This transcript features **Mayor Matt Montgomery** presiding over the Cannon Falls City Council meeting. Based on the context of the dialogue and the official roles provided, here is the formatted transcript with speaker names. Note: While your list identifies Jon Radermacher as City Administrator, the transcript at **[28:40]** explicitly identifies the Administrator as **Neil Jensen**. I have used the name mentioned in the actual meeting dialogue for accuracy. *** **[5:06] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** hmm good evening everyone i'd like to call a february 15th 2022 city council meeting for the city of cannes falls to order could we have roll call please ringgold aye **[5:29] City Clerk Sara Peer:** here lindell here montgomery here although here we rise for the pledge of allegiance **[5:45] Group:** i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all **[6:00] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** okay on the agenda i got i'm gonna have one edition brad anderson we're gonna put him under presentations first thing on their presentations is there anybody else that has any corrections or additions **[6:14] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** hearing none do i have a motion to approve the agenda with the addition of brad anderson **[6:20] Council Member Chris Nobach:** so moved **[6:22] Council Member Steve Gesme:** second **[6:24] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** motion by bring gold second by guessing to approve the agenda with the addition any discussion all in favor aye aye okay public input there's nobody on the list so we will bypass public input and we'll move right to a public hearing item a is resolution 26 14 30 certifying unpaid utility charges to be collected with taxes neil you want to take that **[7:00] Neil Jensen (City Administrator):** sure well quarterly we put together a list of past due water and sewer bills the list will get modified if people come in and pay their bills but this gives them an opportunity to discuss the item discuss their bill in front of the council and you can take their comments otherwise we do this every quarter certified to the county **[7:25] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** okay we'll open the public hearing on resolution 2614 anybody would like to speak about that **[7:49] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** second call third and final call hearing none will close the public hearing on resolution 2614 and we take a motion that certifies unpaid utility bills to be collected with taxes is there a motion **[8:08] Council Member Derek Lindell:** so moved **[8:10] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** second **[8:12] Council Member Matt Montgomery:** second by montgomery to approve resolution 2614 any discussion all in favor opposed carried okay resolution 2619 is approving the sponsor sponsoring the small cities development program final application we've got karen here from semcra you want to come up and talk to us **[8:35] Karen Ducharme (SEMCRA):** good evening um i'm karen ducharme i've been in front of you a couple times now um we surveyed the city of cannon falls last summer and we submitted and prepared uh prepared and submitted uh preliminary proposals to the small cities development program for housing rehab and that was rated as competitive we got that rating in december so tonight we're here to finalize the steps for the full application we did a debriefing call which is just standard protocol that we do with deed as part of the preparation for the full application and they didn't have any adjustments to the application to make except for one and um in the preliminary proposal we had different income tiers so we had extremely low income very low income and just low income so you have to be a low to moderate income to be eligible for the program and they had us get rid of those very low and extremely low income tiers so that got rid of the owner's match components um so now it's just if you're at or below 80 of the county median income which is the threshold to be eligible for the program then you get a hundred percent of your project up to 25 000 as a 10-year deferred loan so they're trying to make it as advantageous for the homeowner as possible so if they there would be an owner's match if somebody had a project that was over 25 000 and given the current market today that we're seeing that happen so we will probably still have owner matches unless something very drastic happens in the market in terms of construction costs but um that's the only change that we made um the total application is for five hundred and ninety one thousand six hundred and seventy five dollars that's the total request the maximum we can request on a housing rehab application is six hundred thousand so i they did tr encourage me to try to make that get to 600 000 and there was just there's no way i can do that without cutting the average construction cost on a project and i didn't want to do that so we can anticipate that this this money will go quickly in the city we're already getting a lot of interest in um building a waiting list without even doing a full mailing yet so um we can't anticipate that in the next few years we would probably want to do another application for cannon falls and then at that time tie in the rental so we did not do any rental as part of this application because we had such strong interest on the housing side on the owner-occupied side so again these monies would be deferred forgivable 10 year after 10 years so if somebody is no longer the owner and the resident of the property so they have to meet both conditions so if they rent it out but they're still the owner they have to pay the money back and that money comes back and would be in a pool for cannon falls for other homes to be rehabbed it could be used as leverage on a future grant that sort of thing um so in terms of next steps we will submit the application mid-march is when it's due and then we would anticipate hearing may june time frame and then we would go through the environmental review process and then there's a set of policies and procedures that have to be adopted by the council as part of that and then that's when we would have you adopt an administrative contract for some sure to administer on behalf of the city so it is the city's grant but we're administering it on the city's behalf are there any questions **[12:27] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** you say it's 5 592. **[12:35] Karen Ducharme:** it's just under 592 000 is the grant request the total anticipated project cost is just around 659 000. **[12:43] Council Member Steve Gesme:** so we're anticipating some owner's matches like i had said are these strictly single family homes or are they twin homes or **[12:51] Karen Ducharme:** it's strictly single-family owner-occupied okay all right we can get into the twin homes that are owner-occupied as part of rental that's how that meets that quality classification any other questions from the council so as part of the packet tonight there's several approvals there's a local government resolution there's a citizen participation plan plans we had to advertise and we did a public hearing notice in the cannon falls beacon there's a conflict of interest disclosure for the mayor to sign we do have to screen for conflict of disclosure or conflict of interest for anyone that might have you know if you have an emt that's getting paid by the city and their owner occupied want to participate in the program we have to screen for that and go through a process for that so basically there's no conflict of interest because they are not the city's not making the decisions on the applicants we're following a set of