very much for your service to our residents and our community and your lasting impact that you have made on everyone going into our police our police department has 360 years of tenure with the city of farmington farmington has made the top 10 list of [35:02] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** minnesota's safest cities since 2014. each one of our officers completes over 100 hours of training per officer that's equivalent to approximately 3 000 hours of training department-wide now from calendar year july 2019 to june 2020 the city of farmington as residents invested 161 000 in training only 30 000 of that was mandated so that's a that that is credit to our leadership to recognize that there is more that we can do it starts with training and we've invested a significant sum over time to make sure that our officers are well-versed in all areas some of those areas of the training include use of force hazmat respiratory hearing conservation [35:48] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** bloodborne pathogen employee right to know crisis intervention de-escalation methods mental illness response implicit bias and supervisory and leadership training another notable point for our police department is that they participate in a lot of community outreach events they participate in events like the farmington expo safe seniors presentations coffee with a cop citizens police academy police week open house national night out and the pink patch project toys for town is a program that last year we were able to serve 130 local families with a total of 400 children we raised over 31 000 this is one of the events and the [36:34] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** programs in our community uh that hits me personally as a as a child i was a recipient of a similar program and to watch what that does for our community and the reach is is there no words to describe it is absolutely amazing um we will have our police open house this saturday sorry not this saturday but saturday may 15th from 11 a.m to 2 p.m uh they will be accepting donations for the farmington food shelf uh bourbon butcher will also be selling food with prof with proceeds benefiting the food shelf our public works 259 years of tenure within the city of farmington public works encompasses solid waste streets and maintenance and engineering here we have our our this is our solid waste team [37:20] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** we have collected 8 668 tons of trash last year collected over 1900 tons of recycling and collected 948 tons of cardboard which is 370 more tons in 2019 that's where i don't insert the amazon joke uh also our streets and maintenance uh 17 plowing events from january 2020 to december of 2020 that over a thousand tons of ice control material that was used and 190 tons of blacktop that was used to repair our roads engineering 78 years of tenure within the city of farmington they coordinated with mndot empire township in the county in dakota county on our highway 3 county road 66 [38:06] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** roundabout project and the trail project that will start later this year and should finish in 2022 preparing for other capital projects into including a new water tower reconstruction of spruce street and reconstruction of willow linden streets in 2022 developing our downtown sidewalk again in conjunction with the county we appreciate you for your support construction will start later this year to my council peers council member katie bernhjelm first started serving in 2017 council member pearson in 21 council member wilson previously from 2005 to 2010 and 2021 to current and councilman porter 2021 to current you know this council is [38:54] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** a collaborative group we work it very effectively and we're always representing varying viewpoints i know that the tone of council is one that's carried down through staff and ultimately felt by the residents having previously served for two years taking nothing away from my previous peers this council is different our level of engagement and our intentions are different and we understand that there's work to be done for our residents and it's not something that we're going to shy away from and i believe that that's something that's felt all the way through our organization uh and more most importantly through our residents i just i could be more excited to work and and more proud to work with this group of people so i appreciate you and also your attendance today going through our council priorities now [39:40] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** this was a big deal for us as a congresswoman said earlier farmington is in a rapid growth period of time we're reaching some constraints that didn't exist in years past so when we sat down and we went through our priorities it was important that we kept them very lean very intentional but we also got into the meat on the bone when you look at our business growth pretty obvious we all want business growth helping provide more amenities in residence while at the same time diversifying our tax base so how are we going to do that we're developing a community team input approach on economic development part of that will be through our business retention and expansion program having current touch points with all of our businesses in 2021 getting out getting in front of our business owners and engaging them letting them know that we appreciate [40:27] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** them choosing farmington and and finding ways for us to support them in both their expansion their growth and or redevelopment it's also to identify and remove barriers to new development that starts with engagement with our landowners understanding what their plans are going forward making sure that those plans align with what city plans are for financial capital improvement if they're out of alignment