This transcript features **Mayor Charles Cadenhead**, Council Members **Matt Hirn** (attending remotely) and **Nick Kragness**, as well as City Staff and project representatives. [00:00:00] **Charles Cadenhead:** do roll call votes. >> Yep. >> All right. I'm going to call this evening's meeting to order. Please stand with me for the pledge of 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. [00:00:20] **Charles Cadenhead:** So, we have some council members that are out due to spring break vacations and we have one online, Mr. Council Member Hirn. There he is. Thanks for joining us. [00:00:30] **Matt Hirn:** You guys hear me? [00:00:32] **Charles Cadenhead:** Yes, we can hear you. Thank you. [00:00:34] **Matt Hirn:** All right, perfect. [00:00:35] **Charles Cadenhead:** Um, first order business is uh approval of agenda. So, everything's okay with that. I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda as presented. [00:00:43] **Nick Kragness:** Motion to approve the agenda as presented. [00:00:45] **Matt Hirn:** Second. [00:00:47] **Charles Cadenhead:** I suppose they're gonna—So then uh I got to do a roll call vote. >> Yep. >> All those in favor? Uh council member Hirn? [00:00:55] **Matt Hirn:** I. [00:00:56] **Charles Cadenhead:** Council member—sorry—Kragness? not used to that. [00:01:00] **Nick Kragness:** Yeah. Hi. [00:01:01] **Charles Cadenhead:** All right. Meeting uh agenda is approved. I don't believe we have any public comments inquiries. Nobody gave any sheets. Approval of the minutes from the March 3rd, 2026 special meeting. All those in favor? Well, I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes from the March 3rd meeting. [00:01:20] **Nick Kragness:** Motion to approve minutes from March 3rd, 2026 special meeting. [00:01:24] **Matt Hirn:** Second. [00:01:25] **Charles Cadenhead:** And we have a motion and a second. Uh assuming there are no changes there, I'll do a roll call vote for that. Uh, council member Hirn? [00:01:34] **Matt Hirn:** I. [00:01:35] **Charles Cadenhead:** Council member Kragness. [00:01:36] **Nick Kragness:** Hi. [00:01:37] **Charles Cadenhead:** Uh, minutes are approved. In our consent agenda this evening, we have approval payments and disbursements. Approve operator three hiring. Approve budget amendment for the tree fund. Approve reimbursement resolution. Approve engineering design standard updates. I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. [00:01:58] **Nick Kragness:** Motion to approve the consent agenda. [00:02:00] **Matt Hirn:** Second. [00:02:01] **Charles Cadenhead:** Got a motion in a second. Um I'll call for the votes. Council member Hirn? [00:02:07] **Matt Hirn:** I. [00:02:08] **Charles Cadenhead:** Council member Kragness. [00:02:09] **Nick Kragness:** Hi. [00:02:10] **Charles Cadenhead:** The consent agenda is hereby approved. So on our regular agenda, the first item is letter of support for Valley Community Center. [00:02:18] **Nicole Miller:** So tonight we have David Frank from the Valley Community Center here to give us an update and um also request a letter of support for their project. [00:02:27] **Charles Cadenhead:** Okay, Mr. Frank. [00:02:28] **David Frank:** Good evening. I'm David Frank representing Valley Community Center. Thank you for having us tonight. I'm here mayor and council with uh with Diane Hollisk, our visionary founder and ideas person who keeps the effort going as well as Tom Ivers. We appreciate the chance to be here, share just a little bit about our project and ask for your support for a letter of support. We wanted to make sure you knew just a little bit tonight... much more to come in the in the months to come... about what the project is. So our idea is the creation of an approximately 50,000 square foot facility. It will be an inclusive community center, a central space that fosters social connection and wellness and recreation for the entire St. Croix Valley. And it'll be right here in Lake Elmo. It will be a big investment in the quality of life for the residents of this city and for the surrounding area. More than a building and a development project, it's a grassroots initiative based on years of effort including stakeholder meetings and surveys and community engagement activities. It has support from residents all over the area, including your residents here in Lake Elmo, including some who have been kind enough to give us some donations recently. We looked all around the valley, including here in Lake Elmo, for the right location, and we're pleased that we found it very close to where we are tonight. We believe that the Lake Elmo Elementary School is the right location for this project, for our idea. We've completed extensive third-party market studies and demographic analysis with industry leaders to validate the choice of the site. I think you know that we have a signed purchase agreement with the Stillwater School District for the 12 to 13 acre Lake Elmo Elementary School property. We will close later this year after the school year is over. We have been working with your excellent city staff on uh and informing them and starting to talk about ownership and financing strategy for the project with more to come soon. And I should point out too that we are pleased to be part of the Lake Elmo Village plan, part of your downtown. We think we will fit in very well as we start to design and move towards creating the building. As I mentioned, we're here tonight to ask you to write a letter of support to a local foundation who is going to consider covering part of the acquisition costs for the project. So, what we hope you will do tonight is say yes to writing the letter of support and that we can include it in our application to