Based on the context provided, here is the transcribed townhall meeting with speaker names added. [0:03] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** [Music] I’d like to call to order the regular meeting of the Moose Lake City Council for Wednesday, August 10, 2022, and I’d like to start with the Pledge of Allegiance please. 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. [0:39] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Thanks everyone for coming. The next item is the agenda. We do have one addition to start with and that's under new business six—this would be k—and this would be a temporary on-sale liquor license for the Chamber for the Brew Fest at the Depot. [1:15] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Do you have any other changes or additions/subtractions from the agenda? Hearing any, do I have a motion to accept the agenda? [Council Member: So moved.] And a second? [Council Member: Second.] All in favor say aye. All right, opposed? Motion carried. Moving on to number two, consent agenda. 2a, we have the minutes of the regular City Council meeting for July 13, 2022. [1:49] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Do you have any discussion or questions on the minutes? [1:59] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Hearing none, do we have a motion to accept the minutes for July 13, 2022? [Council Member: So moved.] Second? [Council Member: Second.] All in favor say aye. All right, opposed? Motion carried. Under 2b, financial reports. Number one is the city accounts payable June 2022; number two, city accounts payable July 2022; number three, city financial statements June 2022; number four, city financial statements July 2022; number five, liquor store profit/loss statement June 2022; and number six, liquor store profit/loss statement for July 2022. [2:45] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Any discussion or questions on the financial reports? [2:58] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Hearing none, do we have a motion to accept the financial reports? [Council Member: So moved.] [Council Member: Second.] [3:17] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Let me take a second to get through these to the next. Thank you. Number three, public comment. This time is reserved for a comment from the public on a matter not listed on the agenda. Please keep your comments to three minutes. We have no visitors here for statements. Moving on to number four, departmental reports. 4a, Police Chief report for June 2022. [4:04] **Sheriff Kelly Lake:** Mayor, members of the Council, Administrator Owens. In your packet, you'll see the police report for July totaling 230 calls for service. 78 of those are extra patrol, 19 traffic stops, 28 community engagement, 15 assists to other agencies, 88 calls for service, and two medicals. Other than that, I mean, it's been a busy summer. A lot going on. The good part is I think a lot of our responding to calls—as far as the crime statistics stuff—has been down and going pretty well. It's given us a little bit more time to be at some of these other larger events. Agate Days, as you all know, is a very large event in town here. For the amount of people that were here and the congestion, things actually went very well. People are getting used to it. You know, I think the backup on the freeway contributed to some of that, but they started exiting here and it was backed up a long ways, but it still kind of flowed through. National Night Out, I thought was a big success. We had a lot of people there. I think we actually fed probably seven to eight hundred people. So, a big thank you to all the businesses that set up booths. I think we had 13 different businesses in there that set up and had some games and prizes. Thank you to the people that donated and the people who attended, as well as the other city staff that helped set it up. Sarah deserves a lot of the credit from our agency; it always takes quite a bit of planning prior to it, so she's the one that coordinated the whole event and put the whole thing together. Hats off to her for the work she did. [5:36] **Sheriff Kelly Lake:** Our new AEDs finally arrived. I had sent one of our people to the training on it, and that was through the grant, so we got all brand new ones for free. They are Wi-Fi capable. So we're getting all those programmed now and up and running, and then we'll be doing some training in-house for our people. We did the "Active Deadly Threat Training"—formerly known as active shooter training. They changed the name because people were not calling in some major incidents because it wasn't actually a shooting, but it's like the Saint Cloud mall where there were stabbings. We went through that yesterday at the Moose Lake school. We had the majority of our officers there, though one was off on vacation, and some from surrounding agencies as well. It was great working with Superintendent Dean to help coordinate the whole event; they were very supportive of having it there. It's an interesting training; all of our officers had to wear a vest so if you got "shot," you got more or less shocked by the thing, and it was quite the jolt. It was really good training to do it in our school, somewhere everyone is familiar with. Today, I attended a Minnesota statewide ATV strategic plan meeting. They are going to have one for our zone here, but because of this meeting today, I had to attend the one held for the western part of the state. They were pretty much shocked at the amount of stuff that we've handled here. My phone was ringing immediately after that meeting. They're looking at getting some of those things, and the DNR asked what we need to be successful for our community, so I laid it out. They're going to be doing some follow-up with me on that as well. We'll continue to move in that direction to get things worked out, but they weren't seeing the level of stuff we are in other areas. They really want to know what we're doing here. So, that's really about it for me unless you guys have any questions. [7:09] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Thank you very