This transcript features **Mayor Dan Lewis**, City Manager **Lindy Crawford**, and various city staff and council members. I have corrected name spellings (e.g., "Edberg" instead of "Edward," "Kinsodder" instead of "Kinser," and "Copy" as the City Engineer) based on the context of the White Bear Lake City Council. [0:00] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: ...stands one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [0:18] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: All right, we'll let the record reflect that Council Member Walsh is present. All right. Uh we'll jump into the agenda here. Item two, approval of the minutes of the regular city council meeting from September 9th, 2025, and entertain a motion to approve those minutes. [0:34] **Council Member**: So move. [0:35] **Council Member**: Second. [0:36] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Have a motion, a second. All those in favor say I. [0:39] **Council Members**: I. [0:40] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Any opposed? Motion carries. Minutes are approved. Item three, adoption of the agenda. Are there any changes, corrections, amendments to the agenda? Seeing none, I would entertain a motion to adopt the agenda. [0:48] **Council Member**: So move. [0:49] **Council Member**: Second. [0:50] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: A motion is second. All those in favor say I. [0:51] **Council Members**: I. [0:52] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Any opposed? We have an agenda. Item four, consent agenda. Entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. [0:57] **Council Member**: So move. [0:58] **Council Member**: Second. [0:59] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: The motion is second. All those in favor say I. [1:01] **Council Members**: I. [1:02] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Any opposed? Motion carries. All right. Item five, visitors and presentations. [1:07] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Item 5a, firefighter appreciation month proclamation and fire department biannual report. So I will get things kicked off and I want to welcome most—half a lot—of our fire department here. Uh a good showing for sure. So thank you for being with us. All right, without further ado, I will read the proclamation. [1:29] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Whereas fire prevention month is recognized each year in October to raise fire safety awareness to educate families, students, and communities across the United States. Whereas we remember past firefighters who have lost their lives while serving their communities, to express gratitude to those who have served in this line of work, and to show support and appreciation for those who presently serve. Whereas regardless of the language a firefighter speaks or the country in which he or she works and resides, all firefighters fight against the same enemy, fire. [2:04] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Whereas firefighters follow a long line of tradition and honor that inspires them to help colleagues, neighbors, and strangers alike. Whereas at a moment's notice, firefighters are quick to respond to uncertain situations to mitigate danger and combat the threat of destructive fire in order to protect individuals, families, and the economic well-being of our community. Whereas the demands of firefighting are accompanied by both personal and physical tolls that all firefighters knowingly accept while risking their lives to protect the lives of others. Now therefore, be it resolved that I, Dan Lewis, mayor of the city of White Bear Lake, Minnesota, do hereby proclaim October of 2025 as firefighter appreciation month and encourage all citizens to show support and appreciation to our firefighters who protect our lives and property so diligently throughout the year. and by remembering past firefighters who have dedicated their lives to preserve our safety. [3:08] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: I will pretend to sign it again because I signed it for the picture. Uh but with that, I just want to say thank you to our firefighters, our chief, our department. Um I think it goes without saying this council has usually been pretty supportive of the department and I'm confident that we will continue to do so. So I sincerely thank all of you for the the service that you provide for our community. Um, and I think we should stand and and give these folks a hand. [3:48] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Very good. And with that, Chief, give us— [3:50] **Fire Chief**: Thank you, Mayor. They're uh also here for drill, which is works out well that they're here for this. So, I'm going to let them go back to drill. Yeah, get back to work. So there's not— [4:04] **Fire Chief**: All right. I will go ahead um with my presentation at this time. So I want to give some brief updates as to what we've been up to and kind of hit some highlights uh so far this year. Um this is I know you've seen this many times. I just put it up there so the general populace is aware of this because I've I've realized even recently that some people don't always know that information. And so, um, please just bear with me. So, our department protects the city, White Bear Lake, White Bear Township, Delwood, Birwood, Gem Lake. It's about 35 square miles. [4:36] **Fire Chief**: So, it's a pretty large service area. Uh, and it's about uh about 38,000 population that's here, but obviously there's a lot of people that work in this area and travel through this area. So, it's around 40,000 is what we cover. One of the things that is uh of note for so all of you should be aware of we're running about 9% above last year's run volume right now. Uh so the two last two years we've had decreases each year. Um but this year we're running about 9% sometimes a little higher than that sometimes it's been a little lower than that but I keep keep a pretty close eye on it. Uh if it is potentially we'll have another record setting year. It kind of depends upon how the year ends out here. So we'll see. Uh there are various reasons for that. Um part of it is just running on more fire calls. Some of it is running on more EMS calls and mix that in with some severe weather that we've had this summer. Um which we get multiple calls whenever an event like that takes place. Um so add all those little factors together and that's kind of where we're at. So I anticipated that it at some point would go back up and that's that's what we're seeing now. [5:44] **Fire Chief**: So luckily we're staffed well to handle that. So it it's going it's going all right. So our department staff, again, I haven't really addressed this directly recently, so I just thought I'd remind everybody kind of where we're at now with our staff. Um, so we have three chief officers, myself and and two assistant chiefs. We have an administrative assistant, three full-time captains that are also paramedics that run the the three uh full-time shifts. We have 15 full-time firefighter paramedics and then we we're starting October 6, we will have three full-time firefighter EMTs. We have one firefighter EMT right now that's full-time. [6:24] **Fire Chief**: So, we're getting there with our staffing. So, the firefighter EMTs are Jeff Ecman, uh Mindy Feaster, and Jack Cole. All of them were part-time staff. So, Jeff has already onboarded earlier this year. And then Mindy and Jack were just made and accepted their job offers recently. So those were uh a different position for them. Um and then that will allow us to have seven people on all three of our shifts. So we have a shift, we refer to it as a shift, B shift, and C shift. They work 24-hour rotating schedules between those three shifts. [6:58] **Fire Chief**: Each one of those shifts, I tell you they're the best. All right. So B's is a little easier. They're like B is the best shift. So they have a lot of fun with it. Go ahead. [7:05] **Council Member Edberg**: How many part-time staff do we have? [7:07] **Fire Chief**: So, we have I'll get to it in a second. It's in it's the next slide. So, part-time staff, we have one uh Dave Peterson's full-time cap—I'm sorry, part-time captain EMT. And then Steve Wulber is a a part-time lieutenant EMT. And then there's also six firefighters after Jeff and in—I'm sorry, Jack and Mindy um are in their new roles. So, we have eight uh that are left on the part-time side of the department. So, it's all good stuff. [7:38] **Fire Chief**: Um it allows us a lot of ability to cover calls that we—was inconsistent before. Uh but now we have a a lot more stabilized. We can get to multiple calls at the same time in a timely fashion. So it's it's working out well. Our uh rescue swimmers are continue to be a successful program. We've had other departments approach us and ask us if they can be part of the training. The next time we put a class on, we'll probably put a class on again next year. [8:06] **Fire Chief**: Unfortunately, each year we've had to use the rescue swimmers and a real call. We had a drowning that made the news earlier this year. Um, and we used our boat with our rescue swimmers uh to to find the lady that had drowned and they our rescue swimmers um went down and grabbed her and brought her up to the surface so we could get onto a a boat and then get her to shore. So, it is a uh a well um used program. It doesn't—we don't do it a lot, but when we need to do it, having that capability is um very very successful. So, we're we're happy with that program. We plan to continue it. [8:46] **Fire Chief**: We did have a pretty significant townhouse fire about a month or so ago and now goes by quickly. This is off of Willow Lane, which is