[0:28] (Ambient Noise) [0:58] (Ambient Noise) [1:28] (Ambient Noise) [2:15] Mayor: Call the meeting to order. Will the clerk please take the roll? [2:20] City Clerk: Council member Walsh? (Absent) Council member Hughes? (Present) Council member West? [2:25] Council Member West: Here. [2:26] City Clerk: Council member Edberg? (Present) Council member Angran? (Absent) [2:28] Mayor: Thank you. We'll note that council members Angrand and Walsh have excused absences. Will you please 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. 2A: minutes of the regular city council meeting on July 9th, 2024. I would entertain a motion to approve those minutes. [2:55] Council Member: So moved. [2:56] Council Member: Second. [2:58] Mayor: Have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. [3:02] Council Members: I. [3:04] Mayor: Any opposed? Motion carries, minutes are approved. Item 2B: minutes of the city council work session on July 9, 2024. I entertain a motion to approve those minutes. [3:14] Council Member: So moved. [3:15] Council Member: Second. [3:16] Mayor: I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. [3:18] Council Members: I. [3:19] Mayor: Any opposed? Motion carries, minutes are approved. Item three: adoption of the agenda. We have two uh corrections, removals. Items 4A and 4C will be removed from the consent agenda as both require a supermajority, and while we do have a quorum tonight, we do not have a supermajority, and therefore we will take those up at the next city council meeting. And if there are no other additions, corrections, or changes to the agenda, I would entertain a motion to adopt the agenda. [3:38] Council Member: I move approval. [3:39] Council Member: Second. [3:40] Mayor: Motion and a second. All those in favor say I. [3:42] Council Members: I. [3:44] Mayor: Any opposed? We have an agenda. Item four: consent agenda. The Item B that's remaining. I would entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. [3:53] Council Member: So moved. [3:54] Council Member: Second. [3:55] Mayor: I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. [3:57] Council Members: I. [3:59] Mayor: Any opposed? The consent agenda is approved. All right, item five: visitors and presentations. We have the Vadnais Lake Area Water Management Organization (VLAWMO), and council member West is going to tee this one up. So Miss West, whenever you're ready. [4:14] Council Member West: Thank you, Mayor. Um, yeah, I am the new White Bear Lake representative of the VLAWMO board. Um, I still have a lot to learn, um, much of which you will see here, but of course much more. Um, but I really appreciate what I've heard and seen so far. Um, the VLAWMO board is excited about this partnership. The city is excited about the partnership with VLAWMO. Um, and I'd like to introduce Phil Belfiori, the VLAWMO administrator, to tell us more about it. [4:45] Phil Belfiori: Thank you, Director West, Mayor, Council, and staff. Again, my name is Phil Belfiori, the administrator of VLAWMO. Very excited uh for this invitation and opportunity to talk to you about these exciting partnerships we have going. So in addition to the first two uh staff and city reps that you've already been introduced to, we also want to make sure we point out Terry Huntley, who's your appointee on our Tech Commission—that's like our advisory, the board's advisory commission—and he's also on that Birch Lake Improvement District, which is an important lake in our watershed and I've been there a long time, does great work. And then Connie Taillon uh and all your great staff um thank you so much for all the work you do. We couldn't um do any any of these projects that you're going to hear without your outstanding staff. Uh so kudos to you for for your leadership um bringing those staff together as a team. So I'm going to talk a little about the background of what VLAWMO is and does, highlights of a couple really neat recent and ongoing partnerships, a couple possible future partnerships, and then important questions and and listening to each other. What is a watershed? I always start this one. Um, it's the land area that conveys rainfall or snow to a common basin. In our case, the common basin at the end, if you will, at the bottom of the hill is East Vadnais Lake. So all the western half of your city, plus or minus, I'll have a map here, is VLAWMO. And you have actually three other water organizations that are legally established in your city. VLAWMO is the only joint powers water management organization. We're a joint powers entity that was created by you and the five other entities, and we are governed by a joint powers agreement that you approve every 10 years, and that requires that either an elected official, city council member, or mayor sits. So all six of our board members are elected, either city council or mayors. The other three organizations you have in your watershed, which is kind of the eastern and southern parts of your uh city, as you can see in the different colors, are Watershed Districts. They're very different uh legally, if you will. They are—their boards are appointed by the County