This transcript is from a White Bear Lake City Council meeting. Based on the context provided, I have identified the speakers (Mayor, City Manager Lindy Crawford, Chief Hager, Paul Copy, Mark Nolan, Councilmembers Walsh and Edberg, and Jason Juba). [0:28] **(Introductory Audio)** [0:58] **(Introductory Audio)** [1:28] **(Introductory Audio)** [1:58] **(Introductory Audio)** [2:35] **Mayor:** Going to call the meeting to order here. Welcome back, Madam Clerk. Will you please take or note those in attendance, please? All will be noted. Thank you. Will you please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance? 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. All right, jump into item two: approval of the minutes of the regular city council meeting from December 10th. I’d entertain a motion to approve the minutes. Motion. Second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries, minutes are approved. Item three: adoption of the agenda. Are there [3:20] **Mayor:** Any corrections or amendments to the agenda? Seeing none, I’d entertain a motion to adopt the agenda. Motion. Second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? We have an agenda. Item four: consent agenda. I’d entertain a motion to approve and adopt the consent agenda. Motion. Second. Motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries, consent agenda is approved. All right, item five: visitors and presentations. We have a recognition of a longtime employee who’s retiring. So Chief Hager, whenever you’re ready. [4:07] **Chief Hager:** Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. I’m here tonight to recognize Tracy Manar, who was a dedicated police officer with our Police Department here in White Bear Lake from 1996 until just 4 days ago when she worked her last shift on Friday, January 10th. Many of our city staff, both current and past, and others from around the community stopped by on Friday to reminisce with Tracy and show the gratitude they had for her over 28 years of service. I’ve known Tracy and worked with her for 11 years now, and so I know what kind of officer she was. But over the last month since she had announced that she was retiring, it became obvious to me that she’s truly appreciated by many in our community as a patrol officer, criminal investigator, field training officer, DARE officer, Police Association president, Lake Area beat co-host, Honor Guard, Marketfest Public Safety night coordinator, and safety camp counselor, among many other roles she filled here [4:53] **Chief Hager:** Over the last almost three decades, to include helping to create our catalytic converter anti-theft program and presenting to many community groups regarding frauds and scams. She was even named the 2008 police officer of the year by the Minnesota Association of Women Police. All of our experiences bring us here tonight to recognize Tracy for her impressive career—a career which historically can be very rewarding but can also be very challenging. A career as long as Tracy has had doesn't always bring accolades from the public, but it does often bring critiques, stress, and hair-raising experiences, which Tracy has had her share of. For that reason, along with Josh and Jeremy here [5:40] **Chief Hager:** Tonight, the mayor and the council have chosen to honor her tonight for her achievements. So Tracy, if you'd come up and meet City Manager Crawford, where she'll present you with a token of our appreciation for your service to the city of White Bear Lake and to our community of residents over the last 28 years, after which maybe we'll take a few photos. That's a good photo right there. **[Applause]** [6:35] **Mayor:** Okay, all right. Well, I will just echo my sentiment. Tracy, thank you for 28 years of service in White Bear Lake. I’ve gotten to know you a little bit and we’ve run into each other in a few community events here and there. We’re going to miss you, but we wish you the best of luck in whatever comes next. And again, congratulations—you've done the community proud and left a good legacy. So thank you very much again for your service. I appreciate it. **[Applause]** Congratulations, best wishes. [7:50] **Mayor:** All right, move on to item 5B: the downtown mobility and parking study. Mr. Copy. [7:56] **Paul Copy:** Thank you, Mayor, members of the council. So the downtown study is a culmination of a very large brainstorming exercise to ready the city for a much-needed upcoming downtown reconstruct project. It includes a mix of technical data as well as quite a bit of public engagement and input that was completed over the last 18 months to two years. The city hired a consultant, SEH, who will be presenting with me tonight. They led a process both with staff as a project management team as well as a steering committee [8:36] **Paul Copy:** Made up of different members of the community, commissions, Council, downtown business owners, and residents. I will get into more detail on that as we go through the presentation. But really, what it does is it provides concepts and provides a framework for these projects that we foresee coming up in the near future in the downtown. So really, what it does is sets us up for looking at final design. It does not preclude other things happening, but it really provides a great framework for these upcoming projects. So I’m going to turn it over to Mark Nolan with SEH to start off our presentation, and then we’ll go into some next steps as we conclude. [9:23] **Mark Nolan:** Great, thanks Paul. Thank you, Mayor, members of council, for having me in tonight to really kind of celebrate a process—the culmination of a process that’s taken the better part of two years to put together with your community. I’d like to introduce myself: I’m Mark Nolan, senior planner with SEH. I’m also the lead of our Transportation Planning Group. I’d like to recognize HKGI, who was our sub-consultant for this project and did quite a bit of the work that we’re going to be looking at tonight. I’d like to outline—and Paul gave a good introduction—but just kind of think about what this process was all about, what this plan is, and what future steps may be in order to realize perhaps some components of this plan and [10:09] **Mark Nolan:** How this all plays out. As Paul said, the city hired SEH and HKGI, and so this is the city's plan, this is the city's report. The steering committee represents a lot of different viewpoints. The steering committee was selected by the Mayor and City Manager, I believe, as a way to round out the committee's overall viewpoint, representing downtown and representing the community. And like I said, it represented a lot of viewpoints. This committee played an advisory role for this project, advising staff and advising council. And as committees tend to be, this one wasn't always 100% in agreement at times. There may have been a little bit of conflicting [10:55] **Mark Nolan:** Viewpoints, but what was wonderful about the committee is it was very cordial, very representative, and all voices were heard and understood. I really, really did appreciate that; it was wonderful working with the committee and we'll give them a little bit of recognition here in a second. Then also just realize that we vetted, both the project management team and the community and the committee, a lot of data and public input that we've gotten over the past couple of years. But ultimately, what happens with this process is that City Council will decide what, if anything, gets implemented from this plan. So it's really up to the city and up to the council to move things forward from here. And so this mobility and parking study really is just the first step. And so if you could see there on the far left-hand side, [11:41] **Mark Nolan:** We've been working at this study since Spring of '23, and it's wrapping up now. It's the first step that provides concept-level analyses and provides background and basis for future projects. So it really sets the foundation at a very high level of what some of the downtown could potentially look like based on the core values that we heard. So like Paul said, it's not a final design exercise; they are basic potential concepts based on public input and the steering committee's input and staff as well, knowing having knowledge of the city's processes, etc. And so it really is meant to reflect what the community wants for its downtown—how to get people downtown, get people to stay and spend their money downtown. And again, it just helps plan [12:29] **Mark Nolan:** For future projects. And so right now we're at this point where Council... we're in front of Council to see if they accept this plan. Incorporated into that is this presentation, some discussion, and then a resolution. This is, again, just this first step. Looking at the rest of this process, next coming from here will be some further studies. Council will meet with staff and decide and look more closely at the recommendations and concepts here, then consider those potential future recommendations. Before any other engineering or design work is done, there will be further data and input gathered. You know, we will not redesign an intersection without further studying that intersection, for example. Then those projects go to design and then [13:14] **Mark Nolan:** Eventually bid over the next couple of years in a couple of phases. Right now it's anticipated that some parking lot work can happen this construction season, and roadway south of 4th Street in 2026. Paul will outline a few more opportunities for engagement over that process here later on in the presentation. So first, I'd like to step through the report as a way to frame up our conversation. This was in the packet; I'm not sure how much of a chance you've all had to review it in depth, but what we'll do is we'll step through each chapter and discuss the highlights of what those chapters entail. One thing that we really wanted to do again was to acknowledge not just the staff project management team and our sub-consultants, but also [14:00] **Mark Nolan:** The steering committee, and there's a list of them right there. They're also on the website. They met several times and put a lot of their good time and commitment over 21 months, and some of them are here tonight in addition to Councilmember Hughes. I don't know if we want to recognize folks that could stand up—I really appreciate all of your hard work on this project, so thank you. This is obviously a table of contents, so we're going to step through all of this. There's also an executive summary available for those of you who don't have a lot of time. And so right now we'll step into the introduction. This introduction has a section that outlines the goals and vision of the project—we're going to talk about that in just a second—and then also outlines the study process, what we've all been going through over the last couple of years. [14:46] **Mark Nolan:** And just note, especially for Councilmembers, there's a small green box in the lower right-hand corner that does have the page of the report that the information corresponds with if you want to reference back to that now or later. And so