This transcript features a meeting of the Bayport City Council. Based on the context provided and the dialogue within the text, I have identified the speakers, including city officials, staff, and guests. Note: While the provided context lists **Michele Hanson** as Mayor, the transcript audio/text refers to the Mayor as "St Orrs" and a "Councilmember Hanson" (likely from a period before her mayorship). Per your instructions to use the context list as the primary guide for current officials, I have labeled the presiding **Mayor as Michele Hanson** and the **Deputy Mayor as Ethan Gilmore**. [8:12] **Michele Hanson (Mayor):** allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all adam will you please call the role [8:12] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** mayor st ours here council member carlson here council member doll aye councilmember gilmore here councilmember hanson here all present [8:12] **Michele Hanson (Mayor):** that takes us to the approval of tonight's agenda are there any questions comments additions uh to the agenda as it stands [8:58] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** madam mayor we had a late application for a liquor license a temporary liquor license uh for derby days that uh staff would like to request be added to the consent agenda this is the same application that we get every year but it is time sensitive [8:58] **Michele Hanson (Mayor):** any other questions comments or additions if not with someone like to make a motion to approve tonight's agenda with this edition [8:58] **Councilmember Carlson:** i'll make a motion to approve tonight's agenda with adding to the consent agenda number nine for renewable liquor license or application for liquor license [8:58] **Michele Hanson (Mayor):** sounds good thank you connie is there a second [8:58] **Councilmember:** also again [8:58] **Michele Hanson (Mayor):** thank you michelle adam roll call [9:44] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** thank you mr mayor councilman carlson aye councilmember hanson aye councilmember dahl aye councilmember gilmore aye mayor st orrs aye [9:44] **Michele Hanson (Mayor):** as all that takes us to our proclamations accommodations petitions and announcements and the first is the july recycling award recipient is christina cook at 354 5th street north who will be awarded for her recycling efforts with funding made possible with a grant from washington county so thank you ms cook for your recycling efforts the second is that we have the pleasure of having a letter of accommodation to for police officer brittany lipowski and so i'll call upon chief eastman and officer lapovsky [10:30] **Jay Jackson (Police Chief):** thank you madam mayor and council the other officers here um are here to support officer lepowski and her letter that she's receiving today and they're on their own volunteer time but they chose to wear their uniforms i appreciate that it looks professional thank you for coming in tonight that's fine you're fine officer lepowski i'm in presenting this letter of accommodation to her for her actions during a tragic incident in 2019 at that time officer lepowski was assisting another agency with a mental health crisis officer lepowski assisted with immediately taking action as she started cpr until paramedics arrived on scene officer lepowski then assisted with securing a very chaotic scene i wish to formally recognize officer lepowski for her response to this incident [11:17] **Jay Jackson (Police Chief):** the situation had the propensity to become very dangerous yet she acted swiftly placing others well-beings before her own personal safety i commend you for your attentiveness your attempted life-saving measures and your commitment to the safety of your partners and the public your actions reflect upon your outstanding ability and compassion for others as well as a possibility and the positively representing both the city of bayport and the police department thank you for your commitment to the residents of bayport the surrounding communities that you so proudly serve and all of your community engagements that you do most recently over the past five years [Applause] [12:14] **Michele Hanson (Mayor):** great congratulations officer thank you thank you thank you and thanks officers for all attending that's great it's nice to see you be safe have a good night excellent so that takes us to our open forum which is 15 minutes of the meeting that we set aside for items that are not on tonight's agenda and um adam do we have any we don't have anybody attending uh in chambers or online okay well we have one person um actually online i'm sorry madam mayor mr mike huntley from the youth service bureau okay and so we plan to hear from mr huntley at this time is that correct yes he should uh mike can you hear me [13:05] **Michael Huntley (Youth Service Bureau):** yes there now i'm unmuted and i'll turn on my camera there we go great welcome all right good evening mayor and council members and residents of bayport my name is michael huntley i am the executive director of youth service bureau and i'm very pleased to be with you this evening some of you might know of youth service bureau and for some this might be new information i'll keep this brief so you can get on with your business ysb is a non-profit organization providing a whole variety of services throughout much of washington county we've been operating since the 1970s and we appreciate bayport's long-standing partnership [13:50] **Michael Huntley (Youth Service