much, that's a little bit full. Thank you. [7:56] **City Superintendent Phil Entner:** Mayor, members of Council, Administrator Owens. As Darren said earlier, it's been a super busy summer. There are a thousand things to do; we're not going to get them all done, but we're going to try as hard as we can. Starting with the Water Department: for the month of July, we distributed 6.1 million gallons of drinking water. Our GPS mapping program is going to be starting probably the beginning of September. It was going to be a little sooner, but we ended up getting a little backed up. That'll be a really good thing to get going for Moose Lake and the department as a whole. Sewer department: 12.1 million gallons of wastewater in the month of July. Regarding the lining project, are you going to touch on that in engineering? [8:41] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** I'll touch on it now. That got started last week—the first phase of it, the pre-cleaning, televising, and measuring, is completed. [9:28] **City Superintendent Phil Entner:** There's a portion of that started and done, but the majority of that construction is yet to happen. It's supposed to be done by the second or third of September. On the bridge lift station, I gave an update last month on where we were sitting. It's not looking very good. We have some loaner pumps in there right now. There are estimates for new pumps in our packet tonight; it’s not a dollar amount I like to see that’s not budgeted, but we'll talk about that later. We're between a rock and a hard place; we just don't have a choice. The main generator at the main lift station got serviced last week, including the cooling system. Street department: pothole patching is normal. This last month we did about 16 tons. We try to do 16 to 20 tons a month. On Fourth Street, we're amazing—we are two and a half weeks ahead of schedule. There are three change orders on that project; one's not costing you money, and the other two are very small dollar ones. That's the way I told SEH that Moose Lake expects all our road projects to go from here on out. Equipment-wise, we have some warranty work on the Cat 450 at the end of the month. Cemeteries, campgrounds, and parks are business as usual. Cemeteries have been busy with burials. That's all I have for right now. Any questions? [11:00] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** On the forestry, are we going to be able to do that at any point? [11:15] **City Superintendent Phil Entner:** The update happened on Monday. We're doing another one next Monday. There was some miscommunication between that young man and myself, but now we're on the right side. [11:33] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Thanks for posting that for National Night Out. I wasn't down there, but our officer was. Lake Theatre provided a free movie right after the National Night Out event. [12:12] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** It went really well, there were 96 people that showed up. [12:19] **Finance Director Ryan McKeon:** Council, Mayor, Administrator, thanks for having me back. Delane’s out on vacation right now, so I thought I’d jump in and give a quick update. Regarding the handheld devices at the liquor store, we did secure the 15% max for revenue that we would take back. From August 1st through the 8th, we netted just over $2,000, so that's really good. 7,835 tickets were sold through those handheld devices, so it's definitely working. Bar staff say people really enjoy them. [13:04] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Any questions about Pilot games? That's good. Thank you, Ryan. 4d, Technology/Library department. [13:51] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** Yes, I've been working with Rory. We are looking to get a couple of quotes for some sound equipment. I know there've been some complaints after meetings that hearing our meetings within the broadcast has been difficult. We are working on a solution for that. In addition, the library has had some summer programming. Most recently, they did a reptile show here in the community center with over 70 to 80 attendees. Laura has a watercolor painting program tomorrow; she's been utilizing Facebook differently to help promote events and it’s going well. [15:22] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** Under city engineer monthly update: we did finalize our reimbursement request with the DNR for the Trunk Highway 73 trail. We have received the full $150,000 funding reimbursement, and now we're moving on to LCCMR to start that reimbursement process. In addition, we've been working with Genesis Wireless regarding the lease agreement for their equipment on top of the water tower. They've submitted a proposal, and our engineer group (SEH) is working with us to give us a good idea of what the rental rate should be for communities our size. [16:09] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** Moving on to 4f, Chamber of Commerce updates. We went to the meeting today. They had a really successful Wine and Dine event. Agate Days was very successful for them. There's the upcoming triathlon on Saturday, August 13th, and then the Brew Fest at the Depot on Saturday, September 17th. They're still working on their financials. They’re also doing an analysis on Agate Days to see what changes they may implement moving forward. [17:42] **City Superintendent Phil Entner:** Starting on page 74—two meetings ago, you guys asked to look at some options for milling and overlay. I came up with some options that didn't have utility underneath them. Here are your estimates. For Douglas, that would be from South Third Street down to First Street. That’s 720 feet by 33 feet wide. That's just the bituminous layer; it doesn't do any right-of-way reconstruction or utilities. The cheaper one is for a 300 by 33-foot section on Hickory Avenue. [19:14] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** As we look at budgeting for next year, having these figures is extremely helpful. What would be most helpful is knowing what the priority is for including one of these within the budget. Do