[0:10] [Music] Why not? [0:53] [Music] >> I just haven't called on to see a multi to pick them up with chief here. >> Chief comes in, >> right? We'll go ahead and get started. [1:12] We all set >> David. How sweet of him. >> Good evening and welcome to the regular city council meeting for Tuesday, September 16th, 2025. Please rise and join me in the pledge of allegiance. There he is. [1:28] 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. Good evening. Welcome everyone. [1:46] Uh any additions or corrections to the agenda? >> No, sir. >> No. Seeing none, I'll move the agenda. Is there a second? Second. >> All in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Opposed. [2:03] We have an agenda. First item up is presentations proclamations and acknowledgements. Uh but tonight, before we begin, I would ask that we pause for a moment of silence. Our state and nation have been shaken by recent acts of gun violence and tragic assassinations. [2:20] We hold in our hearts the victims, their families, and the communities grieving those losses. We also recommmit ourselves to vigilance, to speaking up when we see something concerning or to offering support when someone may be in the need of help, especially with mental health challenges. And we extend our gratitude to our police, firefighters, paramedics, and all public service personnel whose daily commitment helps to keep our community safe. Let's take this moment now together. [3:15] Thank you. May this silence renew our resolve to work together for safety, compassion, and resilience in Rosemount. And with that, we'll move on to the presentations this evening, special events update on the food truck festival this afternoon. And as uh Mr. Schultz is coming forward this weekend. It was amazing to see how many things were happening in Rosemount. We had October Fest at two breweries. We had a Hispanic celebration at uh Lasillas and Malac Malleu. I'm going to get it right soon. [3:53] >> You don't like tortillas? >> Last tortillas. >> Last tortillas. I said >> you said tostillas. >> Tostas. Ryan knows who I'm talking about. Anyhow, it was uh it was quite the uh quite the weekend, I think, in plus the band festival. Yep. [4:09] >> What do you got on tap for us this weekend? >> Well, this weekend uh is the 7th annual Rose Mount uh fall food truck festival. And so, we'll have uh 16 food trucks. We'll have domestic and craft beer. Um we have two live bands coming. Um it's going to be a lot like it's been like in the past. Uh I heard that uh one of the local uh vendors who does pull tabs might be on hand uh this year selling pull tabs. And so uh just a lot going on. Um hoping for good weather. Once again, the event is from 4 to 900 p.m. [4:44] in Central Park. That's Saturday, September 20th. Um you know, we have, you know, every year we try to roll over some of the food trucks to kind of provide new and and you know, uh different experiences from year to year. And so, um, got some good variety again this year. So, we hope people turn out and and enjoy. Uh, Mayor, you had asked about what's going on this week. And then you said end, but uh, just as a a quick plug for the um, cornhole tournament that's being put on by uh, my credit union, which is building a new building here in town. They've got a a fundraising tournament that they invite a lot of other folks from credit unions in and they uh host a big I think it's like a 150 team tournament. Um and it [5:32] starts at noon on this Thursday. They're going to have some food truck fest or food trucks down there. um and they just uh you know it's not as much for the public to come participate in or come down and and play, but um I know people are probably gonna you know mingle through and be able to use you know the food truck services and whatnot, but um again just another new big special event that I'm sure will grow into being more of a community event in the future. Um, but we just wanted to mention that because they're a new business and they've uh the last several years they have run their event out at the Madina Ballroom. Uh, this year they switched it uh decided to come to Rose Mountain. I think they're they're pretty happy with the opportunity that we're giving them [6:18] in Central Park. So, >> and if I recall right, um, the donations or the funds that they raise will be donated to local veterans. >> They all go to local veterans groups uh, represented in Minnesota. There's a variety of them that they work with and so it's all for a good cause and I think it'll be another good event for Rose Mount. Great. [6:38] >> Very good. Any questions? All righty. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> That completes item 3A. We'll move on to response to public comment, which I believe we do not have any this evening. And that'll move us to item five, public comment. Anyone wishing to come before council may do so at this time. Please state your name and address and your question or comment for councel. The podium is open. [7:11] And seeing no one making the move, we will consider the public comment closed, we'll move on to our consent agenda. This evening we have items A through K which include bill listings, the minutes of our regular and work session on September 2nd, the Halloween service agreement for 2025. That's our haunted woods trail event on October 25th this year. Liquor license amendment for Omni Orchard. Donation acceptance from Scott Chiropractic. That was $250 for the run for gold during Leprechaun Days. [7:46] donation acceptance from Quicktrip for the Police K9 that was for $1,000. Accepting improvements and authorizing final payment for Aspen Avenue, accepting bids and award contract for the sanitary sewer lift number 13. This is in relation to the middle school and was considered within budget. the approving of the trunk area assessment agreement for 13401 Bikardi and then approve the development agreement for Aspen Fields. [8:17] Uh this is in post action of our 84 uh council action regarding plat approval. So with that uh council, is there anything that you'd wish to pull? >> No. Seeing no one, can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda items A through K 6 A through K? [8:38] >> So moved. >> Second. >> I have a motion by Esler, second by Freski. Roll please. >> Esler >> I. >> Limple. >> I. >> Weisenil. >> I. >> Tyson. >> I. >> Fres. >> I. >> And that passes 50 and completes item six. We'll move uh through item seven, which we have no public hearings this evening. [8:59] Unfinished business item eight and we are up to new business item 9A the pedestrian crossing enhancement guidance and review process. Mr. Edgar. >> Thanks Mayor. Good evening council members. Uh before I turn it over to Chris Brown with SRF, I just wanted to kind of briefly uh introduce the topic. About a year ago, we began working on the process of developing a formalized system for how we review and consider pedestrian crossing enhancements to our intersections in town. And uh we did a great deal of public feedback engagement last fall and a lot of data collection and uh intense study of of uh the many intersections in town that u would [9:47] presumably have future consideration for this sort of thing. So, we brought this all to you in a work session u this summer and and kind of received some final guidance from that. This step is more to put a bow on things. I say uh we we took that feedback to heart and and Chris and his team had made some last adjustments to the guidance documents that we'll uh be moving forward with. [10:14] But essentially, I wanted to bring him in and uh give an opportunity for the content that's behind all of this to be put in the public forum uh so that not only you all can hear it again and reinforce what we've been working on, but uh also for the benefit of the public should anyone ask what what all went into this uh we can point to this video and the presentation to help uh follow up with folks to educate them on it. So, with that, I'll turn it over to Chris and he'll run us through a presentation here. [10:44] >> Sounds good. Yeah, thanks Nick. Um, well, good evening everybody, Mr. Mayor, council members. Appreciate the time here to present uh the exciting culmination of a year of uh working on this with Nick. So, we're excited to um complete this effort and yeah, provide just a brief update on on kind of final elements here. So, again, Chris Brown, project manager at SRF Consulting Group. [11:05] So, tonight uh again, we'll kind of go back into the background. I know I've repeated myself a few times here, but want to make sure that we start at the very beginning um and go through the process uh methodology, prioritization and outcomes and then also end with the guidance that staff will have internally to utilize at their discretion in the future. [11:23] Uh so first and foremost um we began the study to create a proactive opportunity to identify high priority locations um for pedestrian crossing improvements in the city. So, historically, this was a reactive approach based upon a crash or an abundance of community input um that perhaps wasn't identifying the highest need location um and not applying city resources most effectively to those areas that are perhaps um highest need. [11:48] And so from this