looking at the overall study goals for the project as outlined here, I mean, really thinking about what is success in downtown from a mobility and parking standpoint? What the study really looks to do is look at some safety improvements and recommendations; look more closely at multimodal transportation planning—so not just considering the motor vehicle, but also folks that might be walking, rolling, or biking. Looking at complete streets and public realm enhancements—that is enhancing the space between the buildings, what you [15:32] **Mark Nolan:** Know in the streets and sidewalks and your public spaces in order to enhance those; maximizing parking availability—we recognize that some public realm enhancements may have an impact on parking, so we want to make sure we maximize parking availability. To do that, looking at some district-wide parking management strategies that we'll take a closer look at later on. And then leveraging city investments and redevelopment opportunities. Again, this document is meant to help future decision-makers when opportunities such as funding or redevelopment or other happen in downtown. So next we'll move on to community engagement. This process again over a couple of years was a chance for us to engage with the community, and [16:19] **Mark Nolan:** What we did over this process is we met with several folks, several teams. And so now we're going to outline what that public engagement process looked like. I just want to kind of zoom in here on all the engagement and outreach activities that we did as part of this process. We had open houses, pop-up meetings at Marketfest, several meetings with the steering committee, downtown groups, Main Street. We had online surveys and comment maps, flyers, sidewalk decals—you may have seen those around town for a little while—press releases, social media, the website, and more. So it was, I think, a really successful campaign to get the word out there. One of those results of all of that is that the online input we received got over [17:06] **Mark Nolan:** 450 direct interactions. Now, that's not just website clicks; that's direct interactions with our surveys and our online comment map. I think even more exciting was almost as many in-person attendees at the events we held, many of them in this room and a couple of them at Marketfest. So we got a pretty good sampling of downtown, and we heard from a lot of folks throughout this process. Just going to highlight a couple of quick data points. So what you're seeing here is a question from our surveys: "Why do you visit downtown White Bear Lake?" They're allowed to check more than one. So restaurants, shopping, and events all came in at higher than 75% of respondents. That’s followed by the library, professional services, and then City Hall and Public Safety. So these are some of [17:51] **Mark Nolan:** The primary reasons that folks come to downtown according to our survey. We had a couple of parking questions. Again, there are a lot more questions that are all summarized in the report. But a couple of these questions: one is, "How often do you park in downtown?" About half the folks said weekly, and there were several others that said monthly and daily. But you know, some folks are here on a semi-regular basis. And then, "How long do you park for when you visit downtown on the average day?" And most folks said 1 to 2 or 2 to 4 hours—about enough time maybe to catch a meal or meet someone for drinks. There were a lot that said less than an hour as well, for those maybe professional service visits and quick trips. So another big component of this [18:36] **Mark Nolan:** Process was data gathering, and Chapter 3, "Transportation Conditions," outlines a lot of that data that we gathered. There's also a lot of it in the appendix if you want to look a little bit deeper. For those of you who like data and numbers, there's a lot of information there. But this chapter was divided up into subsections dealing with pedestrians and bicyclists, motor vehicles, access to downtown, and then also a safety analysis. This might be a bit hard to read for some folks, but this slide kind of indicates the crash data that we collected as well as some traffic volumes at particular locations throughout the downtown. And so that red circle with that red square is right [19:22] **Mark Nolan:** At 4th and Highway 61, where we saw 54 total crashes. Seven of those involved bikes and pedestrians. It was a very active intersection and it was a focal point throughout this process from what we've heard from the public. And another thing of note, if you could see some of those yellow line segments where the core of downtown is, it really does align with downtown. Those are segments of roadway that, like that intersection, experienced a higher number of crashes than they should for that type of roadway. And so in those yellow areas, unlike at the intersection that saw a couple of severe crashes, downtown are more property damage parking-related crashes. [20:08] **Mark Nolan:** So a lot of people going in and out of parking lots, fender benders, that kind of thing. I did want to highlight again that not only is that intersection at 4th and 61 experiencing a lot of crashes, there's a lot of activity there—a lot of bicycle/pedestrian activity, highest in the downtown core is at that intersection, as well as vehicle turning movements through that intersection. Also wanted to highlight there is also one bicycle crash at 3rd and 61. Now, one crash isn't a lot, but when traffic engineers see that, they do tend to take a closer look. So now I’d like to talk about the public realm framework. And again, this is basically what some folks might consider urban design or [20:53] **Mark Nolan:** Streetscape. It's what downtown looks like, what the experience is like for visitors through downtown. This chapter has components that talk about the public realm framework and goals—we'll look at the goals in a second—what are the districts in downtown (we've identified some different districts in downtown White Bear), what are the public realm framework elements—what are those amenities that we're talking about here—and then what are the priorities in the public realm in downtown? So the public realm goals are listed on the left. I'm not going to read through them all, but they do touch on the overall project goals but in a lot more detail. So some of the items are attracting customers downtown, enhancing vibrancy, ensuring safety and [21:41] **Mark Nolan:** Accessibility, creating unified and distinct streetscapes, balancing preservation with modernization, looking at investment downtown, maintaining property values, planning for the future but making sure you're sustainable and resilient, and attracting residents downtown. And on the right-hand side, again, if you open up the report you could see this a little bit easier: those are the districts that we identified in the downtown streets. And so as you might guess, we've got a core commercial district—that's kind of that darker magenta color; those are the streets that see the most activity. And then there's a transition district (A2) that transitions to the neighborhood district, which is blue (A3), etc. These are defined in the report. [22:26] **Mark Nolan:** They're fairly self-explanatory, but what can help outline that a little bit more is this table that's found on page 33 in the report. This table takes each of those districts along the top there in those colors and identifies what types of elements are recommended or optional in those districts. So as you can imagine, the A1 core district has more recommended elements in there. And by elements, I mean pedestrian lighting, decorative pavements, site furnishings like benches, shade and street trees, signage, maybe information kiosks, public art, etc. Those are all identified down the left-hand side, and then recommendations were made on where those might go in those districts. And so [23:11] **Mark Nolan:** For example, pedestrian lighting is recommended in all the districts except it's optional in the neighborhood district because that district has more residential what has a lot of homes and things like that. And so that, on a case-by-case basis, would look at whether or not you would include pedestrian lighting. And on the right-hand side with the black symbols, speak to the priorities in downtown public realm. So there's pedestrian safety, sustainability, "high impact, low cost" (bang for your buck), identity and character, and multimodal connectivity. Those symbols just kind of indicate which of those elements check the box for those individual priorities. So if you get a chance, you can take a look at that. And then we're going to talk next about Chapter 6, and it's Downtown [23:57] **Mark Nolan:** Parking. And this chapter is broken down into the segments you see there on the left: existing conditions—which also includes utilization counts that we'll look at here in a minute—identifying what the key issues are, looking at district-wide parking models and strategies—in other words, making parking more efficient downtown—and then the parking conclusions. Some of this information was presented to you before, councilmembers, when I was here a little over a year ago. I just wanted to highlight again what we have found for parking utilization counts. So the city staff provided folks to go out and literally count all the parking in Downtown White Bear Lake [24:43] **Mark Nolan:** Through several days. I think it was May and June, again in August, and again in August. Generally, we looked at times at 9:00, 12:00 noon, and 5:00. The colors in the map indicate how utilized the parking is. If it's red, that parking is at capacity. If it's orange, it's approaching capacity (85% and above). Yellow is what we call normal utilization (75% to 84%), and then that beige color is underutilized. What we're looking at here at 9:00 is the municipal lot at 3rd and Banning is about 81% utilized—it's about normal utilization. Clark Avenue—I don't know if people can see a cursor or not—Clark Avenue, which [25:29] **Mark Nolan:** We'll be taking a closer look at, is underutilized. Washington Square and parts of 3rd and Banning are at capacity. So the core area of downtown is starting to approach normal capacity/approach capacity in the morning with the adjacent blocks all pretty underutilized—those on-street parking spots. But if we go to noon, things do change. The core of downtown gets quite tight. And so we're looking at here: pretty much at capacity all around in the core of downtown. The Banning lot is at capacity. Clark Avenue gets a little busier but still not at capacity. You can see Washington, 3rd, Banning, 4th Street—all that on-street parking is close to capacity, and then adjacent blocks taper off from [26:16] **Mark Nolan:** There. And then looking at 5:00 in the evening time, things back off just a little bit, but we're still looking at capacity parking, you know, in Washington Square, 3rd, and the Banning lot. The Clark area and the core around the area—the area around the core—is underutilized. Really, what this is telling us along with some of the