This transcript is from the Hastings City Council meeting on December 21, 2020. Based on the context provided and the names mentioned during the proceedings, I have added the speaker names to the dialogue. **Note:** While the provided roster reflects a specific term, the transcript mentions several departing members and 2020-specific context (like COVID-19 remote meeting protocols and the retirement of Joe Balsanek). *** [0:00] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** 12 and other laws further attendance of the meetings by members of the city council city staff or the public at the regular meeting location in city council chambers is not feasible due to covet 19 pandemic and closure of city hall to members of the public as a result of foregoing the city the special city council meeting will be conducted solely by telephone or other electronic means as provided in minnesota statute 13d .021 and no one in person meeting will be conducted in the city council chambers i think it is important to recognize that using a video conference is difficult is different [0:45] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** than in person but it is necessary under the circumstances we are doing the best we can to maintain transparency and due process i would appreciate everyone's patience and cooperation as we work through the meeting if everyone would stand to say the pledge of allegiance [Music] i pledge allegiance to the [1:18] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** [Music] indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right thank you seeing that this meeting is held remotely um when i call your name counsel would you please indicate that you are here council member balsanic? **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** here. **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** councilmember brocks? **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** here. **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** councilmember folch? **Councilmember Tina Folch:** here. **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** councilmember leifeld? **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** here. **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** council member lund? **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** here. **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** and councilmember vaughn? **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** here. **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** let the role reflect that all council members are present and a quorum [2:04] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** has been established one of the highlights of the year is a chance to celebrate the dedication of our great employees usually we do this in person but this year we have a video and these employees had milestone anniversaries this year all right give me one second to pull it up and i want to give you a quick heads up to it um apparently continuing to learn zoom does a poor job with videos uh so what all of us on the zoom call c might be a little bit choppy but uh hctv is going to be patching in on the real [2:51] **Dan Wietecha:** display and on tv and replays the clean version so it's going to be smoother there than what we might have here but apparently we can't just do the smooth version for for both so with that i will pull it up share screen this one [3:45] **Dan Wietecha:** um [4:14] **Dan Wietecha:** oh boy huh [4:51] **Dan Wietecha:** let's try this one [5:08] **Dan Wietecha:** somebody nod if they see the hctv symbol [5:19] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** might be slow loading but nothing right now [5:31] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** are you just seeing like my whoever this is the file thing yeah then it went into some screen after that looked like it might load a video on where it's a dark screen and loading very slowly unfortunately [6:04] **Dan Wietecha:** this [6:17] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** seem to be loading at all john? **John Hinzman:** no nothing at all just a blank screen **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** what do you think i can just go through and read their their years in service i i could say right right for some reason [6:57] **John Hinzman:** but from uh someone who saw the video earlier today it was it's a great video uh hopefully we'll have it so people can see it uh lindsay just wanted to know if she should share it from what hctv said earlier it doesn't work that way so i don't know what to answer there **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay still nothing your honor might i suggest that we move ahead with the meeting yep and uh i can just go through and read it in time a little later under the meeting sure when uh the technical difficulties are taken care of [7:46] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** so i will just read their names and their years of record being recognized for five years of recognition is jeffrey latch paige marshall bigler quinton nelson craig schultz alan gaylor john jameson joe saskey rainier steenkamp 10 years is chad jensen 15 years are amy carlson tina gibson kevin okason don west joy schroeder 20 years tom bachan brock buquilla jeremy jacobson natalie judge [8:34] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** brenda mcgrath terry meyer craig nolan chris wide justin wolfe john townsend and 35 years al storley so with that we appreciate you all and uh hopefully we can keep keep your names on the list future going as future growing employees thank you then there's a couple or there are several residents who have volunteered their time on citizen commissions and we would like to recognize them if each department head would take their uh position in recognizing those people on your on your staff [9:25] **John Hinzman:** okay mayor i i can start out with a couple of the commissions that are under the responsibility of community development as the mayor pointed out the residents that serve on this commission serve oftentimes in the background there's many meetings that occur generally at least one meeting a month there's information that they need to review information they need to keep up on and sometimes the decisions that they make in the recommendations it can be fraught with some controversy and are difficult so we appreciate the the assistance of our resident commissioners as they serve and we want to recognize them tonight first of all i have our hedra commission hedra is the hastings economic development and redevelopment authority it's our economic development arm of the [10:12] **John Hinzman:** city it's a unique body in which we have two city council representatives along with five appointed resident commissioners as well and so they look at economic development items related to our industrial park properties that we hold grant and loan programs that we offer we have two departing hedera commissioners tonight the first of which is council member joe balsanic joe has served on hedra for four years joe is always seeking to make hastings a better place he's very protective of his neighborhood and wanting to make sure that what is done is done right he's our local historian he brings a lot of a lot of information to hedge around on the history of the [10:58] **John Hinzman:** city he's always pushing us to do better and we've always been appreciative of that he's got a great rapport with the community and we're gonna miss his service on the commission and fox is also serving on hedra jen now will no longer be serving on hedgers serving on the council coming up next year having someone downtown with a business owner perspective is an extremely important aspect we know that business owners are very busy having one step forward to serve on a commission is a special amount of gratitude that we want to pass along and she is also someone that is always constantly trying to make hastings a better place so we want to appreciate jen for her two years of service on hedgerow long we also have planning commission [11:44] **John Hinzman:** planning commission deals with a lot of the land use items within the city things related to new buildings and construction for single-family multi-family uh changes in the zoning changes in land use ordinances it's a it's an intensive commission oftentimes there can be public hearings and there can be people coming forward that may have disagreements with how the commission does its business and i've always appreciated the leadership of mitch mitch johnson our outgoing complaining commission chair mitch has been serving on the commission for six years he's a steady hand he is one that wants to see hastings be a better place push us to do better and he's just a very steady rock with on the commission itself so we appreciate his service [12:30] **John Hinzman:** and wish him the best in the future we also have outgoing commissioner lisa siebenhaller as well the heritage preservation commission there are two members that will be outgoing this year heritage preservation is a unique body taking a look at ensuring that the character of hastings the the downtown historic buildings the residential historic buildings continue to be the the gem that makes hastings hastings a very important commission and two outgoing commissioners karen douglas and christina johnson karen douglas served i think for the last year or so uh great to come forward with her volunteerism and then christina johnson who brought forward uh some great expertise for her job uh from [13:16] **John Hinzman:** other state historic projects so we'll miss the uh the service of those commissioners [13:29] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** chris would you like chris jenkins would you like to and the parks and rec [13:42] **Chris Jenkins:** hearing you [13:57] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** you're unmuted chris but we're not hearing you [14:19] **Chris Jenkins:** can you hear me now? yes very good um sorry about that a little bit of technical difficulty with the computer had to not add but echo what mr hensman said at the front end how much we appreciate all of the commissioner's service sometimes they are in positions where they have to make difficult decisions and uh and we put a lot of trust in them to do that for the the residents of hastings um so tonight uh recognizing nicole de palma she has been a parks and recreation commissioner for the past six years she's been a fantastic commissioner for us she brings a lot of enthusiasm a lot of [15:06] **Chris Jenkins:** very thoughtful consideration to the commission and is a very joyous person to be around um all the commissioners and and staff certainly uh enjoyed being around her for the past six years i want to thank her very much for her service her dedication and all the input that she provided for the commission and and wish her good will for the future we really certainly appreciate her [15:38] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** thank you to all of these um commissioners that are residents in our community tonight we also have with us dakota county commissioner mike slavic to give us a little update welcome mike [15:53] **Mike Slavic:** well thank you very much uh mayor council members staff uh it's very nice to be here to give you an update uh to appreciate the invitation uh with that i'm gonna share my screen with a a little bit here and i should be able to go are you able to see that? **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** yes you are able to see it [16:25] **Mike Slavic:** great well for starters i just want to go in and um before i get into a dakota county update want to just acknowledge uh council member vol sonic i know your recognition is going to be at the end of the uh meeting but you are currently the only council member that i actually served with when i was in your seats on the city council so i just wanted to go and extend my well wishes um for your future plans but also just uh thank you for all that you did in your 12 years for the city of hastings and uh i've absolutely appreciated your friendship and the work that we did for four of those years uh on the city council together so i'm certainly giving my best to you and uh betsy in in the years to come but uh thank you for all that you've done to make hastening such a great place and with that i'll just kind of give a brief update of kind of what's been going on in dakota county i think we all have some similarities in 2020 it was a a year [17:12] **Mike Slavic:** that we all started and and had some pretty high hopes i think this was uh my year as a chair of the dakota county board of commissioners and uh we started with some pretty exciting momentum in january and february and then as we've all faced uh um you know cova 19 kind of hit us all like like we all have certainly experienced and it's um it certainly has felt more than nine months let's put it that way but i i wanted just to start with and just give a quick update of what's been going on in hastings uh just because i think that that's a uh important note of this what's how are we doing in in the community of hastings and right now we are as of today over twenty eight thousand twenty eight thousand eight hundred and forty six positive cases have uh occurred in um the whole county of that 1577 [18:01] **Mike Slavic:** have been in the city of hastings proper and right here is just a screen that i like to share all of this is on the county dashboard that shows all of these statistics but if you would have spoken to me about 45 days ago hastings would have been the lowest per capita of any city and we would have some of the lowest numbers overall in the entire county and uh since about about november 1st we have shifted kind of into the middle of the pack and um that trend as uh the positive is that cases are kind of going down statewide we had some more promising numbers uh today monday but the fact is that hastings has kind of been one of those communities that's seen a shift in our of um positive cases in our long-term care facilities [18:46] **Mike Slavic:** and just in our general public that is faster than what the county has been doing and to give you perspective in the um in the first i think it was 20 days of november we had as many cases and from november 1st to november 20th there was many cases in the city of hastings as there was from the very beginning to october 31st so we had quite the uh quite the change in and how things were happening and that that coincided with the state but we were just slightly above the county for the last 45 days and we certainly hope those trends are changing um for the better especially with the the vaccine rollout that that has happened um uh we're probably all well aware that the county board also serves as your local board of public health so we've been very very involved and [19:33] **Mike Slavic:** have had a meeting pretty much every week uh as a result of covid and doing many things of that sort but i just wanted to uh make you all aware that we were doing great for the longest of time and just have had a kind of a tough 45 days uh as a community they've said that uh statistically hastings has the largest percentage of of uh positive cases that they've been able to trace uh to wisconsin in the entire county that would certainly make sense as as we're the community closest to wisconsin but um as you're well aware community spread has been majority of the cases and um quite frankly we don't have um a point of where those cases are coming from outside of community spread but of the as a percentage of something unique uh city of hastings is a community that's the highest with [20:19] **Mike Slavic:** wisconsin as as one of their sites maybe a little aspect here as you and the community of hastings were brought up to the challenge of spending cares money so was the county with dakota and uh we want to just i know we have on this on the zoom call today both senator bigam and representative jurgens they played an instrumental role in making it that community of dakota county and its cities and townships received their fair share uh quite frankly based on what was originally proposed um for us as a county we were originally being proposed about 28 million and the ultimate number uh that was negotiated was 52 million dollars and with that we set a goal of about [21:04] **Mike Slavic:** half of that being internal half external just want to you can certainly see the chart in front of you just a couple highlights in there that uh over 14 million dollars went to small businesses of up to fifteen thousand dollars we appreciate the partnership that the city of hastings contributed um uh with some of that as well um i know that your city council has been having had a number of conversations about also supporting schools about 2.6 million dollars of our dakota county cares money to uh school district public school districts as well as charter schools and for a hasting school district 200 that was the um 146 thousand seven hundred and five dollars uh and that's uh put in that category of the aid to businesses and other organizations [21:50] **Mike Slavic:** with that but just wanted to share some of those aspects with you um and then i wanna just kind of talk a little bit briefly about our budget for 2021. last tuesday the dakota county board of commissioners went and approved its um budget 426 million roughly that's uh down about 30 million from where we were the previous year but with that still is 100 plus million dollars in transportation funding um our levy uh will be uh flat at zero percent uh for that part in there something also to make note that uh really started with uh city staff and some some of the electives and that was a conversation with the county regarding um a couple different things the first one was [22:35] **Mike Slavic:** um some of the differences in solid waste funding and um in this budget we didn't set aside uh 25 per ton uh going to communities that go and send their uh solid waste down to the red wing plant for processing and at twenty five dollars a ton that's a hundred and thirty two thousand dollars uh in 2021 is the uh number and that is going to go to um communities uh for the purposes of saving those users um so related to solid waste so for example in this situation both the city of farmington and city of of hastings are the recipients of this and will dictate to their haulers in this case uh the holler for hastings on what you expect them to do with it is [23:21] **Mike Slavic:** that will that be a reduction in in fees will that be other other programs that are created but uh you will see something right now it's working with the county attorneys to figure out what that would look like but the um uh near pilot with i think an anticipation of as long as uh you are hauling your your waste down to red wing which is um significantly higher than if it would go to a landfill um that they're using some of the county dollars to offset that for the consumers in this case the the customer the residents and businesses of city of hastings so that did get passed in the budget um on tuesday as well as just to make note that we set aside some of our sales tax and use for the transportation dollars in case the uh there still is a gap in [24:07] **Mike Slavic:** between uh the money from bonding as well as the city and state portions for uh highway 316 we did and we've worked with the city engineer and and the county engineer to work on a plan that if there would ever be a gap which we won't know till bidding comes out next spring um we we've set some money aside to make sure that that the project will still be able to go um completely um with that and and i just think the last thing that i would uh make no point on to the previous slide with cares one of the things that we did as part of our budget on tuesday is we went and authorized um there's going to be some money coming from the state for business relief and we pulled two million dollars out of our county general fund uh to issue uh a separate small business program which is already [24:53] **Mike Slavic:** has about 30 percent of the people applied it just opened up on friday and that is uh we did a small business relief to um bars restaurants that have an on sale liquor license and uh these these businesses were able to go in um apply on the portal and all they had to do was check that they had an on sale license they were a business located in dakota county and that they were shut down because the governor's order and if they were able to check those boxes they were um to get a check for five thousand dollars kind of the goal was to get it out as soon as possible in fact i think the first uh couple dozen checks went out today in the mail and um we've had 104 of the roughly three to 400 businesses that would qualify 104 businesses have already applied uh [25:38] **Mike Slavic:** since it went live on friday so i want to thank city staff for helping get the word out to those businesses that hold an on sale liquor license and um our goal is to get every single one of the businesses that have were impacted by the recent governor's orders to be able to get uh some money before the end of the year which is certainly not i'm sure they would much rather be open we all know they'd much rather be open but this at least can kind of hopefully get them into the new year when the state program is available and with that um i just want to show this slide to you just because um five years ago that we went and became the lowest per capita as a county of the county portion in there and at that point we were 20 cents difference between number one and number two but this just shows all of the [26:24] **Mike Slavic:** counties um that we've been able to do and working on on that aspect uh with our budget so um we're part of that but we know that uh we're also appreciate all the partnerships that we have with our city partners and our township partners and uh with that i wanted to just end by uh wishing you all a good year i hope i think we're all looking forward to 2021 and hopefully uh some improvements on that uh just a few more days with that and with that i just want to certainly offer up any questions if you have any questions happy to answer them otherwise just thank you for the opportunity to visit with you today um and i look forward to doing it in person next year [27:11] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** thank you mike and happy holidays to you any questions for commissioner? **Councilmember Tina Folch:** it's council member folks **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** councilmember falch. **Councilmember Tina Folch:** thank you uh first of all commissioner slavic mike i would like to thank you for being such a strong partner to the city of hastings this past year you have just been absolutely phenomenal and i can't thank you enough as a friend and as a former council member you have just been um terrific and so specifically thank you so much for finding that gap funding for the 316 project that means a lot to us as a community and then also for helping to incentivize hastings continue to to follow best practices in our waste management with our municipal waste stream and so um you've just been terrific so um i i did have one question though i just wanted to get off easy huh i [27:58] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** don't want to make sure you felt loved um but was uh is that county going to be sharing with the city what the plan is uh rolling out with the immunization schedule um that's a little cloudy to maybe a lot of us and so i was just wondering if there's something we can tune into a webinar or something to that effect **Mike Slavic:** uh absolutely um so so we actually if you would go to the county website we have um actually a cova 19 section which uh kind of does break down our phase one our phase one a one b uh uh phase two and and that i'd be happy to send further stuff um if maybe uh yesterday may already be receiving some of those things i know that they got to see a presentation from public health recently [28:44] **Mike Slavic:** um on that but i would certainly be able to either pass it individually otherwise um you know so right now we are in the phases that it's um