public for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all jenny we could take the role council member thorson here council member wong here council member cole here mayor furlong here i'm sorry councilmember peterson is absent sorry uh quorum is present at this time a motion to adopt the agenda so we'll move by councilmember thorson second like my councilmember cole any discussion if not all those in favor signify by saying i i oppose emotion carries we have no presentations uh but i would like to just take a moment to uh recognize uh what's going on in the world today with what's happening in ukraine and you know think about uh you know they talk about their government you know their mayors their citizens and everything and i just i'd like to take a moment of silence of just a few seconds in regards to uh show you know that ukraine that we do care and we do want to say some good words to them and maybe say a prayer for them for for all the citizens and and for the for the whole country there so if we could take a couple seconds thank you i appreciate it uh at this time the consent agenda and i'll turn over to city manager stark thank you mr mayor the consent agenda contains several separate items which are acted upon by the city council in one motion once the consent agenda has been approved the individual items have also been approved and no further action is necessary however any city council member may request that an item be removed for further discussion tonight's consent agenda is the following items a the march 1 2022 regular meeting minutes b the march 1 2022 workshop meeting minutes item c general claims the amount of 299 thousand 402.85 d hra claims in the amount of 11 000 32.71 e the building permit report for february f a resolution approving acceptance of donations received february of 2022 g approve a resolution re-establishing the north saint paul voting precincts and polling places h well sealing program authorization i approve resolution supporting funding for planning and design for a separated interchange at the intersection of trunk highway 36 and highway 120 j winter parking ordinance temporary exemption from 1 am to 7 am on march 18th to accommodate the st patrick's day holiday and to encourage people to leave their car parked instead of driving home after being out and imbibing item k change order number three to the 2020 street and utility improvement project item l authorized advertisement for bids for the 7th avenue street and utility improvements project cp 22-01 m anchor block commons final bmp authorization solicitation for quotes item n resolution supporting legislative efforts to ensure a sustainable safe and reliable water supply and that concludes tonight's consent agenda at this time if there's any council member who would like to pull an item they can do so at this time if not motion to approve the consent agenda so moved moved by council member wong second second by council member cole any discussion if not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye opposed the motion carries at this time the meeting is open to the public and the comments we will be limited to three minutes and well the city council may ask clarifying clarifying questions of the speaker no formal action by the city council or discussion will be held on these items so we do have one and john small welcome john good evening miriam council and on the subject of ukraine i was wondering what my parents would be thinking in 1939 anyway on that note the last council meeting there were two people in the audience that i sat behind and they seemed to be discussing something i'm not sure what it was but the meeting was over and they were unhappy because their subject that they thought was going to be brought up which happened to be the proceedings of the planning commission on the 3rd of february dealing with well something that had to do with the house on eldridge and it's close to your area but they were there because they thought the council was going to be taking up the next step of the turndown of the plan by the applicant to do something i forget now what it was their decision to come here to put it have input because they were told at the end of the planning commission meeting and i heard it by uh listening to it online uh was that there would be a decision on what the planning commission had come up with and whether they're going to prove it the council or not it wasn't on the agenda so they were a little unhappy about that and i heard them express that particular position and uh there were there was no reason why it never came up nothing was expressed as to why it didn't come up so i talked to them later on and they were unhappy and the next day i happened to be talking to don benick and he asked me what happened on this subject and i said don how did you know it was going to be at the council he said well we got the 300-foot letter in the 300-foot letter which says people in that area uh this is how it's going to go down february 3rd planning commission on 1 or 3 1 um march 1st council i said how did you that's how you found out you had a letter yeah everybody in the 300 foot got that letter so they thought this is the way it goes and it didn't go so i don't know how you can get to people who are going to show up and think that something's going to happen and let them know hey it's not going to happen they maybe they put the same piece of paper in with address and phone number and if they were the people who got up and said hey i'd like to make a comment i think i get your point yes [Music] something has to be done like that a small point uh don said to me i don't get minutes anymore in the mail so maybe a