This transcript has been formatted with speaker identifications based on the roll call and contextual references throughout the meeting. **[3:43] Mayor McCloskey:** April 28th. Uh, clerk, please do a roll call. **[3:43] City Clerk:** Council member Walsh **[3:43] Council Member Walsh:** here. **[3:43] City Clerk:** Council member Gerola **[3:43] Council Member Gerola:** here. **[3:43] City Clerk:** Council member West **[3:43] Council Member West:** here. **[3:43] City Clerk:** Council member Edber **[3:43] Council Member Edber:** here. **[3:43] City Clerk:** Council member Angstran **[3:43] Council Member Angstran:** here. **[3:43] City Clerk:** And Mayor McCloskkey **[3:43] Mayor McCloskey:** here. **[3:58] Mayor McCloskey:** Uh, will the honor guard please present the colors? **[4:31] Honor Guard/Assembly:** City White Bear Lake, flag of your nation and pledge to follow. 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. **[5:47] Mayor McCloskey:** Okay, you may be seated. Well, welcome everybody in the chambers. Got a lot of people here today and thanks for coming out. Um, and welcome everybody online. Um, we're going to get started. Um, and move on to approval of the minutes from the regular city council meeting of April 14th. I would accept a motion. **[6:10] Council Member:** Move to approve. **[6:10] Council Member:** Second. **[6:10] Mayor McCloskey:** All in favor? **[6:10] Council Members:** Aye. **[6:10] Mayor McCloskey:** Any opposed? And the motion passes. Item uh three, the agenda. Does anyone have any changes or **[6:10] Council Member Edberg:** Mad mayor? I should probably abstain on that last vote because I wasn't at the meeting. So, I really couldn't be a good judge whether those minutes are good or not because I wasn't here. **[6:34] Mayor McCloskey:** Thank you. Okay. Item three, the agenda. Does anyone have any changes to the agenda? **[6:34] Council Member:** Move to approve. **[6:34] Council Member:** Second. **[6:34] Mayor McCloskey:** Any discussion? All in favor? **[6:34] Council Members:** Aye. **[6:34] Mayor McCloskey:** Any opposed? Okay, we have an agenda item four, the consent agenda. Does anyone have any changes to the consent agenda? **[6:34] Council Member:** Move to approve. **[6:34] Council Member:** Second. **[6:56] Mayor McCloskey:** Okay, we have a second. Any further discussion? All in favor? **[6:56] Council Members:** Aye. **[6:56] Mayor McCloskey:** Any opposed? All right, the consent agenda passes. Item five, visitors and presentation. Item A, law enforcement memorial. I'm going to be reading a proclamation um for our law enforcement memorial. Whereas there are more than 800,000 law enforcement officers serving in communities across the United States, including the dedicated members of the White Bear Lake Police Department. And whereas since the first recorded death in 1786, there are currently more than 24,500 law enforcement officers in the United States who have made the ultimate sacrifice and been killed in the line of duty. And whereas the names of these dedicated public servants are engraved on the wall of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington DC. And whereas 363 names of fallen heroes were added to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial this year, including 109 officers killed in **[8:07] Mayor McCloskey:** 2025, excuse me, and 254 officers who died the previous year. Whereas the service and sacrifice of all officers killed in the line of duty will be honored during the National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund's 38th annual candlelight vigil on the evening of May 13th, 2026. **[8:28] Mayor McCloskey:** And whereas the candlelight vigil is part of National Police Week, which will be observed this year from Monday, May 11th to Saturday, May 16th. And whereas May 15th is designated as National Peace Officer Memorial Day in honor of all fall fallen officers and their families. Now therefore, be it resolved that the White Bear Lake City Council shall observe May 11th through the 16th, 2026 as Police Week in the city of White Bear Lake and publicly salutes the service of law enforcement officers in our community and in communities across the nation. Thank you. Item 5B uh the police department bianual report. Chief Hagar. **[9:15] Chief Hagar:** Madame Mayor. **[9:15] Mayor McCloskey:** Yes. **[9:15] Chief Hagar:** Members of the council, thank you uh very much for the opportunity. I also really want to uh thank our color guard again tonight. They do such a bangup job. I think they really real professionals. I I want to thank my predecessor Julie Swanson who started that whole uh program and um all three of those guys are military vets. So I really appreciate um the work they do. So I'm here to uh talk about 2025 for the most part um uh since we're so close to that year. I just did a whole year um kind of recap of what we are. Here's our department photo, one of our department photos from uh last year. Uh here's our organizational chart. Uh we had some changes which I'll go through as we get uh into this um presentation a little bit more. Um the things that we added here reflected in the organizational chart in um in the sense at the bottom left there says a special investigator. **[10:22] Chief Hagar:** We added a unique position in that spot and then we added a sergeant uh in charge of the detective. Our numbers are the same. we just kind of move them around a little bit. Um, so kind of a department overview. I have uh Captain Tum and myself there. Uh, we primarily in 2025 uh our patrol captain who recently um retired had some personal issues to deal with. And so for the most part it was the two of us in 2025. Uh we had four patrol sergeants. **[11:01] Chief Hagar:** Um at the at the end of the year, we added those different positions, which is what I'll talk about a little bit. Uh right now, we're at 15 police officers. We're three short on the patrol side. Uh and then we're short, one patrol captain, of course, because Captain Henry's departure. Uh we have three investigators. Uh so two one specialy investigator, two traditional criminal investigators, and then one investigative sergeant, which I'll talk about in a bit. We have three school resource officers, five civilian um non-sworn CSOs, four administrative staff. So currently we're staffed um for we're authorized for 32 sworn police officers to include administration and supervisors and we're currently at uh 28. **[11:45] Chief Hagar:** Uh these are our four patrol sergeants here. And just um I know the council knows this, but uh we have two shifts, four shifts, I should say. two day shifts and two night shifts. Um they usually work either Sunday, Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and then they work every other Saturday and primarily they work somewhere around 6:00 to somewhere around 6:00 in the morning to 6:00 at night, things like that. So this is our investigative crew you see on the bottom there. That's uh Sergeant John Vetty. He is the new position there um to oversee. I'll talk about his in a little bit here, but we have three detectives to include a detective sergeant. They work traditional Monday through Friday hours. And then our juvenile investigators, our SRO's, they also are stationed at the various schools around White Bear Lake and they **[12:31] Chief Hagar:** work uh Monday through Friday kind of traditional hours. Um as well, we have administrative staff. Uh this was just uh the other day and administrative uh assistance uh day. Uh so they're the first point of contact. They are the the face that everybody that comes to see our department, it's the first first group of people that they see. I can't think of a better group uh to work with. **[12:54] Chief Hagar:** Uh we added Joanne here this last year and she's fit right in. Just a really great group. Also in there is is Connie Anderson who's a longtime as a council knows longtime employee with the fire department. Happy to have all that group kind of working together. but they do a variety of tasks up front for us to include um a new position that we added or extended digital evidence processing um and um and uh community engagement coordinator as well. So, so we had some personnel changes in 25. **[13:26] Chief Hagar:** We added three. You see that um Officer Johnson, Simon, and Shed there in the uniforms on the right. And then as I said, Joanne Rose uh was just one of our administrative staff up there in the far right corner. And then of course, Captain Henry retired uh just earlier this month um after 30 yearsish of law enforcement. And then we lost one officer this year to who transferred to St. Paul. **[13:53] Chief Hagar:** Our patrol division uh shifts changed quite a bit, but as you can kind of tell the people on the top, they're the day shifters. People on the bottom there are the night shifters. just a general trend that happens as you lose um staffing, the dayshift always suffers. So, we take people off the dayshift to uh make sure the night shift is covered. And there's a variety of reasons for that. A lot of activities at night. Um, additionally during the day, we have some investigators there to help, some captains and a chief, not much help, but a captain and a chief that's there to help as well. So, and some SRO's that can help during the day most days except for Saturdays and Sundays. So that's why we kind of short the uh dayshift staff. **[14:32] Chief Hagar:** And right now uh we've got one dayshift staff or one day shift that's completely fully staffed and then one day shift that's uh just down one. Our community service officers here uh we have five of them. They've been pretty consistent over the last year and a halfish, maybe two years. Um there's pictures of all of them in there. The one you might take note of is in the bottom there where Jaden and Connor uh wrangled the deer for us. If you didn't know this, this is a this is a pretty neat event to be honest. And um so this deer got a and I know Jaden's in the back room and I don't want to embarrass him, but I will. Uh uh they this deer got a a wire contraption wrapped around his head and it obviously couldn't you know it was going to die for sure and **[15:19] Chief Hagar:** these guys kind of stalked them and um waited till they got into a low marshy area and they took a blanket out and they did a did a huge dive and covered that deer's head and held it down along with cso flick and and ripped that thing off their head and saved that deer's life likely. Um and then they got an award from PETA for it. So it was really kind of exciting. uh time for all of us. **[15:42] Chief Hagar:** So, yeah, they do a variety of tasks for us, but we're going to lose um just kind of put it on your radar, we're going to lose three of them probably in the next monthish or so because they're all ready to go out and be sworn police officers. Uh and then the fourth one will probably be in that position a year from now. Um, and so we're proactively uh kind of working towards getting those positions filled before they they even leave so we can try to have not as much of a drop off during our really busiest time this summer. Um, so we hired for CSOS and we hired for seasonal CSOS as the council knows is a a program that we're starting again this year, which I'll talk about in a few slides. **[16:25] Chief Hagar:** Our volunteers, um, I can't say enough about them. There's a whole pile of them in the back of the room today. Um, our shirt group, uh, they're just invaluable for us. They're just the the one of the most important things they do for us is a thing that I don't even appreciate as much as just their friendship and their