[0:28] **[Background Noise]** [1:18] **[Background Noise]** [1:28] **Matt Montgomery:** Uh-oh. Call to order for City of Cannon Falls City Council meeting for Tuesday, March 4th, 2025. If I could get a roll call, please. [1:35] **Sara Peer:** Sure. Diane Johnson? (Here). Zimmerman? (Here). Chad Johnson? (Here). Jeppesen? (Here). Nobach? (Here). Kronenberger? (Here). And Montgomery? (Here). [1:45] **Matt Montgomery:** Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. **Group:** 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. [1:56] **Matt Montgomery:** If I can get an approval of tonight's agenda. [1:59] **Diane Johnson:** All moved. [2:00] **Ryan Jeppesen:** Second. [2:01] **Matt Montgomery:** Motion from Diane, second from Jeppesen. All those in favor say aye. (Aye). Opposed, nay. It passes. Uh, nobody has signed up for public input, so we'll skip item five. Get it to consent agenda. Consent agenda items may be adopted under one motion as presented or may be removed for discussion and resolution as Council business. Item A is the just and correct claims for the accounting period ending on February 26, 2025, and Item B, meeting minutes, February 18th, 2025, City Council meeting. Is there anything the council would like to pull down? If not, I would take a motion to approve the consent agenda. [2:31] **Lisa Zimmerman:** Motion. [2:33] **Chris Nobach:** Second. [2:34] **Matt Montgomery:** Motion from Lisa, second from Chris. All those in favor? (Aye). Opposed? Carries. Gets us to our Council business tonight. We will have a presentation, Memorandum of Understanding, Three Rivers Community Action. Jon, if you'd like to introduce. [2:48] **Jon Radermacher:** First, Mayor, I'm going to introduce Tracy and Diane from The Three Rivers Community Action. They're going to talk to us about a memorandum of understanding for a service agreement for, uh, the transportation services that are provided within the City of Cannon Falls and surrounding area. Maybe give me one—we'll see if we've got it—uh, the podium HDMI, otherwise we can be quite animated. There we go. There we go. [3:04] **Tracy (Three Rivers Community Action):** Thanks, Jon. So I'm Tracy, um, I'm one of the co-directors with Hiawathaland Transit. Um, we operate underneath Three Rivers Community Action. Um, just put a short presentation together for you. Here's just some history of how public transit was started, and unfortunately in our records I'm not able to tell you the exact year that we started here in Cannon Falls. Um, I'm going on my 12th year with Transit and we were in Cannon Falls before I started, so we've been here a while. Um, and then our latest, um, according to this was in 2012 when we took over Northfield and Faribault. We have added a few smaller, um, dial-a-ride communities since then as well. Um, types of service that we offer: um, deviated routes are in our bigger communities, so Red Wing, Faribault, and Northfield. Um, we have a deviated kind of fixed route; um, it goes around the same loop once an hour and we can deviate up to four blocks which is .2 miles. Um, and then we have dial-a-ride, which is what we operate here in Cannon Falls. That's where people call in where demand response for curb-to-curb service. Um, we do have, um, quite a few individuals here in the area that set up subscription rides, so they're needing the same transportation the same days out of the week for the, you know, same timeframe. So they're able to set that up; they only call in if they need to cancel. But, um, we do have that service here in town. And then we have Heart Volunteer Transportation, which we have individuals who volunteer their time and their vehicle to take individuals outside of that area that we can't get to with our buses. Um, so for the City of Cannon Falls, um, kind of a map here. Obviously you're aware of what the boundaries are for the city. We can travel outside of city limits if time permits, and then we do go to Randolph. There is quite a, um, quite a demand for school-age children to get them back and forth between the two communities, so we do have that transportation. And then outside when we get out into the country, we come into some safety concerns and some, um, areas of concern when it comes to accessing those locations. So those we take as a time-by-time basis and we do have a team that goes out and looks at those and identifies if it's a location we can access or not. Our ridership—obviously pre-2020 we were really doing great. Um, 2020 was hard on all of our service areas. We bounced back a little bit and then we're declining some. Um, obviously like I mentioned, the Randolph kids, that is the big number of what we do, and that's slowly declining with the close of the open enrollment. So, um, definitely some room for marketing and to build our ridership back up here in Cannon Falls. Um, here's some of the other dial-a-ride communities that we service: um, we have Plainview, which is also with Elgin, Wabasha, Kellogg, Kenyon, Wanamingo, Lake City—and we go to Frontenac, Pine Island, and then Zumbrota-Mazeppa. Um, we did update our fares the beginning of 2024, so a dial-a-ride is now $2.50 per ride. Um, and then at the beginning of 2024, we started for our first time doing an unlimited monthly pass for our dial-a-ride communities. We've had them in our route towns, but um, we had some requests for that in our dial-a-ride communities as well. So we have a student pass which is $60—that's to and from school, they can use it as much as