that local foundation. I'm available for any questions if that's part of what you'd like. Otherwise, please. Thank you. [00:05:08] **Charles Cadenhead:** Any questions, council members? The only question I have for you is has it been looked at the traffic study of any sorts? Because I know that our downtown is not the most robust with with roads. I mean, even with the school in the morning, it gets pretty busy. So, I would imagine the entire St. Croix River Valley area coming out to a 50,000 square foot community center would cause—Yeah, a little bit of a traffic jam. Mr. Stanley, I don't know if you know of any if you've talked to them about traffic or expanding roads or what goes along with all of this. [00:05:43] **Nate Stanley:** Uh, mayor and council, I haven't been part of the conversation yet. I'll give uh the applicant a chance to answer before I add. [00:05:51] **David Frank:** Mayor, council member, that's exactly my answer. So, we're in the due diligence period of our acquisition uh purchase and sale agreement. And among the things we're doing are reaching out to the various local stakeholders, including, as I mentioned, your city staff. And one of the things we'll be working on, as you're about to hear, I hope is that we'll make the necessary improvements to improve both on-site and as close as we can offsite uh to make the traffic function as it needs to. [00:06:20] **Charles Cadenhead:** Okay. Thank you. [00:06:21] **Nate Stanley:** I'll just add that the site's adjacent to two county roadways and Washington County will be involved in any sort of traffic uh study and review and analysis and... you know, so we're just—we need something to react to first and we'll be working with them. [00:06:36] **Charles Cadenhead:** Understood. Thank you. Um Mr. Frank, the the draft letter, if you will, is just addressed to dear board of directors of a local foundation. And is there a way that if this is uh if this is approved that we can maybe direct that a little more less generically? [00:06:55] **David Frank:** Uh mayor, appreciate the question. Um it's intended for only one specific local foundation. Uh we think it's the right thing to do not to name them quite this publicly. Thank you. Um, it's not that we don't want to, it's that we don't want to put their uh decision makers in a position where here we are saying quite loudly, well, we're about to ask them for a lot of money and make them feel like we push them into a corner. [00:07:18] **Charles Cadenhead:** Appreciate that. And then you said you looked in areas around Lake Elmo, but I'm I'm to understand that you looked uh much further than just Lake Elmo. They look at Stillwater and areas north and south, right? I mean, and this seemed to be centrally located with possible land use that would would work and all those things. [00:07:35] **David Frank:** Mayor, that's correct. Uh, Stillwater, Lake Elmo, I think, uh, Bayfield and, uh, other other places nearby as well. [00:07:44] **Charles Cadenhead:** All right. Any other questions for me? Council member Hirn. [00:07:48] **Matt Hirn:** Yeah. Yeah. One quick question just for you. Just and I know we're in due diligence portion here, but just wondering if you have an idea time frame wise um for this project. Uh maybe just again, I know it's going to be abstract, but just uh maybe some timeline ideas. [00:08:04] **David Frank:** Sure. Uh mayor, council member. Um so, as I mentioned, our plan is to close on the property and own it later in 2026 this year. Uh then there will be a variety of activities once we've completed the purchase. That includes fundraising, that includes design, that includes site engineering, that includes still more community outreach, uh more fundraising. Um I think the—other forms of public and private financing. I think the soonest we're talking about starting construction is a few years from now. I probably shouldn't be more specific until we've had a chance to really put that program together, but this is not a start construction this year or next year kind of a project. [00:08:48] **Charles Cadenhead:** Okay. Um, if there aren't any more questions, I'll entertain a motion. [00:08:52] **Nick Kragness:** Motion to approve the letter of support for the Valley Community Center. [00:08:56] **Matt Hirn:** Second. [00:08:57] **Charles Cadenhead:** Is there a second? We have a second. Any discussion hearing none? I'll call the question. [00:09:02] **Matt Hirn:** Yeah. I was just going to say I I think this could, you know, obviously there's a lot of work to be done on this moving forward and a lot of the details to come, but uh just early on here, I think this could be a great use for this site. So, I'm really excited about this. [00:09:17] **Charles Cadenhead:** Yeah, I agree, Matt. I think this could be a a crown jewel in our in our cap, so to speak, of really something great for the future of the city. All right, I'll do a roll call vote. Uh, how do you vote? Council member Hirn? [00:09:32] **Matt Hirn:** I. [00:09:33] **Charles Cadenhead:** Council member Kragness? [00:09:35] **Nick Kragness:** I. [00:09:36] **Charles Cadenhead:** uh letter of support passes. Thank you very much. Next on the docket uh presenting is uh senior planner Sophia Jensen for Northstar third edition final plat final PUD and development agreement. [00:09:49] **Sophia Jensen:** All right, thank you mayor. Um so the request before you tonight is for Northstar third edition. The applicant is GWSA Land Development. The property is outlot K of Northstar first edition. It is zoned village low-density residential with a partial shoreland overlay. It is guided in the city's comp plan as also village low-density residential. The third edition is 7.55 acres