loyalty and their um um, valuing community, but they're free labor. Like, we just get a lot of free work done out of this group. And uh you know although they do that for us and I'm appreciative of course it's um they are just kind of the the bedrock or just kind of a steady foundation for us that every time we have something going on and we're short staff we just say we'll certain time and they never fail. They always **[17:12] Chief Hagar:** come through with uh like they did tonight they always just come through with plenty of volunteers to come out. We've trained about 150 members um over the last 10ish. started in 15, right? Um, and over the last 10 years, we've trained 150 of them. And we have probably a good 80 to 100 that when a need would were to arise, they would show up. And then we have about 40 that show up to everything and they're always there at market fest, at parades, at everything we need them for. Uh, we also do continue to do a citizens police academy. That's a group on the top and that's sometime that's our that's kind of our feeder group to get into Cert or get into the reserves just just local citizens that just want to know more about um their local public safety and I know that um fire is in the middle of **[17:58] Chief Hagar:** theirs right now. Um so they do one and we do one and just really gives citizens an opportunity to see what we're all about here. Uh and then Triad is a group of our um seasoned citizens that um do a great job. they meet, you know, in our department every month and kind of look to for ways to serve their community a little bit better. And we're really certainly appreciative of those folks, too. **[18:20] Chief Hagar:** Uh so we're preparing, we've been doing this for the last few years, really preparing for the future. Um you know, we found ourselves, of course, in the last six years really struggling to try to find uh cops, right? And so, you know, we we kind of thought, well, how can we do that? we can get them in young and get them in early, try to teach them the way of White Bear Lake. And you know, we kind of think we're pretty awesome. So, we feel like if people just could see that, then they'd want to hang out and be with us for a little bit more, maybe maybe into their career. And so, we, you know, one of the things we did a couple years ago was we found that kid up on the top right, uh, Connor. Um he was a high school student. Uh really an insane crazy athlete. And um I played basketball with him in the mornings **[19:05] Chief Hagar:** every every morning. And um he uh his dad was a cop Minneapolis. And um one time he just came to me and said, you know, I'm graduating here in a couple months. Really want to be a cop. And I said, you need to go to college and play basketball because you'd be a standout. He goes, I want to be a cop. And so we applied for a grant and got it. as the council knows about year and a half ago, maybe two years ago, and the grant pays for a a large portion of his um schooling. Um it pays for half of his salary to the city and uh it's just a really great opportunity and and right now he has been given a conditional offer to be our next police officer. So, it's really fantastic that he's going to be with us. Um, we also really kind of **[19:53] Chief Hagar:** leaned into the internship programs. Um, we had two in 2024. Last year we had five and we're on track to probably have six in 2026. It's really paid off. You see the young lady over on the left there. She uh, Sergeant Gad Boy who was one of our um, flag bears here tonight. **[20:09] Chief Hagar:** He um, he took her out on the range and let her shoot one. You know, I I assume they shot more, but her very first shot was couldn't have been more perfect in the middle. And so we're kind of hoping that we can keep nurturing her her long, but she was an intern uh for us uh just this year. And um next slide will show you a couple more of our interns. Um the the next few slides are these new positions that we started in 2025, late 2025 uh into this year. And and the first one, as the council knows, we started back in the spring of 2025. um kind of we had limited success due to some staffing and personnel problems. **[20:47] Chief Hagar:** Now this year those two uh young women in the bottom right they are our twoist I think I think one of them in the back of the room Lily's in the back of the room uh they were our interns uh at the end of the year last year and uh just did a great job interning for us and now they're going to be our seasonal csos two of our three seasonal csos um just starting right now. Lily's in um FTO right now as we speak. So, we're definitely planning on a um more success this year. We uh purchased that um side by side um ATV up in the top and uh looking forward to just spending a lot more time down by the lake and in the parks and kind of you guys all know the reason that we we started this program. **[21:30] Chief Hagar:** We're hoping to have some success uh in that. Another position we started, I had to put that picture of Sergeant Vetty jumping in the pool. Uh that was up at the high school. They had a fundraiser and of course he's a good sport and he uh he he was one of the first ones to dive into that cold water earlier this month. But we started investigative or administrative sergeant position. And so what we did is we took uh one of the regular investigators, turned them into a sergeant position, and now that that sergeant oversees two criminal adult criminal investigators, one of the specialy investigators, which I'll talk about in a little bit, and then three csos. So uh he oversees um six people and then he does his um he also has his **[22:15] Chief Hagar:** case load of investigations too. So he acts also acts as a detective. another kind of enhanced position. We we used to have a part-time um public safety or police engagement coordinator and digital evidence technician. And then um with the assistance of um uh Chief Peterson on the fire side, uh they added a little bit to our budget. So we're able to um use her as a public safety um engagement coordinator. So she helps fire and police kind of arrange for their yearly uh their you know in the summer here really weekly events that we have out in the community. Um she also arranges for all bodywn cameras and squad camera and other digital evidence that needs to go out to **[23:00] Chief Hagar:** attorneys and out to the public. And that itself, if I'm being honest, that itself probably could be a full-time job. It's just really the the world we're entering into is just so much stuff needs to be done on the backside of all these cases that needs to get taken care of. And and for now, she's holding it down. And then she also along with Captain Tuma and um and uh Sergeant Vetty, they're kind of our communications specialist right now, our media team, and and they do a lot of our work on our um on our um Facebook and and other social media outlets. So, really appreciative for that position as well. And then one more position there is uh I had to put a picture of Eddie all bloodied up. So uh Eddie was also one of the flag bears tonight. I don't know if he knew that I was going to have that picture of him in there. Hey, right on. Uh that's just a that's just a tough **[23:48] Chief Hagar:** guy photo. I don't know. We have it we have it all over in our police department. Every chance we get, we like to show that photo because it just looks so cool. Um so we started a specialy investigator position. So he's kind of a hybrid. Um, sometimes he works in uniform, sometimes he's works um on uh in in plain clothes investigations, but it gives him the opportunity to if he's not really following up on cases that he has to work on the street and uh it gives him an opportunity to just go find stuff um proactive investigations to start. Um he had a really successful uh investigation doing some in-depth compliance investigations to our THC and tobacco and alcohol establishments. Very successful. I'm sure the in the next few **[24:36] Chief Hagar:** months we'll hear more about that. He's um one of his first um and this was decided by him, but one of his first missions was to make contact with all of our business owners in town and just kind of talk to them about what we do, how we're there to help them, how they can get a hold of of him um individually for any of their needs that they might have and not have to reach out to, you know, 911 or whatever. And um just done a really bangup job. like he definitely sees what our mission is in that position is to create more create more activity on our side and make sure that uh we are in lock step with what the public wants and and expects from us. He created um a new system to kind of uh to discover warrants and to go serve **[25:21] Chief Hagar:** warrants and then he works with a lot of other departments um to just make sure that we're staying on top of our our crime trends in the area. So, I'm really appreciative of that position. And that started late um late 2025. And of course, community engagement is the thing I'm one of the things I'm the most proud of um with the city of White Bear Lake. Um you know, we we have we've had a long history of it certainly since I've been here of community engagement and uh we really just tried to lean into it even more in the last few years. And um and we you know we have a community engagement team that is kind of um comprised of officers who are really into that type of work and and again not everybody is but uh they're really into **[26:07] Chief Hagar:** that kind of work and so they um they lean into that more and more and and we've really done it. I'll show you when we get to some of our statistics about kind of the increase increases that we've made in that area. So, I know that uh the council really enjoys seeing uh um some some maps and some uh statistics. So, I'll bore maybe everybody else with it while I show you guys kind of some of the stuff here. **[26:31] Chief Hagar:** But, so those dots just represent and we didn't get all of 25. We got part of 24 into 20 almost to the end of 25. Um turns out mapping out uh this kind of stuff and doing this kind of deep dives takes a lot of time. And so we had a few people on, you know, light duty last year. And so we tasked them with kind of jobs like this to try to just do the things that wouldn't get done because we just don't have the staffing for it. Uh wouldn't get done if if if we didn't have people on light duty. So one of our newer officers, um Jordan Sullivan, kind of put some stuff together for us, which is great. So these are property damage accidents. You kind of see they're they're all over the place. Side streets, of course. They really kind of hug the interstates and the and the main **[27:17] Chief Hagar:** thorough affairs through our city. The next one is uh crashes with injuries and and they pretty much stay on the on the major roads, right? 