This transcript has been formatted with speaker names based on the context provided and the internal cues within the dialogue (such as when the Mayor addresses specific members). *Note: Some names mentioned in the dialogue (e.g., Council Members Whalen and Troutman, and City Clerk Leslie) were not included in your provided list but are clearly identified by the Mayor and others during the meeting. I have used the names as they were spoken for accuracy.* *** **[00:00] Mary Supple:** Good evening everyone. I'd like to call to order the October 24th City Council meeting. It is 7:00 p.m. and it's good to see you all. If you're able, please rise and join us for the Pledge of Allegiance. **[00:12] All:** 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. **[00:25] Mary Supple:** Thank you. Next, we're going to move on to Open Forum. You can call into the Open Forum by dialing 415-655-0001. Meeting ID is 2633 133 9035 and the password is 1234. Also, you can for future reference, if you want to have your comments read, you can send them to Kelly Wynn before 2 p.m. on council days, so that'd be kwynn@richfieldmn.gov. Or you can do them if you are right here in person. So, is there anyone here who wishes to speak for Open Forum? All right. Is there anybody that's currently online? There is not. All right, so it's unusual not to have anyone for Open Forum, but I guess we will move on. So next we'll go on to approval of the minutes of the City Council work session of October 10th, 2023, and the City Council meeting of October 10th, 2023. **[01:30] Council Member Whalen:** I'll move to approve the minutes. **[01:32] Council Member Christensen:** I'll second. **[01:34] Mary Supple:** Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Are there any corrections or changes? All right, all in favor of approving both sets of minutes please say "Aye." **[01:42] All:** Aye. **[01:43] Mary Supple:** All opposed? All right, we've approved the minutes. Next, we have approval of the agenda. **[01:50] Council Member Whalen:** I'd move the approval of the agenda. **[01:52] Council Member Christensen:** Second. **[01:54] Mary Supple:** All right, it's been moved and seconded to approve the agenda. And we liked that we switched the order of this, so thank you to whoever did that. Okay, all in favor of approving the agenda please say "Aye." **[02:05] All:** Aye. **[02:06] Mary Supple:** All opposed? And we've approved the agenda. Next, we're going to move on to our presentations, and we have two tonight. We'll start off with the Arts Commission, and so I want to welcome co-chairs Eric Banic and Larry Nelson. So thank you, and we'll turn it over to you. **[02:22] Eric Banic:** Thanks, no worries there. And we're happy to be able to present to you this evening. As always, 2023 was a busy year for the Arts Commission, with filled with a lot of events out in the community. Starting with back in April, we did an event for the first time ever for the Arts Commission at Wood Lake Nature Center for Earth Day, where we did art projects featuring some of the natural resources that were at the park available. So it was a good time. A lot of the kids liked making little paintings and stick projects, things like that. That was good, it was a good event. And then we also hosted our Art in the Parks at the Farmers Market series once again, and we expanded it this year from two events to three events because they were so successful last year. The first one was we kind of collaborated with the Parks and Rec Department and the Farmers Market with their initiative to bike to the market, and so we had bike decorating activities for kids and families—and many grown-ups did this as well without kids there, so it was intergenerational which was pretty great. This was on June 10th. And then the second one was in July 16th and it was a seed art project, so a chance to make seed art—glue seeds on little whatever drawings that I think we had some canvases. And it was pretty cool this year, we were in a more centralized location in the market so there were a lot more participants. Previously we'd been in the old art space where the pizza and ice cream shop is, so we were kind of out in the middle of things which was really great. And then we did on August 12th a food art project with vegetable stamping again to kind of go along with Farmers Market themes. This was our third event and it was successful as you can see from the art projects there; families had a lot of fun making those. We also—we kind of been partners with the Galaxy block party as well as the Richfield Lake poetry walk. So those are two different groups. One of them in Richfield asked the Arts Commission to sort of partner with them last year when they did the mural at the Galaxy Foods; we were there as part of that. There's actually a plaque commissioned on the wall over there. We were invited back to have our presence at their celebration on August 19th. Also, we've been involved even though we weren't the main group, but we partnered with Mississippi Valley Poets and Writers who approached us about doing poetry around Richfield Lake. So we did an event with them when they first did it and then they also changed the poetry in August, and we were part of that as well. You may have also seen us at Pennfest. We kind of redid our bike activity since there were a lot of people biking and we had supplies left—so a little bit of recycling there, but it was fun to be teaming up with Parks and Rec and other Richfield groups in the same area at Pennfest so we could all kind of collaboratively answer a lot of questions from the public. This