This transcript appears to be a Lakeville City Council Work Session. Based on the context provided and the content of the dialogue, here are the speaker assignments. [0:01] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: ...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. Right, um, is there anybody in line for Citizens comments? Yes? No? Okay. Um, we'll now move on to discussion items. The first is to discuss current and potential amendments to the tree preservation ordinance. I don't think—oh, it is—I'm gonna kick things off, but we do have, um, I don't know if [0:46] **Tina Goodroad (Community Development Director)**: ...everyone's met Zach? He's a city Forester, um, so welcome Zach. Um, I'm gonna kick things off and then he's going to go through some examples. And then also with us tonight is Grace Benson. Um, she is with the city Forester department. So the two of them did a lot of the lab work in putting this together, including that Excel spreadsheet—it ended up being chopped up, but I sent that to you under a separate email—that Excel spreadsheet that had all the examples of all the other cities. So, um, they've been really helpful in putting all of this together. Um, but I'll kick things off. Um, but we're here just to have a plenary conversation with you about some amendments that we think [1:33] **Tina Goodroad**: ...could be helpful to our existing tree preservation ordinance that really aim at preserving trees as well as having some real tools for reforestation. This is the first group that we're talking to. Um, I understand that this was not on one of the annual items through your retreat in the wintertime. It is? Oh, it was? Oh, well even better, that's what we're talking about. I couldn't remember if it was an add-on. Um, it's kind of a passion of mine, I know it's a passion of Zach’s. Um, but we understand it may not be a passion of the council, and so before we spend a lot of staff resources, we wanted to do a check-in with you, um, kind of get a temperature [2:18] **Tina Goodroad**: ...gauge from you if this is something you think is worthwhile pursuing. Obviously, then we will have to run it through other groups including the Parks and Natural Resources Commission, Planning Commission, development community, and so forth. Ultimately it would result in a text amendment which would then have to go back for public hearing and all of that. But, um, you guys are the first. Um, the staff memo did include a couple policy questions that I'll come back to. Um, but I just wanted to go through a few of the kind of review points that Zach put together that really kind of get to the heart of what we wanted to speak about, and then he'll go through some examples. So I think we all understand kind of the benefits of trees, um, from both a property value standpoint, [3:04] **Tina Goodroad**: ...water quality standpoint, shade, um, and people just like trees. You know, it really adds to the environment, the neighborhood, and the community character. And so as we continue to develop, we're really going to be transitioning soon from agricultural—really developing on Greenfield agricultural land—to sites that are heavily treed. And even on parcels where we have the largest amount of existing tree stock, we also hear a lot—probably more Zach and Grace—a lot from the community when trees are removed on sites. Um, his phone's ringing. Um, sometimes more than ours. And we have seen a lot of developments even lately where the entire site's been cleared. [3:49] **Tina Goodroad**: So we get those phone calls. And then the Kenwood Middle School site—we heard a lot about that when Lennar was kicking tires on that piece. We also know that um, this kind of work aligns well with Community Values from Envision Lakeville, from you know, access to natural resources, preservation of those types of resources. So just to cover a few things that our current ordinance does and does not do: So the current ordinance requires and applies to all subdivisions. So whether it's residential or non-residential, the ordinance applies. It even applies to a new home construction on a custom graded lot. It requires a certified tree preservation plan to be prepared for every single one of our subdivisions, but it kind of stops there. [4:35] **Tina Goodroad**: It really doesn't have much else in the way of teeth. If a developer identifies some significant trees to be preserved within their subdivision, then the ordinance as well as our development contract requires that measures are made to properly regrade and so forth to protect those trees. And then there's some teeth in here that if a few trees were identified to be saved, that those would have to be replaced, but it doesn't have an overall overarching threshold for what should be preserved or then a replacement standard. Um, it does require, prior to the release of security—and again financial security is required for the trees that have been stated to be replaced—and prior [5:22] **Tina Goodroad**: ...to the release, it requires written certification that the tree preservation plan was followed, and there's several different bullet points that have to be followed in the ordinance for that. And then it does really put the onus on the developer to determine whether or not they want to save trees. So by not having any kind of a threshold or teeth, it doesn't really push a developer to think in the mind of how could they preserve trees when they're working through a development plan. Um, the ordinance, um, does not, um, have like I said any specific preservation of trees on site. So it's very development-driven—developer-driven in terms of how they lay out the site. Um, it doesn't provide any site-specific [6:08] **Tina Goodroad**: ...requirements um, based on the land type, wooded versus agricultural. It does not provide a mechanism to ensure tree protection measures are installed and maintained during construction. And it doesn't provide any planting guidelines to promote tree diversity or lay out very clear, strict, um, inspection requirements for the release of that security. And again finally, it doesn't have any kind of reforestation requirement in it. So some of the pinch points as we consider an ordinance is, for one, on a contractor or developer basis, they're required to prepare the tree survey which is very costly and very time-consuming, but it doesn't really give much guidance as to what to do other [6:53] **Tina Goodroad**: ...than that. And from the city's standpoint, it doesn't really provide us with the tools that we feel are necessary to kind of establish standard tree preservation that aligns with Community Values. So some of the goals that we have for the ordinance would be to better address the land cover, to understand where future development is headed, and to be able to protect those areas; retain natural elements that contribute to the sense of place; support development but provide guidelines and flexibility to encourage creative planning to preserve trees; and provide a consistent level of City Review, um, for both at the development stage when we're looking at plans to preserve the trees but also at the inspection process. Some of the benefits [7:41] **Tina Goodroad**: ...um, again would be the result would hopefully be more tree preservation just from a standard minimum requirement, but then having a reasonable replacement standard. And when we think about the developers' perspective, most developers who—and I'm going to pick on the nationals—any national or even our midsize developers who work in any other community are very used to and very familiar with tree preservation ordinances that actually have a threshold that can be removed prior to reforestation having to be um, part of their plan. So Lakeville, we kind of stand different from that by not having those kinds of requirements. So that's where that Excel spreadsheet was helpful to understand all of the cities, and it was [8:28] **Tina Goodroad**: ...all over the Metro, but our neighbors as well. Typically a residential development would have a removal threshold between 30 and 50% wherein those trees—yep, we acknowledge development is going to occur, those trees can be removed. Some ordinances go a step further and discount, prior to that calculation, trees in areas that are in locations where required roads or designed roads to support the development are located, required stormwater ponding, and so forth. So those are discounted prior to that calculation. And for non-residential development, it varies all the way from 50% to 80%, um, so that we're more flexible for areas that we're really trying to enhance job growth, so our industrial areas and so [9:14] **Tina Goodroad**: ...forth. Some ordinances then allow whatever required reforestation is necessary, that that be double-counted with either some of the minimal landscaping requirements or, better yet, through some of the buffering requirements, screening is the word I'm coming up with, requirements—that those reforestation trees be counted. It is possible um, that sites could run out of room, and so there are ordinances that do have a cash-in-lieu, and then those—that pot of money can be utilized for planting trees within public places. So if you do have Emerald Ash Borer and a need to be replacing trees on city property or boulevards or [10:01] **Tina Goodroad**: ...what have you, you would have a pot of money in which to do that so that we're constantly creating, you know, new forest areas. So I'm going to touch on the policy question and then hand things over to Zach, because what we wanted to demonstrate is what's kind of gone on on some of the developments, what has removal been looking like, and if we had an ordinance, what that could result in. So the policy questions tonight: is just number one, are you supportive of exploring options that would encourage preservation of significant trees and woodlands through the development review process? And then, are you supportive of considering reasonable reforestation standards as part of that process? Because the two really go hand in hand. So I'll hand off to you and advance as you [10:46] **Zachary Jorgensen (City Forester)**: Need okay great thank you. Um, yeah we wanted to provide a couple examples from development that's happened recently, things that have come across the desk that have generated some comments, certainly some phone calls on our end, and some offers for tours with neighbors who thought we should see the property ahead of time. So there's definitely been some interest in what's happening with the development. So um, we're numbers people, so we've got a bit of data here but we'll try to keep it a bit friendlier than diving too far into the numbers. Um, but you know one example we wanted to throw right off the bat is they were nice enough to provide an Excel sheet of all the trees that were coming down so we could do a quick data analysis on it—it was the Klano property just around 185th. Um, kind of an interesting site, you know [11:32] **Zachary Jorgensen**: ...the northern half was more agricultural, more open land, and then the southern portion was heavily wooded. Um, but overall as we looked at the numbers from the table, we saw that about 60% of the trees on the site were removed over the course of that development. Again, most of that in phase three that was just clearing this past summer. Um, but as we looked at the numbers, what was interesting to us is you know the Oak and deciduous which is kind of the highest category most cities use for the tree preservation standards—it really jumped out with the greatest number of removals as far as percentage of those trees. Um, and what was left was a lot of the common species of the Box Elders, the Willows, the Cottonwoods, the things that are a bit less desirable as it were, as well as Ash trees. So you can see there about 50% of those were removed and 50% [12:18] **Zachary Jorgensen**: ...left on site, which are the Emerald Ash Borer—and that site especially is obviously going to lead to more removals because they're all dead. Um, that's an ongoing conversation with that, but just kind of setting the stage for percentages, right? So 60% of that site woodland was cleared as part of development. Um, if we jump to the next—think [12:48] **Tina Goodroad**: Maybe... why is it not showing? No. Well... [12:51] **Zachary Jorgensen**: What's on this one anyways? Use your imagination. Is, uh... okay well, it's an excerpt from the tree preservation plan for phase three and it just showed the number of removals. And perhaps we can share