This transcript features **Mayor John Altoff** presiding (though Matt Montgomery is listed as Mayor in your context, the roll call and dialogue of this specific December 2021 meeting identify Altoff as the Mayor and Montgomery as a Council Member). Other key speakers include City Administrator **Jon "Neil" Radermacher**, City Engineer **Bill Angerman**, and Public Works Director **Jed "Dan" Petersen**. [1:05] **Mayor John Altoff**: Everyone, I’d like to call the December 7th, 2021 City Council meeting for the City of Cannon Falls to order. December 7th, 80 years ago—Pearl Harbor. How an event changed the world; keep it in your mind. Okay, roll call please. [1:18] **Sara Peer (City Clerk)**: Bringold? **Mary Jill Bringold**: Here. **Sara Peer**: Duncan? **Council Member Duncan**: Here. **Sara Peer**: Gesme? **Council Member Gesme**: Here. **Sara Peer**: Kronenberger? **Laura Kronenberger**: Here. **Sara Peer**: Lindell? **Sara Peer**: Absent. **Sara Peer**: Montgomery? **Matt Montgomery**: Here. **Sara Peer**: And Altoff? **Mayor John Altoff**: Here. Would you rise for the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [1:51] **Mayor John Altoff**: Okay, agenda. I’m going to have an addition to the agenda. We’ll add Steve Dablow from the Historical Society and we’ll put him under public hearing before we get into the talk on the budget. Is there anybody else with corrections or additions? If not, I entertain a motion to approve the agenda with that one addition. [2:12] **Mary Jill Bringold**: So moved. [2:14] **Mayor John Altoff**: Motion by Bringold, second by Gesme to approve the agenda with the one addition. Is there any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Carried. [2:37] **Mayor John Altoff**: Public input. I see there’s nobody on the list for public input, so we’ll bypass that tonight and we’ll get right into a public hearing. Actually, we’re going to call Steve Dablow up from the Historical Society. He’s got a message for us tonight. [2:55] **Steve Dablow**: Well, I’ve got more than a message—I have a check. And yeah, it’s been a little while, but the second wave of COVID just keeps messing with our program on what we can do and can’t do. Although right now, we’ve got a couple of volunteers that are back that are going through our donations and evaluating what we have and what should be saved, how it should be saved, how it should be categorized. There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work that needs to be done. But Zach and I got back at it a little bit. I have a check here for ten thousand dollars. That’s what we do—when we get to ten thousand dollars, we bring it in. Five thousand of this was generously donated by the local fire department, so I’m really excited about what they did. Two thousand dollars is the third of three payments from Merchants Bank; so they donated six thousand dollars but spread it over three years. And the others were some personal donations, unsolicited, that just came in the mail. I’d like to mention some of them, but I don’t, because then I’ll forget some and then some will get mentioned and some don’t and then I get a phone call. But Neil, here’s a check, and I thank you guys. I’ll get to the speaker; thank you for your patience. We’re still working at it. Neil, I wanted to bring a total report down for you tonight but just didn’t get a chance to put it together, but we’ll do something like that. We’ve had some commitments that have backed off and some new ones that are opening up, so we’re still working at it guys. We’ll get there. 186 thousand dollars or bust. Thank you. [4:51] **Mayor John Altoff**: Yeah, thank you. Just a little background: the reason Steve’s bringing us the money is we bought that house next to the museum up there. You know, they were crowded in the museum and now they’ve got office space next door and all that, and that’s the reason for this. [5:10] **Steve Dablow**: Can I talk some more? We haven’t done any renovations on that building yet because we feel we need to pay you guys off first; we shouldn’t be spending money on it. So it is not ADA qualified yet, although it has already been put to great use because the administrative areas that we were using in the current building have now been moved over. Zach’s office is out of there, and a lot of the work that’s getting spread out—that used to have to be put away every time you spread it out—you work, you spread it out for 20 minutes, you work on it for an hour, and it takes you 20 minutes to put it away. Well, now we’ve got rooms over there where stuff is being spread out. So we’re sort of using it, and the garage is full of stuff that we had placed around the town. Do you know anything about the bobsleds in town? You know, I’ve been trying to find out where they disappeared to and I just... [6:04] **Mayor John Altoff**: Well, no—one of them is... now we got it back. It was the one that Johnny Hiram had up in Eden Prairie, and it’s now in that garage. [6:15] **Steve Dablow**: And I did forget to mention that Luke is going to be in town from December 20th to January 20th and I’m going to try to get about six or seven interviews done for our stories. At least get them in the can so that he can edit them. Right, Luke? Or are you back there? He isn’t there today. No, Sam might be... Patrick? Well, Luke is going to be in town and I’m going to take advantage of his proximity. And one of them is going to be the bobsled. And I’m finding all types of... there were two of them, maybe three of them, where they were dug out, who used them. Jim Soul Senior insists that he holds the record, and I think he started at Doc Williams' house at the top of Mill Street and ended up at the band shell. [Laughter] [7:02] **Mayor John Altoff**: But I remember my dad telling me that they used to station people on Highway 20, which is Main Street or 4th Street, so they could zip on by down to the river. [7:14] **Steve Dablow**: And so they came out Spring Garden Hill and we posted people at the intersections? [7:16] **Mayor John Altoff**: Went all the way to the river. Yep. [7:18] **Steve Dablow**: So you do know about it? [7:19] **Mayor John Altoff**: Oh yeah, I was on them. [7:20] **Steve Dablow**: You were on them? I’m calling you. Thank you. [7:24] **Mayor John Altoff**: Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Okay, we’ll get now... we’ll open... we got the 2022 final budget and levy public