[0:26] [Music] [0:52] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Good evening and welcome to the March 18th city council meeting. If you join me for a moment of silence and the Pledge of Allegiance. [1:15] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** 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. Okay, moving to roll call please. [1:30] **City Clerk Ann Orlofsky:** Michelle Volk? **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** Here. **Ann Orlofsky:** Luke Hellier? **Mayor Luke Hellier:** [Inaudible] **Ann Orlofsky:** John Bermel? **Councilmember John Bermel:** Here. **Ann Orlofsky:** Dan Wolter? **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** Here. **Ann Orlofsky:** Joshua Lee? **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Here. [1:43] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Hey, very good. Moving on to item number three, citizens' comments. This is an opportunity for anyone to address the council for up to three minutes. Seeing none, we'll move on to item number four, additional agenda information. Mr. Miller? [1:57] **City Administrator Justin Miller:** Thank you, Mayor, Council. At your desk is an item 6L. It's a resolution supporting retention of City Zoning Authority. Now, I can go over that when we get to the consent agenda if you'd like. [2:10] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Very good. And then now we'll move on to item number five, presentations, and I'll turn it over to our Fire Chief Mike Meyer to recognize a retiring firefighter. [2:28] **Fire Chief Mike Meyer:** Good evening, Mayor, council members. Greg, would you like to join me? Tonight we're recognizing Greg Stus for his 36 years of service to the Lakeville Fire Department and our community. If you want to do your math real quick, but Greg started with the fire department in March of 1987 at Station 1, and he completed his career serving at Station 4 where he was the first captain that opened the station when that was built and opened. And kind of one of the legacies or pieces—that when I became a lieutenant at Station 1, Greg was my captain, and then when he moved up to Station 4 to open that, I became the captain at Station 1. So he was one of my mentors coming through the department. Obviously, Greg held all the following positions: firefighter, engineer, lieutenant, and captain. [3:27] **Fire Chief Mike Meyer:** We're very fortunate to have somebody like Greg who is so extremely dedicated, hardworking, yet tenacious all the time. You've been an inspiration to many firefighters on this department. Like I said, it's been my privilege to have the opportunity to work alongside Greg, who inspires not only firefighters but us as Chief officers on a daily basis. Greg, you are that firefighter that inspired all of us, and I want to express my personal appreciation for your achievement of this milestone. We've had very—I think only one other firefighter has had this many years on Lakeville Fire. At Lakeville Fire Department, Greg played a vital role in the development of many firefighters. The exact number may be unknown, but we do know the number of firefighters that were hired by the department during Greg's time: 259 firefighters have come through since he started and retired from the fire department, and he played a vital role in mentoring and training many of those firefighters. So thank you, Greg, for your friendship, your advice, your commitment, and dedication to LFD and our community. Greg's career on the department would not be possible without support of his wife, Brenda, and their family. So thank you to Brenda for 36 years of support, and we wish you and Greg many more years of enjoyment to spend with your family uninterrupted by the fire pager. So if you didn't notice, we started tonight with a structure fire, so we have crews that are out in the county right now and Greg's here. So we have a little short turnout, but one way to come out tonight. Would you like to say a few things, Greg? [5:00] **Greg Stus:** Yeah, I guess I'd like to start off by thanking Mayor and City Council members for your support and this presentation here with the shadow box. I also want to thank all the firefighters that showed up, or that could—I know the rest of them would be here. Terry and Tori for their behind-the-scenes dedications. And Brenda, my other part of my family is supposed to be here but they're caught in traffic. So—oh, I'm sorry, they're here! I have my son TJ, his two kids are our grandchildren—we have three, the daughter is in gymnastics—so I've got Sam, he's the oldest, and Archie, and then his wife Megan. I thank them for their support. Most important though, I want to thank my wife Brenda for all her years of dedication with me being on 36 years. I do appreciate it. For all you guys, I appreciate all your support too. It was an honor to serve the City of Lakeville. [6:35] **Fire Chief Mike Meyer:** Do you want to tell us about your shadow box? [6:37] **Greg Stus:** Yes, I have—these are shields for the helmets. One's a captain, engineer, and firefighter. And this was my first badge and the firefighter badge—oh, these are right here—the newer one, and then engineer and captain. And then I have some accommodations here for various