just the area is just south of County Road E. Uh this is a picture shortly after arrival. Um and it is pretty well involved. It's kind of hard to see because of the distance, but that's a two-story townhouse behind there. And there are three town houses that were all affected by the fire. Two of them are well involved in fire. Um, and since that time, um, we believe that the fire we determined it as accidental. [9:21] **Fire Chief**: They hired a private firm to confirm that. They have a lot more technology available to figure out exactly what happened when. Uh, and the insurance companies pay for that. There are four different insurance companies involved in this and so once we hear back from them as far as what the dollar loss is going to be on this. Um it it'll be very interesting to find out what that is. Uh despite all the fire that you see, most of the interior belongings we were able to save, a lot of this fire is on the outside of the building. Um and it make it made its way up the outside of the building and extended from one unit to another on the outside. it was uh fed by two natural gas lines that had severed. [10:02] **Fire Chief**: Um and so that was why it developed so quickly. Um and so we got there in a timely fashion, but uh nonetheless it was pretty pretty significant event. Everybody made it out safely, so that was good. And we also able to get some of their pets out safely, which they always appreciate. [10:20] **Fire Chief**: We did a citizens fire academy. So the department used to run this for a number of years. Uh, and then there was a break from that. We wanted to get it going again this year. Um, and so we had a lot of fun with the students that were there. Um, and we plan to to run it again this next year. And so we allow them to do a lot of the things we do. [10:42] **Fire Chief**: the people on most of the people on that line, you can see Chief Waylander there, but the rest of them are all citizens that they're in our gear and they're working uh the line and learning how to deploy a hose and how to manage the stream and do a lot of things that we do. They also allow them to climb ladders and do extrication and a lot of different things. Chief Waylander, you can see him there in the picture on the right. He created a little dollhouse uh to train him on fire behavior uh out of OSB and you slide the the doors and the windows open and you can watch the smoke and how it reacts to ventilation and no ventilation and so on. So, it's very creative. Um it was a big hit with everybody that went through it. Um and we have a we had a lot of fun with it. [11:26] **Fire Chief**: So, we we'll run it again next April. We're syncing it up with the police department so we don't we're not crossing over each other. Um and so we—they're going to do their—they're going to start theirs soon and we'll we'll start ours up in the spring after they're done. As far as live fire training goes, uh this is an an invitation to all of you. Um it—we're going to do—we did live fire training earlier this year. This is down at the Maplewood East Metro training um facility where it's a concrete building that has panels on it to keep it the fire from destroying the concrete. Um so we're able to light fires in it and and you know run them over and over and over again. This is what the fire—all the fire is there is a bunch of pallets and some—and some hay and that's what we use for training—cardboard. That's it. But you can see how far how big that fire got pretty quickly. Um, it's kind of surprising to everybody and we have a house uh available to us that we plan to do live fire training in on November 1st. All of you are invited to do it. I know the mayor is interested already. Um, so if anybody wants to do that, please let me know and we'll bring you in. We will keep you safe, but we will bring you in inside. Um, Council Member Walsh, you went before. [12:42] **Council Member Walsh**: I'll do it again. [12:43] **Fire Chief**: You'll do it again. Yeah. So, the uh if you want to do that, we we sure can. I I would encourage you to—it's a good experience uh to learn. Fire prevention week uh is again—I don't know if everybody's aware of this—but it's all based on the great Chicago fire. Um that's where it started back in 1871 in a burn for 3 days. There were about 300 people killed uh during that fire. 17,000 structures and 100,000 people were without their homes uh after that fire. I think it's so long ago we kind of lose lose sight of that. Um and so I just bring it up—kind of history of that—to to remind everybody. Um a lot of what was learned you would say well you know nothing like that's going to happen because but then you remember what happened in LA early this year um in in the firestorm that they had because of how dry it is and the environment they're in down there. Uh so it can happen. Um but we've come a long way from this fire. A lot of changes in code, building construction, road construction, a lot of a lot of things change in a positive manner. So the fire service in general on a national level, we try to keep those themes going and remind the public of different things and and try to look forward to what's going on. Um and so this year I wanted to share um something with all of you. [14:06] **Fire Chief**: This is um a video clip from I believe it was ABC News. Um and I just took part of it off of their YouTube channel and so it's not the whole segment, but I wanted to show this to you because this is really hard to explain uh what happens um when lithium ion batteries catch fire. And so this is testing that uh the National Institute of of Fire Safety put together. Um and and they—that—so I'm going to play this video. [14:36] **Fire Chief**: You—I don't know how well you'll be able to hear the audio, but I'll just play through it. Um and I want everybody understand that this is—you know—there are 3 million batteries sold every year and most of the time there's no issues, right? So they're they're they're safe. This is not a uh oh my goodness, lithium batteries are are bad. I'm not saying that. But we do want everybody to be aware of there. When they go wrong, they go wrong very very quickly. And so it's more of an awareness thing. So that's what the theme is for this year. And I'll go ahead and play play the video now. Oops. And then I just screwed it up. [15:19] **[Video Audio]**: Inside this building at the New York City Fire Department's training academy, a firsthand look at the jaw-dropping risks associated with a popular product. [15:36] **[Video Audio]**: We're going to burn this bike inside a building. We got an exclusive demonstration of how ebikes and e- scooters powered by lithium ion batteries can become infernos in seconds. [15:51] **[Video Audio]**: So this holiday season, the fire safety research institute is teaming up with the FDNY to show just how dangerous they can be. [16:03] **Fire Chief**: Pretty dramatic. I don't know how to explain that other than showing that to you. Um, and so we want to remind everybody this—the—most of the time they're fine. But if you have like a bikes, if you have scooters, all those types of things, they really want to charge them outside or at least out in the garage and not in the house because the bigger the battery pack or the cells are, the more lethal they are. And what it has to do is when they overheat and fail, the gases that are stored inside of them are highly flammable and highly toxic. And so once they ignite, they have what's called thermal runaway. And even though they're all little little cells all packed together, one leads to another leads to another leads to another. And that's what you saw. So most of the time when it goes wrong, it's a familiar pattern where you see kind of that poof of white smoke that takes off all of a sudden starts to envelop a space and then it ignites and fire and and that's what they've seen. [17:03] **Fire Chief**: Um New York, the reason they they picked New York um is they've had so many deaths because they have so many micromobility devices in the city with how con how dense it is that it just again it's a percentage game. It's a numbers game of how many are there. Um, so they try to outlaw them from in public housing and high-density housing because they've had so many fatalities and so many large fires uh from from that. So This is the theme for this week is charge into fire safety. Um, and the the three pointed things that we want everybody to remember is to buy only listed products. So, a lot of the products they're having issue from are off-brand um black market type of stuff that people are buying and then using. [17:49] **Fire Chief**: So, that's a big issue. And then charge it only with a device that came with it. That's another thing people have gotten creative over. Well, I can charge it faster if I put the wires this way or put this type of charger on it and then that creates issues and then recycle them properly. We have had two minor fires because of lithium ion batteries ourselves. Um, fortunately none of them were a big deal and it was like one cell. Um, but we we've seen it just not not nearly as dramatic as what you saw on the video. So that is the theme. And the last thing I just want to remind everybody is our open house is coming up on Tuesday, October 7th uh from 6:00 to 8:00 PM. And it's hard to see the print um because I took a picture of the flyer and posted on here, but all the different things that we're going to be doing are listed there. Uh the usual stuff. We'll have a a live fire demo, extrication, the bounce house. Uh we might be able to show some uh ventilation practice uh um because of the house next door though the city purchased. So um we might be able to do some some fun things that we don't