Based on the context provided and the phonetic cues in the transcript, here is the formatted version with speaker names. *Note: Several names mentioned by the Mayor (Jen Folch, Jen Fox, Bill Vaughn, Eric Moss, and Justin Fortney) were not in the provided reference list but are clearly identified in the dialogue.* [0:04] **Mary Fasbender, Mayor**: welcome everyone and council members are there any uh we do have a quorum with the absence of council member lifevelt council members are there any corrections to the minutes of the workshop and regular meeting on september 7th seeing none they are approved tonight we have public comments from the audience and we have options for comments to be mailed prior to the meeting as well as interactive featured during the meeting for the emailed comments they have been forwarded to city council and their receipt is acknowledged please recognize that items not on the agenda will not be discussed at this meeting for live comments they may either be [0:51] **Mary Fasbender, Mayor**: through zoom link or in person we ask that attendees either raise their hand in person or use the raised hand feature in zoom and they will be invited to speak one at a time i also remind everyone that the public comment period is not intended for an extended dialogue is there anyone in the council chambers that would like to speak to the council at this time is there anyone unzoomed that would like to speak at this time i see none okay council items to be considered council members are there any council items to be considered okay and council i would accept a motion to [1:36] **Mary Fasbender, Mayor**: approve the consent agenda okay and council member fulch with the second and by council member fox and any discussion council all those in favor state by saying i i state by saying nay and that motion prevails tonight under community development we have an authorized signature for the purchase and development agreement sale of property nsj development the former ubc site and tonight with us we have economic development coordinator eric moss eric welcome thank you mayor mayor council [2:22] **Eric Moss, Economic Development Coordinator**: as uh was presented there on your agenda this evening is a request for your review of a proposed purchase and development agreement related to three properties for the ubc north site stencil group njs development llc seeks to acquire those three parcels they're proposing to acquire them for 175 thousand dollars which is the assessed value of the three properties according to dakota county if approved stencil would move forward to the next step which be which would be submitting land use entitlements for a multi-family apartment project on the site ngs development stencil group has also acquired one private residence adjacent to the site to assist with essentially space they need for the proposed project if approved here's a handful of details [3:07] **Eric Moss, Economic Development Coordinator**: that are laid out within the development agreement i won't go through each of them but wanted to lay out kind of the big targeted points especially related to dates for all this would go through this developer is a little bit ahead of the game in terms of when they would actually want to start construction that would be about april and looking to commence by may 1st 2022 wrap it up by 2023 and be open to city residents at that time or new residents of the community the with respect to city council would require vacation of half of the alleyway between the mid block point it would not affect any private residences where it would be terminated would still allow access to the one property at 313 tyler street access to their private detached garage we're not looking for any vacation of [3:54] **Eric Moss, Economic Development Coordinator**: right away at this meeting that would come when the landing supplication comes but just make you aware that that would be part of the agreement hedgerow reviewed this at the meeting this month i passed unanimously on a 5-0 vote staff also recommends adoption of the resolution which is presented to you this evening with one minor modification following consult with city attorney land there's in the findings there's two of them one of which is more specifically tied to hedra and their powers and so it's not necessary for council to have that in their findings and so with that uh staff is requesting a motion to approve the resolution including your packet amend it as presented to approve the purchase and development agreement for njs development llc and with that i'll stand with questions [4:40] **Mary Fasbender, Mayor**: thank you uh eric council any questions for eric tonight [4:52] **Mary Fasbender, Mayor**: okay see no questions i'd ask for a motion to approve a resolution approving the sale of the property to njs development llc for development purchases purposes and approving the related development agreement motion to approve [4:57] **Mya Beck, Councilmember**: motion to approve. [4:58] **Mary Fasbender, Mayor**: that's remember brocks [Beck] in a second by councilmember [5:02] **Jen Fox, Councilmember**: second. [5:03] **Mary Fasbender, Mayor**: additional discussion council or any new discussion okay all those in favor of this motion state [5:28] **Mary Fasbender, Mayor**: thank you eric [5:34] **Mary Fasbender, Mayor**: and tonight our koa storage is a 2699 commerce drive and we need a resolution special use permit for a mini storage and a resolution for the site plan construction of many storage buildings and tonight with us we have city planner jessica or i'm sorry justin fourtney [Fortney] with us welcome justin [5:54] **Justin Fortney, City Planner**: thank you mayor fasbender and council members this property was originally developed as an asphalt business in 1998 and added many storage in 2006 and again in 2011. [6:06] **Justin Fortney, City Planner**: the property has recently been purchased by ko storage and they're proposing to add a couple of buildings the zoning ordinance allows industrial uses in the i1 district by right and retail services like mini storage with a special use permit conditions are allowed to be placed on a special use permanent approval to assure that they are compatible with the area many