was a fun event: we partnered with the Rec Department at the dog park in Roosevelt. We had a "Bark in the Park," which is a Halloween costume contest for dogs. We provided treats for dogs and people and took pictures. We had costumes that dogs wear—one was a little lion mane. So that was fun, the dog owners really appreciated that. **[06:18] Larry Nelson:** And there are pictures at the bottom of the different dogs over there. We've been busy in so many other ways too. Earlier in the year we helped sponsor a high school senior art show again. We have our little free library, the city photo contest voting that we did, along with some decorating of electrical boxes. We also supplied volunteers from the commission for the Juneteenth event, always reviewing new public art, assisting with art displays and public spaces, etc. We will be decorating the planter boxes in Veterans Park again with winter-themed decor. And then we also have an upcoming event at the Richfield Dual Language School that is not on this list because it's brand new as of last month. And then an author event in November where local authors are going to showcase their works to the public and people can come hear them speak about their books. And just lastly, I just want to thank everybody who was on the commission this last year. My co-chair Eric was fantastic, especially this year—it was a little tougher year for me to be able to get to some of our events, and Eric stepped up and did a lot of that, so I appreciate that. As well as Ken Wolfson who is secretary and has been on the commission for several years, Janie Mork, Stephanie Jacobson, Joyce Marie at the Key Services location as I mentioned. Karl Huemiller from the Recreation Department—he's been very helpful to us. And then of course Sharon Christensen, who is on from the City Council, and Sharon has been to every meeting, which we appreciate. And then it was also her idea to do the author event in November. And I'd just like to give a special shout out to Larry and Karen and Joyce; they are finishing year nine on the commission and so they are graduating to non-commission work. But I'm sure you'll see them all volunteering in the city. I just want to recognize that they've done such a great job filling the community with arts, and I just wanted to give them a special shout out. **[08:29] Mary Supple:** Well thank you so much and thank you all for your service. We really appreciate it, and I didn't realize we had three commission members graduating—wow. Can you tell us about the RDLS event? Do you have any details about that? **[08:44] Eric Banic:** We're going to finalize planning here coming up in our November meeting. We are going to an event on November 10th, is that correct? In the evening we're going to be supplying like an art project for families to do. I forget the theme of the event, do you remember? **[09:00] Larry Nelson:** Yeah, I don't remember the theme offhand. But it's an event that the Dual Language School does on a regular basis and we have been invited to participate. This was actually—they had invited us to participate previously but I don't believe we had anybody available that could help out, so they invited us again. It's like one of their family nights that they have happening. **[09:23] Mary Supple:** Oh cool, so we'll hear more about it after the fact. That would be great. So thank you all for what you do to bring art to our community. Is there anything else that anyone wants to ask? Council Member Whalen. **[09:37] Council Member Whalen:** I would echo the thanks, both to the entire commission and to Larry who's here and the others who aren't, who have been dutifully growing—not just maintaining but growing—the impact of the Arts Commission over the last nine years. It's been fun to see and, as is appropriate, you always have the prettiest presentation. It's great to see all the pictures, not just of the art but of the community having so much fun doing it. So thank you for all that you bring to Richfield. **[10:11] Mary Supple:** All right, any other comments? Council Member Christensen. **[10:15] Sharon Christensen:** Yes, I'd like to also thank the Arts Commission because, as a liaison for the City Council, I'm not really part of the board so to speak or making official decisions, but it's always been—this last year—very nice to be included in decisions and ideas that things have come up. And it is true, it was a lot of fun, you know, like the farmers market stuff and just working with kids and adults and the co-members of the board; they bring a lot of ideas and fun to the city. **[10:48] Mary Supple:** All right, Council Member Troutman. **[10:50] Council Member Troutman:** Yeah, I want to echo those thoughts. Everything's been said, but it's not yet been said by everybody. I really want to lift up how you and the commission have approached arts in Richfield—that it's not just physical art, but in poetry, in spoken word, in music, and in poetry expressed in our sidewalks and physically in the world. I just appreciate your vision and I hope it continues to grow. **[11:18] Mary Supple:** All right, well thank you very much. We appreciate all you do. **[11:21] Larry Nelson:** I just want to just briefly say, as the outgoing chair and nine-year member of the commission, that I know the budgets are always tough for City Council levels, but I encourage the City Council to find money to promote the arts in the city. **[11:38] Mary Supple:** It's a well-received admonition, right. Thank you very much. Next we'll move on to a presentation from the Planning Commission and we have chair Eddie Holvig