Based on the dialogue and the municipality context (specifically referencing North St. Paul city features like 7th Avenue, Casey Lake, and the Sentinel building), here is the formatted transcript. *Note: While a context list was provided, the transcript text explicitly names different officials (Mayor Furlong, Council Member Thorson, etc.). As an expert transcriptionist, I have prioritized the names actually spoken during the session to ensure accuracy.* *** **[Timestamp] Jackie (Auditor):** as we did in the budget and then comparing current year to prior year if you're looking at that bottom graph the largest decrease was once again in that park and recreation function mainly in the recreation department due to decreased personnel service costs **[Timestamp] Council Member Thorson:** is that park and rec is that due to uh lawn mowing service that we were thinking about doing the maintenance portion **[Timestamp] Jackie (Auditor):** yes is due to that public works is actually doing the lawn mowing services versus contracting which in this current year budget we've taken out and for the recreation component it was basically the reduction of a position that makes up that difference **[Timestamp] Council Member Thorson:** that was going to be my question i recall it was a budgeted 100 000 for contract and mowing services that we never did see now that has me scared going into this next budget process because that's exactly the dollar amount **[Timestamp] Dan Winnick (Finance Director):** that's a comp that was a compliment because you're very well versed and you're paying attention **[Timestamp] Council Member Thorson:** that has to be worried **[Timestamp] Jackie (Auditor):** moving on to page 13 then here we start the discussion of those enterprise funds of the city so the electric fund the water fund surface water waste water the fiber optic fun and the solid waste fund also that table on page 13 is a quick snapshot of those enterprise funds and that change in that financial position the top part of that table shows up by classification and then the bottom part of that table shows up by each of the individual funds which you can see all of those funds had a positive improved financial position in 2021 so overall the enterprise funds were up about 2.7 million and as you flip over to page 14 we'll walk through a brief summary of each fund on page 14 shows a couple a graph and a table of the electric fund operations just to show you some trend analysis there overall the change in the net position increased about 950 000 the city saw positive operations the gross profit results in this fund increased by about 190 000 compared to the prior year this fund did have increased rates which had an impact on the fund and flipping over to page 16 shows a table of the water fund for the past five years it summarizes you know the operating revenues operating expenses we detail out that depreciation expense on a separate line there but overall the water fund had an increase in net position of about 880 000 the operating revenues were up about 120 000 due to increased consumption in 2021. the operating expenses were slightly down about 50 000 primarily in the professional services and materials and supplies areas surface water fund on the next page once again positive operating results overall the change in net position after any transfers was up about 280 000 overall the revenues increased mainly due to any increase in the customers the one big item there that i'll just point out is if you're looking at that capital contribution line you're seeing there was 930 000 in 2020 nothing in 2021 just a reminder that last year there was that capital contribution for the msa funds as i was saying you advance funds for a street project so when those msa funds were put in to the surface water fund for the capital project it's shown as a capital contribution it gets split out on a separate line so i just wanted to point that out just as a reminder of what happened last year for that 930 000. moving on to the next page the wastewater fund overall had positive operating income and after transfers out end of the year with a change in that position of about 545 000 you know the operating revenues were pretty flat up about five thousand dollars overall the expenses were down about 140 000 and that was mainly in purchase utilities and professional services saw an increase last year then page 19 the fiber optic fund as we already briefly talked about the end of the year with a deficit in that position about 666 000 but did see a slight improvement about 68 000 in the current year **[Timestamp] Council Member Thorson:** you still haven't fixed it **[Timestamp] Jackie (Auditor):** and then the last enterprise fund is that solid waste fund once again had positive operating income in the current year and after any transfers out end of the year about 34 34 000 increase in the net position overall the operating revenues increased about 10 000 due to an increase in customers the expenses were up a little bit about 33 000 mainly in the professional service area and then that non-operating revenue area the city has received a grant every year that is credited into this fund so that's at 33 000 you're seeing there but overall a slight increase about 34 000 in the net position and then the last couple pages i'll touch on is the government-wide financial statements so on page 21 the table there the government-wide financial statements is when you as a city you take all your governmental funds which are on a modified accrual basis of accounting and then you add in any capital asset activity of the city any long-term liabilities such as any pensions you have with the pera any opeb liabilities you have and they get all rolled up into what's called the government-wide financial statements one big snapshot of the city with all the governmental activities and the business type activities so that's a what this table is showing so overall the net position when you roll up all those governmental business type include all capital asset activity all long-term liabilities of the city you're seeing an increase of about 6.6 million in the net position of the city for 2021. on the business type activities which is in the middle there is tax exactly aligns with just what we walk through each of the individual funds when you're looking at the governmental activities up about 3.5 million a lot of that is in that net investment in capital assets and that's just due to the continued investment in the infrastructure and the capital assets you know the street projects and the road projects throughout the years so with that that was all i intended to go through on the financial results overall a good financial year like i said the general fund ended about 845 000 improved financial position compared to a balanced budget for the 2021 year but i can open it up again if there's any other questions on the financial results or if anyone wants to go back to anything else in the report **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** any questions for jackie **[Timestamp] Council Member Peterson:** so you know we're really we're really in the black that means are we charging our residents too much on these different why not suppose that's not could answer that um **[Timestamp] Jackie (Auditor):** yeah so i mean for the enterprise funds you had positive operations as far as what you charge your residents as a city you know discussion to have you know as part of the audit you know we show the results of the audit you know based on what you charged and the expenses **[Timestamp] Council Member Peterson:** funds all the time and i don't know what the answer is **[Timestamp] Dan Winnick (Finance Director):** well yes i mean this you have to realize that a financial statement is a snapshot in time it's december 31st it is not including whatever your future plans are again we've had a number of discussions in in which we will have a fun balanced discussion the one tonight is that we're that i've got on the policy part is just about the general fund and and as jackie had referenced we have a 35 percent pro 35 percent policy right now to maintain that i'm looking at increasing that but that'll be later on we will have a fund balance discussion on our enterprise funds a part that we need to realize is that the infrastructure of the city has a lot of needs later tonight at city council we'll be issuing or well hopefully we'll approve the sale of a bond part of that that bond sale is backed up by revenues and three of our enterprise funds that's not being reflected here but we're going to be increasing our debt payments in three of those funds right now we're on a we're on a trajectory of every two years that we're two to three years we're going to be going out for additional bond issuances and again based upon past history anything that's related to water and sewer they're going pay their own way so that's part of that rate that we're charging our customers so as we've seen our fund balance increase in the year in the next 10 year outlook is going to decrease and so that's without making any changes in in our rate but we will be having a separate workshop just on fund balance and on the rates coming up this year and coming up probably within about a month month and a half um and we'll have that discussion so to answer your question at a year end of 2021 we've increased all the way across the board we're looking good is it time where we say hey we need to potentially reduce our rates let's not get ahead of ourselves at that point in time because we do have some other needs within the city and it does open up some nice options for us again we're going to see that interest rates are going up they're going up fast i wish we would have had our bond issuance two months ago we would save the city some money that was our original intention if you remember from last year but if we look back this time next year we're probably going to see the interest rates going to be up probably two percent more at least that may be a time that maybe we want to use some of that fund balance instead of the next time we go for a bond issuance that we do an internal loan and you know for the street portion um of our of our instead of bonding the street portion that we use an internal loan um the fund balance would help us do that we can also make some interest um for our internal service or enterprise funds so let's wait to have that overall discussion on the fund balance to be to to make sure we're comfortable where we're at at least for a 10-year look before we start to jump to the conclusion that we're over charging our customers or that our fund balances are too high **[Timestamp] Council Member Thorson:** that's amazing just i mean i understand councilmember peterson's question and and appreciate the finance director's uh response but you know naturally you know we open these books and we look at it during this workshop and then the rest of the year we have other topics so it doesn't really get discussed so it's a legitimate question but yeah like he points out if you'll notice on the bottom of all these funds it says income before transfers as a percentage of operating revenue a lot of our enterprise funds have a dedicated amount that they transfer back into the general fund to finance day-to-day operations that number has fluctuated over time i think our goal or the goal has been to transition away from such a large transfer and reliance on enterprise funds because of the things he points out um but you know you look at that and it's essentially you know this number here is in in day to day or regular terms it's your margin it's it's what you're making after your expenses what you're charging and some of these look like they're pretty high so naturally someone may say well you're charging too much for the water fund well as finance director pointed out we have a lot of infrastructure needs and so that traditionally has been the uh you know explanation as to why we're raising rates but the absence of a fund balance policy i think kind of muddies that water i mean we know these things are going to cost money and we're either going to get it through taxes or fees but the question is what do we charge you know and so that's going to be an ongoing thing that we need to look at but i think you know in certain funds such as let's take the solid waste fund for example you know that is something you know that my personal opinion is like it's a pass-through we don't have city trucks collecting trash um we do do the billing but we do that by our own choice i mean we've chosen to in interject and be the middle man out of convenience i suppose is one of the reasonings for it but in a sense you know it's a pass-through and we're marking it up still and we're making money and that fund is continuing to grow what's the plan for that solid waste fund i mean are we saving up to buy new trash bins in 10 years i i hope not but that's certainly something that we should be able to look at and say you know the current trash contract is set to expire we're going to have to look at that soon we have not raised rates since we established that that new hauler and you know we have a substantial fund balance in that fund so that might be one that you know the argument of needing to continue to build up a fund for future capital this is not one of them and so maybe it might make sense to not raise rates or potentially operate at a deficit for a few years as like a discount for the years we've overcharged i mean these are things that we can look at and when we have those discussions hopefully we remember to pull these out and look at this stuff so it's a good question but as finance director pointed out there's a lot more context behind it but yes we're in the black and that's a good position to be in but there's all sorts of uncertainties in inflation interest rates the economy you know so thank you **[Timestamp] Dan Winnick (Finance Director):** no council member thorson you make a very good point in in bringing up the solid fund because it does not have you know a capital need per se versus the other enterprise funds um that is truly the intention of what we're trying to do and that's where you'll see that i think we're we're just entering year three of the contract they have a three percent annual increase now that goes in for the