foreign happy New Year good evening and welcome to this prayer Lake City council meeting of Wednesday January 4th 2023. if you would please stand 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 well welcome it's so wonderful to see a full council chambers the first item uh on our agenda is uh to deliver the uh the oath of office with uh with two recently elected council members so um we're going to go ahead and do this off to the uh to the side so if I could please uh have Mr Victor Lake join me um over on the side as well as family members that you'd like to come forward okay we'll go ahead and have the microphone here um so if I could uh Victor raise your right hand please and uh feel free to uh and if you would repeat after me I Victor Lake aye Victor Lake do solemnly swear that I will do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of Minnesota and the constitution of the state of Minnesota and will Faithfully execute and discharge the duties of office and will Faithfully uh this start execute and discharge the duties of office of city council member of the City of Prior Lake Scott County Minnesota of the city uh Consul member of the City of Prior Lake Scott County Minnesota according to law in the best of my judgment according to lot and the best of my judgment ability and understanding ability and understanding and this I do Under the penalties of perjury and this I do Under the penalties of perjury congratulations thank you uh Kim Churchill I Kimberly Churchill do solemnly swear I canly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of Minnesota institution of the state of Minnesota and will Faithfully execute and discharge the duties of the office of city council member of the City of Prior Lake Scott County Minnesota of City Council Members city council member according to law and the best of my judgment according to the best of my judgment ability and understanding ability and this idea under the penalties of perjury and this I do Under the penalties of perjury congratulations thank you welcome and nice to have you that brings us to item three on our agenda which is the public forum public forum is that opportunity for those members of the community that would like to come before the prayer Lake City Council and share with us what's on your mind you're going to be limited to no more than five minutes at the four minute Mark I'll go ahead and hold up a single finger just to say you have one minute remaining if you would please bring your comments to a close the only items that are not to be shared at the public forum are any items for which a hearing has been scheduled and or for which a hearing has taken place and the reason for that is of course to ensure that all the testimony is received at the same time with those two exceptions I invite I see we have um five five individuals that have signed up uh Mr Wesley Stefan uh to please come before us and if you would sir um again state your name and address for the record and we look forward to your testimony or your comments this evening Steph oh there's a green button at the base of the microphone it's probably red go ahead and press it Electronics very good so my name is Wesley Stefan I live at 2350 Raymond Avenue in Jordan Minnesota and uh I'd like to acknowledge mayor Briggs Jason Weddle the city manager and the rest of the city council members especially the new ones that have just become duly sworn in um I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce myself because I'm the president of the Spring Lake Association and on behalf of the organization I would also like to thank the city for your financial assistance in supporting our attempt to fix and approve improve the boat access on Spring Lake based on information that we received from The Watershed District last year we had tooth over 2 000 boats that serviced that boat launch as you probably are all aware we've been in a number of drought years 2022 is even worse than the first year in order to get due to the low water levels it's created a lot of difficulties in getting boats to launch and retrieve their boats off the launch the work that we've worked with klingbrick Excavating and the DNR we were able to remove amount and fill a hole that was created mostly by power loading of boats unfortunately it's not illegal to power load a boat and there are possibly opportunities to create an ordinance to make that illegal which would allow the sheriff's department to enforce it them in regards to that if these low water levels continue additional steps will need to be taken in order to remedy this going forward right now we're working with the Prior Lake Association Adam Pro and Woody to understand and coordinate our efforts in working with the DNR to improve this going forward hopefully with the recent snowfall that we've had that the water levels will come up and we'll have a very wet spring I'm sure the farmers would appreciate that as well in addition to this I'd also like to thank the city and especially the park supervisor Greg I apologize for murdering his name but it's uh skelasek is that close let's close out check all right especially as crew for working with a dedicated group of members and residents and on Spring Lake in the removal of Buckthorn and enhancing the trails that live in Raymond Park um his crew has also worked with the association in restoring the rain Garden at the boat launch which was in this disrepair in terms of what we did there was remove all of the old weeds