um effort, I'll go into in a second here, we uh collected a lot of data, a lot of city um city collected data that we were able to utilize as well as state level data um to create a proactive approach that takes the emotion out of all this and is purely data driven. Um and so helps to identify you know uh high priority areas and then the guidance working in tandem with that um identifies potential solutions. And the goal of this is really just to create synergy across existing city processes, capital improvement processes and other planning efforts um to make sure that city resources are used most effectively and efficiently um to make these important improvements. [12:25] And so just most basically what's a pedestrian crossing study? So, as it as it notes, it's just uh an effort to enhance the safety, comfort, accessibility, and convenience for people of all ages and abilities to walk, roll, and bike in the city of Rosemount. Um, and and cross the roadways uh correspondingly, safely, and conveniently. [12:44] And so, again, we, you know, not only for the safety and connections, which are paramount, first and foremost, we want to create a safe network for everybody to enjoy and travel in their community. Um, there's also just recent trends where people are walking and biking more. there's more of a desire um to be able to access schools, parks, and other destinations by alternative modes. [13:00] And so we're just seeing that across the country and here in Rosemount and want to make sure there's a connected uh network that supports these changes. So the process um at a high level again we use a lot of data, geospatial data from the city, uh demographics from the census, land use and other destination information that was manually created. [13:20] All this feeding into a GIS geospatial process that helped us identify and prioritize high need locations. We created a a dynamic dashboard that staff can use to understand where those high priority locations um are and then created a process and documentation um for future guidance and usage by the city to uh improve um crossings using industry best practices and guidance. [13:42] And you'll see along the right side there throughout all this we had a robust community engagement process. Much of that was completed last fall, but we continued to have um folks commenting in on the website um you know in the last few months as well. And so we'll touch on that a bit a little bit, but um we did get a lot of good feedback from across the community, which was great and support. [14:04] Um and so again, as I mentioned, this is all data driven, all purely geospatial data used by the city, county, and state. And so we used 33 different criteria which is a lot but we wanted to have a robust process that was able to identify high priority locations using a variety of information. Um so that included transportation data. Where are sidewalks and trails located now or in the future? Um where are crash reported crashes occurring? Um where are higher volumes of people walking and biking located? Uh destinations existing and future schools. So we did include schools that are planned or under construction. um parks um downtown or or land uses that have a higher propensity for walking and biking. And also um considered a variety of demographic factors too of certain populations that may um need to walk and bike or have a [14:50] higher propensity to walk or bike in their daily life. And that includes younger, older, you know, populations and other individuals. And so from that we analyzed every single intersection um all 762 in the city of Rosemount. Uh focusing in though um on city- owned intersections. So where does the city own the roadway today? And then focused on a little bit higher volume roadways. So industry best practice focusing about on a thousand or more vehicles per day along a certain segment of roadway. If it's less than that, there's enough gaps in traffic. [15:24] It's a low enough volume neighborhood street where you can probably cross at will. Um we also reviewed locations where um you know inherently most ped bike crossings would occur. So again, narrowing in on the on the locations that have the highest volumes, the most destinations, etc. And so from that, we narrowed it down to 159. So as you can kind of see there, city-owned intersections, about almost 90% in the city, um, of those 762 are owned by the city, but only about a quarter meet this threshold of being over 1,000 vehicles per day. [15:58] And so from that um we studied all 159 intersections, applied all 33 points of data to that um and then started to um you know zero in which I'll talk about in a minute the highest you know first uh top list here but you're just seeing again um where all these intersections meet that threshold and all those major corridors mostly collector streets um such as Bonire 145th Kamera on those east west streets as well as Shannon Parkway Chippendale Biscane on those north south streets. So, it's identifying hopefully the streets that come to mind when you think of the biggest barriers, the biggest issues that you're hearing from the community and those that need, you know, need the most assistance and creating a more connected space. [16:40] As I mentioned, we had a robust public engagement process. We had an interactive web map shown here where people were able to put a point um and identify an issue wherever they so chose as unsafe, needing new or improved crossings or other safety concerns. We got um almost 250 responses on that online map. We also um had over 40 individuals reach out to us on the websites um that we responded to. Um and just wanted to note that you know this engagement um you know was was used throughout the process considered in in the areas of of focus but again we really narrowed down on those that were data driven using this as an extra layer if you will of support for location to be improved in the near term and informing future work for the city to consider um you know in the long term. [17:24] So all this data will be packaged up to the city. All these comments will live on you know for future consideration. Uh, and this is just some fun photos showing our pop-up events at the senior center, the library, um, at a at the fire station number two open house. So, we were at a variety of locations out in the community talking to folks. Um, which was great. Had a lot of good feedback and interaction. U, much of that focusing in on um, you know, priority uh, um, prioritization of goals. And so, you're just seeing here where the city identified from a from a stance of walking, roll, and biking where they'd like to see the most improvement. those top locations being those busiest roads, those biggest barriers, access to schools and parks and and roads, roadways that have higher speeds, so a greater perception of having, you know, of not being safe to to to cross. [18:10] All right. So then from the prioritization process, taking all this data, um, we narrowed it down to the top 30. So those 159, narrowed it down to the top 30 locations, um, worked with staff to kind of narrow down even more. So this tool is identifying all the all the crossings in the city. So a couple of them were already under um design for construction here in the next year. A couple maybe were more recently completed in the near term. So they just didn't quite rise to the to the immediate need of being um uh of being fixed. And so we narrowed it down a little bit more to about 20 locations where actually collected ped bike counts. So, we put cameras out there for a couple days and actually were able to see how many people were crossing at that location and see how people were interacting with with the intersection just to kind of get an idea of what's going on today at those uh top 20 [18:57] locations. From there, we narrowed down to 14 kind of an arbitrary number, but um just narrowed it down to those that were the highest that we felt um needed to be conceptually designed and engineered and cost estimated. So then there's, you know, quote unquote shelf ready projects that the city could pick up complete design for and hopefully construct in the near term. [19:17] And so I'll quickly go through this list. There'll be a map here to follow. So these are the top um locations in order from this data driven process. Um many here are along Chippendale, which is obviously a busier north south roadway. Um as well as 145th Street, just right outside our door here um for a short segment uh uh west of the railroad. Uh a few locations along Kamera and Shannon Parkway. um as well as Dodd Boulevard. And so you're kind of seeing some of those major east west um some north south streets being highlighted that are hopefully some barriers that come to mind as you think of locations that need improvement um within the community in the near term. [19:52] And here's just a brief map showing all 159 locations and in those narrowed in top 14 that we focused on in coordination with city staff. Um and there's an image here at the end that I'll show those concept designs that we developed um for future consideration. [20:10] Uh as a part of this effort as well, we created crossing uh guidance using industry standards and best practices to