This transcription has been processed to identify speakers based on the provided city official list and the context of the meeting (e.g., roll call, department topics, and internal references). **Note on Speaker Names:** Some council members mentioned in the audio (Bringgold, Duncan, Gesme, Lundell) were not on the provided list but are clearly identified during the roll call and subsequent discussion. "Neil" is identified as City Administrator Jon Radermacher, "Mike" as Fire Chief Brice Miller, and "Sarah" as City Attorney Shelley Ryan based on their roles and dialogue. *** **[8:22] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** good evening everyone happy new year uh we'll call the first meeting of 2022 january 4th 2022 order korea roll call please **[8:30] Sara Peer (City Clerk):** wrinkle here duncan here yes me here cronenberger here londell here montgomery here **[8:45] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** alta here would you rise for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all **[9:05] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** okay has anybody got any additions or corrections to the agenda hearing none is there a motion to approve the agenda **[9:15] Dan Lundell (Council Member):** so moved **[9:17] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** motion by lundell **[9:18] Steve Gesme (Council Member):** second **[9:19] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** second by gizmi to approve the agenda any other discussion all in favor opposed carried okay we'll get into public input public input is intended to afford the public an opportunity to address concerns of the city council the public input will be no longer than 30 minutes in total length and each speaker will have no more than three minutes to speak speakers may address topics relevant to **[9:51] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** the government of the city speakers must sign up in advance and must provide their name address and topic they intend to address comments must be on topic respectful pertinent to city business and adhere to the apical data privacy rules any speaker that violates these rules will be asked to sit down if the speaker refuses to comply they will be removed from the meeting speakers shall not address topics that are the subject of a public hearing all such comments should be made at the public hearing the city council council will not generally act on issues raised by the public input but may choose to schedule consideration of the item at a future agenda **[10:36] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** anybody would like public input oh was there anybody on the list okay second call public input **[10:50] Dan (Citizen):** i actually signed up **[10:52] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** oh come on up sorry dan **[11:04] Dan (Citizen):** i should say that's what happens when i come early enough to do that that's really great it was just uh i read through the um coed [COVID] proposed policy which i am assuming is kind of based on what we assume osha federal and state would do it seemed like a reasonable policy there was one part in there that had 90 days of something which i didn't understand at all but that's neither here nor there and i would encourage you to i mean i i like vaccines personally but i i've gotten to the point where i don't want to shove them down anybody else's throat and so i see that there is the option of if you're not vaccinated go to weekly testing and **[11:50] Dan (Citizen):** masking and i would encourage you if you do adopt this proposal to be lenient on granting that exception to those who do not wish to be vaccinated thanks **[12:05] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** dan thanks diane that's the only thing on public input so we'll close the public input portion of the meeting and we'll get right into the consent agenda consent agenda items may be adopted under one motion as presented or may be removed or discussion and resolution as console business for you at home and in the audience will go through the consent agenda item a just incorrect claims for the accounting period ending december 29th **[12:35] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** 2021 item b the minute meetings for the december 21st 2021 city council meeting item c resolution 2601 established license fees and compensation item d approved the 2022 appointments item e resolution 2602 designating the depositories for the city funds for fiscal year 2022. **[13:05] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** item f 2022 cost a living adjustment the cola the non-union item g's statutory tort limits item h approved the designation of the official newspaper for 2022 item i resolution 2603 approving a change in rules excuse me in rates charged for the ambulance services item j resolution 2604 accepting a monetary donation from the cannon falls fire department relief association for twenty thousand dollars to the fire department item k resolution 25 605 **[13:52] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** accepting a monetary donation from hinkle cannon falls for eleven thousand five hundred dollars to the fire department an item l resolution 2606 accepting a monetary donation from the cannon falls fire department relief association for 7 500 to the fire department is there anything the council would like to pull down **[14:24] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** anything if not i take a motion to prove the consent agenda **[14:28] Bill Bringgold (Council Member):** so moved **[14:30] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** motion by bringgold **[14:31] Council Member:** second **[14:32] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** second by montgomery to approve the consent agenda is there any discussion all in favor aye opposed carried console business item a election of a mayor pro tem **[14:48] Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** i'll make a motion to make steve gesme our mayor