storage has generally had little impact to areas when outdoor storage is not allowed um property owners within 350 feet were sent notice of the special use permit and we received no comments the planning commission recommended approval of the site plan in your packet and on the screen now [6:51] **Justin Fortney, City Planner**: and the applicants contacted us today with a request to consider the minor a change to the site plan um due to the existing building on the middle of the site is a shop an office building and in the past has been used um by businesses that have large trucks and they believe that the location of that southern building would impede the use of large trucks being able to get into that building so they've proposed deleting that building and adding on another 25 feet to this northern building the difference in square footage is [7:37] **Justin Fortney, City Planner**: 60 square feet less [7:48] **Justin Fortney, City Planner**: this is the site plan that the planning commission reviewed and approved i'm showing the third building there and this would be the difference ideally we'd like the planning commission to review the the final site plan but due to the impact of the changes not having any change to the setbacks of the buildings drive aisles access points and parking lot it's not necessary to go back to the planning commission these are some photos of the site as viewed from the street there's three different kind of style buildings that are on the site there's the the shop building [8:34] **Justin Fortney, City Planner**: which is all steel with a little bit of wayne's coating of brick on the bottom and then there's a steel building in the back with a low-pitched roof and then a little bit this is a looking at the the shop building on the left side of it and then the right side of it and on the very far left of the screen you can see these these are the three existing storage buildings that are have split face masonry units it's kind of like a rough cement block colored and the code requires that any elevations that are visible from the [9:20] **Justin Fortney, City Planner**: public rights away have to have improved materials and also new additions and new sites on existing sites are supposed to blend in with some of the with the existing buildings so with that these are the some examples of buildings that the applicants have at another one of their sites um in order to comply with our uh elevation requirements they're proposing to have a stone veneer on the elevations of the north building that are visible from the public right-of-way and that would include on this site plan these yellow lines are showing the elevations that would have the stone [10:08] **Justin Fortney, City Planner**: veneer that would be the same color as the the cmus that are on those existing buildings on that same side of the site this building labeled as building two is not visible from the street as much because it's behind this large building and it's because of the grade it's hard you can't really see much of that building in addition the buildings that are adjacent to that building don't have a great amount of uh masonry on them they're all this building the rear is all steel and um the one in the front is with some wings coating on it [10:54] **Justin Fortney, City Planner**: and this is an example of the stone veneer that would be on the building where it was highlighted with with yellow the applicants are also in attendance here and brought in a sample and with that i can stand for any questions um and the applicants can also answer questions if there's something for them [11:15] **Mary Fasbender, Mayor**: thank you justin uh console discussion any questions for justin councilmember fulch [Folch] [11:18] **Jen Folch, Councilmember**: thank you justin so just for clarification um why this is a special use is specifically because they want to put in that building too that will be used for as kind of like a lease option for a [11:40] **Jen Folch, Councilmember**: third party is that what's making it special [11:42] **Justin Fortney, City Planner**: the reason it's a special use permit is because in the industrial district you can have industrial type storage warehousing but if you want any type of a retail use where retail customers will come in it has to be a special use and mini storage is generally going to be used by retail customers you know homeowners that are going to individually lease out spaces [12:13] **Jen Folch, Councilmember**: but but they already have a special use then obviously to be using the property as it is currently and so this is just extending that a little bit further [12:21] **Justin Fortney, City Planner**: it's an expanded use correct [12:24] **Jen Folch, Councilmember**: okay all right thank you for the clarification [12:26] **Mary Fasbender, Mayor**: any other questions counsel councilmember fulch [12:27] **Jen Folch, Councilmember**: your honor i'll make a motion to approve this special use permit insight plan as presented by staff [12:35] **Mary Fasbender, Mayor**: okay thank you councilmember folch and councilmember fox with the second additional or new discussion council all those in favor of this motion state by saying aye aye opposed stay by saying nay and that motion prevails thank you justin tonight under administration we have a coven 19 and a delta [13:11] **Mary Fasbender, Mayor**: variant update and for this item dan wietecha [Wietecha] will be talking to us about that [13:13] **Dan Wietecha, City Administrator**: thank you mayor as you all recall we have had this on the agenda for the last couple of meetings we have seen in dakota county the incidence of covid increasing over the last month or a couple of months in early august i did put in place a requirement for city employees while indoors to mask unless they were able to consistently maintain social distance so potentially [13:59] **Dan Wietecha, City Administrator**: a larger meeting room or something such as that there's a couple of other exceptions such as a governmental legislative body meeting such as the city council this evening additionally things such as plexiglass providing an engineered means for social distancing discussion at the last city council meeting had several questions one being if