you want us to provide different options for where it fits in, or should we hang tight? [20:01] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** I would suggest that each Council member take a drive through those areas. We’re kind of focused on Douglas. This is informational right now. One thing we need to do, working with our engineer group, is to get quotes out early to get these projects "shovel-ready." January or February is the ideal time to go out for our summer projects to get better bids. [21:37] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Did we ever look at what it would cost for the people doing Fourth Street to come back and do Douglas? I mean, it's the same area. [22:25] **City Superintendent Phil Entner:** Their initial response was they don't even want to provide an estimate because it's not a big enough project for them, and I guarantee you it's going to be twice as much. Everyone knows my opinion on mill and overlay because we're trying to rebuild this hub, but if we choose to do it, it is going to be way cheaper to do that directly through the Council through me to the contractor. There's nothing to it other than grinding it up and repaving. [23:10] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** It just seems like since they're right there, why not? [24:43] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Well, I have a question here on the bids. When they were to do this—like down on Second Street—I think it was Kaminsky that did that and they did it in like three passes. Would they be doing that again or just two passes? [25:29] **City Superintendent Phil Entner:** In these estimates, it would be two. This is bare-bones "lipstick on a pig." This is going to buy you five to ten years. It's not a permanent fix. [26:21] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** It's a discussion we have to make next month when we do our budget. We have to try to get some of these shovel-ready so we can start in the spring and get better bids. [27:08] **City Superintendent Phil Entner:** I will say this: the reason your streets are the way they are is because there's no curb and gutter or storm sewer, and we're covering up old utility. We all know our biggest problem is that there isn't enough money. [28:40] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** Under 5b, DOC/MSOP joint project update. Our engineer group took a look at the portion of sewer line relevant to the state facilities. We've had a couple of communications with them. It's not quite budget time yet, but we're going to continue looking for money through state legislative sessions. [29:26] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** The legislature didn't pass anything this last session, so they told us straight out they don't have any money. They mentioned long-term payments through their sewer bill, but we need the money upfront to pay the contractor. [30:52] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** Moving on to 6a. We have our new administrative assistant, Taylor Hansberry, here. We just wanted to introduce you guys. Taylor? [31:39] **Deputy Clerk Taylor Hansberry:** Hi everybody, thank you for having me. I grew up in Willow River but was born in Moose Lake. I did PSEO at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College and got my Associate's degree while in high school. Then I got my Bachelor of Science in Accounting from UW-Superior. My son is turning five on Tuesday and starting kindergarten, so it's time for me to do something other than "Mom." I'm so excited to be here. [33:10] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** Moving on to 6b, the Highway 73 trail project. Carlton County pay application number seven. This is a standard pay application for Ulland Brothers in the amount of $15,907.75. [Council Member: Motion to approve.] [Council Member: Second.] All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. [34:21] **City Superintendent Phil Entner:** There were a few things on our punch list—bituminous issues, shouldering issues, restoration issues. They're going to take care of the bituminous issues either Friday or Monday. We're not paying them off until they give us what they told us they were giving us. [34:56] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** You'll notice we're still taking retainage out of each pay application to make sure the punch list gets taken care of prior to issuing the last payment. [35:42] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Thanks for bringing that up because some people don't understand that almost all of this was paid through grants. It wasn't city funds. Moving on to 6c, Fourth Street reconstruction. [36:28] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** Pay application number one. As Phil discussed, we are about three weeks ahead of schedule. The amount due is $510,574.50. [37:13] **City Superintendent Phil Entner:** Subcut is almost finished. Storm is done. Curb and gutter end of next week. It'll be finished in mid-September. [Council Member: Motion to approve.] [Council Member: Second.] All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. [37:59] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** Under 6d, 2022 Sewer Lining project pay application number one. The amount due to Insituform is $52,788.94. [38:44] **City Superintendent Phil Entner:** We're going to get right down to the deadline as far as completion, but we're going to push hard. [Council Member: Motion to approve.] [Council Member: Second.] All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. [38:59] **City Superintendent Phil Entner:** 6e, lift station pump quotes. I’m not proud of this one. This is concerning our bridge lift station. There are two 20-horsepower KSB pumps in there about 15 or 16 years old. They are both shot. One of the pumps physically came apart and damaged the other pump. We have two loaner pumps in that well right now. These quotes are for pumps that are the exact fit for what we need. It's a boatload of money; I would have brought this to you for 2023, but we can't wait. [41:18] **City Superintendent Phil Entner:** Those