Based on the context provided about the city officials and the dialogue within the transcript, here is the formatted version with speaker names added. [0:05] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** I’d like to welcome everyone to the regular meeting of the Moose Lake City Council for Wednesday, April 10th, 2024, at 4:00 p.m. Uh, the first item is the Pledge of Allegiance, please. [0:15] **All:** 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. [0:30] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** I’d like to thank all our guests here today. Um, appreciate your coming. The second item on the agenda is approval of the agenda. I do have one addition to make and that is under 5a. Right now that says 2023 Public Safety Aid. After the next sentence, I want to add a joint meeting between the City Council and the Fire District Board. [1:24] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Does anyone have any other additions or changes, corrections to the agenda? Hearing none, do I have a motion to accept the agenda? [1:35] **Council Member Kris Huso:** So moved. [1:37] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** I'll second. [1:39] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor say aye. [1:41] **Council Members:** Aye. [1:42] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Opposed say no. Motion carried. Moving on to number two, the consent agenda. We have 2A1, the minutes for the regular city council meeting March 13, 2024. Any discussion on the minutes? [2:00] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** Motion to approve. [2:02] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Second. [2:04] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor say aye. [2:06] **Council Members:** Aye. [2:10] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** The second item is the local board of appeals and Equalization meeting on April 4th, 2024. Any any discussion or questions on the minutes or corrections? None? Do I have a motion to accept the local board of appeals and Equalization meeting? [2:25] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** So moved. [2:27] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** I'll second. [2:28] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor say aye. [2:30] **Council Members:** Aye. [2:31] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Opposed say no. Motion carried. Moving on to 2B, the financial reports. We have number one, which is the city accounts payable for March 2024. Number two is the city financial statements for March 2024. Number three is the liquor store profit and loss statement for March 2024. Any questions or corrections on the financial reports? [2:50] **Council Member Kris Huso:** Motion to approve. [2:52] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** Second. [2:54] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor say aye. [2:55] **Council Members:** Aye. [2:56] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Opposed? Motion carried. The next item is number three, public comment. This time is reserved for comments from the public on matters not listed on the agenda. Please keep comments to three minutes. [3:20] **Public Guest:** Yes, sir. I’d like to see... could you come up to the podium, please? At Highway 73 from the brewery to the hockey rink, it’d be nice to have a flashing light. Thank you. Okay, sure. Because, you know, we do a lot of walking back and forth and people are just going too fast and they’re not stopping for pedestrians. A lot of people. So it’d be nice to have something lit up—a crosswalk, you know, with the flashing lights. And being it’s a state highway, maybe the state can put something in. [4:28] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** I'll give you some history there. We have asked for that probably every year for as long as that's been there. Years. Maybe give it another try. And the state... someone's going to get killed there. The state has to approve it, we can't do it ourselves. Um, and we have asked, not only for the first—just a regular sign crossing, pedestrian crossing. They chose that they did do the painting, that was all that they would approve. But we could request it again. Thank you. We did get one up on 10, to cross from the trail to the school. Yeah, but that was County and the County agreed to it, but we had to come up with money to pay for it, which was 10,000. Phil, do you remember for that sign by the school? [5:15] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** 30. 30,000. [5:18] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Really? Yes. But we will ask the state again because it is a concern not only by you but for many, many people including us. Quite a few people had commented about it. Doesn't hurt to ask if they deny us again. Yeah, thank you. But we will... thank you for coming, appreciate it. [5:45] **Chad (Interim Police Chief):** I’ll try and sit out there more too, and do some traffic stops right by that crosswalk if I can, like early in the morning. Okay, PM too. It’s very busy. [5:58] **Public Guest:** Thank you. [5:59] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** You’re welcome to stay or you can depart. Okay, thank you. Anyone have any questions on that issue? [6:01] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** Well, I mean you got a good point because can we put one of them sort of little sandwich boards as a crosswalk there? Or can we put a... you know, someone got a little short pedestrian crosswalk, but it’s like a little sandwich board but it says crosswalk? [6:20] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** Yeah, the center lanes... "dups" is what they’re called, and they go out May 1st. MnDOT won’t allow them before May 1st. [6:35] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** But I mean, that still doesn't fix the problem. [6:37] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** I know, but you know, yeah, they control their highway very strictly except for when you want something fixed and it takes a lot. Moving on to number four, departmental reports. 4A, the Interim Police Chief. Chad, this is for March. [6:50] **Chad (Interim Police Chief):** Good evening, counselors, City Administrator Owens. So this is the report for March. We had 20 business checks—there was 25 last month. 16 extra patrols—there was 28 last month. Two traffic stops—those numbers got a little low, I’m going to work on that this month. Only one community engagement—there was three last month. Two assist other agencies—two last month. 47 other calls for service—44 last month. Things are picking up now that the weather's getting warmer. And two medical calls. I’ve been trying to work both day and night shifts, like noon to midnight, 2 to 2, 1 to 1, and work it all over the place so nobody really knows when I’m down here. It seems to be working. We’re not getting the suspicious people calls or the vehicle tampering or the break-ins or anything. So seems to be working. I’m going to keep doing that for now. Unless anybody has any other ideas they might think would work better. But um, yeah, so I’ll definitely try and pick up on the traffic stops and... because yeah, I do see a lot of people walking there. Maybe I’ll change around my hours so I can be here earlier in the morning like the citizen asked and sit out there and do some stops. And otherwise that's what I got for March. [8:25] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Any questions, anybody? No. 90 calls, that’s a lot. Yeah, and appreciate the work you’re doing. Thank you very much. [8:35] **Chad (Interim Police Chief):** Absolutely, yeah, I appreciate it. [8:40] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Your flexibility. [8:42] **Chad (Interim Police Chief):** Yeah, no, actually works for me pretty well. [8:45] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** Appreciate it. What was the situation with the juveniles in the school? [8:50] **Chad (Interim Police Chief):** So they’re starting to... it was a group of them breaking in there again and they’re gone before I get in there. And it was all night, all night. I’d go there to get in there to chase them out and they’d be gone. So one of the County guys, we did find out who they were and we caught up with them. Me and one of the County guys, we got parents' names and we talked to parents. They were just kids, they thought it’d be cool to be in the old school and mess around. [9:11] **Chad (Interim Police Chief):** And on that note, now that you brought that up, the owner changed the little realtor lock that used to be on the door. He locked it completely now with chains. We have no way of getting in now at this point, he's the only one that has a key. He just did that last week. [9:30] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** I wonder if that’s a good thing with, you know, the fire department. I’m sure would like to be able to get in there. [9:35] **Chad (Interim Police Chief):** Yeah, they’ll get in, he just won’t like how they do it. And that's for me too. I mean, if there's... if something happens in there with kids getting in there and somebody gets hurt, yeah, we’re going to have to break our way in now because I just drove by two days ago and yeah, that door that used to have the realtor lock on was completely chained now and he’s the only one that has the key. So figured I’d throw that out there because I just found out about it myself. [9:58] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Thank you. Thank you. City Superintendent Phil, Department report for March 2024. [10:04] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. Um, a busy month here. We’re starting to get a few painting orders and trying to get caught up quick. Essentially, we’re trying to get going sooner than we really should be, but we’re getting it done. We’ll start at the water department. Water department distributed 6.1 million gallons of drinking water the month of March. Hydrant flushing will be happening next Monday through Wednesday. That is in the paper, it is on our website. Sewer department collection system collected 9.2 million gallons of wastewater month of March. We did have our spring discharge that was completed now, that was done this last month. Approximately 36 million gallons was discharged there. Everything turned out good as far as sampling requirements were met. PCA, we're all in good shape there. The flow meter for Windemere Sewer District was calibrated today, so that is done. Street sweeping will be happening here in the next couple of weeks. Um, we got a couple things we’re going to touch on later. And then road bands are going off on Friday, which means blacktop is starting, concrete's starting. We’re going to really be switching gears here. Pretty cool. Look around, you can see there’s some catch basins. Jim, we got your catch basin, it's already sawed and ready to go so we’ll be doing that next week. Um, and about actually 10 or 12 others, so there’s a lot... there was a lot of damage last year. Other than that, any questions? [11:31] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Well thanks Phil, appreciate it. Municipal Liquor Store Department report for March 2024. Ryan? [12:04] **Ryan McKeon (Finance Director):** City Council, Mayor, Administrator Owens. Uh, things are doing great down at the liquor store still. Month over month, we’re actually exceeding where I thought we’d be, so that’s awesome. Last week took a trip to the Legion in Forest Lake. Um, they are one of the best in the state for what they do. Um, took a lot of good things—some things not applicable because they’re a huge facility, but a lot of things actually will apply to things down here. So we’ll slowly implement some things, see what sticks, what doesn't. Um, we are meeting with an individual next week about some bag tournaments over the summer, so that's cool. Uh, continue to make efficiencies with the point-of-sale system and yeah, things are things are good rolling down at the liquor store. Any questions? [12:51] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** I just got one. Any in your discussions with Mari about about hiring part-time? [13:00] **Ryan McKeon (Finance Director):** Yeah, we talk about it every time I’m there, we talk about it. So um, she really wants to hold out—and I can’t blame her—for the right person, you know. [13:10] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** All right, any questions by Council? Thanks for your report. [13:15] **Ryan McKeon (Finance Director):** Thank you very much. I’ll just stay for it. Just a quick IT update. Um, it’s tentatively scheduled next Thursday to do the big server switchover. I haven’t sent anything out to the department heads yet, but I will. Um, so there’s potential for a little downtime in the morning on Friday next week potentially. Hopefully, we crossed all those t's prior to and there’s, you know, no overlap. So that's the big thing going on in IT right now. [13:40] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Okay, how long does that affect... does it affect the Motor Vehicle at all? [13:45] **Ryan McKeon (Finance Director):** Yeah, everyone that’s tied into the system. So they’ll be closed next Monday... well next Thursday into Friday. They’ll do it overnight Thursday, right, and then we’ll have everyone power up and see... make sure you test everything and what’s going on on Friday morning. And then they’ll be around to make sure if something’s not working that we get it pointed to the right place. [14:15] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Does it affect the library? [14:17] **Ryan McKeon (Finance Director):** Everyone. Yep. [14:18] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** All right, so the mindset is to have the project done off working hours, but of course if there's any troubleshooting that needs to occur, it'll happen Friday morning. [14:21] **Ryan McKeon (Finance Director):** Correct. [14:22] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** All right, thank you. Thank you. And the library update, Laura. [14:30] **Laura (Library Director):** Hi, good evening, Mayor, members of the Council, City Administrator. Um, so for the first quarter of the library this year, it’s been going well. We finished up our winter reading program, and I was happy to see more adults participating. So I’m going to aim to have some more programs that will draw in adults as well for the summer reading program. I’ve gotten some nice prizes from like the Lakeside Traders, so there will be things that they appreciate if they participate this summer. We had some fun programs like Jeffrey Tibbits. He was a program arranged by the Arrowhead Library System for a little bit about Ojibwe ceremony and carving soapstone rocks, and that was an amazing program. We had about 20 people come. It was very messy, but I think it was an amazing program. So we always appreciate all the programs that reach out to a lot of different people from the Arrowhead system. The annual book sale is set for June 14th and 15th this summer. We will be again in the arena and I’ve put out posters and stuff about having vendors and crafters apply so that we have them set up next to the book sale, drawing a lot more people. We did really well last year, and I’ve already got some people signed up. So it looks like we’ll be having another good year for the annual book sale. If people do have books to donate, we are running out of space in our closet. So if they have smaller books, feel free to donate them to the library, but if someone has a whole ton of books, we ask them to hold off until we set up the book sale so they could drop off directly at the arena on like the 11th, 12th, or 13th. All right, our next program is April 16th with beautiful calligraphy, and then we start off our summer reading program directly after the book sale. So June 17th, we have a performing troop coming to do a play. Uh, early in the morning at 10:00, I believe. And then the following week on the Tuesday, we’ll have Snake Discovery. So we’re going to start off the summer reading program then, it’ll be great. And I’d like to thank all of the people, the businesses in the area that have helped support the library. We’ve gotten some support from like Moose Lake Theater, Subway, Moose Lake Florists, the Moose Lake Brewing Company, and all of them have made some small contributions to the library and they’re helping us make the summer program great. Any questions? [17:27] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Fantastic. Thank you very much. What time does the book sale start? [17:35] **Laura (Library Director):** Um, the book sale, generally the hours are 9:00 to 3:00, though of course on the Saturday there’s not many people after like 2:00. So we will start kind of cleaning up at that point. But yeah, most of our people come in early Friday to get the best books. [18:00] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Thank you. Thank you very much, appreciate it. Karen, you’re just in time. Motor Vehicle Department quarterly report. [18:38] **Karen (Motor Vehicle Department):** Not really a whole lot to report. Um, very busy of course, you can tell. But um, we’re doing good with all our driver's licenses. Um, we’ve been crazy with DNR and watercraft, everybody’s going crazy, it’s spring. Um, we’re going to have a Blue-Green Day this week. Um, I was hoping to start it off tomorrow morning and do it Thursday, Friday. That means um, people try to promote organ donation for people to put organ donation on their driver’s license. And the state, they ask us to do that within our office because that’s where they get the sponsorship, you know, for the organs. And they have a speech for us or a talk at every meeting when we go to St. Cloud, just to try to keep us asking people about it. [20:10] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Any big changes to the programming coming up this year? [20:12] **Karen (Motor Vehicle Department):** Not really with the program, we've had so many unusual things, so we’re learning. I mean, I feel like we learn something every day. Changes all the time. Yeah, it’s a... yeah, on the line with the state quite a bit yesterday. [20:25] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** Do they ever get the "Whitetail" license plate straightened up? [20:30] **Karen (Motor Vehicle Department):** Yeah, we just got some more in. Yep. They look... the old ones look just fine, but I suppose they were paying for them so they wanted them to be the right thing. So I’m sure it cost the state a little bit for that too because they printed them wrong. Yeah, but we haven’t sold one yet though. Oh, just one at the very beginning, but we haven’t sold them since we got them back in now. Our most popular plate is the blackout plate. Sure. Yeah, but that’s... I really didn’t have much to report other than um, our surcharges have been going crazy. I’m proud to announce that we’ve made over $6,000 in 3 months on that on the surcharge and then the miscellaneous thing. So I don’t know, I’m like... so that’s exciting for us, I guess. We’re trying. And then um, we’ll be talking more about the passport option later, so yeah. [21:20] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Questions for the Council? Great. Sorry to put you on the spot as you walk in the door. Moving on to 4F, City Engineer. This is for monthly report April 3rd, 2024. [21:47] **City Engineer (SEH