This transcript has been formatted with speaker names based on the municipality context provided, phonetic matches within the text, and the specific names mentioned during the meeting (notably the City Administrator Dave Baroni and Police Chief Jeff McCormick). [4:41] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Then evening everybody, like to call the City Council meeting for the city of Cannon Falls, January 21st, to order. We have roll call. Dave Bringgold? Here. Duncan? Here. Lisa Zimmerman? Here. Lundell? Here. Matson? Yeah. Montgomery? Here. Mary Jo Altough? Here. Would you rise for the Pledge of Allegiance please? 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. Okay, could I have a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. [5:28] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Second? Motion by Steve and a second by Bill to approve the agenda. Any discussion? All in favor, aye. Opposed? Carried. We'll get right to the consent agenda. Consent agenda items may be adopted under one motion as presented or may be removed for discussion or resolution as council business for you at home and in the audience. I'll go through the consent agenda. Item A: Just and correct claims for the accounting period ending December 31st, 2019. Item B: Just and correct claims for the accounting period ending January 17, 2020. Item C: [6:15] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Minutes for the January 7th, 2020 City Council meeting. Item D: Approve CEDA economic development proposal. Item E: Approve Abdo, Eick & Meyers interim finance director proposal. Item F: Approve Baker Tilly/Springsted proposal for TIF services. Item G: Approve the new ambulance billing company. Item H: Resolution 2459, accepting a monetary donation from Invenergy Cannon Falls LLC for $1,500 to the Police Department. Item I: [7:01] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Resolution 2460, accepting a monetary donation from Olmsted Medical Center for $100 to the Fire Department. And Item J: Authorization to change bank signature cards. Is there anything the Council would like to pull down? [7:18] Council Member: Item J. [7:21] Mayor Matt Montgomery: We'll make that Item B under Council Business. [7:24] Council Member: Item F. Approve the proposal for TIF services. [7:27] Mayor Matt Montgomery: We'll make that Item C under Council Business. [7:30] Council Member: I’m going to pull down Item A. [7:34] Mayor Matt Montgomery: We'll make that Item D. Anything else? I'll take a motion to approve the consent agenda with the exceptions of J, F, and A. So moved. Second. [8:03] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Motion by Mary Jo Altough, second by Bill to approve the consent agenda with the three exceptions. Any discussion? All in favor, aye. Opposed? Carried. Okay, we'll get right into council business with the Police Department extra duty policy. Dave, just give us a little background. We talked about this at our work session last week too. It's an agreement that we have with the winery for our police officers doing off-duty security, correct? [8:49] Dave Baroni (City Administrator): We did talk about it last week, and looking for—there was some general consensus in general conversation—just looking for some direction from the Council tonight relative to the specific question of the extra duty police policy. I provided a little bit of background information to kind of fill in some of the questions and comments that we heard last time last Tuesday. Jeff provided previously to me some excerpts from the Police Department manual that talks about the extra duty police and the current policies as they exist as adopted in 2007. I provided excerpts [9:36] Dave Baroni (City Administrator): Of the council minutes from October of 2007. That's when the City Council adopted the Police Department manual—policy manual—which included the extra duty police provisions we're talking about tonight. Earlier this year I communicated with Attorney Roger Knutson about this question. It had been raised to me by several others; there was even some conversation by the Council earlier last year with respect to this policy and particularly the relationship we had with the winery. So I did contact the City Attorney at that time and I've included a copy of his response to me from July 9th. Also included is the request for officer event application. That's the application as it existed last year. I don't believe it's changed at all for this [10:22] Dave Baroni (City Administrator): Year. You get an idea of what the agreements and the provisions are that pertain to both us as a city as well as the contracting body, in this case, the Cannon River Winery. You can see that there was a change of policy that I'm aware of, and that was in September of 2014, and that's when we added as a city the $20 administrative fee. So with each event that occurs under this policy, there's the payment not only to the officer from the contractor themselves but also an additional $20 administrative fee, and so we've been receiving that. Also included the city of Burnsville, part of their contracted policy to give you an idea about how [11:09] Dave Baroni (City Administrator): At least another city—in this case, Burnsville—handles that. They've talked about indemnification, insurance, something that we talked about at the shop last week. And then item E is just a record of the relationship we had with the winery last year relative to this policy. I believe there was also an additional contract last year for someone other than the winery that's not included in that information. So again, that information is provided just as supplemental and a little bit background, perhaps clarification of what's taking place in the past, and hopefully to try to help the Council as you deliberate and discuss this evening whether or not you're looking for any particular changes in that policy based on this history. The ones in [11:54] Dave Baroni (City Administrator): Particular that I think the consensus that we talked about last Tuesday was in the area of considering amendments to the policy related to passing on indemnification and maybe more of the liability to the individual business that contracts with us. And that can be done; that's done in Burnsville, it was done I think in the Plymouth example as well, and I'm guessing other cities have done the same. So if the Council desires or wishes to do that, we probably should have some additional language there. We also talked about the cost. You know, is the charge that we levy against the winery in this case, predominantly, is that covering all of our costs? And I think there was some interest in having a look at that. And then we also had a conversation about what [12:40] Dave Baroni (City Administrator): Really constitutes extra duty. We know that we've got a contractual relationship, have in the past, with the winery. I think that's pretty clear. There was some conversation last week about well, are there other charges for contracted services that would fall under the extra duty policy? And that's perhaps a question that the Police Department would have to answer. So hopefully this gives us a little bit more background information, but it's up to the Council to provide some direction. If you've got questions for myself or the police, we will certainly try to address them if we can. [13:25] Mayor Matt Montgomery: I think at the work session the talk was a lot about liability, whether this is really a benefit to the city. I guess what an officer does in his off time, that's up to him, but I guess it was suggested at the work session that if we did allow this to happen, that maybe the winery would have a commercial umbrella policy to cover it. It would make it more—you know—nicer for me to grasp. So I don't know whether the rest of you have a thought on it. I understand