of the a little over 101 acres for Northstar altogether. And the density of this phase is 4.5 units per acre. Um so it's a little higher than the total project density which is 2.27 units per acre. And the prelim plat for this project was approved in 2022. So this slide just shows the proposed plat and to the north is legacy. So it's making that second neighborhood connection. As a reminder, the Northstar PUD has bulk standard flexibilities shown with those blue cells in that table. These are the same as the first two additions, so I won't go through them, but we can circle back if there's any questions. [00:10:49] **Matt Hirn:** Hey guys, I'm sorry. I'm just having a little hard time hearing Sophia um right now. [00:10:55] **Sophia Jensen:** Can you hear me better now? [00:10:57] **Matt Hirn:** Uh yeah, I can hear you now. Yep. [00:10:59] **Sophia Jensen:** Okay. Um this application was sent out for agency review in January. Um and so we have received comments from the fire department DNR watershed landscape architect, city attorney, and city engineer. And I will note that since this project came forward originally, they have resubmitted and most of these comments have been satisfied. So I won't go through line item by line item, but we can again circle back if there's any questions. Staff is recommending nine findings of fact. Those are related to the application requirements and subdivision standards being met. Prelim plat, it's consistent with that. um consistent with the 2040 comp plan, consistent with the VLDDR zoning standards other than where PUD flexibilities are provided and consistent with the design standards other than where flexibilities are provided. Staff is also recommending nine conditions of approval. In summary, those are related to those review memos, necessary fees, the standard recording deadline, necessary agreements, no deviations for neighborhood signage, and receiving all applicable permits. So, typically after final plat is approved, staff will bring the development agreement to a later meeting as a consent agenda item. In this case, the DA is done and ready to be bundled and approved with the final plat this evening. Um, some key aspects to this agreement are public improvements are to be completed by October 31st, 2027. Um, there's a letter of credit required and the developer will need to put a cash deposit in for um, SAC and WAC and other review-related fees. So, with that, staff is recommending approval of the final plat final PUD and DA. Um, and I can stand for any questions and we do have the developer here if there's any questions for him. [00:12:44] **Charles Cadenhead:** Do we have any questions for this uh the third edition here? We've seen the previous two and seems like they're making good progress. Council member Hirn, you have any questions? [00:12:54] **Matt Hirn:** This is just a question I always like to ask with these and you already kind of covered it, but I just like to to double up with this—is just it sounds like there's really no significant changes from the initial PL. Correct? [00:13:06] **Sophia Jensen:** Correct. [00:13:07] **Matt Hirn:** That the staff is concerned about. [00:13:09] **Charles Cadenhead:** Council member—Great. Yeah. Sorry. Just a little bit in and out. I think she said correct. [00:13:14] **Sophia Jensen:** Correct. Yes. [00:13:16] **Matt Hirn:** No questions. [00:13:17] **Charles Cadenhead:** Thank you. Thank you. All right. I'll entertain a motion. [00:13:20] **Nick Kragness:** Move to adopt resolution 2026-016 approving the final plat and PUD for Northstar third edition requested by GWSA Land Development LLC for the subject property based on the findings of fact and recommend conditions of approval listed in the staff report. [00:13:38] **Matt Hirn:** Second. [00:13:39] **Charles Cadenhead:** All right. Any any discussion? I think that uh this is uh business as usual with this particular developer moving forward. This third edition uh having worked out all the issues with the comments with staff is much appreciated. Um I really don't have anything much to add for that. [00:13:58] **Nick Kragness:** Not much for me either. Just thank you staff for working through this. So we appreciate it. [00:14:02] **Charles Cadenhead:** All right. Do roll call vote. Uh, your vote. Council member Hirn? [00:14:07] **Matt Hirn:** I. [00:14:08] **Charles Cadenhead:** Uh, Council Member Kragness. [00:14:10] **Nick Kragness:** I. [00:14:11] **Charles Cadenhead:** and I vote yes. So, the Northstar third edition final plat approved. Uh, I'll entertain a motion for the second uh piece there. [00:14:20] **Nick Kragness:** Move to adopt resolution 2026-017 approving the developers agreement for Northstar second edition. [00:14:27] **Matt Hirn:** Second. [00:14:28] **Charles Cadenhead:** There's a motion in a second. I'll call the question. How do you vote? Council member Hirn? [00:14:33] **Matt Hirn:** I. [00:14:34] **Charles Cadenhead:** Council member Kragness? [00:14:35] **Nick Kragness:** I. [00:14:36] **Charles Cadenhead:** And I vote I as well. Uh developers agreement for Northstar. This should be third edition, right? [00:14:43] **Clarissa Hadler:** That is correct. [00:14:44] **Charles Cadenhead:** All right. So, let's redo the motion. [00:14:46] **Nick Kragness:** Oh, sorry. Yeah. [00:14:47] **Charles Cadenhead:** Okay. Do I need to say anything about amending anything? [00:14:50] **Clarissa Hadler:** No, you just um—Mr. Mayor, members of the council, I look to see if the resolution has a typo in it. I don't think it does. And so, if you adopted the resolution 2026-017, then we're good. [00:15:05] **Charles Cadenhead:** Okay. All right. Thank you. All right, we're good. Thanks, Sophia. The