[1:09] Mayor McCloskey: Okay. Right. Yes, I'm coming back. Don't worry. She did come back. Good evening. I'm going to call the meeting of March 10th, 2026 to order. Clerk, please do a roll call. Will be noted. Before we proceed, I'd like to ask everyone to join me in a moment of silence to honor Master Sergeant Nicole Amore. She was more than a soldier in uniform. She was a daughter, a wife, a mother, and a friend. We remember her courage, her sacrifice, and her ultimate price she paid for our country. Today, we stand with heavy hearts and deep gratitude. Please join me in a moment of silence to honor Master Sergeant Amore and to support her family. [2:16] Mayor McCloskey: Thank you. Please join me in 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. [2:41] Mayor McCloskey: All right, welcome everybody and uh people on TV uh welcome to you as well. Um, item 2A, approval of the minutes. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes of February 24th, 2026? And we've got a second. All in favor? [2:59] Council Members: I. [3:01] Mayor McCloskey: Any opposed? Okay, the minutes approve. Um, do I have a motion to approve the minutes of the city council work session on February 24th, 2026? [3:15] Council Member: Second. [3:16] Mayor McCloskey: Any discussion? All in favor? [3:20] Council Members: I. [3:21] Mayor McCloskey: Opposed. Motion passes. Item 3. We're going to adopt the agenda. Do I have a motion to adopt the agenda? [3:27] Council Member: So move. [3:28] Council Member: Second. [3:32] Mayor McCloskey: Any discussion? All in favor? [3:35] Council Members: I. [3:36] Mayor McCloskey: Any opposed? Okay, we have an agenda. Item four, the consent agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? [3:45] Council Member: Second. [3:46] Mayor McCloskey: Any discussion? All in favor? [3:49] Council Members: I. [3:51] Mayor McCloskey: Opposed. All right, we have a consent agenda. All right, item five, uh, visitors and presentations. We have nothing scheduled today. Item six, public hearings. Um, item 6A, we have an issuance of the general obligation street reconstruction bonds and five-year street reconstruction and overlay plan. Miss Kinsodder. [4:18] Ms. Kinsodder: Good evening, Madame Mayor and members of the council. Tonight, I'm here to talk about the 2026A bond issue that we're beginning to work on with the council's acceptance of the project's feasibility and ordering of the plans and specifications at your last meeting. So, just as a brief overview, Minnesota statutes chapter 475 authorizes cities to issue um obligations to finance projects and then other parts of the state law give us direction on the bonds that we can issue for the different types of projects. So, when it comes to doing street projects, there's two different types of bonds that we could issue. There's general obligation improvement bonds um that are under chapter 429 and there's general obligation street reconstruction bonds that are in chapter 475. [5:07] Ms. Kinsodder: So the difference between these two they both can um work to finance a street project. It comes the difference comes down to special assessments. So under chapter 429 um when you look at the total project costs when there are special assessments related to that project the special assessments must be at least 20% of the total project costs and then um when we look at the street reconstruction bonds those are the bonds that you would issue if the special assessments are less than 20%. So, historically, the city has issued general obligation improvement bonds to finance our projects because our special assessments have been greater than the 20% of the total project costs. Um, in the case for the 2026A project, it's the uh residential street project that is adjacent to the downtown area. The special assessments are less than that 20%. So we are going to issue the street reconstruction bonds this year. [6:04] Ms. Kinsodder: So the things that are the same between the two bond issues is that the city is pledging its full faith and credit towards the bond payment and the special assessments are calculated the same. The only thing that the one part that's different as we go through the street reconstruction bond is that we create a five-year capital improvement plan which would talk about the street reconstruction and overlay plan projects that could be refinanced for the next five years. So the plan needs to be discussed at a pro uh public hearing and that's what we're doing tonight. So in the public hearing, we are not talking about the project. The public hearing is about the use of bonds to finance the project. So the city council's approval of the five-year plan does not automatically approve every project that's listed on that document. Each project will go through the standard city council approval process and then we will choose the best once it's approved in our years we'll choose the best financing um mechanism for it. [7:21] Ms. Kinsodder: So whether if it qualifies that the special assessments are over 20% we'll use the improvement bond mechanism and then if it's less than 20% we would use the street reconstruction bonds and by doing this one public hearing and talking about the plan now then we would not have to do a public hearing in the next five years over this project. So when we look at the bonds, um Ellers, our municipal adviser, prepared a preliminary debt service schedule for planning purposes for the 2026A street reconstruction bonds. The PAR amount that we would issue the bonds for in our estimate is 1,85,000. The