you you good evening everyone it is now 5:30 and I will call our special work session to order we have two items on the agenda this evening and the first item like all of our work sessions we go directly to the items for discussion and the first item is the update on the freeway landfill and freeway dump presenting this evening is our community development director Jenny Faulkner and mr. Kirk Codelco who's the MPCA Assistant Commissioner Jenny you want to hit it off Thank You members of the council I think what we'll do is we'll start with the presentation from the NPC a council policy discussions and kind of next steps from there okay very good and then mr. McGowen is present in the audience and he had requested to speak so when you're done with your remarks and before we address your recommendation we'll hear from mr. McGowen okay good evening and welcome Thank You mayor first off for the record my name is Kirk Adele coma system concern with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency you have a colleague with me today - or take T me my name is Hans Navy I'm the manager of the closed landfill program and so we thought we'd do is just go over a little bit more on freeway landfill and dump we've had some increased work on it since we last visited late last winter and so some of these slides will seem familiar they are part of our overall story of freeway and how we move forward on it so we'll try to go over some of those you've seen before but really make sure we focus on the why that we're looking to have activity at this site especially since I know this is a taped meeting there may be people for the first time joining this conversation so first off there we always have to talk about how we handle pollution contamination and waste and there really are three ways to address it one is prevented the second is to manage it and then the third is the clean up it and that's what we're having the conversation and the reason we always bring this up especially when we're dealing with clean ups of contaminated properties is that as we go further down that list it is more expensive and there are more potential risk to human health in the environment and it explains why so much of our work as an agency along with our partners and local units of government is on the prevention and management of pollution and waste so real quick the closed landfill program it was created in 1994 and the closed landfill program is an answer to the Superfund process and its inability to address contamination at landfills in a way that met the needs of public human health and the environment in a way that didn't bog down just real quickly the Superfund program is an effort to have the responsible party move forward and do the cleanup or any activities that are needed for a site however in most cases that's one or two parties and there's disagreement during that process but when we look at a landfill we start bringing in tens to hundreds of various parties and our history has shown in the late 80s and early 90s this really bogged down to administrative activities and legal wrangling and not much was being done to actually clean up sites so the closed landfill program was created what says is that landfills have been turned over to the state for their long-term care into perpetuity these landfills and the result is the state does that work and then the landfill owner needs to turn over their insurance records that they had at the time and then also allow for those activities to be done at the landfill that are needed to clean it up in most cases those properties are just handed over to the state no one wants anything to deal with with them and the state moves forward with it I'm going to just quickly go over this we really look at our risk at each of 110 landfills and how do we move forward it and this is a list of those activities that we do this is an annual risk assessment that we do and freeway landfill is currently the highest ranked site on there and that's why you see us spending so much time on it and talking to the legislature and to various parties about the facility so with that I'm gonna turn it over my colleague Hans all right yeah Thank You mayor it's good to be with you today all through the council this is a slide you've seen before and sort of gives an overview of what's going on in the neighborhood so there's things to call out in this map we have the Minnesota River also freeway landfill and freeway dump the Kramer quarry and the Burnsville landfill operated by Waste Management which is still in operation also of interest is the drinking water supply for the city of Burnsville and also the city of Savage so in terms of history this is the history of the freeway landfill starts in the 60s with the purchase of the property in the beginning of waste-disposal the late 60s early 70s this was permitted by city of Burnsville and also by MPCA this is a permanent disposals and then through the 70s and 80s the environmental regulations really come online I'd say about 1969 sort of there was like this awakening that of environmental things in the thinking in this country and the number of years later sort of the environmental regulations come online so what that did is it encouraged and prescribed landfills to upgrade their operations either that are closed and in this case the cilantro was closed it was also added to the Superfund list in 1986 so today when we talk about freeway landfill and freeway dump we're talking actually about two different piles of waste on both the east and the west side of 35w the story of waste disposal in this area starts with freeway dump which actually came first and operated from 61 about 1971 it's a smaller area of waste about 34 acres of waste and after a freeway dump closed there was a freeway landfill which was actually permitted so in general this is and so both these facilities are unlined and they present a risk to human health of the environment they're located very near the drinking water supply for both the city of Burnsville in the city of Savage and also the Minnesota River this is not a good place for this much waste to be but it also was permitted by state local government so this is a reflection of how our thinking has changed over time at one point we didn't quite understand the risks of these things posed but with the current