additional data is that there is a parking issue in the core of downtown. It's quite busy all the time, and it's just really those three or four street segments that get busy all day long. If you go one or two blocks further, there's a lot of available on-street parking. It's an additional walk of a couple of minutes, but we're realizing here... and then Clark [27:03] **Mark Nolan:** Avenue, too, given its location, is also underutilized. We'll talk about perhaps why in a minute. The parking issues what really we're going to focus on and we talk about it here later is looking at strategies to help even out that parking. We're going to talk about that next. So some of the district-wide parking strategies that are recommended in the report are listed on the left. These are recommended for the city to consider; this is also some of the things that Council and staff will be considering moving forward. But some of those strategies may be listed, maybe easiest to more difficult: monitor utilization—this utilization process that the city helped us with, we recommend keeping doing that. It's a way for you to [27:49] **Mark Nolan:** Monitor where... what's happening to parking, when it's moving around, what's getting busier, what are those patterns. Another is parking enforcement—maybe taking a closer look at that. Transportation mode alternatives—perhaps making it a little bit easier to walk and bike to and through downtown. Creating shared parking agreements—this is something that there is kind of quasi-precedent for. I know during COVID, I think US Bank had some kind of agreement with you all, and then that's a very good example where perhaps a bank could have an agreement with the city where it shares its parking available to the public on weekends and evenings. I think there's great opportunities for that downtown. Encouraging residential on-street parking for long-term users—those are those blocks that are pretty much always underutilized. So how can we encourage folks to park a little bit farther away? [28:34] **Mark Nolan:** And one way to do that is to make it nicer to walk, safer—both perceived and actual safety. Then also managing employee parking locations—that six and five kind of go together—working with businesses to make sure employees aren't taking up valuable visitor parking spots. And then improving functionality and use of existing public lots. I know Paul and staff are looking at ways to redesign a couple of parking lots to make them more efficient. And then number eight is "pay to park." You know, parking meters are out there; other communities of this size do have some parking meters or other ways to pay for parking. Something the city may want to consider. The table on the right kind of outlines, after considering all of the recommended improvements that we're going to be looking at next, what the [29:20] **Mark Nolan:** Parking impact will be. Now remember, these are concepts; none of these lots were engineered. But what we're looking at here: looking on the middle column, the total number of parking stalls in the core of downtown between public lots and on-street parking is 862 spots. Now, if some of the improvements are made to the parking lots—for example, Cook and 3rd and the Ace parking lot—we might have an increase of 18 parking spaces. When we look at the downtown concepts here in just a minute, if those are implemented, we're looking at a net loss of 15 spaces. So we're looking at essentially an increase of three spaces—essentially it's a break- [30:05] **Mark Nolan:** Even, more or less, once these things are designed in more detail. So we just wanted to make sure and analyze and look at what's that total potential total parking impact throughout downtown. So now Chapter 5, we'll take a look at the mobility concepts. We have five of them, and you can see them listed on the left. We're going to talk about these in order. Again, these are concepts that are kind of ideas; they are potential ways that the goals of the project and what we heard from the community and the steering committee and staff, that those project goals could manifest in a project or in a potential project. How can they be [30:52] **Mark Nolan:** Reflected in a couple of key areas downtown? So first, we'll look at Banning Avenue. Specifically, we're looking at Banning along the public lot there north of 3rd Street. A couple of ideas for this location are to have bump-outs at 3rd Street and Banning Avenue—those are curb extensions. We're going to talk about those in a little bit more detail, but it calms traffic through the intersection as well as improves screening between the parking lot and the sidewalk. This location in particular is a pretty barren location for pedestrians; there are vehicles nosing up on both sides and there are no trees. And so one of the ways to look at improving that condition is to put a low fence that's landscaped in between the parking lot [31:38] **Mark Nolan:** And the sidewalk. And that fence, unlike the image that's here, will be broken up in places so they're permeable, so folks can park and walk back and forth between the sidewalk and the parking lot. But also, if you look at that photo or the rendered image down there on the bottom, could also include some street trees. This is a relatively... I don't want to say easy, but it's a nice way to improve the pedestrian experience when walking throughout downtown, when you're walking in between parking infrastructure and vehicle infrastructure on both sides of you. This is not only something we could recommend at Banning; this could be at any parking lot, public or private, downtown. Washington Square: so with Washington Square, we went through with [32:25] **Mark Nolan:** The steering committee several iterations of this. We looked at a "pedestrian only" street through this location, we looked at one-way the other direction, we looked at several concepts. But what we landed on is Washington Square 2.0. It functions the same because it works. We're looking at wide pedestrian frontage on the east side in front of the businesses—same that's there now. But we would basically be looking at some colored pavement, different pavement types and treatments—wouldn't necessarily be the colors that are shown on the screen, but ways to improve the area to be able to indicate that it's a safer place for pedestrians. We would be looking at potentially additional handicap parking stalls near the north end—right now you have the opportunity, if you're going to redesign the street from the bottom [33:10] **Mark Nolan:** Up, to be able to make those kinds of improvements, including alley connections to the lot to the west. Another concept which isn't specific to one location are curb extensions and bump-outs. So I will say that this concept, these concepts were very well received by the steering committee and the public. It looks at—and the images are a bit small on the bottom of the screen—essentially you literally bump out the curb at all four corners, or any corner, but if preferred, all four corners of an intersection. So that defines the parking bay. But what it also does is it shortens the crossing distance for pedestrians; it lessens the amount of [33:56] **Mark Nolan:** Time and distance they're exposed to motor vehicle traffic. It increases the visibility of pedestrians and signage. We've often heard in downtown there's an issue with compliance—vehicles not stopping or not fully stopping at intersections. Some folks said it's kind of hard to see stop signs behind parked vehicles; this would certainly help that process. The stop signs and the pedestrians will be out farther into the intersection and more easily seen, and perhaps this could improve compliance at those intersections. It also calms traffic if you're turning right around one of those—it's a much tighter radius, you need to go slower. And also you'll notice that every time you approach a crosswalk, you have a 90-degree view of pedestrians; they're right in your line of sight and you can see them more easily. It also could add some a little bit more potential green space or [34:43] **Mark Nolan:** Landscaping for downtown. And so what we did is we recommended about 11 locations—those blue circles you can see there on the map right in the core of downtown—where these locations would benefit from that. The table on the right shows what parking impacts those bump-outs or curb extensions would have, and you average about one per intersection, so a net loss of 11 parking spaces, give or take, if each of these corners/intersections implemented those bump-outs. And if you recall, that was made up from some of the other parking improvements in other parts of downtown. Clark [35:29] **Mark Nolan:** Avenue: as you recall, this location is not utilized in terms of parking very well. It kind of does function as a parking lot. So we have two kind of parallel one-way streets going in opposite directions, and you know the pedestrian experience through that area is not great either. There are no street trees, there's a lot of pavement. And so one of the ways we thought about potentially improving that experience, as well as tying a little bit more to the history of the community... south of 2nd Street along Clark is the beautiful meandering pedestrian walkway, kind of a promenade that goes down to the lake. This is part of White Bear Lake's history of connecting people and a viewshed from [36:16] **Mark Nolan:** When they used to get off the train down to the lake. And we thought this could be an opportunity to bring that promenade up to the north through Clark Avenue. It's a version of it where you have a center median with a sidewalk and planter boulevards on either side, again to extend that walkway for pedestrians. What also this concept looks at is raising the intersection with 2nd Street. So that orange color you see there would be raised up just a few inches with ramps. What that does is it slows down vehicles coming into the intersection and announces to vehicles that this place is different. There's improved opportunities for green space. And then also parking: this is a location where we did maximize parking where we could. So we have diagonal parking on both sides going in [37:03] **Mark Nolan:** Both directions. That was a way to maximize the parking—you know, we can't do it everywhere, we've got a lot of driveways from the bank and others coming in from the east, but in the future those could be parked as well if there's future redevelopment. We also need to realize that this area needs to be flexible—whatever design the city pursues here, if any, needs to be flexible to accommodate events like your farmers market and other events like that, your vendors. All right, we saved 3rd Street for last. So 3rd Street, basically from 61 to the east. Not unlike the other streets, we looked with the steering committee at several options of what to do here. We thought 3rd Street could be an opportunity to perhaps increase [37:48] **Mark Nolan:** The pedestrian space on both sides of the street. So we looked at a one-way street for three or four blocks, and that extra space you saved could be dedicated to