This transcript has been formatted with the appropriate speaker names based on the municipality roles provided and the contextual clues within the dialogue. **Note on Transcription Oddities:** The raw transcript contains several phonetic misspellings of names (e.g., "council member car" for Cornett, "council member r" for Rog, and "Sharon" for Kristina). These have been corrected to the official names provided in your list. *** [0:03] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** Recording in progress. 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. All right, you've all had a chance to take a look at the agenda. Do I have a motion to approve? [0:20] **Ben Cornett (Council Member):** I make the motion to approve. [0:22] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** Thank you, Ben. Second? [0:24] **John Rog (Council Member):** Second. [0:25] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** Thank you. [Roll call votes taken]. Mayor, I had a chance to take a look at the bill list, peruse all of that, make sure that's correct. Do I have a motion to approve that, gentlemen? [0:48] **John Rog (Council Member):** I'll make a motion. [0:50] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** Thank you, John. Second, Ben? [Roll call votes taken: Council Member Cornett, Council Member Rog, Council Member Anderson, Council Member Cremona, Mayor Giefer]. Thank you, Kim. All right, nothing for Brad tonight, lucky guy. Jennifer is going to be the star tonight. Do we have her up there? There she is. Jennifer, looks like you put a lot of work into this one. Looks good. Can you walk us through it, please? [1:18] **Jennifer (City Planner):** I would be happy to. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. So, before us this evening, we have a draft of a cannabis and hemp ordinance—a cannabis and hemp business ordinance, if you will. And so I've actually prepared just a short presentation to walk through the ordinance since it is rather long. So I'm going to go ahead and share my screen. [1:49] **Jennifer (City Planner):** All right, looks like we're up and running. So, just by way of a little bit of background with respect to the ordinance that's before you this evening: In 2023, the city adopted a moratorium on cannabis and hemp-based businesses. That moratorium was essentially enacted or permitted by State Statute. The whole objective of that moratorium was really to give the city time to study and get a better handle on what the state was going to require in terms of cannabis and hemp-based businesses and how we could regulate them. Over the last year or so, cities throughout the metropolitan area have been working on these ordinances with the understanding that everybody's moratorium is set to expire essentially at the end of this year. Once that expiration happens, if we don't have something in place, we are going to be subject to whatever is most similar on our table of uses and our permitting processes, etc. So it behooves us obviously to get something in play. The one thing I will say, which will come up a little bit as we go through this process, is that the State still has yet to adopt its rules. In all likelihood, the draft ordinance that's in front of you this evening will probably have to change, if I had to guess, because there's been a lot of questions that have come out of several municipalities that have started this process. There's going to be some refinements, etc. So I would anticipate once the Minnesota rules come out that we may need to readdress this ordinance. So just kind of a heads-up that this is to put something in place to get us going, but as the state refines its rules and adopts its rules, there are likely going to be some modifications or refinements that might occur. The ordinance that is in front of you this evening essentially has two components. We've got the first, which is the actual registration portion of cannabis and hemp-based businesses, and the second being the zoning regulations. These are two separate parts of the code. The first one obviously is sort of in the same section as where we have licensing when alcohol or businesses that have alcohol licenses etc. falls under this particular section of the code; that's going to be similar here in terms of the hemp and cannabis-based businesses and what that registration process looks like. The second adjustment is going to happen to the zoning portion of our code. From that respect, that is why we do need to have a public hearing on the item, because we are making some of those adjustments to the zoning section. A little bit of an overview about that cannabis and hemp-based business registration process: Registration is a specific word that we're using because the state is actually going to issue the licenses, versus we will be giving a registration. And so from that perspective, Minnesota State Chapter 342 is allowing cities to go through that registration and require the registration process. It has placed caps on what fees you can charge for those registrations, and so it's not a free-for-all from our perspective in terms of what we can charge. We will have to make those amendments to the fee schedule in January when we address our full fee schedule, but from that perspective, the state statute is saying that we can go through this registration process. So what we've drafted actually says that all cannabis and hemp-based businesses must register. It doesn't matter whether or not you're a retail establishment or you're a cultivator, for example, you're going to be required to register with the city. There's