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 like to welcome everyone uh at this time jennifer take the role here here here here here quorum is present this time we do have a presentation and that's the mayoral proclamation declaring p-o-w mia recognition recognition day in north st paul and i'll quick read that for you whereas the p-o-w mia recognition day is observed in honor of all americans still missing in action or possible prisoners of war and wars and conflicts engaged in by the united states military and whereas we have a new number here 1584 are still missing and unaccounted for from the vietnam war as well as 7745 from the korean war 126 from the cold war in 73 054 from world war ii the thousands from world war ii are assessed as unrecoverable deep sea losses and whereas the families and friends of unaccounted for united states military personnel as well as countless fellow veterans and other americans still await recovery remains or clarity regarding their fates and whereas the united states p-o-w m-i-a flag states a sacred and clear message embodied in the words on the flag you are not forgotten and whereas the department of defense pow mia accounting agency provides some funding and resources to accomplish the mission of accounting for our unreturned veterans to signal to the world that the united states stands behind those who serve and whereas the city of north st paul supports and shares our nation's commitment to account as fully as possible for americans still missing and unaccounted for from past wars and conflicts now therefore i terence furlong mayor of north st paul do hereby proclaim september 22nd 2022 as pow mia recognition day in north saint paul and commend its observation observance to all citizens and i do additionally urge our residents to pause and give homage to our pow mia's national pow miad which will be on september 16 2022 signed myself like thank you for all uh allow me to read that uh we also have our pow mi parade uh september 22nd and that will be starting at the vfw and marching on down to the veterans park so this time i will motion to adopt the agenda so moved moved by council member coal second second by council member peterson any discussion if not all those in favor signify by saying i oppose the motion carries this time we have the consent agenda and i'll turn over to uh interim manager frandl [Music] thank you mayor so we have a long list tonight uh a is the august 8th 2022 special city council meeting uh b the august 16 2022 regular meeting minutes item c august 23rd 2022 special workshop meeting minutes uh with the budget item d general claims of two million forty two thousand eighty seven dollars and ninety cents uh item e hra claims of 476.47 item f eda claim of nine thousand one hundred and fifty dollars item g is approve the tobacco license item h community center the next step uh item i special event annual pow mia walk item j special event fallen angel end of summer party item k special event wine tasting event at silver lake item l special event church of saint peter's fall festival september 18th of 2022 item m seventh avenue market street downtown improvements change order number two item n city manager employment agreement item o resolution appointing brian frandl as the responsible authority for data practices act item p resolution approving authorizing signatories for the city of north st paul item q fence consortium joint powers agreement and item r authorizing the statewide public works mutual aid pact it is a long list long list so at this time a council member can pull an item if they want to do so at this time council member thorson can't pull more than one i got h as in hockey m as in money and as in no q as in quiet and the last one are anybody else if not a motion to approve the consent agenda uh without h m n q and r some of your honor by council member peterson second second by council member wang any other discussion if not all those in favor signify by saying i i oppose the motion carries at this time the meeting opened to the public and i do have a couple here john small we do ask that we keep the comments limited to three minutes per person and while the city council may ask clarify clarifying questions of the speaker no formal action by the city council or discussion will be held on these items john welcome uh uh i accept you're welcome uh john small 2750 chisholm avenue north st paul uh just to let you know uh i hope that doesn't go on in three minutes there isn't a internet connection uh for the first time in maybe three years that i've been coming here so uh the one agenda that is printed is in the possession of don at this time so there is no other chance for anyone else to be looking at it as you go through it so we're back to the old days no we're even in the worst days in the old days uh since i am the only person who has attended any budget meetings i think i have the right to make a comment about said budget meetings the last one you had brainstorming and i was just completely put off by one of the brainstorming items which was a property tax for the city of north st paul the amount of the property tax would be a half a percent and uh one of the items that you could use as hey what would it bring in to take care of this cost and the cost was uh wasn't brought up it is my own analysis of it it was the extra uh public works worker cost of 116 000 benefits and salary in order to uh have the tax cover that you would have to have 23 million 200 000 worth of sales to apply the sales tax to so do you think that this city would even hit that number 23 million two hundred thousand dollars it just it's a pipe dream a total and absolute pipe dream and if you want to see what goes into making this kind of a a request just google bloomington sales tax and see what they have gone through in order to try to get this in place to apply it to that great mall in the sky called whatever it's called and they didn't get approval for it from the legislature so they're right now dead in the water they can't even get it through so then you have to have the people vote on it so anyway um and it just seems like after talking about the other cities and what they're looking at as a levy increase north st paul doesn't want that elevate increase but they want to use other sources of money like franchise fees and all these other things that certainly are going to come from the pocket of the citizens of north saint paul but it's not going to be called taxes um read the qualifications for the city manager said a master's degree was required i just read things that's all i do is i read things what you put out and that obviously wasn't a requirement so i guess you can take qualifications print them up and all that when it comes to the decision making process you go yeah we don't care um i had to write these things down uh the lexus nexus is back as of thursday all the listings of the uh police reports are now active like they used to be for i don't know how long one of the interesting things though about it is that during this period that it was off uh one of the uh incidents that i became aware of i was having a roof put on so i stayed in the house and there was nail guns going i didn't hear anything i didn't see anything until my neighbor the next day said john did you see what went down yesterday and i said no and he said man there had been at least 10 suvs in the neighborhood up the street on chisholm and they went into the house at a particular address and uh he said to me my kids were watching from their bedroom and they came out and they had the perps in handcuffs and they did a perp walk into the suvs so there was nothing on this obviously because of the lexus nexus being down or whatever you want to call it so i had to they know i've tried to tell them the neighbors you want to know about crime go to lexisnexis well it wasn't available so i had to do something that said what was this and it took me a while to find out that it was a washington county drug task