Board and they have separate uh taxation. They have independent taxation, independent um regulation, and um and they're not governed by a joint powers board um at all. So they don't have any kind of JPA or connection, if you will, legally with the city. Of course, they work closely in partnership with you, but they don't have that legal connection. So what is VLAWMO? Established 40 years ago, as I mentioned. Uh, we're a local government agency made up of six cities, you being one of those, all 24 square miles in all. An interesting fact about VLAWMO, and that's the only watershed in state to my knowledge, is that all the water that drops on VLAWMO, including all the eastern half of your city roughly, ends up in East Vadnais Lake and then goes to the water treatment plant uh in Maplewood for the St. Paul Regional Water Service. So we don't have a natural outlet. The only way water gets out of our watershed is going in a pump and then going down to Maplewood and then going in people's drinking water. So that's a really important charge for VLAWMO, and it's very unique, is that 100% of the water that runs through our watershed ends up being used for drinking water for 450,000 people in the St. Paul system. So what do we do? We work on water storage, flood management, water quality projects—you're going to hear about several of them tonight—water planning, education, and then one regulation: the Wetland Conservation Act. You can see our mission. So now I'm going to highlight some ongoing or recent partnerships. A really exciting one is the Rotary Preserve partnership that's been going on for about the last three years. Of course, that's in Rotary Nature Park. The first three phases that we've been partnering with the city on, as well as the Rotary Club and the Birch Lake Elementary School, were related to the upland or wetland buffer areas around the paved trail. And now the fourth phase, which we anticipate to be in the 2025 uh programming and is in both the VLAWMO budget and the City draft budget for '25, is to start looking at the wetlands. So we've worked on the uplands, the buffer, the stuff that's draining to the wetlands, and now what our plan is, is to apply for grants and use partnership funding to restore wetlands in that great park. So that's a really exciting thing we'll be working on with the city, as well as the Rotary Club and the Birch Lake Elementary School. And here's some pictures of the principal, one of our staff, and Drippy, who's uh really important, our mascot, um talking to the uh in a curriculum to elementary school students about the natural wetlands and the park and some um different environmental messages, which is a really critical part of this partnership. Another exciting partnership that's ongoing is your '24 street project uh has five candidates on private property that have been interested in pursuing development of rain gardens. What a rain garden is, is when water falls into it, it infiltrates or goes into the ground rather than run off into our lakes and streams. Five citizens that live on your street project this year have voluntarily talked to Connie uh who then facilitated a conversation with us, who have a cost-share program to help that private landowner uh pay for a large chunk of the construction of that rain garden. They would then privately construct it using some of our money and a little bit of theirs, and then they'd also maintain it privately as well. So five candidates on that, and that's really exciting and should do a lot of great water quality work as a result of your leadership and facilitation with your staff. Something um another exciting partnership is the spent lime demonstration project. Uh, what that is, is spent lime is produced in your drinking water uh plant. When you treat your drinking water, a byproduct of that is spent lime. And what the city and Barr Engineering, our engineer, and VLAWMO are doing is an experiment to see if that byproduct that you now currently have to pay for to truck off uh as part of your engineering, could we use that in a stormwater pond to help treat the bottom of the pond to coat it so that it doesn't have internal nutrient loading as highly as if it wasn't treated? It's an experiment to see uh how effective the—how the effectiveness is, not just when the dosing is happening this year, but also how long will the benefits last. Um, the current status of this demonstration project, and it's in Oak Knoll Pond, which is just south of East Goose Lake, uh is to determine how how much will it uh provide benefit immediately as well as long-term, do a long-term evaluation and monitoring program to see the lifespan of this project. It has never been done before to our knowledge on a large regional pond like Oak Knoll Pond. It has been done on smaller ponds with a lot of success, but we don't know how the—this larger pond like Oak Knoll Pond will um how long the benefits would last. So we're very excited about that. We're actually finishing up the last load of spent lime this week. So then the engineers are going to analyze it, provide some reports, and we'll make sure that we provide that to