things. [7:21] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Very nice. [7:23] **Greg Stus:** And then this flag is actually from a flag that I flew in my yard. It's a red—Thin Red Line. Cool. Red, blue line. And I also want to thank Jeff Shofer for this outstanding shadow box and the work that he does with all the shadow boxes. [7:51] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Very nice. Thank you. [7:58] **Greg Stus:** [Applause] [8:00] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Congrats. Thank you for your service. Well, in all those years you only saw two Twins World Series while you're a firefighter, so. [Laughter] Since 1987. Well, certainly you've seen a lot of changes in our community in fire service in 36 years and we're so grateful for your willingness to serve and for your family supporting us. So thank you so much for your time with the city and good luck on your retirement. [9:11] **Fire Chief Mike Meyer:** Thanks Chief. [9:14] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Yep, thank you. And as per usual protocol, we'll just let these guys leave and then we'll keep going. [9:24] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** All right, moving on to item number six, the consent agenda. Mr. Miller, any items you wanted to highlight? [9:31] **City Administrator Justin Miller:** Thank you, Mayor. Just a few. Item 6E is a resolution approving the 2024 Advisory Board appointments. These are the culmination of a day full of interviews that you did, and we appreciate everybody who applied for our various boards and commissions this year. Item 6K is a conditional use permit for UrgentVet. And as I understand it, it's just like it sounds, it's an urgent care for vets—or not for dogs and cats, not for the vets but for the animals. And then item 6L is the new item that I mentioned. It's a resolution supporting retention of City Zoning Authority. This is being requested by the League of Minnesota Cities that cities approve in response to some legislation that's being proposed this year at the State Legislature which would severely impact city's zoning authority. [10:07] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Okay, very good. Council, any items that you want to discuss? Otherwise, I'll take a motion to approve the consent agenda. [10:14] **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** Move to approve the consent agenda. [10:17] **Councilmember John Bermel:** Second. [10:18] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** We have a second. Any further discussion about the consent agenda? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. (Council: Aye). Opposed? Consent agenda passes. Move on to item number seven, agreement with APX Construction Group for the park buildings at Avonlea, and I will turn it over to our Parks Director Mr. Masiarchin. [10:52] **Parks & Recreation Director Joe Masiarchin:** Evening, Mayor and City Council. As noted on the agenda, staff is requesting that Mayor and Council approve an agreement with APX Construction Group LLC for the construction of three park buildings at Avonlea Community Park. Before we talk about some of the cost of the project, I'd like to just highlight the project in general. You've seen this numerous times, but we'll share it with the audience again. This is Avonlea Community Park on the east side of Cedar Avenue, North of 185th Street, and on the west of Hamburg Avenue. Going from west to east, you'll have 10 pickleball courts, five athletic fields, and you can see the first building to the west is the field support building, which is one of three buildings that will be constructed. Then you get down to the playground area and the splash pad to the north. You'll have the main building, which we'll touch on here in a bit, and then as you progress to the east, you'll have the grandstand building. [11:37] **Joe Masiarchin:** The field support building—again, that's to the west—you can see it's an open-air shelter. You'll have a couple unisex bathrooms, men's and women's bathrooms, and then a meeting room because this could be like the tournament headquarters for softball—or excuse me, soccer, football, lacrosse, cricket, whatever it may be. And it's also in close proximity to the pickleball courts, so that can also be the home to some pickleball tournaments and gatherings. As I mentioned, you get closer down to the main area of the main building, which is going to oversee the playground and the splash pad. This structure is actually elevated a bit so you can oversee these amenities, which will be a nice view for people sitting in this open shelter. We don't have a colored rendering of this, but it's very similar, as you can see, to the field support building. Nice open shelter to the right, unisex bathrooms, men's and women's, and then there's a larger utility room here that not only will support the utilities on the site but also the recirculating system for the splash pad. So that's the main building. Again, that's elevated, looks over the playground and the splash pad area. And as you know, Lakeville Lions donated $100,000 towards this splash pad—$100,000 over a five-year period. So we're very grateful for the Lakeville Lions. [13:11] **Joe Masiarchin:** And then this is the playground that's going to be near this building