understand today we know much more in terms of potential risks contamination and levels of different contaminants that are considered a hazardous so much of the work we do in the clothes landfill program and the remediation division in general are things that happen underground and sometimes they're hard to see so we wanted to give you a little picture of what our testing analysis and evaluation is showing what's going on underground this is a block diagram it shows the freeway landfill in the freeway dumpin also the Cramer quarry the big story here is really about what's going on with the groundwater for landfills and dumps piles of waste there's three things we're concerned about we're concerned about the pile of waste itself and exposure to that we're concerned about the leachate when when water rain water percolates through a pile of garbage pile of waste it creates leachate if you've had like some rain water get into your garbage can at home and if you ate there this is what we're talking about it's like sort of the same thing what landfill leachate is we're concerned about that we're also concerned about the gas you know when it breaks down and creates something called landfill gas which is primarily methane which is an explosion hazard but also contains contamination as well so the story with the groundwater is that there's a tremendous amount of pumping going on in the Kramer quarry and what this is done this is lowered the groundwater table to keep the waste from being saturated about the groundwater and it's also reversed the flow of growler that would normally be an in part flowing to the Minnesota River it's now flowing towards the pumping source the pumping source is discharged to back to the Minnesota River at eight point four million gallons per day and also there's a secondary discharge of two and a half million gallons a day that's used for a drinking water and a beneficial use of this to the city of Burnsville in the city of Sandwich so this represents current conditions under the current pumping or the drivers for this project is really about future risks that will occur when the day comes when no the pumping is no longer happening when Kramer has ceased operations in that large hole in the ground the quarry begins to fill with water so when the pumping stops the water will reserve resume to its natural state which is closer to the ground surface than it is now and also a flow that goes both to the Minnesota River into the new Kramer Quarry Lake this is the case for both the freeway dump on the freeway landfill stopping the pumping will increase the risk in the amount of contamination the possibility for it to move so the legislature legislature has appropriated to us specific funding for this for the the preliminary aspects of this project which are investigation and design so this is what the slide talks about 2017 three million dollars was appropriated from the closed landfill investment fund and it's available to us through the close of fiscal year 2021 these are funds were using for the design in the investigation they're also funds that the city helped testify to to make sure it was available this year and next year in the continuation and we want to thank the city for that help at the legislature to make sure these funds are continued to be available to complete the work that the legislature put on the extension of those funds and the use of those funds the the work is to continue moving forward and a report back yeah to the to the legislature on in yep so mr. Koudelka talked about the closed landfill program as a way to make Superfund work for dumps which had generally our experience was it wasn't working so well for dumps which is why the closed landfill program was created the freeway dump infratry landfill are still in the Superfund program but the closed live helps it to work within the context the Superfund program freeway landfill is listed I'm not only in the state Superfund list but also on the federal Superfund list which is an indication of the risk real potential to human health of the environment Superfund generally has four stages so the first stage is becoming aware that there's an environmental problem and doing an initial screening of prioritization and in this prioritization it ranks at the top of the closed landfills we're working on it scored high enough to be on the federal Superfund list this is all sort of pointing to the fact that there is a real concern here first stage of Superfund is realizing that there's a real concern here the second stage is figuring out where the contamination is and we're mostly through that stage now for the most part the stage after that is what we're entering into right now which is figuring out what could be done about it it's called feasibility study it's evaluating different options the four stage is doing the plan that you developed so this is the slide talks about the investigation part Superfund calls that remedial investigation those are administrative words for figuring out where the contamination is so several years of investigation call me an aiding in a final remedial investigation report recently posted on our webpage the conclusions that were finding methane which is in the primary component of the landfill gas in the explosive explosive range we're finding contamination in ground water above health-based values as is typical for a landfill we're finding sort of a cocktail of contamination different types of contamination we're concerned about the things that were most concerned about our two of the emerging contaminants that weren't even known to look for when the earlier investigations were done and when the landfill was permanent we didn't really even know these are things to be concerned about this is the p FAS compounds and 1 4 dioxane also the chemicals we also commonly see in waste or solvent kind of chemicals these volatile organic compounds also called VOCs and a suite of medals because the Minnesota River is also there there's different health standards for our drinking water and surface water also seeing exceedences of the surface water quality standards and we arrive at these conclusions from multiple rounds of testing and evaluation so that's one slide that presents all the findings but really is a very large extensive investigation process called the medial