very cute we'll go ahead and call the city of north st paul city council meeting to order for june 7th if we could all stand for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible jenny if you take the roll because the bikes are working now yeah they are and loud councilmember thorson councilmember peterson councilmember wong here council member cool here mayor furlong here quorum as president uh motion to adopt the agenda so move your honor move by councilman peterson second second by council member cole any discussion yup i would uh request that we move uh city business action items and recommendations d and e up ahead of item a out of respect for time for mr casey who's here to to deal with that uh say again b d and e under the city business action items and recommendations just move those up ahead of item a okay anybody have a concern with that okay we'll move uh d n d and e up to a and b uh so we'll do that uh motion to adopt the agenda with that uh correction so moved by council already we already did that uh all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries we have uh the no presentations and consent agenda i'll turn over to uh city manager stark thank you mr mayor and council members the consent agenda contains several several separate items which are considered by the city council in one motion once the consent agenda has been approved all the recommended items have been approved as well any city council member can request that an item be pulled and for further discussion an individual vote tonight we have a number of items on consent agenda item a the may 3rd 2022 workshop minutes item b the may 3rd 2022 hra closed meeting minutes item c the may 17 2022 workshop minutes item d the may 17 2022 regular council meeting minutes item e the may 17th hra closed meeting minutes and and that concludes the minutes part of it item f general claims of the city item g hra claims item h eda claims item i liquor license renewal for city 3.2 on sale liquor license item j liquor license renewals for city off sale intoxicating liquor licenses item k liquor license renewals for on sale and tax cutting liquor license including sunday sales on sale intoxicating liquor license with or without patio or outdoor seating areas item l approval of new on sale and sunday liquor license for mung house restaurant and banquet llc item n m sorry amazon mary rotary park way finding signage cement slab location item n revised fund balance policy to increase general fund minimum fund balance and item o the mndot 2023 to 2027 master partnership agreement and that concludes tonight's consent agenda so at this time if any councilman would like to take off one of the items they can do so at this time not a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved moved by council member cole second second by council member wong any discussion not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries this time the meeting is open to the public and i have one here and that is john small ar council i just want to bring up that getting onto the website and reading it and finding out what new things are available is a surprise that in my case in one instance that i didn't want to find my uh the situation that put my name getting out in violation of state statute which kind of made me unhappy but another item showed up about the new uh notification tool that's available and i read the site's explanation and there's an item that just said this can't be and it says that the city encourages all residents to set up an account online at the site and select their preferred notifications including their community placing area selecting the their garbage delivery day i've lived here for 47 years i had garbage pickup and if i have been missing out on garbage delivery i would like to have it all delivered whatever i missed and i didn't think we had a choice of garbage delivery and i don't think we have a choice of a day it's scheduled a regular day now i would like my day changed to thursday because i go up north on on friday and i'd like to have my container empty on there but i don't think i have a choice of a garbage delivery day i don't think maybe i don't think you do but this says that i do so maybe you will get that corrected thank you and we'll talk to kerry when she gets back from her vacation uh this time there's nobody else oh he's on zoom got it go ahead rt rt welcome thank you very much how are you guys tonight good you can hear us i can thank okay uh so i really appreciate and i listen to the workshop i want to thank you guys for continuing to meet um and discuss the community center a couple of other items that weren't on there today that i'd like to make sure that everybody understands is that first and foremost um since we have been tenants in the community center um the city has brought in about 900 thousand dollars uh minus the expenses it's about six hundred thousand and dan can certainly correct me if i'm wrong in any of this but these are all um there's no information from the public documents that are currently available there's a current balance in the community center's account of about 160 000 and that was as of 2021 um so there is money to do some of these minor minor fixes that are coming up here just the minor ones of course nobody's saying that you can replace a roof for a hundred and sixty thousand dollars but there is some money there um and we are the tenants actually that are bringing that money in when we when you look at our lease our lease has an excess for the city of about seventy thousand dollars per year had we been the tenant since the beginning of this community center opening um the community center would be operating and would have had enough money to continue operations um so i just kind of want to point that out that with our current lease which of course we would like to extend in some capacity in its current form as you know our building is going to be done here in probably april ish and one thing that i've been very appreciative of is the council and the mayor in particular saying that we want to work with you we want to make sure that there's a smooth smooth transition for everyone so we would like a lease extension um into april and possibly may we'll of course pay it in full uh regardless of when our new building uh has occupancy and then we're also as um the city manager said we're interested in continuing uh if we could certainly rent that gym space if it's available we would certainly do that um and have a second location so we're still working to work with the city here um if you guys were open to selling we'd of course go down that road again but if you're not that's okay we are still here we'd like our current lease extended through march sorry through april may um and then we can work on a future plan if the library takes some more space or you remodel a little bit but still have the gym space and want to rent it out and make some money that way uh that'd be great i think it'd be mutual but mutually beneficial for everyone um but i did want