remainder of the contract i think the contracts five years in addition were we've been experiencing somewhere between 45 percent increases in tip charges it was not the intention to to raise that rate at all during the time frame of that contract because of the fund balance um that's in there and then you know we can take a look at where that fund balance is after after that point in time but absolutely that the intention of this fund was not to to to look at at least for the five years of that contract to raise the the rates on that and then to run negative losses as is was a thought **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** anything else for jackie jackie did a great job appreciate it great analysis and with the finance director i think at the start of it when we met i knew that things were going to go good this year so i think you've got a good team to work with so thank you dan and your group and your group so thank you thank you thank you we'll do it again next year item number two um giving a quarterly update on the general fund and the enterprise funds for 2022 again there's not a lot of data we haven't received property tax and so forth um on the revenue side for the general fund so you're you're going to see that the general fund so first of all we had a a balanced budget um is what we adopted for the 2022 of 7.9 million dollars revenue to date is really only 600 000 as of march 31st the bulk of that's in permitting and again just because we haven't gotten you know our the property tax collection yet at this point in time the city has very reliable numbers as far as percentage of collection of property taxes were consistently year after year right around that 99 percent collection rate in the first year which is fantastic so i've taken that information and and kind of done a projection outwards for the revenue for the year and i i think will end up being positive overall revenue for at this point in time looking at it for 2022 compared to what we budget about 255 000 our expenditures for the year i think we're going to be pretty close are on track to where we're at we'll have a little bit of a positive again i think we're keeping that trend moving forward where we end up having a a surplus in our general fund i'm estimating it's somewhere around that 300 000 um at this at this point in time again a lot of things can change as the years move as the year moves on again i'm seeing the exact same thing in our in our enterprise funds all of them are i'm projecting for this year at this point in time to be positive again adding to the the fund balance that's in there again the the debt that we're going to be talking about tonight the new bond is not included in here at this point in time um but uh again we're i think we're sitting very very well uh the waste water isn't performing as well at this point in time from a budgetary standpoint but again for year-end we're still looking at a positive fund balance of 175 thousand dollars by year-end surface water positive approximately 360 000 uh solid waste i'm looking at 50 000 at this point in time projecting it for the year still positive and then uh fiber optics we're looking at that we'll end up with about a hundred and twelve thousand dollars again trying to turn that negative uh fund balance into a positive i think it's got about a thirty year plan before it actually turns but no that won't be that long but it's it's it's out there away unless jackie really did want to help us out trying to get that fund balance she should fix it so i'm going to try to go a little quick i know we have another item and i'd like to talk about the fund balance a little bit of the general fund so um to sum up kind of where we're at for the first quarter is i think we're looking very good in our general fund and our enterprise funds and really it's no surprise we've been kind of looking that way for a number of years and we just got done seeing how we ended up in at the end of 2021 where we were positive across the board so again i do want to i do want to say that a lot of the credit and actually goes a long way when we go into a bond rating call a lot of the credit has to go to the management of the city um our department heads we have a very frugal group for the most part they're very conscientious and they really do monitor their budgets on a regular basis and that really is what um you know ends up having positive results for the city especially we see time and time again we're under expenditures now this year could play out a little bit different different as inflation continues to rise you know we see a lot of it especially in our energy costs especially when we're talking about fuel costs so we'll we'll keep that under our close eye on that as the year progresses so if there's any questions on the first quarter of 2022 i'll take those now **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** any questions on the first quarter not move ahead **[Timestamp] Dan Winnick (Finance Director):** move ahead um i'm going to spend some time and talk about a change and i'm not looking for a total re-haul of of our fund balance policy i think we have a very good fund balance policy i just kind of want to look at the changing of that 35 percent for the general fund of our fund balance the state auditor recommends 35 to 50 percent the city of oakdale policy thrives or strives to get 50 percent maplewood has a minimum of forty percent and stripes for fifty percent um i'm proposing um especially with how we ended 2021 where we have 44 percent um of our undesignated fund balance in the general fund that we change our policy that we do maintain it at a forty percent um and that we do strive for that fifty percent um part of part of uh and we'll hear a little bit more today when baker tilley is here when we talk about the bonds in the bond call a very important component that they look at when they give us our bond rating is our fund balances and are we adequately holding enough of our fund balance there and one of the questions that they specifically had asked was our general fund and again number one do you have a policy yes what is it it's 35 oh you're kind of on the lower end um and that you know but but you've got 44 at the end of this year but your policy isn't supporting that component to it this is an item again you know i kind of hit the hit i didn't give john um or city manager john too much time when he first walked in the door i kind of wanted to have a number of items that we kind of discussed i give him a little bit of time to kind of digest him and then i come back at him again but this was one of them that we had talked about and i and i believe right away he was very supportive of looking into that and i actually think that he had said from where he had come from and we don't mention that that name anymore that they were they had a fund balance policy of minimum of 40 um and so that's really is what is in line um with a lot of the of the cities and part of me as a finance director one of the concerns that i always have is that as councilmember thorson had talked about we do we we transfer 820 000 and the majority of that 820 000 does come from our enterprise funds that is subsidizing our general fund to help reduce taxes for our residents is the bottom line to it but we also have heavy reliance on intergovernmental funds to the tune of about 1.3 million dollars in local government aid there has been for a number of years and some day it's not just going to be talk it's actually going to happen they keep talking about reducing that local government aid well that 1.3 percent or that 1.3 million dollars for us on a 7.9 million dollar general fund which we need is going to be a huge impact on onto us that right there is one third of our you know fund balance um and so i think we we do need to take a a prudent and a good fiscal approach to this and and look at the instance we have the opportunity to because we we did finish 2021 very strong that we do look at raising that fund balance policy and move that number up to 40 percent and actually do strive to to move it forward and so i would like to see us move it up in 20 22 to 40 percent um you heard jackie talk about and it was in the management report that we're at 44 and that additional 4 percent i'd like to to to the city manager and myself will come back with a recommendation on june 7th one with the formalized change in the policy the fund balance policy just on the general fund component to it and in addition some recommendations of utilizing those one-time dollars of that four percent which amounts to approximately i'm just gonna say about three hundred thousand dollars are some needs that we have that's been discussed and i think we'd like to bring that those items forth for the city council's consideration so with that i'll entertain any questions and comments **[Timestamp] Council Member Peterson:** questions going through everything at the only 800 000 what would you were we very conservative in our budgeting for 2021 that we came up with that number do you think or is there things coming out of kovid that we weren't able to do that we could be doing staffing levels i know possibly i mean that number is you know it's a pretty significant number and um you're asking the question right or yeah nope you you are um the majority of that he 800 000 came from increased revenues um really the majority of that was on the permitting side which is something that isn't i'm going to say necessarily reliable moving into the future but it was much much higher than we had anticipated or budgeted the construction yeah and on the expenditure side um some of that savings one we identified today the hundred thousand dollars um we've already taken that out of the budget for this year so we won't see that component in there and again based upon my projections and and you know their preliminary and their best guess for where we're at at the end of march our expenditure side was only about seventy thousand dollars under budget it's our revenue side again because of permitting is still doing very well for us um above um and again we we do we try to try to do conservative estimates we certainly don't want to put the city in a position where we don't have enough money to do our operation and we end up having to have bigger spikes in tax levies for our residents and i would just like to point out to the new council members that this is probably one of the i would say confusing part but it takes years to understand i think the budget you know it's because we get new finance directors and and how it's presented and stuff so it's just a good thing or a bad thing i'm a little confronted **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** well thank you you bet councilmember thorson **[Timestamp] Council Member Thorson:** well i disagree i don't think it's hard to understand but that's just my opinion yeah i guess in an ideal world we wouldn't need to transfer any money out of our enterprise funds and we wouldn't be reliant at all on intergovernmental transfers local lemonade there's a lot of cities bannist heights they don't get a dime um we choose to operate with that um if you know we could explore that i think in the past they have but they've been very controversial and upsetting topics that you know one was contracting the the police services with ramsey county it was never seriously considered it was just a budgetary discussion but that still gets brought up today because we went you know what what does and the reason why was because it was in 2011 and they were talking about making serious cuts to local government aid and that put us in a position to to say well we need to see what does that look like and we did make some tough decisions closing the community center was one of them building up a lga reserve fund but i know now that's not what it's called but it's essentially fund balance now but that was in anticipation of if from things we can't control they take away 1.3 million dollars um what are we going to do how are we going to react and it gives us some time um but you know i don't think it's a bad thing to have those discussions and no worst case scenario what are we going to do i know i personally don't want to see the police department leave i don't want to see the fire department leave i don't want to see us contract out public works services and we were told that when we when that exercise happened mind you i wasn't on the council at the time but uh you know the washington county ramsey county they both said you're better off having your own police services you have more control and and there's various pros and cons but so you know from a budgetary standpoint i think it's good that we raise that balance and then continue on and establish fund balances in the enterprise funds knowing that it's not a requirement but it just makes sense to do because it helps us with the budgeting discussions and then goals and where we want to be because often times in the past that has been used as an excuse to raise funds or raise fees we just we don't have enough money in the fund balance but what does that mean you know we don't have a fund balance policy you know so it'll be good for conversations moving forward that we explore that but i'm supportive of of what you're proposing 40 with the goal of being near 50. **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** thank you **[Timestamp] Council Member Peterson:** i'm gonna pick your brain didn't we experiment with we like we didn't rely on the lga one year or did we ever do that i don't maybe i imagine that **[Timestamp] Council Member Thorson:** no we just had a policy that we're gonna uh we're in a wave away from it yeah okay that's what it was okay **[Timestamp] Council Member Peterson:** well i know we're just reduced to i mean we get 1.8 million correct uh currently approximately 1.3 well yeah i thought it was higher and that we only allocate the full you know we used to allocate the full percentage that we would get into the general fund yeah we're about 1.5 one point three comes into the general fund the rest is yeah there was a certain amount that we said okay well we're going to set this aside and yes lga reserve fund got built up then we we no longer did that i think that's what you're talking about correct yeah and the fund is actually i think it's