it's our um frontline healthcare workers then our long-term care then we go into essential workers and and a lot of that right now as the plan is has been laid out enough a lot of its guidance from federal state and local public health um but uh but after the essential workers as older individuals and um so probably most of us on the call here today uh won't won't see this entire for the next number of months but i there is a plan that's been laid out on the website and i could be happy to share that with you **Councilmember Tina Folch:** thank you so much [29:30] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay my uh commissioner slavic thank you again and thank you merry christmas **Mike Slavic:** merry christmas **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** uh city administrator wietecha has said he does have the video up and running if we are willing to watch so i think we will thanks we'll give this one more try and if i can again get a nod from [30:06] **Dan Wietecha:** somebody i'm dan wateja city administrator and i'm pleased to recognize the employees of the city of hastings who have celebrated milestone anniversaries this year we are fortunate to have their service and expertise on staff and wish we could recognize them in person as we typically do each year since we cannot please join me in celebrating their accomplishments by video thank you to hastings community television hctv for producing this recognition the following are celebrating five years with the city of hastings paige marshall bigler is our recreation program specialist in the parks and recreation department our main focus is developing and [30:52] **Dan Wietecha:** implementing community recreation programs like movies in the park performances in the park music in the park national parks and recreation celebration paws in the park and so much more paige is also the city's community waste abatement liaison with dakota county she manages all park rentals and is the first person everyone sees when visiting the parks and recreation office paige is a tremendous asset to our department and the city of hastings thank you paige joe saskey serves as a full-time paramedic firefighter joe provides a high level of service to the community and his co-workers he brings a great attitude to his work and supports those working with him joe [31:38] **Dan Wietecha:** is also involved in our ems committee thank you joe for your years of service and we look forward to your future with the department alan gaylor serves as a paid on-call firefighter emt he brings great attitude and is always willing to step up he provides a high level of service to our community and supports his co-workers thank you alan for your years of dedication to the department and the community john jamison currently serves as a paid on call firefighter emt he has been a dedicated employee throughout his five years with the city and brings a high level of professionalism to his work thank you john for your years of dedicated service to the community and the department officer [32:26] **Dan Wietecha:** jeffrey latch joined the hastings police department in 2015. he has an associate's degree in law enforcement from alexandria technical college and completed his bachelor's and master's degrees since joining the department in addition to his night shift patrol duties jeff assumed additional duties as firearms defensive tactics and taser instructor field training officer and dwi drug recognition officer thank you officer latch quinton nelson provides help desk services for the it department he's always willing to get things done for everyone for every request people throughout them his answer is always i can do that quentin is a great [33:13] **Dan Wietecha:** asset to the i.t department and to the city of hastings quinton is a wisconsin sports fan but we do not hold that against him one of his pastimes is perfecting how he smokes baby back ribs thank you quentin for your excellent service craig schultz has been a combination inspector and certified building official for the building safety department for five years craig's years of experience in the building safety field have been a great asset to our inspection team his experience personality and steady presence have helped us provide great customer service to the public we serve craig has a passion for auto racing and has traveled across the nation of many [33:59] **Dan Wietecha:** races through his connections he has had access to some of the pit crews behind the scenes thank you craig for your years of service renier steenkamp has filled his role as a paramedic firefighter with the department with a strong work ethic and enjoyment of the job renier has made significant contributions to our records management system and workflow of our ems reporting thank you rainier for your years of service and we look forward to your future with the department chad jensen celebrates 10 years with the city of hastings chad began his career with the fire department in 2007 as a paid on call firefighter emt [34:46] **Dan Wietecha:** he began his full-time role as the paramedic firefighter in 2010. during his time here he has been involved in training our department working on special projects with our records management program managing our cardiac arrest data and managing our ems supplies these are just a few examples of his dedication to our department chad we appreciate your hard work and professionalism thank you for your service the following five employees celebrate 15 years of service with the city amy carlson started in the fire department as a fire secretary dispatcher in 2005 and transitioned to receptionist in city hall in 2016. [35:31] **Dan Wietecha:** she is the first point of contact when calling or stopping by city hall she is very personable and friendly with residents and make sure their requests or concerns are handled properly in addition to these roles during her time with the city amy also served as a paid on call firefighter and emt for over 11 years and retired in february of this year when not at work she enjoys traveling by motorhome or motorcycle as she and her husband are empty nesters thank you amy for your service christina tina gibson began her career with the hastings police department in 2005 as a part-time police records clerk in 2006 she moved into a full-time role and was [36:17] **Dan Wietecha:** assigned to the dakota county drug task force in 2011 she served as their administrative assistant under a joint powers agreement thank you for your dedicated service tina kevin okason does part-time janitorial work for the city typically at the public works and parks buildings he retired from dakota county last year after roughly 25 years in their facilities department kevin enjoys gardening and lives in hampton with his wife thank you kevin for your attention and service to hastings joy schroeder serves the fire department as a paid-on-call paramedic firefighter along with her regular duties of responding to calls joy has also been involved with our ems [37:04] **Dan Wietecha:** education for the department staff joy thank you for your contributions to the department and to the community dawn west has been an important part of our building safety department handling code enforcement and property maintenance issues she also facilitates the rental housing licensing program for over 700 rental properties in hastings she is an important and valued part of the department's team thank you dawn for your years of service to the city of hastings two decades of service to the city is no small feat congratulations to the following employees on their 20-year anniversaries tom bakken has been with the city for 20 years and this has been something of a second career for him as he [37:50] **Dan Wietecha:** previously had 24 years of experience as a brick and stone mason after brief stints at bloomington south st paul and white bear lake he came to hastings as a combination inspector in september 2004 tom was promoted to building official he has served as the president of ten thousand lakes building officials and as president of the association of minnesota building officials tom is very active and one of his personal passions is telemark skiing which combines elements of alpine and nordic skiing as you may know tom is retiring at the end of the year congratulations i'm sure he'll enjoy lots of skiing time with his wife kendra at their lake place and training their new puppy [38:35] **Dan Wietecha:** kelsey thank you tom for your service to the city of hastings and congratulations on retirement officer brock bucula celebrates 20 years with the hastings police department brock has an associate degree in law enforcement from alexandria technical college as a patrol officer assigned a day shift he is one of the most productive officers on his shift always willing to step up and assist others brock enjoys the outdoors and is an avid fisherman thank you officer bucula officer jeremy jacobson joined the hastings police department in march of 2000 and has a bachelor's degree in fisheries and wildlife management as well as a minor in biology during his [39:22] **Dan Wietecha:** career he served many functions these include dakota county drug task force and hpd investigator explorer advisor law enforcement fitness specialist firearms and defensive tactics instructor and field training officer jacobson currently works day watch in the patrol division and enjoys riding his new harley-davidson thank you officer jacobson natalie judge is our public works administrative assistant she brings a friendly approachable resourceful knowledgeable and versatile approach every single day in her interactions with residents vendors and fellow staff and she has been a great asset for the department and the city she is [40:08] **Dan Wietecha:** always ready to jump in and assist the department in being responsive helping in any way she can when not at work nat loves spending time with her husband todd and their two adult daughters as well as getting away to their camper cabin in northwest wisconsin thanks nat for your 20 years of service brenda mcgrath celebrated 20 years of service with the police department on november 13th brenda started as a part-time clerk and is now our most senior records clerk she is the go-to for complicated issues and frequently fills in for the records manager brenda is devoted to her family and enjoys their quiet country lifestyle thank you brenda terry meyer is one of our parks keepers [40:57] **Dan Wietecha:** in the parks and recreation department and has also worked in our public works department carrie spends most of the summer months mowing grass and hastings parks in most of the winter months completing snow removal and maintaining outdoor ice rinks carrie is a whiz with equipment and vehicle maintenance and repair and spends quite a bit of time making sure the parks and recreation fleet is up and running he is also a skilled fabricator and is called upon often to repair and complete fabrication projects for the department terry is always reliable works hard and takes a great deal of pride in the work he does he is an extremely well respected and valued member of our team thank you terry [41:42] **Dan Wietecha:** officer craig nolan is our second most senior patrol officer craig served as an investigator from 2003 to 2015 and was considered the anchor of the division craig transitioned to patrol in 2016 and currently works day watch craig is an avid harley davidson rider in all weather conditions thank you for your service officer nolan john townsend started his career as a paid on-call firefighter emt for hastings and also worked for allina ambulance in 2005 he became a full-time paramedic firefighter for the city of burnsville in 2007 john was hired on full-time [42:27] **Dan Wietecha:** as our assistant chief and fire marshal over the past year he has had extra duties as the acting fire chief maintaining leadership updating procedures and promoting a positive culture for the department and last month john was promoted to fire chief and we look forward to him continuing the good work he has been putting in place thank you john officer chris wide is our third most senior patrol officer he is assigned to day watch in the patrol division except for a short stint in investigation from 2007 to 2009 most of his career was spent in patrol chris has been a field training officer fto for a number of years as well [43:13] **Dan Wietecha:** he enjoys grilling and is known to have catered a few events congratulations officer wide justin wolfe began his career as an engineering technician on what was then primarily our construction surveying and computer-aided design team within the engineering division over the years justin has broadened and varied his involvement to being the city's primary erosion control enforcement specialist grading verification inspector stormwater infrastructure inspector traffic account lead and most recently our right-of-way construction permit lead while still having a strong role in the design work for our annual infrastructure [43:58] **Dan Wietecha:** improvements program away from work justin and his wife angela live in the white bear lake area and spend a lot of time watching their two daughters high school and middle school on soccer fields and basketball courts thank you for your 20 years of service to the city justin and last but not least this employee represents the most with 35 years of service al storley is the longest standing firefighter in our fire department al currently serves as a paid on call lieutenant full-time fire inspector and emt he is involved in many aspects of the department including fire prevention education life safety [44:44] **Dan Wietecha:** inspections coordinating with other departments fire investigations and a large number of other duties he has a tremendous ability to reach out to our community he is also involved in the city's safety and wellness committee and is always willing and able to take on any role we are proud to have al representing our department in the community thank you al together these employees represent a total of 360 years of combined service to the city of hastings we are fortunate to have their knowledge dedication and continued service thank you [45:34] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** that was great dan i was very nice to see and um we appreciate all of them as they know so so what you're saying is if we see it hctv it's going to be a better maybe not better picture but the the vocals were off so it looks pretty good from my point of view okay great thank you okay approval of minutes uh council members are there any corrections to the minutes from the workshop or the regular meeting on december 7th? they are approved. comments from the [46:20] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** audience uh let's pull this up at this point uh let's see for public comments we have options for comments that have been mailed into the meeting as well as an interactive feature during the meeting for the email comments they have been forwarded to the city council and their receipt is acknowledged please recognize that items not on the agenda will not be discussed this evening we ask that the attendees use the raised hand feature and they will be invited to speak one at a time i also want to remind everyone that the public comment period is not intended for an extended dialogue is there anyone here that would like to speak to the council? [47:10] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay not seeing anyone okay council members are there any council items to be considered? okay council i would accept a motion to uh approve the consent agenda **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** so moved **Councilmember Tina Folch:** second **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** council member brock's council member folch any discussion [Music] i can't even remember uh city clerk would you please call the roll? **Julie Flaten:** i'm sorry don't remember one? **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** council member folks? **Councilmember Tina Folch:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember balsanic? **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember brocks? **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** yes. [47:57] **Julie Flaten:** council member lund? **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember vaughn? **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** mayor fasbender? **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** yes. **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** that motion prevails uh for this item we will have an introduction by city administrator dan waticha followed by a public hearing and action by the council we ask the attendees use the raised hand feature when we open the public hearing dan [48:33] **Dan Wietecha:** i'm going to say i'm still i'm still caught with the video the um the technology is not my friend today one of the items that is in the proposed budget later in the evening is the city's utility fees the sewer water and storm water earlier this year you might remember we met with our financial advisors at ellers uh and worked through projections not just in the immediate year but going out a number of years on [49:28] **Dan Wietecha:** the the financial needs of our utility funds based on those and discussions this summer the recommendations are a three and a half percent increase in the water rates which will help fund infrastructure improvements future water tower painting as well as additional elevated storage projects one percent increase in the sewer rate keeps it in line with inflation for expenditures as well as assist in funding future infrastructure improvements and a four percent increase recommended for the stormwater fund with upcoming capital projects in stormwater but although they're part of the budget [50:15] **Dan Wietecha:** because they're separate fees we do have a separate public hearing for those and that's what's before you tonight thank you dan at this time i will open the public hearing please use the raised hand feature in the audience if you would like to speak during this public hearing see no one in the public hearing so at this time i will close the public hearing and counsel we are allowed to have a discussion at this point any discussion counsel? [51:04] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay then i would accept a motion to approve an ordinance of the city of hastings minnesota amending chapter 34 the hastings city code pertaining to fees and municipal services i need a motion **Councilmember Tina Folch:** so moved your honor this is tina councilmember fulch talking **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** your honor councilmember leifeld does a second **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** any discussion? clerk platten please call the roll **Julie Flaten:** councilmember vaughn? **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember folks? **Councilmember Tina Folch:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember balsanic? **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember leifeld? **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** yes. [51:52] **Julie Flaten:** councilmember lund? **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember bracks? **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** mayor fasbender? **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** yes. **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** and that motion prevails tonight with community development we have a resolution to adopt the 2040 comprehensive plan and john hinsman will be presenting tonight welcome thank you mayor thank you mayor city council members tonight before you we have a resolution formally adopting our 2040 comprehensive plan and the comprehensive plan has been a work that's been in progress for quite some time here i'm going to go through a little bit of the plan itself what it does and how it's used and i'll share my screen show a couple of things here [52:38] **John Hinzman:** so the comprehensive plan has a number of different elements and a part of these are from requirements metropolitan council has for us others are required things that we've put in there so dealing really with what we want to look like over the next 20 years taking a look at our vision and goals and the steps that we need to take to achieve this vision in things pertaining to land use transportation different utilities water sanitary sewer parks and trails housing economic competitiveness historic preservation mississippi river planning just a wide variety of things it's an aspirational document that really charts out where we want to be and that document itself us with the work of a comprehensive plan [53:24] **John Hinzman:** steering committee the the comprehensive plan steering committee worked on this project for a couple of years 2017 2018 mostly and so this is a number of people here to thank for their involvement and their view and their guidance in shaping this comprehensive vision for the city also had a public outreach as part of this as well stuff that was online stuff that was in person we had what was termed a visual preference survey in which we were able to gain what people thought the community would look like we had in-person meetings on the plan itself different pop-up meetings at events like rivertowne days and the holiday hoopla in which we were able to ascertain the public's opinion as well we found out from this is a couple of [54:11] **John Hinzman:** talk about topics that were key to the development of the plan and some of those are shown here with connected growth transportation housing natural resources the community character of the city these were things that were important and things that really set hastings apart from other cities in general the the people that we spoke to appreciated the uniqueness of the city appreciated the character of the city both would would be good and healthy for the city but that we did not lose track of what made hastings hastings the forecast for the city itself this looks at some of those population projections that we have now with population of about 22 000 or 23 [54:56] **John Hinzman:** 000 in 2020 looking to go out to a little over 28 000 over the next 20 years so we take a look at what that means for the city this is our land use map the red boundary here is the city boundary we have for the city as well so within the city we are planning directly within our comprehensive plan for only those land uses that occur within here one of the things that we had discussions with with metropolitan council who is involved in approving our comprehensive plan is that we we officially are only planning within our document those areas that are currently within our city limits and so the reflection that we have within the population projections are reflective of the growth that would happen within the current city boundaries [55:41] **John Hinzman:** but you can see on here that there's a wide area that is located outside of our city boundaries mostly to the west of the city along you know general sieben drive to the west towards jacob avenue over here and then towards the south of the city here in which we have the ability to grow now the ability to grow and the desire to grow are going to be two separate things one of the things that's unique about the city is that our growth is done through annexation that means land is brought in piece by piece through the city it provides the city an amount of discretion in in which to uh to determine whether growth coming in is acceptable and necessary so something a little bit unique from some of the other entities that we uh that we deal with here [56:30] **John Hinzman:** what we have before us tonight is the comprehensive plan resolution we did have metropolitan council provide their approval of this on december 9th within the resolution the staff report were a number of conditions that were necessary for the uh the comprehensive plan and so that is the action before you tonight i can stand for any questions on the plan and again the resolution open for your consideration thank you great thank you john any discussion council? [57:05] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** thank