Thank you. Um, so I'm going to call the meeting to order. This is the uh city council work session for Minetrista May 5th, 2025. And present uh this evening are myself, Lisa Whan, the mayor, council present is Kathleen Revkin, Claudia Lacy, Brian Govern, and staff present um remotely as Gary Peter uh Peters and then Ann Meerhoff and Ally Palfus. And then also here in person is Jasper Krugal and Brian Grim and David Ael. So with that we have um four items on our uh work session discussion. I want to add one more item if we have time and that's uh talking about um storm water um questions that the council might have. So starting with that um we're going to do re is that okay with I see heads nodding so that's good. recycling contract um extension discussion. Brian or which one? Yeah, Brian is taking the lead on this one. All right. Yes. And um it has to do with money, so I figured Brian was going to talk about it. Council and I think I maybe saw someone just pull up Jason Hartman from Waste Management uh said he was going to be here at 5:30 tonight, so I Okay, that's that might be him coming in here shortly. But um I think a lot of it um stands on his on its own. I mean, I think he was more just going to be here because I think the last time we approved the contract, actually, I know the last time we approved the contract, it was when we were remote. It was back in May of or May, June of 2020. So, um yeah, he was at least going to introduce himself and um look like he might be walking in right now. But, uh as far as um yeah, the um the agenda item is uh obviously we've had waste management I think ever since I've been here, you know, so it's going back, you know, 15 20 years. Um we've we usually done these um five-year contracts um with them. Um Mr. Hartman, right? Yes. We've never met in person because we've always just been uh Yeah, I think on the phone the last time I was just telling the council, you know, so I apologize for being late. My wife threw me a curveball at the last second. So Oh, sure. I had to drop my daughter off at a friend's house. Yeah. So we were just starting to get into the basically the crux of the of the contract where um basically for starting in August of this year the the rate would stay the same is still at the 579 a month and then basically go up about that 4% four four and a half% for each of the final four years. Um so that was attached um in the packet there on page right three on the packet or basically the city administrative five-year extension proposal there 579 605 and so on there basically going up that 30 cents or 4% 44 and a half um each year um we still would have the uh organic drops I don't think anything's changed yet with the county or the state where we have to go to any curbside organics. We're hoping that's not the case anytime soon. You know, the the drop site seems to work for the see like 5 10 15 people use it. Yeah, we need to talk about that. We're going to use I'll give you I'll just give you a brief update on that too. I think I know at least is coming. It's going to get moved outside of the gate in an interim basis to see if we have any illegal dumping. But then it's that was one of the comments we got from the state of the city is that they wanted access outside of city hours. So, okay, we're going to see how it goes. Gary, it may it hasn't happened yet, but they're working on getting it moved out of there. So, um if there's illegal dumping, we will move it right back in. So, we'll just say that. Yeah. Well, so and we can talk about that, too. But, um couple things. It seems odd and if we could, it would be nice if we can have the contract run January to January because we always change our our fee schedule in January. And so rather than having a change in August, it would be nice if we could extend the current contract through until January of 26 and then have the 5-year uh renewal if we can do that. Absolutely. That is that's something I could absolutely do. Yeah, it just makes more sense for us. I I agree. The Jan one makes so much more sense across the board. Okay. And then the other question and the other thing I was thinking is because there might be who knows in the next few years some changes regarding um composting um or organic recycling is could there be some um wording um agreement in the um contract that would state that we have an option of either opting out or changing the organic um how do you say portion of it? It's such a small part of it that absolutely I and I kind of see where this is coming. I do think within the next five years you guys will be mandated to do curbside organics. It it's just what's going to happen in Henipin County. Um the grumblings have kind of started right now. I believe it's 10,000. You know, cities with a population of 10,000 are required to provide curbside, right? It's going to move to 5,000. I don't know when, but we're going to move to 10,000. We're probably going to be hitting 10,000 within that 5year. So, I just want to make sure that we have some flexibility. Um, and who knows what what will happen, but I think that would be a good idea. I mean, either way you want to approach it, we could rel excuse me, add it relatively easily or you could have that just be a separate thing. And yes, we would remove the uh the organics dumpsters you have now. That is absolutely not a problem. Okay. I mean I don't know. I mean even a thought was offering. Yeah. Anyhow, we we'll talk about that. Reference that in the memo that probably there would be some subsequent you know discussions and whether we would address it in this contract or just know that if obviously the county would mandate any changes we'd have to you know basically well it should be noted in the contract then too. So that would No. Yeah. I absolutely agree. you know, we could keep the two separate or it could be tacked in. I know we just recently did, uh, you know, an add-on in Brooklyn Park and the HRG communities, um, where we provide curbside organics for them. Um, I think in all the larger Henipin County cities now, they've already taken that step, I think, with the exception of Eden Prairie. Okay. Um, but that's something that's easy. We already have the model built. Um the pricing you would see would be very similar to what you would see. I know Long Lake just adopted this. Uh Brooklyn Park, Crystal, New Hope. Um that's kind of the pricing structure you would guys would would see as well. Okay. Questions? More to that. So we're going to have to pay for organics recycling unit if we're not using it. But you should use it, right? But what about the residents who are gone for four months of the year? So, they're going to get this tacked on to their other bills. That's why I thought we we could talk about it again, but we're already paying for it now. It's included. Um, it's only what about 11,000? No, it's about a hundred bucks a month right now. So, JC 1,200 bucks based on um the frequency we have for the drop set. Right now, it's No, I'm saying like when it switches to curbside. Well, that's why we that's why I want a clause in the contract that gives us even a complete out if we have another option. Maybe we can move to offering kind of like the rain barrels where people can have their own um composting bin. I mean, I'm I'm just throwing some ideas out. I don't we haven't talked about it yet, but um I just would like the composting part to be almost a separate paragraph that we could opt out if we wanted to. It's so minor that it's Yeah, absolutely. I I I completely see what you're saying. Not opt out of the recycling portion, but of the organics portion. That is Yeah, that's absolutely. I mean, right now it's a dumpster, so yeah, that's not a problem at all. Are you saying maybe if they would isn't where if it goes to where we hit the threshold where there's 10,000 population