Representative):** Yeah, there's a lot of material within this month’s engineering meeting minutes. As always, if there’s any questions please feel free to ask. I will highlight a couple items. A few of them we’ll discuss later in the evening further along in the agenda. But a few things I wanted to share. We did engage with Representative Dotseth regarding a meeting with the chair of the Bonding Committee. And so what we did is we essentially provided additional project information for some of the inflow and infiltration projects that were submitted previously. And so Representative Dotseth was committed to bringing those, you know, the need forward again and those discussions forward again. So we did engage with his office. In addition, we also heard from Senator Rarick’s office regarding last year's project request, Capital request. And so what Senator Rarick’s office asked of the city is to provide updated project information. Last year, the application was for a $3 million lining project, and the request this year received a 5% increase due to inflation. And so the construction cost of the project is now estimated to be 2.8 and then the design right around 262,000. The new total project cost was up to 3.1 million. And so we are engaging with our local representatives in order to make sure that we’re advocating for the city’s needs. Both of these projects were related to massive lining projects and to address the I&I issue for the city. In addition, there will be an opportunity for us to submit to Senator Klobuchar and Tina Smith’s funding request opportunities, and so we’ll be working with our engineers on those as well. [24:06] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** I have a comment. Yes. And this might seem petty, but on page two under the Sand Lake Resort... um, we have "Council through 15 connections at 5,000 GPD flow increases for proposed development." The flow increase wasn't specifically for the resort and I guess the way I'm reading it, it looks as though it was specifically given for the resort. And if we could just kind of separate that saying it was given to Windemere? [24:51] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** The Sewer District? [24:52] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** The Sewer District, okay. [24:53] **City Engineer (SEH Representative):** I’ll bring that forward to them. Thank you. [25:00] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Any other questions, discussion by the Council? And of course they should discuss how they see fit once we... well, exactly. But we didn't... we gave the connections that was for the resort and I just think we need to keep that stuff separate. Any other comments by the Council? Questions? None. Chamber of Commerce updates. [25:38] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Yeah, so we did attend the Chamber of Commerce meeting today. Um, the meeting was out at the YMCA. Um, they’ve done a lot of work out there, so it was fun to get out there and look at the facilities. A couple of items, highlights from the Chamber meeting. Their membership drive is going well. Um, they re-engaged... they had changed their due structure and, you know, had a little bit of difficulty last year, and so they’ve re-engaged and modified things. It's going really great. So good leadership there. They’ve announced all of their upcoming event dates throughout the calendar year. So the annual raffle will occur on Thursday, October 3rd, at 5:00 p.m. at the Moose Lake Golf Course. Um, they are engaging in activities for the 4th of July. So they’re looking at parade themes and things of that nature, which they’re voting on through the Chamber. And so their planning is underway for the parade and the kitty parade. Also, they’re engaging in Agate Days activities—the city is engaging in meetings regarding Agate Days as well. The 9 and 9 golf event will happen Friday, July 26th. The Moose Lake Triathlon is Saturday, August 10th. And the Brewfest is scheduled to be Saturday, July 13th. Um, that’s different this year. They’ll be having Brewfest during Agate Days. And the location of Brewfest this year is to occur in the Muny parking lot. And so they’re engaging with Mari down at the Muny and with Ryan for planning. And so the idea was to have the Brewfest during an existing event with an existing audience to see how it goes. You know, they’re checking viability of it. We’re working with them in order to create counterplay, so to speak, with the crowd. And so we’re going to hope to have some unique ways and passport ideas and things of that nature to then draw them into the Muny as well. So hopefully that we can provide good collaboration between both entities on the event, and looking forward to seeing how that goes this year. [27:45] **Council Member Kris Huso:** Was there any discussion about National Night Out? I know that you had said that there was a business that was interested in putting it on. [27:58] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Yes, thank you so much for bringing that forward. So we’ve been actively having dialogue around the city with different entities and looking for a new host for National Night Out. So we looked at what other communities are doing. A lot of times it’s a Community Education group or, you know, churches, things like that. And so we kind of scoured and got the word out. Ryan spoke with the brewery yesterday, and the brewery has committed to being the new host of National Night Out. And so um, we’ll engage from a city perspective with the arena. We have tied Shawn and the brewery with Sarah Radzak within the PD. She’s done such a fantastic job with the event year-over-year. And we met with her and she’s committed to passing off the well-oiled machine. And so she’ll be helping coordinate with that. And just really happy that there’ll be an opportunity to gather as a community and to also support Public Safety in the area. Really excited that the brewery is taking that on. And that's going to be in August, on a Tuesday. It happens the first Tuesday in August. [29:20] **Council Member Kris Huso:** Do they have a time frame yet? [29:22] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Not yet, but we’ll make sure that we share that information. [29:25] **Council Member Kris Huso:** Because if... I had suggested, you know, the theater did put on a free movie once, and that is still a possibility. [29:30] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Yes, I think it’s always 4:00 to 7:00. Sure. I think it’s every year on the first Tuesday from 4:00 to 7:00. [29:35] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Okay, so we can make sure we collaborate on that. Thank you for bringing that forward as well. [29:40] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Very good, thank you. Moving on to number five, previously discussed business. A, this is the 2023 Public Safety Aid Fire District allocation request. Um, I’d like to recommend to the Council that we do make a distribution to the Fire District. We designated 100,000 to go to the police department in the process of funding it in for negotiations, which leaves a little over 13,000 that can be moved to the Fire District. I’d like to recommend that that be done. Ellissa, you could give an exact dollar amount. [30:47] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Um, I can share that the total amount allocated to the city was $113,955. I did include in the packet some correspondence that I’ve had with a board member from the Fire District regarding training materials. So I wanted the Council to have visibility to what their request was. I did get some additional information too. The total request included a couple of line items: one being supplies for $2,500 and some EMR certification fees. So I did request some additional information. The $2,500 was to cover items such as shipping storage cases, promotional costs, things of that nature. And then the EMR fees are to recertify the EMR and train and certify two or three more firefighters to be EMRs. So that would provide a little bit more clarity as to those two particular line items. The total cost from the request that’s included in the packet was $16,190. [32:01] **Council Member Kris Huso:** Thank you. Well, it would be nice to be able to see us be able to give the fire department some money. They definitely use help. Uh, I think a lot of cities didn't give anything going over this list that they had in their... but uh, I think it would be appropriate for the city of Moose Lake to be able to give the fire department some money for these items. Thank you. [32:40] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** I’ll make a motion that we give the fire department $13,955. [32:47] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** I'll second. [32:48] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Any discussion, questions? All in favor say aye. [32:52] **Council Members:** Aye. [32:53] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Opposed? Motion carried. Thank you. The second item under A is a joint meeting. I would like to request a joint meeting between the Moose Lake City Council and the Fire District. We have some deadlines, and within the next two weeks we need to have some things in place concerning a contract with the County. Things did not move well last night at that meeting, so I would like to call a joint meeting between us as a governing body—one of the governing bodies of the District—and also the District Board. And to me, um, you could reach out to the Township to see if they want to be part of that also. We may have some items they want to talk to the District about, or clarification. So Council, like to have a consensus? [34:10] **Council Members:** Yes, fine. [34:15] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** All right. City Administrator, if you could reach out to the Fire District Board about trying to set that up within the next two weeks. And I think a courtesy call to the Township because they may want to be part of that also. [34:35] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Sure. Thank you. [34:40] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Moving on to new business. 6A, Greenhouse partnership proposal, Moose Lake Community Education. [34:48] **Raenee Bennett (City Gardener):** Good evening everyone, City Councilors, Mayor, Administrator Owens. Um, my idea to purchase a greenhouse started last year when I was trying to keep plants alive after purchasing them. In order to get the plants that we need to beautify the city, either the ones that are in pots or the ones that we use as bedding plants—and trying to keep the purchases in the community—they have to be bought pretty much the first week in May. And as everybody knows, our weather does not cooperate typically. So we wind up having to try to keep those plants alive. Initially we had worked out an agreement with Lana Newman from her flower shop at the greenhouse there, that we would store what we had purchased for the city inside the greenhouse. And we realized very quickly that was not going to work because people steal plants that have been set aside for the city. And if they barricade them in so that people can't take the plants out of the area, then the plants get neglected and are really not very viable by the time we can get access to them. So what Clarissa and I were doing... we were keeping all the plants in the shop and then moving them in and out, and that includes even on the weekend, so that they could get sun and so forth. Not a very efficient way to use time, not a very good thing to do with the flowers. So I started talking about a greenhouse. I mentioned it to my supervisor and a couple people on the Council and started trying to get my ducks together and get some pricing and stuff like that. Long story short, this spring when I was teaching a Kids Plus class at the school, I was speaking with Vicky Radzak and told her about my desire for the city to purchase a greenhouse. And then she said that with her money that she gets from some grants, we could probably go in and collaborate and split the costs, use it for the school community as well as my use for the city, and the things that we can do to collaborate with the kids—their science classes there, be able to use it as a classroom setting and so forth. Um, so I really like the idea about us collaborating. I think that um, it started off as an 8x8 greenhouse and we have since figured out that a greenhouse probably 8' by 16' would be the best for us size-wise. And it would be stored at the school next to the community gardens. And if approved, obviously attached to the fence. There’s water access there and we think that that would be a good safe place to have it because initially we were going to request that it be by the campground. So um, from a city perspective, I believe that I can start more plants in the greenhouse and also maintain the health of the plants that we do purchase. And I see this, although I don't have hard numbers, I see this as being a money saver over the next couple of years to the point we can actually pay off our portion of the greenhouse. And I can also use it for growing divisions and just some other things. I know I’ll be able to figure out more ways for us to be able to utilize that in the future as we get into it, because I’ve never had a greenhouse before so it would be a learning experience for me as well. So um, any questions for me? [38:40] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** So we’re looking at a... for the city to dedicate $1,599? Correct. Okay. So we’re looking at a motion? [38:55] **Council Member Kris Huso:** Um, I’m sorry... sure. Um, this picture, is it these hybrid or is it just the plastic that goes over? [39:05] **Raenee Bennett (City Gardener):** And it's got the hard plexiglass, okay. [39:08] **Council Member Kris Huso:** So you’re not going to be having to take it down? [39:10] **Raenee Bennett (City Gardener):** No. [39:15] **Council Member Kris Huso:** Are you able to secure the building then? Because you're going to be having expensive things inside that. [39:20] **Raenee Bennett (City Gardener):** Correct. It will be lockable for sure. Um, I’ve talked to Superintendent Entner and we talked about different ways that we could secure it to the ground. It will either be on a board floor or it will be on gravel and it’ll be so close to the fence we’ll literally be able to connect it to the fence, so that’ll make it more secure for wind and stuff like that. I’ve also talked a couple different times to the manufacturers and they’ve got a pretty decent warranty for it and have some recommendations about what you can do to make it last even longer. It’s got a 5-year warranty on it, which I think is pretty typical for any greenhouse. But you can seal the panels down with some different materials and it seems... it seems like they, according to the reviews and what they’ve said, they have a pretty good review with the snow load and it’s a steep enough pitch roof that most of that stuff is going to come off anyway. [40:15] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** We’ve also had internal dialogue with Raenee and Superintendent Entner as well regarding utilizing monies from the existing gardening budget. And so Raenee was willing to work within the constructs of her current budget in order to accommodate this request. And so she’s come up with some ideas of how to stay on budget and still facilitate this purchase, which is excellent. [40:50] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** Sounds good. Motion to approve. [40:55] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** I'll second. [40:57] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. [41:00] **Council Members:** Aye. [41:01] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Opposed? Motion carried. Thank you Raenee. [41:05] **Raenee Bennett (City Gardener):** Thank you. Good luck with the efforts with this. Thank you. [41:51] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Moving on to 6B, Community Pantry discussion. [41:55] **Paulie (Master Gardeners):** Yes, good afternoon. Um, I’m here as a representative of the Carlton County Master Gardeners. And um, one of the projects that several of us here in Moose Lake would like to take on is called a "Little Free Food Pantry." And if you think of a free food pantry, it’s similar to a free library that you see in people’s yards, only this one would have food rather than books. And we are still in the planning stages and trying to decide on a location. Um, we do have one of our members who’s happy to put it in his front yard, but then the idea of putting it down by the Farmers Market was suggested. And um, we haven’t really determined yet where the best spot would be, but if we would like to do that, I believe we would like to have the approval of the City Council. [42:50] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Thank you, Paulie. So when Paulie approached the city with this idea, did a little light work just from the city perspective to make sure that it was feasible from our end. So a couple of conversations were had. Did have dialogue with the Farmers Market, and they had no issue with it being down within Generations Park. Came up with a couple of location placements working with Superintendent Entner regarding, you know, all things considered for Public Works. Location—we’ve come up with two ideas which are included in the map and in the packet. Well understood that the city would not have engagement or be monitoring the pantry or have participation in any of those activities moving forward. It would be just that it would be placed on city property. I did have dialogue with a professional in the food industry and just had discussion regarding is there any liability for the city with having it there. The conversations were had that a lot of the canned goods that go in those community pantries are sealed. And so from a containment standpoint, there’s not really a concern with that—they would be pretty evident to see if something had been tampered with. In addition, the fresh produce items that could go in there from overflow from gardens... the mindset is that when you’re eating fresh fruits and vegetables, you’re washing them anyways. And so they recommended that just a little sign be posted next to the pantry with verbiage that "the pantry may contain products from an unapproved source, use your best judgment when consuming," and that there’s really not much liability from a city perspective, if any at all, regarding having it on city property. Did our homework on our end, talked to relevant parties as much as we could, we didn’t come up with any issues from the city perspective. [44:45] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** How big of a building is this? [44:50] **Paulie (Master Gardeners):** Oh, it’s not going to be a big building. Think of what the little free libraries look like, and it would be something on that order. And um, one of our members has agreed to build such a thing. For the first year, we would like to just have Master Gardeners putting the food in there because we’re, you know, we’re always thinking of our excess produce that people grow. And of course, you can always put canned goods in there. A lot of these pantries have hygiene items or paper products. And between... there’s four of us on this particular committee and we will monitor it on a regular basis and make sure it’s