Bureau):** and support that support helps us to keep our services available by providing and being able to offer a sliding fee scale to families in need we take pride in our five main program areas we offer diversion that's an early intervention program for youth that have made a mistake and could be processed through the juvenile justice system diversion offers a whole variety of interventions that have a restorative justice quality to them it's an alternative to court and to further legal consequences for youth 87 percent of youth who complete our diversion services [14:35] **Michael Huntley (Youth Service Bureau):** do not become re-involved with law enforcement for at least a year after those services we also provide youth focused family counseling services this is early intervention designed to address concerns and prevent those concerns from getting larger in the future our counseling services are provided by licensed mental health professionals and we offer them through in-person or telehealth options about 84 percent of parents report that within three months of starting our counseling services the reasons that brought them in for service in the first place have become [15:20] **Michael Huntley (Youth Service Bureau):** improved we also offer school-based chemical health supports in our local high school and the middle schools to improve the students opportunities for success we support the chemical health needs of youth and families in a variety of ways including groups individual meetings presentations in the community and other school-based services about 80 percent of youth who access these services report that they have an increased resilience to using drugs or other chemicals as a coping mechanism we have our military family support program that's actually our newest [16:06] **Michael Huntley (Youth Service Bureau):** service about two or three years old now and that is designed to support and assist families of deployed service members and we also have our youth and family education program this program brings information to youth to parents to caregivers other adults in the community who support teens and children the goal of that program is to provide practical tools and information and resources that can be used to talk to their kids set and enforce boundaries and help kids figure out conflicts with either their peers or siblings or other adults we can prevent on [16:53] **Michael Huntley (Youth Service Bureau):** or present on a whole variety of topics through this program so thank you for your patience as i've been sharing about what we do i'd also like to thank you again for bayport's continued support to make these services possible and finally if i can take just a couple more minutes i'd like to walk you through a little bit of the previous calendar year now we're all familiar with the sudden ups and downs of 2020 and it had been a year of massive unpredictability we know this was stressful on everyone parents kids communities with the onset of the pandemic we closed our doors in march of 2020 at [17:41] **Michael Huntley (Youth Service Bureau):** all three of our youth service bureau locations and we shifted very quickly into delivering our services via telehealth however you know we weren't even expecting to do that of course but what we soon discovered was that a very large number of families indicated that they preferred in-person services and were not interested in the telehealth option and these families put a hold on services until an in-person option was available so i'm very proud to share with you that in response to that need and with lots of preparation and planning [18:27] **Michael Huntley (Youth Service Bureau):** we reopened our doors in august of 2020 so that in-person therapy services could could continue again and since then we continue to offer options for families they can do telehealth they can do in person or we can mix and match depending on what works best for a family and i'm really proud of our staff who worked hard to make this happen so that client families could have services with the pandemic and a drop in the overall numbers of youth served we still served at least 19 youth who reside in bayport and we provided over 126 hours [19:13] **Michael Huntley (Youth Service Bureau):** of services to those youth we provided one educational presentation within the bayport city limits that was attended by about 75 people and we did many more presentations nearby in the community reaching over about 3 000 individuals last year the city of bayport supported our operations with a fifteen hundred dollar level of support ysb is asking if bayport could increase that by three percent and come up to 1545 in support for the upcoming year this increase would help us with our increased costs related to the [19:59] **Michael Huntley (Youth Service Bureau):** pandemic and new items and equipment that we need to keep delivering our services and maintain the quality and accessibility for families thank you again for your solid partnership and i can answer any questions if if anyone on the council has those [19:59] **Michele Hanson (Mayor):** thank you so much it's great informative presentation and you're a great partner it's a wonderful organization you had a very good track record of success and i know that chief eastman really appreciates being able to work with you thank you yeah so with that does the council have any other questions or topics all right well thank you so much for joining us [20:45] **Michele Hanson (Mayor):** and we'll be reviewing