Based on the context provided and the content of the dialogue, here is the transcribed townhall meeting with speaker names added. **Note:** Although the provided list mentions Shelley Ryan as City Attorney, the speaker at [33:40] explicitly identifies herself as Sara Schwartzoff. Additionally, Council Member John Althoff is presiding as Acting Mayor due to Mayor Montgomery's absence. *** **[9:06] John Althoff (Acting Mayor):** Good evening everyone, hope everybody survived the Fourth of July weekend through the hot weather and the fair and back to normal. I'd like to call the July 6th City Council meeting for the City of Cannon Falls to order. Could we have a roll call please? **[9:06] Sara Peer (City Clerk):** Ringgold? **[9:06] Council Member Ringgold:** Here. **[9:06] Sara Peer:** Duncan? **[9:06] Bill Duncan:** Here. **[9:06] Sara Peer:** Gesme? **[9:06] Council Member Gesme:** Here. **[9:06] Sara Peer:** Kronenberger? **[9:06] Laura Kronenberger:** Here. **[9:06] Sara Peer:** Lundell? **[9:06] Derek Lundell:** Here. **[9:06] Sara Peer:** Montgomery? **[9:06] John Althoff:** Absent. **[9:06] Sara Peer:** Althoff? **[9:06] John Althoff:** Here. Would you stand for the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. **[10:01] John Althoff:** Okay, approval of the agenda. Could I have a motion to approve the agenda? **[10:01] Bill Duncan:** So moved. **[10:01] Council Member Gesme:** Second. **[10:01] John Althoff:** Motion by Duncan, a second by Gesme to approve the agenda. Any discussion? All in favor? (Aye). Opposed? Carried. Okay, first I have on the agenda is a presentation of our 2020 Audit Presentation and Brad is here from Abdo. Welcome. **[10:47] Brad Falteysek (Auditor, Abdo):** Thank you for having me. Um, you should have in your packets the audit report, the management communication letter, and the presentation that I'll go through tonight. I think we're going to try to get it up on screen, but it's not going to happen, so we'll just go with it. I believe it's in your packet so you should have it in front of you. Um, so the first page of that presentation we talked about um our auditor's opinion and the Minnesota compliance letter that we issue... [Technical Audit Details Skip] ...I certainly would take any questions. Um, just want to thank staff too—Neil, Sara's here, Michelle's um not, but they do a lot of work and getting ready for the audit and I want to thank them for all their help. **[26:45] John Althoff:** One thing I ask, I think you ask it every year, is our water and sewer. You know, we haven't upped our rates the last two or three years; our funds seem to stabilize. What's your recommendation there? I'd like to keep—I don't want to add an increase to it. **[26:53] Brad Falteysek:** Sure, sure. I think if you have a plan... [Advice on Rates Skip] ...Any questions in the Council? **[27:41] John Althoff:** Neil? No? Thank you. All right, thank you. Yeah, I need a motion to approve the financial report. **[27:53] Derek Lundell:** I'll make a motion. **[27:53] Council Member Ringgold:** Second. **[27:53] John Althoff:** Motion by Lundell, second by Ringgold to approve the presentation, the annual financial report. Any discussion? All in favor? (Aye). Opposed? Carried. Okay, let's move into the consent agenda and bear with me, there's I think 21 or 22 items on it... [Reading of Consent Agenda Items Skip] ...Is there anything the Council like to pull down? I will make the comment: this is a lot of items, 21-22 items, but all these items have been in committee, whether it's Police Commission, Parks, Public Works, Fire Department, Ambulance. They've all gone through committee and the committees have recommended their approval to the Council. So it's nothing that we're just sitting here tonight going through. So again, any anything you like to pull down? If not, I'd take a motion to approve the consent agenda. **[32:54] Bill Duncan:** So moved. **[32:54] Derek Lundell:** Second. **[32:54] John Althoff:** Motion by Duncan, a second by Lundell to approve the consent agenda. Any other discussion? All in favor? (Aye). Opposed? Carried. Okay, we'll get into Council business. Item A is Resolution 2560. It's the Rick and Jason Knowlton variance request. I'm going to turn it over to Sara. **[33:40] Sara Schwartzoff (City Attorney):** Good evening. There we go, try