Based on the context provided and the dialogue within the transcript, here is the formatted version with speaker identifications. *Note: Some names in the transcript (like "Member Folch," "Member Lund," "Member Vaughn," and "Member Brocks") appear to be the active council members during this specific session, though they differ slightly from the provided list. I have used the names as they were addressed in the meeting.* [7:37] **Clerk Flatten:** ten dollar penalty is removed and then we propose that fifty dollar administrative fee plus we would pass through the county fee for each assessment so if we look at all the fees the ends and the outs and the changes it is a reduction in the city revenue about fifteen thousand dollars annually there's a huge gain in staff time we're only going to spend about 10 to 15 percent of the current staff time we do on this process and we certainly recognize there would be about that 170 000 delay in cash flow for the first year but after that it'll catch up and it'll be normal so this last slide is going to show you if um you had a 100 water bill and you chose not to pay it and run through the whole process so on the left their current class process you would end up paying 220 [8:23] **Clerk Flatten:** because there is a hundred dollar fee to reconnect your water once you have shut it off and the proposed process going through and having this access to your taxes you would only pay 165 so it's 55 less than new processes so the finance committee reviewed this on may 9th in depth with council members folt brock's and vaughn and had unanimous support for the change so i can stand for questions or you can open the public hearing [8:55] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay thank you clerk flatten uh okay we ask that the attendees use the raised hand feature and they will be invited to speak one at a time open the public hearing [9:19] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** don't see one any discussion uh counsel [9:29] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** your honor this is tina folch thank you your honor um i just wanted to make a comment um as you had just mentioned that the finance committee did hear this presentation and i thought it was really very well thought out by staff it staff out of ways harm in case they need to go out and do the shutoffs and i think that particularly since we're looking at the pandemic continuing on and unemployment rates being higher within our community that this may be a very suitable time um to first of all lower the fees and then not to um be harmful and impact our community members by shutting off [10:14] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** their utilities in case they're unable to make payments and so i just wanted to thank staff for putting together such a thoughtful presentation um where it seems to me that it's a win-win for everyone all all the way around thanks [10:30] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay thank you uh council member balsanek [10:34] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** well i'm sorry your honor okay i uh no comment okay [10:40] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** and i see no one in the audience so we can close the public hearing any other discussion council okay council i would accept a motion to adopt an ordinance of the city of hastings amending city code chapter 51 utilities [10:55] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** i so move your honor [10:57] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** council member balsanek [11:00] **Councilmember Brocks:** second [11:01] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** second member brox any other uh discussion council clerk flatten please call the roll [11:08] **Clerk Flatten:** member vaughn? [11:09] **Councilmember Vaughn:** yes. [11:10] **Clerk Flatten:** member lund? [11:11] **Councilmember Lund:** yes. [11:12] **Clerk Flatten:** member folch? [11:13] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** yes. [11:14] **Clerk Flatten:** member balsanek? [11:15] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** yes. [11:16] **Clerk Flatten:** member brocks? [11:17] **Councilmember Brocks:** yes. [11:18] **Clerk Flatten:** mayor fasbender? [11:19] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** yes motion prevails under public works today we have water service repair costs appeal on 1208 tyler street for this item we will have an introduction by public works director nick egger welcome nick [11:48] **Nick Egger (Public Works Director):** on mute there thanks mayor fafsbender council members uh you have a pretty good swath of information in your in the memo that i prepared for the packet but just to summarize briefly we had uh a water service failure occur at 128 tyler street uh last fall and the city had uh had stepped into a higher contract or performed the repairs on that one the prior history to this one was that we we were doing some leak detection work a couple years back and had some suspicions that there would be a leak or that there was a leak occurring in this area however uh in contacting the property owner at that time [12:33] **Nick Egger:** with our suspicion that the leak was on the service line they elected to just let it be uh there was no evidence of this on the surface with water pumping up to the the street surface or any sort of damages that were present you fast forward a couple of years and fall of 19 we did observe such things and we were extremely concerned about the potential for damage to other infrastructure if that leak persisted so the city did contact the homeowner and we also acted quickly to get a contractor on board perform the exploration and repair what is being contested would be that the homeowner disagrees with the [13:19] **Nick Egger:** some of the cost elements for that we did determine the leak was on the service line itself and under city ordinances such a scenario is the property owner's responsibility for that so the city uh took in the invoices from the contractor and passed those through to the owner of the property uh the operations committee met twice on this matter once in october of 2019 i believe it was no i'm sorry december of 2019 and then february of this year to discuss the issue uh representatives of the owner's family were present at both meetings to provide comments and and their point of view on that in the end the operations committee did not recommend any concessions of the [14:04] **Nick Egger:** costs for uh this work and so the owner was requesting a different sort of forum to air their grievance um so to speak that being the city council uh directly uh and then if you you might recall from the july 6 council meeting we did have the owners representative stan mccoy speak to that effect and council member fultz did request this item to be up for discussion this evening so i think that about covers it again city staff is standing by the original recommendation and citing that the operations committee did not recommend any sort of conceptions on the cost here uh there from a legal standpoint [14:51] **Nick Egger:** there doesn't appear to be any sort of appeal process that ordinances allow for and i might ask for city attorney dan flegal to speak to that if necessary is to clarify um but we we feel that uh through the the discussions that have been had uh there's been quite a number of opportunities for the owner to be heard and and we have come to the the same conclusion from a staff perspective and uh i believe the the operations committee backed that with their decision in february so i'll stop speaking now and can turn it back over to you mayor [15:30] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay thank you nick i do see uh mr mccoy is in the audience if he wishes to speak uh welcome [15:45] **Stan McCoy (Public Speaker):** welcome this is stan mccoy can you hear me okay [15:49] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** we can hear you stan yes [15:51] **Stan McCoy:** um the one point that that i mean we could further discuss it in details as the city council sees but the one thing that i i will i want to bring to everyone's attention is that when we were when we were notified in 2017 of the week the major discussion point there was over who was paying for it or for the work not not the coordination of the work it was our understanding that at that point in time that the city will be doing the work and we would be responsible for the [16:26] **Stan McCoy:** payments so at that point we did not feel we had any control over when the work would be conducted the um i don't think it's a fair statement to say that we we did not act on the situation so that's all i'm gonna say for right now [16:44] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay sure thank you mr mccoy nick [16:48] **Nick Egger:** if i might have an opportunity mayor to to kind of re rebuff that what our staff had done in contacting the owner and it was not mr mccoy who's on the line tonight but uh his his brother andrew andy what what was stated to me by our staff was that they had made a comment something to the [17:11] **Nick Egger:** effect of not pursuing any action on their own unless they were to witness water coming up to the surface and so we took that to mean that there there was an election to just not do anything at that time [17:23] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay thank you nick council council member folch [17:28] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** thank you your honor and so i actually i took the time a couple weekends ago to go down and actually exactly you know the site and and understand um from mr mccoy's uh perspective the course of events and so um what what was interesting was that if uh the city was aware that there was a [17:57] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** leak some place between the main and the service line but they weren't exactly sure where it was um why it was that the work wasn't done before the mill and overlay was done in 