normally get to do. So I encourage everybody to to be out there. So I'll stand for any questions. [19:03] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Chief, I just have one question. Uh how would you characterize um our response times right now improving? Are they solid? Little feedback on that would be good. [19:15] **Fire Chief**: Yeah. So, the response times overall are improving slightly because of our availability. Um, not having crews running from one spot to another constantly are trying to respond from the hospital back to a scene due to the staffing are are improving. [19:30] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Thank you, council. Any questions for the chief? All right. Thank you for the report. Appreciate it. [19:39] **Fire Chief**: Thank you very much. [19:41] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Item 6A, downtown special service district renewal. Miss Shimick. [19:47] **Tracy Shimick**: Thank you, mayor. Good evening, mayor, members of council. Tonight, I am here to discuss the special service district renewal for the downtown service district. Um, this program was initiated in 1992 to create and support the activities of Main Street, which is a program or a nonprofit organization that handles the marketing and promotion of the downtown business district. Uh, the assessment is in place to cover the costs of activities that go above and beyond broader municipal services. Um, particularly in regards to marketing and beautification. [20:24] **Tracy Shimick**: The organization was formed to coordinate promotion and event efforts for downtown businesses in a time when there was a lot of other retail competition for them and the downtown area businesses weren't thriving quite as much as they had been. Currently, Main Street uses the funds primarily for marketing and events. Um, and they do plan events year round to continue to draw customers downtown beyond just the summer season. [20:49] **Tracy Shimick**: Um, there was a typo in the memo. It's been renewed 16 times since its initial establishment in 1992 and currently it is set to renew every other year. The assessment amount is determined through a formula that's based on the square footage of commercial properties. Um it's weighted to factor in first floor square footage higher than the second floor square footage. um to account for the fact that ground level properties tend to attract more consumer uh consumers um and have more consumer oriented businesses. So, it's perceived that they might benefit more from the assessment. The minimum assessment amount is $135 per year with a maximum of $1,600 per year and annually that collects about $45,000. uh this amount remains unchanged and it's been at this level for a number of years. I don't know the exact date but I believe since the early 2010s. [21:53] **Tracy Shimick**: Um the property owners were mailed a notice about the public hearing and the proposed assessment amount and it was also published twice in the White Bear Press. We've not received any comments at this time. I do have Kristen Cranmer, the president of Main Street here, and Sarah Grace, uh, the vice president and incoming president of Main Street, to give an overview of the specific programming and marketing activities that they've been doing and to answer any questions that council may have. And with that, I would recommend that um, a public hearing be held for the assessment. and upon the public hearing closing adopting the resolution um continuing the assessment for the next two years. [22:38] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Shimick, um if we—if Main Street would like to come up to the podium and share some news, please do. [22:45] **Kristen Cranmer**: Hello, Mayor Council. Thank you for having us tonight. My name is Kristen Cranmer. I'm currently the president of Main Street. I'm also a business general manager here, not an owner in town, but um as well I have Sarah. [23:00] **Sarah Grace**: Hi, I'm Sarah Grace. I own a salon in downtown and I'm a part of Main Street, been a board member and now the vice president. Uh, so Tracy, thank you for sharing the basics about Main Street and and many of you, I think all but maybe one of you are very familiar with Main Street, but um I brought notes to just kind of share the kind of events we do, which you're all familiar with. Um, marketfest first and foremost is a DBA to Main Street, so they are a part of us and a huge celebration of of this town and and the surrounding areas. It attracts many people. Um, but we do smaller events. [23:40] **Kristen Cranmer**: Ladies nights out are very popular. Um, Sarah last year uh kind of spearheaded the new candy crawl which we got a call from fire and police um here in White Bear that they want to come and be part of it. So, I think that would be a great um collaboration with with the city to show when the um firefighters and police officers were out for our first gazebo lighting, which was fantastic last year. [24:05] **Kristen Cranmer**: Um that was really a big hit. They really like seeing that um the the officers and city uh mayor Lismet was also part of that too. So we appreciate that. Um but just it's a lot of fun to to not only—you know—it gets kind of stale when you just expect people to come shop, right? But if you give them something um some activities and some things a reason to shop or a reason to come downtown and continue the the family atmosphere that White Bear Lake has. So any questions? [24:42] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Council, any questions for Main Street? Council member Edberg. [24:46] **Council Member Edberg**: Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Um, does Main Street maintain any like data points? Like how do you know that you're being—how do you—how do your members tell themselves, hey, this is doing good stuff? What kinds of things do you monitor, pay attention to, even if you don't necessarily count them? what are the what's the markers of success that you uh think about for the use of these dollars? [25:07] **Kristen Cranmer**: Very good question. Thank you. Uh so we do uh we do have a monthly meeting and after events we do kind of evaluate. We don't—we don't keep any written markers. Um but we do ask businesses how this affects them. Of course you have businesses that are like it doesn't help us at all. And you have other businesses that are like this is fantastic. We love having people downtown. and we love the interaction with people and thanks for giving us a reason to to have these special events. So, to answer your question directly, I don't have any—we don't have any written or um you know parameters that we look at from a specific standpoint. It's more just a visual and communication between businesses. [25:50] **Council Member Edberg**: Okay. Thank you. [25:50] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Council Member West. [25:52] **Council Member West**: Thank you. Um, I'm just—I—I am maybe the person who's not as familiar um with Main Street, so thank you for answering questions. Um, I am curious in how you work with city staff. Um, you know, how you collaborate or what you expect um from city staff. [26:19] **Kristen Cranmer**: Okay, good question. Um, from my experience, so I've been president for one year, I was vice president for a year, I've been on the board for a few years. Um, it—it—kind of—Tracy is our liaison. So, anything we need from the city, she does attend at least every other meeting. Um, and if we need something, we ask Tracy like how we should handle something, if it's a new experience or, you know, if there's someone we need to communicate with um on something specific. and Marketfest has their own director and their own chair to their committee that does handle—that they handle that themselves and working with public works and those divisions um for the most part and then uh our city clerk is also an intricate part of making sure if we need a permit like for instance we'll use Railroad Park for our pumpkins—our fall fest this weekend—and we just make sure we have the correct permits and I think it's it's part of our road map to each event. Um we do have kind of a playbook that tells us what we need, what kind of permits and things like that. But um we're always happy for you all to come to any event and be part of it. You know, like I said, the firefighters and police, I'm super excited. We're super excited for them to be part of of Candy Crawl. This year it attracted about 250 last year and that was with minimal communication. This year we're expecting somewhere around 500 kids. So make sure we buy our candy. Did that answer your question? [27:48] **Council Member West**: Well, do you—Yeah. Yeah. Um, do you—and—and—you know, I'm not asking you to be like an expert in in other cities or anything like that, but I understand that this district was one of the first ones, if not the first one, to be created. Do you know what other cities do as far as kind of the setup? Are we set up the same way as far as like working with city staff or and budgeting and and what um the purpose is? Do you know anything about that? [28:20] **Kristen Cranmer**: I am not very educated on who—I know we are always rivaling with Stillwater and how we can do things that at least as good if not better because it's a bigger footprint down there, right? Um but I don't have any specific information about what other cities do. No. [28:37] **Council Member West**: Sure. And as far as budget goes, um, with the rising costs with everything, I guess I'm a little surprised that there hasn't been, uh, an increase in your budget since the early 2010s, whenever—whenever that—whatever that date was, the last change. Um, just kind of wondering what