decision has been made you know the guy's been receiving him for a hundred years now you assume don will contact the city if he's well he's kind of slowed down mayor but it's and so i felt i'd bring this up okay you know you can call say you know it's not your place to do it fine but i will do things like this when someone says it to me last item is at the end of the meeting on the first a piece of paper was handed out with possible agenda items for a workshop it wasn't made available to the public all the members got it and i looked at everything that was in paperwork here that it might have shown up now in the minutes or some something like that it didn't so how do i get a copy i don't know if that's probably that's just potential workshop account or city manager and i hate to respond to it but yeah these are just potential workshops that are not in stone yet so i hate to get that out and we don't do that if we don't follow that because those could change at any time yeah a couple of things one is as i as you mentioned they were meant to be placeholders for council to know what nights we're looking at having workshops i i had extra copies on the my table here for the public so i apologize if i didn't i thought that i had communicated that at the meeting if i didn't that's my fault so i apologize the intention was that they were there uh for the taking um i can tell you it's already changed and it's going to be changing several times and so it's because potential workshop man yeah well but it kind of seems like it's official you know when it gets handed out and it wasn't adjourned it was a part of the process anyway i wasn't here um and then with regards and to the item from the planning commission the planning commission acts on on applications and so it's kind of a reactive body in that way when an application is made the planning commission hears it and it moves its way up to the city council when an applicant withdraws that's something that neither the planning commission or city council has any control over i believe that was the case that in this instance the applicant withdrew their application between the planning commission hearing it and the city council hearing it i i spoke with the family that was here the couple that was here i felt horrible that they spent um time away that they would have maybe plan on spending differently and um you know so anybody out there listening if you ever are coming for an agenda item things do change always try to check the city's website for agenda items would be the best way to do that thank you anybody on zoom nothing so at this time there's no public hearings city business and action items and i'll turn it over to city manager i'll turn over to morgan i'm sorry yep i think we can just turn this over to morgan it's receiving and awarding receiving bids and awarding contracts for the 2022 street and utility improvement projects welcome morgan thank you mr mayor members of the council um so this item is presenting the bids received for the aforementioned project the 2022 street and utility improvement project just a summary of the areas that are included in that project for a reminder we're talking about improvements to the downtown surface parking lot adjacent to 6th avenue south of 7th avenue including portions of 6th avenue and charles street with a maintenance overlay we're also talking about as area 2 which is a slightly different part of town 10th avenue east 3rd street north and 2nd street north so that's over by the high school and then area 3 would include flanders road 13th avenue and spirit hills lane and 14th avenue so that's adjacent to ariel on the west part of town north of highway 36. so basically the improvements contemplated in this project as we've talked about before are street reconstruction or street overlay so pavement rehabilitation curb and gutter in some areas water main replacement storm sewer some lighting street lighting within the parking lot as we've discussed before landscaping and other pertinent work uh nine bids were received so it was very competitively bid project um with the bids ranging from just over two million dollars to the low of uh 1.57 million dollars and the uh attached letter of recommendation uh after the bids were tabulated for mathematical accuracy recommends awarding of contract to bituminous roadways which is they provided a grand total bid of one million five hundred and seventy eight thousand five hundred and twenty four dollars and sixty three cents um so if the contract is awarded we uh expect a start of construction sometime in may with more details on that to be forthcoming uh with the public certainly with project communications having already started with a virtual neighborhood open house earlier in the year but we'll continue to communicate with residents that are adjacent to this project area as things move forward with more detail on start and progression of the work but the recommendation from staff is to award a contract by resolution which is included in your packet for reward of the contract for the 2022 street and utility improvements project two bituminous roadways in that amount that i mentioned previously approximately 1.578 million dollars with that i'll stand for any questions the council might have before considering the resolution any questions for morgan councilmember thorson nope just ready to vote uh how do how do the i mean gas prices are going up so much are [Music] these are guaranteed now for our line uh through contract completion which i don't have the exact date in me but in front of me but i believe that's going to be mid-year next year so and i believe we took these bids before the worst uh started in ukraine