2019 because then when the 20 because then when the tyler street milling overlay took place you know we all seen that right you know what that what it looks like when the equipment goes over and and and it seems logical to me that after the equipment went over and did the mill and overlay that that's what further disrupted the and then a city and of course you know staff had to then go in and excavate and find you know the source of what was going on and it's um from the documents that mr mccoy had given me um the service line was actually it was [18:45] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** just roughton you know to the curb it wasn't actually going to a house it was meant for if that if an empty uh it was a double line and so if the empty lot one day actually um as uh a house was actually built on it then that would be the extension from the main line and so the leak was actually detected just a foot or two off of the main and so um so i guess um i guess my question is um if it wasn't if it wasn't known if it was the main lake or if it was the service line since um it was i mean obviously they can't pinpoint you know within just a couple [19:30] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** of inches from above you know where where the lake is um it just it behooves me to ask why wasn't the investigatory work done before the mill and overlay project had uh commenced in 2019 so that's that's my question to to nick and so and i think that that is really the um the the basis of mr mccoy's um request is that if the work would have been uh done previously then um at the time that it kind of blew up you know so to speak where the water was visible um you know that the melon overlay had already taken place and i took a picture it you know is very [20:16] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** just i mean you can clearly see where the section of the roadway was um up and then new asphalt relay you know because it didn't match any longer and so i'm imagining that that's not good for the roadway infrastructure um to do that kind of thing and so anywho so i think that that was um mr mccoy's um you know main concern is why wasn't why wasn't the work um done prior to that and then it wouldn't have been the extra overtime labor fees that were associated with um the uh with the work and so i'm not sure what your standard procedures are before you do a million overlay here in hastings if you actually do do that kind of leak detection follow-up [21:03] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** work before you do a major roadway project but um i just thought it was a good question and so i'm asking staff is that usually standard or i guess i don't know what the standard procedures are around these things [21:18] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay councilmember councilmember lund oh nick did you want to answer that sorry [12:25] **Nick Egger:** maybe maybe i should so um we've been doing the the leak detection work just for a couple of years i think 2016 2017 is when we started doing um annual or bi-annual sweeps around the city to to try to find evidence of those sorts of things occurring and and in this case we did turn up something that was suspicious in the [21:48] **Nick Egger:** area however as i mentioned earlier didn't have any uh evidence on the surface presenting itself but at the time the evaluation did seem to uh to have a tendency to favor a service line leak based on the the analysis that the testing company had done and so that's why we shared and reported it with the homeowner at the time giving them the choice as to whether to pursue it or not and i guess what what we'll say is that we if if we would have pursued making a remedy for that that they were aware of whatever was found if it was on the [22:34] **Nick Egger:** main line or on the service line that would make the distinction as to whether it was the city's responsibility versus homeowners regardless of the party that actually ended up performing the work so we looked at it as well there was some notification and some opportunity to take that on back in 2017 with the original look that was taken and the suspicions that there were um and if the homeowner would have taken it on at that time and found well no it's the main line that's causing the leak then the city would have gladly covered that expense and and made it whole and taken those bills but um no work was done as it turns out and we we come to 2019 i will say [23:20] **Nick Egger:** um i i think that they're you know from now on uh if we have some of these sorts of suspicions in in documentation we certainly can go back and take another look um admittedly with a couple of years passing and nothing occurring in between something like that tends to slip off of our radars but uh all told i think just as well the the types of efforts and costs we were seeing remained in line with any other water service repair that we've seen that involved patching of a street and so that's what brings me back to this thing being being a a situation that uh would have [24:07] **Nick Egger:** similar same costs kind of regardless of who took it on and at what point in time [24:14] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay councilmember lund [24:17] **Councilmember Lund:** thank you runner um so i've had the opportunity to hear this this situation a couple of times already and um i mean it's your question councilmember fulch is is a fair question but i think we really need to separate the road construction from the line leak if everybody does that then we can we can look at the situation um probably from a more fair position so um if there was no road construction at all [24:55] **Councilmember Lund:** there was no milling overlay at all and in 2019 or whatever the the time might have been um following some uh heads up that was given i think no one can dispute that that that was given uh mr mccoy would probably also agree that that happened right um but yet a couple of years later we still had um water appear and it it it's clear that it's the service line um we would have had to have done the work or somebody would have had done the work a contractor they would have had to torn up tar and then replaced asphalt and replaced [25:42] **Councilmember Lund:** asphalt so the fact that it was not done when the asphalt was already up that's more opportunistic but not necessarily what they would have had to have dealt with two years ago one year ago or even a couple of weeks before the road construction happened right so i think the repatching and repairing is just that's just part of what happens when you dig up a road um it's too bad for the aesthetics and the maybe even the structure of the road long term that that it wasn't done at the same time totally agree with you on that um but i think that's not necessarily part of the repair itself it's just a it's more [26:28] **Councilmember Lund:** of a coincidence that we were putting nutar on top so that's one thing um but then also if we take a step back and we disconnect the two activities you're going to you're not going to run into a situation where the contractor has to do overtime um on that on that uh repair and so um are the repair costs in line with with what it should be i don't know it seems like that's what that's what staff believes and so i'll support that but the overtime i can i could understand that being something that you know probably doesn't need to fall on um [27:14] **Councilmember Lund:** this this particular resonance burden i guess so that's that's where i would where i would ask that we look at this is look at it if there was no real construction at all would over time be realistic of a charge thank you [27:28] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** thank you councilmember lund councilmember balsanek [27:32] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** thank you your honor uh some questions here for nick um so the when you did your investigation you said that that you had found a leak you presumed that there was a leak right and that was in 2016 [28:02] **Nick Egger:** council members 2017 yes there is a presumption that there is a leak and suspicion that it was on the service line based on the professional opinion of the leak detection folks that we had doing that [28:16] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** okay which kind of answers my second question then because earlier you said you weren't sure time if it was on the main or if it was on the service line this is important to me at that time did you were you definitively able to distinguish if it was on the service line or the main line [28:40] **Nick Egger:** there council member there isn't a way to do that but for to do the excavation and witness it uh when you're down at that that level of the pipe and so this analysis is done based on acoustics there there's listening devices if you will that these testing companies use and and based on their experience and what they've seen over time uh the sound tone from that that evaluation is closely matching that of a service line leak um but there is no way to confirm it without going through and digging up the road to see is that the point at which it's coming out of the pipe or is it coming from the main and making a similar sound [29:36] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** well it that's why i say it's critical to me because okay there's a leak detected you think it is but there it's on the service line but there's no way of telling until you start to do the digging um i guess i'm surprised that the city didn't start doing the digging uh at that point when it could have been uh you know jeopardy to the city to be losing water and having a uh a washout you know down below which can be pretty bad i mean i witnessed one over unpleasant this winter when a line broke and uh that that was quite uh a major repair and and and uh developed into a sinkhole unpleasant uh fortunately nobody ended up in the thing the the hole was created i guess basically in the middle of the night um