your thoughts are about that. [28:58] **Kristen Cranmer**: So, we try very very hard to keep our budget minimal um because we're in the eye of all of our members, right? And the—Tracy and I actually talked about it—actually you came to a meeting—we kind of talked about should we increase it this year and we felt that it was not in our best interest to try to do that with all the rising costs of businesses, right? Here's just another tax, because some people—that's what all—what some people look at as, right, is great, they're raising our taxes again. So we didn't want to be part of that. We wanted to keep things as we could um and keep control and and our financial position is well established that we didn't need extra money um at this point. So, we decided just to keep it the same. So— [29:45] **Council Member West**: Yeah, I guess I um I think you were um you were the group that suggested that we um think about a social district, right? I I guess I'm just curious um kind of what your—what your thoughts are for your next steps if you're not like increasing your budget or like what—what are your kind of plans around that? [30:08] **Kristen Cranmer**: So, first uh mayor and council, I'll apologize. I couldn't make that meeting. We were having our own board meeting that night, so I couldn't get out of it in time. Um we're still doing some research on the social district. Um, uh, Corey from the Minnesotan is is kind of the front runner in wanting to see that happen. Um, we did have a very in-depth meeting with the—I can't give you his title right now off the top of my head, but the guy who handles it all from the city of Anoka. Um, and it was a very interesting information and very well-run in Anoka. So, I think there just needs to be a little bit more um information provided to you all to figure out how that could work in White Bear. And you know, we're getting no-yes, no-yes from different community members, right? Um so I that's that is one of the things we're working on is still researching and being able to have us present to you more information and and more in-depth research on that program. and as it progresses into Stillwater and Shakopee, which I heard has been put on hold. But— [31:26] **Council Member West**: Yeah, I think more information would be really helpful. Um I'm always thinking about what the kind of workload is for our staff and um in—in—the same as you are, wanting to make sure that our costs are kept down as low as possible. And of course, increased staff time takes more money. And so, more staff for something like a social district coming directly from the city would mean all of the city residents would be paying for that um versus like just the city—um—the people who own the businesses. So— [32:11] **Kristen Cranmer**: For sure. Absolutely. And that—they gave us a very in-depth—uh—some documents to be able to address those issues. But yes, it is fully run, excuse me, in Anoka by their city uh office staff. So, and I'm not sure exactly what his position—again, Doug is his name that came to me—but his position I can't give you right this minute, but—but—it is fully run. I mean, they order all the cups, they make sure the licensing is right, all of those things. So, so yes, there is a a weighed burden there, right, on who is going to be able to take that on and if it's something that they want to. I'm moving at the end of this year, so I won't be here after that to help with that. But I know in my hometown, um, they started in 2021 in Ohio, and it's been nothing but fantastic, but again, what are the resources that are needed, right? [32:45] **Council Member West**: Yeah. [32:46] **Kristen Cranmer**: Thank you. [32:47] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: So, thank you for your questions. As long as we broach the subject, how enthusiastic was the Main Street Board about this social district? Is this a couple people that thought it was a good good idea and convinced the board to come along? Is everybody head over heels thinking this is a great idea? Help me understand where the Main Street Board is on this. [33:05] **Kristen Cranmer**: I think I—it's—it's—a small group that attend every meeting. You know, there's 200 plus businesses and/or property owners and there are 10 or 12 of us at every meeting. Um and so it's really a hard thing to get a pulse on. Um, after the—the—article came out in the White Bear Press, I was informed that there was a group of people that were all up in arms about "we can't do this to the city and we don't need this." So, that's another piece of the research that I would like to get—do—before I'm gone. um to just kind of start talking to people more directly as opposed to expecting them to show up at our meeting and maybe even have a roundtable type meeting where people can attend and that is our only agenda item is to say, "Hey, help us here." You know, do you—are you for it? Are you against it? Do you just need more information? [33:52] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: So, just to drill down on that, when the city council receives a letter from Main Street saying the board has requested the city do this, that doesn't mean the majority of 200 businesses think this is a great idea. This is the few people that showed up at that particular occasion of the board and voted. Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. I appreciate it. [34:18] **Kristen Cranmer**: Absolutely. And again, sorry I was not able to attend that meeting. [34:21] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: No problem. Um, council, any other questions? [34:25] **Tracy Shimick**: Mayor, council, if I may, because they won't do this themselves and I think it helps address council member West's comments about cost. Um the majority of the work that Main Street does is volunteer driven. They do have some support staff that is very minimal and part-time and they hire some contractors to run social media, but the events and all the programming that they do is generally done by the business owners, their employees, and the property owners. And that they're able to contain costs through that volunteer effort. [34:57] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Very good. Thank you for being here. Thank you for all that you do to keep the downtown area vibrant and booming. We appreciate it. [35:05] **Kristen Cranmer**: Thank you. [35:06] **Sarah Grace**: Thank you all for your time. [35:08] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: All right. We do have to hold a public hearing on this. So, at this time, I will open up the public hearing specific to this topic. Would anyone—would anyone like to speak to this? Seeing none, I will close the public hearing and bring it back to the council. Council, we have a resolution before us. I would entertain a motion to approve that resolution. [35:28] **Council Member**: So move. [35:29] **Council Member**: Second. [35:30] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: A motion and a second. Any further discussion on this? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. [35:35] **Council Members**: I. [35:36] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Any opposed? Motion carries. The resolution is approved. All right. Item 6B, the Birch Lake Improvement District Service Charge Certification. Miss Kinsodder. [35:44] **Vicki Kinsodder**: Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. Tonight I am here for our annual meeting to discuss the Birch Lake Improvement District. Um, the Birch Lake property owners created a petition in 2006 to form the Birch Lake Improvement District. The district's purpose is to develop, finance, and implement activities to improve and protect the quality of Birch Lake. The district held its annual meeting on August 20th, 2025 to approve their 2026 budget. Um the district is asking the city council to approve a special service charge that is handled like a levy in the amount of $24,231 for certification in 2025—collection in 2026. The annual charge per property in the improvement district is $390.82. The city mailed a public notice to the proposed annual service charge to affected property owners with access to Birch Lake on September 3rd, 2025 and also published the public notice in the White Bear Press on September 10th, 2025. [36:54] **Vicki Kinsodder**: So tonight, the city is going to be hosting a public hearing um for the proposed service charge levy. Staff recommends the city council approve the resolution certifying the service charge once the public hearing is complete. We do have Steve La Liberty with us tonight. He's with the Birch Lake Improvement District and he can answer any questions that the city council or the public might have. So with that, we can have the public hearing. [37:22] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Thank you, Miss Kinsodder. Um I will open up the public hearing at this time. I do have Mr. Liberty on my list. So, if you'd like to step forward and just state your name and address for the record, that would be great. Thank you. [37:34] **Steve La Liberty**: Hi, I'm Steve La Liberty. I live at 1387 Highway 96. Um, I've been involved with the improvement district since its inception. I was the guy that drafted the original documents. I knocked all the doors and got the 35 signatures that we needed. Um, we've—we've gotten our—our little management of the lake down to a pretty consistent process. Uh, we primarily cut the weeds. It's like mowing your backyard. We have to do it once a year. [38:09] **Steve La Liberty**: Uh, we participate with the—with the VLAWMO in terms of projects for—for dealing with some of the exotic weeds that come in. We run an aerator so the fish don't get killed. We do a fish management