61, 35, 96, 694, White Bear, a little bit of Mcnite and that's generally where all the accidents are. **[27:32] Chief Hagar:** The ones that are kind of the outliers there on the west side of 61, that's probably related to high school a little bit. The high school just started up there. I know we had a few accidents when that first started until we kind of got got our arms wrapped around uh some of the traffic problems that were up there. Next one. **[27:48] Chief Hagar:** So, these are a little bit different kind of maps. Uh these are assault incidents. So, just assaults that we've had through our city. Um, as you can see, they're pretty well represented around. Often times when you see clusters of real, you know, bright red, um, you know, showing there on the map, that's usually around multi-, you know, family dwellings, you know, apartment buildings, stuff like that. Um, that's generally where where that stuff is from. So, we're next. These are burglaries. Kind of follow the same trend. Uh you see a big bright um some some of the brighter spots again are multi-family unit dwellings and then um and then uh a rental storage areas are pretty ripe with um incidents that **[28:34] Chief Hagar:** happen there because because this is what happens. You have a whole bunch of property that's unguarded and and that tends to um attract people that want to take your stuff. So these are domestic assaults. Uh we have one map that's kind of extended out because we did, you know, we helped handle some incidents outside of our city. So you see one is way over there, you know, way way west of town. But then when you zero it in on the on the right hand side there, that's just kind of all the domestic assaults that we all the domestics that were reported to us. It doesn't mean that there was a domestic assault that occurred, but those are the calls we go for a domestic assault. and um couldn't tell you how many of those were charged and and weren't charged, but again, they cluster around um some of our apartments and in the downtown **[29:19] Chief Hagar:** area as well. There's a right right downtown there's a big uh blob of of dots there. Well, that's just because people come to the police department to report their assault and so that's the address of the assault, if you will. So, motor vehicle thefts, uh it's a big cluster around um you know, dealerships, right? So that happens around there and it happens around apartments, apartment complexes is where they they tend to um occur. Next, narcotics incidents. Again, these could be any variety of narcotics from marijuana to some of your more uh harsher drugs. A lot of those also tend to follow major thorough affairs because they the majority of them happen during traffic stops. **[30:05] Chief Hagar:** Robberies, not many during that time. um you know it's very rare. So that's that is a 12 month window like I said part of 24 and then some of the months of 25 were left off. So in 12 months we had you know 10ish um uh robbery incidents. **[30:25] Chief Hagar:** These are shot fired incidents. Again it's a report of shots fired. It doesn't mean that a shot was fired. It was a report of shots fired. We don't have any way of knowing what they were. Our officers can take guesses, but unless they're absolutely sure that it wasn't a shot fired, they have to leave it as a shot fire at shots fired. Most of the stuff is probably not probably um fireworks, probably a backfiring of something, probably. Who knows? But if we can't definitively say it wasn't a gunshot, then we have to keep it at shots fired because that seems like a lot of people are shooting around the city of White Bear Lake, and I just don't think that's a reality. **[31:06] Chief Hagar:** And these are some of our statistics. So, um I just went back a few year, three years, um calls for service, uh and then I just kind of changed I I said the council last time I think as well. We're in an era past COVID, past George Floyd, past a lot of the stuff that um society caused our police numbers to drop. Our proactive police numbers just dropped over that time. And that was 20 to 22ish, 23ish, something like that. **[31:38] Chief Hagar:** And um in fact, even more than even earlier than that, it was, you know, 18 and 19. There was, you know, the incidents in Minneapolis and Ferguson and all that stuff that happened that just caused proactive policing to take a backseat to just kind of some societal whatever was happening, right? Um and now I think we're working our way out of it. So you see the calls for service we increase you know quite a bit um in three years 100 over 100% increase in arrests and 100% increase in traffic stops and um 90% increase in DWIS and community engagement events. You know we just that's the that's a place where I put a lot of resources and a lot of my energy and time and uh we increased that um as I said in three years over 216%. **[32:25] Chief Hagar:** So really proud of those numbers. I'm really proud of the women and men in our department that are responsible for those numbers. I'm certainly not. They are. And I'm really proud that um we're able to work through some of those some of those um societal issues and and departmental issues to kind of um move in a different direction, if you will. **[32:46] Chief Hagar:** We have a few more um citations. There was some screwy numbers that happened in 24, so I just omitted it. It didn't make sense. uh our records management system kind of didn't really work so hot for those years there with citations and warnings. So I just went 23 to 25. Um a huge increase in citations uh tremendous increase in parking incidents. So that's parking tickets or parking warnings. Uh I think I have I think I I think I said around 100 warnings in 2023 and we had 439 um and 25. Then our thefts. Um, if I didn't put numbers on here, it means that there was less than a um 10% increase or decrease. **[33:26] Chief Hagar:** And I just thought that was statistically not significant at all. Um, so our thefts uh were a decrease of 32% um from 23, but you see in 24 they went up a little bit. So um but overall you we were down on thefts. And then our of course our narcotics incidents are up over 100% as well. Um and and those, you know, the parkings, the citations, the warnings, the DWIs, the arrests, all that stuff is proactive activity on our officer side. Crime is not going up in Whitebear Lake. Um there's no evidence that um the burglaries and the robberies and all the other incidents are increasing. They're not increasing at all. If they are, it's by just a point or two or something. And so it could be an anomaly. Uh so really um the **[34:14] Chief Hagar:** only thing that's changing in our city as far as um crime goes is that our officers are out there just getting after it and just trying to find crime and send a message and stopping people from driving um making poor choices on our roadways. And um that's kind of where all that stuff stems from. So, got one more slide. Then I just thought I would just talk a little bit about, as the council knows, I won't be here to deal with these issues, but um these are kind of just some things I see on the horizon um that we're going to going to have some problems with, I think, as we move forward. Like every department has problems, but some of the stuff we're going to uh be really needing to work on is the technology. It's just same thing as with fire. like there's just so much **[35:01] Chief Hagar:** um evolving technology that um that if you're not staying on top of it, then you're you're running in last place and so so what, right? So that could be like, all right, we're still doing fine on crime and we don't have all the cool gadgets, which is fine to say, too. But I, you know, I listed like drones. You know, there are some departments that are already moving into the half a million dollars worth of drones that they're putting on the roof to go respond to calls. And that's happening in Minnesota in the metro right now. **[35:32] Chief Hagar:** Now, we got drones in 203 22 or 23. And that was great. Really happy that we got drones. And for sure they're outdated now. For sure they are. We are, you know, probably, you know, in the last in bottom 25% as far as our technology and drones. We still use them. The guys do a great job with our drones. Um, you know, just two nights ago, we were out looking for an elderly person had wandered away and spent a lot of time with our drones. So, they're very useful uh license plate readers. We have one right now down on the south end of our town paid for through a grant uh through Ramsey County. and we just kind of were able to sister up to them and and use use a little bit of their **[36:17] Chief Hagar:** license plate readers, stationary license plate readers, bodywn cameras and squad cameras. They're they're constantly evolving. Um just able to do so much stuff, so much more than than um we use them for. And then less lethal force options, those are the real deal. **[36:35] Chief Hagar:** I mean, that's the way law enforcement is going is trying to you know, we all can shoot guns. the guys had a shoot today that we have to qualify so many times per year and do what we have to do every year. But we need to find as many options as possible and make sure our officers are completely comfortable with less lethal options because that's what we'd rather use, right? In every every instance, um we'd rather use less less lethal options uh and only in the worst case scenario use uh lethal options. And so a lot of that technology is um is um outpacing us a little bit. And so those are the things I just see uh on the horizon. And then those affect our staffing shortages. We're always going to I'm **[37:20] Chief Hagar:** the next chief is always going to come to city manager Crawford and say, "We're in trouble staffing. We need more. We got to do this. We got to have more people." And that all costs money. I totally get it. Um, but what we'll lose is because it's such a competitive market now in law enforcement, we'll just lose people because it's so much easier to go somewhere else where they have cool drones and all the cool gadgets. And um, you don't lose anything like you used to, you know, in this profession. When you used to, you know, 10ish 10 years ago to 30 years ago, if you left a department, you were starting at ground zero and it was not a preferred position to leave your department to go to somebody else's department. Now people are poaching trying to poach our people right now and say if you come to our department I guarantee you'll be a sergeant in two years. Well, that's great because they **[38:07] Chief Hagar:** see our talent and we we raise these guys up and and we, you know, really nurtured and and created them to be talented officers, but then just pay them 20 grand more somewhere else or tell them that they'll be a sergeant or show them all the cool tools you have that we don't have and you're going to it's just going to keep feeding the staffing shortages that we have. So, anyway, that's the stuff I just kind of see on the horizon. Definitely not lecturing the council. I'm just saying these are things that are possibilities in our future. So, uh, with that, I thank you and I'd be happy to take any questions anybody might have. **[38:44] Mayor McCloskey:** Thank you so much, Chief. Um, does anybody have any questions for the chief? Council Member Ed Burke. **[38:56] Council Member Edberg:** Thank you, Mayor. So, Chief, we had a conversation at during the our citywide strategic planning meeting a couple weeks ago. I'm not interested in technology and budgets at the moment. You've been with us for many years. As you reflect back on our community, what are you seeing? Are what are changes in the community that are uh moving us in directions either of being more or less safe? What are the what are the are there any impulses that have captured your attention as things to be aware of? Um I've got a one followup after that. **[39:39] Chief Hagar:** Madame Mayor, members of the council, thank you for the question, Council Member Edberg. Um yeah, you know, I I've been here 12 years um this month. No, in May, next 12 years. Um and um certainly over the last 7 years we've really weathered a storm in law enforcement and we all have around the country. I was really grateful to be quite honestly during the really kind of crazy times is grateful to be working for my predecessor