bonds would have a 15-year life and an estimated true interest cost of 3.594%. So that is based on the market rate for bond bank qualified bonds with issuers that have a double A+ rating as of February 24th. And then five basis points or a half a percent is added on um as an estimate just for any market changes that might occur between um now and then when we actually issue the bonds. So kind of have a cushion in there for that. [8:47] Ms. Kinsodder: Um the financing plan includes the special assessment component for the property owners that are benefiting from the pavement project. The special assessments will have a 15-year life. So it will be the same life as what the bond issue would have. And um the plan calculation anticipates collecting $264,500 in assessments, which the city will combine the special assessments that it collects with the tax levy to pay the annual debt service payment on these bonds. Um when we look at the um debt service run that Ellers prepared, the annual tax levy for a 15-year term will range between 141,000 and 146,000. And um the 2027 tax levy will increase that $141,800 which would be a 94% increase on the from what the 2026 tax levy was. So under a percent increase on that. Um, so given all of that, um, staff recommends that city council hold a public hearing, um, to talk about this, um, 5-year street reconstruction and overlay plan and then approve that plan and preliminarily preliminarily approve the issuance of the bonds and also authorize city staff to work with Ellers for the 2026A general obligation bond sale and participate in preparation of the official statement for the bond issue. We do have Stacy Kilang from Ellers with us at this meeting tonight to answer any questions you may have regarding the bond issue. [10:43] Mayor McCloskey: Thank you. Does anyone have any questions? Council member Edberg. [10:49] Council Member Edberg: Thank you, Mayor. Miss Kinsodder, two things. Um, I didn't hear—So, we're using a different statute, different statutory authority for issuing, but I didn't hear any changes in the pricing of those bonds. We go through a normal bid process. There isn't uh there aren't any other special kickers or benefits or anything like that. It's the same bidding process. We put the offer out, firms bid on it, we uh collect the lowest bid. Same process. Am I right in that or am I missing something? [11:28] Ms. Kinsodder: Council member Edberg, um you are right. There is no difference on that. Um so it will all be the same on how the bond issue is. We'll um prepare our official statement that will be released. They'll have the bid process for the bonds and then have the sale. [11:46] Council Member Edberg: Okay. And then um in your description, your introduction, you identified some parameters around who we anticipate being—I wasn't clear whether it was who we assume are going to bid or who is eligible to bid. Um and that caught my ears differently. I don't recall hearing that in previous years when we've issued. Is that something new, something unique, or it's always been there and I just haven't been aware of that before? [12:15] Ms. Kinsodder: Um, Madame Mayor, Council Member Edberg, um, there is no change to that because we're issuing less than $10 million of bonds then it would be bank qualified. And so having a bank qualified issue, um, the banks can bid on them and we will—that's typically when we have more bidders and get a better interest rate. [12:35] Council Member Edberg: And we have done that in the past. [12:37] Ms. Kinsodder: Yes, we have. [12:39] Council Member Edberg: Yeah. In fact, relatively recent past. Yes. Yeah. All right. Got it. Thank you. [12:44] Mayor McCloskey: Thank you. Anyone else? [12:46] Council Member: I know you said this, but just to reiterate and maybe for people watching at home, too. Approving this is approving the financing tonight, but not the actual project plan. Correct. Or if we could elaborate. [13:02] City Manager Crawford: Mayor, members of the council, uh, that is correct. This is just the financing portion of the project. Any decisions made on the—or the public hearing for the actual street uh project components will be held at the uh March 24th meeting. Notices were mailed out last week to all um affected property owners. Uh they will have the opportunity or staff will have the opportunity to present the project elements and um residents will have a an opportunity to speak for against the project at that March 24th meeting. [13:36] Mayor McCloskey: Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Edberg. [13:42] Council Member Edberg: Thank you, Mayor. Just one more question. We are nowhere close to using all of our bonding authority. Is that correct? [13:54] Ms. Kinsodder: Madame Mayor, Council member Edberg. That is correct. I don't—I'm trying to think um the exact number, but but we have significant amount. Yes. [14:02] Council Member Edberg: Yes. Okay. Fine. Thank you. [14:05] Mayor McCloskey: All right. Any any further questions? Okay. I'm going to open it up to the public hearing. Um there's no one on the list. Anyone in the audience like to come up and um speak? Seeing none, I will close the public hearing. Thank you. Um, and thank you, Miss Kinsodder. [14:38] Mayor McCloskey: Oh, right. So, council has a resolution in front of us. I'd uh entertain a motion to adopt the resolution. [14:48] Council Member: So moved. [14:50] Council Member: Second. [14:51] Mayor McCloskey: Any further discussion? All those in favor? [14:55] Council Members: I. [15:00] Mayor McCloskey: Okay, the