you for your honor the council we were last given an you know an update or i should say like a quick overview of what was in the 2040 comp plan it was probably about two years ago when we initially approved the draft for it to go to the met council and in that time it was a council workshop um mayor fassbender wasn't with us at that time um however i do believe that she was on the steering committee so involved in some of those conversations and so um there it was a lot of information to digest at the time um that comp plan is pretty lengthy and i think that we spent less than five minutes and on each [57:50] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** of the sections and and it's kind of like drinking from a fire hydrant as uh we're being provided that information i thought i've always thought it was unfortunate that we weren't as a council actually included in the planning process at all um but so the last section of the comp plan has you know like highlight action items for each of the sections and then you know the identification of a few uh high level for the most part and items and um you know so i i believe in when you have planning documents like this that you should actually be using it and since i guess what i was trying to [58:35] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** my point and try i was trying to make is that we saw it two years ago very quickly and we really haven't seen uh much of it at all since then and so as we're moving forward i think it would be just awesome if we at least on an annual basis uh we're looking back at the comp plan and on this last section that has these high level action items to ascertain where are we with these and uh you know and and what are the time frames because a lot of these are kind of ambiguous as to how it is they're going to roll forward you know they're just mentioned that you know some of them just mentioned that five year plans are going to be developed but doesn't really give any of the specifics and so um i think it would be wonderful [59:22] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** if uh we were periodically checking in maybe you know we take um and something up here maybe we take one section once a month and just get a status of you know where are we with this and what are you know what are the short-term and long-term goals that are being you know established and how do we move some of these forwards and you know actually integrate them into our our yearly plans so um i just wanted to throw that out there for for food for thought you know we've just uh completed my first term of four years and and i haven't seen that really happening and so i know that we're going to be moving forward hopefully pray to god um this next year and actually doing some real strategic [1:00:07] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** planning and to come up with some short-term strategic plans and so i think that this was a you know a valuable document uh that staff did put a lot of time and effort into although the council itself wasn't really a part of um that planning effort but to be using it as a base and reflecting on a lot of all this work that's been done in the past so that we can uh see some of these objectives moving forward so um so thanks to all the staff and all the hard work that went into it um i just want to make sure that the the vision uh that we've determined is actually moving forward so thanks okay thank you councilmember folch any other discussion council? [1:00:55] **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** i would i would second that i mean that's not a motion i understand um i i support that that sentiment um as far as the you know check-in status i i don't know necessarily the format of how that would play out she made you know a suggestion of monthly but i know that was just for for example purposes but um yeah some sort of uh status whether it be a meeting or uh even even some sort of communication that that dan could put together from the department heads um that indicates where things are are at with alignment to the comp plan or any um possible areas where the comp plan maybe isn't in line with [1:01:41] **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** some of the strategy or direction that we're going to you know that's always good to be aware of um it's a guiding document it's not necessarily the the law right so we will deviate on occasion but um it's good to know if we're you know ten trending on track to it or or steering away from it more often than not as well um so i don't need to belabor it but i guess i would i would suggest that we do find some time maybe mid mid year to to check in and see where we're at thank you councilmember lund if no other discussion could i would accept a motion [1:02:27] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** to approve a resolution adopting the 2040 city of hastings comprehensive plan update and the comprehensive sewer plan compilation of policy statements goals standards and maps for guiding the overall development and redevelopment of the city of hastings **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** councilmember brock's moves it. **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** second council member vaughn. **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** any other discussion council? **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** your honor yes councilmember vaughn i i just think we got to give some really good recognition we had some residents there that did a lot of work for us on this plan and i think councilmember lund has talked about this is a 20-year guiding document that we'll utilize but i go back to recognize those [1:03:13] **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** residents they they're the ones that put the legwork in for this and help guide us that we we get to use it then um and our policies may deviate and change from but we're part of met council so we're gonna have to go make sure we're checking the boxes along the way so again recognition to all that residents that did all the hard work for us thank you thank you councilmember vaughn clerk flatten please call the roll **Julie Flaten:** councilmember vaughn? **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember fault? **Councilmember Tina Folch:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember balsanic? **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** yes. [1:03:51] **Julie Flaten:** councilmember lund? **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** mayor fasbender? **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** yes. **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** and that motion prevails tonight we have a resolution a conduit housing revenue bond call for public hearing and preliminary approval for the schoolhouse square senior center real estate equities for this item we have an introduction by community development director john hinsman and tammy ondahl of northland securities is available to answer questions as well thank you mayor and city council members so i will go through an explanation of the actions that we wish you for you to consider tonight i have an expert with me tonight and tammy omndahl who will be able to much more [1:04:38] **John Hinzman:** answer specifically questions related to this than i will but the actions that we have before you tonight are two things it is an attached resolution calling for a public hearing on a proposal for what's termed a housing finance program and then granting preliminary approval to housing facility revenue bonds for financing so what does all this mean the school house square proposal the 90 unit senior housing proposal located at school house where 10th and vermillion street we gave land use approvals to that earlier this year and we also approved a housing tif district to be able to ensure that this would be an affordable senior housing community and because of the affordable nature of this community [1:05:23] **John Hinzman:** the the amount of construction the cost of construction in doing such a project is is such uh but with the rents that real estate equities wants to charge for this which would be to allow for lower income residents to reside there the the gap between construction and the gap between the rents that they would like to reduce there is there is a gap there and so they are trying to seek financing and one of the areas in which they can seek financing is through this resolution this is an application for bonding to what's termed conduit debt conduit debt is a situation in which the city would be able to would the real estate equities would call and [1:06:10] **John Hinzman:** issue bonding using our bond rating the municipal status of our bond writing provides them a lower interest rate what does that mean for us here the bonds are we're not responsible we're not liable for the debt service payments there will be special limited obligation bonds to the city payable solely from the revenues of the project within the resolution they don't constitute any general or moral obligation to the city or pledge of faith or credit or taxing power so with conduit debt we are we are basically loaning our tax-exempt bonding status to this entity to provide for financing of the project but we are not liable when it comes down to the payments of [1:06:55] **John Hinzman:** any potential default that would occur the application in order to do this is made through the state of minnesota through the minnesota department of management and budget that application is due january 4th and so this resolution is necessary to become eligible be considered for those uh the ability to issue bonding ultimately the state gives that approval if the state gives the approval we would move forward in setting the public hearing date and the actual consideration of the conduit debt so tonight it's a preliminary application but we are not uh making any any definitive uh declarations or movements towards issuing the conduit debt tonight that would be done upon the approval of [1:07:40] **John Hinzman:** the application by the state of minnesota so that is what we have before us tonight again i've got tammy umdahl here from from northland security our financial advisor that can answer more specific questions we have chris idamilla here as well our finance manager and i can stand for any questions thank you counsel any questions and discussion council member vaughn [1:08:14] **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** thank you honor john and tammy might be able to help on this one you say there's no financial risk on behalf of the city by doing this but the risk i see as we potentially could record bond rating is that true if this did default [1:08:26] **Tammy Omdahl:** would you like me to address that one? absolutely tammy go ahead please mayor council good evening tammy umdahl with northland securities this would not have an impact on your bond rating these bonds would not be issued with a general obligation pledge um they would be payable solely from the borrower in this case real estate equity so the short answer to that is if if in fact there were the bonds were to be issued and there was a default it would not have an impact on the city's bond rating **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** thank you and i got a follow-up question your honor um we've already made approval of land use we've already labeled it tif district what is um what's left for us to give on this [1:09:12] **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** project i'm just wondering do we have to go out to the public and allow all all potential developers the same option or are we i'm fine moving forward this but in the future when we go out to get this do we have to are we stuck with real estate equities or did should we be open this up to anybody to uh have the same opportunity john if you'd like i couldn't respond to that please mayor council the answer to that when real estate equities originally applied to hedra and the city of hastings for assistance it was for the establishment of the tax increment financing district which has been established there's not an agreement yet with real estate equities but the district was established at the time in that application that [1:09:57] **Tammy Omdahl:** northland reviewed on behalf of the city they have always anticipated tax-exempt bonding and an allocation their original application was to be to dakota county to the community development agency they were not successful in getting an allocation that route now they are going to the state the state can also approve this and the allo they have allocation to give it is going to be a very competitive round a lot of developers seeking that authority of a municipality to issue the bonds so this evening as john mentioned it's just the first step they need this in order to apply to the state of minnesota to get the allocation if they were to be successful and we [1:10:43] **Tammy Omdahl:** don't know that yet they may or may not be then they would come back to the city to schedule that but council member your question was you know is everyone going to ask for this is it is very competitive to get this allocation and so not only are they applying to the city to re use your bonding authority they need to go to another entity either in the case dakota county can give allocation of the state of minnesota so it is a very competitive um application process so not everyone can seek this unless they get that approval from the state or another entity like the cda thank you you councilmember vaughn councilmember lund [1:11:28] **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** thank your honor tammy do you um have details as to um or maybe maybe john uh why the county did not approve prove it but yet we they might think the state would is there a particular reason? **Tammy Omdahl:** sure um because they're um it was competitive at the dakota county level as well and so now they're there's a new round and that's why they need to have this in by i think today it's january 4th the application so it's always competitive it's particularly competitive in recent years just because of the demand for affordable housing projects **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** okay thank you councilmember lund [1:12:16] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** any other discussion? okay then council i would accept a motion to approve a resolution calling for a public hearing on a proposal for housing finance program and giving preliminary approval to the issuance of housing facility revenue bonds to finance a multi-family housing project pursuant to minnesota law and authorization of publication of a notice of the hearing schoolhouse square apartments project **Councilmember Tina Folch:** so moved your honor this is councilmember folch **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** councilmember folch second counter and a second by council member leifeld [1:13:02] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** correctional discussion? okay council or clerk flatten please call the roll **Julie Flaten:** councilmember vaughn? **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember folks? **Councilmember Tina Folch:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember balsanic? **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** yes. [1:13:26] **Julie Flaten:** councilmember lund? **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** mayor fasbender? **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** yes. **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** and that motion prevails tonight we have a discussion with the winter spring request for assistance from the downtown business association for this item we will have an introduction by community development director john hinsman thank you mayor city council members as the mayor pointed out we are uh having a response to a letter that was uh discussions we've had with the downtown business association but leading to winter and spring activities uh the letter itself highlights a few different areas dealing with lighting the labyrinth ice rink and strategic goals within the development uh we'll [1:14:11] **John Hinzman:** go through more details on that one as i move forward here uh we have sat down with the dba in a couple of different meetings here in the last couple of weeks on december 10th december 16th and ongoing meetings scheduled all of this relating to obviously what's happening with covey with the latest shutdowns and restrictions on business activities and particularly to the restaurants within the downtown area uh there there is some some fears of trepidation out there among the business owners that we need to be able to do more things in order for them to be viable coming through the season here taking a look at the season that's coming up here as we move into uh moving to january and february these are traditionally slower times anyway for for the downtown area so [1:14:57] **John Hinzman:** there's some fear that we need to agree to do something in that area to create more customer traffic to result in more sales for these businesses within the report itself some of the coveted restrictions which i think everyone's aware of it won't get into too much detail on that obviously bars and restaurants still have some some significant restrictions on them right now so as well as the outdoor recreation outdoor venues as well so i had hedra talk about this a little bit at their meeting on december 10th uh this was at the same same day of the of one of the meetings we had with the dba so there wasn't any anything terribly specific we brought forward to them but more of just a discussion and a recap to them of concerns that are [1:15:45] **John Hinzman:** out there at present i did share with hedra that in early 2020 we did allocate 320 000 towards covet relief programs and we've spent about 220 000 of that as of today so we've got about a hundred thousand dollars remaining for covert relief so there was some discussion with hedra but there was not any formal recommendations made or any action taken at that point also an economic development task force meeting scheduled coming up on the 30th of this month in which we will be looking at that hundred thousand dollars and looking at potential uh potential recommendations to hedgerow on how that money might be spent so looking at the request letter from [1:16:31] **John Hinzman:** the dba looking at the lighting proposal itself i think a lot of this came down to what's happening in stillwater stillwater had contracted with the private lighting company to light up the bridge light up the downtown area it's a tremendous experience down there and is this something that the city should consider? and so what their ask was is for us the city to light up as many trees arches buildings riverwalk objects ice rink as possible really to create an attraction down there on their side the dba has taken steps to provide to do lighting and some of the downtown businesses within the windows themselves and so in looking at this one a couple of items of consideration one any lighting that would be done [1:17:18] **John Hinzman:** really should be done by a private entity and not involve city staff we have our crews involved in other projects right now and to take something on of this magnitude right now we really don't have the capacity to do it so if we were to do something it would be done through a private mechanism we need to identify that the scope of lighting we've looked at things in general which could be downtown buildings riverfront park different objects within the downtown area begin be getting things that are more specific there uh the question comes up on the lighting and in the timing of the lighting at this point it is december 21st at this point uh we don't have a formal action on for council of approval uh when an action was to come [1:18:03] **John Hinzman:** forward in january and then looking at the lead time and installation of anything if if the council was to say go on this one we may not have the lighting up there until you know close to february or so and is the is the cost of installation of that lighting at that point in the season it worthwhile investment considering that a lot of the winter season had would have passed at this point taking a look at the lighting proposals i i think it would have a tremendous impact it's it's a cool idea a question of what the timing and the season is a question to consider uh that the source of the funding would need to be identified whether this would be coveted relief funds through hedra or some sort of [1:18:50] **John Hinzman:** other source of the city of lighting this year may set up expectations coming up in the future years as well so if we do lighting this year um the the private contractor that we've been talking with which is the same one that did stillwater it would technically be a three-year contract however there may be expectations that this would go on longer so this would be potentially an annual budgetary expense so something for for the city to consider at that point we're not sure if it would trigger public bidding requirements depending on the the amount of the bid at this point and we need to ensure liability protections that being said we have done some initial work in reaching out to the contractor that did stillwater to get some initial numbers and to get some [1:19:36] **John Hinzman:** initial ideas from that i shared in the packet with stillwater down 30 000 the light the downtown 25 000 light lift bridge they had a three year contract the first year of that contract is more expensive because they're physically buying the lights and then they would ask for a commitment of two more years in which they would store the lights put up the lights but we wouldn't have to buy them at that point so it would be reduced they provided us some preliminary numbers looking at different areas within our downtown one would be looking at the downtown roof lights this would be lighting the the roof lines of the second street area in particular from the bridge to tyler and looking north on sibley and ramsey that cost this year would be about twenty four thousand dollars with [1:20:22] **John Hinzman:** uh costs going forward about thirteen fourteen thousand in the subsequent years so he broke down the proposal into lamp poles throughout the downtown areas there's 65 of those that cost about eight thousand dollars this year about five thousand dollars in subsequent years and then looking at the riverfront park and we're looking at the lighting of the arches small trees pavilion those type of items this year would be just under twelve thousand dollars with subsequent years being about seven thousand dollars so you adding all that together uh the potential year one investment if we did all three of those things would be about forty four thousand dollars the year two and three investments would be about twenty six thousand so what we're looking at here is a nearly [1:21:09] **John Hinzman:** about a hundred thousand dollars over about three years here so this is the for consideration this would be the cost that we would have now granted these are quotes right now based upon some field examination there may be other other quirks that would come up there but these are some preliminary preliminary numbers so wanted to bring those forward for you know to just to give you an idea of what the cost may be on that and looking at you know the areas that would be lit up i mean you've got areas going here you know within the park doing the riverway arch some of the trees along the river buildings within downtown giving you idea of what that could be so [1:21:54] **John Hinzman:** that is a consideration for the council tonight in some of the analysis and some of the suggestions we bring for you what we're asking for related to the lighting is for council direction is the lighting worthwhile? is it worth further investigation? if so we would consider we would continue to move forward with a proposal to bring back for action if you look at this and go this is not uh this is not something we want to undertake either either at all or this season and then we would cease the discussion on