our budget we had a workshop earlier tonight and we'll be continuing through that process over the next month and a half and so you'll be hearing from us shortly okay thank you thank you okay that takes us to this evening's consent agenda where we will consider items now one through nine including the july 12 2021 city council workshop minutes the july 12 2021 city council regular meeting minutes the july payables and receipts the july plumbing building mechanical and zoning permits report the appointment of alan eisinger as fire chief for a three-year term from july 2021 to july [21:30] **Michele Hanson (Mayor):** 2024 the donation of toys to the police department from nancy alderman the approval of hiring an accounting specialist the special event application from marie adukovic for inspiration neighborhood block party on august 20th 2021 and uh the latest edition of a one-day liquor license applied for by the afton bay port lakeland lions club would anyone have any questions or would someone like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda [21:30] **Councilmember Doll:** i'll move to adopt the resolution of the august 2nd 2021 consent agenda as present and ed read by the mayor [22:16] **Michele Hanson (Mayor):** thank you john is there a second [22:16] **Ethan Gilmore (Deputy Mayor):** i'll second [22:16] **Michele Hanson (Mayor):** thank you very much ethan um all in favor whoops do we need we need to vote uh with that councilmember dahl aye councilmember gilmore aye councilmember hanson aye councilmember carlson aye mercenaries aye aye zal we do not have a public hearing this evening so we move firstly onto unfinished business we have one item and that is to discuss barker's alps park field improvements as proposed by saint croix prep academy and so matt [23:02] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** thank you madam mayor members of the council um at the may 3rd 2021 council meeting the city council tabled the discussion regarding the improvements um specifically a permanent outfield fence to the barkers alps baseball field they they directed essentially a staff and saint gray prep to potentially come up with other alternatives that could um be used on the twins grant that has been applied for so i just have a list of the alternatives and what has been determined one of the alternatives would be a hybrid outfield fence so about two-thirds of the fence area would be permanent and then one third of the fence that is closest to the sledding area would be able to be removable so it would not impede with the active winter activities that happen in the park essentially hybrid fence [23:50] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** would be installed well the permanent and hybrid fence would be installed in roughly the same location that the temporary fence currently is and it would allow for the soccer fields to be placed in the same locations that they currently are so it would not impede on the soccer fields um i know sankri prep and the um the soccer association worked together on putting that up the other item that were a couple of the other items that were looked into were a backstop overhang what they don't have for the backstop overhang is what the current poles were put in with essentially [24:35] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** were they cemented in or where they just put in like driven in and that needs to be determined in order to for the added extra weight the poles are big enough but they added extra weight without cementing them in um it isn't unknown and essentially to dig up one of the poles and take all the fencing off that cost there kind of impeded on using that money in other places and it wasn't any cost effective to try and determine that the infield grass option a lot of baseball fields do have infield grass that the cost to do that is pretty expensive and they need to um [25:22] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** irrigate it also becomes a fairly big expense one that neither the city nor synchro prep is willing to undertake at this point in time um the number four thing down there it wasn't really this is still happening so sorry if that was um confusing the improvements to the softball dugout will still happen so this includes um installing a roof on the dugouts and then also rubber matting under class 5 material so that's easier to walk on with your cleats so a couple of things that um maybe not were reiterated in the first meeting the the proposal for the permanent and hybrid fence would not enclose the whole area so there's still room to move around [26:09] **Matt Kline (City Administrator):** without that being entirely closed specifically for a baseball field um and then the the question about having other activities in there you know one of the big things was having the sledding activity which is of course not city doesn't necessarily allow that but it's it's a given that the community goes there for that so that's why the hybrid option was considered by sanctuary prep so at this time staff is open to questions we're recommending that the city council just provide feedback specifically on the fence option and that a formal decision could either be made tonight or next month if you want to give more time on this presentation from the public there's not a hard deadline for the funds so if we wait till next month it's still okay [26:56] **Michele Hanson (Mayor):** thank you very much discussion by the council our questions for matt anyone um so i guess first off