[0:05] Mary Fasbender: Time being 7 o'clock, I call the Hastings City Council meeting to order. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [0:31] Mary Fasbender: Welcome and let the role reflect. We do have a full council. Tonight we will be reading a proclamation for recognizing October as Down syndrome awareness month and council member Pemble if you would start. [0:48] Dave Pemble: Certainly. October 2025 is Down syndrome awareness month whereas approximately one and 6 40 babies in the United States are born with Down syndrome, representing an estimated 5,700 people a year. And whereas Down syndrome is the most frequently occurring chromosomal disorder and is the leading cause of intellectual and developmental delay in the United States and in the world. And whereas possessing a wide range of abilities, people with Down syndrome are active participants in educational, occupational, social, and recreational circles of our communities. And whereas individuals with Down syndrome should have equal opportunity to achieve the [1:34] universally desired goals of self- fulfillment, pride in their achievements, inclusion in their communities, and reaching their fullest potential. And whereas quality education programs, a stimulating home environment, good health care, and positive support from family, friends, and the community enable people with Down syndrome to lead fulfilling and productive lives. And whereas the city of Hastings encourages all citizens to work together to promote and respect and the inclusion of individuals with Down syndrome and to celebrate their accomplishments ac pardon me accomplishments and contributions and therefore be it resolved that I, Mayor Mary Fasbender of the city of city of Hastings do hereby declare the month of October 2025 Down Syndrome Awareness [2:22] Month in the city of Hastings. [2:33] Mary Fasbender: And if Will and Maya would like to step forward with their children, Teddy, we would give you this proclamation. Of course, we want to take... [2:44] Mary Fasbender: Do you mind? [2:53] Mary Fasbender: This is all [3:18] right. Three, two, one. I love that. That's awesome. Do this again. Awesome. All right. Good job. Good job. [3:50] Mary Fasbender: Yeah. [3:58] Mary Fasbender: All right. Council, any corrections to the September 15th meeting? Okay. Nothing. Any comments from the audience? At this time, if anyone would like to speak to the council, they may please step to the podium, state your name and address, and we will hear your comments. [4:20] Lee Albert Wickbold: All right. Hi. Uh, thank you, mayor and city council for this opportunity to speak. My name is Lee Albert Wickbold. I live at 807 Vermillion Street, apartment 3. Just want to say this isn't some kind of joke or anything, and I am going to try to get through this as fast as I can, so please bear with me. The reason I'm here today is to make an official public announcement to the local community that I am campaigning for the office of governor of the state of Minnesota for the election on November 3rd, 2026. I will be running as a Republican. [4:50] First, I will briefly state my qualifications. I consider myself a dedicated servant to my community. I'm involved in multiple charitable organizations on a volunteer basis. I consider myself a man of God. I love Jesus. I attend church regularly and study the Bible daily. Faith is my biggest virtue. Also, I'm a veteran of the United States Army where I served as an infantryman in South Korea and Iraq. [5:17] So, I am experienced and dedicated service work to the government and my community. Now, I'll speak on my campaign platform. The first part will involve police reform and jail reform. I think certain paramilitaristic type operations aimed at catching non-violent drug offenders is an unnecessary approach and an extreme burden on taxpayers. I also view many forms of undercover surveillance tactics to be a violation of privacy and human rights tantamount to gangstalking or harassment and also costly to taxpayers. What I would propose is passing legislation regulating or restricting the use of military grade equipment or vehicles by law enforcement officers. [6:00] Passing legislation to restrict certain types of surveillance equipment or tactics used by law enforcement officers. Passing legislation to restrict or criminalize the use of intentionally deceitful tactics by law enforcement officers. My goal is for all law enforcement agencies in the state to operate in the most transparent and coste effective way possible. Also, I would like to explore jail reform, passing legislation to implement minimum and maximum sentences for most crimes aimed at providing more clar clarity and hopefully shorter sentences in many cases. then making a more comprehensive effort and giving them a truly positive and rehabilitative experience rather than extensive sentences that are strictly punitive and costly to taxpayers. Next, I would like to address [6:46] the homeless epidemic in a meaningful way, especially in the greater metropolitan area. First, I will say that forms of legalized gambling to raise money is not a new concept in the state of Minnesota. I would like to expand this concept into legalized sports betting