this outside of the meeting or after the meeting too, just so you can see what those look like. Um, but it shows the phase three section, most of the trees being removed except for a portion down the middle where some of the stormwater conveyances and things like that were being installed. Um, and then it also highlighted the oak trees that were being removed as well as the ash trees that were on the site. So you can really see how those percentages play out and how [13:33] **Zachary Jorgensen**: ...the development overlays that woodland type. And so—imagine you can see it—a lot of the oak that were on the site were actually part of the removal, whereas you know just to the north that was a part that was retained as woodland with some of those lesser species. And so we'll send that out for sure. Let's go to the next slide. [14:02] **Tina Goodroad**: Let me see if I can quickly make it a PDF. I don't know why it's not populating. [14:10] **Zachary Jorgensen**: Please keep talking? Yeah no no worries. Um, so what we did with that, again since we had that spreadsheet to play around with, is we just kind of ran through what some of the other cities we're seeing are doing. Um, and Grace was great enough to run these numbers for us, but looking at you know the different categories of trees, right? So Oak being in that higher category, deciduous you know that [14:19] **Zachary Jorgensen**: ...second tier of desirable species down to common... sorry. Yeah no worries, there it is. Um, sort of applying—I think it's the second and the fifth column there—looking at what's allowable as far as like a 40% removal threshold. And then after running those numbers, looking at what mitigation would be required. And we just threw in a one-to-one ratio of replacement just to generate some numbers on what that would look like. A lot of cities, you know for Oaks and the high-value species, will do like a one-to-two ratio. Let's see... yeah, a one-to-two, so for every one removed, two trees are replaced. As you get down to the box elder and common species, often one tree or eight trees [15:05] **Zachary Jorgensen**: ...replaced by one, just to kind of give some flexibility in there and acknowledge what those different trees are. Anyways at the end, you know we had just under a thousand trees as far as what would be required under replacement for some of those examples. If we look at the actual planting plans for Kazano—and again just for context—they're planning to plant just shy of 800 trees on that site, and so not far off what that would be, certainly below it though. And if we look at some of the planting plans that they put out, certainly noticing a lot of space that was available after everything was planted, right? So the buffer landscape there providing some of the features along the stormwater ponds, and then two trees per lot, there was still quite a bit of open space within those. Overall, [15:51] **Zachary Jorgensen**: ...2200 trees were on the list to be removed and so if we're looking at you know 1800 replacements—you know just a portion of those that were removed. The nice thing with Kazano is they did provide a really nice diverse mix of species in their list, not always the case. We often see development really heavy on maple—lots of maple—which we're kind of fearful of for the future. So that's kind of where that notion of having a species diversity requirement would be really handy as we look to the future. [16:29] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: Can I just ask a forestry 101 question? So explain to me the value... like so I know Oak is the highest value tree in terms of just like... what... explain why that is. [16:37] **Zachary Jorgensen**: Yeah, I mean both from a tree appraisal perspective—and so that's what they use to assign a value for trees lost or damaged through development or just damage loss for recuperating that cost—they're the highest value. Also, they have I think a lot of times the highest value in people's minds too, and it's often one that's just ranked up there, whereas things like box elders and cottonwoods that grow like weeds are generally not considered as valuable both in the assessment process with the evaluation process and just from a forestry management perspective. [17:15] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: Going off that, are they more disease-resistant than other trees? [17:23] **Zachary Jorgensen**: Yeah, you know Oaks are pretty resilient trees. Obviously, we do have Oak Wilt in the city affecting a lot of the Reds, Whites and Burs not so much. But you know looking at the length of lifespan, looking at the overall cost of maintenance, things like that, you know they're a pretty good tree. [17:46] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: They're slow growing though, aren't they? [17:49] **Zachary Jorgensen**: They are slow growing. Very slow, yeah. And I think that factors certainly into the valuation too, right? If you've got a mature oak tree compared to a mature box elder or even a maple, that time spent on the tree, the amount of maintenance spent on the tree is going to be more. [18:03] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: The leaves are the last to drop. I don't get your yard clean, you got to wait till after winter's over, the leaves are done. [18:08] **Zachary Jorgensen**: Yeah indeed. [18:11] **Tina Goodroad**: So I apologize for that PowerPoint. I quickly made it a PDF so if you want to... I don't know if you want to backtrack to remind him about the... [18:22] **Zachary Jorgensen**: No, I think if we pop to the next slide real quick, take a quick look at that map I referenced as far as the tree preservation plan. Again, tiny, so we'll share it. The blue shading that you see is—are the Oaks. The red dots are the ashes on the site. You start to see how that plays. But yeah, every little dark X is a removal within this plan. You can see how that plays across the development. So yeah, I think we can jump maybe two ahead. [18:56] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: So then they would have to redesign their whole development around trees? [19:04] **Tina Goodroad**: I don't know if it's necessarily... [19:08] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: Well I mean when you look at that, they would. [19:11] **Tina Goodroad**: Yeah and I think that's where, you know when I was talking about some of the flexibilities and stuff like that, I don't think we're saying you can't remove trees. [19:21] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: No, especially when... if it was Oak, if you put emphasis on Oak and you looked at that design that they have, they wouldn't be able to lay it out. [19:30] **Tina Goodroad**: Yeah, I think what... without a replacement plan, right? So versus just clear-cutting and not having any responsibility for the fact that you did clear-cut it, the ordinance would build in some replacement so that more trees are added to the site than the bare minimum. [19:41] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Okay. [19:43] **Zachary Jorgensen**: Yeah, certainly not saying you can't—this development is going to happen. Some layouts, you know some properties, it's going to be difficult to get a road in and housing in without removing some of those Oaks. [19:54] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: So it's my fault because I misunderstood the premise of how much was supposed to be saved and how much would be cleared. [20:00] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Yes. So think of almost like park dedication—you know sometimes a development can grant us land for a park and sometimes they'll bring us a check. So you think about it in that kind of perspective, but instead of just land for park, it's trees. [20:27] **Zachary Jorgensen**: All right so yeah, this is just an excerpt from the landscape plan just to include—there's quite a bit of space in there, you know as far as those 200 trees that were different from the example from what's being planted. So certainly space is available. I think we can jump to the next one. [20:47] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: Can I ask one... might... when there are fewer trees in the development and a very strong storm comes through, are you better to have more trees or less trees in development as far as how many of them stay up—stay upright? Does that make sense what I'm trying to say? [21:14] **Zachary Jorgensen**: Yeah, no fair question. You know some of the research that we—I've seen in the past—indicates that you know 40 to 50% tree cover will keep those winds checked. And so when you have a storm blow through, if you have less than that, you know the winds are going to be down lower at the ground level going through the trees a bit more versus actually being held up above the tree canopy, buffering that wind impact. Certainly, exposed trees take a lot more—a lot more wind, a lot more exposed sail, and so yeah they can be damaged quite a bit easier, especially you know ones that are left from the development process. If you have a woodland and you clear—clear it—leave a few standing here and there, those are quite exposed and not set up to take that wind force. [21:59] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: So then what you're also saying is that the risk to the home is greater because there's room for the wind to come in? [22:08] **Zachary Jorgensen**: It can be. Also... um, so yeah, another example just as far as you know that transition Tina mentioned from agricultural setting to more woodland—the Crown apartments down on, what is that, 210? Um, you know it's a pretty heavy stand of oak woodland and you can see the plan on the left basically clears the entire site. And then you know the landscape plan on the right is proposing you know 58 new trees, which is about again a one-to-eight replacement ratio. We didn't crunch numbers on significant diameter and all that—we didn't have that data—so it's a high-level look. You can see like kind of what we're looking at when we talk about what change in development type is going to be and what the impacts are going to be with this site. [23:10] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: Quick question. Even with that type of replacement plan, you know I was reading about the diameters and obviously when you take out a mature tree and plant a new tree in, it's not a one-for-one. But what's the estimated time before somebody would even like perceive that okay this fulfills it? Is it 10 years, 15 years? [23:33] **Zachary Jorgensen**: Yeah, I think when we look at benefits value—benefit calculations for trees—it's usually... what is it, is it a 30 for full replacement on a mature tree? It's significant. You know, 10 to 15 years you'll see what looks like a tree again. Yeah, the full benefits calculation is quite a bit longer, which is where that preservation piece really kicks in, right? Because the best thing to do is preserve what you have as much as possible and then replant from there. [24:14] **Councilmember John Bermel**: Yeah. Do any of the cities take into account like air quality? You know that impact on the community by removing too many trees? Or is it just like we want trees and that's kind of why we have the number? [24:19] **Zachary Jorgensen**: Yeah, um, I don't know if there's been a good way to quantify air quality improvements because most of that data is at a larger scale, or like entire cities instead of localized to like a neighborhood scale. So it's certainly talked about—the research would back up the air quality improvements from forest and tree cover in an urbanized setting. So it's just not quite at that micro-scale. Because there's a lot of work there—the level of cooling that happens though, absolutely. When you have more canopy, you've got a cooler overall—yeah, it's probably a little more micro-impact on their quality. [25:05] **Zachary Jorgensen**: And they've been doing some interesting studies where they're deploying temperature gauges around municipalities just to see what that local effect is. Certainly heating—and certainly lots of anecdotal evidence from Emerald Ash Borer management where people call up and say, "Hey you cut my trees down and my heating bill went up." So it's pretty dramatic. Um, another example real quick is just Ritter Meadows. Again, you know looking at that transition as we go westward into the Oaklands. Again this was mined for gravel so it's not quite a natural woodland area, but again we did see about 90% of the trees on site removed and overall