where we'd put that on the garbage haulers then potentially to do? Not you're not looking at that more. No, no. I'm I'm looking at it if you wanted to do it on your own, maybe we would offer some incentive for, you know, like the rain barrel where people can buy their own um composting bin. Okay. Um, and maybe we subsidize it because we have to, you know what I'm saying? So, it's something like that. We we'll talk about that when we get to there. But, um, I just want that to be a little separate paragraph that would give us that option of either doing um, curbside with them. That would make most sense to do it with um, waste management versus another different one because then you might have three haulers. We don't want that. What I've seen too is, and it's not just us, pretty much if you organize your organics, your individual homes will pay less. Um, from what I've seen in the subscription markets, rates vary much more and they tend to be higher. Right. So, otherwise, any other comments or questions? uh for the the price increase in this contract, the 42 foreign change per year. Um what's what's historically been the the increase? Is that high? Is that normal? Is it low? That's been pretty normal for um you know, the 3 to 5% in a normal market. I know back when we um updated the contract back in 2020, the uh rates were all over the place. And I think there was something to do with uh you know uh the market not being good in China not wanting the materials or there was some different a lot of flexibility where I know back in 2020 a rate went from like 350 to 495 and we even looked around at other communities and with other haulers and it wasn't going to matter what one we went with it was. So, we had a big jump in 2020, but then ever since we hadn't had a jump. We had it had been pretty level for for five or six years or whatever. And then in 2020, there was a pretty significant jump. It had been like 350 for who knows how long. Quite a few years. And then in 2020 when we redid the um contract, it upped. And that was kind of a quote unquote sticker shock because it went up that much. Yeah. But it hadn't gone up for five years. So, okay. Average it out almost. It's about a My only concern would be if we're locking in rates during kind of a high inflation period. If we're locking That's a good thing though, right? Well, I guess if if the current infl if the current increase is higher than normal and we lock that higher than normal rate in for five years, is that better or is it uh I guess my only concern would be are we locking in historically high rates with um a longer longerterm contract at this point? Yeah, I mean if I if I may weigh in there's a couple different ways you probably know we could we could follow CPI which that could also go against is us if we hit some high CPI numbers over the next five years. So, I think there's a lot of estimating going on on what they project it to be. I think it's probably within the range of of being safe. Um, you know, we we'd like to see it lower, but that's that's kind of where the market is going, it seems like. But, yeah, I I could say, well, I was around in 2020 when I think the original contract in 2015 was around. I was in the industry, but I was I owned a small garbage company at the time. Recycling rates were tremendous back then. everyone was getting rebates and it it was great around 2020 it turned where all of a sudden you went from getting a rebate to paying in substantially for the material. So I think you guys were victims of the good and the bad in your last two renewals. Right now I will say that the commodities have stabilized um after the 2020 the um you know the China soared um everything kind of stabilized except processing costs. they kind of went up and they've stayed up. Um, but we are getting cleaner material because of that. That's the one good side of it. More materials being recycled and it's cleaner versus what we were doing in the past. Um, I will say always locally here, we kind of keep stuff internalized. The market stays here. Uh, but China did affect the majority of the country who ships most of their stuff um, you know, across the Pacific. So, which they might not be doing now. Tariffs on garbage. Yeah. Okay. So, um then I think just bring this back at the next council meeting on under consent agenda with with that change from um August to January um with that and then as well as that little paragraph on the organics if something changes it gives us an option to renegotiate slash or or out um renegotiate whatever. Yeah. And it's such a small thing. I mean, we could be I could pull that out of the contract now that we're currently servicing just the dumpsters. I mean, it's Well, I want to make sure if we have to continue doing the dumpsters that we still get that low $1,200 a month. So, I want it both ways. I like I said, I won't lose any sleep if we lose the dumpster collection. I mean, I' I'd like to keep doing it, but uh and we're happy. I mean, I think it's been very low. I've never heard of any contamination. any stuff that we've picked up here. I know we have a couple in Orno as well that Okay. I hear nothing about, so that's always good. Okay. Well, thank you for coming and Oh, you're very welcome. I'm sorry for being late. That's fine. All right. So, um, next item on our agenda is code of contact. Code of conduct. There's a typo. I don't know if it was auto correct or what, but this is supposed to be code of conduct. Yes. Um this is something that we were going to talk about the la at the last meeting. Um kind of driven I would say by um the elected officials. Uh I don't know if Lisa you want to you want to talk a little bit about it. It's something that a lot of cities are doing. If they don't have it and I think it's been determined like hey we're all kind of getting along right now. Let's do it now and get it set up and then um and then it's there. Uh I just Yeah. I just um I just want to make sure this isn't an issue with our council. Okay. I it it has nothing to do with our council, but as Jasper said, um we do know another community where this might have been an issue and I'm not going to mention any names. And um so I've talked to other mayors and other communities in around here and and most a lot of them I was surprised already have a code of conduct and we don't. And so I thought, well, maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea now that we're good council and all appropriate, we don't do anything bad like this. Um, it would maybe be good to um um, yeah, adopt something like this. And then I would also recommend that we send this to our planning commission and that they review it and give us their feedback. And then we it's a policy, so it's not an ordinance. So, it would just be a policy, but and as you know, um, in here as you went through it, we can't ask if if there ever were a council member that did something against the policy, we can't really enforce it, but we can try and point to it and say, "Hey, you know, this is this is a policy that we have and we can't um remove somebody from the council, but we could remove somebody from a commission. You can. Yeah. So, our commission members are all at will volunteer commission members. Um, going back to the city council, the most that really the the mayor has the power to do is just not recognize a council member to speak at a meeting. That's, you know, censuring them. Um, that's the most that we can do. You can't get like Mayor Whan said, you can't kick somebody off. That's that's up to the the public to if they want to recall or, you know, there's processes for all these things. But really, it's just kind of a reminder. Hey, you know, we're professionals. Um, we need to act in a professional manner. Okay. Brian, did you have any questions or any comments regarding the No, it seems a