procedures and doing we're processing applications on a first come first serve basis based on date of when we receive that application so we have we have a pretty set process on that and then there's just a couple signature pages as part of the application that we're asking for approval tonight as well **[14:14] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** very good thank you thank you okay let's open the public hearing in resolution 2619. is there anything anybody that like to approach the council for us approving or sponsoring the small cities development program anybody second call third and final call hearing none is there a motion on resolution twenty six nineteen **[14:48] Council Member Chris Nobach:** so moved **[14:50] Council Member Derek Lindell:** i'll second **[14:52] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** i'll show my bring real second by lundell to approve sponsoring the small cities development program final application resolution 26 19. any other discussion hearing none all in favor aye opposed carried thanks karen **[15:15] Karen Ducharme:** thank you **[15:17] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** okay let's get into presentations we added brad brad you're up **[15:22] Brad Anderson (County Commissioner):** put me ahead of you because they knew yours was way better thank you and thank you karen uh tomorrow morning i will be in a meeting with karen with southeast minnesota housing redevelopment so i sit on that board also and and enjoy working on housing which nobody told me when i went for county commissioner that i had to know all that um thank you for your service being a public servant right now isn't really easy um there's a lot of challenges to it and i appreciate all of you stepping up to do that um just a couple things i'm gonna talk about tonight uh i i wanted to just talk a little bit about redistricting that the county is going to have to do and of course some of you know just today the redistricting for the state came out goody county got moved from cd2 or congressional district two to congressional district one so we're with the rest of southeast minnesota over to about mankato to the iowa line and then diagonally up this way um so that got switched um and then on on a local or the state side um we did end up getting split up just a little bit more we used to have senator gagan haley and drozkowski kind of on the east and across the southern part and then there were a couple townships on the west side and the city of denison which were with a different district than where senator duckworth and senator and representative groffelo represent that side we got another one because they switched this around a little bit we still have some of with draskowski's old district some with hailey's will have the senator over on that side we'll still have the two townships with the senator and represented on this side like we did before but four count or four townships and kenyan got carved out on the southwest corner of the county and they're getting paired with another senator and representative from farther to the um southwest so we got carved up just a little bit from the county side i handed out this some people have it i don't have enough for everybody um but uh i'll leave this one when i'm done we had as you know how redistricting works there's the 10 threshold where everybody has to be within 10 percent and on this first page it kind of shows you that the population in each district as it stands the average of 95 16 and then the deviation from that could be 952 and the range for that 85 65 to 10 06 468. and district 4 which is commissioner majirasis district which is kind of the east florence lake city and then across down through and to zimbroda um is is a little bit too high so we have to take some out of that one um and there's a couple there's three different options that kind of got put in front of us we'll have a public hearing on it coming up in here in march i think it is and then we have to make a final decision um a little later than that but there was kind of three options put forward so uh one of them was to um take featherstone township out of commissioner uh district four and put it with district one which is commissioner flanders who has red wing and welch part of redwing and welch and that would you know work the second one would be to add featherstone to the district i served which is district two and that would do the same thing take so it takes away from majira's ads to to mine or district two then the third one was just a little bit more of a sweep where you give featherstone to district one you add warsaw and denison to district two and take mineola and add it to commissioner grasses district 3. now they all work they all meet the needs that we need to do the difference is in in option one three commissioners have to run two are up district two and district four are up this year uh to be re-elected or to be uh open seats and that would have three districts running then the second one there's just district 2 in district 4 that would run and then the last one there are four commissioners that would have to run because they all change enough so just so you're aware we're working on this there will be a public hearing if you have thoughts on it just let us know that's the only that's the only reason i'm bringing it to you i don't want any it doesn't matter to me how we do it it does matter to some people who don't want to run after they've ran two years and or two terms in a row here so but that's just information uh the the last page i gave you has our five year road plan that was just approved recently and i you know you guys all know we're doing a lot of work in in cannon falls this coming year it's going to be it's going to be a little bit interesting as we work and mndot works and highway 52 is getting work done and and we cover all those bases but you know from the county's perspective once we go into a city like this and we got work to do um it's best we get all of it done and get out of here and don't come back for another 10 years so i think that's the approach we've kind of taken we're going to get a lot of a lot of the little roads around town fixed up we're going to get 24 done i'm not exactly sure if the 14 extension with the 52 project if that will happen if that will actually get paved and open in 22 or it might be 23. i'm thinking it's going to be 23 before they get that all done they're going to be really concentrating on the main line 52 because whatever they do on that road they have to have it back open next winter for two lanes going they can't have it head-to-head over winter they won't let them do that so they got a lot of work there i got a feeling they're gonna they got a long ways the 14 road connection is really good uh looks nice um so uh i think we're gonna work on that the other piece of this that i always want to point to is under the brown section where it talks about where the funding comes from the lost is not lost money on the road that we picked up that's the local option sales tax which we put on which is the half cent sales tax and as you can see that that over the course of these is 3.2 million it is truly one-third of our road construction money is is by that and that's not we didn't take anything away that's all new money that's all going into our roads to to bring them up to speed um that's more than we thought it was going to be when we first put it in place the projections were more like 2.2 2.3 million it's been running 3.2 and i can tell you in 2021 that was really 3.9 million is what it amounted to so that's a lot of a lot of commerce happening in goodyu county and a half a cent sales tax generates that kind of dollars so it is really beefed up our road