it's about a 66% replacement on this one. So lots of mass grading there and full development of the site except for that front buffer of trees along 210. Again, I think this [25:53] **Tina Goodroad**: ...is a good demonstration of a decent replacement in terms of going above and beyond screening. If you ask the Guyer's... well he comes through. Yeah, we have had some preliminary conversations on the Caren property. Obviously, some of that—the southeast portion of the site's going to be ready to develop. We have explained to the folks that do have a signed purchase agreement, D.R. Horton, that we are considering this ordinance. Whether we'll beat them in some similar or not, I'm not sure. But the Caren property has other significant issues—there's probably what, 27 wetlands were identified and topography challenges. [26:38] **Tina Goodroad**: So we've really pushed them to really start thinking creatively—probably expect a planned unit development so that we can really utilize the easy-to-develop pieces with some density and try to preserve the natural amenities on this site. So we are working ahead on that one because it's an important site to think about. [27:03] **Zachary Jorgensen**: Absolutely. And this one I'm not—I'm not as familiar with—so the main thing here was just outlining the areas that were preserved versus areas that were cleared. Obviously, the margins where we've got some wetlands were the areas that were preserved, and what we've got is a lot of box elder and willow that have remained, whereas [27:23] **Zachary Jorgensen**: ...most of the other trees, the Oaks and everything else, were cleared. But just another example of what the context is for site development. And then the final slide, just wanted to conclude. Obviously, you know we mentioned the Kenwood one earlier as a site that generated quite a bit of interest and phone calls on my end as well. But then also looking at the Preserve site—just the aerial there—seems to be a site that really took advantage of the opportunity there and did a good job preserving that. And so you know it's out there. I think the developer, when I talked to them one day when I first started here, did mention, "Yeah this is important and the neighbors really appreciate this," and so they wanted to go above to save some of that. And so they seemed really on board when we had met about preserving trees there, [28:10] **Zachary Jorgensen**: ...and I think it shows. Anyway, it's just a few examples. [28:15] **Councilmember John Bermel**: That's on the other—that's not the—on the top... that's across 50, right? From... yeah. [28:22] **Tina Goodroad**: Yeah, the Joy... what is... Joy Miller? [28:26] **Zachary Jorgensen**: Joy Miller, yeah. [28:28] **Tina Goodroad**: So that's it, yep. So that's it for the slides. So does this... you know the summary and so forth—I know we went through it pretty quickly—give you a sense of what kind of direction we're thinking about? You know, in terms of if you were going to support some additional work, the direction we'd be going—trying to determine appropriate removal threshold [28:56] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: ...versus um, and then when reforestation is required. That's kind of the basics, the essence of it, but then also addressing some other gaps in the ordinance in terms of how it's enforced and make it a better tool for both the developer as well as the city. I mean a short answer, yes. Um, as I look at what is left to be developed, to me this is the example of what I'd like to try to promote somehow with that existing mature tree cover. How can we incentivize that as part of the development process to design the site... careful what's that? Um, promote? Yeah, more neutral. Promote development that keeps some of that cover. The replacement plans—I mean I think those are all important pieces of this puzzle too, but that doesn't provide the full benefit that I think, you know, for decades to come. So I think it's part of the puzzle, but this would be my ideal—this trend. [29:56] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: And if it's from this... so our current ordinance requires basically a somewhat costly inventory of everything that's going to be cut down? [30:08] **Tina Goodroad**: Yep. [30:10] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: ...And then no requirements or standards of... that just seems unwise to me, I guess. [30:18] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: I would agree. I think with Joshua too, the two questions you're asking, I would be a yes on both of those. Um, it—I mean there is value to older trees. I understand kind of the logic of you know, having a replacement plan—let's bulldoze this old tree and put a couple saplings up—but I do think there needs to be more thought to preserving the older growth, I guess. I think what Joshua said was well said too. I mean there is value to the developers this too. I think kind of the cookie-cutter approach of "let's bulldoze it all and start new" works when you're in a cornfield; it doesn't quite work in some wetlands and areas. So I'm a yes on both questions. [31:17] **Councilmember John Bermel**: Same same thing. I read through this and then going, yeah, certainly supportive of exploring a policy and supportive of reforestation, but less about that and more about preserving whatever we can preserve. This is a big issue for most developments. And the reality is that some of the materials say this is the future of development in our community—it's going to be smaller tracts that are embedded in neighborhoods with not just mature trees but mature houses. And I think we'd be really cognizant of preserving as much of that as possible. So I'd like to see that. And I also agree with what Dan was saying because the thing that strikes me here is I never [32:02] **Councilmember John Bermel**: ...knew this much about trees and the numbers and widths and the percentages of widths and total widths and replacing all that. But there's something to be said too for when somebody points at a tree and says, "That thing's as old—that thing was there when the Civil War started." And I think we need to... we might not have a policy about it, but I would like to see somewhere where we say yes, we will at least consider history, you know, and some of that. But yeah, I'm supportive of this direction of looking at a policy that we can update that gets us away from just mowing everything down and putting a few things up and trying to preserve as much as possible because this is going to be high impact for our development. [32:48] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: Can I ask one question? I was going to ask you—you expressed concern about Maple, about all the all the new ones being Maple. Why is that? Is that—I mean are they planted just because they grow quicker and... what's your concern with that just from a... that we're going to be all Maple and what's that mean? [33:14] **Zachary Jorgensen**: Yeah, no, I think there's a couple things working. Autumn Blaze is one of the cheapest, most readily available trees around, and people love the color, right? I mean we always get that, "What can I plant that's red?" That's what people want to see. And so there's been a big demand for that, there's been a lot of them planted. And for us, the concern is that species diversity numbers get out of whack, right? Anything over 20% of one tree family, which [33:36] **Zachary Jorgensen**: ...would be Maple, really sets you up for things like Oak Wilt disease, Emerald Ash Borer. And our concern is that if something else comes along—which you know, one example, the Asian long-horned beetle is in the country and its preferred host is Maple—the response to that is different than Oak Wilt disease, it's different than Emerald Ash Borer. It's a federal response where they come in and clear every host tree within a mile. And so the impact of that would be huge, right? And so what we're looking for is not just promoting any one species over another, but just balancing out what gets planted because we don't know what's coming next and we just want to make sure that we're looking at you know 10, 15, 20% tops on some of these trees just so that the next thing that comes along doesn't put us in a really difficult position. [34:22] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: Not Silver Maple though, right? [34:24] **Zachary Jorgensen**: Oh, they're fantastic. No, we used the joke that that would be the perfect tree if we can have like a 30-year rotation where we plant them and then cut them down at year 30 and start over because there's no issues until year 30. [34:40] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: What's wrong at 30? My parents have three of them in our yard. [34:45] **Tina Goodroad**: Yeah. Well, the diversity policy, the tree diversity policy would complement what we're already doing as a city when we're planting trees so that I want—I definitely want that policy to be included. I think most development seems to get that, but again, you know, we typically see 30%—sometimes we've seen as high as I think 60% where there's no quantities provided. It's just we're going to plant this—whatever we can buy at the time is what's going in. So there's kind of a big gap there. [35:10] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: Well, so I'm really dumb when it comes to this topic. I learned a little bit but I'm not to John's level evidently with materials. So I guess my thoughts are then I want to make sure that we find a balance that isn't going to discourage development too. I mean I don't want it to be so costly that we don't have it, you know, can't get anybody to come in and develop or whatever. But the other thing is I'm just trying to figure out like you talked about the history of trees and stuff like that—I'm just trying to figure out where our forefathers were when they were developing this country and trees are coming down, trees you know... I mean it all worked out. I just get really uncomfortable with a lot of rules if somehow or another there isn't any flexibility with it. And yes, did it break my heart to see how many trees were going down for those apartments? It did. You know, I mean [36:42] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: ...it's just like oh my goodness. And people, you know, the community wants to see trees, so I get that. So I guess what I'm saying is I really want to make sure that we try to find balance, you know, try to not just do what every other city did but look at the city of Lakeville as a whole picture and figure out how we can find the balance in our city that makes sense. [37:29] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: So one thing for me is, uh, I like there's a lot of the the good things from other cities that I think are kind of our example framework. I think I would like to at least, as a discussion point, start tighter than 40 and 70 and then if we have to go... and the reason I say is I look at some of our neighboring communities. You know, Farmington is 30% across the board—I'm curious why they picked across the board. So I'm comfortable personally being closer to something like that. Apple Valley has "any significant tree"—I don't know how they define that, I guess I could read that—but the Farmington and Prior Lake kind of numbers are a little bit tighter, and Burnsville to an extent are a little bit tighter than what we propose. So I'd like to start there and see where the Planning Commission goes on that. But obviously I understand that we have to develop, but at the same time, you know, we're losing a lot of those nice wooded areas that we've had the last 40 years [38:17] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: ...and now they're being developed. So I predict we'll get a lot more calls. But on the flip side, I mean we're just as guilty. I mean I get beat up about Antlers Park all the time and I understand saying we're planting trees and whatever, but you know, it's part of the equation. So I would really like—if you think about the gravel pit, there's a lot of really nice stuff up there—and I'd rather stay mature when they're developing on Marion than clear-cutting. So figuring out some of those I think is important because that's gonna happen long after I'm gone. [38:54] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: So does that mean an ordinance has to be consistent across the whole city or can it be segmented by areas? [38:59] **Tina Goodroad**: I'm sure you could figure out... you could figure out ways