This transcript is from a **Bayport City Council** meeting (circa August 2020). Based on the context of the dialogue and the provided list of officials, here is the transcript with speaker names added. **Note on Identification:** While the prompt provided a specific list of names, the transcript reveals that the meeting attendees differ slightly from that list (e.g., **Susan St. Norris** is the Mayor, and **Michele Hanson** is a Councilmember). I have used the names and roles as they appear and are addressed within the actual recording. *** [0:00] **Mayor Susan St. Norris:** 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. Little bit of a delay, but an important part of the meeting, so thank you. Um, so with that, Adam, will you please call the roll? [0:45] **Adam (City Staff):** Yes, Madame Mayor. I'm getting a—just got a message from Counselor Carlson, she's having audio trouble again, so I was trying to help her with that. Um, Mayor St. Norris? **Mayor St. Norris:** Here. **Adam:** Councilmember Hanson? **Councilmember Michele Hanson:** Here. **Adam:** Councilmember Dahl? **Councilmember Dahl:** Present. **Adam:** Councilmember Buckley? **Councilmember John Buckley:** Yeah. [1:05] **Adam:** Looks like he's connecting... Councilmember Carlson is connecting. I will complete the roll call in one moment. Hey, great to give it time if possible. Connie, are you there? [1:35] **Adam:** Councilmember Carlson, we can see her but we cannot hear her, which we need to... she's reconnecting. She's trying to connect again. Ah, looks more promising. [2:02] **Adam:** Okay, just let me unmute her. Counselor Carlson? **Councilmember Connie Carlson:** Yeah, can you hear me now? **Adam:** Yes, thank you. **Councilmember Carlson:** All right, finally! **Adam:** All present and accounted for. **Mayor St. Norris:** Excellent. That takes us to the approval of tonight's agenda. Does anyone have any questions, additions, comments? **Councilmember Carlson:** So, um, the building permits are included in the agenda, right? **Mayor St. Norris:** Yes. **Councilmember Carlson:** Oh no, the—uh, um, this be a appropriate time to ask about—ask a question about one of the building permits that's on our list under the consent agenda? **Mayor St. Norris:** Maybe we wait till then. **Councilmember Carlson:** That's what I meant, yep. Sorry, I'm jumping the gun. Okay. [2:50] **Mayor St. Norris:** Well, we'll make a note for a consent agenda to address that. **Adam:** Madame Mayor, uh, we had one addition. Uh, Ms. Sally Anderson from Community Thread was present—is present—to speak to the Council. So that under Open Forum is new to the previous agenda. **Mayor St. Norris:** Okay, welcome Sally, we'll get to that in just a moment. Okay, any other items? If not, would someone like to make a motion to approve tonight's agenda? **Councilmember Carlson:** I'll make a motion approving tonight's agenda. **Mayor St. Norris:** Thank you, Connie. Is there a second? **Councilmember Buckley:** Second. **Mayor St. Norris:** Thank you, John. Adam? **Adam:** Councilmember Carlson? **Councilmember Carlson:** Aye. **Adam:** Councilmember Buckley? **Councilmember Buckley:** Aye. **Adam:** Councilmember Dahl? **Councilmember Dahl:** Aye. **Adam:** Councilmember Hanson? **Councilmember Hanson:** Aye. [3:38] **Mayor St. Norris:** That takes us to our proclamations, commendations, petitions, and announcements. And the July recycling award recipient is Michael Stangle at 1017 Pioneer Trail. He'll be awarded for his recycling efforts with funding made possible by a grant from Washington County. So thank you very much, Mr. Stengel, for your recycling efforts. And with that, we, um, I believe can move on to our Open Forum. **Councilmember Hanson:** Yeah, it's not on our agenda, I just noticed. Is it just my agenda? **Mayor St. Norris:** No, I think it was probably... [4:23] **Mayor St. Norris:** ...open because there wasn't anything planned. But our Open Forum portion of the meeting is where we set aside 15 minutes to address topics that are not on tonight's agenda. And with that, um, as noted, we have Sally Anderson here with us this evening to address the topic of Community Thread. So if you'll just unmute your mic, Sally, and you may begin. [5:10] **Sally Anderson (Community Thread):** Okay, very good. Thank you so much, um, for this opportunity. We are very grateful for the past support we've received from the City of Bayport and the opportunity to summarize Community Thread's impact. Community Thread is proud to serve as the local clearinghouse for coordinating volunteers—a responsibility the community counted on when the Saint Croix River threatened to flood in the spring of 2019. Within six hours of being asked by Washington County Emergency Management to find volunteers, we had 370 people lined up. By filling 60,000 sandbags using 1,300 hours of time, these good citizens demonstrated the power of volunteerism and its benefit to our community. Last year, youth volunteers from Stillwater Area High School offered their services at technology assistance workshops, where older adults were invited to bring their mobile device and meet one-on-one with a student to learn tips to stay connected. A good skill to have, especially during these trying times. [5:55] **Sally Anderson:** To support older adults, our chore service and transportation volunteers provided rides to medical appointments and helped homeowners with routine household maintenance, making it possible for older and disabled adults to remain independent. Programs that support older adults are the focal point of our work, offering people services that help them stay healthy and participating in community life. Our Bayport Senior Center had over 3,400 visits last year, offering activities ranging from chair yoga to craft classes. Community Thread’s programs are aimed at supporting our most vulnerable citizens who deserve our care and attention. [6:41] **Sally Anderson:** As you can imagine, our services were called upon this spring when the lockdown went into effect. We responded by reaching out to identify those who needed assistance to remain safely at home. Once we identified the needs, our volunteer center matched older adults with volunteers who offered to pick up—by help by delivering groceries and medications, picking up food from the food shelf, and making individual check-in calls. We also collected gift cards to assist people with purchasing essential items. We heard later from one disabled older adult, "I am so grateful for the additional help provided during the pandemic. I have some rather severe allergies and going to the local food shelf at this time was not safe for me. The gift card to Cub Foods helped make ends meet." [7:27] **Sally Anderson:** At Community Thread, we are adapting activities with the intention of encouraging older adults to participate. For example, after our popular aerobics class needed to be cancelled, we offered a walking group which has been well attended. We will continue to find ways to offer programming that supports older adults and gives them the opportunity to create and sustain connections, including volunteering with others while maintaining social distancing. One timely example volunteering is happening tomorrow when a group of older adults will be making face coverings for school-aged children to go with the free school supplies we are distributing as part of our annual "Stuff the Bus" campaign, thanks to the generosity of the community. [8:12] **Sally Anderson:** At Community Thread, we strive to create a place where all people are enriched, engaged, and connected. We are an independent nonprofit and every year we need to raise our entire budget. About half of our funding comes from allocations and the remaining half comes from a variety of sources such as the United Way of Washington County East, municipalities, businesses, faith-based organizations, as well as generous individuals. We rely on all of these sources to continue to offer our programs and services. You may read more about the impact of all of our programs in our annual report, which is posted on our website. We appreciate the support that we have received from the City of Bayport in the past, and today I'm asking for your consideration of a gift of $3,000 in 2021 to continue to support our programming. Thank you for your consideration, and may I answer any questions at this time? [9:44] **Councilmember Carlson:** Hi, Sally. Nice to see you. **Sally Anderson:** You too! **Councilmember Carlson:** I was just going to ask if—with, first of all, miss you—but um, I was going to ask with, you know, you weren't able to do the Black Tie Bingo, your fundraiser and stuff. So are your finances down more than what typically you would be? **Sally Anderson:** Yes. Um, we were counting on raising about $50,000 from that event and we have now cancelled it because it's just not safe to be doing it. But I will be honest, we did receive a Paycheck Protection Program loan, and so that really helped us with a couple of months of payroll. But all of the um funding that we were expecting from program fees, from rental fees, all of those sorts of revenue went away. So I'm in the process of projecting our expenses out through the end of the year and our revenues, and it's—it's going to be a very tight year. [10:29] **Councilmember Carlson:** Okay. Well, the reason I was asking Council that—because I know their budget is has been just... [Matt] does a really good job on our budget, but I didn't know if it was something that we consider, you know, definitely the $3,000, but if there was extra money in anything where we could give them a little more? I just was throwing that out there as this, I think, you know, a very worthwhile organization. **Mayor St. Norris:** Yeah, I agree. And I think it could be a possibility for a grant with our CARES Act money for them to apply for, is that correct, Adam? [11:15] **Adam:** Yes, Councilmember Hanson, Councilmember Carlson, and the Council. The support and grants for nonprofits are going to be part of—on the [agenda]—are going to be part of our later discussion. Um, so that is something that we are—we're going to be discussing later. Um, so that will be on the docket. **Mayor St. Norris:** So yeah, Sally, we'll definitely address that as part of that discussion. And um, we are considering budget at this time. So, uh, congratulations on everything that you have achieved this year. It's remarkable and a wonderful service to our community. So um, I'm sure that you'll—you'll end up hearing... [12:00] **Mayor St. Norris:** ...probably very positive things from our group again later this evening or as we progress through our budgeting cycles. So but really appreciate your coming on again with us. We wish we could see you in person. Um, and we'll look to that soon. Any other questions from the Council? No? Okay great. Thanks for joining us, Sally. **Sally Anderson:** Thank you, I appreciate it. **Councilmember Carlson:** Hi, Sally. Have a good night. Stay well. **Sally Anderson:** Thank you, you too. **Mayor St. Norris:** Okay, that's our only um item on our Open Forum this evening. So that takes us to tonight's Consent Agenda, where we'll consider items one through five, which include the July 6, 2020 City Council regular meeting minutes, the July payables and receipts, the July... [12:48] **Mayor St. Norris:** ...building, plumbing, mechanical, and zoning permits report, a pay application number two from Miller Excavating for demolition for the Clean Water Land and Legacy product project, pay application number two from Miller Excavating for the Second Avenue North drainage improvement project, and hiring of Brian Sinclair as a part-time police officer and PERA declaration. So at this time, are there questions regarding the Consent Agenda? **Councilmember Hanson:** Can I—before we get into the Consent Agenda—do we have to just double-check that there isn't anyone that has something to say during the Open Forum? That—I mean, they don't have to be on the agenda beforehand, right? I just went through the participant list and I didn't know if there was anyone that... [13:34] **Councilmember Hanson:** ...is on the call that might have something to say. Don't we have to give them an opportunity? **Mayor St. Norris:** We can, we definitely can. You're right. So no, good—good catch. It's a little odd doing this via [Zoom]. **Councilmember Hanson:** I know. I don't know if anyone's on there. It looked like there was maybe one iPad that didn't have a name. **Mayor St. Norris:** Yeah, I had three. Um, is there—is there anyone that would like to unmute themselves at this time to address the Council as part of the public Open Forum? If so, please unmute and state your name and address for the record. Okay. All right, worth checking. Yes, thank you for the... [14:20] **Mayor St. Norris:** ...reminder. Thank you. Okay, back to Consent Agenda. Does anyone um have questions, comments, concerns regarding this? Uh, John, I think that you were going to mention something? **Councilmember Buckley:** Yeah, um, I just wanted to ask staff about the third line item in Building Permits. It's at 990 North Inspiration Parkway, and it's for a fence permit. And it's a—uh, issue that—that a homeowner had reached out to me specifically about a while back. And I just want to... thank you, John... get some clarification to make sure that was resolved to, you know, equitably for all the neighbors and every—everybody's happy with how it's um progressing. [15:09] **Mayor St. Norris:** Adam, can you comment on that? **Adam:** Yeah, I—the—I was gonna actually contact... looks like uh Ms. Taylor's available. She's the last one to deal with the fence permit. Sara, do you have additional information on that? **Sara Taylor (Assistant City Administrator):** Sure. Um, can you hear me okay? **Mayor St. Norris:** Yeah. **Sara Taylor:** Okay. I didn't have a chance to look up the exact address to go back and verify that this was the same property, but there was an issue between the two neighbors and um that they had rescinded their signature on the fence application. Um, that has been resolved. The—both the applicant and the neighbor worked together to modify the proposed plan for the fence, and they did sign off on it after all. **Councilmember Buckley:** Okay. This just happened recently, Sara? [15:56] **Sara Taylor:** Yes. I think um the revision came in last week and I—I turned it around within a day or so. **Councilmember Buckley:** Okay, because I talked to the homeowner about two weeks ago and she had—was still not gonna sign yet. So I was—I'm assuming it's the same place, but okay, I'm glad to hear they worked it out. **Sara Taylor:** I just checked my email and it is the same—that's the address of that complaint. **Mayor St. Norris:** So that's good to know what got resolved. Yeah, we like when neighbors can work together. **Sara Taylor:** Yeah, after I followed up with the um the one homeowner who filed the complaint, the neighbor did form—uh, revise their application and sounds like they—they worked it out. So good. **Councilmember Buckley:** Good. Any questions—thanks for the... [16:44] **Councilmember Buckley:** ...update. **Mayor St. Norris:** Excellent. Any other questions or comments on the Consent Agenda? All right, if not, would someone like to um approve tonight—make the