investigation which brings us into the stage of figuring out what the best possible options are Superfund calls this feasibility study what we're doing here as we're moving forward with really two different options one is to build a modern landfill on the property a modern landfill has a cover and a liner and methane control and leachate collection to build build a modern landfill in the properties one option there's three different designs for that and the variability is really about the footprint and the height of the waste for each of these there's an option which is the smallest footprint which is also the tallest and there's an option which is the lowest height but also has the largest footprint and then there's an option in the middle with different costs in different amounts of area that would be not consumed by the the new landfill the new moderate landfill that would be created on the property this would involve lifting up all the waste and stalling a liner underneath and then all the other systems that go with the modern landfill that's the first option the second option is what we call digging Hall this is moving all the waste to another landfill it's as simple to say that's a lot of ways to move okay den good question yes in both scenarios does all of the garbage have to be dug up and moved so yes with the slide we have here is the the options for we're considering we did consider an option which is called the no action option required to consider that per the feasibility study we've concluded that's not protective of human health you know and so if you're asking does something need to be done I would say yes no my question was in both scenarios option one and option two does every piece of garbage have to be dislocated from its current position to be able to facilitate either digging Hall or dig in line for the dig in line we would lift all the garbage with some exceptions now the exceptions are there's there's a few locations where there's a building on top of the waste a transfer facility is built on the waste and also we discovered the investigation it's not all the waste is actually on the property so for both the dump when the landfill is extended beyond the property boundaries at the dump some of the waste is now under the mini storage building to the south we would get as much of the waste we can even though it's not on the property and it would be lifted to install the liner and then dig a hole and be hauled in our landfill your question yeah in both cases all of the garbage that is currently on underground on those properties has to be dug up and moved aside if you're gonna stick a liner down and put it back or someplace else it all has to be yeah physically dug out we can't just slide a liner underneath correct yeah my point is both require the same amount of digging one is set it aside the other is move it someplace else yes that is correct okay Vince hesitation about the limestone underneath the garbage and the leakage that may have penetrated the rock you're asking me if there's contamination in the rock right now yeah part of the remedial and part of the investigation work was to test some core samples crush and test the core samples of the rock we didn't find things were concerned about that would sort of make sense we know about how the the the water is transported so the in the dolomite story is transported through cracks and fissures in the rock it doesn't sort of move through the mass of the rock so there was any impact of the rock could be limited to the area right around that little crack in the rock where the fluid is moving okay so all this is sort of consistent with the the test results are consistent with our understanding of how things move which leads to conclusion we're not finding things of concern in the rock right now the wall it's in the water more than it is in the rock does that answer your question all right so part of feasibility study also is coming up with cost estimates one of the factors we use to evaluate and arrive at what the best option will be normally in the Superfund process there really the goal is to land on one option one feasibility study option move forward with that one option this is different we're not trying to do that at all what we're doing is we're holding open to possible options for a legislature to make a funny decision we'll talk about that later in the presentation so this slide goes over the different options that are being considered and the costs and also things that are related which for example are potentially available acres on the property and the height of what the waste power would be so first option what we called digging line lift digging up all the waste installing a create a modern landfill the three different options small footprint lowest height and the balanced option you can see there's variation in the footprint of the landfill on the property there's also some variation in area of the proper that would not be consumed by the landfill may potentially be available for different use the heights are different the costs are different on the far right there's a column that's titled additional cost for enhanced liner so part a feasibility study is designing what the proposed liner would be working on two different options one is the standard landfill liner which is a really a two layer liner we're also proposing and proposed for a funding decision an enhanced liner which would be a triple layered liner so there's an additional additional cost for the triple layer liner is spelled out so as you can see there's a good how many landfills have a triple liner you know they have another total number a new one yeah there's a number of them in a closed landfill program the Washington County landfill was a similar thing dug out put on a triple liner the additional liner protection would be if we find high levels of contaminants which leads to a hazard substance being found and what usually is there is then taken to a hazardous waste incinerator or landfill which is outside the state that's much more expensive one option is to design similar containment systems in place and that would be the additional level of liners so there's not been a final decision on the liner yet this will be one of the things that's discussed in the public meeting what we're doing is representing different options