force raid on this house so i i don't even know if you knew about this but i didn't because lexisnexis wasn't available uh just last sunday there was a uh uh aoa report from maplewood they participated in something that we did but our report wasn't there and it took until uh tuesday for the show up and it was an incident at the holidays store at south and mcknight and i thought what was this all about so i had to call in and find out what it was and i first went to the maplewood uh police department they said wrap it up they said that they participated in it and you'd have to go to your own agency to find out and so i did and i was told i couldn't have the report it was still open and i said it was a very had to be an interesting situation because they had full on the aoa report they had four maplewood officers participating in besides the person who wrote the report and when i said to them this has got to be an interesting report they said because of the number that participated and she said that's not it and that's not all of it there was white bear lake police department involved so i have no clue what that is and lastly i sent a request email request into both jenny and dan about the explanation of the process on an email that i got that said uh for details yeah it was a click it was a link and it wouldn't work and it wouldn't work and it wouldn't work it wouldn't work on my devices it wouldn't work on my pcs i've never gotten an answer thank you thank you jeff king welcome jeff thank you for having me um i'm here about uh i i was one of many people in north st paul that suffered hail damage and i had to get my roof done and i actually was in a medical boot at the time and um they did my roof and i had a cupola on my garage and they took it off and they covered the hole with nothing they didn't put any boards down and i realized that there was this big hole in this big problem and then i got i put it on i did a nasty and i put it on social media and i got the owner to come out the next day and i got him to fix the problem and then um and then once i was um a little bit later i was able to get my boot off and i was able to get up and look at the roof and uh the building permit that that um you know i signed for you know was for a building permit inspection and if you look at the pictures of what the what is in the envelope that they looked at when they approved the inspection there's five pictures and it's all just felt and just the ice barrier and there's no singles on the roof whatsoever so and when they come out to do the inspection uh none of the city city city of saint paul inspectors even have a ladder with them they come out in a compact car they look at this picture here that's not complete and then they sign off on the inspection and so they so i'm paying for an inspection that really does not happen that's pretty much all i have okay and i'm assuming you're working with city hall on this um i had i had the building inspector come back out a second time after i called them back up and they came out and they looked at it after the shingles and everything were on it and uh there were some parts that were incomplete and he told me that was pretty much uh a contract issue which i know i really couldn't dispute too much but then we found some other stuff with what he called shiners where some nails that were exposed and not covered and he says if he wants he could have the building and or the builder come back and fix it if you want and i told him at that point i said no i don't want him to come back because i don't want to work with him anymore and i actually fired him and i got a different builder and i got somebody else to finish the rest of the work so you know i was disappointed in the the building permit process and the fact that they um signed off on an inspection that they didn't do they flat out did not do and that's the city st paul nursing paul process and i think that it needs to be altered we gave the the address is 2800 longview drive yes and there's you know there's a good good major part of the city that's got hail damage right now so there's i think every almost every house got yeah so this is this is like this is not a just me issue this is everybody i'm not here for me because i'm already done with mine i'm here for other people right now so oh okay we'll make a note of that yeah thank you all right thank you anybody on zoom so at this time city business action items and recommendation we're going to add h m n q and r first one is a downtown furniture guidelines and i'll turn over to uh interim city manager frandl thank you maren this is just informational um it's what brandi had already gone over with her review earlier it's just following the guidelines set forth by the north saint paul planning commission regarding outdoor downtown furniture says the downtower business wishes to have outdoor seating furniture it must be durable commercial grade versus residential made of weather resistant materials such as wrought iron cast iron aluminum or lumber grade hdpe plastic then it just gives some examples and some pictures of what that entails so it's do we need to formalize that is there a motion for that i guess i'm not i'm not seeing emotion so i'm assuming you want clarification whether or not city's approving the uh the standards for the outdoor patio or commercial grade for commercial grade so i guess i'll i will entertain a motion for the uh commercial grade uh patio furniture that the it's gonna be allowed downtown so moved by council member thorson i'll second it your honor second by councilmember peterson any questions i have a question councilmember thorson i'm assuming that this list which is made of weather resistant materials such as that's not an inclusive list those are just examples that's correct so this is more vague general whatever they're going to use they're going to submit in their plan and that gets reviewed correct that's correct okay okay uh motions there any other questions if not all of us in favor signify by saying aye aye aye aye aye opposed motion carries uh number h will be the community center next step and i'll turn it over to council member thorson yeah i pulled this one just because i do not consent um all due respect to dr waldron and the work he did i was kind of expecting to see some report that had statistical data and analysis and and the big answer to the question we don't know what this facility the future will be maybe some to answer that question to get more direction on that if there's partnerships such as the ymca with the maple former maple community center so um you know i i was trying to stay optimistic and an open mind and possibly you know changing my stance of thinking that we should go down shouldn't go down that path and just sell the building but so i pulled it to vote no okay uh see if i have the motion here i don't think it's in the general meeting here i do have it uh we have it in the workshop uh it's all if you give me a second let's craig if you want to give the recommendation and we can vote from that yes thank you members of the council basically you're just authorizing us to negotiate with wald and bring you back a management proposal from them to move forward with the next step so just authorizing us to work with wald and bring you back a proposal okay thank you so the motion is to move forward with wald and bring back recommendations as discussed in the workshop so moved moved by council member juan second second by council member cole any other discussion if not all of us in favor signify by saying aye aye aye opposed a motion carries number m give me a second here the problem with computers here uh so m would be the uh seventh avenue margaret street downtown improvements change order number two and i'll turn over council member thorson okay so i pulled this one just and it has to do and apologize i don't have my laptop it's not connecting the wi-fi but i when i read this i was looking over it and it seems like this change order has to do with