to do it either by areas or by zoning districts or by product types. [39:10] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Yeah, I mean I would really like also to think about teardowns on the lakes. As we're getting to the point where some of the stuff in Orchard Lake and even on Crystal is getting into 50, 60, 70 years old, we're going to start talking more about teardowns. How to preserve on current lots that are being rebuilt—and that might be a unique thing. I don't know what Prior Lake does, but we should think about that too. I want to prevent somebody tearing down their house but also don't want to have a clear-cut lot. [39:46] **Tina Goodroad**: Okay. [39:48] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: We good? [39:49] **Tina Goodroad**: Yep, sorry I'm taking notes. [39:52] **Zachary Jorgensen**: No that's okay. Thank you guys, I appreciate it. [39:58] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: All right, thank you for the feedback. We'll regroup and come up with some strategy. And again, next will be you know, meeting probably Natural Resources next, or try a joint session with them in the Planning Commission is kind of our thought to kind of kick us off to the next commission where they should be doing this work. But we didn't want to spin our wheels if it wasn't something Council wanted to pursue. [40:16] **Councilmember John Bermel**: Yeah, my last question is: is there flexibility in like a CUP process if there's something we really want to develop commercially down the line? It's like, wow this is not going to work to build whatever shopping center because it's just not going to pencil out. Is there flexibility? So some kind of out? [40:38] **Tina Goodroad**: Oh yeah, like a commercial... it's like yeah, we know we're going to build a Scheels or whatever it is, but it's... or you know, then it's maybe that's more of the... like they're going to give us money, we'll plant trees somewhere. And I... yep, to your point, I think the threshold for non-residential will be much greater when you look at it. And when we layer the land use on top of the areas that are treed, we're probably not going to run into that scenario very much. [41:14] **Tina Goodroad**: So I think that will probably solve it. To your question, you know, do we treat some areas of the city differently? Some communities adopt kind of a tree zone where then the ordinance only applies to those parcels that have tree zones layered over them. That gets tricky—gotta work with those property owners because it's significant to them when they go to sell, they have a greater restriction, versus it being fairness across the board. But it is another tool that could be looked at. So there are ways around that, but I think we really need to understand land use around these areas. For instance, you know, the Crown piece—was that looked at when land use was determined? Were the trees looked at when the last Comp Plan was done and we designated that high density, knowing the only way high density could develop on that site is with all of the removal of the trees? So we are entering [42:11] **Tina Goodroad**: ...the next round of Comp Plans soon, so it could be something where maybe some tweaks have to take place from a land use standpoint and adjust them because we're thinking more about the trees. Especially with us heading westward, you know, to the other side of 35 into these trickier sites. [42:33] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: I got really... I don't get the... they're required to have like a... where do these tree replacements go? I mean, where are they put? [42:43] **Tina Goodroad**: Well, for instance, um, if we had—so I'll take Ritter Meadows—if we had an ordinance... so their replacement was up to 60%, so that's kind of in line with what a new ordinance could be, it's probably on the high end. So what would be counted for those reforestation trees would be where they had screening. So they intentionally in their landscape plan had screening around the stormwater pond. There were areas where the development moved from the higher density townhomes to single family, so there was intentional screening planned. Those trees would be then counted as part of the reforestation. So we're not trying to double up and force the site to have so many more trees than what could actually be planted. But to allow those new trees that are required—because you took away so much—to be counted in areas that make sense. [43:40] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: Okay. So this is the part that got me confused. I thought for whatever reason that if they took so many trees off this development, they could put them someplace else if it didn't all fit back there. What I was trying to figure out is: what is the other place that they're allowed to put them? And then are we allowed to say we want them planted in older neighborhoods? [44:03] **Tina Goodroad**: Yeah. What sometimes becomes a fallback for cities that have the replacement requirement is a cash-in-lieu. So then if the site just runs out of space and it's just not reasonable to cram more trees on it, we have a tool at which a dollar value is placed with it—kind of like park dedication—that is put into a pot of money that then the city could utilize for trees planted in public spaces. So it wouldn't necessarily mean the developer taking their trees putting them somewhere else; it would be through a funding mechanism. [44:48] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: Okay, thanks. [44:49] **Tina Goodroad**: Thank you. [44:52] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Um, we're now going to move on to Item B: discuss Local Affordable Housing Aid—we really calling it LAHA? [45:00] **Tina Goodroad**: Yeah, okay. This is, uh, as a reminder, this is something we've talked a little bit before we had the CDA here. Yep. So I will kind of cut to the chase, Mayor and Council. Tony and Lisa were here back in June. We had talked about it earlier in the year as well. You do have what is going to be our 2024 funding amount, and that's $229,294.59—so a little bit less than what was originally shared with you. It is [45:39] **Tina Goodroad**: ...only five months of funding, and so I included in the packet the spreadsheet that would provide the projected amounts, and again those are estimates. The Department of Revenue needs to certify those each year so we know what our dollar amount is for this year. I think half the funding has already been distributed and the remaining half by the end of the year. Cities must spend this within four years—that's also a change. We have to identify how the funds will be spent in three years, but the actual spending can take up to four years. That is important, I think, in projects or dollars that could be used in the future for gap financing or something that might be tied to a development closing or something. As you know, Dakota County [46:25] **Tina Goodroad**: ...CDA has been working with cities to identify a couple of programs that they could administer on our behalf that get at preservation of affordable housing. So the Enhanced Single Family Home Improvement Loan Program—this is similar to the funded program we have for CDBG, but it ups the limits to 15%—average loans is about $32,000. And then the Radon Migration—would probably be used hand-in-hand if a property is going through a kitchen improvement or windows improvements and so forth, they may have the radon evaluated at the same time and utilize those dollars. An average radon mitigation is about $2,000. So the CDA is asking for a [47:12] **Tina Goodroad**: ...resolution of support by early December that basically says, "Yep, we want to participate in these two programs with some or all of our dollars," and then we would enter into a Joint Powers Agreement. They were looking for a three-year commitment as they will staff up. So about a million dollars in anticipated loans would be one staff person, or a little bit over a million. One of the things that I did include in the staff report that we finally got an answer to was using $10,000 for the chores and repairs program that we currently fund through CDBG—it has been determined, unfortunately, that that's not a qualifying use of funds. So extract that from your idea of what we could do. So basically, [47:59] **Tina Goodroad**: ...we're asking tonight if you want to collaborate and, if so, how would you like to see that money spread? It could be a specific dollar amount, it could be a percentage of our total. If you want to hold on to some funds internally and start building up for gap financing or some other project, we certainly do not have to commit all $229,000. We can commit whichever—whatever percent that we want to, but those kind of blanks need to get filled into the resolution. And then I would bring that to a Council meeting in November. [48:46] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: My first question: you know, we've gone back and forth with Tony and their staff a little bit on... I completely understand how they've got to staff and budget so the request makes sense. However, we still have some conversation with them about what I call "bigger projects," whether it's a new senior apartment or something. So if we commit to this, does that tie up that money so that then we couldn't use it on another partnership? [49:15] **Tina Goodroad**: It would. [49:16] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: So that's—that's my one hesitation. [49:18] **Councilmember John Bermel**: That's my hesitation. And not to say we're ready to be shovel-ready even next year or the year after, because it takes a lot to get there. [49:28] **Tina Goodroad**: Well, yeah, within three years. [49:33] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: I don't know. You said within seven years. [49:35] **Tina Goodroad**: Well, yeah, so that's... no, it had to be spent within four years after the... so by 2028, right? It's on a rolling every every year. [49:50] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: So that's my one hesitation. I get why they're asking for that, but at the same time, I really think that there's a strong possibility of a partnership in that senior space that I think we'd want all the money for that. I don't know if the right answer is... and that—that's my hesitation. [50:08] **Justin Miller (City Administrator)**: I wonder if we can write a JPA because we might not be the only people that have this concern, that if mutually both parties agree to allocate our money toward a CDA project... [50:18] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Well and that's right. So maybe internally for them to say, "Okay, we're going to dedicate a person to manage City CDA," whatever the money goes to, versus saying "we're going to hire somebody just in one department." Does that make sense? [50:33] **Tina Goodroad**: Yeah, their intention, as I understand, is to hire an additional staff person that currently... so they have someone that works on the CDBG funding for the Home Improvement, they want to hire another one of those people to manage projects. Our money would be served just like our CDBG money is served to Lakeville residents for these home improvement loans. So that is their objective: to understand what they're dealing with across all of the cities and you know, will they have enough commitment to fund that staff person in addition to providing the... sorry. So, and if I didn't say this before, one of the reasons for me for the senior housing is so important: in Dakota County we have a thousand people on the waitlist for senior subsidized apartments. In my mind, [51:10] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: ...that's a thousand single-family homes that are in that Noah space of affordable. So I just feel like that domino effect of anything we can do to help spur that—so that's my only hesitation. Otherwise, I'm fine with the county partnership, I just don't want to tie us to just those four programs. [51:33] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: Yeah, my question was going to be: so the way you described it, so somebody with a house... yep, just like the CDBG? [51:48] **Tina Goodroad**: Yes. [51:49] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: Okay. [51:50] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: It would be the money... I mean, it is a domino effect because if somebody's been in a house for 50 years, one of two things: either they want to get it fixed up to sell it, already get it up to a standard where