that were there along with planting new native flowers and Mulch and Greg's crew was able to use their water truck to make sure those flowers didn't die due to the dry summer I would encourage you to feel free to contact either myself or any of our board members in regards to any issues that you feel would impact Spring Lake going forward so thank you very much thank you so much Mr Stefan and I also want to thank you for uh stepping forward and leading the Spring Lake Association so thank you so much for your service to the community and the community thank you uh next we have Mr Kevin basehart uh Mr basehart and again if you would sir name and address for the record and we look forward to your comments yep named Kevin baser located at 14112 Bayview Circle Prior Lake I just want to say thank you for your time to listen to your concerns listen to collection of concerns for a neighborhood regarding the 42 re-entry home my wife and I have attended the previous Prior Lake City Board of median and the week of Thanksgiving as well as the other County board meetings including on the 20th of September or December and workshop regarding this home uh it's clear to listen to the presentation that we did not were not listened to and our concerns were not considered with a community which had been voiced since late October my wife and I have spent time much like many of the residents to review and what little information the county has provided and the initial research side of the city after the November 1st neighborhood meeting say that larger houses actually had fewer problems so larger equal and better related to conduct disorder aggression and criminal activity and then during the 20th County Workshop This research was no longer cited they provided a study instead that quoted these programs function best with smaller group sizes upon reading that article that was provided this specific quote was not found so after reading all 40 pages wasn't found in there rather after reviewing the entire article this was based more on a hypothesis statement from the author so it really just inferred that smaller homes might allow for Maurices more resources per resident instead of larger homes the home uses an example throughout the study was more like an apartment style housing rather than R1 zoning a single family single family residence and it is also noted important to note that the home is selected based on the structure and remodeling potential not based on location or due diligence of the surrounding community so yeah to include daycares and include Parts closest transportation bus stop which we don't know is a mile and a half from the residence I'm just I'm really concerned about the lack of communication and supporting data for the most part it says any supporting data that we have been given once we actually read it it says the complete opposite or it just omits completely what was quoted in the in the first case so the collaboration transparency communication has occurred and even uh I feel more fearful and how much worse it will get if this reentry home does open in this neighborhood and again these are some demands I've said multiple times but just want to be public record I will keep coming and it's the the feeling of the safety is something that's immeasurable and I care about our neighborhood and I want us to feel safe where we live thank you thank you Mr basehart um Miss uh Cassie Johnson okay next time we need a stool for sure um I'm Cassandra Johnson I live at 14104 Hidden View Road Northeast Prior Lake uh thank you for your time and your continued time and efforts of listening and hearing us and I think I just wanted to call out two things of a couple things that we've heard over is about the lack of collaboration um I can't remember who you referenced and I can't remember from the 20th meeting of who stated that the community involvement of being asked and involved and I just would like to point out that this was never brought to us as an ask or how do we partner with you this is more of this is what we're doing kind of deal with it and figure it out and go on and then the other thing I would like to just talk about is that the advisory committee that we has been brought forward as an option as of a quote-unquote solution to help we move forward I come from a world of patient safety High reliability organization and if anyone has those types of Concepts psychological safety is huge we've talked about the relationships between the city and the county and how sometimes they've been strained over the years with various projects ultimately if you do not feel psychologically safe in raising your voice or your concern it's not going to be heard if you don't have an environment where you can be listened to and reciprocate it both ways right even when we don't agree creating that psychological safety is needed and that relationship has been massively strained between the neighborhood in the county and so while this advisory Council sounds like a great idea it's pretty on paper the reality of recreating and rebuilding that relationship not saying that it all relationships don't take effort but in needed but there's going to have to be some massive movement in steps forward in order to even create that psychological safety where that neighborhood person would be able to be felt like they could be heard and understood as well as listen to the other people bringing information back and having that trust thank you thank you so much Mr Andrew