pro tem is there a second to that motion **[14:55] Council Member:** second **[14:57] Laura Kronenberger (Council Member):** question isn't that only necessary after the first open election of city election year we didn't have a city election last year right **[15:10] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** i was going to question that too i bet we've been doing it every year since we do it every year january the first meeting in january and i'm just sure **[15:20] Steve Gesme (Council Member):** yeah i was wondering that same thing it says after the first regular meeting after the election we can reaffirm steve for another year **[15:38] Laura Kronenberger (Council Member):** presides must be elected by council at its first regular meeting in january following the ready uh regular city election and we didn't have **[15:55] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** right but the pro tem and the council members and the mayor have different cycles so whoever was the pro tem if we wait for the mayor's election cycle the wording on that might be right i believe it's the annual but well that's what's in the charter i see what you're saying i mean everywhere i've been here we've done **[16:24] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** mayor pro tem jan first meeting in january but if we want to leave it steve is current so yeah dave is current steve i just was confused by the language what do you think should we do just leave it that's what it says okay let's just leave it you got to promise not to be gone okay gotcha sarah's looking it up okay we'll come back to what we have to okay item b is the code policy neil **[17:10] Jon Radermacher (City Administrator):** well at the last meeting we uh had the discussion of the covet policy and and what you got in your packets tonight is the result of that i know sarah is up here she's been instrumental in drafting it our city attorney and so if you have any questions she's got the federal and the state mandate in front of her and and also she can answer the questions do we know when this would take effect yet for when when minis and min osha's no it's got to get through the supreme court and one of the things that if you looked at the motion that was drafted it states that it will become effective depending on what they do **[17:57] Jon Radermacher (City Administrator):** so um if they invalidate the mandate then this won't go into effect unless you change that **[18:13] Laura Kronenberger (Council Member):** i had a question it says that there um it refers to the phobic committee as that that has not been that's the next thing we need to do okay it says a couple of people that set up just a couple of people is all be looking for yeah would a covet committee be um similar to all our other committees and that it's a recommendation to the council **[18:45] Jon Radermacher (City Administrator):** if there's something that uh needs to be addressed that's pretty drastic i want council support on that so right **[18:59] Laura Kronenberger (Council Member):** it says covered persons talk city employees you know full part-time seasonal and elected officials will this include the citizens that serve on our committees and commissions **[19:15] Jon Radermacher (City Administrator):** we did talk that over sarah and i and one of the things that we thought about or discussed was how do we corral all these people how do we how do we get these people when they have different jobs i know you guys are elected but all we've got a whole bunch of other ons and volunteers where you draw the line and i guess that'll be up to up to the council if they they want to change but we figured full and part-time seasonal and council **[19:46] Laura Kronenberger (Council Member):** would then um those citizens that are on the different committees would they be uh still required to test and or mask if they're not vaccinated **[20:00] Jon Radermacher (City Administrator):** well if they're not what do they call it in the policy covered person no okay so if you guys want to put that in there that's why the the motion that was drafted has a blank as revised so if you want to change something in the policy we'll put that in the blank in the memo or in the **[20:25] Laura Kronenberger (Council Member):** how many uh citizens do we have that serve on our different committees **[20:32] Jon Radermacher (City Administrator):** it can't be too many half a dozen so it's not that many so well we look at you know them and then the volunteer firemen how are you gonna how are you gonna keep track of them and and there was a lot of other things that you that we have that you look at and you go **[20:55] Council Member:** but the firemen would fall under city employees because they're still part-time so they're they're included in this as i read it uh as would uh ambulance volunteers that yeah yeah um i i personally would like to see the uh citizens on committees also so we're all doing the same thing so it's the same same standard for everyone you mean right **[21:19] Bill Bringgold (Council Member):** um well this is the first draft it's first shot across the bow so right well that's that's one of the items i would like to see some of the stuff as you go further into this the option one and two as little confused but if we end up with uh assuming the supreme court approves all this the the testing which would have to be weekly and i'm not sure how many employees would would be that we don't know how long this is going to go on for there's the cost **[22:05] Bill Bringgold (Council Member):** involved of allowing testing versus just mandating the shots or there'll be possible discipline so there's the cost of the test time away from work you know even if we set it up say it our at the ambulance department or whatever that they're not working so there's cost to that you know this could run into a lot of money if we go that route i also wonder too about availability we are now running into a lot of we can't get tests so if there aren't tests available do we waive it if