next item up there is accept bids and award contract for CSAH 14 water main improvements. City Engineer Nate Stanley. [00:15:19] **Nate Stanley:** Thank you, Mr. Mayor. All right. I am before you tonight with an item to accept bids and award the contract for the CSAH 14 water main improvements. Um just some of the content I'm going to cover. We've all seen this um a lot of this information before, so I'm going to step through relatively quickly. So, this is the water main we're replacing out between Lake Elmo Avenue and um Leighton Avenue along CSAH 14. [00:15:47] **Charles Cadenhead:** Could you just move a little closer? [00:15:49] **Nate Stanley:** Sure. Sorry about that. Okay. Hopefully that's better. So, this is an existing 6-in cast iron water main that was installed in the 1960s. Um, it's got a pretty severe break history, particularly uh over the in the last few years. Um, we are upsizing this line to create a trunk loop uh going from a six to a 12. It's proposed to be bored in and um the plans and specs were previously approved um January 20th and we advertised shortly thereafter. Uh today, March 17, 2026, we're looking to um accept the bids and award the contract. Looking at getting a pre-construction meeting scheduled um here this spring and then moving into construction after school is out at Lake Elmo Elementary School. Um a substantial completion date of August uh 15, 2026 is in the contract. That's about 3 months. Uh we're hoping that things move along a little quicker than that. So, this is a graphic um showing the route of the pipe. The pipe is on the it's it's um on the side of the road uh underneath the um the eastbound traffic lanes. You'll note that there's some dots along the way there. Those are um proposed bore points and um connection points to the existing system. Excuse me. So again, so we're replacing about 1,700 ft of 6-in water main with um a 12-in line. Um the, you know, we we're we're installing the pipe a little bit deeper. Um and we're moving it over into the roadway corridor a little farther. Um and we're giving ourselves some leeway because the county—we wanted to originally this has been um scheduled originally to coincide with the county road project. However, the county hasn't um gotten County Road 14 in this area in their CIP yet. So, we're putting it in a spot that should be safe. It's been coordinated with the county. We're not anticipating any rework in the future. Um, so the construction will require um westbound traffic on CSAH 14 to be detoured. Uh we worked with um Washington County on this and coordinated it with you know as as they have the project coming here uh also this spring to close uh Lake Elmo Avenue at Highway 36. Um so that detour will actually um for for through traffic will push southbound traffic to um Manning Avenue south to 10th Street. Um as they proceed west, they'll hit Inwood back up to the north um following Inwood to um CSAH 14 at the roundabout. Um local traffic will be detoured, however, uh to um Leverne Avenue up to 39th and back to Lake Elmo Avenue where they will then be directed south back to 14 and they can make a left and continue on that um eastbound route through. Um, so it's kind of a complicated detour. I don't have a slide on it and I've I've kind of walked through the high points of it. [00:19:15] **Charles Cadenhead:** So you're gonna you're going to detour westbound and put eastbound on the westbound lane? [00:19:21] **Nate Stanley:** Yes, sir. [00:19:22] **Charles Cadenhead:** Okay. [00:19:23] **Nate Stanley:** Um, business access will be maintained throughout construction. So it'll either be kind of depending on the side of the road you're in, a right in right out to the street or driveway or a left and left out. Um, if you're on the north side of the road, um, there will be a short-term duration full closure of Leighton Avenue when the connection is made. Um, so that would probably be a week or two in duration. [00:19:50] **Charles Cadenhead:** Just discuss that the detour a little bit more. So, um, where 39th runs into CSAH 14. So, are we saying CSAH 14 west is just going to be closed down on this section completely? [00:20:01] **Nate Stanley:** Correct. Westbound traffic will be diverted as I previously described. Um eastbound will be the through movement and the intent there is because you know if if um Lake Elmo Avenue is closed you know there's no great way around for for the traffic coming there that wants to get to 36. So Manning Avenue will be utilized as that access point. Does that make sense? [00:20:25] **Charles Cadenhead:** Uh for the—So where is the detour for the westbound? [00:20:29] **Nate Stanley:** Yep. So the detour will be—I apologize because I wish I had a slide I could pull up. So the westbound detour, you'll be cars will be detoured at CSAH 14 and Manning Avenue directed south on Manning Avenue. That's where one end of it is and they go to 10th Street, 10th to Inwood, Inwood back up to the north back to CSAH 14. That's the officially posted detour. I'll maintain questions. Yep. I'll keep moving through this and if we want to come back to that, we certainly can. Um so we'll be replacing services for residential and commercial businesses as part of this too uh to the curb stop and um upsizing service lines into the Lake Elmo Elementary School site and the Fury Motor site anticipating uh redevelopment. [00:21:20] **Charles Cadenhead:** just to the stop. [00:21:21] **Nate Stanley:** Yes. We received eight bids. Uh we opened bids on March 5th. Uh the low bidder is Miller Excavating at $687,265.54. Um the estimated project cost is uh $940,000. That is higher um than the previously uh budgeted CIP number of 850. Um I did address this at the