specifically the uh landscaping downtown correct it's the landscaping yes it is okay and and part of that there was an estimate to remove concrete so they could install irrigation lines and you know there was a cost an initial cost estimate it looks like you know this change order isn't you know in our favor it's costing less but i know i've it seems like that's been the hold up here we haven't there's there's nothing in there just because we're waiting on you know i don't know if it was a decision or funding or whatever but a big part of this was installing irrigation and i understand that plants need water and trees need water i object to the fact that we need to install irrigation we have various areas throughout town that don't have irrigation the plant if you choose plants that are hardy you know initially when we install them up yeah we'll probably have to have public works go down and water them with the water truck that's nothing out of the ordinary that we haven't done in the past in areas that do have irrigation but i just think you know in the respect of getting this done and moving along and saving money why don't we just take that aspect out we just don't have dedicated irrigation lines in between us initially watering it after it's installed and just rainfall events then we can get landscaping down there so that's why i pull it i assume that you know that's probably not going to be a popular opinion but that's what i recommend is that we advance forward without the irrigation aspect of it okay councilmember thurston i i believe the um landscaping contractor wouldn't put probably wouldn't put the plants in without irrigation i don't understand okay i don't think he would guarantee him they have to guarantee him for a year when they put something like that in so i believe it's required for that to happen for this contractor doing that and how much concrete is going to need to be removed they just have to remove some panels this is from the previous contractor or mid-state contracting them missing not putting the um the the sleeves in for the irrigation that was pulled out at the beginning of the project he missed those on the on that so when he when the the the irrigation and the plants got pulled out of that project the contractor just assumed all that was taken out or just you know he wasn't responsible for anything but the engineers put sleeves in for future irrigation which he missed so that's he's got to pull out some some panels in town so they can bore in the sleeves that they need for the irrigation all right thanks for the clarification i must understood then okay that was part of the original okay i believe the original plans to have that irrigation was adopted back when we first did it was yeah and then it got pulled out and then again four you know for these plants to be put in any of the contractors that do that are going to require the irrigation for okay okay any other questions for that if not the motion is to approve change order number two for the seventh avenue margaret street downtown improvements project an expenditure previously budgeted city funding for said change order contracted by amcon construction with mid-state excavating of emotion so moved your honor moved by council member peterson second by a council member wong any other discussion not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye oppose a motion carries and we go to n okay and that is the city manager employment agreement council member thorson okay so i had a question on this earlier in the day there was an item that was pulled it was it was item nine there was a clothing allowance for a thousand dollars and then it was changed and now it's not included i'm just curious what i mean was that just in and added incorrectly or was that removed purposefully and you know who i mean last time we had a negotiating committee and then now this time there was i'm just i'm confused on why that got removed and now there's a car allowance that got increased from that original agreement that we saw this morning and now this afternoon it changed i'm just curious what prompted that change like and i'll do you know anything about it uh i'm assuming it was from uh uh when uh brian was hired that that allocation was given to him previous and that was requested and then it was denied because the previous city manager did not have that but all the other i'm assuming all the other employees in their contract union employees have had that in the past would that be correct specifically it spells out uh the police chief correct okay uh but now that's out so it's irrelevant but i was just curious as what you know why that was changing kind of the last minute here uh the last the only other item here that i question is number 12 automobile allowance i understand that was something that the previous city manager had and then the past city managers traditionally have but if you look back in our history it's something we used to have for not only a previous city manager but also department heads we did a rate study and we got comments from that that that seemed excessive and that eventually all the car allowances got removed from all department heads and city manager but now it's back in here and the reason i bring it up is just you know at 450 dollars a month it's 5 400 a year and at the current irs mileage reimbursement rate which is now they changed it mid-year it's 62 and a half cents that's seven or eight thousand six hundred and forty miles a year or 720 miles a month that we're compensating for for travel that's city related i just think that's excessive and i would think that a more appropriate inclusion in that would be if you incur travel that's work related in your personal vehicle that you're reimbursed at that 62 and a half cents per mile or you know put language in there that whatever the current irs mileage reimbursement rate is so every time they change it we don't have to come back and and redo the contract that's just my input on this otherwise everything else looks good i believe the previous manager had an allowance 350. 350 a month so i guess it's up to council if you want to keep it 350 or what was the new the new rate 450 450. i'm okay you know either way 450 or 350 but i know you know previous that city managers have have had that in their contract so any discussion keep leave it the way it is the 450. i'm fine either way i was of the belief that um that the the car allowance and or car has been something that this the position is head ongoing um so i guess when when i read it it didn't set off any flags for me councilmember one um i certainly am familiar with the 62 cents per mile that the government the federal government puts out on an annual basis i get 54 cents has it been adjusted yet no i get 54 from my own oh gotcha um but with that said i mean i i think that you know that's a valid thing to look at is the gsa rate that is provided but again i think i'm okay with 350. oh sorry just to clarify what i was with 350 or 450 the current contract in front said 450 what i was proposing is we eliminate it and just replace it with if you incur work related mileage you you can be reimbursed up to the current irs reimbursement rate which now right now is 62 and a half cents and and you know we have city vehicles available so if you need to travel during the day there's there's a chevy volt that just sits there i mean i don't i don't know how it gets a whole lot of use we we declared another chevy volt surplus because it didn't get used to the point where it had maintenance issues so that's where i'm just if you're incurring this much travel outside the normal work hours i mean it just seems exorbitant or just like you know that's a lot of miles and that's just saying someone who doesn't i'm lucky to drive ten thousand miles a year total cause i just don't drive that much and i have a short commute to work but this also has nothing to do with commuting just to clarify so i'm gonna look at the city attorney is this something that is on