i i am concerned that with the detection of a leak that the city didn't take charge and excavate and find out who was going to be responsible for it if it if the excavation occurred and as you said if it was on the service line then the cost would be put upon the property owner if it was on the main line it would be the cost of the city to do the repair one way or the other had to be it had to be repaired right so next question if there was a leak on the service line would it show up on the water meter [31:38] **Nick Egger:** well council member in this case this service is uh it's an additional service to the property that's not active this is a double lot and it was placed at some point in time i believe the early 90s was when those streets were completely reconstructed and and a service line was extended there to preserve that ability for that property and our owner to sub-divide and and have a service available immediately to them [32:09] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** and was there a structure on that property in question then or was it just a capped offline [32:15] **Nick Egger:** it was a capped offline uh stubbed out to the curb valve location but it was not servicing a house [32:23] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** correct the line that was leaking was not servicing a house correct so again there would be no way to tell definitively that there was a leak on the service line versus the main line right without digging it up [32:41] **Nick Egger:** council member we would not know that for certain [32:45] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** so when it came time to do the mill an overlay project uh it would have been i would think a good idea and again i'm not a civil engineer but it just seems to me if we had a record of a leak and you're doing repair on the street behoove us as a city to go down and find out what was causing that leak once and for all and could that repair have been done by the contractor doing the mill and overlay or or could they have at least dug the whole so that a you know plumbing company could come in and do the repair it just seems to me while the equipment was there we could have we could have solved the problem [33:55] **Nick Egger:** council member i i think there's a couple of questions in there i'll maybe start at the most recent one you asked about contractor for the mill and overlay could have performed the water service or any sort of water system repair and the answer to that would be no we we do not include those types of work in those contracts for the mill and overlay they are purely doing things that are up at surface level with the street pavement and concrete curb and gutter and those sorts of things that are within the very upper reaches of any street we would have had to know going into that project or or planned for utility type repair work similar to what we have in a reconstruction sort of format [34:40] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** well you said that sometimes things fall by the wayside did works know that that leak was in existence at the time of the mill and overlay project or somebody forget was there [34:53] **Nick Egger:** i i i can fully admit that this one slipped off the radar in terms of doing a follow-up survey ahead of the mill and overlay again we that's not something that we hadn't been incorporating into our routines and a couple of years had passed so i can concede that point um without any question um and that's something we'll certainly do from now on uh i do maintain the position that the to what councilmember lund has articulated if if we did an excavated repair at any point in time other than right during the two three four weeks that the milling overlay was occurring that results in the costs would have been similar to what we ended up with anyhow and you know i'm not going to sit here and split hairs over you know the amount of asphalt and and so forth [36:09] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** uh but you're giving me a little clearer perspective on this uh and and i appreciate what you're saying that from now on when we do mill and overlay we've got to incorporate into the contract that we're going to go check for leaks before uh before the work is finished or while it's in progress uh i think is a very wise decision it is indeed unfortunate the detection which was discovered two years prior not on the front desk when this contract was let out so that an investigation could you know could happen uh i have another question with regard that this is with regards to the uh overtime charge that was uh added on to the bill for the mccoy property it's my understanding and again correct me if i'm wrong that there were two or three other projects uh for water leaks that were occurring within that same time period if not that same day [37:46] **Nick Egger:** council remember there was a repair being made to a mainline uh i forget the exact location but around the same time and the same crude was deployed from a contractor to address both of them however i i will note that we do not have absolute control of their arrival or time they can tell us a range and uh when they arrive to begin the work that's that's what we get [38:18] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** um yes we've all waited at home for the plumber i know what you mean but i guess i find it unfair that this is the same company doing two repairs the mccoy property was charged the overtime and i for what i gathered the first property that was worked on was not charged any over time [38:43] **Nick Egger:** council member the the first site that they addressed was a city mainline and we knew that for a fact that that was the case and so in terms of advertising knowing that that had greater potential for your amounts of damage a larger pipe and so forth that's what was directed to them to to address first [39:07] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** well they just i i i have a concern about charging the mccoy family over time when the company was working on two projects uh it it just seems like the city should have warned some of it i mean you know the clock was ticking i understand that and then uh the city project is done now they're going to work on the private property problem and now they're into overtime so they're going to charge overtime um i kind of questioned that billing approach thank you [39:59] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** thank you councilmember belsanic councilmember vaughn [40:02] **Councilmember Vaughn:** thank you your honor i've sat through this twice with councilmember london and i think what we're in conclusion i think we could almost wrap it up here is i i think staff did the right thing in 2017 we got to put some ownership on the owners too they knew about it in 2017 or whatever it was when we get the mill and overlay we got to remember that's just as nick said it's the top surface it's not digging down underneath water is going to seek its own level it's going to come up where it needs to so you can't say it was here it was there or where was it right now i see us too close to each other we're on our on the main line and we're on the service line i recommend when we're all done with this that we re visit that maybe it's 10 feet off the main line that we start saying the city's responsible for and then after that it goes a different way again same rules that we're gonna have to dig it up and try to find it but i've used these companies in my day job and it's hard for them as nick was saying was ultrasound they're trying to figure out where it's at and is it off a main line or not and ultimately our ordinance is saying the homeowner has the bill coming their way ready to support what calls for balsanic saying about adding leak detection into mill and overlay i don't think we need to put this expense on residents with raising up the cost of doing more mil and overlay projects i think that we need to do a night let's just let's wave the overtime fees on this but for future staff i thought did the right thing they literally gave the itemized bill to the owner and they got to work their cell down that's where they started to pinpoint i don't agree with this one or that one said almost all bills have been roughly the same we need to charge a flat fee when it's time to do this the city needs to come up with the equation and say if we're to fix it this is the flat fee if it's in overtime or not again it's just a fee that comes in and the bill that goes to the homeowner is the fee to fix the line i think that's our easiest solution going forward but otherwise i've heard this twice i'm hearing it the third time a night so we waive the overtime fee um the resident pays the rest of it and uh we we as staff and our operating committee goes back to the drawing board and try to get this thing on and out for future thank you [42:17] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** councilman vaughn you do raise a good point on the issue of uh flat fee because the bill i'm looking here on my other laptop total cost five thousand four hundred sixty-seven dollars which i'm assuming includes the uh overtime charge that just seems like a a very high amount i know this is in line with what we've paid in the past but i i don't agree with what we've paid in the past i think we need to set a flat fee being a homeowner who's gone through a complete uh restructuring of my street with uh you know storm water water uh store everything uh you know with something like that that's a complete redoing of the street the assessments for these kinds of things are in the range of 2000 to six thousand dollars you know going across all of the linear footage on the property here we're really digging a trench that's maybe about eight foot across you know going down to the water main i cannot understand how the company is charging for five thousand four hundred and sixty seven dollars i think we need to take a good close look at what we are willing to pay as a city and assess to a homeowner for repairs