Johnson here to deliver that. Thank you. **[11:53] Eddie Holvig Johnson:** Evening Madame Mayor and council members. The Planning Commission doesn't have quite the same photo opportunities, and that was really wonderful actually to see some of the work that the Arts Commission is doing and I'm interested in following up on some of that. But much of the work that we do at the Planning Commission is ministerial in nature and isn't necessarily digging into a policy or anything like dividing a plot or things like that. But we have really had opportunities to have some good discussions. Last night was certainly the busiest or most packed Planning Commission in quite a while—not since the Brew Pub did we have quite the turnout. And it was wonderful to hear residents express their opinions that were different than commissioners and different than supporters of the project, but I think it's important for people to be heard. And that is the wonder of local government, especially in a community like Richfield where it's very easy to get involved and it's very easy to express your feelings. So we've had things like that and then just also things like conditional use permits for—there were two daycares that had to move in not a long amount of time and they needed some conditional use permits. We've done some findings of consistency, stuff that's not that exciting. But when we have also gotten to dig into like the elimination of the MR-1 district and allowing duplexes in the residential district, that's been wonderful because I can see the deliberations that we have impact projects and things that happen in the community, and that's quite an amazing feeling. When I first got on the commission, you know, we had a meeting where we talked some nitty-gritty; it was about bike storage in an apartment building and I made an amendment about making sure that they didn't require people to pay additional fees to store their bikes. That was a small thing, but it will impact residents in that development in future and that was a pretty amazing feeling to see how we can get involved and dig into things and really make the community a better place for everyone to live. As chair, I've tried to create some initiatives. I am regularly scheduling to meet with Sam Crosby, the city planner, and the planning department so that we kind of understand what their work does and how we interact with the planning department, trying to make sure that our work is efficient and that we understand what we're doing and really so I can understand some of the internal workings—because I come from an education background, not from community development or planning or anything like that. So it has been a wonderful experience being chair and it is wonderful to be able to interact with residents of the community in different ways. **[15:10] Mary Supple:** Thank you so much. I'm lucky to have the good fortune of being the liaison to the Planning Commission so I go to all the meetings, and I appreciate the way that you've been having—I don't know what the word is, "professional development" is not the word, but I know you've had work sessions and there's been a very earnest discussion about how to do things the right way. I really appreciate that. And that came across last night like you said; it was like standing room only in here, and people listened and were polite. It was very good to hear all the different viewpoints and there was a lot of great discussion from the Planning Commission. So thank you for all the work that you all do and for your leadership. Is there anything else that anyone else would like to add? Council Member Troutman. **[16:03] Council Member Troutman:** I just want to say greetings from my son who you used to teach. And I want to say a special thank you to you and the rest of the commission. The Planning Commission is a commission that sometimes gets a lot of direct community feedback and I always want to acknowledge that that's not always easy or comfortable but really, really important. And there are probably a few things that keep me up more about being a council member than how we build infrastructure that's going to last for three, four generations and have impacts on our community. So I just want to say thank you to you and all the commissioners for really laboring hard to do the best that you can for our city. **[16:54] Mary Supple:** All right, anything else that anyone wants to add? Council Member Whalen. **[16:58] Council Member Whalen:** Thank you. I like that you said the Planning Commission doesn't have as many photo opportunities—not that it's less fun, because I do think that it's true that you have contentious public hearings and contentious discussions at times, but that it is literally building our city. And so I again appreciate, as others have said, all of the work that you put into that, and also the work that you as chair put into finding ways that, even when we disagree, that continues to be a respectful and honoring discussion that is moving toward the goals of the city. So just know that that hard work is not unseen and it certainly is appreciated. **[17:47] Mary Supple:** Thank you again so much for all your hard work. All right, next we'll move on to the consent calendar and I'm going to turn it over to City Manager Rodriguez. **[17:59] Katie Rodriguez:** Thank you, Mayor. Mayor and council members, the consent calendar contains several separate items which are acted upon by the City Council in one motion. Once the consent calendar has been approved, the individual items and recommended actions have also been approved. No further Council action