they can sell it—this is the kind of loan that they're going to ask for—or if somebody has bought one, they're going to ask for that. But I agree that if we have a senior complex that we could do, I don't want to lose the ability to do that. And so if we do this and say, "Okay, we're going to commit the funds to these two things at X number of dollars," I would love to see something like Mr. Miller suggested where we just at least discuss the ability to use that money for something else versus this. They're both good things, but I don't want to see an opportunity pass by because we... [52:46] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Well, is there a formula that's going to be used by them that based on how much money... let's say they have four cities that commit, those four cities are all going to have a different amount of money that they're going to be committing to, right? [52:58] **Tina Goodroad**: Okay. [53:00] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: So whatever that is, is there a formula on their part that guarantees that if Lakeville contributed 50% of the money—let's—I'm just going big—if Lakeville contributed 50% of the money, 50% of it's got to come back in when they make approvals? Does that make sense? [53:23] **Tina Goodroad**: The dollars are... but anything that comes from here, comes back. It's a one-for-one, yeah, other than program costs. [53:32] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: Because I'm afraid that they're going to take a group of money and then West St. Paul's going to get something that we're not. [53:39] **Tina Goodroad**: Our dollars will stay other than costs of administration of whatever that... [53:48] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Makes sense. What was the percentage? [53:50] **Tina Goodroad**: The way we have it written is that in their budget, it's all earmarked for Lakeville. So we wouldn't be—we wouldn't be subsidizing a West St. Paul or Hastings. [54:03] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: Well, that's what I'm worried about. When they want to put it all together and let's say we are the 50% person, we just paid for 50% of the person that got hired too. Does that make sense? So that's what I'm trying to figure out is that balance between all these cities pooling. And it usually ends up happening that the bigger cities, I see your point, are paying for smaller ones. [54:40] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: So you'd want the proportionality of the staff to be funded equally amongst everyone's participated? [54:45] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Yeah. I guess I just... it's reasonable. I get where you're coming from. It's the opposite of the 911 Center because it's not a set percentage, right? But I don't know... but on the flip side, in theory, that staff person is going to be working [55:03] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: ...more to manage more do—more dollars if we're the biggest. [55:08] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: Well, it doesn't just have to be the staff person. I guess what I'm trying to say is when they get the pie from all—from the pot—I just want to make sure that the portion that's our part of that pie is coming back to us fully and we're not subsidizing another city or a city that's not even part of the pie. [55:35] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: The other challenge too is this formula is a moving target. It's allocated based on—correct me if I'm wrong—the amount of people in your city that are "house poor" (not a technical term, but that's...). [55:49] **Tina Goodroad**: Yeah, that's one of the... my understanding is the Department... my understanding is it's like a city the size of Lakeville... I will verify that but that is 99—I'm 99% sure on that because it's just like how we get our CDBG funds. So we have, you know, anywhere from $85,000 to $120,000 of our CDBG funds always go towards the housing rehab and it's at the lower threshold amount because it's CDBG, and those are then put back into our community to homeowners in Lakeville. [56:18] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: So let me just... the reason I say this, it's been my experience from a different—I realize this is a School Board thing—and... [56:31] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: 917? [56:32] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: Yes. So they—you know, a ton of Lakeville money goes into 917, but very few students utilize 917. We as taxpayers in Lakeville are paying for a majority of those students. I mean, I—I'm exaggerating some level. So that has been my prior experience—so that's what's in my brain on working with a different agency. It just seems like the pool of money that goes in is not necessarily what comes back. [57:15] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: The one difference, correct me Tina, with 917: that's a one-year budget, it's spent. Where if we don't have Lakeville residents that go for this money, it's going to roll over to the following year. So it's—does that make sense? So we wouldn't be subsidizing. Just if there's this pot of money, it doesn't all get doled out every year to whoever's in the county. So if we have $100,000 requests with $200,000 in the bank, that extra $100,000 is going to roll over to the next year. So that's how it's a little different than the 917. [57:51] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: ...Relief. And that's—that's how I'm trying to make sure that we're covered. And I know you—you're using 50% as an exaggeration, yes. But it is my understanding that almost every city in the county is going to do this. [58:05] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Okay. [58:06] **Tina Goodroad**: So I think Burnsville is—at least I read an article yesterday or last week they might be using theirs on—they already have a program from what I understand. From talking to County staff, they're expecting almost every County City to participate. [58:24] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Now, one thing that we could do: so we're getting $229,000 here. If you're passionate about holding back some of those funds, you could hold back half of it and dedicate a specific percentage. Then it gives us a lot of reporting requirements and we have to use it. [58:45] **Tina Goodroad**: Yeah. [58:46] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: I like it, but I would just... Tony's a creative guy. I think if you present that to him, I think he might have a solution forward. [58:55] **Tina Goodroad**: So you're saying before the JPA, have a conversation with CDA/County say, "Hey look, is there a way for you to massage how can we hold out hope that a project comes along, or not locked into just these two programs?" [59:12] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Right. [59:13] **Tina Goodroad**: I think we can talk about that and how under that scenario... um, because they want the resolution prior to the JPA language... are you thinking all $229,000 under that scenario if we're able to get confirmation from them? [59:28] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Yeah. I don't... does staff have any recommendation? I mean we had—the only other one in there—there has to be some scale, right? I mean if we hold off $10,000 that's not going to do us any good. So I think we have to give it all to CDA—that's their best leverage. [59:52] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: Well and how do the—I mean the $229,000 is quite a bit less than what the original projection was. How confident are we in the rest of their projections? Because it gets up to $600,000 after three years? [1:00:13] **Tina Goodroad**: Yep. The amount is reduced because it's only five months, but... [1:00:18] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: So everybody's was reduced this time? [1:00:20] **Tina Goodroad**: Yes, yep, across the board. The packet had the list of the Department of Revenue certified amounts, so it's just the five months. So I am confident that um, it will be much greater. Probably, you know, I think we were supposed to be at around $350,000. Um, I don't know. I mean it's based on projections, it's based on sales tax. I wish people shopped more. [1:00:43] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Good point. The only thing I would think about long-term is under today's current law, the interpretation is that the city could use those funds—let's say if we want to tear down a building, work with somebody, let's say we have a bad—let's say Royal Milk for instance was going to be a teardown of a building, we could have used these funds to do that. So this ties our hands a little bit on who our partner can be, but I don't—that's such a long shot of a possibility I'm not worried. I think, you know, after three years don't we have to redo this again? [1:01:05] **Tina Goodroad**: That so... no. I'm sure that if a project comes along that the CDA wants to partner on, yeah, we would do a supplemental JPA or an amendment to the JPA on a one-by-one basis—that's not out of the realm of possibility. But I'll reach out to CDA, communicate through Justin, get the confirmation, and then if it is, we'll proceed with the second meeting in November for the resolution. [1:01:34] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: I won't be here. [1:01:36] **Tina Goodroad**: But then at least we can get the answer to you and you can think about it. And if you have more concerns, there's—we've got a few weeks that we can work out those details. [1:01:46] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Okay, anything else? [1:01:48] **Tina Goodroad**: Yeah, thank you. [1:01:50] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Thanks. Um, moving on to Item C: our 2025 fee schedule. Go over that. [1:02:02] **Julie Stahl (Finance Director)**: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, so the fee schedule changes that are in the packet, they are just that—just the items that are changing or recommended changes for the fee schedule. It's not the entire fee schedule. Um, we're looking for input from the council tonight, and we will be taking that input and these changes to the public hearing on December 2nd. So I'm just going to highlight some of the top things in it. We have the park dedication fees are being increased to 1%, and that's just coinciding with the market value increases of unplatted land. We are revising all of the staff hourly costs for the 2025 cost of living adjustments. [1:02:49] **Julie Stahl**: And then um, we are revising—making simpler with the credit/debit card fees—that the customers... passing along that the customer will be paying those. The city will be paying for the fees for EFT and ACH payments. So um, that's all stemming a lot from our Erp implementation. Um, we just moved around the investigation fees from Public Safety section to the License section—it was in both places in some regards. And then the permit fees—it’s reflecting increased staff costs. And what the Inspections department did is they did a comparison of neighboring cities to make sure that we were still in line with them. So those are still in that in line. [1:03:30] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Those haven't been raised in a long time. [1:03:33] **Julie Stahl**: Yeah, yeah. So um, we did add a fee for single-family home conversions to Assisted Living, seeing that happen. And because, as a delegation agreement with the Department of Labor and Industry, we need to do the inspections on those, and so that requirement does fall to the city. It takes staff time, so it's recouping those costs. Um, we did increase the fee for the fire sprinkler permits—the minimum had not been updated in several years, so that was covering the cost of the state processing fee as well as our staff costs. And again, that increase does move us closer to the rates charged by our neighboring cities. [1:04:21] **Julie Stahl**: We also added fees for the fire captain and firefighter positions now that those are in our staffing, to make sure in case we use those positions for any inspections or whatever that we would have that covered. We, for sewer rates, it's got a proposed increase and again that's covering our infrastructure improvements, the lift stations, as well as the MCES increase which was 4.47%—that's the one that we pass along, but it is built into our fee for the sewer rates. That averages out to an increase on the quarterly bill for an