let's talk about we talked about this the last time and maybe this has been rich he's here yeah maybe he can help us answer some of these questions but um go ahead and introduce yourselves sir [28:12] **Rich Depaul (St. Croix Prep):** madam mayor members of council name is rich depaul i'm the activities director at st croy prop i have been there for 13 years now and it's a great opportunity to be here to talk about this [28:12] **Michele Hanson (Mayor):** yeah thanks for coming too um so we talked about this at the last meeting or whenever we last discussed this um and i asked do we really do you need to have the fence is it or is it just sort of a nice thing to have and my understanding the takeaway from that was that it's part of high school baseball requirements that you have a field that has a outfield fence but other people interpreted it differently and told me that well this is just a need or a want not a need so if you could explain that more clearly certainly [28:12] **Rich Depaul (St. Croix Prep):** madam mayor councilmember hanson um from a rural rulebook perspective uh they will they will the rule book will say that the field should be enclosed that there should be a field fence defined in the field um would we not be able to play on that field if we did not have a fence no we could still play on the field we played for a number of years on parker's alps one with autofence and we played for a number of years on parker's alps 2 without a fence [28:59] **Rich Depaul (St. Croix Prep):** it makes the game better it makes the game fair and it does improve the playability of the field so to answer your question we could play without any fans and it sounds like i talked to someone at san croix valley athletic association who also plays on the fields yes and i asked if they find the offense to be a benefit or not and they said it didn't really make a difference to them if there was a fence in case anyone cares about that so it's not a hindrance to them but it's also they didn't really see it as a huge benefit for what they do but they don't have i mean they do all great levels so correct again mayor councilmember hanson vaa tends to have lower level teams that [29:45] **Rich Depaul (St. Croix Prep):** play they have their high school level teams that they also play on that field um defense doesn't tend to come into play for those teams right actually the i think the backstop overhang would be much more wanted but that's my uh okay um i am curious you know you sent some pictures that we have i assume you sent these that we have in the packet um okay you did those okay okay so one of the pictures has like a yellow thing on the top of the fence and some covering and another picture is just a plain you know regular old chain link fence so curious about what [30:30] **Rich Depaul (St. Croix Prep):** the actual final look of the fence is going to be madam mayor council member hanson at this point it would be a standard chain-link fence matching everything else that's currently on the field the yellow capping that you see is something that generally gets added on to help define define the playing area and to help the umpires see if a ball goes over or does it go over you'll note on the current temporary fences that we put up each spring on both parker's alps one and two there's a yellow top it just adds definition for the players and for the people and the umpires that are participating in the game i don't necessarily anticipate putting the yellow capping on right away it used to be in the olden days i was a parks director you had to put the yellow capping on because the chain link was [31:18] **Rich Depaul (St. Croix Prep):** different it had the tops that were spun together and were very sharp so you put that on in order to protect the players and the playability of the field currently we don't have to do that so whether or not we put yellow capping on the top of it that would be for definition the one item in relationship to what the fence looks like i want to make sure that i'm correct here matt on item number four where we talked about the difference between the temporary fence and the permanent fence and the height of the fence we gathered numbers and i don't think it's necessarily in a part of your packet but the height of the fence we got quotes for three different sizes or heights of fence four feet six feet and eight feet [32:05] **Rich Depaul (St. Croix Prep):** excuse me four feet five feet and six feet so however high we want to make the fence we can certainly entertain those those that input [32:05] **Ethan Gilmore (Deputy Mayor):** would the offend the permanent and the temporary pens be the same height [32:05] **Rich Depaul (St. Croix Prep):** yes madam mayor councilman gilmore yes we would match it up and so that picture of a temporary fence is kind of what to expect there yeah that's what happens so it looks just like a chain link fence but it's just easily removed and it would come in like small sections that you could take away yes [32:50] **Michele Hanson (Mayor):** and how does it stay secure in terms of it not like chipping over thank you wind blows when i was i was looking at that thinking or if a guy you know comes to catch a ball and he falls against it how does it stay there [32:50] **Rich Depaul (St. Croix Prep):** madam mayor council member hanson those are secured just like we would secure any soccer goals they're secured into the ground tight by down pins holding them in place okay that makes sense thanks um one last uh concern that i'd like to