High definition is really bad, isn't it? All right, we're going to go ahead and call to order the regular meeting of the Oakdale City Council, May 26, 2026. Sarah, will you please take the role? >> Council member Moore >> here. >> Council member Morham >> here. >> Council member Severson, >> here. >> Council member Rich >> here. >> Mayor Zappel >> here. Please join me for the pledge of allegiance. I allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. First up on the agenda tonight is approval of the agenda. No changes. Can I get a motion to approve the agenda as presented? >> So moved. >> There's a motion. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Motion a second. All those in favor say I. I >> opposed and the agenda is adopted. Uh next up, approval of minutes. Two sets in front of us tonight. Uh first up, workshop meeting minutes 12th, 2026. Any changes or corrections here, council members? >> No. >> Seeing none, can I get a motion to approve? >> So moved. >> Motion. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Motion a second. Any conversation? All those in favor say I. >> I. Opposed. And those minutes are adopted. Uh next up, regular meeting minutes, May 12th, 2026. Any changes or corrections here? >> Uh, look for a motion. >> So moved. >> There's a motion. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Motion a second. Any comments? All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed? And those minutes are adopted as well. No public hearings in front of us tonight. So, we'll move into open forum. Before we open the floor, we do have a proclamation um that I'm issuing tonight recognizing International Firefighters Day and Emergency Medical Services Week. Whereas International Firefighters Day is observed each year on May 4th to honor and remember past firefighters who have lost their lives while serving their communities, to express gratitude those that have served in this line of work, and to show support and appreciation for those who presently serve. And whereas in 1974, President Gerald Ford authorized emergency medical services EMS week to celebrate EMS professionals and the important work they do in our nation's communities. And whereas firefighting and emergency medical services are vital public services. And whereas the members of the EMS teams are ready to provide life-saving care to those in need 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And whereas at a moment's notice, firefighters are quick to respond to uncertain situations to mitigate danger and combat the threat of destructive fire in order to protect individuals, families, and the economic being of our community. And whereas the members of emergency medical service teams engage in thousands of hours and specialized training and continuing education to enhance their life-saving skills. And whereas the demands of firefighting are accompanied by both personal and physical tolls that all firefighters knowingly accept while risking their lives to protect the lives of others. Therefore, I Kevin Zel, mayor of Vogdale, Minnesota, do hereby proclaim May 4th as international firefighters day and May 17th through the 23rd, 2026 as emergency medical services week to recognize the value and accomplishments of firefighters and emergency medical service providers in our community. I know I speak on behalf of everybody up here and our entire city when we say a big thank you to everybody at our uh the Oakdale Fire Department and our EMS teams, Chief Wald, um the leadership you provide to to that group of um everyday heroes is absolutely astonishing and we truly appreciate all that you do. Um you know, they are by far one of the departments that you never want to have to call. Um, but when you do need them, um, to have such an outstanding team, um, at at the ready in our in our city is truly, um, something we can never say thank you enough. So, a big thank you to you and your teams. Uh, we're still under open form tonight. If there's anybody joining us that would like to step up to the podium, uh, please feel free to do so. All we ask is that you begin with your name and address for the record and please limit your comments to three minutes. Seeing none, we will go ahead and move into consensus motions. Council members, we have A through J in front of us. I would like to pull A for individual consideration. Are there any others we should pull for individual consideration? >> I would like to pull H. >> All right. And H. Council members, can I get a motion to approve consensus motions B through G and I and J as presented? Make a motion to pro approve consensus motions B through G I and J as presented. >> There's a motion. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Motion a second. All those in favor say I. >> I. I. >> Opposed. And those motions pass. Uh first up is consensus motion A. This is um an agenda item authorizing the mayor and city council to enter into a contract uh with a firm um for our 2050 comprehensive plan update. Uh, in reading through the scope of work, um, there were some areas that, um, I were concern I was concerned with. I know another council member had some concerns as well. And so, keeping with our long tradition here in Oakdale of wanting to have a conversation with our colleagues at a workshop setting, um, I'm asking for us to table this consensus motion um, to a date to be determined. >> Any questions, council members? >> No, I would agree. So, I'm going to make a motion to table consensus motion A as presented to a date to be determined. Can I get a second? >> Second. >> Motion a second. Any comments or questions? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. >> I. >> I. >> Oppose. And this motion is tabled. Uh, next up, consensus motion H. Council member Moram, would you like to speak to that one? >> Yeah. For the third time since I've been on this council, my son is being offered a job with the city doing seasonal work for uh public works. So, I will recuse myself from this vote. >> All righty. Uh, council members, I'll make a motion to approve consensus motion H is presented. Can I get a second? >> Second. >> Motion, a second. Any final comments? All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed? Abstensions? >> Council Morham. >> Uh, and that motion is approved. Four to nothing. Uh, next up, we'll check in with advisory boards and commissions. Uh, first up was the Environmental Management Commission. Unfortunately, I could not be with them on their meeting last week. Um, so I do not have an update from them. Uh, parks and wreck met on May 19th. Council member Morham. >> Yeah, we had a good meeting. Had a lot of conversation about tower and golf parks, the design phase of what's going to be put together for those two parks renovations and really good feedback. Um, kids love slides, public wants shade, and general excitement for investment in our parks. >> Excellent. Uh, no other committee or commission or board updates. So, we'll move into a word of bid. Nothing under there tonight. So, staff reports, community development. Mr. Gatslav, welcome. >> Good evening, Mayor Council. Andrew Gzloff, community development director. Uh, the items before you today are amendments to the management of turf, grass, and vegetative ordinance, chapter uh 24. Um, as you uh recall, we had a couple recent workshops on this item. One of the things was to uh make some changes uh increase the height of allowable turf grass um maximum from 6 to 8 in in line with peer cities. There is also some uh uh need to comply the ordinance with state statutes that's allows people to have more flexibility within their own private property uh for landscape options. And most recently uh at the um uh April 28th council workshop, there was a discussion about uh plantings within the boulevard. And um uh the direction from council was that those with with excluding trees, but it should be no more than 18 in in height. Um there also um currently is a need for a review process in the current code. uh council agreed to remove that city staff review process and basically you have the ordinance standards. If you can comply with them, you can do those plantings at the recommendation of council and our public uh works director. Also adding language that uh any obstructions or plantings can be removed for safety or maintenance reasons as well. So those changes have been incorporated into the ordinance. There is a both a redlinined version and a clean version in there in the packet and the action requested from council is to wave the reading and adopt ordinance number 963. Happy to answer any questions. >> Thank you Andy. Council members, any questions for Andy? Seeing none, can I get a motion? >> Make a motion to wave reading and adopt ordinance number 963 amending the code of ordinances for the city of Oakdale chapter 24 relating to the management of turf, grass, and vegetation. >> There's a motion. Is there a second? Second >> motion a second. Uh any comments? >> I just want to make one I want to say a big thank you to staff um as well as our environmental management commission. Um you know this is one of those topics in the city code that a lot of departments have feedback on. You know as uh our community development director mentioned you know obviously there's a safety component with um plantings in the rightway. We want to make sure that uh cars can see around corners. Uh we want to make sure any kids playing in driveways remain safe. Um, obviously there's the the personal property rights element with this. There's the environmental element with this. Um, and so I just want to say a big thank you to all of our staff that weighed in um as we went through this lengthy process just to make sure that all of the the different perspectives in city operations were being addressed. So, a big thank you to everybody that was involved. Uh, motion and a second. All those in favor say I. >> I opposed. And ordinance 963 is adopted. One more action. >> One more. I'll make a motion to wave reading and adopt resolution 2026-30 authorizing publication of ordinance number 963 by title and summary. >> There's a motion. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Motion a second. Final comments. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. And resolution 2026-30 is adopted. >> Uh next agenda item. >> Uh yeah. Thank you, mayor. Next agenda item, it is amendments to zoning ordinance for recreational vehicle um vehicle storage. Um two things to note off the bat. Uh um Luke uh was was uh put a lot of this together, but I'm just going to jump right into it for for uh the sake of brevity. Another thing to clarify, recreational vehicles is it's not just the typical RV camper. It's also boats, ATVs, uh snowmobiles, the like are included under that definition. Uh there was a council workshop on the 27th of January to discuss uh adding some additional flexibility for recreational vehicle uh storage as well as some standards. Uh this went to planning commission as well on April 2nd where there was a um public hearing held as required for amendments to the zoning code. Uh April 28th, council did uh table this and wanted an additional discussion which was held on May 12th to talk about a few of the proposed changes and one of those was the number of vehicles was raising that number and what that appropriate number