and for the city of White Bear Lake because we you know we handled things the right way. Um, I have noticed, you know, I'm talking to a sergeant today. Actually, we were talking about there's some structural things that going to be changed a little bit in our garage area and the Sallyport **[40:25] Chief Hagar:** and booking room and stuff. And um, and he said, you know, and he he's in law enforcement for 20 years, too. And he said, um, you know, I just never seen so many problems that we've had for DWIs. We never used to have this many problems. And I see that the amount of, um, refusals, DWI refusals. I don't want to get too far in the weeds here, but DWI refusals just means I'm refusing to cooperate with you officer. I'm not going to take your test and blah blah blah. And those those used to be pretty rare. Like, you know, people just kind of went along with the show and they did what they're going to do and they blew into the machine and they whatever. And now, I mean, we might be at 30 or 40% of people that refuse the tests. And I think that coincides with a general feeling of lack of trust or respect for **[41:11] Chief Hagar:** um people in authority. You know, maybe I suspect that my friend uh Wayne Casmerch, the superintendent, would pro probably say there's similar trends in the school district where there's just less and less respect for institutions of authority, if you will. And uh so definitely noticing that um the tendency for violence against us is growing and our officers, you know, we like to think that our trainers um some of them are in the room here tonight. trainers are preparing our officers to deal with that and at the same time not coming across as militant or not coming across too harsh as an officer because we still want to be officer friendly but just to prepare our our officers for that unprovoked um assault that's coming **[41:56] Chief Hagar:** their way because of just a I don't know I I don't know how to put my finger on it and I don't have the data to support that that's the case but it's just what I sense the trend is now we are insulated here in the city of White Lake a little bit and we have and since I've been here in the sense that we're in White Bear Lake like we have really tremendous citizens here and the vast majority of the citizens um um appreciate us and appreciate what we do and so we are insulated a little bit. We we get waves with all five fingers when we go by and not every jurisdiction gets that same luxury. Uh so so we're insulated in that but but it takes one, right? you know, officer Schik was shot, you know, three years ago and so it happens, right? It's it's it happens here and, you know, god forbid, you **[42:43] Chief Hagar:** know, it happens again. But, uh, I think that's one major trend that I see is that it only takes one to change a community. One incident could, you know, could really alter the direction of a police department or a community. So I've noticed that having said that, you know, since, you know, kind of lived through the pre 911 days where we were just civil servants and then all of a sudden 911 happened and some of our older people in the room, God, some of our older people in the room remember this maybe that all of a sudden we got lumped in with military and firefighters and they're thanking us for our service and and we're, you know, we were great. And so we got to live through that. That was really an interesting time. um you know been thanked for my service you know a thousand times in public and um I don't **[43:29] Chief Hagar:** think that happens in every community as well. Um I just happen to work for two communities here on the north in the north suburbs are both kind of very similar in that regard. They had really great citizen base but yeah I don't know if that was an answer to your question sure or not. **[43:29] Council Member Edberg:** No I appreciate it. Thank you. So, of the data that you shared, the two that popped out at me, you've already mentioned one, the increase in DWI. You've noted that um it may not be a an increase in the incidence of criminal behavior, people driving drunk, and perhaps more we've got um more effective, more folks able to do the the work of of um apprehending, testing, all that kind of good stuff. um domestic abuse and the uh slide with the number of incidences has been a something that I've been aware of and and watching and and do you have any sense of the direction of where that particular crime is moving and are we making any changes as a community as a society that is uh gives us reason for hope. there's a whole lot of those bullets, the bright colored things on your map and it's like that's that's a lot of crap going on. **[44:54] Chief Hagar:** Yeah. Yeah. Uh so last year um I believe in 24 we had 105 domestic assault arrests. 105. So 100 100 times out of all those domestics that we responded to, 100 100 times we arrested somebody. I would suspect a a handful or two handfuls of those were the same people twice. My assumption is so we have 80 people, you know, in a a year in a city of 25,000 that uh committed domestic assault. Um obviously very rough numbers. I don't see it as a I don't see it as getting worse. Um it's one of those crimes that um while partnering with uh agencies like uh Northeast Youth and Family Services, NYFS, I believe they've really um improved our response capabilities for domestic assaults. Um not on the night of when all these uh women and men in the back of the room are responding to it. They still are responding to a very unpredictable uh **[45:56] Chief Hagar:** chaotic scene often times. and uh it's it's as dangerous today for them as it has ever been in the past. But how we can service these folks, the victims especially, um has increased. And um maybe over time, and we really have turned the corner on on how much better we respond to domestic assault victims through this new program that we partner with NYFS to do, as well as sexual assault. And um maybe over time that'll make a difference. I mean, that's one of those things where you don't, you know, I I give a lot of when I'm teaching, I give a lot of my young kids who are in class, you know, a hard time because they're 19 and they're going to come out of college and and then they're going to be put in uniform and they're going to go into some 60-year-old couple's house and they're going to talk to them about **[46:41] Chief Hagar:** how to improve their marriage and not fight so much anymore. And I always say departments aren't looking for that, right? Um, but it's a little bit where we're at now is that um, if we if we change service providers to help our victims on the other end of things, it takes a few years for that to kind of catch up to where maybe we're not having the same victims over and over again and then maybe it curbs the amount of domestic assaults that we're responding to. Um, but that's not a it's not a short game, that's a long game. So, I think that, you know, all we can do is try. the things that, you know, experts in our field tell us are the the things that that will work and and and city manager Crawford and I um I think um took a little bit of a gamble to go with NYFS as we were the only ones in really **[47:29] Chief Hagar:** for sure Ramsey County, but a large portion of well in the whole metro that went with NYFS and now um not turning back. We're totally completely happy we did that. And so maybe over time that'll make a dent in domestics. I don't see domestics really on the rise or on the fall. They seem to be one of those pretty constant things. You know, we have our we have our downtown area and then our, you know, area out by the interstate, but other than that, we're a real bedroom community and bedroom communities have one thing in common is that they have a lot of people that are cooped up in the same house and they want to irritate each other. So, that's probably not going to change. **[48:06] Council Member Edberg:** Okay. Thank you for your service, Chief. **[48:06] Mayor McCloskey:** Thank you. Council Member Gerola. **[48:20] Council Member Gerola:** Last question, more comments. I appreciate your leadership and always trying to recruit um good leaders to come to our community and retain them. And especially just what you put in the last slide, I think I always think about staffing shortages and avoiding them with just salary and have never thought about, oh yeah, if you have drones and other things. So, just gave me something to think about and I appreciate I didn't feel like you were lecturing us saying that. So, I really appreciate your transparency and advocacy for that cuz it was something I hadn't thought of. **[48:47] Chief Hagar:** Good. Thank you. **[48:47] Mayor McCloskey:** Does anyone else have any questions for the chief? No. Okay. I I just want to say a quick thank you um for your presentation and also to all the police officers in here and also the cert group who gives their time volunteering and I don't know that we thank you enough and I know the city council appreciates it and so does the city of White Bear Lake. So thank you um thank you all for everything you do to keep us safe. Thank you. Okay, moving on. Um, item C, 5C, employee recognition. Miss Crawford. **[49:27] City Manager Crawford:** Thank you, mayor, uh, members of the council. So, um, tonight is Chief Haggar's last, uh, city council meeting. So, uh, we're going to honor him, uh, tonight before he retires on May 8th, uh, a week and a half from now. So, I have a few remarks, um, and then we'll present Chief with his bear. And then if anybody on council has any remarks remarks for chief before he he says a few words I'm sure too. So um all right I have a little script here. I'm going to read from it so I don't screw anything up here for you tonight chief. Tonight uh we honor Chief Dale Hagar and his exceptional service to the White Berl community. Throughout his tenure Dale has made a lasting impact not only on our police department but on our city as a whole. One of the hallmark achievements under Dale's leadership was the implementation of a successful C program. Because of his expertise and commitment, we now have roughly 150, as chief said, trained and engaged community members who regularly assist the police department with events and searches. This program has strengthened public safety and deepened the connection between residents and our officers. And many of those community members are here tonight just to say thank you to Chief. So, thank you for coming. **[50:43] City Manager Crawford:** Dale also played a critical role in developing an updated massage therapist and licensing ordinance for the city. His work investigating establishments and enhancing local regulations has been instrumental in helping us combat human trafficking in our community. This is work that protects some of our most vulnerable community members. Alongside his law enforcement duties, Dale has invested deeply in the next generation of officers. Uh through his contributions in higher education, candidates applying to our department literally regularly speak um about having Dale as a professor, and they do so with genuine enthusiasm. It's something I'm always proud of uh to hear um when we're in interviews together. His influence has strengthened recruitment efforts not only here but across the state by helping shape thoughtful well-prepared young officers and some of whom uh are in the room today that we have we have hired as chief. Dale's leadership expanded our partnerships and enhanced public safety in meaningful ways. His strong relationship with Wiper Lake Area Schools helped support the addition of a third school