in good condition and put the food in there. And there is actually an act called the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, and that... the states are required to adopt that and it protects those who donate food and donate it in good faith, and protects them from civil or criminal liability in case the food should cause harm to anybody at a later date. So there shouldn't be any issues of liability. [45:50] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** So it’s kind of a standalone and there won’t be anybody there? You put stuff in, people could just come in and help themselves that need it. Okay. Question: would it be open 24 hours a day? [46:15] **Paulie (Master Gardeners):** Open 24 hours. [46:17] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** About how big of... ? [46:20] **Paulie (Master Gardeners):** Oh, I don’t know. To start with, maybe about the size of this podium here, not very big really to start. And we’ll see how it goes the first year and, you know, it’d be nice if we could expand it to have other locations in the city. Community citizens helping other community citizens, and it’s nice for a small town to be able to do that. [46:50] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Are we looking for consensus or are you looking for a motion? [46:55] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Just consensus. [47:00] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Yes, sir. Are there going to be months of service? Because 40 below in the snowbanks, you're not going to be having people going grabbing frozen cans of food. [47:10] **Paulie (Master Gardeners):** Um, we obviously wouldn't want to put things in there in the winter that would freeze. Just change it up. Yeah, I think so. And in the winter, rather than food, you could always do paper products or hygiene items, that sort of thing. So that’s why we monitor it on a regular basis. [47:25] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** So consensus? [47:28] **Council Members:** Yes. [47:30] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Fabulous idea. Got consensus. Thank you very much, go. [47:32] **Paulie (Master Gardeners):** Thank you so much. [47:33] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** If you could work with Superintendent Entner on placement when you get to that point. Thank you. [47:40] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Moving on to 6C, Passport camera system discussion. [47:57] **Karen (Motor Vehicle Department):** Good evening, council members, Mayor, and Ellissa. Um, we’ve talked about it before about starting the photo passports in our office, and we’ve been... I’ve been studying it for a long time and I’ve talked to many people about everything that’s involved in it and everything. And um, I have a company that um... like I talked to the Duluth office and he goes through the same company. I tried to contact another company to see if I could get another quote, and the lady that answered said, "I'll have Jeff call you." And I’m like, what’s the chances it’s the same guy? It was the same guy. They’re the only manufacturer of the passport photo system. And when I talked to Duluth, he is very pleased with this company. The passport... we would not be able to do the full passport process, and the reason is because we do driver’s licenses in our office. And back in 2019 or '20, they did away with DMVs doing... if you do a driver's license, that employee cannot do the passport, vice versa. It creates unlawful conduct, especially by a public official, it says. So they stopped that process. And Duluth, when I talked to him, he has special certain employees that only do the passport, or if they go over to the Motor Vehicle side they can only do renewals but they can never access like a driver's license, anything. So that wouldn’t work at our office, we don't have enough people and verifications and stuff like that. So we’re just trying to get the photo part of it, which would bring us $15 per photo. And I feel like the cost is... we’d have to pay for the paper and all that up front, but it’s like 300 pictures and the cost to us is pretty minimal. And then just the books that they go in to keep them safe and clean so they can go on the passport. The two quotes I gave... they’re exactly the same, the only difference is the screen. One is a retractable screen that would hang on the wall and the other one is a prelit screen. I guess they’re pretty fussy about when you take a picture that there's no shadow behind or above the customer. So that’s the only thing I’m concerned about. We have really good lighting there, but sometimes they were saying if it’s too bright of a light, that could also cause a shadow. [51:15] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Do you have a recommendation on which one, Karen? [51:18] **Karen (Motor Vehicle Department):** I really would just like to go with a pull screen. I’m just worried that if we don't, there might be a shadow. But okay, yeah, I really don't know that until that happens. So until we do it, I’m hopeful that’s all we would need. [51:40] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** What does the post office use for a screen? I remember when I was there 5 years ago, I just sat down in a box and... [51:50] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Really? We had ours redone this last fall or so and it had to be behind the screen. We had to go up to Carlton and we had to have a white screen behind it. And that's where it had to be done. [52:05] **Karen (Motor Vehicle Department):** Yeah, because I know there is no screen... yeah, I don’t know why, but no, they say you have to have that white background. I was kind of hoping we could just use our wall. [52:20] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** But it didn't sound like it. Well, then that same area could be used either way, right? For license pictures. [52:30] **Karen (Motor Vehicle Department):** For license, just do it a little bit over further. It has to be a certain screen. Our, you know, our driver's license screen has to be that background. I got you. Okay, so that wall next to it though, right? Yeah, is where we would put it. And that's why we’re asking for a cart, because when it’s in use that’s... you can put it right in there and then we could store everything and lock it in all one spot. [52:55] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Question in here... you say that there was a DMV office that made $20,000 in a year. What DMV office was that? [53:05] **Karen (Motor Vehicle Department):** International Falls. Yeah. And so she's close to the border, but um, she was just raving about it when I met her at the meeting. And I was really surprised of how much she had made in the year. [53:20] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** I don’t know, it would be wonderful. The only thing I worry about is staffing for it, but then we could... I mean we could always do certain hours or certain days or, depending on staffing too. [53:35] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** So we’ve been trying different things in the DMV, other sources of revenue, and um, they’ve been going really, really well. Um, I know that Karen has put a lot of work into this. The "good-better-best" options that were included in the packet for Council to review—the two quotes are utilizing the "better" option, so the middle of the road. And then as she mentioned, there’s the two different backdrops on the quote, but both quotes utilize that better option which was recommended and itemized out in that letter. [54:15] **Ryan McKeon (Finance Director):** The type of computer that was selected for one of the employees' workstation replacements came in a lot below what was budgeted for the workstation replacement. And so one of the updated quotes that you received from me before the meeting had the desktop workstation listed at $918. Um, that's relevant to the DMV employee replacement workstation. And so the amount that we requested we set aside for workstations was $3,000. So we will have $2,000 of extra monies from the budget for the workstation replacement to go towards this. Now as you look at that quote, you know, depending upon the type of workstation, the cost is different. So um, this happens to be one where we will have $2,000 left over after that workstation is replaced that we could utilize towards this opportunity. [55:25] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Ryan, did you look at the different technologies here for passport computers? [55:30] **Ryan McKeon (Finance Director):** Yeah, I have not... or I mean the equipment at all. The two carts, two different carts? Just curious. [55:40] **Karen (Motor Vehicle Department):** No, I tried to search, and then um, if I find one that looks suitable, I can never go back to find it. So I don’t know if there’s like small supply or what, because then I’ll go back to the same company with the same code and it’s not there. So I mean, even though we chose those ones in the back, they may not be there the next time we look. [56:05] **Council Member Kris Huso:** Does International Falls do the full passport or no? [56:10] **Karen (Motor Vehicle Department):** They just did photos. Yeah. If we could have done the full passport, we would... they’re like $35 and so we would have made $50 at for each passport. [56:25] **Council Member Kris Huso:** Karen, are you aware if the post office is still offering that service? [56:30] **Karen (Motor Vehicle Department):** They aren’t as far as I know, and they haven't for a while I don't think. I think it’s their staffing too. [56:45] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** You're short-staffed, correct. So there really is a need in the community for that service in general, which is something we’ve talked about internally which could be met, and then have an additional line of revenue for the city. [57:00] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** I like your thinking outside the box, and really shows that you’re looking for things that will bring you revenue and more services to the community. And yeah... so Council, I guess um, we will be voting on the expenditure. So there’s two companies to me that you recommend? [57:15] **Karen (Motor Vehicle Department):** No, there’s just one. There’s only one company that manufactures that system. Okay, yeah. There’s some under different names, but they’re all the same company. Yeah. Um, so it’s... and the guy that I’ve been talking to is from Minneapolis and he services the areas up here that do that. And um, when I talked to Duluth, he said you wouldn’t go with anybody else. They’re very good. If we ever have any problems or issues, he’s excellent at helping out with getting them resolved. [58:15] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** So the full setup that would be needed—the amount needed is that $2,492.82? [58:25] **Karen (Motor Vehicle Department):** That does not include the cabinet. That’s the only thing, the cabinet isn’t included in that. [58:35] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** So we would be making a motion on $2,492.82, and then the Council would have to choose the cabinet. Either one of the industrial ones is for $527.31 and the other one is for $465, correct? [58:45] **Karen (Motor Vehicle Department):** Yes, yes. I could not get the shipping cost of that one, it wouldn’t allow me to without going through the whole, you know, like ordering it. Um, this... we just want to be able to have something that’s a locked cabinet to keep all the paper and the supplies so they’re all in one spot. And then there’s a computer that comes with it, and so we can hopefully put everything in there. [59:15] **Ryan McKeon (Finance Director):** Do you know, does it need a dedicated ethernet/internet cable? [59:25] **Karen (Motor Vehicle Department):** Um, what did you say? I was imagining it could be a small additional cost, looks like it’s ethernet. [59:35] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** I think it’s... well, if it’s that smaller thing that's within a realm of what you authorized, that kind of stuff. Yeah, the cabinet is something that we can use operating supply money for. Um, it’s just more or less wanting to be transparent about where the workstation was coming in, the ideas for how to fit this in the budget, and the dialogue with Council about offering that service in the community. [1:00:10] **Council Member Kris Huso:** I just ask, what back panel did you want? The LED one or the... ? [1:00:15] **Karen (Motor Vehicle Department):** I want to just have a pull-down screen one, is what I really want. Just that one. Just to start and see if it works, right? Yeah. I mean, I think that would pick up... I mean, I don't think it takes up less space or more space either one, but the other one is what, $500? And I’ve talked to him a couple times because we’ve been talking for a long time, and I asked him if the price has gone up since I’ve talked to him at the beginning before he gave me this quote. And he said it has gone up, but he would honor the prices that he gave us. [1:00:50] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** We have been replacing lighting in the DMV also. As the old fluorescent lights fail, um, we’ve been replacing them with LED, and so there’s updated lighting in there that really helped. [1:01:10] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Okay, so I think we got three steps here to make. First of all, if the Council is in agreement of going ahead with this, the first one would be to get the basic equipment which is the $2,492.82, and then the last one would be to do the cart. And would that cover everything that’s needed? So yeah, because that includes everything, you know, all the supplies. And I guess first consensus from the Council: do you want to go ahead with this process? [1:01:45] **Council Members:** Yes. [1:01:50] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Okay, got consensus. Then the first motion would be on the $2,492.82. Council, I’ll take that motion. [1:02:00] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** I'll make that motion there, we go with the $2,492.82. [1:02:10] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Second. [1:02:12] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor say aye. [1:02:14] **Council Members:** Aye. [1:02:15] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Opposed say no. Motion carried. The next motion would be the cart. There are two carts: one is for $527.31 and the second one is for $465. Now that says "plus shipping." The other one says "with shipping"—$527.31 with shipping and $465 plus shipping. Ask a question, Karen, which one do you want? [1:02:50] **Karen (Motor Vehicle Department):** I personally like the $527.31 one, just because it has an area for the computer. The wheels are a little bit bigger for moving it around back and forth also. That’s the only thing. They’re metal. Yeah, it’s really hard to find one similar to these. It looks like it has larger wheels on it too that would hold up probably better. And we know what the shipping is, that’s included. [1:03:30] **Council Member Kris Huso:** I’ll make a motion to purchase the computer cabinet for $527.31. [1:03:45] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Second. [1:03:47] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor say aye. [1:03:49] **Council Members:** Aye. [1:03:50] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Oppose? Motion carried. Anything else, Karen? Thank you very much. Moving on to 6D, the City of Moose Lake Personnel Policy discussion. [1:04:11] **Taylor Hansberry (Deputy Clerk):** Council, Mayor, Administrator, Finance Director, Superintendent. Um, so we started working on the Personnel policy last year. Um, it hadn’t been updated since I think 2012. In that, we submitted it to our attorneys and our attorneys took a little while to get it back to us, but they finally did. So they made some revisions with legal language and references to specific laws and statutes to make sure that our Personnel policy keeps us following all employment regulations. They also sent us some next steps as far as how to implement this. So after the City Council has approved the policy that we have submitted tonight—which I would like to apologize about the formatting issue that there was in converting it from a Google Docs document to a Word document, the numbering just got all weird, so the content was there, the numbering was just off. So after this has been approved, they suggest that we adopt the final policy in the form of a resolution. Make the new policies effective 30 days following their adoption by the City Council to allow the... if we have union employees, to bargain unless circumstances dictate otherwise. And then we need to provide a notice and acknowledgment to all city employees of the new policy. After that, we need to make sure that we are complying with said policy and if we decide to make any sort of amendments, we need to ensure that we’re notifying our employees of those as well in a timely manner. Just some key areas that they revised: they added a disclaimer at the beginning of our Personnel policy basically stating that this is not a contract and we as a city, as an employer, can make modifications and changes to this whenever we please. Job descriptions—those I just wanted to highlight because that's something that we have been working on updating and reviewing. Job descriptions for all employees—that's something that we should be doing as a city and is outlined in the Personnel policy. Every employee should have a clear description of the job they were hired to do. There is a section in the Personnel policy on tuition reimbursement. Now, this is a very specific case, however, they did want us to outline a cap for that tuition reimbursement. So I don't know if that's something we want to discuss tonight or at a further date. We’ll just need to add that in there: a cap on how much tuition the city would be willing to reimburse any employee that was seeking that. The paid holidays are outlined in there. I have started to make a habit of sending out each year what paid holidays and what day we’re observing them, because it outlines, you know, if it falls on a Saturday we observe it on a Friday, if it falls on a Sunday we observe it on a Monday, that sort of thing. We added bereavement leave, and the attorneys have added other types of leave in there that we are required to provide to our employees, that I believe is in Section 7 if you’d like to review those. The code of conduct is included in this policy. We don’t have a separate code of conduct—that is included in here as well as outlining discipline procedures. They also called out the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act, so there’s a lot of information that we cannot share about our employees. And I know that in the public official setting that we’re in, we get a lot of pressure to share certain things, but there’s a lot that is protected and we need to make sure that all employees know what is protected and what cannot be shared. Electronic media use—this is separate from our social media policy, so this is "don’t use your work computer to promote your personal business," that sort of thing. It does not cover your conduct when using city social media accounts. And then city driving—this was a new thing in there. Even if you’re not