would be. Uh council did settle on a um uh raising of the the total amount of vehicles that you could have to three vehicles uh um three recreational vehicles. adding a registration and ownership requirement for residential occupants, meaning that you can't lease out space on your property to someone else to store your vehicle. And then clarify uh that a recreational vehicle, if it's stored on a trailer, that would count as one recreational vehicle and adding a height um limit of of 20 ft um maximum. So again, this is the summary. The action requested before you is the um adoption of ordinance number 961 and I'm happy to answer any questions and and as well as Luke. >> Thank you Andy. Uh council members, any questions for Andy? Seeing none, can I get a motion >> to wave reading and adopt ordinance number 961 amending the code ordinances for the city of Oakdale, chapter 25, article 25-09, division 25-9-200, section 25-009-215, relating to recreational vehicle storage. >> Uh yes, that section just rolls right off the top. >> Uh there's a motion. Is there a second? >> I'll second. >> Motion in a second. Uh any comments? Uh I'll I'll make one more comment. Again, I want to say thank you to staff for working through this. I also want to say a big thank you to all the residents that reached out after we um posted this for adoption at our meeting about a month ago. Um had residents reach out, provide really uh important uh feedback that um encouraged council to take it back to our workshop, incorporate some of that feedback uh into changes to this. Um you know, it's a good example of just how local government works and all government should work. um the ideas that residents put forward um really made substantive and important changes in this. And so hopefully, you know, we can straddle that line between private property rights and allowing people to um have recreational vehicles on their property while also avoiding that nuisance element that um we strive for in our city. So, a big thank you to everybody that weighed in on this motion and a second. Uh all those in favor say I. >> I opposed. >> And ordinance 961 is adopted. Last action. >> Move we wave reading and adopt resolution 2026-25 authorizing publication of ordinance number 961 by title and summary. >> There's a motion. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Motion and a second. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. Uh resolution 2026-25 is adopted. Uh let's check in with our city attorney, Jim. What do you got for us? >> Nothing to report specific tonight, but happy to answer any questions. >> Anybody have any questions for Jim? All right, let's check in with our city administrator. Chris, you have an agenda item. What do you got for us? >> I do, Mr. Mayor Council. Um, Don Tyson from our is our owner's rep and is here to speak to it if we would like to have further discussion on this item. And this is um a result our bids came in for the new police and city hall and they came in a little bit higher higher. Much of it is because of um steel and the situation with the economy. Now the council is aware of it. We have to continue our value engineering but we will have to award this contract for the maximum price. So I'd ask for your support and approval of that with what you have before you. >> Uh Chris, could you also talk a little bit about, you know, I think residents may see this number and assume that's the total price of the project. um talk about how we've split this and we've already approved some um GMP for this project and then this is what we sent back for additional um bids. >> Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is bid package 2. We did bid package one a couple months ago and that came in um a little higher also because of pre-cast and a few other things. Um this this one is um this is only part of it. That one was almost $8 million, I believe. And then there's additional stuff like FFN and so on so forth to get up to this amount site so forth. Um so this is the second round of the two major bid processes and this one is only 22 million only. >> It's 22,800,000 for this one >> for this part of the project. >> Thank you. Thank you Chris. Uh anybody have any questions for Chris? How about questions for Don? No. None. >> Sorry, Don. We tried. Uh let's dive right into the recommendation then. >> Uh Mr. Mayor, I'll move we authorize the mayor and city administrator to sign the owner change order number 001 dated May 20th, 2026 for bid package number two, guaranteed maximum price agreement adjustment for the police expansion and city hall remodel project in the amount of 22,000 and 22 million, excuse me, $883,98. >> There's a motion and is there a second? >> Second. >> Motion second. Any final comments? All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. And that authorization is given. Thank >> you. >> Uh Chris, any other updates for us? >> I don't, but I'm glad to answer any questions. >> Council members, any questions for Chris? All righty. Uh council presentations. Katie, you want to go first? >> Katie has a scratchy throat, so I'm picking on this. >> No, I have nothing to report other than my voice doesn't work. >> Will you read my updates? Council member Moore, >> I have nothing this week. >> How about down here? >> Nothing here. Nope. Nothing for me. >> All right. I got a few. Uh oh, I got a lot actually. Uh first up, uh construction for the uh police expansion city hall remodel project is expected to begin in June. Um city staff uh located at the 1584 Hadley Avenue North Campus have relocated to other city facilities. Oakdale police have officially moved to fire station 2 located at 6633 