to kind of point out the numbers that under our current lease i mean it's 70 000 in profit a year um so i'd like to kind of continue that as long as we can and then once the council makes a decision and moves forward that's that's great but we certainly like to stay i just want to i want to reiterate that once again so thank you very much i appreciate your time uh thanks for hearing me by a zoom today as i wasn't able to get in but enjoy the rest of your meeting and i will chat with you guys soon thank you rt and that's good information for us to know thank you have a great day have a good night bye-bye anybody else on zoom no okay there is no public hearing uh turn it over to uh city manager uh stark thank you mr mayor so i believe item number d has become item number a and that is my resignation um so as you know i spoke with all five of you on friday before i formally submitted something um and i and i did submit a letter of resignation to you on friday i don't want to kind of go through and reiterate the whole thing i would just make a couple of points one is it's really quality of life issue for me um you know my quality of life is not what i would like it to be um right now and um this is this is the remedy that i was able to come up with is resigning my position i do want to thank you for um for your support of me in the beginning you know in the hiring process but your support throughout this uh process uh it has been uh especially the last couple of months it's been a couple hard couple of months and uh your support for me uh all five of you has been just tremendous and unwavering so i wanted to thank you for that and i wanted to let you know that you know i'm gonna do everything i can as a as an outgoing employee and as an ex-employee to help north st paul so whatever i can do in the next couple of weeks i'm willing to do whatever i can do once i'm no longer of an employee of the city of north st paul i would be happy to do i'd mentioned to you a couple of things in my resignation letter that are little caveats one is you know my my agreement my contract with you talked about a 30-day notice in the case of a voluntary leaving which this is i've had a a trip planned since 2019 to go to europe with my extended family that leaves on june 16th so that interferes with the 30-day notice period and that just can't be changed the other caveat is we were in the middle of a process for hiring a community development director i would take your direction on what we could do there i think there are really two options one would be to defer that for the next city manager to have a role in in playing or the other would be to have an outside person somebody like somebody from ddr or craig waldron or somebody sit in on the interviews and and help select a community development director so those are two unresolved issues that really need to get especially my last day really needs to get resolved um probably tonight um so with that um i would uh take any questions you might have and i would apologize you know that if this puts the city in a a difficult situation i appreciate your uh what you've done for the city i mean in the last five months you have done you know a lot with the worked with you at the eda uh we've got the lilly project going you know so there are things that are you have accomplished and it's uh i believe you know the council itself 100 percent backs you we have from day one and we wish you you know the best of luck you know moving forward i think uh and i'm not sure how the council feels about this but i think the 30-day notice part uh i think it's great you're going on notification you can take some time uh but to come back to this i don't know if that's the best thing for you so i'm thinking you know maybe your last day and i'm gonna leave it up to the council uh but maybe the day before you leave on your vacation and that would be the 15th i believe right correct uh i don't know how the council feels about that and city attorney do we have any obligation or no i mean the 30 days obligation if you will comes from a written contract between the two parties so that the two parties can come to an agreement that june 15 is it june 15th john yes would be the last day and that that's acceptable and that the resignation be received in good standing at that point so the two parties have the ability to work to agree to that so if you're comfortable with that i would be and as i said you know after i get back from my trip if i can be of help um you all know how to get a hold of it and i know you would be i mean that's i know you're that type of person that is willing to help so uh but again thank you john for everything you've done for the last few months and i wish it would have worked out you know better but i totally understand so okay mr anybody if the council is okay with the 15th because it is a modification there should be a a motion to accept okay the resignation uh effective june 15th and john you're in agreement with june 15th as the final day i am okay so the motion is for to accept the resignation of uh city manager with a stop date of june 15th so moved by council member thorson second second by council member cole any discussion if not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed the motion carries so at this time we need to figure out replacement and i had talked to brian frandl in regards to because i think the last time this happened last year brian did a great job he's kind of our senior person at the staff and he did a great job so i reached out to him and he he said he would he would do that so my recommendation is to hire brian frandl as the interim city manager you know if you'd permit me i would just add you know as as an incoming city manager uh brian frandl really had prepared a good um a good ground for me um and so i appreciated brian's uh preceding me and i think that the next permanent uh city manager would appreciate that as well in brian so do we we need a motion for that yeah if the idea is uh effective june i'm sorry i need my calendar june 16th uh brian frandl would assume the role as the interim city manager there should be a motion to that effect uh motion so the motion would be for uh interim city manager brian frandl to start on june 16th correct is there a motion for that or any discussion removed moved by council member cole second second by council member wong in your discussion council member thorson yeah i would i would agree that brian did a great job covering for us last time and uh but unlike last time i think we're in a little different position staffing wise and personally i think that it would be more appropriate to have our finance directors step into this role um but um you know i don't i mean this is the time we're supposed to have this discussion so uh i would entertain that as an option i think it just makes more sense brian's working over it the the public works building he's got the electric it's a enterprise fund it's it's it's completely kind of different area where dan's working here more of the day-to-day