As an expert transcriptionist, I have analyzed the context and dialogue to identify the speakers in the Cannon Falls City Council meeting. **Note on Context:** While your provided list mentions Jon Radermacher as City Administrator, the transcript explicitly identifies **Neil Jensen** as the City Administrator performing the duties during this specific meeting. I have used the names as they appear and are addressed within the dialogue. *** **[2:40] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** I'd like to call the City of Cannon Falls City Council meeting for Tuesday, January 3rd, 2023, to order. If I could get a roll call please? **[2:50] City Clerk (Sara Peer):** Nobach? [Here] Jeppesen? [Here] Johnson? [Here] Kronenberger? [Hi] Lindell? [Here] Montgomery? [Here] **[3:10] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** If you please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States... **[3:23] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Uh, we will start tonight's meeting with all of the newly elected positions taking the oath of office, and City Administrator Neil Jensen will lead us in our oath. You're first? Okay, Matt, you will be first for Mayor. Please stand up, raise your right hand, follow after me. **[3:40] Neil Jensen (City Administrator):** I, state your name... **[3:42] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** I, Matt Montgomery... **[3:45] Neil Jensen (City Administrator):** Do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States... **[3:48] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States... **[3:50] Neil Jensen (City Administrator):** The Constitution of the State of Minnesota... **[3:53] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** The Constitution of the State of Minnesota... **[3:55] Neil Jensen (City Administrator):** And that I will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of the office of Mayor of the City of Cannon Falls... **[4:02] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** And that I will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of the office of Mayor of the City of Cannon Falls... **[4:08] Neil Jensen (City Administrator):** To which I have been elected... **[4:12] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** To which I have been elected... **[4:15] Neil Jensen (City Administrator):** To the best of my knowledge and ability, so help me God. **[4:18] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** To the best of my knowledge and ability, so help me God. **[4:29] Neil Jensen (City Administrator):** Then we'll do all the Council that were elected. The four of you, we'll do the same thing. I, state your name, do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the State of Minnesota, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of the office of City Council of the City of Cannon Falls to which I have been elected to the best of my knowledge and ability, so help me God. **[5:21] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** [Applause] All right, congratulations everybody. Uh, now I would accept a motion to approve the agenda with the addition—you should have information in front of you—we will make that Council Business Item C for now, allowing my signature to be used on City checks and to remove former Mayor John Althoff's signature from City checks. That will be Item C. So do I have a motion to approve the agenda? **[5:45] Derek Lindell:** So moved. **[5:47] Diane Johnson:** Second. **[5:48] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Motion by Lindell, second by Johnson. Any further discussion? Those in favor? [Aye] Opposed? Carries. That brings us to Resolution 2668, declaring a vacancy for City Council. Neil? **[6:08] Neil Jensen (City Administrator):** Well Matt, now that you're Mayor and you resigned your post to City Council, you have to adopt the resolution declaring a vacancy. And once that is adopted, then you as Council can discuss and nominate anybody that is eligible to City Council. And then with that, after your discussion, you can make a motion to appoint. So that's where we're at with this resolution. **[6:57] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** With that said, I will accept a motion to declare a vacancy at Resolution 2668 to declare the vacancy here on City Council. The first step? **[7:10] Laura Kronenberger:** Motion. **[7:12] Lisa Zimmerman:** Second. **[7:15] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Motion by Kronenberger, do I have a second? Second by Lisa. Any further discussion? All those in favor? [Aye] Opposed? Carries. Uh, with that said, we are now entering discussion to take nominations to fill my vacancy. And I think that sometimes experience is the best teacher, and I would entertain a motion to nominate former City Council Member Steve Gesme to fulfill the last two years of my elected term. **[7:42] Laura Kronenberger:** So I had a couple of ideas. I was wondering if Jesse Johnson would be someone that I would like us to consider? **[7:55] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** I've had a private discussion with Jesse Johnson. If he is interested, you know, I would love to have that discussion. But for the time being, and being here tonight, the years of experience on Council—if Jesse is interested, he has not said so in our conversations. However, you know, us as a Council is a governing body; as long as they are eligible, anyway. **[8:27] Derek Lindell:** I do think I agree with you. We do have three new council members here, so experience would help. Also to have a little continuity. And um, I guess I can go ahead—I will make a motion that we appoint former council member Steve Gesme. **[8:45] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** There's