such as this it just does not sit well with me thank you [43:58] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** councilmember sonic councilmember folch [44:03] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** thank you your honor um thank you councilmember vaughn for making your recommendation and i wholeheartedly agree with you in that and so um i have a copy of the bill and the overtime was as i'm reading this 360 dollars that was the overtime um and i know that um they were asking for a thousand dollars for a reduction in fees um as they were looking at the bids that were presented by uh whoever it was that was awarded the actual mill and overlay project and so i understand what you're saying that you're saying and that you these are different types of contractors doing different types of work and so it wouldn't have been a part of the scope of the work of the mill and overlay contractor and so um so i get that and so i just like to make a motion to reduce the amount of their fee by the 360 dollars that was attributed for overtime costs [45:24] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay thank you councilmember uh folch for the motion do i have a second [45:33] **Councilmember Lund:** second [45:34] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** councilmember lund any other discussion council councilmember vaughn [45:39] **Councilmember Vaughn:** and i just asked that uh not not tomorrow but the utility committee revisit this one our next and that we get together just at least to start the process of trying to get a flat fee for this [45:51] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay thank you any other discussion council clerk flatten please call the roll [45:58] **Clerk Flatten:** [Roll call process] [46:08] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** yes motion prevails administration let's see tonight we have the cares act funding and that will be introduced tonight by city administrator dan wietecha [46:25] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** one moment councilmember balsamic do you want to unmute or do you want to mute please gladly thank you um [46:38] **Dan Wietecha (City Administrator):** thank you we we've talked uh recently about the cares act and a little bit more about it this evening or at least more information we have on it believe you see it on the presentation on your screen there um where hastings is receiving a little over 1.7 million dollars for eligible expenses uh you want to know some of this is repeat i think it's it's worth repeating uh there is a certification process and reporting with the state very importantly we will have an additional piece to our financial audit next spring specifically looking at this no double dipping with any other grant funds that we might be receiving for the same same purchases [47:43] **Dan Wietecha:** uh related to that financial audit uh if any of the money is misspent uh we will have to repay it so i want to make sure that we're diligent at following the requirements of it which i'll get to in a second uh and the other other key message to that is particularly because this is uh uncharted territory it's uh it's not an existing grant program uh it's a lot of dollars the the guidance from the federal and at the state levels is changed several times and come about frequently so just very important that we document not just how the money gets spent you know not here's a receipt that paid this bill [48:30] **Dan Wietecha:** but the thought process the decision-making process how did how do we as a council or department heads or staff that make decisions to use this money and make those purchases there are three eligibility criteria uh one is that it has to be a necessary expenditure uh specific to uh the public health emergency the covered response whether it's directly response or an indirect piece but related to that public health emergency the second criteria is that it has to have been unbudgeted or that it's substantially different from what had been budgeted so uh we might have budgeted for staff to be uh working but we did not expect it to be in response to this pandemic so their hours were and that budget was redirected to this this response um and then the third piece is that it has to if the the purchase has to occur the expense occurred between march 1st and november 15th of this year it must meet all three of those criteria [50:00] **Dan Wietecha:** we've discussed uh essentially four broad areas that might be considered for using the cares funds one being city finances covering expenses and payroll that the city's incurred make sure the city is kept full uh the second is potentially some building upgrades which i'll note in a minute but a matter of making sure we have a healthier environment for our employees and the public in our city-owned buildings it can be used for uh assistance to businesses that were impacted by the covid um so if they were interrupted if they had to close um it allows some ability to assist there uh it also has some ability to assist individuals uh that might have been impacted by the covet if they lost their job or income uh some assistance to help them either directly or through uh some sort of non-profit partnership briefly on each of those four areas uh city finances uh have identified to date and these are not listing everything it's hitting a few of the highlights um identified to date about 440 000 of expenses that includes non-safety payroll uh some technology and communications improvements that are put in place for remote work or even being able to do zoom meetings uh purchases of personal protective equipment ppe we also did about 170 dollars in part grants in another twenty five thousand or so on uh actually probably closer to fifty thousand in business assistance programs so uh those are uh costs that we have the receipts and can identify uh there are also some costs that are uh pending um a transport ventilator for the ambulance service uh some shelving and lockers will help the ems employees changing their response a safer way to assist with responding to calls as well as some shelving to be able to store ppe and other equipment that we've needed for this pandemic also a disinfectant cleaning machine really for the arena high contact high public use area some identified costs about 25 000 [52:30] **Dan Wietecha:** uh the real piece and this is where uh the the discussion gets a lot broader here with the rest of the talk about how to use the cares money we have some unidentified costs we know that there are safety related payroll police and ems in particular for all of our uh employees whether safety or non-safety we need to do some projections through the november 15th deadline not just what we incurred today but what's forthcoming uh there's some communications and audio visual equipment that would assist the police fully outfit their mobile command which would be placed at a um back up for a second separately the county health department and the school district have a contractual arrangement that if or when there is the ability to do mass public inoculations vaccinations i will be done with school property with the city through the police department providing traffic assistance and such uh and anticipate it's even shown on the map here's where the police department's mobile command would be placed during that activity although it's needed it's workable in a pinch it certainly would be much more workable if they had fully functioning communications maybe equipment similarly the fire department ems had to make modifications to their staff training during this social distancing environment and doing some av equipment would assist them uh other unidentified cost is if there's a surge in cases a major update do not know what it was total uh but i would would not be surprised if city finances and a lot of those under unexpected costs we're working on getting the data to uh to estimate what those would be particularly those projections through november 15 but estimate that in total i wouldn't be surprised if this adds up to a million dollars so a big hit out of that 1.7 million if it's just covering city costs [55:12] **Dan Wietecha:** other major topic building upgrades we do have some preliminary estimates for putting uv lighting into this air handling units putting similar preliminary estimates to putting touchless fixtures into restrooms unfortunately neither of those are complete estimates it's a couple of the buildings but not all of the buildings so still waiting on on the rest of the details there on a couple of smaller projects putting tempered glass at the front customer service counter rather than just the temporary plexiglass partitions um and with the much more frequent use of the community room it's a larger meeting room and allows us to spread out and have some some social distancing get a dozen people in and do an in-person meeting that room has one electrical outlet and although preservation makes it difficult to add more we could at least add a couple in the riser next to the existing one assist with some of the communications needs or laptops or projectors that things that we might need at times um so that's a quick overview of the building upgrades everything that i've mentioned so far whether it's covering city costs or those preliminary estimates i would recommend that the city proceed with you know there's requests where do i see the priorities those are the areas um i do know that there's a potential to upgrade the air handling the hvac system for the fire department it might be possible but realistically november 15 is a tight time frame to put that out the bid be able to do the construction in a working building so i i do want to know there's a possibility if there's interest but i think it would be tough to move forward if there is an interest please speak up tonight because we need to start moving fairly quickly rather than waiting two more weeks [57:14] **Dan Wietecha:** third major area of business assistance anecdotally there there's the goal of putting 10 percent of the