you know something that's typically not into a contract is it usually percent or a dollar amount or is it the 62 and a half cents i don't know historically with the city of north st marion council i don't know you know historically what our practice has been here the city it sounds like we've had some allowance built in certainly it's not uncommon to have a you know a per a mileage at the federal rate reimbursement for for work related travel um i don't know sitting here as i know soren's probably worked on this contract and so i don't know the ins and outs of of the conversations uh about it so um we could certainly you know potentially table this if we need to or you know make an amendment here on the fly but if it's something we need to explore a little further perhaps we just tabled the contract for for tonight i think that we've in the past we've had that amount in there and it sounds like it's a 350 amount and we're looking at the previous contract that we had with the previous city manager so we were looking at consistent consistency with with that contract to this contract so to me it's the 350 was in there and why not keep it in there councilmember peterson yeah i agree with you mayor i think the 350 is is fair so right now it's written as 450. if we were to change to the 350 is everyone okay with that you could make a motion to you know approve the agreement with the the edit too 350 on section 12. so the motion would be the contract uh deployment contract and changing from the 450 to 350. do you have a motion i'll make that motion your honor uh motion by councilmember peterson second second by councilmember cole any other discussion not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye oppose emotion carries uh q fence consortium joint powers agreement and i'll turn that over to councilmember thorson well i pulled this item along with item r because they need to go together i just i you know public work and we kind of rushed along but i was more curious as to what public works opinion on their involvement in this is i mean if you care to comment if this is something you're okay with and comfortable with for one um yeah like uh police chief babin said we had talked about this for quite a while it's been kind of an ongoing conversation for the last you know six months i had talked with the public works guys about this early on no one was really interested in it just because some of the comments were hey are we gonna get thrown in you know we're gonna be asked to put up a fence in the middle of uh a riot and you know we were you know told that we wouldn't be in the hot zone that we'd be protected with it um you know we've have gone back and forth you know with phil and i talking you know about how this would work you know and how we would manage it in public works because it's basically you know what my comment to him was that i want to be able to provide the service if we're going to sign up for this i want to be able to provide a person for this obviously it's a public works mutual aid agreement that you know we they need for us to be in in order to be part of this it's going to be something that i'm going to have to figure out in the public works side i mean if i have guys that are like hey i don't want to do this or you know i refuse to do this you know i don't know that that'll be the case you know for sure i mean i normally when it gets down to it the public works guys step up and take care of stuff but um it uh it's something where you know i told the chief hey if the council and the city manager think this is something that we need to do we're gonna we'll take care of it we'll do whatever we need to you know to take care of this um i am both you know i go both ways with it um it's an insurance policy for sure for us you know that last time that we had something going on we took our plow trucks and we stuck them around city hall we blocked off the entrances you know we're sticking millions of dollars worth of trucks out there that could potentially get rocks and you know things thrown thrown through there but it's definitely something that um you know i'm gonna have to have two guys two guys that you know at least go to the training just because it's not like i can have one guy dedicated 300 you know 65 days a year you know it's uh you know you know in talking with phil he's like hey if it works out that we don't have a guy available you know that's just what it is um you know i just want to make sure that we can fulfill what if we're signing up for this that we can fulfill what we need to on this so yeah i mean i do have i i get it i get why they you know if we can make a phone call in three hours we can have a fence set up you know that takes a lot of you know i guess pressure off us for public works or for hey what can we do or how can we handle this um you know we had a short window which was three hours last time to to deal with this and we came up with something that would work but you know if they were going to start in the building it there wasn't you know we were limited on what we were going to you know could do so are you going to be on one of those tractors and ready to go we'll do whatever it takes um to a certain extent councilman peterson still would be short staff though i mean if you if you let two guys go so how would you cover that when i say um two guys trained i wouldn't send two guys our staff we have nine guys total 11 guys with randy and myself [Music] one guy is on call 24 7 7 days a week so every week we have one guy that's on call to handle any emergency calls that we have for anything so we have eight guys i wouldn't send that guy out on that so it'd have to be another guy that we would send for something like this you know the the question with it how often is going to happen hopefully we don't have to deal with it for you know for years but um it would be another there'd be an element of another guy or two that would be you know in a way on call or hey if this call comes in you know i got to depend on a person or two for that to be part of that i don't want to go into it going well hey i think maybe we might be able to cover this um so like i said for me if you guys everybody thinks it's a good idea to to do this and work with this we'll figure out a way to to do it um because i i do i do think there's you know some value and it's like having insurance you know it's but like again we i'm i do have nine guys to deal with kind of everything that deals with so one guy on call all the time and then a guy for that you know i don't foresee it being something that we're going to be going out once a month or you know dealing with but it's you know something that we got to consider with that thank you well and i appreciate you being here you know i'll answer that question because you know just another concern is that you know this is something new and we're coming off a labor day weekend the packets were uploaded friday but you know kind of enjoyed the weekend and i'm reading this for the first time monday you know this morning basically just trying to react you know and i get it you know this is is it sucks that we even have to have the conversation about this and it is like an insurance policy but you know we have other we we have we can't just focus on one area we have a whole city to concern ourselves with and this kind of seems like it's falling in more of a of a want than a need and that if we can use that money in another area and within the police department or within the city that is is more of a need than a want then we're utilizing this money more effectively and just you know i i've brought this up before it's like public works is the dumping ground for everything you know and you guys always do just you just suck it up and you say hey we'll whatever you ask of us we'll do it how often are other departments asked to do things at public i mean it's it's and again i'm not trying to point fingers but it just seems like it's always you know fires get involved with stuff the public