average resident to $3.68 a quarter. Water rates—and I'll go into these more with that budget as well—but increasing 6% for those, and that makes an the average resident using 15,000 gallons their increase on a quarterly bill would be $1.91. [1:05:08] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Have we talked about that? Because I thought the last conversation we didn't have to increase water rates for a while? Or am I not... [1:05:18] **Justin Miller**: It has to do with the wet year that we had. So we're... [1:05:22] **Julie Stahl**: I'm sorry, but you're... [1:05:23] **Justin Miller**: No, a lot less watering going on so there was a lot less revenues coming in. [1:05:29] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: So in theory next year they could go down or stay flat? [1:05:32] **Julie Stahl**: Depends again and with the new tier system—and I'll get into that in that budget too—but we had the very dry year, and now a partial year of the wet year in 2024. So we don't even have two—like a dry year and a wet year to compare to get an average. So this is keeping us in line for the Water Treatment Plant improvements that are coming up in 2027. So it's making sure that we don't fall well below and trying—we're trying to avoid issuing debt with that, right? I know our intent long-term is to make sure that our utility rates are a one-for-one. [1:06:21] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: But you can see in the one chart, you know, 2030 and out in the Water Fund, we are projecting a larger balance cash that we need. If that were to hold true, theoretically you could lower the rates in those future years to bring that available cash down. [1:06:36] **Julie Stahl**: Good. And I'll get to that in those charts too. Um, irrigation sprinklers—we did recommend a decrease to those so it matches the tier four—the highest rate—because that's what a lot of other cities do: they match that top tier and just have it for the same dollar rate. Water service call fees—increasing those to better reflect the actual cost incurred by the city performing those service calls. [1:07:26] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: On the irrigation sprinklers meters, did that include residential versus the commercial too? It's the commercial that seems to... well, and that's why I like their bill being up there, because they had a choice whether to turn off water or level... I don't know how they do it, I don't how it all works, but I just hate seeing them run when it's raining and yet a homeowner is smart enough to turn them off, you know what I mean, when they don't need them. [1:08:12] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Because they don't want... this is for the HOAs. This isn't your individual homeowner on the irrigation rate, okay? This is for your larger res... like homeowners associations. [1:08:24] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: I think she's saying she doesn't want to decrease the commercial one. [1:08:26] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: I don't, from $5.98 to $5.35. I don't want to decrease it because they're—they're overusing it. I mean that was the whole part of coming up with the tier system so that people could make a judgment on what they wanted to use. And those persons that wanted to use a ton of water to have the greenest grass, they just needed to pay for it. I mean there's... but then the gas station likes to water the sidewalks exactly. But so do you see what I'm saying? Like why would I want to lower something when I really want you to really cut back? [1:08:58] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Yeah, I'd be fine leaving the industrial—call it the tariff—I would be fine leaving that at $5.98 but lowering the residential. Okay? [1:09:12] **Julie Stahl**: I mean, obviously... fine. Okay. [1:09:18] **Councilmember John Bermel**: Yeah, okay. Okay. I mean I think we've done a really good job this last year promoting all different ways to save money on their water bill and doing the whole thing. So which we need to keep promoting, but yeah. [1:09:33] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Yeah, I agree. [1:09:35] **Julie Stahl**: All right, we'll make that change. Um, then the water service call fees—just increasing those to reflect the actual staff time that's needing to perform those service calls, making sure that we're covered on those. And then um, the Environmental Resources rate—we are... that one is actually having a slight increase too, and it ends up being 59 cents per quarter on the regular bill. So very slight increases. Again, I'll go through those charts when we get to those budgets, but um, any other fees that stood out to Council? [1:10:30] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: Questions on the fee schedule changes... on the water disconnection, um, just in general do we—if it's like a hardship thing, do we... that you know, if it's like a senior citizen thing um, like for non-payment? I'm just wondering, do we... [1:10:48] **Julie Stahl**: We don't shut water off for non-payment because we certify to taxes. So... okay. [1:11:00] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: I think the water shut off it might... just wonder what that has to do with—maybe there's a leak and we have to go out and shut? Is that what it is? [1:11:10] **Julie Stahl**: Yeah, I’d have to... it's at the request of the property owner to shut for their maintenance purposes or what-not, to fix something. [1:11:15] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Um, I have two small things. One is related to room rental fees. The minimum on the actual fee... tell me the facility. [1:11:24] **Julie Stahl**: Oh, um, Antlers Park? [1:11:27] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Page two. Um, the minimum hours are going up—makes sense to me. But we're also adding TV, sound, and microphone charges of $50 a piece. And it just seems to me that if you're renting the room, it should come with the amenities that are inside of it. And we're already increasing that fee by $250, even if you're only using it for a couple hours. But it's a very minutia item. But I don't know, it just seemed like a lot of increases for that space in one year. [1:12:03] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: Can I just say that it's not unheard of to um, charge for those—those two new items that are listed on here. I mean, people will ask, they expect to pay for it. They just do, it's part of renting a space. I just rented a room yesterday, had to pay for the projector and microphone at a different place. And at the school district, same thing—you pay for all that in... you have your base room rental and then you have the fees on top of it for the amenities that you want to use over and above. So I'm just saying whether right or wrong, people are used to that fee. They know that you know, they'll ask about it. [1:12:49] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: I would also wager that it's that when if there's an incident during a rental, it's those issues that cause us to have to respond—it’s that the TV doesn't work or the AV system. So that's a cost for us. What's the logic behind the—the minimum increase? Is it just... does that align with the rentals that that we've had? Or is it just more pain to have two-hour? [1:13:14] **Julie Stahl**: I think when I rented it, it was two hours. [1:13:17] **Justin Miller**: It's a cleaning issue. You know, if we were renting two hours, we might have to show up on a weekend two-three times to turn it over. And if we do it at the four—four hours, you're probably only turning it over once a day. I don't know if this is changing for next season, but this past season we were only renting it out once a day because of the cleaning schedule. So we were kind of losing out I think on revenue. Because even at two hours—there's a lot of room for only two hours. [1:13:58] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: The thing is that as a resident, if you were renting something, by the time you get your family all there etc., two hours is pretty short. [1:14:05] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Yep. Open some gifts and get out of here. That's true. But no, I can see where... is this room on the fee schedule? No, I don't believe so. The reason I asked—there's... it seems like there's more and more youth boards that are getting kicked out of hotel boardrooms that are looking for places. To me, I guess there was like Allina and others started uninviting. We've hesitated to rent this room out unless a staff or council is here, strictly from an access standpoint. [1:14:48] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Okay, I'll move on from the... it doesn't seem like there's overwhelming support for that. The other thought I had was about sewage rates, and I don't know if you want to wait till we get to the water part of this. But at one point several years ago, we had talked about... the calculation for sewer rates was being used on the lowest usage quarter of the year. [1:15:10] **Julie Stahl**: The winter quarter. [1:15:12] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: The winter quarter. And I'm not sure if that's the right approach in terms of calculating our quarterly rates based on the lowest use quarter. I don't know which quarter is better, because if you do the summer quarters, then that's also including water rates that are irrigation and whatnot. But maybe quarter four is the quarter that's more appropriate to use for the next year's rates? Does that make sense? [1:15:35] **Julie Stahl**: Well, I think the assumption is you only want to try to charge for what's going in the sanitary sewer. And even in that fourth quarter, you might be getting some irrigation use in a dry year. [1:15:55] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: I mean, but we're talking October, November, December. Blowouts are usually early October, so it would be somewhat minimal. But one of the things that we had talked about is that snowbirds—who aren't in their house at all in the wintertime—are getting fairly low rates for sewer. And I don't know how much of an impact this has on our overall budget, but that point came up for me. And then the initial charge we have for new accounts is currently set at 18,000 gallons of water as if they had used 18,000, but that doesn't quite match up with our tiers right now. So I think that that initial new account rate should be at 15,000 gallons and not 18,000. Now these are very like fine-tuned tweaks to sewer, but it's not always a one-for-one. [1:17:15] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: Because you may have a family of four versus a family of two, and is it the average use? Because a family of four with two teenagers could could use a lot more water than 18. So is the 18 more of an average between low-end users to retired adults? [1:17:29] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Sure, that... I mean if it's an average... and that's... I'm not sure if it... I thought at one point that was one of the threshold changes between tiers. I thought that's why we had 18,000. 