resource officer, ensuring better protection and stronger ties with students. **[51:58] City Manager Crawford:** Under Dale's leadership, the department added a fifth sergeant who not only serves as an investigator, but also oversees our SRO's and investigation uh division. This strengthened our structure internally and improved the support we provide to both schools and community partners. He also led the creation of a community impact response officer position. Uh we heard about that tonight, but this was an innovative approach that focuses on high crime areas and priority concerns within our community. And this is targeted strategy. Uh this targeted strategy has helped our department address issues proactively and effectively. And uh going a little bit off script here, you know, we I I'd like to not show council and the community behind the curtain. um really ever. But this is something that that Chief and I kind of went back and forth on a lot for a good part of a year. Um Chief, you were right. **[53:00] City Manager Crawford:** And uh perhaps one of the clearest reflections of Dale's community oriented leadership is the department uh has doubled its number of community touch points. Dale has always understood that effective policing begins with strong relationships and he has led with that philosophy. All right, Dale almost done. So, your dedication, integrity, and steady leadership have led have without a doubt left a positive impact. Our city is safer, our community is more connected, and our department is stronger because of you. On behalf of the city, Wiper Lake, genuinely thank you for your service, and congratulations on your well-earned retirement. So, to show your show our appreciation of you, I'm I'm going to meet you down at the podium and present you with your with your uh infamous bear. **[54:16] Chief Hagar:** Mind take a picture with my family? **[54:16] City Manager Crawford:** Yeah. No, we'll go. Yeah. **[54:43] Chief Hagar:** Well, not that everybody's not sick of hearing my voice. I've been speaking for 20 minutes, but um thank you all for coming tonight. I I appreciate the the um outpour of appreciation that they're they're showing to the city and um maybe to me. Um I I thank you, city manager Crawford. That was very nice, kind words. I appreciate that. You didn't have to say I was right. That's okay. Thank you. Uh thank you the council and mayor. Um there's people in the room that I that I that I need to thank and I want to thank. But first, you know, I definitely have to thank my wife, my two beautiful kids that are here today. Lincoln uh Lincoln is um a senior go to the U of M next year. Really proud, super proud of him. Rindle is a sophomore. She turned 16 in less than two weeks and gets her driver's license. **[55:29] Chief Hagar:** I'm super proud of her and and I couldn't have done anything anything in my career without my uh wonderful wife Kelly uh who I started this whole career with. Like we've been um you know together since the beginning of my law enforcement career and actually we met when I was undercover uh and uh she wasn't a drug dealer but uh that's how we met and uh we just continued on. She came from a law enforcement family and so I've just really fit in and and um just so grateful for her um guidance and and gentle kind of push back on me when there's things that I should have done better or could could do better in this career. So thank you to them. Um you know Mark Sther's in the back and Doug Bean's in the back and they were on the council that hired me. Uh Mayor Emerson's in the back. she was on the council that hired me and and of course my predecessor Julie Swanson is here as well and and she actually did hire me and so really appreciative to um all the folks in this room um that kind of gave me a start here in White Bear Lake. Uh it it was uh been been interesting 29 years. **[57:03] Chief Hagar:** Um as I mentioned a little bit, you know, went through some rocky um stuff, especially maybe in the last 10 years with, you know, uh some kind of some Ferguson on, you know, from 2014 on. Um really never I've never witnessed that kind of just open push back uh against law enforcement. And um and there was a lot of people that left the career as as you all know. And um and I'm super proud of the women and the men in the back of the room in uniform both on the fire side and the police side because um it's a it's a thankless you know I I said that I've been told thank you for your service thousands of times you know since 2001. And u that that's great. It really is. Um, often times the same people that say that however you know, would say not such nice things about me if I arrested them or give them a ticket or something like that. And so you you have to take it with a grain of salt. You know, you have to have a kind of a a true knowledge and standing of what you're doing in society and and **[57:49] Chief Hagar:** really feel like you're doing the right thing because even when you when you mess up and some of these young folks in the back have a lot of mess ups in their future still. Um, and and it's going to happen because anytime you deal with people for a living, as you all know, there's no perfect answer that solves every problem. And especially when we're asked to introduce ourselves into somebody's personal life and in seven to 17 minutes solve their life for them. It's unrealistic that we can do that. And so sometimes, you know, society gave us years ago, they gave us a hammer and said, "Solve, you know, all the world or nails and solve the problems by hitting people until they cooperate or arresting your way out of um problems." And what we've learned in the last, you know, 10, 15, um, 20 years is that that's not the answer. We can't arrest our way out of community problems. **[58:44] Chief Hagar:** And so then that's fine. And so we're teaching all the they're way better at it than I am deescalation and all these new skills that we have to have to not be a hammer and nail scenario, but now they just stack more on us. We have to be perfect deescalators and you have to be perfect drivers and you have to be perfect at use of force and don't ever miss if you shoot something and um and and be good with kids and just have all these skill sets that um they expect us to have. And uh I'm I'm just so proud of my my colleagues that kind of came through this with me, but also of all these young people in the back who through all that they knew it all. And if they didn't know it, more than half of them are my students. And I told them I tell them horrible stories. And I'd say now you know the truth. So I never want you to say I didn't know that going into law enforcement because I told them the bad parts of law enforcement before they got in. **[59:30] Chief Hagar:** And um and I'm just so impressed that they still are plowing forward to do this job. That's um that's not always great, but it's provided me with a great life. Um provided me with great stories and uh provided helped provide my family with um with their needs. And um I'm just so proud of uh just the people that came along with me and and uh I thank you all for recogniz recognized me tonight. And uh I know that you're being left in good hands. I know uh what do you call him? Chief in Waiting Johnson. Chief in waiting. I know Chief Wait in waiting Johnson and he's a good dude. And if I'm being honest, um the leadership group that you have in the White Bear Lake Police Department is second to none. And if he just simply let them run the department, he'd be a really smart dude because we have incredible leaders to start with Captain Tumor right over here and and our five sergeants. they know what to do in a department and they they just do a fantastic job and and they've really helped me be a better chief by um managing this department for me. So, I know that you're left in great hands and I appreciate the opportunity. I appreciate the last 12 years and I appreciate this. So, thank you council. **[1:01:12] Mayor McCloskey:** Well, I know the council has a few things they want to say. Um, well, I I'll start off. I'd like to thank you so much for your dedication and service, Chief. I um you've just had unwavering commitment to the department and your leadership, integrity, and ability to listen and deescalate. Um just even the short amount of time I've been here, I've gotten compliments on you for your ability to do that. And it's just it's admirable and your leadership to these um people who are also following your footsteps are going to follow that as well. And it's it's it's very impressive and it's made a lasting impact. Um, and to your family, I I I know the sacrifices you guys have made um to support Chief and doing his important work and I just want to thank you for that and and thank you for sharing him with the community of Wiper Lake. Um, it's very much appreciated and I know it's hard. Um, congratulations on your retirement. Um, you'll never have to reign in any new mayors again. Um, he knows what I'm talking about. Um, I hope you enjoy the peace and flexibility of retirement. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member West. **[1:02:25] Council Member West:** Yeah. Thank you. Um, Chief, you know, um, we've talked before, I am a, um, former member of, uh, the household of law enforcement, and so I appreciate, um, more than some about how much sacrifice it means for your personal life and your family's lives. So, I can't say enough how much I thank you for all of that. um you and your family. Um I always felt confident that you knew knew what you were talking about with the trends and what was coming up in law enforcement and that's I think is really important. Um I appreciate your calm and friendly demeanor. Um that's always something even um during a um invigorating um protest like you are out there smiling and just kind of taking care of things. It's true. Um you always willing to share who you are. You're I mean you always know who you're going to get when when you're talking. um you're very honest about about that and and that's something that I very much appreciate. The community engagement that you have um really helped to blossom has been fantastic. Um and I really appreciate the mental health support that you have um supported for all of um the officers. So, thank you so much and congratulations again. **[1:04:15] Chief Hagar:** Thank you very much. Thank you. **[1:04:19] Mayor McCloskey:** Council member Gorillaola. **[1:04:21] Council Member Gerola:** Well, thank you, Chief Hager. And just to share a quick note, I also echo what others said here. And I feel like I got a little extra insight because you were my spouse's instructor at Century, which when you first came home, I thought, who is this police chief that has you all of a sudden inspired and excited about school and it was you? And the first time I met you, you were out walking on Lake Avenue. Um, and that's when Raone first introduced me. And I think that also speaks to you're out in the community and out and about and you know you were just on shift but still out there and being present for people. Um and you're also another reason why I really when my family was looking at places to move we thought well I think Whitebear Lake would be a good fit for our family. So if anyone doesn't like that I'm here but but really um where we knew we'd be safe um and could raise our family. And I asked Ramon uh if he had anything to share and he just said, "Thank you um for giving him the motivation and confidence um to go about the work." And even though he ended up becoming a firefighter, you still played a significant role um in who he is today um and in