that that was the biggest concern from our workshop, but revisiting the email from Roger Knutson, what would be any difficulties or would [14:11] Mayor Matt Montgomery: It be easier if it was hired through like a private contractor situation? Maybe Chief McCormick, how would that affect the department if on their off time they were free and clear to do it as they wish as private contractors? [14:26] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): I think what he was actually referring to was more hiring of private security away from the department, utilizing that resource rather than the department. Candidly, I would be very hesitant to approve the officers working essentially police duties within the city outside of my control, and that's what extra duty is designed to do—is keep the control with the department with the city. So the [14:57] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): Ability to say we want to have a rider, much like we do when somebody wants to put on an event in one of the parks, that would name the city as an extra insured. It's that type of thing. [15:10] Council Member: What constitutes what's an event? Explain what an event means. Like, is this an event down there? That seems to be—it's kind of clear. I mean, is a funeral procession an event? [15:23] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): It is if you guys say it is. I mean essentially we provided that as a service to the community for a funeral escort. We could stop that if that's what the Council desires. First of all, I mean the component [15:44] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): That we've looked at in the past would be something outside of the services that we normally provide. So you've got a motorcycle or a bicycle ride coming through the city and they want to have officers at certain intersections to control traffic—that would not be a service we would normally provide. They could hire officers to do that much as we have in the past. The triathlon would be an example of that. The bike race when it was here was a semi-component of that. The Council had directed us that was a community activity, but we were supposed to track our hours and then the costs were split: third with the Chamber, third through the [16:29] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): City, and a third through the promoter. So those would be examples of sort of the differences, and the differences they're kind of nuanced too. You know, we don't charge anything for Fun Thursday when, you know, we help them make sure that there's traffic cones, barricades are there... you know, that type of stuff. We don't charge for that. That's just done part of a community event. [16:48] Council Member: Councils in the past—like Janie and my councils in the past—have said community events are just part of doing business. So for instance: Memorial Day Parade, Fourth of July parade, Fair, are all things that are just cost of doing business for the city, right? [17:18] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): And I would agree with that. However, the security we're providing at the winery, I don't think falls within—and that's the data that falls in much like when St. Pius hired us for their event. Those would be more the contractual. And when you look at the Burnsville policy or the Plymouth policy, they call it contractual duty or contracted duty—I can't remember the exact wording they use—but that's essentially what the winery, St. Pius, the duathlon, those types of things have been. Is they sign the agreement with the city, city provides the services, and then they get billed for it. [18:07] Council Member: I know I've harped on this before, so everybody probably knows this... when the pay for the officers has been running through the city, when did that start? [18:18] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): That started before I was here because it started with Minnesota Malting from what I've seen. Always from 2007 it says extra duty compensation will be arranged by the city and paid to the officer directly by the requesting party. Yeah, that's not us. Nope, that's not how it's done. Well, but that's what the policy is. I understand that since the policy was taken from another agency's protocol, it wasn't until after when we actually got a request that I learned that the city ran it through their process, which was to bill it through the city. And so I do suggest we change it back. [18:52] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): I didn't catch it in the policy. Okay, I just—I think it would be a lot safer if we didn't. Well, I think we're going to have to modify the policy; there's absolutely no doubt. And so as I looked at both Plymouth's and Burnsville, I think what we can do is we can pull some of the best things from both of those and bring it into our new policy. I haven't redrafted the new policy yet, candidly, because I wanted to see what direction this discussion would take so I can make sure that the important things are included. And at the very least, I think we need to have all of our costs covered, plus even an extra little spiff so it should be worth something for [19:37] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): Places like the winery to have a dedicated police officer. I didn't run the numbers based on the ratios that were—I checked with HR, and so the formulas that we would use would be Medicare, PERA, and work comp. And so I ran the projections based off of the 2019 numbers, increased 3% because that's what the city's COLA was, and the cost that we would be paying out in expenses would be $62.73 an hour. Okay, well we would be billing equal to $63 an hour, so we would be covering our costs, but we wouldn't necessarily cover the administrative side of it because again, that hasn't been adjusted for a couple of years, which is one of the things that I talked with Sara about doing last [20:23] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): Fall, but we held off because of some of these questions. So you haven't seen something come before you and say, we suggest raising it to X. Now if we look at that and we say, okay, it's, you know, we're billing out at essentially $63 an hour, administrative cost should be 12% or 13%, we could just factor that in and change what comes before you and set, you know, sort of the benchmark rates, and then just reference being adjusted for cost of living or something so that every year it doesn't necessarily have to come back. What we would look at it, and if it's getting out of whack, we would bring it before you. What we've always used is sort of trying to round [21:09] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): To either even dollar or 50 cents, just because for accounting purposes it just was easier rather than, you know, breaking it down into $62.73. You know, I'm just concerned that all of our costs get covered. I think that's very easy to do. [21:28] Council Member: My question I have is: I understand the benefit that it is to the officer to make a little extra money, I understand a benefit to the winery. What's the benefit to the city other than some increased liability risk? [21:42] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): I think the benefit is the city would be providing a service that businesses have a need for. [21:48] Council Member: But you're putting the city at a higher risk. [21:55] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): Well, out of all the events we've had, we haven't had any incidents occur. But just by the same token, walking over here I could have tripped on the rug in the foyer and had an event. So if you're working more, will there be potentially more increase of risk? Certainly. But I don't think that it's necessarily something that we could put a dollar amount to say, "Okay well we're