we need to get in alignment and get on the same page we need to understand what they they're looking to do that's a huge part that we're going to start this year our community outreach community engagement it's engaging our residents to gather input providing updates and to work to encourage a positive promotion of our of our community you'll see some some questionnaires coming out via the school district and later on through the park [41:13] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** and rec commission the city we're looking at a potential 2022 uh park project ballot question it's something that we have to look as our community grows city council improvement with city county regional boards and committees regularly sharing and providing updates on our council priorities and again the enhancement and the integration of new city council outreach events and last our infrastructure support we need to work to proactively improve and maintain the infrastructure systems throughout our community going back to that community that has grown over the years there are needs that exist it all requires funding it has to be paid by someone our residents have beared the burden of higher taxes for too long we are going to continue to rely and [41:59] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** work diligently with our community partners our state level partners and our federal partners in any ways that we can drive direct dollars to benefit our residents we need to develop a dedicated financial benchmark for capital replacements in our annual budget we develop dedicated financial benchmarks for infrastructure support and facilities within our budget and we develop future staffing plan for inclusion in annual budget and financial plan our city is going to continue to grow we have a lot of employees but as our core service delivery increases personnel needs will increase with it as well a special thank you to our boards and commissions each one of them that support a specific department these are residents that step forward to better their community in various ways we appreciate their passion their willingness to be problem solvers and work with our residents [42:45] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** every year we have more and more applicants it's a great problem to have more applicants than you have positions to fill that tells us that people are wanting to get involved and that's where it starts with our resident involvement now mind you that we are covering two years here as the 2020 state of the city didn't happen so there are some 2019s in here we're going to cover the last half of that year there are several businesses to note here so some of them may not be depicted in our pictures but we have our chill ice cream studio in arcade the trinity care center expansion and memory care unit spruce valley payroll wild fig marketing soliz technology solutions hale nutrition the holiday station store main street day spa [43:30] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** stephen coterelli's farmer's insurance agency now these are businesses and organizations that were new moved or expanded we have homestead community church the farm town brew hall easy auto cornerstone preschool and child care bethel's rock which i'm going to make a special drop on bethel's rock here for a second we had our muddy bunny 5k a few weeks ago their goal was to raise five thousand dollars for the rambling river center due to their their reduced efforts in fundraising methods the net was ten thousand dollars so bethel's rock was instrumental in an event that generated ten thousand dollars for our rambling river center community huge thank you to every every part of that organization and that group uh that's a great give back to our community and we appreciate it [44:18] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** we have impact auto relocation to the old patterson auto location and also an expansion there lynn's carpet linds carpet has moved from the south side of the building to the north side of the building and that was due to the expansion of the cornerstone preschool and child care we also have living hope christian family church and our hilltop apartments the hilltop apartments will be east of round bank that's another project that's going to get going this year so that's a little bit going through what we've done where we're going our vision i hope that provides some some good insight and context for those in attendance and those watching apologize it's a little dry a couple points to note here [45:04] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** uh vermillion river crossing we we hear the conversation a lot all the lots are sold hyvee border foods just for kicks and aldi's they own the property they own the land we're in constant communication we're reaching out we're engaging we want information as much as our residents do we want it yesterday we want to know what that looks like it's on their terms there's nothing i can do anyone else can do those businesses are going to make that decision when they're ready and when they're ready it's our job to get out of their way and allow them to build as quickly as they can don't forget that just before covid started early march the just for kicks dance studio final approval permit issued construction equipment on site and covid happened completely change their business model [45:49] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** we don't know what's going to happen but we do know that we're here to support them when they're ready when we look over farmington and we think about the last 150 years our seal for the longest time was proud past and promising future you can have both you can be a growing thriving community and still honor the historic past that is the city of farmington it does exist so i'm going to go through a little bit talking about some uh past context and some current context uh here you'll find both the the previous