your staff so you know that and also provide next steps. I mentioned before Birch Lake Improvement District is a really important partner of I know both the city and VLAWMO. Birch Lake is a very high-quality lake and we're working really hard to maintain it and keep it that way or even get it better. We've done a lot of projects with both the city and BLID: iron-enhanced storm filter, which is in the northeast corner; Birch Lake shoreline restoration project; we're doing some woodland habitat restoration, gotten two grants for that; and a lot of aquatic invasive species (AIS) management. Some other really important partnerships that are ongoing or have been recently completed to highlight is the County Road F curb-cut rain gardens that we partnered with the city on, the Central uh School bioswale, and White Bear Public Works green roof. And last, but definitely not least, is education and outreach. We have a comprehensive outreach program that's utilized by all of our member communities who have regulations and requirements to educate as well as we do, and we can offer a lot of those um templates to use to try to save staff time and uh we work closely with your staff on those things, such as water conservation. Obviously very important in this area of White Bear Lake, the lake itself of course, and we're working with all our communities on a lot of water conservation. Smart IR is another big one that we're working on a lot right now to try to conserve water. Smart Salting is another one, and Adopt-a-Drain is one I know you're very active in as well. We also have lots of communication and media methods as you can see there, so we have a multifunctional communication and education outreach program that we work with the cities on. So three possible future partnerships I just wanted to highlight—and most of these are in the staff discussion phase but want to make sure that you're aware that they might be coming in future years—is the White Bear Support Center feasibility study to see if a possible uh practice, a best management practice (BMP), and what it's looking at is could uh some type of stormwater treatment be instituted as part of your '24 parking lot renovation project at the same time before it runs into—and that goes directly into Birch Lake. On the far right of that picture is Birch Lake, so it's an important strategic location, has a lot of potential uh benefit, but we have to do a study to make sure that that would work. Another one is we're working on several possible—we're talking about possible projects in the future, at least starting to talk about possible work on the channel stabilization at Polar Chevrolet, which is just upstream of East Goose Lake. Also, there is some sediment in East Goose Lake that is at the bottom of that channel of Polar Chev um looking at ways could we could we reduce that or eliminate that. Possible partnerships with the Bruce Vento Trail project that we understand is in design, and then we—there's some Shoreland erosion on West Goose that we've been looking at as well. And last, a possible future partnership—there are many others actually that we've been talking about, but these are some of the ones that are maybe the most um ready to be talked about at a higher level—is the Whitaker Pond uh another iron-enhanced filter. What iron-enhanced does is it—the molecules of iron actually attach to the dissolved phosphorus and it filters through and latches those dissolved pieces of phosphorus out and then puts clean water back into a lake or stream so that when it goes downstream, it doesn't have as much dissolved phosphorus. So it's a chemical reaction that that iron does. You have another one there at Birch Lake. Um, so we're investigating that. There's a multitude of partners looking at that feasibility study as well, including the city and the county and the township. So that's—I wanted to just give—I couldn't do uh you know, couldn't spend a lot of time at any of those projects, but I wanted to make sure that you had kind of a full gamut of what's going on and be glad to answer any questions. [16:29] Mayor: Thank you, Mr. Belfiori. Um, thank you for all your good work, and it sounds like you've got a lot going on and there's future projects then more good work ahead of us. So I don't have any questions. Uh, Council, do we have any questions for Mr. Belfiori? Council member Edberg. [16:55] Council Member Edberg: Um, I'm curious about—so we're talking at project level, and what's the big—if you take the big picture, zoom up to 5,000, 10,000 feet, what are the biggest uh issues that we're facing and what are the sources of our biggest water problem—surface water problems? [17:08] Phil Belfiori: Uh, great question, Councilman Edberg. I would say we've just recently conducted a six-month engagement phase to write our next 10-year water management plan, so we feel like we've really got a good grasp on what we call our priority issues not only now but looking out the next 10 years. I would say some of the main ones that we heard are at the top are groundwater conservation. I've brought that up before. Uh, many cities and residents are um