projects we're going to get goody county's roads in a lot better shape and then we'll see where we go from there costs have gone up i can tell you that when we bid the paving projects this year the the increase in bituminous was three to five dollars a ton higher so it will it will affect how far those dollars go but without that you would take a third of these projects off of these pages and roads would just continually to deteriorate so we're glad that's working and it seems to be funding that um probably one thing i got more razz about lately was the public notices when we went out for bids to the papers and i and i support newspapers don't get me wrong um but i will tell you that the the association of minnesota counties for years has been pushing to let us do electronic public notices because we put them all on our website anyway they're there you can get them you can sign up on our web page for notify me and it will send every public notice we put out directly to you on your phone to an email to a text whatever you want it we can get it to you immediately and it costs nothing to do it and i understand the newspaper side of it um it was a significant savings of the bidding this year so we went with the zumbrota news for that public notice but it is available you can go right on our website sign up notify me you can get every meeting we have you get all the agendas you want it's all right there so i encourage people if they really want to know what's going on just sign up and get it and you'll have it and like me yeah delete a lot of them because i already know it and they're coming too fast the only other thing i want to touch on is um there's been a lot of interest as you can imagine around um elections and election judges and and those kinds of things so i think civic and public participation in government is really good so i encourage you to pay attention to what's going on with elections and and as you select election judges and then just pay attention there that's really all i had unless you guys got something you want to talk about and i thoroughly enjoy serving with some of your people on the cannon valley trail board we we have a good time there and we're getting a lot done we're getting a lot done on that project and and it continues to move forward and um we're glad to do to be involved in that so thanks **[27:06] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** thanks brad okay i'll turn it over to laura and diane the eda annual report **[27:25] Laura Qualey (Community & Business Development Specialist):** if i can get this fired up it recognizes my face that's a good sign here we go okay good evening um diane and i are gonna tag team this tonight uh last year i did do the eda and the planning and zoning is this this is on oh um so okay uh so this year i'm gonna do the eda annual report just kind of recap what happened last year and then diane is going to step in and she's going to cover the planning and zoning part of the what happened with the licensing and permitting last year so with that our commissioners last year for the eda board was luke horman was our president amy dombach vice president john dahl treasurer matt montgomery was our city council liaison and john eltoff was as mayor and they are all voting members non-voting staff was neil jensen our city administrator diane howard our zoning administrator and myself as the eda coordinator specialist and i do the minutes i'm the secretary i'm not going to do the background i'll just save some time so as far as the grants go so i did put these into some categories this year as far as what was awarded what are some that are pending and then what was denied as far as grants so uh so as far as what was awarded um so i'm gonna i partnered with kyle this year so kyle you get a um i mean i'm not gonna take all the credit it was a partnership that we had um but there were some marketing dollars out there from explore minnesota last year and because we aren't a tourist bureau the eda in the city we can't apply for that so working with kyle kind of helped her with the narrative and kind of outlining how we would allocate those funds if the city were to get those if the chamber were to get those funds but there was twelve hundred fifty dollars for phase two of a crisis tourism grant for advertising and that was to recover from the pandemic they were awarded was it a thousand dollars what did you get for the phase one of that kyle do you remember in 2020 it was a thousand okay so um they were awarded a thousand dollars in 2020 so in phase then they did do another a second round then there was a ten thousand dollar recovery grant awarded um that she is currently working on allocating those funds for 20 that can be used for 2022 and then there's a 7 500 marketing tourism grant that was awarded in 21 again for use in 2022. so those will all help to use it whether it's in digital marketing print advertising or in radio to help again drive some attention to the canal falls area the minnesota department natural resources we did receive 126 000 for the regional trails connection grant and that was awarded in 2021 and we're hoping that that construction will still take place yet this year in 2022 and that will connect the gravel the only gravel part of the trail that starts at the top of hannah's bend where the mill towns trail ends and it will connect that gravel patch of through hanna's bend park to the city trails connection so that will have a nice seamless paved trans uh trail from lake billsby out all the way through cannon falls to red wing on the canada valley trail the goodhue county housing trust this was on behalf of the canton falls housing initiative we did receive fifteen thousand dollars to help put the land of the most recent school house project into the land trust which helped reduce the price of that home for a qualifying family to make that house much more affordable grants that are currently pending is the go-to county broadband partnership program and that is to help that that ask is for forty two thousand five hundred dollars to expand and reinforce the communication ring on the water tower to uh for the additional broadband communication equipment which will increase the un under unserved and underserved population in the area and then the other one that is pending is the john birch park retaining wall bonding bill we made a presentation to the bonding committee when the that was for the house for 469 thousand dollars to rehabilitate the limestone retaining wall and also construct a new first base dugout and also the concrete seating at john birch park so we did make the governor's recommendation list but we will not know until about may if we actually made the cut on that or not so that would be part of a phased project but that would really be a big win for us if we were to be able to get that done so that project wouldn't happen in 22 but at least we would know that we have those funds secured and then as far as a grant that was denied was from smith and that was for a small towns grant i'd asked for 43 hundred dollars to create a video series showcasing our cannon roots local food producers in the area i was wanting to show the journey kind of like the life cycle if you will if you want if we wanted to use ferndale market as an example uh the turkey being processed at lawrence meats and then also being used at raw bistro or by sustain whatever so but i was denied but you know what i'll take i'll take the wins that we were awarded and lose the four thousand dollars that i wasn't awarded on that so um so we'll see what 2022 brings for grant writing as far as business activity market properties doing business as paradise products they did purchase the robinson out the former robinson outdoors building