operations with city staff and stuff i just think it would probably make more sense to entertain that as an option so i would just put that out there i i think brian's capable of doing it i support him in doing it but i think that a better option would be going with our finance director for the interim role so i do have a motion yeah there's a motion and a second the discussion if once the discussion's complete then no yep all those in favor of unless there's a more discussion not uh all those in favor for brian frandl to be interim uh city manager all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye motion carries so welcome brian again oh there he is it's sitting in the corner uh yeah i think another piece to this would be the permanent replacement of the city manager position and um the recruiting last time was done by mark casey at david drown and associates mr casey is here with us tonight and so um you know perhaps he could talk about what moving forward on a future recruitment might look like okay mark welcome again you come up here thank you mr mayor and members of the council as the city manager said my name is mark casey and i had the privilege of doing the search the last time here about six months ago five months ago and thank you and for this opportunity to come back probably the very first question is to answer that yes this is covered under the two-year warranty that was offered so there would be no additional cost to the city for this process i guess may i'd recommend two different options for the council to consider option number one would be to revisit the applicants the finalists had interviewed on november 17 2021 at that time there's three finalists one of the three finalists mike anderson recently accepted a position in another city so he would not be available but the best my knowledge both kevin kress and willie morales would be available so that would be one option if the council so chooses to bring them back and re-interview them another option would be is what i have in front of you would be a draft tentative timeline that the council could take a look at if you wish to repost the position and start all over obviously we'll be able to have a lot of similar information with the position profile we can make some updates and adjustments but what you have in front of you would be having a recruitment period go from june 22nd through july 20th and then it would be looking for a special council meeting on august 8th for the selection of the finalist similar that was done last time and then interviews on august 31st with the idea of hopefully having a new manager sometime in october kind of depending on what level of notification they would need to have the process that we do follow is one that is kind of a domino effect so one kind of affects the other one so once we kind of get going we need to kind of follow a process i know it's asking a lot it is curious on how fast the council wishes to move but if we do wish to move forward this is a process that i think would be feasible and something to be able to try to get a manager on as soon as possible with still not messing around the integrity of the process and making sure that it's done in a thorough and in efficient manner and i understand you won't be around yes and no so i am done on friday for a while but i will be back for the um in early august so i have a colleague that would be filled in the questions actually my boss the guy that manages david drowne gary weirs he would be the one answering any of the questions and also i would be as much as i can to fill in for questions or additional ones um so i will be back for the selection of the finalist in early august and then take it from that that point forward so it sounds like we have two options that is correct option a is to bring back two candidates uh is anybody in favor of that option a so i would say i was going to say i think it made make sense to at least reach out to them first and and see if they're interested i do understand that one candidate took it took a recently took a job but it might make sense just to reach out to him anyway just to see if they're still interested and if if all three are move forward from there but you know kind of i think that would be the first step logically to reach out to them first and then if they all come back and say no then to proceed with this that would be my opinion sure mr mayor and councilmember thurston for um that one candidate that did mike anderson it was actually a dda search so we would not poach them from a community we just placed them in okay so that would kind of be off limits at least from dda doing the search we wouldn't want to go to a community and that we placed and say now we're trying to approach somebody you know it's kind of i guess of a ethical standpoint that we wouldn't want to do that but yes in regards to uh mr crest and mr morales best of my knowledge they are available and then just be part of a process and if you wish to interview and set that up my only thing would that be if in fact they were not you went to that process and you did and they were interested in interviewing them it would just push this entire schedule later which is obviously your program if that's what you like to do first councilmember cole how do you i mean i if either one of those two candidates would still be interested in applying i i would think that would be great but i would also like to expand the pool and see what the pool would look like um for myself i would like to expand the pool yeah i would too i just really want to get this moving just because of the not the turmoil but just you know get somebody in place and i know i don't want to get a rush job on it either but yeah if we could expand it i'd be okay with that i know that would cause a little bit more time looks like expanding the pool if i'm understanding what i'm hearing would be to post a position and then follow a schedule similar to what we have in front of you yep okay do we vote on that you certainly can to make sure the direction's clear i i i think i've heard four suggest that they'd like to follow what's put on the sheet i think scott you'd said contact the finalists first but i you know you can put it to uh put it to a vote so it's official or you know consensus can govern i think on this one but that's a okay as long as it's clear as long as the four of you are saying look please follow this schedule i mean you can always contact the finalists and let them know they're still invited to apply um and that's what i'm hearing to expand this pool or to follow this timeline right and now then i would reach out to the mr morales and mr uh crest to let him know if this position is going to be opening up again to play yep okay are we okay with that okay thank you um then the other piece would be i guess it would just uh what i'll do is send out the profile that was used last time and then ask for a turnaround date to see if there's any revisions that the council wish to have and then these are the dates then we would put into