motion to approve the agenda as submitted? **Councilmember Buckley:** Okay, I'll make the motion. **Mayor St. Norris:** Thank you, John. Is there a second? **Councilmember Carlson:** I'll second it. **Mayor St. Norris:** Okay, thank you Connie. Adam? **Adam:** Councilmember Dahl? **Councilmember Dahl:** Aye. **Adam:** Councilmember Carlson? **Councilmember Carlson:** Aye. **Adam:** Councilmember Hanson? **Councilmember Hanson:** Aye. **Mayor St. Norris:** Aye. [17:41] **Mayor St. Norris:** That’s all. Excellent. Well, that will take us to um an always exciting part of our meeting where we are going to be swearing in a police officer named Brian Sinclair. At this time, I'm going to ask them to come into chambers. I'm going to put on my mask so that we can be properly socially distanced and protected, and then we'll go forward with the ceremony. We have a nice group of officers here to help him celebrate this evening, which is lovely to see. **Councilmember Carlson:** Can we see this on any of the screens or is it just going to be... **Adam:** He—the officer will be on the um—looks like it's called "Bayport." And we'll see. We need to mute in between so we don't get the back[feed]. [18:51] **Mayor St. Norris:** Okay, this will be tricky because he's going to repeat after me and I'm going to have to mute and unmute in between. So if you want to see if you can hear... can you hear me? [20:04] **Mayor St. Norris:** Okay, good evening everyone. This is great, a nice group here to help celebrate. Welcome everyone. Okay um, please go ahead. Do you want to say anything ahead of time? **Councilmember Carlson:** We can't hear her. Are you speaking, Laura? Because we can't hear you. **Adam:** Adam? Yeah, I was trying to get the feedback. Yeah, we're trying to work off of just my laptop instead of the laptop at the podium. Why we're getting feedback, but um, should we just do the podium one with audio instead? Try that or not. [20:56] **Mayor St. Norris:** Maybe mute everybody else, Adam, because there's a lot of background noise too. **Adam:** Fine. **Mayor St. Norris:** Is that any better? **Councilmembers:** Seems to be better, yes. **Chief Laura Eastman (Police Chief):** Okay, we'll proceed. I wanted to just tell you a little bit about uh Mr. Sinclair. He's currently a full-time Federal Express pilot. He comes to us with a variety of law enforcement experience to include volunteer service with Washington County Sheriff's Office, and then he was a Reserve Officer with us before he became a Community Service Officer. And today, with your approval, we are now going to swear him in as a Peace Officer. His wife and his family are here as well. [21:42] **Chief Eastman:** And I'll have Officer—soon-to-be Officer—Sinclair step up here and take the uh Oath of Office that the Mayor is about to give him. **Mayor St. Norris:** So that the um at home can hear us, but I really want them to be through you. Um, and I will repeat sections. If you would raise your right hand, repeat after me. I, Brian Sinclair, do solemnly swear... **Brian Sinclair:** I, Brian Sinclair, do solemnly swear... **Mayor St. Norris:** ...that I will support the Constitution of the United States... **Brian Sinclair:** ...that I will support the Constitution of the United States... **Mayor St. Norris:** ...and the State of Minnesota... **Brian Sinclair:** ...and the State of Minnesota... **Mayor St. Norris:** ...and faithfully discharge the duties... **Brian Sinclair:** ...and faithfully discharge the duties... **Mayor St. Norris:** ...of the office of Peace Officer... **Brian Sinclair:** ...of the office of Peace Officer... **Mayor St. Norris:** ...of the City of Bayport... **Brian Sinclair:** ...of the City of Bayport... **Mayor St. Norris:** ...in the County of Washington... **Brian Sinclair:** ...in the County of Washington... [22:43] **Mayor St. Norris:** ...to the best of my judgment and ability, so help me God. **Brian Sinclair:** So help me God. **Mayor St. Norris:** Congratulations! **Brian Sinclair:** Thank you. **Chief Eastman:** So at this time, we're going to have his wife come up and pin his badge on. Her name is Catherine. [23:20] **Chief Eastman:** Thank you, Brian. I'd shake your hand, but we're not going to do that tonight. Thank you Council for allowing us to hire such a great um asset to our team and we're looking forward to working here. Thank you again. [23:41] **Adam:** Thank you for joining us. I need to get Mayor St. Norris back unmuted. **Councilmember Carlson:** I think she feels stuck. Yeah. **Councilmember Dahl:** Yeah, she hasn't moved. That's not good. **Councilmember Carlson:** And the Adam is not on either. We have no one to lead it—lead our meeting. What are we gonna do? **Councilmember Dahl:** Well, we can let the cameraman do it. **Councilmember Carlson:** It says "VCP" which doesn't help. I knew it was the day you can—you can change it if you want, under Participants. [25:25] **Councilmember Carlson:** Use my phone and I use my iPad as my information. Oh, it said it's an iPhone and then I forgot. You're welcome. **Councilmember Dahl:** I think yes, John. You're made front and center on mine. [Laughter] **Councilmember Buckley:** Now it's you, Michele, because I laughed. **Councilmember Carlson:** Oh yeah, whoever it's set up... **Councilmember Buckley:** Yeah, you must have switched to just one person instead of the—you know what, I worry... lucky I can see you guys now. I got four across the bottom and then one big in the center. [26:10] **Councilmember Carlson:** Weird. I'm trying to get my iPad to not fall asleep so fast. My other one... I know I'm gonna have to go take a lesson when this COVID is gone. **Councilmember Buckley:** So is anybody on site there besides um—nobody else is on site, right? **Councilmember Dahl:** [Sara] was, but—but she was muted too. I saw it because she moved from her office to the chambers it looked like. So I don't know, I hope that they aren't doing that... I think they're stuck. There's Adam. **Councilmember Carlson:** Well, I don't have Adam yet. **Councilmember Buckley:** Oh really? He just showed up in the corner of mine. I don't know. Our entire City Hall just... [26:58] **Councilmember Dahl:** ...died. **Adam:** Oh, there he is. The internet connection, right? Um, does Susan just want to go to the closest house? Was that Connie's probably? Although you know how long mine works up here. Yeah, well, you're doing pretty good, I just have to figure out how to maneuver. Yeah, I'm always afraid to push a button for fear I'm going to get rid of everybody. Who do we still have on? Everybody but the Mayor in terms of Council. And then Laura would need to get back—Chief Eastman, I should say. I think I know where some of our CARES funding needs to go: Upgrade the Wi-Fi. I don't—I don't know what is going on with our City Hall internet. Um, I'm dead in the water. [30:22] **Adam:** Can you hear me, Adam? **Adam:** I can. Can you see me? **Mayor St. Norris:** I can see you. Okay, I can't see myself so I don't know where that went. **Adam:** You're good. **Mayor St. Norris:** John, back everyone. Okay well, we had a nice group here to and um celebrate and we welcome uh Officer Brian Sinclair. Do we have to make a motion to promote him? **Adam:** I believe we do. Yeah, we did that in a Consent Agenda. **Mayor St. Norris:** Oh, we do? Okay, gotcha. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, no, we're good. Okay, so we do not have a public hearing this evening and we do not have any... [31:07] **Mayor St. Norris:** ...unfinished business. So we have three items under New Business. So we'll start with the first of: Considering authorization to solicit and accept bids for a city crack sealing project. And Matt, would you please present? **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** Thank you, Madame Mayor, members of the Council. Um, city staff—primarily um John Parrott and myself—completed the street ratings for this year, and that also includes evaluating um the need for seal coating and crack sealing. Um, it was determined that um we should really do crack sealing this year. There's some significant cracks on some of the streets, um primarily out in Inspiration, um which has—it's kind of—we actually did crack sealing out there. [31:53] **Matt Kline:** Um, what it does is it fills up the cracks um and reduces the uh ability for water to get in these cracks and during the winter freeze-thaw and um cause more road damage. Um, so what uh we did have uh—we should have did street ratings earlier this year, but we've been obviously ongoing pandemic stuff and then the street project kind of pushed this back. Um, so what we're asking for is um in order to expedite the process a little more um is we want to be able to complete this work during um some of the warmer temperatures. Um, so what staff is asking Council to do essentially is to um... [32:41] **Matt Kline:** ...authorize staff to solicit and then accept bids if with—if they're within the estimated amount of $77,000. Um, normal—on a normal year—sealcoating and crack sealing has a fund budget or general fund budget of $70,000. Um, and so staff thought it was reasonable to ask for 77. We do have some money available in the parks budget and then the street budget to cover that because some of this um crack sealing will occur in some of the parking lots. Um, one of the other significant areas is the trail system needs it throughout the whole city, actually. Um, so if we want to go through the timeline... [33:27] **Matt Kline:** ...August 3rd, which is today, would approve the solicitation. Um, we'd send out um the bid request tomorrow and then it'd be August 17th for the bid deadline and acceptance. And then we've actually extended the work completion date to September 30th. Um, there is—um, John Parrott felt that we could extend it that long as long as we met temperature—certain temperature requirements for this type of application. Um, so staff is recommending the City Council adopt a motion authorizing staff to solicit bids and then subsequently... [34:16] **Matt Kline:** ...accept the lowest responsible bid within the estimated amount of $77,000. Um, if it goes over that, staff is recommending that we just push the project until next year. Stand for questions. **Mayor St. Norris:** Questions for Matt? **Councilmember Hanson:** Matt, um, so is this specifically cracks or how—how is it determined what things get fixed? Or do potholes—are potholes included in this or no? **Matt Kline:** We—we do pothole patching just throughout the year, um wherever we see them. I know we have a few potholes that we do need fixing. We do have a list. Um, we've just been um swamped with other work and so we're... [35:01] **Matt Kline:** ...getting to some of that stuff. But this is specifically crack sealing by an outside contractor. **Councilmember Hanson:** Gotcha, thank you. **Councilmember Carlson:** So just so I understand, we—we typically would have done a seal coating project, but we just didn't know where that would be the highest priority? So we decided it would be smart to seal cracks throughout the city instead of just concentrating on a small area to seal coat? Or am I—I'm confused about why we're doing this. **Matt Kline:** So the sealcoat uh fund budget line is essentially both for seal coating and crack sealing. Um, we haven't actually done a seal coat probably in the past uh since I've been here, except for um some of the newer roads which have the... [35:47] **Matt Kline:** ...the new type of seal coat. And we haven't did a traditional—a traditional chip seal seal coat um since I've been here, primarily because um when John and I have driven the streets in the past, we don't feel that there's a requirement. The streets are holding up fairly well without needing that. And but this year we felt that this crack sealing was needed or was a priority um on all the streets listed um on the back of the uh—or on the—um, in the agenda packet. Now there's quite a lot of them. **Councilmember Carlson:** Okay. And we're covering it, like you said, we're going over the 70,000 that's allotted, but you've got it in the budget? [36:34] **Councilmember Carlson:** So that's not a problem, the extra seven? **Matt Kline:** Yeah, there's money essentially—and there's some in the streets budget and then there's part in the parks budget. There's some money allotted for um essentially street repairs, um and so that's where that little extra will come out of. **Councilmember Carlson:** And did SEH give you these estimates or did you just kind of come up with what you thought each would cost? **Matt Kline:** So I've used an estimate in the past from SEH essentially. I have this really big spreadsheet that calculates different things like road reconstruction, seal coating, crack sealing—a whole list of different things that we can do to the road. These costs were actually from SEH, yes... [37:20] **Matt Kline:** ...per linear foot cost. **Councilmember Carlson:** Okay, it should be on track. **Mayor St. Norris:** So will all the um homeowners be contacted and—and given information so they know when this is taking place in front of their homes? Do we do a communication outreach of any kind? **Matt Kline:** We could potentially do that, Mayor. So when they do crack sealing, they actually essentially heat up—use hot oil and use toilet paper over it so it doesn't stick on anything. Um, usually we don't do a communication if we're just doing like a crack sealing like this. Now, if we were doing a—uh, a chip seal, that—that's kind of more invasive. This isn't quite... [38:05] **Matt Kline:** ...as invasive that we would put out um notification like that. **Mayor St. Norris:** Okay. So no one's going to be stuck behind or in their driveways waiting for anything? **Matt Kline:** No, this is a pretty quick process. Essentially, they—depending on the size of the crack, they either cut it open or they just blow it out. They'll put the rubber sealant down and then put toilet paper over it and move on to the next one. **Councilmember Buckley:** So, um, line item you know sort order 204 is fire hall parking area for about $3,300. Is that the old fire hall? **Matt Kline:** Nope, that's the new fire hall. And again... [38:51] **Matt Kline:** ...these are all estimates. So it's—it's a lot harder to rough estimate this crack sealing because like at the fire hall, if you catch it early, there's fewer cracks than—and like—than if you would let it go longer. And so that $3,000 is really just a real rough ball estimate of what SEH has seen in the past. **Councilmember Buckley:** Okay. **Matt Kline:** Oh sorry, keep going. Well, there's the potential that that fire hall parking lot could very well be only $2,000 worth of crack seal. This is—it's highly variable on crack sealing um just based on how close the cracks... [39:37] **Matt Kline:** ...are in the road. We didn't—we didn't physically go out and measure every single crack. And so um even with—even when we're getting quotes back, um essentially they'll be—that'll be an estimate too and it won't be perfect because they'll have to come back and actually measure every single crack once they're done. [40:08] **Mayor St. Norris:** Okay, any other questions for Matt? I'm still not sure why um—I mean because it doesn't really look that pretty after you seal the cracks. So why are we not doing