a motion on the table. Is there a second? **[8:48] Diane Johnson:** I will second that motion. **[8:50] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Motion by Lindell, second by Johnson. Any further discussion? Those in favor of nominating Steve Gesme say aye. [Aye] Those opposed? [Aye] Three to two is the vote. Is that carry or do we need it to be a—? But do we need a supermajority for this nomination or no? **[9:15] Neil Jensen (City Administrator):** It just needs to carry. **[9:20] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** All right, moving on. Number seven: Public Input. Do we have... did anybody put him on? What's that? Do you want to—did anybody sign in though tonight? Do you want to put Steve up there or do the oath of office? We can do that right now. Steve, would you like to come up here and take your oath and take your seat? I didn't know if that had to be in a separate meeting. Three to two, it passed. **[10:13] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Congratulations. Thanks. **[10:15] Steve Gesme:** If you're gonna need a copy of this... **[10:25] Neil Jensen (City Administrator):** And we got something to read right here. Yep, just your name instead of my name. Oh, okay. You ready? **[10:35] Steve Gesme:** Yeah. I, Steve Gesme, do solemnly swear that I support the Constitution of the United States... **[10:40] Neil Jensen (City Administrator):** Do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution in the United States... **[10:45] Steve Gesme:** The Constitution of the State of Minnesota... **[10:48] Neil Jensen (City Administrator):** The Constitution of the State of Minnesota... **[10:52] Steve Gesme:** And that I will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of the office of City Council of the City of Cannon Falls... **[11:00] Neil Jensen (City Administrator):** And I will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of the office of City Council for the City of Cannon Falls to which I have been appointed... **[11:11] Steve Gesme:** To the best of my knowledge and ability, so help me God. **[11:15] Neil Jensen (City Administrator):** So help me God. Congratulations. [Applause] **[11:20] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Do we have a public input sign up? While we wait for that, I will read: Public input is intended to afford the public an opportunity to address concerns to the City Council. The public input will be no longer than 30 minutes in total length and each speaker will have no more than three minutes to speak. Speakers may address topics relevant to the governance of the city. Speakers must sign up in advance and must provide their name, address, and the topic they intend to address. Comments must be on topic, respectful, pertinent to City business, and adhere to the applicable data privacy rules. Any speaker that violates these rules will be asked to sit down, and if the speaker refuses to comply, they may be removed from the meeting. Speakers shall not address topics that are the subject of a public hearing. All such comments shall be made at the public hearing. The City Council will not generally act on issues raised by the public input but may choose to schedule consideration of the item in a future agenda. Nobody signed up? All right, moving on. Public hearing: the introduction and first reading of Ordinance 389, amending city code Title III relating to fees, charges, and rates. Neil? **[12:43] Neil Jensen (City Administrator):** So in your package, you'll have the fees and rates that we charge for the city. As you remember, when we went through the budget process, there was water, sewer, and stormwater was raised by one percent. And then we added actually the ambulance charges in there; they went up slightly. They were never in the actual fee structure with all the other fees, so we added them this year. And so now they'll stay in there and be part of that. The public hearing is to take input on the charges that we have increased, which are the water/sewer rates and the ambulance and storm sewer—sorry—and that was one percent on that. **[13:30] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** For the incoming Council, any discussion? Oh, that’s right, I have to open up the public hearing, don’t I? All right, public hearing is now officially open for the first reading of Ordinance 389 amending city code. Would anybody like to speak in the public hearing? **[13:56] Public Speaker (Resident/Former Candidate):** Hi. Congratulations to the Mayor and to the other new members of the Council. I'm so excited for you. Um, I haven't changed my mind since the last council meeting. I still don't think that the water, sewer, and stormwater rates should be going up. I am here to ask you to not approve the Ordinance 389 but to hold off and to check more into it. I believe the one percent increase as residents' sewer, water, and stormwater fees is not necessary considering the fact the WAC/SAC fees for the Kendall Bartman project were waived. Why should residents have to pay for fees that should have been collected by the project? The burden should not be on residents, especially since Kendall Bartman is receiving TIF money for the next 26 years. I feel that the old City Council has not looked out for the interests of the residents. I pray the new City Council and Mayor Montgomery will consider what is best for the residents. Our sewer, water, and stormwater fees are high enough. We paid through the nose for an oversized water treatment plant when we only grew 135 residents in 10 years instead of the thousands more that was projected. When I was door-knocking during my mayoral campaign, I ran into residents on North Street whose water is so bad they can't drink it or wash their clothes in it. Now you want to charge