going to charge 20% for risk." I don't know what that would be. [22:25] Council Member: How much more of this business do you think you can handle? I mean, if this gets out and other places want security for their... [22:33] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): I don't think that we're going to be inundated with a ton. I'm just wondering... that’s a lot of a question. When, you know, we were contacted by St. Pius, they were looking for this type of service because they had some legitimate concerns given what we've seen in houses of worship this last year. And so we said, "This is, you know, what we can provide for you and this is, you know, the rate." Okay, they weren't sure. They went back, I'm assuming talked to some of their elders or a council, you know, or governing body, and came back and said, "Yes, we want to do that." And I think that, you know, if we don't do it, would they have hired somebody from, you know, some private security company? Maybe? I don't know. And I think they felt a lot better knowing that they had their local officers, a local officer there to [23:28] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): Provide that. And as I asked before, by providing this we are in no way guaranteeing that we will fill the shift because that was my other concern: that we do this and, "Oh, I can't fill it," we're in trouble. Yeah, and you know, so they understand that. Okay, again, the officers are always under the control of the Police Chief, so that if something big happened... the event is supposed to be September 20th at 8:00 p.m., 2018—tornado happened at, you know, 7:00 p.m. Yeah, all hands are on deck; they're not going to be there. He would notify them, they would understand as part of this that that could happen. [24:14] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Okay. Sorry. So the consensus is to maybe redo the policy or... [24:19] Council Member: I think so. Let's take some time and redo it and look at it. [24:23] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): What I'll do is I'll go through the Burnsville, the Eagan—I'd like to get Edina's, because that was another one that was referenced by our City Attorney's office—and then look for the best out of those, redraft ours and bring it back to the Council body to take a look at. Within that, I would probably do a side document that would [24:45] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): Cover some of the layout of administrative costs. I'd have a conversation with, you know, Sara on how much does it take for her to bill and, you know, that type of stuff, so we can make sure that we are covering that cost. And from what I understand, she just compiles it until that service isn't needed any longer and then bills out. Like for the winery, she bills out at the end of the year. But if Council wanted to do it quarterly, you know, I could with that option in talking with you guys so that you would know we could do these different ways. [25:17] Council Member: Will you be talking with the winery about one of the things listed here is extra insurance that they would provide? [25:23] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): I won't be yet until Council says, "This is what the policy will be, we approve these are all the ground rules, these are the costs." Then I can give them an update of what all of that is. I have talked with them because every year we touch base at the beginning of the year, and they have indicated that they would like to continue to have this service, but I said I just don't know what the numbers are yet. Okay, and so you know they're sort of waiting for me to give that information back to them. Then we send them the document, we'll make some modifications to our agreement. I think there's some things in Burnsville that are interesting; I think there's some things in Plymouth that are really good; and so we can sort of bring those together and come up with what would essentially be the best practice to blend those into a new contractual agreement addressing some of [26:19] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): The concerns of, you know, naming the city as an additional insured or, you know, whatever components we want to word it as so that they understand that. And then of course, also making sure that the rate we're charging not only covers our costs, but covers all of our costs and maybe is—as I think a couple of Council members indicated—a little bit more so that, you know, yeah, the unforeseen things are still somewhat factored for. And this was just going to be one flat rate for whichever officer they get, right? So that's good. And that's what we've done with the winery in the past. [26:54] Dave Baroni (City Administrator): What we've done is it would be just billed off of the officers that were there. [27:00] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): I think to try to structure this in the simplest manner, it would be doing much like Burnsville does where it's just, "This is the flat rate," and then the officers are paid through this flat rate regardless of which officer works. [27:14] Council Member: No, that makes sense because otherwise they could say, "Well no, we don't want the Chief of Police." I wouldn’t blame them! [27:21] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): No, I wouldn't blame them either. But you know, if—because you would be billed at a higher rate probably, right? So that's why I wanted to make sure. And again, you know, as I explained at our work session, I really don't like to work these. It's just this year has had some unique challenges staffing-wise. Yeah, so some of the resources that would have filled shifts weren't available, right? And then Joe and I look at it, and in this case, just he was gone, vacation or whatever for a bunch of them, so I picked them up instead. Otherwise, he'd pick up more of them than I. That was [27:51] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): My concern. That we have... I've also heard at least for some officers, they really don't care to be doing this stuff, especially now on a weekend off. Well, I mean when it's essentially their weekend off and we've got a Friday-Saturday, not everyone wants to give up their Friday and Saturday. And so they've actually done a fairly good job of sort of evenly splitting it among themselves. And this year was a little more challenging with some of our staffing. Well yeah, because the records show that you had to pull the most duty in 2019. Yep, yep. [28:34] Council Member: I would like to see us at least stop doing this until we can get some of this... [28:38] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): And that's not a problem. The winery's events themselves, those won't actually start up until probably May before they would need us. Yeah, if they contact us, what I would tell them is that right now we're not, but I certainly can bring their special request to Council and you can weigh out whether it be something you'd want to do or not. Now if they say we need you tomorrow, then we just aren't going to be able to help. All right, I'd like if—you know, we're looking for next month—one of the churches is having a speaker that they want us to be there for, and we would be able to come back to Council and say, "This request has been made. How do you want to handle it?" [29:16] Council Member: I would also like to see a list from you guys of what's extra duty, what's a second job... [29:21] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): The policy sort of spells out those different components, but we want you to spell out what you want it to be because you're saying you want to change extra duty. I think if you look at the number from the administrator, number three would be a list of what current, previous, and anticipated circumstances are. Okay, that's