we were to [Music] raise the standard and require rather than encourage but require visitors to city buildings to mask [14:47] **Dan Wietecha, City Administrator**: what would that look like in terms of a number of visitors as well as some specific questions about enforcement and then there also were some questions around indoor athletic events which pretty much would be limited to the the arena um in checking with our front desk staff at the buildings the voluntary compliance with our voluntary following the recommendation encouragement to wear a mask by visitors really ranges city hall which probably has the most [15:33] **Dan Wietecha, City Administrator**: visitors it's probably around 90 percent at the public works building which does not have much in terms of walk-up visitors it's it's the opposite it's probably about ten percent uh do that uh the parks department somewhere over half uh wearing a mask uh there's certainly some things that we could do with making sure that the signage is is you know is although there's a sign at every door is it visible or is it potentially mixed in with other signs do we put it on a bright paper or something to make it stand out in terms of enforcement envision that if we were to have some [16:19] **Dan Wietecha, City Administrator**: requirement for visitors we would take an approach similar to what we did last year when there was a state mandate for masks and being more of an education request type approach so if somebody were to come into the building without a mask we would indicate that city policy that that everybody be masked and asked that they put one on we do have disposable mass currently at the front counters of all the buildings but we would not get into anything confrontational at uh forcing somebody to to put on a mask or telling them that they had to leave if they did not comply with it so still [17:05] **Dan Wietecha, City Administrator**: a bit of a voluntary approach to it in terms of questions about the arena currently we we do not require visitors period to wear masks it's voluntary that is consistent with the cdc recommendation as well as the minnesota state high school associates state high school league's recommendations for high school sports that would not require [Music] participants to mask but does recommend [17:51] **Dan Wietecha, City Administrator**: that spectators or visitors or those that are not participating in the athletics to be masked it also does have a currently a recommendation for pods or cohorts or other ways to to increase social distancing among your your participants some of that's similar to ways that we addressed covid response during our athletic activities over the past year obviously this past year the regulations changed frequently so can't say it was the same all the time but certainly consistent there [18:38] **Dan Wietecha, City Administrator**: let's answer the questions obviously there's some policy matter before council at where its feelings are or other clarification but uh staff's recommendation my recommendation is to maintain our existing requirements on employees only not on visitors and recognize that that is consistent with current cdc guidelines thank you and i can stand for any questions [19:15] **Mary Fasbender, Mayor**: thank you dan i need discussion counsel okay council member folch [19:16] **Jen Folch, Councilmember**: thank you your honor um i was looking at the cdc website here and it's guns for cloven 19 prevention in k-12 schools and [19:24] **Jen Folch, Councilmember**: so one of my points about the the hockey rink is that um it's full of kids all the time right and so the cdc guidelines actually do say that um that they're recommending um universal indoor masking um that the cdc recommends schools maintain and then in addition three feet physical distance for students in the classroom and such but um everything for children does say that they're um they're asking for them to be to be masked because they can't be vaccinated currently if they're under 12. [20:04] **Jen Folch, Councilmember**: and so um you know i still feel that we have an obligation to protect our our employees but i feel that we should um be considering um as we go into the hockey season and um what is the end of october when things start to ramp up into november because you know the rink is full of kids all the time and and if they're being required to wear masks while they're in school it just makes sense that we're extending that to other places where they're gathering for sporting events and so i think that we should continue to monitor what the recommendations are for rinks i just spent my last weekend at the blaine super rink for those of you who are unfamiliar with that it's a ginormous [20:51] **Jen Folch, Councilmember**: facility that the city of blaine owns and there's at least six rinks in it if i'm not mistaken and and what i was in attendance for was actually um for it was the junior hockey league and so that was 18 plus players for the most part but i can tell you there was nobody there that was wearing masks at all i'm in the entire facility even though it did say when you were entering the building that masks were um were being recommended and so i think that if we're going to be having our communities children who are unvaccinated within our ice rink that we should be taking into consideration what it is we can do to help [21:37] **Jen Folch, Councilmember**: mitigate the spread within the ice rink and so i don't have the answers i didn't have enough time to to do thorough investigatory work on you know what the recommendations are within rinks but i just know if we um if we don't put up good signage at the door that's bright you know and vibrant and blinking i don't i think people are just gonna walk right past it and uh and they're just and then no one's gonna be um putting on masks and protecting our communities children so just you know food for thought i i think that um i think it's one thing when you're coming into city hall here and people have to go through the front doors and you know there's only one entrance and peop it's very quiet in here and subdued [22:23] **Jen Folch, Councilmember**: and people are respectful right and they're gonna do what staff are requesting it's a completely