them more for their usable water? This is unacceptable. This increase may have been approved in the budget by the old Council; however, the budget can be decreased but not increased. I urge the Council to put this ordinance on hold, do some research, and figure out how to work in the best interests of residents and not raise the water, sewer, and stormwater rates. I would suggest in the future that in working out details for large housing developments, that the WAC/SAC fees not be pushed on the citizens of this community that are already paying extremely high utility bills. Thank you for your time. **[15:45] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Anybody else like to speak during public input? Second call for public input. Third and final call for public input. With that, I will close the public hearing on Ordinance 389 amending city code title relating to fees, charges, and rates, which leads to discussion with the Council. **[16:15] Laura Kronenberger:** I just wanted to check: all the other fees are the same amounts as last year, correct? Okay. I wanted to ask—I data request—I know there's something listed specifically on the police section. So are, like, city requests the same? Maybe we have to spell it out? Or there's—I guess we charge per pound, we charge per copy... **[16:45] Neil Jensen (City Administrator):** So it's copy costs. There should be a rate on there someplace at 25 cents... up to a hundred... because it's always been on there. **[17:04] Laura Kronenberger:** I just want to make sure the charge... **[17:17] Neil Jensen (City Administrator):** Let me take a peek. Yeah, it's listed under Police, but I guess I don't... Page two, the bottom, under General Government charges. Oh yeah, okay. Is that it? That indicates for up to 100... I think I saw it. Yeah, it's there. And then under Police also, but it's a—yep, perfect. And then, um, I think that we had last year something with regards to sexually oriented business license fees, and I didn't see that listed. **[18:03] Neil Jensen (City Administrator):** That should be in the Zoning. It wouldn't be under Licenses, right? Unless it's called something else. Yeah, I'd have to look. **[18:28] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** That was brought up to me before also. And I know that last year when we had a business owner that was considering trying to open a gentlemen's club, that we looked at the state law and that we as a city, we cannot deny that, but we have to allow a zone. And once we designated the zone, they were no longer interested. So I was asked the same question: the fact that we don't have a business that fits that, do we have to have that fee established without a business that fits that category? Or if that is something that if somebody were to show interest, we would have to then come up with the fee? **[19:05] Neil Jensen (City Administrator):** Well, if I remember correctly, we had to have a zone that allowed it, right? So we did that last year, which was the Industrial Park. **[19:13] Laura Kronenberger:** But we do have to have a fee set according to our City Charter, you're right. And we did that last year and it should be—I don't see—it's not on here. **[19:34] Neil Jensen (City Administrator):** I don't remember; we got a lot of things. But we could look up what last year's fee was and what we said. **[19:50] Laura Kronenberger:** Do we want to table it so we can add that next meeting? Or can we pass for the water and sewer rates? It's not going to change. But we should get it on here, those additions or those clarifications with... at the same rate of last year. **[20:15] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Laura, was that a motion? Okay, I would accept a second. **[20:30] Chad Johnson:** Second. **[20:34] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Second from Johnson. Any further discussion? All those in favor? [Aye] Opposed? I believe that carries. Moving on to the Consent Agenda. Consent Agenda items may be adopted under one motion as presented or may be removed for discussion and resolution as Council business. I'll go through these items: Item A, claims accounting period ending on December 29, 2022; Item B, meeting minutes for December 20th city council work session; Item C, meeting minutes for December 20th city council meeting; Item D, Resolution 2666 accepting a monetary donation of $100 from Sigma-Aldrich for the Police Department; Item E, approve designation of the official newspaper for 2023; Item F, Resolution 2667 designating the depositories for City funds for the fiscal year 2023; Item G, approve statutory tort limits; Item H, approve 2023 cost of living adjustments for our non-union employees; and Item I, Resolution 2669 accepting a monetary donation of $1,000 from Invenergy to the Fire Department. Is there any item on the Consent Agenda the Council would like to pull down? **[22:06] Lisa Zimmerman:** Item H. The cost of living adjustment. **[22:20] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Item H, the cost of living adjustment, that will get moved to City Council Business as Item D behind the Item C that was added in the agenda approval. Anything else to get pulled down by the Council? I would take a motion to approve the Consent Agenda. **[22:45] Lisa Zimmerman:** Motion. **[22:47] Diane Johnson:** Second. **[22:50] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Motion by Lisa, second by Diane. All those in favor? [Aye] Opposed? Carries. Moving on to Council Business, Item A: approve the 2023 annual appointments. You guys should have received in your packet all of the different committees and boards that we have here in the city. As the Mayor, it is my job to appoint people to fill these spots. And as you have this sheet, the city council appointment will be filled by the appointed council member Steve Gesme. And to the public, we still have two open spots in the Police Commission, we have an opening in our Planning Commission—the term that Diane had as a resident, now she will fill as a council member, so she has a spot that will fill 2023 and 2024. We do have some openings. And also an edit on Park Board: Marcy French will be removed and she will be replaced with Chuck Woodholm. So any discussion from the Council on the appointments for boards and committees? I would take a motion to approve. **[24:10] Steve Gesme:** So moved. **[24:12] Derek Lindell:** Second. **[24:15] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Motion by Gesme, second by Lindell. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. [Aye] Opposed? Carries. Item B for Council Business: election of a Mayor Pro Tem. A friend has joked with me he'd rather that it was called the "Vice Mayor" instead of Mayor Pro Tem. And Steve has served as Mayor Pro Tem under Mayor Althoff for the last couple years. I believe with our new Council, again as I said, I think experience... I would accept a nomination for Council Member Derek Lindell to become the Mayor Pro Tem. **[25:01] Chad Johnson:** I nominate Laura Kronenberger to be Mayor Pro Tem. **[25:05] Ryan Jeppesen:** I'll second that. **[25:08] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** We've got a motion on the table from Council Member Johnson, and a second from Council Member Jeppesen. Any further discussion? All those in favor? [Aye] Opposed? It carries. Congratulations. You can vote no! All right, Item C: the bank signature cards. The information that was shared with you here tonight... looks like our city requires two signatures on all checks; one would be a stamp signature. Being the Mayor, that will need my signature and we need to vote to allow that and to remove former Mayor John Althoff's signature from city checks. Any other points, Neil, or any discussion that needs to be had on this? **[25:50] Neil Jensen (City Administrator):** Pretty straightforward, yep. We just have to add you and take John off. **[25:55] Steve Gesme:** I make a motion to authorize Matt to be on the bank signature card. **[26:02] Ryan Jeppesen:** Second. **[26:05] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Motion by Gesme, second by Jeppesen. Any further discussion? All those in favor? [Aye] Opposed? Carries. Item D: cost of living. That was in your Consent Agenda as Item H, approving the cost of living adjustment that was pulled down by Lisa. Lisa? **[26:35] Lisa Zimmerman:** What about Union people? I'm just thinking about inflation, how it's hard to retain people if we can give Union people also a raise—a cost of living? **[26:50] Neil Jensen (City Administrator):** The Unions are bound by contracts and they are the same as the non-union in front of you—the raise, okay? And their contracts—we’ve got three unions and all three contracts are up this year. So I'll be actually looking for a few of you to help me out about the middle of the year to start negotiating for new ones. **[27:18] Lisa Zimmerman:** Well, we can't do anything for them now? **[27:20] Neil Jensen (City Administrator):** No. And typically, the non-union get the same as the union and that's what this is. You can... I mean, you can do whatever you want even if they're union in a contract, you can still do a raise of living, I'm sure you could, but... I don't know if we want to go there. They have a contract negotiation coming up at the end of the year. **[28:00] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** I would take a motion to approve the 2023 cost of living adjustments for non-union employees. **[28:08] Chad Johnson:** So moved. **[28:10] Ryan Jeppesen:** Second. **[28:15] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Motion by Johnson, second by Jeppesen. Any further discussion? All those in favor? [Aye] Opposed? [Aye] Passes five to one. That leads us to reports. Is there anybody from the Chamber here tonight or anything? I think Nicole... **[28:38] Nicole Miller (Library Representative):** Hi. Hi Nicole! And of course, my cat starts coming up. Okay, hi. So hello and congratulations to all of you who are newly on Council. Looking at what we have going on at the library: we have a new program that is Silent Book Club that is going to be meeting on the—I think I told you about it last month—it's going to be meeting on the 17th from 5:30 to 7:00. That is bring your favorite book, come into the library, sit by the fireplace, read, tell everybody about the book and have a good time. That's just a good way to share what you enjoy reading and if you don't know people, maybe make some new friends. We also are going to have at the end of the month a weaving demonstration by Northfield Fiber Space on Tuesday the 31st from 5:30 to 6:30. Um, I do have my programs, my fitness programs at the Senior Center as part of health and physical literacy—because understand literacy is not just reading books, it's everything. And that is, I'm doing balance classes on Tuesdays (we did not today because the Senior Center was closed), then the Walk to the Rhythm, and then on Friday we're doing circuit training. I'm teaching people how to do—come on up stinker—I'm teaching people how to do strength training with equipment that you can buy for home. I'm sorry about the cat, but she likes to be held. And just learning about the importance of retaining muscle as you age because it affects every single system in your body. This is Freckles, he's very friendly. And of course, we have our story times on Mondays and Thursdays. We have a Freckles topic... Pokemon Club on Wednesday the 25th at 3:15. That's going to be a new program. And of course, crafts and