there are no tests available **[22:51] Steve Gesme (Council Member):** i know i know see that's would these be rapid tests or the pcr rapid thing i'll be rapping yeah i've talked to tim and you said they're about a week out if you were to order them they're 650 for 50 tests that equates to about 13 dollars a test somewhere in that area and then um do you think it's good who would administer them do we know exactly who would yet **[23:25] Jon Radermacher (City Administrator):** whoever is down there yeah just whoever is on the ambulance we figured uh if it's any public works um they stop in at seven o'clock in the morning when they start and run them through and and give them their test and they come back positive they go home and if not they go to work and the fines by uh minosha is not starting at 7 000 per time and then it's progressive if we decide not to do anything um i don't know what that is yet somewhere in there it's it's several thousand and **[24:15] Steve Gesme (Council Member):** is that per employee or is it for incident **[24:20] Jon Radermacher (City Administrator):** well so per employee if they come in and you're not up to speed right so if you have ten people it's seventy thousand dollars um yeah is it ted seven times if you had ten people you said seven thousand i'd have to refer to sarah or whatever it is yeah **[24:25] Shelley Ryan (City Attorney):** i don't know the answer **[24:31] Laura Kronenberger (Council Member):** um there was something in this policy about employees being on the clock waiting for test results would that also not result in additional costs for the city you might have to wait days **[24:50] Jon Radermacher (City Administrator):** no i think it's the rapid one now the rapid isn't bad assuming right you're somewhere in here that talked about that sorry well i don't think that's as big a deal um i mean i know it's possible we'll have uh yeah someone who will be uh uh we'll have a medical issue that they cannot have a shot or whatever but they would still have to test and mask **[25:17] Laura Kronenberger (Council Member):** and am i correct in reading this that then an employee who's not vaccinated in addition to testing has to wear their mask basically when they're in city buildings and city vehicles and that kind of correct that kind of thing okay **[25:44] Shelley Ryan (City Attorney):** yep and those rules came right out of the osha rules those those in an office with a closed door in your in the car by yourself those are those we pulled right out of the osha rule the majority of that policy sarah isn't that based on the rules it's all based on the rules we pulled a little bit from osha sample policy and i actually pulled a paramount from ramsey county's got a policy out there that's pretty good right now but it all ties back to the rules there isn't anything that we forgive my use towards made up um it's all tied back to what is required by osha or what we expect to be required by osha if the supreme court upholds the policy **[26:45] Steve Gesme (Council Member):** and what are they so they're they're weighing these two options too sarah or **[27:00] Shelley Ryan (City Attorney):** so the the the federal rule is actually written to require vaccination and require everyone to have a vaccination policy it then has sort of a sub requirement that says or if you don't want to do vaccination you can do vaccination or test and so it's that that policy that osha put a bunch of rules in place for and that's what's before the supreme court i think they said they're going to hear it on the 7th and so what they'll be deciding is is the the federal rule as osha implements them legal if it is we'll need to put something in place if not then it comes back to the council to decide do you want to do something independent of that federal mandate okay all right okay **[27:50] Steve Gesme (Council Member):** uh sarah if the council so desires they may also uh decide not to allow testing and mandate and shots **[28:02] Shelley Ryan (City Attorney):** yeah we can go with the option one in in theory yes this policy is set up that you either have to comply that an employee either has to comply with option one which is the vaccination or option two which is the testing the council could say no we just want vaccination um that likely would be challenged i know that's what saint paul has done and they have already been challenged by the union and we just don't know yet uh if if that would be acceptable or not i know it's it's something people are talking about the courts haven't ruled on that yet **[28:35] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** now sarah we also in our public input diane asked about this 90-day item could you explain that a little clearer **[28:47] Shelley Ryan (City Attorney):** yeah that is complicated and that too comes right out of the federal federal regulation essentially what they found is after you've had covid for 90 days you still may have antibodies in your system which means you may still test positive so what they've said is if you've had covet for the next 90 days a test really isn't reliable so in that case we we don't test we can't test because the test isn't reliable so if you had an employee who came in tested positive they go home they get better they come back once they come back they would be able to go 90 days without having to test again before then they'd start back in the process okay **[29:25] Council Member:** but if someone is oh this gets so confusing if someone is fully vaccinated and then they test positive for covid are they thrown into the testing mode again or do they just have to have the certain number of negative tests before they can come back to work **[29:45] Shelley Ryan (City Attorney):** they just have to have a certain number of tests so if you have an employee who's fully vaccinated they're part of option one they never end up in option two you're one or the other end of story okay so if someone if someone is vaccinated then you would jump down to the section of the policy that deals with let me