and they do have an option on the two parcels of property that the city owns directly north of that and what paradise products does is that they actually produce a ready-made sauce called sauces in a hurry so we're hoping once they get up and going that they will become part of our local foods initiative as well and then they like i said they have an option to purchase those two properties and hope to expand and build in the next couple years keller bartmann properties did sign a purchase agreement to redevelop the kind of the former cannibal truck stop to for a 79 unit market rate apartment building and that project is continuing to to move forward rogue equities they signed up an option to purchase the 4.3 acres from the eda in the industrial park and that space is between sweet harvest and the lawrence meats building and they are working on getting a lease agreement signed with the hope to build a 50 000 square foot warehouse or distribution center their option does expire next month so as we're hoping that they'll be able to produce that signed lease agreement otherwise their option will expire and it'll go back on the market and then magnolia animal clinic opened in mid-november and they're on the south end of town they're leasing right now they have a four-year lease i believe in their space and the eda did finance their new x-ray machine for thirty seven thousand six hundred dollars as far as business subsidies uh with our eda revolving loan fund we ended the year with 164 thousand dollars one 164 182 and we have 388 thousand 169 dollars in outstanding loans um we've got all the loan recipients are all listed for you right there um we have um let's see and i think that we had at the end of the year we had um one aqualand had paid theirs off and since then we have indian time fitness they have paid theirs off as well so we have one two three four we have five outstanding right now as far as our eda properties this one technically is city owned these are the two that are directly north of the robins the former robinson outdoor space these are the ones that we do have signed option agreements on this would be in the industrial park the one right to the south i don't know if i can if i can circle right here this is where the new cannon bells cheese factory is so this would be directly across the land across the way and then this would be the steiner building just to give you some reference this would be northeast of that property this is this is sweet harvest right here and then this would be lawrence meat so that's the space right in between that's the 4.3 acres this would be the formerly chevrolet lot and then this was the former cannonball lot old picture still has the buildings on it as far as the goody county business and nonprofit relief grant program obviously 2020 was full of covet relief grant programs at the end of 2020 yes 2020 i'm trying to get my years straight here at the end of 2020 the state did allocate some more funds out to different counties and the money that goodhue county had that they'd reallocated to small business relief was 894 337 dollars and of those funds uh cannon falls it did receive or 25 businesses in kenneth falls did receive 242 500 and that was actually 27 of those total funds that were allocated so that was a nice little chunk of that of those funds that were distributed and it was again it was nice to be able to be part of that program to be able to distribute that to our local businesses and nonprofits as far as marketing efforts again you know that's one of my favorite pieces is being able to really showcase cannon falls and to shine the light on you know what makes cannon falls a beautiful place to visit and a beautiful place to live so being able to showcase you know these are some of my favorite photos that we have of cannon falls whether it's lake billsby dam the canada valley trail or john birch park but being able to show you know use these in ads i think is really a wonderful wonderful way to really showcase cannon falls so just a few little highlights that we had senator tina smith her assistant bri mackey had actually reached out and wanted to know of a couple different local businesses that had received ppp loans and how they use those funds to kind of help them survive the pandemic and how to help they use them to help pivot during the pandemic so i connected them with tillian so she stepped in to visit with ryan and chris at tillian and they also stopped in and had lunch at nick steiner that day so i didn't get a picture of that but anyway so they did send me this picture the trail did have a nice blog post about cannon falls in the canaan valley trail and that was on their digital platform and that showed kind of the journey of them stop starting at the trailhead here in cannon falls stopping at tillian doing the trail journey on the canada valley trail and then stopping in red wing and stopping at some of the businesses there too and then the feast there are two page advertorial is always i think a really impressive layout showing all the different businesses the local food and beverage of producers that we have in kenneth falls and then also pairing them with the cannon valley trail the lake and the river some other things like i said um we've got the the canon roots um all hopefully this will load um the canon falls canon roots web page again featuring our local food and beverage producers that we have this was created with the broadband the blandin broadband grant that we had so this was created back in 2020 and again this really is very low maintenance as long as the businesses maintain their own pages their their web pages and their facebook pages it really is a great place to drive people to and then they can hop on it themselves and check out um those different businesses and then we've also built in the cannerville trail information cannon river information which would link to if you wanted to go kayaking or canoeing and then also lake billsby information that takes you to like the campground and then it also goes to our sherpa page which i know that i've talked about in the past where you can go to create your own little adventure but this is where people have created adventures within canon falls whether it's touring the murals doing a little chilly crawl or cross-country skiing on the trail doing a tour through downtown cannon falls supporting local foods and restaurants having fun on the river or on the lake going to the winery hitting the bakery whatever it might be going out and doing picking grapes out at the vineyard or hitting the links locally so it's just kind of a really fun way that we can showcase some of those things that are happening in canada falls whether you want to spend the day you know half a day or whatever we've also got a facebook page for canon roots an instagram page and the sherpa that i just shown you as well like i mentioned before with kyle at the chamber we were able to use some of the dollars last year to partner with some co-op advertising through explore minnesota where we get discounted rates in certain publications so we did use some of those dollars for explore minnesota the spring travel issue minnesota trails spring edition and also minneapolis-st paul magazine so we're trying to reach outside of our zip code and try to really get in front of people that are looking for again you know you don't have to pack a lunch to get here and trying to spread that message that cannon falls isn't that far to go for a little day trip and again trying to use this imagery to really kind of get people's attention um again i just think this is a really impressive slide showing all you know our little town of you know 4 200 people and the different producers that we have here i think is another