different um ball game when you go into the the ice rink and there's tons of kids running around in every direction and parents are getting depending on you know their age maybe they're helping you know get kids ready or they're just waiting in the stands and they're watching the game and things of that nature i just think that there's going to be a lot of people there with young children and and that we should be mindful about how it is that we're we're monitoring the facility that's my two cents thank you councilmember folch [23:07] **Mary Fasbender, Mayor**: councilmember foxx [23:09] **Jen Fox, Councilmember**: just to echo that uh slightly the um the i know the minnesota high school league doesn't govern the hockey rink but it does say that [23:09] **Jen Fox, Councilmember**: universal indoor masking for all students staff and teachers and visitors to schools regardless of vaccination status is recommended so i just want to echo really clear signage if that's what we're going to commit to making sure that there are plenty of signs and if this is our true recommendation encouraging folks as as best we can to to please mask and keep people safe um i i think is the if that's what we're gonna do let's do it really well and i think an update on the ice rink specifically um outside of anecdotal evidence would be really helpful at the next meeting i know that there are people in and out all the all the time so that might be [23:54] **Jen Fox, Councilmember**: helpful just for us to move forward with that decision in particular [24:06] **Mary Fasbender, Mayor**: thank you council member fox additional comments all right yes dan [24:08] **Dan Wietecha, City Administrator**: just clarification you asked for some sort of additional information about the ice arena at the next council meeting i at this point unless something changed out in the the community or if council requested i don't anticipate this item being on the agenda in two weeks so i'm not sure one what you're wanting reported back and to [24:40] **Dan Wietecha, City Administrator**: if bringing it at the council meetings the right place so it's just a question of what is the number of visitors at the arena i can send you an email in the next couple of days if it's just a matter of needing information i'm not quite sure quite what was asked [24:59] **Mary Fasbender, Mayor**: your honor if that's all right yes council member films [Fox] [25:03] **Jen Fox, Councilmember**: not necessary to put it on the agenda that's fine you and i can touch base offline about it um but just curious about you you gave us some information about how many folks are coming in and what their temperament about masking is at city hall it would be interesting at a different facility with the public coming through [25:26] **Jen Fox, Councilmember**: just anecdotally again perhaps what that would look like so it doesn't have to be particular or on the agenda but i would like some information thank you councilman fox [25:34] **Mary Fasbender, Mayor**: council member vaughn [Vaughn] [25:35] **Bill Vaughn, Councilmember**: thank you honor and i can help councilmember foxx and i can tell you there's not a whole lot of masking going on in ice arenas we may talk about lots of kids coming in and out but they're not always our community kids these um are partners that rent ice from us from high school level to the youth level they're coming from all over the state if not outside our state but i can tell you that those organizations even the hastings hockey booth for example they're going to defer to minnesota hockey or there's a high [26:13] **Bill Vaughn, Councilmember**: school league those organizations are not making any they're making recommendations so that's why i support staff saying we should stick with the recommendations because we're not getting a lot of support from our end users that are making mandates so that's put a lot of a lot of weight on the staff to say i need you to answer the phone because i get the calls every day what's your policy what do you guys have it you're because they're coming from minnetonka or wherever they're coming from i just think that those organizations need to get together and help us set the message because it's not very good they literally are saying um recommend that's what we're seeing so yeah okay thank you councilmember vaughn all right [26:59] **Mary Fasbender, Mayor**: any other discussion all right council do you have any announcements okay i have a few um happy birthday last week to council member brox [Beck] and uh as far as summer programs at levy park we are getting nearer to the end friday through monday september 24th to the 27th the story walk along the trail from levy park to jc park is happening tuesday september 28th performance in the park with benjamin damascaruf and ruth sponsored by smead manufacturing the metropolitan regional arts council the city is partnering with tennis [27:44] **Mary Fasbender, Mayor**: sanitation and certified recycling for our fall cleanup event this year september 20th through septem october 1st there will be a free paper shredding event on saturday september 2nd from 9 00 to noon i'm sorry i think that's supposed to be october 2nd from nine to noon on thursday september 23rd councilmember fox and i are representing the city at leader at the leaders in local government awards hosted by the saint paul area chamber our people movement plan is one of three that have been nominated for planning land use and public works category so more to come on that tuesday [28:30] **Mary Fasbender, Mayor**: september 21st 7 pm the heritage preservation commission meeting is thursday the 23rd at 5 pm is an operations committee monday the 27th 7 pm is a planning commission monday october 4th at 5 30 city council we will have a workshop on our emergency operations plan and 7 pm council if there are no other announcements a counselor would accept a motion to adjourn council member brax [Beck] no one wants to adjourn council member falch [Folch] [29:13] **Jen Folch, Councilmember**: [Motion] [29:14] **Mary Fasbender, Mayor**: no discussion all those in favor of a german state by saying i [29:16] **Group**: i [29:17] **Mary Fasbender, Mayor**: opposed state by saying nay that motion has prevailed thank you you