time of um plan approval. Uh this was a very difficult project to estimate and unfortunately the level of detail that goes in at the time of CIP isn't near the level of detail that goes in when we're developing a project like this. So, um, we were directed to move forward at that time and I appreciate um council's approval on that. Uh, this would be funded by the water enterprise fund. So tonight, um, again, I'm asking council to approve a resolution accepting bids and awarding a contract to Miller Excavating for the amount of $687,265.54 for the CSAH 14 water main improvements. Uh, we're also recommending that the council authorize the city administrator to enter into a material testing contract for the project in the amount of not to exceed amount of $20,000. [00:22:38] **Charles Cadenhead:** Questions for Mr. Stanley? Are you clear on the detour, Council Member Hirn? [00:22:42] **Matt Hirn:** Yeah. Yeah, I'm clear on the detour. Uh, I guess just two follow-up questions. Uh, one, and I think you kind of addressed this, but time frame. Um, sounds like for the complete closure, what was the time frame for that? [00:22:56] **Nate Stanley:** So that complete closure would just be for um a side street uh at Leighton um south of CSAH 14. And that's just to make—we're going to need the whole intersection to make the um pipe connection. I anticipate that would just probably be about a week. [00:23:11] **Charles Cadenhead:** So Leighton just—just for your information, Council Member Hirn, Leighton is the street that runs on the east side of the Lake Elmo Event Center down towards the Legion baseball field, kind of that last residential street before you uh get towards Hagberg's. [00:23:26] **Matt Hirn:** Okay. Thank you. How about and then time frame for the um the oneway um or with the detour for the eastbound um for this for this project I guess time frame again. What are we kind of expecting? [00:23:41] **Nate Stanley:** So we have a we're we're expecting um right now the contract is set up to be about a three-month project and we anticipate that that detour would be in place for the most part for the entirety of it. We're hoping that if we— [00:23:55] **Matt Hirn:** Okay. Yep. until that substantial progress date that you guys have listed. [00:24:00] **Nate Stanley:** Yes, sir. [00:24:01] **Matt Hirn:** Well, if I remember right—if I ask one one more question. Sure. And then again, I with the the detour option here, were there other detour options that were proposed um or was this the only one that was really considered as an option? [00:24:16] **Nate Stanley:** Well, um that's a great question. And we initially um had a detour—we looked at a detour for traffic uh in the opposite direction. However, with the um this is a county road... Washington County kind of has the final say and um there were concerns that cars would try and use—the volume of traffic coming from the opposite direction might try and use or might create issues with Lake Elmo Avenue being closed. So, um, by keeping, uh, because again, Manning Avenue is going to be the access, uh, folks are directed to to get on 36 during that project. So, um, the the idea was to continue that eastbound movement through to let them get by Lake Elmo Avenue. And I'll I'll just add one other thing. Um, you know, when a diversion on a county road project, we keep them on the county road system. That's why it's via Manning Avenue, 10th Street North, and Inwood Avenue. Those are all county roads. [00:25:21] **Charles Cadenhead:** Do we have an idea of volume of traffic that we can expect on 39th as a result of this during some of the busier times? I, you know, unfortunately we're just going to kind of maybe have to wait and see. We um we we lay the best plans we can and then if we have to make adjustments then we'll do so. [00:25:40] **Nick Kragness:** So I do have one question. I was just looking for a little bit of clarification here for my sake. So Miller Excavating has a responsible bid in the amount of $687,265, but the total estimated project costs are estimated of 940,000. Can you just enlighten me a little bit on what the discrepancy is there? [00:26:01] **Nate Stanley:** Yep. So Miller's cost is the construction cost. Um the project cost is all of those um costs and fees that go into that the city pays for the project development as a whole. So it includes like surveying, design, geotechnical work, um any sort of legal work that needs to be done. Um and then there's a contingency in there too. There's a project contingency. So um those fees are um accounted for in the project cost. It's not just the bid amount. [00:26:35] **Nick Kragness:** Got it. Okay. Thank you. [00:26:37] **Charles Cadenhead:** Any further questions? All right. I'll entertain a motion. [00:26:41] **Nick Kragness:** Motion to approve resolution number 2026-019 accepting bids and awarding a contract to Miller Excavating Incorporated for the bid amount of $687,265.54 for CSAH 14 water main improvements. [00:27:00] **Matt Hirn:** Second. [00:27:01] **Charles Cadenhead:** All right. Thank you. Just wanted to wait till the discussion standpoint. So, recent memory serves me right. Um, there's about 10,000 cars a day that travel past the elementary school. And the reason I kind of looked at that was, you know, what's going past where the new school is. And it doesn't quite reach that level that it's currently at now. So, um, it's quite a bit of traffic that travels on Stillwater Boulevard. We saw an uptick last year, I think, because of some of the work that was happening on—was that 94 still? [00:27:35] **Nate Stanley:** So, that was I think two years ago um when they had the various exits closed and so— [00:27:42] **Charles Cadenhead:** this