positive thing. Well, can I just say something? If it can't be enforced, why don't we just draw up something when someone becomes a city council member and they sign it? I'll behave. No, because so they're elected and it wouldn't matter. They're elected and Yeah, exactly. It's just again it's just too Yeah. But it's also for our commissioners. I see. Um and then um we we can if if a commissioner and I've heard from other other cities that there have been commissioners and there are those cities that have been have maybe violated some of these things. Um this would give us some hey look you've done this this is wrong. This is our policy. we expect you to abide by it. Um and then if they did it again, we would have reason to remove them. Now again with the council, we can't remove a council member, but we can point them to the policy saying, "Hey, this is our policy. This is passed by the council. You need to abide by it." Um so again, it's just it's a good thing to have. Oh, I agree. Yeah, but it kind of sounds like but it's not it's not really holding any water, so why are we spending any time on it? But I understand. Thank you. Okay, so if um if you're okay with this language and I'm sure Sarah has weighed in, correct? Yeah, this came from Sarah and um other communities too and the LMC has, you know, different um ones. But anyhow, then we'll pass it on to the next planning commission. They can weigh in, make changes if they feel needed, and then bring it back and we can just do it under consent or do you want to do it under business item? Yep. I think we'll we bring it back if there's any significant changes um that are recommended from uh and I take it we want to bring it to the planning and the park. Yeah. Get input from both of them. Um and then if there's any significant changes, we'll put it on business and then if there aren't, we'll put it on consent. That's basically Yeah. My only question is, see, the park commission doesn't meet very often, correct? So, I would hate to have to wait another year. David's nodding in agreement. Yeah. I mean, it was we we kind of missed the window where they both met last month. Right. Right. Um the next park meeting, depending on some anything that they might have to take up. It might be, you know, might be something to do with Holstead. Right. How about we do this? Take it to the next planning and or the next park commission meeting. If the park commission isn't meeting for another three to four months, then we'll just do planning commission and come back and we'll share it with the park commission. Is that I think that's a better approach rather than waiting six months or whatever. Almost Yeah. It's so uncontroversial. I almost think we should just make a motion and pass it. But you really think they I say yeah motion and pass and get check it off the box. It's that's fine. I don't think it's too controversial. I I wouldn't think so. No. Okay. I mean, if you want to do that motion, Claudia, what we'll do is we'll bring it back um at the next meeting. We can do consent under consent and then and then what we'll do is we'll share it with the planning and the park commission. And if they have comments, we can always amend it. It's fine. Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, I don't it's pretty again, I just want to emphasize it's nothing that we're doing wrong. Just been better just for the record place now than something is going. Exactly. Exactly. All right. So, um St. Bonafacious interconnect discussion. Yes. Um Madame Mayor, members of council, this is just a brief discussion kind of a an update on this. Uh I think most are aware that we installed uh with in with partners in partnership with St. Bonafacious an interconnect meter at one location between the two cities. There's four total locations that we share a water mane that go between and and we we have the ability to open that them up from time to time. Um and we have in the past, you know, in 2021 2022, there were drought years and we've had to kind of help each other out. Um one thing with that is we don't know how much water is going back and forth between the cities. Um, and this is problematic when we're doing our water appropriations report to the DNR because we kind of if we lose water, we kind of write it off as, you know, we just don't know. And there's a generally 10% or less is fine. Um, but if it would be more than that, then they might start asking some questions and then we kind of estimate. Um, installing some meters between the the two cities will allow us to maybe collaborate a little bit more on water usage. It's becoming a pretty hot topic. Um, and I guess this is kind of a heads up that St. Bonnie already talked to their city council about it because we had talked to their mayor and he thought, "Yeah, this is a good idea." They're on board with doing something um to do on on the other interconnects. Now, we had a meeting with AE2s um last week and they're going to look at do we actually need to have all four metered because maybe only one or two two would be enough to actually serve both communities. Maybe three. if we don't have to do all four, that's money savings for both communities. Um, and then if there was ever some extreme emergency situation, we could open up the fourth or third or whatever it is. So, um, this is just kind of a touch point with with our city council to say, "Hey, you know, this is something that we're looking at. Um, there there will likely be, if you guys are nodding, which I see some nods, um, a future task order to have A2S kind of develop the plans. We're kind of we told St. Bonnie, hey, we want to kind of run the show on this cuz um the previous one was was done by the St. Bonnie engineers and they kind of just, you know, shot from the hip a little bit. We're still trying to get as built of of the actual meter and how it was installed. So, we want to was the one on um Glacier. Glacier. Yeah. Yeah. So, we want to make sure that if we're going to do it because in the agreement that we have, we're the ones that are going to be maintaining these connections um and these meters, we want to make sure that we know how they're built and they're built correctly and they can integrate into our SCADA system. um correctly. So um the previous one just for reference with St. Bonnie was um just under $50,000 to put it in and install um you know that was in 2023 I believe and then um the future ones we're going to look at um they're they're a little bit couple of them it depends on where they have to be. Couple of them are in the rightway some are in the road. So, there's some different things, but what we're going to do is if if it's okay with the group, we're going to look at a model to see how many we need to do and then um develop some plans for them and then see what the cost is and maybe try to pick depending on the cost and the appetite of the city council, pick one off a year or something like that over time so we can get kind of get them in place. The idea, the grand scheme of this thing is that we can partner with St. Bonnie to potentially get enough water in our system to expedite the maintenance of the King's Point tower. Maybe do it in 2026 instead of 2028. So move it up two years. Now you guys have to approve this and it's right now um estimated at $900,000. In a couple years it might be cresting a million. So, but in you know, keep in mind it was 500,000 to do the north water treatment north tower um up 500,000. Tear it down and build a new tower at this point. Really? Well, that's probably about a four or$5 million endeavor. So, it's better to just repaint it, you know. But, um so that's kind of the grand scheme to maybe try to expedite the the maintenance. We just got the tower inspected. Um we've got the inspection report back about two weeks ago and they're recommending um