driving a city vehicle, if you are on city business in your personal vehicle, you need to be conducting yourself in a cautious manner and wearing your seatbelts. [1:08:50] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** That's the second time you've called me out! Guilty face. [1:08:54] **Taylor Hansberry (Deputy Clerk):** So yeah, there’s... a lot of it is very self-explanatory. A lot of the concepts that were in the original policy remain in there, but the attorneys made sure that it was in there in a way that is stated to protect us legally and make sure that we’re following all regulations. So the only thing to discuss at this time is the tuition reimbursement. [1:09:30] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** When is that available for a review from all... for all of us? [1:09:40] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** I believe you were provided it in your packet. Yeah, 70-some pages. So I mean, it’s going to take you a little while to read through it. If we want to table it and approve it next month, we absolutely can. [1:09:55] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** I think we have to. Sure. [1:10:00] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** We should, that would be a normal process—a full review. [1:10:05] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** So what was included in the original email was the redline version from the attorneys, but then a clear document out in Word format. And Taylor mentioned there was just some numbering formatting issues in converting from what the attorneys provided. So Taylor has since cleaned that up, so I can send out a Word copy that’s clean reading. And then you also have the redline version that you know, you’re thumbing through what has changed from the previous policy to the new. So I can send out a fresh email. I will attach both documents and any questions between now and next council meeting, please feel free to reach out. And maybe just a quick statement on the one item that we should be making a motion on next month, and that was again, just for everybody's memory: the tuition reimbursement. [1:11:00] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Okay. Have you checked in other cities to see what kind of... the standard, or what is a class... how much does a class cost them? [1:11:14] **Taylor Hansberry (Deputy Clerk):** That’s a good question. So I know that there are a lot of private companies that offer tuition reimbursement, but that would obviously be in a dollar figure that’s a lot higher than, you know, a city or a government body. So um, I’m not sure how much information there will be out there as far as government bodies reimbursing tuition, but it would definitely depend on what classes are out there. I know a lot of community colleges don’t offer classes in public administration, so you would probably be looking at universities that are a little costlier. That’s just me. [1:11:55] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** Is that section mandated? I mean, there’s things that I read all today and I’m like, we just had some major discussion about the police department and now I’m seeing these things that are being... I don’t know if these are mandated or what, but it’s... [1:12:15] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** I don’t think it’s necessarily mandated. It was just in the policy prior that, if requested, Council can consider reimbursing for tuition for certain positions or certain classes that Council wants extra training for. So I think that when the city attorneys reviewed the policy, they highlighted that if the city’s going to continue to have that in there—and it’s been in there—that the Council cap it, which was the dialogue. And that’ll be within the review as well. [1:12:44] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** Yeah, I read that. That was one of the questions I had as well. And I know that you caught that with the University of Minnesota, and I’m thinking well, that’s a lot of money. [1:12:55] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Um, there’s also a recommendation that we do keep it because we’re talking upward mobility for employees. We’ve always utilized it, but to cap is up to you guys. That’s your decision, but I would suggest that we keep that. [1:13:10] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** Well, I would keep it, but I’m not really thrilled with the language of using the University of Minnesota one, too, because we don’t know who’s going where, they’re going for what, and I think it takes our opportunity as a Council to look at it case-by-case basis. And I get the cap, I 100% understand that, but to me I don’t necessarily think you even need to do a cap. To me it should be that, let’s say a request comes forward with a dollar amount, you can deny it at that time. [1:13:55] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** You could deny request. We can come up with some... we can ask the attorneys—I mean, they’re the ones that facilitated the language and the comparison—so we can ask for some ideas as far as other cities and how it’s facilitated and maybe look at some options for different verbiage as well. Um, so just maybe look for future communications on that. We’ll make sure that Council has the opportunity to review both the redlined and the cleaned version, and then providing additional information for review and future discussion. [1:14:15] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** And it also talked about part-time and full-time, and to me that was something I was a little concerned about as well. [1:14:20] **Taylor Hansberry (Deputy Clerk):** Sure. Simply... you said it was mandated, that’s the new mandate by the state, so I understood that. 7.7, 5.8: dress code. Who pays for the uniforms? [1:14:40] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Not addressed. There’s a... we don’t have anybody talking about uniforms. [1:14:45] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** And there is something that talks about Public Works, but I think that could be something that we might not need to address. But it caught my eye, and then it talks under 4.1 about layoffs, and that language should actually read something... there should be a caveat in there "not under contract" because you’re certainly not going to lay off a person that’s under contract because what are you getting out of that, unless it’s a disciplinary action. Those are the ones that I read through today. You know, the one on dress code too for like street department, and they’re under a lot of... [1:15:10] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** That was separate. That’s addressed separately in this. [1:15:15] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** This is 5.8: dress code. And my question that came up was: who pays for it? Because it says that you can’t come to work in this or that, well then who pays for it? And that should be addressed in that, my point. [1:15:30] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Well, I guess at the state they demand... they demanded you dress in a certain way, and the only people they pay for were uniformed people. Everybody else, that was just the understanding that you purchased your own. [1:15:45] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Then I think it should be addressed there and said that the individual then is required to pay for their own, otherwise it's not addressed and then it’s going to come back and get us at employee's cost. [1:15:53] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Except for safety equipment. What you say? It's covered in other questions. [1:16:00] **Taylor Hansberry (Deputy Clerk):** That’s covered in there. Yes. That’s the only difference. [1:16:05] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Excellent. And I know that that all changes now with the police department, and I think originally that’s probably... intent... that’s probably... yeah. Okay, thank you for bringing those forward. We’ll continue to work on it, this was just... okay. Thank you, thank you. I’m here for the next two so... all right. [1:16:30] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Yeah, good job on that. 6E, on-sale intoxicating liquor fee discussion. [1:16:39] **Taylor Hansberry (Deputy Clerk):** Okay, so we for the first time as a city approved an intoxicating on-sale liquor license. Because it was the very first time that this was ever approved, we did not have a fee on our fee schedule. Um, so I looked at cities that were near us and maybe comparable in size. We already have two liquor license fees on our fee schedule: one is for the 3.2% malt liquor, which is that $150, and a brewer taproom license which was at $500. So as you can see in the three cities that I found, their brewer and their 3.2% malt liquor fees are very similar to ours. So I looked at their on-sale intoxicating liquor prices and they were between $2,000 and $3,500. So I found a price right in the middle, and I’m recommending that our on-sale intoxicating liquor fee on our fee schedule be set at $2,500. [1:17:40] **Council Member Kris Huso:** Council? I’m just thinking if... I mean, they came in, they are getting the license, they didn’t know about this fee. Is there anything that we’re doing something retroactive that... I think we already voted, approved it. [1:18:00] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** We did, but now we’re voting to put a fee on it, right? Well to me, that has... we’ve already approved it and I don’t see how we can go back and charge something. [1:18:15] **Council Member Kris Huso:** Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. And then is this like if it’s approved every year, now next year there would be a fee associated with it then? It’s different. That’s what I’m just kind of trying to lay out that picture for everyone, what does that look like? [1:18:35] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Right. Once you approve this as a Council, then each year—or if it’s different than annually, whenever that comes up—then the fee would be charged. [1:18:50] **Council Member Kris Huso:** Perfect, correct. It is an annual fee. Yeah. Did they ask if there’s any fee associated with it? [1:19:00] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** So it’s understood that there’s a fee. Now, what that fee is was not outlined to them. They... it’s understood across the board that there’s a fee to the city for liquor license, it’s just what that fee was. Um, I could refer to our Brewer Taproom fee or a 3.2 Malt Liquor fee, but those aren’t specific to an on-sale intoxicating liquor fee. So we didn’t have a specific fee on our schedule for that specific license, but we do have fees for liquor licenses on our schedule. [1:19:35] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** I just didn't... under the understanding when they applied for it, there would be some. [1:19:40] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** They were under the understanding. And we had... there also is the opportunity to potentially prorate. So you could prorate this one, you know, in the first year. That’s an option as well, whatever Council wants, because we’re already a quarter through. [1:20:00] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** I think it’d be fair to do what the taproom fee is and then maybe let them understand that next year it’s going to be... that would be what my suggestion would be. Anyone else? [1:20:15] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** I’m not in favor of that myself. We didn’t bring it up at the time and we didn’t have it in place. We're talking such a small amount. I could see the next year if they're even going to open. I don't see any activity over there. [1:20:40] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** They’re waiting on their license, which they can't get until we approve a fee. So till we approve what the fee is and sign off on it. So we have to determine if it’s going to be zero fee or if there’s going to be a fee, and then we’ll sign it and then they’ll get their license tomorrow. [1:20:55] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** I think we already voted on giving it to them. [1:21:00] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** There’s a certificate that they have to post, correct, that we haven’t... [1:21:05] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** Yeah, but to me what happened is we voted on it and we didn't have this fee set up at the time. So during the vote that passed that gave him the license, this was not, to me, part of that decision. We did not vote with that fee in place or stating it to them. So I don't see how we... to me it wouldn't be right that you do that. I do see it coming the next year though when it's there again. That's my opinion. [1:21:35] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Yeah, and I’m on the same page as you, but I’m hearing something different from you, and I think the City Administrator might have something different that you’re... [1:21:50] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Yeah, I think it’s just important to be mindful that everybody in the city who currently sells any type of alcohol product has paid a fee. Um, they do so on an annual basis as part of their license. As staff, we have been communicating with the owners and they’re under the impression that there will be a fee associated. They’re well aware. Um, from a state perspective with our licensing, I mean, the... there’s an awareness as part of the process that the city will implement some type of fee associated with this type of license. Just want to make sure that’s understood as well. [1:22:45] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** And that was my reason for choosing the $500, is because it was conveyed to them that they would have a fee, it just wasn't established. And I think if we tell them we’re establishing a fee of $2,500 for next year but we’re... this year we’re going to just... I mean, somebody wanted Malt Liquor one, I’m fine with that too. I just think that everybody else is paying a fee, like she said, that we can’t just... [1:23:25] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Council action? [1:23:30] **Council Member Kris Huso:** I’ll make a motion that we... okay, so do you want to set the... how do you want this motion to be? Do you want the on-sale liquor fee of $2,500 and a separate motion for what we're going to charge this one? [1:23:45] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Yeah, there’s two different motions here. One is to accept the recommendation about the intoxicated liquor fee, and then another one would be for this business. [1:23:55] **Council Member Kris Huso:** Okay, I’ll make a motion that we set our on-sale intoxicating liquor fee at $2,500. [1:24:10] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Before you call... a second? [1:24:15] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** Second. [1:24:20] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor say aye. [1:24:22] **Council Members:** Aye. [1:24:23] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Oppose? Motion carried. The second one is the fee for the... I'm not sure the last the name of the business that we gave a license to. [1:24:40] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** The LLJ? [1:24:42] **Council Member Kris Huso:** LLJ Mexican Restaurant. [1:24:45] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Yes. [1:24:50] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** I’ll make a motion that we implement, for this year only, the on-sale intoxicating liquor fee of $500 to LLJ Mexican Restaurant. [1:25:10] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Second. [1:25:15] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. [1:25:20] **Council Members:** Aye. [1:25:21] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Oppose? Motion carried. Uh, thank you very much. Do you have the next one too? Okay, then we're on to 6F, MSOP Moose Lake Healthcare Facility voting guidelines election judge discussion. [1:25:45] **Taylor Hansberry (Deputy Clerk):** So we were contacted by the County to let us know that MSOP falls under the healthcare facility voting guidelines. This means that we are obligated to deliver application forms and absentee ballots to eligible voters who are residents or patients at the MSOP treatment facility. So there’s a distinction between people who are at the treatment facility and those who are at the treatment facility and also incarcerated. The individuals that are also incarcerated are not eligible to vote. The people who are not incarcerated are eligible to vote, and it is our responsibility to ensure that that happens. There are two healthcare facilities in the city of Moose Lake: the other one is Moose Lake Village, the nursing home or assisted living, and the County is willing to continue facilitating that one; however, they’ve asked for our help with facilitating the one at MSOP. The date for these elections will always be on a separate day from the regular election, so we can use the same election judges that we use on normal days. Ideally, they’re looking for four to six out of the election judges that we normally contact. We’ve had two that said they are willing—that means there’s two. The three of us in the office—me, Administrator Owens, and Finance Director Ryan—we have asked if Superintendent Entner would be willing to go through the training and assist us there. We would like to have a pretty even distribution of males and females. The existing pool of election judges that we have is overwhelmingly female, and the two that said they were willing to come with us are female as well, so that would at least give us two men coming with us. There are other procedures that go into that. I believe... yes, you have to provide a driver’s license prior to your visit. They take your phone, they’re not allowed past the reception area. So it is a little bit different of a dynamic than a normal polling place situation. Um, yeah, so that’s... we’re obligated by state statute to facilitate this. The County has brought that to our attention and we are doing our best to accommodate that. [1:28:15] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** I do have a question. When you were talking about the difference between a client and then a client that’s incarcerated, are you talking about a client that still has DOC time that if they had bad behavior they’d be sent back, or are you talking about obviously the ones that... clients that would be over at DOC? I guess I’m... [1:28:43] **Taylor Hansberry (Deputy Clerk):** I can read you the distinguishing language here. It says, "Note that the opinion does not distinguish between the treatment facilities and those who while receiving MSOP treatment are inmates at MCF Moose Lake. This population is still incarcerated and not eligible to vote and therefore not eligible to be visited by the election judges." So that’s the specific language we have in there. I don’t know anything more. [1:29:15] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Are people there that are have DOC time? I'm just wondering. [1:29:30] **Taylor Hansberry (Deputy Clerk):** It sounded to me like there was a pretty smooth process, it wasn’t as chaotic as a normal polling place when, you know, people can come at any time of the day you're open