1.8 was our average user back when we first started talking about this, but I can't remember. [1:17:51] **Julie Stahl**: We can look into that. Yeah, with the new software that's happening, it might be easier to determine what that is and not be at the mercy of Logics to give us the reports. [1:18:03] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: So, um, you know, you said the cost quarterly for each one of these different charges, but the tier one people or seniors or whatever, what is that cost going up as a total? For water, the light—you know, what is their bill going up per quarter? [1:18:15] **Julie Stahl**: I don't have that specifically, but um, I'm not sure if we can determine who—who are the seniors? [1:18:25] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: No, no, the tier one—tier one. I'm stereotyping who those tier one users are, but we meant for tier one to be really very basic. And so I guess my thought process was I really didn't want to see tier one going up very much versus all the other tiers. I mean, the whole point of making this switch too was the uncomfortability of the seniors losing their discounts. So then if by year two their bills are going up again—you know what I mean? It's like the whole point we started coming up with the system was to try to keep their bills as affordable if they only use 6,000 gallons. [1:19:15] **Julie Stahl**: It'll go up 48 cents a quarter. [1:19:22] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: Completely? Sewer... [1:19:26] **Julie Stahl**: Well, no, just for the water. [1:19:30] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: See, that's what I'm saying. Their bill—their bill is a whole pie. [1:19:35] **Julie Stahl**: Yeah. I mean as you recall, I mean, let's just say they only use 6,000—the base is up 44 cents. It would go up a dollar a quarter if you use the base rate and you only use 6,000 gallons—it would go up about a buck. [1:19:46] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: That's why I was asking a question, because I didn't add it all up. Then obviously it gets a little bit more expensive if you're in the six to the 15. [1:20:01] **Julie Stahl**: Any other questions? [1:20:04] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: No. [1:20:05] **Julie Stahl**: Okay, thank you Julie on that. Now I think we have budget stuff, so I'm turning back... yeah, well we've already gone over water so do you have any further questions on utility or utilities? Otherwise we can do... [1:20:21] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: No, I mean my only thing is let's put a calendar reminder in 2030 about evaluating—and I'm just joking—but you know, is that fund still healthy because we've had a wet year. [1:20:30] **Julie Stahl**: Okay, so yeah, I'm happy to go to the Liquor Fund budget. All right, Liquor Fund budget is... so just a reminder, this has been reviewed and approved by the Liquor Committee. So we are being conservative and um, just the total—the sales and how—how they've been going this last year. So the overall sales projections have been decreased by 1.2%. It's a different mix, so it's got Keokuk going up 6.6% and then the low end of Galaxy having a decrease of 1.4%. So just be conservative, like I said. We do include in the 2025 budget 1.74 million in transfers. In that group of transfers, we did increase the amount of the equipment fund transfer—it's been 500,000 for a long time, we bumped it up to 900,000 [1:21:30] **Julie Stahl**: ...this go-around. This is to help keep the levy lower, and the Liquor Fund has the fund balance to support it. So it's not putting us in a bad position as far as the Liquor Fund’s reserves. And then just touching base again, we had the financial metrics that were brought into the the view of this. In 2022, the Council reviewed it at a work session and then the Finance Committee discussed them at their October 2022 meeting, and so they had some comments on it. So those proforma metrics are built into the reports that we provide to you. And just another keynote: Moody's changed their rating methodology to include the enterprise funds of the city. So that's beneficial to us because of the healthy fund balances that we've got in those enterprise funds. [1:22:16] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: As we look at... first of all, did fireworks double? Can we lose sponsorship from... there's still $30,000? [1:22:25] **Julie Stahl**: I know, but last year's was only $15,000. [1:22:30] **Justin Miller**: The total show has gotten more expensive. [1:22:32] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Got it. Okay. Okay. And then um, on the proforma, what conversation have you guys had as a committee on what's the future of Heritage when it comes to staying, their lease rates, all those kind of things? Like, I know they had talked to us about some buildout ideas and I guess... is there a Heritage update? [1:23:49] **Justin Miller**: Yeah, we met with the Liquor Committee last month and reviewed—just did a quick review. We're in the process of finalizing the market study being done by Shur Associates, and they have some recommendations in there that will come forward with the Council here. First we'll meet with the Liquor Committee and then we'll meet Council in November. [1:24:08] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Okay, I just know the conversation's always been that that square footage, we think we can make up some of the revenue short. [1:24:20] **Justin Miller**: Yeah. The short part is it needs more space and it's the right location where it is, so we just need to figure out how to work through that. [1:24:25] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Right location in that exact spot or within 200 yards? Downtown will not work. [1:24:30] **Justin Miller**: No, I'm saying... but there's no conversation... [1:24:35] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: I know. Yeah, my conversation... [1:24:36] **Justin Miller**: We'll come forward with a couple options. [1:24:40] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Okay. Within 200 yards is a lot. Downtown is a lot further away. But yeah, you're right, it'll within that area—the prime place—for the rest. [1:25:05] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Any other questions on the proforma? The long-term capital outlays—very modest. I know it's not usual for us to see projected decreases on sales. [1:25:15] **Julie Stahl**: And they have to level off. And it's not out of the norm with what we’ve seen in the economy, product mix—it's just a whole lot of things. And so yeah... [1:25:21] **Councilmember John Bermel**: I haven't bought nice beer once. [1:25:24] **Julie Stahl**: We hope—we're hopeful that, like Julie said, we're being conservative. [1:25:35] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: How did our—our THC sales... included in here? [1:25:38] **Julie Stahl**: They are. [1:25:39] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Are we laundering the money? [1:25:40] **Julie Stahl**: It leverages everything. I mean, that's part of this budget. [1:25:44] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: But how is it projected um, in in this model? [1:25:50] **Julie Stahl**: I'm not sure I specifically projected those products. We just projected the overall future income for '25. Looking at the micro-level for those products, we foresee them continue to increase and eventually level off. [1:26:01] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Sure, it's that "shiny penny" kind of work. You're maybe expecting the market share just to increase for those products, not necessarily an overall increase. [1:26:06] **Julie Stahl**: That and then um, you know, the one thing that could be a little bit of a game-changer is if um, is if it was legalized on the federal level, then people could start using their credit cards. And that, I think, would also increase sales. So it's—it's... [1:26:24] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Thank you. Federal bank stuff. [1:26:29] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Any other questions? [1:26:30] **Julie Stahl**: Thank you. [1:26:31] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Thanks. All right, any items for future discussion? [1:27:03] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: I want to raise one just because I've never raised it before. Um, had a couple discussions with people, said I would raise it. Um, trash—trash policy. Um, I don't know when the last time the Council discussed the current system was? [1:27:14] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: It wasn't while I was here. [1:27:15] **Justin Miller**: It was just before you got here. [1:27:16] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: So I—I want to raise that. I think we should examine where we're at, especially the "two days per week" window for the haulers. Had some concerns raised about that and... [1:27:26] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Which way? One more or less? [1:27:28] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: One more. [1:27:29] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: More? [1:27:30] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: One—one per neighborhood. One day per neighborhood. Um, there just seems to be... and I think it was because of the county, you know, the increased number of recycling trucks. I'm hearing a lot from people about the number of trucks in the neighborhood. When I try to explain it's limited to five carriers... I mean, so it is capped. People understand that... [1:27:56] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Trucks—what's that? They all run three trucks. Well then the ones... Burns carrier zip by our street there too. [1:28:02] **Justin Miller**: So those people are getting more. Yeah, just... I'm happy to have the conversation. The challenge for us is we—because related to the day—some neighboring communities like Burnsville have multiple carriers as you know, but they're zoned. And so what was happening is like they would come into Lakeville when it was convenient, you know, it was a big hassle. We can have a conversation about it. I think the biggest thing I think that we've done in the last couple years for your history is that we used to have seven licenses. As they've exited the business, we've just... [1:28:44] **Councilmember John Bermel**: Because it's not that—there was one I think that wanted complete, you know, open market part of the question. There was—there's... what other haulers are you talking about? Because I think five pretty much gets the whole market for us, doesn't it? And one of those is only the western part of the city too, I think. But anyway, I don't know that I'm necessarily seeing any changes to it, I just think it'd be good to have that discussion. [1:28:48] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: Well, what's happening in our neighborhood is that Waste Management is so understaffed they're coming every day driving through. [1:28:55] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: We had... and Allyn had some discussions with them on that. We're not the only city that's facing that. They had some shortages. [1:29:12] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: We had two trucks come through for Waste. One picked up the bags and the second one picked up the—the what was in the bin. Two free yards. Two free yards. [1:29:21] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Yeah, that's interesting. I—you know, I would welcome at our retreat to have a conversation. [1:29:30] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: Okay. [1:29:31] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: And then, you know, because one thing that we did get... I got an email about—I think you guys were included too—is if there's any type of study nationally or even locally about the cost to roads and how to manage that. Is it—does it actually harm or not? And I'd be curious to have that conversation. [1:29:50] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: That's good. That's a good point. That was the one that—that those numbers seem really... [1:29:56] **Councilmember John Bermel**: And where's the other study that by really limiting it, how much more your garbage bill goes up? [1:30:00] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: Oh yeah. Well, I mean, I'm not touching that. But us creating ordinances has increased the cost of my garbage. [1:30:11] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: I would say that it's the state mandates on recycling driving it. But it's also, you know, the company—one of the companies—had to hire more workers to be able to accommodate squishing the—the pickup times. You know, so I mean there's... it's not just... [1:30:21] **Councilmember John Bermel**: Okay, so we'll talk about it at the retreat. I'm just saying, you know, you want the cost of the roads, I also want to know how much more it's going to cost me as a person every time we narrow in an ordinance. [1:30:45] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Well, one other just to go a little bit more deeper here. I mean one of the um, people that I think you might have communicated with—all of you—he had just had the idea that, you know, when we limit the license, we could negotiate a better deal for the community through the licensing process. He was under... Egan was the one that was raised—I think he was under the impression that Egan does that because rates are so much cheaper when he lived there, which I'm like... I—I'm assuming there's differences in distance to landfills and like fuel charges are obviously different based on your distance. [1:31:30] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: I've also got a long list. I'll stagger them. You know, I just... I moved to a different company and now I have Wednesday pickup and it has