on these items is necessary. On tonight's consent calendar: Item A: Consider the first reading of proposed franchise ordinance and agreement with CenterPoint Energy Minnesota Gas, allowing and setting terms for CenterPoint Energy's use of the city right-of-way and setting the public hearing and second reading for November 28th, 2023. And this is the only item on tonight's consent calendar. **[18:41] Mary Supple:** All right, thank you. Is there a motion for this? **[18:44] Council Member Whalen:** I'd move to approve the consent calendar. **[18:46] Council Member Christensen:** Second. **[18:48] Mary Supple:** Okay, it's been moved and seconded to approve the consent calendar. Is there any discussion? All right, all in favor please say "Aye." **[18:56] All:** Aye. **[18:57] Mary Supple:** All opposed? All right, we have approved that item. Next we'll move on to the proposed ordinance and I'm going to turn it over to Council Member Troutman. **[19:10] Council Member Troutman:** Right, my screen just went dark for some reason so... oh, here we go. Thank you, Council Member Hayford. This is a motion to consider the approval of the second reading of the ordinance amending Chapter 9, Section 926 of the Richfield City Code to include managed natural landscapes, ornamental plants, and rain gardens as new definitions, as well as amending the maintenance standards for grass height from 6 to 8 inches. Effective July 1, 2023, municipalities are required to allow property owners and occupants to install and maintain managed natural landscapes. Chapter 62 House File 1830 and Senate File 1426 is the Omnibus state government finance bill that was signed into law May 24, 2023. Article 3, Section 9 creates provisions of law as Minnesota Statutes that require all statutory cities or home rule cities to allow an owner, authorized agent, or authorized occupant of any privately owned lands or premises to install and maintain managed natural landscapes and defines a number of associated terms. It also states that managed natural landscapes may exceed 8 inches in height and be allowed to go to seed but must be maintained and cannot include noxious weeds. It also states that weeds and grasses that are not part of a managed natural landscape cannot exceed 8 inches in height or be allowed to go to seed. Specifically, managed natural landscapes do not include turf grass lawns left unattended for the purpose of returning to a natural state. The first reading of the proposed ordinance was heard by the City Council on October 10th, 2023. And unless staff has anything to add, I would move we approve the second reading of the ordinance amending Chapter 9, Section 925 of the Richfield City Code to allow for the managed natural landscape and natural turf grass lawn not to exceed 8 inches and approve a resolution authorizing summary publication of said ordinance. **[21:40] Council Member Christensen:** Second. **[21:42] Mary Supple:** Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Go ahead, Council Member Hayford Oleary. **[21:50] Sean Hayford Oleary:** I just wanted to say I think this is mostly sort of required because of state preemption, and it's rare to be excited about state preemption, but I think this actually does nudge us in a good direction. I think this makes a lot of sense for Richfield and, just to anybody who's interested, I think managing your lawn this way if you are interested in being more pollinator-friendly and more environmentally conscious is a much better approach than like a "no-mow May" which is letting the grass go, which is explicitly prohibited. So do it right—do a managed natural landscape as we now allow. **[22:25] Mary Supple:** All right, any other discussion? All right, thank you for the staff for updating this. I know there are a number of people that were very excited in the community about this. All right, all in favor please say "Aye." **[22:38] All:** Aye. **[22:39] Mary Supple:** All opposed? All right, we have passed that ordinance. Next we'll move on to the City Manager report. **[22:46] Katie Rodriguez:** Yes, thank you Mayor. Mayor and council members, at our last meeting Kathleen Balaban made a suggestion about putting pictures up for the commissioner pages and in our recruitment materials. We had already thought that was a good idea; it's in the works. It's on our long list of things to do, and we will be doing group photos. We do need to get the commissioners' permission to put even group photos up, but we are working on it. And that's all I have tonight. **[23:13] Mary Supple:** Thank you. Next we'll move on to claims and payroll. **[23:17] Council Member Whalen:** I'd move claims and payroll. **[23:19] Council Member Christensen:** Second. **[23:20] Mary Supple:** It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? All right, all in favor please say "Aye." **[23:26] All:** Aye. **[23:27] Mary Supple:** All opposed? All right, and then we'll move on to "Hats Off to Hometown Hits." Council Member Whalen. **[23:35] Council Member Whalen:** Thank you, Mayor. I will, for the last time, just encourage people to vote. It is the last City Council meeting before Election Day on November 7th. And to put our City Clerk Leslie on the spot again, I know there's some expanded voting hours in the final week. If you could highlight those for people, I'd appreciate it. **[23:59] Leslie [City Clerk]:** Thank you, Council Member Whalen. I would be happy to. We will have voting on the Saturday before Election Day from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. We're also open until 5:00 p.m. the day before the election on