to analyze locations that are developed from this tool, but also be used for locations that come up along the way. So um you know, by no means is this tool the end all beall. We understand that there's still construction projects, community concerns, um other things that might just come up in the future that need to be addressed. And so this guidance is a flexible document that staff can leverage and use just to make sure that they are they are using the latest and greatest to design the safest and most comfortable crossings in the community. [20:46] Um so again we you know created standard procedure. So there's we wanted to create transparency and understanding not only for staff but for you all for the community to say okay if this if this location is identified what can I expect to see out there based upon um again analysis and standards and best practices. So focusing synergies on those locations that that you know um can be addressed and and that need the most um help to be improved. And it also provides a defensible solution for improvement. So staff can point back to this guidance document and know that you know it's it's leveraging MIDNOT FHWA and other you know respected agencies that are um providing the the latest and greatest if you will for pedestrian crossing improvements. [21:26] Here's an example of a customized flowchart that was designed for the city of Rosemount to identify um you know when a location is is is requested. You know, is it um appropriate for consideration of a pedestrian crossing improvement? So again, you see that thousand threshold, but is there a ped bike demand? Has there been a reported crash? Is it near a destination um such as a school or park? So there's a variety of factors here that can highlight a a crossing as being um appropriate. you know, there's not just a one one opportunity. There's several that can um have a crossing rise to that opportunity. Um variety of other factors that go into this related to obstructions and distance from nearest mark crosswalks, but at the end of it, you see green and red, yes or no. And so hopefully this is an easy enough double check for staff to use quickly and [22:12] efficiently to understand if that crossing is appropriate for improvement, be it identified through the tool or through um some other process that the city is using such as capital improvement planning again or public comments etc. And here's just an example project um just to show you what we're what we developed for the city from those 14 locations. So this is a conceptual design um of curb extensions along Kamera um near that kind of park, school, regional trail. Uh I'm sure you all are familiar with um it's connecting the communities north and south. Um so this is just again an example showing you um the the design that or the conceptual designs that we're um we've produced and hopefully can assist staff in um programming and and completing design and constructing these improvements. [22:58] With that, I'll open up to any questions. >> All righty. Thank you. Uh, open it up to council members. We'll start with >> Thank you for this presentation. I enjoyed our work session plus this presentation. I love how it's all data driven. >> Um, the only thing I want to point out is I think we need to be real we we can't rely on data only. There's got to be a big discretionary component here and I think we talked about that at length >> at our work session. I think some of the items that show up in the top 20, even sitting next to my council members, they would say, "Ah, not really a problem just because it hits the marks." So, that I just want to like note that. Um I I am a little concerned that we're not looking at the east side a little bit more um closely, the east side as well as like the new Amberfields because that's going to it continues to boom and [23:45] just to make sure that we're on top of it. And then my last item is um I think as we're looking at remediating existing um maybe coming up with a few different options of what the solutions could be to making sure we can afford it. Right? [24:01] So there might be different levels of solutions based on the specific crossway. But moving forward with new development, I think we should implement a policy where this like the solution you just showed is is kind of like required as part of the plan. So just kind of to wrap it in a bow, love the data, love the analysis. It's it's right on. I just think we need to keep that discretionary component as part of our decision-m process. [24:28] >> I'll just echo council members Presky's words. um same as you know how we felt during the the work session that there does need to be some discretionary component and I think we were surprised at some of those on that top 20 list because I personally walked through a few of those on on the regular and I wouldn't wouldn't spend an extra piece of tax payer money u on a few of them so um just uh thank you for the analysis though it's really good data good to have and good to drive that um and some questions too you know as we you know start putting some of this in action on future crossings um Just want to keep in mind we have a very active bicycle population. Um, a lot of residents here in town who serious bicyclists and um like that design we just saw would be kind of a choke point for our serious bicycle population because they use [25:13] those bicycle lanes. So, I hope we find a way to make those kind of coexist with our um our pedestrians as well because I do know there's a lot of avid bicyclists. I personally am not one, but I know there's and I look it um but I I know it's out there. But thank you again, >> council member. [25:32] >> I'm good. >> Uh, couple things. Yeah. Could you slip back one one there? I think this um here I did have a question like this potential solution. Would you expect to see that on all four corners? >> It depends. [25:48] >> Yes and no. So I guess this was showing maybe the lowest cost, highest benefit opportunity. So focusing in on so we collected data here and we knew where everyone was crossing in those four legs and we narrowed it in where the most people were crossing excuse me from that camera analysis that we had. But if you know there was a reconstruction project going through here yes a best practice would probably be to improve all quadrants just to make it uniform. Um but I think there's some wiggle room here depending upon you know the scope and cost of the project. And I think I would echo the comment about um you know utilizing this uh in new developments so we don't have to go back and and redo those. I know it's kind of a >> little bit of guesswork in there as to where where those places are, but I I think um [26:33] >> with with the data that we're able to kind of project out in there, I think that's good. >> I um did have a question. So it's narrowed down to 14. So, this will this will be kind of the challenge if if we were to go forward with those. Uh, and I'm going to put you on the spot between the two of you. Um, how much would you know each location cost? [26:54] >> And then with our budget, what what could residents, you know, in some of these areas is like we got 14. So, would we do all 14 at once or is it a one type thing a year? So, it's spread out over 14 years. I know it's kind of asked, but that's what I'm trying to get to is if if we do these as a project, um how many projects might they be and and some of its urgency and you know, but we kind of laid out a few. So, I'm get trying to get some thoughts on that. [27:25] >> Yeah, I I'll jump in and speak to that, Mayor. Thank you for that question. I might have some reflections on other comments that were made earlier. Really the exercise that we've done here was a means for us to get to a point of prioritizing things based on data. Uh, of course totally understand the discretionary desires there and that's what we took to heart after the work session where despite all of this and this very you know in a box type of process that you might call it, we still come back to you folks to get a go-ahad on this whether it's through the budget or specific project proposals. And I think there will there will remain the types of interactions that we always have on bigger projects. This is the start of a program. Um to answer your [28:13] question, mayor, I I would not expect 14 of them to be done any given year, both on account of budgetary concerns, but workload as well. It it can be a lot of different spots. Um this example here is a concept right now. It's not a final design by any means. So, there's a lot of work that has to be done to dial it in specific to the context and other things that we just uh don't get it didn't get into the weeds on >> with the process. This was supposed to still be at kind of a high level to start inching us towards what could it look like, not what is it going to look like. So, there's work uh that remains. [28:53] And uh I think that the other question that was asked on on something like this um you know we had some pretty lofty numbers that came out during the work session time frame. Those were ballpark estimates based on contractors doing the work given the current bidding climate and what have you. But I will point out to we just