and certain casinos. Profits made would be taxed at a certain rate which go which go to a specific fund aimed at improving existing homeless shelters or creating a brand new homeless shelter in the metropolitan area. Lastly, repealing the PRO Act, Minnesota statute 145.49 established in 2023 gives full body autonomy to pregnant individuals regarding reproductive procedures, giving them full dominion over unborn life. This is outside of what I would consider anything normal, practical, or [7:32] healthy. It's all built straight to Medicaid. This is what I consider corrupt and streamlined abortion. For those reasons, I think the PROAC should be repealed or at least very at very least modified, allowing state and local governments to mandate gestation periods or waiting times to receive certain procedures. [7:50] The way this statute is written currently, I consider to be inhumane. In closing, I will say that I love Jesus. I love Minnesota and I love America. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak. I really appreciate it. Have a great rest of your night and God bless. [8:09] Mary Fasbender: Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak to the council at this time? And no one on Zoom. All right. Council, any items to be considered? Okay. Council, we will look at the consent agenda and I would accept a motion to approve it. [8:29] Mary Fasbender: A first by council member Leifeld and a second by council member Lawrence. Any discussion? Councel. All those in favor of the motion state by saying I. I. Opposed to that motion state by saying nay. And that motion prevails. [8:47] Let's see. Tonight under Yeah, that's it. Uh administration, we have a as we always do the first meeting of the month. Oops, sorry, sorry, sorry. Oh, we do. I am so sorry. One more item. John, I knew you were here for a reason. [9:04] John Hinzman: Well, someone's got to run the... [9:23] Mary Fasbender: Under community development. John will give us an introduction for the new town home in the ODS review uh resolution for the ODS review. [9:23] John Hinzman: Thank you, mayor, city council members. What we have before you tonight is the review of what's termed ODS, which is the original Hastings design standards. The ODS were developed about 15 or more years ago to work as a regulatory item within a portion of the city listed here. It's not quite as intensive as say the heritage preservation historic district regulations, but really generly looks at the form of buildings itself. [9:54] So what we're looking at is a building to be constructed generally in this area on the edge of the ODS. Uh this would be a twin home building. What you're showing here is the two lots. There would be a twin home built on each half of the lot. So uh one structure, two units altogether. This is what it would look like here. You've got the driveway garage going out the front. Uh twin home at this location and the front of the home here. So with anything that's an OD regulation, we do have our Heritage Preservation Commission review and provide recommendation. They did meet on September 16th, recommended approval of the proposed twin home on a vote of 5 to zero. They did add a couple of conditions which we included within your [10:40] resolution. A couple of things pertaining to having a decorative front gable, installation of porch railings, inclusion of a side garage window, and use of horizontal siding on gables. So with those conditions, the Heritage Preservation Commission does recommend approval of it. I did have some discussion on this one. ODS regulations for new construction are not something they deal with every day. They want to make sure that something fits within the neighborhood. In general, when we look at ODS, we're looking at uh what's called the immediate adjacent area. Some of the neighbors with the block within the block, some of the homes. Does it fit within the character of it? In this situation here, we've got kind of a hodgepodge of different types of construction. We've got some areas that are are newer and more tradition and [11:27] some homes that are more traditional. The setback and sizes of these homes were also figured into it. In the end, the Heritage Preservation Commission did recommend approval of it, noting that 40% of the construction within this immediate neighborhood was of modern variety. So, I can stand for any questions that you may have on this. And again, we're asking for adoption of the resolution. Thank you. [11:49] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, John. Council, any questions? Council member Leifeld. [11:58] Lisa Leifeld: Thanks, Honor. John, I'm can't locate the address that I'm thinking of, but my one concern with this particular type of property would be it appearing to be overly large for the lot. I know we have a I I believe it's a single family home though, not a twounit um off of the corner of Pine and possibly sixth or seventh. [12:16] And I'm curious about setbacks, right? How much front yard, how much sideyard, how much backyard. Is that something I I I don't have any problem with this development, per se. I just want to make sure that it doesn't look like we're, you know, squeezing it into a spot that it's really