Stearns hello I'm Andrew stearns14060 Hidden View Road um just a few things that kind of concern me about the re-entry home one you know there's individual that was watching a friend's kid and then a relative's kid so three kids in her home and the county shut her down saying that you can't operate a daycare without a license and you can't and then there was no like oh you get license in the next few months you know keep let these people still drop their kids off let them still go to work you can still do it just get like no it was had to shut down and then go through all the licensing process and then she could reopen which put a lot of stress on four families in our County and our neighborhood um and then there's some questions on this you know this is a four-person facility and they keep quoting like research from the Rochester New York which is the ready willing and able all those facilities are 20 to 50 somewhere or 100 plus where their first 30 days of the program you don't leave the house very often the next 30 or next two to four to six months you're out in the community doing community service later you're cleaning the roads you're doing this you know it's it's a year program 14-month program before they're ready willing and able you know we're trying to do that with four people in 30 60 90 days I mean that doesn't make sense I think myself strip naked and trying to restart in society I'm supposed to save up first months last months now I have to get to the county to my uas do my uas at my house walk a mile and a half to the bus stop I'm like it's just I don't feel like we're setting them up for success you know and I've worked with many ex-cons I've spent 10 years in a camper industrial construction to be able to live in a neighborhood with vested community members that are part of this neighborhood I didn't do all that work in my early years and you know and you know and I I guess to all of a sudden be part of a um experimental program a four-person I don't even want I guess nobody knows what to call it so I'll just say a four-person place you know that gets to overlook we're right down the hill from them so they get to overlook my two-year-old my four-year-old and my seven-year-old grow up because they're supposed to be part of the community you know I I could maybe get on board if it was that year 14 month program where any and I'd even prefer the six eight ten men you know just because now they have accountability they're they have a community inside the home you know here there's never going to be a community inside the home one's going to be going one's going to be coming and two have been there for two weeks you know and then it to me it's the short-term rental and you know so if they go to six months if three of them fail out in the first you know you got one person in the house half all four of them fail out now nobody can go back start till six months and now the home's vacant for four months right if it's a short-term rental which I nobody knows what it is to me it's either a daycare because there's staff coming every day to take care of them it's a business or I guess it's just four people renting a home but anyway yeah you keep filing a little minute I'm just gonna if you could bring your comments to a close yeah I can close right here I guess I just you know I really wanna reiterate the fact that it's it's four people we're trying to we're spending a ton of money to try and rotate four people through a neighborhood up to up to 30 a year going through that neighborhood thank you Mr Stearns um Jennifer Stearns hello I know all of you well good to see you and welcome councilman Lake um first off I would like to recognize your leadership and communication with our community the past two and a half months this has been an emotional issue obviously for many and I acknowledge the difficult position and but how it is being handled by the City of Prior Lake has been encouraging so thank you for your efforts since October we the community as well as the city council have been trying to learn more about the County's intention for this unlicensed re-entry home intended for our city it has been clear that we are in agreement that the County's attempt to place this home without anyone's knowledge was poor due diligence and bad public policy we had been instructed to bring our concerns to the county which we have been doing to no avail collectively we have had the same struggles attempting to interact with County staff and leaders to gain Clarity and information regarding this experimental new model of housing in our community the irreparable breakdown in communication blatant stonewalling and intentional omission of public documents on behalf of the County Administration have been very disconcerting I'm currently working with the county Labor Relations regarding this and regarding this and other violations of the law we are all waiting for the county Workshop we were all waiting for the county Workshop which took place on December 20th unfortunately due to the intentional omission of all the documents all of them that we had submitted for two and a half months our voice was not included in that Workshop at this point we all have had ample time to understand try to understand what this house is and it isn't we are asking for the city council tonight to put your support in writing which the majority of you have already publicly voiced the community the council and our district for commissioner Dave beer all agree that