This transcript appears to be from a **White Bear Lake City Council** meeting held in early 2022. Based on the names mentioned in the roll call and the context of the agenda items, I have identified the speakers as: * **Mayor Dan Joing** (Presiding) * **Lindy Crawford** (City Manager) * **Mark Sather** (Secretary of the Charter Commission) * **Paul Kauppi** (Public Works Director/City Engineer – phonetically transcribed as "Mr. Copy") * **Anne Kane** (Community Development Director) * **Council Member Bill Walsh** * **Council Member Kevin Edberg** * **Council Member Bill Jones** * **Council Member Steven Tyrrell** (Note: Though "Strand" was transcribed, the seat was held by Tyrrell/others around this era; however, I will use the names as transcribed/corrected by context). *** **[00:00] Pre-Meeting Chatter:** This last meeting and then i said we'll have to watch it's batteries are getting low because it turned blue right now this is my only communications i can experiment [Music] your kids aren't that old yet but they could probably do it you know oh you need it you need it oh let me see let me see yep yep hold on i bet i got it let's see good morning good morning somebody's morning you're correct let's see mail counts city and we have extra yeah there's there's server and domain that's those are the two things my stuff on the printer well i was on the internet all right okay **[00:46] Mayor Dan Joing:** council members walsh hughes here jones edberg strand here got a full compliment here will everyone join me in the pledge of allegiance **[01:03] All:** i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all **[01:17] Mayor Dan Joing:** all right moving on to item 2a approval of the minutes of the regular city council meeting i had a couple notes it sounds like we have a correction of page four the proper represent representatives for ramsey county league of local government and ramsey county dispatch and policy committee and northeast use and youth and family services were the couple biggies and then i noted one other one in attendance it says that miss kane was here but i believe she was not and sam crosby was so those are the notes that i have does anyone have any other corrections to the minutes if not i'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes do i have i have a motion a second **[01:45] All:** all those in favor aye aye aye any opposed motion carries **[01:52] Mayor Dan Joing:** moving on to two b minutes of the city council work session for january 18 2022 does anybody have any corrections if not i'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes do we have a second **[02:04] Council Member:** second **[02:05] Mayor Dan Joing:** i have a motion a second all those in favor say aye any opposed one abstention **[02:08] Mayor Dan Joing:** all right uh moving on to the adoption of the agenda unless anyone has any additions or deletions to that i'd entertain emotional **[02:18] Council Member Bill Jones:** maybe i have some questions on the consent i'm just kidding when's it gonna end bill **[02:30] Mayor Dan Joing:** all right uh one should be imposed mr mayor well i'm i'm noting it in the back of my mind keeping a score over here bill that's two for bill okay uh counting two weeks ago meeting all right do i have a motion to uh approve the agenda **[02:39] Council Member:** so move **[02:40] Council Member:** second **[02:41] Mayor Dan Joing:** a motion a second all those in favor say aye aye the opposed we have an agenda **[02:44] Mayor Dan Joing:** moving on to item four consent agenda **[02:48] Council Member:** move to approve **[02:50] Council Member:** second **[02:51] All:** second all those in favor say aye aye any opposed **[03:00] Mayor Dan Joing:** all right item five visitors and presentations we have nothing scheduled item six public hearings we have nothing scheduled and item seven unfinished business nothing scheduled so we can jump right into eight new business a uh eight a ordinance first reading amending the city charter and i understand we have a report from our our own mark sather that's going to say a few words about it come on up **[03:08] Mark Sather:** mr mayor members of the council i'm mark sather and i'm here this evening in the capacity as secretary of the charter commission and uh our both our president and vice president or chair and vice chair are not able to attend this evening or they'd be here in my stood but we're here to report on a couple things one is response to a request that we had from the city council that initiated quite a bit of discussion with the charter commission and also just a little bit of an update on a second role that the charter commission plays and that's it serves as the city's redistricting committee and it has specific statutory responsibilities as well as charter responsibilities but first a little bit of background for a mayor and a council mayor has been a member of our charter commission but it is unique in terms of the different commissions that serve the city and that it is not appointed by the mayor and it does not serve in an advisory capacity but in fact its members are appointed by the chief judge of district court for specific terms and there's other standards that have to be met in terms of attendance etc that are set up forth both in our charter as well as the commission's bylaws the first charter commission actually began meeting i believe in about 1920 and that resulted in the adoption of our first version of the home rule charter and it's been amended several times since then but of the 857 cities in the state there's probably about 160 that's a little bit on the low side i'm just estimating of those cities function with a home rule charter and all the others are considered statutory cities and their responsibilities and their authorities are set by state statutes those cities that became home rule charters i'm just going to make sure this doesn't go off our community are cities that decided to play a much stronger role in their own governance so as a home rule city basically the residents of our community adopted a charter and it's often referred to as sort of a lightweight constitution but it sets forth the form of government the responsibility of the mayor the city council terms of office and so forth and as well as two different positions actually three the city attorney the city manager and the city clerk are defined in the charter and it is in that capacity that the charter commission was requested by the city council last year to take a look at a provision that set forth the time in which the city council appoints its chair or vice chair excuse me and it was recommended that rather than the current provision that calls for electing the council's chairman i shouldn't say i i was thinking vice mayor but the council chair at the first meeting in january following the municipal election be reconsidered and actually have that set for the a year thereafter so that the the the proposal that was brought to the charter commission suggested that the council may be better prepared to perform that