that profile for so then those candidates would then mark their calendars so i guess i'd really appreciate if all the council members could take a look and make sure you could block off august 8th and august 31st because that will be once again going out and into the posting and uh once again i'll work with staff again staff was outstanding to work with last time so i'm looking forward to working with with the whole crew here i appreciate you coming back and working with you again absolutely just uh be sure we noted i guess not to say it's not a surprise at all but definitely with some of the negative public relation pr stuff that's out there some candidates will be weary and i think also being an election year it also put some candidates a little skittish just because they don't know what the potential makeup of the council will be i don't know what the alternative is because you know you you've you have gone through an interim for a while and the last thing you want is a i would assume election year is why because the council could change exactly right yeah so you don't really know what you're dealing with in a sense and i think that's one thing as a candidate you know stability is everything in a sense so you're trying to hopefully know what's in front of you so i mean it happens not to say it's you know all all cities are immune from that situation but no doubt you'll have some candidates that will be a little weary so a suggestion i mean i think about is offering uh to get craig waldron back here again and i did kind of talk to him he would be interested and i think that would offer some sort of stability as a like assistant to brian i don't know how that would a contract or well i think you know i brian i don't think craig was here la when we for the last time i mean i i do think that having someone help brian as he's doing two jobs would be beneficial um and so i i think brian on his own has the right to enter into some of those contracts to bring someone in but by all means if the if the council is interested in providing brian that direction or support that would help at least brian and i don't know if it helps on the recruiting side or not but i do think on just the day-to-day that would be helpful from a management standpoint i mean you're you're down a full time person right what's the number one in the organization i was hoping it would help in the recruitment process absolutely as you're all probably well aware mr walden is one extremely well respected in the industry and i think somebody like him working with north st paul i think will be really helpful in regards to candidates reaching out and have questions that they may have so i think it's an outstanding idea okay okay all right thank you thank you uh all right city manager stark the next item on the agenda is a amendment to chapter 117 alcoholic beverages uh in the code so on may 3rd staff presented options to the city council at a workshop regarding fencing and enclosure for outdoor patio areas at establishments that sell liquor and i want to be clear on this we're talking about outdoor seating areas that are on private land not not in the public right-of-way in this case so at that meeting staff was directed to prepare an amendment to chapter 117 to provide more flexibility for license holders in the establishment of outdoor patio seating and that proposed amendment is enclosed that was done by brandy howe and the planning staff at wsb i'm not sure if brandy wants to add anything oh come on brandi i would note that there was on the spot there was a typo in the original ordinance and we sent out an update um the uh the update is i knew we would get you up here yeah um so the um item two b in the draft ordinance had language in it that was uh counter to the intent so it has been corrected to clarify that the um licensees shall not serve allow or permit any person to be in possession of or consume alcohol beyond the area of the designated seated area before it was the opposite but basically the proposed amendment is simplifying the language eliminating the fence requirement and basically allowing the owners of establishments to determine what kind of demarcation they would like okay any questions for brandy if not uh thank you motions for an ordinance amending the north saint paul city code of ordinances chapter 117 alcohol beverages section 117 at 120 bead 2 patios decks and outdoor areas is there a motion so moved moved by council member juan second second by council member cole any discussion if not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed the motion carries city manager stark thank you the next item on the agreement is a an agreement with tyler technologies incorporated for financial suite software services and i would ask finance director dan winick to provide the staff memorandum on this one welcome finance director thank you very much mayor and council members um yes i i think we can all remember i think was back in 2020 that the city council had made a decision to move to the opengov platform there's a number of software programs that are have been successfully implemented on opengov um i came in last year and the timeline to implement the opengov was going to be the end of 2021 they ran into some difficulties and it was pushed out to end of march and beyond and i made a decision because we ran into some issues on the accounts payable side to and um to back off of the open gov and so working with our city attorney um we exercised a right that we had and we canceled it on december 7th of 2021. um in the meantime um i've got a good feel for the current system um from tyler technologies that we're using um there are cities um in the metro area actually that are that are using tyler technology they're using an uh higher version we're on what's called an encode nine um i think oakdale's moved to the end code 10. what i'm proposing right now is to move us to a software as a as a service in other words move it to the cloud if we haven't learned anything from from kovid is that we need to start moving towards being able to offer a little bit more flexibility for our staff from working remotely and also our city manager has been talking about flexible work um space and and and so forth so this really complements um that moving it to on the cloud i actually have have been very pleased with the encode software to date so i think basically as i lost the accountant at the end of november i quickly had to learn the software myself to get us through year end and get us through the audit um i actually had fantastic support from encode um they were johnny on the spot so to speak um and they they really did an excellent job and so what this proposal and so we did a demo we had all the staff um review a demo of their current platform of moving it to the cloud they've already made a lot of different enhancements it's a whole different look it's a whole different feel i've asked the question if we were to migrate to encode 10 into the future how would that migration look it would be about an 18-month