cares act funding to assisting small businesses with the heart grants and other work that the city has put money towards we've already exceeded that 10 um would also note uh that at present and i think it's wrapping up as we speak the chamber of commerce has recently been doing a another survey of local businesses asking what their needs are what issues where they're having concerns which might help inform is there an interest by the city to do more for business assistance and would also note that just last week we're still waiting some of the details dakota county approved a business assistance program the county providing money 10 million dollars to do small business grants of ten thousand dollars limited to businesses with 50 or less full-time equivalent employees also limited to businesses not nonprofits not home-based businesses they would as with all this need to show that they had a negative impact due to the the covid easy to do if they were shut down for a time we're seeing a loss in revenues [58:50] **Dan Wietecha:** interesting two interesting pieces with the counties program one they are contracting out with the third party to handle administration of the program which is certainly attractive since if we you know as we saw in the heart grant rusty was working almost full time just on the heart program and we've seen other downtown closures a real impact on staff time so if we had the ability to harm that word out that would certainly help from staffing ability the other piece that's interesting about the dakota county program is although we're learning details first with meetings thursday and friday this week uh they've indicated that they will open it for uh hastings and other municipalities put additional funding for it so if we want to put a hundred thousand quarter million of the cares act fund to supplementing their program uh that ten thousand popular would help another ten or twenty five employees specific or employed businesses specifically in hastings we're not stuck to having to do that one but from an administrative staffing standpoint it certainly would be efficient to work with another existing program rather than inventing our own [1:00:13] **Dan Wietecha:** the fourth area is assistance to the individuals sort of that social service aspect do want to note that there are some legal questions about that uh you know previously forwarded uh a overview memo from attorney fleegle talking about um what sort of expenses are explicitly allowed in statute and which are back to that decision-making process particularly based on if this is a an expense that benefits an individual but is explicitly allowed under the cares act having some affirmation of that through the council before we just make that that expenditure the administration committee met last week and had some discussion around this and one of the things that they talked about was the importance of identifying the needs in the community rather than just throwing money out there to individuals or non-profits this is a list i i put up this was not from the admin committee but a few ideas that i've heard from nonprofits food assistance worked with individuals in social isolation mental health eviction foreclosure assistance i'll note that just late last week the county is putting money towards that um economics other economic support which might be transportation or something somebody who's lost their job has some difficulty with it can also be used with distance learning and i would note that it can be used towards helping the non-profit organization as a business entity itself that was impacted by covet so if they're seeing um parts of their operations shutdown um instead of just looking at them as a pass through to providing a service also looking at them as as an organization an entity a business that was impacted by kovac [1:02:44] **Dan Wietecha:** it the administration committee thought it was important to inquire about other funding sources that a non-profit organization might have access to for example noting that the county is has some state funds and matching it up with some county funds to work on an eviction foreclosure assistance eviction assistance program obviously there's a funding source there that has an example of what other options are there um and also indicate similar to what the county is doing with its business program if there's a way to partner with a non-profit or another organization contract with them to administer some of the funding and handling how we might put some funding to the social services that would be great uh social services are something that typically is not handled at the city level so we don't particularly have much expertise in that area we've already got some some staff shortages and putting extra work on existing staff and had a busy time of the year if there is a way to contract that out it would certainly help the program whatever assistance we might put out there be more efficiently handled and hopefully more effective that's a quick overview um really i think that it uh some important things that had to be pointed out but really i think that the meat of the discussion is your discussion as a city council and talking through some of those pieces that's about it thank you dan [1:04:49] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** thank you dan counsel discussion there you go uh councilmember folch [1:04:55] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** your honor um i had i had taken the memo from dan and i actually placed it into a spreadsheet format so to better understand actually and put it into categories of insurance equipment supplies the business community and then building facility related types of upgrades that need to be made and so of the costs that he did identify it's at eight hundred and eighty three thousand dollars which includes the upgrade um to the fire station so um with a few things um i think it would be interesting to go through um you know category and maybe talk about some of these things as to whether or not they're valid um or not uh as a for instance the station hvac system that dan had specifically called out and asked us to deliberate when if the value of the project is 350 000 if you have the bid package ready to go by saturday or before saturday and you're able to advertise for it by saturday it has to go out for 20 days for formal bed and then so it comes in sometime mid august so the first opportunity that you'd actually have to do the award would be september 7th and that's if you have all your ducks in order otherwise it's september 21st where the council would actually be able to approve the the contract and that only gives you about days or so to be able to have the hvac system put in place and so i highly i would be very skeptical for at the end of the summer to be able to fit into the construction season um and so i mean so i i agree that i'm not i don't think that that be um something that you'd be able to achieve um within the time frame and uh and it is a considerable amount of money and so if you're looking for us to make a decision about that tonight to pull the trigger on it i think that that is something that the group should discuss and i'm not sure if nick is still on the line or um but i don't know i'm just throwing that one out there to begin with because you called it out so it's like wow that's a tight time frame to get it done before november 15th i wouldn't hold my breath on that one [1:07:38] **Dan Wietecha:** if i just answer a couple quick pieces nick uh edgar is is no longer on the the meeting uh the other completely agree on the tight time timeline the other piece it makes it a bit extra tight is talking with a contractor it's probably if things go well no rain days about a two-week project to do start to finish but it also means that during that time you don't have heating or air conditioning in the fire station so it probably means trying to find a window in october when it's tempered enough that you can deal without having a furnace or an air conditioner and hoping it fits in it's a tough project to fit in the window it might be something that part one reason that you can present it though is there are needs there it might be something that the city and the taxpayers are finding and need to replace in the next couple of years anyways [1:08:44] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** yeah it seems to me that that's more of a um asset management that's a part of your facilities um uh management plan you know over the next few years i i know that we've talked about this last year that the city was staff were supposed to be working on an asset management plan and it seems like that that might be a better fit just with the time constraints and like i said unless you know of a contractor who's been able to who can say definitively that they can fit that in their schedule during that time frame it seems like a lot of money to earm mark and just like cross your fingers and hope that you could actually spend the money in time otherwise we lose it that's my two cents [1:09:39] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay any other comments council direction councilmember vaughn [1:09:44] **Councilmember Vaughn:** thank your honor uh i just wanted that i support um partnering with the county on uh doing it with the business um relief fund i think that is the best place um that we should be applying our dollars toward and uh partnering with them because they're gonna have the staff to take care of it thank you [1:10:08] **John Hinzman (Community Development Director):** yeah and mayor city council member i can respond a little bit to that too market and thanks for bringing that up yeah we part of the the county program right now as dan invention is they're going to be putting together a loan program a loan program a grant program which we can piggyback off of we're meeting with our other economic development folks in the county later on this week to have more detail on it but it looks like our work that we would need to put into it would be very minimal looks very