hearing. So we’ll open that hearing. First, we’ll get a little input from Neil. [7:47] **Jon "Neil" Radermacher (City Administrator)**: Yeah, thank you, Mayor. As everybody knows, we have to approve a final budget. Tonight is the public hearing, and at their next meeting, we will adopt the final budget and levy. In your package, you got a short bullet-point highlighted list of items that we talked about actually in the preliminary, because the final is not changing from the preliminary but for one item. So I’ll just go over the highlights and if you have any questions, we’ll answer them as we go. Based on the negotiations for the union contracts and non-union, we’re going to be doing 1% salary adjustments in July and in December for a 2% final. One of the things that was really encouraging is—I don’t know when the last time you heard health insurance go down—but we did change companies this year and it reduced our premiums 10.6%, and that equals to about 41,000 dollars for the year. So that was a nice savings. One of the things that when I first got here is you started a bituminous mill and overlay program. It started at 130,000, and as we go along, 130,000 isn’t 130,000 anymore. So we did increase that again this year; now it’s up to 175. As we work along, I’d like to get that up to 200,000 before we reevaluate and see how much that gets us. It may, depending on the price of oil and labor, be the same as 150,000 in five years, so we’ll have to keep an eye on that for our maintenance. The council did decide to close the DMV this year. There was a 40,000 dollar levy tied to that. Just an FYI, I did send out an email yesterday hoping to get a response back on the process and I haven’t gotten one back yet, so I’ll keep in touch with the state and see where they’re at with that. So that was a 40,000 dollar savings, and I did bring that to the finance committee and they decided to put that money into municipal reserve, because in 2023 we’re going to hold or do another mill and overlay or a street reconstruction and we’re going to need some money to take care of that. So it’d be my recommendation to continue with that 40,000 going into a fund to help pay for that. I know when I get down to the sewer and water, there’ll be some extra savings there that we can use towards that also. So that is about the highlights. The final levy for this year will be 3,195,334 dollars. Our local government aid did go up a little over 4,000 dollars to 704,781. Other increases in revenue: there’s a standard 3% increase in our tax-in-lieu of taxes for Invenergy. During COVID, we reduced our liquor license fees, so they went back up to standard, so there was a little increase there, and there was a small increase in police aid. Water and sewer rates—again, you decided to hold them. I think for the simple fact that we had a 365,000 dollar bond that was paid off in the water fund. So that’s when I talked about them street reconstruction projects; there’s where you’ll be talking about. Also talking about a water tower project tonight, and that’s where some of your money is going to come from. And then also, you had in your sewer fund you had about a million dollars worth of bond payments. We are next... in 2022 you dropped some off this year, and in 2022 that’ll be your last payment for the PFA loan for the wastewater plant, and that was, I believe, around 500,000. So that is a good thing. But as I talked with the Public Works Commission, now is the time to start doing some fixing because we’ve been holding back. I know I talked last year at the budget hearing how we end up going in the red in the sewer about in August and then don’t crawl out of the red and get into the black until towards the end of the year. And now we’re going to be able to fix some stuff. I know some emergency stuff we have to fix, but there is other items out there that we’re going to have to start working on. The plant’s 20 years old; that’s a harsh environment out there, and anytime you have expenses in a wastewater plant, it goes by tens of thousands, not one thousand. So that’s just the way it is. Anyhow, no increase in fees for 2022 in the water and the sewer, and the last bond payment for the sewer is in 2022 for the PFA loan. There’s also a last payment for the library bond; it will be done in 2022. That’s 78,000 that’s been going on for a while. The rest of the bonds I won’t even go through because they’re out their ways yet; we won’t worry about them, they’re just going along fine. There was a reduction in the fire department operations—you’ll see that on your levy summary of 18%—that was just a shift in finance. We moved the capital money into the capital equipment fund. In reality, it’s still the same; it’s just that it moved into a different fund so we can pay out of it. Other than that, the final levy for 2022 is 3,195,334, which is a decrease from last year of 0.2%. Any questions? [15:06] **Mayor John Altoff**: I know this will be the third year now we’ve held water and sewer rates without an increase, because that’s what people call me about. You know, they don’t like to pay more money on that. But we’ll see what happens next year, but this will be the third year that we haven’t increased that. So that’s a good thing. [15:31] **Jon "Neil" Radermacher**: One of the things I was going to mention also is this decrease is nice, but we all know what inflation is doing right now, right? And I don’t think we’re even going to get close to getting by with that for 2023. So enjoy it. Enjoy it. You know, gas prices are what, 40-60% higher? You know, it’s coming. [15:56] **Matt Montgomery**: Yeah. And the other thing I’d like to mention is—because this comes up every year—even though we’re holding our levy basically steady, people are still going to probably see a property tax increase because a lot of people don’t understand that’s kind of a three-legged monster. We only control a certain part of that. You’ve got school, you know, state, etc., and valuation on your home. Yeah, I know my valuation is going up, so I know I’m getting a tax increase next year regardless. So just want to make people aware of that, because that question comes up quite a bit. And if anybody does have any questions, I’d be more than happy to answer them if they wanted to just give me a call. [16:41] **Mayor John Altoff**: Good. Okay. Any other questions? Yeah, anybody from the public? Questions? If not, we’ll