process one of the steps that they would take would be this step moving you to the cloud first and then moving you on to the encode 10. they're also tyler technology is also working on actually developing this encode i call it the encode 9 service as a software um they're actually mirroring their in-code 10. so it has a lot of features so there's a lot of features that have already been enhanced in there to date and they plan on by the end of 2023 to have it fully implemented and it's going to look and feel pretty much just like in code 10 is what their plan is right now it'll give us a complete search capability it'll give us a an ability to download much easier to excel spreadsheets is probably one of the biggest difficulties with their financial system but from a staff perspective what this offers to us is a pretty safe migration and all of our data will be moved to the cloud and that's a key when i say all of our data because that is something that opengov did not do even on our permitting and licensing so we still have data and it still is being utilized and probably will be for a number of years that resides on encode and so another factor with that is that the current encode model resides on a server um our server is outdated we got until about october of 21 23 i think to be off of that server so we eventually have to make a move just plain and simple with the resources that the city has and the demands that is being put on the finance staff at this point in time that i think this is the the best move and allows us flexibility into the future and allows us the ability in a pretty safe way to make a move into the cloud their time frame from implementation if we get this signed this week we'll get into their their hopper they're looking at about a four to six month implementation fully testing all the way every time they move they'll move data up there for we for us to test it's going to be a pretty pretty good look a similar look and field so we can run processes on and then when we when we do the final cut over they'll bring all of the data up to date we do our final testing and we and we move forward um i like their personally i like their implementation planning testing plan much better than the prior software that we're using it's more my style to make sure that we can test everything and make sure that all of the data and all the processes are working correctly and when i stop and think of just our utility billing which we you know generate over 17 million dollars we have a lot of complexities with garbage electricity which not many cities have in addition to water wastewater and surface water that's a lot of complexity with those a lot of nuances and this allows us to continue delivering the great service that we that we give to the city city's residents now and into the future so i'll open for any questions that anybody may have i will tell you that there is an approximately 6500 increase from what we're paying to date i did include that in the 2022 budget um a little bit more than that not a mind reader to know exactly what this cost would be but i wanted to make sure that we did have something because it we really did need to start moving in and move our financial system dan you mentioned open golf yes so this will be completely different now yeah so um open gov is we use for licensing and permitting and we'll continue to do that um we have another software civic wreck that does our our parks will continue to to do that um which is a module of open gov i think it's a it's a totally separate software yeah and same thing with the the civic notification that is being is being deployed right now um is a is a separate module but it's on the the civic wreck i don't believe that they're connected i'd have to ask carrie for sure for sure on those on that but so it's really moving you know as of right now our accounts payable our payroll our utility billing um our general ledger our accounts receivable but open opengov at one time was going to have all those or no yes correct they were that's what we backed out of on december 7th last year councilmember wang yeah thank you for your presentation and bringing forth some of the benefits of of this new software i think one question i do have is if i remember correctly opengov had a forward-facing public-facing data visualization where residents could access is there something similar within the software um no but you know there's other ways that we can get all of the financial data out um into um you know the for transparency um so you know it moves us back from that standpoint um but we still have the budgeting model module for for opengov because we're under contract for that i've chosen for this calendar year for this budget not to utilize that and part of that is because there's work and additional costs that are going to be needed by open gov to be able to cross walk it all back into our current chart of accounts um when you implement into a new system before i came here they crossed walked everything over instead of a whole new chart of accounts that's in opengov we're using in code it's not the same chart of account so we would have to have them do work for us to to be able to to utilize that system um i've i'm i'm utilizing a little bit old-fashioned on the budget part to it i'm a little um i've got a i've built all excel spreadsheets that intertwine with everything and look up all tables and everything to be able to quickly um change things and move forward we'll be starting to do some budget presentations um probably in later june early july so you'll see how i'm doing on that part and see how those spreadsheets are working for us but you will see the look and feel pretty much what you saw last year thank you councilmember nicole again thank you for the presentation i think this is awesome i i hear excitement in your voice talking about software and numbers um i did have one one question and concern and and it has to do with migrating basically all of the documents from the city on in into a cloud is this any type of proprietary software so that in the event that we five years from now ten years from now whatever we would change direction and go with something else that it would be easy to recover or would it be in a data format that it would cause us a lot of additional work to be able to scrub it back and apply it to something else so uh council member cole uh can answer part of that question we own the data um so we can get the data back um formatting wise virtually any company that's going to do a migration and transform your data can can take virtually any data and convert it over into another software program so we're pretty pretty safe on that and i'll kind of turn it over i don't believe there was any restrictions and i've asked questions from tyler technology from a rep that i've been working with and they seemed that they would be very helpful if we decided because that was a question that i had asked but i'll kind of ask our city attorney because i did have our city attorney review the contract to make