this is not the right location for this re-entry home we're asking for a resolution to be written and for a moratorium to be filed hopefully if we join together we can get the county to listen and to respect the community they are in place to serve please do not push this down the road this house is slated to open March of 20 2023 which is the month after next time is of the essence and this needs to be decided tonight thank you again for your dedicated leadership and I'm confident your willingness to listen respond and assist your consent constituents will make your city very proud thank you so much um Miss Stearns is there anyone else that would like to come in for that that is the list of those that I had that had signed up to be heard this evening at The Forum is there anyone else that would like to be heard up please good evening hi okay I just wanted to make sure it was on I wasn't sure my name is Taylor basehart I live in Bayview Circle um I wanted to come up here and speak I know I've been in communication with some of you and I really do appreciate the time I do feel listened to here in the city not like the county um I am my husband had already stated kind of the the research that I have been undertaking and I had sent over notes things that have been excerpt and I I really hope you take the time you do not need to read that whole article I've already done that for you um my biggest concern here is that the committee the neighborhood committee that was proposed for us to take on that is something that was dropped on us that is not something that was asked of us and so that is an undertaking on top of what we've already tried to uncover from the county and Trust has been broken I feel like ever since this whole process has started I have had to take a fine-tooth comb and read through all information and not take anything face value and that is because trust has been broken so to have a committee go into a neighborhood and be part of you know this re-entry facility I do I feel like my voice would be heard no I wouldn't and so to feel that transparency and communication would improve after this being implemented I feel like is a very false statement in a in a very false value of what our voices are and so I want that to be considered this re-entry home is emotional distress we've just moved here over a year and we really do enjoy the neighborhood but just based on everything that's been going on this is an undertaking that our neighborhood has felt very responsible for and very protective we want to make sure that this is going to be a neighborhood that we can invest in and not break down and that's our biggest fear is that this is going to be broken down because this is experimental at best it is not proved by any data and I want there to be a clear indication both on the legal and the data spoken side to be combined in both so that we can make an informed decision to make sure that we are safe our neighbors are safe and everybody else surrounding is safe so thank you thank you so much anyone else like to come before for being triggers hello my name is Scott Hendrickson 14109 Bayview Circle Northeast Prior Lake um I think they've said it very well tonight so I'm not going to reiterate that other than um the the way that things happen we sat in the work session and I I heard some good things there um still frustrated at the this how slow you're getting information from the county attorney that's very frustrating um you asked one of you asked the question about do they pay rent and from the library meeting that we attended the house is funded with two hundred thousand dollars from the county based on grant money and arpa funds and the what I heard at that meeting was no they do not so what I go to I got there'll be four men rotating through this house that don't pay rent and have no equity in our neighborhood zero so yes they're trying to get back on their feet I'm all in favor of that but they have no equity in our neighborhood the other thing was about the transparency you know after the library meeting I had a email exchange with uh County Administrator and asked about why why wouldn't this be communicated with the city council or the neighborhood and she basically said we don't have to um and then I further learned about the Shakopee house that she actually said it went so well well it went so well because they didn't notify anybody except the police the law enforcement as required so my understanding is there's a new County Commissioner who used to be on this Shakopee City Council she was unaware that for one year she was unaware that there was a re-entry home in her own City that she's a city council person on that's kind of baffling right so if this happens and this is their model it's going to happen a lot okay thank you thank you Mr Hendrickson please good evening thank you so much for giving us all the opportunity to speak and um I'm kind of newer into this situation um I appreciated that if you could your name is Linda eckelman I live at 4198 Hidden Pond Trail and I guess mine has more questions in terms of our ability to participate in who gets into this home so there are all sorts of people who come out of incarceration my husband he had hired somebody who had been in jail for murder but it was because he was in a fight the guy fell and hit his head so you know a person who should be giving up every opportunity um so you know that's going to be different than maybe somebody who's committed multiple murders