stations see way more wastewater than anyone even dreams about—even our biggest customers across the road. One of the pumps at the main lift station costs almost $70,000. [42:05] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** We are working on having each entity pay a percentage of the sewage going through it. But there is an immediate need to get approval before the loaners break. [43:22] **City Superintendent Phil Entner:** The final quote is $59,163.30. [44:27] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Council, any further questions or a motion? I would appreciate it if the motion states we are pursuing the other users to pay their percentage by volume. [Council Member: So moved.] [Council Member: Second.] All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. Moving on to 6f, manhole lining quotes. [45:38] **City Superintendent Phil Entner:** These are for the campground station. We got grant dollars for this—I believe $14,500. After meeting with these two companies, they are way across the board on the products they offer. One product is $10,000, and the other is much higher. I’m having a difficult time getting an "apples to apples" quote. [47:58] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** Phil is okay with the product from Everlast. Our goal is to add an additional manhole on the same network to maximize that $14,500 grant. We have to get approval from the grant facilitator first. [50:59] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** 6g, columbarium quotes. We've been visiting other cemeteries to determine the best option for Moose Lake. We've come up with a few options from Country Creations. We already have approval for up to $40,000. Phil and I prefer the black and gray model option. With the foundation included, we are looking at $32,100. [53:23] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** We wanted to make sure we found one that had individual nameplates so when one is inscribed, it doesn't take both covers off. We have a cemetery board meeting tomorrow to determine placement. [54:55] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Council? I’d like to go toward a nice one myself. I think the brown one would blend in with the trees and get lost. [56:01] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** I feel like the names inscribed on them popped more on the black one than the mahogany one. [Council Member: Motion to approve the black and gray.] [Council Member: Second.] All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. [57:13] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** Under 6h, Administrator Owens' mental policy recommendation (Rental/Interdepartmental). This was spurred by our deep dive into the arena expenses and ways to mitigate them. The goal is to initiate open dialogue. If there's interest, we would coordinate a joint meeting with the Water and Light Commission. [58:29] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** I was shocked to see these numbers. I think the other entity is going to be pretty shocked as well. I'd definitely like to have a discussion if this is what's happening in other areas. I think the taxpayers would like to see this; it would go a long way toward helping the city's finances. [1:01:17] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** 6i, August working meeting. Phil and I are meeting with Rural Water next Monday regarding the sewer fund deficit. We have information to share about sewer rates and best practices. [1:03:27] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** Could we do 10:00 a.m. on Monday the 22nd? [Mayor: That works.] [1:04:37] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** 6j, Project schedules and communications. Ted [Douglas Juntunen] kind of touched on this already. [1:04:47] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Looking at when our bids went out this year—for Fourth Street especially—they didn't go until April. That is such a late start date for a big project. You won't get the lowest bit or as many bids. If you get them out in January or February, companies are just starting to schedule. If you wait until April, you're lucky to get started in August. [1:06:19] **City Superintendent Phil Entner:** It takes a lot of money to get a project "shovel-ready," but it puts us in control. Ted and I talked—I’ve felt since I took over that we're constantly behind the eight-ball due to money. We need to find a way to reverse that. [1:07:52] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** We are making engineering fees part of our budget this year. The bigger we grow our pot of money, the more we can set aside to have projects ready to submit for state funding as soon as it opens. [1:10:54] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** 6k, the Brew Fest. The Moose Lake Area Chamber will be conducting Brew Fest at the Depot. They need a one-day temporary on-sale liquor license for September 17th. [Council Member: Motion to approve.] [Council Member: Second.] All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. [1:13:05] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** 7d, LCCMR project update. They notified us that our campground expansion proposal is no longer under consideration. We currently have a grant open with them for the trail, so it wasn't highly likely, but we have a project ready to submit for other funding now. [1:13:52] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** One quick note on Bill Carlson’s communication. There's a possibility of a second time period for applying for broadband money. It may be a 50/50 match, which is always the problem, but we'll look at that before budget time. [1:16:11] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Number eight, committee and board meeting minutes. We have the Fire District and Park and Rec minutes. Announcements: the next regular Council meeting is September 14th at 4:00 p.m. The Park Board meets August 29th at 5:00 p.m. for a walkthrough of all the parks. Anything else? Hearing none, do I have a motion to adjourn? [Council Member: So moved.] [Council Member: Second.] We are adjourned. Thank you.