been a lot of talk about whether or not we can cap the number of businesses or the types of businesses that are in the community, or potentially might come to the community. The state statute's pretty clear that you have the ability to cap—or have a minimum/maximum if you will—on the dispensaries or the retail locations. When it comes to the other businesses, you really don't have the ability to cap them. Because the state statute allows us to, in terms of the retail dispensaries, we have proposed in your ordinance that we would cap the number of retail dispensaries at one registration for 12,500 [people], which is what the statute allows us to do. What it says is we have to round to the nearest whole number, so you're rounding up, meaning there would be one potential dispensary registration in the community and no more, because obviously our population is well below that 12,500 threshold. All other license types are not capped, but we'll get into a little bit of a separation discussion in just a moment. They're not capped, but they will be required to register. Part of that is because we will need to be able to keep an eye on where those businesses are, are they operating in compliance with their license, and making sure that they can maintain their license, etc. If we don't have that registration, we don't know where those businesses are. The intent here is that we have a running list of where those businesses might locate. So that's an overview of the registration process. Then when we jump into Chapter 32, which is our zoning, in this section we go through and we do add several definitions that mirror or are consistent with the state statute. You might have noticed that if you look at the description or the definitions, we're not using license types; we're actually using the use type. There's a reason for that, because the license types—a couple of them in particular, the micro-business and the meso-business license types—are what they call "vertically integrated," meaning they can do multiple uses under the same license type. The micro-business, I think, is a really good example because they've kind of related it sort of to a brewery, if you can think of that—it's a brewery for cannabis, if you will—in that it could be a location that has the ability to cultivate, manufacture, do some processing, and then also has a retail location associated with it. We have similar types of businesses to this in the community, and so from that perspective, that vertical integration of that license type really requires us to talk about each of those uses and where and what zoning districts each of those uses might be permitted. That is where the definitions came from in the draft. You can see here we separated it into: cannabis cultivation (obviously growing), dispensary (the retail locations), manufacturing and laboratory, wholesale distribution and storage. As you can see, these are very similar to the uses that are on the table of uses already; they are just specifying them for cannabis. Hemp businesses: lower potency hemp edible manufacturer and lower potency hemp edible retailers. These are all very similar to what the license types are but are really talking about the uses or what business activities could occur on a particular property based on the zoning district. On our table of uses, we added those use types and then put into whether they are permitted by interim use permit or just permitted by right, certificate of compliance, etc., which I will pull up the table in just one moment. But the intent really here was to mirror uses that are of similar nature that are not cannabis necessarily and follow the same sort of permitting process. Most of the attorneys I've talked to basically said, you know, if you permit a retail use, for example, by right, then you should really permit a cannabis dispensary by right. In our case, we're not quite that simple because it's Grant and we've got a little bit different land use pattern, but essentially we were looking for patterns of what do we already permit and do we require a conditional use permit or some other land use permit type, and then that would be the similar type of permitting process that we would require. If we look at the table of uses, for example: Cannabis cultivation—you'll see that across the line it's not permitted indoors except for in the general business where it would be a conditional use permit. That's getting at if an operator came in and had a micro-business license type and was vertically integrated, they could have basically the indoor cultivation, the retail dispensary, and they could have some manufacturing. It would all be only permitted by conditional use permit in the general business district. That retail endorsement of that micro-business, for example, would then also count towards the one retail dispensary license registration and you would not have to allow any other retail locations within the community as an example. Outdoor cultivation: obviously we have agricultural production throughout the community. In this case, we have said a certificate of compliance would be required because we've added some performance standards. If somebody did an outdoor cultivation, they would need to have some of that cultivation area set back from property lines and they would have to follow security plans, etc. So we would need to actually check their site plan in this case, which is very different than if someone were just planting soybeans or corn or whatever it was, which we don't review a site plan in that case. Because of the nature of this type of