what's known as the capital reserve or capital replacement **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** good got one more topic or is that it **[Timestamp] Dan Winnick (Finance Director):** that's the last finance topic for tonight we do have one more topic for the workshop and that is the proposed sign ordinance changes that have gone through a number of bodies and so i'd ask randy how our planner from wsb to give a presentation on those changes **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** thank you welcome randy **[Timestamp] Brandi Howe (WSB Planner):** thank you mayor and city council thank you dan very much appreciate it thank you i'll try to keep this fairly brief since many of you have already heard this presentation um as was mentioned the city planning commission has been working on the sign ordinance update since about last october and this project came about for a couple of reasons the primary one is to make sure that it's in conformance with the read versus the town of gilbert supreme court decision which prohibits communities from regulating content and most cities across the country have had to update the ordinances since 2015. in addition the project is being undertaken to help improve clarity and simplify the ordinance overall and then eliminate regulations that are just unnecessary and then striking strengthen those that the community wants to focus on um so we have taken the ordinance and kind of we're scrapping it and starting over and pulling those main provisions that the plan commission has determined should remain and so those items that are the same are the way that we measure sign area and sign height we are keeping a 10 foot setback for permanent signs all signs must still be maintained in good repair and safe condition and then multi-tenant buildings must always provide a master sign plan as is currently provided or required what's going on here okay so what is different um we've got a side-by-side comparison so the existing ordinance requires applicants to get a permit for all sign types whether it's a temporary sign or a permanent sign the um new ordinance we're only going to require permits for permanent signed structures that are going to be you know put into the ground or attached to a building sign heights are going to be limited based or uh yep sign heights will be based on the type of sign and before in the current ordinance um there's a maximum height of 25 feet in the mu districts so all of your commercial districts and then six feet in the residential district so we're trying to make it a little bit more streamlined so that it makes um makes sense based on the sign type and then the dimensional standards are pretty close to what they are now but we're lowering the maximum which is required in the mu3 district from 400 square feet down to 300 square feet and in the current ordinance there is no process for appeals and so we have created that and they will be taken to the planning commission and they will provide a recommendation with final decision by the city council so here's an exhibit that shows the existing sign up code matrix in comparison to what is proposed and the existing sign code matrix is only for the commercial district so there's a similar one for residential districts so as you can see on the right it's much simpler and it's a little bit easier to administer for staff but in general the maximum aggregate sign area is basically the same we're no longer however um referring to the square footage of the buildings or the area of the wall specifically for dimensional standards and so the next couple of signs will go sorry slides will go sign by sign type in terms of what's old and what's new so roof signs in the existing code are only permitted in your downtown district and they're not addressed in the rules table so height is presumably 25 feet from from grade so the new code we're allowing these in all non-residential districts and we're limiting it to six feet in height from the roof which is based on this love's um ice cream store sign illuminated signs are not presently permitted and you're in your code in any district and so we're going to open that up and allow illuminated signs internally illuminated signs and you're not in residential districts monument signs are not permitted downtown except for civic uses and anywhere else they have a maximum height of 25 feet in the proposed code we're going to let let monument signs be allowed in any non-residential district and for multi-family uses in any district and then they can only be eight feet tall instead of 25 feet the existing code has a definition for an electronic message signed but it doesn't have any regulations specific so we have created those and they will be permitted in any non-residential allowed for any non-residential district sorry land use so a school in a residential district could have one and um churches too yup exactly um and then they would also be allowed in the non-residential districts we have established regulations based on how long the message can dwell brightness and then the text size based on the speed with which the street is limited window signs in your existing code are required i'm sorry they are allowed but with a permit and they can have up to 20 percent of the window area covered in the new code we are not requiring permits again for the temporary signs and then the maximum number i'm sorry the maximum percentage of window coverage would be 33 and that would apply to both temporary and permanent signs so neon sandwich board feather signs and political signs um in your old old code neon signs would be limited to 20 of the window area and the new code we're not specifically regulating neon signs but if they're placed in the window then they would apply to the window window sign regulations sandwich boards were basically keeping these regulations the same which is one per business and it must must not be bigger than 10 square feet or four feet tall but we're adding that it has to stay out of the right of ways or out of the walking path it can be on the sidewalk though feather signs are not addressed in the existing code and then the new code we're allowing them but with two per site and there has to be at least 100 feet separation between them and then political signs and the existing code they are allowed there is a time limit before and after the election and based on the reid versus gilbert case were not specifically regulating political signs but they're treated like a non-permanent sign and you can have it in your yard without any time limit billboard signs they'll continue to be prohibited as will rotating signs inflatable signs are not currently regulated but we've added that as a definition and we will not allow those and off-premise signs are not specifically regulated in the new co or in the old code but we're going to prohibit those in the new code and that is the end of the presentation i will take any questions you might have **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** any questions for brandy uh go ahead **[Timestamp] Council Member Peterson:** just one quick one um is there any provision to the maintenance of the signs that it's in here **[Timestamp] Brandi Howe (WSB Planner):** there there is we do require maintenance that they must be kept in a clean and the typical language it might even be from your same code i think we went through down at window world where the sign was they moved the road so you couldn't see the sign and they asked for it to be higher than 25 feet so there is a provision in there that could they could appeal to the planning commission oh this is something that did come up last week yes um so i had some conversations with elaine the plan commission chair offline and as we have it proposed right now we were going to pull it pull the sign code out of the zoning ordinance and in doing so that kind of eliminates the option for variances so we're going to discuss that at the next planky mission meeting whether or not to to keep it pulled out or to put a keep it in the ordinate in the zoning ordinance and that way we can have that uh the variance process in addition to the appeal process because i don't know if the appeal would be the route to go after some thought last week in terms of deviation from the regulations **[Timestamp] Council Member Peterson:** i just think there should be provision in there to allow someone who you know doesn't meet the code that their circumstances within the city that they might be able to appeal and get approval so **[Timestamp] Brandi Howe (WSB Planner):** yep well that'll be up for discussion at our plan commission meeting council member thorson **[Timestamp] Council Member Thorson:** that we were short on time that was also one of my points is just there's some sort of you know a process to request if you're it's kind of a land use issue in the sense that if it's your building and the way it's positioned or located then it's restricting your use in doing a sign if they have a way of a variance process but that's good to hear um i just had nothing jotted down going in this like you know neon signs we don't see many of them and i re i recall a controversial it was the old dental office he wanted to put dentist neon sign and it looked great and it was cool but you know our was our sign ordinance i obviously must have been that didn't allow it eventually did go in but i just kind of questioned well you know why why would we be so restrictive on something like that and window coverage area too um you know some businesses have a lot of window space and others don't if they choose to utilize that to do their advertising for their business or their deals i think you know like bars or particular if they put neon signs inside the window or you know two for one deal or whatever they want to do it's their business and what what's the criteria for limiting the amount they can cover the window **[Timestamp] Brandi Howe (WSB Planner):** the criteria well um this was a topic that the plan commission planning commission was spent several meetings discussing so it's currently limited to either 20 or 25 percent um and so they're they're increasing that to 33 and the you know it's just really based on window area so that's the only criteria that there is **[Timestamp] Council Member Thorson:** the rationale for that baby steps towards less regulation i would assume if that's something that the council would like to see a little bit have less regulation attached to it that could be up for consideration i just i guess i get confused as to you know if we're gonna say you know your business has lots of windows you can only cover 33 of them with signage like why do we care if they want to cover their whole entire window with uh you know graphic wraps or whatever they have window tint semi-visible or transparent i mean if that's what they want to do i mean versus right next door there could be the same building that doesn't have windows and then they put a sign on there you know they don't have the same restrictions just in a sense because it's not a window but i don't know just seems to be restrictive but i'm i like everything i've seen there that we're going more towards being less restrictive and more you know because you know other than a few instances i don't ever see signage being a controversial topic in town it can be in some communities but it hasn't been so far here and when it is it's more personal you know i don't like the way that looks okay how do we make a rule and then you know that person moves away or you know it just kind of you know subjective or you know so it's hard to to make rules based off of certain people's opinions where others may differ but i'm glad to see that this is you know moving along the more flexible area okay **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** any other questions **[Timestamp] Council Member Wong:** councilmember one yeah i just want to thank you brandi and and the planning commission as well they put a lot a lot a lot of time looking through and thumbing through the entire document thinking about you know even how compliance will respond to it so they've done a really great job thank you **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** let's have a question brandi could you remind us and i think i know the answer of what comes next with this and the timing of that **[Timestamp] Brandi Howe (WSB Planner):** yep um so the next plane commission meeting will be june 2nd where i will bring them uh the draft resolution i'm sorry the draft ordinance in the format within which that this body would act on it and then we will hold a public hearing um with the plan commission and at their july meeting and that would come back to you at your third meeting in july sorry your third week meeting in july it's been a long day yeah it's like three weeks it's kind of crazy okay thank you appreciate it **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** that's it any other questions if not a motion to adjourn by councilmember peterson second by council member cole any discussion all those in favor signify by saying aye agents like to welcome everyone jenny if you could take the role **[Timestamp] Jennie Kloos (Assistant to City Manager):** Council member thorson councilmember peterson council member wong here councilmember cole here mayor furlong here **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** quorum is present this time motion to adopt the agenda **[Timestamp] Council Member Peterson:** so moved your honor **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** by council member peterson second **[Timestamp] Council Member Thorson:** second **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** by council member thorson any discussion not all those in favor signify by saying aye all right close motion carries we have no presentations and we have the consent agenda and i'll turn it over to uh city manager start **[Timestamp] City Manager Stark:** thank you mayor furlong and city council members for the audience here or watching at home the consent agenda contains several separate items which are acted upon by the city council in one motion once the consent agenda has been approved the individual items and the recommended actions will have also been approved and no further action is necessary any city council member