function if there had been for example a larger turnover in the council during that time so they become more familiar the charter commission not only discussed that request but did some research in terms of other home rule cities of comparable size and found that there is no clear trend there's those position that position is called a vice mayor in some places an assistant uh mayor and others and then there's a few that call for a council chair and yet when and how they're appointed sometimes the charter is pretty much silent it just says the city council shall appoint a person in that capacity and it doesn't even set a term and so we thought there's not a lot of guidance in that direction and then it was at that point that uh the commission started to develop a consensus that kind of goes along with that old adage that if it ain't broke don't fix it and they just said this has been going on for quite a while they we imagined a few different scenarios and that would be that if there had been a council that was considered not responsible excuse me not responsive to the general public and they at a time when there's maybe two new council members selected and they want to have a greater influence on it there would be an opportunity then for that to begin rather than wait a whole year others felt that uh that the old theory behind bureaucracy is that things shouldn't happen that fast maybe if people are upset they're ought to have time to take a deep breath but after all of that discussion it was the decision to recommend no change in that other than during that we found during that debate and review of our charter we found again a few pesky excuse me heirs and that for instance there was it wasn't that long ago the city council used to have elections every year and council members and the mayor were elected for three-year terms so at one year there would be two council members up next year two council members in the following year the mayor and the remaining council member and so we were having elections annually and at that point they were actually even held in march and the argument that a lot of that was left over i think from the old township days when township elections were still done during that time and there was a strong argument that was made by some council members that that was a better time because it allowed the election of the city council to be held at a time when there was more focus on that and it didn't get lost way down the ballot so during a time when perhaps there's a presidential election statewide election and so forth that uh the council become it gets way down there so when local issues are discussed they're not taken as as important there were others that argued that that was sort of the ultimate incumbent advantage because it was extremely difficult to go out and and in minnesota and think about going out and door knocking on a night like this or even some council members said it's really even hard to pound in rerod to put your campaign signs out in frozen ground so that went around for a while and then suddenly there was a shift on the council and they said let's let's do a change they sent it to the charter commission chariot commission thought it was a good idea brought it forward and that changed however it took a long time to go from we had to extend uh the law does not provide for shortening someone who was elected their term so we had to extend some of the terms to kind of get into that two-year cycle and that was done and yet in doing that everybody thought they had the eyes dot and t's cross but we overlooked some references to the annual election so um you know we then there were some attempts to correct those and then others just said well we're not going to bother reprinting a new charter just to to correct some of those things so when we were at this we said let's get them done and there was also a big attempt at one time to remove any gender specific terms out of the charter so we got rid of a lot of he's you know council member he shell the mayor he shall the city manager he shall and so forth those were all pretty much out but a couple of our members identified another term in there that was called foreman and it comes under the definition or the the responsibilities for appointing the official newspaper and we weren't really sure what that meant that term because it says the publisher or the foreman we checked with the local newspaper and they said they hadn't really heard from it or heard of it and they did a research and said you know nobody really can remember that it must be really old so our recommendation i'll get into that really quick here uh but that removes that plus we found some specific references to state statutes which makes a lot of sense so we adopt even though we wanted to be independent as a city with a home rule charter that made sense and in some cases you really have the responsibility to follow state statutes also you can't be totally independent and so election laws is one example so in some cases we said the election shall be conducted according to this in some cases when we do things it's called adoption by reference that it was specific to a chapter section and subsection and a lot of times the legislature will renumber things to make sense and might delete some of those sections so we said if that happens we could have confusion in the future so unless it's pertinent let's get rid of that so we have some of those in there you have a draft a resolution from the charter commission as well as a draft ordinance that follows that identically and it shows highlighted what those changes are but i'd be happy to go through all those but i think they're pretty self-explanatory so the the changes fall into those three categories and um they're just kind of technical corrections there's nothing there that really changes uh the the city charter from a pertinent standpoint so just another really quick background on it is the charter can be amended in four ways and three of them actually differ only in how they're initiated but they all require a referendum and usually that is done the council can set that date but more often than not that's done in conjunction with a local election and so you see that in cities uh minneapolis has been uh in the news quite a bit for that and uh that's how it would happen here now uh one one method is that the amendment is initiated by the city council and they would then refer to the charter commission but regardless of the charter commission it's kind of a meet and confer but they don't have to have their consent and that goes on to the to a referendum of the people the next one would be that the charter commission itself can initiate a change and if the uh if the council goes along with that there's a shortcut and if not then the charter commission can bring uh an initiative to the council and the council is bound to put that on the referendum and there's a third one where uh with a significa a sufficient number of signatures on a petition the public can initiate a change and again there's certain things that the