cultivation, we've said you would need a certificate of compliance. The other one worth noting, I think, is the manufacturing and the wholesale parts. We've said those would be interim use permits (IUP) and they would have to be accessory. Once again, this relates to that vertically integrated operation. The idea once again that a cannabis micro-business would be similar to, for example, the wineries that we have in town or some of our agri-businesses that also have a retail component and might be doing some processing on-site. We are treating it in a similar way but requiring it to be an interim use permit because, as you guys know and remember when we put the IUP in place, the idea is that it can be time-delimited. Under an IUP, it can be assigned to a specific operator and would not run with the land, and in this case, because of the nature of the business that it's cannabis, we likely would not want it to be a conditional use permit. That is the difference of why we said IUP in this case. In addition, we added some performance standards that are specific to cultivation activities and then also retail activities. You may have noticed if you read it that it's very similar to some of our other similar categories. For example, the outdoor cultivation would require that you have 20 acres minimum. If you've got a retail vertically integrated operation, you would kind of have to meet those same [standards] off of a county or state road, 20 acres, etc., because obviously you may have folks that are coming to your property in that case. So from that perspective, we've added some of those performance standards to mirror what some of our other standards are for business types of uses that are in our areas that aren't necessarily the general business district. Couple other things that are within the zoning amendments: requiring 1,000 feet of separation between any cannabis businesses. We did put an exception if it was cultivation only, meaning if it was just an agricultural field that would be excepted, but if it's anything else, there would have to be 1,000 feet of separation between any cannabis business. I will say that this has been discussed numerous times from different attorneys; the statute doesn't specifically allow you to do this, but lots of cities are putting this type of standard in to try to prevent sort of clustering of cannabis businesses. It remains to be seen how that plays out, but essentially a lot of cities are putting this sort of separation between businesses to try to dilute the pool and make sure that you don't have a heavy concentration of cannabis businesses in one area. The statute's also very specific that for retail dispensaries you can put buffer setbacks, but it puts in specifically the maximums you can put. In this case, it's 1,000 feet from schools, which we did include in the draft ordinance. 1,000 feet is the maximum buffer distance that the statute allows, and 500 feet for residential treatment facilities. Once again, we did put that into this code as well. And then as I said before, we increased the setback for cultivation areas from any adjacent residential uses to say that those outdoor cultivation fields would have to be set back significantly so that an adjacent property owner is not overlooking the cultivation area. In terms of what those buffers do, here's the mapping analysis that we did. As you can see, the most significant would be it eliminates several of the properties around the Mahtomedi school campus area, which is not surprising. We have a couple of these other behavioral health or residential treatment facilities; those buffers would also be in play as well. So any of those properties would not be permitted to have any type of cannabis business if they're within that buffer area, including the cultivation. So that's about as high of an overview as I can do on cannabis. I know we've not talked about it before, so I'm happy to answer any questions. We are looking for some discussion tonight. As I said, the moratorium does expire at the end of this year, so from that perspective, we certainly want to get something into place. If we need to make amendments to it, which I think we likely will once we get further direction out of the state and from the Minnesota rules, we'll be back in front of you with those amendments. We are expecting that there might be some "early mover" licenses granted within the next probably four to six weeks. If that were to occur, we could see somebody come in and ask for a registration, potentially ask for the retail dispensary or a micro-business type of license straight out of the gate. So we certainly want to have something in place because it is possible that we may see somebody might have one of those early mover licenses within the next four to six weeks. Otherwise, they're thinking that the overall industry before it truly opens up is going to be sort of end of quarter one or quarter two of next year. Just to give you a sense of timing of when some of those registrations might start to come through in terms of requests for consideration. With that, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, I'm happy to answer questions. I realize there might be several. I know Kristina has also been extremely active on the cannabis ordinances as well, so I'm sure between the two of us we can hopefully field your questions. [18:02] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** Jennifer, just real quick, thank you for drafting it this way. Obviously, you've made mention several times that changes will probably be made in the future, but I know the state