thank you so we're in the design process which is called 30% design it's still a very preliminary design so these all these numbers here are still subject to change and they will change as we move forward in the design process and this primarily probably applies to the cost will be going from a cost range down to one cost before it's bid so the variability right now for the dig in line options are really about construction variability this is because the unknowns of the spot we are in the design for the diggin hall options the variability is the variability in construction costs but also really to other things this doesn't prescribe hauling to a specific landfill so there's a low range at a high range the low range option is the low range of hauling to a different landfill and also a waiving of all taxes and fees associated with movement of the waste in can you explain where you got that low range what went into the 145 to 235 mm it's that one 45 is significantly higher than any number I've seen before but the 68 86 to 77 those actually are representative of numbers that we've seen and heard and discussed but the one 45 was a brand-new minimum I guess that's quite a bit higher than the previously discussed diggin home minimum in that range can you tell us how you drive that 145 it's an engineering cost estimate based on the scope which is digging all the way stop so there's a cost for transport off site does it cost for excavation there's a cost for transport off site there's a cost for all the fees and taxes I can pull the sheet yeah I do understand the high end although I I'm not sure how it gets to 795 that seems extraordinarily high but I can certainly see where it gets to well over a hundred if the county in the city were to choose to put the same host fees and other fees associated with that garbage going into a landfill at least the one that we have but if all of those you know so when you're building this range right if you say all right it's gonna be anywhere from here this is the best-case scenario which everybody waives the fees it's going to a very short distance like the Burnsville sanitary landfill what does that cost look like all the way up to having to pay the fees and/or haul it a long distance someplace else so I get to high end that makes sense the low end doesn't make sense it seems artificially high for a starting point just real quick higher level the state has not pulled together an estimate before on the digging in Hall we did a back-of-the-envelope calculation about 200 million there is a third party that's put out an estimate that's closer to the 100 million and they have estimated using options that would not necessarily be available to the state for instance using their own trucks or hauling over an overland route that the state as they put through their our engineering piece here can't use because that would assume certain person won the bid we have to use smaller trucks an overland route around a facility that so there are some cost drivers there there are from that number that has been thrown around and quoted though it's not an apples-to-apples gotcha it's doing some different assumption advantages and assumptions that that particular bid source might have that others won't in Kirk Johnson and Jenny the sixty-eight million two hundred and ten million and the 77 million these are having to do with the diggin line options that we've been talking about it's only last year that we started to bring in that the digging hall option and this is where you have to bring in new estimates am i correct because this is part of the conversation in some of the meetings that I bet I participated at the legislature about the two different options correct Mary you're correct we have not done the the same level of detail on the estimates to dig it all until this piece so now we really have the same rigor done for a day in haul and a dig in line where before one was more rigorous than the other was more of a quick estimate and this is the money that we were going to the legislature to get and I know under governor Dayton that was part of all of the that conversation to get the money through the legislature through bonding for all of that and it was about the digging line but now that we are looking and exploring the digging hall now we have to have new estimates on what that cost is going to be I'm going to go to Dan G and then some things is it safe to say that if this third party is correct that it could be just as economical to do a digging hall as it would be to a diggin line then is that what I just heard potentially we have to truth that and we're gonna get a little bit in here into the process we've built in the process for that to come out so I'm gonna steal a little bit of Honda thunder but we're gonna do a to bid system okay so that folks can say and if a third party can do it for cheaper we will see that before going to the legislature so the legislature will have the most accurate numbers possible we'll make the decisions this is something that the team has been working on because of conversations with the legislature yourselves and and other interested parties and part two was when you're when you're doing the costs of the lining this in place where it's that basically are you figuring in the cost the lost economic development opportunities when I look at our background to move it off site we could have see up to hundred seven hundred thirty seven million dollars in development down there with a lot more taxes to expand our tax base as opposed to doing it leaving it there which around thirty four million dollars in development so there's a there's a cost to the city the county and the state as far as tax revenue goes and just the development for the city itself so to make us a economically viable year so I think that should be kind of considered in what losses we may have in the future by doing it that way because that is a cost to us and whether we're here for it or not my grandkids are great fans kids are gonna be here for it they're gonna have to deal with it that's more statement property real quick answer is no it's not in there but that's one of the multiple things that will have to come into the conversation at the legislature thank you okay Kara and it sounds like you're gonna be getting to the question that I was going to be