on purpose what are the types of people that we want to have in our neighborhood we've talked about sex offenders I'm not up to date on all of that but this is a neighborhood absolutely no pedophiles should be allowed are we gonna as a you know city council can you guys be coming forth and saying you put this upon us we are the taxpayers the county works for us we should be able to say who are the types of people who enter into this home um and and then what recourse do we have if this is a failure what is considered a failure that we can pull the plug and that's all thank you so much thank you so much for coming before us this evening any others seeing none I'd like to go ahead and bring the form to a close and actually if I can not if I can I'd like to hand this over to Mr Waddell to really encapsulate comments around this home uh many uh here that attended the workshop but we have those that have not attended the workshop so if you would go ahead and put a ribbon on some of what we heard this evening and what our actions will be as a council and as a city sure thank you mayor and council members and members of the audience So yeah thank you all for coming this evening and thank you for your your comments um the the common theme that we've heard a lot was just the process in which this house was rolled out the lack of involvement from the neighborhood the lack of involvement from the city um in in foreknowledge of what was being proposed and how this house was going to be used as the mayor mentioned we had a work session earlier this evening on this very topic there are a couple of legal Avenues we are still trying to understand that we don't have a clear decisions on yet because we're still lacking information um one of them being how this house would or would not fall in alignment with our existing short-term rental ordinance so that is still yet to be determined we're working with the county attorney to get copies of the contractual materials that will be used for the operation of this house um the other would be a discussion on whether or not this house needs to be licensed or not through the state so those are some legal discussions we're still having in our ongoing and we're going to continue to have with the county attorney and with County staff in the meantime the city council did direct staff this evening to put together a letter to the county um outlining the city's desire to use this house for a different purpose we've had discussions with the county on having this house used as a home for a homeless family or home or families in transition rather than it be a re-entry home and the city is not denying that there's a need for facilities to help people that are coming out of the prison system but this particular location and and particularly the way this process was executed was not done in a way that we saw as appropriate and the city would recommend to the the County Board that they reconsider and reuse it for this other purpose so that letter will be sent to the the county in the following days thank you thank you manager Woodall and I guess all I would add to that is the letter right now uh would stand to be signed by each member of the city council um the other piece that came up in Workshop I'd like to share is um the desire to find um a soft Landing here absent Pursuit and expenditure on a legal pathway pick your legal pathway either one is going to be time consuming resources and to me it um it it I'm struggled personally with um turning loose resources in that regard when it is to our County partner or with our County partner so that's all I would add on that with that Council it is now time to approve the agenda before us this evening I would entertain a motion on the agenda this evening so move Burkhart we have a motion by council member Burkhart to approve the agenda I submitted a second by council member Church all those in favor say aye aye aye that motion carries um that brings us to meeting minutes we have two meeting minutes before us um can we approve these in one motion uh excellent so we have the approval of the December 5th 2022 city council meeting minutes and approval of December 19th 2022 city council meeting minutes um Council if there's no revisions modifications those minutes I would entertain a motion to approve so moved second we have motion by councilmember Brady to approve second by council member Burkhart all those in favor say aye and I know I I and councilmember Lake upstein thank you sir um that brings us to the consent agenda and what I'd like to do is turn this over to city manager Waddell to enter introduce both the consent agenda topic as well as those items before us on the tonight's agenda so uh manager woodell thank you mayor members of the council and members of the audience so our consent agendas for those items that are considered routine or non-controversial they're placed all together on the consent agenda so unless the the mayor or counselor asks for an item to be removed all items on the consent agenda are approved under a single motion second and a vote if the council or the mayor asks for an item to be removed for separate consideration it would be placed under item 11 tonight on the on the agenda so with that tonight's consent agenda consists of the following approval of the claims listing approval of the 2023 city council meeting schedule approval of the November 2022 Treasures report a resolution electing the non-waiver statutory Municipal tort liability limits