from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. We would have a specific time that we would show up there and they would shuffle people through in groups, so it was a little more controlled and it would be a little more efficient than people just showing up whenever they have time. So as of right now, the tentative date for the August primary is July 30th or August 6th from 9:00 to 4:00. So it'd be during the regular workday as well. [1:30:15] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** This is kind of just for your information. Um, we wanted to make sure that we were providing visibility to what was being asked of the city. Um, the County had asked for six. Um, they were asking for predominantly male election judges, and we don’t have that to provide unless we’re utilizing city staff. So um, that is one of the ways that we are going to be able to help facilitate that request. They did also indicate that they are willing to, for this year or at least for the primary, help. So some County election judges will be there to help us facilitate, at least for this first one. It’s possible moving forward we will need more than six. Because right now we’re going to provide six, it’s possible that we’ll have to bring in more people and we’ll continue to work on that. But this will be a transition year and we’ll learn a lot in the process and it’s going to be a presidential year, so that’s super fun that it landed in our lap on the busiest session possible. [1:31:35] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Thanks for the information. Anyone here wants to volunteer? Applications, beware! And anyone in the call. Thank you. Moving on to 6G, Gardner Refrigeration Company long-range summary for HVAC improvements. [1:32:08] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** Yeah, this is a capital item. I had quotes, I don’t know, last year sometime, tried to get them both updated again. This is to control better the heating and cooling now at the Muny. Um, I guess my recommendation would be to go with Gardner. They have experience with the municipal liquor store. Um, they gave a pretty comprehensive plan. So and this stays well below the 20,000 that was budgeted for Capital. [1:33:00] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Open it up for discussion by the Council. [1:33:05] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Is this just a piecemeal plan, or is this going to get us to where we need to be? Because again, the system was built to handle smoking. You don’t have smoking in there. [1:33:15] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** Correct, so it’s overbuilt. Um, this won’t ultimately completely get us to my understanding to where we need to be, because we’re going to have to... to get what you’re talking about, we’re going to have to get probably engineers involved and stuff with the duct work and like, of the whole building. But this will greatly improve our efficiency within the establishment. [1:33:45] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** We continue to have problems with that. Part of the problem is the air exchanger that was put in before the laws were passed for no smoking. So you got this huge air exchanger in there which complicates everything. Is it the time to have that removed and have a normal air exchanger? [1:34:10] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Phil, I know you know... you’ve seen that monstrous thing, and I’m thinking maybe this is a time to remove that whole thing. That it would have never used the way it was made for smoking and it’s... [1:34:35] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** Yeah, I mean, I agree. Not... I don’t think 20,000 will cover what needs to happen down there. Um, you know, this is part of that. I mean, this wouldn’t be obsolete if we decide next year to do the rest of what needs to get done, but this would greatly improve the efficiency. I mean, we have problems every summer keeping stuff cool in there and every winter keeping stuff evenly, you know, warm. [1:35:05] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Can this be done... yet next year, tear out that old system that it’s not used and it’s... wasn’t built for what it’s doing? It won’t affect this installation drastically if it was done that way? [1:35:15] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** No. I mean, think of this as mostly the control panels for everything making sure... you know, there’s like I don’t know, six or seven thermostats in there, it’s kind of crazy. [1:35:30] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** I wonder if it’s so... I'm just thinking out loud, if that should be torn out first. [1:35:40] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** A couple of things to consider and, you know, maybe we get participation from Gardner as far as additional information or presentation. But um, do want to be mindful. So the capital monies that were set aside for the Muny are from the liquor fund. This is the first time that we’re starting to build the fund. The auditors are recommending we don’t touch it, don’t touch it, you’re building your foundation, your operating foundation within your liquor fund. And so um, you know, throughout our budgeting process we realize that you know, it’s important for the liquor fund to obviously be self-sufficient, but we’re tapping into the fund that we’re building with this money. It’s not coming from the general fund, it’s coming from the liquor fund. So we were wanting to be mindful in the type of repair that was planned and budgeted for as we continue to build the fund. [1:36:35] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** There was a little bit of checks and balances throughout that process. I think removing that big air thing would... I mean, we’re coming into the summer months now and you have probably closed for a little while that probably... [1:36:55] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** So I would think we want to do it. Well, you’re talking pull that all out, put a new one in there. You’re talking what, $50,000 minimum? [1:37:05] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** I have no idea. [1:37:10] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** I think what I’m understanding is that there’s a recommendation to take care of some of the issues that are not related to the air exchanger, correct? And we can take care of some things that are going to be cost savings to the liquor store. And is it your recommendation that it’s the RFP number two price you're looking at, or what you looking at? [1:37:35] **Ryan McKeon (Finance Director):** Sure, on the right one. Uh, yes. And the other component, right? Would be... you have option one, you have option two, then you have RFP number two price. So option one of RFP one and then also the management system. And then, you know, they don’t have a price here because they’ll need to really look things over, but preventative maintenance moving forward—that could be part of why we’re in the situation we’re in. [1:38:15] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** So you are recommending all three? [1:38:17] **Ryan McKeon (Finance Director):** I am, yep. Not the option two, RFP one—you want option one at $3,570, and then RFP number two at $7,790. And we don’t know what number three is going to... we just... yeah, I mean we would like to have preventative maintenance on the docket, but I don’t know what the cost for cleaning and stuff... never gets done on these things, ever. [1:38:45] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** So we have talked and talked and talked at great length since you’ve been here. Previous person was at the store, we talked about all these... what do we have? What do we have for preventative maintenance? And we have never had the maintenance schedule. And we’ve asked for years and years and years and never got a maintenance schedule. Right, so I do see that we do need maintenance schedules. Maybe it’s something you guys can say, "work it out," but it has to stay under the... I mean, it’s going to stay well under the $20,000 that’s already budgeted. [1:39:35] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** Brad, you know when they put in their projected price here... you know, when they were here looking at our whole system, um, their interface that they’re going to put in... because Phil runs into this with old control panels and the tie-in with this... the reason I’m concerned about that old air handler, you’re going to be interfacing with old equipment that’s going to have to fit in with this in order to balance the heating and cooling. [1:40:10] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** Yeah, they’ll fit in. [1:40:12] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** So I don’t know. The way it was explained to me, think of it like two separate things. Like this company is doing this stuff, but you’re talking completely different group of people that would do, you know, ripping that stuff out and putting all that extra duct work back in and a system that interfaces with this control panel. [1:40:40] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Right. And to me, the awareness has to be there because that’s what happened with all these cameras across the whole city. We spent $50-some thousand on cameras that would not interface with the system we had. That’s where my awareness comes. You know, to me we want to make sure that we’re doing something that the systems can work with. Um, it’s been that old system has been brought up through the years of different Council members, and it was never acted on and it’s still sitting there and it’s an albatross. [1:41:30] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** Sure, and I know any cooling expert... Phil, your expertise, I can’t imagine that they would have any implications that they would not be able to work together. [1:41:45] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** My first question is, is this proprietary equipment that only that company would have rights to? [1:41:55] **Ryan McKeon (Finance Director):** Uh, well I think it’s Honeywell. [1:42:00] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** I would make sure on that because I think we ran into controlling issues down there before with that, and also at the YMCA, that we end up having to only deal with select companies who have service agreements and service contracts on that equipment. So you can’t just go hire anyone to come in and clean your whatever and get it running in an emergency. They won’t even give you your prints, you can’t even look at to see what it is. I would just make sure, that's my awareness of this whole thing. And if it's not proprietary, that's awesome, great. [1:42:35] **Ryan McKeon (Finance Director):** I would say that I think they’re the original people that put some of this in, and we have other people work on it already so... yeah. The proposal does mention that it is Honeywell equipment. Another thing is the existing conditions kind of outlines that they understand our heating and cooling system and the challenges, and that this is another step in the process. And although it doesn’t rectify the duct work, they’re outlining that it would take considerable time to pay back and recover the costs of doing that magnitude of a repair. Now, this is just one opinion, but they’ve assessed it to the point where they understand, or you know, they’re willing to put their name on a proposal that says they’re identifying that. And so these are the proposed improvements in order to not make the type of investment that may or may not take a significant time to recover the cost of. [1:43:25] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Um, would it be beneficial to have them come in and talk to the Liquor Committee or to the Council? Our problem is we don’t have a real in-depth... none of us... understanding of the electronic part of it, the microprocessed... I know, but I’m not the one that can assign that to him. [1:44:00] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Yeah, but I mean if they gave a presentation, Mr. Mayor, during the city council meeting, um, we do have other members present that have some knowledge. [1:44:15] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Well, I would think that wouldn't necessarily have to be at the Council meeting but to the right people within the city. We can try and schedule. [1:44:25] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** Phil, you’re not looking up just looking at the agenda of Honeywell. [1:44:30] **Ryan McKeon (Finance Director):** Yeah, it does say Honeywell supervisor. [1:44:35] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** I mean, it may be wise, and part of this may be some which is training... part of the cost? [1:44:45] **Ryan McKeon (Finance Director):** Yep. Okay, good. [1:44:50] **Council Member Kris Huso:** Um, you know, on the Reach quote too, it’s Honeywell so... oh, so... [1:45:00] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** So Phil wants a demo, is that what I’m hearing? [1:45:05] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** No, so I want... to me the understanding... I'd be comfortable if you... in other words, straight out that you... we look at the whole control situation because of what’s happened in the past with other items that cause trouble for us when we’re dealing with control panels especially. [1:45:30] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** So you’d like him to go down there and assess it first and then get a demo, is that what I’m understanding? However comfortable would work for Phil if that is a possibility. [1:45:45] **Ryan McKeon (Finance Director):** I took it that he’d just have to be able to understand and ask the right questions because we don’t understand the language, proprietary or not. [1:45:55] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** And then I can. Okay, yeah. [1:46:00] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Okay, great. Fantastic. Thanks, Ellissa, for pointing Phil to that job. So should we be waiting then on a recommendation then or a vote? Is that what we’re looking at? What is the timeline of what were you thinking of this project being done? Was it to sometime this year? [1:46:25] **Ryan McKeon (Finance Director):** You know, preferably not disrupting things during a super busy time frame like the Fourth of July or something like that. [1:46:35] **Council Member Kris Huso:** Right. So if it’s something that would help right now in this, Mayor, maybe we can make a motion that if it’s agreed upon that it’s going to work for us, that we should make the motion now because before it gets to be super hot out. We could do that with that caveat that Phil will be ready to get final stamp. [1:47:00] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** This type of work though is just controlling, for the most part. It’s controlling change ones and it’s... you’re not going to affect your air quality at the bar when this is getting done. They’re going to do a zone or two at a time. It’s not going to be like an issue. [1:47:15] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** I’d let them come present if it was me. [1:47:20] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Do what? [1:47:22] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** I would let them come present what they got, if it was me, before to you. [1:47:28] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Not to me? No, to the Council. And I’ll sit here and listen. We can do it at a Council meeting or we can do it at a committee meeting and have Superintendent present that, either. [1:47:45] **Council Member Kris Huso:** I think Liquor Committee, and then the Liquor Committee can bring forward a recommendation. [1:48:00] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** So as of right now, no, we’re it’s the committee. All right. Thank you very much, appreciate that. 6H, City camera system discussion. [1:48:15] **Ryan McKeon (Finance Director):** Yeah, so you know we discussed this quite a while back. I just wanted to resurface it. Um, we wanted more time just to think about it, I believe. So you know, still quite a bit of money. Uh, you have the list of the cameras that are directly plugged into the server here. The server itself is kind of... we already know we did a patch job, it’s on its last leg. So with contract negotiations with the County, um, just wanted to resurface this and know everyone’s thoughts. Um, you know, this camera description doesn’t include like... we have an outstanding ticket from a while back with VC3 to patch in all of the water and light cameras. So I don’t know if we want to nix that. Um, I don’t know if we want to move forward. It’s really expensive to maintain all of these cameras. The Muny cameras kind of run by themselves and are stored down there. We could look to do something similar with the DMV or whichever ones you guys designate. We could... there are options. You could ask me to see what it would cost to lease. Um, I’m not sure what the County’s appetite is for taking on this. I would imagine they don’t want to incur any additional costs on anything. [1:49:25] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Yes, thank you. So it has come up in dialogue, and the County communicated they don’t have any interest in the facilitation or extended cost of maintaining the camera system. Uh, we do have working cameras that they would review footage if it was relevant, but if we don’t, you know, it’s not going to be a contract benefit, so to speak, of having them. So some of the dialogue that we’ve had internally, as Finance Director McKeon mentioned, is maybe determining what departments are relevant to this type of activity and then having the cameras in a workstation with that footage accessible to each one of those relevant departments. I mean, there’s ways that we could build in then to those department budgets maintenance and repair and replacement schedules within those particular budgets. As Ryan has mentioned, if the overall system is desired, then there will have to be a significant investment in a server and then starting to look at cameras one by one. So the first decision is: if the entire system wants to be maintained, then there’ll be a need to purchase a server. And so that’s the quotes that were included in the packet. So this, you know, again, it’s kind of come up on a few different occasions and really looking for Council direction on the overall system and/or pairing it down to an "as needed per department" basis. Um, you know, there’s also been the potential to maybe have some at different buildings, but then having those buildings or the departments of those buildings kind of responsible for the maintenance, repair, and replacement, and having those schedules independent versus this entire Citywide approach. [1:51:30] **Ryan McKeon (Finance Director):** I believe the workstation that the law enforcement would watch at the police department too is kind on its last leg, so that's another cost that you don't see on here. I have seen through my research several cities use their state aid—their Public Safety state aid—towards camera systems. That’s something you can use it for, just throwing that out there. Um, I did apply for an IRRRB grant a while back, haven't heard back yet, so that would be included in here. Tough decisions, I