sure that there wasn't anything in there that that they had seen am i pretty much on the right path there no dan absolutely so we own the data if we choose to go in another direction we absolutely get the data back in terms of how it will merge with the new system i might you're i don't know um i think dan hit the nail on the head anytime you're tempted to move to a new system leave an old system the new system usually makes it pretty easy for you to merge just because you're a new customer so that's been my experience with that thank you a good presentation so the motion is for resolution approving uh sas agreement with tyler technologies for financial suite software services so moved moved by council member y second by council member peterson any other discussion if not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries thank you good luck with it so are the servers now are we getting away from our servers pretty much yes so everything's going to be pretty much cloud-based and yeah the server's going to be kind of obsolete yeah i mean actually they have better security um the responsibility right now is on on us in metro inet it's it's more difficult right now to request um backups of our of our data um so you know uh yeah it's just yeah like the cloud is just a much better place i think every time we have uh you know we've had now since i've been here two bond rating calls that's always a question that they'll ask um us is what about our security um and so i'm always reaching out to metro reina and say okay what is your plans and it was you know little i i'll say disheartening i'll leave it at that their response didn't change much from october of last year till just you know a month ago um and and i i do realize that they have new leadership that things are going to be changed and be enhanced but it just it just i think protects the city's data a little bit better um good thank you uh turn over to city manager stark thank you this next item is the acceptance of a grant with the state of minnesota it's a planning grant for this to the city of north saint paul for storm water wastewater and community resilience um morgan dawley and his team at wsb put together the grant application so i think it'd be appropriate to thank morgan for his work on this and to ask him to tell us more about the grant welcome morgan thank you mr mayor members of the council as john introduced here so the consideration for the council in terms of an action item is to execute a grant agreement between the state of minnesota specifically the minnesota pollution control agency and the city of north st paul for receipt of some grant funds it's actually very timely and i thought a good fit for north st paul is this is actually a grant program which is specifically targeted designated by the legislature to identify and move forward from a planning standpoint initiatives which are pointed towards resiliency and by that i mean being able to respond to climate change increased precipitation things that certainly we experience here in north st paul and have been experienced by other communities across minnesota approximately 870 thousand dollars of funding was identified by the legislature for this fiscal calendar year within the state and out of that 870 thousand dollars i'm pleased to report to the city council that we were notified that our grant application was accepted received and approved and they had awarded about 52 thousand dollars worth of grant dollars um there is a match there's about a five thousand dollar match which is outlined in your packet here in terms of just a cash match for that fifty two thousand dollars we were actually able to reduce that cash match down down slightly by following the rules of the application but identifying some in-kind contributions in terms of time by public staff public works staff and personnel that would be involved with the process as well too so that minimize some of the cash outlay for the city basically i mean i mentioned resiliency in response to you know climate change uh and we had just on i think may 12th i might have that date wrong but we had a fairly significant rain event here in north st paul with some localized flooding and according to the watershed ramsey washington metro watershed district who public works and myself i met with recently that was about a 10-year event so there's about three inches of rain that fall fell within about a two to three hour time frame so certainly not the heaviest rain event that we've gotten here in north st paul we will get more rain than that but that was a fair amount and it did cause some localized flooding in low areas throughout the city um and so it's timely in that manner that you know just as recently as that we saw some concern there and also the ramsey washington metro watershed district is also embarking and spending their own dollars and probably pursuing their own grant funding for maybe larger capital projects that will benefit the greater region within their watershed district including portions of north st paul to address flooding and basically looking at some potential improvements in north saint paul and maple wood specifically the good rich golf course is an identified area that they're looking into right now to redirect some flood waters that may potentially provide some benefit to areas of north st paul they're just starting on that effort but basically when they had heard that we had been awarded the grant this resiliency grant and then i'd be presenting it to city council the watershed staff got kind of excited and they said wow we're doing our own thing maybe we can collaborate on this and i think that's a great kind of just serendipitous timing thing that we'll we'll want to leverage with this effort if we do move forward with the council's blessing so just for the benefit of the public anybody watching from home or in the audience here just really quickly this effort which is a planning effort that we had kind of outlined in the grant application based on the criteria that they wanted to see this is what we could do and what we proposed to do and this would be performed by the city's engineering consultant wsb but to build off of several plans that you have all heard here before presented been publicly discussed including the 2040 comprehensive plan our 2006 influent infiltration study 2018 water management plan and the 2017 flood control assessment and what we would propose to do is bulletized in your in your staff memo here but again for the benefit of the public we want to integrate climate resiliency into planning policy operations and budgeting processes become more resilient through climate change mitigation and adaptation consider climate resiliency in ongoing city planning and address those residents who would be most affected by climate change meaning vulnerable populations such as low income families minorities handicapped etc preserve maintain and improve the storm water storage and detention systems that we already have and potentially our planning for to control excessive