got done with our own city crew doing some curb modifications at 141st in Addison to tighten that intersection up. wasn't so much to apply something ex exactly like this, but the the work is relatively the same. The the cost for that was around $30,000 direct external costs, and we figured maybe $30,000 worth of our staff's labor. So, I'm starting to talk with our [29:40] staff about, well, realistically, how many of this sort of thing could we pull off at any given year with our own staff? and we've got to work through that yet to just understand how that fits into all of the other things that we ask our staff to address and maintain. But it could be a way to to start uh getting a little bit more volume out of out of the dollars that we get allocated to the program and maybe we're able to to do a handful any given year if they're more basic like this >> with you know the crew did basically one intersection this year. Maybe it's one to three at the most just roughly and you're looking at maybe $100,000. I'm I'm trying to push you a little bit. [30:24] >> Complexity is going to weigh in on this. If it's uh it depends on the extents really. It uh >> if we're doing all four quadrants or if there's a a good distance to cover where we've got to tie curbs and it's all going to make a difference in how much time it takes them to work on them. But I I think it's fair to say three uh might be possible, but I don't want to I don't want to overcommit our staff yet either when they have just started to dig into. [30:49] >> But it helps kind of set that, you know, when you're talking about um money and prioritizing things. And like I say, some of these we we cross now and wouldn't think that they're they're a problem until they are a problem. So, um, appreciate you just, you know, being honest on that and trying to >> challenge and put it in perspective. [31:09] Council member, I >> I got a question. Um, and maybe I missed it, but is one of the data points to come up with the priorities the the speed limit on the >> on the road speed. Is that identified? >> Because I think that is a factor too that I'm knowing that you built that into your in your plan because I know when we had the work session, there was a couple it couple areas that were identified as maybe we don't need those. [31:31] Yeah, I I also would say I go back to you're the experts >> and yep, data and having discretion. I get that. But what happens is you roll out the 14 15 places we prioritize. >> Something happens at another one that we >> we had prioritized, but then something happens there and now the public is like, well, why wasn't that one a priority? Well, the experts said that was one of them and we made the decision to do something different. I would feel more comfortable relying on you, you guys who are doing the data and yeah, discretion yes. [32:07] >> But I'd also want to be careful because I'd feel more comfortable, lack of a better term, kind of hiding behind the experts to say this is this is this is the work they did. They made the decisions on these locations >> and and we trusted them and we went with them. >> Yeah. And it's tough, too. I mean, tragedies happen and so I totally understand that there might need to be diversions every now and again to certain areas that need to be improved just because something happened. Um, but the hope is that this can provide a process that can at least either lead you through those priority locations or lead you through the solutions for a different location through that guidance um that can get you a much safer space using those best practices. So, I think it is a multi-pronged approach here for sure that we're trying to offer some flexibility and some clear guidance on how to how to improve things. Um I was in a quick add if I may just from the [32:52] from the priorization tool standpoint. We did set it up in a way where the data is all documented and can be easily updated hopefully at a cadence of every few years acknowledging that Rosemount's growing very quickly and things are changing and so like this hopefully isn't a static tool for for you know a long term. It's maybe more of a living tool um in the midterm. So just want to add that as well. [33:12] >> And so a wider question I have because I know that uh the first filter on this is number of cars going through that intersection. uh a day. Uh I do know that we get a fair amount of uh asks in our neighborhoods and so this tool would automatically I think kick a bunch of those out. So I guess the challenge is is how do how do we look at some of those because I don't think we can automatically say that a resident's concern is um strictly designed towards this. Um there may be some real things there. So, h how how should we be responding to residents uh when they bring in those, hey, what about this, you know, and and we're concerned about or there's a whole bunch [33:58] of kids that live in this neighborhood or, you know, it's it's all those type of things that don't always seem to fit into the nice little uh analysis box there. Yeah, I tough question to answer I think on that mayor because we do get an awful lot of requests from internal neighborhood streets which are going to be uh ones that don't generally come anywhere close to having a thousand cars a day. They might have a couple hundred and it's all the same people going back and forth uh you know neighbors of neighbors that uh generally are kind of the source of angst or complaints and so forth. Um, I'll also say just kind of be blunt, there's always kids in neighborhoods. You know, we we that's [34:45] not a unique feature anywhere you go in a neighborhood setting. Um, so I'm not trying to be dismissive about it by any means, but it it's we we're trying to to narrow the focus a little bit where if we consider them in every single location, that'll keep us >> analyzing in perpetuity on these sorts of things. We have to have a baseline of some sort. Um, if there's a unique piece of information that we've never heard before, the a aspect of a setting that u sets a light bulb off. I think that might be cause for examining it closer. [35:26] But uh just to to try to manage a systematic way of going about it, we had to have a a a kind of a base to start from. Well, and that's my that's my point is you've got what 540. Go back to the slide that had the number of of crossings. [35:42] >> Yeah. So, the city has um here one second. So, the city has 673. >> 673. >> We're picking 14 or you guys are recommending 14. There's going to be 659 unhappy neighborhoods that are upset because their corner didn't get one. And that's where I just I feel strongly that I would rather rely on the work you guys are doing barring any large significant because your example somebody's going to raise their hand and said, "Well, geez, our neighborhood has a lot more kids." Okay. [36:15] Now, there's 658 other neighborhoods that just because they're not the squeaky wheel, they're not going to be taken care of. I mean, that's the work that you guys did. That's what we paid you to do, right? I think that's why we should rely heavily on the work you guys did. [36:31] >> And I would say, oh, sorry to >> I was just going to say, and that's why my comment goes back to in order to tackle all of these, we've got to find another more affordable solution to maybe ones that are lower down on the list, but there can be something there. That's what I'm trying to say. Like working from 673, it will take us decades to get through it, right? So, is there something else? I don't know. Oh, I mean, >> but the reality is no other community does all 673. [36:56] >> Exactly. >> Well, and the the other thing that goes with that is if you did every intersection now, you're >> if you start putting up stop signs and things, you're going to be stopping every 100 ft. >> And that's certainly not what we want in our arterial roads. So, this is certainly pointing out that >> major traffic arterial roads are going to be uh a focus inside our neighborhoods are probably not our our focus. And and residents need to hear that is yes, you should be you should know where your kids are. You should be responsible as well as your neighbors. And you talk about, you know, that neighbor, you should know who your neighbor is and who, you know, what kids are and not driving through these areas um, you [37:43] know, with with no thought at what's going on. And I know that's sometimes hard to hear and I I agree with um, Mr. Edgar on that is we can't be everywhere with all things. And so again, this is for major arterial type things. [37:59] >> I just echo we or go ahead. Thanks. I yeah a point I I didn't bring up earlier was when and this kind of plays to what was said um what if we get to a point of saturation with devices and enhancements then they they mean less and less with each every time we grow that they don't stand out anymore I think there's a lot of cases where that already starts to take place people in their travels you tune a lot of the background noise that you see out your windshield out, you're just in the mode of of driving and things don't are not no longer as special the more that they appear. Um, and that's that's in the background all [38:46] of this. So, we want to focus