works is helping out you know and you get and we all we it's great that we all try to work together but it just seems like this is another thing on top of a list of things that's growing that just keeps getting added that's essentially going to be taking away from you know because if they're going to be asked to go do this it's hey come in you need to come in tonight at 3am you got to go meet somewhere where you've never been you're going into a hostile situation potentially we got to set this fencing up as quickly as possible and then get the heck out of there they're going to be away from their family i'm sure you know yeah it's you know any volunteers no okay or drawn straws type of thing so it's just these are sorts of things are going through my head trying to make a decision on a workshop topic that we have very limited time to to digest and think about now here it is on the agenda to approve tonight you know have any questions well this is why i pulled it wanted to see your opinion and i don't know i don't know how the rest of the council feels i mean i i don't i'm not against it but i'm also just feel like i feel like need some more time to think about it and if i do have other questions to bring it up but yeah it is it's like a insurance policy if we're in it and other cities join the cost will go down you know if if we uh decide that maybe we made a decision in haste i'm sure we can pull out or if we need more time to think about it we can always join later is there some was there some drop dead date here that we needed to agree to or is this this is just the first time we're hearing it and yeah i'm not sure on the date i'm not sure if there's a date i can't speak for the direct date but um it is this year for the original founding members um on the board or the cities if you join after the original members then you say next year say will we take we table the issue for next year and discuss it then or after this deadline i don't know the exact date like i said but um the fence consortium did state that they will then add a surcharge to um to backtrack um what other agencies have paid for previous does that make sense yeah so join now at this rate if more cities join it could go down but if you wait then it's going to it's going to cost a higher buy-in yes and that than that that 5100 um does increase okay well i mean i i could go either way but i mean i guess i'm just you know that's why i pulled it to have additional discussion i think it's good discussion you know and i that was my concern and we have the public works here that ask those questions you know my biggest concern was well what happens if we do have an event here and we don't have this how much time is spent or how much risk to you guys i mean it goes both ways it does it does and like i said i want to be supportive you know both ways like i said phil and i have talked about it a lot you know and my what i told him is i said i support this 100 percent my concern is being able i mean i'm going gonna have to figure out a way to make this work you know for guys that might not want to do it you know or for my guys not wanting to like hey i don't wanna and the thing with it is you know the stuff that we need to take care of in public works like you said uh council member thorson you know we're happy we're more than happy to take care of whatever we need to in the city you know but you know we get an arts commission there's an art cart you know we have an involvement with that and this isn't something that that that this is the stuff that this is what our job is this is what we need to take care of um so you know we we deal with that getting that in and out and taking that in and that that's great you know we have the parks and rec the rex commission and you know hey we want to do this you want to get new signs and new signage and like hey we'll take care of getting those installed and doing it i mean that's our job you know any of the stuff that comes up yeah hey public works can do this we have a talented group of guys down there that can take care of a lot of different things and we're more than happy to do that so you know i i want to support support the police department in that i want to you know in in a sense for public works um this could be a benefit to us if you know phil was here i think two days when we had the incident here and he's like hey what can we do what do we have what can we set up you know we're driving trucks and stuff out there so it is i i go both ways on it um so whatever the council and the city manager what they're feeling is how the what well that was an alternative to all the quarter million dollar plow trucks out and put i mean if that's the case then yeah no doubt about it i mean i i see i wasn't aware of that yeah but it's we really don't we have some you know for back a lack of a better term cattle fencing you know that's four foot high that oh all that would do is kind of create a a perimeter you know for it you know so it's and this was a perfect example of we could have used that fencing at that time without using our plow checks without getting the public works you know more more staff involved uh you say it's if it's a major catastro if it's a huge major blow up like i said minneapolis st paul i don't i think we're just in a we're in a different situation then but if we're specifically our areas something's going on i think for 5600 it's a cheap insurance policy to have and we've already have experienced it sure i do i do have one thing the chief just texted me that the last approval date to get to be a an original member is actually tonight for that date so okay well and then so and i get that you know but it's just like as a decision maker i don't appreciate and this isn't the first time it's heaven it's not the police it's just it's extremely frustrating when you know here it is we're gonna talk about a little bit and then go make the decision and it's just you feel like are we rushing to judgment here have we have we vetted this out how about a little time to digest it you know i but okay you know now that that's now that we know a little more now that our an alternative to a fencing was we we pulled out you know our plow trucks that are you know quarter million dollars each and you know yeah fifty five thousand one hundred sixty dollars no big deal any other questions yeah um so my understanding is that you all are union so when you are deployed to do this is there expectations or something around hazard pay because that is expectation around uh those that are you know in the business right so i mean that's something to consider yeah that's something that they could bring up in their union you know for that um that's something that could be you know if it's triggered something if it's triggered you know and these guys are saying hey this is what's in our job description you know yesterday now after tonight it is you know i guess that's that bridge will have to cross when you know that comes up and that definitely could you know be something that comes up i'm sure it will be because it is something new that uh union would have to look at good point well hopefully we never need to use it right right right all right anything else anything else uh does that include that other part then well i i think we do we can we just do one motion run both so the first one is okay first one to be resolution adopting the fencing consortium joint powers agreement so moved moved by council member thorson second second by council member cole any discussion yes councilmember lying i was not clear that we were talking about both of the items so if if i may i would like to have a little bit further discussion if nobody on this item or the second item the consortium piece okay go ahead but not because i think we were asking about the public works jpa no it was just a general we're on item queue okay okay so okay thank you for that clarification so i mean some of the questions i had i had brought up during the workshop and so um i did talk to city