thing that i like to kind of shout from the rooftops so as far as our community television channel just a few different things obviously the community falls or the canon falls community tv streams our council planning t planning meetings local events and sports activities i currently there's 1540 subscribers on youtube which i thought was really kind of a high number i thought that was good and then it helps to keep residents informed of upcoming meetings events and public project information and the previous recordings of obviously meetings like this can be viewed on youtube or facebook and then it also has its own facebook platform as well and there's 615 facebook followers the city website's always a work in progress if we get any recommendations or requests or whatnot you know we try to make sure that we make it as user friendly as possible we want to make sure that it's that the experience is as good for everyone as possible so one thing that we did take note of this year was a recommendation to put the city coding ordinances on the front page and make it a quick link and i think that i mean even for my standpoint i think that it's really nice to have that right on the front page instead of trying to navigate and find it elsewhere so as far as social media for the city we have 1460 followers which is up 185 from the year before the audi the age and gender doesn't really change it's usually a 25 75 split heavily weighted in women over men using it and this is just the breakdown of how our users break down over the local towns around us as far as our economic development goals for 21 we talked about annexation for development and we were able to actually annex 12 acres into the city and that was the hayes property off of county 17. and as far as housing developments we had jablonski's towering bluffs we had the haze development and county land over by mayo clinic as potential areas for housing and multi-family housing was also one of our options i have a kind of tinted because we don't physically have it here yet but it's like i said with the apartment complex kind of in the process of coming to fruition um it's it's like i said it's in the works so it's not crossed off but it's in the works pursuing a data center or cold storage uh that again would be a really big win if we were to be able to get something like that so that was on our list for last year and then the mccannonball lot redevelopment that again was one of our goals for 2021 that we had set and again it's shaded so it's not crossed off yet but it's in process so the other thing that we had and now i'm taking up a lot of time but we did also from the blandin grant that we had a few years ago um we had allocated about 4 500 to create a new promotional video for cannon falls and that um so basically i use the tool um that girl cannon falls had done a few years ago to really kind of help showcase you know not just the area but also what the area can bring as far as recreation areas for development and that's what this video also will show too so if i haven't sent it out to you i'll certainly send you a link to that we will excuse me we will be you know embedding it on our website or um i know that kyle had put it on her chamber website when we used the girl cannon false one before so we will make sure that it is accessible but i don't have it live anywhere at the moment we just got it a couple weeks ago so for 2022 our economic development goals housing of course is our number one priority so looking to acquire purchase property for development we did create a housing committee and that way we can meet as regularly and as often as we would like to and so that way we can really kind of keep that ball mo ball moving and keep that conversation going and taking steps to correct sandstone ridge there is a sandstone committee that again we can kind of keep that that conversation going as well annexation obviously we want to help to increase the tax base of the city and to also create housing and business development opportunities in the in the city as well goal three is business retention my goal is to be able to go out and meet with businesses not just necessarily our current revolving loan fund recipients but also meeting with other businesses that you know maybe they're candidates for expansion you know checking in with them to see what their business growth needs are maybe they don't think that they're on that that verge of expanding but having those conversations with them and trying to figure out what what are their needs and how can we help and also just to build those relationships the last couple years obviously it's almost my two year anniversary here but you know it's been fortunately i'm from here so i know a lot of the business owners um but it's been kind of hard to go out and to build some of those relationships otherwise so hopefully it'll be able to get actually out and into those businesses and then uh goal four is we did have that tif district established out in the industrial park last year and that project fell through so we would really like to prioritize selling that lot this year we do have three years to certify that district it's not certified but we really would like to make that a priority to focus on promoting that that piece of property so with that i'm going to turn over to diane and she's going to talk to you about planning and zoning so thank you for your time thanks laura **[49:07] Diane Howard (Zoning Administrator):** thank you thank you good evening um [Music] our planning commission last year the chairman was mike daniels bruce hemma glenn lundell john christensen derek lindell bill duncan matt montgomery and this year we do have steve gesme as our new chair we will still have bruce hema john christensen we will have matt montgomery joining us thank you and diane johnson in the back there i just want to take this time to thank you all for your partnership we really truly appreciate you this last year we had three variances issued in 2021 the first one was the variance for sein height allowance for carson and sun trucking the second one was a variance for fence height allowance with e juno and erica niagam so i'm probably going to kill that one the third one is the variance to allow minimum lot footage adjustments for the goodhue county habitat for humanity and that was a house on sinclair street there were two conditional use permits granted in 2021 the first one was a conditional use permit to allow a mural at 1014 street north that's the wall right on the chamber office the second one was to allow a conditional use permit for a veterinarian clinic that would be the magnolia veterinarian clinic and that was at david olson's at artisan plaza there are four there were four administrative subdivisions the first one was a lot split at 915 north sixth street for babel garment the second one was an administrative subdivision lot combination at 1717 and 1713 north highway 20. this was for nate's garage the third one was for a lot split at 1206th street north this was also for goodhue county habitat for humanity and this was also for the house at saint clair street the fourth one was an administrative subdivision lot split for 300 carlson road jose and zach hayes this came after the annexation on that property we had one concept planned for a pd granted in 2021 this was for our 79 unit apartment building at 415 hickory drive um that one is an r4pud just to make that clear for keller bartman there was one annexation granted in 2021 and that again was for 300 carlson road for josie and zach hayes we did have one preliminary platinum zone approved in 2021 for greg jablonski for towing bluffs like laura had mentioned we did have three zoning amendments to the zoning code in 2021 one was ordinance 