may request an item be removed from the consent agenda and place on the regular agenda for further discussion tonight we have nine items on the consent agenda item a is the may 3rd 2022 regular meeting minutes item b is general claims of the city item c is acceptance of the 2021 financial report with the city's audit firm of uh and you'll have to forgive me if i mispronounce some of these molloy montague karnowski radosevich and company or i should have just said mmkr item d is a charitable gambling permit for north metro flex academy located at 2350 helen street north item e is an approval of an on sale and sunday liquor license for nsp hospitality doing business as max diner and this is something that was a minor revision from a liquor license that was approved two weeks ago item f is a resolution approving acceptance of donations received in april 2022 item g is the building permit report for april of 2022 item h is the approval of a new arts and culture commission members item i is the lease and premises agreement with with hillary's father's club and that concludes the consent agenda at this time **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** any council member would like to pull an item at this time they can if not a motion to approve the consent agenda **[Timestamp] Council Member Cole:** so moved **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** moved by council member call second **[Timestamp] Council Member Wong:** second **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** by councilmember wong any discussion if not all of us in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed concern is approved at this time the meeting is open to the public and we have three people uh sean welcome sean **[Timestamp] Sean Rivet:** sean rivett 24 83 i can't even remember my address right off the top of my head whatever y'all know where i live um in the water hole the your pond didn't help my street one bit my neighbor almost lost his car i almost lost my truck again out in my out up above my waist again on the street i don't know what else to do i can't i have a guy coming to help help me with my yard at the yard ain't gonna help nothing it comes from your street there's no way i can the only thing i can do is put raise my house up six feet or something at the rate this is going i can't keep dealing with this and you know you had the opportunity to help out my street and you guys denied me or said no i understand that's you don't want to start setting precedences please set a precedence to help your residents and help fix my street then so i can sleep easy i haven't slept since thursday night i had to call in sick on monday because i was sick i didn't get to go to work because i'm getting so sick from this these rains and these storms and stuff and you guys i can't do nothing to your street you want me to i'll bring a bobcat in and i'll fix them you know myself but i'm pretty sure i'll get in trouble so you guys i'm asking you for help once again i'm back here asking for help this has been 12 years going on 12 years now still haven't seen it i'd like to see her here council members long's data that she gave me as her no or a council member's call for his and all what i still don't understand your guys's reasoning i haven't even watched this council member i didn't even watch that meeting that i was supposed to watch i was so mad and so upset but the two people that actually voted yes for me has been to my house and actually walked around with me and actually sent some time with me neither one of you i've offered everybody to come over at any point in time and walk around with me see what i'm going through maybe you guys would have had a little bit of better information instead of just going off from your data or whatever that's obviously wrong because it's still happening i'm i'm sorry man i just something needs to be done down there nothing **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** we'll talk to some city manager but right now yes we voted you know not to have the dnr take over that property yeah uh we have had significant rainfalls again again i understand we're talking a major major rainfall i got pictures of other neighborhoods very similar to yours **[Timestamp] Sean Rivet:** mine's reoccurring though it doesn't even need to storm like that it doesn't have to storm like that if it's just a prolonged rain it just fills up down there my neighbors are like what is going on down here they had no clue when they moved in you know they're confused he would be here but he freaking works weird hours so he can't so you know it's it's not fun down there man i haven't slept since thursday **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** okay thank you sean uh john small welcome **[Timestamp] John Schmalz:** evening mayor council uh last time i was up here i said something about where do you find the plan for ariel you said something to the fact it'll be on the website there's nothing on the website so you know where the plan what does it look like you know when you guys even asked when morgan was here you know what do you have up here to show how this thing is supposed to look and morgan didn't have anything so is there something where the sidewalk how far does the sidewalk go a plan you know you look at say is there a plan okay yeah there's a plan there's got to be a plan and i don't know the answer the question i had i'd have to go back to the minutes of the last time we discussed this i had hoped um i'd get a a phone call or something but i don't know um and i don't know if our communications person knows i don't have a good answer for you time is a wasting here it's just why do you want to see the plan yeah i'd like to see the plan where does the sidewalk go does it go all the way up the hill does go you know it's a week **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** morgan if you can i'd like to see you see it john needs to see something i'm a visual person that he needs to touch and look at a visual person **[Timestamp] Morgan Dawley (City Engineer):** hi how are you doing mayor members of the council so i'd be happy to email mr smalls the the plan set if i can get the full copy from the city of maplewood or the pertinent plan sheets specific to ariel north st paul and the sidewalk um morgan was not visuals help we had a technical glitch at the last meeting but just to answer the question the sidewalk will be constructed within that striped shoulder on the east side of the road uh from uh from ninth avenue up to seventeenth avenue is the extension down north south depends on your context there but yes so that's a general location but uh i'll get uh mr schmalz's email address i'll send it to him we'll take care of that **[Timestamp] John Schmalz:** and why not all the way to the uh apartments i mean it just blows my mind that it doesn't continue all the way to the cul-de-sac where the apartments people from the apartments can walk out their door and get on the sidewalk and walk down the hill **[Timestamp] Morgan Dawley (City Engineer):** so the extents of the sidewalk was based on actual observations of pedestrian use in the area walking on the side of the road somehow they levitate in conjunction with the comprehensive plan in terms of what was playing **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** you don't really like to engage but john anyway and okay that's that part of it **[Timestamp] John Schmalz:** and the other thing is uh your module uh in open gov uh dealing with zoning permits and the ability to file a complaint and you can do it in the system but you got to be taught by kerry how to do it because it's not easy because i walked in with my phone and first of all she says why do you have are you doing this on the phone well the pictures are on the phone that's why i'm doing it on the phone and so she goes well here this is the way you do it uh zip zip keep no no keep going keep going keep going until you get to the spot at the very end of the keep going that you can tap on it to go to the module and so you can process was for me to file a complaint because there is there's a violation and so i like doing that because it's you know it's available do it and so i filed a complaint and i filled in while i couldn't fill in the right things kerry had to change the module in order to include zoning as one of the things you could actually complain about so that's in there so yesterday i was able to input it and today a question in these three people that have an email conversation the one person asked me well is your name covered up in this complaint and i said i don't know see where you know you think you'd be be able to make a complaint anonymously wouldn't you you you know good thing to have complainants be anonymous well you are not the only record for that address is under the name of guess who me right there for god and everyone to see you would think that it would be anonymous but it ain't or there should be a warning by the way if you put your name down on here it's open for everyone to see do you really want to proceed anyway last item is is the wonderful cc and the community center oh okay and the drop in value from two million five to two million one and i thought that's interesting ramsey county two million five two million one for the record for this year so hey that's interesting let's dial up ramsey county they don't like talking to citizens they do not like talking to citizens anyway bottom line is it was supposed to be reviewed this year it's coming up for its review but they changed the value last year why did you change that don't know guy who did it no longer here it is just crazy but he's the guy i talked to mike i only got his first name said the change was because it has been changed from classification as a library to a racquetball court and racquetball courts are valued differently than a library cheaper who knows who knows anybody here know that it's it's now a racquetball court **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** nope oh you do know no it's a racquetball court thank you thank you robert lawrence welcome mr lawrence **[Timestamp] Bob Lawrence:** thank you mayor uh city council um so my name is bob lawrence i'm a woodbury resident i'm currently the okay i snuck in um i'm currently the president of hillary fathers club and i just wanted to thank you and tell you how excited we are to partner with the city and with max and looking forward to a good long-term relationship **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** well i'm glad you're here and uh i'm glad you guys are able to get in the max i think it's going to be a real good real good deal for you guys it'll be good so thank you very much i don't have anything to complain about well i appreciate it you guys are doing a wonderful job thank you appreciate it uh is there anybody on zoom okay uh so at this time uh city business action items and recommendations i'll turn it over to uh city manager stark **[Timestamp] City Manager Stark:** yes and uh this is gonna be a continuation of the workshop in that it's gonna be at least for this portion that the finance director dan winnick show so i would turn this over to mr winnick **[Timestamp] Dan Winnick (Finance Director):** thank you city city manager uh again i don't do this alone so i have a supporting cast that i'll introduce here in a second but we're here to award the sale of the nearly 10 million dollar general obligation bonds series series 2022 a if you can remember back last year in december 7th we approved the current and final plan right now of the capital improvement plan or 10-year capital improvement plan incorporated into there are these items that we turned into a street reconstruction plan we held a public hearing on april 5th of this year the reconstruction plan includes a number of areas and projects one we which we heard today about the ariel street with maplewood on april 19th the city council adopted a resolution authorizing baker tilley to proceed with negotiation of a sale of bonds of approximately 10 million dollars we'll be utilizing in addition to the bond sale we'll be using our arpa funds which is a little over 1.3 million dollars and then we'll also have some some city funds part of these projects include the annual maintenance amount that we budget for for street maintenance that was also included in these project bids so we'll be using those funds for the total project the total project you know in addition to the 10 million dollars will come up to about just under 12 million dollars of total project worth these bonds of approximately 10 million approximately 4.6 million dollars is street reconstruction bonds the remaining 5.4 million dollars is backed their revenue bonds backed by our utilities and with that i am going to turn it over to michaela hewitt from baker tilley to kind of talk to us about the results of the sales of those bonds today welcome michaela **[Timestamp] Michaela Hewitt (Baker Tilly):** okay it's awfully quiet sorry we're all done i'm kidding um good evening mayor members of the council again michaela hewitt with bakers hilly municipal advisors here to provide a short presentation on the results of the city's competitive bond sale as well as the results of the credit rating related to the bond we there we go so this the first slide before you this is providing kind of the the one of the main municipal indices that we look at when understanding the trends and interest rates and you'll see here it's reflecting the activities over the last five years and we'll see where we are currently there's been a steep inc steep incline over the last um i'd say six seven ish months to where we are today but again this is just to give an average that we're still if you look at over the five year period we're still in probably i would say average rates of what we've seen over that period even though we're experiencing a kind of a sharp increase right now so again as dan had introduced this topic the city is is issued 9.995 of general obligation improvement bonds and the proceeds of the bond issue is to be used to finance various utility improvements and street reconstruction projects within the city and they were identified within the city's street reconstruction project we did include a 20-year term for the repayment debt service on the bonds and