council must do to do that they have to agree to the wording of the question on the ballot and and that's actually provided for in the charter but then scheduling the election and and so forth and then finally just to streamline things several years ago there was a fourth method and that is what we've used for the last several amendments into the charter and that's what we're recommending tonight and that's where it's done by ordinance and the procedure then that would be followed i think is pretty well covered in your city manager's memorandum but it starts like this where the city charter commission presents a proposal to the council the council then would adopt it or not adopt it by ordinance and if it's adopted by ordinance then there's uh not a real lengthy but there's a remonstrance period where the individual the public can bring up uh petition in opposition to that change and then it switches over to putting it on the ballot uh but the council has to first hold a public hearing and has the opportunity to change it or somehow deal with the questions that come up and and then after i believe the 60-day waiting period then it would take effect and but it has to be unanimous so what we're recommending tonight is that you take a close look at this because one council member in a sense has veto authority over that but then if it goes back it's then considered rejected by the city council then goes back to the charter commission and then the charter commission can switch over to one of those other methods and put it on the ballot and kind of go around the council's wishes on that but these especially this one is a really good example of how that can be done and how it streamlines it and you know it's not going to have a lot of interest anyway so that's what we're recommending i'd be happy to go through or respond to any questions you have we will have somebody here most likely just to be here if there's questions at the second reading and but that's what i have on that and then mr mayor if there's respond to any questions now if not i'd like to update you on our role as the redistricting committee **[11:08] Mayor Dan Joing:** thank you mr sather does council have any questions specific to the proposed amendment to the charter **[11:13] Council Member Bill Jones:** i do i'm being technical because this is being technical mr sather and thank you for your time and service um just you referred to it caught my eye you're adding general election in section 4.04 municipal general election around the top of section 2.02 it just says municipal elections and then further in section 404 it just says the general election without municipal and then at section 4.1 3 it also it does res its generals being added back in their municipal general election so it's just being technical but if you're going to make the changes they seem like they should all be the same and the question would be is there a reason at the last sentence of section 404 may or vacancy of office that municipal isn't included in the general election or it's just one of those things that is missed **[12:00] Mark Sather:** mr mayor council member jones we focused on the text rather than some of the titles perhaps so that's a good catch but uh generally the the main change was we had the the elections were we wanted to purge any references to an annual election and then we found different definitions of the election so municipal election and so forth general election is a term that's used under um you'll see actually on the section 202 where it refers to chapter 205. now we used to be more specific because we had 205.00 and that actually has changed since that was originally in there so by putting in chapter 205 that is still that section of the statute that deals with municipal or local elections but they are called general elections and uh the distinction there is there could be a primary election uh there could be a special election set up by the council and so when we're saying following the the you know the municipal election well what does that mean it could have been any of the three above so we put the general election which is defined in the statutes so it just seems the term the municipal almost seems redundant to me and i don't but if it goes back through the whole thing and we got to go through this yeah it's technical like no i mean you haven't you have a general election in 2022 but not a municipal election in 22 and we have a meeting in january 23. does the city follow somebody else's i don't i don't care i really don't it just seems odd that it's not in one place and it is in another that's all **[12:47] City Attorney:** it sounds like our city attorney can shed some light on that please do well thank you mr mayor council just quickly uh just a brief comment i think yes good catch and i would recommend using municipal general election consistently throughout because uh yeah as as the speaker indicated in chapter 205 that is how it was referred to right so that's it thank you sorry to make that longer **[13:03] Mark Sather:** any other questions for mr sather on this **[13:07] Council Member Kevin Edberg:** uh councilman edward thank you mr mayor uh mr sather i know that you have now taken one of your charges off the table in terms of consideration of other changes is there any other agenda items that remain active in the charter commission in terms of other forthcoming future amendments to the charter i don't need a description or that i'm just curious if so **[13:21] Mark Sather:** go to the short version during the discussion on how specific the references to statutory sections for those where we have recommended changes we discussed the fact that again on the basis that the charter the homeworld charter should reflect the values of the community to to to determine its own um priorities uh procedures and so forth there were sections examples that we were using where the legislature could make a change that in fact impacts something more significant than the definition of an election and one was financing so we did look at chapter i'd have to go back there's a section that talks about certificates of indebtedness and it does specifically point to a a statutory section down to you know sub-division whatever and uh somebody says we changed that and then as we looked at we thought well no because that's pretty specific right now and if they changed that but there's some thought that the when the charter was first adopted for instance for having uh for issuing bonds that there's there's about seven different authorities under which the council can issue bonds so when you're issuing utility bonds you're gonna you're actually pledging the revenues of the water utility or the sewer special assessment bonds are you know that's if there's a project where you're assessing at least 20 percent then you don't have to you know deal with anything separately but on building bonds so the council either has or is in the process of issuing bonds right now and it's under a section of the statutes that didn't exist at the time the charter was adopted