To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands nation indivisibley and justice for all. agenda. >> Motion to approve the revised agenda. >> Second. Good evening, mayor and council members. Thank you very much for inviting me. It's an important time of year because we just sent out about 60,000 mailings uh throughout the county a couple weeks ago. Everybody should have received their valuation notice and their tax statement by now. And there's some important information that I'd like to share regarding the timelines uh for our taxpayers and our and our residents. There's a finite time period where if you have any questions or concerns, um you can contact our office. So, I'm just going to share a little bit about what we saw in the market, some of the changes we made, and uh and then what some of those options might be. So, I'm going to start out with kind of what's been the hot topic over the last four or five years with interest rates. Um, over the last 52- week range, we've seen them actually they had been coming down. And when I made this slide just 3 weeks ago, we were at the lowest uh rate that we had seen uh over the last preceding year at about 6.01%. Now, since this slide was made, I think it's creeped back up to like 6.22. There are some things going on in overseas and other things that that have I think caused some of that. Um, but the point being that this is a substantial increase compared to what we had seen when it bottomed out in in January of 21 at 2.65. And just to put a little context with that, um, the average rate as far back as I can go, which is 1971, is actually 7.7%. So, we're still, all things considered, if you go back that far, we we're doing pretty good at 6%. Um, if you're like me, you've never been in the home buying market where we were at the or above that average. So, uh, in the grand scheme of things, 6%'s probably still pretty good, but to a lot of people, it's it's still a very high rate compared to what we've been been used to recently. And the reason this is important is the impact it can have on affordability and home payments. So I pinpointed three points in time on this chart and we'll start with 2013. That was when our assessed values were as low as they've been in this time frame since 2007. And that was after uh the recession, the the bubble burst, so to speak. Um at the average value for a county assessed value was 237,400. At that time the rate was 3.53 and the monthly payment in that scenario assuming a typical credit with 5% down would have been about 1352 per month. If you fast forward to when the rates were as low as they've been in this time frame 2021 the average value home is now 3394 for Scott County. That's a substantial increase obviously from 2374, but the rate went had come down almost a p full percentage point over that same time period. So over an 8-year period, the monthly payment went up about 50 bucks a year if you do the math on that from 1352 to 1746. Now, if you fast forward to uh this January, our average assessed value countywide is 488 488,000. Um the rate that I showed at 6.01% your monthly payment would be about $3,400 per month. So, in just a five-year time period, almost doubled from$,746 to $33.990. and that's in part due to the value change but substantial impact on of that rate um over doubling over that time period. So it's just worth uh noting that interest rates do have substantial impacts and and one of those impacts is it reduces supply when people are used to having a lower rate and if they had to sell and buy somewhere else they would have to take on a higher rate. that that causes people not to move, not to sell unless they have to. And there are reasons people do have to sell. But if you go back on this chart to 2022, so just 3 or four years ago, 92% of the mortgages outstanding mortgages were had a below 6% rate. That's now less than 80%. I think it's 78%. So there's been a substantial move of of people having to relinquish some of those better rates. But you can see like in the dark blue, those are rates under 3%. It's still been pretty hard to get people to give those up. So that's why you see the slope is almost flat there. Um those people are not likely to give up that rate unless they absolutely have to. For closures was once a very hot topic. Obviously back in the 2010 time frame, we had actually a few years where we had more distressed sales than traditional type sales. So foreclosures and short sales combined, we we would have more than the typical that came down uh quite quite substantially um through 2016 and it's kind of flatlined and I did add Elco new markets up in the top right corner back to 2019 and you know you're averaging about one per year but can have a little years with none and I think four we had last year. So, not not a big impact on the market anymore. Months supply of homes for sale. This is a countywide chart and it's been said historically uh that four to six months of inventory is a pretty healthy and balanced marketplace for real estate. So, you can see where we got into a heavy buyers market uh back around that bubble burst and where more recently we had the heavy sellers market where people would list their house and they'd get 10 offers in the the first weekend and that was the typical back in around that 2022 time frame. That's obviously changed quite a bit. um it's it's coming out of the sellers market, but technically it's still on that side of the equation. And and I know you've probably heard stories if if you have real