all of our other fun stuff. Our next Library Board meeting is next Monday at six. You're welcome to come. And for all of you who are new on City Council, or even those of you who have been there for a while, I invite you to come into the library, take a look at the fireplace that was finished a year ago, and I'll also be happy to just give you a tour, see how things have changed, and talk to you about how we do things at the library and our relationship with the city. And with that, I'm done. If you have any questions? **[32:05] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Thanks Nicole. **[32:10] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Dan? I'm good. Anything for Public Works? All right, Chief? **[32:20] Police Chief Jeff McCormick:** I thought Dan would cover this. We've got a lot of snow today; his guys were out getting the streets clear but they will be back out again this evening. So I just want to remind all of our residents to make sure they get the cars off the streets. The officers try to get out there early and let people know if they need to move their cars, but that doesn't always happen. However, at midnight they'll be out there to make sure that these cars are off the street and that may involve a ticket and tow. So we want to try to get those out of the way before Public Works comes in, especially this type of snow where it's wet and heavy; we don't want it to get missed and then freeze down and prevent the streets from getting cleared curb to curb. So just want to remind residents of that. Thanks Chief. **[33:00] Neil Jensen (City Administrator):** I just want to say welcome to all the new faces that we have here. It'll be fun to get through the first year and get your feet wet, per se. Welcome. **[33:10] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Council Members, I'll start over there. Laura, anything you'd like to say? **[33:15] Laura Kronenberger:** Nope, I'm good. **[33:18] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Lisa? **[33:20] Lisa Zimmerman:** I'm good. Happy to be here though. **[33:23] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Ryan? **[33:25] Ryan Jeppesen:** Good. **[33:27] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** All right, Derek? **[33:30] Derek Lindell:** Just wanted to welcome the three new people and Mr. Gesme. You know, I thought we were radio but I guess we're "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle," right? But uh, yeah, welcome to you three. **[33:45] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Diane? **[33:48] Diane Johnson:** I'm happy. You're good. **[33:50] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Steve? **[33:52] Steve Gesme:** Oh, I gotta say something. Sorry! Okay, you didn't want me to? I talked to Dan and our wood piles completely disappeared. We have nothing left down there except for three Christmas trees that just arrived, but it's a welcome sight down there. Not a lot of flat land; that looks great. That's all I have. **[34:20] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** Okay. I'm just going to try to be quick. I just want to say thank you to everybody here on the Council for serving, for putting yourself out there. For some of you, it'll be two years; for some of you, it'll be four years. Thank you. We appreciate that you guys are here. It's not always fun, we won't always agree, but we will always have to work together. So I think that learning from the four years on the Council, just being respectful of each other goes a long way, and I think that we have a group that it's going to be pretty easy to do that. So I hope that we will accomplish a lot. Thank you to my family for supporting me in this. It'll be four years of a lot of the nights here in the chambers. So kids, that's a lot of chicken nuggets and pizzas; I don't think you mind that too much! And to my department heads, everybody at City Hall, Police Department, our EMTs, the library, our Public Works: I want to say thank you and I really look forward to the next four years working with you guys. As a council member, you guys were delightful to work with and I think that we have been on the same page with a lot of the issues that we've had to deal with. I tried to think about the last four years—the things that we've dealt with as a Council—and it's amazing. Sometimes you think there hasn't been that much and then you think back: oh yeah, we had a pandemic, we had a tornado in 2018, we've put up with the transition of Neil coming here. So I just want to say thank you and I really am looking forward to working with you guys. I think that we will try to do a lot of things and make progress in the next four years. With that, that's pretty much all I've got. I want to real quickly though thank Mayor Althoff. I know he's not able to be here tonight. I want to say thank you to him for the four years of guidance and service that he also gave us. I know that he would do this all the time, he would just read the upcoming meeting schedule: Finance Committee on Monday the 9th at 5:00; EDA Thursday the 5th at 3:30; Planning Commission Monday the 9th at 6:30; Library Board, as Nicole said, Monday, January 9th at 6:00; Public Works, Thursday, January 5th at 6:00 p.m.; Joint Powers Trail Board Tuesday, January 24th at 6:30; and the Park Board this Thursday, January 5th at 5:00 p.m. I know that Park Board, you guys have a lot to do—John Burch Park, big projects. The clock is ticking: 2028 state tournament will be here really quick. So with that, I would take a motion and a second to adjourn. **[36:55] Derek Lindell:** So moved. **[36:57] Ryan Jeppesen:** Second. **[37:00] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** All those in favor? [Aye] Opposed? Carries. We are adjourned. Thank you everybody.