manageable and based upon some of the business survey information we received back from the chamber of commerce there's still a need out there for funding and there's still a fear of what happened in the future [1:11:07] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay thank you john councilmember vaughn [1:11:12] **Councilmember Vaughn:** yep and just to follow up then um the rest of the stuff that staff has put together here i think they're doing their due diligence they're working their way down i appreciate what the memo said is take care of the residents of hastings first before we go to other plans so i think that is important that's what i wanted to see here yeah i i think i agree with councilmember folch the air conditioner hvac unit for the fire is going to be a little bit of a reach in that sort of time frame if staff can find some way to do it and it's and it's eligible so we don't have to pay for it ourselves sure keep working at it but if it's also um do it the correct way don't try to sneak it in there either make sure you follow the proper ways for um bidding this so i support staff's memo here thank you [1:11:58] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay council member lund [1:12:01] **Councilmember Lund:** thank you honor uh yeah i we had a very good i thought very good productive conversation as a as a committee um and dan put a lot of dan and staff did a good job putting a lot of good information together for us today it's a work in progress we know but the general direction um i'm glad you said that because i think the general direction is good um the tricky part about this is there's always going to be what-ifs and whatever right so we we need to know that going into this um but also i i would ask and i feel pretty comfortable that everybody would be good with this but i would ask that we are willing to do special meetings if we needed to um you know to not delay things if you know to council members folch his point if you missed the the full council meeting on the first then the first one then you have to wait two more weeks what whatever i don't think we should be worried about that i guess we should be willing to prioritize these things because we know that it's a use it or lose it kind of thing so i'll just keep that in the back of our minds as we keep going forward with this [1:13:28] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay sure council member brocks [1:13:34] **Councilmember Brocks:** thank you and thanks uh council member lund for referencing our committee discussion i think it was very good and productive and what we really tried to focus on is uh what are we trying to accomplish with this money you know what is it that we want to do and that's what i keep coming back to for all of these categories in my mind is you know what is going to be the most efficient way for us to get this money to people that need it but also and a lot of the answer to that seems to be partnering partnering with people who are already doing things partnering with you know information that we get from the chamber and piggybacking on other organizations that are already doing things to support the community and i think that was a a common thread that was in our discussion and i think that is a very positive direction and i also want to say you know a lot of these projects one of the things that we talked about in committee was we do need to consider our own needs and our own employees as the city of hastings and make sure that we're covering our own expenses before we start extending ourselves into other areas and that you know i i've heard a lot of good feedback from surrounding communities that hastings is ahead in the business area like we've done a lot of things already that doesn't mean that we can't do more we certainly can do more if you choose to do that but that we are ahead in some ways in our business support and how we've supported our local businesses so i think we have a lot of reasons to be proud and i think that dan has put together a thoughtful list and i think a lot of those priorities show that we're taking care of our needs at city hall and trying to reduce the overall tax burden for our citizens and we're also considering the organizations in the community that we want to stay we want them to be here and we want them to feel supported in the future so i support the direction of the memo of staff and also all the efforts of all the efforts that have already been made and the future efforts that will be made to help to support the community through this very weird time [1:15:06] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay thank you councilmember brocks councilmember folch [1:15:13] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** oh thank you i just put my ear my hair behind my ear there but um thanks for calling on me so i i had a couple questions uh uh from dan and i'm i'll share this with you i shared it with um council member brocks and lund already just because i don't want to send it to the whole group because then i know that we get into the meeting law problems and such um but it would be i have a couple of questions on on some of these like for instance um you had indicated in your memo for unemployment insurance payments twelve thousand dollars and so i wasn't sure if that was even allowable because that's like and i wasn't sure what context that was in um and so could you explain that a little bit [1:16:03] **Dan Wietecha:** uh unemployment insurance payments are explicitly allowed in the cares act guidance so i don't think there's a question there um uh it's related to i think it's it's because the cares act at the federal level is very broad and covering lots of different types of entities so if we were a private uh entity a private business um that had additional expenses um which i didn't take that back i don't know if there's a third way to say it and anyways uh instead of going down that that path um it is explicitly allowed in the cares act guidance in this case most of this is expenses that the city has had because we did not open the aquatic center so the employees that we had last year were unable to get jobs this year and eligible to apply for unemployment and because the city is in the public sector it's a reimbursement process with the unemployment insurance second quarter we had a 12 000 bill to pay for those unemployment benefits for former employees that were out of work because we did not have any aquatic into this this summer really expected there will be similar third quarter and maybe part of the fourth quarter estimates too but that that's an actual figure for second quarter unemployment which is which is an allowed expense [1:18:03] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** i didn't know that seasonal employees were eligible for unemployment insurance [1:18:09] **Dan Wietecha:** just to weigh in the other piece is staff being overwhelmed and lots of people out of work uh it's difficult to question any any anything because the state doesn't have the staff to process and basically is approving um i want to say every every unemployment claim that the state is not extremely responsive on any that we see that might be questionable but yes the seasonal employees are eligible [1:18:50] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** okay and then um under the you had a couple of audio visual equipment um requests for fire ems training room and then the um police mobile command and so are you upgrading the existing av that's then in these um facilities or are using because the fire ems training room is that not i mean if it's a training room it obviously has av equipment in it already um and so could you just speak to that a little bit because it was a pending item that you didn't put a dollar figure and depending what it is that could be a really big number or it could just be a little number [1:19:35] **Dan Wietecha:** i i think that they fall in between um it it is more of on the fire training room it's more of a upgrade of existing um making it more functional and i don't know what makes a big number a little number but that one um i would guess is in the 5 to fifteen thousand dollar range um ballpark guess because it's a fairly um limited uh upgrade the improvements to the communications equipment including some extensive rewiring of the mobile command wouldn't surprise me if that's six figures that could be a hundred thousand dollars [1:20:18] **Dan Wietecha:** okay and i guess the other piece i would comment is in both those cases maybe not as as urgent as doing it this fall but i think that both of those are things that we will see in budget requests coming from those departments moving forward so if we can accomplish something that might be falling on taxpayers in the next year or two with these caretaker funds it addresses a need now as well as saves taxpayers in the future [1:20:43] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** okay so i guess um those are kind of wants rather than needs i mean that's how i would identify those if you're just looking at upgrading existing facilities that are currently working just fine and so i just want to differentiate the difference um and then i'm looking down at the rest of your list the safety glass shelves workstations uv lights those all look like um they're all necessary needs and so i would um question the mobile command and the in the fire amos um av if they're gonna be really big ticket items um because you're well i guess if we if we took out the 350 000 for the hvac um that if you remove that that brings down all of the items that you already identified okay if i put fifteen thousand dollars into um for the um fire ems training room and that's oh hundred thousand dollars seems like a lot of money so i'm not going to put that in there but you're currently at a half a million dollars if you don't do that that fire hvac upgrade and so we have 1.7 and so um so to go um a little piggyback a little bit more on what councilmember brocks and lund were alluding to about how we were having a conversation