375 relating to sign height and parking and loading services the second one was for an ordinance 378 relating to sexually oriented uses and the third one was an ordinance 381 relating to conditional uses in the b2 highway business district and for that one we brought in trucking and auto sales into the b2 we have a lot of uses that need to be permitted in our city you'll see a big list of those there we had five sign permits last year 17 fence permits 22 residential excavation permits 31 commercial utility there would also be excavation permits we had 10 solicitor permits those were up quite high um we had nine chicken permits and two firework permits we also have to um quite a few licensing uses that we have we had nine on sale licenses four off sale licenses one brewer taproom license eight refuse roll-off licenses seven massage licenses eight tobacco licenses 14 excavator licenses and one mobile food truck license and we also did five new addresses in the city that brings us to our building permits we had 12 single-family homes this year which was actually pretty impressive considering that we don't have a lot of lots left in the city um our commercial permits were down just a little bit but i do foresee those going much higher obviously next year with keller bartman coming in the three um commercial permits that we did have were the cannon bells the grand o2 and the magnolia vet clinic otherwise we had quite a few miscellaneous building permits for a total of 201 permits was the number was actually really good the valuation maybe wasn't as high as some years but let's go to that building comparison chart um i broke down six years for you here 2016 as you can see that was a really slow year i'm not really sure what happened there 2017 we definitely rebounded nicely we had a lot of new commercial that went in that year and that didn't even include the hospital i believe that was built in 2017 as well because that was um inspected by the state in 2018 we fell a little bit 2019 we fell a little bit um rebounded a little bit again in 2021 this year we fell just a little bit but like i said i think with keller barton next year that number's going to go back up again does anybody have any questions thank you very much thank you thanks diane **[55:27] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** story about that so it's it's good to uh get as much in the twin cities as we can you know uh this literature about cannon falls reminds me of that twin cities lie when jimmy from our artisan plaza was on there one time a couple years ago and he was trying to get people to canton falls you know come and see what's what what got to offer and jimmy was saying you know people in the twin cities they don't know where cam balls is i mean jimmy says hello people in the twin cities think it's three miles north of arkansas well i got friends in the twin cities you know and that's about what they think you know it's a 30 minute drive we gotta advertise it to get them down here so okay thank you okay let's get into the consent agenda consent agenda items may be adopted under one motion as presented or may be removed for discussion resolution as consul business bear with me it's a long consent agenda item a is just and collect correct claims for the accounting period ending december 31st 2021 item b just incorrect claims for the accounting period ending february 10th 2022 imc minute meetings for the january 18th 2022 special city council meeting item d minute meetings for the january 18th 2022 city council meeting item e approved a bluff drive and river road engineering contracts item f resolution 2615 accepting a donation from invenergy cannon falls llc for fifteen hundred dollars to the ambulance department item g resolution twenty six sixteen accepting a donation from a new energy cannon falls llc for fifteen hundred dollars to the police department item h resolution 2617 accepting a donation from energy can falls llc for fifteen hundred dollars to the fire department item i approve a zoning administrator item j resolution 26 18 terminating the default development agreement with georges on the rocks llc and decertifiesing with tax imprint financing financing district number 2-7 item k approve an unscheduled part-time employees policy item l approve the hiring of a full-time paramedic item m approve a wastewater treatment plant raw wastewater pit pump an item man approve a sewer mainline televising is there anything the council would like to pull down **[58:34] Council Member Steve Gesme:** i'd like to pull down m **[58:37] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** okay i don't know pit pump we'll put that on our console business under as item b anything else **[58:45] Council Member Derek Lindell:** it doesn't need to be pulled down but i have a question for neil about jay without pulling it down that's the uh tiff district out there does that in any way affect magnolia vet clinic **[59:02] Neil Jensen:** okay okay anything else let me take a motion approve the consent agenda minus item m **[59:20] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** motion by gives me a second by bringgold to approve the consent agenda minus item m which is the pit pump at the waste treatment plant any discussion all in favor opposed carried okay we'll get into council business item a the solid waste contract schedule work session neil **[1:00:07] Neil Jensen:** at the end of the year we're going to have a our recycling contract come to expiration so a couple of council members have asked me to bring forth a work session on solid waste and recycling contract i know there's some some thoughts on on doing a single license single hauler in town um and i just kind of wanted to know some of your opinions um so maybe if we do schedule this work session that i can gather up some information before we if we do a work session so i i just like to have the conversation on on your thoughts on this right now it's it's open as you've seen in diane's presentation there was eight i believe licensed haulers in town if we went with a single license hauler it used to be that the playing field was not quite fair because of of where large solid waste haulers would haul their their solid waste some of them would head to iowa some would go elsewhere but with goodyear county now proposing a uh in-house where they have to haul it to red wing the tipping fees will will be the same for if we do a contract for everybody and i don't know where we're at with that as far as i know i think there's some some legal lawsuit that might be still going on but eventually that will get approved it's been going on for quite a few years but eventually it'll be there and and it will uh it will level the playing field for large and small haulers so just all i want is uh maybe a a thought or two so if i could get some information gathered up for uh if we do this work session **[1:02:07] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** i think we should talk about it i've been uh like you say you got eight haulers in this town now and they're on the streets you know five days a week a lot of times and they're red they're ruining our roads that's true we went with one hauler and got a fair rate i don't know why we wouldn't do that yeah a lot less confusion yeah certainly doesn't hurt to at least talk about it exactly yeah **[1:02:24] Council Member Steve Gesme:** i agree a single hauler would be nice for residential more commercials a little different animal but yeah as long as this recycling contract's done at the end of the year let's get going on it and see if we can i agree come up with a way to do it yeah yep lots of trucks i think we should schedule something and move forward with discussion anyway **[1:02:49] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** i think everybody's in agreement with that so let's do it and you've got it listed here neil for uh a work session on this at 5 30 on march 1st for our council meeting i need a motion to approve that **[1:03:07] Council Member Bill Duncan:** okay i'll make a motion to approve the work session on march 1st at 5 30. **[1:03:12] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** second motion by duncan a second by montgomery to have a special work session on the solid waste contract 5 30 on march 1st any discussion all in favor opposed carry okay okay item b is steve you pull it down approve a wastewater treatment plant raw wastewater pit pump uh dan **[1:03:49] Dan (Wastewater/Public Works Staff):** um the one we replaced roughly december december right there um isn't the cost of this one a lot higher than the last one **[1:03:57] Council Member Steve Gesme:** it went up six hundred dollars oh i i thought it was almost double **[1:04:14] Dan (Wastewater/Public Works Staff):** it was eleven seven something like that in in twenty twenty one well that's just what's happening with inflation i'm sorry nineteen thousand seven hundred oh okay i thought that went up six hundred dollars yeah i thought it was just a little over ten thousand no no not quite that much okay with that all a proof i'll make a motion to approve **[1:04:30] Council Member Steve Gesme:** is there a second **[1:04:32] Council Member Bill Duncan:** a second **[1:04:34] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** motion by gives me a second by bill duncan to uh approve the uh wastewater pip pump any other discussion all in favor aye opposed carried okay let's get into reports uh kyle chamber **[1:04:54] Kyle Paulson (Chamber of Commerce):** good evening the first thing i would like to talk about tonight is the 2022 calendar of events and this is a community calendar so it's not just chamber events so we are planning on having our easter hunt and our fun fests will be in june and in august and then we'll have open airfares in july and september of course those are depending on construction and what is happening and so be watching for those we do have our golf tournament set for june 16th and that will be at gopher hills golf course and trick-or-treat trot of course october 31st and then deck the falls and light up cannon falls in november and december and so i do have information that we will be having our spring and fall garage sales excuse me of course the canon valley fair the wine in art festival is coming back this year and that is that third weekend in july and that's everything i will be getting this up onto the chamber website shortly and so we just needed to get everyone's input and definite dates um the cannon cruiser's car cruise is july 29th so that's the last friday of july any questions about the events calendar for the year it'll be a busy one this morning we had our chamber breakfast right here in the city council chambers and had a very nice presentation from jeff sampson about the school district and how it's moving forward and at that meeting we also had the members who were there um vote on our discover guide 2022 cover and so i wish i could get that nope this way there we go okay and so um small to see but it is john birch park and that was voted in you most popular and we'll be moving forward this year we did our ad prices went down from 2021 we received the two grants from explore minnesota and some of those funds are going towards the publication and printing of the discover guide we're also adding on non-member ads and so anyone who is not a chamber member can now place ads in the chamber directory in the discover guide other questions that's what i have tonight **[1:08:18] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** okay thank you kyle uh joint powers trail board mary jill had to leave she just wanna i just want to mention a few things how the uh they just got the results of uh the trail use uh comparisons like in 2019 uh net sales a hundred and twelve thousand two thousand twenty hundred and fifty thousand well last year was a hundred and seventy two 000 so people are using the trail and uh gets bigger every year so that's good um eda laura you got anything i think you've heard enough for me tonight okay park board matt **[1:09:05] Council Member Matt Montgomery:** going along with the trail it was proposed that there be a electronic pay station at the trailhead by the gazebo in the city parking lot that is electronic and does not need cash so so we talked about that and then some park signs maybe the ability to get some of our park signs refurbished and maybe do that in a rolling basis year by year to have a more uniform and up-to-date look **[1:09:47] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** very good uh cable commission spent on february 7th and uh the only item up for discussion was uh to find another part-time um techie guy to help with their our channel uh 12 we're down to pretty much one person now so we advertise that on certain sites thanks to laura and uh i don't know if we've got any feed nothing feedback so in the meantime we'll have uh neil filling in other than that that's all we talked about okay library board laura anything **[1:10:45] Council Member Laura Kronenberger:** i wasn't able to join yesterday **[1:10:56] Nicohl (Library Staff):** yep so um just wanted to let you know things that are going on in the library we um we're going to be closed monday because it's presidents day so please don't come to the library because we're closed that day but we're open all of the regular hours we have on wednesdays this month and next month we have mooc groups so i don't know if you've heard of massive online open courses and so we're just letting if anybody's interested you can assemble at the library and just kind of participate in this course to learn with a group so matthew's doing that this particular one is modern art and ideas from 11 to 12 every wednesday morning for a while and he's also doing a thursday one astrobiology and the search for extra extraterrestrial life from four to five and on fridays we have library in motion we're doing side into fitness which is using paper plates and chairs to get a good workout just to prove that we don't need a lot of equipment to be able to to get a really good workout and to make our body stronger we have that's at noon on wednesdays through this month and next month we also have teen anime club every friday at 3 30 so you can come go to the corner of the library that is the teen area and watch anime this saturday from one to two we have chad lewis doing history of our bizarre history of minnesota i don't remember if he's actually coming in person or if he's doing this as a zoom but he is a really good entertainer and he's he's been on a number of tv shows and i we've had him for for past library programs so if you want to hear any bizarre history of minnesota please come to this program we also have dungeons and dragons by the fireplace on next saturday the 26th from 10 to 2 and by the way our fireplace is finished it has been completely refinished please stop by and come see it um we're gonna have some kind of a grand ribbon cutting of the new fireplace at some point next month i think but yeah we had dan funk who is a local artist doing the tile near strand custom cabinets did the wood work and um can't remember the name of the company that we that is in town that we got our hearthstone from and it was all paid for with a bequest from bob muellner so we we thank them all in our family for paying for this this finishing and it's beautiful so please come stop come and see it and that was just a complete aside um we also next um on the 28th are we have book club with