guess. [1:52:15] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** I think some of these could be paired down. When you look at them, some of them... why would we need it at the... I could see it at the door at DMV, but why on the DMV desk? What’s the purpose of that? I don't see it. What’s "Library Stack"? Yeah, you know what that is? And I wonder about the... [1:52:45] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Library stacks, yeah. I think things have changed a lot since we are going to be contracting. I think this issue needs to be revisited and looked at as you had mentioned, individually with these different groups. The library could have one, you know, Public Works, and break this up so it’s not such a huge bill. And I think that we can... we’re not required to do a lot of this anymore and that’s a big savings. You know, there’s the safety aspect of having it, but do we need this huge of a system? [1:53:35] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** What’s nice about doing it on a department basis is then you only need a server or equipment relevant to a couple of cameras, and there’s so many affordable options out there for monitoring where, for example, at the liquor store you’re looking at a couple of cameras and a smaller piece of equipment than a $73,000 server that doesn’t even include the cameras—that’s just to house the data. So um, that seemed more palatable and from a management maintenance standpoint. But whatever direction Council wants to give on this topic, we’ll follow it. It just has come up again based on current activity. And it will get more difficult when you’re talking about exterior cameras, you know, and the stoplights at the Chamber building and stuff like that. [1:54:40] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** I have a question: and who has access to this? Who can view this like live? Are they able to watch all these cameras? Some of these cameras like down at the police department... and if Carlton took over, would they still... would they have the ability to view this stuff like live? [1:55:00] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Thank you for asking. So the only place that has access to view the footage is the police department. We were made aware that the workstation for this particular viewing has been turned off and not functioning. Is that... that's my understanding, correct? And so um, then in addition to that, the server is here for the system. And so the server itself would require between a $73,000 and $89,000 money allotment to be replaced. And then you’re looking at... so initially we’d have to replace the server here and then the workstation at the PD, and that's where it's viewable. The quote is just for the server. [1:55:50] **Ryan McKeon (Finance Director):** Just for the server. MH. [1:55:55] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Yeah, and then we have the workstation down at the police department, and then it’d be looking at individual cameras on here that aren’t working. So significant reinvestment, which is why we’ve been talking about looking at per department. You can build it into a department budget for that makes sense, makes a lot more sense. [1:56:15] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Yes, sir. Like the fire department or whatever. Okay, but that won’t necessarily be tied into a central server. Each building will have its own collection and storage? [1:56:30] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Correct. Correct. Which is how our Muny has actually been functioning—I mean, a small unit. [1:56:45] **Ryan McKeon (Finance Director):** Yeah, same thing you can put in your house. Correct. [1:56:55] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Yeah, when you know a lot of the cameras, they say that they’re good, but you know, you don’t really know how good, how long they’re going to be good for. You know, how old are these? Are these... they could all be replaced? [1:57:10] **Ryan McKeon (Finance Director):** I would say all of them are getting close to 10 years old now. Yeah, there’s a few that were replaced, but very few. Maybe just a couple. [1:57:25] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Well, on the list... I mean, there’s definitely some that could be taken off. Like the Police Department impound lot. We're no longer going to be using the impound lot from my understanding of what we talked at the Fire Department last night. So I mean like there's one there and I mean... well, it's not even being used right now, it's turned it off. I got a question. I bought a lot of them everywhere. I think that department by department is the way to go considering where we’re at right now. Like at the PD itself, there’s one conference room, the main entrance, the garage, um, the fire department entrance, the drug drop-off, the garage, a parking lot, a southwest outside door. I’m guessing a lot of those... what's the point? Maybe the main entrance, I don't know. [1:58:15] **Ryan McKeon (Finance Director):** So if that’s your recommendation, you know, it’ll take me probably some time to talk about what it would take to halt this and get each one up and running on its own and probably scaling back the cameras. And I could work with the group of you to decide where those cameras should be or how many, or I could talk to the department heads and ask them what they think, or a combo of both. [1:58:35] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** I’d like to... I think get the consensus is first: to go by department. Do we have that consensus? [1:58:45] **Council Members:** I like that. Okay. [1:58:47] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Okay, and then the next consensus would be for Ryan to work with each department head and the Administrator on what is really necessary and not. Sure. Is that consensus with that? [1:59:00] **Council Members:** Yes. [1:59:05] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Okay, all right. Next item. [1:59:10] **Ryan McKeon (Finance Director):** Not sure when I’ll get around to that but... yeah. Thanks for being... things have changed. Thanks, Ryan. I do have the next one, I sure do. This is the VC3 2024 workstation replacement quote. Just one quote, there's five workstations on there. Comes in quite a bit less than what we budgeted for. [1:59:40] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** What page is this one on? [1:59:45] **Ryan McKeon (Finance Director):** Brian actually handed out a quote. Sorry. Oh, got you. Um, I reviewed it and noticed there wasn’t dual monitors on one of them, so I had added that. These workstations were identified within the budget, and the invoice will be coded per workstation for the relevant department as per the approved budget. [2:00:15] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Very good. So these... this is what was on budget. We budgeted three, I believe, for each—so that would have been 15. It’s coming in at $8,781. So we didn’t get anything too fast. Council? [2:00:40] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** Motion to approve. [2:00:42] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Second. I second. [2:00:44] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor say aye. [2:00:46] **Council Members:** Aye. [2:00:47] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Oppose? Motion carried. Thank you. [2:00:55] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Moving on to 6J, Mighty Duck Grant Program award announcement. Yes, just um... so the city was awarded the Mighty Duck Grant. Um, the total allotment awarded to the city is $66,667. Um, this is just one piece of the financing puzzle. So what we’re doing in the background—we have 30 days, I believe it runs until April 26th, to respond and accept the grant. So what we’re doing in the interim is meeting with all the different entities regarding financing and making sure that the project is fully funded. We’ve met with the school district and we’ve met with the Hockey Association. The Hockey Association is working with their finance team and treasurer. They have a significant amount of savings which was itemized in our initial application. With this grant monies, it would take the amount that would need to be financed significantly down. And so what other hockey associations have done in other areas—which the local Hockey Association is looking at replicating—is utilizing their gambling fund contributions to then pull a line of credit to finance the difference. And so that's something that the Hockey Association is working on. In addition, we’ve been in contact with St. Luke’s, who has gone through the merger to now being Aspirus. And so that merger has been... essentially, they need to run the sponsorship agreement and partnership back up the ladder with new... well, it’s a new ladder, so to speak. And so I was told a little over a week ago, 14 days, I would get a response from St. Luke’s regarding the corporate partnership and community partnership with the arena. So I will make sure that Council stays aware of updates with that, and once the financing puzzle is put together I will share that information as well. [2:02:45] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Thank you. Any questions from the Council? Thanks. Moving on to 6K, the Moose Lake CIP 2024 update. Road project, street selection discussion. [2:03:00] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Well yeah, so we have new... the engineers have put together a new list of project costs in coordination with the city's CIP plan. And so looking at having discussion about the selection of the next road project. So the city is not going to have the LRIP grant. The LRIP grant required the connection of those selected roads to Highway 73. And so at this point in time, we can continue to look at the road utilized in that application, First Street, for our next road project, or Council can review the list. So looking for direction. One thing we’re doing in the background: our sales tax fund is continuing to build. So we’re in the middle of the road, the balance is right about $500,000 in the sales tax fund. It grows annually by about $250,000. We have not completed our 2023 audit, so that is the best estimate that we can provide at this time. But once that 2023 audit is done, we’ll have a to-the-dollar amount fund balance for sales tax. But what we did is we took the ending balance in 2022 that was audited and we reviewed the remaining cost affiliated with the 4th Street project that were paid in 2023, the beginning of 2023. So we took that into consideration and then looked at what monies have come in for the remainder of 2023 after those final payments were made and the beginning of 2024. And there was just a tiny bit of fund balance left in the sales tax fund. That 4th Street project was right around 1.3 in its totality. So we’re working with about $500,000 that we have saved at this time and expecting that to be closer to 700,000 by the end of 2024. A couple of components that we’re talking about internally is we have put $50,000 aside in 2024 for getting a Gravel Pit up and running. The Gravel Pit takes the cost of the project down and it’s about 30% of the project cost that could be removed if our Gravel Pit is operational at that time. A little bit of a balance between the cost it takes to get the Gravel Pit up and running and functional—right around $150,000 to $200,000. We put 50,000 aside this year. And so once we have direction about what road project we’d like to do, we’ll do the timeline math as far as how much we need to save and budget for in 2025 for the Gravel Pit and 2026 what the next project timeline looks like. And of course, the cost savings of having the Gravel Pit operational could significantly reduce the cost of the project. So a lot of different moving pieces. More or less the discussion we wanted to have today is: is there a desire... what is the Council’s desire as far as the next road selected? And then we’ll do our work in the background to line up timelines and present to Council a projected date with the engineers for the next road project. [2:06:50] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Okay, the list of all the... I guess that may be the first step is, are we looking forward to looking to do anything this year at all? Not... are we looking to do any grind and overlay of anything in the city? Because I want to ask the Council act before they go on to the next big expenditure. Or are you happy, Phil, with the way that slurry worked throughout the city? I’m not happy with it but it’s our only option, but is it enough? Like some of the worst streets where the grind and overlay are really needed, does that work enough to keep going as is and then spend all the money on a big project and continually doing the slurry, I guess? [2:07:45] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** I like the big project idea because it gives us a chance to rebuild our entire infrastructure under that street. If we just do a mill and overlay, we're not rebuilding anything. Perfect example is Industrial Road, and we’re going to talk about that later, but we’re going to have a lot of holes in Industrial Road this year and that was redone during the Highway 73 project in 2017. [2:08:15] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** Yeah well, the part going up to the trailer court... that was done prior to that on a stretch that was really bad, that’s probably the oldest part that was redone way before the 73 part. [2:08:30] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** I just wanted to bring that up because we’re going ahead with big projects and leaving some of these areas that are so bad. I’m just hoping the slurry... I mean, it worked last year, and I don’t like it because it’s a patch, but it is what we can afford. So I understand that. [2:08:45] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** The only complaint I got was the blacktop left behind it, which we couldn't sweep up or whatever. We ended up sweeping a lot of it, but yeah, it's kind of a process. We don't get to sweeping that day, it’s the next day or two. And then I did get one aesthetic complaint. [2:09:00] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** Other than that, I really don't... yeah, that was the only thing that I heard about, other than it’s ugly. [2:09:05] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** Yep, it sure did. [2:09:08] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** It did cover the bad holes and the rough ride. After it's sat there for a year, it’s not looking such so ugly either because it’s faded to the same color of the rest of the tar around it. [2:09:15] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** It didn't have a wicked blow season on it either. Yeah, so it would be see what it does next year, but there will be more going down this year. [2:09:25] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** I just wanted to bring that up for the Council’s sake, to make sure that the Council is okay with not doing any more grind and overlay. Because it’s been a while now since we’ve done something and the roads don’t get better by themselves. [2:09:40] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Okay, so I’m getting the consensus is to go for the big project? Continue on? Okay. So are you looking for anything else, Ellissa? [2:09:50] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Uh, yes. A street selection. Street selection so that we can start planning with the engineers. We can start trying to line up timelines. Um, you know, First Street is very high on the list, and so we can continue to... we can stick with that. [2:10:15] **Council Member Kris Huso:** How far on First Street do they go? Just up to the stop sign? Because when they did Lakeview Drive, they went up through the intersection. [2:10:30] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** On the list, it's from Arrowhead Lane to Douglas. Correct. [2:10:40] **Council Member Kris Huso:** So down past the... right? Y. That was... I would like to see that one done because everybody diverts around First Street, so Lakeview Drive is getting way more traffic than... and that’s going to have to be replaced then faster. [2:11:00] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** And these roads are rated. We still have our comprehensive study that we did. What are these roads graded on here? [2:11:15] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** I think number one was... wasn't it 6th Street? 6th Street North? Wasn't that the number one? Well yeah, I'm looking at these projects and I see the projects but doesn't say... project... is it top left one? It says "1". Yes, project one was number one. Okay. [2:11:45] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** So then as we build... Orange... one is two? Okay, I saw right here it says one goes two. So that’s how they’re rated? [2:12:00] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** That was my question. Thank you. So 4th Street... I can’t read what that says. West 6th Street. And if I didn’t just mess my iPad up, I’d tell you, because I have almost all those memorized. Just to give Council an idea, West 6th Street is listed at 1.7 million. 