plan. Um, and one of the things that we've been able to do is to kind of limit our increases on the levy to about 3% per year. In the beginning, it was a lot more because we decided to own and operate our own harvester. And—and we got to a point where that got to be a really big burden. And we discovered that if we went out and subcontracted for that service, it was quite a bit less. And so, ever since we've done that, we've really been able to control our cost really by leveraging, you know, a company that has an asset that they use all the time and ours just kind of sat there unused. Any other questions? [38:55] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Council, any questions? Council member Edberg. [38:59] **Council Member Edberg**: Thank you, Mayor. Um, are you—is Birch Lake experiencing any invasives that—uh—when we get reports, for example, from the White Bear Lake Conservation District, we're hearing about some concerns there. Um, I'm guessing we might have some similar things uh on Birch Lake, but I don't know what they would be. Do you have any insight? [39:23] **Steve La Liberty**: Yeah, we have two invasives. Curly leaf pondweed was the first one and now we have milfoil. And one of the—one of the—advantages Birch Lake has over White Bear is we don't have any—any—hard bottom that—that—the milfoil really loves and so it really can't—it can't get going. So what—what—we end up doing is hand pulling it. So you see a guy out there in a rowboat hand pulling it. It's kind of funny. It's like wow. But that's the only invasives that we have and—and—they're not taking over. [40:04] **Council Member Edberg**: Thank you. [40:05] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Any other questions? All right. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Appreciate it. [40:11] **Steve La Liberty**: Thank you. [40:12] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: All right. We'll continue with the public hearing if anyone else would like to speak to this issue. I don't have any other names on my list. Seeing none, I will close the public hearing and bring it back to the council. Council, we have a resolution before us. What would we like to do? [40:24] **Council Member**: Move to approve. [40:25] **Council Member**: Second. [40:26] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: I have a motion to second. Any further discussion on this? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. [40:32] **Council Members**: I. [40:33] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Any opposed? Motion carries. The resolution passes. All right. 6C, the final assessment role for the 2025 pavement rehabilitation project. Mr. Copy. [40:41] **Paul Copy**: Uh mayor, members of the council, thank you. Uh so tonight is the final official step in the uh 2025 pavement rehabilitation project. Uh the project is complete just as a quick update. I'll go briefly as I don't see anyone in the audience. But um so just to remind everybody, the 2025 payment rehabilitation project uh was Division Avenue from Fifth Street up to the uh north corporate limits as well as 12th Street from Division over to Long. Uh Division was a mill and overlay project. [41:14] **Paul Copy**: A lot of things that went around there kind of drove that project from um the uh school district as well as the arts area. um lots of uh houses that were demoed and—and—uh utilities that were shut off in the street so warranted that um and it was up uh for a uh pavement rehabilitation anyway. So we wanted to wait till all those projects were complete. And then 12th Street is um shown in red on the map is one of the streets that we wanted to get uh urbanized. Um so after uh 12 street is done here we have uh just under four miles left of the modernization program of turning our rural um neighborhoods into curb and gutter uh modern uh street section with storm sewer. Um so that's—uh—brings us just under four miles left. Um and hopefully the uh next few years will allow us to uh complete that program. [41:59] **Paul Copy**: So that's kind of the uh project uh overview is again it's we did some—you know—spot repairs on—on—the uh mill and overlay area full new curb and gutter and pavement on 12 street. We did do a sidewalk extension from uh division court up to the Wildwood area to connect that neighborhood to the uh network of sidewalks that the school installed. Um as well as enhance some of the crossings across division. Um did some storm sewer repairs, added storm sewer for 12th Street. Uh again, um had not had that in the past. Um we also always go in and do water main repair, sanitary sewer repairs. Uh one thing to note is, um as staff had noted before, we had done an extensive uh lead and—uh—review or lead—uh—water service review over the last few years that we had to submit to the Department of Health. um we excavate and—and—uh check all of those services and we did not find any. [43:08] **Paul Copy**: So we uh were not uh required to replace um any uh under this project. So that's good news. Uh I did a few little sanitary sewer manhole repairs this time. And then we also always um coordinate with private utilities to make sure that they have their work completed so that we can—so not coming in a year later and—and—tearing things up again for residents. So try to coordinate all that ahead—ahead—of time so that uh we can do a comprehensive uh project. [43:35] **Paul Copy**: Um getting to the assessment um so the total project was about 1.3 million um everything included. Um of those assessable costs based on our uh the city's assessment policy will be assessing just under $300,000 uh to those benefiting properties. Um the assessment period uh for residential properties is 15 years. Uh 20 for commercial properties. Um this year the interest rate is being 2% over the bond rate is 5.71%. Uh just a little bit higher than last year's which is—I believe—was about 5.4 something. Um so just a little bit higher but still not too bad. Um and assessments would be payable on the 2026 taxes. Um just as a reminder anyone's listening at home that the uh payable um if you pay within the first 30 days of the adoption um—uh—you'd accrue without interest. So um a little benefit if you want to pay um upfront um uh just as a reminder um so the again the last step is um holding a public hearing under statute 429. That's the last step in order for council to adopt the assessment role. Um, official notice was sent to all benefiting properties as well as noticed in the local paper as required by that statute. Um, any resident can appeal their assessment uh by writing a statement submitted tonight by the end of the meeting and filed in filing action at district court within 30 days uh after the adoption of the assessments. um residents uh meeting certain requirements can seek a senior deferral by contacting the engineering division. We've not had any uh so far. [45:18] **Paul Copy**: Uh we do provide that information within those notices that we send to residents uh prior to the hearing. Um also I will note that staff has not received any notices appealed prior to the meeting. So um nothing uh to date. Um, so with that being said, uh, staff would recommend that council hold the public hearing and then, uh, staff would recommend that council adopt the resolution adopting the assessment role for the 2025 pavement rehabilitation project. Happy to answer any questions. [45:48] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Thank you, Mr. Copy. Mr. Copy, I just wanted to compliment you and your staff um, on this project. I've said it to the city council, it's a really really nice road and that makes me sound like a total dork and that's okay. But it is—it was very well done. I know our senior engineering technicians put a lot of hours in this summer um very early, very late at night and uh it turned out really well. So nice job. [46:15] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: All right. Uh I have one question. It may be for Mr. Copy. It may be for Miss Kinsodder. um the 2% that we charge over the bond rate. Why—the—the difference the 2% to residents over the bond rate? [46:25] **Vicki Kinsodder**: That is—Mr. Mayor, members of the council, that is to kind—it—for us for the work that we do to um create the assessment and have the records sent to Ramsey County. And that is in—there's an assessment policy. Um I can't remember the date. It's an an older policy. It was here before I started with the city and so that's what we've continued to use every year. [46:57] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Understood. Yeah. And I guess what I'm—what I'm—trying to get at and clarify is someone who doesn't know, they see 2%. Geez, is this a windfall for the city? and it's not. It's—there's a—a cost to the city with administering this, servicing the debt, all that goes into arranging the financing for a street construction project and that's what it's addressing. [47:14] **Vicki Kinsodder**: Correct. [47:15] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Correct. Very good. Thank you, council. Any questions for Mr. Copy? Council member Edberg. [47:18] **Council Member Edberg**: Thank you. I'm not sure if this is for Miss Kinsodder or Mr. Copy. Um, I haven't done this in a while. How did our—So every year we set—we—make assumptions about what costs of doing the project are going to be and then we settle up at the end when we have actual costs and um divvy them up among the various properties according with uh the assessment policy. How did—how do our costs um compare to our projections? Um are we close? Are we over/under significantly? What does that look like? [47:58] **Paul Copy**: Um, I can answer that. Mayor, members of the council, uh, to answer Council