resolution passes. Thank you. All right. Item 6B, the first reading of an ordinance amending the city charter regarding special elections. And we have Chair Ani here to do that. [15:20] Chair Ani: Good evening, madame mayor and members of the council. Uh at our annual September meeting, the charter commission was made aware of a potential conflict between our charter and state statute regarding special election dates. Specifically, our charter sets forth a timeline for the administration of special elections that has the potential to conflict directly with state statute. State statute 205.10 subdivision 3A lists five possible dates for special elections: the second Tuesdays of February, April, May, and August and the general election day in November. Additionally, state uh statute also says that a home rule charter city must not designate additional dates in its charter. [16:06] Chair Ani: Now, sections 4.04 and 4.12 of our charter give a timeline for special elections. Um, in summary, the city clerk gives legal notice in the official newspaper within 15 days of a vacancy. There's a filing period for the vacancy of 10 calendar days from the date of the legal notice. The special municipal election shall occur within 15 to 20 days after the close of filing. And if there are more than two candidates, there will be a primary followed by an additional uh election 14 days later. And while it is possible to have a scenario calling for a special election that would align with one of the five dates designated in state statute, such a scenario is unlikely to be that convenient. Um, for example, a June 1st vacancy, uh, according to our city charter, we would be looking to have an election mid-July, whereas the next uniform election date, according to state statute, would be the second Tuesday in August. Um, so the charter commission asked city staff to refer this matter to the city attorney to get their input. Uh, we reconvened on December 10th to review the recommendation of the city attorney who strongly advised us to amend the charter to avoid conflict with state statute and the charter commission voted 10 to 1 to recommend the proposed amendment that I'm here to share with you tonight to the council. Thank you. [17:34] Mayor McCloskey: Thank you. Does anyone have any questions for Mr. Ani? Council member Edberg. [17:43] Council Member Edberg: Thank you, Mayor. Um, so does the statute control both both the primary and the election or just the election dates? Because if we're going to have a primary followed by a general election, we're not going to hit those five dates. I don't think. How does that work? [18:04] Chair Ani: That is an excellent question. Um, in the memorandum from the city attorney, um, it it's not 100% clear, but seemed very um likely that a primary in the eyes of the state would be considered a an election and would have to uh conform to one of these election dates. So in that if there were a primary uh we would be—uh in the example I gave—the primary would be in August and the election after that would be on the date in November. So we would use those five dates uh if there were a situation involving a primary. So we could go without filling that vacancy for some months, not weeks. [19:07] Chair Ani: Yes. And to that point, that was an issue that um the charter commission spent a significant amount of time discussing um and ultimately decided that um that was—it was worth it to adhere to the state statute. [19:21] Council Member Edberg: And does that statute apply to anything other than elections for filling vacancies? If we had a public question that we wanted—if we had a question that we wanted to put to the public, would that advisory referendum—not an election per se, but their voting experiences—does the statute apply to those as well? [19:38] Chair Ani: Uh my understanding is yes, it would. Um it does. Yeah, it's in 205.10 of state statute and that includes um questions to voters which they're authorized by law or charter to pass judgment on including um referendums and those kinds of things. [20:00] Council Member Edberg: Okay. Thank you. [20:02] Mayor McCloskey: Okay. Does anyone else have any questions? Council member Walsh. [20:06] Council Member Walsh: Well, I don't think it's a question. I'm a little surprised by that interpretation on the primary election. It just—and I'm not prepared to dispute it, I guess—but it just doesn't really square. Like if you have a legislative vacancy for instance, and I know it's spelled out in law a little better and a little more detail, but the special election for instance legislative special elections have to occur—if you're in session within 30 days or—there's very specific. The primary has always been like two weeks before, if there needs to be a primary, it'll be two weeks before. It's been kind of a tag along to the election. So, this is really elevating the primary to like its own election. Um, it just surprises me. I guess it doesn't seem—and it doesn't seem right. It doesn't seem smooth. I mean, the primary should be closer to the general election. First, we should just narrow the candidates down and then pretty quickly afterwards, you know, not June to November or July to November, whatever it would be. I guess what's the last date? August. I mean, that's a long gap between a primary election and a general election. Um, I guess that's the gap in the state elections. That's the gap right now. Our primary elections in August and the general elections in November. So, I guess it seems—in filling a vacancy, it's more of