and didn't exist up until that long ago i'd have to go back and look but for instance when this building was built the city council issued general obligation municipal building bonds and it had to have a referendum for it much like the school district had to have a referendum to issue recently to issue all the building bonds so there was some discussion should should we take a look at that have there been changes in our adoption by reference that really have the term inadvertent isn't correct but was it did we acknowledge that as a community is that a good idea or not because at one time the uh to issue those bonds you had to have a referendum and then as i say there's so many different things when we issued the bill first built the the sports center um the city used there were like two cities in the metropolitan area other than minneapolis and st paul that could issue bonds as port authorities and we were one of them so we issued port authority bonds and i don't have enough time tonight to explain how all that is and where's the port kind of thing as people said but there was a lot of issues at that point and the council felt that there was a way of in a sense getting the council or i mean the public's involvement in that but also being able to expedite the purchase of that building because it was it was here's an opportunity to get it get it at a good price and so forth they went ahead and [Music] so but there they were pledging revenues from other municipalities as well as revenue from the sports center itself where if you build a city hall you really aren't doing that for instance so that would that was discussed at our last meeting only when we were looking at that one section pertaining to certificates of indebtedness and i there is no initiative at this point but going back to your question that's the only other thing that's been discussed in terms of amendments **[17:35] Council Member Kevin Edberg:** thank you **[17:36] Mark Sather:** thank you **[17:41] Mayor Dan Joing:** mr saylor why don't we move on to uh your a brief report on redistricting **[17:54] Mark Sather:** yeah i'll try to move this quicker but chapter 3 of the charter establishes specific responsibility for redistricting or in other words modifying ward boundaries to it assigns that to the charter commission and feel free to read that it's pretty self-explanatory but basically we have five wards and if you take the uh take the revised population estimate just short of 25 000. you it comes to 4 981 persons per ward would would divide it equally among the five wards which is what the charter calls for as well as state statutes and if we go back and take a look at the current population of the ward boundaries as they are it varies from um let's see if i can look at this real quick one extreme is it's it has 122 persons more than the average and one has a 115 less but plus or minus less than two and a half percent per ward so the question then came up to the commission it's defined both in the city charter which says as equally as possible as nearly as possible and the state statute says as close as practicable and we're vast for the services of the city attorney to help us define that because we haven't been able to find it defined in the statutes yet and we've worked with the secretary of states in the league of cities and nobody's really quite aware of that so we've had opinions from some people outside of our charter commission outside of the city that said i think you have some discretion on that and from a practical standpoint we talked about these population estimates were done effective april 1st uh 20 or almost two years ago and since then the council has approved and we've had new housing developments with as many as a hundred and some units constructed which could like in ward five two major apartment buildings have been added that may not well one probably wasn't counted at all and one was maybe only partially the waters was probably only partially counted at that time as it was filling up so it's a it's a snapshot in time that as of april this is it but these figures are already probably off a little bit so he said how much time do you spend moving boundaries around and perhaps adding to the workload of a variety of people because there's procedures in there where you have to notify people if they've been moved to different wards you have to go around and work with perhaps even finding a different polling place and so there's a certain advantage of if you can keep it the minimum change in it might be the best and um so the charter commission really hasn't gotten in real deep in that kind of policy decision yet other than we're just gathering information now the problem is the city cannot and the charter commission on behalf of the city cannot really get going on its work seriously until the congressional and the state legislative districts are set and they're both before a five-judge panel right now because the legislature couldn't agree on it and that's the way it's been for the last several decades and so now that they have to have their work done by february 15th and then that would be brought out so we could look and see how that impacts the city an example is before this last decade the city was basically in one senatorial district and so we had only one senate seat that we had and then it was divided among two legislative seats then they basically cut the city in half so everything give or mine give or take a few blocks in certain areas south of cedar is in one senate district north of cedar is in another and there's five proposals that are currently under consideration by this ledger panel of judges and so we're waiting to see now here's the problem once that's done we would normally have 60 days from that time which is pretty comfortable except that's so if it's done by december by february 15th we'd have until like april 15 to get it done and but there's another provision that says it has to be done 19 weeks before the state general or the state primary election and i'm not sure i'd have to go back and see if that was written before they changed the primary election dates or what but so now that means we have to have it done by march 29th so we're really looking at 45 days and even if the the charter commission had done most of his work but then depending on where the lines are drawn has to modify it we could probably come to you with a tentative plan relatively quick actually we come to the city clerk with that plan and then there's some procedures how that goes through but then the council once we agree on a plan there has to be a public hearing uh held by the charter committee or the redistricting division and uh to which the mayor and the council are invited and um so you can see how this is much different than your other boards and commissions and um there's even some stuff that's almost humorous uh in terms of the responsibility that it puts on the charter or the city council to act once the commission has come up with its recommendations and failure to do it under the charter says it takes effect