not meant to squeeze into. [12:37] John Hinzman: Sure. Council member, we the the lots that we have here, I'm go back a little bit here. So, this is the the lots that are available in the neighborhood. So, the lots here are full city lots uh that were platted. So, there's I think 66 by 135. And so, you you've got two lots with a home twin home uh split between them. So you you've got a lot of lot space to work with. As far as the setbacks go and what we looked at with some of the the areas of the immediate the size of the home itself, uh the average is is is pretty similar. The average in the neighborhood is about 1,400 square ft. This is about 1,600. [13:17] Garage is a little bit smaller uh for each garage than what we see in the neighborhood as well. Say a building width is is right on with what the rest of them are. Uh the setback itself, this is set back much further, probably at about this location than some of the rest of these homes. [13:32] Lisa Leifeld: John, when you stated it's 1,400 square foot for the average home in the area and 1,600 for this per unit. [13:42] John Hinzman: Uh 1,400 for each of these homes here. This we looked at each unit. So each unit here, each side of the twin home would be about uh 1,600 ft². [13:49] Lisa Leifeld: Okay. So a pretty big property sitting there, 3,200 square feet. [13:54] John Hinzman: You do. You've got a pretty large property here. This is going to be, you know, in in the average of almost a third of an acre between these two. [14:06] Lisa Leifeld: And then when you said that it would be sitting back a ways. Is there any regulation that requires that they'll be doing that? [14:12] John Hinzman: Yeah, there's a minimum setback of 20 ft and these are being set back at about 40. So about double that. [14:23] Lisa Leifeld: So back I guess my question there is if minimum setback is 20, but this will be 40. Do we know it's 40 or will is it possible that it could go to 20? [14:31] John Hinzman: It's possible it could go it could go 20 on that one. That's the minimum regulations. But the proposal that we see right here is at 40. [14:45] Lisa Leifeld: So if we were to approve this now and they were to come back later and say they're putting it at 20, what happens? [14:52] John Hinzman: Uh 20 foot still the minimum standard on this. So we haven't added any conditions that it would need to be built at 40 ft back. But uh I guess that that may be up to the discretion of the council. [15:10] Lisa Leifeld: Have we heard from any neighbors? [15:14] John Hinzman: I don't think we have on this one. No. [15:17] Lisa Leifeld: Okay. Thanks, John. Appreciate the presentation. [15:23] Mary Fasbender: Thanks, Council Member Leifeld. Council member Vihrachoff. [15:28] DawnMarie Vihrachoff: Thank you, your honor. Thank you, Council Member Leifeld, for your thoughtful questions. That was mine as well as if we had heard from any neighbors on this. Actually went and drove and looked at this spot um last night and I'm in reading uh some of the information in our packet. I I think it's probably okay, but I would like to hear the expert on this. The thing that I was a little concerned about was the fact that the way that the the lot faces in terms of the neighbors would like run off of big thaw after a heavy snowfall spring or anything like that. Do we feel like that could be within any concern of any of the neighbors? [16:03] John Hinzman: Taking a look at what we we see here. I'm looking at the grade. From a size standpoint, you've got a lot of room to work with. And so, if you can see the coverage of the home versus the lot, uh, you've got a lot of work lot to work with here. And looking at the grades of the property, you do see some sloping down towards this area here. Um, generally drains in about this direction. When you look down to the south, uh, there towards here, it's a lot of vacant space. Here, you do have another residence. So during the building permit process, one of the things we do look at is those corner lot elevations and drainage on it. And if we believe it's going to be problematic with drainage encroaching onto a neighboring property, we can have that modified to create a swale or something else that would keep the property uh the [16:25] water on the property. [16:32] DawnMarie Vihrachoff: Thank you. That answers my question. Um and also I just wanted to commend the resident that lives there. I love that they took an old home that that wasn't um fit to be still standing there, kept it, and are now building something new within that same space. I know it's a lot it's a I think of it more as a wooded area. So, I think it's a good fit for that area. So, I'm glad to see this. [16:48] John Hinzman: Thank you. [16:53] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Council Member Vihrachoff. Council member Pemble. [17:24] Dave Pemble: John, when uh looking at the lot, I know to the southeast it slopes quite a bit down towards 8 Street if it was back there. And I know there's a residence back in there, but uh it pretty much runs more east than south as far as the elevation goes. And what I remember of that house that was there, the the elevation right there sat proud to the other properties around. I remember when