about identifying what are some of the other community needs we did receive proposals from the hastings family service um they were asking for forty thousand dollars the ymca has been uh working extensively to provide meals to people who are out of work um there's thirty thousand dollars just associated with um that request i reached out to the school district our new uh bob mcdowell the new superintendent um he had said that he had he had asked if the city council would earmark 300 000 of our funds the 1.7 for the school district as we those of us who are parents are paying close attention to you know what's going on with the schools and we're awaiting um i had a long conversation yesterday with kelsey waits who's the school board chair um and so what she shared with me is that uh they don't they won't know until june 27th the direction that the governor is going to provide they're looking at three scenarios where it's um they could be full open they could be partially open whether it's um like schooling at home and then maybe being in the classroom and then having you know full at home um and so when you so so when uh bob had asked for us to set aside the three hundred thousand dollars is because um depending on what the scenario is that they are going to enact really um has a lot of impact on to what their what their need is going to be as a for instance he had um said that if they were to pay for a device for each grade of the elementary schools each grade cost a hundred thousand dollars um that's a need if they have to bring in one extra school bus it was an additional fifty thousand dollars to social distance uh kids on the on the bus if they need to bring in one more teacher to reduce class sizes it was 75 000 and so as we can imagine that those numbers like super mushroom really quickly and they had only been appropriated 350 000 um that that's what they had received from the cares act and that was actually for two school years so it's only 175 000 each year which um is you know you can imagine that disney come close to being able to cover the expenses that they're going to be looking at and so um so kelsey had said that they would love the opportunity to come to our um our one of our august meetings so that they can provide more of the detail like i said they won't know until june 27th what the governor is going to provide and so if um at a minimum if they could come to our first council member and um council meeting in august um to tell us about what some of the impacts that they're looking at and the dire i mean they're really in quite a dire situation um and uh and so anyhow as i look at the 1.7 million dollars as it was provided to us um i mean obviously to cover city needs but really more collectively how is it that we support our community as a whole um and so uh we council member brocks and lund i we uh talked about values of um trying to have some fairness and balance um with uh with the funds um through the the community and so um i think that it's probably a value that we all have um and and for us to you know to um be thoughtful about how it is that we use this money and and so that's why i bring up okay do we really need a hundred thousand dollars for that mobile command um unit and is that really necessary right now for um to use this money for or the 350 000 for the fire station hvac system that's at its end of its natural life expectancy so i'm just to be thoughtful about how it is that we're appropriating large chunks of money so thanks [1:25:35] **Councilmember Vaughn:** thank you honor i i'm really concerned though that do we when we talk about social services i want to make sure that the city is consistent we need to make sure that this is hitting all social services throughout the community that and that's why i supported going with the county on a process of how they go about doing that i i don't want to put invite one social group that councilmember folch talked about come to our meeting and next you know we're gonna say well i didn't get a chance to do that either i don't know if that's our role and that's why i'm a little worried about um even talking to anybody unless we had a formal process to say here's the opportunity we think we have our gotta make sure our our needs are covered first and then we'll talk to the rest of the community maybe it's a united way approach or somewhere that they have a board that does this throughout the community i don't know if i as a city want to be involved in picking and choosing who it goes to um throughout the community so it's my only concern is that we're not making sure this is a is equally offered to all people out there in the social service area thank you [1:26:54] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** thank you councilmember vaughn councilmember lund [1:27:02] **Councilmember Lund:** thank you honor uh council member vaughn we we did go into that um fairly extensively um the the committee left it off as um order of you know the cadence was first and foremost what are the costs that the city has already experienced that were not expected um what do we forecast to um experience between now and and november that could qualify and that we could get in by then and what what not um so that we have a starting point um it's very hard to just say let's just set aside 300 000 or whatever the number is and that's what we've got for for uh this type of activity and then you know because what you're going to do is you're you're just going to use that money up and and it's not necessarily it's not necessarily doing as much as it could if we if we just prioritized instead so maybe i'm not being very clear but my point is um city first what do we know we expect we spent what do we expect to spend and that's what dan did so i don't think there's anything wrong with the list that dan put out there it sparks this type of conversation right so we can say maybe this one doesn't make the cut or or whatever but i think it's a good starting point so we can understand what you know i guess i wouldn't look at it as 1.7 mil some million dollars i would look at it as whatever the city portion is which is taxpayer money take that off and then that's what that that's actually what the grant money is that we should be talking about going forward right it makes it easier um and then to your point too um the uh the outside like the county or united way or or some sort of group that's better suited to work through an application process or you know understand the network um you know we're not that's not our daily function um and so i think um you know that that was also brought up as uh to your point as something that would be good to leverage instead of uh the seven of us um going through applications and and whatnot but rather using using a partnership that would be able to do a better job at it [1:30:04] **Dan Wietecha:** thank you dan any other discussion console um your honored this is tina i'm tamara folch thank you your honor um so we uh had a council member uh len myself and and the mayor we are a part of the economic task force and i had been in contact with christy vars and the business community survey that they were working on i think is done or just about done and so that they have their results and so i'm really pleased to hear that john said that the community development directors are meeting with the county to um i'll kind of get on the same page and so i would really like to see for us to have a discussion if we could get a meeting on the calendar pretty quickly so that we can keep things moving um obviously time is of the essence for these conversations to keep moving ahead and i think council member life held was the one that said earlier about um you know or maybe i'm sorry council member lond about having um additional meetings um so that we can keep things moving just to keep things moving ahead and along so that um we're not losing out on opportunities because to put together the criteria as a for instance if we did some kind of um opening up to the non-profits like we did with the care with the heart grants you know where you know okay well what are your needs and then we'll do an evaluation and and figure it out from there um i mean that takes time right i mean john can speak to probably how many weeks that took for him and rusty to pull that together and get everything up the door and so it's really time consuming and um so again if we're going to do it we need to do it quickly [1:32:44] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay thank you we'll get that set up okay dan i think you're you're uh doing the right thing and we've all appreciate your time and everyone's time putting in the efforts whoops i don't know where i just went we still see you right i still see you at least really okay anyway i don't know what happened anyway so at this point then um we don't need a motion on that we'll just kind of move forward council do you have any other announcements there yes councilmember brocks [1:33:43] **Councilmember Brocks:** i'm sorry brian i just have a brief report um a report about the cottage grove beyond the yellow ribbon if i could um since i've been representing the council on that board for about almost a year um i have been meeting monthly with the group and they are covering some veteran services and hastings and they're doing a lot of networking and trying to meet some community partners um meet people who are already doing amazing things in hastings but i just kind of want to share some of the statistics that they shared with me about what the cottage grove beyond the yellow ribbon has done in the past year in hastings and they've really been active in hastings for two years covering some needs but they've been kind of looking to expand into hastings in an official capacity for about the last year and they're in the middle our last meeting was just last thursday and we talked about they're going to change their name from cottage grove beyond the yellow ribbon to include hastings and there is some also some veterans that they serve in saint paul park so they're going to change