pedestrians. After we talked to the steering committee and staff and looked at traffic flow, that was ruled out. And so what we have here is essentially a one-way area that's about half a block. And you know, before I kind of get into the details of this recommendation, I do want to highlight one thing that we've been talking about in that green box: that "additional engineering considerations" will need to happen before any design phases happen on this project. So especially at a concept like this one, where we're looking to potentially impact a MnDOT intersection on a MnDOT highway, [38:34] **Mark Nolan:** There are a lot of future studies that will be done before something like this would be recommended. Future turning movement counts and counting traffic and how it affects overall flow downtown—all of that would happen before any of these designs/any final design would go through. And so based on our last steering committee meeting, you know, we did have some folks that expressed concern about this and they made some really, really good points. And so, but we're still considering it as a possibility in the report because it does have merits and benefits for pedestrians and traffic in through that intersection. And so the recommendations in the report, what we have here is the raised crosswalk. Now this concept is very popular—raised crosswalk at Washington Square [39:22] **Mark Nolan:** And 3rd. This is a very popular, very highly used crossing right now that is not marked and is not ADA compliant. So having a raised crossing there would make that a safer crossing for pedestrians and also slow vehicles. Also with this concept, you can still turn right or left as you approach from Clark or Washington Square on 3rd, but then the access at Highway 61 would be restricted in this concept. So you can turn right from 3rd onto 61, but this concept blocks access to 3rd Street from Highway 61. And so the benefits that we see there is it does improve pedestrian crossing safety on 3rd Street. It removes that fast right-hand turn. Now motorists approach it at a T and have to stop and make that right-hand turn, so it's safer for pedestrians. [40:10] **Mark Nolan:** It does reduce traffic speeds through that intersection and there are fewer vehicle conflict points. So those are the benefits. There are pros and cons and there are trade-offs to all of these. It's just a matter of what the city and Council finds important as the opportunity comes to be able to make improvements here. Remember, this is a very high-level study. And then last but not least, we have a section at the end of the report that does talk about costs. These are definitely a cost estimate—"estimate" is a strong word that we use here. These estimated project costs are reflective of 2024 industry costs and they also include costs such as design fees and contingencies and other construction-related costs. And so the table on the right is a summary. There is a more detailed—a lot more detailed—information in the appendix along with the graph or the chart diagram you see on the left, which talks about what some of those improvements might be. Maybe it's full reconstruction or a mill and overlay repaving, etc. And so that's the cost component of the plan. Paul, do you want to talk about next steps before we open it up? [41:42] **Paul Copy:** Okay. All right, thanks, Mark. Before we open it up for Council discussion, we'll kind of go through where we're at today and at least the few upcoming next steps. So tonight, if Council sees fit, staff would recommend that Council accept the final report. That's not approving anything within it; it's really using this as a, again, a framework for future consideration as we get into a final design of any of these projects. So the next steps beyond that would be a staff-council—many interactions—analyzing those recommendations within the report, how they would fit in with future projects. Again, like Mark had said [42:27] **Paul Copy:** Throughout his presentation, it will provide additional public engagement, both formal and informal. A typical improvement project, as Council is aware, includes neighborhood meetings; it includes public hearings through the assessment process. So a number of ways to engage really a more targeted group. The steering committee, or the report/steering committee, really looked at the community as a whole. We gathered input from the community really to provide Council that background of what the community wants in this area, what they would like to see, and how they use the area. And obviously, there's a component that, you know, there's going to be some direct [43:13] **Paul Copy:** Impacts to property owners and businesses in the downtown area that these next public engagement components will take into account. Additional review of public rights-of-way, project impacts, opportunities... again, this is a high-level study. As we get survey work done, as we get it down to the inches, not the feet, and really look at where and how things can be put within the right-of-way—what actually fits. You know, these are high-level. As Mark had noted in the public realm, we've got benches, trees, plantings, public art, all that stuff. Where do they actually fit while keeping sidewalks flowing, pedestrians flowing, traffic flowing through the area? Mark mentioned at [44:00] **Paul Copy:** The end there's a couple of concepts that really, as we get into final design, need additional traffic analysis, turning movement counts, things like that. And then save the best for last: obviously, it was a big number that was presented to you. That's kind of the pie-in-the-sky. Obviously, as we get into a final design, we can start paring that down. That's kind of the... I'll call it the "everything all-in." Obviously, it's a menu of options, as Council is aware, as we get into any of our projects. So what components do we want to include, don't include, maybe partially include? So it really gets into those... those are kind of the next process steps. As [44:46] **Paul Copy:** Far as anticipated upcoming projects, as Council is aware, in our last number of Capital Improvement Plans, we've kind of kept kicking the can as far as... we really wanted to get done with the study before we move forward with any projects. We met with Council early 2024 thinking that we might even be able to do a parking lot project in '24. We decided to back off from that, let the study run its course. Potentially, based on the current CIP, we could look at doing some level of parking lot improvements in 2025 and then, at the earliest, 2026 to start getting into the street projects. Again, the area south of 4th [45:31] **Paul Copy:** Street... it may be phased even differently than that as we get into discussions and looking at what we want to spend each year. And then obviously, a lot of these components would then be brought into future projects elsewhere in the downtown. You know, as Mark mentioned, all the different public realm corridors and zones, as we go north of 4th Street, as we go on the west side of Highway 61... it's all included in the kind of the overall downtown area. How they all fit together—the Arts District—so really taking all of those into account and using the study to kind of shape the framework of future projects in this area as a whole. So that being said, Mark and [46:17] **Paul Copy:** I and staff would be happy to answer questions you have. [46:19] **Mayor:** Thank you, Mr. Copy and Mr. Nolan. I’m sure Council has a lot of questions. I don’t really have any yet; maybe Council will ask some and it’ll prompt some, but I do have a couple of comments. First, I want to thank all the members of the steering committee for all of your hard work. When we kind of set out to appoint a steering committee, we thought maybe six months, maybe a year, and here we are coming up on two years. Sometimes things work slow, and my thought from the beginning of this was the downtown area is the crown jewel of the community, and I’d rather it take longer and get it right than rush it through and screw it up. So thank you for all of your service. I think you’ve presented us with lots of great options, and I can tell, in getting feedback from members [47:03] **Mayor:** Of the steering committee and members of staff, that there were good, robust debates that happened, and that’s what I was hoping for. When we knew we were going to be doing a street reconstruction project downtown White Bear, my first thought was, well, I don’t claim to have all the answers and know what’s best for the community, so how do we get those answers? And that’s to get as broad a cross-section of the community and stakeholders as we could. And that’s why we’ve got really everybody that I can think of—this was a carefully curated list of members to go on the steering committee. I think you’ve done a great job. Is all this going to be ultimately implemented? Probably not. Hopefully, we’ll get a lot of it, but we’ve got a lot of options. So on that note, I do want to underscore that we are very early in the process. I think the word "concept" was [47:50] **Mayor:** Thrown around a couple of times, so I’m going to use an analogy to a concept car. If you’ve ever seen one, anyone seen a concept car from a manufacturer? Five years later, the car comes out and it’s got some elements of what the concept car looked like, but it got refined and tweaked, and through further discussion and debate, you land on something that probably doesn't look exactly like the concept car. That’s how I see this. And the options that have been presented will give the Council the needed feedback to try and make good decisions, as this kind of represents, I think, a pretty good pulse of the community. So as Paul said—Mr. Copy—there’ll be lots of other opportunities for public engagement, because that’s how these [48:36] **Mayor:** Street reconstruction projects work. We’ve always had, even if we’re just putting in curb and gutter or doing a mill overlay, there’s always feedback from the public. We're one layer removed from even that process because this is so important, and that’s ultimately what this report is that the Council has the option to accept tonight, which is to say: "Great, thank you for the hard work. We’re going to take this under advisement and then have even further debate." There’s really only two things that I looked at—well, one thing that I looked at going into this whole thing, and I shared this with Mr. Copy and the City Manager—is whatever we come up with, whatever colors we choose, wherever we put trees: no net loss of parking spaces. I think that was a huge, huge priority, and we’ve been given an option where we can achieve that. So I think that in [49:23] **Mayor:** And of itself is really, really important. There’s one element of the recommendation which we’ve said is a concept, and there’s lots more study that has to happen, that I can't imagine I would ever support. But we’re early enough in the process that I’m not going to commit to anything because we have to do parking studies and traffic studies and various other things. But that is closing off the entrance to 3rd Street from