asking because it would be good to have that in there because there's a big difference between an annual property tax coming in of 1 million versus 8 million like that's per year that's not an insignificant you know difference that so when our state legislature has this information that is important policy information for them to have is that large of a difference they're going to get a lot of this background information as part of their education in terms of what's going on and I believe George you're going to be doing the same kind of education for them for the commissioners thank you yeah thank you Hunt's right so this is our path forward worth the first two squares in this path forward now which is super fund feasibility study study we've arrived at the two different options which is not the normal path for a few place that were to hold open to possible options moving forward we're working now on the bottom line are design and with those two things with two possible options and the bottom line our proposal for design which is the standard liner option and also an enhanced option we're to proceed to a public meeting in April of 2020 the answer we want to get out of the public meeting process is narrow the digging line options down to one option so right now there's a variability in height and footprint and available space on the property that would not be consumed with the landfill we want to narrow down to one of the digging line options and also one proposal for the aligner that would either be the standard liner or an enhanced liner and then we would move forward to bid out both those options is to do a bid process we would ask for both options to be bid but working on cost estimates they'll be the best cost estimates we have and we won't really know the costs intent we get the bids back is the reality of the situation so with the bids in hand we would go to the legislature and there'd be a funding decision about the legislature would fund one cleanup plan and then we would proceed with the construction depending on what is selected this is either a three or four your construction project and you're anticipating that this will be in 2021 yes so the detailed schedule in terms of dates is public meeting April 2020 and then we go to legislature in the 2021 session that's the plan that we're working with right now so you can see here on the schedule okay I'm just going to kind of take off from where you see that we talked about the the bid process and the reason for these two bids is we've also had a closed landfilled wde and Andover where we went to the legislature requested money with our typical he's ability on a percent design unfortunately we went out for the bids and it came in several million dollars more we were put in a situation in the following year having to go to the legislature and acquire that those dollars that's very fresh in the Legislature's mind and so this is very unique where we would do a bid most time bids are open for a short amount of time we will have to make a the request and let them know that we're gonna keep them open for six months so that the legislature can do their their work and then come back and you know end of May hopefully or early June with an answer of what project they move forward and then be able to move forward and not lose time so this again is a very unique process from how we have done this type of project in the past and the same with how in general how the state has done its its bidding but we think it's going to provide a better outcome and so this is a slide that we also use with the legislature when we recently had a bonding committee come in and do a tour and there really are three big questions going to the legislature is Hans mention ultimately it will be the legislature deciding based on the level of funding on whether digging hall or dig in line will move forward and by having those bid documents in with true numbers and if there are any potential savings from any one that can propose any third party or that will be able to see those there and then the legislature gets the best understand you know what's there the agency will not put forward anything that is not protective as you can see we've already pulled out the no action possibility and we will advocate for anything that is protective of the area now the level funding is not only a total project cost but is as Hans has mentioned it also includes state and local fees we anticipate in working right now with the Department of Revenue on legislation that we're hopefully to bring forward this session which would exempt any state taxes or fees from being applied to this process again that same concept so that when we go in in 2021 to the legislature we have bid documents with the most recent amount of information and we know that the state potential amounts could range and you know anywhere from sixty to seventy million dollars in taxes and fees which could greatly reduce the cost of this so this is something we're working on with Department of admin at this point and we'll work with the governor's office to get his approval before moving on to the legislature the second is the source of funding and I know we've had this conversation before of general obligation bonds taxable versus non taxable bonds and if they are non taxable bonds there is the thirty seven and a half year restriction on ability to earn and that's whether it's under a public entity or private entity as we move forward any bonding there does need to be a public interest in the property whether it's an easement or actual fee title of the property and so that will be something that we'll continue to work with them on we've had discussions with MMB on various types of bonds to to start putting together a menu of options for the legislature so that they can pick and choose a more column on how that might be done the third item is the financial benefits who's gonna benefit for the cleanup and contribute to it and that going back to an earlier question of property tax values the worth of the the property moving forward our mission and primary focus is protect human health in the development and that is what we're going to advocate first and foremost for and then additional things such as the ability for having the land is be developed and those type of things will be other things that the Legislature