estate agent friends or people trying to sell their house that maybe they've had to reduce some prices and it sits a little longer and and that's actually more normal than what we had been experiencing. And then kind of the final chart I had on this is just the median days on the market. Uh, as I mentioned back in 22, we were, I think, at like eight days was the the median. So, the one week listing, and now we're getting back up almost to a month. So, I think that's about 28 days is what we're showing, which is a slight like two-day uptick from this time last year. So, what were some of the changes we made? I'm starting with new construction. That's what I'm trying to kind of show on this chart. So for Elco New Market in 2024, we had about $52 million added due to new construction. And a lot of that was your industrial project. Uh almost all of it, I think it was like 80% of that. And so the interesting thing is that value was added last the the previous year. And this most recent year for 2025, you're at about 29 million. But I would point out that that was almost all residential. So your your residential new construction almost tripled. I think it was like 10 million the year before and now it was like uh you know 20 27 million of that. So, uh, the other interesting thing is Elco New Market. If you compare that 29 million as a percentage of your current total value, the 830, you had the the largest percentage of new construction of any jurisdiction on this chart. Um, the next closest at 2.6% was Belt Plane. This is a countywide new construction and it's just kind of worth noting that we're still not where we were when the county I think was one of the fastest growing counties in the entire country. There were some news articles back in that early 2000s, mid 2000s time frame. Um, but what what we do see is a lot more industrial and apartment new construction than we've ever seen over kind of the last five or six years. So although it did come down substantially this year compared to last year and the year before, I think that just had to do with a lot of really big projects wrapping up, including one that you guys had. And then also Triple Crown Apartments was contributing substantially up in in shockp with multiple years of of multi many millions of dollars of new construction going on there. Switching gears a little bit give you a little idea of what we do in the assessor's office. We compare sale prices to our values and we do that every year. So this chart has a lot of data on it. The little blue dots, that's where we left off last year after the sales came in. We had our chance to make our adjustments to values. We were really tightly around that 95% of value. So, our values were about 95% of what those sale prices were. And that's important because the range that the state gives us is 90 to 105%. That's where we have to be for the median of a property type in in a given jurisdiction. So what you see with the the uh brown box squares is that's where we were after we finalized and the new sales came in. So those are always going to change because market ch markets change. It's a new set of sales. There's just all kinds of influences of why our new starting point changes as those new sales come in. And then we have to bring the values back to what we try to target around that 95% range within a percentage point or two. And so you can see for Elco New Market, we actually started where we kind of left off. So that's kind of telling you we we didn't have to change values a lot. Unlike say Credit River, our new uh you know ratio was even outside of the 90 to 105. it was it was more like you know 87 and so we had to increase values quite a bit. Why is it important that we fall within that range? Because the state does their own study every June and if we don't move values up to that range they will do state board ordered increases. This is an example of some that they did last year. This is our history on this. uh Scott County, we have not had any state border changes since 2006. So, we have a very strong track record of doing what we're supposed to, following the rules. Um, and and the biggest reason why it's important is I I don't expect you to read this whole whole news article, but I'll read the highlighted portion because it is very small. The state stepped in after the county assessor didn't adjust values sufficiently to meet the 90 to 105% sale range for similar properties. As a result, these adjustments are now necessary and non-negotiable. What that means is the state after we sent notices out in March or they after the appeals process where they could call us and talk about it, maybe get a change to their value, go to a local appeal hearing depending where they live or the county appeal hearing and have an independent board look at it. After all that happens, that's when the state would say, "Okay, you didn't do what you're supposed to. We're going to increase all the values 10% in your city." That was as an example. and now all your appeals process have already run their course. So you're disenfranchised because now your only option with your new value that the state adjusted is to go to tax court. So this is uh an overall look at just by jurisdiction the average home value changes and as I pointed out in a previous slide Elco new market we were kind of starting similar to where we left off when the new sales came in. So there was not a lot of change. We do have different neighborhoods in in all these different jurisdictions. And so what you see