and which is which is impactful on the oil market right now so these prices were about what we expected them to be for the 2000 for for oil and for asphalt paving prices about what we expected them to be for the 2022 um season maybe a little bit lower than what we estimated our estimate was kind of right in the middle of that range of bids that we received but yes potentially like i do have information on sealcoating oil which is not the same as asphalt paving but prices are very volatile and expected to increase in that market as of last friday we had an email update from different suppliers so yes oil is certainly going to be a wild card item for costs in 2022 so the motions of resolution accepting bids in awarding a construction contract for the 2022 street and utility improvement projects city projects number 22-02 22-0204 and 03 and that's awarding uh bituminous roadways inc correct okay is there a motion so moved moved by councilmember thorson second by councilmember wong you need another discussion if not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye opposed the motion carries manager start city managers report i only have a couple of things the aforementioned tentative workshop schedule has already been upended we had discussed having a presentation of the park improvement plan and an initial discussion of the range of solutions for the community center at the next city council meeting workshop at on april 5th due to some conflicting scheduling we are going to push that off likely to april 19th um i i suspect we will have a workshop on april 5th i don't know what the topic would be at this point in time um if there was something pressing that people were looking for feel free to shoot me an email or give me a call otherwise we'll we'll go back to the kind of our game plan from the retreat on some things that needed to be discussed and see if there's something that we can move in there and secondly we have a city council commission retreat planned for uh i believe this is next thursday the 24th at 5 00 p.m that would be in i think we're going to be holding it here in this room but with a different you folks won't be sitting at the dais it will be kind of in a group together circle yeah square tables and then it's my intention uh unless i hear um to the contrary to start putting the council deus seating back to its pre-coveted arrangement you know if if there are concerns in the future about variance or increasing caseloads we we probably get spread out again but i think people feel comfortable getting back to the seating arrangement that we used to have okay with that do we have to sit by sauron oh my god my mic i'm sorry i know i am that's all i have and is that your report sent to okay uh reports of council and commissions and committees council member cole um we had a a fantastic eda meeting as well as a joint eda planning commission and council discussion to talk about uh proposed development at the at the lilly site i'm gonna i'm gonna pass and and let mayor discuss that um it was it was exciting there was a lot of things going on okay you want me to talk about it right now when it's your turn right now you know so we had you know first time that we've had that and recommended by uh city manager stark in regards to having the planning commission the eda and the council you know to talk about uh the lilly building and we saw the two developers that came and they each presented their plans and i thought it was a well received meeting uh i think each developer got input from us and we got in input from them and as we move forward i think it was a a good i guess a good uh what do you call it uh format to uh potentially hear developments that that all of us could hear at once rather than come back to the planning commission and the planning commission would have uh questions and the eda would have questions we were all on board council was here so i thought a i thought that was a very good meeting if you want to add to that you can no are you back on that or i would say um the only thing i might change is and we have to work on the technology you know i like being a group better so maybe we can see if there's a way to have those kinds of meetings in the training room would work in the future and um you know at the we invited the chairs and vice chairs to you know kind of come and participate um you know i'd be open to inviting other members of those bodies who um as long as we could keep it from you know just getting out of control yep and i you know and i the chairs all appreciated it which was good feedback to hear from them that it was a benefit for them to to hear this well one of my mantras that i've talked to you guys about since you know i interviewed for the job here is i i don't ever want you or other elected and appointed officials to be surprised and so this is just an opportunity to provide information sooner so there are fewer surprises okay council member wine the arts and culture commission met on the first of this first wednesday of this month and we discussed snowman statues we have an existing mold so we had a conversation with the vendor and they just do really incredible work they've done work in roseville as well and so we'll continue to have some of those conversations and because we already have the mold we're going to save a ton of money as well so they're looking for financing for that at this point the craft wagon is a go so that will be occurring this summer and we're just trying to decide on what the what the timing would be like if it's going to be tagged on to you know maybe music in the parks or something so still deciding those logistics the downtown banners um and the council chamber