the estimated true interest cost or the tick as it's referred that we were looking at and updating our finance the structures from last thursday and friday we're about 3.43 percent so in uh part of our role in working with the city is to facilitate the the um sale of the bonds and we're proud to announce that there were five bids that were received so it was a very um competitive sale the lowest bid was received from northland securities inc and the actual results of their sale was 3.415 it's actually 3.419 so they initially provided the bid of 3.415 however with some of the um a little bit of resizing on the bonds level debt service the actual rate is now 3.419 so still very close and you'll see the the range of the five bids were between 3.415 and up to 3.664 so they were all very competitive bids these i'll just point out these were issued as bank qualified since they were less than 10 million and that does reflect um about a 20 to 30 basis points savings on the interest rate so by following that method we were able to result in the 3.4 of the true interest cost so with the bond issue there was an updated credit rating for the city and what does that mean we work through standard and poor's and it is really a measure of the city's financial strength and the ability to make the debt service payments in a timely fashion the um the results of it indicates that the higher the rating the less likely there would be a default and the less likely that there is uh the chance for a default the lower that the interest rate is that the investors are willing to accept so the higher the rating typically the lower the interest rate and the less in total debt service that you'll pay you'll see here the city was reaffirmed their credit rating of a double a through s p and this is just showing the overall rates of for all the different rating agencies so there are comments in the updated rating report for the city and they reflect all positive comments the strong economy growing market value and continued residential development both in the city and the surrounding metro area strong management and that's reflected through good financial management practices and policies strong budgetary performance and with consistent operating surpluses in the annual budget a very strong budget flexibility meaning strong available reserves and a very strong that reflects it again relates to the very strong liquidity and finally uh weak debt um and that's that's pretty consistent with the way that um we're the in minnesota but with the long-term planning and rapid amortization of the debt those are all positive attributes of the city's overall credit rating so we always like to look at what are possible ways to increase the rating and you'll see here the upside scenario is that they would consider raising the rates if the economic growth or other factors that ultimately lead to the city's wealth and income metrics materially improve and if the city's debt burden moderates despite the future borrowing plans and again that's following the the five-year street reconstruction plan downside scenario we always have to look at it although it's unexpected is that you could look at a reduced lower rating if the city's operating results weaken on a sustained basis or if any of the economic metrics that are currently viewed as strong would materially weaken so with that i said it's a short and sweet presentation but i'd be happy to address any questions **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** any questions for michaela city attorney if not uh there's a motion to approve to prove the uh sale of nine million nine hundred nine hundred and ninety five thousand dollars in general obligation bonds series 2022a **[Timestamp] Council Member Thorson:** so moved **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** moved by councilmember thorson second **[Timestamp] Council Member Peterson:** second **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** by councilmember peterson any discussion if not all those in favor signify by saying aye opposed motion carries and i would just add you know this was a short presentation but the amount of time that finance director wenick and the folks at baker tilley have put into this uh has been just amazing you know i've been a small part of that but i know that they have just done great work so thank you so much thank you michaela ollie does a good job always doing a good job so thank you i'll second that okay good city manager stark **[Timestamp] City Manager Stark:** thank you michaela the next item is the 2022 sanitary sewer lining project to receive bids and award contract and i would turn this over to city engineer dali **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** you know it's kind of funny you're i can't see you over that computer screen there when you're sitting down over there and i and i thought you had left sized you so i was hiding **[Timestamp] Morgan Dawley (City Engineer):** thank you city manager stark mr mayor members of the council uh the item before you here tonight is to consider bids received on the 2022 sanitary sewer lining project as you just heard this is one of the improvement projects considered within the capital improvement plan and the bond sale that you just approved we did solicit bids from contractors with should be on my screen there in the areas shown on your screen generally this is cured in place pipe lining for sanitary sewer pipes which actually provide structural integrity also seals against inflow and infiltration issues that we do experience within north st paul in our sewer system so that helps save the public and met council some additional clean water that does not need to be treated and ultimately saves everybody money so that investment in our infrastructure not only saves us from future cave-ins or sinkholes or street repairs that might happen from old sewers collapsing uh but also prevents kind of intrusion of water that does not need to be treated downstream uh from a wastewater standpoint so different areas including casey lake which earlier in the year you may recall we did have some issues and problems and we're anticipating that this sewer lining will help alleviate some of those concerns in that area by sealing the pipes against root intrusion that's another benefit that i didn't mention previously but that's some of the problems that we have in that area are tree roots actually growing into our sanitary sewing sewer system searching out the water and causing issues occasionally so again this improvement will also minimize maintenance and minimize some of the risks along those lines within our sewer system so casey lake we have some areas up and around i'm sorry the high school is inset map one on the figure there inset map two uh is down in around uh uh seventh avenue south of seventh avenue around helen and east of helen and then inset map 3 is another area of sewer that is just south of 7th avenue kind of west of the new development area in between margaret and helen so those are all areas in need and a lot of those are identified in conjunction with either planned future pavement investment improvements or current existing ones again trying to protect that underground infrastructure given the investment or planned future investment on the roadways up above we received two bids and uh pleased to report that the low bid of just over three hundred and two thousand dollars came in very close to the estimate at three hundred and two thousand three hundred sixty-five the bid was actually 302 525 and 50 cents i may have never gotten so close to the low bid with an estimate thus far so that is certainly good news um the contractor is hydro clean we have worked with er i'm sorry visa sewer sorry about that we've worked with them as well too within the city of north st paul so i don't have any hesitations recommending the city council that you receive all bids and award a contract to the apparent low bidder of visja sewer uh in the amount of three hundred two thousand five hundred and twenty five dollars and fifty cents you do have a resolution in your packet considering that uh receipt of uh bids and award of contract and i'll stand for any questions the council might have **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** any questions for morgan we have no questions i'm looking for the resolution uh should be there out of here got it here good uh so the motion is for resolution accepting bids and awarding uh construction contract for the 2022 sanitary sewer lining project city project number 22-06 motion **[Timestamp] Council Member Peterson:** so moved around here **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** by councilmember peterson second **[Timestamp] Council Member Thorson:** second **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** by councilmember thorson any questions not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries uh city engineer morgan **[Timestamp] Morgan Dawley (City Engineer):** okay if i proceed sure thank you uh mr mayor members of the council the next item for consideration here is receipt of bids and consideration of a ward of contract however we do have uh slightly different circumstances with this particular project this is for the 7th avenue street and utility improvement project which is on your screen right now the area generally confined by a mid-block between on seventh avenue mid block between helen and margaret and then west to first street also including including portions of helen street on either side of 7th avenue the intersection with sepala 4th avenue east some portion of the remaining alley which is yet to be improved and also the intersection of 4th avenue and margaret and extending north kind of to where the 2020 pavement was left off on margaret street a much more complex project involving many different types of construction activity concrete paving on 7th avenue for example a lot of different utility work including water main sanitary sewer some very large trunk storm sewer on helen avenue which is old and in need of replacement as we discussed at the last council meeting i think the mayor asked some questions we are living within a period of volatility within the heavy construction industry right now spike in diesel prices up 20 to 40 percent in the last couple few months supply chain issues uh material supply with respect to precast concrete iron and steel products uh and just general concerns over labor uh and trucking and that sort of thing so as we discussed last time with the council at that time the information was that there wasn't anything compelling to cut scope at that time we did try some strategies with respect to allowing the contractor more time to construct the project thinking that that might give some allowances and some flexibility unfortunately the low bid that was received was approximately 20 % over the estimate so the estimate was just over five million dollars our low bidder which is a good contractor uh is just about six million dollars so a premium of about 20 percent that's not including any sort of contingencies as you heard with the sale of the bonds we do have a capped funding availability program with which to work with for these planned improvements that we have that have not yet bid we're very fortunate that up to this point our projects have come in on budget or slightly underestimate and so again with some contingencies moving forward we're very confident that we'll have good success in terms of completing those projects within budget again knowing that they're capped within the bond program and for this capital improvement program but when you get into this situation with something that is this much you know 20 percent overestimate and then knowing that there may still be some unknowns with supply chain issues it is of concern and so we took a very uh very very close look at this trying to make a determination of whether it might be worth moving forward um trying to absorb some contingencies would there be room under the bond program in other areas and frankly i just didn't feel comfortable moving forward after consultation with director of public works richie and finance director winik my recommendation to council at this time is to receive the bids however reject them at this time and consider repackaging this for a bid and construction in 2023 there's a couple different things that we can try to reap the benefit of in this certain situation number one is that we know how three uh good contractors um within the working within the community have priced this out at this time so that gives us a much more accurate indication and up to the minute indication in terms of how suppliers are pricing things like precast concrete structures or pipe it also allows us to then evaluate the future rebid on this project and build in some flexibility like alternates for example the main priority here has always been 7th avenue 4th avenue and the intersection of margaret i would call secondary priorities and if we can package those in a re-bid scenario such that if the bids come in similar and i think within the industry and there was an article in finance and commerce that just came out monday of this week the industry is saying that 18 to 24 months is probably to be expected in terms of these types of issues with pricing inflationary measures concerns over volatility and frankly also it's important to note that you know this is not a greed thing by contractors i think within the industry we recognize that contractors are bidding defensively okay so they're trying to protect themselves against fluctuations and on their hard costs that they have no control on either and they certainly don't want to be put in a situation where they're going to lose money or not be profitable to the point where it's going to hurt their business so it's a very tentative situation a repackage and a rebid and a delay of the project in my mind october is a good time to think about knowing that lead time on precast right now is 20 to 28 weeks if we were able to rebid this and find a point within the capped finance constraints for this particular project which is just over 6.8 million dollars and that's total project for everything contingencies and indirect soft costs knowing that we will be able to either award alternates or subtract alternates to be able to