the lovely war and we have make it monday floral note cards and of course we have story times all the time mondays at 10 30 and thursdays at 10 30. there's a winnie the pooh book club on fridays that is on youtube and this thursday is harry potter book night so we have a lot going on at the library right now so please stop by we we would love to see you also the um the government has been sending or had sent out the kn 90 masks and goodhue county asked us if we wanted to distribute them so we still have some left they sent out 200 to cannon falls and we have about 50 left we can give out up to five per household and the kn90 masks can be reused five seven times just air them out after every use and that's everything i've got if anybody has any questions i'm happy to answer anything **[1:14:48] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** thanks nicole you're welcome okay let's go around the horn dan **[1:15:00] Dan (Streets/Parks/Wastewater Staff):** just a couple things uh the ice rinks are in good shape we're starting to get closer to spring here so get your skating in if you can and uh we're still in the waiting pattern for the pickup and the sluice gates at the wastewater treatment plant just kind of holding on for those uh the snowflakes have come out or taken been taken down downtown so spring's right around the corner **[1:15:30] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** okay diane anything laura tim **[1:15:35] Tim (Ambulance Chief/Staff):** i could say something since you haven't seen me for a while uh my pickup that you guys approved way back this summer is hopefully coming at the end of the week so we'll start getting that outfitted throughout the month of march uh stuff we've still ordered for like the lights and all that is still back quarter like everything else in the world um we're kind of working through because this is supposed to be a year that we look at are you doing in an ambulance but uh with the chassis shortages and everything else i'm trying to come up with options and then neil and i will meet and discuss what we should do but i'm not too hopeful on getting a ambulance built anytime soon with the chassis problems that they're having especially when it comes to the van chassis at the state level uh i reapplied to see if i get appointed for the msrb board to represent uh the smaller people of minnesota and we've been working through a bunch of stuff uh the state hired a new executive director to lead the emsrb which is not big in the little local world but they do give us our regulations and everything else so we have nice to have somebody that has experience working with uh many other states uh this person is very seasoned so it's kind of exciting because hopefully this will help progress that board forward and just create a better vision for the emsrb so lastly the men and women of the ambulance service they put in a lot of hours we had had several resign recently so we'll hopefully be going out also to look for some more volunteers and hopefully we can get that full-time position filled that you guys approved tonight so thank you **[1:17:15] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** can uh it's okay if uh dan puts a plow bracket on your pickup until he gets his we can talk numbers okay jeff you gotta hang back there **[1:17:35] Jeff McCormick (Police Chief):** joe go ahead on behalf of the police department the ambulance department and the fire department we want to thank invenergy for their donation very generous we really appreciate that times are tough and tight for some of our departments uh similar to tim we also have a police car that we're trying to get outfitted but there's some stuff that's just back ordered so we look forward to getting that done but we just sit and wait until it happens so that's all i got **[1:17:55] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** very good neil **[1:18:00] Neil Jensen:** just got one item a couple years ago you did some solar subscriptions with a couple of three four probably solar farms um i just want to report uh that the savings if you understand how that works we we subscribed into these solar farms and we get a deduction from our excel bill and in 2021 um the savings was a little over 24 000 so yes you made the right decision and with uh and with i think xl energy up to the puc right now looking for uh a major uh uh rate increase i think we're we're still gonna do okay so that's all **[1:18:50] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** very good let's go here derek anything steve **[1:18:55] Council Member Steve Gesme:** uh one thing anybody that's uh wondering what's going on over at the park and ride that's the uh they're fitting it for the new electricity to plug in our cars so that's that's the what's going on over there that's all i got okay **[1:19:15] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** laura **[1:19:28] Council Member Laura Kronenberger:** yeah i just want to say thank you to everybody who showed up and voted for the referendum regardless of what the outcome was our public involvement uh speaks volumes about our community a lot of people showed up that day and thank you to everybody who helped with the election process um and yeah i i think it's great that we're showing the commitment to our school for the next decade for technology uh we're staying committed to that plan and i'm really i'm satisfied with how we all showed up and the result **[1:20:10] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** very good bill **[1:20:14] Council Member Bill Duncan:** uh yes as uh some of you know we did not have our first meeting of the month because it was caucus night um last week in the beacon mr o'gorman had a letter to the editor criticizing neil for calling off the meeting saying that that's something that the council should have done but that is not true i'm going to read to you a state statute that deals with caucuses and the it's a sub it says limits on local government meetings it says no special taxing district governing body school board county board of commissioners township board or city council may conduct a meeting after 6 pm on the day of a major political party precinct caucus so mr gorman was 100 percent wrong what i would like to see as i see our representative from the beacon is here you have to start fact checking some of these things because it's leading to misinformation or outright lies and that has an effect on everybody in this town when you do that so please do that in the future because the beacon has been very poor in fact checking many items that have appeared in their paper that's it **[1:21:25] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** okay i just wanted to mention and i should have said it while karen was here this small cities development program that's an excellent program i've had half a dozen people come up to me and already asking about it it won't happen i don't think now so may or june but that's an excellent program and thanking the county and that whoever's involved in that because it's a good program just a couple of meetings schedule notes um the only two things that are going to happen before our next council meeting is on the thursday this thursday february 17th we got a finance committee meeting and on february 22nd tuesday a joint powers trail board meeting those are the only two meetings that we got before our next council meeting so i'll bring those up has anybody got anything else if not i'll take a motion to adjourn **[1:22:25] Council Member Bill Duncan:** so moved **[1:22:27] Council Member Matt Montgomery:** second **[1:22:29] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** motion by duncan a second montgomery adjourned all in favor aye opposed carried