has been batting this around and changing it almost constantly and refining it. It sounds like they're still in the process of doing that. So thank you for doing it this way. I think you did it right, and again, high-quality work. So let's open up to the Council. I bet there's a lot of questions on this. John, did you have a question? [18:41] **John Rog (Council Member):** I do. Jennifer, I see—and we've done this before, and I remember there's a couple things that we've had in the past that we always say 20 acres is "anything goes"—but I know we've talked about this before. Is 20 acres the right size for a business like this, or should it be 40 with all the buffers that we have in place, plus the security? I mean, we have a lot of things that we use 20 acres for, and I don't know if it's actually appropriate for a business like this to be a minimum of 20 acres. How do you feel about that? [19:18] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Mr. Mayor, members of the Council, I think you're welcome to consider increasing the size if that's something that you would like to do. The guidance I've heard from several of the attorneys is you need to treat this the way you would treat any other business that is similar in nature. So if you ignored the fact that they're growing cannabis—for example, we've got a winery—if we treated the winery and said the winery is 20 acres, that the micro-business would be of a similar business type and therefore it's perfectly acceptable to put the 20 acres on that because it's similar to what we've required for the farm winery. But if we're going to increase it, then we would need to have a reason as to why we're doing that; otherwise, we may subject ourselves to a challenge, essentially. So from what I've heard from everybody is: treat it the way you would treat a similar business that's non-cannabis related, and then you're probably pretty safe. If you don't do that, then you just are opening yourself up, but it remains to be seen how this is all going to play out. I don't think anybody knows. Roundabout way of saying I tried to treat it the same way we treat any business of similar type or character and put those performance standards in a similar vein. As a result, that's where they came from. But if you feel strongly that it should be a different number, we could certainly put that in play. [20:53] **John Rog (Council Member):** Okay, thank you. [20:54] **Greg Anderson (Council Member):** Yeah, um, for the agricultural growing uses, I see that it has to be a compliance check certificate for that. This is maybe my ignorance up here at the moment, but since it is more of a controlled substance, is there any sort of like fencing or something that has to be involved to keep the general populace out of it? I just want to make sure that that's covered. [21:18] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Mr. Mayor, members of the Council, this is where we tried not to duplicate the requirements that are going to be in the rules, because the Minnesota rules are very specific in terms of security requirements. So securing and fencing, monitoring entrances, like the digital quality of even cameras of entering into those areas, fields, etc.—that's all regulated at the rule level, just like the odor mitigation section is as well. And so that's part of the reason why, for instance, in the cultivation we're saying that you need to give us a certificate of compliance and you have to apply for that, because part of it is going to be that they have to submit their security plan that they have to get approved by the state. So as part of their licensing application at the state, they're going to be required to show their security plan and it has to comply with the Minnesota rules. So the answer is yes, it will be required, but those requirements are going to be heavily regulated by the state. [22:41] **Greg Anderson (Council Member):** Okay, thank you. Well, and to piggyback on that: so, onto what we were talking about over here on this end of the table. I mean, the more acreage you have, if fencing is required, you could have these waves of swaying hemp surrounded by a high-security fence with cameras and stuff like that. And that seems a little like something people in Grant—like when we had the solar panels—it's not something we might want to do. But if they don't do that for security, then the other option is greenhouses, and people don't necessarily... I don't think we're going to want to see a lot of greenhouses out there. So I think those are the two things that I think about when I think about this. I understand that state's going to go forward with this, but that's what I see. Those are things that maybe affect the residents, and so then you're talking about setbacks. To what John said, I mean maybe it's 40 acres with the setbacks to keep it away from other people. I don't know, but I think that's what I see coming down the road with this as it goes forward. So thank you. [23:38] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** All right, anything else? Okay, Jen, a number of questions first. First of all, in the 20 acres, as I understand it, the total grow size may not exceed two acres of mature canopy, is that correct? Now, that is not something you came up with; that is part of the state licensure regimen, right? [24:02] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Correct. Mr. Mayor, just one clarification: so the cultivator license type has a maximum mature canopy of two acres. The meso-business, for example, has a maximum canopy of 15,000 square feet. So two acres