maintenance within a year, but that's we can't do that. So it'll have to be at least two and a half to three years um based on the current schedule with the plant and all that. So what maintenance? Oh, the just the painting um the sand blasting of the interior um and the repainting of the out out exterior. It's But isn't there other stuff too that needs to be done? I thought on the tower. Yeah. Um just, you know, we're gonna put in um I forget there's a valve that make the auto auto valve that makes sure that the level is, you know, we're gonna do a couple of those things too, right? But um the big thing is the painting and it won't be rusty anymore. And you know, we're going to talk about maybe putting the logo on it. So, no, but not before it's painted. We don't want people to know. There's there's one um on 44 and then what's the other side of the um the other side of 110? It's um Edgewood. Is that what it's called? Edgewood. It's kind of 44 110 and then it's something else. Right over Commerce. Oh yeah, you're talking about the the Sunnyfield Tower. Is that what you're talking about? No, I'm talking about leaving here going into towards Mound. Yep. Turning left. And if you went right, you'd be on County Road 44. If you go left, it's Edgewood. Oh, Hollstead. Mound one. The one in Mound. That's a mound tower. Yeah, that's a Thank you. That's in Mound. That That tower I don't think has been painted in 40 or 50 years. And it has no rust on it. So, who did that tower? I mean, it's it's it's as powder blue as it was the day they put it in. Yeah. And I think whoever did this tower did a medium job. So if if we pay a million dollars their water, no, I don't know. I mean, if we pay a million dollars to redo a tower, they need to guarantee that we're not repainting it again in 10 years or Well, generally that thing is 40 years old. It looks spectacular. Yeah. I'm not sure about the history. Maybe Gary knows, but you get the the movement of the water up and down. It creates condensation. That condensation the the cool, you know, that's what gets if that's So what happened? Yeah, but what happened? So, um, that tower on Kingspoint Road was puted in the 90s before any development was there. There were times where we actually had to airrate it in and Gary, you can chime in here, but we had to airate it in order for it not to freeze because there wasn't enough usage. Interesting. I mean, I'm sure there's a So, maybe Yeah, maybe that out, right? No, but that's what kind of caused a premature I don't know, but there's been some uh you know coding technology changes too. It it should be pretty good, but generally you look at it after 15 years, you hope it gets to 20 and maybe 25, but um you kind of look at it and you get it inspected um every 10 years or so so you get an idea of what's happening because the interior is also very important and that paint paint could come down and then you get some corrosion and things like that. You don't want that happening. I don't know. Maybe Gary can figure out why that one looks so good and it's so old. It's old. Maybe it doesn't even have any water in it. I don't I don't know. Maybe it's lead. Yeah, he's lead. So, anyhoo. Yeah. So, the purpose of this is just to kind of plant the seed to see if if you guys are all right with this interconnect um kind of project. If if you are, then you'll likely see a future task order with A2S to kind of pick away at this. And then depending on the cost, there'll be another touch point where where you can decide at which pace we would replace uh or add these meters to the interconnects. And so we would pay for the uh for the the in install and engineering and all of that kind of an upfront cost. And then when we use their water, we would be credited or given if not free water because we paid for it in another sense, but then it would be we would receive credits. So then what we'll have to do is we'll have to um figure out what that cost per thousand gallons is going to be to us. I thought you said 50 or what? Yeah. Yeah. So we we got I think Brian's looking at the invoice. It was for like 23,000. Yeah. Or or Yeah, I think that's that's what they that's what they charged us which was half of what the total was. So they were like 46,000 for the for the previous one. Yeah. Um, but you're exactly right and likely in that agreement there will be a sunset clause so that it's not just in perpetuity that they maybe owe us a little or we they owe us a little bit of money. It'll be, you know, maybe after 10 years they make everything right. Um, okay. And, you know, a lot can happen in 10 years. Maybe we use a lot of their water and and it works out, right? Um, but we're kind of, you know, getting it done. um working with a neighboring community and it'll help both of the communities out potentially in the future, you know, to be able to share that system and know what's going on and where the water's moving because right now we just maybe know, but we don't really It's good to do that with St. Bonnie because they also have treated water. We also have interconnects with Mound, but we open those. We don't like to open Mary cringes. Yes, I do. So I know in the claims there's a sewer service uh flow to St. Bonnie is what explain that there's there's a shared sewer line that they meter that we have to pay for. It's our sewage that goes through one of their lines and their meters but it's just it's just an accounting but it is metered. We know what so it's just one of those one of those weird infrastructure pieces that it you know we don't have a way of metering it. They do it for us. Wait, what are they quoting on? Or I know it's in the future, but the Kings Point Tower. I know. I was just curious. The Sunnyfield Tower was 470,000 back. They said 500. Yeah, Banner was right. No way. It's over doubled in price. Yeah, that seems a little I don't know. We got We got We got Gary on here. I I think he told me 900,000, but maybe I'm wrong. And that was just the estimate that they did. I mean, the interior work is going to be immense immensely a lot. off and it's it's a larger than the sunny field. No, it's not. How 400,250? Oh, 2. Okay. I was thinking it was 300. A little bit bigger. Okay. Yeah. 300 and 300 and 400. That's what I thought. What's the immense work that needs to be done on the inside? Um there's a lot of pitting taking place. The um there's a lot of drip lines in there that are not that when when constructed, they allow water to pocket in there. So, there's a lot of rust buildup that's going to need to be taken care of and rewelded and some plates re uh new plates put in. Um I don't have the report in front of me, but I know they said there's a lot along the drip line edge that has to be has to take place on it to ensure that this doesn't uh the area is areas where the water's building up doesn't pull again and start to rust again as fast as this was doing. Was it just not made well? It's that car was actually really good for the last I mean for up to 20 years it was looking great. It's just this has just gone that bad you know since it started to rust in the last five four five years. I mean it's that that's when it's it's been like 10 years it's been way more than that car if you look at it. I mean it wasn't that bad back five six years ago. It was not that bad compared to you know what it is now right. Well I think it's your definition of not bad. bad. Obviously, it's worse now than it was before, but if it was built in the mid '9s, it's 30 years old, so without any any um work on it. So, that's not too bad. But yeah, so maybe what we can once we get these interconnects done, maybe we can look at what the opportunities or options might be to do it sooner than later. And we bid it out. It's It's well above the bidding threshold. So, we'd be bidding off vendors that do that or few, you know, is