really hard. I don't have a crystal ball. Yeah, but what I can say is that our policy—and part of the policy is cut off—but you know, things that we won't do are spelled out, like labor disputes. You know, if one of our businesses locked out their employees, we would not be involved in, you know, providing services to separate them from, you know, other than our standard duties [30:11] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): As officers during the course of regular employment, right? We won't—and we've had requests for us to check IDs—and we won't do that. That's the business's responsibility. We will assist them if they've got a questionable ID, but that service we would provide to any of our businesses whether they had an officer working here or someone reported having a fake ID, whatever those types of things. And you know, the outside employer, you know, would want to say, "Well I want the officer here, but they can't do these peace officer parts of their duty." That would be another thing we wouldn't offer that. So I think it would be easier to say [30:57] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): There's certain things that we're not going to do as opposed to saying, "Here's the things I think might occur," because my list of things that we're not going to do really isn't going to change. Well then it's the ones that might not be caught in that. I’m looking at every single request and determining: are there more provisions I need to restrict on it? Yeah, and you know, if it is, I'll spell out what those restrictions are. [31:26] Council Member: Well please look at that carefully because I agree with a lot of what you've been saying, you know, that we can't do certain things, you can't take a job where we can't do our job. [31:37] Council Member: Yep. One thing I questioned... okay, let's just say the church that you did, and you know the rates and all that. [31:45] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): Instead of each one—you know, like the winery—what would it cost us for an umbrella policy, you know, for the extra just overall for the city to purchase? Yeah, oh, if somebody could find out. I mean, well I could check. I could check with Connie who's our local representative for the League, and just ask if they have an additional rider. Okay, and then that's it; could be fast. That would be, you know, sort of an annual cost. Let's just say $1,000 annually. We could say, you know, the winery typically has 30 events, right? [32:32] Council Member: What, you know, would that break out to? We're going to charge $20 per event for that? It may not cover all of it because it's going to be flexed, right? If we get a bunch of requests, we can make up more than the premium. The next year if it flexes the other way, we could make less than the premium. The policy that the city has, I don't know if we already have that type of coverage, but Connie would know. [32:55] Council Member: I guess it was easier for the requesting party to cover it. [32:59] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): I think what you see here, if we just said you have got to have a million dollar policy, most of them probably are carrying that type of coverage. Like the winery or some of the other ones. [33:12] Council Member: Sure, but you have to figure out what's an event versus what is a normal thing that we would expect out of police. We expect you guys to do traffic control for funerals, the same for our parades, and those things are the normal course of your business. [33:28] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): Yep. Winery, or doing it for a church because it's a politically sensitive subject—that's a whole another end. Well, I think the easiest way to be is if we are putting somebody dedicated there for that purpose. Right, we're doing traffic control for a funeral event—they know that at noon when they expect to move to the cemetery, we may not be there because we just had a car crash, you know, up on Highway 20 and 29. And then they [34:05] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): Know we're not going to be there and they get by. On the other hand, if they said, "We absolutely want an officer," then we would assign somebody and bill them for that service. So I think that's the easiest way to look at an extra duty or contractual event—would be where we're absolutely dedicating somebody. Now we could still have that tornado where we pull them out, but those cases are pretty rare. Yeah, and again, I think that would be something I'd look to see how Plymouth, Burnsville, and Edina worded it. But I think that the contractual component is what makes it different, because you're dedicating a body to that purpose other than, say, a [34:52] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): Community event. So we put officers at Fun Thursday; we're not billing the Chamber. Cruising Days would be another one. Well, really anything that's going to control—so they're covered—that would cover the funerals, the parade? It's alright, we've tried to—we've tried to look at it: Is there a community component to it? So if somebody's bringing a bicycle ride or a motorcycle ride and they're just stopping at one of our bars or our businesses but they're not originating here, they're not ending here, they're just passing through—we're not going to look at that as a community type of event. That's a business-specific event. Now the business could say, "We want you to stop traffic and direct all of them in all at once." [35:37] Council Member: Again, then they could hire us. Otherwise, they could—would have to risk that we got tied up with something else and couldn't assist them. This might be slightly off the topic, but when was the last time... because police, you have your manual and you update various things, but it never seems to come to us as a Council to approve like we would on a personnel policy or something like that. [36:09] Dave Baroni (City Administrator): Yes sir, I’ve been trying to get that fact out. Should I do it now? Do you think it's okay? No, you can speak. [36:18] Council Member: For those of you that don't hate me yet... doesn't the City Administrator have the authority to ascertain all this, the whole situation? [36:25] Dave Baroni (City Administrator): I'm not sure I understand the question. You mean about the winery, of any outside work? [36:31] Council Member: Well it depends on whether or not we're defining this outside work. I suppose not this type of work—this type of security work. You're talking about outside employment? [36:47] Dave Baroni (City Administrator): Employment outside the city of Cannon Falls... not geographically, but to work for a different employer at the same time they're hired by the city? Is that the question? [37:05] Council Member: In 2016, City policy on outside employment, City Administrator has authority. [37:16] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): I guess I could answer it best in this way: every year I get two or three requests from the officers that may do outside employment. Maybe it's driving somebody's farm truck in the fall or doing something else. In the past I've looked at them, put any additional restrictions on them, approved them under our department policy which covers that and, you know, existed before the city adopted their policy. I haven't sent those up to the Administrators in the past. If the [38:05] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): Administrator wants to see them, I certainly can. I haven't gotten any yet for this year, but I expect I'll be getting them soon. I don't know if the Administrator wants to have every single thing flow through them or designate that down to sort of the department heads to address. By and large, I don't know... no previous Administrators have more delegated that. Dave, I don't think