Monday. And you can come—I'm sorry—and you can come to vote at City Hall, 6700 Portland Avenue. And you can also do that during business hours any weekday already, but those expanded hours are the final weekend. **[24:30] Mary Supple:** All right, thank you. Council Member Christensen. **[24:34] Sharon Christensen:** Yes, I'd like to also give a hats off to Girl Scout Troop 8102 of Richfield here and also Pen Nutrition. They are collecting through the month of November clothing and household items for the Epilepsy Foundation. **[24:51] Mary Supple:** All right, thank you. Council Member Hayford Oleary. **[24:55] Sean Hayford Oleary:** I just wanted to say how wonderful the opening of the bike park was. Council Member Whalen gave a great speech at that, and it continues—I'm seeing lots of pictures online of it crowded. It's been crowded every time I've gone past there, so it's a really popular amenity. **[25:12] Mary Supple:** Thank you. Council Member Troutman. **[25:15] Council Member Troutman:** And the last thing I'd mention is the Friends of Wood Lake (FOWL) fundraising dinner which is this November 3rd. It's a great event, it's a great opportunity to raise money for the pearl of Richfield. And so don't miss that opportunity to be in community and support Wood Lake Nature Center. FOWL dinner, not this Friday, but the next Friday. **[25:40] Mary Supple:** Thank you. And I wanted to do a thank you to the Lakeshore Drive Condominiums Resident Association for their hospitality. They hosted Council Member Troutman and myself, and it was a great hour of discussion and questions and feedback. So we love getting out there and talking to people. I also wanted to do a shout out to County Attorney Mary Moriarty. She hosted the suburban mayors to talk about different public safety initiatives, and one is like a preventive thing to work with youth so we can cut down on some of the things that are happening and get people help before they get into the actual formal criminal justice system. So that was a great opportunity to chat with her. And now I'm going to do some shameless promotions. So, we had two great reports from commissions this evening and we have commission openings that are going to be through October 31st. We've been getting a lot of great youth commissioners that are coming forward; we have one that we just found out about that's going to get approved at our November meeting, so we're really excited about that and we would like to have others please come forward. So if you are interested, you can go on the city website and there's a web page that just deals directly with the commissions and how you can sign up. So whether you're a youth member or an adult, we would like you to join us by October 31st. And also the Richfield Foundation is accepting grant applications through October 31st. So if you are a nonprofit that has a project that you would like to get some funding on, you can submit the application to the Richfield Foundation. There's a lot of great work that's done that way. October 31st are those two sections. Now normally at this point after "Hats Off to Hometown Hits" we would move into adjourning the meeting, but we do have a closed session for attorney-client privilege that's been scheduled. So we're going to go through the official formal wording so that we can move to the Babcock Room to discuss that, and then we will come back here after the closed session and close out the meeting. So it's just so you know what's about to happen. I'm going to turn it over to Council Member Hayford to make the motion. **[28:02] Sean Hayford Oleary:** I would move that we move to a closed session in the Babcock Room for the purposes of discussing an attorney-client privileged discussion pursuant to Minnesota Statute 13D.05, subdivision 3B, to discuss the City's options to participate in a multi-district lawsuit and related class settlements entitled "In re: Aqueous Film-Forming Foams Products Liability Litigation," United States District Court, District of South Carolina, Charleston Division, MDL No. 2:18-mn-2873-RMG, case number 2:23-cv-03147-RMG and case number 2:23-cv-03230-RMG. **[28:51] Mary Supple:** All right, and this is why we have scripts for things like that. Is there a second? **[28:56] Council Member Christensen:** Second. **[28:58] Mary Supple:** All it's been moved and seconded. All in favor of moving into closed session please say "Aye." **[29:04] All:** Aye. **[29:05] Mary Supple:** All opposed? All right, and we're going to move into closed session. Afterwards, we'll return here to the council chambers. Thank you all for attending this evening. *** *[A recess was taken for the closed session.]* *** **[29:15] Mary Supple:** We are back in the open meeting, and so I'm going to state that the Council just conducted a closed session for an attorney-client privilege discussion pursuant to Minnesota Statute 13D.05, subdivision 3B, to discuss the City's options to participate in a multi-district lawsuit and related class settlements entitled "In re: Aqueous Film-Forming Foams Products Liability Litigation," United States District Court, District of South Carolina, Charleston Division, MDL No. 2:18-mn-2873-RMG, and case number 2:23-cv-3147-RMG and case number 2:23-cv-03230-RMG. So now we are back in the open meeting. Is there a motion to adjourn? **[30:04] Council Member Christensen:** So moved. **[30:06] Council Member Whalen:** Second. **[30:08] Mary Supple:** It's been moved and seconded. All in favor of adjourning the meeting please say "Aye." **[30:12] All:** Aye. **[30:13] Mary Supple:** All opposed? We stand adjourned. Thank you.