a seal coating project, or will we eventually have to go over and seal coat where we did all this crack repair, or we just never anymore because it's not effective? **Matt Kline:** So we—we won't be doing seal coating this year. Um, there's a potential that we would do it next year. John and I just don't feel that the current condition of the streets warrants it. Um... [40:56] **Matt Kline:** ...and Michele, if you want to talk about it, we can talk about how we did it in the past, you know um—and that's fine, but we can do that off-camera. But um, I get that it doesn't look good, but we want to be able to seal up those cracks, and crack—seal coating doesn't seal up the cracks um the way it should. That's why we have to crack those. **Mayor St. Norris:** I—I agree it does not look pretty, but that's not the job of the road, to look pretty. Now that we're gonna have a beautiful new Highway 95, the rest of our streets are gonna look have toilet paper on them for a while. Um, gotta trust your judgment on that because uh you obviously know way more about it than I do. [41:42] **Mayor St. Norris:** Any other questions? No? Okay, um well then would someone like to make a motion? **Councilmember Carlson:** I'll make a motion. I move to authorize staff to solicit bids for the City crack sealing project and accept the lowest responsible one under the amount of $77,000 or up to the amount of $77,000. **Mayor St. Norris:** Okay, thank you Connie. Is there a second? **Councilmember Buckley:** Second. **Mayor St. Norris:** Again, thank you John. Adam, please call the roll. **Adam:** Councilmember Carlson? **Councilmember Carlson:** Aye. **Adam:** Councilmember Buckley? **Councilmember Buckley:** Aye. **Adam:** Councilmember Dahl? **Councilmember Dahl:** Aye. **Adam:** Councilmember Hanson? **Councilmember Hanson:** Aye. [42:28] **Adam:** Mayor St. Norris? **Mayor St. Norris:** Aye. All right, okay. That takes us to item number two under New Business, which is an update on proposals for the city's waste hauling contract. Adam? **Adam:** Uh, thank you, Madame Mayor, members of the Council. Uh, for the public's information, a RFP for trash uh was released this year uh mid-June. Uh, it was due—the proposals were due mid-July, July 15th. Our current contract with Republic Services expires at the end of December of this year. And so the Council did direct staff to do an RFP again this year. We did one last year, very similar, but we ended up not... [43:15] **Adam:** ...following through with it. The city initially got four firms to say that they intended to submit proposals, but only uh three ended up submitting: uh our current provider Republic Services, uh Highland Sanitation, and Tennis Sanitation. Um, I went through the—I went through the proposals and did some comparisons and I provided those in the packet and I will uh kind of go through those with the Council. Um, and if there's—the Council has—there's no formal decision that needs to be made tonight, but I would like to request that the Council provides staff direction. Um, if there's additional questions or... [44:01] **Adam:** ...input from the Council that we can go back to the haulers and get additional information, we can do that. Or if there's uh one of the proposals that you've seen um that you'd like us to uh pursue a contract with, that—that's what we're looking for this evening. Um, so with the three—and I'm gonna say also, bear with me for a second, I'm going to hope our tech holds, but I'm going to share my screen. And can everybody see? **Councilmembers:** Yes. **Councilmember Carlson:** It's pretty small, but I have my own. **Adam:** Well, it's—yeah, I'm not sure if the public can see... [44:47] **Adam:** ...it, but I'll go through this. **Councilmember Hanson:** Um, yeah, it's fine on my laptop. **Councilmember Carlson:** Can you close your—close your bookmarks, Adam? Would it give it a little more...? **Adam:** Oh, there's a little bit better. Yeah, and I—I don't have um—Councilmember Hanson, I know that you had asked and I did not have time to get this information: Are the—the pricing uh listed under the current uh column—that does not include the taxes. Um, so that's going to be um in addition. And I—I did not have time to put that in. We've—that the pricing that we've had previous to this RFP process did not include the taxes. So those are going to be a set rate um depending on what the County and the... [45:33] **Adam:** ...uh the other entity charge. But so this—this figure—um, if you're all familiar with your current tax bill—or not your—your current uh hauler bill, uh this is the um—the taxes are gonna be on top of this. Or the three uh for the three different size containers uh for the starting in next year, 2021. Um, this is the—these are the rates. As you can see, uh Republic submitted uh an alternative bid. We requested that weekly recycling be included as opposed to we're currently doing it bi-weekly, every other week. And these are the the... [46:19] **Adam:** ...price differences that they had. They did include as an alternative bid or alternative proposal um the bi-weekly to continue what we're currently doing, and that's a couple dollars cheaper than their proposal. But then both Tennis and Highland uh offered the uh the weekly—um, the weekly recycling. So the prices are reflected there. One of the alternative proposals that Tennis offered was to include for one dollar more plus tax uh to include the cleanup day costs um in the actual base bid. So that's what these differences [are]. Uh Highland in their alternative for future uh cost increases—I'll go back to what the other haulers... [47:04] **Adam:** ...had—um, they—they want to have this more transparent process. And as you can see here, they want to review the actual disposal weights each year and then calculate that for the weight per gallon that they're charged—that costs them. So they have this simple, elaborate—simply elaborate uh formula that you can then base the future years on uh based on the actual waste that's— **Councilmember Buckley:** Yeah, I mean frankly that's—that—I mean that—that doesn't tell us anything. **Councilmember Carlson:** No, that's useless information for us. **Adam:** Exactly, yeah. It's not the most clear. Um, Republic listed a 4% increase... [47:49] **Adam:** ...um. Of course, this is contingent—everybody's contingent upon what the recycling environmental center costs are um, as those are very confusing at times. **Mayor St. Norris:** Is there a question? **Councilmember Dahl:** May I jump in? Um, on the—on the Tennis um with their alternative for the um cleanup day base price, is that for one cleanup day per year or, you know, for the duration of the contract, or is that one cleanup day for the entire term of the contract? **Adam:** No, that's per year. Um, they—they were the only one out of the three that did not propose a curbside cleanup event. Uh Republic was going to include um a uh... [48:37] **Adam:** ...with a reduced rate uh curbside—as well to be one cleanup day where everybody can bring their uh waste—their disposal items to the location to dispose of it. The dumpsters would be there. But they also proposed having a where everybody puts it out at the curbside at a reduced rate and it's picked up. Um, they actually—the Republic listed a two-week event. They proposed a two-week event to have that additional curbside cleanup. Um, the Highland also offered—so they'd have the one day but then they were also where everybody brings it, then also having a curbside event uh where people would pay a reduced rate for a period and have stuff picked up curbside. Uh Tennis did not include the curbside... [49:25] **Adam:** ...they were just gonna—they've just proposed the—the one event. **Councilmember Dahl:** So the other ones were, you know, one in the spring, one in the fall—so two events that differ? **Adam:** Adam? Yes. **Councilmember Dahl:** At any given time, though, could a client call Tennis and have pickup titled? **Adam:** Yes. All three of them offer bulk item pickup at any time. Uh typically, you know, there has to be a few days or, you know, can't be that day often depending on what the item is. But a couple day notice. Um, and all of them—all the—the rates were fairly—for the bulk items were fairly fairly similar. I can provide the specifics, but they provide a list of all the items... [50:11] **Adam:** ...that they pick up and um you can see depending... they kind of categorized what type of item uh based on the size, and it's either $10, $20, or $30 for depending on the item. **Councilmember Hanson:** Actually, a question I had, Adam, because um Tennis doesn't say exactly, it just says "variable based on item," but you do have a specific list of what—like if someone put a couch out there, what that would cost? **Adam:** Yes, I didn't include all that in the packet. I can send that through to the Council. **Councilmember Hanson:** I just want to make sure we—we have that information. I want to also make sure that it's clear to our residents what those costs are up front, instead of they put something out and then they get... [50:56] **Councilmember Hanson:** ...a bill for it later. Because I've seen people complain about that with certain waste haulers. So you know, just wanting to know having that clear up front for any of them, whoever we choose. **Adam:** I understand, okay. Um, so Councilmember Dahl, does that answer your question? The—uh Tennis offer offered one or proposed to have one cleanup day event, and both the other haulers did offer uh the two events. You know, split—they can't be right back-to-back. Um, you know, one spring, one fall depending on what [the City] wants and we'd have to coordinate it. But all three of them offered the bulk disposal. **Councilmember Dahl:** But and again, just to be clear, both Republic and Highland, it would be some sort of additional fee on top of... [51:43] **Councilmember Dahl:** ...the numbers we're seeing here? **Adam:** Yes, yes. All three. Um, well I'm sorry, yes. So the—but we don't have any way of knowing what that is... **Councilmember Carlson:** So it's on the second page, isn't it? **Adam:** Yeah, so the actual cleanup costs um they all vary. And part of it is, you know, there's it's $120 for Republic, it was proposed $120 an hour per employee um and then $300 per day for the tr—for a truck. So depending on how much is actually disposed of. Um, there's also some that like Highland, you know, they had the cost to the City was $50 an employee per hour plus $250 per truck... [52:29] **Adam:** ...and then the resident has to pay as well. So if it's, you know, to be per—per load or um... all three of them asked because we don't—we have not been doing this event uh for some time, we didn't have any fresh or recent data to provide. They—if it's that, they all wanted more detailed information as far as what we've been doing so they can try to estimate what that cost to them would be that they can then in turn uh charge the—the customer. Um, we don't have that. So they—these prices would possibly be adjusted after a couple years when we... [53:14] **Adam:** ...we all have a better idea of what the actual cost would be. Um, it's quite—if we only had a handful of people—a handful of residents show up with their—their junk for—for that cleanup day but, you know, any of the haulers had mobilized, you know, multiple dumpsters, and that's—that's not cost-effective for them. So they want to know how much materials be involved. Going back to the—the additional carts, you know, it's—it varies, but um we don't—we currently I don't believe we have a lot of additional carts, but that was one of the questions. Um, the excess refuse—so this is bags in addition if it doesn't fit in your container—um, you know you can have it additionally... [54:00] **Adam:** ...on the side. Uh these—the prices, you can see there, um varied from $7.50 to $3.00. Oh sorry, just—I skipped the—the increase um for 2021 that's—that that top section. For 2022 and 2023, because we proposed having a three-year contract, uh Republic had proposed a four-year or 4% increase each year. Um, the uh Tennis said that they—they were unable to uh estimate that. They—they did have what their costs would be and—but it's without the—it's only half the figure. Um, there's without knowing all the other variables um that... [54:46] **Adam:** ...includes the direct costs, they were not willing to commit to a percent increase or a figure. And then Highland, they had a 3% increase on the waste and a 5% increase on the recycling. The way that actually works out for the overall charge is it comes out to about 2.9% increase. It's actually because there is—the waste is more than the recycling portion of the—the charge. Um, so it's right—right around the 3%. Moving on to the uh replacement carts. It's not a—not a major issue, but Highland does include one free cart replace—or bin replace [ment] per year... [55:31] **Adam:** ...um, at no charge, but their second one is a little bit more expensive. The yard waste uh again varied quite—quite a bit. Um, all the way from Tennis at only $84 up to Republic at $123. Um, currently we're at $82, so it's—uh it is—it would be a significant jump uh for both Republic and Highland from what we currently—our current residents currently have. Well, one of the differences is the Tennis does charge for brush bundles. They're—you only get the 95-gallon with no additional bags included. Republic includes five extra bags and Highland includes eight bags. They have a smaller container... [56:19] **Adam:** ...but Tennis is, you know, quite a bit cheaper for the monthly rate—I'm sorry, the annual rate. But that doesn't include any additional bags, so there's a small charge per bag—it's the $2.00 per bag. Um, for the non-subscribers, if you don't have the yard service but you want to dispose of it, uh they all have varied from $5.00 to $4.00. Tennis does have a two-bag minimum uh for the trail. Island did not state that they had any minimum, though. Um, again, their extra bags are there. The uh again I kind of already went over the cleanup—uh, they all—they all vary uh depending on what actually is... [57:04] **Adam:** ...being um disposed of. So the—they—they were—they're all open to uh pricing it different ways where the City can cover it or they can be, you know, have the—the resident pay for it and with the City pay a portion. Um, it really depends on... they're all open to, you know, working with the City to figure out how we wanted to charge for it. Um, we—in the past the City has paid for, you know, there's been significant costs that the City has paid for for these events. Um, those—in part it was—I guess the use was down but the City was still paying the money. Um, moving on to Organics uh... [57:52] **Adam:** ...both Republic—uh, which is different than their response last year—uh, they did propose having a 10-yard container uh available uh with a pickup at once a week at a—at a city facility. I know that was something that the some of the Council has said that they were, you know, very interested in. So we did uh did have that as part of the RP. The Highland does—they had to either add a public facility or a city facility um, but they—they char—they stated that they were gonna in charge... so the City could basically rent another dumpster for organics. Um, the Republic—they did