our family. And I'm really grateful for that. And he also said, "Thank you for your friendship and mentorship." So we'll miss you. **[1:05:47] Chief Hagar:** Thank you very much. Thank you. **[1:05:51] Mayor McCloskey:** Council member Walsh. **[1:05:53] Council Member Walsh:** Well, thank you, Madam Mayor. I was going to use the same word that Council Member uh West used, calm. I think uh calm, steady leadership, strong leadership. When you guys are calm, it makes us calm and I think hopefully that makes the whole community calm and it's really important. I appreciate all the work on recruiting. I love the hearing the stories about classrooms. I hope you stay in the classroom. I hope you and Chief Swanson stay in the classroom and keep sending people to White Bear Lake. Uh that's been really a benefit for us and I hope that continues. I've appreciated our our talks at Caribou uh where I can get caught up in in kind of a casual setting and uh I hope you I don't know if I'll see you again in Caribou if you'll be hanging around Wiper Lake but hopefully you come down to to Wiper Lake and then when you when you were hired as chief you said you kind of made a commitment to community engagement. You said and you you certainly talked about it tonight but um you you lived that you met that commitment and I think that's really important. I think that's unique in our town and I I want that to continue as well. **[1:06:56] Council Member Walsh:** You know, any market fest, any any night on Thursday nights or the fireworks or things like that, you you always run into you. Um, and I remember one time we ran I ran into you on Lake Lake Avenue, Lake Drive, and the fireworks were cancelled. It was a Thursday night marketfest. The fireworks got cancelled, but it turned out to be kind of a nice night and you you texted into the group chat uh to Rick. It's like, why are there a thousand people on the beach looking for fireworks? And you about gave him a heart attack and it was pretty funny. But that's just an example, you know, just kind of the the we're really lucky to live in a small town like that and have you guys uh out in the community. So, I'll say it one more time. Thank you for your service. **[1:07:18] Chief Hagar:** Thank you very much. **[1:07:18] Mayor McCloskey:** Member Edberg. **[1:07:23] Council Member Edberg:** Thank you, Mayor. So, Chief, I can't add much to what's already been said. I think what struck me as the city manager was reciting the diversity of advances that you have sponsored, led, supported, um everything from training and recruitment, the whole gamut of city enga, citizen engagement, all of the good stuff. It's transformed portions of our community, and that's not easy to do, and I thank you for that. **[1:08:10] Mayor McCloskey:** They said it all. Get a hug. You get a hug. We're going to bring it in. **[1:08:18] Chief Hagar:** I don't want you to get too big. Bring it. Bring it in. Thank you so much. Wait till people leave. **[1:08:47] Mayor McCloskey:** We have to stay. You have to stay. Item 5D, manites, presentation and resolution grant support. Uh, Miss Crawford. **[1:09:13] City Manager Crawford:** Thank you, uh, mayor, members of the council. I'm going to introduce uh Scott Bonen who is going to talk about Manito days uh for 2026 and then after his presentation I will ask the council to um support a resolution of support authorizing public resources for the 2026 community events. Scott. **[1:09:40] Scott Bonen:** Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me tonight. Um I'm the chair of Manito days. This is my second year being the chair and I'm really enjoying it. Um, I know some of you might already know this, but Manoto Days has been going on for a long time since like 1967. And the chamber used to be really involved with planning and everything. And uh, in 2006, they gave it up. And that's when uh, a group of volunteers came together in White Bear Lake and uh, really kept the event going. And uh, since then it it's continued to be a group of volunteers. And um we couldn't do it without the support of the city too. Um we've had great support in the past. Um this year we are um you know asking for continued support. **[1:10:44] Scott Bonen:** Uh it's it's a three-week festival kicks off on June 18th, goes through July 4th. Lots of events. Some of the big ones are um you know the parade, the beach dance, the fireworks. Uh but there's a lot of events in in between too. also market fest that uh will be talked about tonight too but um we are asking for uh you know support from the community resources same as last year nothing changed I don't know if there is any complaints or concerns about last year um but if there was um I'd like you know I'm always available or bring them to my attention I will address them immediately so but yep we're just asking uh Manito days is asking for continued Community Resource Support. **[1:11:14] Mayor McCloskey:** Thank you. Thank you so much. Does anybody have any questions for Scott? Nope. Okay. Thank you, Scott. **[1:11:14] Council Member:** Move to approve the resolution. **[1:11:30] Mayor McCloskey:** All right. All right. Any discussion? All in favor? **[1:11:30] Council Members:** Aye. **[1:11:30] Mayor McCloskey:** Any opposed? All right. The resolution passes. Okay. Next up, we have item 5E, Marketfest presentation and resolution granting support for Marketfest. Miss Crawford. **[1:11:50] City Manager Crawford:** Thank you, uh, mayor. Uh, so, mayor, members of the council, tonight we have Laura Lewis, um, here to present about, um, Marketfest. Um, she does have a brief presentation and then again, we would be asking the council to adopt a resolution authorizing um, financial support and logistic support for Marketfest in 2026. Thank you, Laura. **[1:12:10] Laura Lewis:** Thank you. Uh, hi. Yeah, my name is Laura Lewis. I am the director of Marketfest. This is year two for me in this role. Um, so still new, but it's not as hard as last year. So, we're making improvement. Um, is it on? Oh, okay. Uh, so yeah, Marketfest this year runs June 18th through July 30th from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. Uh, Marketfest, as you guys all know, is a family oriented festival. Not only do we bring people downtown to our shops and local businesses, uh, also the the goal of Marketfest is to really foster that business and to promote our our city of White Bear Lake. **[1:12:51] Laura Lewis:** Um, so who makes it all work? There is a lot of people listed up here and a lot of people in our community that really make Marketfest happen. I truly could not do it without all of them. I learned last year very quickly that this event was going to happen whether I did my job well or not. Um which was very reassuring to me in case I you know missed something or slipped up that that the event was in the community had the event in good hands. Um so truly super thankful for everyone on this list. Um I'm not going to read, you know, all of them, but but the fire department, the police department, public works, C triad, all the volunteers uh are huge players in in Marketfest. **[1:13:33] Laura Lewis:** Um the 2026 Marketfest committee uh has changed a very, you know, a little bit over the last couple of years. I'm not going to read all the names up there. Um, but our committee is is pretty diverse and and has a lot of years of experience in Marketfest. Uh, I have some staff members on on the committee. I have our uh Main Street president on the committee as well. Um, and yeah, just a lot of a lot of supporters there. Uh, so Marketfest, we've been we're is in our 36th season. We started in 1989. Uh, Main Street, Inc. acquired uh the event in 1998 and partnered with the city of White Bear Lake. Uh and then Mano, as Scott said, is June 18th through July 4th this year. Um we have a ton of family oriented activities at Marketfest. Um we have two stages of live music. We have kids activity zone and pony rides. The classic car show is there uh every week, weather permitting. **[1:14:32] Laura Lewis:** Um and then we have over 200 vendors that show up uh throughout the course of the seven weeks uh to showcase their private you know small businesses and and you know merchants and things like that. So uh theme weeks uh these are a lot of these are returning. Uh every year we have one or two new ones. Uh this year we'll have two new ones just because one of the the agricultural and science night they're no longer going to be continuing and so I'm going to fill their spot soon. Um I just found that out last at the end of last week. So um School of Rock is the is one new one this year. Uh they're going to take over Fourth Street with um demonstrations and teach kids and adults and everyone in between uh different riffs of We Will Rock You. And then once you learn your part, you can play it with the band at the School of Rock booth. So that's kind of fun. I'm excited to bring more arts and more attractions of that kind to to Market Best to bring in more families and more young kids. And then also the the teenage crowd. I feel like getting more of more of their participation at marketfest is always um a positive thing. **[1:15:49] Laura Lewis:** Um vendors. So yeah, 200 vendors each Thursday. Um we have a various categories that we try to fill and try to keep balance so that nothing's ever too we don't want too many food vendors and and not enough small businesses uh showcased. So, we try to kind of spread it out um and and split the percentages around so that we have a good diverse offering. Um for for vendors, we do give discounts on on booths for uh the White Bear Lake taxpayers receive 25% off. Those within the special service district of the downtown White Bear Lake area, they receive 50% off. And then businesses that are within the footprint of the Marketfest Thursday night, they can just walk out their storefront and use that space in front of their store for free. Again, really promoting our downtown businesses uh and and helping in their success. **[1:16:44] Laura Lewis:** Uh here's the map. It's kind of really It's probably really hard to see, but it hasn't changed much. all that really changes year to year is um that you know the stage name who's sponsoring the stages and then the the local businesses within the footprint you know they change year to year and so I just kind of update those um our uh P&L for 2025 uh I don't really want to go through every line item here uh but I'll just kind of kind of I'll highlight a couple of things um last year my first year we did really Well, um I managed to keep expenses low and we we came through really good. I I did really well in the sponsorship category. Um and and generally was able to keep the budget looking nice, which I was pleasantly surprised with. **[1:17:40] Laura Lewis:** Uh this year the hope is to keep things somewhat flat. I had to adjust for inflation. Um, I also want to kind of reinvest some of our profits from last year back back into the event so that we can keep continue to make it better. So, a couple of things that we did or are going to do this year is we uh have a new website that launched uh in February that was a capital expense that build uh and that's already live and and ready to go. um and kind of putting some more dollars back into marketing. Um print ads, I might do like one or two more of those this year. And then social media marketing, I'm hoping to spend a bit more there as well, just because that's the trend, right? That's where people are kind of looking and seeing things. Um and so I'm hoping that that is is worth it. Um our balance as of last year at the end it was 96,000. Again, that's before our