it like the well one where you're like, "Hey, look, Trout's doing it." Yeah, there's there's it might even be But there might have be out of state um companies. So, the the company that did the um tower on Highway 7. Um that that was an out ofstate company, Gary. Weren't they from like Illinois, Indiana? Indiana, Oklahoma. Most of most of the tower companies are down south or in the Midwest because of the year- round work they can do down there. I mean, there's not too many from up in this area just because it is such a finite, you know, seasonal type project area. There's not a lot that uh they can do around here. So, well, tell them we'll provide housing. Your place. I mean there there's a wonderful luxury apartment there, you know, that they can Well, yeah, I I guess with this item, we're just looking to see if it's all right if we proceed with a future task order and then um kind of pick away at this and hopefully get to the point where we can maybe expedite, you know, we've been kind of brainstorming how do we get this tower done sooner than 2028, right? This is one of the one of the solutions. So, it would be nice even if we could get it done 2026 would be good. Yeah, I think that'd be the quickest that we could do. You know, if if if they're going to be bonding for 22 million, unfortunately, we might as well add another Yeah. Oh jeez. Anyhow, you said about the plant as well. Yeah, it's it all affects the rate. So, we'll have that conversation here soon. Yeah. And how will that go with the St. Bonnie? We're not going to pay our top tier rate like they were talking about. We'll have to talk We'll have to figure that out. Yeah, it's not happening. We'll have to figure that out. Um I I so far I've been very impressed with um Mayor Eer. He's um uh very willing to uh work with us, negotiate uh you know and and there's some things that they want that we might be able to give them um change. So we'll we'll in exchange so we'll be talking about that. So yeah, you'll you'll likely see a future task order from A2S regarding the interconnect meters. Okay. So next um popular um backed by popular demand, we have the chicken discussion. Should we do this without Pete Person? Excuse me. No votes. Well, let me let me throw out an option. Okay, let me just throw out an option. Um it would be a compromise. It would be a compromise for the yes votes and it would be a compromise for the no votes. But um here's what I would suggest. Obviously staff does not want to do permitting. So we're not I mean we're not going to do permitting. Agreed. But if we did chickens and we said and this would be to start with and we can see how it goes and if there's not a lot of rumbling and not a lot of um uh complaints, we can then take another look at it um maybe a year, a year and a half from now. But we start out with um a minimum of one acre. This is the compromise. We allow chickens in in all zoning districts. Of course, they're already allowed in the other ones. And then we say you have to have a minimum of 1 acre. You can have three chickens. That's the max. And they have to be totally enclosed. That way they don't run into other people's yards and and so on. That would be a compromise on your part. It would be a compromise on your part. We would get it done. we'd see how it goes and then maybe if there's no complaints some people like it then we could narrow it down and say half acre. Okay. I mean that that's my proposal with the greatest respect madame mayor and I do have the greatest respect for you. Um I have done so much research on this including I spoke to St. Bonnie today I almost fell over when I found out that our dear neighbors St. Bonafacious totally allow chickens. Who knew you were keeping that a secret from me? No, I didn't know that. Um, I don't ask. But to the point, it doesn't matter what other cities. I have the microphone. Okay. So, same body totally allows chickens. Every single person, by the way, they put their phone on speaker. There were five people. They said they have received virtually no complaints. Now, I'm just going to land this plane really quick. And by the way, thank you for that that compromise. And I I hear you. And I don't hate it, but I did want to say just a couple things. Um, I have bad neighbors. Not bad neighbors. There are people that walk in my street every single day and their dogs go on my lawn every single day. It doesn't mean they don't pick it up, but I really don't want to walk in it and it wrecks my lawn. This is Dogs are worse than chickens. Dog complaints are bigger than chickens. And Kathleen, if that housing bill gets passed, you're going to have rotted boats and trailers and way more problems than chickens piling up in yards and you're in a you're you have an HOA. You don't need to worry about these little chickens. They are not going to bother you. I promise. And the 1 acre, again, let's look at the reality of these other cities. 1 acre is a big lot. My lot is a very big lot. 43,560 ft. My lot is big and I wouldn't be able to have chickens. I have a very big yard. And so it kind of comes down to are you a good neighbor or you a bad neighbor. Another thing is I was here pounding my fist saying eggs are expensive. Let people get chickens are expensive. This is not a a cheap little hobby. So people that do this are going to want I mean this is a big commitment. It's expensive. um the people that are educating me about this cause, which now I'm totally on the bandwagon, they want to go out, they want to teach their kids how to be responsible, clean up after an animal, you know, take care of it. So, I really think the one acre is too much. Um I would say, first of all, I don't think it's going to be a problem. I really don't. Um I say we go half acre and four chickens. It can't be visible from your neighbor's yard. That would be difficult on a small lot. Everything is visible on a halfacre lot from your neighbor's yard. Well, I think it's fair, especially because I asked our neighbors and they all laughed. In fact, they invited me to move to St. Bonnie and um I mean when you look at St. Bonnie, Matonka, Edina, Minneapolis, we're in Minatrista for Pete's sake. I I would say can we can I compromise and go halfacre four chickens no roosters and in a year I will eat crow if there's a big problem I will be the person that joyfully knocks on someone's door and says you know what your neighbors are mad I don't think it's going to be a problem and I think we should just land this plane okay Brian do we have a swag on what percentage of the residential lots would qualify for chickens at one acre I'm just concerned whether this would be a big enough sample size to figure out whether if I may. There's there's a couple different components. There's there's only I mean there's residential lots that are outside of an HOA that um allow don't allow chickens, right? Um there's a lot that have HOA or that do allow. There are a lot of HOAs, most that don't allow chickens. So, and they're protected. So, um, we'd have to probably, if you're looking at how many lots are does this possibly affect, we could do an analysis. I don't think it's probably that many. Um, if you take into account HOA bylaws as well that don't allow chickens. I'm not sure if David has a better estimate. I mean, I don't know if we're talking about 200 lots, 500 lots of, you know, residential lots that this would affect. Um, I know that the the letter that you have, the the Joe Rogers letter, it would affect his lot. He's got a little over an acre. Um so he he would be part of the acre group. Um but there aren't that many of those. And then he's in Turtle Creek. Turtle Creek allows chickens. Um but Woodland Cove doesn't. Um Turtle or Hunter Crest doesn't. Okay. Um I'm not sure about Red Oak. We don't know like the details of the HOA bylaws. So uh if we're looking