has indicated one way or the other on that area. [38:43] Council Member: Steve, is that documentation of the Charter? [38:47] Council Member: No, it would be the city's personnel policy. [38:51] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): In the personnel policy you can... but we're getting that as we update our personnel policy as we make changes. I haven't seen any of it, so there's a department policy typically you guys don't see. When POST mandates a new policy, I create the policy, issue it out, and you know, the officers acknowledge the receipt on it and it just goes into our policy manual. I don't typically flow every single change within the department policy manual back through Council simply because sometimes I need to get them in effect right away because POST may have said you've got to make this change, or we get a court ruling and the courts have come down and said "you now shall do this," and so then we have to modify our policy to be in compliance. [39:37] Council Member: But does that get approved through the City Administrator? [39:41] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): No, that's what you guys hired me to do—is make sure our policy is in compliance. I'm not saying that was wrong; I'm just saying that we actually had an outside employment policy before it turned up in the city's personnel policy, and so we've continued to implement the request and stuff. [40:08] Council Member: Well to a point where then you have the—all our policy is in Charter and everything kind of matching out. Sounds like this should agree somehow. [40:19] Council Member: Oh yeah, what supersedes what, right? [40:23] Dave Baroni (City Administrator): Well, I would think personnel policy would usually be the most recent. Well, what we try to operate under is we're typically more restrictive in some of our areas than the city's personnel policy; we just aren't more lax than the city's personnel policy. [40:43] Council Member: Oh, you should probably nail that down. So that's another thing you can do. [40:49] Mayor Matt Montgomery: I’m sorry, I wandered a little bit off topic here. But yeah, I would like us to hold off on the police doing anything so we can get some of these indemnification and insurance provisions. [41:04] Dave Baroni (City Administrator): And when we’re doing holding off, you’re referring to extra duties and tasks? [41:09] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Certainly, definitely. [41:12] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): I think simple enough to do, especially since our primary one is the winery and we're two or three months from where they would even make a request. Okay. All right, well I think that the fourth we might have some drafts. Ideally, I always like to have our City Attorney's office look at things before we move them to you guys. But you know, if you want to see it before we send it to them, we certainly can do that to make sure that the language you're looking for is in there. I don't think it would be before you for formal action, just more of a consensus. [41:51] Council Member: Right, that's fine. [41:53] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): And then once I... yep, this is kind of meeting what you want, then I'll go back to the City Attorney's office, make sure that there is something that I'm not missing especially in the indemnification area, and then move it back to you guys for approval. With that, that would be creating a new contractual agreement, and any time we do contractual agreements, we always want to make sure that the City Attorney is reviewing them. Yes, it's true. [42:25] Council Member: I think when we get down to the end and we agree to let the police officer do that, I think the winery would definitely take out an umbrella liability policy. They may already have that out there coverage. [42:40] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): And that's something I'll probably also ask Connie about as long as I'm asking about the League component. What should we be asking for? And then she—that’s her industry—she's going to know much better than I am what kind of coverage. It's typically not terribly expensive, it's just an endorsement. [42:55] Council Member: Here shows one event in January and one in March, and then it starts heating up. [43:00] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): Yeah, so we've got time. And when I talked with Ann, it didn't sound like they had anything this year until the end of April, beginning of May. Okay. Okay, work on that and then we'll look at it again. [43:16] Dave Baroni (City Administrator): Just two comments. One is just a clarification. Matt asked the Chief about Roger Knutson's email response to me. It's pretty clear that my question to Roger was specifically pertaining to the Cannon River Winery. Make that clarification. I also got a question... I see the agreement, I see the payments, I see the contract that we had with the winery this last year. And Jeff, you had asked that we invoice the winery, which we did at the $56 an hour rate? [44:03] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): Pay the officer $49. I see different officers at different rates. Do we pay every officer that works under this contract the same? Yes, at 49. So it's a flat rate. And my understanding of what Council wants is that's what we would carry forward and just apply it across the board—that this is the flat rate they're paid, this is the flat rate we bill, so there's none of the nuances of, "Okay so for this event it's going to be $40 an hour, but for this event it's going to be $60 an hour." It's just always the same. I did notice—and that up in the cities and the big departments, they’ve got a lot more flexibility than we do—that they seem to be charging in that $95 an hour range. Yep. And from talking with their Chiefs, it's based off of their top patrols, and so they're making obviously more money than we're paying our people. [44:53] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): Well, cost of living is just ideas... so they're time-and-a-half probably. You know, like our time-and-a-half, which is what I built it off of for 2020, was based off of the top end for a patrol officer. So that puts that rate at $50.50 an hour. Their overtime rate could be $75, $80 an hour. So you know, there's that dynamic that they're charging more, but their costs are more. Okay, yep. Work on that and we'll look at it right here down the road. [45:34] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Okay, other council business. Item B: we brought down authorization to change bank signature cards. [45:41] Council Member: Mayor, all I want to do is I'm going to abstain from the vote to adding Sarah to it. [45:48] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Okay. I’ll motion to approve that authorization. Motion? I'll make a motion to approve. Second? Motion, Mary, and a second to approve that authorization to change bank signature cards. Any discussion? All in favor, aye. Opposed? One abstention. [46:18] Council Member: Okay. [46:21] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Item C is Item F: Approve the Baker Tilly/Springsted proposal for TIF services. Steve? [46:29] Council Member: I don't really have any concerns, except I just wanted you to say that again. [46:33] Dave Baroni (City Administrator): Good question. There's actually two projects involved with the Baker Tilly proposal. One is in the industrial park, the Carstensen expansion—the trucking—we talked about that before. What we're doing on the Cannonball—and this will become an expense, shared expense between the EDA and Cannon Falls Economic Initiatives—we want to prequalify the Cannonball site as eligible and legally documented as a qualified redevelopment tax increment district before the building is demolished. The reason