wanting to understand things that they can do to conserve water knowing not only is it the right thing to do for future generations, but we have resources here that are unusual and that resources are in and around our watershed that need groundwater to survive, unlike most lakes and streams that solely use surface water. So there's a lot of demand for better understanding. I think we've we've done a really good job on the surface water, like how to treat water off a parking lot. We're pretty good at that. We've got a lot of—we have regulations, we have education, folks understand that when they see a silt fence or they see a rain garden what it's trying to do. I think there's this mystery still that surrounds water things underneath the ground, you know, the water that's underneath the ground that's equally as important as the stuff on top but we don't see it, right? And so to me, that—if you had to—if I had to pick one, that would be the one in the next 10 years that we really want to understand. I think another one that we heard about a lot is just kind of climate resiliency, making sure that if we do have larger storms that we're ready infrastructurally so that we don't get caught uh financially um having to upsize things and then not having the money around to do that. And so there's been a lot of conversation with cities and residents at VLAWMO about how do we develop plans so not only do we know if we have to make pipes bigger, but then how are we going to finance that going forward? So those are some of the big ones. There's—there's 29, I think, priority issues that came out of that engagement phase, but—and I can't talk about all of them, but those are some of the few that kind of seemed to raise to the top. [19:28] Council Member Edberg: So I'll just ask one last one. Is—so the Oak Knoll Pond um liming project, does that have uh implications for East Goose Lake and what kind of um—so the Goose Lakes, we have connections to our impaired waters um are we making progress? How do we know that we're making progress? Where are we at on those and and does that connect into the Oak Knoll Pond uh project? [19:47] Phil Belfiori: Uh, Councilman Edberg, the the short answer is two parts. One is, it's a wait-and-see to see if the spent lime byproduct that you produce and provide for free is going to be a cost-effective practice long-term for a large regional pond such as Oak Knoll. That's yet to see. We have had initial uh initial good numbers coming off, but that's right after it's treated. What the key is, is like how cost-effective it would be one, two, three, five years compared to what, you know, what we'd want to see it. So we will see. That's why we're doing it, to see if we can upscale it to the next level or if we're at maybe the limits. It's—it's hard to tell. Um, this project does clean the water up for this—you know, this pond goes directly into East Goose Lake, so it is cleaning the water up. So it is part of that overall uh comprehensive uh approach that we have to continually work on as a partnership towards impaired waters. East Goose is one of maybe a dozen impaired waters in VLAWMO um and we work on all of them in different ways, but all of them were required to make progress on. Um, and so this is one key point, as well as the other four that I mentioned in the other slide that, you know, we're starting to study or talk about will all make um a difference if we can build those towards the impaired waters of East or West Goose, which are connected uh lakes. [21:10] Council Member Edberg: Okay, thank you. [21:11] Mayor: Council, any other final questions? All right, well thank you again, sir, for your presentation and all your hard work and partnership. [21:20] Phil Belfiori: Thank you. [21:21] Mayor: And thank you, council member West, for being our representative on VLAWMO. Thank you for that. All right, item 5B: quarterly Finance Department report. Miss Kinser, whenever you're ready. [21:33] Kris Kinser: Yes, good evening Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. I'm here to give the second quarter report on our finances and the operations in the License Bureau. So just to start off, our revenues and expenditures continue to track with the 2024 budget, um as I would expect them to at this time of the year. Um, within the general fund license and permits account, there are three categories that have revenues that are higher than the amounts that we included in the 2024 budget. Um, so a couple of these types of permits, it's just hard to estimate. We look at previous years as we build the budget and see where it is, and the numbers are a little conservative when we build the budget. So one of them is the heating and air conditioning permit fees. So we base our numbers on um what we've seen in previous years. So we budgeted this year $55,000 that we thought we would get for permit fees, and actual year-to-date, we have $104,000 that came in. And our electrical permits: we budgeted at $70,000 for the entire year, and our actual year-to-date is $78,500 right now. So it's um it's exciting to see that those are those are higher. We do our plan review