see if i can find the title for that so you jump down past option two and go to uh cova 19 symptoms diagnosis or positive test so if you are diagnosed with covidis you have symptoms or you have a positive test then you fall into this section and that's regardless of whether you're an option one or option two employee if you're vaccinated or not doesn't matter you've got to report you've got to get off get out of city hall as fast as you can and then there's those rules on when you get to come back and again those were pulled right from osha's rules so there's nothing shouldn't be anything surprising there but but yeah the only way you would be both option one and option two is if there's an employee who started testing and then got vaccinated oh okay uh but otherwise you are one or two you don't you don't need to comply with both per employee and yes it's very confusing okay **[30:55] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** well uh i guess neil tonight are we just in addition to this policy are we just trying to advance other thoughts that have already you know like i asked about the you know committee members of civilians **[31:15] Jon Radermacher (City Administrator):** correct if we could get some decisions because by the time we meet again this may be decided by the supreme court if let's say option nine let's say the supreme court says it's it's mandated do do we even need to do anything here or what we still do okay or if they say the other we can either adopt the testing or this policy provides for both but we can always go more stringent yes than what they do we just can't be more lacks okay okay **[32:05] Brice Miller (Fire Chief):** may i um i guess what i'd like a decision on tonight is if my fire department's gonna be included or not because then i've got some things to start spinning up there whether they're gonna get vaccinated or go to this so that's a question that's a question they've been waiting you know and the way i read it i thought it was vague so i didn't know if you know i think a few of you had the same question does that include my fire department does that include the ems staff the paid on call staff and the volunteer firefighters and if it does include the firefighters the questions i have that i would want answered that i can bring back to them is that so right now by law you have to **[32:45] Brice Miller (Fire Chief):** pay a minimum wage when they train and when they're on calls so now you're going to mandate them to do something so now you have to pay them to come down to the station on their own time to test that would be a question i need answered and i don't know what the legality is in that i think in here it says if if you're not uh scheduled see that's how i can say that how do you schedule my firefighters i understand i'm just saying what we have these yeah you know um so that's that's going to be a legal question i would have is do we have to legally pay them to come down because it's something we're mandating them to do so so like if you uh if you said okay you got to get tested every week and i'm just throwing this out there right now it's a 13 test plus you got to pay them an hourly and we do a minimum hour call out for everything they can wear **[33:35] Jon Radermacher (City Administrator):** maybe if you if you compensate them yeah i would say show up time or something **[33:45] Brice Miller (Fire Chief):** so that's that's one question um and then the other who decides the religious and the medical like do we have that in there at all like how do we i i know that's coming so where do i forward them to **[34:00] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** well see if now you know i'm not sarah right i'm more saying this i'm more saying this for sarah to take some notes so he can have some of those answers um what i'm thinking is you have two options so if you claim the religious exemption no you don't have to have the vaccination but then you have to go to the other option correct right **[34:25] Brice Miller (Fire Chief):** but my own and the only i'm asking this because i've had the question already is so if someone's not doing this because of medical now we're outing them on a medical that is private to them why would we be outing them because they have to test now because they didn't get vaccinated well but so now everybody knows they're getting tested because they're not vaccinated so it's kind of i've been questioned on discrimination then too you know like since we're not going to test so the real real reason i guess you would test right is so you don't spread it i'm triple vaccinated i tested before christmas because i didn't want to spread it to my whole family because i could still do that asymptomatically so the whole reason we're doing this is to not spread it to everybody why aren't we testing everybody i guess that's the question i had raised to me so i just wanted to bring that up to you folks you know if we're going to do this why **[34:55] Brice Miller (Fire Chief):** don't we protect everybody and test everybody every week because i could still test positive triple vaccinated doesn't mean i'm not gonna go give it to somebody in the ambulance or in the fire truck and stuff like that so which is a much more expensive option **[35:20] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** i understand but i think but i think the thought is now i this could be a really foolish response is that the world says if you're vaccinated and or boosted if like you're like me and you you're boosted you've done what you can do and your chances of getting coveted bad enough to either end up in the hospital or to have serious illness are pretty low and i think if we made every pers 300 million people testing every week that's not even close to workable so i i think they i think it's uh i'm just i i'm being the messenger i have to represent 30 people of a lot of different walks but i don't know but i don't think it's realistic to think we're gonna even 100 million people geez every week that's that's a lot of tests **[36:05] Brice Miller (Fire Chief):** and then what about the other the other question i would have is uh like false positives exactly oh or false negative the antigen yeah i know rapid tests are about as bad as they get right i mean i've got i had four firefighters in the last week that antigen rapid tested negative and pcr tested positive oh i know so it's not it's not perfect by anything rapid tests aren't very good on detecting the omicron so that way **[36:45] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** in about two weeks probably you know that's how i like to answer your question i i would believe that uh the fire and ambulance people would be covered under this policy i would think so but well that's up to you folks i think also without them we wouldn't be over the federal the 100 employee we would be less than and then this wouldn't apply to us in the first place correct right yeah **[37:05] Shelley Ryan (City Attorney):** would you like me to weigh in on that yeah please please that is exactly the answer i would give is the uh osha said everyone counts including part-time paid on call so i would say if they count towards our number then they would have to be included in the policy so i don't think that's a choice the council could make the the fire department has to be covered um the other questions i think are good ones and i think the best legal answer is it's it's a step in the right direction it's not going to be 100 it's not going to be perfect but it's the best we can do right now and and if this federal mandate is upheld our other option other than vaccination or testing our other option if the federal mandate is of health is everyone has to get vaccinated so i understand people's concerns about having to test but i guess i would say at this point is that if the mandate is upheld it's the lesser of two evils uh for the religious question um so that would go to this council committee that we haven't appointed yet um if this policy goes forward we need to appoint someone and i would think we would be able to work something out um you know if it's a concern about identifying it i would think we would be able to work something out to make sure their health concerns are one protected and too protected from for privacy purposes **[38:25] Brice Miller (Fire Chief):** and the last thing i got so me having you know our volunteers that aren't scheduled anything i would like to be able to have a scheduled time so whether we're doing like on a monday 7 a.m 7 p.m and then leaving that open i'm not trying to throw tim's staff under the bus but saying the people that are down there are going to do it well they're on a call they're on calls half the time you know so now now my firefighters need to test go down there at 7 pm to get tested and there's nobody there so now i'm going to get 8 10 12 phone calls whoever i have that's gotta do that and do that what do we do now there's nobody here well now you gotta come back or now you know so i think we gotta i think we gotta set some if if this goes through when you're gonna do this i think we have to set if it's monday as test day here's the times in which you know full time can come down at seven between seven and eight thirty paid on call and volunteers can do the same in the evening or or either you know off depending on what their work schedules are but we would need to set something that they can set up with their employers because all of my firefighters have jobs too and i have to look out for that too so i think we can coordinate that with uh tim too as far as going to summit right yeah **[39:35] Shelley Ryan (City Attorney):** this the problem policy currently says 7 am on monday but that was fairly arbitrary and there's no reason we couldn't set multiple multiple time periods multiple options i mean that that is an area that figure out what worked best for people and we can set it that way **[39:55] Bill Bringgold (Council Member):** well mike what what you brought up with uh the different questions actually makes me even more firm in that we should just plain vaccinate everybody easier and then we don't then we're not dealing with that stuff except again you got your medical possible religious uh objections and it's easily handled that way and we we gotta i know i know what you want bill but it's a pipe dream **[40:15] Bill Bringgold (Council Member):** well i know but it's uh part of our job is to do whatever we can as a city to protect the citizens that we serve there's sure a lot fewer questions if it's done that way because then there isn't the when do we test how do we test when you know are there tests um it's you know i think the and i guess what i was gonna say later was the face of this pandemic is changing i mean a year ago we were all wiping down our groceries when we came home you know really i would have been i would have been wearing a mask standing here no also no but but not now things have changed so much and i don't even know if people are talking so much about people dying or people not getting covered most of us a lot of us in this room have probably had it and didn't even realize it it's very possible i think now what we've gotten down to is the over-taxing of the medical system i mean it's derrick here not being able to get his kids tested over the weekend that's what's happening and it's it's just it's changed and we all i think we all realize that even if you're fully vaccinated and boosted you can still get coveted you can still pass it on we all know that it's like we've got to accept we've got to figure out what level of risk we're going to accept in this whole thing **[41:45] Steve Gesme (Council Member):** i agree with you completely it's a moving target yeah the thing is we're no no i'd like to stay there because um we're being held to a standard we're gonna we have to do something exactly at the same time we do want to be fair to our employees but we're going to try to follow the rules yeah so i'd like to just bring it all the way back to how many people are we talking about here and not to out anybody