the attention and the enhancements on the places that have the the highest need and the highest probability of where you're going to have a conflict between travelers. Um, so Chris, >> I was just going to say this conversation, I've done this in other communities and the the thousand threshold is a is a common conversation point. So I just want to acknowledge that. Um, but also say that, you know, it's it's used nationwide. And frankly, I think it's used because there has to be a starting point to to to have a to have a bar because the bar then is is taking out 75% of your intersections that again probably have the lowest probability of having conflict and having you focus in on the highest need locations. So just acknowledging that that is a standard that many communities use across the country. And then the last thing I'll say is we did, you know, [39:32] again hear from the community um that busy roads, intersections, and high-speed roads are where they want to see improvements and that's those are locations. >> All right. Good. >> So just a question um obviously Rose Mount is growing as a community and we've got a lot of newer building areas of town and some changing traffic patterns. How do we make sure that we don't let the data get stale? Um, and make sure that we kind of keep up with the changes um, you know, because anecdotally we all hear a lot about Bonire and we all have a lot of concern about Bonaire and that's not in this top 14. And so when I'm hearing from residents about that that road and not being in our top 14, but we also know there's more and more homes being built there and the traffic patterns are probably changing daily. [40:15] >> So, how do we stay on top of this as the numbers and traffic evolve? Mhm. >> A couple of ways. I think as Chris alluded to that the model and the the the tool that's behind all of this is something that can be refreshed uh relatively easily and we can choose the cadence that we want to do on that u to pull fresh data and then highlight is see how things change. Um so that that's just a we'll have to get a decision point of what is how frequent is frequent enough on that. Is it every year? Is it every two years? I don't know that I would go beyond two to three. Every year might be just too fast as well where we're not seeing enough u differences. Um we might have to find a [41:00] sweet spot as we start walking into this. Um with respect to Bonire, I I think I would point out that we have done things there recently. We have a trail that's planned that Dan's department's going to construct next spring. That's a big source of concern out there. Uh school district just built a new enhanced crossing right next to Emerald Trail Elementary. We're looking at if we tweak the existing enhanced crossing at Bardi. So, uh I don't want anyone to to think that we're not keeping an eye on that. It's just we can only do so many things at once. [41:38] >> Thank you. Yep. >> And and then there's the whole other question of working with our partners on the intersections that are not city-owned as well, >> which is on our radar as well. >> On our radar and very active, I might say. There's a active study on Highway 3. Um that just started up um and County Road 42 been very active. So very engaged with Dakota County and Mindot on those. [42:06] I would just quick offer on the data point too. A lot of the big data we're using, which I think I mentioned in previous council work sessions using privatized cell phone data um from a provider that we get so we're able to get pedestrian and bicycle counts, they have to update their system every six months, but I would say the trend is greater than a year or two where you're actually seeing changes in data. So just one example of a of a data repository and kind of the cadence that occurs for actually seeing changes and updates from that resource. So, >> and there's probably one to ask, um, with, uh, the season now getting a little darker and stuff, um, utilizing our, uh, city newsletter as an opportunity to communicate some things out there. Um, just, you know, being careful around when you are in the neighborhoods, you know, public safety [42:52] message, I guess, uh, coming out of public works, uh, and being communicated in the newsletter would probably be good on our next one. I'm pretty sure October is pedestrian safety month. >> So there's an opportunity to have a >> and we have social media channels too to to push some of that stuff out there. [43:10] Just raising some awareness. >> Yep. >> Uh I think we would all agree that that's a positive thing too. So >> any other questions, comments? All right. This was for information and we'll consider that an accepted report and thank you very much. [43:26] >> Thank you so much. I appreciate it. >> Thank you. All right. What happened to this thing? Died on me. >> Uh, 9B. >> Why does it do that? So, that completes 9A. We'll move on to 9B, establishing our preliminary 2026 budget levy NCIP. [43:51] Mr. Martin, >> thank you. Uh, thanks, Mayor, members of the council. Uh exciting night to be here bringing uh an initial culmination to months and months of work with you all and our department head team, staff leadership team to get us to setting our preliminary budget and levy which is a work that we do every September that you guys are now all very familiar with where we set the ceiling of our levy and our budget from which then we can reduce between now and then final authorization at your truth and taxation hearing in December. Uh I should start with what I hopefully, you know, often start with and can reiterate even more, but this is the work of a ton of people internally. [44:29] Uh staff leadership team submitting their reports to administrative services director Malica and I um and her TIA spending hours and hours and hours getting us to where we are tonight. So just a public thank you to Tia and really she should be the one here doing the mouthpiece side of it, but I'm happy to play that role here for for tonight. [44:48] Uh and maybe we'll uh we'll change that around in in the future. But um really a fun thing to talk about, right? As we always talk about, our budget is is a reflection of our strategic plan and the vision of the city and what we are responding to, how we are reacting and growing as we move forward. And I hope what you'll see inside this budget, you guys know this budget very well. You've seen this for a long time, but as as residents here talk about it, um can see, you know, the focus on the city's growth growth and our strategic plan as we move forward. Um, so headlines from this budget, we talk about this kind of every year. We have another year of record growth in the value of our new construction. Last year, $177 million of new construction um was a record by a large a majority or a large amount. This year, $253 million in the value of new [45:35] construction. I would predict that's why Mr. Keenberger is not here tonight. It's kind of a mic drop moment for him. I'm kidding. He's he's he's he's at a training event, but what a heck of a year. uh as we grow as a city, uh $253 million. And what we'll do and talk about is is kind of how that assists our community um to grow the way we grow inside this budget and have um the tax impact that we that we have. The city's tax capacity valuation increased by 11.69% um which is a good steady increase that we have um year-over-year and something that we're proud of. And I think a headline um you know if you were to write the the news story is this is an investment in public safety and you'll see that as we talk about deepening investments in the fire department, continued investments in police department. Um and then a lot of [46:22] software uh is frankly the other piece that's inside this budget and we'll talk about that kind of as we go. Uh additionally, so what does that this is always our question. We like to kind of start with it. What did that new construction save people? Um so that $253 million what did that do for us? [46:37] that saved a median valued homeowner $83 on their taxes. And so, um, right now what you're going to see tonight is a $135 proposed tax increase on a median valued home. That would have been $218 with the same budget without that value growth. [46:53] And so as you're out there communicating with your constituents and in the public, um it is not that a growing city like ours will ever have a zero budget and can add firefighters and can add police officers without a levy growth and without a budget growth. But we can do is we can grow the way we're growing by paying not as large, right, of an increase in in in our taxes. And so to get done what you're getting done inside this budget, like I said, would have been $218 and instead it's going to be $135. [47:23] Um to put that in comparison, 2023, which was still a steady year of growth for us, a strong year of growth. Um $32 was saved um for the median value home owner. So this year $83 is saved for kind of a tax increase that they are are are shielded from. Um median valued home uh continues to be one of the stronger ones in Dakota County. So, we have a a bunch of of strongly valued homes in this community. $422,850 is the median valued home in this community. And that's a 7.3% increase