30% of that is $533,000. Let’s just say $500,000. You could essentially take the... if you had your Gravel Pit up and operational, and you could take the project cost from 1.7 down to 1.2. And First Street was $2,529,000 and 30% less of that would be $1,770,000. So 1.7. So then what we’ll do, once Council selects a road then, is make sure we have enough money saved to have our Gravel Pit up and operational by the convergence of when our sales tax fund is built. [2:13:00] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** This also gives us goals. So in our engineering meetings, we start talking about what’s next Council wants to do. We know we don’t have to come here to ask you guys you know, um... it gives us goals for getting that gravel pit up and going. [2:13:20] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Any other maintenance issues that might be happening on a selected project that we have? [2:13:30] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** I also don’t think we need a selection on this. No, just need direction and dialogue. So another thing too is we have the Gravel Pit as an item on our monthly engineering meeting that we discuss. So there’s permitting and things that need to happen in the background in addition to us saving money. So then we can prioritize based on what timeline we need to have it fully operational, our activities in the background, in addition to design of the road project. So it just helps us to know we can start creating timelines and have goals, and then we can prioritize based on what we need to accomplish per Council's request. [2:14:15] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** Perfect example: just saying in two years we’ll be going up against the lead service line rule. So any lead service line that’s in town, right, we're supposed to either replace it, start planning to replace, or have applied for funding to replace it. I think there’s three of those, let’s say, on First Street. I’m pretty sure there are three on First Street, and they’re all over town. If those opportunities come up, it’s going to be some type of a matching program, right? We’re not going to get the whole thing on one shot. If I know we’re doing First Street, we’re not doing those services on First Street. Ex... if we’re going to do First Street in three years, I don’t care if we do them... it makes no sense to do it now then to do the entire street in three years, if that makes sense. There's a lot of moving parts and pieces to this that could be very helpful for us. [2:14:55] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** My only comment is is that we have these ratings, and if the rating has changed... I understand First Street is horrendous, but do we stick with the rating system that we have in place or do we not? They were rated for a reason because you took everything, you put it together and you got what you got because of the infrastructure went in there as well. And we also have to look at then as how long, as you said, if it's going to... we’re getting $250,000 a year, it’s going to be a little bit longer to do the First Street project. That’s a little bit more money than this second rated and quite a bit more than the first rated project. So it’s like how are you... I’m just... we spent a lot of money to have this, and this one’s 1.7 million and this one's 2.5. So it’s just how long is it going to take us to get there? [2:15:55] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** Um, so the engineers updated the cost because in the engineer meeting we talked about we got to get new costs because all our costs were old. Right. They only gave me this back. So we can... we can reference that document—I have it in the office—for ranking, but that’s what the ranking is right here. So they updated that original list to this new list, to this document, and this is all they provided. [2:16:30] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** And that is based on all those parameters that we were looking for? [2:16:35] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Yes. [2:16:37] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** So is it your understanding that the next prioritized project was 6th Street up on the hill? [2:16:45] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Yes. Okay. [2:16:47] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** That's the way and this was pulled from the CIP... [2:16:50] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Remember we jumped to First Street due to the LRIP grant opportunity. Right. [2:16:55] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** You’re understood. Yeah. If you can get an LRIP, that changes it, but if it doesn’t, we should be following the original list then. Because 6th Street wouldn’t qualify for LRIP, which is why we went to the next one that was. Right. Thank you for... none of them on the hill, unless they go to 73. If they’re any of the streets that are parallel, they’re not going to qualify. [2:17:30] **Council Member Kris Huso:** The list that I have, it says "draft" on it. So I don’t know if it’s been revised at some time. This is the street Capital Improvement Plan and they have it a little bit different on this. They have First Street as number two and West 6th Street as number three. And then on this on the computer, those two are reversed. [2:18:00] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** Because they didn’t add... in the draft they didn’t have all the infrastructure in there. And I think that’s what was changed, is that they put the infrastructure in there, it changed the order of these. Because that was what we originally went off of. [2:18:15] **Council Member Kris Huso:** Yes. I guess I kind of look at it though as: what is the biggest use of a road? I mean, I don’t know how much traffic 6th Street up on the hill gets compared to First Street, Second Street, Third Street, and you know, all the people coming into town and going to the post office and... I mean like I said, there are people who totally avoid that one stretch of First Street because I’ve broken my struts on my car on it. That was a few years ago. Um, it’s... and I don’t know how much patching... I mean, you guys patch it, but it’s within, you know. So everybody’s going down Lakeview Drive, Lakeview Drive, Lakeview Drive, or Second Street. Well now that’s getting three times the amount of traffic both of them. I mean, I’m just... I don’t know how much traffic 6th Street... I guess I’m saying is, should we be working on the most traveled? Or the access? I mean, we have people pulling campers up First Street to go down to the park, you know, when they’re lost in town. [2:19:30] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** What would the cost be? What would the cost be for... if the foundation is good enough on First Street for a block or a block and a half of mill and overlay? And I know we don’t want to do mill and overlay, I’m just saying if that would be something that would take care of that issue and still work on a project that’s a lot less money, we might be able to do something. I don’t know. [2:20:00] **Council Member Kris Huso:** Well, and I don’t even know if you need to go past the stop sign. I mean, from the stop sign down Douglas is not that bad. You can patch those little things. It’s the stop sign to 73. [2:20:15] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Is what the LRIP... you’re saying Elm to 73? [2:20:20] **Council Member Kris Huso:** Yeah, Elm to 73 is what I mean. So you could compress the project into a smaller project, because I don’t think the other one is as serious as that. [2:20:35] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** Um, that other it's pretty bad up there. If you drive it, it’s bad. Um, the infrastructure under is part of the problem too up there and that’s included in all these ratings in every street. So yeah, almost every street that I’ve seen down here has needed a soil correction. Mill and overlay, yeah, it would work just like our slurry but it wouldn’t... it's not the answer. If you wanted it to hang in there, it’s going to need some type of soil correction. [2:21:15] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** I’m just saying that it’s going to take us almost five years to get to do First Street. The money that we’re talking about... where we could get that other project done and still maybe tackle the worst part of First Street which is, you know, people having damage done to their vehicles and the safety aspect of First Street. I know what that price was last year, we did have a price I think that you would come up with. And I know I we didn’t want to open that that up, but I have that in my computer. [2:21:55] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** I don’t have a... yeah. Just throwing out ideas because we do know that First Street is going to take a long time to raise that money, and we’re looking at moving forward with our Gravel Pit. [2:22:15] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Think about it. Just know what you think. [2:22:20] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Yeah, we don’t need an answer tonight, definitely not. It does affect our prioritization in our activity. Um, four more weeks is not going to make a difference. If there's any more information that we could provide, whether it's a reduced cost for a shortened project on First Street or whether it's um, you know, we could essentially assess timelines of each and what that looks like with the Gravel Pit. A timeline of the Gravel Pit would be helpful, you know, to... I mean say we did a project before the Gravel Pit was done, you know, then we’re losing out on 30% of the savings that we’re trying to get. [2:22:55] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Right, so at... well, so here’s an example. Um, it looked like the cost of 6th Street would be about 1.2 million if the Gravel Pit was operational. If we have $500,000 in our sales tax fund right now, it would take about 3 years to get to 1.2. We saved $50,000 for 2024. We would budget the same amount of savings for the Gravel Pit of $50,000 for the next 3 years to converge the two. So it would be three years of savings for the Gravel Pit and three years of savings in our sales tax fund. If we... so project selection determines the amount we want to save. If we’re selecting a project that would take four years to build a sales tax fund for, considering the Gravel Pit, then we could spread out the savings required to get the Gravel Pit operational over four years versus three. So we’re looking at a $200,000 mark for the Gravel Pit, and at $50,000 a year it’ll take four years. We’ve already got one in the bag. So you know, it’ll change how much the recommendation of savings would be in the budget depending upon the timeline for the first road project. So you know, the recommendation would not be to do a road project before the Gravel Pit is done. It would be aligning the two. [2:24:25] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** Well, I think our discussion in the past... um, we did spend the money and take the time to prioritize all of them the way they are with all these different factors. And I know I brought up grind and overlay every single year and that has been thrown out, which I think is a big mistake. That's just me. Um, I think we should stick to what we can do and stick to what was programmed or what we spent the study on. That’s just my opinion. Um, I don’t care where it is in the city. If it was a priority—I didn’t agree on First Street, I voted against doing First Street last year or whatever—but if we’re going to stick to the thing, then we should stick to it. When did you... what year was it that we went around and did this, like '19? [2:25:30] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** I think it was 2019. So 4 years ago. April 2019 is when this report came on. So four years ago. [2:25:45] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** So things have changed in four years significantly. I mean, the big part of it ended up being is: do we do something and fix or spend money to fix something or do something to satisfy a moment? Or do we turn around and spend that money again when we do fix what needs to be fixed? If short-term or long-term? That's the difference. [2:26:15] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Well, I mean part of it is, are you satisfying somebody? Well, let’s put it this way: if you have a road that needs to be fixed now and priority-wise because of infrastructure it’s in 32 years from now, what will the road surface look like then? If it’s bad now, but infrastructure is... [2:26:30] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** Hmph. 30 years is different than four years. [2:26:35] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Of course it is. That's what I’m saying. Some of these should be grind and overlay if they’re so far back. If they’re 20 years from now, the grind and overlay was going to be shot and we all know that. But if it’s bad now and we’re doing a road because of all the factors here—which I think we granted, we should do that—we should do the ones that are that bad. But the ones that are so far out and the road is bad now, to me there should be some grind and overlay. But that... it’s up to the Council. I mean, I’m not going to fight that anymore. I fought that too many years. I... whatever. If I lived one block up on First Street, I’d be raising holy hell because that road... you’re paying taxes and that road is horrendous. [2:27:35] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** We had several like that. [2:27:40] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Well, I agree. Yeah. But how... I guess I’m saying is: what is the most traveled roads that are the worst? [2:27:50] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** Well, then we’re throwing away this whole study we did. [2:27:55] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Well no, not necessarily. [2:27:58] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** Well yeah, we are, because those people up on 6th Street have been complaining about how bad that road is. In fact, Phil went up there and you filled in a big dip last year because of the complaints that were coming in for that. [2:28:10] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** A couple on 6th Street. [2:28:12] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** Yeah, so I mean, you got bad streets. So you're going to either follow what you did or you’re not. I mean, if the Council votes that way, that’s okay. I mean, I’m going to go with the majority vote. I’m fine with that. I’m just saying once you start changing what you put into place, then everything should be open any year after that. [2:28:35] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Well, I think if that study was done in 2019, maybe we should go around again just looking at those top few projects to see what's changed. [2:28:45] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Well, at the moment where you’re at, a point there we want to decide whether we want to move ahead with the Gravel Pit to save our money down the street, and that's a limited expense at the moment. Um, and we can’t do any of them other projects at the moment anyway, right? [2:29:10] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Right. So do we want to go ahead with the Gravel Pit or not at the moment? [2:29:15] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** In other words, you're saying let's table this discussion until the Gravel Pit is in place? [2:29:20] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Well, I would say yes, till there’s more answers to the question on both ways, you know. [2:29:35] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** One thing to consider—and I’m just trying to throw ideas out there for productive dialogue—one thing to consider is staying the course with the replacement of the long-range plan for the replacement of the roads. And then we’re also going to be in a position as a city where we have monies from the liquor store which are finally accessible to utilize. Now, our auditors have told us be so careful how you build that fund, and it’s so important that that monies stay relevant to the liquor store to do maintenance on the building and the facility and replace equipment down there. But you know, there could be such a thing where certain amounts of profit are utilized for patching or grinding or however the city wants to utilize those monies. I mean, that’s what the liquor store is for. If Council wants to prioritize some of those monies... I mean, there’d be a lot of leg work in kind of determining what that looks like, but it’s an option while the other sales tax fund is building for the entire reconstruction. Just trying to look at it from a bean-counter standpoint. There are monies available and will become available in the coming years here that have not been accessible before. And what does Council want to do with those monies? [2:31:00] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** I’ll throw another thing up. 2023 we had a budget set for a police department that did not have... did not use all that money as well. And that money has not been... or is that money again taxed for roads? [2:31:20] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Well, we have excess money that we have not used because we have not filled positions. We have not had people working. You’re looking at possibly 3-400,000... I don’t know. It could be $300,000 that we have not paid for employment. So those monies need to be looked at, and that needs to be brought to the Council as well as what... where are we at with that? Because this year we haven’t filled positions. We’ve had a part-time list and that was supposed to be one of those things that help keep the police department... well, those people weren’t working anyhow. So we have monies there that we might be able to, just to get this Gravel Pit up and running, use the money that we have. Let’s get it up and running possibly. It's just an idea, throwing out just a quick idea. We have the ability to do it if we find a project that we have to do, whether that would have been a mill overlay to a street that is so horrendous, or whether that would be to get that Gravel Pit up and running. Because then we’re not dealing with touching the $500,000 we have. A Gravel Pit that’s working, and that's saving us 30% on every single project that we do right away. Why wait four years? [2:32:45] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** So it sounds like tabling this discussion until that’s up probably would be the wise thing to do. This is what I’m hearing right now. [2:33:05] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Just need direction. So if Council would like an update on where the police department budget is at... I mean, those monies have been not spent elsewhere, so they’re there. If Council would like an update on that, that can be provided. If Council would like different direction with how the design was presented from the engineers, whatever it is... just looking for direction. [2:33:30] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Did you say the monies have been spent elsewhere? [2:33:32] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** They have NOT. [2:33:34] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Okay, good. That would be a concern. [2:33:35] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** No, they have not been spent elsewhere. [2:33:38] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Perfect, thank you. I just want to make sure. [2:33:40] **Council Member Kris Huso:** One thing I got real quick... you asked earlier "how old was this CIP?" These are updated numbers to today, just so you know. So the prices you see on here would be today’s pricing. [2:33:55] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Just in case that’s where you were going. [2:34:00] **Council Member Kris Huso:** No, I meant when did you drive around and do the roads? And I know it was quite some time ago, and obviously roads have decayed every single one of them, you know, in four years. Um, you know, just with all the events that are... you could do a motion asking for that. Not... I’m just saying you know, with all the events that are held in town—the parade, Agate Days—that people are parking and walking up on that street, you know, break their ankle. And you know, it’s just so bad. I mean, maybe I need to drive around town. I know a lot of roads are really bad, but I just... that’s kind of an unusable road. [2:35:05] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** And to me, Mr. Mayor, we have... we will have more options if we look at what monies we have available, what monies are available from law enforcement. And once we know exactly where we’re at financially, we can make some decisions here as a Council on how to move forward. [2:35:25] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** Yeah, I agree with that 100%. And I think it should be tabled. But I think in the interim, we had our engineer group do that original drive-through the city to look at all the roads. And I can’t remember what that cost us, but I’m willing to have that redone again. They already have the information what’s underneath the road, but at looking at the road service itself is fine with me. [2:35:50] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** But Ellissa, I guess we would need to have consensus to spend that money on it. We would need to call them, get an estimate, because