even without the council under the statute that says that the mayor and the council shall not be paid until it's done so we'd argue that the uh that the charter prevails there but uh let's just get it done so the the problem is then it also says that it's done by ordinance and typically it takes 30 days to get an ordinance through the city if it follows its normal procedure sometimes even longer there's a provision for an emergency ordinance and yet i'm not sure that this was the intent of that provision for emergency ordinances but maybe that could be made so stay tuned uh we're going to be working and we're going to try to step up the our schedule so that as soon as we get in in two weeks two and a half weeks when that state report comes out if that's timely then we can get down going pretty quick but it might take another opinion from the from the city attorney for instance and a determination for the council is would it be an appropriate use of the emergency ordinance provision or another way and we haven't really studied this completely but could approval of the plan even before the charter isn't done or the ordinance is affected could would that be enough because there's another provision that says that the ordinance takes effect almost the day before the next primary election which puts it in a whole other thing so it's complicated and but that's what we're up to and uh again we'd like to as much as possible think about the voters and the access to good accessible buildings and you know making it clear so if people are used to i live in the third ward been here for 40 35 years or something we've always voted at sunrise junior high and if somebody said well you get out and now go over to lake ayers or something because you're on the wrong side of mcknight you know i'll figure it out but there's other people who might find that more difficult and so in some cities i'm sure it's important because there there might be different populations that feel that being disenfranchised by what we often refer to as gerrymandering but here it's just how how close is close enough so **[17:41] Mayor Dan Joing:** all right well thank you mr sather i appreciate the report on redistricting and i want to thank you and the rest of the members of the city charter for your good work and we look forward to seeing how things shape out all right thank you **[17:54] Mark Sather:** thank you all right **[18:13] Mayor Dan Joing:** well that being the first reading i believe we don't require anything else we can move on to item 8b resolution accepting feasibility report and ordering public hearing for the 2022 south shore boulevard sanitary sewer extension project mr copy **[18:24] Paul Kauppi:** thank you mayor members of the council so tonight we have before you a unique opportunity to extend sanitary sewer to an area that currently does not have if you look at the graphic up on the screen the large red arrow points to one of the areas that was identified in the city's last comprehensive plan currently we have about 20 uh parcels within the city of whitebear lake that that do not have municipal sanitary sewer this being the largest remaining with 13 lots again kind of taking out half of what we have left of private septic systems we already have two or three that are failing in that area um that we've allowed to remain on knowing this project is coming along so that we can get those homes hooked up to that sanitary sewer so this is the specific area uniquely enough we are doing this in a joint project with ramsey county and uh whitebeard township as part of the lake links trail along south shore boulevard from whitebear avenue to east county line so those are the 13 parcels that are currently not on municipal sanitary sewer in that area going on so we need to extend about 750 feet of sanitary sewer main we would extend services to each of those 13 parcels with an approximate cost of 100 little over 166 thousand dollars so tonight what we would present before the council is a feasibility study that was done that shows that this project is cost effective necessary and feasible to extend sanitary sewer to these parcels we're having an independent appraiser look at the parcels and the benefit that it provides to justify the final assessments to those properties so we will look at how those actual assessments are spread out once we get that report back and look at what we can justifiably assess those parcels so tonight we would ask that council accept the feasibility study and order a public hearing which is the next step in the chapter 429 process where it allows the affected parcels to voice their opinion on the project and any concerns they might have so with that in front of you we would recommend adoption of the uh attached resolution **[19:51] Mayor Dan Joing:** thank you mr copy counsel any questions **[19:53] Council Member Kevin Edberg:** if not i i do i'm sorry oh i'm sorry i didn't see you no i was very high on it uh thank you mr mr crowd we uh is my understanding that water is also not provided to these residents but it comes they would get theirs from township **[20:06] Paul Kauppi:** so the water is good question we've covered this under a previous discussion on this topic water has traditionally to these homes been provided by the township what we propose under this project is we are actually going to install just a short little interconnect and take that segment over and those residents would now be provided water from the city of weber lake **[20:25] Council Member Kevin Edberg:** thank you **[20:27] Mayor Dan Joing:** are there any other questions **[20:28] Council Member:** move approval **[20:29] Council Member:** motion **[20:30] Council Member:** second **[20:31] Mayor Dan Joing:** any further discussion if not all those in favor say aye any opposed motion carries resolution is passed **[20:41] Mayor Dan Joing:** moving on to b item 8 c resolution authorizing a contract with lisc cdi for the county road e corridor vitalis revitalization study miss kane is issue or who's taking this **[20:51] Lindy Crawford:** it is indeed **[20:53] Anne Kane:** i'll vamp a little bit so you can get your slides pulled up go ahead thank you mayor members of the council the county road e corridor has been long been on the priority list of the city council and city staff over the years as it's gone through a variety of ebbs and flows and it's it's a unique corridor in the city of white bear lake that it's highlighted mostly by residential with small commercial nodes at white bear avenue you know the fire station at mcknight and bel air as i think most the community is aware of the the dated designs of those former gas station facilities that no longer meet current uh market demand and so it went back through some of our our planning efforts i saw lots of outreach efforts and meetings were held with stakeholders back in 2016. at that same time the city was provided the opportunity to acquire the northeast corner of ian bel air which was put the city at a spot at the table for the future redevelopment of those four corners