will consider what we've already heard by going before the committee is that there's a question of those who benefit from the cleanup are they going to contribute and we've heard that in terms of the current landowner but believe that's held true for no matter who owns the property whether it's a local unit of government private entity whether it's the current one or any other one and so that question will come up and that'll be a robust conversation I think one of the things we want to tee up for you and the same thing we'll be teeing up for the county coming up in our conversation with them well the state is not looking to move forward legislation and talk about local fees it will be the first or second question up from the legislature and so that's something that you guys will have to discuss and come this legislative session I imagine the legislature would ask for your opinion on those fees whether it's a county or or local unit of government that the city's fees but again we're not looking to have that in our legislation we're looking just to do the state piece in it but that will be a question and just want you to be ready for and that falls kind of under the contribution of of cleanup in addition to how that moves forward with whoever owns the property in the future if the state were to have to acquire the property to do the work and then sells it to another party or the current property owner this is something that we've been having conversations with the legislature on already concepts of windfall liens and and the like and that's something else will continue through those conversations as the mayor mentioned we are not going before the legislature this year for bonding after conversations with various legislators and wanting some more certainty in terms of cost and then also setting the stage let's try to figure out this tax stuff in that get that all figured out this year is the goal and then bring a much cleared question before the legislature that can really focus them on and so that's where it's a little bit of a change since we had this conversation last time or were anticipation even as late as this summer we put in our initial request for bonding would be for this year for it we want to make sure that as we look at it we do the proper steps and put ourselves in the best place to be successful so can you also then speak to the transaction between one owner selling to another private owner and then what does that mean with regard to bonding if the buyer of the property is going to use the property for their business and so will there be any bonding money or that's going to be part of the work that we need to get done in 2020 so it's teed up well for 2021 so the if you're talking in terms of restrictions because of non-taxable bonds and that earning potential whether it's a current owner or some future owner those stay there so what really the the piece is the funding source that second bullet it's where is the the funding coming from to help try to relieve that piece and so that's what some of the things were looking at taxable bonds allows for that to happen I think that's one possibility and we're trying to explore with MMB what other avenues are and we've had the city and county and none of those conversations - because if the new entity who is interested in this property it's still going to be 37 years out because they would like to use the land and also mind some of the rock that's there so it'll still be for the city of Burnsville to do any development on that site it's still 30-some plus years out correct if the work is done and that person continues the ownership that restriction whether it's public or private yeah continues to take place yeah I just want everybody to understand whether its publicly owned with general obligation bonds it's 37 years out if it's privately owned and they're going to work the property and dig out the resources the natural resources that they need for their business it's still 30 plus years out before the city of Burnsville can do development on this and gain the taxable property that we would like to see correct if they own the property at a time the works not correct okay Dan gee that's a weakening of the general obligation bond restriction that wouldn't that taxable know developments can be done much sooner than that with the landing structure well isn't a 37 it isn't a 35 or 40 year wait just because they want to mine it the only restriction on any development is because of the general obligation only if a percentage of the funding can be done through cash and other sources or taxable bonds there will be development within the first five years one part of that property on part of the property and another chunkin within ten years there will be no 35 and a half or thirty-seven those are all pretty good things that we need to really understand in terms of moving forward so that we are clear in terms of a path forward for what that's going to look like for us and so whether it's five years I want to understand all of that we don't have any of that there's a lot of conversations as we all have been sitting in those meetings but clarity is something that we all need to make sure that we have it and a lot of conversation needs to be codified I think the first step is getting more specific numbers it's really gonna help ya the range is right now our card any other questions for Kirk and Hansen what question when you deal with the legislators more than we do does it help when the city or the county that says we will waive our fees when you go to the legislature is they in it we're ready to step up and do our share to make this happen it will definitely in terms of the cost overall going down right in terms of whether or not it's if there are two options it won't cost more it'll come into a number of factors I don't know you know it would help is it enough that's a larger larger question thank you I think there's a lot of openness and still more discussion about all of that rather than jumping in you know NT I just want to circle back on that comment that councillor Gustafson made I mean cost to clean up isn't a total cost over time that just for the city to go from 1 million a million a year in property tax revenue when it's fully built out is a substantial difference there's also a substantial difference that's