website build and and me budgeting a little extra for for the marketing efforts. **[1:18:43] Laura Lewis:** Um, so our request then from the city of White Bear Lake is funding for $7,000 for event expenses. Uh, the use of the downtown White Bear Lake streets and sidewalks. Washington A banning fourth, third, the back parking lot. uh the continued support of public works, the use of public works truck and trailer for transportation and storage of chairs, barricades and other equipment. And then market best participation fire trucks, emergency vehicles paid officers, the two booths each week, uh public safety week which is July 16th, and then the environmental expo theme week which is July 30th this year. Uh in return, Marketfest will host seven consecutive Thursdays. Uh, we'll provide quality activities and entertainment in a safe setting and promote White Bear Lake as a destination city. That's all I have. Do I have any questions? **[1:19:35] Mayor McCloskey:** Thank you. Does anybody have any questions? Yes, Council Member Edber. **[1:19:35] Council Member Edberg:** Thank you, Madame Mayor. Um, Miss Lewis, so we saw an income statement. Um, what is the accumulated balance on your balance sheet? **[1:19:35] Laura Lewis:** Yeah. So at the end of last year it was 96,000. **[1:19:59] Council Member Edberg:** Okay. So we've already budgeted for this year. I will support the the full allocation for this year. I would note that the contribution that the city makes in the form of the time of staff to clean up, set up, support, provide safety, etc. is probably well in excess of the $7,000 in cash. um over over seven nights easily out outpaces that. I read today that there are 35 communities who have requests before the state legislature for local sales taxes. That's because cities are running into financial challenges with revenue diversification. I think we're going to need to have to have a conversation over the coming year as we prepare for the 2027 budget about some potential reductions. And so I just want to flag that that that's an issue that I think we need to be talking about and not just with Marketfest with all of our sponsors and and sponsorships. we're uh in a position where I think we need to start looking in the couch cushions to um uh because we're dealing with the same issues that everybody else is dealing with. **[1:21:17] Council Member Edberg:** And so I just want to flag that as a conversation for 2026 for implementation in 2027. And uh obviously uh there will be other members that will have to weigh in on that and who knows what the what where that conversation goes, but things are getting tight and I just want to give you a year's notice. Um your balance is almost the equivalent of what a year a year full of expenditures are. So it's like you've done well should be compliment. You and your predecessors should all be complimented and that's that's a good thing. But I'm I'm just flagging you for you something that I'm thinking about for the coming year. **[1:21:59] Laura Lewis:** Sure. Yeah. And that's a goal, right? To get the the balance sheet to look that way. We want to be able to cover a year's expenses because not so long ago in 2020, we we wiped out our balance sheet uh to cover the expenses to to not have market fest, right? So, it does feel good to get it back here. Um but I'm aware of Yeah, I I appreciate the heads up. uh and I can try to help look at things and um I am a penny pincher too so at heart so I'll start working on that now and thinking about it for next year **[1:22:44] Council Member Edberg:** and I don't want to close on that note the the work of all of the volunteers the staff the coordination it's a fine event we we are fortunate to have the the kind of uh community and the community leaders and volunteers that come together to make that things uh happen so thank you for that **[1:22:44] Laura Lewis:** yeah You're welcome. I couldn't agree more. Thank you. **[1:23:00] Mayor McCloskey:** Uh, Council Member West. **[1:23:04] Council Member West:** Thank you. Um, so I'm wondering, um, kind of a little bit riffing off of, um, Council Member Edberg here, is there any way that you track um, how much time the city staff put into Marketfest at all? **[1:23:30] Laura Lewis:** H um no I can't I I've especially not last year I was just thankful that things were moving without my say so things just kind of happened and I was so appreciative. Um I would I would ask your departments uh at your city in your city building to to give you those numbers they have to have them. So, um, just, and you may be ready to say this, I don't know. Um, but I I I think it would be nice, um, to have a little bit of that, maybe not exact, but a little bit of that information about how much time our staff and how many resources we use for Market Sefest. Um, I think that would be helpful information um, to have as we're kind of moving forward and thinking about what our future looks like. um and all of that and and again like everybody else very much appreciate Marketfest and Manito days and super glad to have that. I think it is a unique thing that our city does and thank you for the good work that you do. **[1:24:30] City Manager Crawford:** Um Mayor, Council Member West, um I'm going to make the assumption that everyone would be interested in in that so we can begin to track staff time. Um, MarketFest is another great um, example of where we use CERT to help us significantly when it comes to parking um, or putting up no parking signs and helping us move cars and having an informational booth. So, um, if we didn't have CERT um, as we were just talking about, it would be exponentially higher, but we can begin to track that with public works and police and fire. Rick's time will also be part of that. He does play a big part in marketfest as well. So we'll start that for this year. **[1:25:12] Council Member Gerola:** Add yes, but if it's not like a too like asking staff to do it too much of an additional thing like I know I've been on the environmental advisory commission on our environmental expo night like we on the commission come and set up all the tables on Forest Street and do that. Yes, there is our staff member who is our who is there to direct us and do that that leads um but also I don't I I'm interested but I also don't want to put on a lot because then that can come down to like okay if there's a way to express I guess that these numbers like it's okay if they're exact in general because I don't want to add more on staff having to deal with that **[1:25:56] City Manager Crawford:** um tracking all easy for us to take you know an hour of an officer's time multiply that by how many hours and how many staff. So, I'll give you we can we can give you an easy ballpark for all of the departments that are involved. **[1:26:15] Council Member Gerola:** I would be fine with that if others are. **[1:26:15] Mayor McCloskey:** Okay. Can we go back to the slide to where the um budget was? Okay. So, I'm just want to make sure I'm getting this straight. So, so it costs you $12,600 to put on the event income. That's Oh, that's the income. **[1:26:36] Laura Lewis:** No. Um, yeah, our revenue was 121 for last year. I got 35 in sponsorships. We're not really selling t-shirts anymore. So, we happen to sell a few. So, that's why there's $180 in that in that line. I'm not budgeting to sell any this year. We just are it was a money loss for us. And so, I just as the director decided with the support of my committee that it was time to kind of retire those. Um, we might look at pre-orders at some point, but for now, we're just going to stop. Uh, and then we in vendor dollars, we received 86,000 for last year, just under what was budgeted. Um, and I'm going to chalk that up to it being my year one and just trying to figure out how to get as many vendors in there as possible. And then our total expenses is 105. They're kind of at the bottom. **[1:27:28] Mayor McCloskey:** Okay. And you have um a cash balance right now of 96 for this year. for 2025. Yep. As of 2025 in September of 2025. So, end of season for us, right? So, to spend on this year's **[1:27:40] Laura Lewis:** Yeah. Essentially. **[1:27:40] Mayor McCloskey:** Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much for all you do and thanks for the the presentation. Does anybody else have any questions? No. Okay. Thanks so much. **[1:28:05] Laura Lewis:** Thank you. **[1:28:05] Mayor McCloskey:** Um, so I would uh entertain a motion to adopt the attached resolution authorizing financial and other logistic support for Marketfest in 2026. **[1:28:05] Council Member:** So moved. **[1:28:05] Council Member:** Second. **[1:28:05] Mayor McCloskey:** Any discussion? All in favor? **[1:28:05] Council Members:** Aye. **[1:28:05] Mayor McCloskey:** opposed. Okay. Motion passes. All right. Item six, uh, public hearings. We have nothing scheduled. Um, item seven, unfinished business. We have nothing scheduled. Item eight, uh, new business. Um, we have issuance of general obligation improvement bonds for 2026 pavement rehabilitation projects. Miss Kinser. **[1:28:35] Director Kinser:** Good evening, Madame Mayor and members of the council today. Tonight, I'm here to share with you the results of our bond sale today. Um, just as a little background, the city council authorized the issuance of $1,85,000 of general obligation street reconstruction bonds at the March 10th, 2026 meeting. And that um the bond issue would fund the 2026 pavement rehabilitation project. Since that time, staff has worked with Ellers, our financial advisers, to prepare for this morning's bond sale. Um, there was one extra step we added in that due to the um a higher than anticipated project costs received at the bid opening last week, we did increase the par amount of the bonds um to 1,970,000. So that's what we had going into the bond sale today. **[1:29:45] Director Kinser:** As part of the process, we had a ratings review with S&P Global. Um after their research and going through our information we submitted, they affirmed the city's bond rating at the double A plus for the current issue for the 2026 and all of the outstanding bond issues. They assigned the city a stable outlook and this is um in all of the times that we've had our um the ratings increase we've been assigned this stable outlook. So they think we're in a good financial position in the coming years. **[1:30:18] Director Kinser:** So their affirmation and assignment was based on the following aspect. They see us as having a healthy growing economy with access to the broad diverse Minneapolis St. Hall area with notable residential development and strong commercial demand. We have strong budgetary performance reflecting conservative budgeting and positive budget variances relative to the budget. We have prudent financial management policies and practices. Um we have the reports that come to the city council. We work through long-term financial planning forecasting each year and we also work with our capital um project planning. We they also um like how we do our investment management and our fund balance policies. Uh the final thing is that there is a weak and in a weak debt and contingent liability profile um that when talking with our um municipal advisor that's most cities when they look at them because the cities have debt that they're issuing that is not an issue. That's not um something we should be worried about. It's just they keep an eye on the debt that we are issuing and um so all of that together had them affirm our bond rating. **[1:31:33] Director Kinser:** The double A+ is one level below the top rating of a AAA. Um if we were to try to achieve the