for a representative representative sample, I don't think we know exactly. I think the um if you look at um developments, older developments like Turtle Creek um South and North Saunders, they're going to have a little bit bigger lots because I think back back in the day you were allowed to have bigger lot for Musa for Metropolitan Council. We were at like two two um units per acre. So some of them might be and then when you look at some of them in uh the northeast corner of Minatrista, those might have bigger lots. I'm not sure about acre, but there's probably if you're looking for sampling. Yeah, there's probably not that many. Sunnyfield, um Sunny Brook have Sunny, they have larger lots. I don't know if any Yeah, I don't know if any of them are acres. I mean, I' I'd say the ones in Saunders, there's probably maybe 15% of them. I mean, there's some of them, okay, go out into the lake, you know, that are pretty big, but I'd say out of there, there's probably maybe 12 or 15 that Yeah. could have chickens with the one acre. Um, you know, you go down to half, it that increases quite a bit. Quite a bit. I don't think people are going to run out. It's expensive and it's it's a big hobby. Don't think it's we're going to have a rush on people putting chickens in there. Probably not. I mean, so wait, no, hold on. Let Brian let Sorry, Brian. I'm sorry. Well, so yeah, so maybe half half an acre might be a more reasonable sample size than to test to see whether this is uh is working. Okay, I could go half acre, three chickens. So you could treat three chickens going once. Give me that gavvel. Okay, hold on. So I just want to say we have an ordinance for a reason. And when a resident moves here from another town, it's not reasonable that they expect us to change our ordinances to make miniatures like their previous community that they moved from. We have a new resident who wants chickens. But just because one resident wants them, it's a lot. No, no, hold on. Hold on. Let Kathleen finish. Okay, one resident who has emailed us asking for this should not cause us to change or alter our ordinances relying and relying on an HOA to prevent chickens in certain areas. It's not the responsibility of a council. You need to look at the overall town because as we all know the legislature is looking at taking away HOA's power. So you can't just go well you have an HOA so you don't have to worry about it because the people in St. Paul want to take away that. So you have to look at it holistically in the whole community of what we've allowed. People moved here and they may like or not like our current restrictions, but it's not fair to the residents that have been here long term to now go, "Oh, suddenly your neighbor can have chickens. They haven't been allowed, but they someone new moved in and now they want it." I mean, a little a bit of a how do you say devil's advocate here? Most of the time when you move into a community, you don't think to yourself, "Oh, I'm going to check and make sure that all these things, you know, I'm not going to check all the ordinances." And also, you might not even think in terms of you want chickens. And then all of a sudden, you're like, "Oh, I've got three." So, um, one of our I'm fine. If we want to move it to three acres, fine. We have a set part of this community for agricultural, for animals, for farm animals. We have 3 acre lots that are in the residential zoning area that aren't allowed to have chickens. Not a lot, but there are some. So, anytime you're in the Musa, um so for instance, um bas basically I don't know how how many parcels there are currently in the Musa, but if as long as you're in the Musa, you might you might not have your land developed, but yet you can't have chickens. In other words, um, so the guy the guy over there that owns the 50 acres um by Hunter Crest, if he wanted to build one house and have chickens, he couldn't because it's in a residential. It's zoned residential. Yeah, but he's got more than 10. If you have more than 10, you can't. Oh, more than 10. Okay. But imagine if he had nine and a half and was told he couldn't have chickens. That's insane. I mean, I again, I understand your point, Kathleen. I really do. Um, how many dogs can people have? We have an ordinance on that. Or you can have up to four, right? I think it's four without a kennel license. Permit them anymore. Except for if you had more than four, wouldn't you have to get a kennel license? Well, we don't permit them anymore. Okay. That would be a county. Yeah. We don't we got out of that business. Yeah. And have you had more uh legal action against the city with dogs barking or chickens one going on? Well, I can't say spec. I don't I don't know. Um chickens I I guess we checked with police and it doesn't um doesn't seem to be a problem. Doesn't sound like it's come up, but um yeah. So, but you know, we've Jasper and I were talking earlier. I mean, golf carts, right? We don't we don't say you can or can't. There's kind of this un unofficial rule that you know so I don't you know and that's my understanding that's how St. Bonnie treats their chickens. They don't have an ordinance. They have no ordinance. Correct. Right. Just like we don't really either. I mean that's you could look at what we do right now that same way. I don't think so. It says no fowl, doesn't it? No. Well, it it doesn't it does say no chickens. No, it it says farm animals are allowed in the certain districts. Oh, I see. But they don't have the egg egg preserve districts and residential if you have 10 acres or not. So as the gentleman I think the one gentleman that's bringing this up. It doesn't say you can't have chickens right. So it's there's some ambiguity there about how you interpret that you know. So I I would argue that we currently how we do it because as you pointed out people do have chickens that aren't supposed to and we haven't done anything about that. That's what St. Bonnie does. Uh no I spoke to them. And I said, they said, "Nowhere does it say cuz right now if I went and got a chicken, I would be violating Menitista's permit uh ordinances." Correct. So would they in St. Bonnie? No, they they said there is That is not correct. So they have an ordinance that says you may have chickens. No, they have nothing that says So that's technically they have an ordinance that says you can't have animals with hooves. Yeah. Yeah. So So St. Bonnie's silent on chickens. We We are We're We're pretty much silent. We don't specifically say that you can or can't have them in residential areas. I think it's in the definition of what a farm animal is and that includes that. And farm animals aren't allowed in residential areas. I think that's the kind of tie. Oh, you know, so um I think that's the way I interpret it. But it's not explicitly said in St. Bonnie that you could have or you can't have chickens. In ours, it's not explicitly said, but it's tied to the definition of what a farm animal is. Well, I just know that there are multiple people that are residents of Minatrista that want the city to let them have chickens and they're willing to follow the rules. They want to follow the rules. Um because one council member is adamantly against it and doesn't have to worry about it because she has an HOA. Love you. Peter doesn't want them either. He's not here. He's not here. But that's what happens in Washington. You don't show up, you don't get to vote. You know what? I'm sorry, but that's the reality. And so I I I we spend we're spending too much time on chicken talk. Sure. It's chicken. Let's let's do this. Let's pass this and wait a year and I'll you know eat crow. I was going to bring you all Let me ask another question. Um has the I know well this is a land use issue so Oh no. Okay. I was going to say um has the planning commission weighed in on it? Oh jeez. Well, she