Based on the context provided and the historical details of the Farmington City Council meetings in early 2024, here is the transcribed text with speaker names identified. **Note:** While your context list notes Nick Lien as Mayor (likely his role in 2026), in this March 2024 transcript, **Joshua Hoyt** is presiding as Mayor, and **Nick Lien** is serving as a Councilmember. [0:00] [Music] [0:12] **Mayor Joshua Hoyt:** We'll call the city council regular meeting to order for Monday, March 5th, 2024. Would everyone please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance? [0:58] **All:** 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. [1:17] **Mayor Joshua Hoyt:** Call the roll, please. [1:19] **City Clerk Shirley Buecksler:** Mayor Hoyt? **Mayor Joshua Hoyt:** Here. **City Clerk Shirley Buecksler:** Councilmember Bernatz? **Councilmember Holly Bernatz:** Here. **City Clerk Shirley Buecksler:** Councilmember Lien? **Councilmember Nick Lien:** Here. **City Clerk Shirley Buecksler:** Councilmember Porter? **Councilmember Katie Porter:** Here. **City Clerk Shirley Buecksler:** Councilmember Wilson? **Councilmember Steve Wilson:** Here. [1:28] **Mayor Joshua Hoyt:** All right, unless there's any changes to the agenda, we look for a motion to approve. [1:37] **Councilmember Nick Lien:** Motion. [1:38] **Councilmember Holly Bernatz:** Second by Holly. [1:39] **Mayor Joshua Hoyt:** Seconded by Steve. All in favor say aye. **Council:** Aye. [1:40] **Mayor Joshua Hoyt:** Moving on, item six on the agenda is citizen comments. Is anyone in attendance who would like to speak at this time? Seeing none, we'll move on to item seven, which is our consent agenda. We look for a motion to approve. [2:02] **Councilmember Katie Porter:** Motion. [2:04] **Councilmember Nick Lien:** Second by Nick. [2:04] **Mayor Joshua Hoyt:** All in favor say aye. **Council:** Aye. [2:09] **Mayor Joshua Hoyt:** Swiftly moving along here, we will go to new business item 12, which is the appointment to the Rambling River Center Advisory Board. Shirley? [2:13] **City Clerk Shirley Buecksler:** Shirley—uh, we had one vacancy on the Rambling River Center Advisory Board. Council interviewed Mr. Jeff Spilman on February 5th and is recommending that he be appointed to the board with a term starting upon approval and through January 31, 2027. [2:25] **Mayor Joshua Hoyt:** Thank you, ma'am. Any comments? Anything to add there? All right, seeing none, we'd look for a motion to approve the appointment of Jeff Spilman to the Rambling River Center Advisory board for term ending January 31st, 2027. [2:37] **Councilmember Steve Wilson:** Motion to approve. [2:38] **Councilmember Holly Bernatz:** Second. [2:38] **Mayor Joshua Hoyt:** Motion by Steve, second by Holly. Call the roll, please. [2:43] **City Clerk Shirley Buecksler:** [Roll call vote occurs] Wilson? Yes. Bernatz? Yes. Lien? Yes. Porter? Yes. Hoyt? Yes. [2:48] **Mayor Joshua Hoyt:** All right, right on to Round Table and we'll keep it easy on the camera crew. So, Leah, go ahead. [2:56] **Leah (Staff/Legal):** Um, I guess just a reminder that there's two judicial vacancies on the Supreme Court that are going to be coming up with the retirement of Justice G. Barry Anderson and Justice Chutich. So in the coming year at some point, we're going to find out about two new Supreme Court Justices. So just something to keep in mind. [3:15] **Mayor Joshua Hoyt:** Thank you, ma'am. Nick? [3:19] **Councilmember Nick Lien:** Kind of the same thing I said two weeks ago, thanks for all showing up. But to our police and fire, thank you for your coverage of Burnsville over the last couple weeks. I know it's been kind of chaotic, but certainly appreciate it. [3:31] **Mayor Joshua Hoyt:** Thanks, sir. Um, yeah... [3:33] **Councilmember Holly Bernatz:** I actually just had—I wanted to say I had a great time on Thursday with our employee celebration and opportunity to gather. It's always great to get to know people a little bit better and see familiar faces and meet new people that I haven't seen yet or before. Also, huge, huge shout-out to FHS students that performed in Cabaret this past weekend. For anybody that was able to get there, Farmington—we have an amazingly talented group of kids and they did three shows at Boeckman and did a fantastic job. [4:05] **Mayor Joshua Hoyt:** Thank you, ma'am. Katie? [4:06] **Councilmember Katie Porter:** Yeah, thank you to Lynn, Shirley, Julie, everybody that put together the Employee Appreciation for keeping it light, for keeping it fun—very needed. That time of collaboration and seeing one another outside of the work world is really important. So I appreciate all that you did for that. And congratulations to Jim Murphy who is now probably just doing whatever he wants, right? Congratulations