Seventh Street was put through to the end there and that last rental home was was put in that uh they had to cut down the the roadway a little bit to uh make [17:36] it fit to what the elevation they were looking for there. But I guess I, you know, unless there's some neighbor issues, I would make a recommendation to accept the change and allow that property be built. [18:18] Mary Fasbender: Thank you, Council Member Pemble and Council Member Vihrachoff. Is a second? [18:25] DawnMarie Vihrachoff: Yes, please. [18:27] Mary Fasbender: No. Or any other discussion, councel? All those in favor of the motion, state by saying I. I. Opposed to that motion, state by saying nay. And that motion prevails. Thank you, John. [18:41] Tonight, now under administration as always, the first meeting of the month, we will have a PFAS update. Dan. [18:48] Dan Wietecha: Thank you, mayor. Um although some significant steps, it feels part parts of this feels uh like our uh update from a month ago. Um but a little bit of progress since then. Um most notably uh mobilization and construction on the central water treatment plant uh began a couple weeks ago in mid late September. Uh you'll especially see the work that A1 is doing uh on Seventh Street right now with putting in the raw water lines. Uh the [18:59] uh plant itself uh with Magny construction uh had a little bit of a delay. We found some asbestous containing material in the glue in the subfloor of the existing building that needs to be demo demolitioned. Uh expect uh that building to be demoed in the next couple of days. So uh progress is um coming just a little bit slow here at the front end. Still anticipating substantial completion uh the end of 2026 next year. So it's about a year and a half project. [19:32] Um uh as as council knows uh we've had discussion uh in our budgeting and preliminary budget uh set by council uh in September uh in order to pay for the next water treatment plant. Round two uh will mean a uh significant water rate increase. Uh we do continue to seek uh grants and other funding. Uh but uh in case those don't pan out, we need to make sure that we we do have money. Um at present, uh the proposal is uh a phased increase 10% January of 26, an additional 10% July of 2026, and then another 10% uh January [20:18] 2027. Um uh the phasing allows us time to continue seeking grants rather than doing a big increase all at once uh and and hopefully lesser uh increases later on. Uh it also um uh just hopefully a little bit easier for our residents that it's you know although it's still substantial if it comes in over a period of a year and a half 10 you know 10% at a time rather than 30 plus percent all at once. Uh so uh that's what's in the works. uh between now and December, uh those numbers will continue to be refined and maybe a little bit less, but uh until we get funding, which [21:07] uh really likely would not happen until next year, um it it's daunting. Uh and then the last piece, speaking of looking for funding, uh over the last couple of weeks, we've had conversations with Senator Seabourger and Representative Depel. uh um they they are obviously both supportive of our project uh and wanting to see funding from uh multiple options uh that could be coming forward. [21:35] Uh and one of those uh which we've really built some good relationships the last couple of years just haven't seen the the dollars yet is the uh House Capital Investment Committee is planning to visit during their state bonding tour on November 6. So details are still pending, but um obviously good that uh uh we have their interest and that they're going to make a stop here. With that, I can take any questions. Thank you. [22:26] Mary Fasbender: Thanks, Dan. Any questions, councel? Okay. All right, council. Any announcements? [22:38] I do have a couple. Um, October is National Community Planning Month. Extra appreciation to community development director John Hinzman and our city planner along with a city planner Justin Forney along with Alex Menke who works under John in economic development. So, thank you for all you do, John. In recognition of National Fire Prevention, the fire and EMS department open house is Tuesday. That's tomorrow, October 7th. Meet the departments, learn about fire safety, and see the trucks and equipment. All ages are welcome. The Hastings Police Department will join more than 50 agencies across the state in selling [23:03] pink patch items to raise awareness and funds for the American Cancer Society during breast cancer awareness month in October. Meetings: Wednesday, October 8th, 6 PM, Arts and Culture Commission. Thursday, October 9th, 6 PM, there is a HEDRA meeting. Monday, October 13th, 6:00 p.m. [23:27] Planning Committee meeting and a 7:00 p.m. planning commission meeting. Wednesday, October 15th, 6 pm parks and recreation commission. Wednesday, October 15th, uh 6:30, public safety advisory commission, and Monday, October 20th, 7 p.m., a city council meeting. With that, I would ask for a motion to adjurnn. [24:20] Mary Fasbender: Council member Pemble, Council Member Haus. No discussion. All those in favor of the motion state by saying I. I. Opposed to that motion state by saying nay. We are adjourned.