volumes and rates of runoff improve and expand existing stormwater systems to minimize the duration of impact of localized flooding and increase public aware awareness education understanding and involvement in water and natural resource management issues so really all of this within the framework of the grant program is intended to provide a plan and an implementation so not just a plan that sits on the shelf but a plan that can actually be put into action over time a framework that's based on trying to synthesize vulnerable populations vulnerable infrastructure system weaknesses that would be identified through the process and the anticipated impact anticipated impacts of climate change i didn't mention in the memo here but another thing combined with the watershed watershed districts planning and the efforts that they're moving towards all of this together identifying specific things can also be used to support future grant applications as those opportunities might arise to try to generate dollars for local city improvements that might include a multitude of different things but that would be another uh thing that this plan could be used to basically leverage moving forward into the future it's certainly up to the legislature but this initial kind of designation of funds for resiliency is planning oriented and there may be additional funds moving forward that are identified against state for local application competitive grant that would actually pay for improvements or capital investments that would maybe supplement uh or replace or be able to use be used in concert with local funds or local funds plus watershed district funds so at any rate um i just wanted to outline again that the finance city finance director uh has um reviewed the cash match of approximately five thousand dollars he's acceptable of that seems uh okay and then the timing on this effort is that we'd have to be done with everything by uh 2023 end of june basically to align with the state fiscal year so that would have to be wrapped up including any public outreach and education that sort of thing so if the council were to consider the grant agreement and approve that as recommended within the packet here our next step would be to forward that executed grant agreement to the minnesota pollution control agency and uh probably host a kickoff meeting with ramsey washington metro watershed district since they had said they were interested in being a part of it i've already kind of forwarded them a bunch of our stormwater as-built record drawings and things that they were looking for as a part of their efforts and so it's it'll just be kind of a nice opportunity to move forward together with them see what types of things that they're looking at which might be much larger scale right covering big chunks of multiple cities but then also trying to build off that with more localized things that might be able to spend some attention on some of the problem areas that we have throughout the city that that might benefit from identifying what can and should be done so with that i'll stand for any questions the council might have any questions for morgan no questions thank you morgan for doing that those grants are good so thank you all right uh so we need a motion to authorize the execution of the attach resilience grant agreement with the state of minnesota pollution control agency and the city's consulting engineer wsb to complete the task as outlined in the resilience grant work plan in accordance with the mp ca provided budget deliverables task and sub tasks is that correct you read it perfectly perfect uh moved by council member peterson second second by council member wong any other discussion if not all those in favor signify by saying aye i oppose the motion carries thank you morgan city manager stark uh the only thing i have to report is that on as you're aware a development team has been working with the eda on the lilly building property the developer is jim lavalle in a larger group so he and his architecture team momentum design group are going to be holding a community meeting to gather input on the proposed design of their project for that site the community meeting is scheduled for next monday june 13th from 5 30 to 6 30 at city hall we haven't reserved a room um you know have we um we can do it in here i think this space is the best instead of trying to get um residents to try to find make their way back to the training room so it would be held here then um the project has expanded a little bit from when you saw it last it now includes the building at 2503 7th avenue east in other words it goes all the way to helen they they have gotten the building that's uh that was owned by mr john pizza under contract and are adding that into the development proposal as well so again that is monday from 5 30 to 6 30. wow it's exciting yes do you know how many residents are actually within that 500 feet i noticed that the notice will go out to 500 feet there's really not a whole lot of residents so it'd be nice to even get it on the website it will be on the website um people will be excited just to see there are a lot of residents in the sentinel and there are a lot of residents in um there are a couple of other um multi-family buildings within that 500 feet so that is a fair number of people there and they're the developers doing their best to get those tenants notified as well but yes it is going to be if it's not already it's going to be on the city's website good good uh no other updates thank you so uh reports of council commissions and committees uh council member cole uh park and recreation of their had their last meeting on 525 they want to thank the council for supporting the the improvement plan and they're they're eager and excited to to move forward and start to bring some projects uh in in front of council they had put together basically a list of strategic items and that might be some replacement of some existing playground equipment that is dated as well as some strategic ideas uh they sat they prioritized uh they're going to review their priorities at the next meeting and hope to be on hope to be presenting council or have something in front of council for approval moving forward quickly next next park and rec meeting is going to be wednesday june 22nd park and rec is moving back out into the community for the next four months which means there's a community meeting held at six o'clock on the 22nd followed by the park and rec meeting at 6 30. i believe the next meeting the meeting is at southwood but i do not know the exact location so more more to come and keep an eye on the um an eye on the public er i'm sorry on the city website uh next dda meeting is june 14th 3 o'clock in the sandberg room i'm assuming the southwood would be at the observation deck sure i'm just assuming that that's where it would be uh councilmember wong this planning commission met here last thursday and we discussed the sign ordinance and it looks like we're pretty much squared away with that and and we'll be seeing