this being approximately concurrent with the 36 project... yeah, a lot of that traffic's going to be looking—that traffic's going to be looking for another way to go. And so I think moving the westbound traffic—yeah, to keep it on the county roads serves best to go to uh down to 10th or CSAH 10. Uh it is—that's considerable detour. Um but I think next summer uh is going to be a little bit painful. You mentioned something um Mr. Stanley about um trying to get it done before school starts and I'll just note that I think they plan on utilizing the new school for this this fall. So um— [00:28:22] **Nate Stanley:** yeah if I apologize mayor if I misspoke. I meant to if I did I meant to say we were waiting till school gets out to start the project. [00:28:30] **Charles Cadenhead:** Got it. And maybe I missed that so could be my bad. Um but yeah this is a considerable project. It's it's something that will save us breaks. We've had what the note said, six breaks in the last seven years, which is uh something that needs to be remedied. Given that the county doesn't really have this in their CIP in the near future, uh I think it makes sense for us to take care of it now. With that, I'll call the question. Um what say you, Council Member Hirn? [00:29:00] **Matt Hirn:** Uh, sorry. Can I just—I just want to say something real quick. [00:29:03] **Charles Cadenhead:** Oh yeah, go ahead. [00:29:04] **Matt Hirn:** So obviously just from my kind of my question there... obviously this is a project that needs to happen. Um it's unfortunate that the timing couldn't work out where the the county was um able to help out with this project and kind of coincide at the same time or I guess we got this community center possibly coming down the road. So again, unfortunate maybe we couldn't time it a little bit better with those, but just given the history with the breaks, it is something that needs to happen. We've had discussions at previous meetings about this as well as far as like financially what that would cost to keep pushing this out. So um just from that standpoint, it is something I believe that does need to happen. My main concern right now is just with the the traffic that we're going to see on 39th. You know, we've had a lot of work that we've done. We've heard a lot from the residents over the last couple years um who are trying to walk in that area who are trying to cross the roads and it's been an issue. Um so I know this is going to be—this is going to be challenging. I'm sure we're going to get some frustrations from the the residents which I I guess I just—I don't know how else we could go about doing this without making it a really dramatic detour. Um, but I guess I just do want to recognize that that is going to be an issue um for for people in that area. Um, I know like additionally, you know, I guess this is something that I've seen too, just living in that area. Um, sometimes getting so like Klondike getting on to uh CSAH 14 during these busy hours can be next to impossible. Um, so I guess I just—I think that's going to have to be something that we got to be keeping aware um of the traffic volumes. And you know, if there's something that we need to be doing as a city to ensure safety and ensure that our residents can still be able to be mobile and access and get around, I just think it's something we're going to have to be kind of mindful of and aware of as this project starts. [00:31:02] **Charles Cadenhead:** Yeah, it's—um, in my past experience with with a lot of construction projects—try and remember um the first probably two to four weeks is is a little crazy because my my note is that uh traffic is kind of like water ultimately. It takes a little while for it to find its easiest path and once it does, it stays on that. But it takes a little bit of time and um we'll see some crazy areas. Uh the key is not to have a knee-jerk reaction. Uh let things calm down a little bit and then and then see what modifications to make if you can make any. So, that's my my advice on that one from past experience. All right. What say you, Council Member Hirn? [00:31:51] **Matt Hirn:** I. [00:31:52] **Charles Cadenhead:** Council Member Kragness. [00:31:53] **Nick Kragness:** I. [00:31:54] **Charles Cadenhead:** I'm an I as well. That resolution passes. Thank you. [00:31:57] **Nate Stanley:** Have to do one more, Mr. Mayor. [00:31:59] **Nick Kragness:** Motion to authorize the city administrator to enter into a material testing contract for the project construction phase services in the not to exceed amount of $20,000 for CSAH 14 water main improvements. [00:32:15] **Charles Cadenhead:** All right. Is there a second? Can you say that again, Matt? [00:32:19] **Matt Hirn:** Second. (Sorry, I think you're on mute, Matt). [00:32:23] **Charles Cadenhead:** Thank you. I could see your mouth move, but I couldn't hear anything. All right. Any discussion? Hearing none, I'll just call the question. Council member Hirn? [00:32:32] **Matt Hirn:** I. [00:32:33] **Charles Cadenhead:** Council member Kragness. [00:32:34] **Nick Kragness:** I. [00:32:35] **Charles Cadenhead:** I as well. Motion passes. Thank you. Next on the docket, we have utility financial management plan updates. Miss Nina Kramer presenting. [00:32:44] **Nina Kramer:** Hi. Hopefully you can hear me, Matt. We're good. [00:32:47] **Matt Hirn:** Yes, I can hear you. Thank you. [00:32:49] **Nina Kramer:** Okay, so the purpose of tonight's review is to go over the utility rates for 2026. And all I did was update the initial plan that we had in 2025 as that was a very extensive overhaul of the previously completed utility study plans from what Northland had done. And so we did update the information to the 