but i'm saying we're when we talk about the you know scheduling of testing how many people does this apply to **[42:15] Brice Miller (Fire Chief):** i honestly don't know um when we did our first clinic back in january so when i was i was having conversations with the state fire marshal's office back then what do we do how do we return to some kind of normalcy with training and whatnot and the whole thought then was he had to be 60 to be heard immune right so then we wouldn't lose the whole fire department right when a big super spreader event so all i did when i was there was i didn't force anybody to sign up for the vaccine clinic we made it available to them the first wave of the clinic was down the fire station the second wave was down to the ccc i don't know what the it was at field house i knew my number for firefighters were 30. once i knew 60 percent of that it went through i didn't pay attention after that i didn't log a name i didn't do anything i just knew i was hurt immune at that point so legally i couldn't be thrown under the bus for that if something bad happened beyond that i don't know we've had a booster clinic since then and a fair amount showed up to get their third shot booster okay i didn't keep count because i wasn't told to you know um so we're not talking the entire fire department by any means um but we're not talking to everybody either so but i i just wanted it's a medical thing i did yeah i wasn't going to log it i was going to write down i was going to i didn't send a sign up sheet around that was between them and what they wanted to do at that point i just wanted to make sure that i know who were a guest of who we're going to be dealing with because what bill said and what mary jill had said logistically yes there's an extreme and that'd be simple sure i don't think that's the right move right personally politically i don't think that's the right move but we do have to do something now once we get this policy in place that would satisfy his federal and minos regulations we'll figure out you know the dance will keep going on after that we'll figure out who we have to uh test when where and try to keep everybody healthy i think that's the minimum that's what we need to do right so if i mean yeah i think you're bound to that if osha comes down and says we're gonna find you five thousand dollars if anybody's not complaining showing up to do work every week kind of a no-brainer you gotta do something right so if we move forward with that if the supreme court says yes i guess the questions i had then of some parameters um pay things like that because i'm going to get those questions for sure that'll be for our covenant committee **[44:10] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** correct right yeah however we want to do that i can't imagine i i would think it would be like voting i can't imagine not paying for people to get tested mike before you walk away there [Laughter] have you talked to anybody like maybe other departments around here you know do you communicate with other chiefs are they is everybody kind of feeling the same way about **[44:35] Brice Miller (Fire Chief):** i would say cannon falls is more progressive right now as far as what we've already done versus what i've seen in other departments okay um you know the one i used to work for down south of here is probably the most ahead of the game i mean they're the med city down there so they yeah you know they they do what they do um but they haven't been they're kind of the three or four cities i guess i've talked to we've got a goody county chiefs meeting coming up here soon too i know we're gonna address it again uh we've talked about it before but there's been no mandates you know osha wasn't involved so i'm assuming that's gonna be a hot topic here coming up of okay what's everybody doing what are your firefighters have to do but even when we first started i mean as far as when we shut the fire department down for months and then broke into small groups like nobody was doing that you know we we were kind of the front runners everybody's looking at us to see what our plan was or what we were doing but i just have some connections from other places so i was able to implement hear that but um so it's no i mean we're right we're right in it with everybody else i mean saint paul tried it that's in the legal system now so you know um and that's that's the only one i know that's gone that far and it was immediately challenged so yeah **[45:55] Steve Gesme (Council Member):** and maybe this is clear to you but i don't know maybe i just don't get it but so are volunteers that don't get paid they're covered on their recovered person **[46:15] Brice Miller (Fire Chief):** i should be looking at sarah she's supposed to be sitting there they're paid volunteer oh there's no non-paid volunteers well yeah on our committees there are but not the retirement fire partners so you have to leave so that so when you look like our budget you see the payroll line item that's in there or part-time payroll that's that's the money you have to legally pay us to train and to be on runs so we have like a time sheet book they fill out so like tonight when they're training for two hours you're paying you know 30 firefighters two hours a minimum wage tonight with japan so that's so we're glorified volunteers got it glorified they don't sign up for the pay how's that **[46:55] Shelley Ryan (City Attorney):** sarah sorry i'm sorry i'm not sitting there to answer but i can't answer that most places are have stopped calling the volunteer fire departments and are now calling them paid on call for that exact reason they're really not volunteers they are getting paid may not be a lot but they are getting paid um so this policy as currently drafted would cover anyone who gets paid but would not cover volunteers so if you've got someone say that the library is just coming in they come in on their day off they volunteer for a couple hours right now this policy does not cover them it can that's up to the council but the only ones