to him. He's been an amazing mentor. In addition to our Farmington Police Department, we're so thankful for his time on the force, as well as Cassie Polo, whose last day was today. So we are, I know, super, super fortunate to have had her for the last 18 plus years and we're going to miss her, but we wish her well in all her future endeavors. So thank you. [4:58] **Mayor Joshua Hoyt:** Steve? [4:58] **Councilmember Steve Wilson:** All right. So yes, I also want to thank Julie, Lynn, and everyone who was involved with the Employee Appreciation lunch. And I apologize I could only be there for a brief period of time, but there's a lot of enthusiasm; clearly the employees appreciate it. So thank all of you for coordinating that. Um, I'm sure Shirley's job is made easier around election with more election judges, so we added three more. So thank you to those in the community that have stepped up to serve in that way. Third, I wanted to—and I periodically mention this because I have a lot of close friends who are affiliated with our bowling organization in Farmington—but our girls high school bowling team won State over the weekend. And this comes after the mixed boy-girl bowling team won State back in the fall. So it's really amazing. And for those of you that—you know, I'm sure everybody out in the audience and watching at home—you know, a lot of recreational bowlers, I'm sure everybody likes to bowl out there—but there's a girl on this girls bowling team that is going to be bowling in college. So, you know, for those that aspire and are good at the sport, you know, there can be some kind of exciting futures with that. So just want to give a shout-out to coaches Bob Hessler and Chris Holloway and just congratulations to all of them for the huge accomplishment. And then last but not least, I am so honored to have my sister here who flew 1,700 miles from the lovely West Coast city of Seattle to grace us tonight. She's kind of doing some comparative research between how Seattle functions compared to Farmington. I think she's going to find out that we do things much better than the West Coast folks do it. So love you, Sandy, and thank you very much for being here. [6:58] **Mayor Joshua Hoyt:** Well, that was nice. Yeah. Um, thank you for Council for showing up to the employee recognition event. It's great to see you there and support staff as you always do. So thank you. And thank you for Julie and Terry for organizing the event; it was greatly appreciated. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Shirley? [7:16] **City Clerk Shirley Buecksler:** Election day is tomorrow. Polls will be open 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. That's it. [7:20] **Mayor Joshua Hoyt:** Thank you, ma'am. Julie? [7:20] **Julie (City Staff):** Uh, just to plug next Council, we'll have all of our Parks maintenance staff already filled for the summer positions. We have a number of returning folks, which is super great. We also have a number of positions still in the Rec area that we need applicants for for summer. That's it. [7:38] **Mayor Joshua Hoyt:** Thank you, ma'am. Deanna? [7:38] **Community & Economic Development Director Deanna Kuennen:** Thank you, Mayor and Council. I'd like to take this opportunity to share with you something I think is pretty exciting and that we should all be proud of. Our own Stephanie Amman, who is our Economic Development Coordinator, was named as the Minnesota's Economic Development Association's 2023 Emerging Professional of the Year. So it's a huge honor, and she's one of our own and she deserves that. So at the upcoming EDA meeting, we'll be able to share with you the video that was produced as part of the award and just let her share the award and what it means to her. But it definitely is an honor and it speaks to the level of talent that we have working with the city. So I just wanted to share that. [8:31] **Mayor Joshua Hoyt:** Thank you, ma'am. John? [8:31] **Public Works Director John Powell:** Mayor and council members, thank you for awarding the contract for the Wall 5 retaining wall repair. A lot of people drive by that wall and I'm very pleased that we'll be able to start getting that cleaned up and replaced. Also with the warmer weather, similar to I think Parks mentioned last time, Public Works crews took out about 150 ash trees as they weren't doing snow and ice removal. They were able to focus their efforts on that EAB management plan that we have in place. So we're making progress. [9:07] **Mayor Joshua Hoyt:** Thank you, sir. Kelly? [9:07] **Kelly (City Staff):** Good evening, Mayor and Council. Just wanted to welcome Jeff to the Rambling River Center Advisory Board. He's going to be a great addition; we're looking forward to him being at our meeting next