that at this point so we're looking for some direction on that not necessarily any action on a contract we don't have the details on that yet but more direction item dealt with the labyrinth ice rink that is the ice rink within the downtown area we have made a decision from staff [1:22:42] **John Hinzman:** based upon direction from the park and recreation commission that we would not continue the use and the flooding of that over the winter it's been operational for the last five years the attendance on that has been pretty dismal uh we found the rink to be small and exposed to windy conditions along the river and there's also limits on recreational activities as well for the governor's order so we are not planning to flood that this season uh the the downtown business association is asking that we consider doing that and consider making that more of a focal point items within the uh the letter that the dba sent over dealt with some strategic goals uh looking at updating upgrading holiday decorating beautification of downtown all year long [1:23:29] **John Hinzman:** and providing city staff to assist with outreach and event coordination some of these items were were melded together with uh the chamber of commerce as well so we would need to be able to better differentiate what would be best under our purview what would be best under under the chambers as well uh city staff in general has played a support role in assisting in chamber and dba activities we haven't been approved we haven't been involved in the direct promotion certainly of any particular business but the vitality and uh the growth of hastings is in our general nature and so if we're able to provide some sort of support capacity on that uh then we uh we have done that in the past and so that is the request we have we [1:24:15] **John Hinzman:** have before us tonight uh mayor i'm looking into the audience here i do see amy fox and lacey coyle of the dba are on the call as well so i can stand for any questions or direction thank you sure thank you john council would you like to speak now or should i s you want to see if and christy is out there too as well as if she would like to speak to you **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** yes uh your honor i think we would uh benefit from hearing from those three representatives before we have any discussion it could be we would end up asking questions that they already have the answers to [1:25:03] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay thank you councilmember balsanic any of you three would like to speak? okay christy **Christie Bartz:** yes thank you your honor can you hear me? **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** yes we can thanks christy for joining **Christie Bartz:** thanks for having me and i appreciate um this discussion i was part of the um email that had the same request and just wanted to let the council know that we did discuss this at a chamber board level uh last week and i think um where we saw the benefit in this is uh from a tourism perspective typically during the winter months we do have a hard time promoting um a lot of winter activity [1:25:50] **Christie Bartz:** that creates revenue for our businesses in town we can uh we can focus on our ski hills and we can focus on our trails and the frozen falls but um really having an attraction year-round that could bring business to our our shops is important and secondly i would just say that now more than ever our downtown businesses need uh not just the promotion but they need an attraction something that we can not just say come to hastings for this particular shop or come to hastings for this particular uh restaurant but come to hastings for this light show it's a safe activity to get your parents out of the house to view lights downtown and then we can encourage other parts of the town to [1:26:36] **Christie Bartz:** stay lit through through march so and hearing from our our businesses especially those main street businesses and those that have been forced to be shut down they're really looking for not just grants but additional support in in attraction for for getting people outside of hastings to come to town and to support their business so um so that's my two cents i i think our our chamber board was really supportive in the chamber definitely focusing on promoting this from a tourism aspect we're looking at how we can potentially sponsor other activities but they they felt that having that one attraction that wasn't necessarily an event is important to to get visitors to come to town in the winter months [1:27:23] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay thank you christy i guess i don't know can you answer this so what john kind of proposed was lighting the bridge and the trees and maybe the buildings what i haven't been to stillwater but what i'm seeing is it's an actual lighted show where people can sit and they're virtually kind of under the lights i think **Christie Bartz:** yeah yeah i think so and i think john may be able to speak to this because eric and don were researching it but it sounds like the city investment was a little bit different than that light show so the the city investment focused on um and and john correct me if i'm wrong but the the bridge [1:28:09] **Christie Bartz:** and lighting the actual buildings and then it sounds like there was a separate investor that um did that that tree in the middle that has the light show with the the music attached to it right? **John Hinzman:** yeah so the the city portion was you know the the big part was lighting up the downtown but then there were other separate investors which i think between the chamber and the dba we can work on other attractions to complement this but john i don't know if you want to speak to that i'm pretty sure it was just the buildings and the bridge that was invested by the city and then there was a private investor for the light show with the tree and the music yeah yeah yeah christie you're correct on that one and that's reflective of the information that we've [1:28:55] **John Hinzman:** had with uh with the lighting contractor what they would be providing would be the lighting of the buildings of the trees but that focal point that that tree and the lighting show that is in downtown stillwater that was not something that was proposed by this lighting contractor so that would be something that would be separate **Christie Bartz:** i guess the last thing i would say council is just um as we're looking at the recovery you know past covet 19 which i think we can all start focusing on a bit and now with the news of the vaccine but we we do have the confluence and we do have this hotel and um just anything we can do to make sure that our main street businesses can stay [1:29:41] **Christie Bartz:** in business so that we can be a year-round tourism destination would be huge and i know the city has invested so much money in the riverfront renaissance and and i know that the i don't want to speak for them but from what i hear the businesses are so thankful for that and it would just be so devastating to see our main street businesses close um you know just a year or so after a riverfront renaissance was completed so um anything we can do to kind of make this a year-round attraction uh i think would be beneficial from a tourism aspect okay thank you christy counsel you have any questions for christy? **Councilmember Tina Folch:** councilmember fultz. [1:30:28] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** um thank you your honor i was just gonna say i i don't know why we would necessarily need to limit a light display to being just in the you know for christmas uh the traditional holiday period rather having it for you know an extended period of time like for instance not this last july but the july prior to that i was in downtown denver and uh there's an older part of downtown denver that's more like hastings i mean literally looks like our hastings downtown almost with the with the building structures and such and the way that they highlighted that more historic area was lighting lighting going down the the main street and it was you know crisscrossed across from building the building rather than lining the buildings um downtown hudson has all of their [1:31:15] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** buildings lined you know along the tops and that's year-round as well and so i'm sure we could find plenty of uh examples of downtown areas that are lit year-round with white lights and it's beautiful absolutely beautiful um i've often wondered you know had hoped that we would do something similar i know that the downtown business association had looked at at it a few years ago and they were having some problems just that they didn't have you know a professional staff person to help with scoping out the project and getting all of the dimensions you know i mean just you know working on on the nuts and bolts of getting it moving it forward and establishing costs and things of that nature just became too much of a project for [1:32:00] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** an individual business owner to take on all by themselves to figure out so i can understand um and i know that there's been a long time you know that they have hoped for something like this and and i think it would be um an investment beyond just the pandemic i mean it would be you know an investment that we would you know see moving forward you know for years to come and god only knows when this darn pandemic is actually going to be done i don't know about you but pretty scary stuff coming out of england where the covid strain is 70 more contagious and mutating all the time so who only knows what we have you know to anticipate as we're moving forward and uh and so i think it would be wonderful if we invested in lighting i don't know if you guys remember it was like four years ago when those um [1:32:46] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** those hastings arches were placed above you know as you go like down i think it's tyler and then sibley street to the back the city lot you know back there down by the river when those were installed i had asked because i had just come on the council at that time and i had asked uh melanie muscoli i was like why why didn't you guys light that? why aren't those lit? because they'd be absolutely gorgeous in the evening if they were lit and she said that originally they were designed to have lighting in it but the staff decided to pull it out of the final plans to to save money and so i thought that was a huge mistake and i still continue to think that that's a huge mistake and so if we can rectify some of that by adding you know lights to the downtown so that we have an attraction [1:33:32] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** in the evening i think that that would um that would be a long a long-term investment and it would be money well spent um i just wanted to add in regards to the ice rink that decision by staff not to flood the little the little one um i agree that was just way too small and it's like way off and it's you know you don't see it and you can't see it from the bridge going over and um you never knew what was going on with the fireplace there you know just yesterday i went on a walk i'm down in the riverfront to go look at that fireplace and it says that it's out of you know commission that is broken or something and um and so so a we made an investment in that [1:34:18] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** area and it's not panning out so are we just gonna abandoned it you know in the summer time i see so many kids playing on those instruments they absolutely love them i see their parents playing on them it it's a great idea but i think it's just um unfortunate that we've you know that we're we're not doing enough to maintain that area um you know just to add some kind of pizzazz to draw people down there and so um during the cover i did not tune into the second conversation with the chamber in the dba and they had asked if it would be possible to utilize the the back parking lot there if you could create a larger rink like actually on the parking lot if the um that little uh ice rink it is really small it really is [1:35:04] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** so i get that um but if something could be done and i don't know john if you had an opportunity to follow up with chris um in regards to that um i know that you said that you were going to and i'm sure you've had those conversations but that was the second piece um to the thrank the the rank and then the third piece before i um give up my my to my uh talk here is um focusing on beautification mary and i have quickly chatted about this just i strongly believe that we need a separate group that's really working on beautification of the downtown to talk about identifying where the issues you know going into the summer that we should be concentrating on that have been problematic the last several years and coming up with some ideas about how [1:35:51] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** it is that we can address that through utilizing volunteers and just being more strategic so that we don't have seven foot tall weeds again in the parking lot and so um i i'm really you know supportive of doing what we can to do a better job of maintaining um the downtown uh and making it look like a beautiful destination year round so um so anyhow i'll i'll um i'll give up the floor but john i'm just going to ask you real quickly if you could comment about that follow up on the rink **John Hinzman:** yeah council member folks i see chris jenkins is in the meeting here too i think he would be best to to address that so i'm gonna turn that over to chris if you can answer that question [1:36:37] **Chris Jenkins:** uh thanks john councilmember council um john and i have not been able to connect just yet on that idea so i can hear a little bit more about it certainly not ready to speak to it at this point **Councilmember Tina Folch:** okay again it was a part of that brainstorming well if we can't do the little rank if we could do something a little bit larger and i know we're getting is getting late um i used to years ago put up a ice rink in my backyard and it took it was a tremendous amount of effort so i understand how much effort it really is and it might be difficult at this point to get boards and things of that nature to make it happen i'm understanding that they're all sold out um so anyhow but if you could follow up at a staff label afterwards um via email that would be great so thanks so much uh thank you [1:37:22] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** councilmember walch council member balsanet **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** thank you your honor uh christy uh first of all i wanna thank you for uh years that you've been uh a director of the chamber i have really enjoyed working with you uh since you've come on and uh i have seen the fire that's in your eyes to do what is best for hastings and i just want to say that i really appreciate that everything that you've been doing uh question a couple of questions i guess uh so you want this to be [1:38:08] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** a year-round lighting display not necessarily not necessarily seasonal is that right? **Christie Bartz:** sure and i i don't um first of all i want to apologize for having my video off um i didn't know if i was going to speak tonight so i had already taken a shower but um thank you for the kind words council member well sonic um and you know i don't want to speak for for the dba but from what i understand and just speaking from a tourism perspective and trying to plan um knowing that things are going to be quite different and that for a while consumer confidence is um it's going to take a while for that to get up so if there's anything that we can do [1:38:54] **Christie Bartz:** in pre-planning for safe activities i think we should start thinking about that so yes if if lighting the downtown and if that's starting with just lighting the um the trees on the riverfront and then eventually moving to the buildings i think it's a good start i think we're in for a long road of trying to promote um safe activities and if we can really focus on one focal point in the downtown and then hopefully expand throughout the committee community and i'm not saying that needs to be a city investment but um you know starting with one vocal point is always best um and i do think that we're gonna we're gonna see the need to promote safe activities and so being able to take your parents or your [1:39:40] **Christie Bartz:** kids out for a lighting throughout the winter is one way to do it **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** thank you i read the article of the paper when stillwater had turned the lights on and it talked about different kinds of funding where the money came from so on and so forth it did mention that the city did use or the chamber used uh funds that were not spent uh on their lumberjack days and their fireworks we didn't have rivertown days and we didn't have fireworks along with a couple of other things are [1:40:26] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** those funds still there or have they been spent on something else? **Christie Bartz:** that's a really good question so all of our funds for rivertowne days are through sponsorship dollars and all of those were returned when covid19 hit so all sponsorship dollars were returned this year for rivertowne days **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** okay good i i i wanted the public to be uh made aware of that no i think it's a good it's a very good question yeah uh the uh there's a concern i have that uh we're we're gonna get some backlash from other businesses uh midtown [1:41:13] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** uh you know up in the walmart area uh you know that in the south end of town so forth uh that we're possibly going to be spending too much attention financially and otherwise on the dba the downtown area what kinds of things can you say to those groups that might want to know why they can't get any kind of special treatment? **Christie Bartz:** yeah that's a really good point because we're hearing the same thing on the chamber side too and i guess what i would say is um what we're really learning from from kovid19 is that a our community [1:42:00] **Christie Bartz:** members support our local businesses and they have been out in full force doing so um and b we can't slowly rely on their support we need visitors from outside of town to come to hastings and to support our businesses and so um you know just from a tourism model it it makes sense to um invest in one focal point with which is our historic downtown and then i would say um if if it is a decision by the council to try and make hastings a year-round destination destination then maybe there's a a possibility to look at other lighting opportunities throughout the town but i think it's important you know asking for a full lighting throughout the town would be [1:42:45] **Christie Bartz:** quite overwhelming but if we can start with one area and make sure that our our focal point for tourism is saved especially with all the investment that's already happened with the rivertown renaissance and then take it year by year uh for investing in um lighting throughout the rest of the town so i don't have a full answer on what that would look like but i think it's important to start in one area and then with the knowledge of if it's if it's important to the council to make hastings a year-round destination that the rest of the community can be looked at afterwards too **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** well good we're on the same page i i firmly agree with that kind of a plan uh so that we are looking at supporting all of the businesses eventually but it [1:43:33] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** just makes sense to me that uh taking care of the historic downtown first uh is extremely important because we've you know we've all heard how many thousands of uh vehicles cross that bridge every day coming into town and that's what they're going to see you know right off the bat uh and any other publicity that comes it means stillwater and hudson articles of the paper they got time on the news broadcast on local tv and so forth uh real shot in the arm there and uh i can see uh very easily how this can be [1:44:18] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** a very very prosperous tourist attraction one thing that i'd like to see added and i know it would add to the cost and i've been asking for this for years it's been one of my goals ever since i've been on the council uh is to light the lift bridge the railroad bridge to the east of of the new river crossing i think that would be stunning i don't know what uh kinds of things would be involved in that obviously the railroad would have to buy into it but uh i think it would be really really [1:45:05] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** neat fantastic whatever kind of word you want to use to sound positive and i think that would be a real draw for people to come downtown get over there to uh the riverwalk area and stand and be able to see both bridges i when i go up to duluth and i see the lift bridge lit up there it's mesmerizing uh it's iconic and uh you know whatever we could do to get that bridge lit here in hastings would really be advantageous and become an iconic uh kind of a beacon for everyone to come and look at i think [1:45:52] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** we would be the only city to have two bridges that are lit uh in our downtown area so i'm i'm very much in support of this whole project and i would definitely like to see how we can uh in some way shape or form uh get this thing going even if it is after the holidays uh it would it would be up you know hopefully by around the first month or the second month of the year and if it would be something that is going on not just seasonally but uh year round i think that would become a very very good attraction for the city your honor **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** council member vaughn did you want to speak? [1:46:42] **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** uh i was just going to follow up councilmember balsamic asked christy bartz the same question i just want to make sure her chamber board has heard from the rest of the businesses in town about this opportunity i'm all in favor but i want to make sure we do this right going forward i think i like the area that we we gather we start downtown but i think we need a a model moving forward we're councilmember folks talked about this a little bit where we didn't have enough staff to do this there or even the downtown business didn't have to run their business they didn't have somebody to focus and do this the right way john hintzman talked about we we didn't have a staff member today we can support but we don't have somebody [1:47:27] **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** dealing with this directly i may ask us to lean and say that's another subcommittee but some maybe it's that tourism board that we have that says all right we let's make investments and the tourism board determines what these are going to be um moving forward for the community i think we're going to get more community engagement that way it's not council members and city staff making big decisions here i think that the community makes the big decision that it's done through the tourism board so i support that model going into the tourism board and trying to figure out uh and maybe with their connections with the rivertowne days to make a bigger package deal to make it year round but i'm all in favor of supporting it we'll get to the financing part i mean that's going to be a tough discussion because i want to hear from some businesses do they think this is a good investment [1:48:13] **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** of using those hedgerow dollars or they think do they just need some grants to keep going to get through these bumpy times here so i'd be really curious to hear from