is actually the largest area canopy area that would be permitted under any of the license types without exceptions from the state. And so the two acres is specifically identified because it correlates with that license type, but several of the license types actually have far lower maximums that they're permitted to grow. [24:50] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** Okay, but just to go back to both the two acres and the 15,000 square feet: the 15,000 square feet is actually an indoor cannabis growing operation, right? [25:02] **Jennifer (City Planner):** The 15,000 square feet is if it's a meso-business. I believe the number is 30,000 square feet if they were to do it outdoors. So under the meso-business license type, they could do a maximum of 30,000 square feet of mature canopy outdoors. [25:21] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** Okay. And for all intents and purposes, has the state not essentially classified cannabis as another intoxicating substance that is legal for adults to own, possess, and use, very similar if not the same as alcohol? [25:39] **Jennifer (City Planner):** I would say they are treating it in much the same way. [25:44] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** Much the same way. Most of our businesses, for example wedding barns and that type of thing—we have smartly, with your advice in years past, limited those to county roads. There has been a 20-acre almost always minimum in order for those businesses to operate on those county roads, which has always been my thought, and I think the Council shares that, that it tends to dilute the impact of those businesses on the neighborhoods and on the residents of Grant, which is I think what we were going for at the time. Another question for you: we've got licensing which is out of our hands, it's a state level function. Registration is a city level function. We've talked about reviewing site plans; we've talked about some of that other stuff. Have you even given any thought to what escrows are going to look like for something like that? For example, the outdoor cultivation on 20 acres with two acres of mature bud? [26:41] **Jennifer (City Planner):** So they would have their registration fee, which is capped by the state, and then they will be charged the same certificate of compliance application fee and escrow as any other certificate of compliance. So again, it goes back to treating them the same as any other business. I think our number is a $50 application fee, if my memory is right, and a $950 escrow fee for the certificate of compliance. [27:14] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** Right. I wonder if that's going to cover our costs. [27:20] **Jennifer (City Planner):** What I will tell you is that the intent, and what I've been doing with several of the cities that I'm working with, is to say that several of the things that we would ordinarily review in the land use permit process are things that actually are required by the rules. So like the security plan, the lighting plan, the odor mitigation plan—those things are reviewed as part of the license application piece. So we are really going to be limited to what we can review to basically setback compliance, buffer requirements, those types of more truly land-use pieces. And so while it remains to be seen, I do believe that the majority of our escrow should cover that part because we're not going to be reviewing the security plan, because that has to be approved through the license acquisition process with the state. [28:13] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** Got you. So you have to be very careful as to which of the plans are required for security and state licensure, and whether or not that is actually registration or licensure. Then I'll go to this point, page nine: "Indoor cannabis cultivation: Mark 3 - may not exceed two acres of mature canopy. Number 4 - cultivation canopy area must be fully screened from all public right-of-way and from adjacent residential property lines." Now, that's interesting to me because the cultivation length of a mature marijuana plant, I think, is what, three or four months like any other summer crop? [28:49] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Mhm. Three or four months, okay. [28:53] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** Okay. So if they were to get their license, come here, get registered, pay the escrow, pay the fees, and start growing, how are they going to screen this? And is screening a licensure problem or is it a city problem? Because some of these plants can get 10 or 12 feet tall. So how is the screening handled, I guess, through license/registration, and how permanent and how quickly? [29:21] **Jennifer (City Planner):** So screening from the adjacent residential is a registration/city land use, and screening from the right-of-way is the license. I believe that the license specifically says that you can't see the active cannabis production from a public right-of-way. So again, that would be: do you have a row of arborvitae that are shielding and screening that? Do you have... and of course, I don't know how the state's going to regulate that either in terms of how timely that has to occur. I can't answer that for you because I don't know. But from our side, I would say just like anytime we've said something needs to be screened, we usually say you can't put a seedling in; you're going to have to put something more substantial than that and within a certain number of years or seasons, it needs to reach that maximum screening potential. And