for that home or that homeowner from their their 2025 uh valuation of their home. [48:04] So, uh like I said, uh this is showing a 9.86% 86% increase in the operating budget or just under $2 million in the the city's operations and the growth in the city's operations to fund that operation is an 8.2% increase to our tax levy. Um and the debt issuance that we continue to talk about for the PDPW campus results in a 5% increase to the levy. So a cumulative 13.2% interest. [48:29] But we really like to separate those two to say that the city's operation and what you're doing to grow the city uh and how we function is 8.2% 5% continues to be that PDPW campus which as a reminder uh will phase out in 2027 will be the last year of that. So we have 26 this is this budget 27 one more budget of of of that 5% or about that $50 being um paid for and then after that that rate is inside of our budget and and and is reflected. So again down there below that 8.2% is about is $85 on that single that median valued home single family home experiencing a 7.3% value increase. The debt issuance is $50. So there's how we get that 135 um to to take median valued [49:15] home taxes up from 1351 to 1481 uh in 2026. A little bit of this was already mentioned. Uh tax capacity growth up to 59.795 million. So a significant jump from the 53 million of last year. Market value of new construction we talked about. Um again 2019 kind of pre- pandemic uh little bit of a slower time in a row about $47 million was a value back then of new construction and what we' maybe see in an okay year. But uh the years that we've gotten used to the last few here are are quite historic obviously for a city of our of our size and how quickly we're growing. So just want to kind of keep showing those data points to put that in perspective. Uh mentioned that already at the top just all the [50:01] work that goes into what we're doing here tonight. A number of drafts uh just completed internally. a number of of of hard conversations with leadership team of here's things that can and can't fit to try to bring council and the community a budget that gets a lot of things done but is still you know it's it's it's an it's a strong growth is it's a not a small number we acknowledge that so trying to make those hard choices as we go through and and complete drafts. [50:27] So we'll just kind of jump right into it. Uh we always do a little bit of a look back here. This takes us back to 2020. So seven years of data um showing our average annual levy growth over across those seven years has been 7.64% average annual budget growth is 7.17% across those years. One thing we've talked about is kind of city levy budget growth aligning with value growth and tax capacity growth. And so you see that here a little bit. We've been averaging across those seven years a 9.57% tax capacity growth. So kind of showing that data behind trying to live within the means of how our city is growing, our t how our tax capacity is growing, how that is reflected in how our levy and our operating budget grows. Um so hopefully that that that shines through [51:12] a little bit there. Um again, I I kind of point folks to as I talk, you know, anecdotally or out of leprechaun days or what have you, again, um you know, why can't the city's quick growth just lead to a 0% budget or no growth at all in the budget? and and we point to our neighbors in like a Lakeville or a fast growing city um that are hiring, you know, dozens of of firefighters as they grow and police officers and miles of streets to plow and plow operators. Um we love being in a growing city. We love leading a growing city, but we do have to grow along with that city and and so showing how that tax capacity value does kind of align with how the city has to grow. I think if you were the city council and a resident in a city that that was experiencing pretty flat growth, you'd be able to more effectively establish a budget that's kind of flat and kind of steady as she [51:58] goes. Um, and that's just not the reality here in Rosemont, which again we are responding to and and doing our best to handle that. So, city we'll jump into budget by budget. Uh, we we we got to keep it easy on the city council, right? was a no no change in the city council's budget for next year, but just frankly just aligning with council direction to say and it's a good direction to say pull the things out of the council budget that used to live inside the council's budget that now live in our general government budget. And so you'll see some admin services budgets that increase. It's a realignment of uh council things really just being about about your guys' work, your training, your travel, things of that nature. Um and so no changes for uh the city council this this calendar year. [52:39] admin services. This is kind of our our newer bucket, right? So, the in we've and now in our new financial software, we're able to have divisions inside of all of uh the way we budget. And so, as you did as you dug through the attachment, you see we have an HR budget, a communications budget, an administrative services budget, a finance budget, a general government budget that allows us to really break apart where folks live, where their salaries live, um where where fees associated with each department live. [53:05] And so admin services encompasses all of those that I just mentioned. So showing a 9.9% increase about $266,000. Here's where you'll start to see some of those software costs that we've talked about and then new initiatives that that come and go. Elections is one of the ones that that happens every every other year for us in a lot of ways. And and next year is an election uh in 2026. And so we have election judges to to bring on board. Again, our software costs uh continue to to change along with our partnership with Dakota County on absentee balloting, which we greatly appreciate, and some new equipment, some new balloting equipment that Dakota County is working on. We've got some fees built in to get ready to respond to that. Big ticket item in admin services is our long awaited and pursued transition in our kind of financial software and our back-end financial [53:50] management software. And really excited to to have that implemented here and rolling. And that's just been years of work for Tia and her team and and we're we're finish line or maybe past the finish line hopefully on that. And so you'll see um we've got we've got some of that software cost in here and gets back to council direction this summer during during some of our work sessions on really challenging us to not look to add bodies. Let's look to add software that can help our bodies work, you know, smarter, faster, better. And so this software is going to do a lot of that. [54:20] So, we've got the JD Edwards software, uh some of the accounts payable software, a special assessment software that lets realtors uh search what a pending assessment could be on a property they're selling. A lot of really great stuff that increases our customer service. We have an HR software package that we're really excited about that helps us kind of we have a fairly automated um application process. this would more further automate the onboarding process, the benefits process, things that you all in corporate settings uh likely have had and and we're just we are getting that rolling here on our side of the world. [54:53] And then we've got some um mandated ADA website accessibility upgrades that allow some of that readability and and things of that nature. So, we've got a software uh consultancy cost to uh to make that happen for the Rosemont website. So, there it shows the admin services budget trying to reflect back. You know, you can see the switch there. where we backdated to 23 when we made that kind of culmination of all the budgets. So, generally speaking, averaging that 6.3% average annual growth in admin services. [55:21] Community development uh doing some good things next year, 14.51% increase or 253,000. Big ticket item in there is we are due for our 2050 comprehensive plan with a metropolitan council. And so planning commission, Port Authority, a number of our commissions will begin the work in 2026 uh and 2027 about a two-year process to develop our 2050 comprehensive plan. Um so about budgeting about a $75,000 per year to a consultancy to work with us to update significant work in Nick's world. [55:54] systems planning how our water and sewer infrastructure is ready to respond to growth planning and zoning. Obviously, that drives how we're allowed to and and able to develop as a city response to the um some housing goals that council gives us to supply our segment of of multifamily density housing in the in the metro. So, uh really critical task. [56:14] It's really the city's uh playbook in a lot of ways of how we develop and so huge undertaking and it and it is not a cheap not a cheap endeavor. permit processing software. The current permissing permit processing that we're doing um is is is hasn't been supported for many years by the company that developed it and it's really bandated together. So looking forward to unrolling a new permit processing software again helping our permit team which is extraordinarily busy just work that