attorney to ask you know some clarification clarifying language around um the guarantee in the agreement and what that actually entails sure there's there's i wouldn't call them contradictory but two two provisions you need to hold in your head at the same time so 5.1 talks about automatic deployment deployment so if there's a critical incident uh here in north st paul and that critical incident is defined as civil unrest the concept of the agreement is that the fence would be able to be deployed right here in north st paul however as as the council's discussed tonight there could be a scenario in which there are multiple cities wanting um a fence at the same time and so in 5.5 you have a provision that says there's no guarantee that you will get the fence and that's ultimately there's no there's no liability to the fencing consortium if you don't get the fence i also think it's just kind of important to acknowledge 5.3 as well which is discretionary deployment so that is a scenario where there's no critical incident not necessarily civil unrest but something that the city may have a need for the fence i guess some lower level a problem and then that again goes to that board that you were hearing about tonight and they make the decision whether to deploy the fence so it's discretionary on the the part of the board under that provision but ultimately i think it's important to know that there's no guarantee that you will get the fence uh but as the mayor had mentioned we're talking about you know 5 000 or so dollars for kind of an insurance policy if if it's there all right thank you for that clarification um and then i do have a question that i didn't have the opportunity to bring up but we there was discussion about the legislature um bringing on five million dollars for um the uh potential for this consortium so how does that funding impact access so i can you know so what's your question my understanding is that the legislature is to make a decision in 2023 about whether to allocate five million dollars to the the fencing consortium and do you know how that will you know apply to the fencing consortium following you know because the deadline's tonight yep five million dollars might come later so what does that mean so that that there's there's no guarantee that it's going to be on the agenda for the state legislative next year they're anticipating that they try to get it in for the 2022 year it it didn't make it um it didn't make it past the the commission or the board um so they're going to bring it up again next year um as far as that money that money is is what is used to buy the actual fencing itself so instead of all these cities pulling together money to buy that fencing the the state legislator will then or the state will enact to actually purchase or buy more more fencing if needed is that does that answer your question i believe so thank you who who stores the fencing uh that is yet to be determined i don't know exactly where um there's been um a list of locations that's something that the that the uh the commission or the board um the consortium board would will figure out but it's just it would be in the that was the big thing when when they were when the workshops were going on or the discussions were going on over the last six months to a year um is it has to it will be in um minnesota because the majority of the fencing even for like the brooklyn center center d or brooklyn center um disturbances all that stuff comes from chicago so you're looking at an additional eight hour eight to ten hour travel time on top of of just getting a regular fence i'm assuming that it's gonna be stored here yes so i'm sorry so the the fence consortium it is said to have the actual fence the anti-clam fence that we're talking about will be stored in the metro area so it will be so it could be rapidly deployed within within three hours of making a phone call what i said about the chicago is is that that was previous that's previous if you called and said i need fencing and you're not part of the fencing consortium board that you have to add that time of eight to ten hours of drive time on top of the order sure okay well it's probably not wise to disclose the exact location or city and let's please not volunteer to keep it here somewhere else we have we're only three square miles and we only have so much space it's not going to be an able fence company either i don't think would you mind staying yeah thanks so yeah early in your presentation i'm just trying to clarify there was a lot of discussion around the incidences that happened with george floyd's murder and the civil unrest that followed and then also the murder of dante wright and the civil unrest that followed there so those are the two large events that kind of catalyzed you know the need for this throughout the seven county metro here i think we're talking about uh more localized um issues that might arise or cis or what would you call them similar to what happened previous can you provide some context so what we happened last year at the car show was more localized it was something that happened that went through our city it was a car accident so kind of more localized than the car right so um that that's okay and then so with that said i mean would that have been a situation in which that would have been um you know called upon for offense would we have called for offense in that situation yeah okay that that would be the decision between the chief and and the city manager and and and you folks okay because the reason i'm asking is i'm just not sure the likelihood of needing um that scale of of fencing for our local protests which differ from riots yep i i get that um but for the car the reason why that the car show was was eventually shut down and and we scrambled and um public works brought in their trucks is is that we received information from a few different citizens that they were looking that that group that was planning to come to north st paul we're looking to cause problems and destroy cars and destroy property and everything like that that's that that that answers your question yeah so they they were a group of like agitators or actors they weren't necessarily the protesters there they were just other people coming in to cause problems with a plan i i don't know i we i can't i can't you can't distinguish who who's going to peacefully protest and then who's gonna throw cans of soup and rocks and destroy property and try and hurt people yes so hey like the the thing that we that the chief and i want to want to say and and uh and ron from public works also brought up is is that we you know you're using half a million dollar vehicles when we can use a fence it's an insurance we don't plan on getting into car accidents that's why we carry insurance and that this is it's very similar to that that type of deal do we plan on using it no but when we need it that's that's the question it's either we it's either the joining the board where we can have that insurance premium that we pay for one year or do we start if we do need it now we have to scramble and get quotes and [Music] and equipment and everything like that set up and that's gonna that's gonna carry over um into well over i can't i don't wanna give you an estimate but it's gonna be a lot more than just the five thousand dollars i mean if you look at brooklyn center it was just for three months that was just the rental fee of 86 that that wasn't on top of the installation and tear down and mileage and whatever other um stipulations that the company put on to to bring the fence all right thank you you're welcome one question i mean i thought this was an annual fee he said you just said there's one time fee is this no i'm sorry it's it's it's a yearly fee okay all right i apologize that's fine anything else i'm just grappling with the response that i had heard so just not being able to differentiate you know those actors that are aggressively you know going after you and then um protesters and you know our job here