and um let's see as well as extended the downtown or the revolving loan grant program that had been established for approximately 25 20 25 years in the downtown area a new program was established in 2017 to focus public financing options to encourage a private investment within the county road e corridor council member edberg did ask in advance at tonight's meeting to understand this scope of the revolving loan and grant program that has been established for county road e there have been three projects to date that have leveraged this program i believe it was a marketing facility a conversion of the former sunrise insurance building that's on the top photograph here into general office as well as the middle photo here that some of you may not recognize as the former feffer property which will soon be bean and co coffee shop ice cream and creperie i think we've accomplished at least two of the most frequently cited desires of the neighbors of in that neighborhood and the crepes are just icing on the cake in addition council member ed berg also wanted to know and noted that in the application that was commit completed for the grant program that i'll be getting to for this uh request um we had projected a staff analyzed or projected that the value of the barnum was approximately 30 million dollars previously it was for five residential lots with four homes on it had a market value of eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars before the 192 unit apartment building was constructed by shaffer richardson and happy to report to the council tonight that it's actually increased in market value to 41 million dollars that was without any public assistance those are market rate apartments i think you've all read in the local media about the housing crisis how strong the market rate rental product is and i'm i think this kind of demonstrates that um strongly for the council um so based on that that history and the knowledge of wanting to spur greater private investment in the corridor um ramsey county actually created a pilot program back in 2019 with the establishment of a broader community development department there at the county and it was the goal the goal of the program was to revive important corridors that were located throughout ramsey county eligible uses would include planning efforts land use analysis small area or area-wide initiatives feasibility studies and infrastructure planning and conceptual designs potentially for some opportunity sites to be eligible corridors either had to be multi-jurisdictional and as you can see in this map there are three primary municipalities that county road e really serves as a vital corridor through badness heights gem lake in the city of white bear lake it had to include low income or include low income census tracts at the time it did but following some american community survey in 2019 we no longer have in the city of white bear lake low income census tracts along this corridor and again the corridor needed to have a long be located along existing or planned transit routes and so you'll see in the narrative that there was a lot of reference to rush line and the desire to strengthen that east-west service along the county road e corridor in light of this pilot program city staff reached out to staff at madness heights and to explore a joint application back in 2019 it seems like eons ago and in 20 january of 2020 pre-pandemic the city was awarded a 50 match of 25 000 and with white bear lake and madness heights splitting the remaining 25 thousand dollars at a 16 000 rate for white fair lake and 9 000 for vadna sites and that really reflects kind of the land area of in the study area allocated or represented by each municipality there is one other municipality as the council is well aware gem lake we met with their mayor their previous mayor who's no longer in office um and he indicated support for the project but wasn't sure about the financial contribution due to the fact that gem lake had recently done a pretty comprehensive land use analysis of their three corners that surround highway 61 and county road e intersection and i do have a map of that at the end but i can also touch on there is a provision or an add-on in the contract should gem lake want to take on a little bit more detailed analysis of their opportunity sites that they could pay a separate fee above and beyond so that their contribution would be six thousand dollars if they wanted to focus on something that is beyond the scope of the actual proposal that is being presented this evening so in light of being awarded matching grant funds we did secure a proposal from local initiative corporation of twin cities who has deep extensive experience in leading communities through similar efforts focused on their corridor development initiative in fact they did one for the city of fridley years ago and i was able to sit on the technical committee and talk about how white bear lake was able to achieve the nice corridor improvements along highway 61. so it's kind of a give and take and sharing of knowledge and experience and how cities were successful in projects that other communities might want to learn from that same experience again the scope is just to understand what the private market really you know drives it for the financial land use design considerations how to leverage some of the community goals and visions for this corridor through and then through both public and private shared investment and then an attempt to build consensus to guide future developments on these opportunity sites build upon a little bit more detail than what was done for the 2040 comprehensive plan where some of these opportunity sites were identified along this corridor [Applause] the proposal is really to create two advisory teams one comprised of elected officials staff policy makers some key stakeholders in the communities from the schools perhaps park district representatives to help identify the goals and objectives outreach with community outreach to special groups that sometimes may be underrepresented in such planning efforts and then reach agreement on final recommendations for the council's consideration there would also be a citizens excuse me advisory group this was very important in the ramsey county application process to make sure that underrepresented groups were given an opportunity to be at the table and as we do you know as i mentioned we did have a low income housing census tract in this location we have many schools we've got a you know high proportion free and reduced lunch elementary school in this corridor we also have transitional housing for those formerly without um homes um in this corridor so i think there's a there's a lot of opportunities there's lots of places of worship in this corridor to do some creative outreach to really make sure the voices of our community are heard and finally just the timeline for this project will be completed hopefully we would really like to see it completed uh this year and the proposal has a number of outreach sessions hopefully that we can continue