that. Good evening Mayor, members of the Council. Uh, for those of you who have not met me before, I'm the City Attorney Sara Schwartzoff, and I've been asked to uh introduce this item. So the item before the Council is a request for a variance by Rick and Jason Knowlton at 6695 Bluff Drive... [Legal Standards Skip] ...Staff reviewed the variance... Staff does not recommend granting this variance. Uh, staff does not believe that this variance meets the legal standard that's required to be met. [Explanation of closed road status of Sandstone Skip] ...I'm happy to answer any questions Council has. **[41:44] Council Member:** What's the future plan for that road? **[41:44] Sara Schwartzoff:** Uh, for Sandstone itself, when the other—so this was all one plat... whoever owns it when they want to do anything, if they came in for a building permit, they would have to start the process over. They'd have to plat the property, they'd have to dedicate the appropriate spots to the city, and they'd have to finish Sandstone Road and all of their improvements that aren't completed. **[43:06] Derek Lundell:** And that would be up to the developer? **[43:06] Sara Schwartzoff:** Correct, that would be up to the property owner, the developer to get that that done. Yes. **[43:06] John Althoff:** Anything else? Questions? Not right now, maybe later. So you wanna— **[43:06] Sara Schwartzoff:** Yep. So then we will open it up. Everyone, anyone interested in speaking could speak. You have two minutes. **[43:53] Rick Knowlton (Applicant):** Just to respond to what you just said, I tend to agree and I tend to disagree with you. I have the legal documentation that shows when they closed Sandstone Road... so you say it's closed, I say it's open. Legally it's open. That's your time. Thank you. **[46:13] Jason Knowlton (Applicant):** I also disagree with that. Wow, do you people all realize that you are the folks that closed the road from Outlot A? Every one of you, except for you, Laura. Each and every one of you. Don't you know what you're doing? You did it. **[47:44] Chris Albrecht (Public):** I'm Chris Albrecht, I've actually lived on Bluff Drive the longest of anybody at 6670. I also own two lots contiguous to the east of me. Um, what was the third legal requirement that you had on property that had to be met? (The third practical difficulty is it will not alter the essential character of the locality). Okay, so I'm the kitchen bath designer at Interstate Building... the lot that Rick's trying to put this house on, it will not affect the essential character of this development. **[49:55] Jason Knowlton:** Jason Knowlton, live up on Cedar Hills kind of directly behind where we're talking about... it seems to me kind of silly to I guess not consider it. Um, like I said, it's a small portion of the road, road's in great shape and I think that's about all I really have. **[51:18] Andrew Enders (Public):** My name is Andrew Enders and I'm here representing Leon and Andrew Enders Cannon Falls LLC. We own the property immediately behind south and east of the Sandstone development... It'd be really nice if you kept that area open, I think that'd be beneficial for the city and for us in the future. **[52:43] Derek Lundell:** My first issue is the variances, not even talking about the road. Is there any way to design that house so we don't need the variances? And on top of that, Rick, I think you own the open lot next door, correct? **[53:31] Rick Knowlton:** And when you have a corner lot, you're limited... I understand that design a different type of house or split that middle lot empty lot there between... it's not feasible to do that. **[55:04] Sara Schwartzoff:** Mayor and the Council, uh there's a difference between vacation and closing as I explained earlier. This piece of Sandstone is closed and it's closed because it was never opened. **[58:14] Bill Duncan:** Well I personally have no issues with the variance—well I do, and I voted NO on the Planning Commission. Um, you should build a house to fit the lot, not the other way. And there's been so much discussion here about Sandstone Road; to me that's irrelevant. It's the variances that you're requesting are way, way out of line to me. New construction, to me you shouldn't do that. Build the house to fit the lot. **[1:00:31] John Althoff:** I'm going to take a