Member Edberg's question, um, we have been tracking this data for many, many years, uh, we have, uh, fortunately gotten bids from similar same contractors year in and year out. Uh, become very familiar with their bidding practices. Um and we um—uh—from an engineering standpoint, we try to be second low bid. Uh meaning we want somebody to be just under us. Um so we try to—we—track the—uh—costs very well. Um work with the finance department to look at all of the other overhead costs that we uh include in it. [48:39] **Paul Copy**: You know, we uh have testing um other fees that we—you know, other—uh—we hire an independent appraiser to review our assessments. So things like that that we also charge on top of it. Um so those are kind of the overhead costs that we uh charge to the project. Um and we have just years and years of data on that. Uh so we do uh come in pretty close. Um and then we adjust—we—look at the final assessment role and adjust as needed to uh to—uh—meet our assessment policy as well as um you know meet the the benefit test that our appraiser works with us works with us on. [49:18] **Council Member Edberg**: So, what's our track record in terms of—we—p—we—project when we have our meetings with homeowners and—and—you know service recipients um in the spring typically um we award the—we—we—start the project we authorize issuance of bids and our proposals and receiving bids. Um, have we had any situations where our costs came in higher than um what we projected or or are the amounts that we assess very close to what we projected? [49:55] **Paul Copy**: Uh, mayor, members of the council, the costs that we end up assessing are very close to what we um have projected. Um, like I said, we do our homework. We make sure, you know, if we're um we've had a few years where, you know, let's go back to 2020 in COVID and, you know, just materials that we didn't know if we could get and and uh how contractors are going to react to things. Um we make phone calls, we call the contractors, how are the asphalt prices looking this year, how's concrete, you know, can we—there were material shortages? So we uh looked ahead, you know, back in 2020, we said concrete because of the shipping was higher. So we estimated higher um just knowing that that was a very real possibility and it—it—came to fruition. So we—you know—um—hit the mark again. Um but again, we're very typically very close. Um uh since I've been here at the city, we have not missed a bid. I'm not saying in my almost 30 years of doing this I haven't missed it, you know, but uh in the last number of years it's been fairly consistent. [50:59] **Council Member Edberg**: Okay. All right. Thank you. [51:01] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Other questions for Mr. Copy? All right. I will open up the public hearing. I have no names on the list, but if anyone would like to speak to this—going once, going twice. All right. I will close the public hearing. Council, we have a resolution before us. I would entertain a motion to approve the resolution. [51:19] **Council Member**: So moved. [51:20] **Council Member**: Second. [51:21] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Have a motion, a second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. [51:24] **Council Members**: I. [51:25] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Any oppose? The motion carries. The resolution is approved. Thank you, Mr. Copy. And you're up again. So 7A, Dog Beach alternative location analysis. Mr. Copy, when you're ready, please fire away. [51:39] **Paul Copy**: All right. Mayor, members of the council. So, um, looking back to our March 11th, uh, 2025 meeting, council, um, after the, uh, you know, much discussion earlier this year on this topic, uh, council did direct staff to look at alternate locations, um, on city-owned parcels that abut water bodies. So, uh, staff did that analysis, uh, included in your packet tonight. I'm going to run through just kind of the—just a brief history—just I'm not going to read everything but just kind of here's where we've been and here's where we're at today just to refresh everybody's memory. Um so again this topic really started back in 2007 when we uh council revised an ordinance to allow some off leash dog exercise areas. Lakewood Hills, Varney and Matoska were those three areas. Um after that um you know I think a following 2017 there was some you know conversation as far as—is this the uh right thing to do or not. Um really boiled up in 2016 and 17 were—was reviewed by the parks advisory commission. Um again in 2018 um operations were reviewed 2021 22 23 you see the uh um history there. Um, so it's kind of like, um, at times council, you know, parks advisory commission said to close it, council kept it open, parks advisory said to keep it open, council wanted to close it. So, it's gone back and forth a number of times over the years. [53:27] **Paul Copy**: Um, kind of um continuing to 24 where the uh um commission reviewed the operations, recommended be open, council kept it open. um 2025 um again um based on—uh—the review for the past year—um—2024 um council elected to leave the um dog beach open um two kind of caveats that were added besides the things that have been done in the past a seasonal CSO uh patrol was to be added um and that was uh done throughout the uh most of the 2025 summer season um as well as council um adopted a new maximum leash requirement um through city code um of 30 ft for the beach. Um that new signage was put up after the adoption of that leash law change. Um and then um finally again at the March 11th meeting this year, council directed staff to look at alternate locations just to see if there were other options out there on lakes, ponds, um other water bodies that the city owned um that were adjacent to water bodies. So that's kind of the history back starting in 2007 uh going through today. [54:29] **Paul Copy**: Um so what staff did is looked at a—kind of did a—GIS exercise, looked at the mapping, looked at ownership through the uh Ramsey County GIS um at who owns what properties. Um, so we kind of sorted through and uh looked at, I'll call it, viable locations that the city owned uh parcels that were adjacent to water bodies. Um, so through that exercise, we found 18 parcels um again, not just White Bear Lake, but um you know, Goose Lake, Birch Lake, some of the ponds that we have um in town. And that's uh within your packet we included, you know, detailed maps, photos of all the locations. Um and um did a a comprehensive analysis. We got waders on. We went out in the, you know, the water. We looked at, you know, what the upland areas look like. Is parking available? Is um what's the access to trails? Um can we actually do improvements? you know, it's uh talking to the DNR and what would be allowed to, you know, today, you know, today's day and age, the DNR will not allow us just to go and completely wipe out a shoreline of all its vegetation, both either aquatic or upland vegetation within those buffers. So, it's not as easy it used to be to just go and create a beach. Um, so even the beaches that we have today would be very difficult to create um unless they existed in that fashion. [56:00] **Paul Copy**: Um there are obviously you can do some improvements um but they're limited to you know say a a property owner wants to put a dock out they can clear enough area just to put that dock out and park a boat next to it. Uh they can't clearcut the entire width of their property. So um so we kind of used those tests. We looked at shoreline length—the—of each parcel. We looked at the water depth. So, we walked out in waders and we measured depth at each—at each—interval. Um, we looked at what the bottom material was. I almost lost one of my—lost Nate—almost one time. The—he got stuck in the uh in the muck in one pond and uh it was close to coming over the top. So, so we—so I told him to come on in. [56:47] **Paul Copy**: But um again, we looked at shoreline conditions, the upland area, access to the parcel, um what are the proximity to trails, parking, um what are the proximity to other private properties and docks, um ability to monitor, you know, this—we—use the CSO uh model for the existing location and how easy is it for, you know, us to monitor—would—would it be to monitor each of those locations and also look at what each of the um anticipated improvements might be for the area. Most of them that I—we—showed on the location—because of the uh potential permitting nightmare that it might be through the uh Department of Natural Resources or Watershed Organizations, uh we think it's would be very difficult for the majority of those parcels to ever um be improved to the extent that we could have a beach at them. Um, so kind of a summary. I didn't go through every parcel within the memo. Um, but they are um the attachment within the uh packet. There's a giant chart that kind of lists every parcel list all of those aspects that we looked at. So really 17 of the 18 parcels that we saw we don't believe—you know—and most of them are due to mucky bottom um um the steep shoreline um just proximity things that we just don't think um they're feasible to do enough improvements to actually make them work. [58:19] **Paul Copy**: Um, coming back to where we've been in the past. Um, I'll call it site 8. Um, affectionately known as—I'm going to flip to that slide—but the, uh, area that has come up in the past, the area south of the existing Matoska boat launch. Um, highlighted in red there. Um, on the left side of the screen is the map that's included within your packet. Kind of zoomed in on it a little bit just to kind of show a little bit more detail of the area. Um um again as pointed out by a number of folks