here, you we have to be careful when the public looks at it and says, "Hey, you know, Michael's slide said Elco new market minus 0.3%, my notice says I'm up 4%." So something went wrong. Um, you know, then they want to call us. This is the average. So there's a lot of different factors that go into our assessment. I mentioned neighborhoods. Those play a really significant factor. We will look at if you have 70 sales in Alco New Market as an example. We'll look at the 12 sales in this neighborhood versus the 20 sales in another neighborhood and we'll adjust those. But we also look at the style, the era. Are town homes changing different than single family? Um, do people want to buy ramblers more than split entries? All those kind of things that eb and flow over time. We make those adjustments in our mass valuation system as well. Uh, and quick rundown of of the appeal options and what you can do. Um, so the the notice or the envelope included two statements, your purple tax statement, your green value notice. The the green notice is the one that has the appraisers's name and phone number for your property that's specific to your city and your property type. So, if you're a commercial property owner, that name's different than if you're a homeowner. And we do that because we we want you to get to the right person right away. So if you have any questions or concerns, we always advise please please call the number on that green notice this year and most of your questions and concerns can be resolved that way and formally. Uh quick plug in the bottom left. You also got an insert um asking if you want to you can sign up for digital notices in the future. saves the county and in turn the taxpayers a little bit of money and you get your notices a little bit before everybody else. So, what do you do if you if you're just not sure, you're not a real estate agent, you're not an appraiser, you think you're you're not sure, but you think maybe your value is not right. The first thing you can do is search on our GIS for your property. You can click on that hyperlink and it'll take you to your property information that you can review. If something doesn't look right, you can let us know. And just to be clear, that's not kicking off an appeal. It's just something you can do any time of year. You can go in there and review your information. This is a really cool tool that we built for the public. Um, you can go into our GIS and click on these layers and it will the recent sales layer. If you click on like in this example, I have 2025 and 2026 sales. It'll show you where they are. You can zoom into your neighborhood and what the sale prices were. And then if you're curious about those, you could look at the information on the properties, see which one the pictures, which ones are really comparable, and maybe just get a better feel for what houses are selling for. If you do have a concern, I mentioned the informal that's happening now. Uh, call the number on the notice. We also have a meeting on May 6th that's listed on the notice. It goes till 7 p.m. So people have the opportunity to come after work and talk with our office. It's a continuation of the informal appeal process. And then we also have the special board in June. Real estate agents and appraisers sit on that panel appointed by the county board. So they're very familiar with property values in the county and you can plead your case to them. We submit our information and they make an independent decision. And then of course there's the tax court option which is a lot more formal and there's some expenses involved. Uh final slide I have. I just really wanted to reiterate to all of our uh residents and taxpayers that there's not just one property tax refund type. There's a special one. It's called the special refund. And that one does not have an income requirement. So, we've heard from people that say, "I check 5 years ago. I make too much money so I don't look at anymore." Make sure that you look into that one if those factors listed on that slide pertain to you. And that would be this. You're on that purple notice. This is coming from your tax statement. If your taxes went up 12% or more, um, you may be eligible for hundreds of dollars in a property tax refund. So, with that, I thank you again for for having me and I'll answer any questions you might have. Are there any specifics market housing segments or neighborhoods or whatot? >> I I don't think anything stands out that I would say it's important for you guys to know. I would have definitely brought anything up that really stood out and I thought was interesting like I did with the new construction figure. Um, we can certainly uh dissect the city into those neighbor. Well, we've already dissected them into the neighborhoods. We can provide that. Um, I know that there was small adjustments downward in at least one neighborhood. There was pockets where the sales came in and and they were uh coming in lower than our assessed value. So, we lowered that particular neighborhood, but I think overall most of them went up just a little bit. >> Quick question. you had a slide that had the um average home value and the slide also noted that uh the city had 1,715 homes. Is would that be up like January 2026 or 2025? >> That would be January 2nd of 26. And and we do filter this for consistency on a few different factors. So, if it's not exactly matching a number you have, there's probably a reason for that as as if we compared what we counted as as those homes. So, I'm I'm