that go through the process and we also discussed the redevelopment master plan and we got good feedback and everyone seemed to be in good alliance around that and then the next meeting for the planning commission will be at 6 30 on july 7th here in the chambers as for the arts and culture commission we did have a presentation here for the workshop this evening and it was to discuss the project snowy um and and which is a statue project also the um art cart has been in preparation um so you'll see the art cart around music in the parks on june 16th at 7 at casey lake june 28th at 10 at house and then we'll have some more coming the remainder of the summer and we also have a good list of volunteers to be helping out at the art cart so i think the commission is really looking forward to getting started this summer that's all i have good councilman peterson yes the 19th avenue student house building house is going to be finished by july 12th tom told me that today there'll be an open house for everybody probably the 13th of july they'll be finishing the carpeting and laminate by next week the drywall driveway will be uh poor next week and it's looking really good and there's been a lot of interest in it um so that's all good and then the neighbors um wanted to kind of thank the students so they're going to have like a little sandwiches and pop or lemonade or something for the students because they were very impressed with the students and then we'll be bringing the neighborhood all together it would be a real positive thing and that will be sometime between the 12th and the 14th of july my last uh league of minnesota cities uh meeting or with my term is over so i had a very good uh three years with them and the new board members will be elected up at the annual conference up in duluth and the business association lunch picnic will be next tuesday at 11 o'clock at casey lake park i think it's going to be pizza it's usually pizza or did you hear something else are we having it up at the sentinel building was that something different no i think he said casey lake i'll check i don't know maybe check that because i okay i had heard that there might be something at the sentinel up in the uh that day for that day okay but i could be wrong councilmember thurston uh general business council member cole i have two points uh one i think summer's finally upon us or at least spring is finally here um so with that to uh to build on what uh councilmember wong said the first music in the park is going to be thursday june 16th at casey lake at 7 00 pm uh it will uh the band will be brio brass i believe this will be the third year they've been there they're like a 50-piece brass group they're phenomenal it's crazy um if you've got the opportunity please please come out and give it a try or give you know take take the opportunity a lot of people in law chairs blankets um big family event et cetera the um the other the other point was um building kind of building on that theme first car show was on friday night i had the opportunity to come down uh very very well attended a lot of people out it was great to see um we're kind of you know continuing to move back into the into the the normal phase per se of of life the establishments uh appeared to be very full uh but i only viewed them from the outside so um just but other than that that's all i've got thank you councilmember y sure i'd like to thank staff for putting together the shredding event um for the public um and also i would like to just say you know it's pride month so happy pride month to everyone here in the community and also june uh 19th is juneteenth juneteenth so also would like to celebrate that here in north st paul so that's all i have thanks welcome to peterson yeah i just i want to do a shout out to the public works um there was this pothole on margaret and right by the lake there and i hit it every day and today it was patched up a couple days so i really appreciate that there's a new residence in the flaherty home and they're very happy too because it was impacting their move and so good job on that and that's all i have thanks councilmember thorson i've been contacted by several residents who've expressed concerns over the city ordinance that states that driveways cannot exceed 22 feet at the property line so specifically we're talking about when your driveway meets the curb in the street um in light of our city manager resignation i was hoping maybe you know we could get this uh on the schedule for a workshop for discussion but we'll see how time allows itself or if that's just something for future discussion and then also just a friendly reminder that as a city we are obligated to have all of our meetings accessible to the public and if the parks and recreation commission are going to be meeting at the parks that they're not exempt from that so just a reminder that where they're going to be meeting they have to keep that in mind and specifically people that fall under the americans with disability act so just want to bring that as a reminder okay councilman rowling yeah just one last thing i i really want to thank you john for your work with us here at the city and i wish you the best in in your next phase um and i appreciate all the work that you've done for the city best of luck and i would echo that it's been a pleasure working with you the last few months and uh getting to know you and you're a great person you know your heart is big and i wish you the best of luck also so thank you for all you've done i'd like to add also uh see a friendly face in the crowd here don bienick welcome back don i always like to see you i am going to host a and call it brew with the mayor that's going to be tomorrow at roddy's bar between 6 and 8 00 p.m pre-covered i had talked to a few establishments in regards to not only for the monday first monday of the month but also to get out into the community and pre-code i did get to love's ice cream and i wanted i had talked to kelly a couple years ago to also do this but when covert hit i was couldn't do it so i'm going to do it tomorrow night from 6 to 8 p.m at roddy's bar i am not buying i cannot but i did uh ask council member cole to be there also to back me up in case i need a sergeant of the arms so no i'm just kidding i'm just kidding but we can't come no you could come but you can't participate i mean i think it's i suppose because there's too many of us yeah be careful of the quorum but you know chance social gatherings are an allowable thing you just can't let it turn into a meeting and discussing a business right and because i'm having it as an open meeting to myself i don't know if that would be i think the optics would not be very good so uh with that uh i got nothing else uh motion to adjourn moved by councilmember peterson second let's think about councilmember cole any discussion that all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries just a reminder that there is an hra meeting oh that's right everybody is ready to go home and i know we'll uh take a five minute uh you