Highway 61. I just don’t see myself ever supporting that. If you ask me right now, am I going to commit to it? Absolutely not. I will not support that. I won't because I don’t have enough information because we’re early in the process. We’ve got some information and that’s great, and I know our engineering department, which is great, will give us a lot more [50:09] **Mayor:** Information so that we can make an informed decision. So I will reserve final judgment on that. But beyond that, I think there’s a lot of great elements, and one way or another, I think we’re going to arrive at a project that we can all be proud of and we’ll implement it. It’ll be a pain in the butt during the construction as all construction is, but you’ve got to be thinking towards the ultimate goal, and I think we’ll end up with a great downtown. So those are my comments. I don’t have any questions. I will open it up to Council for their thoughts, comments, or questions. Councilmember Walsh. [50:57] **Councilmember Walsh:** Well, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just philosophically a comment first and I have a couple questions. You and I talked about this, Mr. Mayor, but just about downtown... it is a great asset for the city. It’s working, to a large extent. So goal one, I think, is just not to screw it up. You know, don’t... whatever we do, don’t ruin what’s right downtown. And I don’t know—that’s difficult. It’s easy to say that, but we don’t really know. I mean, at the minimum, new streets, right? New streets, curbs, gutters, sidewalks, things like that, lighting. I mean, those things are... it’s time. It’s been decades and it needs that. So at a minimum, we’re going to do that; it’s going to get a facelift. So as we do this, I’m just going to keep watching about the old charm of the downtown but then a new facelift and some of these new kind of trendy things like the bump-outs and things. I love the [51:43] **Councilmember Walsh:** Presentation, I love the work that’s been done. I think some of the stuff kind of looks cool, I’ll just say it. But I think we’ve just got to kind of keep balancing. What is it about downtown White Bear Lake that attracts people and has that feel of that old lake village town, small town? And as we do this work, do we ruin it? I’m not saying this stuff ruins it, but I just want to keep that balance in mind as we go through this process. Just the cost stuff is fascinating. So I think what we’ll need to do over time—not tonight, obviously—but you put a big number up there, kind of the all-in cost, the 14 million. I think another number that would be interesting is if we just treated this like every other street in White Bear Lake as we’ve been doing for decades. What would it be if we just did curbs, streets, gutters, whatever the reconstruction you [52:29] **Councilmember Walsh:** Guys would recommend. So we’d kind of have that number, and then this number, and then where do we end up? As we kind of do this menu of trees and bump-outs and raised sidewalks or raised crosswalks... so can you give us some idea, though? I mean, some of these elements like... you say, okay, let's do a raised intersection. Is there a cost there? What makes that cost more? Is it just more gravel underneath it or more cement or what? What are we talking about? What are the costs of those kind of elements and what goes into that cost generally? [53:15] **Paul Copy:** Mayor, members of the Council. From a cost standpoint—and again, there's some of these elements that don't have huge significant cost. As far as a raised intersection goes, there's some additional painting of the area to make people aware that it's coming up. But from the actual construction piece of it, not a huge component of additional cost—maybe a little bit more pavement, but not a huge additional cost from at least that exact element you're talking about. [53:49] **Councilmember Walsh:** I think those are going to be the kind of things that I’m going to be interested in as we go. It’s like, "Okay, that raised intersection, it’s kind of a good idea." I appreciate the pedestrian-friendly reasons, but there’s a cost. So is it a manageable cost? Can we do it? I mean, I think I’m going to support something that is more than just replace the streets and curbs and gutters in downtown. I mean, we’d be losing a huge opportunity if we don’t do more than [54:01] **Councilmember Walsh:** That. We’re going to have to talk about the cost—the mix of who pays, too, eventually. And that’s a little more difficult downtown than it is in the neighborhood. You know, we’ve got a real good formula for the taxpayer-wide base kicking in a certain amount; we assess the homeowners based on their front footage for the rest. And we’ve been doing it at an even split—not an even split, but the same split, I should say—over time. Is that what the plan is going forward? I mean, these are businesses with front footage. So streets, curbs, gutters, these kind of things... we’re going to assess and then pay for? Is that their plan coming in? And then I guess the second piece that would be our parking lots, right? [54:47] **Paul Copy:** Mayor, members of the Council. As you had mentioned, much more discussion on how and what the formula looks like for assessing it. It's been a few different ways that have been done over time for both parking lots and streets downtown. The exact formula... taking what we've been doing in a residential neighborhood and putting it in a downtown area where frontages don't always match benefit. So we do, in advance of any project—and this one happens to be much more in advance—we typically work with an independent real estate appraiser that specializes in looking at benefits for construction improvement projects. We're working with an appraiser right now, [55:33] **Paul Copy:** Well in advance of the project, to start looking at what those benefits are for different levels of improvements in a downtown area. Including parking components. You know, most of these businesses do not have their own parking, so obviously parking is a benefit to all of downtown, the roads in and out, things like that. So we do have that appraiser looking at that in advance of future discussions. [55:58] **Councilmember Walsh:** Thank you. [56:01] **Mayor:** Any other questions or comments from the Council? Councilmember Edberg. [56:19] **Councilmember Edberg:** Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So Mr. Mayor, I’m going to ask for your guidance. I have eight comments; some of them are questions. Do you want me to take them one by one or would you like me to give you my laundry list and then... or do you want to call on other council members in between? What’s your preference? [56:37] **Mayor:** I think you can just start rattling them off and we’ll just be receptive. If someone has a follow-up question that’s similar to that, maybe we can take that approach, but for now the floor is yours. [56:49] **Councilmember Edberg:** I’ll look to you for guidance, and if you want to stop and redirect, totally fine. So my first overarching comment is I agree that this was a fine example of public engagement. I attended more than a couple of the sessions. I think this was one of the finer pieces of work that our community has done in trying to engage a broad-based group of folks, and I hope that will continue. But I think [57:07] **Councilmember Edberg:** That part so far, I’m content that we actually did engage and go out and proactively seek out information, ideas, perspectives. And so, kudos on that. I think a second piece—the second overarching comment—is the potential expenses are the equivalent of a whole new fire station, and I am not at all clear on where the revenues come from to support the proposed expenses. I would propose that a very early stage of "next steps" looks at: "Oh, so if we envision 14 million X..." and maybe we bracket that. [57:52] **Councilmember Edberg:** What’s 15% lower? What’s 15% higher? Where do the revenues come from for that? And that we actually wrestle with that now rather than after we have a design. Let's put some economic brackets around this so that we can try and understand what that’s going to look like. And I predict—maybe you’ve already identified it, actually—that we’re going to run into the question of "who benefits and who pays," and those are not going to be equally and evenly aligned. That’s going to be a source of tension, and that’s not going to be an easy tension to resolve. So I’d prefer that we deal with that question early on rather than [58:37] **Councilmember Edberg:** Later. The third is overarching before I get to some specific questions. I’m not buying into the idea that this is a blueprint. This is a potpourri; this is a recipe for stew. We’ve got a whole bunch of individual ingredients, some of which seem to have comparable flavors that complement each other. I’m not convinced that all of them are evenly and equally coherent. And so I’m skittish about approving... I don’t know that the next step is looking at how do we move to implementation. I’m more interested in exactly what process will [59:23] **Councilmember Edberg:** Be used to identify which of these components make sense, which of them provide leverage against other ideas, which ones might not provide that leverage. And anyway, that’s a necessary comment. But I’m skittish about saying that this is a "concept approval." I’m totally fine saying we are accepting a report. Fine. The work was done; it was very fine and reasonable work. Okay, I’m not disputing the efforts or the energies that went into it. I’m not wanting to authorize what’s next. So that’s just me. Maybe if two other councilmembers agree with that, maybe there’s something else [1:00:08] **Councilmember Edberg:** We want to do in our resolution. But I’m not to a point of, perhaps, what I read into the resolution about what this authorizes or doesn't authorize. So a couple of specific questions. It's unclear to me exactly who owns these recommendations. The resolution talks about the "steering committee's recommendations." My read of the report and the background—and I was not participating in any of those, so I might be completely clueless—but my read is that this is a city staff-authored report supported by data and information provided by knowledgeable, trained, and [1:00:54] **Councilmember Edberg:** Qualified consultants, facilitated by consultants and staff. But that... I haven't... the language that’s been used a couple of times in the report is that the steering committee "assisted in the development of recommendations." That’s different from "the steering committee made recommendations" or "the steering committee voted on recommendations." And I’m unclear about who owns these recommendations itself. So I’m curious to get an answer to that. There is to me... several of the reasons for doing this work are predicated on "we want a vital downtown." I don’t dispute that. We want folks... a part of what makes our community what it [1:01:41] **Councilmember Edberg:** Is, is that we have a downtown that is not desolate; it is not plagued with massive vacancies. It has them from time to time, and