assuming they would match up pretty darn close. But if if you think that that number stands out, we can look into it. >> It's just another source as um we work with uh Met Council for our population and housing estimates every year. >> Okay. All right. Thanks again. >> All right. Now, we're going to move into the oath of offices office. All right, we're gonna start with Angela. >> Raise your right hand. Right. >> I'm turnely swear just Constitution of the United States. >> Yes. >> Swear to support the Constitution of the United States. >> I do solemnly swear to >> support the Constitution of United States. >> The Constitution of the State of Minnesota, Minnesota. >> City of New York, Minnesota. To the best of my judgment. >> To the best of my judgment. >> Thanks. Can we object to anyone? >> I state your name. >> I Michaelly swear to support the Constitution of the United States. >> Do solemnly swear to support the Constitution of the United States. >> Constitution of the state of Minnesota. >> Constitution of the state of Minnesota. discharge faithfully the duties >> and to discharge faithfully the duties >> of the office of parks commission >> as the office of parks commission >> of the city of El New Market Minnesota the city of El Market Minnesota >> to the best of my judgment >> to the best of my judgment >> and ability to help me God >> ability so help me God >> no Good choices. >> Good afternoon. I see your name. >> I Benjamin. >> Do you swear to support the Constitution of the United States? >> I solemnly swear to support the Constitution of the United States. >> the Constitution of the State of Minnesota. >> Constitution of the state of Minnesota. >> And to discharge faithfully. to discharge faithfully >> the duties of the office of planning commission >> the duties of the office of planning commission >> of the city of Elco New Market >> the city of Elco New Market >> to the best of my judgment and ability >> to the best of my judgment and ability >> so help me God anyone All right. Raise your right hand. Casey. I say your name. >> Casey. >> Doly swear to support the Constitution of the United States. >> Constitution of the United States. >> The Constitution of the State of Minnesota. >> Constitution of the state of Minnesota. >> To discharge faithfully the duties >> to discharge faithfully the duties >> of the Office of Planning Commission. of the office of planning commission >> the city of Al Minnesota >> of the city of Al Minnesota the >> best of my judgment >> the best of my judgment >> and ability >> and ability >> we can have all the newly appointed commissioners and reappointed commissioners just do a group photo with the mayor that would be awesome >> address >> let's put the tall guy in the Yeah. >> Thank you. >> One more. >> Thank you. Good choices tonight, everybody. >> We're going to leave now. >> I guess there's nobody here for public comment then. You got something for public comment? >> No. >> Commissioner Wolf left, didn't he? >> All right, we're just gonna open. >> He said he didn't have anything this evening. >> All right, we'll move on to consent agenda. I'll make a motion to approve consent agenda. Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor? Hi. >> Hi. >> No public hearings. General No general business reports. >> Um, one item under administration. Um, during the EDA meeting, it was discussed moving the council meeting back um to 7:30 on the AP April 23rd. Um, since we adopt our meetings by resolution, we'll have to do that by resolution. And so if there's no opposition, that um resolution amending our schedule will be on consent agenda at the next meeting. >> Is there any reason we're pushing it back and not starting the EDA miss meeting earlier? >> Um when we had discussed it previously, that is the direction that we might have to do it. That was the feedback we got from council at the time. >> We can move it forward. Well, >> is council open to moving? Well, >> and administration. >> So, it the time we were dependent upon our panel and when they're available and they've been advised a six o'clock start time and that's when they're available. >> Sounds great. >> Okay. >> Future consideration if it's >> well if we could have that discussion now because we're starting to line up the future panels and if you are looking for the EDA meeting to start at 5:30, we'll also need to amend that schedule as well. 5:30 would be great >> would be the that's now the preferred is 5:30 start 7 >> 5:30 >> okay >> I agree >> provided that we can get our panelists here at that time >> okay >> all right >> I don't remember I talked about this >> that's all I need thank you >> I got nothing >> chief >> none of them >> no engineering. >> Oh, not even a joke. >> Oh, well, >> okay. >> Well, I I did get the call today that my daughter I we had to pick up my daughter from daycare. She was getting she was sick and she always gets sick during the week, which is frustrating. You know, we're working. So, I always say she has a weekend immune immune system. >> Totally worth it. That's all unless there's anything else. >> Anybody else? >> Uh the only update I have is just letting you know planning commission meeting next Tuesday. We have a preliminary plat and resoning on the agenda for Mr. Sullivan's project, Eagle View Meadows, 194 residential lots. >> Parks. >> Nothing specific. CC >> Saturday is our egg hunt 9:30 be there be square guys eagle view >> uh do you need volunteers still? >> Yeah, I'll take we'll take whatever we can get. >> Beth wants