not uh include whether or not... [58:37] **Adam:** ...there would be an additional cost. All three haulers offered um—which is typical—offer the city facilities no cost um for our own waste. The uh so Tennis did not have a organic—they don't have an organic program. Um, they said they're very open to it, but they—they don't have the means to dispose of it. Um, they're waiting for uh the REC—the Ramsey County-Washington uh Environmental Center—to make it available, and then they are—so they're happy to pursue it. All three include the holiday tree disposal, which we currently don't... um, we don't have but uh there would be a two-week period for a... [59:23] **Adam:** ...free holiday tree disposal. **Councilmember Carlson:** I thought we did have it. It's just like... **Councilmember Hanson:** Yeah, I thought it wasn't in our contract, so I didn't—I think they did it this last year, though. **Councilmember Carlson:** Roma could probably tell us if he's on, but I'm pretty sure they did it. **Adam:** Okay, well all three would continue that or have that available. Um, then the the number of trucks—uh, that's not really that important. Uh all of them have sufficient uh vehicles to service the city. But all three of them did uh do have diesel trucks. I know some—another question that some of the Council had last time. Um, Waste Management—which is the—the only firm that uh last time and this time they decided not to submit a proposal—um, they had some natural gas trucks if... [1:00:10] **Adam:** ...people uh um... I did make a note that Republic, uh because their contract uh there's one period that ends uh October 1st and there will be an additional price adjustment because the last one was supposed to take place in October but it didn't until the new year—um, they were willing to waive the 3% increase if—if they were selected this year. Um, so with that, the one item that you didn't talk about is the day of week for pickup. We currently have Mondays as our scheduled pickup day. Um... **Mayor St. Norris:** Yes, thank you, Madame Mayor. Uh, both Republic... [1:00:56] **Adam:** ...said they'd continue doing the Monday. Uh that's our current day of collection. Uh Tennis said that they were good—they were gonna do the Monday as well, they continue that. Highland did say—um, sorry let me go back, very top, I kind of missed that portion, right. Um, the Highland said that they—they needed to do it on Friday. Um, that was their kind of their—the day that they had the capacity available. Um, they could not do Monday. Friday was the day that they wanted to do it. Um, kind of taking a step a little bit higher, a little bit back. All three have uh partners for customer service. Uh Republic, as you well know, um has a regional call center... [1:01:42] **Adam:** ...um, with their hours and uh both Tennis and Highland have local offices. Um, they don't—they don't have a national call center for their local companies. **Councilmember Carlson:** Honey? Honey, maybe you want to go on mute. **Councilmember Carlson:** I'm sorry. **Mayor St. Norris:** It's okay. **Councilmember Hanson:** So that—I think that's an important thing that you just covered there, Adam. So there's a regional—there are local people to call for Tennis and Highland, and there's a call center that services the Midwest or all of the United States for Republic? What... **Adam:** Uh I believe it's... I want to say it's in Indiana. And again, um Mr. Franklin may be able to clarify that... [1:02:28] **Adam:** ...but he—uh I can find it regarding... it is local, it's regional, I believe, like I said, it's—it's our region. Um, they have—if you're all familiar with it—they—they have some broader hours on their call center, but they're—they're not a local um, you know, they're a national company. So they have multiple regional call centers uh that each region—regional call center handles that region's customer base. Um, both Tennis—they're a local, you know, they're both Tennis and Highland are smaller and they have local offices here um for their—their call centers. Uh Tennis—they—they claim to have a within 45 seconds of a call, that's their average wait time. Um... [1:03:14] **Adam:** ...Highland didn't say what their average wait time was, um but they—I—I've called them several times, it goes through fairly quickly. Um, again, it's just a small—uh small office. So with that, I don't believe I have anything else to present. I think I—I think I covered oh basically the—the summaries and the comparisons of the actual um proposals themselves. I can—I can get—it's a lot of information there, if you recall the RFP itself was 45 pages long. Um, so it's—I tried to compile it all for the Council, the main important parts. [1:04:00] **Adam:** I'm happy to send out the—send out the actual materials to the Council to review if you'd like to look further into it. But otherwise, if the Council has some additional questions that it would like answered or information obtained, or uh provide direction to staff, I would like to hear from the Council of the things that they think are most critical. **Councilmember Hanson:** Um, so can we just—there's some clarifications I think that need to be made that are just some missing data for me before we get into that kind of high-level stuff, um if that's okay, Mayor? **Mayor St. Norris:** Sure. **Councilmember Hanson:** Okay. Um, the weekly recycling is a 95-gallon one currently is my understanding... [1:04:46] **Councilmember Hanson:** ...and then it looks like Tennis would be 65-gallon, but Highland it doesn't say the size. So just for when we actually have to make a decision, it'd be nice to have that information. **Adam:** Uh yes, thank you Madame—uh Michele. Um, the Highland did not clarify what their recycling container was. Um, they—they did offer recycled weekly recycling, though. **Councilmember Hanson:** Okay, that's—I just think we should have that information eventually. Um, and then do people ever get extra recycling bins? And they probably won't need to now if we have weekly. So that was just another question I had, but maybe it's not pertinent since... [1:05:32] **Councilmember Hanson:** ...it's weekly and there have been some—not many. **Adam:** Um, I believe under our current contract they can—it can be requested. Um, it's—it's not common, no. Part of it—we do have some that have multiple trash bins. Um, obviously with moving towards the weekly recycling, the—the hope is that—the general hope is that the—there's more gets recycled, so that actually reduces the amount of waste um in the trash. That—that's kind of the—the intent. Both Tennis and Highland uh currently do weekly recycling, and so that's been their um their practice. I know... [1:06:20] **Adam:** ...about it talking about uh maybe a year or two ago uh moving in that direction uh on their end and offering weekly recycling, but actually, you know, doing less than weekly uh trash hauling. Um, and I—I don't think that—that didn't happen, obviously. Um, but the expectation is that the trash volume will reduce significantly if more opportunity to recycle is available. **Councilmember Hanson:** I—I hope that's true. Um, I also am not—maybe it's just me not understanding how this works, but the Highland—that really complicated formula that they gave us—is that another way they could calculate it versus the fees that they told us already, or... [1:07:06] **Councilmember Hanson:** ...what—what does that actually mean? **Adam:** Yeah, so they—they use—and I—I cut and paste literally from the RFP—um, it's not the clearest. They—they take the amount—the basically the weight that we would be disposing from the first nine months of the year, and then they calculate the average weight per gallon because they know the volume—they know how many gallons they—they dispose of and the—the weight. And so then they take that average weight per gallon and they multiply that by whatever cart size you want for the customer. Then they multiply that by the cost per ton... [1:07:51] **Adam:** ...to dispose of it. So that's what the REC would charge, and then multiply by the 5 or 52/12, which is the average week per month. Um, and that— **Councilmember Hanson:** So at some point they change their rates? So we're going to start out with the rates that they quoted us—the 19.50, the 23.46—and then they're gonna assess how much it really is costing them and then they're gonna change their rate? Is that how I should interpret that? **Adam:** If this is the way that this—and they—they proposed this last time um, as something that they'd like to talk to us about. It wasn't uh formally laid out this way. Um, but they—they—they believe it has more transparency than any price adjustments. You can... [1:08:37] **Adam:** ...see how the prices are calculated. **Councilmember Hanson:** Yeah, if you trust what they're saying is the tonnage and all that, but... **Adam:** Well, they have to report all that. I mean, all that's verifiable as you know. **Councilmember Carlson:** And it covers them. It's great for them. But for the people that have to pay the bill and you don't know what the bill is going to be and we're trying to choose a provider? And also their prices could change drastically. It's kind of—I don't really like it, but that's me. So that—just for clarification, you know, we've got the basic numbers and then that's listed under the alternative, but that is not an alternative—that is what they are... [1:09:23] **Councilmember Carlson:** ...proposing? Or that's—could we choose the 19, the 23, the 27, you know, in that—their left-hand column, or this alternative? Or is it kind of a hybrid or no? **Adam:** Yeah, so let me clarify that, uh thank you. The—that 19.50, 23.46—those are the—the proposed 2021 charges—fees. Um, and those do include tax. The—and then so for 2022 and 2023, year two and three of the contract, they proposed the 3% and 5% uh perspective um for waste and recycling increases. They said as an alternate, they'd be open—they'd propose going to... [1:10:08] **Adam:** ...this other—using this formula. Um, they said it's for better transparency and they think that it would—it could potentially be cheaper for the resident um because it's actually what they're paying instead of a preset, you know, cost of increase. Um, I did not... **Councilmember Buckley:** Yeah, who knows what the actual ton—I mean, going this other way, my—my concern would be that it could get worse. I mean, right now we could be lock—we could lock in for the, you know, 3% increase, but if things get out of hand on, you know, it could end up being more for customers if we use the formula. Um, but I'm—I'm not familiar enough with the formula and how that currently plays into them calculating... [1:10:55] **Adam:** ...their charges. So it would be helpful if they could, you know, offer us some examples. You know, a family of five does this versus a, you know, a single person does that. **Councilmember Carlson:** Or, you know, it's just... the formula is really not that bad, it's all just based on that multiplier. **Councilmember Hanson:** But it doesn't really... you know, it's a huge X-factor for us when we're trying to make this decision. **Mayor St. Norris:** You know what else would be helpful? I agree with John, but I'd also think um just knowing how many of their cities opt for that calculation version versus the flat known fees with known increases. If they could share that with us, or if that's... [1:11:41] **Mayor St. Norris:** ...not appropriate, I don't know. But I—I—I can definitely find that information out. Um, the—and just to clarify, so that average weight per... I mean, this is—everybody who has that cart size is going to have that cost. So there wouldn't be—if Resident A and Resident B both have uh varying weights in what they dispose of, they're going to have the same cost if they have the same size cart. So I just want to be sure that this isn't a different formula for every resident. **Councilmember Carlson:** [That would be] great. **Councilmember Hanson:** They used—that was Mike... **Councilmember Carlson:** That would be crazy, boy that would be hard! **Councilmember Dahl:** Yeah, another—I just have some concerns about the unknown too. I guess that's my only problem, it's just... [1:12:28] **Councilmember Dahl:** ...not knowing how that calculation would play out. **Mayor St. Norris:** And we have the same problem with Tennis because they're not telling us what their increase is going to be, right? **Councilmember Dahl:** How—yeah, that was my next point is—is I'm, you know, we have to have some sort of idea what we're getting into or that's not, you know, they could just come up with some crazy number, I would imagine? Or maybe not. **Adam:** I would imagine—I would think that we could ask them to provide maybe a history of what they've done the last um, you know, last 10 years, what it's been. And I—I think if we went back to them, it would be fair... [1:13:15] **Adam:** ...to ask them to provide us, you know, at least a range if it's between that 3% and 4%, etc. **Councilmember Carlson:** Exactly, I agree. **Mayor St. Norris:** The one thing that I'm also interested in—obviously, the financial side is—is very important, the services that are are detailed are important, but and customer service is important. We get a lot of individual complaints from different residents and businesses that deal with customer service. So Adam, what do you know about these other—you know, we've had Republic Services ourselves now—what do you know about Tennis and Highland? **Adam:** Um, my—my experience with both of them so far... I—I've not had either of them as a customer. Um, I've... [1:14:02] **Adam:** ...heard good feedback from the—when I've done the reference checks on both of them. I—I know there's quite a few uh I'd say cities similar to our size um that utilize Tennis. I know Oak Park Heights uses them. Uh they're very happy with them as a municipal hauler. Um, they have quite a few uh both open—uh open hauling cities as well as uh um organized collection like us. Um, just to give you the quick uh list uh for the organized for Tennis: they have Birchwood Village, Falcon Heights, Hastings, Maplewood, North St. Paul, Oak Park Heights, West Lakeland. Um, then for the open... [1:14:48] **Adam:** ...hauling—and this is just the list that they provided for references—Cottage Grove, Inver Grove Heights, Lake Elmo, Newport, Oakdale, South St. Paul, St. Paul Park, and Woodbury. And a lot of them, I believe, a lot of those cities have had them for quite a few years. Uh the—um Highland, they're—they're I'd say they're smaller even than Tennis. Um, Republic, they're—they're you know, they're a national company. They—uh they are all over. Uh you see their trucks everywhere. Um, they—they're in the call center... you know, that's been part of the I'd say the complaints that the City's... [1:15:34] **Adam:** ...received um is the call center wait time. Um, the—in familiarity with some of the—the I guess say the—the the contract, the City's contract, the City details about our accounts. Um, I—I know that that has gotten better. We haven't heard as many, but it's a national company so there's going to be efficiencies that you're able to get from that large company, but also some of the impersonal account management. Uh and Romack [from Republic], he's—you know, he's been very helpful