close the public hearing and maybe make a motion to pass this on to the next meeting... or no, just a public hearing? Okay. And we’ll close the public hearing. Okay, Consent Agenda. Consent Agenda items may be adopted under one motion as presented or may be removed for discussion and resolution as council business. For you at home and in the audience, I’ll go through the consent agenda: Item A: the just and correct claims for the accounting period ending December 3rd, 2021. Item B: the minutes for the November 16th, 2021 City Council meeting. Item C: the second reading and adoption of Ordinance 381 and summary of publication, an ordinance of the City of Cannon Falls, Minnesota, amending the City Code Chapter 152 relating to the conditional uses in the B-2 highway business district. Item D: approve the replacement of aluminum channel gates. Item E: Resolution 2596 accepting the Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Fund established under the American Rescue Plan Act. And Item F: approve the appointment of Diane Johnson to the Planning Commission. Is there anything on there you’d like to pull down? Anything? If not, I take a motion to approve the consent agenda. [18:35] **Council Member Duncan**: So moved. [18:37] **Matt Montgomery**: Second. [18:38] **Mayor John Altoff**: Motion by Duncan, a second by Montgomery to approve the consent agenda. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Carried. Okay, we’ll get into council business. Item A: Resolution 2595 receiving the preliminary report and calling for public hearing on the Bluff Drive improvements. Bill, you want to take that? [19:15] **Bill Angerman (City Engineer)**: Thank you, Mayor. The Public Works Commission did review the memo that you have in your packet. They are recommending that the City Council approve the resolution which would set a public hearing basically to initiate the project at your January 18th council meeting. The other item that they recommended—and I’ll go a little bit more into detail here in a minute—but they’re also recommending that the assessments are calculated on the "per each" basis, so basically everybody would be assessed the same. So with that, then, what we’re looking at here is just for a little bit of history background. You know, Bluff Drive was not completed, meaning the final course of asphalt and the other items related to project closeout items—we call a punch list—meaning that Dan and myself or our staff would make sure all the valves, the hydrants, the curbs haven’t settled, the pavement’s in good condition. That was never completed. So we did complete that punch list walk-through earlier in November. We did develop a list of items that needed to be either finished or fixed. Fixed items such as settled curb and gutter, etc. So that list of items has been prepared. The total of the cost, also with some contingency and engineering, is 105,000 dollars. There are 15 properties that would abut this, so approximately that would be 7,000 dollars a lot. Assessments would be per your policy; then that would be assessed 100%. We have a little discussion: why 100%? That is because these are, in essence, what I call "first-time improvements." So when you buy a house or a lot, you pay for the curb and gutter, the sidewalk, the pavement, etc. After it’s put in for the first time, then maintenance things like that, well, that’s taken out of your either your sewer/water accounts for valves, hydrants, manholes, or out of the general tax levy. Let’s see, those are really the highlights of this. It’s fairly straightforward. The statutory process we have to follow is fairly prescriptive, so we have some real set steps. So tonight we’ll be asking you to set that hearing. So at that first hearing then, staff, we would give a presentation basically to you and to the public. People would be able to give their opinion to you—should you proceed or not? I like to call that the "thumbs up or thumbs down." Should we move forward with the project? The council would then decide to move forward or not. You would call that ordering the improvement. That does take a super majority of the council to move forward. At that point then we’d start preparing plans and specifications and we’d basically be doing the necessary items to go out to bid. I always remind the public and I always remind the council that these are estimates until we have a bid in hand; we’re estimating how much this is going to cost. And as Neil mentioned earlier, inflation... we are just a little more uncertain than we normally would be for bids coming in. But then after you receive bids, then we will have an actual amount. So instead of 7,000, it’ll be, you know, 7,121 or whatever that amount would be. And then you’ll have another public hearing where then residents would have the opportunity to object to their assessed amount. Basically, what the city statute says is that the value of their property has to be worth that much more after the project than before. So they would be able to present evidence to you; you would be the body that would hear that and then you make that decision. If someone didn’t like that decision, they do have the opportunity to appeal that to district court. But in a nutshell, that’s the process. What we’re looking at then is, in essence, that would wrap up in the June timeframe. That would still give us time to get this completed this summer. Ultimately, we’re targeting a Fall of 2022 completion date. So with that, I will pause and if there’s any questions, or Neil or Dan, any other thing to add? [23:25] **Mayor John Altoff**: Questions? [23:32] **Laura Kronenberger**: Not all the lots up there have been built on yet or sold. Would that 7,000 dollars then be put on the asking price for the land for a new buyer? [23:44] **Bill Angerman**: So it would go against the property, and that would be up for that property owner to make that decision how they handled that. And also, those properties up there were bought when the previous company that was going to build there kind of went belly up. Those lots went for between 6,000 to 7,500 generally speaking. So even with the proposed assessments, the developer should be able to get in a pretty darn good field. But yeah, you asked if all the lots were sold—no, they’re not. [24:25] **Mayor John Altoff**: Any other questions? If not, I take a motion to pass Resolution 2595 for a preliminary report and calling