the business owners throughout the whole community what is most important to them so i'm going to add that thank you thank you councilmember vaughn councilmember lund [1:48:32] **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** thank your honor um councilmember vaughn brings up a great point and i don't want it to be an echo so um the the tourism uh board is a a really great i think uh idea and a great landing spot for this type of discussion and and um i sit on that christie sits on that um i think [1:49:00] **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** um that would be a great place because there is a lot of um you know a good variety of of thought leaders in the in the community um that would be able to help out there um [Music] the uh the question i had and i don't know if christy is the best person to answer that or if she she cares to answer this or or perhaps amy or lacey or anybody else um but um you know councilmember vaughn brings up that funding is the next conversation um that you know once more details are apparent um let's just assume that the out the gates that 44 000 is in the neighborhood i believe that was the number that was brought up as the [1:49:46] **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** the aggregate um let's just let's assume that and and then let's also assume that maybe that's a little more than than the council was was thinking um items are priority you don't have to answer this today necessarily either but maybe as a follow-up to this meeting as part of the additional information that that we look at you know what what's the priority um and i ask it because um two different um purposes were really brought up that i'm hearing which is beautification of downtown in the the riverfront area but then also um an attraction or or something you know something to see um and [1:50:34] **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** those kind of art are different different things so i guess you know i don't think people necessarily are going to come to see a light pole lit up um necessarily but they may come to an uh some sort of event that is amplified by maybe the pavilion being properly decorated in the the trees around um the river and so forth so i guess my question is is it maybe the pavilion and the surrounding tree line or is it the is it the street it's second street itself or you know what what is it and that would be good to know um i don't know if anybody can answer that now or if that's just a follow-up but i'd like to see kind of the [1:51:22] **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** the goals of each thing and what the priorities would be if you can't have it all [1:51:31] **Christie Bartz:** your honor i'm not i'm not able to see if um anyone else has raised their hand so i don't i don't want to speak if anyone else has raised their hand go ahead um so i think that that's really important and i guess i'll just address a couple things um so right now timing is of the essence um and so uh first of all the the tourism board and the chamber board are 100 partners in this and we're not asking the city to take it on fully in any way shape or form um i think um and just some side conversations with the dba board uh we're really just looking for a quick action on um on some investment in lighting in the downtown and i think i'll let the dba board follow up with a letter on exactly what [1:52:17] **Christie Bartz:** that looks like if it's the trees on the pavilion if it's the the buildings i'll let them follow up on that um but the the ask that we're asking for the city is just that initial investment in in the lights and then let the tourism board the dba and the chamber work on the additional attractions that will go along with that so so absolutely some additional work and sponsorship and additional tractions and and working around the recent regulations of what constitutes an event and what doesn't and let us take care of that but we're i think the initial ask right now is that we need something quickly because the winter will slip away from us and that's the that's usually the most challenging time for our main street businesses and this [1:53:03] **Christie Bartz:** year it's far more uh challenging than one could ever expect so um i don't know if that answered your question councilmember lund but i would say that i'm sure that the dba leadership would be happy to follow up with specifics on lighting and from a chamber and tourism perspective um happy to take on additional attractions just kind of really asking for that initial investment in in lights from the city right off the bat **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** thank you ron area just to quickly follow up thanks thanks christy um it it does answer my question and um and i think um it's it's a good point to be brought up that you know we're not you're not just suggesting lights [1:53:49] **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** this is a compliment to some things that could be um like i said in a moment or a moment ago amplified by having that experience that like the lighting provides so um that's good to know um but um then again i i would say that yes i would i would like to see um some recommendations or priority list because um we don't know what those activities might be and maybe you don't have all of those um nailed down yet either but um if you know what what lighting areas are or what investment we're looking at it would be most impactful for what your plans might be then we we can have a better discussion i think next time if that makes sense that's just my opinion but um if if [1:54:36] **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** that's something that the dba could pull together that'd be great okay council member lund thank you and council member leifeld [1:54:43] **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** thank you honor i'm completely in favor of this i've been wanting for years and years to have the rooftops of the historic downtown second street lit i've always thought how beautiful that would be all year round sure i'm a hallmark fan and hallmark movies have all of their main streets lit like that um i was listening to everyone's really amazing um insightful questions and um getting a lot of takeaways here and my one thing is i'm as i keep hearing about the rest of the community absolutely as a city council [1:55:23] **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** as a city we want to make sure we're focusing on our entire community all of our businesses all of our residents but as i'm looking throughout the city and i think okay where else do we have oh well once a street that we own so vermillion street isn't even ours right? by the state highway 55 isn't ours what could we decorate? i love the idea of midtown being decorated somebody owns that building somebody owns that parking lot west view center i think it's the westby center somebody owns that building somebody owns that parking lot those are things that i'd love to see those places doing um you know same thing up at um up where cub is up there and that little [1:56:09] **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** strip mall second street's really unless i'm missing a location second street's really the only spot i can see where one it's absolutely a focal point as everyone here has mentioned as you come over the bridge now we've got this gorgeous bridge that's lit up beautifully uh as you come over you've got lights up down on second street you've got the river walk lit these this is an attraction that we're trying to make here in hastings so that other people see that and say oh my gosh that is a beautiful town and guess what they've got great food out at doogies and you know they're not just staying down on 2nd street or down on the riverwalk people are coming into town because of this and then going elsewhere and even you know as i look at other communities even duluth you know look at the money that the city of duluth puts into um canal park you know [1:56:57] **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** they're that's the destination for people to come they draw people in and then from there they go see the rest of that beautiful town so to me you know to back to christie's point that really is our focal point i like the word centerpiece you know it's what brings people to the table and i think it's really important that we act act fast i mean that's really where our that's our big area of opportunity is you know city government can move slow for obvious reasons this is something that i think we need to be able to move quickly on um work with the tourism board in the chamber and i don't see it so much as a beautification of downtown the city put in an awful lot of money [1:57:43] **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** beautifying second street and it is absolutely gorgeous down there this is a destination as far as i'm concerned then when we look at getting confluence on you know late next year this just pulls it all together allowing for more people to come and and right now especially people are driving around looking for cute little quaint towns that they can drive through and check out lights and check out neighborhoods and i think we can make this um you know this focal point even more beautiful so i would absolutely support this and um help with whatever if we need to add anyone to that tourism committee uh council member lund i don't know so if um any additional help is needed on that i would love to be part of this and get [1:58:30] **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** it moving thank you honor thank you councilmember leifeld councilmember braxs [1:58:35] **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** thank you your honor and council i just want to say that as a family we have been to both downtown hudson and stillwater because frankly we need to get out of the house right now we need things to do so going on a drive to go find some lights has been one of the things that we've done um i don't i have i have a lot of thoughts on this so i'm gonna try to organize my thoughts but it might come out like an extrovert speaking their thoughts out loud so i'm sorry about that in advance but i have a concern that in my mind i don't know is this gonna be enough you know there's things that were unique about there's things that are unique about the [1:59:16] **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** situation in hudson hudson has their restaurants open for example so when you go down to downtown hudson you can go to a restaurant and also see the lights still water if you park on the side of the road you can get out of your car and walk across the lift bridge and there's that whole area that has a food truck mini donuts bonfire so i'm happy to hear that we're talking about not only lights but events because i think that partnership is crucial because lights alone i don't think is enough um and i think that we also need to consider how we highlight what is unique about hastings because we know that this is happening already in other communities and if we're gonna do it after the holiday season we really need to think how we can make our display or whatever it is that we're [2:00:02] **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** going to put money into unique because i can remember when we used to light city hall and there were lights along the edge of city hall and that was beautiful and and that is something we have that is unique so i don't just want to do what everybody else has done um i think we need to create opportunities that go beyond just lights but highlight the things like that we have that nobody else has um i question a little bit how much this will translate into actual dollars but to be honest like i'm kind of with the business owners let's just give it a shot i mean we need to give it a shot now giving it a shot at a hundred thousand dollars makes me a little nervous because obviously this isn't our money we're spending taxpayer money on this specific [2:00:48] **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** area of hastings so i think we need to be responsible but i think what i've noticed about the business community this year in hastings and what i really really am proud of is that when the businesses are supporting each other it really lifts us all up so when i see the downtown businesses working together i'm working with the hastings public house and working with doogies and doing bingo cards together and promoting each other's business frankly i think that is the thing that is going to get us through this all um so that makes me extremely proud and i think that we need to highlight that because that is something we're doing that i don't see everywhere um so but when it comes to lights i guess i i have two things i i'm in favor of the lights um i'm just worried it's not going to be [2:01:34] **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** enough unless we create other collaborations other partnerships with events and activities that can go along with it um but i'm happy for us to be a leader in in this area and putting the money out there another thing i want to say though um just from a city point of view is some things that i've noticed about walking through the riverfront park is just some of the instruments are gone are missing now like the little mallets that go to the instruments and it makes me sad when i walk through a beautiful area that we've created and i see maintenance issues um i i kind of see the ice rink like that too if we've made it if we've created this space why aren't we using it we had a beautiful warming house a piece of art created [2:02:19] **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** that i don't know where it is and nobody can see it right now because i think it's in storage you know so we have these assets that are kind of away from the public view and i want to say that i think that once we create things like the flower pots or if we're building an ice rink or if we need equipment replaced at the riverfront harmony notes park we need to do that because that's to me they're just the basic underlying maintenance that needs to happen like we're taking care of our own stuff so we need to take care of our own stuff and then now we're adding another level on top of it which is lights and things that you know uh offensively we have to check on once they get put up we have to make sure they're still lit that everything's working [2:03:04] **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** so now we're adding another layer of work on top of that so i'm concerned about building on what i see is a little bit of a shaky foundation for creating things that we need to check up on i want to make sure that we're taking care of the assets that we already have down there and then you know because adding all this stuff adds another level of work so if we're committing to it i mean i want all of us to be on board that we're committing to checking on it making sure it's working looking at it you know we don't that's our responsibility the city we own that park so whatever we're gonna put up whatever we're gonna do we need to make sure that it's looking good and sometimes when i'm down there it's not looking good so i know we had this discussion um during the riverfront renaissance project when we talked about [2:03:50] **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** we're building this additional space and we need to make sure that it's being maintained and so i just want to say we need to make sure it's being maintained and to me if we build an ice rink and then we don't flood it it seems a little bit silly and i respect the the discussion that the parks and rec commission had but not keeping a fireplace and working or not having the warming house out not flooding the rink like these are little things but to me they add up to showing that we need to be taking care of our stuff so that is my like ad that is my affirmation or my goal for us as a city is to be better at doing that and then when we add things like this on top of it won't seem so overwhelming um so i just say all that to say i know the businesses are struggling and [2:04:37] **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** i'm nervous about january and february 2 and i'm willing to support this i just want to see in the future especially more collaboration between the city and the chamber and the downtown business association because i don't think the city can do it alone sometimes we have these conversations i feel like that we need to think about it as a partnership and not well the city needs to do this as a city needs to do that because as mark said we have a whole community to take care of and this is one area it's a very very very important area for us for tourism but we also need to start thinking about how we can collaborate and get together and work on these things and not say why isn't the city doing this? why isn't the city doing that? to me it has to be a partnership between us the chamber and the downtown business association [2:05:24] **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** because that's how we're going to be successful thank you councilmember barack councilmember folch are you unmuted? did you... **Councilmember Tina Folch:** yes ma'am um i just wanted to uh just to respond to what councilmember braucks had just said and uh just so that everyone's aware that um and and christy would add to it that at the last uh conversation um it was agreed to have weekly uh video conference calls um between the chamber the dba and some you know the city staff and elected officials that want to be there um to continue planning moving forward and it is their intent to do um the planning piece [2:06:10] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** uh john had said you know that they don't really have you know a point we have paige right? who's wonderful within the parks department but that's not her responsibility to plan for more than just the rotary pavilion really you know in the in the summer time and so um that was well understood that we needed to have uh other folks other than city city staff that would be working on planning on events and uh we're so lucky to have um such creative women business owners in the downtown who are so committed to coming up with really good ideas for promotions and and doing everything that they can to uh you know just just be enthusiastic about you know the downtown and creating an atmosphere that's fun and bringing [2:06:55] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** people um to it and so just to let you know that they are committed um in continuing forward and they are planning on to meet at the beginning of january um to plan into the spring as well so it's not just you know the holiday hoopla and then you know and then forgetting about it they're gonna continue planning from now through the spring um to get us through um this cold period of time and so um i i just i wanted to going back to you know john's original you know presentation about what is it that um you're looking for from the council i i heard a lot of support about be um and moving this forward and in in buying into the concept of of helping [2:07:41] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** with with the lights um i think that uh not just in this particular meeting but for the last several months council has had a has voiced concerns about what councilmember braucks was saying about not maintaining the downtown area when i talked about having um a side group talking about beautification i specifically meant um dealing with more of these maintenance types of issues with uh i said thank you for bringing that up so dealing with the weeds and um things being broken and what more is that we need to focus on and and you know where the problem areas and how can we move that forward and so i'm continuing um that that dialogue and not i'm depending on staff to do that [2:08:27] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** but rather i think that we need to have a subgroup of us just taking that on and and doing it to make sure it gets done and so anyhow so what i'm trying to get at is um what does john want from us um is do you need a emotion at this point are you just looking for a general sense of support i think that i mean it's been clear that time is of the essence i don't think that we have time to peter around with oh okay well now let's convene you know the tourism board and they could maybe meet next month after the holidays and everything settles down and they can have some discussions and prioritization and yada yada so um so i think it's important that we we make a firm commitment like yes we want to move forward we want it um [2:09:12] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** we we want the city staff to you know continue in exploration and scoping out the project and maybe you know coming up with some options and and uh and making a determination from there and so i mean i just want i was looking for clarification really john what do you need from us? thanks **John Hinzman:** you councilmember the high level looking to see on the lighting idea this is something that would be supported by the council based upon the discussion i've heard tonight i think the answer is yes on that uh what we need to do from a staff level is to bring back something for action to you and so looking at our next meeting coming up in in two weeks we could prepare something for that we've been able to make tremendous progress a a big handout to to eric moss and to don [2:09:59] **John Hinzman:** skelly our communications coordinator for for being able to put together a lot of information a very short period of time and so i i think we could be prepared to bring something forward to you at that next meeting if that you're inclined to do so thank you john councilmember lund [2:10:23] **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** thank your honor yeah just a point of clarification council member folks made mention of reference something that i brought up and i just wanted to be clear um when i mentioned the the tourism aspect really more of a mechanism for these types of things going forward not necessarily something that we need to pull together um you know on christmas eve but um and then uh building on that [2:10:46] **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** i'm not trying to add work to anybody's plate but as we um look to have an action item next time more information is better and so if it comes down to you know here's just this lump sum yes or no you know that the chances of something happening become less you know so i'm just i i guess it's just my recommendation take it or leave it um that you know maybe a little bit of guidance and as to you know what those things individually would be benefiting you know and and breaking it out a little bit um that's why i was that's why i was asking for you know what's the priority you know what would be you know what benefit for for you know [2:11:34] **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** what dollar amount and so forth but not a mandate just a recommendation for more you know useful information to make good decisions at the next meeting **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** the winter group is meeting on wednesday at 10 30 right john? is that still on? **John Hinzman:** that is correct mirror so being able to bring back the summary of this meeting to that group on wednesday will be helpful i think as christie talked about earlier and some of the council members have discussed this would really be a partnership that i see between what the city may be able to provide in the lighting of these public spaces and then with the council with the chamber and the dba really being involved in some of the programming or involved in some of the [2:12:35] **John Hinzman:** uh the wow factors that you could add in addition to this i think that would be very very helpful and so be able to put more details together here with that group i think there's been a weekly meeting scheduled so two more meetings scheduled of that group prior to our next council meeting on the fourth and so we'll forward on that so yep council