Monday already. And then it's Dew Run season! Not too early to start training for the Dew Run. Registration is out online at FarmingtonMN.gov. We have a one-mile, a four-mile, and a half-mile junior jog, Saturday, June 22nd. Join us for the Dew Run. [9:29] **Mayor Joshua Hoyt:** Thank you, ma'am. Kim? [9:36] **Finance Director Kim Sommerland:** Mayor and Council, I actually have nothing to report this evening. [9:43] **Mayor Joshua Hoyt:** All right. Well, thank you, Chief. [9:43] **Police Chief Nate Siem:** Yeah, I too would like to acknowledge the retirement of Detective Sergeant Jim Murphy after 28 years with Farmington. That's a long time to spend in one place. For those of you that don't know him well, he's the kind of cop that we should all aspire to be and he's the kind of human that we should all be aspiring to be. He's just a stellar, stellar guy and it's going to be hard to imagine what our police department's going to be like without him. And with that, then today was also Officer Cassie Redmond Polo's last day with us after 19 years. I remember when we hired her as a 21-year-old CSO, and to see her leaving us now to take a promotion with the Sheriff's Office—it's a little bittersweet. It's super exciting for her and her family, but it is most genuinely a loss for the Farmington PD. She's just a fantastic cop and a fantastic person. She's done a lot for us over the years and we're going to miss her. And lastly, to everybody that reached out with either emails or phone calls or text messages over the last two weeks to me or anybody else at the police department or the fire department, a very heartfelt thank you. [10:55] **Mayor Joshua Hoyt:** Thank you, sir. I feel like everything got taken, there's so many good points, which is great. I'd be remiss to not add on top with Cassie and Jim's—you know, her step up and her move to the county, getting a promotion there—Jim's retirement... huge, huge losses for the community. You know, great for both of them obviously, but like you said, it's bittersweet. Huge thank you to the entire team for the employee recognition event; that was outstanding to see so many of our teammates show up and, like you had said, just kind of let loose and have fun and just relax in a non-work environment for a change. And to see the departments crossing—right? We don't have like the Public Works table and then we don't have the admin table—we're actually seeing people intermixing and it's fun to see. It's just more of that positive culture that we continue to work and build on. In closing, I'm going to read something here real quick. There is legislation that's sitting at the state right now between both the Senate and the House. And I typically don't like to get involved in this, but one of our pillars is community engagement, it's transparency, and I think it's imperative that people know what's happening right now because there's a situation that may reduce the city's ability to have that level of engagement if some of these bills are passed. So disregard—or regarding—HF 4009 and SF 3964. These are bills that are now being heard in St. Paul that would bring lasting and significant consequences to every homeowner, taxpayer, and cities across Minnesota. They eliminate the city authority to oversee local planning and zoning of our residential neighborhoods in exchange for a one-size-fits-all approach. The verbiage specifically prohibits public engagement. And as we go through new opportunities as they come up, one of the things that we as the Council and our team pushes for is for community involvement. But this piece of legislation as written in its current form specifically prohibits public engagement. While that law gives the developer the full protection of statute to do that, it also strips each and every one of us of our right to a public hearing or to voice support or opposition of new developments. Compounding the problems with this legislation, the unplanned-for density would sit on top of existing infrastructure in streets, irrespective of ability to meet the demand. Our residents need to be aware of that, right? That we as a council have said community engagement and transparency are imperative in the process, and that's something that with the proposed legislation, our residents would be deprived of and strictly forbidden as it's written in its current form. So I encourage you to do some research, reach out, talk to your legislators, ask questions. But it might catch you by surprise. So with that, we'd look for a motion to adjourn. [14:14] **Councilmember Steve Wilson:** Motion to adjourn. [14:15] **Councilmember Nick Lien:** Second by Nick. [14:15] **Mayor Joshua Hoyt:** All in favor say aye. **Council:** Aye. **Mayor Joshua Hoyt:** We're adjourned at 7:13. [14:57] [Music]