as well. A lot of amenities not only for 5 to 12-year-olds but from 2 to 5-year-olds as well, with the support in place material in the playground area. Then as you progress over to the baseball facility, we will have the grandstand that will be constructed as part of this contract as well. You can kind of see upper left, when you come from the parking lot how you enter, and if you go to the left will be the concession area, straight ahead restrooms, and around to the right towards first base then you can enter the grandstand area. The lower picture is from the batter's box, and then give you an idea in upper right what it'll look like at night when the games are shut down and you just have some accent lighting there. [13:57] **Joe Masiarchin:** So with that, we did open up bids on February 20th and we received four bids. The bids range from a low of 5.3 million to a high of 6.8, and the architect's cost estimate on the project was about 6.5 million. So staff is recommending approval of the agreement with APX Construction Group LLC for the construction of these three buildings at a cost of $5,243,000. This does include selecting a couple alternates, two and three, which are deducts from the base bid. One alternate, two, is to eliminate some—or not construct at this time—some wash-type light fixtures underneath the open-air shelters. And then the second one for a deduct or reduction of about $144,000 is to install 8-inch block versus 4-inch block. I think it's going to still look very sharp, you know, the wall at the baseball complex and the walls at the open-air shelters, but we felt the 8-inch block would suffice and still look very nice. So tomorrow we're actually opening up the bids for the site work; that's actually a larger component than this. So we'll know more tomorrow on the final cost for all of the project, and then from there we can start looking at executing agreements for the playground, the splash pad, with the Mayor and Council probably in the meetings in April. So with that, I'll stand for any questions. [15:28] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Okay. Council, any questions? [15:29] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** My only question—oh, did you have a question? It was more just a comment from conversation that I had with Mr. Masiarchin before this about the lighting changes. They are not connected to the field lighting. The deductions—these are the soffit lighting in the support building that is what's being removed at this point? [15:43] **Joe Masiarchin:** Yes. So as part of the base bid, we wanted to look at a couple alternate deducts in case the price got a little high. We always like to do that, and we felt these two were a couple ones we could—we could reduce the cost of the project on. [15:58] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Yeah. [16:03] **Councilmember John Bermel:** For the baseball field, does this include the cost of the dugouts and bullpens? [16:11] **Joe Masiarchin:** Yeah, the dugouts, yes. And Corey, could you put up the overhead? Maybe I'll just show you a picture of the dugouts as well; they're kind of sharp-looking. I'll share that with you... turn that on if you're able. But it does include the dugouts. There you can get an idea of the brickwork, and that's why we'll have that 8-inch block all around the backstop. So yes, that does include the dugouts. [16:47] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Excellent questions. Okay, if not, I'll take a motion to approve the agreement. [16:51] **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** I move to approve an agreement with APX Construction Group LLC for the construction of park buildings at Avonlea Community Park, CIP number 24-20. [17:03] **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** Second. [17:05] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Is there further discussion? I'll just close this and say it's really exciting to see this last very large piece of the park bond referendum come to fruition. It's very exciting. So good work to you and your team for staying on the timeline; it was aggressive from the start and I'm—yeah, it's great. So very good. Thank you. With that, I will take roll call please. [17:34] **City Clerk Ann Orlofsky:** Joshua Lee? **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Aye. **Ann Orlofsky:** Dan Wolter? **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** Aye. **Ann Orlofsky:** John Bermel? **Councilmember John Bermel:** Aye. **Ann Orlofsky:** Luke Hellier? **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Aye. **Ann Orlofsky:** Michelle Volk? **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** Aye. [17:41] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Very good. Moving on, we'll have unfinished and new business. Okay, seeing none, announcements. The work session for next week has been cancelled. Our next regular meeting is April 1st right here in the council chambers at six o'clock. And with that, I'll take a motion to adjourn. [17:52] **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** So moved. [17:53] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** All those in favor say aye. (Council: Aye). Opposed? We're adjourned. Just throwing us a curveball. [17:58] [Music]