member braucks [2:13:03] **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** this is more of a historical note but i did want to bring it up quickly and it's not for immediate action so i'll try to make it really quick but there was a resident who came to me in 2014 had an idea to light all of the fronts of all the businesses downtown with white lights i met with the dba president at the time we had a discussion about it now from what i recall in that discussion the answer that i got was when i talked to the city staff and i was brand new as a council member so i didn't really know how things work so that was one thing the second thing was um the answer i got at that time was well the dba would not be willing to put anything into it the city would need to fund it and get all the permissions and do all this and that so that idea went nowhere but what i am happy about and i see changing is that that we're more willing to work together and it's something to consider that there is no other um downtown that has lit the fronts of [2:14:07] **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** their buildings that they gave me an example of one i googled it quick it was downtown rochester michigan that has done this and it does look amazing and it's very unique so i realized it's just an idea i'm not going to belabor the point it's something to consider for the future but it would be totally different from what the cities that are near us are doing and something that we could consider in the future thank you councilmember brock's council member vaughn [2:14:43] **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** thank you and i think this is where i was concerned mostly but i knew it would happen we're heading into the financial piece of this in direction that's what staff is going to be looking for because when we say commit we're not i'm seeing almost a 98 000 commitment we're getting ready to prove a budget number here [2:14:53] **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** that we all know and we all wrestled over one percent levy tax increase on the community is 150 000 that's it so we are when we get to those recommendations coming back to us i asked staff to say where do you recommend those funds come from because we are gonna something else is gonna have to give so hopefully we set up budgets that have a plan and where they go to because we talked about some we're not able to maintain some of our current infrastructure we went through some hard discussions we're saying we need to make that investment and have we made that investment so i'm all in favor of this but i want staff when we come back to say this is where i recommend where the funding comes from i know we brought up the potential coveted relief funds out of hedra different board different another conversation but that [2:15:40] **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** is the recommendation i do want to hear from the chamber in the chamber other businesses in this town if they think that is the best use of covet relief dollars if the cities to help out so all in favor moving forward but i'll ask staff to have that ready for where the funds will come from thank you all right any other discussion? [2:16:03] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** so it was merely a discussion we won't we don't need a motion other than just to council member lund... lacy's got her hand up oh okay lacey would you like to come in and speak? [2:16:44] **Lacey Coyle:** so i i think as i'm a little frustrated after this whole conversation because it was very clear that we as a dba were hoping for immediate yes on downtown lights on the riverwalk we understand that anything more than this is going to be an additional conversation and several conversations but to light up the river walk that the city of hastings has put money into for many many many years and again is just another item of the property that is [2:17:31] **Lacey Coyle:** owned by the city that needs to be taken care of is a necessity not even i mean it shouldn't even be close to a vote tonight and we shouldn't have to go back so if there are questions we are willing and able to answer them but it really shouldn't even be a question at this point **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay thank you lacey counselor is there anyone who would like to make a motion? i'm with you on whatever you want to make a motion on **Councilmember Tina Folch:** your honor councilmember fulch i'd like to make a motion to light the [2:18:16] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** trees and the rotary pavilion structure along the riverfront from located from the downtown the rotary pavilion across um the park to the the bridge i'm not sure if we have trees any longer that are past the confluence building i think that they were removed for grading purposes so i don't even think that they exist any longer **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** and council member leifeld second that your honor **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay council discussion? council member lund [2:19:03] **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** how much is that and where is that coming from john do you have those numbers at hand? **John Hinzman:** uh mayor we've got some preliminary numbers that we got just this morning uh from the contractor when we we take a look at the riverfront park lighting and this is inclusive of what he termed the riverfront arches trees pavilion art show tree by the skating labyrinth that that cost this year would be eleven thousand five hundred dollars and there would be a commitment [2:19:32] **John Hinzman:** to do that for three years the your two and year three cost would be just over seven thousand dollars a piece so that i think gets at what uh the motion would be inclusive of this is the riverfront park area again this is a quote we received this morning we haven't been able to go and verify that this is inclusive but what it needs to be inclusive of but some numbers that we do have here **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** and john if i remember right that is to pay for the lights the maintenance of the lights taking them down if we're going to take them down and storage correct? so if there are lights out we do not replace them they come back and replace them [2:20:19] **John Hinzman:** that's my understanding but again i i'm working off of details here that are that are coming in quickly and uh i believe that's the case but things that we need to verify **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** councilmember vaughn and thank you and defense of staff exactly right it's coming in quickly staff did what they thought was right to talk to a contractor that did another community we now got a motion in front of us to say get this done but i want to make sure we have local businesses that do this kind of work i want to make sure that they have an opportunity to bid on this and to spend public dollars the correct way we ask staff to get quotes when it hits a certain level not just call up a contractor saying come on down and do it we don't work [2:21:06] **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** way for the public and that's why i have a tough time approving dollars for this contractor now if it's a if it's a commitment for this year to put up some lights i'm not ready to commit to year two and three that this contractors are just requesting that's my biggest hangout we we have to be cautious of our motions if we don't know where the money is coming from and how long of a commitment are we committing to what if we don't like what they do after year one who's going to be the one that has to go saying i don't like that do it the different way and now we have a change order in front of us so staff is doing what we're asking and like john is saying they are moving fast and they're really work put a lot of labor time that they're shifting their time to do this so i'm using [2:21:51] **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** extreme caution on approving any contract amount to a contractor without even asking our local businesses to have a chance to bid on this so that's my two cents okay thank you councilmember vaughn **Councilmember Tina Folch:** member just to clarify minnesota's statutes for purchasing at the municipal level only requires that one bid is needed to be acquired if it's under 25 000 in total value and i believe that's the what the purchasing policy is for the city of hastings if it's over twenty five thousand dollars to 175 thousand dollars then it only requires two and they can um they can direct solicit that and so i understand um the want to actually get [2:22:37] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** a second quote from someone local um and i think that it's worth at least um asking around if there's anybody that locally does such a thing but i don't think that i would by any means um put out you know a lengthy 20-day require minimum bid you know and following you know any kind of formal process and so um again you know they're trying to do it expeditiously and if this is a reputable firm that has experience working with a large municipality and lighting up a riverfront area and then has the capacity to do the storage and the maintenance and all of that i think that that's money well spent even if it's just for one year moving forward thanks i think it comes to **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** councilmember folch. council member balsamic [2:23:22] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** thank you your honor i'd like to make a motion for an amendment that the funds be taken out of the hedra fund pending their approval rather than taking it out of our general fund **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay thank you councilmember balsanic and councilmember lund is that what you wanted to speak to? **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** it was i i wasn't i had asked where the money's coming from and and that's still on you know unknown so [2:24:08] **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** council members and unbudgeted item at the end of a fiscal year so um you know just curious where we're going to get that money from so if it's if it is hedra then that needs to be one more step um because we're not we're not allocating funds from hedra right? **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** i said you know pending approval of... no yeah i i'm on board with what you said i'm just clear just clarifying what you said or supporting it **Dan Wietecha:** okay members if i can offer a little bit of clarification to this to the discussion here uh if it is the intent of the motion to have hedra funds be used for this i [2:24:55] **Dan Wietecha:** i think as the council members have discussed we would need to have the board act upon that right now our our next regularly scheduled meeting would be the 10th of january so there is this time on that end of things uh the second point is if we were to go with this contractor uh we have within the preliminary bids i'm looking at from this morning have it subdivided into three different areas but those areas i think are dependent on a three-year contract so we would be committing funds this year certainly but we would also be having a commitment for funds within year two and three so just uh bring that forward for uh for your information **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** well i i i'm making the amendment [2:25:43] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** to have hedra funds used because hedra is about economic development and redevelopment uh it seems to be the logical place i know hedra's not meeting until uh what is it we meet the first thursday of each month or something like that but it at any rate that gives us staff time to come up with a specific amount that the head reward could go ahead and vote on so that they're not having the very same discussion that we're having here tonight **Councilmember Tina Folch:** your honor councilmember folks if that's a if if that's a difficulty with the hedra um and understanding that it is a second [2:26:30] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** a separate decision-making authority um i just want to remind everybody that we did just receive you know 1.7 million dollars of covet assistance funds and at the end of it we had what was it 170 000 8 000 i forget now that wasn't appropriated necessarily for anything in particular and then ended up just getting certified for payroll purposes because we were allowed to do that and move it forward and so that is how you know one of the reasons we were able to um waive the on sale liquor license fees for um our businesses have establishments on this december and so um so we do have funds there um that would be uh still out of the i mean it's no longer that we're certifying it for the you know covid [2:27:17] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** um but we did have a windfall of you know funds that came in and that's you know available you know still to be used for those purposes and so um it's not like we're completely you know at a loss and just a reminder that i've been the one that keeps hurting about how we should have contingency funds actually set aside for just this purpose as we're going through the the second wave of the pandemic so that we can actually make decisions um expeditiously and uh and and with some kind of confidence that we have a funding mechanism and still um and so so that we're not having to have these conversations tonight and i realize it's too late because we're about to adopt the 2021 budget but still i think that it's pretty important that we do have contingency funds that are available for these kinds of purposes thanks [2:28:04] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** thank you councilman folch so we do have a motion on the floor **Dan Flegal:** thank you your honor i'm going to interrupt i think you've got a motion to amend on the floor that has not received a second so i think you need to deal with that and either get a second and take action on it or let that fail without a second **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** council do we have a second to the amendment? member lund are you trying to... i think he's trying to reconnect council member lund are you wishing... can you hear me? **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** i'm sorry my computer shut down now we can yes can you catch me up on the last 15 seconds? **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** we are looking for a second to the amendment to the motion for hedra correct [2:29:20] **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** um i i don't believe that gives gives them ample time is that correct? they're looking to get something going sooner than than the 10th or is hedra looking to be able to meet sooner? **John Hinzman:** councilmember we our next regularly scheduled meeting would be january 10th on this uh right when we're when we're involving hedgerow funds with within this and certainly you've got another body involved if expediency is a goal of the council on this one adding hedgerow in there adds another body **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** your honor i'm going to withdraw the amended motion [2:30:07] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay thank you councilmember bolsonic so at this time then there is a motion on the floor with any other discussion council member braucks **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** can you just reiterate what the motion is that's on the floor? **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** sure councilmember folch **Councilmember Tina Folch:** thank you councilmember braucks um it would be uh to john had just clarified that he has uh lighting quotes for the downtown river so the riverwalk area for the for the trees and the rotary pavilion area and then also the arches correct john? if that's a part of what you've [2:30:53] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** scoped so far i mean if you haven't provided to us we haven't seen the written documents obviously because you just received them today but um if you're looking for approval to move ahead on the 11 000 um quote that he's received from that contractor i don't know what the scope is of every particular piece but it would be lighting the area that he's already received the scoping for that's very simple yeah **John Hinzman:** mayor councilmember if it'd be helpful i can repeat what we have from the quota this morning here and what that would be it states river park front river front park lighting riverfront arches small trees pavilion large show tree by skating labyrinth uh year one cost would be eleven thousand [2:31:40] **John Hinzman:** five hundred with the year two and three cost being about seventy one hundred dollars again these are our uh our quotes at this point i wouldn't base anything specifically on those we're still looking for we need to to go through and make sure that those are accurate thank you john **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** does that help councilmember braucks? yes i guess the main question in my mind then is is there is the only opportunity to do a three-year contract or is there a possibility to do a shorter one like one year? because i understand that there's a different level of budgeting and finances and commitment associated with three [2:32:26] **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** years as opposed to a one-time commitment with one-time money if you're talking about it being any kind of cares money that's logical to me but i understand that three-year commitment is a more involved thing so i guess that that's where i'm a little hung up is if that's a possibility or not **John Hinzman:** uh mayor council member from what i understand of the discussions that derek moss and and don scalia have had with the contractor is that the he would be seeking a three-year contract the first year would be including the purchase of the lights and then to have the installation the next two years i don't know what the possibilities would be to amend that contract but based upon my knowledge that may be difficult [2:33:13] **John Hinzman:** at least with this individual okay thank you council member life help **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** yes your honor so john does city staff then have the authority then to just use the koda cares act kova dollars or... **John Hinzman:** yeah when i'm looking at kozak cares at kova dollars i may look to administrator what teachon that one i i he would have better knowledge on that than i would **Dan Wietecha:** no we're going off on a tangent that that no the city staff only has the authority to approve something that's budgeted so if if it's not a budgeted item the [2:34:07] **Dan Wietecha:** staff can't just go out and start spending karzak dollars **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** so how would we give... where were they okay how are they okay to for them to use the cares act? how would that be presented? how would that come forward? would that have to go through... i'm sorry i don't follow i don't know question specific for for thirty thousand dollars for lights you're proving that now and that would be enough if i i guess i thought you meant beyond this specific question i i heard somewhere out there that there's all kinds of cares money just sitting there waiting to be spent i i thought you were just... **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** no i'm talking about these lights councilmember lund asked where does the money come from so before we vote on this um [2:34:55] **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** before we vote on this i think we need to know do we have an answer is our answer in there as to where this money is coming from or not? **Dan Wietecha:** it would be coming from fund balance thank you dan any other discussion? **Dan Flegal:** council if i could your honor here dan the motion is generally to uh light the trees in this designated area the motion if you're going to make it should be to approve the contract with this contractor for a set dollar amount for a certain amount of work that they've pro you know provided a quote for as the [2:35:42] **Dan Flegal:** general or as the motion's been made it's to light that but it doesn't tie it into the specific contractor or the the contract that there's going to be so i would suggest that that be cleaned up either with an amendment or a new motion **Dan Wietecha:** and dan comment on that but yeah dan watica that's going to put us in the threshold that we under our purchasing policy we would need additional quotes and it'd be premature to approve a contract on a single quote **Dan Flegal:** yes dan fuego then is there [2:36:29] **Dan Flegal:** is there a contemplation that this would be the contract would be coming back separately for approval by the city council i mean again the motion is to light the trees or light the area without any specificity of you know where we are getting that work done what dollar amount it is or what contract is going to be approved so i guess if if if the motion is to tell staff to just go out and get this done and if staff has the inherent authority to do that under these dollar amounts then fine but again the motion i have not seen anything that refers to a contract in the motion that is being approved by the city council to spend money so and tell me if i'm not being clear [2:37:14] **Dan Flegal:** but i think emotion if you're going to approve working with this specific light contractor to do a certain specified amount of work then the council should be approving that quote or that contract so that we know what's going to be signed and what contract there is going to be made with that contractor so that specifically has to be in the motion i think it should be i mean if not how are we you know what ties it to the contract with this contractor? **Councilmember Tina Folch:** i'm i'm sorry your honor councilmember fulch um so john again you had said that the initial the first year is eleven [2:38:00] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** thousand dollars and some odd cents and then the subsequent years was it was eight thousand dollars each? **John Hinzman:** seventy one hundred yeah yeah councilmember the quote that i have here would be 11 000 507 in 50 cents on year one year two and three costs would be seven thousand and ninety five dollars each subsequent year **Councilmember Tina Folch:** so yes and then year three and then so okay so that's um about 16 plus 11 which is twenty seven thousand dollars so it's just above so you just need two [2:38:46] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** quotes um so um i i would amend my motion to allocate up to thirty thousand dollars for um staff to be authorized to move forward in the award of a contract uh to perform the the scoping that john has just outlined **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** let's second your honor **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** and discussion? council member vaughn [2:39:31] **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** i i have a tough time supporting something that's not even in front of us staff got today and it's uh if we're gonna do it we're committing to something for three years let's do it the right way let's not just hey let's uh react to this that's not good policy on spending residents tax dollars i don't care where it comes from even if it's fund balance it's not fair to staff it's not fair to the rest of us as colleagues asking us to approve something that's not even in front of us to read and see where we're going that's all i'm asking i'm all in some favor of supporting this but let's do it the right way let's not just say go get him i think that's wrong thank you your honor **Councilmember Tina Folch:** councilmember fultz thank you your honor the way i phrased it it allowed staff the ability to negotiate and obtain multiple bids from quote from various contractors and so that they within they have the authority to figure [2:40:18] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** out the fine details and that we don't have to approve every little light bulb that's being you know approved and so um why i phrased it as i did rather than choosing that one particular vendor and if um and if john would be able to negotiate something maybe that's he feels is more prudent than for him to go ahead and do that um he is a very intelligent human being i have a lot of confidence in and so um so that's why i i phrased it as i did to give staff discretion thanks okay thank you councilmember walch **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** council member vine don't i don't have a... coming okay any other discussion council? clerk flatten please call the roll **Julie Flaten:** councilmember lund? **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** no. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember folks? **Councilmember Tina Folch:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember balsanic? **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember leifeld? **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember vaughn? **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember braucks? **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** no. **Julie Flaten:** mayor fasbender? **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** yes. [2:41:39] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** prevails sorry or i'm sorry five to two motion prevails okay for the next three items we will have an index introduction by city administrator dan watica thank you as you said the next three are all related to the 2021 budget if i can have some better luck sharing my screen than i did earlier do you have the budget there? it's there um since we just had the truth taxation hearing a couple of weeks ago i'll go through this fairly quick um most of it should be the same i do think that one screen maybe two screens are [2:42:35] **Dan Wietecha:** different than what you saw recently last week was not a friendly week for our 21 budget as noted there are several actions tonight adopting the budget adopting the property tax levy the capital plan the capital plan the hedra levy and also the fees that you already acted on moving fairly quickly quick summary what is in the budget uh the tax rate is held the same as in 2020 this actually is the fifth year that we've seen uh declines or in this case holding it steady i have [2:43:23] **Dan Wietecha:** really held a hold the line approach to operations there are some costs that have been in their cost of living adjustment in union contracts and non-represented wages we had after several years of uh not seeing increases in health insurance premiums we're seeing a significant increase this year uh we're taking a unique approach to our capital improvement plan as we'll get to in a little bit here um uh and then also this year was will be mentioned later in this presentation we have two significant projects as a result of the state bonding bill [2:44:09] **Dan Wietecha:** highway 316 and renovations to the dome and city hall here a couple items that are new that you did not see three weeks ago as i said last week was bad for our 21 budget in discussions with the state department of transportation we are seeing about a hundred and eighty eight thousand dollar increase in our underground utility cost above what had previously been uh estimated at this point they're estimates but not the direction we want to see them going and as this is the utilities underground i do not believe that this is the [2:44:57] **Dan Wietecha:** scope of where the county said they would cover a shortfall also this past week we saw that we had a portion of the dispatch costs significant portion 136 000 of the dispatch costs that were overlooked and not included in those budget figures all the way back to july so if you recall earlier we had about a hundred and thirty thousand dollar cushion in the budget it just got ate up we also this past year got our quote for uh workers compensation insurance next year 96 000 increase that can get covered in uh [2:45:44] **Dan Wietecha:** basically some carryover funds where we had some other pieces coming under budget this year uh essentially able to cover that instead of going into fund increasing fund balance but not a good year for the budget or not a good week for the budget overall the budget real pleased with it but just last week felt like 2020 every day as noted our proposed levy is fifteen million three hundred twelve thousand three hundred dollars that is uh about a three and a half percent increase in the levy over 2020 due to uh growth both new construction as well as increased property value and we have [2:46:29] **Dan Wietecha:** about seven almost eight million dollars in capital improvement capital improvements planned for the coming year as we've seen previously the green line you see a slight increase that three and a half percent increase in the levy but the red line you see we're actually seeing a decrease over the past few years and holding the tax rate uh the same from 2020 to 2021 so uh taking advantage of those bars show the the growth in the the tax base so taking advantage of that growth in tax base to bring in extra dollars without without having to increase the tax rate this is thank you to dakota county uh just showing where hastings average residential tax their average residential homestead tax compares to other jurisdictions in the county uh we're actually one of three that have a reduction ours is about 0.56 percent commercials [2:47:46] **Dan Wietecha:** still better than the average but uh but not quite as rosie as on the residential one going quick because it's it's been a long meeting we're not there yet and we just saw this a week ago um where do our tax dollars go on an average uh 240 000 ish uh house this is the monthly cost of city property taxes obviously it doesn't include county or or school district tedra some of the others but uh the with the where the property taxes go to supporting our operations one of the actions that you'll be taking [2:48:32] **Dan Wietecha:** this evening is approving the special levy for hedra we are limited to .0185 percent of taxable market value historically we've maxed that out the 2021 amount is 391 974 dollars as noted our capital planning this coming year is a bit different than what we've done in the past and that comes from two things one just a concern about uh operating revenues if we look back at the recession from 2007 to 2011 [2:49:19] **Dan Wietecha:** we saw tax delinquencies of about a million dollars every year for five years and hopefully we'll see this is a sharp recovery to the current economy but we're trying to be very cautious uh and make sure that we're not overwhelmed by a downturn in the economy the other concern is a significant portion of our capital funding has been paid for through local government aid although currently the state is not at a statutory limit that would trigger reductions [2:50:05] **Dan Wietecha:** in order to balance its budget which historically have hit lga and other successes in the state budget they still are looking at a deficit in their 2122 biennium so there are concerns about local government aid coming up in july or next december so what we did was we grouped our capital projects and priorities a b c uh and as money becomes available i expect we'll be having this good conversation in a couple of weeks in january um reviewing that list and saying where are a priorities um and spending some money accomplishing those uh as money becomes available [2:50:52] **Dan Wietecha:** i noted the two state the two projects we had funded in the state bonding bill 2 million dollars towards the city hall dome project and up to a million and a half dollars towards i believe strictly towards trail and associated improvements on the 316 project so those are both moving forward with this budget it's a quick run through um i believe most at least everyone here in our council audience uh has seen it so hopefully there aren't any questions but i can certainly stand for some and obviously our next three action items on the agenda are all tied back to the the budget thank you thank you dan [2:51:44] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** any discussion console? **Councilmember Tina Folch:** your honor i just had a quick question council member folks dan i was just curious what will be uh your touch points or your milestones where you'll begin to evaluate where you are with the capital improvement projects and so on first of all a i want to thank you for being so deliberate in the planning and how you went through and worked so closely with staff and prioritizing the entire capital improvement budget and all of the projects in it and including the equipment and so thank you to you and all the staff for being uh so uh conservative in how it is that you are [2:52:31] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** approaching everything um but i was just curious so what is it what are you know kind of i should have asked you this earlier but um what are your touch points? like what are you kind of thinking about when it is that you'll you'll go in and begin to do that evaluation for moving forward with priority b c and d items? **Dan Wietecha:** um there's two um things that we would focus on during the the course of the the year uh one being what is our um confidence in the economy and particularly in the city's economy and our finances so as an example but if we look back [2:53:19] **Dan Wietecha:** a month in october the tax property tax collections were on target the county had given a 30-day extension to mid-november for property tax payments that were not escrowed so mid-november they were still on target and coming in where they should memphis november 30 december one right around the the first of the month uh the state got its updated budget outlook which was very fortunate and they went from projecting a deficit during the current budget biennium to [2:54:05] **Dan Wietecha:** actually having funds there so one one of the touch points we'll have throughout the year is just where do we get news on information on the current state of finances and if we and based on that if we have money come available are we confident in utilizing that money or do we feel more safe saving it for for uh uh a future use uh based on on those pieces i just named october november early december i think we're in looking pretty optimistic and positive shape right now so when we have uh some additional money [2:54:51] **Dan Wietecha:** come available i think the recommendation would be let's look at that abc list maybe recalibrate something's a little higher or lower than before and and come up with here's the list of projects to utilize that money so in the last week of december we should be getting our second half of local government aid payment for 2020 about four hundred and twenty three thousand dollars um so i think our decision next month january our january 19th meeting will be coming in with a recommendation saying review the abc list here here's how we would recommend utilizing 423 000 um other touch points during the year um [2:55:39] **Dan Wietecha:** maybe around march april as this city staff closes out the books on 2020 and might have or would have figures on here's where we're at on uh fund balance and is there some additional fund balance above and beyond our target that we would look at utilizing um conceivably around may excuse me may june when we get our financial audit actually a third party looking at closing our closed out books confirms what that fund balance is so maybe we're comfortable on staffs figures in april maybe we'd [2:56:26] **Dan Wietecha:** rather wait until june when when uh kdv confirms those numbers uh july would be our next place we might get local government aid the following december would be the other local government aid those would be the key places that we'd find money is lga or fund balance unless there's some other surprise you know cares act 2 or something i hope not **Councilmember Tina Folch:** great thank you very much dan for that was very helpful for questions counsel for dan [2:57:12] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** okay then i would look to a motion for a motion to approve a resolution adoption final 2021 city property tax levy and final budget **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** council member vaughn moves. **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** discussion council? no discussion okay clerk flatten please call the roll **Julie Flaten:** councilmember lund? **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember folks? **Councilmember Tina Folch:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember balsanic? **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember leifeld? **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember vaughn? **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember braocks? **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** mayor fasbender? **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** yes. [2:57:59] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** and council i would accept a motion to approve a resolution approving a final 2021 hra special levy additional discussion? clerk platten please call the roll **Julie Flaten:** councilmember lund? **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember folks? **Councilmember Tina Folch:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember balsanic? **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember leifeld? **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember vaughn? **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember braocks? **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** mayor fasbender? **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** yes. [2:58:46] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** and that motion prevails a council now i would accept a motion to approve a resolution adopting 2021 to 2025 capital improvement plan cip and capital equipment plan cep **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** so moved your honor council member braucks. **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** council member lund was that a second? council member lund. [2:59:00] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** additional discussion council? clerk platten please call the roll **Julie Flaten:** councilmember vaughn? **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember folks? **Councilmember Tina Folch:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember balsanic? **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember leifeld? **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember lund? **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember braocks? **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** mayor fasbender? **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** yes. [2:59:46] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** and that motion prevails thank you dan and for the ffcra emergency paid sick leave benefit we have clerk platten that will give us a update on that **Julie Flaten:** aaron council um tonight's staff is asking to extend the emergency sick leave benefit that's provided as part of the family's first rhonavirus relief act the ffcra went to effect on april 1st and is set to expire on december 31st provided employees up to 80 hours of paid sick leave if they're unable to work to to a qualifying colbit related with these reasons excuse me the staff is asking to have this benefit extended until march 31st and at that time we would re-evaluate as of today we're unsure if this was included in the release package that was being voted on at the federal level and of course if it is we would follow any legislation that comes out of that today we've had about 31 employees who have used this benefit and they've received um benefits totaling close to 34 000 so i can stand for any questions oops [3:00:35] **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** counseling question your honor i'll move for the extension thank you and any discussion counsel? and clerk flatten please call the roll **Julie Flaten:** councilmember vaughn? **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember folks? **Councilmember Tina Folch:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember balsanic? **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember leifeld? **Councilmember Lisa Leifeld:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember lund? **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember braocks? **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** yes. **Julie Flaten:** mayor fasbender? **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** yes. [3:01:22] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** and that motion prevails hey as you know tonight is council member bal sonic's last meeting and first off we have a a um blast from your past joe in the audience who would like to speak so welcome x [3:01:44] **Paul Hicks:** whenever you're ready paul oh can you hear me everybody? welcome welcome well thank you very much your honor i appreciate the opportunity i know tonight is uh councilmember balsanek's last meeting and so i just wanted to take the opportunity to say a few words because i had the distinguished honor serving with him for 10 years and uh i remember when i first met joe was back in 2000 and or so when there was a mayoral initiative called the hastings democracy project i don't know if anybody remembers that and uh and then i also remember what uh joe he [3:02:39] **Paul Hicks:** point everybody up there here we go now i can see everybody hi everyone um and uh working with joe joe i remember what about 2007 uh working on uh fixing your street there in 7th street and we did a little oops on the irrigation system and joe came to several of our council meetings to describe that and uh and so forth but in 2008 joe was elected on the hasty city council and again joe was outstanding working with you and just a couple of things i learned working with uh joe you know if you know joe you know that he's also an artist he uh taught at inver hills and at hamline university he was teaching there when i was a student about [3:03:24] **Paul Hicks:** 21 19 years old or so at hamline and then he went on to teach at inver uh inver hills i didn't have him as a teacher though because i wasn't in drama even though some people say i can cause drama and uh joe uh brought always a unique perspective to the city council because i always thought he had a different perspective to the world because he taught communications and theater and uh what neat skills to have is to serve the public and i remember uh also joe has the largest email list of anybody i know so if anything happened to the hasting city council everybody in the second ward knew and i think that was a real tribute to joe's uh sense of transparency and [3:04:11] **Paul Hicks:** communication to his uh to his constituents and i think he ought to be congratulated to that joe brought this perspective on the city council of a 22-year veteran of the of the air national guard he was a downtown business operator and joe was also you know a retiree and so he always reminded us especially in things like tonight i just saw you guys talked about the budget and taxes about how important it is how taxes affect people particularly people who are uh retirees and aren't on fixed incomes and to be careful about how much we charge our residents for services uh that we provide and the city of hastings has always done a good job with that and joe has always been a leading proponent [3:04:58] **Paul Hicks:** of that and i just want to thank joe for the services he's brought to the citizens of hastings we worked together many important projects that had a profound impact on the city of hastings projects like the river the riverfront the bridge the confluence project infrastructure projects and neighborhoods all across our city and the uh wastewater system and particularly our uh our treatment water treatment plant hard decisions that we had to make that benefited the people of our city and and so there's one thing i want to remember is that you know there's a you know i i gotta have a quote you all know how out there i how quotas i like to do that you know there's a quote out there that [3:05:44] **Paul Hicks:** says that managers must do things right but leaders must do the right thing and when i think of that quote i do think of joe balsanick he's a man of principle and he's brought valuable contributions to our great city joe's leadership and commitment to the public good has made a great difference in our community and has made it better it's made it more progressive and it's improved the lives of our citizens so joe in closing i know you can you can look to the future knowing that you did your duty to represent the second ward our business community and the citizens of our whole community and you did so with honor and you did so with dignity and i know [3:06:32] **Paul Hicks:** uh not only i'm proud of your contributions you've made to the city but every single citizen in our community is proud of the contributions you made to our city so thank you good luck to your future endeavors and congratulations to a job well done and also a closing i'd just like to make a brief statement to dan who i understand is leaving sometime maybe in january or early next year as a city attorney dan we worked together for many years and uh i'll tell you i don't know how you do it with all that mundane contract language and all the detail of complicated deals that must be done uh you know especially working with you on the confluence project a lot of projects and the the sense of justice that you brought to our city as our lead [3:07:18] **Paul Hicks:** prosecutor uh you know your your contribution to our city as well as immeasurable and so um that's big shoes to fill whoever the next city attorney is going to be that's going to be a big job for that person and and i'm just so proud of you and what you've done and contributed to our city through the legalese that you've had to negotiate through what 10 12 years i knew our city attorney you're to be congratulated for a job well done you have done a wonderful job representing this organization the city of hastings and its goals and done so with a great care and with great diligence so thank you and thank you joe and thank you your honor and council members for allowing me this opportunity [3:08:06] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** well thanks for joining us paul and merry christmas merry christmas to you and to everyone thank you thank you also tonight we have a joint less legislative health resolution by representative jurgens and senator bigum go ahead carla **Karla Bigham:** thank you your honor and thank you council members um of course i'm going to have to go after the the icon the former mayor uh paul hicks and his articulate wisdom that he always bestows on us um and so i'm i'm gonna keep this short joe no pun intended there um so um you know i just want to thank you for your many years of service [3:08:54] **Karla Bigham:** to the city of of hastings and um to the community as a whole your passion for parks your passion for the businesses your passion for veterans i've seen you numerous times at the legion obviously and so um and thank you for your service to our country um but also your history and the wealth of knowledge that you bring to the community so um i just wanna uh i know your commitment won't stop uh tonight uh i know it's gonna continue but i just want to give my gratitude to you i love local government i know that this is where it's at and so i just want to you know show you gratitude and [3:09:39] **Karla Bigham:** thanks and appreciation for your service um and i will turn it over to my uh friend tony jurgens there to talk about the uh resolution um from from us **Tony Jurgens:** thank you carla joe i have here a resolution i'll i'll read this and then we'll get this in your hands in the next day or two uh i wish we could do it in person obviously that's not possible right now with the covert restrictions this is the next