a special election. I guess doesn't feel so special if we have to wait that long. So, I don't know what to do about what I'm saying. I'm just saying it just doesn't quite—I'm surprised at that interpretation, I guess. I don't know if you've got any more research on that, Mr. Attorney. [21:46] City Attorney: Yeah. So, mayor and council, I mean, it's a good point. Um, you know, to be honest, the statutes are generally written around—I don't want to say generally written around—but many of them kind of think through the process statutory cities take. They don't have primary elections. Primary elections are somewhat rare uh in the municipal sense. Uh that doesn't mean charter cities don't have them. Of course, we have them in White Bear Lake. Um, but uh, you know, one thing that we have to take into account when it relates to any election, and I know staff knows this, but we have to get a lot of coordinating coordination and cooperation with the county. They handle those elections for us. Uh, what I can tell you is they're going to be unwilling to hold any kind of an election on a date that doesn't meet those uniform election dates. They're just not equipped to do that. So, um, and quite frankly, a primary election is considered a special election because there's such thing as special primaries. [22:32] City Attorney: Um, and to Council Member Edberg's point, it's true that it would be months before you'd fill a vacancy. Um, that may be uh, an unfortunate situation, but it's not like the council can't operate short-handed. Councils operate short-handed often. Um and some cities—statutory cities I should say—um are are required to fill vacancies prior to the next regular election when they have to hold a special election but there's no rule about when they have to do that and often times they just kind of sit and say we're just going to let the vacancy be there because we don't want to go through the process, spend the time to appoint somebody for 3 months, 6 months, 9 months when we know there's going to be a special election in November. That may be right, that may be wrong; that's a policy call for any individual council. But, um, I guess what I'm trying to say is it's not the end of the world that you might have, you know, a handful of months with a short-handed council. Now, if two or three people resigned, it'd be a different situation. Hopefully, that never happens. But um I assume the reason this issue just came up recently, even though the uniform election dates were um adopted into state law in 2017, is because we're lucky in White Bear Lake and we don't have to deal with a lot of our vacancies and filling those vacancies. So, um again, this is all just really intended to try to align the statutory provisions with our charter and make sure that we can comply with both of them because I do think if we had to fill a vacancy today, state law would control and we'd be kind of ignoring our charter language because we'd have to. Um and so this is really an attempt to again bring those two things into lock step and make sure that they're consistent. [24:22] Mayor McCloskey: Thank you. So, just for clarification, the reason why we have to do this is because the state changed the dates in 2017 and back then it didn't align with our charter. [24:34] City Attorney: Correct. Yes. [24:37] Mayor McCloskey: So we're not—it's not just something we've decided to do. [24:43] City Attorney: Yeah. The statute changed uh about nine years ago, a little less than that. And uh since then, our our charter language has just conflicted with that. [24:58] Mayor McCloskey: Okay. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Oh, Council Member Walsh. [25:01] Council Member Walsh: Just I'm just brainstorming. I'm not I'm not advocating necessarily, but but I just asked the attorney as a charter city uh can we change our charter to appoint? Um is that—are we prohibited from—like a statutory city can do? Can we can we send the charter commission back to the woodshed and say come up with an appointment strategy so if there is a vacancy the council could, if we wanted to, uh fill it by appointment? [25:16] City Attorney: You certainly could. Um the charter does control how vacancies are filled and uh you can amend the charter to align with state statute. Um what I would offer—maybe that's a good thing, maybe that's a bad thing depending on the policy. What I would offer is that the I think benefit to what statutory cities have at their disposal is the way the statute for filling vacancies is written is they never have to hold an election outside of the regular November election dates. I know special elections can be expensive. They can be time-consuming. It's a lot of work for staff and so um it's very convenient for statutory cities to not have to coordinate special elections around dates that aren't, you know, in alignment with that November election date. Um in this case, if you're filling a vacancy, you're actually going to have to hold two special elections because if there's enough candidates, because you'd have the primary and the special election which sort of doubles the cost. I don't know what it costs to hold an election, but I just know it's, you know, kind of creates a lot of um work for staff and it's there's a financial burden as well. Now, um that said, there is some benefit to having your own process and um some charter cities certainly appreciate the um independence, if you will, of being able to determine what that process looks like. [26:40] Council Member Walsh: Can we really put a