over the years, not just even my tenure, but going back even um you know 2007 and and and on forward, um this area has been looked at. Um the parks advisory commission uh looked at it at least three or four times since I've been here. um each time just noting the um the the challenges from a um—as you can see in that table—from a lot of the—the—points it checks all the boxes. It's got trail access parking. Um it's easily accessible, easily um um um monitored—easily, you know, it's got a nice sandy beach. It's got, you know, a mowed grass upland. It's got relatively uh um good slopes going into the water. [1:00:17] **Paul Copy**: So, it checks those boxes that it's a viable location. You know, we uh wouldn't need extensive um physical improvements. Uh we would need to do fencing, buoys, um probably a three-sided buoy, you know, just due to the uh area. So, we included some estimated costs based on what we've spent on uh uh the existing uh location north of the uh the boat launch. Um however um and parks commission um and staff keep bringing this up is just the location and that's why I wanted to kind of highlight on the uh on the detail map. It's—it—is uh right in the heart of where a lot of the activities are going. A lot of boats going in and out of—you know—and especially on a weekend um going in and out of the uh the loop that boats go to get ready to uh to dock at the launch. Um, it's the traffic in and out of Manito Island. Um, it's right at the entrance and exits to the uh boat trailer parking. [1:00:37] **Paul Copy**: Um, it's also just even out there. Um, it's a very busy area from people sitting—whether it be in the cars—um—in the uh um parking lot that—you know—there's just some non-trailer parking. Uh there's people there every single day, you know, just kind of watching the lake, eating lunch, that kind of stuff. A lot of people sit on the shoreline. Um and uh fish, they sit, you know, bring up their lawn chairs. This is a popular area as well as up by the uh where the new little uh um sail—or the—beach landing monument is. So, couple areas that people just like to go and and sit and watch the lake. Um um again it's a kind of a natural fishing area that folks like to fish on. The depth is is adequate there. Um and uh the one thing that we point out that's different than the existing or the current location is there's no real natural boundary. So it's all got to be fenced in. So that's one hurdle that—again—it's going to be a permitting issue that would have to be brought before the conservation district that we did even with the uh the other one. we'd have to get the sheriff buoy permit for the the buoys out there. [1:01:58] **Paul Copy**: Um, and then on the water side, I—I—want to note that, you know, it's obviously a busier area from a uh boat traffic getting to the launch getting out to the sailboats. You can see in the picture on the right, that's where uh we often put the skids as the water levels go in and out. We rent the skids for u folks to use the boats to access the sailboat. So, um a lot of conflict—conflicts—in that area. Um so again um staff and the uh um parks advisory commission you know recommend against that uh location. [1:02:43] **Paul Copy**: Uh one other uh entity that we did talk to is Ramsey County. I put a little summary in the uh in your—in—the memo. Basically the conversations with them are—the areas that they have—including the Otter Lake area with their—they have a boat launch there. asked them what's the feasibility of putting a dog beach or dog swimming area there. Again, the conflicts with the uh the boat launch there. Um and then just the ability um because they haven't done it and they haven't shown in their park plans. Um the areas that they own adjacent to water bodies would be similarly difficult to improve. Um and their um plan right now guides them as uh keeping those areas natural areas. Um, and there's even some of the areas um that they don't allow dogs at all uh let alone um uh into the water. So, that being said, they don't have any uh plans in the near future, their current um um guiding plan to do anything with a dog dog beach or dog swimming areas. [1:03:27] **Paul Copy**: Um so being said um the—the—maps, the photos, the table within the packet kind of summarize staff's findings um throughout our—throughout the—summer of 2025 and uh would welcome any council discussion and um um staff and the PAC would recommend that the beach stay in its current location. [1:04:02] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Thank you, Mr. Copy. I'm sure some council members will have some thoughts and questions and I may as well, but at the outset, I just want to thank you for quite a bit of work that went into this. Um, this is pretty detailed. A lot of different locations, a lot of different data points. So, um, I'm glad—uh—glad we have this. I'm glad Nate's okay and made it out of the water. Um although I will note that that means that the—the—current operations of a dog beach in White Bear Lake and the research pursuant to that has almost led to a casualty. So I want the council to note that as we continue future operations— [1:04:30] **Paul Copy**: —a fire training exercise— [1:04:31] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: —rescue swimmers. Um so with that council do we have any questions for Mr. Copy on this or comments? Council member Walsh. [1:04:41] **Council Member Walsh**: Thank you Mr. Mayor. Uh just on the last—uh—the last discussion on site 8, um as you were talking about the challenges for this site, I was just thinking in my head, well, some of that could be traded because you're not going to add a dog beach. You're going to move a dog beach. If you move from the current site to eight, a lot of—not everything you said, but many of the things you said—could be moved or shifted uh uh north to where the current dog beach is. Um I—I—it's—a—it's—more of a cliff. it's not as smooth. So, you know, access and certainly sitting and viewing and fishing and uh you know, even expand the swim dock over there. So, just—I just thought some of the things you said are—are—are—a tradeoff. I think you could because you could you could utilize that land up north. So, that's just a comment I have. [1:05:37] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Any other questions, comments from the council? [1:05:43] **Council Member Walsh**: I have another random question, Mr. Mayor. Uh parcel. Let's see if we can—Let's see. Number nine. This is not necessarily related to Dog Beach, but since it's—since you've got a map with—uh—with the things on it. [1:05:56] **Paul Copy**: Um I don't have them all. [1:05:57] **Council Member Walsh**: Oh, you didn't put them all in. [1:05:58] **Paul Copy**: I did. I did not load every one of them. [1:05:59] **Council Member Walsh**: Okay. So, this is north of Birch Lake. It's a pretty big piece of land that the city owns. So, just—I—got—I—I—gotta drive by there. Is it wetland? Is it what—what is it? Is it—and why do we own it? I guess would be my question. [1:06:14] **Paul Copy**: Uh mayor, members of the council, so kind of the—the—the area that we highlighted was the area on the south side of Birch Lake Boulevard. Um it's a small strip of land that we own that's south of the uh the trail that's immediately adjacent to the um the lake. So that's what we looked at from a dog beach standpoint. You look at that large area that you talk about to the north is basically a swampy wetland. Um we own it. I don't know. I'd have to look back at the history on how we acquired it or— [1:06:48] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Rotary Nature Preserve. [1:06:51] **Paul Copy**: Yeah. But it's not— [1:06:55] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: That's the Rotary Nature Preserve. [1:06:56] **Paul Copy**: Yeah. That we own. It's a park. [1:06:57] **Council Member Walsh**: That's a preserve. [1:06:58] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Okay. Yeah. But it's— [1:07:03] **Council Member Walsh**: Okay. I gotta look at the map again. Okay. [1:07:05] **Paul Copy**: Yeah. But again, we did not look at it from—I—don't know how we acquired it. We'd have to—you know—that's council would like that information. We can do it. Um it's—there's no open water, so we didn't analyze it from a dog beach location standpoint. [1:07:22] **Council Member Walsh**: Yeah, I—it's just a random question because it's—it's—a big parcel, but— [1:07:26] **Paul Copy**: Yep. [1:07:27] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Any other questions? That's council member Edberg. [1:07:28] **Council Member Edberg**: Thank you, Mayor. Um, I concur with your assessment on suitability options, etc. I think um in terms of giving direction to staff, if there are council members that would like us to take up a—if we take no action, the beach stays where it is and it stays open. If there's a desire for something different, council members need to put that on an agenda um whenever and that's to be scheduled at uh however—however we choose to do that. Um, I spent a—uh—fair amount of time uh at the beach this summer. I would say that uh we did not achieve high levels of—of—uh—compliance with the leash ordinance in the park. Contrast that—um—high levels of compliance on Lake Avenue in other places in the community. Um I didn't see any dogs off leash in the—on—on Lake Avenue on the trail etc. Um but uh compliance was um not substantial. [1:08:54] **Council Member Edberg**: Um I also observed that there—it is possible for individuals to have their dogs on a 30-foot retractable leaf—leash—to throw throwable toys. Okay. So, there's one dog who has this thing about a fist-sized rock. It sinks to the bottom and he goes—he finds it down on the