fees um when our building department reviews the building plans that have been um submitted for permits, those are also higher. So these three items, and then any other accounts as we go through and build the general fund budget—if our budgeted revenue is lower than what the actual is, we'll definitely increase those in the revised budget and then take that into consideration as we build the 2025 budget. Um, as mentioned in the end of the first quarter, the general fund miscellaneous revenues are also doing well this year. The primary receipts that are included in that account would be park rentals and um mooring, skid, kayak, canoe rentals at the various parks. Those revenues I anticipate to level off now. A lot of the people who have made park reservations have already planned them out through the end of the year, so there will be a few more coming in, but we've kind of hit that peak of the season as we're mid-summer. Um, the License Bureau is realizing higher revenues due to the um transaction fees that were set by the State Legislature in the 2023 session. Those fees are now all in place—I mean they've been in place for the six months—and so with the fees going up and the increase in the customer traffic that have been visiting our offices, it's exciting to say that our revenues are doing well, which that then kind of leads me into the License Bureau part of the report. So it's—it's as expected. We've talked about this, that the Maplewood um DMV office closed in May of 2023. So every quarter after May 2023, when we compared our year-to-date um transaction counts, our current counts were always higher than what they had been because of the influx of customers. So as expected, once we recognized we got to the year anniversary of that um we see our transaction counts level off now, and so they're staying consistent where they are at the higher level um but we won't see that dramatic increase anymore. I anticipate that we'll be more consistent with where we are. Um, so when we look at the transaction counts for 2024, the total transactions are 43,800 um in comparison to 2023 for the same time period, it's 43,800—so a little bit more um but still going well. Um, of the 2024 totals, the—you know that some are up a little when we compare them to last year, some are down a little. The electronic um vehicle title and registration transactions that we've talked about before—they are still significantly higher. We've done 1,100 more this year than we did last year. Just as a reminder, that's the transaction where the city and the dealership work together to get the um plates and the titles for the customers; the state is not involved in the transaction, we work to get that out. Um, when the city does handle this type of transaction, we receive the same fees as if we were um going through the state um so we still have our filing fees and the vehicle search charge fees. So that is exciting um exciting to see that there's—the car dealers are having transactions, and I think that speaks well for the economy to see that uptick again. Um, the big change that happened for our License Bureau in the last quarter is the Department of Vehicle Services rolled out an update to their MNDRIVE system, which is a software. And um it's—the system is working well. There have been a few glitches, but it hasn't been anything major and the state has been very responsive to get that fixed. Um, one key point that our staff really likes is that now there's—when they log in to handle the transaction and they're helping a customer, they can get a snapshot of all of the basic information of the account right on the dashboard part. So that helps them be able to answer questions and find information quickly rather than having to page through. So they're very excited about that. So with that, I'll take any questions that you might have about the report for either the Finance Department or the License Bureau. [28:10] Mayor: Thank you, Miss Kinser. Quick question on the License Bureau: so now that we've got a longer period of time with the—the increased fees adjusted, we've kind of leveled out with what the additional transactions are from Maplewood. Are we at a good place now finally? Because we were kind of bleeding red ink for a while there. Have we righted the ship? Do—is there still work to go? How would you kind of generally characterize that? [28:33] Kris Kinser: Um, Mr. Mayor, members of the Council, I feel good about it. So as I—so we haven't worked on that part of the budget yet, we're really focused on the general fund, but I did take an opportunity to kind of look at the numbers, and the revenues are coming in higher than what they were. So I think that has helped right the ship. And then we've made a change in the staffing over the last couple of years. We had um a team of full-time staff people, and we've worked in some part-time shifts now so that we have good coverage um but are using part-time staff people, and that has helped too. [29:03] Mayor: So would you say we're—are we breaking even? Are we slightly in the black? Or— [29:08] Kris Kinser: I think we're going to shake in the black or