Yeah, I think actually Claudia, they did a little bit. They loved it. They all wanted chickens. Um and and I do know um one of the one of the planning commissioners at was at the state of the city address and said, "We would really like to have chickens." Um and she's not on a small lot. It was unanimous. Um so anyhow, so um but I think if if there if it's allowed, it should have um certain um criteria. So they have to be completely enclosed and you can't see them from your neighbor's home. Agreed. And okay, that would then eliminate the small lots, which is I say I I mean I think we think a halfacre is fair. My lot is very large and I could find plenty of places where no one would see a I'm not getting a chicken by the way. I don't I wanted one until I found out how much work it is. Um and so uh All right. So we're going to see three chickens totally enclosed halfacre. It can't be smelly. It has to be clean. Can't be seen by their name. Kathleen Ruffin is going to visit your home. But I think that would also eliminate um most of the smaller development. So when we say can't be seen, the structure can't be seen. No, you hate chickens. No, I don't think she does. But but she My cousins in Wisconsin have chickens. I have nothing against chickens. I'm just kidding. So that's But that's a good question. It's a legitimate question. Can't be seen or the chickens themselves can't be seen. Let's just say you have Well, that that gets You know what? That kind of gets into a you you say what you want. What what what would you want because it gets into then well an enforcement issue too. Well, it that is and if we don't have permits and we don't have authorization to enter the property through the permit process, we won't be able to even go onto the property to to see and examine and do those things. But how are we going to enforce it? Um how about in the back on the back of the Wait a second though. If we don't have access to the property, if there's a complaint and you can't go, so like let's say my neighbor puts in five chickens and they're roaming around his yard, you he won't allow you on the property. How do we enforce the ordinance then? We're not doing free range. I'm I'm Yeah. So, so if that's the if that's the case and the chickens need to be enclosed, right, in a coupe and we see chickens running around the yard, we can see that from the right away. You know, that'd be our way of of enforcing it. We can take a picture of that and say, "Oh, you're you're in violation of the code. send a letter. Um, that's how we would do that. But without a permit, we don't have access to the site because the permits generally you say, hey, you know, we have access to the site. So, if we don't have permits, then we we can't access the site and explicitly look in there and count your chickens and do those things. Um, so that's why that's why the staff is recommending to do like kind of a a a soft launch on on the on the chickens and not have a bunch of regulations that without a permit that we can't really enforce. We're trying to keep it narrow enough to if it became a problem, then we could say, "Okay, if you want chickens, you need a permit." Those that already have it have to come in and get a permit. If if it becomes a problem, it's it's similar to like if there's a code violation, we send a letter. Most of the time they communicate with us and we can work through and find a resolution. Sometimes we don't and then we end up having to go through other processes, but it would be similar. It'd be it'd be a code violation. and they get a letter and we'd hope that they'd work through it with us just like if somebody's operating a business in town and we say, "Hey, you're violating that." So why wouldn't we permanent them permit them then? Well, it's it's a pain in the butt. Okay. Other than staff time, why is it a pain in the butt? Because well time and I mean Minneapolis permits them. What towns permit them? Minnetonka, Minneapolis. Off the top of my head, none of the lake communities do permits. Um, those are the ones I know for sure. I don't believe I don't. Eden Prairie does not permit my Edina. I think they do a permit. So, again, fully realizing it's more staff time. I'll agree to chickens on half acres if we permit them because then we'll know how many people are actually doing this. What problem does a permit solve? we'd know how many people are actually having chickens on their property. And then if a neighbor complains and says they got six chickens, you can be like, "Oh no, they have a permit for three. We can go look for how many have that's my point is we're not getting complaints and there's a ton of chickens out there." So why make more work? Because if you've got chickens, you're not going to go, "Oh, you know what? I'm going to go to stop in city hall and permit these chickens." People aren't going to permit them. They if they're worried about following the ordinance goes by like this, but okay, 12 months goes by like that. I I think if I had to ask staff, would you want us to permit or not? I think staff would say no. I we don't want a permit. It it's up to city council, but we would prefer. We don't have any mechanisms in place to to facilitate the permits. We don't really have any permit processes for this type of thing. We obviously do building permits, but not these kind of, you know, one-off. And then we did get rid of the um dog licensing or permitting if you will um because it was just a a pain and and uh staff time and then pe but also people had to come to city hall they had to fill out the you know paperwork and they had to pay a fee and so I think and if you're going to have chickens just make it easier. I mean don't be labor I I guess don't get government so involved in people's lives. that's coming from me. I mean, but um so I'm hearing at least maybe the some people would say half acre, three chickens completely enclosed. I'm down with that. And um if possible, let's just say some type of screening from your neighbor. How's that? Some type of screening. You can say total screening from your neighbor. Yeah. So, I mean, unless they're out on the lake with a, you know, spy glass and they're looking up at your property. If I may, I think just to make it easier, just they have to be contained to the coupe. I mean, you're going to be able to see the coupe probably from your your back your neighbor's backyard. If that's a problem, then we have to talk about it. But, you know, screening is something that's challenging. You know, are you going to make somebody put up an 8 foot fence to not see their chicken coop? I mean, nobody's going to probably have chickens then. Um, but have them contained in the coupe. I think we can we could work with that. Um, not have them free range. They free range in the egg district right now and we've gotten some complaints about that. Um, you know, where you know there's chickens on other people's yards and things like that, but that's different zoning district. Um, but if there's chickens running around, if we, you know, you don't want them running around because they will dig in your yard and gardens and stuff and you don't, then that gets into neighboring neighbor problems, you know. So, um, would we want a minimum offset from the bound the property line? I I talked to staff about that and they said no because then it's hard to enforce. If we don't have a permit, then we can't access the site to measure the offset. The coupe or can they just build whatever structure they want? How does that work? We wouldn't I mean, it would have to be under square footage under 200 square foot. They won't need a permit. So they could put it right on the property line next to their neighbor. Then they could Well, but would don't you have to be 10 feet off technically, but anything under 200 square feet doesn't need a