required are employees okay **[47:45] Steve Gesme (Council Member):** sarah regardless of how the council votes tonight is this a policy subject to ongoing change **[48:00] Shelley Ryan (City Attorney):** absolutely um a lot of this is still just guesswork uh you know we're doing the best we can to put together something that will work and that will comply uh but as kova changes and as our reactions change uh i would not be surprised if this isn't a policy you see every couple of months where we're coming back and tweaking the details **[48:15] Steve Gesme (Council Member):** well as i mentioned earlier i i do want our citizens that serve on our various committees to also be under this so we're all on the same page **[48:30] Laura Kronenberger (Council Member):** well and they can always zoom into meetings they don't have to actually be here in person um it would make it i think more consistent that way but we have no idea what the supreme court's going to do this friday either and a lot that's a conservative group they might throw the whole thing out i don't know no i don't think they're going to throw it all but who knows i mean we could end up with something so different in three months we won't even recognize it yeah yeah plus they won't be deciding on friday i don't think they'll just hear the arguments sorry my pro tem kicked in there **[49:15] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** what do you need us what do we need to do now **[49:25] Shelley Ryan (City Attorney):** there's two options um ideally and i don't know if this is possible ideally you'd go through the policy you'd be happy with the policy and we'd adopt it contingent on the supreme court so that they said yes you guys don't have to do anything else policy just drops into place then the third date great um if you aren't ready to make final decisions on the policy um then we're just at some point if the supreme court says yes the council is going to have to make some of these decisions you've been talking about is it going to cover committees is it going to cover volunteers date and time of testing all of that stuff and if you do it tonight and you approve the policy contingent then you get to be done if you don't do it tonight and the supreme court upholds the mandate then we're going to be back again doing this at your next meeting having these same conversations **[50:15] Laura Kronenberger (Council Member):** i have a question we were told you said we could go more strict than than what osha has but we can't go less strict but then you also said if we went more strict by doing vaccines only we would get challenged so i'm just kind of wondering how that works yeah you know where it seems like it's it seems like it's two things conflicting **[50:40] Shelley Ryan (City Attorney):** it is you are correct it's a question of risk um the federal mandate says you can be more strict if you want that doesn't mean that some unions isn't going to challenge it and possibly win it means that per the federal mandate we are allowed to be stricter but it hasn't been through the courts that that's i'm sort of waiting on that saint paul case to see if we come out with anything useful out of that because that would be the question of can we can we flat out require vaccinations um the areas you could be stricter that i don't think would get you sued um trying to think of an example who it covers maybe um payment you could pay for less than than the no you really couldn't do that under state law it would be a risk i i don't have an answer for you it's still in the courts and it would be a risk **[51:35] Bill Bringgold (Council Member):** right sarah would one of the options include us being able to have the covered person have to pay for their own test **[51:45] Shelley Ryan (City Attorney):** so there's actually a legal debate about that right now and i i think the answer is going to be no that the city if the city requires the test the city is going to have to pay for the federal law doesn't require that and there are some out there arguing that because the federal law doesn't require that that we don't have to pay minnesota has a separate law that if you require something of an employee be the same if you required some other type of medical test um then you have to pay for that you can't you can't require an employee to do something and then make them pay for it so i think regardless of what's decided on the federal piece on that i think in minnesota we are stuck paying for uh the test and probably at least a reasonable amount of time for the test taking i would think too that that would if we did it that way then we have the control over you know at least we know x number of tests are available and employees aren't going hither and yawn trying to find a place where they can get tested correct and we talked about that at a staff level you don't have to have the city off the test you can just say you've got to submit a test but now you've got to talk about what are acceptable when where how do we believe them there's a lot of a lot more complications if you allow people to i'm going to say self tests so talking with neil michelle we all thought that it made a lot more sense if the city can do it to provide the testing it it makes sure we we like the results and make sure uh we know where they are and make sure we get the tests when we need it uh it just makes the admin a lot easier but yes if you wanted in theory you could allow people to to text themselves or go to a clinic or something like that but it makes it it means they're going to be gone a lot more well and i just think it makes it a lot harder you know you could run into the problem of no tests or whatever can't get in right **[53:45] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** so we want to make a motion to accept this policy as presented or do we want to make some corrections to that **[53:55] Bill Bringgold (Council Member):** i i definitely want our committee members if included i don't think we should do too much adding to what's there because um next week