for that is under state law, we have to have a structurally substandard building under the TIF law to be able to capture tax increment. In this case, the plan is to demolish that building before there's any new [47:19] Dave Baroni (City Administrator): Development. So we qualify it, in a sense, pre-qualified as an eligible property—the building before it's torn down—and then in the event someone comes back to us and says, "We'd like to use tax increment financing to build our project on this property," the building is already gone but we've pre-qualified it. [47:38] Council Member: So we're not necessarily making it a TIF? [47:40] Dave Baroni (City Administrator): No, no. We're only qualifying the district or the building. [47:43] Council Member: You want to in case you wanted to? It's not that big of a site there, is it? [47:47] Dave Baroni (City Administrator): I mean, over three acres. I mean, depending on what you're looking for, I suppose. [47:53] Council Member: No, and TIF is always better than tax abatement in my opinion. I make a motion to approve. I’ll second. [48:04] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Okay, a motion to approve the proposal for TIF services. Any discussion? All in favor, aye. Opposed? Carried. [48:09] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Item D: Just and correct claims. I pulled that one down. I just have one question. This is for the 31st of December. It's on the first page. What we're paying $6,600 for the siren repair. Is that just general yearly maintenance there? [48:47] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): So the siren repair is... if Council recalls, we switched from a service contract to an annual inspection. So the very first annual inspection found that one of our sirens, all the batteries had to be replaced. One of our sirens, the radio was [48:57] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): Bad. Another siren, the antenna was bad. Some seals were bad as far as penetrations through the cabinets. Anyway, there was a laundry list of things that had to be fixed. So what you're seeing there is the cost of the repairs. I don't know if that includes the radio; the radio was separate. Well, it's... yeah, so the radio was a separate bill. I don't know if they combined it over... as I was pointed out, they did not, I think so. Right, those sirens were split down per location. So we have full responsibility for the siren located by First Farmers and [49:42] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): Merchants or the old White Rock location, and the other three are joint powers. So the other three, we will split those costs: one-third to us, one-third to Dakota, and one-third to Goodhue. We are the fiscal agent for that agreement, so we incur all costs, then we in turn bill out. Okay, so what you don't see there is the cost that is getting billed out to Goodhue and Dakota that will come back in. It will essentially be a pass-through that offsets, but that offset is then done by Finance. So our third... we'll see [50:30] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): It on the revenue side. I don't know if they will re-echo it back into the '19, I guess it just depends on how fast we get those payments. Otherwise, it would just be credited onto the 2020 on the revenue side as reimbursement. You saw the same thing previously with the maintenance contract: we would get invoiced quarterly, I think it was, we would pay it, then we would bill Dakota, who would then in turn bill Goodhue. What we've moved to do is just simplify everything. The ratios were different—it was we paid 25%, but then Dakota paid 50% of the balance and then Goodhue paid 50%... it was just complicated. Yeah, so we moved to this new format. We still split the capital cost, so if we were to add another siren, the capital costs go back to the old formula, but the ongoing maintenance is just split a third, a third, a third. [51:18] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Okay. A motion to approve that. I guess I can't make that... so moved. Second. Motion by Bill and a second by Morris to approve the just and correct claims for ending December 31st. Any discussion? All in favor, aye. Opposed? Carried. We'll get into reports. Kyle, you got Chamber? [52:04] Kyle (Chamber of Commerce): Good evening Council and community. Just to let you know, January 1st was our new year for Chamber membership, and so right now we have 55 members paid in full, and that includes one brand new member. And so also to let you know, the flowers for the flower baskets have been ordered and so they will be here before Mother's Day. And so if you're interested in doing a sponsorship for flower baskets, please [52:51] Kyle (Chamber of Commerce): Give us a call at the Chamber or stop in. Not a problem there. We are also working on our Discover Guide for 2020. One thing that we will be doing is we're going to add a section that can be used like a resource guide. So when people move into our community, they have a place where they can find what the utilities are, what the health services are, whatever... and so it's all in one place. Rather than having a tourist focus, it’s a resource referral. We're going to try to get it all into one Discover Guide. [53:35] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Okay, that is the news from the Chamber. [53:38] Kyle (Chamber of Commerce): We've got many things going on. We will be taking credit cards within the next week, and so that'll be something very new for the Chamber. [53:48] Mayor Matt Montgomery: I'm going to buy something with all my mugs. We might have to have an extra fee on a postcard! [54:02] Kyle (Chamber of Commerce): You can't, no... Visa/Mastercard regulations say you should be able to buy a stick of gum. That's the sad thing. [54:12] Mayor Matt Montgomery: All right, any other questions for the Chamber? [54:15] Council Member: Do you know how long it takes to cross the street? [54:18] Kyle (Chamber of Commerce): Depends on how quickly you want to go. Two seconds flat! [54:26] Kyle (Chamber of Commerce): Because you have a left turn... yep, probably about five, four or five depending on how slippery it is. [54:34] Council Member: Sometimes they cross on red, and I'm just wondering... Chief McCormick, right, he’s not catching me on the crosswalks! [54:49] Mayor Matt Montgomery: All right, thank you very much. Speaking of those signs, we met with MnDOT today. We’re going to be getting new stoplights down there next year and they're taking out those walk things. [55:04] Council Member: Oh really? [55:06] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Well, they are probably putting in something different, but it's all going to change. The curbs are going to change at the intersection... [55:18] Council Member: Put in a roundabout? [55:19] Mayor Matt Montgomery: You know the problem coming down the hill from the bank to the stoplights on Main Street, you know we've had problem with the right lane there with the white stripe. They're making the curb—at least it's one of the options—making the curb come out a little further so you can't get in the right lane. So what they’d essentially be bringing the curb out to mark the lane edge, so parking stuff would be more of a dedicated spot. [55:46] Council Member: Hmm, interesting. [55:47] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Just a heads up, the MnDOT... they're going to have some inventory information meetings at the elementary school. I think starting February 4th they're going to have business owners the first night, and residential February 5th. Yeah, you know, and then another meeting for the residents, and then they're just going to have one big open house to explain all this because it's going to happen in '21 when we redo the street from the stoplights to the high school. [56:22] Council