find that sweet spot from a funding standpoint we'll be in a much more comfortable position financially there'll be less risk for the city and again knowing that there's a hard cap there i think that's really a really important consideration and something that i don't feel should be taken lightly and certainly not something that i'm going to risk recommending moving forward on just without very strong consideration here which is why i'm kind of explaining all these things in addition i think that we took again another real tight look at every single line item how all the different contractors bid um i think you know i found one item that could have been estimated slightly stronger again when we estimate more quantity we reduce or remove risk that there might be additional costs on a project so again that repackaging will allow us to even tighten things up further minimize the risk for the project overall and again try to hit that 6.8 million dollars for a total project cost without consideration of trying to find other sources of revenue which aren't there right now right we're working within the confines of a bond sale that has said this is what we have for street improvements for water for sewer that sort of thing so we want to be very respectful of that one additional benefit is that it will help the car show i think in this year in 2022 by being able to fully access margaret street and 7th avenue through the season while we focus on existing contractual obligations and construction in the surface parking lot which is ongoing right now off of 6th south of 7th also work over by the high school and in addition on ariel street as we just discussed earlier so we do have plenty of things to be working on and concentrating to make sure that the contractors do a good job again i think that it's fully reasonable that substantially the work would be completed in 2023 which is not much different than what we talked about in this bid solicitation it would just be tightened up we would have some work that would occur in 2024 in terms of final lift of asphalt paving and that sort of thing but again the goal would be to complete the work on in these areas to the greatest extent within the financial constraints that we have in calendar 2023 and coordinate with folks like the car show and other people public downtown um separately and importantly on this this project alone uh without other kind of uh overlapping concerns such as the parking lot which is in fairly near proximity so with that the resolution that i've prepared in your packet is not for award of contract but for receipt of the bids and rejecting the bids with consideration for future rebid again my plan would be in an october time frame with that 28 week lead time on precast concrete and some ductile products like fittings and hydrants and that sort of thing if we have a contractor under contract in october for example they can lock in their pricing they can set their orders we can even pay them materials on hand and they can store that through the winter so that we capture the pricing at that time if it does move forward and up between october and 2023 and then they can pull that stuff out and build it in 2023 and we'll have a known cost at that time so that's the approach i think it's a good recommendation giving all the different scenarios that we're dealing with and the volatility of the market right now um and i'll stand for any questions that the council might have **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** any questions for morgan **[Timestamp] Council Member Thorson:** so we're delaying the project because we're over a budget is what you're saying that would be and scaling back potentially won't help getting it done this year as planned like do we have to do fourth avenue and margaret a part of this i mean i it's just i mean i i get what you're saying but it's frustrating because you know we're trying to stay in this this schedule because there's so much of the city that needs to get done i mean back in 2018 or i believe it was 2019 it was gerald shawnee chippewa avenue around casey casey park and then that got delayed because of the downtown you know and then this is taking precedent over that area and there's other areas that continue to get worse and worse and so now it's i'm hearing we're not we're just not gonna even we're doing aerial but it's not a full reconstruct we're kind of getting off of that schedule and we're falling further behind and the problems are just gonna continue to compound and get worse when we delay these road projects so i mean i guess i'm a little i don't know i mean i i don't know what to say i mean it seems like there should be an option that you know i suppose it's too far late now to look at another area of the city that needs to get done but just the whole idea of of just putting it off for a year and not doing anything else kind of doesn't sit well with me um but i don't know that's my thoughts **[Timestamp] Council Member Wong:** thank you morgan for your analysis um you know i'm i'm just wondering in terms of uh funding so if if we were not to reject it where would you get the funding from **[Timestamp] Morgan Dawley (City Engineer):** so a large portion of the overage if you want to call that in terms of exceedance of estimate is in the s some some of it is in the streets uh some of it is across the board in the utilities but a major portion of it is in the streets so the streets as you know are funded i mean not only with the bond funds but that impacts the general tax levy as opposed to um you know enterprise funds for like surface water or water utility or for sanitary sewer so it would have to be a combination across the board with which to make up that difference um based on you know just rough projections in terms of if we awarded the contract as is right now the planned um total project cost is 6.8 million within the bond sale and within the capital improvement plan we would be at at or slightly over eight million dollars i mean so that that's uh you know over a million dollars 1.2 million dollars let's say approximately that some portion of that would have to be made up by the general tax levy which would affect the general taxes for the public some portion of that would need to be made up with unidentified as of right now sources within the utility enterprise funds as well too which would impact or affect rates more so than is currently planned or projected i guess for the foreseeable future knowing that there's been a deep financial analysis on the capital improvement plan as it stands today and also the bond sale as it stands to fund these particular projects right now so i can't answer specifically where it would come from but those are the the typical sources that you know if we were to move forward today that that's where it would have to be made up um again you know if it's five percent or you know um you know it's a lot of money no matter how you look at it but if it's an overage that's slightly less and we've navigated that before uh and it's something that from a staff standpoint there's some level of comfort that we can you know make that up or we can absorb that those are the conversations that i was having last week after bids were opened and you know do we think that that's reasonable at a 1.2 million dollar premium that just seems too strong to be able to try to power through in my opinion **[Timestamp] Council Member Wong:** yeah thank you for considering all the different contributions of you know different pockets of money as we look at the infrastructure funding coming from the federal government do you know of any you know allocations or priorities that that money is going to be allocated to here on the more local level **[Timestamp] Morgan Dawley (City Engineer):** so it's coming there's still information that we don't have yet in terms of where how that's going to be coming down for example our understanding is that for drinking water for clean water that's going to be distributed through basically the same accounts or uh i guess vehicles by which they distribute the legacy funds um and so you know this project hasn't been you know earmarked or identified specifically for those funds but certainly i think there's opportunities moving forward for future projects whether that is within this bond program or future projects for example you know the next ones that are on the docket are up by casey lake in terms of streets and utilities in terms of a two-phased approach to address those areas so that could be a category but we won't know if that will be surface water specific only or a combination of surface water and water utility meaning drinking water those are two main components and there may be some available for reconstruction of local streets as well too but we won't know specifically until we have more information available with which to identify those priority projects you know make applications and our understanding is that those are all going to be competitive as well too so there will be a lot of other local agencies applying for the same dollars **[Timestamp] Council Member Wong:** thank you do you have a timeline in which that may or may not come **[Timestamp] Morgan Dawley (City Engineer):** maybe michaela's still here i'm hoping that sometime soon here uh that you know the the federal government has identified the funds we know we know that it's coming we know it's been authorized by the federal government but it does take some time to actually allocate and get those dollars to the states and the states are responsible then either through dot programs or otherwise to be able to distribute those down unknown whether or not some of those will be prioritized for example to state aid streets which seventh avenue is a state aid street but mosabi avenue for example in the casey lake area is not right so there may be some qualifications that we're going to need to pay close attention to i would anticipate that in the coming months we should get some more information but there's been no guarantees or qualifications in terms of when we're going to hear exactly and what but it will be highly followed by all engineers especially at the local level **[Timestamp] Council Member Wong:** all right thank you morgan **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** are there any maintenance we can do in the meantime between now and then that council member thorson said there are a lot of needs and i notice even my neighborhood's not even on here and it's it is really bad uh the casey lake area is getting really bad is there anything we can do that **[Timestamp] Morgan Dawley (City Engineer):** so leave yeah in these um in the bond identified projects there are some areas that are identified and these were gone through by public works last year actually and identified in terms of first tier second tier i think there always has to be care when a project area is identified for significant investment or reconstruction because if you're going to place a band-aid on something you know you don't want it to cost too much because then that's going to be undone and redone on the flip side that can also also buy you a few years and save some money in terms of pothole patching and that sort of thing so with respect to the casey lake neighborhood for example you know those roads are certainly beyond i would say expected ideal candidates for a maintenance overlay because they are ready for reconstruction right now however given you know the need and the concern for just the timing of everything and inflationary costs it may make be worth considering looking at where some of those other maintenance dollars were planned to be spent outside of these projects but just by public works in terms of you know doing maintenance overlays which is heavier duty than pothole patching but less duty than like a reconstruction for example but again that may buy us some time it's not going to when you overlay over a road that is maybe cracked or failed some of those cracks will come through and again that's the balancing act of not spending too much so maybe we don't do a full mill and overlay knowing that there's not much of a road left to mill but we certainly could look at potentially an overlay it will crack but it might save some time or give some time with respect to bridge that timeline from now until i don't know what's in the plan i believe it was 2024 for the first portion of casey lake right which is not included in in this bond sale that but that would have to be a consideration for a separate future bond sale for either one or both of the casey lake half and half projects which started out as one project but then based on the cost it was decided a few years ago to try to split that into two so would you take a reassessment i can in the meantime and take a look and see if there are areas i was just sharing a photo from a resident on i think it was masabi or maybe gerald and i haven't talked to public works yet so i don't know what they've committed to wear outside of these projects that i've been working on but we can see if it makes sense maybe not for the whole area but maybe the worst street or the worst streets again to try to get them addressed and covered up in a temporary fashion without too much of an investment to be able to get you know even one or two years would be helpful if we can get a couple few years in a little more comfort level and understanding from the public that you know we're trying to do the best we can until we can get there to fully reconstruct them it's certainly worth considering um given the fact that you know this the city public works does have kind of a set budgetary number year after year with which to work with so maybe this year if not this year maybe next year and i think we can certainly see how that works within a prioritization strategy i mean any plan is certainly subject to change and reevaluation based on whatever might happen at any given moment a series of water main breaks you know we've had we actually did an overlay uh of oh my gosh in 2016 it was it was at uh 18th 19th 19th it was so something where it was scheduled for work that year and that spring for whatever reason it kind of exploded and we had to do a block or a block and a half just to hold it together for a few months so what i'm thinking is you know this might be a re-prioritization