it might be a home i know all another ball game and we just follow the guidelines as presented um like you bill i have a question about the the uh the volunteer people that volunteer for a committee i think it's it's uh it's good enough that they're volunteering for the committee and and if they aren't vaccinated maybe they will just say they'll just have to wear a mask to the media just as easy as that yeah just as simple as that you might have to but otherwise i think i just take it as it's **[54:45] Steve Gesme (Council Member):** i'll make the motion to adopt the coven 19 vaccination testing policy as presented **[54:55] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** you want the the option with the testing yes to follow uh as presented so that we will well what's what they're options one and option two yeah that's that's that's what we were given that's your choices to be a number one or another we're not choosing one or two we're choosing the whole thing so either they're vaccinated or they get tested okay then each of each employee has to comply with either option one which is vaccination but we can at a later time or we might have it decided for us or yeah or the court might decide for us we don't know do you want your motion to include the contingency on the supreme court decision **[55:40] Steve Gesme (Council Member):** correct yes **[55:45] Laura Kronenberger (Council Member):** i think this testing is gonna be a lot more complicated than we a lot of the stuff mike brought up is um they're all legit concerns i mean we're worried about you know outing people um privacy how to pay them you know a lot of people work are they going to have to leave their job to come sit down there and i mean i'm sure we'll make it work but i think it's going to cause more problems than you know and to be honest a week ago i went to said this but if it was up to me i would just require the vaccine and be done with it so would i that's what i i just think it's a lot easier this this this is going to be very complicated for a lot **[56:45] Jon Radermacher (City Administrator):** and neil and but you know we can also we can also decide it's too complicated we can always add it later yeah i i i can always change it later i agree i think it's going to end up being really i think we're lucky we don't have 500 employees instead of 100. i think we'll know the number of people we're talking about too yeah and then you can look at that and say well we're talking about eight people yeah right but no i i hear you but i still think it's you know could be an issue i don't either yeah the logistics are just going to be a nightmare **[57:10] Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** i'm going to second matt's motion okay there's been a motion by matt to adopt the coven 19 vaccination testing file as presented contingent on the federal mandate being upheld by the u.s supreme court and if the supreme court invalidates the mandate the policy will automatically be void unless the consul takes additional action there's a second by excuse me is there any other discussion on that well i i think we should have a roll call vote any other discussion okay we'll have a roll call vote **[57:50] Sara Peer (City Clerk):** ringgold aye duncan no guess me i cronenberger aye lindell no montgomery i **[58:10] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** the motion passes four to two okay where are we at let's get into reports kyle anything for us tonight **[58:20] Kyle (Chamber Director):** mike just a couple of quick things um we are into our 2022 membership drive and we ended last year with 190 members of which 18 of them were brand new to the chamber and so we're hoping that will continue to grow coming into this next year we are looking for photos to be on the cover of the discover guide and so we want something colorful attractive says something really good about canon falls and why people should come here if you have such a photo please let me know at the chamber you can either call me 263-2289 or tourism canon falls dot org and membership drive will be for three months and that's what we have if anyone's interested let me know thanks kyle thank you **[59:35] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** okay let's go around dan you got anything tonight **[59:45] Dan Lundell (Council Member):** uh just one thing they are flooding the the ice rinks i've seen skate tracks on the hockey rink so we know it's being used the warming house is open you know that's something we should maybe look into for next year maybe it's too late maybe think about a liner for that you're putting ice on the grass and the tar and i don't know i've done some research on liners and a local minnesota company sells those you can request you know a standard size i looked up a 100 by 200 foot liner and those run about sixteen hundred dollars each they are expensive yeah i thought they were less money something to look at for next year anyhow they're reusable uh we had one in the town where i worked before if you can get the liner down and get water on it and get the ice froze or get the water froze before somebody puts a skate on it and cuts it that's the only drawback of having a liner **[1:00:35] Jon Radermacher (City Administrator):** okay joel you got anything neil **[1:00:45] Steve Gesme (Council Member):** uh derek there's no public works meeting thursday maybe you were already going to say that but hey mary jill nope steve nothing laura nope matt no park board meeting on thursday either bill nothing well you took a couple things uh no park board no public works there will be next monday finance meeting and public works and there is an eda meeting this thursday this planning commission would i say well yeah planning commission and finance on monday and library board there's an eva eda meeting this thursday the 6th **[1:01:45] Mayor Matt Montgomery:** okay has anybody got anything else oh no i'll take a motion to adjourn so moved second oh second motion by derrick in a second by matt all in favor aye opposed carried