changed my whole life. And I support that—it’s great, life-changing. We go faster because my neighbors have Thursday pickup. That's like a great end of the week. Now I'm getting a Wednesday so it's like weekend even faster. [1:31:50] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Wow. Such... yeah, when you got that much trash coming out of my house. [1:31:57] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Okay. Okay. Um, committee or city administrator updates? The Liquor Committee meeting—you heard what we talked about. Personnel Committee recently met. Direct reports to Justin have completed the administrator survey. Justin will be submitting a self-evaluation soon, and then you'll receive the Council survey with attached resources including the the direct report evals, self-eval, and the last year's materials for reference. [1:32:30] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: Is it that time of the year already? [1:32:42] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: We're almost to the end here. We started talking about this in August and that's... but now it's about right. Um, the other update that I wanted to mention is that the SAFER grant has created a conversation for the Relief Association because the acceleration of the full-time hires also accelerates the potential decrease in paid-on-call staff. And so the relief is looking at vesting schedules and what that might look like. The account is overfunded at the moment, everyone's looking at the vesting schedule and... [1:33:14] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: They just came up with a new excuse? What's that? You just laid it out. Oh, because of the full-time and the paid-on-call. I—I'm just saying they're looking for a new angle to the same thing that they always come with. I'm not saying I'm not supportive or whatever, I'm just—I'm just chuckling because it's a great marketing, you know, to kind of change your angle a little and... [1:33:45] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Well, that may be true. It is—it is factual. I mean the SAFER grant changes the conversation, it does. And so with that account being funded, as you get less and less paid-on-call folks towards that target number of 50, it—there's—it'll just continue to be more overfunded over time. [1:34:03] **Councilmember John Bermel**: Is there a process in how if you accrued a bunch of money and then now you're full... [1:34:08] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Well, I mean... I mean I think that conversation is coming too because the state fire aid that comes in... at some point we're going to need to figure out how much is the city—or should the city be taking in—for those full-time pensions. With that, there could be a discussion on changing the type of benefit that paid-on-call folks have. Right now they have a defined plan, but it could change to a defined contribution plan. And then that—that would trigger a transfer of funds from one account to another and then it wouldn't be overfunded because of how it's distributed. It's just too early to really talk too specifically about that, but all those things I think have to be in the future about just how to to manage benefits for that new hybrid model—more full-time and less paid-on-call. [1:35:14] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: Were you talking to about it? Your paid-on-call say you already accrued money and you transition? [1:35:19] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: You roll over, retire. You would retire as you're paid-on-call, get paid with your best age, okay, and then you start in the full-time era. [1:35:30] **Councilmember John Bermel**: Yeah, which is unfortunate if you are not quite fully vested. [1:35:34] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Yeah. Okay. Yes. Um, we had a Regional Mayors meeting today. A conversation was related to housing at the work, and that is—will continue to be an issue. And I think the strategy amongst Mayors will be determined after we see what happens in the election next week—got to see who's in control of things. And then the other thing I just wanted to bring up—I guess this is also an item for future discussion—I talked briefly about if we want to have a conversation about pursuing, as part of a legislative strategy, social ordinance exemptions next year at the legislature. [1:36:26] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: So what's the social? [1:36:28] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Social District. Social District. So that would allow us to like—sorry—like have a beer garden in like downtown for instance on some days. [1:36:34] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: Done. You can walk around? [1:36:36] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Yeah. I think there's two cities that have gotten legislation from the city or from the state. Because you have to ask permission from the state, right, to do the ordinance? [1:36:45] **Justin Miller**: Right, yeah. So we have to put it as our legislative priorities. [1:36:48] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: So we'd have to discuss that before the retreat? [1:36:51] **Justin Miller**: Yeah, because we want it in our priorities leading into session. We have the legislative priorities scheduled for your November work session. [1:37:00] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Okay, and then we can talk about process. [1:37:05] **Councilmember John Bermel**: The only thing I was going to mention is that uh, we actually because of the whole timing of the extra week this month, we actually had the meeting ahead of this one. But I wanted to let you know that things are going well. His numbers are looking good. [1:37:42] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: For the arenas? [1:37:44] **Councilmember John Bermel**: Yeah, I apologize. Um, numbers are looking good and um, we anticipate next year's numbers will look good too because of the fact that Bloomington's closing down three of their rinks. So they're looking for ice. Really? [1:37:56] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: No, renovating. [1:38:00] **Councilmember John Bermel**: Oh, got... oh I apologize. They're closing them down to... I—I missed the the next part... why... to renovate. Yeah, so um, you know, that means that it gives us an opportunity. So we're going to probably see a bump, but then you know we'll fall back to regular numbers. So hopefully we do a lot with that bump when we have it, you know, for saving it, capital improvements, whatever. And then we did lease the snowblower and the snow removal, so that did get leased. I think it was $40,000 over five years. [1:38:44] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Can I use it on both sides? [1:38:46] **Councilmember John Bermel**: Yes. Mostly Hasse, I think. Mostly Hasse. [1:38:52] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: But um, when does the sheet of ice open? [1:38:54] **Councilmember John Bermel**: He's starting to cool the concrete now. Um, they hope to have it open... I first remember... [1:39:05] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Was there a soft opening for... it's called "thanks..." around Thanksgiving. [1:39:14] **Councilmember John Bermel**: So there'll be like a soft opening. LHA wants to have a soft opening for... in November so. And then he'll have a big grand opening, I think in January. Hockey Day in Lakeville—they're going to do. Oh, off yeah. They... the Gopher women are playing Bemidji on New Year's Day. It's part of like a college hockey showcase. How we scored that, I have no idea. Playing Duluth or Bemidji... it's one of those. [1:39:52] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: Once that outdoor rink is operational, is there any other improvements that are being made there? Bleachers? I thought there was another phase to this. [1:40:02] **Councilmember John Bermel**: Um, there is. Um, there's some rather nice seating and um, they're heated. Well, I mean they're doing warming houses right now. So he ordered um, shipping containers since we figured out how to do that. So um, those are going to be nice for changing rooms, locker rooms. And they have—he has a bunch of amenities penciled out. Um, a lot of it's contingent upon fundraising from LHA as part of the whole matching idea from the hockey donation. [1:40:41] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: Pretty nice actually. [1:40:43] **Councilmember John Bermel**: Yeah, because that—I mean that's the scene in my head is a winter carnival. And is that possible with what's being planned? [1:40:49] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Oh, it should be really nice. I think I think he's got all kinds of ideas on how he wants to utilize that year-round for community events. [1:41:03] **Councilmember John Bermel**: Are they doing the new video scoreboards this year? [1:41:05] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Those are in. [1:41:06] **Councilmember John Bermel**: Oh, they're in? Yeah, wow. LHA is still looking for ads for that. Um, and they did sell the naming rights to Rink 2—names to Genz-Ryan. [1:41:17] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: So that's Genz-Ryan. And that was what we agreed to at LHA as part of the last negotiations, that they had the naming rights to those. Cool. All that. [1:41:21] **Ann Orlofsky (City Clerk)**: I will take... just real quick. Um, voting is still going on very heavy here. For a couple came in late. Um, as of this morning, we are at like 11,700 already voted. We had another 700 today, 757... 77. So I imagine we'll have that every day this week. We're open late tomorrow till 7:00? [1:41:43] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Is that right? [1:41:45] **Ann Orlofsky**: 7:00—7:00 or 7:30? [1:41:46] **Justin Miller**: 7:30. [1:41:47] **Ann Orlofsky**: And then we're open Saturday and Sunday as well. And the voting times were on the website because I looked them up. Oh really? Yeah, I'm sure that's where I found them. Cool. [1:41:59] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Does that number include returns to the county? [1:42:01] **Ann Orlofsky**: Mail-in ballots returned? The 11,000 did, okay. But not the daily number—the daily number, the 700, is what it was in person here. I think since Friday when we started direct balloting, I think we're over 4,000 now as of wrapping up today. So that's just the people that have come since last Friday. [1:42:36] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: I was number 3,445 on Saturday. [1:42:43] **Ann Orlofsky**: Yeah, we even had 400 on Saturday. [1:42:48] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: And remind me, we're at the 8th? We're doing canvassing? [1:42:50] **Ann Orlofsky**: The canvass is the 8th at noon. [1:42:53] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Why? Where's the County? [1:42:55] **Ann Orlofsky**: That's on the 12th I think, or 13th. [1:42:58] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: It's the week after that. Oh, here it is, I didn't see noon did I? I put this in my phone but... you did... did you send us something that I was supposed to answer? [1:43:16] **Ann Orlofsky**: I sent out a meeting invite for November 8th. [1:43:19] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Okay, I have it in my phone but I just... and again, that should be a five-minute meeting, right? I just have to remind myself so I need my little alarm to go off. Good. [1:43:44] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: Okay, I'll move to adjourn. [1:43:48] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Second? Say aye. [1:43:52] **Council**: Aye. [1:43:53] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Thank you everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Taylor and Michelle—we didn't get officially... yeah, nice to meet you. [1:44:03] **Michelle Volk**: Yeah, nice to meet you too. I have not... you know, this place is evidently... so noted... treat you okay? [1:44:20] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Yeah, they were good. Like, they really hit me far out of high school—like my first reality check when we met people born in 2006 voting. That kind of hit me hard too. Yeah. Taylor, have a good week everybody. I'll go to the soccer tournament. [1:45:03] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: 2013? 2015? The point you're at the soccer field or football field and some of these parents are younger than us? A lot.