bottom of—of—the lake. That was rather amazing. Um and carries a rock and carries it home with him. I—Anyway, um the—it's possible to do that and have it be done safely with a 30-foot retractable leash. My encouragement would be that we um uh retain the uh—that we not change our policy and an ordinance with regard to the uh leashing requirements. [1:09:50] **Council Member Edberg**: I don't think our um CSO was effective uh this year that—that—that—option—uh—it got started late. I'm not—um—for a variety of reasons. Um, I think that is also something—it—makes sense to me that we have the entire uh area along White Bear Lake that—uh—going all the way to Commercial Bay and—and—uh forth uh coming up and that there's activity there that is worthy of us having a CSO dedicated to that uh during the summer that makes sense to me still. So continuing that and trying that uh and seeking uh uh greater compliance I think with the leashing would be uh is in order but beyond that um I'll leave it to wherever the the rest of the council wants to take that. [1:10:46] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Council member Edberg, I want to put you on the spot for a second because um—because you deserve credit for—it—wasn't a small amount of time that you spent doing your research. [1:10:56] **Council Member Edberg**: I spent about 30 hours uh sitting by the lake uh this summer. Uh it was not onerous—couple of days when it got a little windy and a little rainy. Not other than that—that—was the worst. Um and I have captured data by 15-minute increments over all of those hours. I've tracked uh the incidence of—one—barks, two barks, three plus barks. I tracked leash compliance, the number of people, the number of groups, the number of people, the number of dogs at one time. Um, and uh I've got that data. I didn't synthesize it for this meeting. I—I—be willing to do that for a—if there's—if this is scheduled in the future, I'd be uh happy to share that data. So, is that what you were referring to, Miss Crawford? [1:11:51] **Lindy Crawford**: Yes. And to say that he—he—then could go in waders, too, sometime. No, I'm—I'm—like— [1:11:56] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: —Nate. [1:11:57] **Council Member Edberg**: —Nate. I'm not confident that Mr. Copy would retrieve me. So, um— [1:12:05] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: —retrieve you. Council member Walsh. [1:12:12] **Council Member Walsh**: One more question. Sorry, the CSO issue. I—I—did we get a um a report on that—was difficult to hire last time I talked. I didn't know we actually accomplished that. When did we accomplish it? Do we get a good test, you know, in the summer? Do we need more time next year? Maybe give us a little update on that. [1:12:28] **Lindy Crawford**: Sure. Uh Mayor, Council Member Walsh, the—the—short story is we need—we need another year. Um unfortunately we got started late on that hire and then the two hires uh did not work out for different reasons. So um we need another year. The police department um chief tells me that they spent many many hours out there whether it's educating um or citing. Um I—I—don't have the information—I—should have been— [1:12:56] **Paul Copy**: Yeah I can give. So, I talked—reached out to uh the chief and um there was just under—just under 200 documented visits. Not that there weren't additional visits and then they did do um seven citations since May. Um that's up through last week. Um so, um most of it, like Miss Crawford said, was um really focused in on the education component of it. Um you know, upfront early. Um, and the chief said that as the summer went along, uh, compliance with the dog leash and I, you know, as I made it out to the area, definitely saw more and more people with leashes than prior to signing it and the leash law change. So— [1:13:41] **Council Member Walsh**: —thank you. [1:13:42] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Any other feedback for staff? Council member Edberg. [1:13:45] **Council Member Edberg**: Thank you, Mayor. Um, I concur with your assessment on suitability options, etc. [Repeats initial points about policy]. [1:14:13] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Well, there's no action item, but the the charge to the council is to discuss and provide direction to staff. So, um I've already said thank you because I think it is a good detailed report. Um, let me follow up with that by saying I'm not surprised that there aren't any real suitable alternatives or at least ones that aren't as good from the standpoint of the dogs and the users as the—as—its current location. And the reason I say I'm not surprised is because the park commission and the then city engineer went through this exercise in 2018 in response to the same complaints. [1:14:52] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Whether it stays open is not being—you know—litigated here tonight. Um, but in fairness to everyone who did have serious concerns and continue to have serious concerns about the current operation, we did implement two new tools that was intended to help alleviate that. And it remains to be seen whether or not that's improved or not. So, a conversation for another day, but it's nice to check the box that as we're continuing those conversations as a city, there aren't um any very clear uh alternatives. um at least based on this research. [1:15:27] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: I would like to see just a—a—show of hands—kind of a—straw poll whether or not the council would like to get some feedback from uh police, public works, the various city departments that monitor and touch the dog beach to see if the implementations—what the actual report is by way of the CSO. Um, we—there's—there's—seven citations that were—that were—given out. I mean, it's—it's—a touch point. I'm not saying we need to formally bring it back for "are we going to keep the dog beach open," but um we did—we—did commission staff to bring us alternatives. I think an update on whether or not the action of the council by way of trying to improve things—um—a report on that would be helpful. Uh but I'll defer to the council whether they want to see something like that. [1:16:17] **Council Member Walsh**: I'd be more inclined to say in the normal course of reports from the normal agencies—police mainly—probably citation levels. Add that to the report when you come. They're here quarterly or twice a year. That's kind of how—how—that's as much—that's all I would need. I don't need extra work or special thing on this. [1:16:33] **Lindy Crawford**: Uh mayor, council member Walsh, if it helps, uh Chief Hagar's biannual report will be at our next meeting. [1:16:40] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Great. That would be another data point as the conversation continues on the council rewriting this issue. Okay. Any final thoughts on this? All right. Thank you, Mr. Copy. Appreciate all the work. [1:16:55] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: All right. Item eight, new business. We have nothing scheduled. Nine, discussion. Nothing scheduled. Item 10, communications from the city manager, Miss Crawford. [1:17:05] **Lindy Crawford**: Thank you, uh, mayor. Um, members of the council, our fall edition of the newsletter, um, is out. Uh, everyone should have received that. I don't have a copy here, but it's another great addition. Lots of, uh, really, really good information in there. So, please check it out. And thank you as always to the city clerk um, for coordinating that and working with our staff to get articles. [1:17:27] **Lindy Crawford**: Um, it's homecoming week in White Bear Lake, so uh, we have a a very big homecoming uh, football game this Friday against Forest Lake. Oops. Sorry about that. Um, I just wanted to note that um, the police department will have increased their security um, by a significant amount of officers that will be there at the game that evening. Um, I'm confident that they will have it all under control if there are any concerns from the community about that. Um, and then also uh, they will be um, uh, posting where no parking—is not allowed. Um, so everyone who's watching or not watching should follow uh that or they will risk being ticketed and I know we have been very active on uh writing uh parking citations this year. So, which I am appreciative of. Um, and then lastly, just a reminder to the council, I will be out of the office uh um after this meeting and returning October 6th. And that's what I have. Thank you. [1:18:27] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Very good. Thank you, Miss Crawford. All right. Item 11. We're going to enter a close session to develop an offer regarding the real property located at 1328 Highway 96. So, as I read some pro-formal language, those in the audience can make their way out before we officially go into close session. [1:18:49] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: We now need to go into close session pursuant to Minnesota statute section 13D.05, 05 subdivision 3C3 which authorizes the council to develop or consider offers or counter offers for the purchase or sale of real or personal property. The address of the real property under discussion is 1328 highway 96. Therefore, I request a motion to go into close session pursuant to Minnesota statute section 13D.05 subdivision 3C3 to discuss the above described matters. Would anyone like to make that motion? [1:19:15] **Council Member**: So moved. [1:19:16] **Council Member**: Second. [1:19:17] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Motion to second. All those in favor say I. [1:19:19] **Council Members**: I. [1:19:20] **Mayor Dan Lewis**: Any opposed? We are now in close session.