it's time going through the whole city evaluating the surface and seeing if that changes the original list. [2:36:10] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Like you said, that... go ahead, do that. [2:36:12] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Well the thing is too is we don’t need all 70-something. As Counselor Lower you know, it'd be 50 or 200 years for us to get all those done. These top ones would probably still be ranked, they just might be ranked differently. [2:36:30] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Yeah, so maybe it's just the first what ones that we have right here. Top 10, whatever is here. Is there 10 there? [2:36:40] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** There is 10. [2:36:42] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Yeah, I I think that means every five years, to me this whole thing is going to change. Things are going to change totally. Um, as time goes on, there’s new developments like lining. We never dreamt that the lining would solve all these problems that we had with the old clay tile. We don’t know what else will change. Um, I don’t have a problem with re-evaluating the service on all those roads. If you guys are comfortable with Phil and the crew doing it, I'm fine with that. If you want a third party, an engineer group, that's fine with that. It's pretty much up to the Council. [2:37:15] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** I was like I got asked the last time, five years ago. I said I’m not doing it, there's no way. [2:37:25] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** I'll go with the engineers, but they have equipment that will tell us exactly what we need to know and that's what I think was determined back then. [2:37:35] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** Yep, it was. [2:37:40] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** I’m sorry... "top five" or "top 10"? Is there a... you know, what's what's the desire for visibility on that particular plan? If you drive through the city evaluate all of them, they're here, they got the equipment, then you evaluate everything. But we probably should get a good understanding of what the cost is because we haven’t budgeted for it. But if they say that to do 10 it would be $10,000 and do them all might be 100,000... [2:38:10] **Council Member Kris Huso:** I would say just do the top 10. So we’re never going to get to the 70-71, that's what we need... re-evaluation like nine times before. [2:38:20] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** It makes zero sense, mind. [2:38:22] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Top 10? [2:38:25] **Council Member Kris Huso:** I would say so too. I mean the top five would be I think sufficient, because that would be out to 10 years or... [2:38:35] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Yeah, we be evaluating two more times. [2:38:45] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** So I got top... what? So do we... do we have consensus? Is it five or 10? [2:38:50] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** I would say top five, because if you're talking four years to save up... 4 times 5, you're talking for 20 years. [2:38:55] **Council Member Kris Huso:** Think you meet in the middle of seven? [2:39:00] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Oh right, no, I think five is enough. [2:39:05] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** You want consensus on five? The top five and uh, get a bid and bring it back to us next month. And we’re that much closer to hopefully the Gravel Pit being done also. I mean, that didn't make sense. And you talked to the engineer, but I I think you could stop at the stop sign on First Street rather than going out to Douglas. [2:39:40] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** Yeah, no, you’re not wrong, you’re spot on. Because there’s a tie right there from that when the intersection got done, which was just a mill and overlay to the black. And that was done in the early 2000s, that rest of First Street. Well from Elm going down to the corner, that was done in the early 2000s. [2:40:15] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** That blacktop, it was a grind and overlay? [2:40:20] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** From Elm going down First Street to the corner down there, that’s when that was done, grind and overlay. Then the Second Street was done after that. [2:40:35] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Must have been sleeping through that, I don't remember ever. [2:40:40] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** They put... that’s when they put the lip on the side of the street um, to try to get the drainage instead of going out to the yard, drain down the road. [2:41:00] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Okay, so top five? Top five, yeah. And then do we also have a discussion about bringing forth information about where we’re at financially with the monies that haven’t been spent as far as last year that wasn’t spent? Or did that get budgeted into this year’s budget? I take it it probably did because we didn’t spend it. And or it... then where are we at this year? [2:41:30] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Sure, Counselor Juntunen, and thank you for bringing that forward. The one thing to consider... and I’ll be really transparent... trying to get a start date for the contract. The start date for the contract then dictates—and the number of deputies, if it's a phased approach—then dictates how much money is going to have to go towards the contract for this year. So we obviously know what was budgeted for the PD and what’s been spent already, and that’s very easily able to be presented. Just the one factor that we the piece that we don’t have is what the prorated contract amount is going to be. And so an update is is essential, but there’s a component there that we were hoping to have more information on that would then tell us how much money would be freed up through the end of 2024 in savings. [2:42:15] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Um, just year to date, correct? [2:42:20] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Wonderful, yeah. [2:42:25] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Because I’ve got a feeling whatever the contract is, we’re going to need every penny we got that's been budgeted in the police contract to cover that. I don’t know where we’ll be at. And I don’t think we should spend it until we know what that contract will be and how much we’re going to owe. And it wouldn't... and I won't be here next year, but you have to think of what is left of that money, you may want to put away for next year’s contract. [2:42:55] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** I agree with that. [2:43:00] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** We could look at it for other uses, but remember next year you you will have another big expense as much whatever that contract states, which we don’t know. I think it’d be wise to keep it in that police department budget item until you know what exactly what that contract is for the remainder of this year and next year. That’s just my opinion. I mean, the Council can vote to do what they want with that. [2:43:30] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Sure, and we haven’t had our 2023 audit yet, but it would be really... it's not a difficult task to present what was the total cost unaudited, so to speak, through the end of 2023. We did have the Public Safety monies that came in at the end of 2023; however, we did have the increased health insurance costs and things of that nature that happened at the end of the year as well. So there’ll be some flux in there. And then um, it helped with knowing what would be allocated for the Fire District tonight as well, because then that can be removed. So we’ll absolutely provide an up-to-date year-to-date. [2:44:20] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Um, August we’ll be applying for that Public Safety? Correct, money. [2:44:25] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Correct. [2:44:28] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** We had a mild winter too, there could have been some savings there overtime. [2:44:35] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** We’re still on the hook for 80% whether we use it or not. [2:44:40] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Really? [2:44:42] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** We get... then next year we prepaid it. Yep, and I have adjusted that already for next year. [2:44:50] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** So we’re done with K? Everybody is satisfied that we’re good direction? One question: we’re going to... we’re looking at having them look at the top five projects. Will we be given an estimate on how much that costs before we we we agree to do that? [2:45:10] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** That’s what we asked: to get an estimate of what'll it cost to to do an analysis. [2:45:15] **Council Member Kris Huso:** And mind the pricing that’s in your packet on page what, 105—those are today’s pricing. We had those updated. [2:45:25] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Okay, the thing is if you could shorten that one on First Street because that’s to Douglas... so that’s a little another. We’ll have to wait and see what we can generate for for funding to see. [2:45:40] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Well maybe... no, I meant because I’m here for the estimate. [2:45:45] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** The estimate... it’s Douglas, a whole 'nother block. And I I think that we wouldn't have to go that far. I think we’d only have to go up to Elm Street. So that one could be a shorter which would decrease the price of it. [2:46:00] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** Unless the utilities are... unless the utilities are... [2:46:10] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** All right, I think we’ve all... excellent. Got consensus. Moving on to 6L, Short Elliott Hendrickson Incorporated 2024 sewer lining project supplemental letter agreement. [2:46:30] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Uh yes, this is the standard supplemental letter agreement we’ve seen for all of the sewer lining projects thus far. This is for the 2024 sewer lining project. Um, essentially services are outlined. It’s dated April 8th so it’s recent and it’s dealing with the scope of the 2024 sewer lining project that is outlined here. Phil, can you give a summary on what’s incorporated in this project? [2:47:00] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** Yeah, basically no different than any of the past projects you guys have done in the last few years. Cleaning, lining, finishing up the manholes. It’s pretty cut-and-dry. They’re getting really fast now, so now that we’ve kind of got a few and actually done quite a bit. And uh yeah, I would... in your packet if you scroll down pages 115 through 118, those are all pictures of that section. Yep, keep in mind there’s been two already that we fixed in January because we couldn’t even get the camera through to take these pictures. [2:47:45] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Can you provide the parameters of the project, please? Where it’s starting? [2:47:50] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** Oh, I’m sorry, yes. This is on Industrial Road starting at Manhole 79, which is 520 Folz Boulevard, ending at Hickory and Industrial. It’s bad. [2:48:10] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** What do you do at those points where there’s actually a shift? [2:48:15] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** We dig those up and fix them. You have to fix them. It can get lined before they get lined, yep. [2:48:25] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** Sir, you’re looking for a motion to approve the $27,300 for the surcharge money, correct? Approval of the supplemental letter agreement for the 2024 lining project would be excellent. [2:48:40] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** I'll make a motion to approve the supplemental letter agreement as submitted. [2:48:45] **Council Member Kris Huso:** Second. [2:48:50] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor say aye. [2:48:52] **Council Members:** Aye. [2:48:53] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Oppose? Motion carried. Moving on to 6M, this is the Sewer District modification to treatment volume allocation communication. [2:49:05] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Um, I just want to share the most recent communication from the Sewer District to the city. Um, what has occurred since receiving this communication is the city staff and Mayor Michalski engaged in a meeting with the city attorneys. So our engineers and our attorneys have been working really well together. We will have a draft SIU agreement to present to the District on Friday or Monday of next week. With the draft SIU agreement, the attorneys are drafting a response to this communication. The response will address all points brought up from this communication. The recommendation from the city attorneys at this time is to stay the course, and they will draft a letter to the District with a formal response from the city. This is informational at this time. [2:50:00] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Right. Any questions by the Council? [2:50:05] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** I will share the communication from the attorneys as soon as I have it. I will share the draft SIU agreement as well. They will be presented together in response to the District. [2:50:20] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** We have two items, N, O, and P contract discussions, and we were going to closed session on those items, correct? Um, before I go on to reports and committees... before, just a a thing which I know it wasn’t understood when I asked for, you know, the... if it’s available to read, what I meant was the hard copy. Is that printed out for the in our personnel book? [2:50:45] **Taylor Hansberry (Deputy Clerk):** The hard copy hasn’t been made yet, right. Correct, we haven’t made an official hard copy. [2:50:50] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Okay, because that’s what I wanted to read instead of reading it on the computer. [2:50:55] **Taylor Hansberry (Deputy Clerk):** I can definitely print you one. [2:51:00] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Okay, thank you. I just wanted it... I know it didn’t go over well, I just dropped it. So we’ll go back to these other items. I’ll go on with Number 7. Reports and correspondence. 7A, Short Elliott Hendrickson Incorporated flag pole structural details and calculations. Is there anything you want to state on that? [2:51:25] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** Not this month, but next month I will have a lot more and we’ll have a representation from the Legion here for it as well. [2:51:35] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** All right. 7B, DOT (Department of Transportation) letter 2023 Local Road Improvement Program project selection. I think everybody knows what happened there, correct? 7C, Carlton County transportation department annual bridge inspection for 2023. You want any statement on that? [2:51:55] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** No, we’re good. [2:52:00] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** 7D, F. Well Company Incorporated well inspection report. Any questions from the Council? Pass with flying colors, huh? [2:52:15] **Phil Entner (City Superintendent):** Pass with flying colors. That’s great. [2:52:20] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** 7E, FEMA national flood insurance program. Do you want any added? [2:52:25] **Ellissa Owens (City Administrator):** This is just formal documentation of the parcels within the city that are participating in the flood insurance, the National Flood Insurance Program through FEMA. Um, they are eligible because the city participates and does our part, and hence the ordinance that was just passed a few months ago. Um, so we’re staying within our the regulatory obligations of FEMA. And so this is the communication about all the parcels that are taking part in the program currently. We have them posted on both of our official boards and they’re part of the packet and they’re filed formally in the office so that we have record of the most up-to-date information. [2:53:05] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Questions? Moving on to 7F, Concerned Citizens letter. [2:53:10] **Ryan McKeon (Finance Director):** This was a communication that Superintendent Entner received regarding the the brush pile and just wanted to make make it visible for Council as requested by Mr. Garvey. [2:53:25] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** There's another one. 7G, "It's time for the City of Moose Lake to pay backwards and finish what we started" letter from Bill Carlson. That is in there for everyone’s review. Under comment and it’s up to the Council members to bring it forward to the City Administrator if you have any comments or even present here if you want to at this time. Thank you. Please bring it forward to the Administrator if you have anything. Committee and board meeting minutes. 8A, Moose Lake Area Fire Protection District meeting minutes February 27th, 2024. 8B, Moose Lake Area Fire Protection District meeting minutes March 12th, 2024. 8C, Parks and Recreation Board meeting minutes April 1st, 2024. Under number 9 and announcements. Regular Moose Lake City Council meeting Wednesday, May 8th, 2024, 4:00 p.m. right here. Moose Lake Economic Development Authority Wednesday, April 17th, 2024, 12:00 p.m. in the conference room. Moose Lake Water and Light Commission regular meeting Tuesday, April 16th, 2024, 1:00 p.m. water light office. Moose Lake Housing Redevelopment Authority board Monday, May 13th, 2024, 11:00 a.m. Hillside Banner office. The Moose Lake Area Fire District Tuesday, May 14th, 2024, 6:30 p.m. Emergency Response Center. Moose Lake Park Board meeting Monday, May 6th, 2024, 5:00 p.m. right here. [2:54:40] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** And with that, going back to 6N, O, and P. The City Council of the City of Moose Lake will meet in closed session pursuance of Minnesota statute section 13D.05, subdivision 3A to discuss the City Administrator’s performance evaluations. Keep watch. The meeting will take place in the City Council Chamber, the community center at 313 Elm Avenue. Following this closed session, the City Council reconvene in open session pursuant to the posted agenda for that day and time, and during such open session summarize its conclusions and make any motions. So I need a motion to go into closed session. [2:55:35] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** So moved. [2:55:37] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Have a second. [2:55:39] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor say aye. [2:55:41] **Council Members:** Aye. [2:55:42] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Oppose say no. We’re going... okay. Motion carried to go to closed session.