needed throughout the month. And then dial-a-ride for adult, senior, and child would be $70, and again they can go anywhere within that service area unlimited. They can go multiple times a day, you know, no restrictions at all as long as it's within the service area. Um, some exciting things that happened in 2024: we received a new bus for Cannon Falls. This was a bus that I believe was supposed to be ordered in 2020—it all kind of jumbles together a little bit because we had 11 buses that showed up in 2024, and we have two more that are coming within the next month or two, and then another one that we just ordered for the 2024 year. Um, so this bus was a long time coming. If any of you saw the bus that was here at the beginning of 2024, um, we were probably one snowbank away from it falling apart. Um, it had done its job for us and um, we were able—actually that one we ended up taking to a junkyard. Um, if any of you have seen the latest Post-Bulletin, it was highlighted in the trailer races down in St. Charles; that was the Cannon Falls bus that was there. So some other things: um, we're in the midst of a camera system update. We do have onboard surveillance cameras on all of our buses, both for the safety of our passengers but also our drivers. Um, and then we are currently taking bids for an upgraded radio system. We operate off of the towers and we want to go to an IP base, so um, we're hoping to have that all dialed in, but we only have one quote, so we're still waiting for another quote on that so that we can get those purchased and installed. Our plans for 2025: um, a new position that we started in 2024 was a Transit Education person to help with educating the public. A lot of individuals in the public feel like you have to be disabled or a child or a senior in order to use our service, and that's just not the case. We are there for anyone and everyone. We do take everybody from preschool all the way up to seniors—to school, to outings, to appointments, to work, all sorts of things. So, um, our plan is to get him out and about in the communities, do presentations at some of the apartment complexes, senior living facilities, for groups, different things like that. We do want to build our ridership—like we said, we're still not back to pre-COVID numbers and we definitely want to work on that. Um, we are updating our scheduling software to allow for an online app option for passengers or their loved ones if they're booking rides for a parent that is needing our transportation. Our current software, we worked with for the last four years trying to get a passenger portal up and going and it just hasn't happened. So we are looking for new software where you could book a ride, you could track that ride, you could see where the bus is, anticipate when it's going to arrive, and also make payments online. So that's—um, we have an RFP out right now for that, looking to implement that over the summer months so we're ready to rock and roll when school starts. Um, and then another thing that we are starting in 2025 is Community Connections, where we would have the availability for people within the City of Cannon Falls to get both towards Red Wing and Wabasha County if they so desired, and then also Rice County, so Northfield and Faribault. Um, so there'll be some surveys that'll be coming out that we'll ask—we'll be reaching out and asking for your help with to get those out to community members and community partners just to get input of where do people want to go, um, you know, how can we make that a successful route. But we're using some underperforming route hours to build those Community Connections. They're not allowing for any expansion right now within MnDOT, so we're trying to repurpose some really underperforming routes and trying to help out members of our communities by doing these Community Connections. And that is all we have for you. If anyone has any questions, I have mine and Diane's email information up there and I'll share this with Jon and he can get that out to you. [11:23] **Jon Radermacher:** All right, yes, thank you. Thank you for that update. And then just for the action item for the council: um, in the past, uh, typically when those bus replacements came, Three Rivers would come to the partner cities and ask them for a contribution, usually on that one-time. Uh, unfortunately, with the state of the world and everything else, inflation has caught up in that world as well. Those costs of that equipment have really gone up. Um, the bus that they did replace, you know, is well over twice what the last cost of the bus was. So in an effort to try to spread that out and um, still get support from these communities to help finance this much-needed equipment, um, they're looking at spreading that cost over five years at a contribution of $6,000 per year. Uh, so that's before us tonight in terms of the request that they have. Um, it has been through some other communities and partner communities that they have. Uh, we did talk about this at our finance committee and it was recommended from there to approve it tonight. [12:18] **Matt Montgomery:** Any questions or comments from the council? Hearing none, I would seek approval of the memorandum of understanding with Three Rivers and the actionable item of $6,000 per year for five years. [12:28] **Lisa Zimmerman:** Motion to approve. [12:29] **Diane Johnson:** Second. [12:30] **Matt Montgomery:** Motion from Lisa, second from Diane. All those in favor—or was there