so once again, we would treat it just like any other time when we've required screening in the past; the same types of conditions would be applied to it and we would follow the same types of standards for timing. [30:33] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** I would agree with that, and I would disagree with that in the sense that the state has put that in their purview mostly, and we're talking about a very agricultural product that is again 12 feet high. So putting in 12-foot high arborvitae is going to be probably cost-prohibitive. I'm just concerned about that screening portion, and I hope the Council keeps that in mind as they go forward and starts doing these registrations, because John's point comes to the forefront when you start talking about them complying with those screening requirements. Will there be time on 20 acres, if there's two acres, is it going to be made to be in the center? Maybe their 20 acres has a bunch of ponds on it and has to be 300 feet from the road. That's where your 40 acres maybe kicks in. But I understand exactly your point is treating it as other businesses that handle intoxicating substances, so it's a good protection for the city. I see that. I'm just pointing it out to the Council; it's going to be a problem later on. [31:54] **Jennifer (City Planner):** So again, I do want to make the distinction though that the visibility from the right-of-way is the licensing part. The screening from adjacent residential is a different... like the state is not regulating that to the same extent. So just as a minor point of clarification. [32:09] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** No, I do understand that point. Perhaps I communicated it incorrectly, but I do understand that point. And again, it brings me back to John's 40 [acres], but we're going to unfortunately, as you said, expose ourselves to liability if we're not treating it the same as other businesses pedaling intoxicating substances. Let's go to 5.7, "Compliance checks: The city shall conduct a minimum of one unannounced age verification compliance check per calendar year at each cannabis retail business." Of course, we're going to have one age verification compliance check; it shall involve persons at least... we can do it or the sheriff can do it. Have any of the county sheriffs been volunteering resources across the state with this legislation to handle these compliance checks? [32:51] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Yes, so actually I've heard of a couple different... I've heard of Sheriffs volunteering. I actually was in a city last week where there's an organization, a nonprofit, that's focused on tobacco compliance and does the same types—will do the same types of checks. So there's various agencies that we could look at contracting with, including the sheriff obviously, communicating with them. But from a statutory perspective, we're required—the language that's here is actually what you have to do. And so we really don't have a choice, and then it's going to be truly figuring out who is doing that compliance check. But there are various agencies, nonprofits, etc., who are volunteering that, but we will need to identify who's going to do it. [33:41] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** Right. I just want to make sure as a city that's contracting law enforcement that that is also able to be contracted out to them and the city does not have to take that on as an independent function of any kind. Just one further question for you on this: the retail hours of operation, 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Are you going along with... is this something that we did, or is this something the state did? I guess I don't know where this comes from. [34:10] **Jennifer (City Planner):** That's state statute. So they went with liquor store statute; that is the minimum/maximum—you can't change that. You could make it open till 2:00 a.m. if you'd like, but yeah. [34:25] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** Well, that looks to me like liquor state law right there. That's a liquor store sleeping. Hope they're out by then. Okay. You know Jen, again, I think it's good work. It's as restrictive as the state law allows; it also does offer opportunity. But I think most discerning adults know that while it's also intoxicating, it's a different product than alcohol would be. So you guys will have some challenges on this moving forward, but like you say, we can always modify it as the state starts to modify their rules, and then the city can move forward with our own modifications within those rules. Other questions, gentlemen? [35:19] **Greg Anderson (Council Member):** I'm all done. [35:20] **Ben Cornett (Council Member):** Jeff, I have one question. Jennifer, you said the maximum indoor was 15,000 square feet and that's irrespective of lot size. So I assume that it would just be the setbacks that would condition the size of the lot required for that 15,000 square foot? [35:40] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Yes. And remember, the indoor cultivation is restricted only to the General Business [district]. [35:48] **Ben Cornett (Council Member):** Oh, indoor. Indoor cultivation does not apply. Okay, that makes my next concern a moot point. [35:54] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** Thanks for pointing that out again, Jennifer, I'd forgotten that as well. John? Tom? Ben? [36:00] **Greg Anderson (Council Member):** Nothing else. [36:01] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** Okay. [36:02] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Mr. Mayor, Council