when we've reached out to him. He's offered uh to, you know, take point on a lot of those issues. But um at the end of the day, it's a large company. And... [1:16:20] **Adam:** ...uh both Tennis and uh Highland we've heard is they're, you know, they're family-run, uh they're small companies, they're run like that. Um, they are local, so that's—uh that's kind of the fact that I—I've received. **Mayor St. Norris:** I—um, one, I'm used to it, but two, I also like uh the Monday pickup. **Councilmember Carlson:** I murmured that [out] of my mouth! Yeah, after the weekend—on the weekend—and it's nice to have that cleaned out instead of having that perhaps odor or extra mess um around until Fridays. Is that...? **Mayor St. Norris:** Yeah, I think there—we would get a lot of complaints on the Friday pickup. I really do. I think that would be quite unpopular... [1:17:06] **Mayor St. Norris:** ...with the residents myself, my neighbors. **Councilmember Carlson:** [Music] I agree. I—I—I think the Monday pickup is very popular. Um, Highland doesn't offer it at all, Adam, the Monday? **Adam:** Uh they just say they—they are only the Friday, right? **Mayor St. Norris:** Monday... um, Friday was the day that they were proposing. Um, they said they could try to make later in the week work, um but they—Friday was the day that they were proposing. They could not do it—they have the other... I mean, if you—if you understand, each hauler um has to coordinate which cities they—they cover, right? **Councilmember Carlson:** Highland does have others... [1:17:54] **Councilmember Carlson:** ...that's—that's fine. It's just if that is a deal breaker, then let's not continue with um pursuing Highland. I mean, it's just... I—I like their proposal and—and I'd be interested in finding out this alternate, you know, charges. I think it might be work out better for the residents, but that—that Friday, I really think we'd have a lot of resistance to that. I mean, is that worth an extra dollar or saving a dollar per week, or two dollars per week? I—I don't know. **Councilmember Dahl:** Month. **Councilmember Carlson:** Yeah. Oh, yeah, I got you. **Mayor St. Norris:** John Buckley, you do—what are you thinking? I haven't heard from you. **Councilmember Buckley:** I would wait and get a definite... [1:18:40] **Councilmember Buckley:** ...answer from Highland as far as scheduling change. But um being picked up on Friday or Thursday compared to a Monday, I'm not really opposed to it. But I know we're—we've always had a pick-up on Monday, so we're kind of set into a pattern. But you never know, change might be good. But I would definitely contact Highland. And I agree with John is the numbers are very promising, but I would talk to them and see what they could do as far as schedule the pickup time or day. Thank you. **Councilmember Hanson:** I—someone was asking like... [1:19:35] **Councilmember Hanson:** ...I think uh maybe Connie asked Adam, like how was their kind of customers, like how do they do? [Music] Um, and I—I before the meeting did some... **Mayor St. Norris:** You cut out. **Councilmember Hanson:** My search on that... **Mayor St. Norris:** Michele, you're cutting out so we're not quite hearing what you're... **Councilmember Hanson:** Oh, I'm sorry. **Mayor St. Norris:** What changed? Can you hear me now? **Councilmember Hanson:** Okay, I was just saying that I did some research... **Mayor St. Norris:** Can you—yes, please continue. **Councilmember Hanson:** Still hear me? **Mayor St. Norris:** Customer rate... [1:20:12] **Mayor St. Norris:** ...she's like frozen or I can't hear anything. She froze. Um, Michele, we're—you're cutting in and out, we're having challenges. So Adam wanted to say something. **Adam:** I did uh—Mayor and Michele, can you just pause for a second because your line is—is coming in and out? So well, maybe if we give it a minute, it'll stabilize. So Adam—let Adam talk, he wanted to say something. I found—I found the information on the Highland uh recycling size. It's the 65-gallon—64-gallon uh recycling container. So that was something that um I was able to locate. **Councilmember Carlson:** Okay, thank you. **Adam:** If the customer wants a different size, they can get the 35 or 96 um swapped out with no additional charge. But their standard is the 65-gallon... [1:21:17] **Adam:** ...which yeah, if—if we're doing weekly, that's more than enough. Because we currently have 95 bi-weekly, so weekly is more than adequate. Should be good. Okay. **Mayor St. Norris:** Um, anybody hear me speaking? **Councilmembers:** Yes, now we can. **Mayor St. Norris:** Um, just I had done some online research about customer ratings for Tennis and Highland. I already have a sense of how I feel about Republic's customer service because we've had them. Um, but Tennis was definitely rated higher online than Highland—like 4.7 versus 2.9. I don't know how much you trust those kinds of online ratings, but it was just an interesting tidbit for... [1:22:04] **Mayor St. Norris:** ...me. **Councilmember Hanson:** So did you happen to do uh Republic too? Um, I know you did and I can't remember... **Mayor St. Norris:** Let me see. Um, they're really—they're even lower: 1.3. **Councilmember Hanson:** Okay, just curious. **Mayor St. Norris:** Yeah, that is a good question. So again, I don't know how much weight you put into that. Republic obviously has a lot more people rating it because they're a larger company. Um, I think Highland it was like 70-some ratings and Tennis was like, I think, 20-some ratings or something. So they're not like collaborating because they're such small companies. But interesting, I thought that was helpful when I did that. All right, any other questions or things that we want Adam to check into further? Adam, would we be voting on this topic at our next meeting? Is that... [1:23:09] **Mayor St. Norris:** ...the plan? **Adam:** The plan—the scheduled plan is to have uh yes, to select a provider uh at the September meeting. We do have time uh if we need to wait till October, but the—the plan is to get a contract before the Council. **Mayor St. Norris:** That makes sense. It makes sense to do it then so that we can—if there is any kind of a change in service—that we could get containers swapped out with adequate time, that we're not under the gun. So. **Adam:** And we can—just uh just to clarify, we can—the Council can select a hauler uh contingent upon the contract being worked out. Um, there's—there'll be details that we may need to... [1:23:55] **Adam:** ...work out if we don't have it ahead of time. So the counselors can select a hauler at the September meeting and then in October approve that—formally approve the contract. And that still leaves plenty of time to make the transition. All three provided transition plans, though. So they're all doable. **Councilmember Hanson:** Adam, I—I have one more question, sorry. Did someone else say something? **Councilmember Carlson:** No. **Councilmember Hanson:** Okay. So one of the things that Tennis is—is lacking compared to the others is the organics program. And it says that they're waiting for the REC to make it available. Do we have any information on why they have this feeling that it's going to be made available through the REC? And that could help us understand what... [1:24:41] **Councilmember Hanson:** ...that's about? **Adam:** I don't have that information. I don't. Um, Sara, do you happen to have any other information from the County? I know the County—it's obviously something county-wide um that is—I don't see becoming more popular, but that, you know, we're all—the waste diversion is trying to be maximized and organics are part of that equation. Um, I don't know—I don't have the details as to where it is county-wise. I know their—their pilot programs in various cities... um, there's—it's—the last proposal Republic wasn't even offering it um as part of their proposal, and so now they—they're making that change. It's really a matter of from what I understand is a lot of the... [1:25:28] **Adam:** ...haulers economically it doesn't make sense for them to offer it until it's easier for them to actually... there's somewhere to dispose of it. Um, so that I think that's a challenge for some of them. Um, I don't know if that's—I—I—I don't want to speculate, but maybe with Tennis being smaller and they don't have—they don't—they don't have somewhere that they can bring it to. Um, I know Highland has uh some other options that they—they utilize for their general disposal. **Councilmember Hanson:** Um, Adam, have you and Matt spoken at all about if we had a container on city property, where that would be placed? Because I can imagine we're going to have residents that are not going to be happy wherever that gets—if there was a container placed... [1:26:15] **Councilmember Hanson:** ...somewhere within our small city. **Adam:** We've—we've informally or high-level discussed it. Um, kind of as you noted, uh there—it's—nobody wants it by their property. Um, the—the containers themselves are—there—my understanding is that they're—they're not just a standard dumpster. They are—they have to be airtight, you know, to a higher extent. Um, and they—they have to be emptied regularly depending on who uses them, how much they use, depending on what the ambient temperature... I mean, there's a lot of factors that go into it. Um, I think that that'd be something that we'd have to further explore where that would work best. Um... [1:27:02] **Adam:** ...the—there aren't a lot of examples out there. We've—Councilmember Dahl's um daughter had a Girl Scout project um that we were working with them on, and there's—there's not a lot of uh other... I don't say projects but examples that uh are out there um that cities are doing. Uh there are a couple. I mean, and we can find out more information on that to provide to the Council um if it would like. Um, there's just not a lot of them. It's—it's such a burgeoning area. **Mayor St. Norris:** It's one of those things that the container is probably fine, but as people are dumping things, they don't always get into a container and then, you know, there's extra maintenance for Public Works and there's more rodents. It's one of those kind of... [1:27:49] **Mayor St. Norris:** ..."not in my backyard" kind of situations that we could run against. So. Um, I—I like the idea of organic recycling, I like recycling in general. I just um before, you know, we—we sign up and say that we're going to do this, I want to make sure I knew where and—and how that would work. **Adam:** Even Highland, as part of their proposal when they proposed it, cautioned uh the City as far as how to—it has to be controlled. You know, it has to only be for residents who have indicated interest and then have access. Um, they did not suggest just having it a free-for-all where anybody—all people can just come and dump it, just because it needs to be regulated. They also suggested perhaps... [1:28:39] **Adam:** ...having a, you know, city staff to monitor the organics drop-off, which I don't think we're in favor of that at this point. It would have—we'd have to explore it further. We have not determined what would work for us yet. **Mayor St. Norris:** All right. Well, there seems to be a lot to think about in between now and September. So Council, keep funneling your questions um [to] Adam, and please gather that information and continue to fill out the spreadsheet so that we can continue to compare apples to apples. So anything else on this topic this evening? **Councilmember Carlson:** I'm good. **Councilmember Dahl:** No, thank you. **Councilmember Buckley:** Thank you. **Mayor St. Norris:** Okay great. Um, with that... [1:29:24] **Mayor St. Norris:** ...let's move on to item number three under New Business, which is the update on the COVID CARES Act funding. Again, Adam? **Adam:** Um, so the—we're—it's like I said, we're in uh coronavirus all the time. But the Federal Congress passed back in March uh the current—the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Support Act. Um, it was done by the President, and then on June 25th Governor Walz um announced the plan to distribute those funds. And a formula uh similar to the Federal uh distribution is um $75.34 per capita. [1:30:10] **Adam:** Uh this [City] did not, you know, advocate for a specific amount or apply for a specific amount. We did apply uh for our allotment—our allocation. Um, it's not an expense reimbursement system, but we are given the—the funding and we have to either spend it on uh certain certain expenses related to COVID that are eligible, and then by November 15th whatever we have not spent we turn to the County—return over to the County. And they have a time period that they are to utilize it, and then if they don't use it, it goes back to the State. Um, there's a—the—the three prongs is that it has to happen during this time period: March 1st to December 30th. [1:30:56] **Adam:** Actually, for the City, it's November 15th. And then it has to not be accounted for in the budget. And what I got some further clarification on that: It's—it—there can be something in the budget that's similar to it, but it's you being used differently. Um, so obviously our like our police and fire—our public safety personnel—are being used much differently in their responses because of COVID-19 than they—than they normally would. And even though their wages are included in our yearly budget, um the determination by most of the cities that are involved in this—and there hasn't been any—nobody's been told that they aren't... [1:31:42] **Adam:** ...eligible—there's a lot of cities that are using some of the—their COVID allotment—or their CARES allotment, uh the CRF funds—to pay for parts of their—their wages for their public safety personnel. Um, these—these additional costs for these expenses need to have occurred due to COVID-19 um or as a result of COVID-19 and the City's response to it. Um, the guidance has changed and it continues to evolve. We get further clarification—I'm on a, you know, a weekly either webinar or phone call or Zoom meeting. Um, and there's additional updated information. They get further clarification from the IRS or the state MMB. But what I—what the Council asked for... [1:32:30] **Adam:** ...was a list of what some of the expenses and eligible items that the City has either come up with um or would incur. And so I worked with the department heads and we did have uh some expenses previously that we were incurring uh before this money was um certified and distributed. We just got our share of the money last week. Um, the—we—we really tried to not spend a lot of money uh before we knew this. We—we never try to spend a lot of money, but we tried to be very, uh you know, cost-conscious in all of our expenditures. Uh this did give us a little more breathing room when there were things that we really could use but we were, you know, kind of hedging on, "Well we're... [1:33:16] **Adam:** ...not gonna—you know, we're not gonna spend the money on this because we might need it over here." Um, one of the big things that this money is available for is uh teleworking, working remote, telemeetings. Um, I—I definitely am going to be proposing to you some of it for City Hall's internet. Uh that does not uh seem to be working very well for us. In all seriousness, it's that type of