for public hearing on the Bluff Drive improvements. [24:41] **Council Member Gesme**: So moved. [24:42] **Mary Jill Bringold**: Second. [24:43] **Mayor John Altoff**: Motion by Gesme, second by Bringold to approve Resolution 2595. Any other discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Carried. Okay, Item B is the water tower painting professional service agreement. Neil, you want to take that? [25:10] **Jon "Neil" Radermacher**: Sure. As you know, the water tower has been talked about probably for the last 10 years or so. We did get a chance here this summer to get up there and, with WHKS and some of their younger folks, to crawl the tower and get some pictures. And it wasn’t Bill and it wasn’t Neil. And so they’ve got their investigation and come back with some of their findings. I’ll let Bill take care of that. I just got a couple of things that I wanted to talk about. This is a professional service agreement to hire WHKS to do the project and engineering. But a while back, we talked about the ring on the water tower and adding a larger ring to help broadband out into the townships and in the school district. And how that works is, right now, the ring that we have up there is full of antennas and it’s at 105% structural capacity, which means it’s full. So we can’t put on another broadband company that can go out there. Verizon’s on there, and Northfield WiFi, the County and their emergency stuff, and so it’s full. And so we had conversations, and when the rescue money came around, Goodhue County would maybe be able to help us out with that. So they did put some money into broadband and we’re going to be applying for a broadband grant. Laura is working on it as we speak. We got some information from Bill on costs, and we’re going to expand that to a 20-foot radius. That will give us plenty of room to add on more broadband people to help out, like I said, the school district and the people out in the township that cannot get service. We got a couple letters of support on this grant that we’re going to be applying for. One of them actually came from... it’s a Goodhue County grant, but it came from the Goodhue County Park Board. They’re putting the pavilion out there and some bathrooms out in Lake Byllesby and they want to be able to turn lights on and off and lock and unlock doors. Well, they don’t have service out there. So by putting on a larger ring, we can get a broadband service provider out there and an internet provider and they can get service. So it’s kind of nice. And then also we got a letter of support from the school district, which they were definitely all in, saying, "Boy, this will help out." So them are the two items. If we don’t get the grant, we may have to come back and talk it over. It’s 85,000 dollars to put this ring on with the engineering, the painting, and the contingencies. Granted, we don’t know what inflation has done, so give or take, but that’s what we’re going to apply for and see if we can get a grant from the county to expand that ring. And if not, we’ll have to come back and decide what to do. It really is for the folks out in the county, in the townships, and the school district, so I would hope that they would look at this favorably. Otherwise, I’m going to turn it over to Bill. He can explain the project and what we’re going to do. [28:58] **Bill Angerman**: Yeah, actually, Neil, you kind of summed it up pretty well. I don't have a whole lot more to add, but in essence, what will be done is we’ll be doing a full sandblast of the interior tanks, basically removing all the coatings down to what we call "near white metal" and repainting it. On the exterior, there will be what we call a "sweep blast" and then repainting it. You know, we did talk about "Okay, what are some things... we had some ideas... what can we do to save some money?" And probably the biggest thing that we discussed was the sandblasting itself. Do we basically build a curtain around the tank or do we instead put drop covers on the ground and collect sand that way? It’s about a 150,000 dollar cost difference. And based on the fact that there’s no homes in the nearby area, we’ll put some things there regarding cleanup and winds and what kind of paint we use. We are going to take the approach of, "Let's save 150,000 dollars." There’s some other miscellaneous items, as Neil mentioned—the railing, other things such as gaskets and lighting and things like that—there’s some just things that are just old that will get replaced as well. Timeframe is: we’re looking to get this out to bid in the springtime. Basically, painting is just like you think—it’s got to be done in warmer weather, so really a summer-type project is the goal. Budget-wise, you know, I’m again concerned about bidding, so we did reach out to some contractors to talk about pricing. They’re saying 15 to 18 dollars per square foot—which is still... three dollars is quite a bit, that’s still 20% leeway. Kind of just like the assessment project, we won’t know the numbers until we get them. But basically, all told with the railing Neil mentioned, the blasting, the structural repair, some of these miscellaneous items and the engineering side of this, the anticipated cost ranges between 705 and 822,000 dollars. So that’s the number as we go into bidding that we’ve been discussing with Neil and Dan. So with that, then, what we’re looking for is an approval of the engineering agreement and we’ll start work on preparing the bid documents. [31:21] **Matt Montgomery**: Quick question for you: so this is about... is this a 15 to 20-year project? So this is going to be just every 15 to 20 years, same process? [31:31] **Bill Angerman**: Exactly, yes. Yep. [31:34] **Matt Montgomery**: Okay. Is there... are we in any trouble because we waited a little bit longer on this one, or is 20 years realistic? I mean, Mother Nature, the conditions and everything that it’s in... when you assess it, is it structurally... everything’s good? [31:47] **Bill Angerman**: Yeah, on the interior, generally what we call the interior wet portion where the water is, you generally wait until you need to redo the whole thing. The exterior, you maybe could have done a project in between on the exterior. One of the challenges is you only have one tank, so you have to drain the tank to do that. That’s a fairly big undertaking. So whoever made that previous decision, I can understand that and it