best thing and i just want to thank you for your years of service on the city council and in my time as a state representative i really valued your judgment and your input and really think of you as a friend i don't think it's a secret that you and [3:10:26] **Tony Jurgens:** i might be on slightly different uh spectrums politically but you've never once let that get in the way of doing what's best for the citizens of hastings uh we've always i think had a very good working relationship and i respect uh the the time that we've worked together and i want to thank you for that i wish you and betsy all the best um i i know you don't live in that beautiful house on the corner anymore but every time i drive by i i i notice how wonderful that looks and the work that you put into that so at this time i i know that the meeting is getting a little long here so i want to go ahead and read this resolution please a house resolution commending joe bossanick for 12 years of service with the hastings city [3:11:12] **Tony Jurgens:** council whereas councilman joe balsanek was first elected to a position on the hastings city council in 2008 and was re-elected in 2012 and again in 2016 culminating in a dozen years of dedicated service to his community and whereas during his tenure on the hastings city council joe has worked to create an environment for local businesses to thrive for citizens to feel welcome to feel like welcome members of the community and for access to affordable housing and assisted living to expand in the area he consistently acted as an efficient voice for his constituents and strive for a healthy and safe community and whereas among his accomplishments on the hastings city council [3:11:57] **Tony Jurgens:** is his work in support of the mississippi river bridge the riverfront renaissance and the renewal of the historic downtown area in hastings and whereas in addition to his work with the city of hastings joe is a veteran of the air national guard where he served for 22 years he also acted as commander of the american legion post 47 for two years and whereas joe is a small business owner and professional educator he has taught communications and theater at hamline and inver hills community college in addition to his work in k-12 setting further joe is known for his high quality upscale doll houses he creates for his clients and whereas in his spare time joe enjoys golfing bowling and hunting deer on his land up [3:12:43] **Tony Jurgens:** north and whereas joe has been married to his loving wife betsy for 51 years and together they share three adult children and six grandchildren now therefore being resolved by the committee on rules and legislative administration of the house of representatives of the state of minnesota that it commends joe balsaneck for 12 years of service to the hastings city council and extends appreciation for his many contributions to his community it's dated november 30th 2020 signed melissa hortman speaker of the minnesota house of representatives ryan winkler chair of the rules and legislative administration tony jurgen state representative and carl begum state senator joe congratulations thank you for [3:13:29] **Tony Jurgens:** all of your years of service well done car tony and carla that's great that's great councilmember joe balsanek who has faithfully served the citizens of hastings for 12 years in ward 2. council member balsanic began a service in the city of hastings 2008 and has helped tastings shape growth and development making improvements for the city for the city's 23 000 residents business owners and community partners joe has touched on all aspects of the city life during his tenure with a keen eye on a [3:14:25] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** big picture while making fiscally responsible decisions large projects of focus have included the 316 improvement package and the state bonding bill to restore the dome at city hall joe also worked to ensure completion of the rivertown renaissance and the rotary pavilion and early in his council years he helped guide the funding and completion of the new river bridge during his tenure the city welcomed more than 60 new businesses expanded and renovated business in town and improved downtown parking with a new parking ramp [3:15:12] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** most recently joe helped guide the confluence development project which is transforming the hudson sprayer building into an event center hotel and apartments and he championed the art space apartment lofts building which he helped focus attention on fine arts joe you have always been a great advocate for the residents and bringing their ideas and concerns a small business owner in the community in a college faculty member at the inver hills community college and hamlin university for 12 years as a board member for the [3:15:57] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** dakota county communications 911 center and served on city's hedra commission for four years joe as you know we know you're an avid golfer and a restorer of beautiful doll houses we hope you and your wife betsy of 51 years will now have time in your in the new year to do all the things you enjoy personally joe i've appreciated working and learning from you as mayor for my sadness and your departure but i'm delighted in knowing you have done what you have done to make hastings a [3:16:43] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** better place to live work play and own a business sorry but we sincerely thank you and we wish to recognize you with this i don't know if you can see it but it's a beautiful portrait of city hall and it etched in it says in honor of council member joe balsonic in recognition of 12 years of public service city of hastings and the citizens of ward 2 from 2008 and 2020. thanks from all of us joe we will miss you and we look forward to see you and seeing you downtown on the streets of uh your ward and ward one and all the other wards [3:17:45] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** that's up to you joe i know there's a few counts of people that wish to say a few things councilmember vaughn **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** thank you honor joe quickly my first word of joe balsonic is passion and i seen it when we went to a league of minnesota conference with a bunch of other council members and mayors and to watch you stand up and in in front of all those peers and share how proud you were to represent hastings and you really sent the message that hastings is the place to be your historical uh knowledge uh mayor hicks talked about it you've got a storied past that has really helped us kind of set policy and set a vision for hastings i appreciate that we're gonna miss it [3:18:31] **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** i personally wish we were in city also council chambers tonight i wish we were there at city hall where where i first got to meet you and first and where i got to share so many years with you but joe just recognize you you have represented ward 2 and all the residents of hastings for 12 years and you're going to continue to represent us keep up the good work i'm going to miss working with you and please stay in touch and enjoy that deer hunter you can get to go two weekends in a row now and councilmember braocks [3:19:18] **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** yes thank you mayor and um council member balsamic i just want to say thank you for your years of service as well and add my congratulations to um esteemed 12 years of service to the city of hastings i've worked with you for my entire time on the council which has been the last six years which for which i'm extremely thankful especially of your insights and your knowledge and your ability to connect with every issue um in a very personal way um usually have us a story or an experience to share connected with almost everything that we talk about at the council dais and i'm pretty sure that you've worked every job possible because i've heard you say so many different things that you've worked as a small business owner and a professor and i'm just so thankful for all your knowledge your wisdom your expertise for your service and a lot of the things that i wrote down other people already said so i'm gonna have to skip over those and go to the ones that are funny um you've been a tireless advocate [3:20:04] **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** for your ward as has been mentioned and i believe your communication skills are excellent as well as your large email list although joe i will enjoy not getting emails at 2 or 3 a.m but if you still want to send me some you can because i do enjoy you sharing your personal experiences your stories your photos when you see bears at the cabin i do really appreciate that you've shared those experiences with us and you've been very vulnerable i think that you're very vulnerable to the public about your life and that that brings that people feel close to you and your experiences and trust you and i certainly do i will miss some of your catchphrases the one that i was thinking of most when i was thinking about you [3:20:49] **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** was um the elephant in the room is dot dot dot that's something that i've heard you say quite often um that always makes me giggle but i've enjoyed um i've enjoyed listening to some of your stories and your experiences and some of your catchphrases i believe you've always advocated for better parks and amenities i've heard you talk proudly about your family especially your wife and your kids and your grandkids and that as you traveled around to go to different sporting events and you see other opportunities for hastings to get better more excellent and grow that you have shared those ideas with us i'm so thankful that you have and that hopefully you will get a little bit more time to see a few more games and performances and spend more time with your family [3:21:36] **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** i just want you to know how much i appreciate you joe and everything that you've done for the city of hastings and everything you've done for me personally to set a good example of what it means to not be afraid to share your opinion and to have your own point of view and to be passionate and to hold people accountable when they need to be held accountable and to talk about process and to remind us all that there are rules to follow um you've been a sage and a very experienced member of the council and i just want to tell you how much i deeply appreciate you and wish you all the best and thank you i'm extremely grateful for your service thank you councilmember braocks [3:22:21] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** anyone else? joe would you like to speak? **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** unaccustomed as i am to public speaking uh that's usually the way i started all my classes uh yeah thank you so much for the kind words uh from uh carla from tony from all of you on the council i really do appreciate that uh it been a joy 12 years i really didn't think i was gonna like all [3:23:08] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** of this stuff but the more i got into it uh the more i saw what i could do um when i started i didn't have any gray hair and now that i'm finishing i still don't have any gray hair it's all still natural so that has to say something about how much the enjoyment was you know public service is something that i just wanted to talk about a little bit tonight uh asked alexa the other night uh what percentage of the u.s population serves in public service and she came back with a figure that was point [3:23:53] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** zero zero two five percent we are part of that percentage all of us and is indeed a privilege if it is such a small number of people who have the opportunity to serve their fellow citizens i think it's something that we always need to remember as we go along you know my my whole life my whole professional life has been about public service uh 14 years old john f kennedy said ask not what you [3:24:40] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** what your country can do for you but ask what you can do for your country and it it really did stir something in me even at that age and as i moved along through high school with vietnam raging and so forth i decided to join the services that was something that i still consider to be public service if i was there maybe somebody else didn't have to go and uh i served throughout i served throughout my 22 years during the vietnam conflict during desert storm uh it was uh it was really an honor for me to be a [3:25:26] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** part of the military uh i served as an educator for 30 some years uh military 22 and when i retired from all that stuff neighbors started knocking on the door for some reason they said well how'd you like to run for city council would have been easy to say no but i ran and said this city is worth trying to represent uh because of all of the good things that i saw and all of the good things that i wanted to have happen uh as we went along through the years the economy was in the tank years ago when i got on uh it was the [3:26:12] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** start of the great recession uh you talk about budget problems we had to endure layoffs uh cut back in time cut back and budget and that lasted quite a few years before we were able to finally get things turned around and i'm ending now with the pandemic uh but at least we've got some some funding that's coming from the state coming from the federal government to help us out whereas we didn't have that back in 2008 and nine when all of that started the budget the 12 years that i've been on the council helped appropriate 100 [3:26:58] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** approximately 250 million dollars in expenditures for the good citizens of hastings that's a quarter of a billion dollars that's that's a figure that still boggles my mind to this day you know we saw the budget for next year with about 15 million or so but you have to add to that the services that we provide your water bills uh the fees for ems and fire and so on and so forth so you know about 20 million a year or so for 23 000 citizens that's a very interesting figure when you stop [3:27:43] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** and look at that uh when i ran for the council i didn't just run because it was a popularity contest and i don't want any of you to ever think that this is a pop a popularity contest i had goals and for the council in 2008 we didn't have a bridge yet the new bridge we were still limping along going over a two-lane bridge and trying to join uh the 21st century uh that that was really a very frustrating time so i went to work to try and do whatever i could to get that bridge completed uh and i [3:28:29] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** was also very proud of some of the aesthetic things that i was able to do except former mayor hicks you'll probably remember that we ended up paying for that uh excel energy power pole which i didn't think we had to do it seemed to me that they should have paid for that but it's done so water under the bridge as they say no pun intended uh i wanted to do something better for senior citizens i had visited the old senior center uh there behind the post office and i said we got to be able to do something better and we were able to form the joint task force with the school district that created what we now know as the [3:29:15] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** tilden center which is such a marvelous entity for our senior citizens i'm very very proud of the work that i helped do on that ward 2 was one of the oldest wards in the city and had some streets that had not been restored or repaved or redone rejuvenated in over a hundred years and i worked very hard with public works to try and get that as a priority and finally uh it was three years ago now uh every street in the second ward is done all new plumbing all new water all new sewer [3:30:00] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** all new curb and gutter and so forth and i'm very very proud that we were able to make that happen the riverfront renaissance uh very proud of that uh saw the the bridge was done i kind of looked around at the sand burs that were hanging around in the mud puddles and the potholes got together with our mayor and boy did he take off with that and we all see what the results are today one thing that i was fighting for from the day i got on the council was an economic development director we finally got one about four years ago and look at the progress that we've made in terms of housing especially housing [3:30:45] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** in those last four years we're going to have over 250 new housing units of different shapes and forms over the next two years they're shovel ready they're ready to go those were some of the goals that i set forth and i'm very happy that they were accomplished i had some other goals that i wanted to uh have happen county road 46 47 highway 55 but i we've got a glimmer of hope from the uh from the county now they're studying that we're working together with them and hopefully we're going to see some very safe improvements on that [3:31:32] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** in the future and uh representative jurgens i know you almost got killed a couple of times walking up and down 316 uh running for election and uh the result of that is uh we've got that in the pipeline now too that's shovel ready we're gonna start on that next year in my 12 years i worked with two chamber council chamber of commerce directors i worked with four city administrators i worked with two fire chiefs i worked with three police chiefs two park and recreation directors two public works directors yeah [3:32:17] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** that is a mouthful and it really added to my experience in terms of perspective and i hope over the years that all of you came on the council i was able to help you out with all of that some of the things that i just assumed would have done without is terminology uh that comes with public service stakeholders and things like that the weirdest one that i ever came upon was uh was brought out by uh councilmember folch when she took it upon herself to do some things on highway 61 and that term was vertical [3:33:02] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** friction uh i think we talked about vertical friction tonight without mentioning the term if you don't if you don't know what it is email me i'll i'll be happy to tell you but there's your test for tomorrow uh i hope you have goals here's coming up i i talked with dan watecha about city council goals and he told me that he's trying to get something going for a retreat for the council to uh sit back and say where do we want to go what specific things we want to do in the community uh and and i i'm imploring all of you [3:33:49] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** set some goals that you want to accomplish in in the next years that you're uh in public service i take the time to thank some people on the staff in particular for everything that they did to make my life easier uh hinzman thank you nick egger thank you police chief brian schaefer julie flatten thank you so much for everything that you've done for me as a council member dan flegal uh i kind of get a feeling that you're leaving because you've been exposed to some [3:34:35] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** meetings like we had tonight i'm not sure but i wish you well and i thank you for your extreme patience as we've gone through these things over the years i want to thank the entire staff of the city very professional never saw any kind of you know squabbling never saw anything that gave an inkling that fur was ever going to fly very very solid professionalism on their part and i think that's all due to the city administrations that we've had our past four city administrators i want to thank senator bigham [3:35:20] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** i want to thank representative jurgens i want to thank commissioner slavic poor that they've extended to me over the years uh i i really appreciate that uh that i was able to contact you up in the lofty uh the lofty land of the capital city uh that that really made me feel very much like a public servant very very much so the last thing i want to do is thank the public [3:36:06] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** me for 12 years to work for them he knocked on doors and honked my horn and down the streets when we have the water contamination i've answered emails i have over 500 email thank yous from citizens that i've helped over the years has always been my pride and joy is being able to help those people whenever i possibly could very much you never know where i might [3:36:51] **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** show up again uh i've got some irons in the f in the in the fire with uh met council and uh a couple of other public agencies uh services in my blood it ain't gonna go away and uh if i see something i'm gonna jump on it so you never know where i'm gonna show up again but the one thing i can say in conclusion that i was once the future on a time instinct thank you joe beautiful [3:37:42] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** council any announcements? i have a couple uh first of all happy belated birthday to clerk flatten it was saturday happy birthday julie uh city offices will be closed december 25th and january 1st we have a holiday light recycling drop-off running through the december 30th and that is the drop-off is at 10th and pine at the joint maintenance facility building show us how you shine hastings if you're decorating your home or business with outdoor lights and the season is [3:38:28] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** now please consider sharing a picture with us and photos will be shared on your city web our city website social media and placed on a map of a self-guided tour if you're willing to have people drive by your house and look at the lights monday december 28th we have a planning commission meeting and monday january 4th we have a our next city council meeting at this time this is our last meeting of 2020 i'd love to thank the community stepping up to shop shopping eating and donating locally through our covid [3:39:14] **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** our community has really stepped up to help all the businesses throughout our community and we they appreciate your support looking forward to a brighter 2020 and i think we all are so with that i would ask joe to make a motion to adjourn **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** your honor i make a motion to adjourn the last meeting of 2020 for the city of hastings **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** and i'll need a second councilmember vaughn has a second **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** no discussion all those in favor clerk platten please call the roll **Julie Flaten:** councilmember vaughn? **Councilmember Mark Vaughan:** hi. **Julie Flaten:** thanks joe council member folks? **Councilmember Tina Folch:** hi. thank you joe for [3:40:02] **Councilmember Tina Folch:** everything that you've done it's been a pleasure **Julie Flaten:** council member balsamic? **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** hi. **Julie Flaten:** thank you joe i'm going to miss you also remember lund? **Councilmember Trevor Lund:** hi merry christmas and thank you joe **Julie Flaten:** council member braucks? **Councilmember Lori Braucks:** hi. **Julie Flaten:** councilmember belsonic? **Councilmember Joe Balsanek:** hi. **Julie Flaten:** mayor fasbender? **Mayor Mary Fasbender:** i as well merry christmas everyone and see you next year motion has prevailed to early it prevails we are adjourned high five joe thanks happy holidays bye bye