much quicker with the bodies and and staff that they have and then looking at a kind of a port authority council uh endeavor of the speedway small area planning. So now the city owns the speedway. What does it look like to bring in um Port Authority tonight talked about this with a request for inquiries or proposals on a developer to purchase Speedway. How [57:00] would that align with an overall neighborhood plan, small area plan for what Speedway could look like? So, excuse me. Um so, a small consultancy opportunity there to uh to work on Speedway and what the future of Speedway could look like. And then we we're rolling into our full year of our third party code enforcement. So, that that number goes up a little bit. um not a little, a good a good amount uh to have that uh every week uh support of code enforcement. As the city grows, it's one of the largest complaints that we know you get as city council is emails from neighbors that are are frustrated with how their maybe their neighbor is maintaining their property. And um with three building inspectors running the development pattern that you just saw, they simply can't keep up with code enforcement. And so it's been really successful for us to work with a third party to do code [57:45] enforcement. um and excited to keep rolling on that so we don't lose track of of Rosemount looking and feeling the way that it's been feeling. So I want to be want to be purposeful about how we grow in that. So there's community development looking back to 2020 about 7.12% average annual growth for CD. [58:06] Police uh our largest department uh a good growth next year 8.15% $600,000. um a number of fees here that that we can kind of breeze through a little bit, but try to bucketize things and not talk about everything all at once, but continue to have a larger staff. So, increased training c costs, things like our partnerships at South Metro SWAT and Dakota 911, the domestic preparedness committee, electronic crimes unit, just all those fees continue to just go up as we partner with all of our really critical partner agencies. And then I think I mentioned Dakota 911 is is our biggest driver of a change in our in our partner fees and that's driven by rolling averages of our call volumes to Dakota 911 and and nothing that we can per se control there. Growing city, growing call volume costs more to pay [58:53] our portion of the 911 dispatching service. Uh from from a staffing standpoint, continuing on the trajectory of responding to growth with with an FTE and so we have a new FTE in September of 2026. Um and that was the chief's request at the last budget work session that you were at um here in September. [59:12] Um so good opportunity there to uh keep keep growing and supporting our FTE patrol officer pool. And then a patrol sergeant promotion around the same time in September of 2026. And so this is a a growth opportunity for a current patrol officer to become a patrol sergeant. [59:28] Gets us towards the vision of having um guaranteed consistent leadership supervision on patrol shifts, which we've been working towards for a long time and chief's been talking to you about about what that looks like to have that comfort level of having a patrol sergeant on every shift and the challenges that 247 service provides to having a patrol sergeant around and on every shift. and just that's just a a puzzle piece of of scheduling that they all work through, but another sergeant will help us along that way. [59:59] So, here's looking back seven years, 8.75% average annual growth. As we've talked about many times, just pretty steady uh step up as we have grown in PD, needing to add staff and responding to call volume and growth and and um you know, just the issues that we have as a as a growing community. [1:00:17] fire is is uh you know kind of our biggest talking point and has been for the last couple of uh of months here. Uh Chief Springer is doing a wonderful job leading us through what it looks like to grow into a larger fire department that's transitioning into a combination model. And so it's a big number, right? [1:00:33] We have a 50% increase in the budget for next year. I hate to say that publicly, chief. Sorry. uh 603,633, but really good things in here that council has told us that they just continue to support um as we grow and and respond to the growing community and what the fire department needs and what the fire uh fighters are frankly uh excited for and asking for. So, two full-time employees inside this budget is is a large portion of that change. A deputy fire marshal um which would be budgeted for about a March start. Um what this does is supports the fire marshal. We have a current fire marshal as our building official as well. Um, this would be a deputy fire marshal supporting the fire marshall and fire inspections investigations expanded fire education, proactive uh, you know, kind of checking into multifamily [1:01:20] housing units as they're developed. What are our escape plans, meeting with building owners as as they learn how to manage a a large density apartment complex, things of that nature? that inschool fire education piece that with with part-time paid on call folks, we're asking them to leave full-time jobs to to run October fire safety month stuff at Shannon Park Elementary or things of that nature, right? Like this person can be available for all those types of things. And then critically, this is a this is a firefighter. This is a daytime responder that's sitting in an office 8 to5 doing their job, but ready to respond to a fire call. So, it's it's a full-time firefighter as well. Um, also, uh, the chief's request was a fire administrative specialist for a January start. Um, this is is a lot of what it [1:02:08] sounds like. This is helping the chief with the really, um, administrative task that a fire chief has to do that that full-time fire departments have staff doing, right? uh reporting on on fire training, tracking scheduling staff as we look to duty crews and scheduling training sessions. Um purchasing supplies, tracking life cycles of hoses and fleet and facilities and things of that nature. And then this is also a firefighter and this is a full-time responder um that can go out on a fire call with the deputy fire marshal, with the chief and then you know potentially be there a couple minutes before our volunteers are able to arrive as well. [1:02:43] So, it it gets us two full-time firefighters with also um a number of skill sets that that uh don't uh we don't currently have full support of duty crew staffing at fire stations. This is a this is getting some money inside the budget next year to prepare for the recommendation that we um believe to be coming and are pretty confident is coming in our current fire staffing study that talks about having some limited staffing available to respond to calls stationed at the station. Right. Waiting at the station. [1:03:13] and the kind of the classic thing that you see from a full-time fire department. So, chief would be working um with the fire staffing study consultant to understand, you know, how the data aligns with when do we have a hard time getting folks to respond to fire calls because they're all working jobs and have and have full-time lives. [1:03:29] When do fires mostly happen? When do we, like I said, when does that kind of perfect uh cross-section occur? And then we can try to have some folks that are waiting at the station getting paid an hourly wage to be there ready to respond to a fire call. And then some other stuff here as we continue to kind of look to um get ready for for the future. So upgrading tools, completing annual vehicle testing, software advancements. And so uh Lexipole is a program in the police department, continue using that in fire for state policies on fire response. [1:04:00] Guardian tracking also coming uh from the PD world as well which is a performance management tool that helps us just track performance and training. Um and then a scheduling software that exists to help chief and the administrative specialist schedule a fire a fire department and understand how to uh to run that crew. [1:04:18] So some jumps there uh since 2020 uh and that's always what we were predicting and always expecting. Um so challenging on that average, but uh you've seen that you can see the jumps there. And uh one thing we talked about too, and maybe it's good for the public to be aware of is um one thing chief has educated us about is you all showing investment in the fire department um in this way puts us in a good position for future federal grant opportunities that we would go for to fund firefighters. And so by us showing our um support of the fire department via this budget um it's going to put us in a good position to pursue federal grants which every agency need I don't know frankly it seems every agency needs to turn up a full-time fire department that that support from the federal government. [1:05:03] Public works includes government buildings, fleet streets and parks maintenance. Um not as many things to flag in this budget this year. 3.98% or $198,000. We've got some janitorial services with some new facilities in the campus to service and some contracted services as we uh work towards