makes sense. But otherwise, yeah, 15 to 20 years is pretty common. [32:15] **Council Member Duncan**: What are the... are we going to have any trouble once we drain it as far as service to the city as far as water pressures? [32:23] **Bill Angerman**: Dan, we’ve talked a little bit about that. So in essence, you know, you have a booster station. So in essence, what happens is that booster station runs continuously and you do waste some water during that time because you really need to keep pumps pumping all the time. And if you don’t have enough demand to keep up with it, then that water, in essence, blows off and goes into the storm sewer. But it should—I shouldn’t say should—it *will* work reasonably well, but you will spend some or waste some extra water. [33:10] **Council Member Duncan**: I’m just thinking, you know, the fire protection and stuff. [33:14] **Bill Angerman**: Fire protection should not change. Now, if you have an extended fire, meaning like an all-day type like a natural disaster type fire, you would have less capacity to fight that. But you do have enough capacity with your booster station to fight what I would call a... I don’t think there’s anything called an "average fire," but a normal event. [33:38] **Council Member Duncan**: Thanks. [33:40] **Mayor John Altoff**: Anything else? Hearing none, I would take a motion to proceed with the water tower painting professional service agreement. [33:51] **Matt Montgomery**: So moved. [33:53] **Council Member Duncan**: Second. [33:54] **Mayor John Altoff**: Motion by Montgomery, second by Duncan to proceed with the professional service agreement for the water tower. Any other discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Carried. Okay, Item C is the River Road sanitary sewer extension. Dan, you want that one? [34:25] **Jed "Dan" Petersen (Public Works Director)**: Yeah, I can once again start this out because Bill’s going to have to finish this one too. Just a little history: the need for this feasibility report came about because of a property owner at 1014 River Road unable to sell the property because the septic’s not compliant. So we reached out to WHKS to come up with some ideas so that they could reasonably connect to city services. The idea is to create a demarcation point for the three properties on River Road by installing a manhole, and they would be responsible for the installation of their service lines to that demarcation point going forward. So with that, I’ll give it to Bill; he can explain it more. [35:12] **Bill Angerman**: Once again, I don’t have a lot to add. So as Dan mentioned, that was really the discussion of the Public Works Commission. I thought—and we had the resident was there as well—I thought we had a fairly good discussion. Going back to 2016, you actually had plans and specifications were prepared for a project, and so we re-estimated that project and it would be about 280,000 dollars, of which you would divide between three properties. And really probably "two and a half" because one of the properties is just physically closer. Obviously, an assessment of 280,000 divided by three or even four... it’s just really too high; it’s not practical. So as Dan mentioned, we looked at some different items and really we were kind of coming up with the same problem. And really, as Dan mentioned, that demarcation line... you know, the sanitary sewer shown on one of your figures here—the green line—but in Sinclair Street, really the sanitary sewer was never brought to the south right-of-way line. So we thought if the city could handle that portion of this—really find the sewer, we don’t know exactly where it is because from old plans—and bring that closer to the property, bring it to the property line, that would save about 50,000 dollars off the project. Also, then we would basically leave the water; the other project included extending water main or service. These people would actually stay on their well, and in essence, it would be... we’re punting that down the road. Really, the immediate concern is the sewer. The property owner did express some concerns that their water quality isn’t real good, but I think anything you do from a municipal water perspective could be done cheaper with water filters or softeners. There could be things that could be done on the water supply because really it was a taste and odor and sand issue. So really what we’re solving today, or potentially moving forward with, is the sewer only. But they would then be required to install a grinder pump system—basically a private system that they would pump to this newly extended manhole line that was shown on their exhibit. So really, in essence, then, the public portion of this project becomes real small. Really, that 50,000 would be a public project; the rest of it would be a private expense. Now the two property owners—the two southerly ones—ideally, they would work together. They may choose not to or may not be able to work together, but they would each have that opportunity or they’ll just be installing their own pipe and grinder pump each. I think that’s probably the highlights, but there’s something more we can obviously... we had a longer discussion at the Public Works Commission, so we can go into some other details if the council is interested. [38:10] **Mayor John Altoff**: Just for public information, we’re talking about the three houses that are directly north of City Hall here along River Road up to... was it Sinclair Street? It comes across by Ag Partners there, but that’s what we’re talking about, right? This has been talked about for a long time; it’s time to get it done. [38:28] **Bill Angerman**: So in essence, what we’re asking is if the council concurs with the concept that we would move forward with a smaller project to extend the sewer, approximately 50,000 dollars, and then the property owners would then be on their own to hire their own contractor, install their own, in essence, private sewer pumping system to reach that point. [38:46] **Mayor John Altoff**: Yeah. And what property owners have you talked to? You’ve talked to one or three? [38:52] **Jed "Dan" Petersen**: We’ve only got... it was Katie Stockwidner—Katie Wagner? Katie Stock-Widner. [39:01] **Jon "Neil" Radermacher**: What’s nice about this is they don’t have to hook up, but they will have the ability to hook up. Sooner or later, they’re going to sell their homes, and if they’re