better. [29:09] Mayor: Good, that's great news. So I hope that continues. Good. Yeah. Council, any other questions? [29:15] Council Member Edberg: Just a compliment to staff. I appreciate the quarterly reports. You keep adding new layers of analysis, and I appreciate that. [29:21] Mayor: Thank you. Very good. Thank you, Miss Kinser, for the report. All right, item six: public hearing—nothing scheduled. Item seven: unfinished business—nothing scheduled. Item 8A: first reading of an ordinance amending the operation of cannabis businesses interim moratorium ordinance. Mr. Anderson, whenever you're ready. [29:43] Jason Anderson: Thank you, Mayor and Council. Um, as alluded to in the memo that is in your packet tonight, the legis—the legislature made some changes and amendments to the Cannabis Act that was originally adopted in 2023. Um, included in those amendments were some changes that really don't mesh well with the uh city's authority to establish a moratorium um related to cannabis businesses which was included in that original 2023 legislation. Particularly, I would say, how the existing moratoria interact with the statutory definition of—of cannabis business. Um, the statutory definition changed recently. They removed a couple medical cannabis businesses from that definition, and there's now a path for uh businesses to become pre-approved for licensure and begin certain operations, particularly uh cultivation uh activities prior to licensure. And the confusion is um that relates to the fact that um cities can establish moratoria on cannabis businesses which are defined as businesses licensed under the Act. So um long story, I guess longer um or as short as I can be here, to—to ensure that there's really no question that our existing moratorium um covers all cannabis-related businesses, even the ones that can now um begin operating prior to licensure um I'm recommending a fairly straightforward set of amendments to the um interim ordinance that was adopted last summer by the city just to again eliminate question that some cannabis businesses might be—be able to to begin operating earlier and under our existing uh regulations. Um, I think the argument is—is a not a winning argument if someone were to make that argument, but I still do think that this is uh belt and suspenders, if you will, to—to make sure that we're as as buttoned up as possible. And I would just add that um staff is going to be working on some zoning amendments that are going to be presented hopefully later this year um due to the the timing and how quickly things are happening. So the discussion really won't end here; this is just sort of a—a patch, if you will, to existing regulations. So again, it's just first reading tonight. We do have to have a—a public hearing um which we intend to do at the August 14th meeting. Just due to timing constraints, we weren't able to hit the the public uh notice requirement for that. Um, happy to answer any questions, otherwise this will be back before you uh next month. [32:25] Mayor: Thank you, Mr. Anderson. I think it's pretty straightforward. Um, if anyone has any comments or questions for Mr. Anderson, now would be a good time. Otherwise, it's just a first reading, so there's no action before us. Seeing none. All right, very good. Thank you again. [32:41] Jason Anderson: Thank you. [32:42] Mayor: All right, item nine: discussion—nothing scheduled. Item 10: communication from the City Manager. Miss Crawford, do you have anything for us tonight? [32:55] Lindy Crawford: I do. Uh, thank you, Mayor um and members of the Council. We earlier this year had a land use request um application come in from Solid Ground to uh rem—for removal of their structured parking at their site. Um, we had a public hearing and ultimately it was tabled by the City Council um for a future meeting. Um, just want to clarify for the record that Solid Ground has withdrawn that application, which is why it has not come back to the City Council for further action. Um, staff had a good meeting with Solid Ground um and we'll continue to to engage with them throughout our zoning code update. You know, an additional application or revised application may come before you in the future—we don't know—um but just to, I guess, to kind of um close the loop on that, wanted to share that for the public. Um, and then this week is um sadly the last Market Fest um for the season. So this is our Environmental Resources Expo on Thursday um and so VLAWMO will be there, we'll be there, Parks Commission will be there, Environmental Commission. Um, invite everybody to come out to Market Fest for the—for uh our last one for the year. And Farmers Market is on Friday um that's always a good turnout too. So I think that's what I have for tonight. [34:04] Mayor: Thank you, Miss Crawford. Any questions for the City Manager? Seeing none. All right, I would entertain a motion to adjourn. [34:11] Council Member: So moved. [34:12] Mayor: Thank you. Do I have a second? [34:13] Council Member: Second. [34:14] Mayor: All those in favor say I. [34:15] Council Members: I. [34:16] Mayor: Any opposed? We're adjourned. All right.