is to protect the constitution and our residents and so my you know being able to distinguish that is is pretty critical when we're talking about first amendment rights and so i'm just trying to grapple with that answer and but that's that's why we're stressing is is that this it's a barrier and it's a hard barrier that that we want we would like to use in the event that something happens to allow people to vent their you use their first amendment rights to to use their freedom of speech but it's it's a it's not it's not towards them it is towards the agitators to say listen we they have a hard fence we can't break that down we can't go after that so we're not even going to try it's it's it's a visual deterrent is is what where is the main is the main goal of it so i think just to i mean i think i understand when the point you're trying to make council member wong as you're saying you know given that let's use that example because it just happened here last year there was a protest that was planned and the police were acting on credible evidence that it could potentially turn violent and that they specifically stated let's go down to north st paul and smash up the classic cars and and take it down there so the decision was made to just cancel the car show to eliminate that opportunity and it was a tough call to make i recall the you know the phone call um you know it because after nothing ended up happening great scenario but then everyone questioned well why'd they cancel it you know they're you know what the heck they're you're overreacting it wasn't that credible so i think where we're kind of struggling is like in this same scenario given that same information would you have requested just to to erect that fence that night i i can't that's that's a chief of police decision i can't speak and then even if we say yeah we're gonna do that we put in the request and then this consortium they make that decision and they base it off of what we tell them right they don't just say well we you know we we might have some violence down here today we want the we want the fence up they're they're probably going to ask what we need the most and and again who is this consortium who sits on that body is that and i'm sorry we didn't answer these questions earlier but i mean now again you know you have more time to digest people start asking questions you start thinking more is this members of the cities that are in it they each have a representative or who so it it it's it's just like it's any other typical board it has its own it has its own bylaws that have been established um and its own set of rules that they that they establish so and they're the board members are are voted in okay so i know that there's i there is one person has to be a police chief one person has to be a city manager one person has to be public works and then there's then there's a couple other spots okay okay so it's not it's not just you know i'm the mayor of every city that's in it it's people that have experience and knowledge and that you know if like if we put in that request there's a potential that they could review and say not no we're not this is this is not something that qual meets the level of of dispatch defense despite us maybe saying hey we we've got credible evidence that there could potentially be this they may have said well it doesn't meet our threshold yep and but that goes back to the board of is being those board members being voted in and if there is if there are other further issues where other cities have been asking for fence and then certain board members are denying it that those those positions can change sure so in that case if we were to again we're speculating in hypotheticals but had we asked and it got denied and then something did happen i guess that's that's where maybe not necessarily the legality issues of we requested but we weren't it was it wasn't denied it was because it was dispatched at another larger city it was nothing else was going on there was an incident in maple that had nor saint paul ties we requested it you denied it and then look what happened we we had you know broken windows and damage to our facility and had you accepted our request that could have prevented it that's a whole different legal scenario or is correct mayor and council i would say under the agreement there's no guarantee so you've signed up for them to to make a decision that you know may ultimately be a no and there's also an identification provision in there that that basically holds the the directors harmless as well so um there is you know uh built into it a certain amount of um well there's certainly discretion for the for the board here but there's also a certain just amount of uncertainty for the city okay good discussion good questions uh so we do have a motion out there uh i believe it was first and second uh so any other discussion if not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed nay motion carries uh letter r turn over to councilmember thorson well this is just kind of tying into that and i think ron answered the questions about you know public works involvement so that's why i just pulled the two because maybe i wasn't sure if they weren't related but after discussion it's obviously they're related authorizing this gets us into that consortium that's a part of it correct okay okay uh so the motion would be authorizing the statewide public works mutual aid pack so moved moved by council member thoresen second second by council member cole any discussion if not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion [Music] motion carries and i think that's all of them i'll turn it over to city manager city manager uh brian frandl thank you just a quick update on our next student build house at 2170 eldridge um so we've had the shelter tech came out there they determined what had asbestos in it it's been removed now we have the inspection pre-demo inspection set up for ramsey county tomorrow so that will be taken care of public works has already cleared the lot of the trees that are out there the actual address that's going to be split 2170 will stay with the lot that'll be furthest to the west a new lot of 2172 will be to the east and that's the house that they will do first just because there's some grading that needs to be done along that side of the property but that's where we're at uh school started today i believe for the kids at the college and uh so they're gonna be ready to go pretty soon we have our two quotes in for the demo of the house which would then also dig the hole for the basement of the first student build home so it's it's moving along that's all i have did they find the uh the old outhouse in the back of the because that's usually one of the uh treasures is to find the old outhouse and then whatever's in the bottom there what jimmy hoffa did they find jimmy hoffman off or beer cans or old beer cans search continues okay coins okay uh that's all you got so and congratulations on becoming the new city manager uh reports of council commissions and committees council member call uh park and rec had their meeting a couple weeks ago uh there is a lingering question and a follow-up to whether the postal credit union park is a park or if it is just city owned property it was last left uh that legal would provide direction due to by doing title designation to see if it was how the how the title of the property reads uh and the question came up stemming around signs do we do does park and rec put signs up is that a city thing that was um that was why one of the big the big questions around that so i'm assuming that's going to go to the city attorney and he'll do a little research what was that which park was it again i just want to make sure that it's being we don't know if it's park that's inland lies the issue what do we call it it's called postal credit union park if i'm not mistaken and it's an investment no that's or saint paul's naming rights yeah that was his name and so is it the north st paul environmental