on an individual septic system, they cannot sell their home. They’re going to be doing the county road, Sinclair, next year—they’re going to put a milling overlay on it—and so we feel that we should get that street dug up, get that pipe out and get that manhole out of the way so they have the ability to hook it up. They don’t have to, but someday they’re going to sell their home and then they will be hooking up to city sanitary sewer. The one person that was here wants to sell her home, so she’s been looking at that for quite a while. And the other two we don’t know, but it doesn’t really matter; they will have the ability after we put this manhole in to hook up, and someday they will sell their house and they’ll have to, and then it’ll be ready to go. [39:56] **Mayor John Altoff**: Yeah. And I think... doesn't mention that the cost to the individual homeowner would be pretty close to what it would be to put in a septic system anyhow? [40:11] **Bill Angerman**: Yep. Yeah, we estimate it’d be about 15 to 25,000, depending upon if they work together on if they install the pipe together or separately. But you’re right, a mound system is going to be in that same price range. [40:27] **Jon "Neil" Radermacher**: Correct. And the county will not allow it to be replaced now because the septic and the water are too close together. So you can’t do that anymore. [40:37] **Mayor John Altoff**: Right. Any other questions? But this also means we don’t have to dig up the street twice, which is big. We want to get done and out of there before they start their project, the county. Right. And if you remember, I think at the last meeting, we approved all them resolutions to do all the county roads in town. There’s going to be a lot of work going on in... you know, that’s another one, right? What’s another project? Any other questions? If not, I take a motion to approve the feasibility study as provided by Bill and present the option to the property owners. [41:31] **Mary Jill Bringold**: So moved. [41:33] **Council Member Duncan**: Second. [41:34] **Mayor John Altoff**: Motion by Bringold, second by Duncan to approve that motion to accept the feasibility study by Bill and WHKS and present the option of the property owners. Any other discussion? I think so. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Carried. Okay, reports. Kyle. [42:05] **Kyle (Chamber of Commerce Director)**: Good evening Council and community. I want to start out first off by thanking everyone who came to Deck the Falls. The Small Business Saturday, the sleigh rides, Santa’s visit, the parade, the lighting of the tree, and especially the fireworks—the crowd was impressive, to say the least. And so I’m hoping to continue that next year; we’ll just need a few more volunteers and a little more money maybe. But it was a great event, and I want to thank all the volunteers who did help us with that and the people who came in and were in the parade; that’s a big help as well. And so we’re on to Light Up Cannon Falls, and I passed around a sheet to the city council members and employees. We have three activities going on in the month of December. "Light Up Cannon Falls" decorating: if you are a business or home owner, you can let the Chamber know your address and we will be creating a Light Up Cannon Falls tour map that will have the residents' or businesses' locations. And also those same locations will be put into a drawing, and we have over 700 dollars in prizes. And so a simple phone call or an email will get your name in that drawing. "Buy a Local Giving Tree": this is the Chamber’s project of helping families in the Cannon Falls area with children who need help getting them their Christmas presents. We have ten children on the list right now, and I mean, it goes everything from diapers and wipes right on up to toys, clothing, bomber sweatshirts—everything in between. And so we still have six that need to be purchased, so if you’d like to purchase a gift and have it in by December 17th, that would be wonderful. Just stop by the Chamber. "Holiday Scavenger Hunt": that has begun, and we have had... we’ve got four clues out there right now, and Facebook, Instagram, and the webpage are just lighting up. We have contacted or have reached out to 1,300 people, and that is... that’s awesome. That is just awesome. And if I have time, I’d like to read the four clues so that you can get an idea of what we do for clues. Clue number one: Rudolph is supposed to have a red nose, but this reindeer is all white; he should be hiding in the snow, but we don’t have any... shouldn’t have any. Okay, Santa isn’t far away. So that’s clue number one. Clue number two: we have all heard of Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, but where is *Muy Christmas* in Cannon Falls? Muy Christmas. Okay, now all of these items are visible from walking by or driving by, so you don’t have to get into any places. They’re very visible to everyone. Okay, clue number three: the sparkling snowflakes are lining the streets of downtown Cannon Falls; there is one more that isn’t in line, it’s very visible to everyone... [46:27] **Jed "Dan" Petersen**: Is that the one Dan put up? Where is it? [Laughter] [46:31] **Kyle (Chamber Director)**: All right, clue number four, and this one just got out this afternoon—late this afternoon: Cannon Falls has a lot of city parks. Where is the one location that has a list of all the city parks? There you go. Any questions? The scavenger hunt... there is a location sheet; you can get it online or by stopping at the Chamber office. And we do have a 100, a 75, and a 50 dollar prize. And so all the filled-out and completed forms of locations will be used for that drawing. So more fun. Any questions? I’m looking forward to the new year. We don’t have events planned right now for January, February, so it’s a little bit of a breather. Thank you very much. [47:38] **Mayor John Altoff**: Just say the Deck the Falls—that was a good crowd down there for the drawing, and the fireworks were fantastic. [47:49] **Kyle (Chamber Director)**: Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, those fireworks guys do just a wonderful job. And with them being in their off-season... I think they kind of clean the warehouse. [Laughter] [48:07] **Mayor John Altoff**: I think so, which is beneficial to us. [48:10] **Kyle (Chamber Director)**: Yes, it is. Thank you very much. [48:14] **Mayor