to volunteer. >> Okay. >> She we'll talk about it after. Okay. >> If she if she can be there at 9:00, 8:30, 9 o'clock right in there would be great. >> Um Other scale >> um scale executive meeting >> you have list. >> Yeah, my notes are on my kitchen counter. We had a legislative update. Um I'm trying to remember because there was a couple things that >> Yeah. So on the legislative update, the big item is the housing preemptive legislation that is coming through currently and Amanda got more of it than I did. Um the current there's continuing pressure to move it forward um and to make changes. The current legislation again has a lot of the usual things that have been proposed in the past. One of the current discussions that there's some receptiveness on with some of the leadership is that what's being what it proposes puts us directly at odds with what our requirements are within the comp plan. And we would be spending as communities hundreds of thousands of dollars on updating our comp plans to make it immediately and valid based on contradiction with state statute which would be in contradiction with Met Council's authority under Minnesota state statute. Um there continues to be work to try and find elements where there can be general agreement of items that can be done and also continuing to point out that cities continue to do the good work and are actively working to try and promote affordability. And it's also continually pointed out that all of the legislation that is out there has not been shown to create affordability nor does it require affordability. So the usual There was also like just from an education standpoint, they talked about compensatory funding and that there'll be a lot more struggles with schools which ultimately will affect our community. Um, but I will I need to look at my notes and I will send something out and I'll do better in the future because it's all right. >> They've discussed that at some future meetings. Um, if you guys recall, they had like the fire department educational series and they had the solid waste educational series. One item that the executive committee was asking for is the this is how schools are funded educational series so people understand it. Um, Tony Albbright, who's our lobbyist, joked that when he was in the legislature, there was this joke that there's only three people in the state who ever really know how to that how that functions properly and they can't ride in the same car at the same time. So, um, a little bit of a joke, but, um, it's a complex, um, it's a complex situation and sometimes gets overly simplified. And so, there's some thought that for educational purposes, it would help to have more elected officials understand how that actually works. >> That would be kind of interesting. Actually, >> I think I'll leave more confused than when I got there just because they talk about the complexity of the formulas and everything. just but yeah. >> Was service delivery co-mingled in there? >> Um no, not yet. So service delivery actually was later in the month than normal. It was earlier this week. Um we had the presentation of it was a single topic meeting which pre was presentation of the feasibility study related to the insurance consortium. The presentation that was provided did not provide any specifics related to individual communities. the consultant took it upon themselves that they were not going to provide that information. They were appropriately chastised at the meeting that were public entities. So, there's nothing to hide and nobody should feel bad about their information being provided. Um my understanding from Kelly is we did receive that information um yesterday and uh we'll be reviewing it with the consultant next week and then where we are in the process is with that information sometime in April probably our second meaning in April the council will basically need to decide whether we're staying on the bus or not for the next step. The next step from a participation standpoint will be an actual going to market stamp item where they're going to go and get hard numbers based on who's still on the bus. The other thing will be adoption of the governance document for the consortium which they are still working on. In part was being dictated by what's going through the legislative session right now and they're still trying to figure that out and they're trying to get um definitive answers from um the state. um related to some interpretations of statute and rule which has not been easy. So that will be coming forward on a parallel track and again um the city will have to decide are based on the governance document are we in or are we out. The largest item as I reported previously is how vote structure is worked. Um, the idea is that if you're Scott County and you're bringing half the people, it's fair that you should have more than one vote, but at the same time, you should also not have controlling votes so that everybody has an, you know, there's some proportionality to voice um both as an individual, but alo also within the membership that you're bringing. And statute right now or rule is everybody gets one vote. Um, and so the consensus from the working group is that yep, Scott County should get more than one, but it's not allowed and working through what that looks like. The other big item that has occurred is both Carver County and Dakota County have indicated a level of interest in participating. So, they were included in the feasibility work. Um, whether or not they actually