2026 to 2035 CIP, 2025 usage and customer counts. And then we changed development assumptions. And then we also looked at the final long-term expense and then debt strategy for all three utilities. And so our financial goals are revenue sufficiency, debt load reduction and full cost depreciation recovery which has been all three have been topics of discussion previously. And so we did receive um a grant for the operating and management of the temporary water treatment plant at Well Two or Three. (Oh, you got it. Okay, thank you). And so I did not incorporate those um expenses into the plan for 2026 as we will be reimbursed and then we will re-evaluate that each year assuming there are funds available from the MPCA. And then we did decide to not issue any new debt for water or sewer. And then as of the last workshop meeting, council member Dragisich had asked that we look at doing either bonds or inner-fund loan for storm water fund for the 2028 Lions Park drainage. So I did update that in this plan as a bond. And so our proposed amounts for 2026 rate adjustments—we went with the same water increase of 20% from last year. Um a sewer increase of 20% also was proposed in 2025 but we did change that to 15% as we increase the storm water to an 8% from the previous year. And so we wanted to keep that overall bill about 15% or less um for an increase so that people are able to budget and start working towards that depreciation in the storm water fund. And so with those changes the impact from the residents would be as follows. So it'll be for the water bill about a $2.88 a month change for low volume users. Sewer bill will go up about $3.34 a month or $10.03 a quarter and storm water bill go up 63 cents a month or $1.90 quarterly for residentials. And it's a little bit more for medium volume because as you you know use more your dollar amount increases. So you're looking at an overall $12.56 a month roughly or $37 a quarter. And then for high volume, it'll be $63.75 a month extra or $191.25 a quarter. [00:35:48] **Charles Cadenhead:** Those are for residential. [00:35:50] **Nina Kramer:** Yeah, commercial's similar. They're they're a little bit higher. I mean, I can go back here. So, they're—commercial is like $3.93 a month for water at the low use, sanitary sewer almost $6 and storm sewer is $1.95 for a month or an overall quarter increase of $35.61. [00:36:12] **Charles Cadenhead:** Yep. All right. Thank you. [00:36:14] **Nina Kramer:** And then so the comparison to other cities um we have the same set that we had used in prior years. And so if you look like Lake Elmo for low volume um goes from Lake Elmo 2025 which is like 10th on that list and then we would move up to eighth on that list. So, not too much more than other cities. Uh with the medium volume, it's similar. Um we just move up two rankings in that list. And then for high volume, we're a little bit—move up a little bit more up three. [00:36:51] **Charles Cadenhead:** You know, it's a little bit skewed as as Carver and Corcoran and Hugo do not charge anything for storm water. [00:36:58] **Nina Kramer:** Correct. Correct. Yes. And so with that, we do just recommend approval as presented or direction from council. [00:37:06] **Charles Cadenhead:** I do have one question. Um you have chart number 11 for the water fund and maybe this this comes from the explanation that you gave—the 2026 and 2027 show a really a huge spike in revenues. [00:37:21] **Nina Kramer:** Oh that is from the water treatment plant. [00:37:23] **Charles Cadenhead:** Okay. That's what I I thought it might be. Yes. And then so if we're not counting those expenses anywhere— [00:37:32] **Clarissa Hadler:** No. I would just add utility funds are just kind of complicated. It is in reality a revenue because of the way that we have to do accounting. And so when Tammy at Northland had created the study originally, she's doing it based on like how we have to do full accrual accounting, which is it's it's really confusing from our perspective even. So when we're looking at it you know—because then you don't count it as an expense, right? So when you get a grant, you have to recognize it as revenue in the year that you get it. Um when we spend money on assets in those utility funds, we don't count that spending of those money as expenses actually grant money. It's actually a—we're just transferring it from being cash to a different asset, a capital asset, and then that's what we use depreciation for. We expense it over time with depreciation. So it is very— [00:38:37] **Charles Cadenhead:** No, but that that helps me understand where the money goes, right? [00:38:42] **Clarissa Hadler:** Yeah. Yep. [00:38:44] **Charles Cadenhead:** Thank you. Any other questions from council? [00:38:48] **Matt Hirn:** Yeah, I just wanted to clarify. So when you uh mentioned with the bond um using the bond for storm water that Council Member Dragisich had brought up... had mentioned earlier that that was just specifically for the 2028 Lions Park drainage project. I guess my understanding was I think—and again, you know, I hate to speak for Council Member Dragisich here—but I guess my recollection of that conversation is he was talking more about that in general, using bonds for these storm water capital improvement projects rather than paying just 100% cash out of the storm water fund for these projects... as a way to fund these projects over 15 years instead of having to fund them over one year with that fund, right? [00:39:39] **Nina Kramer:** Yeah. So, there actually are only two projects currently, like large projects that we would possibly bond for. Oh, so I just put the largest one in. [00:39:48] **Matt Hirn:** Oh, okay. [00:39:49] **Nina Kramer:** I