thing. We've—I know the Council was supplied with devices for some of these remote meetings. Um, there's—there's a broad, you know... it's—it's a really broad—it's not a list, but a broad scope of what can be eligible. Um, but also we don't want to over—you know, overspend. [1:34:04] **Adam:** One of the kind of the other part of it is the cities are—they're not expected to, but they have the option, the availability, to uh distribute or provide programs—come up with programs to help the community that they're in—that they—they are. And so the list that I came up with um is gonna include some small business grants uh or loans. I—I—I really don't propose doing any loans, one, because the ongoing paperwork is not worth it, um and it's—it's just—it's not as beneficial to the—to the community members. There's other organization grants that we can uh discuss. They all—they all really need... [1:34:49] **Adam:** ...to be need-based. Um, they—whatever costs that they are incurring or they have incurred due to COVID, they need to be able to demonstrate that and go through an application process. Um, that's been pretty—pretty consistent guidance. But then there's other, you know... it—the coronavirus has hit everything. So they do say that, you know, youth programming or childcare support um—whatever that could possibly look like—um is something that we could—we could discuss or look at. Um, they did even include the—the creative economy and tourism. They understand that, you know, the part of the fact that businesses are hurting is because people aren't—you know, one, they don't feel comfortable going places... [1:35:34] **Adam:** ...or, you know, doing these things. But it's—it's having a broader impact than just directly. Um, this program—it's far from perfect. Uh we are, you know, we're very fortunate to receive some of the funding uh for some of our incurred costs that we have to—have had to spend money on. Um, but I—I did have the list and I'll go ahead and put it up here in a second, um of the things that we've already spent uh money on and our—the City's response to COVID-19. And then, like I said, some of those other items that we believe—staff believes—that it would be helpful for us to do or spend the money on. Um, and then some of the programs for the non-city expenditures. So let me get to that... [1:36:22] **Adam:** ...list that um go through them. And then if the Council has any questions on some of the costs that we've already incurred, please let me know. **Mayor St. Norris:** Adam, yes? **Councilmember Carlson:** For tonight, then, the goal is to accomplish what? Because this is—this is almost as detailed as going through the budget that we had the workshop on prior to a council meeting. **Adam:** The stuff that we've already done—I'm not going to go through that line by line, Madame. Um, what we—so the—there's still—and we're not behind many other cities. There—there's still a lot of cities—we just got this money. Um, there's only been... this is the second... [1:37:08] **Adam:** ...uh you know, distribution period. Um, so there's still a lot of cities the—this that are coming up with these programs. Um, and so we're all kind of bouncing ideas off of... well we don't want to reinvent the wheel. Um, but what I'm look—what staff is looking for from the Council tonight is which programs do we want? Or me—which programs do we want to pursue? Uh which ones do the Count—does the Council support in uh providing to the public? And then we did have a couple uh items that uh specifically for the Fire Department um that we—we were looking for. Um, and then there was one for Public Works as well. Uh kind of directions that... [1:37:55] **Adam:** ...go ahead and get that. Obviously, anything that the City spends on itself has two impact: Um, one, it's anything we spend now will be less of a, you know, tax burden on the community um if we were to pay for it otherwise. And but then that does leave less money available for non-city programs. Um, just to let the Count—I know I send information to the Council—Washington County came out with two programs uh for residents and uh property owners uh just this last week. They've formally approved it, and that's being done through the CDA. Um, one is a small business loan program, which is uh $15,000 um... [1:38:40] **Adam:** ...for businesses that are less than three and a half million in revenue and uh 50 employees. And then there's a—like it's $10,000 uh homeowner uh aid. **Mayor St. Norris:** From... so be clear, Adam, the small business thing is a grant, not a loan. **Adam:** I'm sorry, yes. I misspoke. Yes, thank you. Yeah, they're both on the same page, not loans. "Small business loan in general" is what... to me... um, those are both grants. That's correct, right? **Adam:** Oh, uh to go—if everybody can see my screen—um, the the personnel expenditures, that's, you know, that's something if the Count—if the Council wants us to uh use some of the the CARES money... [1:39:27] **Adam:** ...for that, uh we can. And some of this doesn't need to be determined now. Like I said, we have until November 15th to actually spend the money. But um one thing I should say is they are—we don't have any specific dates, but we were told by the State MMB that the discussion at the federal level is to extend the deadline um or the expenditure. So that may end up happening. Um, we don't want to wait, but we may, you know, have a little bit more flexibility um as we determine that. COVID is not going anywhere anytime soon. Um, but we've, you know, we have incurred some unemployment costs. Um, the other thing I should mention in all these expenses—uh, both for us and the... [1:40:14] **Adam:** ...non-city entities—is you can't double-dip. So if you get something through, you know, the Paycheck Protection Act or some other grant or loan program, you can't get—for the same expense, you can't get money from different sources for the same thing. **Mayor St. Norris:** Um, how do we do that? How do we make sure that's not happening, though? **Adam:** Well—well we—we have to have an application process, and that's part of it. Um, they're all subject to the same type of certification that we make at the City. Um, we need to provide—basically have them provide receipts. Um, and there's... if something... that's the other thing: we have to be very stringent in our checking, um because... [1:41:00] **Adam:** ...if somebody finds that we're ultimately—because we're the—the local government that's receiving it—um, we're on the hook for if a—if another organization, you know, a business or something, misuses the funds and they weren't—not they should not have received them or they used it on something that was not eligible. The City's one responsible for that fund. **Mayor St. Norris:** So there are these types of strings attached? This seems like a—a big tax on our current staff to add this kind of response and—and the City's liability if we end up having to pay back. So there—there's still a lot of questions. Um, and it's—yeah, it's not as simple as... [1:41:48] **Mayor St. Norris:** ...everybody just gets the money. **Adam:** Um, I think, you know, like I said, we've got—there's some examples coming out of the different types of grant programs. Um, they're—they don't seem too onerous, but they're also—they're—they're smaller. One—I guess one of my suggestions would be... I know that if there's money left over from... and we had Community Thread, which the Council highly supports... um, the County's program does not include non-profits. Um, there's too many of them county-wide that they—they said it was gonna be too difficult to administer. Um, but they—they said that if—and it also doesn't include churches—but if they—if at the end of the—closer to the end of their uh period if they haven't had as many people apply for their programs... [1:42:35] **Adam:** ...then they may open it up to the non-profits. Um, I don't have their figures offhand, but it was, you know, 10 million and 1 million. Um, so I—I thought that it might be beneficial for the City to either, you know, fill that gap that the—on some of our organizations that the County is not currently making it eligible. Um, we can use the same type of criteria, same type of process, and so it's kind of already in place, but change the criteria for what, you know, which types of organizations are available. **Mayor St. Norris:** So is it really true that even so—the only funds that are available are at the County level and at the City level? Correct? For this particular... **Adam:** There were cases—there were—I mean, there—there's state funds that the State kept, you know, quite a bit. Um, they kept almost half, I think. Um, they were... so good. [1:43:20] **Mayor St. Norris:** All right. So I'm trying to figure out because I—I—we obviously have businesses that have been hurt in this process as well. We have to avoid double-dipping, but why isn't the County having some kind of program that tracks the applications and—and we submit against that so that we at least can see that there's no replication there? **Adam:** That'd be nice. That—that's something that I—I will ask about because that hasn't been uh announced. Um, but and if there were staff at that level, not every... [1:44:05] **Mayor St. Norris:** ...individual municipality would have to dedicate staff to try to administer this as well. It—it does not seem like... I mean, it's—it's a nice gift, but it does not seem very well thought-out at this point. **Adam:** That's—that's one way of putting it. Um, yeah, it was—the—I know they were trying to get money out to, you know, local communities as fast as possible, but there's uh a lot of questions that are left. Um, the—I—I think the—I think the—the intent was the—the local communities are going to have a better understanding of who needs it. Um, but anything that the City doesn't spend does go back up to the County—or not back up, but then to the County for their programming—and then... [1:44:50] **Adam:** ...ultimately back to the State. **Mayor St. Norris:** Um, but that doesn't address the administration and it doesn't address... I mean, as a small city, we can't have 10 different programs. We cannot administer that. And to even try to make sure that if we offer a business grant program and the County has a business grant program, you know, there's—it just seems like there's overlap and potential for... I don't want to see us ending up being on the hook for something later that we have to end up paying back. And anything that we spend for the City and decreases our—are having to increase taxes to cover some of these costs—also impacts our businesses because they're... [1:45:37] **Mayor St. Norris:** ...they're paying taxes and they're typically taxed at a higher rate. So. Um, I—I can't see us making decisions on this this evening, and I think that we actually need another workshop like we did for the budget to try to talk about this further. **Councilmember Hanson:** I—I agree with you, Mayor, that like we don't want that overlap because they—am I coming through? I'm sorry. Um, and I think that I also agree then with Adam's point where he said maybe our job would be to fill in those gaps that the County isn't fulfilling. So not necessarily doing a small business grant and not necessarily doing a resident, you know, help with mortgage, whatever. Instead, maybe focusing on the other... [1:46:24] **Councilmember Hanson:** ...non-profit organizations that aren't getting any relief. Maybe even our local elementary school could probably use something to help with going back to school, those kinds of things. And I don't know about those there's other three bullet points: the youth programming, tourism, and creative economy support—that I bel—also agree with you that we would need a workshop to better understand what all of that means. But I do see that we have some potential options for using that money that the City isn't going to need. But I would—I would recommend that we avoid whatever the County is already doing. Let's not offer that, because I think it's going to get us in trouble later. It's going to be too hard to manage that and avoid the overlap and... [1:47:09] **Councilmember Hanson:** ...and all that. So but I—I think there's potential there and maybe we do just need another time to talk it through in more detail. **Mayor St. Norris:** Yeah, and if we could further understand for the businesses what qualifies with the County and what doesn't, so that if there's something that's out—falls outside of that—that we could consider that for our businesses. In addition, I like the idea obviously the non-profits—he sent us the description, I don't know if there's more details behind it, but it's got like four bullet points that explains what they need to be and what, you know, what they need to meet. You know, one full-time employee... **Councilmember Carlson:** Yeah, what they would spend the money on. So let's say that... oh, I see what you're saying. Let's say that uh a—uh um... it's easy... [1:47:56] **Councilmember Carlson:** ...yeah, so I think we have the same rules, don't we? That has to be related to their... there's no balance on if they're submitting replica—you know, replicant—or replicated guys on some of those? I filled out some of those different ones—I just filled out one through the State—and they do ask specific questions like, "Have you gotten money from any...?" So they're asking the business owners um if, you know, if you've gotten any, and if you have, where has it been from? **Mayor St. Norris:** Interesting. **Councilmember Carlson:** So they do, on the applications—at least the ones that have come out recently, the one through the State and um—actually, there was two different... [1:48:43] **Councilmember Carlson:** ...ones. So they—they do ask that. Um, and then you know, kind of sign it off on the bottom. And then they—on the one from the State anyway, um for the—although the one from the State was strictly that I was applying lately was for um daycares, now that I think about it. But I had applied for another small business one and they did ask, and then you have to—they have what—they give you a page at least on those two that I did, actually I should say a couple pages, and they explain to you what you can and cannot spend this money on. You know, like the one through um the daycare, it had to be used on either rent... [1:49:29] **Councilmember Carlson:** ...utilities, um—uh salaries are not—salaries, excuse me—um, money you—your employees. So um, it can't be lost. But I agree with you guys, I think there is the one out through the County, there's the new one through the State for small businesses. Um, I—and I think they're really trying to focus on the very small businesses because the first few that I filled out that were for small businesses, I mean, they were being given to not such small businesses. And that's why it's stipulating the 50 employees and under type thing. So but there are several, like I said—there's the one through the State right now, and I got some... [1:50:15] **Councilmember Carlson:** ...information on the one through the County. So. Um, I don't know, I do know a lot of the businesses are—myself too, as a business owner—the things that are hardest for us is getting a hold of some of this personal protection. So if I guess if you're looking to help