Member: We're saying, is it a total redo or just a resurface? [56:26] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Resurface and sidewalks to meet ADA standards. Oh boy, that's the challenge. It’s going to be a project. Well, you’ll hear more about that because the first meeting is February. Okay, moving on. EDA, Morris or Dave? [56:45] Morris (Council Member): Let's quickly mention it to the Council and thank Superintendent Sampson. He did come to our meeting, our last meeting, and we talked about the strategic plan and their National Foundation grant, the technology grant, and had a real good dialogue with the Superintendent. I think he's going to continue to participate with the EDA and obviously the City Council and others, and really enhance the communication between the various bodies in this city, which we really encourage. The other thing is we dealt with our Cannonball and kind of an update on that and some plans and things, but I think the new item on the agenda was Superintendent Sampson coming to visit. [57:26] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Library Board? I think nothing. Okay. The Council did have a work session last January 14th. Yeah, maybe you can add to this, but things we talked about... number one is a pool. Where are we going to go? We're going to get some bids together, probably going to be a referendum on it this year. We'll see. We'll get the plans together and we'll bring it forward and see what's going to come up. [58:08] Council Member: Are we going to do the plans or are we going to hire someone? [58:12] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Well, Park Board’s working, similar to what happened a few years ago. We'll have proposals. I think it was pretty much the Council's agreement that we'd like to have a more fiscally conservative plan than what happened how many years ago. [58:24] Council Member: Now I think we're—I think we'd be looking to be more comparable to Pine Island and Plainview and... [58:32] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Yeah, Jed Petersen has done a lot of research of similar sized communities and what they have done with their pools—Goodhue—and if we could be in that ballpark instead of the 4 point-something million ballpark, I think it'd be a little bit more palatable than just an upgrade, right? Make things compliant—ADA—and update and manage water inversion. And we're not sure if we want to be on the same site or not yet; that really hasn't been discussed. It's kind of... we don't know. [59:02] Council Member: Depends on when we'd start construction kind of. [59:06] Council Member: I don't know... does that might know where else would we put it? [59:10] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Well, you also have to take into account... you want—they're going to do out at Lake Byllesby Park. If they add a pool, or is it just going to be a splash pool or a regular pool? Okay. Yeah, we've got to look at all... they’re going to look at that because it's awful. I mean, the last proposal I saw looked more like a water park to me. Yeah, it could be. And it could be, but it's—that was way beyond what was realistic I think. I mean, it would have been great, but it just isn't something that's going to happen. So here, you know. Okay. I think we've decided there's no street project in 2020. Well, maybe look at Phase 4 maybe in '21, at least Phase 5. Yeah, there's a couple small—smaller projects that we [59:48] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Should look at. We’ve got to address Grove Street problem, the water down the hill. We talked about a city sales tax. I don't know where that's going to go, but we talked about it. I mean, going as far as it's going to go... hey, I think that's far enough. Far enough, okay. I think one thing is that West Side... that's going to come up, but any other stuff? Anything else? [1:00:23] Dave Baroni (City Administrator): Probably... I talked to the Council about the utility rates and charges, water and sewer. And yes, for 2020, the carryover rates from [1:00:34] Dave Baroni (City Administrator): 2019 are being billed this year, so there's no percent increase for real—0% increase in water. It's probably at the end of the first quarter, starting maybe the second quarter of this year, the Council will be back at looking at the audit from 2019 and looking at the year-end financials and maybe some forecasts at that time. Tell us all, as of right now, there's no increase in your water/sewer rates for 2020. [1:01:05] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Very good. I forgot that that was left out. Sorry about that. Okay, anything else? Okay, go around the horn. Jeff, anything tonight? [1:01:21] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): We have—I’m trying to think—I’m looking at December's report, so I’ve got to look harder to see January. We will have Coffee with a Cop conversation, but it'll be after our next Council meeting, so I won't go into all those details. You know, we had a community notification that we worked with the Sheriff's Office on a predatory registered offender who may be coming to the area. Today was supposedly the day that we would know. We have not gotten a confirmation. We sent an update to the agents that will be handling it. My [1:02:07] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): Inclination is that he may have withdrawn his request, but we can't confirm that yet. We need to get some notification from the State, but we are working with the Sheriff's Office and keeping informed should the predatory registered offender move into their jurisdiction. Because of its proximity to us, we're trying to work it in tandem so that we can keep both their township and our community informed. And so if there's more updates, we will put something out through our Facebook and our Twitter accounts, especially if it's not going to look—or if it does appear that it is not going to come here. But the [1:02:52] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): Cannon Falls Police is planning to do sort of an educational component relative to businesses that employ younger or minor employees and, you know, how would that impact them, things they should be aware of and stuff. So they have a representative from Department of Corrections coming, and the Police Department will also have one or two people there. Chamber made reference to it in their update today. Okay, that's probably the biggest thing right now. [1:03:22] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Hey Dave? [1:03:24] Council Member: Yeah, Steve? [1:03:26] Dave Baroni (City Administrator): Nothing. [1:03:28] Council Member: Yeah, Dave, this is a question for you. Last summer or fall they were going to do a housing study. Have we gotten information back on that yet? [1:03:38] Dave Baroni (City Administrator): Yeah, this is through Goodhue County. We’re a participant as one of the cities in Goodhue County, and Maxfield Research has begun their work, but nothing's been submitted at this point. Because that was another thing we discussed at the workshop was, right now, do we need to have affordable housing related stuff. [1:04:10] Council Member: Yep, yeah, that's all I have then. [1:04:14] Dave Baroni (City Administrator): I'm told that we may have some preliminary findings probably in the next month or two. [1:04:20] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Okay. Mary Jo? No. Morris? Okay, let's get into public input. So this may speak to issues that are not on the agenda. For speaking, please give your name for the record and kindly limit your comments to three minutes. Public comments must be respectful, pertinent to the city business, and adhere to the applicable data privacy rules. The City Council will not take action on an issue raised by the public but may choose to schedule