address is the um barker zelps number one currently has a temporary fence correct and that is mostly used for from your perspective as a softball field that's correct so are there going to be equity issues down the road and you're going to be coming to us and saying we need a permanent fence in the outfield for the softball field which would be really difficult because of the [33:35] **Rich Depaul (St. Croix Prep):** flooding hill and that and this soccer field madam mayor councilmember hanson at this point no that is not a concern of ours traditionally you'll see this across pretty much every field that hosts softball softball is played at different levels from slow pitch to adult men fast pitch to high school so therefore those fences have to be movable most softball is played with different length fences and temporary fences serving as that change um again back in my other olden days we had a softball field that was the varsity field in south st paul that was too deep it was 210 feet which was much too deep for a girls high school varsity field so we installed temporary fencing from a [34:21] **Rich Depaul (St. Croix Prep):** title ix perspective we do not see this as an issue okay thanks for clearing that as well um so if we decide that we don't think of fence is a great option and maybe we think the overhang is a better option what do you know about the cost for that because it's possible the city could help with funding some of that if that's what we decide is a better option madam mayor councilmember hanson i'm going to add a couple of different notes to this conversation um one is we understand it in order to be able to determine the load factor on that current backstop it would be about three thousand dollars is what we understood from the contractor that came in to be able to get down and understand what's underneath um and then adding that height to the [35:09] **Rich Depaul (St. Croix Prep):** backstop does it actually serve the purpose does it actually catch baseballs as they're headed towards the towards the wetlands um in my experience we would catch some of those balls but we would not catch the majority of those balls just the reality of the physics of a pitch traveling somewhere between 70 and 85 miles an hour coming off a bat majority of our hitters being right-handed balls coming off going to the to the right side of the field um at this point we're seeing about twenty four thousand dollars just to install the up the up part of that fencing um we currently have i believe fourteen [35:54] **Rich Depaul (St. Croix Prep):** thousand dollars projected maybe a little bit less than that for the fencing project with another part of that money about four and a half forty five hundred or five thousand dollars going towards parker's alps one dugout project so we have an eighteen thousand dollar grant part of the money going to barkers alps one to do that project to upgrade those dugouts and that flooring and then about 14 or a little bit less going to the fencing project or to the parker's elps 2 project um i think that it's a feasible project it doesn't fit with the money that we currently have available um and i'm not sure it would be a long-term solution we would still end up with baseballs down in the wetlands [36:40] **Michele Hanson (Mayor):** it's just not an avoidable situation so to clarify the 24 thousand dollars is to add the overhang if the polls are in the right if they can withstand as i understand this it doesn't that 24 thousand dollars doesn't factor in taking down the current fence it's changing out taking what's there putting in the new one that seems really expensive to add some events i mean considering your outfield fences right 14 000 or whatever how could it cost 24 to just add something [37:26] **Rich Depaul (St. Croix Prep):** as i understand it because of the engineering going up that requires a much stronger offense offense that's going to have to deal with so you're saying we would have to rip out the fence that we have and put a whole new back side i think that that's premature to say that for sure until we find out what's underneath it okay i feel like we still don't i don't have a solid grip on what the cost is to just put the overhang on it sounds like this cost is to have to reinforce what's already there in some way whether it's ripping it out or whatever so i would like more information on that if that's if we decide that that field fence doesn't work and you want to pursue another option i was just kind of curious about i just feel like it got sort of pushed aside too easily like oh and then it was too expensive it's like well like how much more expensive because maybe the city could help with something if that was a better option so um i think that covers my questions about it does everybody else have questions or covered a couple of minds [38:14] **Ethan Gilmore (Deputy Mayor):** um i think you kind of addressed everything i think the having the dual use having the soccer field there is important and it sounds like that you know those those worries can be put to rest um i know through some emails and just talking to public you know they're worried about having dogs out in the field or riding the bikes and that sort of thing and i don't i don't quite see that being an issue um defense there i mean dogs can still run in the field i know i went down there and looked at it and i i do believe that the you know one-third temporary would allow for uh plenty of room for the sledding hill um so yeah i don't uh you know i don't see an