your businesses, you know, maybe throw some of that more stuff at 'em and not—not broke but um versus a loan or something anyway. **Mayor St. Norris:** Yeah, I think that I—I—I don't want to say just because businesses are being addressed at the County, we don't want to address that—we can't address the businesses. But I want to be very clear on what the County is—is considering um... [1:51:02] **Mayor St. Norris:** ...you know, within their realm of acceptance and what might be left over that we could help supplement with. **Councilmember Carlson:** Exactly, yeah. **Mayor St. Norris:** Yeah, Adam, is there a way that—because it's—I mean, I just—I don't see that we're gonna get through this this evening. So can we schedule a workshop and go into this in more detail, and perhaps have somebody even from the County come and describe what their criteria is and how they—I mean, there should be some kind of comparison from the cities to the County to make sure that there's no overlap so that we can freely go about what we'd like to do? **Adam:** Uh absolutely, Mayor. Just one—just one thing with that, there—and that's been part of the... [1:51:48] **Adam:** ...frustration from the staff perspective is, as I said, the—it's incredibly vague. The—the Federal Government—the IRS—gave, you know, these three—three parameters: that it needs to be related to, you know, directly due to COVID-19, has to take place during the time period, and, you know, can't be regularly have been budgeted for. Um, they all—the cities—they're—they're either trying to copy their county programs, you know, piggyback off them, or try to fill those gaps. Those are kind of the two. Regarding the the businesses um we—I can—I'll... we can definitely try to find out more information. That's been one of the—like I said, one of the frustrations of... [1:52:35] **Adam:** ...trying to come up with these programs is they—they have not given us a lot of... they said, "Here's things you aren't supposed to do." And now... **Mayor St. Norris:** I think it's—I think it's fair because we're all taxpayers to the County as well, that they should define how they're going to distribute it so that the rest of the cities within the County can supplement without overlap. We, you know, it just makes—it makes sense. And you know, if every community is paying to administrate this, it's that's just a nice... so. Um, I challenge the—to go back to the County, say detail exactly for the cities—not just Bayport but all of us... [1:53:20] **Mayor St. Norris:** ...what it is that will meet this criteria for businesses. I'm not... I—I think the homeowner is a different um tactic. I don't know as we have enough money in our coffers to even approach that. But um so we could look at our—our business expenses, our non-profit expenses, and maybe some, you know, smaller programs within our budget for businesses. So then we at least can go, "Okay, we want 70/20/10" or whatever percentages, and then we can dive deeper into how to allocate. But I think that this is too undefined to make any kind of recommendations this evening. But maybe I'll leave it to the Council. Does anyone else have any ideas? [1:54:06] **Councilmember Dahl:** No, I—I tend to agree, um Mayor. Um, it's—it's overwhelming and um, you know, it's vague and—and nebulous in some ways. And it's going to be difficult to—with what we know and what's in front of us right now—move forward. **Mayor St. Norris:** Yeah, it's easier with the city allocations and it's next easier for non-profits. But to help with any help for our businesses, I think we just need more clarity. **Councilmember Carlson:** Anyone else? No, I agree with you guys. **Mayor St. Norris:** Is anybody opposed to a workshop? I think a workshop is in order. [1:54:53] **Mayor St. Norris:** Okay. Adam, I—I'm trying to also save you and the rest of the administrative team some time and make it more clear for you as well. Because right now, it's—it would be very hard for us to provide you guidance. **Adam:** That's fine. Um, yeah, it's—they believe me, it's been frustrating for the administrators because the guidance has been very lacking. And "try to come up with whatever ideas you want and we'll tell you 'no' if it's..." I mean, and honestly they were like, "If—if you can somehow relate it to COVID-19, it probably is eligible." And it's—we're like, "Okay, that doesn't matter." [1:55:42] **Mayor St. Norris:** Okay. Well, I think putting a little bit more back on the County and having them provide some clarity and definition would probably help a lot of communities, and then we could go from there. Okay, super. All right, anything on that topic? All right, then we will move forward with our uh Council liaison reports. Um, I'm going to quickly go—I don't know there's been a lot of activity, but I'm starting our left-hand corner... John Buckley, do you have anything to report? **Councilmember Buckley:** No report, Mayor. **Mayor St. Norris:** Okay, thank you. John Dahl? **Councilmember Dahl:** Didn't have a meeting last month so nothing wrong with the airport. **Mayor St. Norris:** Okay. Going to the second row... Michele? [1:56:29] **Councilmember Hanson:** Just so you know, the pictures are a different order for everybody, but anyways... I was in the upper left when you said that, but um not to cut the meeting short but no, I don't have anything either. **Mayor St. Norris:** Okay. And Connie? **Councilmember Carlson:** Well, I could say no, but they're really a follower... **Mayor St. Norris:** Connie? **Councilmember Carlson:** No, the Library Board did meet virtually again on the 21st. Um, and we discussed the Master—the Facility Master Plan. And it's been paid for—the design hasn't. Um, Jill's hoping to have it back in August sometime, because if she gets [it] back by that time, she can get some—an additional... [1:57:15] **Councilmember Carlson:** ...or request put in a grant for some reduced—additional um funds from the Andersen Foundation. So that's why she's hoping it will be back by that time. And we talked about the budget, and Jill feels that the library budget will stay flat. Um, she doesn't anticipate any reductions. Her concern is though that—or what she stated was that they are losing income from the meeting rooms and reservations and the fines and all those things that typically are there. So she talked about asking the City to increase her property tax allocation. And in doing so, um... [1:58:02] **Councilmember Carlson:** ...then she can get her um more grants from her—like, I'm trying to think of what the people that double or meet the grants that she gets her budget or her money. Um, so I don't think she's talked to Adam about that yet or anything, but that she did discuss that a little bit. Um, she—and she went over the Emergency Management Plan that she's—she's going to be using the City one but making it more specific to the library. Um, let's see what else did we talk about? Well, we've been kind of reviewing the policies for the last several meetings. Um, oh, and she isn't... [1:58:49] **Councilmember Carlson:** ...planning on hiring anyone new to re—right now at this point, to replace um the one that uh retired. She didn't think maybe at least until 2021 if then, she was just going to see what happens with the COVID issues. And other than that, um it was just going over the receipts and the bills. And we do have a meeting in August—I can't remember the date—but um otherwise everything seems to be going well. They're still doing some curbside stuff and she's kind of um, you know, sticking with the COVID issue. [1:59:35] **Mayor St. Norris:** So that's all. Very good, thank you Connie. **Councilmember Carlson:** You're welcome. **Mayor St. Norris:** I have nothing to report either. So Adam, over to you in the team... Chief Kinney? **Chief Gabe Kinney (Fire Chief):** Okay, can everybody hear me? **Mayor St. Norris:** Yes, sir can. **Chief Kinney:** Okay great. The month of July call volume was 98 compared to 114 of July of 2019. [2:00:04] **Chief Kinney:** Our year-to-date totals are 561 compared to 739 on 2019. Uh we're seeing that the call volumes are starting to get back to normal. Uh our monthly drill: so our extrication and our first responder module. Fire inspections are ongoing, as well as the new plan reviews. Our member update members: all of our members are still—remain healthy. We did have a busy month, difficult calls—we had a house fire, a river rescue, and a fatal traffic accident. We did go back to drills in person and with our social distancing, mask, and following the State guidelines. On another note, we do have two people that applied for the... [2:00:49] **Chief Kinney:** ...department, and they went through the interview process. So hopefully next month they'll be on the Consent Agenda, which is great that we have people volunteering in this current condition. You know, it's great to see people stepping forward and help us out. We did have a boat demo for St. Paul Power Squadron out at Lakeside Park for the boating organization. We're going back to our fire improvement team meetings, and with that I'll stand for questions. **Mayor St. Norris:** Questions for the Chief? Okay, thank you very much. **Chief Kinney:** Thank you. **Mayor St. Norris:** Adam, was a—oh, sorry... Chief Eastman? [2:01:33] **Chief Laura Eastman:** So for the month of um July, uh this was submitted on the 23rd so we've come a ways since then. But um we continue our extra patrols on Highway 95 and other businesses and residents. Um extra patrols on Fourth Street South—that seems to be um what people are moving to, Fourth and Sixth, to avoid Highway 95. As you know, you all allowed me to add one part-timer, Mr. Brian Sinclair, tonight. And thank you very much. I met with the business owners, managers... [2:02:21] **Chief Eastman:** ...probably 95% of them directly, handed them the executive orders and posters, answered any questions, provided some masks. And then past things that we accomplished: where we posted our use-of-force policy on the web page for transparency. Um and we of course posted the notice that Safety Camp and Night to Unite... which Safety Camp would have been tonight and Night to Unite would have been tomorrow. Um while I was sitting here, I posted old pictures of our Facebook um of National Night Out/Safety Camp. So that's kind of fun to look at. And um we also posted the Governor's order on updates on that continually on our Facebook page. And with that, I stand for... [2:03:07] **Chief Eastman:** ...questions. **Mayor St. Norris:** Questions for Chief Eastman? **Councilmember Carlson:** No, but it's—I just want to tell you thank you. She was out the very next day with those um plans and the signs and everything. So I just want to tell her thank you very [much]. **Councilmember Buckley:** I have a question for the Chief. Um and I apologize for catching you off guard and it's um a controversial topic, but it's something I saw shortly before um our workshop started this afternoon. And it had to do with the uh protesting going on downtown Stillwater yesterday. And I realized it was um, you know, a different department, but... [2:03:52] **Councilmember Buckley:** ...um one of the—one of the officers for the Stillwater department um in his squad car was wearing a—a certain mask that could be, in my opinion, construed as—considered as political. And I wonder what kind of policies we have in place so uh so an officer stays neutral, and then how we would handle something like that? If that's allowed? **Mayor St. Norris:** Somebody's got potato chips going on here. [2:04:34] **Chief Eastman:** So that was me, I was trying to open this up, hold on a second... I'm gonna mute it for a second. Okay. She has some masks. I gotta get on her. There we go. There we go. So we recently ordered these um... you can kind of see that it's got, you know, a little bit of uh lettering on the side. Um it's black, which I think is important. Um when you approach domestics or certain violent situations, you want it to be a little bit darker so you don't stick out. Um so we were going to um... we just got these. Um I tried to ask them... [2:05:20] **Chief Eastman:** ...to go blue or dark, you know, so we're all uniform. But we were going to use these to be [Bayport] Police. **Councilmember Buckley:** Okay, yeah. I mean, that's great. So I'm just going to say what I saw was a—was a officer wearing a—a Blue Lives Matter mask, which—which I understand his point of view and stuff, but um in that kind of a situation, that is kind of inflammatory in my opinion. Um and I would just like to, you know, have our officers be—be representing everything as neutral as possible. To me, um that can be construed as kind of a political statement, same as I would say if they—if they happen to have a—a Black Lives Matter... [2:06:06] **Councilmember Buckley:** ...mask on or a—or a Trump or any—you know, a Biden or anything. **Chief Eastman:** Sure. Um, I wouldn't disagree with that Councilmember, and I would not... if I knew that was going on here, I certainly would not allow it. And, you know, you can put forth policies and procedures, and sometimes you don't see what's going on. And it's good if you were to see something like that in our agency to point it out. Um but with your approval, I'll just um make sure that they're all wearing the ones that I provided. **Councilmember Buckley:** Okay, sounds good. Thank you. **Chief Eastman:** You're welcome. **Mayor St. Norris:** I got criticized by Chief Eastman wearing a red... [2:06:53] **Mayor St. Norris:** ...mask tonight. Um she wanted me to wear a blue one so I didn't get one. Oh. Any other questions for Chief Eastman? **Councilmembers:** No. **Mayor St. Norris:** But it's a really good idea to keep politics out of—out of public safety, so very very good. Thank you for taking proactive okay action there. All right, fine. **Matt Kline:** Madame Mayor, members of Council, Public Works has been very busy uh this month. Um with the reduced uh reservations in the uh beach house and the closure of the bathroom, we were able to paint both the indoor and outdoor bathrooms... [2:07:38] **Matt Kline:** ...which definitely needed it. And we're hoping to actually stain the fence by city—installed fence by NJ's cafe by the City Hall parking lot. Obviously, we've been busy with the Street Improvement project. That has taken up quite a bit of our time. A lot of it has involved lighting, sewer, and water. Um overall the project's going well. Um it's just taking up a considerable amount of time and moving slightly slower than what I had anticipated. Um but it is moving along. So a couple of the other projects that we did this month: the street ratings, I as I had indicated in the um before during the crack sealing... [2:08:26] **Matt Kline:** ...uh discussion. Um I will be presenting as part of the Capital Improvement Program um a couple of recommendations here for the next couple years. Uh the biggest one will be—well, not the biggest—but the um the one that should happen next year is probably Sixth Avenue um that goes by the cemetery and up to the state prison. That road is in need of some—some work. So there's also a potential water quality project that we are working on with the WMO and a couple of the um homeowners in the area. Um if you know the area right behind the post office um 2nd Street uh north