another question or are you gonna... yeah, you want to abstain from this one? Yes, I will be abstaining. All right. Uh, all those in favor? (Aye). Opposed? So that's a 5-0 with one abstain. [12:59] **Tracy (Three Rivers Community Action):** All right, one thing I wanted to add real quick, um, she was too fast. The Community Connections—I just wanted to make note that that is only going to be at the cost of $5 and it doesn't matter if they want to go towards Wabasha County, they would take the Red Wing connection here in Cannon Falls back to Red Wing and then be able to go. So it doesn't matter if they're skipping one community or three communities, it's going to be a $5 per way cost. Yep. So, um, a great thing and we would appreciate your support when it comes time to market those. [13:38] **Matt Montgomery:** All right, thanks. Thank you so much. All right, we're going to go around the horn. Jed? [13:45] **Jed Petersen:** Um, so we have snow coming tonight at some point. Uh, just ask that, uh, everybody be safe um, while traveling. Depending on conditions, if it is blizzard conditions, I will not have the guys out until it is safe for them to be out plowing. Um, so it may not be till later in the morning. So, um, yeah, otherwise, you know, stay home if you can. Yep. [14:09] **Matt Montgomery:** All right, thank you, Jed. Chief? [14:11] **Jeff McCormick:** Jed's always a pessimist! I'm hopeful that it won't be tons of heavy wet snow and people will be able to get their streets plowed and out of town and to work tomorrow morning without any trouble. To ensure that that happens smoothly, please get your cars off the street. Um, we have no idea how much this is going to be—is it going to be two inches, is it going to be 12 inches? Um, irregardless, at some point those guys are going to come out to clear the streets and having the cars off the streets makes it much safer for them and uh, more efficient. So we just would ask our residents to make sure they get their vehicles off the street tonight because snow is coming. Uh, we're fairly confident of that, we just don't know how much and how heavy. So thank you. [14:52] **Matt Montgomery:** Thank you, Chief. Sarah? [14:55] **Sara Peer:** Nothing. [14:56] **Matt Montgomery:** Jon? [14:57] **Jon Radermacher:** Um, since Laura Qualey is not here, I will uh, share with the group: uh, the EDA hosted a kind of strategic planning meeting or collaboration meeting with members from the school board, the chamber, the EDA, EIC, and uh, some of the council members as well were able to participate. Really a great conversation, kind of really sparked some ideas uh, for things that we want to see, and I believe we'll kind of take some of that and move that into more action items down the road. And then again, I want to say a big thanks to the council for all coming to yesterday to that Council retreat. I found that for myself personally and professionally it's going to be really helpful, uh, as we you know, navigate and work through this relationship that we have uh, just kind of begun. So I thank you very much for that. [15:37] **Matt Montgomery:** All right, thanks, Jon. Laura? [15:40] **Laura Kronenberger:** I'm good. [15:41] **Matt Montgomery:** Chris? [15:41] **Chris Nobach:** Good. [15:42] **Matt Montgomery:** Jepp? [15:43] **Ryan Jeppesen:** Good. [15:43] **Matt Montgomery:** Diane? (Good). Lisa? [15:44] **Lisa Zimmerman:** Good. [15:45] **Matt Montgomery:** I want to thank Jed for the tour of the plant this week. And uh, last week I was able to go to the League of Minnesota Cities, so thanks for that, Jon. Uh, congratulations to the boys wrestling individuals that uh, made it to State. Uh, I believe the two brothers, uh, Owen and Adam Parish, took third in their weight classes, so congratulations to them. Um, earlier today I was fortunate enough to be invited out to uh, Danny Lundell—his farm is southwest of town—he had an event where Governor Walz actually visited Cannon Falls today. So they invited me out there; I got to uh, meet the Governor and um, say a little introduction with his appearance. Not every day that—I know in small-town politics we are nonpartisan—but not every day the Governor gets to visit your city. So um, that was a nice event and I'm glad that Danny had reached out to uh, invite me to that. Um, other than that, the work session today with TRC being present that has been recorded—is that going to be posted on YouTube? Okay. So if our citizens do have some questions or uh, they can always watch it there, try to catch up on that. Um, obviously they laid out a timeline in front of all the different things that are going to have to happen um, in the near future. So yeah, it will not be the last time we see or hear from them, and certainly as we said in the meeting um, and reiterated: if you have comments about the project, whether they're specifically related to the environmental concerns that the EA is going to be addressing, or if it's building and zoning and planning and site development concerns, you can share them. That's—they may not be the perfect time for that moment, but we're not here to turn comments away. Correct, those comments will be seen, guaranteed, and responded to. So, all right. Uh, with nothing else, I would entertain a motion to adjourn. [17:44] **Ryan Jeppesen:** So moved. [17:45] **Lisa Zimmerman:** Second. [17:46] **Matt Montgomery:** Motion from Jeppesen, second from Lisa. All those in favor? (Aye). Opposed? We're adjourned. Thank you, everybody.