little different approach on this. The road to me is irrelevant and I don't think what you're trying to do is anything crazy. The issue that I have is you know everyone that's built houses in Cannon Falls over the years I'm sure would have loved to have a bigger garage, a bigger house closer to the road, but they had to follow the rules... I just think kind of on technical grounds, I don't think on a new construction we should do this. **[1:02:05] Rick Knowlton:** I've been building for 40 years in town and I've gone through quite a different quite a few different variances through the years and the Mayor, John Althoff, sat on the planning committee and he told me they approved several variances. **[1:02:51] Bill Duncan:** But I don't think we should start things out in a bad way... As was also noted in our packet, you know, if we were to approve this, which we shouldn't, we potentially down the road open the city to a challenge or possible lawsuit. **[1:03:43] Bill Duncan:** I will make a motion to deny the variance. **[1:03:43] Derek Lundell:** I will second. **[1:03:43] John Althoff:** There's been a motion to deny by Ringgold—er, Duncan, and a second by Lundell to deny the variance. Any discussion? Could we have a roll call vote on that please? **[1:03:43] Sara Peer:** Ringgold? (Aye). Duncan? (Aye). Gesme? (Aye). Kronenberger? (No). Lundell? (Aye). Montgomery? (Absent). The motion passes four to one. **[1:04:32] John Althoff:** Okay, reports. We got Kyle from the Chamber. **[1:04:32] Kyle Paulson (Chamber of Commerce):** Good evening, I hope everyone's enjoying the cooler weather. The Chamber did have our 30th golf tournament this past week and we had 16 teams... our next two events are what we call Open Air Fare... [Event details Skip] ...Any questions? Okay, there you go. Thank you. **[1:09:08] Derek Lundell:** EDA? Yeah, I'll take that. EDA, we talked a little bit about the Keller Baartman project also we talked about the Middle of a Small Town grant... other than that it wasn't much. **[1:09:55] Derek Lundell:** Public Works? Yeah, um a lot of the things on the consent agenda we talked about... school crossings was a lot of debates on that. **[1:11:26] Bill Duncan:** Park Board? Well we talked a little bit about John Burch Park... the donation of East Side Park money, we talked about the drinking fountain donation from Art Org. **[1:12:12] John Althoff:** Okay, let's go around. Jeff, anything tonight? Neil? Derek? Laura? Nope. Phil? Steve? **[1:12:12] Council Member:** Dan, the alleys that you're paving... do you know the list and the schedule of how we're going to approve the rest of them? **[1:12:12] Jed Petersen (Public Works Director):** I don't have that, no. **[1:12:12] John Althoff:** Brad, do you want to step up and you got anything to talk about? **[1:12:12] Brad Anderson (Goodhue County Commissioner):** I can step up and I can talk. It's been a long time since I've been here... I did hand out to the Council members and some of the staff this was pretty much the same information I gave when I talked to all the townships... it's a five-year road plan... [County Road/Sales Tax details Skip] ...Thank you, if you got any questions my numbers on the website. **[1:20:43] John Althoff:** Thanks Brad. Okay... [Meeting schedule skip] ...That being said, let's turn over to public input. **[1:21:30] Rick Knowlton:** Well I was really hoping that Matt was here tonight. I know that he was wondering about my bid on that major curb renovation up there on Limestone Road... [Dispute about project bid and local contractors skip] ...And Derek, just so that you know, the Reznor unit—I have an invoice, it's under $20,000 for that unit, and Harris, they know what they're doing. **[1:25:18] Chris Albrecht:** Chris Albrecht again. I was curious, um, what is going on with SEMCRA and the Outlot to the east of me? I understand that is coming back to the city for a dollar. Do we know where that status is now? **[1:25:18] John Althoff:** All I can tell you is we're working on it. **[1:26:45] John Althoff:** Anyone else public input? Third and final call public input. Not hearing any, I'll close the public input and with that I'd take a motion to adjourn. **[1:26:45] Bill Duncan:** So moved. **[1:26:45] Derek Lundell:** Second. **[1:26:45] John Althoff:** All in favor? (Aye). Opposed? Carried.