AAA, we would need to increase our reserves and um increase our taxing capabilities. So, as we've looked at this in the past, we felt that the double A+ is a great level for us because we're really trying to be prudent with our finances, but have an excellent um credit rating so that we can get a lower interest rate when we're issuing our debt. **[1:32:19] Director Kinser:** So, the preliminary debt service schedules that Ellers prepared for our planning purposes were based on a 15-year um life, and they used a true interest cost of 3.59%. In our bond sale this morning, we had six investment firms that bid on our bonds. the bids were very competitive and there was just um 2% difference between the lowest bid and the highest bid that we received. So um it was all very aggressive on us getting quality bids on our bonds. The lowest bid came in from Baird of Milwaukee, Wisconsin with a true interest cost of 3.42%. So that's just lower than what um Ellers had made an estimate for. So that's very exciting. The bond did include a premium component. Um it was of approximately 148,000. So, just as a reminder, a premium is the extra money that a buyer pays above the bond's original value because the bond pays a better interest rate than what is available in the current market. **[1:33:40] Director Kinser:** So with getting that bond um premium, the city has an option that we can either hold the bonds, so either hold them at that 1,970,000 or we can apply the premium to reduce that value. Um, in cases like this, the the city has historically taken that premium and reduced the value of the bond just to be able to reduce our costs um that we would pay for interest. So, in choosing to do that and applying that, our bonds are back down to where we originally started. So, we're at 1,815,000. **[1:34:20] Director Kinser:** So, kind of went full circle on that, but it's exciting. Um based on today's bond sale information, the actual impact in the 2027 levy will be um about 157,000. So that's about a percent of um an increase in the tax levy is and that's what we had been anticipating. So I see today's bond sale as a success that we got a lower interest rate, we got the premium, and that there was a competitive bid. So with that, I recommend that the city council adopt the resolution awarding the sale of the general obligation street reconstruction bonds series 2026A in the adjusted aggregate principle of 1,815,000. I can take any questions if does anyone have any questions for Miss Kvadder? **[1:35:05] Mayor McCloskey:** Council member Edberg. **[1:35:08] Council Member Edberg:** Thank you, Madame Mayor. Miss Kins. So we have as you noted we have taken that premium and reduced the um um the expense rate. What would be the alternative what would be the impact of the alternative? um what would happen to that 148,000 uh if we chose not to reduce the uh um reduce the the bonded amount that the bonds would stay at the 1,970,000 and we would then get that money that 148,000 plus we'd have the higher bond um principal and interest to pay. So, we would need to to tax more in order to service a higher level of debt, but we would have cash in our pockets earlier or when does that I'm trying to figure out what what the what the alternative looks like. I'm not inclined to want to necessarily go that go there, but what what could we do with that uh check? Do they write it at the at the time of issuance or how does that work? **[1:36:29] Director Kinser:** That is an excellent question. **[1:36:29] City Manager Crawford:** We've never done that. I don't think **[1:36:29] Director Kinser:** we've never done that. So, I will do some research into that and I will get back to you. **[1:36:40] Council Member Edberg:** That works. Thank you. **[1:36:40] City Manager Crawford:** Miss Kins. I'm I'm thinking that it it may need to be spent on this project since that's the debt that it was issued on behalf of. Um, city manager Crawford, I believe the same thing, but I just wanted to confirm that it's not just money you could use on anything, right? **[1:37:00] Council Member Edberg:** Dang it. I was going to give it to Marketfest. **[1:37:04] Mayor McCloskey:** Does anyone else have any questions? Council member Walsh, **[1:37:11] Council Member Walsh:** just I can't remember. Do we we get the bids? Do we have a choice? Are we we taking a low bid? You know, this was a low a low interest rate plus a premium. Do we have any choice or is this sort of like we're locked into the low bid? **[1:37:21] Director Kinser:** Madame Mayor, council member Walsh, we are locked into the low bid. **[1:37:21] Council Member Walsh:** Thank you. **[1:37:21] Mayor McCloskey:** Council Member Ed. **[1:37:28] Council Member Edberg:** Just a nuance on that. Is it so when we do construction projects, it's the lowest responsible bid. Yeah, we there are we have to assess who is doing the bidding. I'm assuming that that isn't the issue that we that we assume that all of the brokerage firms, investors, etc. that are that are bidding are have already demonstrated their ability to fulfill and and honor the terms and all that kind of good stuff. So, we don't have to worry about the quality of the uh investors. So, that's really not an issue here. Theoretically, it could be an issue with a paving contractor or something like that. But, is that correct? **[1:38:06] Director Kinser:** Correct. Um, Madame Mayor, Council Member Edberg, in going through there a as we look each year, I can compare and it's pretty we have a consistent um grouping of investors that really like our bonds each year. It's just which one rises to the top. But those are all vetted vetted through Ellers. **[1:38:30] Council Member Edberg:** Okay. So, thank you. **[1:38:33] City Manager Crawford:** Mayor McCloskkey, I just have one comment before um before you vote. Uh this I think issuing debt can be very confusing and it's complex to understand. Um what what we do every year is you know we we issue we take out a loan to pay for the street project and in doing that we have to have a credit score our credit a credit check. And so that's what um our bond rating is. Uh to put it in very very oversimplified terms. Um and it's it's not flashy. It's not eye-catching. It's not, you know, it's it's not uh a police call. It's it's not out there open, but it is incredibly important in in what we do. And it it is our credit score. And we would not be able to do um function. and we wouldn't be able to buy, you know, a new fire truck if we didn't have the credit score that we have. So, it's really important, I think, just for the community and especially council to understand our finances are managed incredibly well through our finance department, through uh Director Kinser and and it's a big deal that we're just one step below the top step and we really can't get any higher because of our economy and our our landscape and our tax base. So, we're doing the absolute best that we can do and just I wanted to I wanted to share a little bit about that and give you kudos, Director Kinser. Thank you. **[1:40:01] Director Kinser:** Thank you very much. **[1:40:01] Mayor McCloskey:** All right. So, I do I have a motion to adopt the resolution to award. **[1:40:01] Council Member:** Motion. **[1:40:01] Council Member:** Second. **[1:40:15] Mayor McCloskey:** Any further discussion? All those in favor? **[1:40:15] Council Members:** Aye. **[1:40:15] Mayor McCloskey:** Any opposed? Okay, the resolution passes. All right. Item nine, discussion. We have nothing scheduled. Item 10, communications from the city manager, Miss Crawford. **[1:40:24] City Manager Crawford:** Thank you, mayor, members of the council. I just have one slide tonight. Um, our biannual newsletter has been hitting mailboxes this week. Uh, that's the front page of it. That's a new city council photo. Um, so it's uh another wonderful um uh addition. And I think in my opinion staff does a phenomenal job at um pulling all of this together and it really takes a small village to do that. Um a lot of work, months of work goes into creating this. So good job to city clerk Longike for coordinating all of it. Um I know communications is not your first duty, so I really appreciate your time. The uh spring cleanup is this Saturday uh May 2nd from 7:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at public works. Um, proof of White Bear residency is required. Mayor McClosskey is going to be there um welcoming uh White Bear Lake residents and chatting with them and and even helping public works. Uh, does that mean you're checking IDs? You're the one checking ID? **[1:41:28] Mayor McCloskey:** I'll check IDs. I'll I'll help unload. **[1:41:33] Council Member:** You require a license to be a bouncer. **[1:41:35] Mayor McCloskey:** Provides please go home. I'll be a cheerleader. **[1:41:40] City Manager Crawford:** Um, so thank you for doing that, engaging with our community that way. Um and then I will be um at continuing education conference uh tomorrow through Friday. So that's what I have. Thank you. **[1:41:50] Mayor McCloskey:** Okay. And I would like to let everyone know that we are in second place for our population category for the national mayor's challenge for the water conservation. Um but we're in second place. We are getting beat by Laguna Beach, California. And I really think that we could probably beat them. So, everyone here in the room and watching online, if you want to go take the pledge, um we will win prizes um if if we win um for the community. So, you uh can go on the Facebook site and check out how to take the pledge for water conservation. Anybody else have anything? Council member Gorilla, **[1:42:32] Council Member Gerola:** I got to tour MERIC um which is uh not just a plastic recycling um organization uh in Vadest Heights, but many that our community uses, but does much more as a nonprofit beyond that. And that was a really awesome um and enlightening experience. And then I also was able to attend our White Bear Lake mutual aid community store put on by residents and um people surrounding or sale um and it was really great and they were raising mutual aid funds for people families in our community. **[1:43:15] Mayor McCloskey:** Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I went to that too. It was a great turnout. Really good turnout. Does anyone else have anything? No. Okay. Uh moving on. Um I do have one more thing. You do. Okay. Um, thank you. Council member Ingstrand reminded me Touch a Truck is May 7th. **[1:43:34] Mayor McCloskey:** Yes, it's May 7th at Podman Park um from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. I can't believe I forgot about that. Thank you. That's a huge event put on um by police uh by Megan Christensen um in police and fire. Um but everybody attend. It's it's we have almost almost four digits that show up to that event. So go touch a truck. Yes. Yes. Thank you. All right. Um we are now going to move into a close session. um we are now need to go into a close session pursuant to Minnesota statute 13D.05 subdivision 3C3 which authorizes the city council to develop or consider offers of counter offers for the purchase or sale of real or personal property. The address of the real property under discussion is 1333 Birch Lake Boulevard South. Therefore, I request a motion to go into a close session pursuant to the Minnesota State Statute section 13D.5 subdivision 3C3 to discuss the above described matters. **[1:44:51] Council Member:** Motion. **[1:44:51] Council Member:** Second. **[1:44:51] Mayor McCloskey:** Any discussion? All in favor? **[1:44:51] Council Members:** Aye. **[1:44:51] Mayor McCloskey:** Any opposed? Okay. Thanks.