the name to the mississippi valley beyond the yellow ribbon to include hastings and saint paul park and potentially other contiguous areas in the future but one of the things that they they shared with me that i want to share with you is just kind of the numbers as to what they've done in the hastings area already um they have of they did some support for the hastings armory during the activation of the minnesota guard including spending a couple thousand dollars in supplies including medication clothing socks underwear food and hygiene kits for the national guard about fourteen hundred dollars in water and energy drinks they've also um have tried to partner with hastings to do some more local events and to be present at some of our events unfortunately since march and due to covid there haven't been that many events that they've been able to attend um so they've been attending they've attended two total events in hastings and their first official year in covering hastings was from october 2019 to current they've done about five meet and greets with different community groups they've spent about 1300 volunteer hours for veterans and hastings and they have helped over 32 people in hastings specifically and they do this in a really cool way they do it all through the county um the veterans service officers all the needs are kind of routed through them and then we look at as a board member i look at some of the needs that come in and approve or not do not approve the request some of the cool things and i've been able to help with have been helping a veteran in hastings get some snow removed in the winter and also they do things like partner with local businesses so that the business can help cover a service for a veteran at a lower cost so for example they will fix a window for a veteran and then the service provider who is usually a local business will reduce that cost or cut some of the fee associated with it so if they can do it for cost and do it at a cheaper rate for that veteran they will do things like that so i just that's kind of what i've been doing with the cottage girl beyond the yellow ribbon for the past year and we meet monthly on a thursday and we meet in the cottage grove armory but we're currently meeting on zoom and so i have been attending those meetings and i just wanted to report back of some of the things that i'm seeing it's a really cool organization serving veterans needs and hastings and soon to be called the mississippi valley beyond the yellow ribbon so if you see the name change that is why [1:37:38] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay great thanks councilmember brax any other council council member folch [1:37:46] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** unmute there we go all right um the first thing was just last thursday there was a open house at lake isabel park uh where the parks department held an open house to go over the three options that have been created uh by the consultant that's on board and it gave an opportunity for the neighbors literally the neighbors across the street all walked over it was great i'm guessing there was at least 20 to 30 neighbors you know that i at one point i touched base with if not more to get that feedback and so um i posted on my facebook uh page you know pictures of each of the options but when i went to look at the lake is the the lake isabel master plan uh website that's off of our our hastings website i didn't see those on there quite yet and so i know that uh the residents would of the kowtown area would love to to see those if um if they can be posted i'm not sure what the the next steps are with that but people were really excited um to see uh what the plans were looking to incorporate the lake isabel more than it is currently and and to put some of the focus there so um it was all good stuff really really nice options um my second thing was i wanted to talk about uh looking at what is the city's position on face masks in particularly when it comes to our own facilities currently the plan for the city our pandemic opening plan made it an optional for people as they come into the as you know into the city facilities and employees while they're in common spaces and such and so i just wanted to share with you that um there are currently 28 states that have mass restrictions in place right now as covid is spreading very quickly and uh and it is kind of the midwest is now kind of isolated where it's filling in for all along the south and along the coasts and it's and so we're kind of now a pocket where um we're not affected i went to i went to a dakota county facility today and noticed that masks were required there and then i looked on their website and so it is a requirement that you wear a mask in any of the dakota county uh facilities and then um furthermore there are quite a number of cities that are beginning to pass these um restrictions uh the cities of duluth rochester mankato winona minneapolis st paul minnetonka edina blaine white bear lake and the university of minnesota not to mention um the corporations that are beginning to do so like target walmart menards costco best buy and so um we're not going to have the conversation right now but i would love it if we could have that conversation at our next council meeting uh so that we i think it's important to protect our staff at a minimum um you know as public comment as the public comes in as um dan had uh outlined in his budget memo that they don't have plexiglas you know up yet um to protect uh receptionists and uh folks that have interactions with with the public and so i just think that it's really important that we do what we we can to you know at a minimum protect our employees that are within these facilities thanks [1:41:00] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** um i think there is a correction there though tina or councilmember folch plexiglas is at the front desk of city hall [1:41:10] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** oh it looked like it was something still to be done [1:41:13] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** nope it's there [1:41:15] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** oh okay dan you can speak to that if i find my new button [1:41:25] **Dan Wietecha:** uh just for clarification yes we have uh plexiglas uh stands up at all of our uh customer service counters including uh the uh absentee balloting elections piece uh so we we do have that in place okay the the proposal is to actually put in place a permanent tempered glass installation at that main counter so i say okay proposals instead of having some temporary stands expected something that would be good to have permanent long term [1:42:02] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay council member brocks [1:42:06] **Councilmember Brocks:** i know i just want to make mention that i think you know i think that's a valid conversation council member folch i just would like to see it advertised well in advance as i know there's a variety of opinions out there about masks there's a lot of passion i've already received a lot of emails from constituents through sites like one click politics where they're urging me not to make a mandatory mass policy so i have received communication and we don't even have it on the agenda yet so i think it will be a hot issue and i just want to make sure we put it on the agenda with proper notification so the public can participate and comment as necessary [1:42:47] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** great thank you councilmember brocks any other announcements okay i have a few we have several upcoming levy park activities all have limited attendance of 250 people and social distancing requirements all are free and open to the public music in the park supported by ruth and george doffing charitable fund bavarian muska meisters on thursday july 23rd at 7 p.m performing traditional germa germanic music including folk polka and waltz movie in the park sponsored by ardent mills toy story is the movie toy story 4 on friday july 24th at 7 15 p.m branch line church will host family friendly games and activities an hour before the show please bring a non-perishable food donation for hastings family service performance in the park ragamela south indian dance experience music and culture of india on tuesday july 28th at 6 00 pm party in the park july is national parks and recreational month celebrate with an intro interactive trivia show live music activities and food trucks sassy lassie trivia 5 30 to 6 30 nathan griner and band 6 30 to 8 sure artists 5 30 to 8 fun zone games 6 30 to 8 and carpenter nature center booth 5 30 to 8. there's a meeting uh tuesday july 21st with public safety committee of city council and that is at 5 30. 7 p.m on tuesday july 21st is heritage preservation commission monday july 13th is planning commission monday july 27th is planning commission monday all of august 3rd already the city council will have a workshop we're having a workshop on diversity inclusion and equity and this is something that needs to be i think noted too that in the past the city and um we have partnered financially and physically with the diversity inclusion and equity program which that has now morphed into thrive hastings so we're continuing to educate ourselves and i think we all look forward to this august 3rd workshop to help us to learn better what our needs are within our community then after that we have a regular city council meeting at 7 pm tuesday august 4th at 8 a.m is financial committee of city council if there are no other announcements i'd look for a motion to adjourn [1:46:12] **Councilmember Brocks:** motion to adjourn. [1:46:13] **Councilmember Lund:** second. [1:46:14] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** council member brocks and member lund any other discussion council clerk flatten please call the roll [1:46:21] **Clerk Flatten:** [Roll call process] [1:46:31] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** motion prevails we are adjourned thank you all thanks have a good night