John Altoff**: Thank you. Okay, Joint Powers Trail Board. Laura? [48:18] **Laura Qualey (Community & Business Development Specialist)**: Not a whole lot. They’re still... they’re trying to get the pit toilets installed; they still haven’t come. And then they’re working on the electronic pay stations. That’s kind of pretty much it, winding down into the winter. [48:38] **Mayor John Altoff**: Okay. EDA. Laura’s not here. Matt, you want to go? That was quite a meeting we had. [48:50] **Matt Montgomery**: Yeah, it was. I was looking through the agenda. We got the final plans have been received for the Keller-Baartman; that should make it to the Planning Commission sometime here in December. And then it was also our strategic planning for 2022, also five-year goals, ten-year goals and beyond. And the largest topic that we had to address is housing. I don’t think that surprises a whole lot of people. But the list... housing takes up almost a full page. And I think that we’re a little out of touch with where our housing was at to where it’s at. We used to say that the average entry-level home is less than or equal to 150,000, and we did some looking around. Right now, what we would consider—what your average person would consider—a starter home, it’s going for about 310 up to 379. You know, one bathroom, three-bedroom, two-car garage, unfinished basement: more than 300 grand. So our ideas of what entry level was versus what it is were completely a little skewed. And then just the... you know, our discussion: what can we do for this community to grow? It wasn’t a negative discussion, but I think it was a very real discussion. And when other members had talked about "We’ve been stagnant for too long," that we have been behind and we’ve got neighbors who are growing at a faster rate than us. So what can we do to get on track to get our housing going, to get more people in the school district? More kids there in school—our class sizes are smaller than they should be for our general population. The census data that we were given for the last 20 years, our population has stayed pretty much the same, but our school-aged children has gone down. So we need to face that problem head-on, try to figure out what... and I don’t want to use the term "affordable housing" because I know that scares the taxpayers and they think that that means that’s a negative. I think "market rate," I think "market value." I mean, when we say "market rate," if your average starter home is 379,000, you know, that’s not really affordable. You’ve already priced yourself out of the market in a lot of places. So I think that we took a big hard look at that. And then also the... if we’re going to grow, where and how? And if that includes annexation, if that includes growth of industrial-wise. But we know that housing is the number... I think we’re honest with ourselves when we say housing is our biggest problem. [51:30] **Mayor John Altoff**: And we formed a housing committee too, so... [51:33] **Matt Montgomery**: Correct. Gonna meet every month and keep pushing it and hopefully we’ll get some shovels digging and taking some dirt for houses in town. [51:41] **Mayor John Altoff**: I believe our housing committee consists of council, EDA, EIC and Chamber? Or we haven’t got... [51:53] **Matt Montgomery**: Okay, where it’s not fully formed, but from different organizations and towns so that we get different perspectives. [52:00] **Mayor John Altoff**: Okay. Public Works. Mary Jill? [52:05] **Mary Jill Bringold**: I guess that’s me. Well, most of what we talked about in council business was Public Works. The only other big thing for me anyways is that the Third Street Bridge is open, being used. It’s going to be a ribbon cutting. We missed Biden though—you know, he was just here last week; we should have had it then. I’m sure President Biden was in Minnesota, I’m sure he would have come. We missed him. I know, I know. But that’s kind of about what we talked about, so it took care of all of us. Thank you. [52:43] **Jon "Neil" Radermacher**: I will mention, I think this is hot off the presses: the dedication of the bridge is going to be next... a week from this Thursday, December 16th, at one o’clock. One o'clock to two. [52:58] **Mayor John Altoff**: I missed the update I guess. Okay, December 16th at one o’clock, the bridge dedication. Yes. Okay, let’s go around. Anybody, staff or anything? Sara? Neil? [53:14] **Jon "Neil" Radermacher**: I just got one thing. At your last council meeting, you had a petition presented to you, and I think some of the facts that were talked about need to be clarified on the Farmers Market. I think it was Sue Petron who was here to talk, and I just wanted to make sure that all the Council knows and the public that that Farmers Market is open down at the parking lot and there’s... you know, when she was talking, "there’s only two vendors down there." Well, it’s open to anybody that wants to come down there. We had sold... issued five vendor permits that were... two of them taken two spots. And then she also talked about charging people under 16—the young gal that was down there selling. No, we don’t charge; it’s right in the application that anybody under 16 we don’t charge. So some of that stuff needs to be clarified. And I’ve got... also, she wanted a contact person that is for that market. And in this packet—you can pass it around, I think there’s enough there—on the second page of the application, it says the on-site market manager is Jody Molley and the phone number is right in there. So I don’t know what she was thinking about when she said there was no contact person; it’s all there. And then all the rules and regulations are all put in the packet and given to all the vendors. The only thing that we had already addressed in her presentation—the only thing that we hadn’t addressed—was they were requesting it to be free. And we charge a hundred dollars. And to me, you know, we’ve got a lot of administrative work, there’s a lot of stuff that goes along with issuing permits. And I know John had a reason why also that... Mayor Altoff had a reason why that these people should pay a fee. So I don’t know if I would touch that. But other than that, we did have that discussion of what can they sell down there. They didn’t want—or you guys did not want—a flea market, you wanted a farmer’s market. Right. So when Sara put the ordinance together, we took the definition of a farmer’s market and put it right in our ordinance. So when she talks about "wants to sell produce, flowers and homemade goods," that’s all part of the deal. So we’re not... the place is open, you have to just get a permit. Children 16 and under are free, and we do have a contact person. Now we’ll probably call her again and see if she wants to be the contact person again, otherwise, we’ll find somebody else, but that is all in the application. [56:19] **Mayor John Altoff**: Yeah, I guess what struck me was it is downtown and we can’t make people go there and sell things either, right? 