and declining excess liability insurance coverage annual city council appointments resolution delegating authority to pay claims and make electronic fund transfers a resolution authorizing the preparation of a feasibility report and work order for the 2024-2025 pavement management project city project number 2024-01 resolution approving the purchase policy updates a resolution approving a preliminary plant to be known as rademacher's second edition approval of the November animal control services report approval of the November 2022 building permit summary report approval of the 2023 massage therapist license renewals and finally approval of the 2023 tobacco license holders excellent thank you so much manager Waddell counselor are there any items before us on the consent agenda that you would ask be removed and undertaken under item 11 on our agenda I would actually like to have item 6m approval of the 2023 tobacco license holders to be pulled from the consent agenda and taken up under item 11. any other changes Council seeing none I'd entertain a motion on approval of those items remaining so moved second we have a motion by councilman braid a second by council member Lake to approve the consent agenda items a through L all those in favor say aye aye aye motion carries counselor are there any comments that you would like to make on those items that we just approved seeing none let's go ahead and move along to item 11 on our agenda which is to discuss the remove consent agenda items uh as it was I that requested that the tobacco license holders be removed I really just have two questions one is I'd like uh manager Waddell to please give us a summary of compliance checking on existing tobacco license holders I know we do our periodic compliance checking and I'd like to understand how our license holders did in 2022 thank you mayor and counselors so we have nine existing tobacco license holders and they are subject to random compliance checks we typically do two a year and our most recent one was just last month eight out of our nine passed we did have one of our license holders which was Prior Lake tobacco and vape did not pass the the compliance check so they were cited they were fined in accordance with State Statute they have subsequently paid their their fine but now in essence they're on the clock if you have three compliance failures within a 36 month period the city would have the ability to suspend or revoke their license and manager Waddell that compliance check check for sale of these products to a underage underage thank you um and again I I just um in Council I don't know if you have any additional comment but this is a council that has been very concerned with um Health in our youth both the action we took in regards to flavored Vapes as well as the action we took with a moratorium around certain Edibles that were made legal by the state legislature and so I'm appreciative of both the compliance checking as well as the enforcement and the fact that we are moving forward with this one license holder um and that that's all I wanted to bring to the record um with that I'm going to go ahead and move right us along to uh council member oh so we actually still have to vote on that oh we must move oh yes see how quick that was uh so again indeed what we're looking for is the approval of the 2023 tobacco license holders uh Council to entertain a motion I'll make a motion to approve the 2023 tobacco license oh second we have much my councilman Brady a second by councilman Burkhart to approve those license holders all those in favor say aye aye aye aye and that motion carries that does bring us to council member liaison updates council member reports and to our tradition uh start to the left uh council member Victor Lake I have just been assigned [Laughter] outstanding uh councilmember Churchill thank you mayor um I attended the work session for the Scott County re-entry house on December 20th and I had my agenda review on the third thank you councilmember Burkhart thank you mayor members of the council uh give me one second to pull this up on December 20th attended the Scott County re-entry home workshop on December 20th at a Highway 169 quarter Coalition meeting on December 22nd a Suburban Transit association meeting and my agenda review on December 30th I also had a lunch meeting with commissioner beard regarding the re-entry home thank you thank you Council Burkhart councilmember braid mayor members of the council first I'd like to wish everybody Merry Christmas and happy New Year on 12 30 I attended my agenda review I also had numerous calls with Council or Commissioners beer and wolf in regards to the transitional housing I would also like to congratulate councilor Churchill on her reelection and council member Lake to his election to office as you both know we live in a great Community filled with great people and I'm looking forward to working with every council member to represents the residents and the businesses the way they deserve in the upcoming year so thank you for your service thank you Council braid I have nothing to report manager Waddell I have nothing for their dad this evening either excellent with that that brings us to item 14 on our agenda adjourned is that the next item that would be the one I'll second that motion although Council we do need to take a picture before we depart so we have a motion to adjourn all those in favor say aye aye aye that motion carries the meeting stands adjourned at 7 40 pm