background are they're taking a look at that and gonna draft up some ideas and let us know what they they think love's mural is also something we've discussed as well there's a lot of excitement around that it sounds like the owner has also met an artist herself and is really inspired by it so we may be seeing something here in downtown soon um and then for the planning commission we um discussed um let's see we discussed the sign ordinance and again again which actually was a good timing because when we talked about the banners downtown and redoing those for the 135th anniversary our sign ordinance did not support those banners being up there so it'll be a nice tran you know adjustment we also discussed the 2022 priorities for the planning commission again that includes the sign ordinance downtown furnishings seating park inventory downtown parklets and open space and sidewalk and pedestrian plans and i believe that's it thanks so the banners don't include the sign ordinance does that mean there is no ordinance for banners that we will make adjustments to include banners okay yeah so council member thurston i have nothing uh and i don't have anything uh general business i have nothing to add tonight thank you general business council member wein nothing thanks general business councilmember thorson just one quick item as the weather starts to change and possibly looking at lifting the parking ban earlier if weather continues to trend upwards i know we've done that in the past and you know just to make mention of that and looking into that and i've got something for a city attorney i was on vacation and uh i know we had we had discussion uh before i left in regards to the wiper lake i don't know if you can maybe just give a little update what you can give an update on i know senator housley was going to give a bill and i don't know if that got so i entered not or i don't know the st um i have it i don't have it with me the status of the various legislation i know that there are competing proposals now being introduced um and i think you know one of them greatly broadens the dnr's authority over water appropriation permits it's not my favorite version of it there's another one that is an attempt to try and help out the cities that is i believe housley's version um regarding the order that's been given and what the dnr's position is what that order means in terms of how it uh approaches the city's appropriation bills which starts with reducing the water the water supply or water usage for cities by up to 40 percent maybe some of you have read that in the paper so we are keeping track of that legislation some i would say that from my perspective there are some tweaks that could be used on that legislation we are talking to some of the other cities the legislation obviously goes beyond the 11 cities that are mentioned in the order the what we are simultaneously doing is there are um when the dnr sent out their notice that they were going to adjust the city's appropriation amount uh we it's been a couple years now but we were directed by council to challenge that and you along with all the other cities did in fact challenge that that in one way or another has just been kind of slow walking through a probably more sophisticated way of putting it but each time we kind of gear up for a hearing well maybe the legislation change well there's another hearing at the district court level so we we haven't had a procedural hearing on it on the merits if you will but it is the city's position and it is other cities position that you know look the one this appropriation isn't uh reduction isn't warranted and candidly you know during the course of the dnr's trial at the district court level their evidence suggests it isn't necessary so we we feel like a hearing in front of an ale but the dnr feels like they have to do this based on the order so we are working our way through that the cities to a degree are cooperating we feel like we have a a common interest in this so it's not going to be necessarily 11 different hearings with each city we will all be in there at the same time we think we can with the commonality of interest achieve a good result for the cities but the hope is candidly and i think the best solution in all of this is to take water appropriation out of a district court judge's hands an alj's hand and get a legislative fix on this that's that's where this should happen that's where the experts are on these water issues and so it is my hope that legislatively we can fix it i am absolutely not qualified in the times i do try and predict what the legislature will do i'm wrong um so i i don't want to try and handicap that legislation or the status but it is something we're tracking keeping an eye on and have recently inserted ourselves in on trying to make sure that the appropriate language that will best help north st paul and candidly surrounding communities will will get heard i don't have a good sense on how the votes are being tallied up there's a lot of support in general for this is an issue um but i i haven't kept track of all the various uh interests on it so who's spearheading it is it that's a good question it seems so simple i i don't know um i know that the administrator in oakdale has had a lot of involvement on it um but i don't know who wrote the initial version of the bill so i asked that question to oakdale and they said no it's not them it's uh lake elmo that's spearheading it and that that could be i so each time i ask we we get a slightly different version and so you know at this point what i know is that there is a commonality in terms of none of us want the result that you know has been handed down and so i think you