price on democracy and freedom and representation? [26:44] Chair Ani: Yes, we can. Madame Mayor, Council Member Walsh, um to that point, that was part of the discussion was um if an appointment would be preferable to going the special election route. And uh ultimately to the point on democracy, we thought that if a ward had lost its council member and didn't have that representation, it would be more uh in the ward's residents best interests to be able to vote on who would be representing them than to have an appointment be made. So that was part of the discussion. [27:28] Council Member Walsh: I'm glad to hear you discussed it. Yeah, that's good. [27:32] Mayor McCloskey: Thank you. Council Member Edberg. [27:38] Council Member Edberg: Right. Um and what was the assessment of the value of an appointment? Um where where did the commission land in thinking—you know, pros, cons? Is there any wisdom that you have that suggests um a value of some element of appointment? Maybe not permanent, maybe it's an interim, I don't know, but did you reach any conclusions as a commission on that? [28:01] Chair Ani: Uh essentially just that—just that having an election would be the best route, would be preferable to having an appointment. [28:13] Council Member Edberg: All right. Thank you. [28:15] Mayor McCloskey: All right. Anybody else? Okay. I'm going to open the meeting to the public hearing. Is anybody in the audience? There's no one on my list. And seeing none, I'm going to close the public hearing. Um, and thank you, Mr. Ani. [28:37] City Manager Crawford: Just for those that are watching, so this was the first reading of the ordinance. The second reading of the ordinance will uh occur on March 24th, and at that time then the council may consider adopting uh set ordinance. But we've conducted the first reading tonight and held the public hearing. So, thanks. [28:53] Mayor McCloskey: All right. Thank you. Thanks for coming, Chair Ani. [28:56] City Attorney: And just can I jump—? [28:57] Mayor McCloskey: Yes. [28:58] City Attorney: Mayor. Uh, one other point of clarification that's good for um folks to be reminded of too is that it does require an affirmative vote of all members of the city council. So, if anyone's thinking about playing hookie next time, please be here so we can have our second reading. Um, because it it obviously causes confusion when we we're short-handed. Um, but again, it's just it's worth pointing that out because um there is a 5-0 vote requirement for for adoption of the ordinance amending the charter. [29:27] Council Member Walsh: All right. Thank you. Um, bargaining power might a member have. [29:33] City Attorney: Yeah. To be clear, we may conduct the second reading on March 24th. It may not be adopted unless there's a 5-0 vote. [29:41] Council Member Walsh: And you're not going to send the marshals out to round up...? [29:44] City Attorney: No, we may require a special election though. [29:48] Mayor McCloskey: All right. Thank you all. Some arrest in this. Okay. Item seven, unfinished business. We have nothing scheduled tonight. Item eight, new business. We have nothing scheduled tonight. Item nine, discussion. We have nothing scheduled tonight. And item 10, communications from the city manager. [30:04] City Manager Crawford: Thank you, uh, Madame Mayor. Uh, just so everyone is aware, uh, Mayor McCloskey and I will be at uh the capitol tomorrow, um, attending the League of Minnesota Cities Day on the Hill. Um so we have a couple of meetings scheduled with our uh senator and our representative and we'll hear from everybody at the league and all that stuff. So we have our legislative priorities agenda um printed out and ready to go and um so we'll be down there all day uh into the evening tomorrow. But that's all I have. [30:42] Mayor McCloskey: Thank you, Miss Crawford. Um, and I had the regional council of mayors yesterday, which um, I heard the league talk about their legislative, so I'll get another one, so I'll be really versed in it. Um, and last week um, we didn't have a lot—well, I I read a lot to um Matoska Elementary and Birch Elementary and Willow. Um, so I got to see how great our schools are and got to see all the kiddos. They're doing great. I was just so impressed with the questions they had and how well-behaved they were while the mayor is reading a book. I mean, it was really impressive. So, that was really fun. Does anybody else have any updates or things they did last week that they'd like to share? Council member West. [31:23] Council Member West: Yeah. Um, I did a tour of our public works. Um it is incredibly impressive the amount of types of things that public works does that is um like uh—it just gets done and we don't really notice it. We would notice it if it didn't get done. Um and so and the way they take care of things and manage financially um to like fix things and maintain them and I don't know um MacGyver things um like you know it's just it's really impressive. And I was able to get into a snow plow which is really high up there if you didn't know. They're very tall. [32:15] Mayor McCloskey: Yes. And it's snowing right now, so they'll get to use it tonight, too, maybe. [32:20] Council Member West: Yeah. [32:21] Mayor McCloskey: So, we'll see. Um, anybody else? Nope. All right. Um, then I'm going to do a motion to adjourn. [32:28] Council Member: So move. [32:29] Council Member: Second. [32:31] Mayor McCloskey: Any further discussion? Okay. All in favor? [32:35] Council Members: I. [32:36] Mayor McCloskey: Any opposed? Okay, we're adjourned.