permit. So we're not out enforcing that. But if somebody did build and they complained less than 200 ft and it was like right on the property line, you could go out and say, "Hey, you have to move it 10 ft off the property line." They would get a letter. Yeah. It was the same enforcement process. It'd be the same as if somebody put a utility shed right on the property line. It'd be handled the same way. So, they have that. Great. So, all right. Well, okay. So, this is going to come back for future city council action. It'll be in the form of an ordinance. I want to make sure I think David has good notes, but three chickens, all hens, no roosters, um, no permits allowed in the residential district in in parcels larger than half an acre. with fully enclosed enclosed and I mean and the reason I want fully enclosed is because we do have coyotes out here. I agree. And if that they they're not top, side, bottom, everything enclosed, those coyotes are going to jump over. I mean, seriously enclosed by a cage, not not a not a four walls. No, the cage is fine. Fully enclosed cage. Yeah, it has to be a cage. I mean, raccoons would get in as well. Yeah. Right. And and just so you know, chickens lay an egg every single day. So if you have three chickens, you're going to have three eggs a day. So you know, 21 eggs if it all works out in the in the winter, they slow way down. So why since this is so easy, why? I mean, we've been at this for eight months. Because it's an ordinance change. It has to come back and it's a a change. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So it'll come back. It'll come back. It'll be business item. It'll be a business item. Be a business item. It won't be on consent on our next meeting. Yes. So, it'll be um what is that? June or May 19th. Great. Okay. Thank you. Thank you everyone. So, so there you go. Um so, next we're going to talk storm water. So, Claudia, you had some questions on storm water. Yeah. Um at the planning uh planning meeting there were several a couple families that came forward and said they were very worried about um the runoff. Um, it seemed that they were talking about like from Jen Olson's property across the road coming out of this culvert kind of they said it was almost like a um rapids coming out at certain times of the year and they were really concerned about having them this big development go in and uh I just said you know there will be um the watershed district Minihaha Creek will do some kind of research on this and so will our engineers. So once staff is on top of it. Yes, the staff is on top of it. In fact, I'm having a meeting. Yeah. And I've been talking with staff. So it's um so what what they have to do um any development that comes along, they have to meet um storm water requirements for rate control it's called and also um quality. So once that water leaves the storm water pond and let's say goes into the lake, it has to meet certain um qualities as well. And then rate controls. We've been talking about the rate controls um ever since day one. Rate controls. Yeah. Rate rate control. So and that's what's happening right now. There is no control. There's just there is just no control there right now. Now, yes, there'll be more more water runoff because there's going to be more impervious more pvious surf imperous surfaces, but that'll all be um handled with the development. And then when we've had other developments come in, we've really been very very um firm on the fact that they can't impact the so the properties that are along the lake on H Hallstead along that lake, they're the ones that that are fearful of being impacted and so um they've always had to come in with with good plans not to impact them. Okay. Did the planning commission approve that? Yes. Well, it was it was tabled. It'll be picking them back up again potentially at the next one and then maybe if they get all their stuff in it might if they don't then it might be the June meeting. They didn't have all their sorry they didn't have they did say they had spoken to the watershed district and that it was all I mean they were not um um what was his name? Um Jim Cook the developer he said oh yes we've spoken to them and because I didn't even see in the plans any kind of water you know the brown water or whatever you call I didn't see anything in there it yeah we the plans aren't quite complete I think that's why and that's why it was tabled and it'll be brought back so they they're they're missing they're still missing some some engineering parts of it and when that comes back then and staff is working with them and they'll be continuing to work with them um to make sure that um the impacts to those residents is um minimal is well it it it won't it shouldn't impact there's nothing you can do about Jen's property though until Jen's property develops that water is still going to do what it's going to do so yeah until that they're grandfathered in there's nothing we can make that property owner do so that's probably but the development can't make it worse for the people they're going to capture their water, their any of their hard cover, they have to capture that and hold it on site before it can be released to the rate control that Lisa was talking about the rate in which it goes into the lake. I see. They have to control that. Thank you. And so they'll they can do what they can do with their site, but they have no control or power to do anything. I see. I see. Thank you. So, you know, the a big huge rain event, I mean, that's still there's until she develops and holds it up there, that's still just understand that that still going to be there, but they're going to have to meet all the rules and regulations for their site. Thank you. Yeah. Will they put um storm water drains in then if they develop that area? There's different things that go park site. Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. It'll be the storm water ponds. Yep. And drains and catch basins. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. And it So, we'll we'll talk and we'll hear more when they come back with a um more complete um plan, I guess, is Well, they seem very excited because they're already advertising. Well, and so here's the thing. Um, I don't know how long some of you, well, some of you haven't been in the community long enough, but the first we started out with a um, trashy trailer park, and it was trashy. I mean, it was really trashy. And there's all kinds of rules and regulations surrounding how you can get rid of a trailer park. And it's very, very difficult because there's and very costly and so the city for years was never able to do anything. And then finally the owner of the trailer park decided to get rid of the trailers and and so on. And I mean unfortunately I'm not saying all the people were trashy. I'm saying the trailers were trashy. Okay. And there's there were a lot of issues out there with with this. So now the trailers are gone and now the the lot has been empty for all these years and we've had four three or four four at least um plans come forward and they've never worked and then they've gone away and so it really um would be nice um to get more people on our water system on our water infrastructure that we're building. So, uh, we're going to be looking at that, um, coming up. Uh, we have to really make we would really like to see something come to fruition there. Well, these the most incredible builders are involved in this. I hope they can make it work. Yeah. And and we're hopeful that they can. So, but that's storm water 101. All right. Um, anything else regarding storm water? Otherwise, we are at the end of our agenda and we can be adjourned. So moved. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. All those in favor signify with I. I. I.................... All. Those opposed. Motion passes.