HVAC uh you all the maintenance stuff that we do um for exercising kind of the equipment. Got some investments kind of bucketed as plow operations and software here. So not only licensing our CDL drivers but also some plow operations software that allows us to get a good handle on how plow operations are working um efficiently. And then Cardigraph as our asset management tool. Um, which has just been really really critical for us uh to uh to to manage all of our assets [1:05:49] as we track that across the entire organization. Increases to motor fuels and small tools as our fleet grows and as our as our uh mechanics continue to do their work. And so a bucket there. And then we did have a reduction in the contracted vehicle and equipment repair line item um to just to give some additional internal reflecting to some internal capacity for um vehicle repair that doesn't rely on contractors. [1:06:14] So those four buckets there uh tracking that every year across all of Nick's divisions uh averaging 3.89% average annual growth. Parks and wreck, not much to report here, 3.23% two 3% uh just one flag item uh is a reduction in utility cost. I think Dan finds a way to have a reduction every year which is just uh awesome. But uh a reduction in utility cost. We've got the chiller at the ice rink uh that's uh ready to be swapped out uh which could create some uh reduction in our utility usage and that's what we're predicting uh for parks and rack. So pretty flat there uh and good to see uh across those years. [1:06:57] Uh that's the last big bucket to talk about. We'll be back to the council um in the November work session um to talk CIP. Uh utility commission is beginning its work on the utility budgets to then bring that back to the co the council um for utility budgets um and I think that's it to flag for remaining work, right Tia? So, uh, public hearing, truth and taxation hearing will be December 2nd 2025 um, when you'll set the final budget and we will hear from any residents that would like to, uh, speak about it. And then between now and then, folks will be getting their valuation notices, um, to, uh, give them a chance to speak at Truth and Taxation as well. So, I think with that, we would stand for any questions. [1:07:38] >> Okay, the floor is open. Questions from council. >> I only have one. I I'm supportive of everything that you have in here. Um, Logan, I think on the police one where you show an increase, I think of 600,000, just for transparency, if we could put a couple more bullets on what's driving that, I think when we were kind of going through and I was looking at the total increase, I could see in the sub bullets like, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. I think a police it didn't I think just add a couple more bullets to get to that 600. It's the only thing that I saw just for being transparent. [1:08:11] >> Yeah. I I think my comment was going to be I think the bulk of the increases that you're not accounting for in your all of your bullet points is salaries, >> right? >> That's true. Yep. >> Because I mean what what what's what's compensation and benefits as a percentage of the total budget? [1:08:27] >> Isn't it like 60 to 70%. >> 75 is the number I've heard a lot. 73 75. >> So like roughly 70%. And so 70% of the increase is going to be 3 to four to 5% increase just in salaries. And and again to to Heidi's point, anybody who's looking at this from a financial standpoint, it's like oh well yeah 600,000 you've explained 50,000 of it. [1:08:51] >> Yeah. >> It'd be good to put like salary increase salary and benefits increase maybe going forward. >> So then it's easy to bridge the bridge the delta. >> Yeah. And you don't certainly don't have to get it to the total, but I think getting it close just helps. [1:09:06] >> Yeah. In those large departments when you have a 3% plus longevity in steps, that's how they end up growing. That's like way outside of any programs that we're doing. >> Again, it's 70% of the budget overall. I mean, that's a big that's a big missing bullet point. >> Yep. [1:09:25] >> Otherwise, thank you. >> Questions here? >> No, I'm good. Not getting additional. >> Nope. >> Great job. >> And nice work. Nice job. >> And thank you to Tia and your department for putting all this stuff together. [1:09:41] >> All right. So before us, we have a recommended action. Um in the past it's been several different motions. This is all kind of together. So, anyone wish to move the recommended city council adoption of the motion starting with preliminary general 2026 general funding and just read through that. Oh, I'll make a recommendation uh that the city council adopt a motion setting the preliminary 2026 general fund operating budget, the preliminary 2026 CIP budgets, the preliminary 2026 insurance budget, the preliminary 2026 port authority operating levy levy, and the preliminary 2026 levy and budget hearing date required by the city of Rosemount. [1:10:26] >> Second. >> Motion by Esler, second by Climple. There any other questions or comments? Otherwise, roll please. >> Climple I. >> Weisenel >> I. >> Tyson >> I >> Rky. >> Hi. >> Esler >> I. [1:10:42] >> And the preliminary budget is set. And that completes item 9B50. >> That completes our new business for this evening. We go to announcements. We'll start any city staff updates. [1:10:57] >> I just wanted to flag mayor. Uh we Dan mentioned on Saturday is an awesome day with the food truck fest. We've got a really cool event on Sunday. Just wanted to put a plug in for any folks that might still want to grab. We have a few tickets remaining for the Sketches of Rosemount event, which is a really interesting and exciting community engagement uh program that we're going to do on Sunday. um where we received a grant uh from the Minnesota Humanities Center to purchase uh food and put on an evening um forund up to probably about 125 Rose Mount residents to like I said appetizers, heavy appetizers from a bunch of Rose Mount residents from 5 to 6:00 p.m. Um or Rose Mount businesses from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. And then 6 uh p.m. have a plated catered dinner from Los tortillas. uh some corn beef and potatoes and Malayu coffee will also be [1:11:44] present uh with and empanadas uh right so uh it's a lot of words to practice but um and then uh uh sorry this is fun uh and uh so do the do the dinner and then at your table have conversations with folks that you may not know about kind of future of Rosemont how are things going for you how do you feel with all the changes just these good probing questions um improvisers are listening to the table conversations um that you're having with your with your folks and then uh pop up on stage and do about 30 minutes of improv inspired by the conversations that happened at the table. A fun kind of liberal artsy way, right, of like sussing out uh how things are feeling in town. Uh and uh just a really cool night. So um come on out. [1:12:30] There's a few tickets left. We're at about 85 registrations right now. So we've got, you know, 30 40 tickets left if folks want to come. So would love to see you there. And while this is new for Rosemont, I understand there's other communities that are have done this or are planning on doing >> I think there's like 12 happening across the state of Minnesota this year and then 10 or 12 happened last year and um MHC funded it again. It went really well. So just a good community civic conversation thing. So yeah. [1:12:55] >> All righty. Thank you. >> And as we go forward, any comments from any of the uh council members? Any announcements? >> I'll throw a plug in. All right. We approved it in the consent agenda about the joint powers agreement with um Haunted Trail, but we are accepting vendor applications. You can go to our website at rosemont hauntedrail.org. [1:13:15] There is a vendor application in and we've currently got 10 spots filled, but we're looking for about 12 to 15 more. >> Excellent. Other comments? All right, then we'll move on. We've heard about the food truck festival. Again, just a reminder, September 20th, this Saturday, from 4:00 to 9:00 p.m. at Central Park. We have a utility commission meeting on September 22nd, I believe that's Monday, from 5:30 to 7 here at uh city hall. Uh following that is the Park and Natural Resource Commission meeting from 7 to 8:00 p.m. [1:13:49] Again, Monday, September 22nd, we have a planning commission meeting on September 23rd from 6:30 to 7:30 here at the city hall and a youth commission meeting September 24th, Wednesday from 3:45 to 4:45 at the steeple center. Our next city council work session will begin at 5:00, 5 to 7 on October 7th, followed by the city council meeting from 7 to 8. [1:14:17] And just looking a little bit beyond that, uh the city will have its own October Fest on October 11th, uh from 12 to 7:00 p.m. at Central Park. And I'm sure we'll hear again from uh Mr. Schultz on that. So, with that, is there any other business to come before council? Seeing none, uh, I'll move to adjurnn. Is there a second? [1:14:42] >> Second. >> Have a motion and second. All in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Opposed. We are adjourn. Thank you. Stay safe out there. [Music] [Music] [1:15:33] [Music]