know regardless of who spearheaded it i haven't seen any i haven't seen any turfiness yet that hey you're not invited i think we all want to try and help and move this thing forward so i i haven't seen anything to exclude anyone i just don't know how well organized it is at this point and that's not to cast shade at any one that just may be my lack of knowledge not that you know uh people haven't been included so i mean my concern is that it's it's not going to be heard this this session and if it doesn't get heard then it goes back to the it does to the judge and then we're back in the same position as before that's correct um so we are trying to do what we can to push these things along we've been in touch with our rep and senator i would say their support is unequivocal that's at least what i heard they they want what's right for north st paul and so and we've had one conference call with them um and so i think they are you know tell us tell us what you want and that's we'll try and march forward on this it's they know this is an important issue i mean the when i think of core services that a city provides water is at the top of the list and some of the proposals out there in either reduction or changing things cost a lot of money and so it is something that you know we are engaged fully on this is a top priority for us it's just hard when it gets into the legislative hands because we we aren't there babysitting we aren't lobbyists we do make our contacts we do reach out to try and testify um and then it's the act of you know trying to keep in touch with multiple communities we have while a good commonality of interest there are different approaches and opinions on it so it i haven't identified the quote here's the person the one person who's taking charge on all things there's there has been unfortunately a little you know unorganization on it from my standpoint um but i think we are going to try and uh present the unified voice on it good just a quick clarification too this isn't a one-way path here and there's one exit if we miss it i mean worst case scenario the chips fall not on not only our favorability speak in north saint paul's behalf the chips don't fall in our favor and the orders are given to reduce our water consumption by you know whatever they're limited to 55 gallons per person or this 40 right and and or forces to switch over to surface water i.e saint paul water that doesn't get that's not going to happen overnight and we're gonna have an opportunity if it does get to that to sue counter sue and go make our point heard correct i mean it's just it's just not we're not going down this one single path correct no there's candidly at the moment at least three identified paths i mean one is um the dnr and i think white bear lake because they're part of the litigation are going back to marin and to talk about the status of the current order we're not involved in that but that's a path that impacts what north st paul we have the legislative path uh granted there's two bills out there but we're trying to corral that and be more assertive on that and then candidly we have the path of the administrative process which in my opinion is where this should have started to begin with that is where water appropriation decisions should be made that those are the experts so that's three readily identifiable paths and that's even before you get to to more stronger actions about initiating litigation this is just the straight up processes it is my sincere hope that the legislation fixes this that would be the best for all it's water as we know it doesn't observe boundaries like municipal lines so it is a shared resource um the state is in the best position to help with that and marshall it out and then just as i'll call it personal commentary the idea that we are scrambling to figure out how to provide water to our citizens when we had a lawsuit that dealt with water levels on a lake for recreational use is mind-numbing for me but it is where we find ourselves and i realize people will express it differently but that's candidly how i see it personally this was not necessarily an environmental issue no one's trying to be you know degrade degradate the environment but we are trying to provide water to our citizens in a responsible manner and that's what we want to be able to do i appreciate the update because it's it is very important to us and i know that you know you were working on it your staff's working on it and all of a sudden things got redirected so i want to make sure that it keeps moving forward i would just add that to me a really indispensable resource has been city engineer dolly very very knowledgeable on the impacts and so if anybody has questions on the impacts of the order he would be a good person to to talk to thank you at this time no other general business will go into a closed door session pursuant to minnesota statute 13 d03 the workshop session will be closed to consider strategy for upcoming labor contract negotiations with the groups listed here the ask me council five representing the essential employees the ask me council five representing the non-essential employees the lels local number 298 representing the police sergeants the les local number 211 representing the police patrol officers the teamsters local number 320 representing the public works and electric employees and the ibew local number 160 representing the supervisory unit at this time a motion to go on a close closed-door session so move so moved by council member wong second by council member cole in your discussion not all those in favor signify by saying aye i oppose we will go into closed door session and i think we'll be in the sandberg room