from 1st Ave... [2:09:12] **Matt Kline:** ...to 2nd Ave North, the Perro Creek uh is actually in the City right-of-way along that edge and some of the um the bank is actually falling in. And so we're trying to work with the homeowners and the WMO um to create a water quality project in that area potentially for next year, we'll see. Uh sewer cleaning—the contractor is likely to start here sometime in early August. Hopefully they're done in two weeks. Homeowners will be—the homeowners that we know that have sewer issues when we—um when we flush those uh mains—will be notified. Um just one other one: the ash tree... [2:09:58] **Matt Kline:** ...removal. I will be working on a um essentially a bid for removing uh 10 to 20 more ash trees and then planting the trees that we had already removed and the new ones for removal. Uh that'll happen this fall. Um I stand for questions. **Mayor St. Norris:** Do you—um Matt, thank you for the update. Do you know when they're expecting to be done with the Highway 95 project? Is it end of September, August, what are they...? **Matt Kline:** No, their—their final date I believe is the end of October. **Mayor St. Norris:** October? I heard a rumor in town that was the end of August and I was like, "I'm pretty sure that's not true," but I'm gonna make sure. So they have still a... [2:10:45] **Mayor St. Norris:** ...fair amount of significant work to do? **Matt Kline:** They have a lot of curb to put in on the west side, sidewalk—some of that's been started. They also still have to put the median in between Second and Third. They also have to pave through town. So there's still a—quite a bit of work left to do. **Mayor St. Norris:** Right. I had a question for Adam earlier today that I just couldn't remember if we had plantings in our median planned or if it was going to be plain concrete. And I visited Afton over the weekend and their open medians look beautiful. And so I was happy to hear that the one at least in between the school and Perro will have those plantings. And then Adam, you said that perhaps on the other one... [2:11:30] **Mayor St. Norris:** ...that's being put in, it's too narrow to have plantings, but we might be able to have a planter or something for beautification. **Adam:** Yeah, I was going to check with Matt. I couldn't recall the conversation, but the—the one on the north end was... I remember it was—it was too small to do something substantial. Um the one in front of the school, it's about a 300-foot uh median. 100—the middle 100 feet of it I believe is going to be the—the planting area. So that's what they allowed us to have. Is that correct, Matt? Is that accurate? **Matt Kline:** Yeah, I believe so. And then we—we also had um essentially sidewalk down the side so we had somewhere safe to uh do uh maintenance on it. [2:12:18] **Mayor St. Norris:** Okay, looking forward to that. Afton's project, although it was lengthy and painful as well, has turned out beautifully. All right, back to you, Adam. **Adam:** Assistant Administrator Taylor? **Sara Taylor:** Can you hear me okay? **Mayor St. Norris:** Yes. **Sara Taylor:** Yes. Okay. So just a few highlights from my written report. We completed the first edition of the City's newsletter. I was able to develop the format and content in-house, which made it extremely cost-effective and efficient, which was positive. It was posted on the City website and then distributed to subscribers of the City's email notification sign-up. Um we definitely received positive comments. We also heard from several residents... [2:13:05] **Sara Taylor:** ...that they were concerned that the City's newsletter would go away, and so that was good feedback to know that that's still very much desired by the community. City email sign-up: we formatted and mailed a postcard to residents and businesses highlighting the benefits of subscribing. Um as of today, there were 340 people subscribed, so hopefully that number will continue to increase. Um the election prep for the August 11th statewide primary is complete. And I apologize for the typo on the staff memo which states the election is August 3rd—I had tonight's meeting on the brain when I wrote that memo. So special protective equipment and supplies have been ordered and received. Um all required training and testing of the equipment is complete. [2:13:50] **Sara Taylor:** And Washington County has reported they've received 90 absentee ballots from Bayport voters so far. That could mean that we'd have very little in-person voting since the prediction for total voter turnout was about 150. The survey work is complete for the Land and Water Legacy project. Building and zoning permits continue to be strong; I completed 12 plan reviews this past month for permits. We received prepayment from many homes for cost to convey the last remaining outlots to the conservation easement, so I'll be working with the Minnesota Land Trust to finish that up. And I'll be working on the next edition of the print newsletter this week. I stand for questions. **Mayor St. Norris:** Questions for Sara? [2:14:56] **Adam:** One thing I just want to mention with the Council about the money we got from uh Mattamy: It was about $40,000 uh that we saved the City by having Mattamy pay for the transfer. Um so that was good news. **Councilmember Carlson:** Saves the taxes! Yeah, kudos too. **Adam:** No credit to me, it's Sara. **Mayor St. Norris:** Um Adam, you and I have also talked a little bit about the website. Bayport's website is getting a little bit antiquated, um especially with the new, you know, us having Zoom meetings on there and um just having it be a little bit more interactive. That's not something that we talked about in the budgeting discussion, but we should probably make sure that that's—that's reflected there as well. **Adam:** Yes, Madame Mayor. Um actually that's not—that was actually going to be... um we were hopeful, our plan is to do that as soon as possible this year yet and... [2:15:44] **Adam:** ...utilize the CARES funding uh for that because of the improvements that we're making in the service provision with both with... we want to have online forms, uh online credit card acceptance for payments. Um so there's—we think that we can have some of those upgrades utilize the CARES funding to be able to provide the additional services uh with our website um since we're—it's the reality where we are now. **Mayor St. Norris:** Exactly. Well, great. Good, that's good news. **Adam:** It wasn't listed on the list—of the line item list—because we don't—I don't have the figure yet. Um but we have it, we'll figure it out. **Mayor St. Norris:** All right, thank you. [2:16:29] **Mayor St. Norris:** Any other questions for Sara? All right, then back to you, Adam. And we do have a—a guest that's leaving us, so um a team member. So I'm sure that you'll expand on that. **Adam:** Yeah. Um, thank you Madame Mayor, members of the Council. I did not submit a written report. Um everything that I've—the majority of what I've been working on um is in part in the agenda tonight: both the RFP for the trash as well as the CARES funding and the budget. Uh those—those three items um have been the three big ones. Uh the other one that we were just—the City was just notified—is our beloved City Attorney, Andy Pratt... [2:17:14] **Adam:** ...is leaving us. Um he has—uh I want to steal his thunder, but uh he—he's leaving for another position. And so we will be required to get a new City Attorney um for our civil. Uh criminal prosecution is still handled by Ekberg. Uh because of the coronavirus—and I'll get back to Andy addressing him—but I just want to let the public know and reiterate to the Council what I've already provided information: Because of the situation that we're in, it makes it really difficult to do a RFP, especially where interviews are suggested or required. Because we have the history with Ekberg, uh I—my proposal is to go back with... [2:18:00] **Adam:** ...Ekberg for the time being. And uh so I did reach out to Tom Weidner, who is the lead for prosecution and one of the partners there. And uh next Tuesday—actually no, that's tomorrow—I was gonna say... yeah, next—no, the next Tuesday um I—I'm gonna be interviewing uh three of their attorneys. One is Nick—Nick Vivian, who was one of the City Attorneys previously for Andy, um and then two newer attorneys. Um and Mayor St. Norris, I've asked Mayor St. Norris and acting Mayor, Deputy Mayor Connie Carlson, to join me for that meeting. And we'll be uh talking to the attorneys and asking them some questions about uh... [2:18:46] **Adam:** ...what—what we'd like to see or what they're able to offer us. Um sounds like all three of the attorneys uh are gonna be more than—more than competent. Um I—I think—I think this is the—the best way to do it. I know that some of the other cities that I've been talking to uh that have been going through the RFP process, it's for their—specifically for a City Attorney—it has not been going easily. So because of the timing, I did reach out to the lead and they said we legally aren't required to have a City Attorney at all times, but obviously it—it's the smart thing to do. So I don't want to have too long of a gap in between. Um and so this I think allows us to do that... [2:19:33] **Adam:** ...most efficiently and quickly. Um and we've—since I've been here, we never had an issue with—uh with Ekberg when we were with them for the civil. To that point, uh part of the reason that we left Ekberg was to follow Counselor Pratt. And he has become... it—I know uh I get along great with all the staff um but he has definitely become a trusted advisor to myself and the City, and he will be dearly missed. His—both his personal—uh I'm gonna miss Andy. I—it's not gonna get choked up here but... uh yeah, I—I really enjoyed working with you uh and having you as our City Attorney. [2:20:19] **Adam:** And um we are still legally allowed to talk to each other. [Laughter] Don't lose my number or don't block me. **Andy Pratt (City Attorney):** All right. I don't know [if I'll] take my call. If I—if I may, Mayor, just a parting... I know you've had a long meeting um and uh it was a really difficult, you know, call to make to Adam. And I also represent the City of Mendota Heights, who has a meeting tomorrow night, so that's my last meeting. And um because this type of law is just really fits my personality and my way of thinking and kind of the—the team function that we're all going towards the same place and we're all on the same... [2:21:06] **Andy Pratt:** ...side of the City. Uh and that's—I just really enjoy that. I'm not a litigator, I don't like to argue points necessarily. I like to get things done with a group of like-minded individuals, which you all—you all certainly are. And I consider um everybody to be friends of mine, not—not just colleagues or clients or anything like that. It's really um been a privilege um to be here for eight and a half years. Um I told my wife that that's the longest job I've ever had, and um she was a bit shocked by that. But um you know that—and three of you are—have been on the Council the entire time um of—of that time. So um it's been a really good group and new members as well, and—and staff um too. Uh so I won't, you know, be going... [2:21:52] **Andy Pratt:** ...too far. I'm with RBC Bank, as I've told a few of you, doing some public finance work, kind of being a director of their finance office that they have down in Minneapolis—and actually the same building I'm in now. Um so it's kind of a boring job when you get into the details of it, but it fits me. It fits my 15 years of practice. And I certainly won't miss getting together with you all and for a—and same with the staff meetings back when we were able to have in-person staff meetings. We had a—a good uh collegial group and um you know John Parrott is not here tonight, but I said the same thing to him too. So it's a really good group going forward. Um certainly the people... [2:22:38] **Andy Pratt:** ...that are being interviewed tomorrow, I—I don't know one of them. He was new—he's been new since I've left—but um can certainly vouch for them um for first-class project. So you'll be in good hands. And then whatever the long-term decision is will be a good one as well. So I'll certainly stay in touch with everybody um and really that's—I just want to thank everybody for everything. [2:23:09] **Mayor St. Norris:** If any council members have specific questions or things that we want—you want us to check out during that interview process, please submit those to Adam if you haven't already. But um I look forward to that process as well. Maybe appreciate Ekberg reaching back out and—and offering us their services and and selection among their lawyers. But Andy, thank you for everything. Um you've been a true partner we've been, and—and you will be missed. Sincerely. **Andy Pratt:** Thank you so much, Mayor. And I forgot to say that if there's anything that comes up, sort of sometimes random questions come up that just need a—a sounding board, you know, my official last day my firm is on Thursday of this week. [2:23:55] **Andy Pratt:** But Adam knows my number, and so if he has any uh thing pop up, I'm happy to assist in—in whatever way. **Mayor St. Norris:** So thank you. **Councilmember Carlson:** Andy, best wishes! Yeah, good luck, Andy. **Councilmember Dahl:** I can't believe it was eight and a half years—where did it go? Way so fast! **Councilmember Carlson:** You didn't age a bit! Well, enjoy your new position. **Andy Pratt:** Thank you, Connie, appreciate it. You're welcome. **Andy Pratt:** Well, and uh we—I'll be sure to reach out to them, but you get illegal advice—you get [what] you pay for. So... [2:24:37] **Mayor St. Norris:** I—I stand for questions from the Council. Um I don't want to believe any other questions for Adam. Adam, thank you. And I didn't—I truly... I know that you're doing the very best you can to unravel this CARES and—uh and so—and I—I think that the list that you've prepared with the help of the department heads is a great start and looks like it's on par with—with really good ideas. So I hope you only see my frustration as being that with the uh the way that these—these programs can be rolled out across the nation and state and—and down to the local level that um we want to do the best we can and we don't want to overburden our own... [2:25:24] **Mayor St. Norris:** ...team, because you are all very busy already. So thank you. All right well, uh is there anything else anyone wants to cover tonight? If not, would someone like to make a motion to adjourn? **Councilmember Hanson:** I move [to] adjourn. **Mayor St. Norris:** Thank you, Michele. Is there a second? **Councilmember Dahl:** I'll second. **Mayor St. Norris:** Oh, go for it John. I think we'll give it to John Dahl. And Adam, would you please call the roll? **Adam:** Councilmember Hanson? **Councilmember Hanson:** Aye. **Adam:** Councilmember Dahl? **Councilmember Dahl:** Aye. **Adam:** Councilmember Buckley? **Councilmember Buckley:** Aye. [2:26:18] **Adam:** Mayor St. Norris? **Mayor St. Norris:** Aye. All right, with that uh meeting's adjourned. Have a great evening. Thanks again. **Councilmember Carlson:** Thank you! **Mayor St. Norris:** Andy, hope to see you. Take care. Hanging in there. [2:27:35] **Adam:** [Meeting Ended]