Street North. Um, all of our fire department will operate out of fire station 1. Uh, during this time, most city hall staff have re relocated to the new public works facility. Uh, in-person city hall services like permits and paying your utility bill um can be done at the public works campus located at 3200 Granada Avenue North. Uh, the construction at uh 1584 Hadley City Hall, the police department is expected to take 18 months. Uh we appreciate the public's patience as we've had to move a lot of pieces around uh in order to accommodate the construction, but we promise a better uh city hall campus is at the finish line waiting for us. So, uh if you have any questions, you can reach out to the city or visit the city's website, uh oakdalem.gov. Lots of information there. Staff is keeping that updated as this project progresses. Uh during construction, uh our city council meetings and workshops will be um right here at the Oakdale Discovery Center, 444 Hadley Avenue North. um as well as our advisory board. So if you are bored on the first Thursday night of the month and want to come to the planning commission meeting or check out a parks and rec commission or even better if you want to volunteer for a seat on those commissions, you can hang out here at the discovery center. So uh this is our second meeting here. We'll be here for a while. So please come and visit us for city council meetings. Uh the city will be hosting an engagement opportunity for uh t the Tanners Lake Park Improvement Project uh tomorrow, Wednesday, May 27th. Uh, this will include a walk-in discussion about the upcoming park improvements. The walking tour will leave from the beach house at 6 PM. Please plan accordingly uh in case it rains. I don't think it's going to, so I'm not even going to put that out into the atmosphere. So, uh, if you are interested in, um, some of the proposed changes coming to Tanner Lake Park, if you have questions, um, if you just want an update on the information, we know, you know, there's a lot of things regarding the the park improvements that haven't been finalized yet that we don't know, um, the the exact details yet, tomorrow is a great opportunity to come out, uh, and, uh, chat with us. The Oakdale Farmers Market returns next week, uh, Wednesday, June 3rd. This year's market will have a new location due to the construction at city hall. It will move over by the Walton Park bandshell, the parking lot immediately to the west of it off of 15th Street. Public parking will be available in the adjacent lot just south of the picnic shelter. Um so feel free to drive on over, shop with um all of our amazing local vendors. More information on the city website, oakdalemn.gov. Uh the city of Oakdale recently earned the Tree City USA designation for the 31st consecutive year by the Arbor Day Foundation. A fitting honor for a city full of tree huggers like me. Um we're very honored by this every year. Um the Arbor Day Foundation recognizes cities for their commitment to plant, grow, and maintain trees uh that benefit the community. Um additionally, this is the third year in a row that the city of Oakdale has earned the growth award from the Arbor Day Foundation for our commitment to a sustainable urban forest management. Um a big thank you to our city staff, the tree board, community members, um that always do so much each year to support our tree canopy here in the city. It's exciting exciting news. Uh the city of Oakdale will receive a $3.75 million um appropriation for a pedestrian bridge over uh Interstate 694 at 40th Street as part of the bonding bill that the Minnesota legislature passed well like a week ago, week and a half ago. Um this bridge will address safety concerns while uh greatly improving connectivity between adjacent neighborhoods uh through better access to jobs, retail areas, recreation amenities. Fun fact, did you know on the 494 694 loop there are only three overpasses that do not have a dedicated space for pedestrians and bicyclists to walk and 40 street is one of them and we are soon to be down to two. Um so that is a a huge missing uh gap in our uh pedestrian bike ped uh connections uh in our city and to have um a safe place for families and kids and and workers uh to traverse Interstate 694 is incredibly important. Um, I want to say a very big thank you to our state representative Leon Lily and our state senator Tu Jang. Um, they both carried uh this legislation at the capital and made sure that money was in the final uh bonding bill. Um, by my recollection, this is the largest bonding bill appropriation Oakdale has received in many, many years, if not ever. Lori, do you remember what we got for when you were around? >> Mall. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, probably since the Oakdale Mall. So what 20 years? Um so it's nice it's nice to bring those state tax dollars back and address a very big need in our community. So a big thank you to our legislative partners for their help uh in in making that happen. Claims roster in front of us uh May 13th through May 26th amount of 2.8 million in change. Bigger one this go around must have some construction costs in there. Uh council members are there any claims that we need to pull for uh additional information? Seeing none, can I get a motion to approve claims as presented? So move. >> There's a motion. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Motion, a second. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. Bills are paid. Can I get a motion to adjurnn? >> So moved. There's >> a motion. Is there a second? Second. >> Motion a second. All those in favor say I. I. >> Opposed. We are journ. Thank you and good night.