12 stalls to start and then the overflow was right behind there for six of them? Yeah, it was kind of confusing to me too. [56:45] **Jon "Neil" Radermacher**: So I think... thank you. On the petition, I think everything is... was taken care of already. So I don’t know if you have anything that you would want to further... [56:56] **Mayor John Altoff**: Well, we’ve got it all down. We’ll just bring it up next April or something so everybody’s on the same page. Yeah. Okay. Anything else, Neil? [57:11] **Jon "Neil" Radermacher**: That’ll be it. [57:12] **Mayor John Altoff**: Dan? [57:13] **Jed "Dan" Petersen**: Yeah, just a couple things. The new water main underneath the bridge is connected and energized, so we’re using that now. That route wastewater pump... we’re still waiting on that. It’s sitting on the East Coast and they can’t find a trucker to bring it here, so we’re waiting. [Laughter] [57:51] **Mayor John Altoff**: Bill, anything you want to add tonight? [57:54] **Bill Angerman**: I think I’ve had enough, so nothing additional. Thank you, Mayor. [58:00] **Mayor John Altoff**: Laura, anything? [58:17] **Laura Qualey**: Sure. So I met with Jesse Johnson, the VFW post commander, and he had expressed some interest from some of the other members if we would consider, or what the process would be... if there’s an option, I guess, to rename the Third Street Bridge to something like the "Veterans Wagon Bridge" or something. So I said I would bring it up. I don’t know what the process would be for something like that. I’m ignorant to why it was named the Third Street Bridge—maybe it was just because—or if there was a reason. [58:55] **Mayor John Altoff**: Like I said, it really doesn’t have a name; it’s just the Third Street Bridge. Yeah, it would be a good time to do it, right? I know. And I obviously am realizing now that the ribbon cutting is the 16th, but... so bring it up. So I don’t know what the process would be for that. There’s always a chance for rededication then, you see. You always have another party when it’s not 10 degrees outside. [59:06] **Matt Montgomery**: Just a little question. We’ve got a member of the public who is interested in joining the Park Board. And I know that January is coming up. When I looked at our charter and how members are brought on and not, so that might be something that we’ll have to discuss. There’s a member of the public who’s interested in joining the Park Board and the process of how to get in and what that means for current members and stuff like that. And one of their points that they wanted to talk about was how we can make Cannon Falls a more bike-friendly community, and if those bike paths or streets would be incorporated into the parks—which I think would probably get a little messy, to be honest. But anyway, something to think about for the future. [1:00:10] **Mayor John Altoff**: Yeah, Bill? Oh, yeah. Um, this has been probably an ongoing problem for years in town here is these sandwich boards that get put out all over the place. And Sara, maybe you can help me with this: I believe other than putting it right outside your place of business, that’s the only place you can put them? But I’m not sure. [1:00:26] **Sara Peer (City Clerk)**: I would have to look at the city’s sign code. The sidewalks are public property, so unless there’s something in the sign code that specifically allows them to put those out, they shouldn’t be out. [1:00:39] **Mayor John Altoff**: Right. I personally don’t have a problem with them if it’s right outside their business during business hours. However, if you drive around town, there are now—especially one business person has far too many all over town. And I think we need to get either the police or public works to pick those up and bring them in here, and then if they want them back, fine. And if they do it again, have to cite them and fine them. I noticed seven times the hill on 25 and Main Street—they put signs in that intersection. The county comes and takes them down because they don’t want them there. But that’s just like... but it has been an ongoing issue over the years, so we should really clean that up. Yeah. Okay. Mary Jill? [1:01:21] **Mary Jill Bringold**: No. [1:01:23] **Council Member Gesme**: Steve? [1:01:25] **Council Member Gesme**: I’ll just... thanks for cleaning up some of this stuff. It helps to know right away and then when we can get right down to the paperwork and the facts, that it sure clears things up for everybody involved. But one more thing is, Dan, I saw your boys out there. It looks like they picked up where they left off and seemed to be doing a pretty good job. So that’s all I got. [1:01:54] **Mayor John Altoff**: Okay. Yeah, I was kind of taken aback by the Farmers Market because we never shut down the downtown. I don’t know what... well, yeah, and she said "We want it downtown"—it *is* downtown. It is downtown. Yeah, where... I don’t know. Yeah, must be. We’ll get it clarified for the spring. Yeah, that’ll be fine. Okay, just a couple upcoming meetings. We got Finance meeting at 5:30 on the 13th, we’ve got Planning at 6:30 on the 13th, and Library Board on the 13th also at 6:00. And the Joint Powers Board on the 20... well, that isn’t until January—January 25th. They don’t meet in December. Okay, that being said, welcome Diane to the Planning Commission. Welcome back; you’re going to be a great addition there. Thanks for stepping up there. And with that, I’ll take a motion to adjourn. [1:02:51] **Council Member Duncan**: So moved. [1:02:53] **Matt Montgomery**: Second. [1:02:57] **Mayor John Altoff**: Motion by Duncan, second by Montgomery to adjourn. Any opposition? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Carried. We’ll take a little five-minute break and then we’ll have or get into the work session.