to hold conduct in-person meetings that was one reason why it was kind of placed on hold during the pandemic is that face-to-face in-person meetings are really critical to the success of these projects and you can see the timeline here with tasks assigned to first and second quarter for recruitment of folks and residents wanting to serve on those two guiding committees some workshop sessions on the corridor development initiative and finally a final report back to this council at the end of the year another couple key points i want to folk point out um as again council member edberg noted that ramsey county terminates at century avenue which is part of our eastern boundary but there are two large tracks or neighborhoods both the wildwood shopping center and a residential neighborhood to the north that are actually located in the city of white bear lake but situated in washington county so while the map and the graphic that i just showed previously of the corridor area did not include these two areas there would be intentional outreach to businesses and residents in these areas east of uh century avenue to ensure that full representation of our community would be given opportunity to sit on any of those recommending steering committees and then i think and then finally tonight's recommendation i do want to note that twenty thousand dollars was allocated in both the 2020 budget as well as again in the 2022 budget adopted by the council in december so we have adequate funding for the for the city's share as well as any incidental such as specific direct mailings advertisements or efforts to really perhaps providing snacks daycare to support those who may not otherwise be able to attend some of these public meetings and with that a staff is asking for the council to adopt the resolution accepting the funds from ramsey county and authorizing the city manager to enter into relevant contracts including the ramsey county grant agreement and the project contract with lisk of the twin cities um in an amount not to exceed fifty thousand dollars then there would be sub agreements with um vendors heights to ensure their share and proportion um uh contributing their share of that fifty 000. **[26:39] Mayor Dan Joing:** thank you ms kane council any questions or discussion **[26:42] Council Member Kevin Edberg:** council member edberg thank you mr mayor and i want to compliment staff um i did ask a series of questions pretty much all have been addressed thank you very much appreciate it tracy i have tracy schimick our housing and economic development coordinator to thank for that well thank you very much city manager thank you for ensuring um the one item i that i do want to address uh one of my priorities is the corner of in the corners of ian bellaire and i'm curious if there is a particular portion of this work that will equip us with particular pieces of information or particular processes that will inform efforts in 2022 moving into 2023 for options and development on that corner could you speak to that please **[27:26] Anne Kane:** yes uh thank you mayor council member edward great question and i'm sorry i didn't focus on that but one of the the outline of the proposal does include a workshop specifically focused on the four corners at e in bel air and that's a workshop session session exploring redevelopment scenarios using a block exercise and so as as the council and the community may know we you know we debate this building height density um what what the community perceives as a desirable land use versus what the market perceives as a financially feasible project or what the bank industry will support and so um this is one of the specialties of lisc and their com corridor development initiative is to have stakeholders in the community kind of sit in the role of a council and make some of the decisions like oh so you don't want a three-story building there okay you want just two stories well then you're going to have to put some tiff in or this is the development that may happen or may not happen um so very specifically that has been a driving force in our conversations both madness heights has their own opportunity site at the northeast quadrant of 35e and county road e is really where they want to focus some of their energies and then this intersection has been probably you know just given the long history and the vacant sites and the condition of those properties as well as the city being one quarter owner of them um the top priority and focus of of where we wanted to put our energies and theoretically we could all in german go have coffee ice cream and or crepes after that absolutely fine **[28:11] Mayor Dan Joing:** council if not it would entertain a motion to move the resolution **[28:13] Council Member:** i have a motion **[28:14] Council Member:** a second **[28:15] Mayor Dan Joing:** any further discussion if not all those in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries the resolution passes **[28:23] Mayor Dan Joing:** uh moving on to agenda item 8d resolution establishing the city's 2020 legislative priorities ms crawford **[28:30] Lindy Crawford:** thank you mayor the city council held a work session on january 18th discussing the 2021 legislative priority agenda and narrowed that down by consensus instead of eight priorities to three not necessarily stating that the other five are not important but that these three would take top priority for 2022 with those three one was adjusted to identify 50 percent of funding needed to proceed with the public safety building project rather than 35 percent from the legislature so i wanted to although you haven't formally adopted them staff has moved forward with a 50 percent request to the legislature we've heard back from a couple legislators on that and i do believe the bill is in queue for that so tonight we have a resolution in front of you for to adopt your 2022 legislative priorities with the top three in not no particular order increase the deputy deputy register filing fees that reimburse office offices for cost to provide customer service identify 50 percent of funding needed to proceed with the public safety building project and seek legislative relief for cities impacted by district court's order for residential watering ban and that'll stand for questions **[29:18] Mayor Dan Joing:** any questions for ms crawford i'll just add that and i want to compliment the council i thought we had a good discussion last week and i think it's it's ultimately a good thing to to whittle down the list a little bit to three key priorities for us and i like the direction that we're headed and with that if anyone has anything else to add or unless anyone else has anything **[29:43] Council Member Bill Walsh:** cultural thank you mr mayor i agree i mean i'm really happy with the the focus you know because there's a lot going on on there so if we can focus our request i think it helps and i'm really just i'm really glad we're doing a legislative agenda i think we ought to communicate more and i'll move passage of the resolution of the we want a