consideration of the item on a future agenda. Is there anybody who would like to address with public input tonight? Tim? My full name, please? [1:05:13] Tim Deemer: Tim Deemer, Cannon Falls. I just... um... had a quick look. I don't know if you'll have the answer to this. I got this on the 15th—a letter from the Police Department. I haven't opened it yet, just wondering if the Chief would know if he can tell me if this is the final, if he's made up his answer? [1:05:43] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Why haven't you opened the letter? [1:05:46] Tim Deemer: I can do it right now! I’ve got three minutes? I’ll wait... I’d like to open it in front of either advocate or attorney maybe possibly. I’ll just... I’m down to two [1:06:02] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Minutes probably. I think we should be respectful for Tim's desire and how he wants to open and view it. [1:06:14] Tim Deemer: I was going to open it, I started to, and then I decided well... [1:06:19] Mayor Matt Montgomery: If you want someone here for you, then you'll need to wait I guess. [1:06:24] Tim Deemer: I just... well, is this the final answer though? [1:06:29] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): Yep, that was the final information that I can provide to it relative to the information that you gave me, yes. [1:06:37] Tim Deemer: Okay. There doesn't seem to be any policies broken and any recourse... what's the word I’m trying to think? Oh, any [1:06:48] Tim Deemer: Answers I get. I'm really concerned about a few things that are pretty serious. I would think people just towards false and untrue... which means untrue means not true, which is the same as being false information, allegations written in writing on a police report. Not just one thing, but a couple things. And then just the behavior, I guess, of one of the police officers that didn't have any... I mean, wearing a badge and all that. [1:07:35] Tim Deemer: He's got a right to yell, scream as much as he wants, but in my face for how it happened? I don't see how that is acceptable. I really don't. So if I could hopefully get... if this will bring in an honest, accountable answer. Just still looking for resources that are going to be... that doesn't seem to be out there to help someone like me. And see, I'm putting there... it looks like Mary Altough’s getting sleepier with listening to me talk here! I'll just, yeah, hopefully find some [1:08:24] Tim Deemer: Counsel out of sorts to resolve this or fight it or however you call it. But it's very concerning how that can happen, especially the lies—it’s flat-out lies. So that's... there’s no... you can check it after, Dave, from the people that he—what was written in the police report. The two and a half pages of it... it should be a concern and it doesn't seem like it is. [1:09:04] Mayor Matt Montgomery: Well, I don't think that we're in the business of getting between you and the Police Department. I don't think that's our function at all. [1:09:09] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): So, Council, just to provide you some guidance. So we're regulated by the Minnesota Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Board. We're mandated to have 13 different policies. While I think they added a couple, I just received the checklist that I have to go through and certify that we have those policies in place. So this would be one of those mandated policies. So we've got a policy that addresses citizen complaints, a process that is followed and followed consistently. Those of you that have been here for a while, you know that when we're asked to do Internal Affairs [1:09:58] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): Investigations for outside of our department for other branches of the city, we essentially follow the same protocols because we systematically work our way through these processes. Every single time we do it the same way. The only thing that varies is sometimes we may assign it to an outside entity if there's a reason to do so. As far as the specifics of allegations, that type of stuff, I'm also governed by Minnesota Chapter 13, which is Data Practices—what information is public, what information is private, and what information is confidential. And so I wouldn't be able to address in this forum the specifics [1:10:45] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): Of this matter because of that. But I can say that we follow our policy. Our policy has been reviewed and approved by POST; the last time that was done, I believe, was in 2018. I've got the certificate hanging in the office. You know, they do those audits about every three years, and every single one is different because of the circumstances, but the process that we use is designed to determine as much of the finding of fact as we can. We don't take them lightly; we take any allegation very seriously. If they result in [1:11:32] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): Discipline, then it results in discipline. If it doesn't result in discipline, then it doesn't. But there's an opportunity, should new additional information come forward that's accurate enough to warrant reopening it, we will reopen them. Okay. [1:11:51] Tim Deemer: So that's essentially the basic component of how those are handled? So if I disagree with the... could I have a chance to appeal? [1:11:59] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): Is that... there’s no necessarily appeal, but if there's other information that was not part of the information provided to us, then I have the opportunity to look at that and determine if we're going to open it for further review or not. [1:12:12] Tim Deemer: Yeah, at first you verbally told me that there’s a possibility that you'd send it off to outside, and then it changed. [1:12:18] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): No, I said it would depend. One of the things that you were very concerned about was getting it reviewed and looked at, and so I made the decision—as you recall from the letter I sent, and I won't go into the specifics to this one—but you recall I made the decision based on that, that we would do it internally because we could guarantee a fast return and getting it looked at, rather than trying to find an outside agency. [1:12:47] Tim Deemer: I'm not looking for it to be fast... [1:12:49] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): The speed that we try to resolve these is within 60 days of occurrence, and this was reported significantly after 60 days. [1:13:00] Tim Deemer: Yeah, I tried to come forward to you a number of... [1:13:04] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief): But again, I don't want to get into violating Chapter 13 or an officer's privacy, so I really won't comment much more on the specifics, at least in this public forum. [1:13:20] Tim Deemer: Mm-hmm. All right. [1:13:22] Mayor Matt Montgomery: To be continued. Public input? Anybody else? Public input, second and final call. Public input... okay, well close the public input portion of the meeting. Before we adjourn tonight, I have an announcement to make. It's with deep regret that I've accepted the resignation of Dave Baroni as our City Administrator. There's no person in [1:13:50] Mayor Matt Montgomery: This building that works harder for the citizens of this town and he's going to be a loss to the city. Not much more I can say. I wish Dave the best in the future, and the process for replacing him has already started. I wish him grief as he moves along... but he'll be with us for a little while! [1:14:14] Dave Baroni (City Administrator): Yes, a little. He’s not done today! [1:14:18] Council Member: The best in the future. Yep, yep. [1:14:35] Mayor Matt Montgomery: On that sour note, I’d take a motion for adjournment. So moved. Second. All in favor, aye. Opposed? Carried.