want to continue, but it was one of those things like, hey, we're already doing it. It's not that much extra. What happens when you add two counties? And I can that size and Dakota County is massive. So >> they are equivalent to literally everybody else from a size stamp from a participation standpoint. >> So um and they had a representative at the meeting. It was it was an interesting discussion. So everybody just has to look at go back to their corners, look at the numbers and then decide if they want to participate going forward. The discussion with the smaller entities, um myself being very vocal on it is that's awesome because that larger pool may have a huge impact on the rates, but at the same time, if you have three large counties, do they have all the votes to basically run over the city? So, that's something that would still need to be worked through. Um Danny Lens, who's the assistant uh county administrator and is kind of taking the lead on the project, is very cognizant of that. So he's trying to develop something that fairly represents all of those views. Um so I'll have more to report after we have an opportunity to review our numbers. Um and so that will come back at some time, most likely sometime in April. That's all I have on skill stuff. All right. >> Any discussion by council? >> Megan had a good idea about the city. >> Yeah, we've been just talking about how the wall >> I was going to bring that up, too. >> Oh, there you go. >> Jeez, I didn't think about it. >> Well, do we need anything? Do you guys need anything as far as admin side formal to do like a city emblem thing like this on the wall. Some sort of when we do pictures >> nobody nobody to get mad when it shows up in the invoices. >> Yeah. >> But I mean it would look nice to have something back there. >> See if we can work with the chamber if there's someone who's willing to do it. >> I mean I get your point on that. I've always had a question that when you're sitting out in the audience, it's not easy to see sometimes pres. >> So then we could have like monitors that hang down a little bit from there >> or you're saying put another >> Would it be feasible to hang them from the ceiling? not without creating a blocking situation if it's of any size. >> I like that idea, too. >> But something to think about. I mean, yeah. >> So, this this came up because I've had discussions with the mayor and acting mayor that um with the remodeling that we done, we have even more blank wall space in the hallway. And the council has discussed and we have gotten prior to our remodeling with the new PD that our city hall looks rather dumpy. And now that it's a little bit cleaner lines, >> well, now plane >> lot of agreeable. >> We dressed the dumpy. >> Um, but the firefighter um portraits was kind of a test run and there has a lot of city halls will have a wall either outside the council chambers, inside the council chambers, but some location where they show all the previous councils that they have pictures of and previous mayors. And my thought was that that would be a great place for that, but I wanted to see how it came out in the other portion of the hallway. It would be consistent. But as we were having those discussions about where to do it, it was suggested that maybe because we use that wall and also because it's big and blank that we could possibly look at um doing like an applique of the city logo or something else in that space. So that's kind of the context for our brief discussion. Any thoughts on that? fill that wall without >> just a vinyl. Even just a vinyl >> applique. We can do that. Yeah. >> Doesn't have to be super fancy yet. >> There you go. >> Amanda just offered to cut it on. >> I'll cut it on a cricket. >> You haven't even seen any of my work. >> It cuts like 8 by 11, right? >> It's like an eight by 11 sheet, right? Or >> no, >> you have a big one. I can do 13 in. >> You need a lot of 13 inch. >> Yeah, like you can make it would be in pieces. >> So, Cory, the chief had a suggestion that public works could freehand it. >> Yeah. >> I like that idea, too. >> Show up with some crayons, right, Chief? >> So, I'm hearing support for that concept. So, >> yeah, I do also like >> Thank you. >> the TV option, too. Sorry to carry on this conversation, but >> I mean it is it would be difficult for me to see from there. >> I just reading from my face. >> So yeah, I'll be quiet now. >> TV option is great, too. But I think where we take pictures, there should be something on that wall. >> Yeah. >> Could we even do the TV over there? There's an outlet for something. Um, >> that way we could do that photograph place. >> There are a lot of options. We could do a TV where we already have drops right behind Amanda as well as an option >> and still could have a projector >> comes down on that wall. >> My personal opinion is it sounds good, but when you're sitting in the audience, you still have heads in the way. It's a little bit closer. Um, we also have for people who want to view the TV, we also have one that >> right out in the the hallway as well. So, I I think they're all good ideas. It just becomes which one provides the best return on the investment. >> I personally I agree that putting something up where we do our promotional stuff, even pictures for employees for promotional purposes, etc., Uh it would be great to have that kind of a background location um in the chambers and it adds something to what is a somewhat part Spartan space. So >> all right motion to make second. All >> in favor