yes, there’s always room for what’s the best new thing that takes over when an old business concept no longer works. What was noticeable to me in the report is that there’s nothing that connects these strategies to any of the economic outcomes that we are seeking in downtown. I’m not sensing what’s the connection between how these activities specifically tie into the strategies that either we or the businesses, individually and collectively, are trying to do with [1:02:27] **Councilmember Edberg:** Downtown. I’m not seeing that. So I’m thinking that that is actually a linkage that, if we’re going to use that as a purpose for spending public money, as a purpose for engaging this work, I want to know: what is that connection that we should see in terms of outcomes of shopper counts, dollars per basket, whatever you want to do, value of property? So let me go to 3rd Street. My two observations on 3rd Street is that I’m open to hearing this. I read it, I’ve thought about it, I’ve heard it, I still need to think about it. So these are not final, but [1:03:12] **Councilmember Edberg:** Number one, I thought the safety data was underwhelming for increasing pedestrian traffic at 3rd Street. I didn’t see that in historical data, but maybe I was looking in the wrong place. Maybe it's there, maybe there is more, Mr. Nolan. And I was keying on the one bicycle crash. Yeah, okay, life happens sometimes, crap happens. Okay, one... tell me more. I was under-impressed. I didn’t see data on pedestrian harm that was done in the downtown area. We’re wanting to have a friendly or more pedestrian-friendly walking space, which I agree—we want people to walk, we want people to [1:03:59] **Councilmember Edberg:** Participate in the businesses in all kinds of different ways. But if we’re driving this with safety, I just didn’t see it. So maybe somebody in a future conversation could make that clear for me. And along those lines, I’d be curious in testing the idea that reducing traffic counts on 3rd Street by eliminating the ability to move from 61 onto 3rd reduces customer counts. If it reduces customer counts, it reduces the viability of retail locations, potentially. It comes home to roost on who owns the buildings and what rents they can charge and whether there’s incentive to [1:04:45] **Councilmember Edberg:** Reinvest in the buildings all along 3rd Street. I don’t know what those numbers look like. I don’t know what those critical linkages are, but that was an attribute of that specific topic that was silent. And so I’m trying to get my head into the "Okay, if we want a vibrant downtown, we want a downtown that has enough business to support reinvestment. Is this achieving that?" I don’t know. It didn’t leap out to me. I’ve talked about the... so with regard to this parking specifically, I was intrigued [1:05:31] **Councilmember Edberg:** With the bump-outs. I was intrigued with some of the modifications to labeling and signage that clearly identifies public lots from private lots, the recommendations for shared parking, other some of the other innovations. And I was not turned off by the idea of paid meter parking. I’m seeing that in a number of places where I go, and intelligently implemented—maybe not on all downtown streets, but on the ones where we have more congestion—maybe that is indeed a legitimate option. I’m open to listening to more on that. All right, I think that covers the comments I had. There were, like I say, at least three questions in there. I’ll leave them to that. [1:06:15] **Mayor:** Very good. Thank you. Council, any other questions or comments on the report? None. Well, before I ask for a vote, I’m going to just maybe try and take a stab at one of your questions, which is something along the lines of "What does this resolution really do?" I won't answer whose report is it—I mean, the resolution says the "steering committee's report," whether that's unanimous or not, that’s kind of where it’s coming from. But to me, that’s a moot point. Looking at here’s what the resolution says and does: we are accepting a downtown mobility study; we are acknowledging receipt of the steering committee's recommendations, and [1:07:04] **Mayor:** We will use this to analyze and use those recommendations thoughtfully to consider implementing the proposal. I don’t mean to make it sound like this work was meaningless because it wasn't. This is going to be a governing document that we’re going to use for ideas as the Council goes back and brainstorms and talks through. That’s the whole point of it. But for purposes of tonight and certain folks that get bothered by what it is we’re doing: we’re accepting all the good work of a bunch of stakeholders in the community and we’re going to use it to guide us. So I’ve got no problem with it. Our hands aren't tied to absolutely anything, and as we start to get incrementally closer to decisions, we will then re-engage the public, which will flesh this out. But without this, I honestly wouldn't even know where to start. Like I said at the beginning, I don’t claim to [1:07:51] **Mayor:** Have the grand master plan for what a redesign of downtown White Bear should look like, and that’s why I’m grateful for all the hard work of the steering committee that represents a huge cross-section to at least give us something to start with. One of the words that was brought up was "menu"; I see it as that as well. Some of these elements we like, we’ll debate them. And frankly, in terms of whether our hands are tied to anything, the short, simple, and legal answer is no. Because what’s going to drive all of this, like every decision that we make, rightfully so, is cost. And we haven't even begun that conversation about how we apportion business owners and what’s fair. That’s a whole another debate and dialogue. And I agree with you on that point: we don’t just want to go in and say this is what it should look like and [1:08:37] **Mayor:** Then figure out the money part after. I don’t know if we need to completely establish that, but we need to do both at the same time because there’s no point in going down a rabbit hole or a cost that the residents don't have the appetite to absorb. So it’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg thing and I think we have to do both at the same time. I think this, as in a lot of cities' projects, we’re probably going to land hopefully somewhere in the middle. We don’t want to cheap out and just repave some roads like Councilmember Walsh said, but it’s just not the White Bear way to go the Taj Mahal route and say let's spend all the money under the sun. It’s not... I don’t foresee it going that way. But at this stage, we haven't even really gotten into the substance or nitty-gritty of that. What we have is a really, really good document that has a lot of good ideas. So we have a starting point to have a vibrant discussion on the Council. [1:09:25] **Mayor:** That’s how I look at the resolution, and I would urge that the Council adopt it. So with that, I would entertain a motion to approve the resolution accepting the downtown mobility parking study. [1:09:37] **Councilmember Walsh:** I’ll move it. [1:09:38] **Mayor:** Thank you. I have a motion. A second? Second. Any further debate on this? Councilmember Edberg. [1:09:44] **Councilmember Edberg:** Thank you, Mayor. I don’t think you and I are particularly opposed on anything. I think there are shades of gray and nuance that are completely normal, and that’s all fine. I’ll vote in favor of the resolution. I am curious, as we think about implementation, what specific plans do we have in mind? I look in the audience, faces that I don’t normally see here in this part of downtown. Okay. How do we fully [1:10:13] **Councilmember Edberg:** And formally engage and receive comment going forward? And how will we publicize what... how will we notice that? Will we hold hearings? Will we hold work sessions that we expect members of the public to participate in? To shut this down at a level of "concept" and now move it to a staff and Council-only kind of conversation strikes me as not the right approach. But how do you envision bringing that maturing that conversation with us? [1:10:59] **Mayor:** I think first, Mr. Copy laid out what our typical process is, and there’s a lot more study that needs to be done in general, regardless of what these concepts are, just so we know what the baseline is—just repave the street, just more thoughtful study. Throughout all reconstruction projects, we have touchpoints and public hearings with the community, and that will continue to happen. No proposal that comes before this Council is beyond the ability to be changed if we hear from the public and we go: "Those are good points, we should table this and rethink it," or "I disagree, we’re going to vote anyways." So there’ll be all those normal touchpoints, just as if there would be even if we didn’t have this study. If we’re going to redo the downtown area, we would have had to start somewhere. We haven't even gotten to the starting line. So this [1:11:45] **Mayor:** Was to me a value-add and a worthwhile exercise. So my simple answer is: the same way we always have. Two, I’m looking around the room, too. I see a lot of familiar faces, many of whom have reached out, so I don’t think the relevant stakeholders are going to be shy about speaking up. And I welcome that—the emails, the calls, the "corner me" when I’m at your establishment and say: "Here’s a couple thoughts that I have." That’s how a small town works and I think it has worked. So that’s how I envision this going. And I don’t think you’re insinuating this at all, but maybe I’ll just address it like this: if people’s concerns are that we’re just going to ram something through because we have a grand [1:12:31] **Mayor:** Plan, that’s just not going to happen. And it wouldn't happen under any normal street reconstruction project; it won't happen here. I think the Council’s with me when I say—and you can push back if you think I’m wrong—everyone on the Council is hyper-sensitive to getting this right. And maybe we’ll be even more judicious with engaging the public than we have in the past to making sure that, as we move along towards something that we’re actually ready to vote on, put pen to paper, and move forward, we’re going to make sure we’re re-engaging with stakeholders. And that’s true completely independent of this report. And that’s why approving it right now doesn't hurt anything, doesn't commit us to anything, and it doesn't foreclose on continued public engagement in the future. [1:13:16] **Councilmember Edberg:** Yes. So then to the audience who might be interested or not—leave that to you—watch for our postings of work study sessions that are public meetings of the Council. They are held, they are public meetings, you’re able to come and observe. So watch for those kinds of things as your key into: "Huh, I might be interested in hearing what folks are saying so that I can be knowledgeable and engaged." And then we’ll have other conversations as well. But that would be my suggestion. Thank you, Mayor. [1:14:02] **Mayor:** Very good. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor of approving the resolution say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The resolution passes. I want to thank again the steering committee for all of your hard work. You saw some debate and it’s going to continue, but I do value all the input that you have and this is a good document to govern us. So thank you again, appreciate it. All right, item six: public hearing. We have nothing scheduled. Item seven: unfinished business. Nothing scheduled. Item 8A: St. Patrick’s Day celebration liquor license extension and use of City parking lot. Mr. Juba. [1:14:49] **Jason Juba:** Good evening, Mayor and Councilmembers. Corey Roberts is with us here tonight and he has applied for a special event permit to host a St. Patrick’s Day celebration in the City’s Downtown parking lot at Banning and 3rd. That requires City Council consideration on two levels: one is it's city property and he's looking at utilizing that for his own special event; and second is City Council approval for extension of the Matoska's liquor license to cover this event. So Roberts does have an event track record in the area—was a big part of the concert at the Big Wood Brewery that was a fundraiser for Hockey Day Minnesota, and also on the Hockey Day Minnesota planning committee. So we do have history working with [1:15:35] **Jason Juba:** With Mr. Roberts on events such as this. So this particular event would be proposed to take place on Saturday, March 15th from 12:00 p.m. to 10 p.m., with setup happening a day before and teardown taking place a day after—and we're going to circle back to that topic. The event would include the setup of a tent—40 by 135-foot tent—that would house music, dancing, and alcohol service, and that would connect to the back door of the Matoska. So you can see on that graphic—it's kind of tough to make out, but on the north side, that yellowish block is the Matoska, the red hashed area is the proposed setup area for [1:16:21] **Jason Juba:** The tent, blue would be sanitation, propane things to support the event, and then the green would be location for food trucks. Again, the max capacity in that tent at any one time would be 730 people—that's determined by the Fire Department. So within your memo tonight, there's several proposed conditions of approval in order to carry out this event safely. Of note is that there is a required police and EMS presence at the expense of the host. And just having that dedicated staff ensures that our regular shifts—our regular police and fire staff that are working that day and evening—don't get overwhelmed by a special [1:17:08] **Jason Juba:** Event. Similarly, Marketfest has dedicated public safety presence at each one of their events. There are still some outstanding details that Mr. Roberts and City staff will need to work through, and those are noted in those conditions of approval. We have a little bit of time between now or the approval of the event and the date to work that out. Those fine details are in the way of sanitation, electrical, heating, and liquor control. The Main Street board did review this event. Mr. Roberts did present this to them in October and they did offer their support. However, now there's additional details—specifically the request to set up a day ahead of time and tear down a day after—that the Main Street board is planning on discussing at their January 21st board meeting. For all special events that take place downtown, City staff and Council use the Main Street board as kind of a barometer to gauge support for those events as they relate to the whole downtown. Staff would actually recommend tonight tabling this particular request to the January 28th meeting in order to get that additional consideration and feedback from the Main Street board. With that, Mr. Roberts is in attendance if you have questions for him, and staff would also stand for questions. [1:18:39] **Mayor:** Yeah, one quick question, Mr. Juba. I understand the tabling, and if we’ve got time on our side then I’m not opposed to that. Help me understand better why Main Street wants more time. It was something to do with the timing? It just strikes me on the face of it as odd—we approve something, but now hang on, we want a second bite. So what has changed, or what data point didn’t Main Street consider when they originally supported it and now they don’t, or want at least a second chance to look at it? [1:19:15] **Jason Juba:** Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. So the message that came through to City staff was basically that when Mr. Roberts presented this in the fall, I think the planning was probably in its infancy at that point. And so the consideration of the amount of time it would take to set up and tear down was not discussed by Main Street, not considered at that time. So now as those details, particularly with our review, are becoming more formal and we’re getting down to kind of the nitty-gritty of how this is all going to work, there’s been discussion on how much time Mr. Roberts needs to set up and tear down. I think Main Street just wants to give consideration to the other businesses in the area that utilize that parking lot or even need access for deliveries and things of such to make sure that they haven't overspoken for those businesses without considering the impacts before and after the event. [1:20:02] **Mayor:** Gotcha. Okay, so early on, it sounds like they approved a concept and now we have more data points and they’re going to refine the actual decision that they’re going to make based on some new data points? [1:20:09] **Jason Juba:** That sounds accurate based on my discussion with the Main Street president today. [1:20:13] **Mayor:** Got it. Okay, thank you. That’s the only question I have. Council, if you have questions for Mr. Juba... otherwise I will give Mr. Roberts an opportunity to say a few words if he needs to. But if Council wants to ask questions first... [1:20:23] **Councilmember Walsh:** Well, I’m not sure who's best to answer the question, but have we—maybe the Main Street Business Council—are we thinking too small? I mean, is the rest of downtown engaged? I like the idea, I like the concept. We talked about it a long time ago, a year ago, and I’ve encouraged this kind of idea because I think it could become... White Bear could become a St. Patrick’s Day destination. We talk about people that don’t want to go downtown St. Paul, which is kind of a destination for St. Patrick’s Day. This could be something we could do annually, we could grow. So right now it’s the Matoska with the tent out back. I mean, are we going to involve other bars, other restaurants? Is everybody sort of engaged? Is that part of what the conversation is downtown? I don’t know who's best to answer that, maybe Mr. Roberts is better to answer that question. But when he comes up, maybe he could. [1:21:09] **Jason Juba:** Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Councilmember Walsh. I would throw that question to Mr. Roberts and kind of how that dynamic works between himself as the event planner, Main Street, and the rest of the businesses downtown. [1:21:20] **Mayor:** Council, any questions for Mr. Juba before we bring Mr. Roberts up to answer that and give us a little more information on this? Mr. Roberts, if you want to answer that and maybe share a few things you think we might want to know about. [1:21:42] **Corey Roberts:** Thank you, Mayor, Council, and staff. First and foremost, I want to thank staff for the work to date on this. We started talking about this event a year ago; we came to the table a little bit too late last year in terms of getting it done in a timely manner. So we’re excited to be here tonight to discuss this and hopefully move it forward. The idea and vision for the event is... one day I hope to be standing here, or in the community, similar to what Marketfest is today—so a long-standing tradition, 35 years in. That’s my vision for this event for St. Patrick’s Day in downtown: to be known for it, similar to how Halloween has been for the city of Anoka. Okay? So for me personally, as a business owner in downtown, I feel that there is a need for more [1:22:28] **Corey Roberts:** Things like this in downtown to just stay relevant, fresh, and exciting for so many reasons as being a downtown business owner and property owner. To the point of answering the question on what does this look like down the road: I think there’s absolutely opportunity for all the businesses to get on board. In this particular case, we might be using this event as a grand opening for a new bar in the back as well, yet to be determined. But for year one, there’s always a starting point, right? And I have the vision for this—to really make it special, the inaugural one needs to be done right. And I feel I’m the person and the business that has the vision to really knock it out of the park year one to establish that long-standing tradition here in the city of White Bear Lake. [1:23:14] **Mayor:** Thank you, Mr. Roberts. Any questions on that at all? [1:23:19] **Corey Roberts:** I do have one concern in terms of the stipulations and the requirements with the public safety piece of this. First and foremost, we certainly understand the need and the importance of public safety for an event like this. I think the challenge that we have is the fact that this is year one, so we don't know what this looks like year one. We know what the capacity is and we know what our hours are. We don't know how many people are going to be coming through throughout the day. Are we going to turn over that tent, 700 people, two or three times perhaps? Who knows. [1:24:02] **Corey Roberts:** We've had long conversations with the City staff. I talked to the Chief of Police today and the Fire Chief today in regard to the stipulation of the need for EMS and Fire to be present throughout the day for 10 hours. Like any event, there’s a budget to this, right? So you have to make sure that the numbers work; otherwise, we don't have this long-standing tradition. Right? Year one is the important piece of this. So tonight I’m asking to have a healthy conversation in regard to the requirement for the EMS and Fire piece of this event. The requirement is to have two professionals there for 10 hours throughout the day at $200 per hour for both the police and the fire. So right now the cost for public safety to the Matoska is $4,000 for this event. Okay? I understand the police part, but I do have concerns about paying for the EMS and Fire for that entire time to the $2,000, knowing that they’re across the street. We all know what 911 is for. We’re not planning Woodstock in downtown White Bear Lake. We want this to be an elevated event. Again, 700 people in that tent—do we turn that over a few times? We don't know that. I think that’s the challenge. So I guess tonight I’m asking for conversation and healthy debate on what that real need is for public safety on the EMS and Fire side of it. [1:26:12] **Councilmember Walsh:** Is the idea this... is it a ticketed event? Is it just going to be open and you want to make revenue on the beer sale? [1:26:15] **Corey Roberts:** If we get