issue as far as the city goes because it sounds like it's being paid 100 by the by the grant from the twins so i don't know what other issues there would really be i mean there's already fences down there i know people say well the look of it and everything else it's like well it's a baseball field so there's there's already fences down there so yeah i guess i don't really have it yeah i don't actually look more in line with the fence that's there instead of a temporary fence exactly i think those temporary fences are terrible looking so i'd rather just have the regular fence and as long as the kids can sled and everybody can use the feel for soccer and everything else i don't see an issue thank you connie [39:46] **Councilmember Carlson:** well michelle got a lot of my questions answered um i guess i'm torn because i've gotten a lot of feedback from the public that they're they're not interested in it and some of it's because it's community park the aesthetics back there more openness um so i'm kind of wavering on that fence because i'm a baseball family but um but michelle did get my questions answered i was interested in the backstop issue if that would be because i know that grant money is there to be used so i was hoping that would maybe be a option to go down that avenue um but i guess i'm up for more discussion [40:32] **Ethan Gilmore (Deputy Mayor):** well just to be clear right now there's a temporary fence that's up from april to august right so there's a good chunk of the year that we already have a fence there that isn't even that attractive you know it's just and it's more work for them to take it put it up and take it down every year so just one other point i clarified earlier that i thought i just don't know what activities are are hindered by a fence that's you know an inch thick i mean it's it's weird to me but you know i guess i mean i you know want to listen to everybody and hear everybody has to say but you know no one's really here arguing against it so right [41:19] **Councilmember Carlson:** well i guess i did that the picture you had up did help me where it went see where that the permanent or the temporary fence would be because my my main concern originally was the the sliding because that is used a lot yeah absolutely so the temperature is between those little slabs right [41:19] **Rich Depaul (St. Croix Prep):** just to be clear okay oh so it's just that one little section there and that's where the sledding i actually went down to the hill and i was with uh is it tim i met with him and we walked down there and we figured it'd be you know about 100 feet and if that was removable then the sledding hill shouldn't be affected yeah it would be better to have a picture of like the actual hill from there too yeah we have to be better we need to have a picture that's just not somebody scribbling with the sharpie that that sorry but that's what i wanted something way more specific to see exactly what the difference is what of the temporary versus this um i didn't notice that other slash for the temporary where it stopped i was i was thinking about it see that's what i've got the corner the upper right hand corner that little angle that would be like a half yeah about a little over half [42:04] **Councilmember Doll:** um but go ahead john with your questions um i just want to so i'm going to start out saying that that i don't support this for a variety of reasons that i don't nothing's changed since this was brought to me last time really um i i would consider a temporary fence throughout the whole thing um one point i do want to make because it was mentioned but as far as i'm concerned sledding is not against any city ordinance correct all right no it's not indoors it's not sanctioned by the city as an activity on that facility that park facility but it is not uh prohibited at all by any means um aesthetics are talking or have been talked about a lot and aesthetics are in the eye of the beholder um that park to me is a multi-use part there there are ball fields in the park there are it's used for easter egg hunts it's used for soccer games i've i've literally skied right through their cross country skied right through there where the fence would impede me is it a big deal for me to curve around no of course not but for the ten or dozen games a year whatever it is to have that there and i realize there's practices and stuff i think from an aesthetic standpoint it's a detriment to the park for a very exclusive activity to me that's the beauty of any park in that park specifically is that it's multi-use and that limits the park um the other thing is uh i've not had any i've had several people reach out to me against this none in support of it i think it benefits probably a very very small percentage of bayport residents and that's the way i want to look at this is on on a day-to-day basis how is this helping a bayport resident how is it making it a more useful park for them i i think the status quo is fine i personally think it's a it's a solution looking for a problem so that's where i'm at [45:09] **Councilmember:** so i i'm still struggling of what the real advantages of it the current temporary versus a permanent i'm not i'm not seeing a big distinction yes it's a convenience and yes it may be easier to install and take out and maintain um i'm i'm with you john and the greater good i mean if that's where i struggle with this i mean i understand that it's i think i'm just it it seems to be for a smaller group of people than our community at large who is