park yes it's funded by that's had naming rights few years it never got taken down it's the park it's the parcel of land north of target okay uh typically called the target pond back in the day i'll make sure we look into this and get you an answer thank you um the silver lake as it passed in the consent agenda tonight silver lake improvement association is having a fundraiser this saturday night uh it's a wine tasting it will run from eight excuse me from five o'clock to eight o'clock cost is ten dollars uh it's going to be a beautiful night 70 72 degrees look forward to seeing everybody out that's all i have perfect councilmember wang yeah so the planning commission had just met recently for their regular meeting on september 1st and this was in discussion with in regards to the lilly building so there was a public hearing i think about three residents came out and spoke their opinion um it ranged from don't like the height and then it also arranged to i love the building really excited for it so um i would also add that there was an amendment to the comp plan a little bit to increase um to create a density bonus for certain um places in downtown so should we have any other developers come and want to request beyond that the current plan then they have some flexibility and we can also have some sort of agreement where if we are to grant a density bonus that the community or the city will benefit as well um and then let's see uh so that was approved and then um the next meeting will be for the planning commission the first thursday of next month and then the arts and culture commission is meeting for tomorrow and their discussion will be um around the mural update um there's also discussion around project snowy so there's just been a postponed um it's been postponed a little bit because of the manufacturer so we're moving slowly on that but i believe that there will be a project snowy for the parade that's the hope that's all thanks councilmember peterson thank you um minnesota woman women in government we're working on a fall organizing a fall event i'm not quite sure when that's going to be a biz association meeting will be our luncheon will be next thursday next tuesday uh september 13th at noon at the american legion and the guest speakers are techie dudes techie dudes that's all i have thanks councilmember thurston i have nothing but to comment on the park's question and for our attorney's office i think it was stemming from a question that i brought up when we approved the plan and how one map had it listed as i don't know if there's an urban ecology center environmental learning center and then the other one call it a park so i think maybe just looking at the the updated park improvement plan and and then wording on those maps may help but yeah if you need to do a title search i hope it's not too extensive and long and costly for our city okay uh eda our next meeting is september 13th which is next tuesday at 3 p.m and the pow mia parade for the veterans park is september 22nd the guest speaker is brigadier brigadier general john silliman he was with the air force so he'll be our guest speaker and it starts at 6 30 p.m and we meet at the vfw in march candlelight march and walk to veterans park general business council member cole fall roundup parade is a week from thursday it'll be the 15th looking forward to seeing everybody out i didn't know carrie did you on did you have any updates you wanted to you're pointing at terry i have one perfect and as for the parade uh we want to invite everyone to attend the annual fall roundup parade on thursday september 15th at 6 p.m please note the parade is starting early this year to accommodate the many units attending this year how many units are we at wow you've got to be kidding me it's an election year so we have 103 units and i have been in i don't know hundreds of parades and i think this is probably one of the the top number of units do we have every uh politician that's gonna be marching in it or is it gary that's unbelievable that's that is unbelievable uh please watch the website and city e news for information on roll closures for the parade we'd also want to extend a big thank you to the following north st paul businesses for their sponsorship support for the parade and they are burwelled roofing wsb gary insurance center luther auctions anchor view apartments max diner the sentinel residence t.a schifsky and sons north saint paul vfw the history cruiser's car show and the housing hub so i'd like to a big shout out to them for uh being our parade sponsors from that anything else no you stole my thunder okay i suppose i kind of gave it a very nice job uh council member one i have nothing but welcome brian congratulations councilmember peterson i've got a couple things um friday night is a car show and the city of north st paul is sponsoring the evening there's going to be the art cart police simulator and the dash plague play plaques will be given out so please come out and enjoy this on the city it's always a good night and it's a good family entertainment meet and greet candidates um on september 28th for the new positions at six o'clock at the american legion the public is invited everyone will be able to talk about themselves and a bio and questions and answers so make sure you attend that i had the privilege to take a tour of the toy shelf and food shelf and boy what a gym i hadn't been able to get down there and it's just like a store there's a lot of dignity there you know and it really it felt really good and the the things that are offered in that toy show it's like you're going to target so i i really i have to uh thank norma and her crew norma worm because without her and the food shelf too that was like a going to grocery store and a lot of it was really nice can i just add on to that yes she would like to have the council down there so she did say that if we could maybe schedule a night that i don't know either before the meeting maybe say 4 30 uh on a tuesday they're open on tuesdays and go and uh have a tour of the toy shelf and probably the food shelf so if we can do that sooner than later because i know norma would love to to see us there show it off yeah so i don't know if september 20th if that works 4 30 if anyone everyone can make it or oh you're not going to be here so let's look at but please don't hold back on my i think october 4th we're still in good weather yeah so if we can do october 4th yeah and maybe jenny if you can uh make a note of that and invite the council and we'll get a hold of or if you can get a hold of norma and say that the council would love to have a tour and maybe the food shelf too just a quick tour maybe 4 15. so we can get back here in time okay that's all i have council member thorson uh appreciate the update on the student bills house not to sound like a broken record but i think you know those types of discussions and other discussions we should be having as an hra so i would again request that we schedule an hra meeting to discuss things like approving the plans of the next home and establishing a budget things like that i know there's been comments that we're just going to do the same house as before but maybe i missed that meeting i thought that's something that hra approves um so it would be nice if we could meet as an hra to have discussions on those things as well as get a recap an official recap of the last home now that's sold and to go over all the costs and and just in kind work and public works time and city staff time etc and i think it'd be good timing too because i think you just signed that agreement brian so it's a good time to do it so we have yes okay i don't have anything other than what i mentioned earlier so unless there's something else anybody wants to add that forgot not a motion to adjourn so group by council member peterson second by council member juan any discussion if not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye opposed motion carries we are adjourned and [Music] welcome brian you