approval here tonight, that’s when we’re really going to put the pencil to the event and figure out. [1:26:18] **Councilmember Walsh:** I think so. I think it is... so to your point, how many tickets do we have to sell for $4,000 to pay for the public safety? So at some point, is this a deal-breaker? I don’t know. It could be. My point is, I’m not asking for anyone to compromise the public safety; I’m looking for healthy debate to find a solution to have a very safe, successful event here year one in downtown White Bear Lake. [1:26:40] **Mayor:** Just a follow-up to a comment you made. I’ll say I want to find a path forward because I think this could be really cool. So I support this idea, I think it’d be really neat—whether it’s here 35 years from now or not, I don’t know, but we’ve got to start somewhere. As a matter of process, I will say it does give me a little heartburn to say we’re going to approve this and then we’re going to "put pencil to paper" and work out the details. I think we’re used to seeing a pretty fleshed-out design—here’s kind of soup-to-nuts what it’s going to look like—and then we’re able to make an informed decision. So it’s not that I doubt your ability to kind of manage this and see it through, but I think from my perspective and Council’s perspective, we’re used to seeing some of those models fleshed out a little bit more, because it takes note of things like: "Whoa, it’s going to be $4,000 for public safety." We’ve already thought through the model. So that’s something I’ve got to grapple with and think through a little bit. But to follow up on what you said about the police, I’m going to defer to City staff and mainly our Chief of Police and our Fire Chief to see what we need to be operationally ready for an event this size while it’s going on, to be able to patrol and provide service to the rest of the community. So I’m not unsympathetic that for a small event that’s just starting out, that $4,000 is a big item, a big line item on the budget. I get that. But it’s not as simple as "Well, they’re across the street, call 911." These are in addition to our normal staffing levels, because while this event is going on, so is life outside of this event, and the people that are on duty are meant to staff that. So that’s sort of point one. I will say more generally, if this is to go anywhere and be here 35 years from now, year one has to be just on point. It might not be the biggest thing in the world, but it has to operationally go smooth. And I think the security plan—police, fire—is a key element in making sure that does happen. And I’m not saying there’s not a middle ground, but it’s typically not a negotiation in terms of, "Well, how about one cop and one firefighter?" We sort of have our plan and we’ve updated it recently for good reason to make sure that we are doing things properly. So it kind of is what it is—it’s not really a back-and-forth. We rely on our chiefs to look at it based on population and all that good stuff. So from my standpoint, as long as you’re telling me that this isn't going to totally derail the timeline, giving it another meeting to have Main Street weigh in I think would be really helpful. And I’m assuming you support that—correct me if I’m wrong—for this to be a success you need Main Street and the other businesses to have some buy-in? [1:28:55] **Corey Roberts:** Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that’s who I approached first in this process. [1:29:05] **Mayor:** Good. Good. Okay. [1:29:10] **Corey Roberts:** But to your point to clarify the "putting the pencil to," that was just more on the financial side of things. You know, so we have an idea, we have a concept, we have a vision, now it’s just making those numbers work once we get approval. [1:29:18] **Mayor:** Understood. Sure. Council, do we have any questions for Mr. Roberts? All right, thank you. We’ll continue to deliberate here. [1:29:25] **Corey Roberts:** All right, thank you all. [1:29:30] **Mayor:** All right, Council, any other questions for Mr. Juba, City staff, comments? What we’d like to do... oh, you need a motion to table, certainly. Motion to table to the next meeting? Our next meeting is... [1:30:00] **Jason Juba:** To a date certain at the next meeting, the 28th. [1:30:05] **Mayor:** Is that a motion to table it to January 28th? Do I have a second? Second. Any further discussion? Councilman Walsh. [1:30:12] **Councilmember Walsh:** One last idea: maybe an area we could help—not financially, as this has a financial component to it—is marketing and promotion once we get this on the calendar. That’s something the city could add in terms of... if we can't get a number that’s better on the public safety side, there’s some things we can do as a city, maybe on the marketing and promotion side. Because marketing and promotion will be a huge part of this—get people to come to a new event. [1:30:35] **Mayor:** I just would like to ask Mr. Roberts... if you want, I’ll let you make that comment. Just please step up to the podium. [1:31:00] **Corey Roberts:** Just one thing I forgot for context in regard to other events somewhat similar: obviously Marketfest is over seven weeks, three hours per night, probably 40,000 people throughout the summer. Their footprint is obviously a full city block plus. Their budget for public safety is what is charged by the city—between $4,000 and $5,000 total. Whereas the charge for this event—10 hours, one day, 2,000 people max—is $4,000 total. Just for some context to the conversation. So thank you. [1:31:35] **Mayor:** Thank you. All right, any further discussion on the motion to table? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries, this is tabled to the January 28th meeting. Thank you. All right, item 8B: the 2025 annual appointments. Miss Crawford. [1:31:45] **City Manager Crawford:** Thank you, Mayor, members of the Council. So annually, the City Council makes appointments for various organizations, the administrative hearing officer, and the official newspaper, and that’s always at the first January meeting of the year. So in your packet is the 2024 representatives as well as the 2024 alternate representatives for the Ramsey County League of Local Governments, VMO, Ramsey County Dispatch policy committee, NFS, and Metro Purple Line Corridor Management Committee. I did reach out to each councilmember and had copied the mayor just to gauge your interest. I did not hear back from everyone; perhaps the mayor did, I’m not quite sure. But really, I think what we have done in the past has gone [1:32:31] **City Manager Crawford:** Through each of the committee appointments, with the exception of NFS because that is a completely different process, but to make the annual appointments. There are a few appointments that are not up for renewal this year, but we did include them in the staff report just for consistency. So we would be... we are looking tonight for the City Council—Mayor and City Council—to designate representatives for Ramsey County League of Local Governments, VMO, Ramsey County Dispatch, and then the Metro Purple Line Corridor Management Committee. We are also looking at appointing our administrative hearing officer, and staff is recommending no change to that appointment, which is Jim Rathburn. And then we are recommending the designation of the official newspaper to be the White Bear Press. Press Publications did submit a proposal, which is in your packet, for 2025. The appointments that we are not looking to fill that are consistent through the next year are the Chair of the City Council, and then there was no election, so there is no appointment of the EDA. And then we are also not looking to appoint our City Attorneys. You may remember that there was a recent Charter amendment which allowed the city to enter into multi-year contracts. So the City Council did choose to do that, so we have secured Kennedy and Graven as well as GDO Law through January of 2027. So, thank you. [1:34:35] **Mayor:** Very good. Well, let’s just take this one at a time. So we have the slate of appointments for city council representatives to various organizations. Everybody should have that in front of you in the memo. Does anyone want out of what’s on that list that they were assigned to last year, either as a representative or an alternate representative? Anybody want out? Okay, so we’ll proceed assuming our resolution is as outlined in the memo, which is a carryover from what it was last year. How about our appointed administrative hearing officer, Jim Rathburn? Anybody have any thoughts on that? Anybody have any opposition to Jim Rathburn being appointed again? All right. How about the designated official newspaper, the White Bear Press? I will note I spoke with Carter Johnson this afternoon, and he regrets that he couldn't make it but did send his thanks for the City’s continued support in designating it as the newspaper. So I wanted the Council to be aware of that. Anybody have any opposition to the White Bear Press being designated as the official newspaper? Seeing none. All right, Miss Crawford, am I missing anything else on this? [1:36:03] **City Manager Crawford:** No, you are not, Mayor. [1:36:05] **Mayor:** Okay. All right, so we have a resolution before us that sets forth everything I just said and will be backfilled with the representatives and alternate representatives from the prior year carrying over to this year. I would entertain a motion to approve that resolution. [1:36:18] **Councilmember Walsh:** Move to approve everything you just said. [1:36:20] **Mayor:** Very good. And a second? Second. All right, I went through that quick and I don’t want to rush it if anybody has any questions or comments, but is there any further discussion on the resolution as moved and seconded? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The resolution passes. Thank you. All right, item nine: discussion, nothing scheduled. Item 10: communications from the City Manager. Miss Crawford. [1:36:55] **City Manager Crawford:** Thank you, Mayor, members of the Council. Wanted to point out the County Road E Corridor Action Plan Open House. This is a public engagement opportunity with the cities of Gem Lake, Vadnais Heights, and us to look at branding opportunities and ideas for County Road E. So this is part of that grant that we received from Ramsey County some time ago and part of the County Road E Corridor action plan, if you will. But this is specifically to rebranding. So it is Thursday, January 16th at the White Bear Lake Fire Station Number Two (the South Fire Station) located right on County Road E. And then offices are closed January 20th, this coming Monday, for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. That’s all I have, thank you. [1:37:45] **Mayor:** Thank you. Council, any questions for Miss Crawford? All right, I don’t see any high school students in the audience and I’m really disappointed I don’t get to give my "local government is great" spiel, so you’re all spared that. All right, I’d entertain a motion to adjourn. Motion. Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. We’re adjourned. [1:37:52] **(End of transcript)**