just put the largest one in there, not both of them. Um, I don't know that we'd want to bond for something that's, you know, 300 and some thousand, but maybe. [00:39:58] **Matt Hirn:** Okay. And maybe I'm just thinking maybe that was more down the road as we have the conversation about using the storm water fund for some of the road projects, uh, for the some of the storm water aspects of it. Um, maybe it has more to do with that. So maybe it's a conversation for in the future. I just wanted to make sure that I think that conversation was intended to be for like future projects as well when Council Member Dragisich brought that up. That's at least how I took it. Um but I guess I I hate to speak for him. [00:40:27] **Charles Cadenhead:** All right. Council Member Kragness. [00:40:29] **Nick Kragness:** Nothing for me. [00:40:31] **Charles Cadenhead:** All right. With that, I'll entertain a motion. [00:40:33] **Nick Kragness:** Motion to approve ordinance 2026-03 amending the 2026 fee schedule to include the utility rate updates. [00:40:43] **Charles Cadenhead:** Is there a second? [00:40:44] **Matt Hirn:** Second. [00:40:45] **Charles Cadenhead:** Thank you. Discussion. I think that um it was if—Yeah, we we we could reintroduce that question to Council Member Dragisich. Go back and watch the meeting video, but I think it was projects that were predominantly storm water usage as the Lions Park would be. Um but again, to your point, Council Member Hirn, I think it probably be good to clarify that and make sure that we're doing that. But certainly uh for this instance uh that bonding for that with the water fund would be correct in my my recollection. [00:41:22] **Matt Hirn:** And I I think the maybe the main thing I want to just kind of mention with that and why I think it's important is you know if we're choosing to raise the rate by 8% you know that's based off of projects that we're planning to um fund this with. And so if we are going to be moving forward where we are using some of those storm water funds for projects, you know, to cover some of the curb and gutter with roads in the future, that may change that number. And so I guess that's just my concern—of obviously the rate needs to go up to help us move in this right direction where we're trying the depreciation expenses that are going to accrue over years. Um, I just wanted to make sure that that number is what we're increasing that rate by is accurate. If we're spreading the amount of money we need out over 15 years instead of needing to pay for it in one year, the amount of funds that we need might be different. And so, I guess that's just my concern. Um, I do think the rate needs to go up. And so maybe this is something that we need to revisit when we make the decision on how we want to handle those projects moving forward if we do want to use the storm water funds for some of the storm water aspects of the road construction projects. [00:42:38] **Charles Cadenhead:** Right. And and to that point, you know, this fund also takes care of some of the other activities that the public works has to do in maintaining storm water ponds and clearing and jetting out pipes and things of that nature. It it handles, you know, clearing out ditches for storm water conveyance. Um I think the thing is—Director Hadler, there was a period of time we did not increase the storm water fee usage for how many years was that? [00:43:08] **Clarissa Hadler:** I think it was only three or so. [00:43:10] **Charles Cadenhead:** Only three years because I do remember it increasing for a while there um when I when I was not on council. Um but it's also a factor of maintaining a fund that keeps up with the inflation rate as well. So little bit of catch up and a little bit make sure we're taking care of operations as we're required by state law. Um, if we don't have any more discussion, I'll call the question on ordinance 2026-03. Council member Hirn? [00:43:40] **Matt Hirn:** I. [00:43:41] **Charles Cadenhead:** Council member Kragness? [00:43:42] **Nick Kragness:** I. [00:43:43] **Charles Cadenhead:** I am an I as well. Uh, ordinance 2026-03 is approved. I'll entertain a motion for— [00:43:52] **Nicole Miller:** Mr. Mayor, we can't do that one. You gotta have four people. [00:43:57] **Charles Cadenhead:** Oh, all right. So, we'll have to wait for um authorizing publication until the next meeting. But thank you very much, Nina. How about that? Jeez, if I ever get it 100% right, I deserve a medal. All right. Uh council reports. Council member Hirn. [00:44:17] **Matt Hirn:** Uh, no report. [00:44:19] **Charles Cadenhead:** Thank you very much for being online with us this evening. Otherwise, this meeting would not happen. Council member Kragness. [00:44:26] **Nick Kragness:** No report. [00:44:27] **Charles Cadenhead:** Uh, I do not have a report either. Staff reports. [00:44:31] **Nicole Miller:** No report. [00:44:32] **Charles Cadenhead:** You look very well rested. But you're wearing green. I'll give you kudos for that. Happy to be back. Who else is—You've got green on. Looks like we got some slackers in the group, though. [00:44:45] **Staff Member:** I don't have green. [00:44:46] **Staff Member:** You got green? [00:44:47] **Staff Member:** She's not. No. Yeah. [00:44:48] **Charles Cadenhead:** Okay. All right. Anything to report? [00:44:52] **Pete Tholen:** No. [00:44:53] **Clarissa Hadler:** No. [00:44:54] **Charles Cadenhead:** Nothing. We just going to go no down the line. [00:44:57] **Nate Stanley:** No report. [00:44:58] **Charles Cadenhead:** All right. No report. All right. With that, uh, we'll adjourn the meeting. Uh, have a good vacation, Mr. Hirn, and, uh, we'll call it a good night. Meeting adjourned.