members, I would then be looking for a motion to open the public hearing. [36:08] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** Okay. Who would like to make a motion to open this public hearing? [36:12] **John Rog (Council Member):** I make that motion to open the public hearing. [36:15] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** Thank you, John. Second? [Seconded and roll call votes taken]. Thank you, Kim. All those who have an opinion on this proposed ordinance are welcome to come forward and let us know what you're thinking. One at a time, calm down, calm down, no stampedes. There we go. If you could give us your name, sir, and perhaps even write in your address there if you wouldn't mind. We'll get you in the minutes. [36:53] **Mr. Sho (Public):** I wasn't planning on saying anything tonight, but I just wanted to say I'm always impressed with Jennifer and the excellent work she does. A very good presentation, and I think you folks will do a great job on the permit. So I have no concerns. [37:11] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** I echo your comments on Jennifer; we're lucky to have her. We sure are. Thank you so much, Mr. Sho. Calling one more time for public comment on the proposed ordinance. If I hear nothing... [37:25] **Jennifer (City Planner):** I just want to make sure that we do have one member of the public who's in attendance virtually. I don't know if they have interest; please raise your hand if you'd like to say anything during public testimony. If you keep your hand not raised, we'll assume you don't have comment, but I just want to make sure that they know they have the ability to do that. [37:50] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** It'd be nice if we had those little hands on the screens the Council could see. Mr. or Mrs. Virtual Listener, would you like to speak on this topic? Does not appear so. I would entertain a motion to close this public hearing. [38:13] **Ben Cornett (Council Member):** I make that motion. [38:15] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** Thank you. Second? [38:17] **John Rog (Council Member):** Second. [38:18] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** [Roll call votes taken]. Moving forward, it looks like we have an ordinance in front of us, labeled 2024-82. We've asked, I think, a good spread of questions. We understand the difference between licensing at the state and registration within the city, as well as the cost and the things that go along with that, as well as enforcement. So it seems as though we have covered our bases. And again, Jennifer, good work once again. I get tired of saying that to you, I say it every time I see you. [38:53] **Jennifer (City Planner):** I like it! [38:54] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** Do you? Okay, good. Tape those. All right, I would entertain a motion to approve or disapprove or what have you on 2024-82. [39:06] **Ben Cornett (Council Member):** Motion to approve. Let's get something in place. [39:09] **Greg Anderson (Council Member):** Second. [39:10] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** [Roll call votes taken: Council Member Anderson, Council Member Rog, Council Member Giefer, Council Member Cornett, Mayor Giefer]. All right. And I believe do we not have also contained within the version to publish this in its shortened section—I'm sorry Kim, I have misplaced it with all my paper shuffling. Can you give me the name of that please? [39:35] **Kim (Clerk):** It's the truncated publication version, Council members. It is a resolution number 2024-20, and all that does is authorize a summary publication. [39:48] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** Thank you. So we need a motion? Yes, need a motion to publish the summary, which is... we don't want to publish this thick [document] in the newspaper, it's too expensive. So again, it's a summary publication, 2024-20. [40:08] **Greg Anderson (Council Member):** I'll make the motion for 2024-20. [40:11] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** Thank you. Second? [40:13] **Ben Cornett (Council Member):** I second. [40:14] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** [Roll call votes taken]. All right, Mr. Vivian has no action items. Thank you, Jennifer. Let's move into the final 2025 budget, and I think we are going to turn to our esteemed Treasurer. [40:36] **Kristina Handt (City Administrator/Treasurer):** Mayor and Council, thank you. At this time, we approve our final levy and final budget for 2025. The levy, as you all recall, can be lowered but it cannot be increased at this time. Our levy increase percent is 5% this year, which is actually a lower increase on our residents than the increase last year in dollar terms. And yes, John? [41:09] **John Rog (Council Member):** Just a quick question: what was Washington County's increase? I thought I saw that as 5.9, which you recommended for the city, didn't you? [41:19] **Kristina Handt (City Administrator/Treasurer):** It could have been. I don't know what their final levy is. [41:23] **John Rog (Council Member):** I did see that. So you were dead on with Washington County as well, so good job. [41:28] **Kristina Handt (City Administrator/Treasurer):** Thank you. [41:29] **Greg Anderson (Council Member):** Yeah, what's the total amount of that levy? [41:33] **Kristina Handt (City Administrator/Treasurer):** Sure. It is on your resolution. General fund budget and the levy, which is resolution 22, is $1,157,466. [42:15] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** Good, real good. And I will explain the 5%: the Council has to start making some decisions based on the reserves that the Council holds and the expenses that we are faced with. The Council, like any other family out there, is experiencing inflation and labor, fuel, everything else that we do, whether it be copy paper or heating this building. So without 5%, the Council decided that we would be unacceptably eating into reserves that, as a small city, are really all we have in case of an emergency, a problem, a tornado, whatever. We get 100 trees down, we're going to need that money; we're going to need it right now. So that was the decision-making of the Council, which I happen to fully agree with. And with that said, I would look for someone to make the motion on resolution 2024-21, which is our budget. If you could just read out the number of that budget, the year, and the resolution number for your motion, I'd appreciate it. [43:30] **John Rog (Council Member):** Sure. I'll move to approve resolution 2024-21 for the final budget—general fund budget in the amount of $2,058,466. [43:43] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** Thank you, John. Do I have a second on our budget resolution, please? [43:46] **Ben Cornett (Council Member):** Second. [43:47] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** [Roll call votes taken]. And as Kristina laid out for us really quickly, that 5% comes to a levy amongst all of our residents and all of our properties of $1,157,191. And again, that is a lower impact on a dollar-for-dollar basis than it was earlier, and Kristina did the magic on that one. I'll let you talk to her on the magic there. So, but I trust everything she says. So I'm looking for a resolution motion for 2024-22, the final levy certification, with the amount called out, please. [44:27] **John Rog (Council Member):** I will move to approve resolution number 2024-22 for the levy certification amount of $1,157,466. [44:46] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** Thank you, John. Do I have a second? [Seconded and roll call votes taken]. All right, Ben, you are our newest Council Member, so you get the dubious duty of reading out every liquor license that we have—the resolution number. And Kim, would you also like the name of the business or just the resolution number? [45:10] **Kim (Clerk):** The resolution number is sufficient. [45:12] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** Mr. Cornett, first one, and then we're going to vote on them. [45:15] **Ben Cornett (Council Member):** I move to approve resolution 2024-23. [Motion seconded and passed]. I move to approve resolution number 2024-24. [Motion seconded and passed]. I move to approve resolution number 2024-25. [Motion seconded and passed]. I move to approve resolution number 2024-26. [Motion seconded and passed]. I move to approve resolution number 2024-27. [Motion seconded and passed]. I move to approve resolution number 2024-28. [Motion seconded and passed]. [47:04] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** All right, staff reports. [47:06] **Kristina Handt (City Administrator/Treasurer):** We have nothing further. [47:10] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** We skipped right over staff; they had nothing to say to us. John, you are up. [47:14] **John Rog (Council Member):** So I saw that our financial person is resigning who's been doing the financial stuff for the City of Grant, and I guess we probably should figure out who we have that is a person that is certified as a financial planner that can replace this gentleman. I guess he's done the end of December, is it? So we should probably move on that. [47:38] **Kristina Handt (City Administrator/Treasurer):** Council members, that was not an agenda item because we are not there yet. I am getting some quotes from various CPAs, and that person is appointed at your January meeting. So I think it's a good reminder to be thinking about it, but not quite there yet. [47:56] **John Rog (Council Member):** Yeah, will we get the resumes as we did for when we got the person to do the real estate assessor? [48:06] **Kristina Handt (City Administrator/Treasurer):** Yeah, if they submit that, basically. We're asking for pricing, and when we went over replacing staff, he's going to be one that's very difficult to replace at that cost. We should also just know that he did it for nothing for four years. [48:30] **John Rog (Council Member):** Yeah, all right. I just saw that he was resigning so I thought I'd bring it up. [48:31] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** Sounds good. No, we got the other stuff covered. Anything else? Okay, real good. Community calendar. Greg, you want to read the community calendar for us? [48:43] **Greg Anderson (Council Member):** Absolutely. Mahtomedi Public Schools board meeting: Thursday, December 12th and December 26th, Mahtomedi District Education Center, 7 p.m. Stillwater Public Schools board meeting: Thursday, December 12th, Stillwater City Hall, 7 p.m. Washington County Commissioners meeting: Tuesdays, Government Center, 9:00 a.m. Christmas Day: Wednesday, December 25th, 2024. Merry Christmas! [49:15] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** Nice job. Motion to adjourn? [49:17] **John Rog (Council Member):** Motion to adjourn. [49:18] **Greg Anderson (Council Member):** Second. [49:19] **Jeff Giefer (Mayor):** [Roll call votes taken]. Yes, and free, free at last! Thank you all for your service. That's the end of my speech.