city logo or seal and our new logo design you know our world and our nation have are rapidly changing and so is the city of farmington our small rural agricultural community [46:36] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** is quickly transforming into a thriving suburban community we will honor our past we will honor our history and our story regardless how many residents we have over the past 12 months we have experienced many firsts some uncomfortable even scary but we've also experienced many amazing things we first experienced the stay in place order our businesses were ordered to close or modify operations our schools sent students home for distance learning they were prepared the heavily criticized ipod or ipad model quickly became the go-to perspective many residents found themselves working [47:21] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** from makeshift home offices web conferencing became the new norm most of us had to make a quick transition to accommodate covid protocols we quickly unwound thousands of years of history of the handshake we resisted the urge to hug one another and we spoke to our most vulnerable either via phone from the curb or through windows our grandparents were separated from their loved ones some of them for the first time in their lives several of our several of our residents were unemployed or furloughed and there was no certainty as to how for how long our worlds were turned upside down inside out and we all had unanswered questions as we approached the 60-day mark the death of george floyd sent [48:06] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** many cities into civil unrest which quickly spread nationwide our residents and business owners were not immune from the events that were taking place a mere 30 minutes from here our small quiet community even had questions our residents worked in minneapolis they had family in nearby affected areas it felt as if everyone had a connection to what was happening days turned into weeks and with every passing day we found ourselves more separated more distanced and out of touch with those closest to us eventually businesses started to reopen we increased our capacity got back into school some of our workers returned to their places of employment our schools returned to a modified [48:52] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** learning model uncomfortable but sufficient compared to the alternatives we are learning to fly we were learning on the fly we were adapting and improvising with only the information that we had in front of us as spring approached our vaccination distribution increased we started to spend more time outdoors we started to engage our neighbors and families in ways we hadn't for almost a year normalcy is finally being restored so what did we learn we learned a lot we learned about the importance of cleanliness and highly and higher standards we learned about safety protocols and preparedness we learn the significance of our critical sectors we will never look at our delivery drivers our suppliers our teachers our medical professionals [49:40] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** or our public safety professionals the same way ever again 2020 taught us that there's two perspectives ours and that of another isolation and restrictions tested our patience and the importance of grace first and above all we're human beings we experience the feelings of love anger excitement resentment apprehension courage and fear over the past year we have seen examples of each of these in our community community leaders organize the city-wide food distribution in four days they accomplish what took other communities weeks to put together we saw many examples of residents and business owners rushing to the needs of others [50:26] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** fundraisers for local restaurants residents giving other residents rides to grocery stores gift card drives community cleanup efforts community-wide free meals that list goes on and on and on our pride in community and selfless acts for others is not new to farmington that's one of our greatest traits unfortunately it sometimes gets lost in the noise too often we hear what's not happening instead of focusing on what is we hear what we don't have instead of celebrating what we do you know what our greatest asset is in farmington it's our people all of them so here's some perspective for you farmington we're an amazing community we're a community full of history culture opportunities amazing residents [51:14] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** and the best business owners you could ask for when you call for support we show up for each other when you are in need we find ways to provide when you seek comfort or protection we stand with you don't demand change be the change take action show up get involved over and over and over again getting attention is easy just have to make a little noise keeping that attention that takes real work city staff my peers we're doing the real work we're doing hard work for the benefit of our residents farmington is a community where everyone [51:59] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** should feel safe regardless of your age your race your religion your sex or your affiliation if you feel otherwise call us engage us allow us to be part of the solution our cops are good cops judge their actions by what they do in our community not what they do in other communities we all have a story no two of them are the same continue to respect others and respect their views especially when they differ from yours work on yourself first be better today than you were yesterday but be intentional genuine and honest above all be a good human being because good human beings [52:47] **Mayor Josh Hoyt:** can do great things so farmington we're not perfect we're not broken we are though stronger together thank you [Applause] [Music] [53:34] **Mark Loftus:** you