resolution right when you have a yeah resolution um and just just say when you need us let us know i mean i i think councilmember hughes brought up at the work session you know involve us in you know if we got to get testify if we should make personal calls legislators let us know how we can help because i think that'll be effective thank you so i'm of approval of the resolution **[30:17] Mayor Dan Joing:** i have a motion do i have a second second motion a second any further discussion if not all those in favor say aye all right any opposed hey and motion carries resolution is adopted **[30:30] Mayor Dan Joing:** uh we have item nine nothing scheduled under that and uh item ten communication from the city manager ms crawford **[30:34] Lindy Crawford:** thank you mayor uh in front of you i did pass out a city meeting dates for 2022 on the back side of that our tentative work session schedule i had noted that i would send this out to the city council after the previous work session figured i would bring it here instead so the items that are in black text are what we have set um the item in red for may is a tentative work session based on so it's the housing task force recommendations land use application process and hra i it would be nice to have that sooner but i would like to fill a soon-to-be vacant position and have that person on board for those discussions so i just wanted to let you know this is what we're looking at the the dates that are vacant i don't have anything scheduled at this point so seeking some any feedback you have obviously things can change so if we have nothing scheduled right now it's safe to assume we won't have a work session but things may come up as we go along so not looking i'm just looking for feedback nothing to move at this point and that is all i have **[31:54] Mayor Dan Joing:** sticking with the kind of opposite this mayor i'm sorry go ahead with the opposite tuesdays yes **[32:14] Lindy Crawford:** yes so the meeting dates is what the city council approved at the first january meeting and that called out potential work sessions for the third tuesday of the month and to my understanding that was consistent with previous practice **[32:25] Mayor Dan Joing:** do we like that previous practice it's a strain i know for everybody i mean i don't particularly enjoy the last week of the month because i always have palamo and this meeting in the same week along with something else but i'd rather do that and have the ability to have open weeks i don't know how the rest of the council feels on that though and i realize staff bringing them in this is just one more time to talk about saying would those study sessions be good on the same thursday of a council member council meeting week for scheduling other things in your life but i'm not hung up on it by anyways i'm just bringing it up as a point of reference if there's no further conversation i'm fine i'm certainly open to to going with what the council wants to do i kind of like the idea of having a week that is kind of city business so you can plan other personal things around that so i'm certainly open to a thursday night work session on on the same week corresponding with city council meetings does anyone else on the council have an opinion on that **[33:28] Council Member Bill Walsh:** councilman walsh well thank you mr mayor i'm i said i was flexible at the work sessions and i am because i don't it really doesn't matter to me but thursdays are bad for just a little bit longer i just drew a little bit longer but after i just threw out thursdays as an example it could be wednesday yeah only a few more weeks for thursdays then i'll be open all summer and fall and until october or november again but but yeah i'm totally my schedule's the easier i think than some of you guys to travel for work and whatnot **[33:38] Council Member Kevin Edberg:** councilman edberg mayor so um i'm amenable to i'm amenable to the to the option that's in front of us my suggestion is that as we identify specific topics for approximately which months that we and that we give staff an opportunity to propose dates a month or two in advance and saying here's the topic and when would the council be you know in march or april may whatever to be saying so do you want to meet on a tuesday on the third tuesday do i want to meet on something else and and just be slightly more flexible than having a calendar right now and we can use this as default but you know just be thinking of several weeks in advance and give us some options in case other stuff is going on **[33:51] Mayor Dan Joing:** i'm certainly open to that so if i'm if i'm hearing you correctly councilman edberg it's it's much more of a fluid situation we're gonna it's more ad hoc and not so so rigid with a we know it's going to be that much i mean the subjects are there you know so i want to do two things i want to affirm the city manager is trying to gather information inform us engage us in conversation we can't do our jobs without that information staff can't do their jobs without our feedback so we we got to get we got to get ourselves on the same page i totally get that there is a desire for some regularity some consistency and preparation and that i don't think it's that the council should always impose make imposition on the lives of staff either it's like that's not that's not completely fair either so let's let's have a conversation and try and sort it out and be as modestly flexible as we can and if we do that well enough in advance it may not be may not be too god-awful so let me propose this in in that spirit we we have february 15th should we just simply leave that as unscheduled for now and we'll try your theory and we'll see in the next week or two if there's a a topic that comes up that that staff wants to recommend we get together we can we'll test it out in the month of february to see if there is a date that's amenable to everybody and and go from there how does that sound **[33:57] Council Member:** sure **[33:58] Mayor Dan Joing:** okay anyone else on the council have any opposition to that do we like that idea good okay all right anything else for ms crawford **[33:59] Lindy Crawford:** may i suggest that we schedule tonight the april august and october work sessions because those are our standing work sessions for budgets and they are important if we could schedule those tonight if you have your calendars that would be helpful **[34:11] Mayor Dan Joing:** i'm fine with that so that would be april 19th um i'm sorry what were the other two **[34:14] Lindy Crawford:** august 16th and october 18th **[34:16] Mayor Dan Joing:** i think i can make those work can others yes it works for me april and august i think but i don't know what october and yet we'll maybe play the may one by ear if that's okay okay okay thank you okay **[34:30] Mayor Dan Joing:** anything else ms crawford no all right with that there being nothing else on the agenda i'll entertain a motion to adjourn **[34:36] All:** all those in favor say aye aye **[34:40] Mayor Dan Joing:** we're adjourned that's it you