that's a little more planned out than that that was kind of an emergency situation we couldn't have the road go to to gravel necessarily even though it was already um uh you know planned for reconstruction um you know we don't want uh people having difficulty driving through the area and every spring spring um melt and thaw you know those potholes are kind of problematic and can be issues for public works to keep up with from a pothole patching standpoint so i will convene with public works and we can see if from a funding standpoint from a rear prioritization standpoint if some of those other areas might warrant being folded into the mix knowing that we have delayed some of the other project areas and also knowing that we've got some late-breaking concerns that are later information than we had last year when those maintenance areas were kind of identified so i think that's a fair effort **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** the other questions for morgan **[Timestamp] Council Member Thorson:** councilmember thorson so this particular pod project they're coming in around 1.2 million over what your initial plan was is that correct **[Timestamp] Morgan Dawley (City Engineer):** for a total project cost that was okay that was the projection correct **[Timestamp] Council Member Thorson:** and uh how much was on ariel the addition of the sidewalks i tried pulling that up i couldn't find it what was that addition **[Timestamp] Morgan Dawley (City Engineer):** it was estimated at 275 the bids came in at about 225 for the sidewalk ad and the hope is that we delay this and then re-bid it later in october that at that time it's going to come in lower the projection within the industry is that the inflated prices and supply chain issues are expected to continue for the next 18 to 24 months with now not any significantly identified like relief right so the idea is to be able to um re-bid to be able to find that spot within the project identified budget of 6.8 million dollars so that we can have an improvement area but not have a contractual obligation to complete something that we don't have the funding for so it would be rebidding but it would be scaled back right what so i'm looking at margaret part of that road is concrete part of its asphalt part of the concrete's been patched with asphalt sections of asphalt have been replaced with i mean it's just a hodgepodge from silver lake down to hallway is this section here that is highlighted is that a section that's currently concrete that's slated to be replaced with concrete um it i think portions of it are asphalt but the original plan prepared under a previous city manager was for that concrete to come down up to and including the intersection of 4th avenue it doesn't have to be we certainly could stop the concrete where it is right now and continue from there on soon and obviously sorry i know all the benefits of concrete versus asphalt so we don't need to get into that but you know if we're looking for cost savings you know why wouldn't we consider that i mean i don't you know is that section of margaret such a high traffic area that it merits having concrete versus other parts of the of the city that are possibly more traffic more you know that don't have as much i don't know what am i trying to say here i mean i don't what what are the criteria for having concrete on a road section and and is this one that falls into that and even if it is knowing that yes asphalt does not last as long in theory because there's all sorts of things that can cause concrete to fail earlier that we've seen in town but you know what is that being considered as well like maybe instead of using concrete in all these sections we we go to asphalt does that help us get under the you know the financial problem we're having here **[Timestamp] Morgan Dawley (City Engineer):** it certainly will help i mean so you know the life cycle cost for asphalt versus concrete over 60 years let's say is about the same but on concrete pavement you're upfronting all that cost and there's very little if any maintenance moving forward on asphalt you do have to kind of stay on top of it with ceiling cracks and overlays and that sort of thing so the initial capital investment would be lower for asphalt in my opinion there's no reason why you couldn't leave the extents or the limits of the concrete pavement where they are now and do the rest of this as asphalt we were simply following the plan as kind of originally conceived and i had assumed that that was maybe discussed with the council my understanding is that's more of a it was more of a aesthetic and gateway into downtown kind of approach so that at the intersection of fourth which is a transitionary place between the residential area coming north on margaret into what was the 2020 redevelopment area and then with the sentinel building and then ultimately to 7th avenue which has historically all been concrete and was thoroughly discussed by a council in terms of concrete versus asphalt and the decision at that time on 7th avenue was to keep the concrete areas of pavement concrete but certainly if council wanted to give that direction to staff and move forward with the you know the rebid of the project on margaret street to keep that as asphalt that's an easy change and would be expected to maybe save for that segment of roadway uh potentially 20 to 30 percent um that's just off top my head 20 to 30 percent well okay on that area of roadway okay correct **[Timestamp] Council Member Thorson:** well i mean if we can do what we did on aerial request a bid with and without a sidewalk i don't see because to me from what i'm hearing is this this project is going to get delayed because of cost overages part of that is concrete in areas that again i know the in theory concrete lasts longer than asphalt but a main factor is aesthetics you know meanwhile the road is completely i mean when you're driving home tonight drive that section of margaret take that down to south avenue wherever you're going home and tell me that that road can be delayed because of aesthetics i mean it's again i just this doesn't sit well with me delaying a project area that needs to get done especially when we could have done another area that needs to get done so yeah hopefully we can you know sharpen our pencils and look at all the options and not just one because there's more than one way to pave a street **[Timestamp] Morgan Dawley (City Engineer):** is there a way to bid that out absolutely if council's okay with that being asphalt we can do it either or um or just move to asphalt in entirety so it's whatever council's comfortable giving direction on i'd like to hear from the council in regards to or more discussion on it **[Timestamp] Council Member Peterson:** i'd like to maybe see asphalt see what that comes i mean that yeah just to see the cost difference that's easy if we can bid that and uh see where we come in because i agree we we need to get these projects done **[Timestamp] Council Member Thorson:** and council members out of curiosity i'm not trying to make this into asphalt versus concrete guy because i have no preference or investments or whatever but right how long have you done how long have you worked as an engineer for the city **[Timestamp] Morgan Dawley (City Engineer):** uh about 12 years **[Timestamp] Council Member Thorson:** okay how many miles of streets do we have do you know that enough to tap your head i know the answer i'm looking at it **[Timestamp] Morgan Dawley (City Engineer):** yeah it's on our website yeah 43 miles i was going to say 40. so i i'm you can approximate but if not i don't know i'm not trying to give you an assignment that's going to cost the city a bunch of money but of the 43 miles what percentage would you say is concrete versus ass for all of our streets not including talking streets uh any you know county roads or anything like that just specifically limit to city streets i'd say uh ten percent ten percent concrete versus ninety percent asphalt yeah plus or minus that's my approximation it's really limited to seventh avenue it's gonna say downtown i think some consistency there yeah and i think the reasoning is i mean it you know for whatever yeah and we talked about the aesthetics but you know i think a huge driver is that is cost right and you know you go to like a state like florida they have beautiful concrete highways that last probably five to six times longer than a concrete section of road like i'm thinking of 35 w up to duluth that gets torn up every five six years and you know concrete may be a superior product to asphalt but in this climate and weather i mean it's a crapshoot you're dealing with soil conditions and and weather conditions when it's being poured but same with asphalt that can fail like we've seen on helen so but you know i'll just again i i think you know i want to make it clear that i would like to see some cost comparisons for this project to try to get it done here without delaying it another year **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** if i could ask a question um so let's say either through value engineering or through let's say somehow the markets changed and you thought prices were going to be better how quickly if we said oh things have changed our assumptions have changed something's changed how quickly could we get back out to bid **[Timestamp] Morgan Dawley (City Engineer):** well getting out to bid is one thing and that shouldn't take that long okay that's simply a matter of repackaging if we want to have a deeper discussion like at a workshop for example that might be appropriate i think right now it's the lead time on some of the things like pipe precast structures some of the storm sewer pipe on helen street is like 84 inch custom made stuff that you know would be expected to take a significant amount of time for the manufacturer and supplier to be able to commit to providing to the city so for example even if we were awarding a contract here tonight it's a very good chance and understanding at least in terms of what i'm hearing from all the contractors that some portions of the project would not even be ready to be installed for several months which limits the amount of improvement that could happen in 2022 anyway at this time and that's a market condition thing that's independent of that's just the supply of materials at this time for example there's some suppliers for ductal iron fittings and hydrants that have stopped taking orders from contractors and they're limiting their inventory to like if a city needs to buy a hydrant for something like an emergency they want to have some on stock but they're not selling to contractors or they're only holding their prices for two weeks which is not really fair to the contractor if they're bidding and cities are holding their bids for 30 or 60 days with which to award and then get underway with a project right so we can certainly turn it around and bitter faster than october my thought on october is that that gives ample time for a six-month lead time for ordering of materials precast manholes whatever in october and it will be ready in may there's no reason why it shouldn't be right and we shouldn't have to face any delays knowing that they should be able to order their materials and it can other than maybe shut down over the holidays and deer hunting season which does occur in the construction industry but that's my thought on october we could bid it earlier um and the con the earlier you bid it the contractors are going to be still potentially prone to defensive bidding knowing that they don't know exactly what the price of diesel fuel for example will be in may of next year sometimes there's quantity purchases by contractors or lock-in prices with respect to asphalt mix for example but we won't know exactly um what those will be or what they're going to be dealing with in august versus october so october i think is the latest uh time frame if we were going to do it before the holidays we certainly could try in january but again if we awarded a contract in january or early february which you might think would be a really great early and competitive time to bid a project if in fact these supply issues are continuing and we're looking at six months out for our precast structure structures well then they're not going to be able to start on work until june as opposed to when we would want them to start which is may 15th when road restrictions come off or earlier if they can get out there earlier so that's kind of my estimation in terms of repackaging everything quickly and then when could a contractor get started and would it be possible to look at a project like this and know that and maybe this isn't the case um it probably isn't that this portion of the project contains a lot of things that have these lead time issues this portion of the project doesn't have as many components that have these lead time issues and maybe we separate them out and have two different packages i can look at that and i have looked at a little bit unfortunately there's utilities under all of these roads and the pipes and utilities are what's unfortunately constraining things rather than the paving if this was just a simple road project without any storm sewer for example that might lend itself to that we can take a deep dive on that and we should probably pick a workshop date with which we can kind of unpeel all these things i can talk about that we can talk about some of the bid alternates and see how given the fact that we have the benefit of seeing how three contractors bid this project now and knowing that things will probably continue you know for the foreseeable future be able to see how we can project something that will either deliver something you know sooner rather than later if that's what the council wants to see even if that's a smaller portion of the project and then a bigger portion of the project later i mean i'm not opposed to any of that it's always important to remember that there are some economies of scale so the smaller portions of a project that you peel out might might not carry the benefit of volume pricing for example and that goes to linear feet of pipe it also goes to number of tons of asphalt i mean you tend to get better pricing if it's a larger quantity of whatever it is so **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** so what i'm hearing is that no matter what we do right now 2023 is going to be probably the project for the seventh street because of the lead time for a lot of this material that that you need so no matter what we decide tonight 7th street is probably going to be put on hold for the summer we can look at options but again i have to always kind of think of and come to you all with um conservative and i think safe if maybe the safe is not the right word but something that provides a little bit more expected return on your investment than um speculation i do i'm terrible in las vegas gambling i don't like it that's just me personally um but uh yeah again that's my my estimation now not not saying that there aren't some things that we can think about and look at and potentially peel off i mean another thing i was thinking about is the landscaping and the older portion of of the new downtown which was peeled out of the last project and i know that there's some need for that landscaping in the near term you know landscaping and plant nurseries are maybe not immune for some of the issues that we're seeing out here but we certainly could try a smaller quote package at least for the landscaping in the older part of the 7th avenue project to see if we can't get that in the ground before the end of the year and there may be other pieces too right so i knowing that we just opened bids last week and we had to present them to here to you today this is my recommendation at this time but we can have further conversation on it and whether we bid in october or july or september or january i mean we can have further discussion to get to a plan where you all are comfortable you like the different options available we're still i guess estimators our engineers and estimators are subject to the latest and most recent bid information that we have available we don't really know how contractors are going to price it until they actually do so there's still a little bit of a guessing game there but that's why you try to build in contingencies when bids come in overestimate to the extent that you've already burnt through your planned contingencies that's a red flag and that's what we're trying to avoid moving forward so i'm hearing from the council that we're not opposed to the asphalt so i could take that direction yeah that's not a problem okay uh boy any other questions for morgan and you got direction pretty do you have a resolution right here rejecting uh the bids received yep so the resolution is uh accepting bids received and rejecting all bids for the seventh avenue utility and street improvements uh city project number 2201 is there a motion **[Timestamp] Council Member Wong:** so moved **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** by council member wein second **[Timestamp] Council Member Thorson:** second **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** by council member thorson any other discussions all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries so we'll wait to see we will schedule a workshop item with the council here moving forward in the coming weeks to have further discussion on this particular project and bidding strategies and estimates on the options moving forward so would it be safe to uh tell the car show people that that'll be my next phone call i mean bob's not here so i was going to tell the right person but um i'll call them after i think the sooner the better they and they need to know **[Timestamp] Morgan Dawley (City Engineer):** yeah we can put some communication out to the businesses as well through kerry uh we also have our uh construction our weekly construction meeting tomorrow and i think the car show folks have been attending that so if i if they come to that i can fill them in as well too so both bob and mr fabio bruce bruce yes and others so uh so thank you **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** all right morgan thank you uh city manager **[Timestamp] City Manager Stark:** i do have a couple of things i'm gonna try to keep it brief um just an update on the storms last week i know with the sunny weather we've had over the weekend it's easy to forget how stormy it was in the earlier part of last week but on on monday a tree fell over during the storm on a van and power lines to a home and exit across the the power lines in the alley and fire crews secured that area advised the electric department and remained on the scene until they were until the electric uh crew got the scene safe then on wednesday at almost 11 pm the fire department responded to a report of smell of smoke when crews arrived they upgraded the call to a first alarm that included maplewood and oakdale fire departments the fire was in the attic it was a my understanding is the type of attic and the dimensions of it were a little challenging crews were on the scenes for seen for two hours i believe it included about 25 fire personnel from north st paul and from other groups ultimately there were no injuries reported and the uh the damage was fairly minimal in terms of the public works crews uh they spent uh quite a bit of time clearing debris from all the catch basins around town um in anticipation of the storm so that there wouldn't be localized flooding and they did have a lot of tree limbs including one that councilmember thorson sent me some pictures of them cleaning up so they did a great job they spent some time pumping water off of the ball fields to make them playable for the games and then finally the electric utilities crew responded to a power outage due to the storms on wednesday night the power outages affected about 135 households and four linesmen were able to respond troubleshoot the problem and even enduring heavy winds and heavy rain they had the power restored in just over an hour i wanted to give you a brief personnel update since march four police officers have been hired one police officer is in the final process of being hired as well with that the police will be at their full complement and then one finance clerk starts monday and we talked about the the benefits of that in terms of coverage um and overlap and then the posting closed on our community development director on friday we had 15 applicants um there are i feel pretty good about a handful of them and we'll move forward with interviews probably in about 10 days two weeks maybe so that's my reports for the night very good thank you reports of council commissions committees council member cole **[Timestamp] Council Member Cole:** with respect to time i'll keep them very short the economic development authority met on 5 10. primary topic was the lot improvement at 2579 7th street the um eda was very impressed with the way that it looks but uh a little less robust as to the enthusiasm that they had with the price tag that came in on it uh so the eda asked that the space be taking a look at and see if they can come up with a better space cost balance initiative to to move forward with developing that land next eda meeting will be june 14th to three o'clock here in city hall uh following that there was an eda planning commission meeting that was that took place at five o'clock um three primary topics um sign ordinance as we talked to earlier tonight uh basically to simplify and streamline the ordinance a little conversation around the lilly building and again the conversation around 2579 7th street and again the primary reason for the eda and planning commission isn't is is more of a the ability to keep both commission the commission and the authority um apprises to what's going on and not having um a lot of overlay here or in keeping conversation topics alive um and we were all unattended so i'm sure you'll each have your own piece to take away from that next meeting july 21st and lastly the park and rec meeting uh this month scheduled the 25th at 6 30 here at city hall and after that we're moving outside perfect and it's been beautiful out **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** councilmember wang **[Timestamp] Council Member Wong:** yeah um so the planning commission had just met um as you've seen the sign ordinance so i won't repeat that again but um a lot of hard work did go into that so i do want to thank our city planner and lisa ritchie and the planning commission for doing a lot of work and long nights to to streamline that um as for the planning commission we're fully staff fully commissioned now so thank you for that approval um i believe the redevelopment master plan will be going to the planning commission here soon for review um as for the arts and culture commission we did have a resignation due to personal matters and family matters but we were able to fill both spots actually we had a lot of great candidates and thank you for approving those commissioners as well in terms of projects we have the downtown banner draft that's been proposed as well as to council member thorson's concern regarding logos were in compliance or within the guidelines of that and then let's see our next meeting is the first of first wednesday and first thursday first thursday for planning first wednesday for the arts and culture commission and we had some special guests in our last meeting too from the rotary club and they had discussed a potential rotary clock as a potential project in the future all right that's it thanks **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** councilman peterson **[Timestamp] Council Member Peterson:** last week at the business association luncheon we had roger fink he's the owner our of anchor view apartments and he was very complimentary of our city and our staff how it works very seamlessly because he's developed polar ridge so he's familiar with north st paul so that was good to hear in the 19th avenue student built house is really coming together again the siding is almost on the roof shingles are on inside the cabinets and countertops are being installed and it's really shaping up i took a little tour of it so it's pretty impressive that's all i have **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** have you set a price yet **[Timestamp] Council Member Peterson:** no but it looks like july it'll be **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** councilmember thurston **[Timestamp] Council Member Thorson:** i have nothing uh general business council member cole i have nothing council member wang nothing to add thank you council member i want to thank the high school for their day of service i saw many students out there with trash bags and they covered the whole city and kudos to them so that helps our public works and they get something out of it so thanks again for that and the mac home here the veterans house there's been a family in there since christmas so i called them up and i said what's up and they're you know they decide on so many families or whatever so there'll be somebody in there but it was kind of wondering i thought i haven't seen any action and our church wanted to do something special during christmas time and i said there's nobody in there so i thought that was kind of odd there's someone in there now i don't know is it now yeah okay i believe so i don't haven't seen any action but okay that's good then you shouldn't be peeking at people's windows i don't do that if i see lights on i know uh because i heard there was a code enforcement somebody from there was parking in front of one of the residents okay it was from the house there that's all i have i know **[Timestamp] Council Member Thorson:** councilmember thorson yeah just very brief since it was brought up landscaping downtown for the project i mean i i don't even remember the part of that getting pulled but i mean it we got to put something together and get something going we can't wait to plant stuff until the end of the year i mean and and i don't see that as something that's breaking the bank unless it's because we're trying to route irrigation or something again and there's these costs that drive things up that delay stuff it just is becoming extremely frustrating for me and others because i know i get asked about that all the time about what's going on downtown with the landscaping so that would be nice to move that up the list and and get something going i don't think it needs to take council action unless it's over a dollar amount but i don't know so maybe we can move that up on the priority list and then you know as you know we're getting overwhelmed here with numbers tonight and uh good presentations but as we were you know hearing from baker tilley and in particular ways to increase our bond rating i couldn't help but think there's a quick and easy solution to that to improve our city finances and that would be to sell the community center i don't know i don't care who we sell it to but if we were to sell that that would improve our finances without a doubt and we could use that money to help finance things like landscaping for downtown or put it towards a road project that's 20 over or you know all sorts of different things so i hope that we can have continued discussion uh on that idea um or at least continue discussion on the plan for that facility because you know we had a workshop on that a month ago and uh we need to keep going with that so that's all i have **[Timestamp] Mayor Furlong:** i got we had the air force rotc the other day did the baton death march uh did a uh just a memorial of all the people that did that or went through that uh but there's about 30 kids that actually did it they walked 14 miles and uh we had a good turnout there of people to cheer them on so it was real nice of them to do that and i hear the program is kind of in jeopardy because they only have so many people so many kids in the program so it's nice to be able to support them and and try to promote that that program over there because i think it's very important for for the school to have that uh program over there other than that i think that's it and uh if there's anything else so reminder that after the city council meeting we have a hra meeting just want to make sure uh so motion to adjourn moved by councilmember peterson second by council member cole any discussion but all those in favor signify by saying aye opposed motion carries and now we'll go into unless you want to take a two minute break we can go into our hre meeting you