magnified for three or four times to the county in property tax revenue and there's also property tax revenue to the state when this is presented you know let's fast forward you get two bids you define the the diggin line you got the digging hall it's gone out for bid you now have hard numbers regardless of where they're at let's assume that they're close but there's still eight or ten million apart is the if I as a legislator I'm going to be presented this and a local legislator asked to carry that bonding bill am I going to see the forecasted revenue tax revenue over the next 40 years with this plan versus this plan or am I going to be shown here's your cost to clean up in this it's 10 million different we are gonna be going before legislature with a coalition and that includes a city and county and it will likely be the county and city taking the lead on that portion the brave will present that package we worked as a three parties as a partnership before we anticipate moving forward on that what we just don't have that information that it's it's additional information that the city is easier to explain and and sell than us it's just not our daily job okay so that'll be a part of the package but that's presented that will present and the county present you know this option brings in future tax revenue overdeveloped you know right this package brings in this now here's your front end cost to get there but here's the here's this story overtime and and the legislators the committee who came down and saw the vision from kmm and so that will be part of the package when we go forward because that'll give a projection of what tax revenue might be out into the future so all of that would be part of the package that comes from the private sector from local government from the county and then of course the state has their piece of all of that so it is a collaboration of all of the stakeholders one final comment mr. Cadell CAI appreciate your comments related to the the approach that you have with getting the bids in to be able to package this up I think it's that's great that's good news that's helpful to ensure that both get their chance at being openly bid find out what the actual costs are going to be and I think it's difficult to have this discussion without bringing up the status of the Burnsville sanitary landfill and the ceilin process with a limited lifespan I mean if they if they had several more years of capacity and there was no urgency this may not be as a big a deal because we'd have time right because they do have a finite time line of permitted waste capacity digging hall only makes sense for us to haul it to Burnsville sanitary landfill not haul it all the way to Red Wing or to Iowa costs obviously significantly higher on those two so can you speak tonight and I don't want to put you on the spot to speak away from what you intended to but can you speak of how you see the Burnsville century landfills desire to expand and how it can help or hurt this particular project not a problem so they're disconnected certificate of need is not needed for this project there's the determination the agency has made and shared with with others now they would need if it were to be Burnsville landfill they would need to get a permit and additional permanent capacity make sure it's done and built in a way that's protective human healthy environment just like any waste they would do and then we need to get the county approval but co n would not be used in this situation because we're moving from an existing landfill to a existing landfill and it's not new waste the certificate of need is when we're looking for new waste coming in from other locations and trash so that that they still follow up through their environmental review and the permitting process but it is not tied to Cu 1 so from a business discussion for Bristol sanitary landfill to want to do that obviously there needs to be some upside to it as opposed to ok we'll just take the 6.3 million cubic yards and then that'll be it right when we run out of permitted new waste we run out and then we'll take that and then then we're done I can see why their perspective there they're looking for greater capacity beyond just the 6 and a half or whatever it is about six point three cubic yards of transferred waste from previously filled free MacDonald that they want something bigger speaking openly sort of we because obviously there's a there's a host fee revenue stream that helps the city in a great way and I mentioned this at our last meeting you know we have a landfill it is what it is and there's not gonna be any high-rises being developed right next to a landfill and so we're missing out as a city on the potential development of some of that it's obviously near a floodplain so some of it can't be developed but so it's the but-for test right but for property taxes were collecting host fees and those that host fee revenue needs to replicate what those property taxes could have been over time as best possible and having that that landfill and when it when it runs out of capacity essentially says that you know the the property tax in lieu of faucet shuts off and that harms the city financially so we have a vested interest in seeing that co n and having some additional to complete what is currently industrial waste right there's space there for industrial waste there's many many many many many years and many many decades worth of space there and it seems foolish to us to have that stay open for many many more decades taking in a small amount of industrial waste when it we believe it should be just allowed to be converted to accepting solid municipal waste and continue to operate until a new capacity is set right through the through all the processes because that's our property tax revenue stream really I mean it's but for all the development that might have happened down there that's it that's what we have to rely on real quick there were a couple questions there one is why would a landfill do this you know and I think they will need to look at the waste characterization and the material and the feasibility study to make sure - to make sure that they if there's anything else they need to do differently but there is a financial benefit to them because they will be paid a tipping fee to bring the waste there so they do get that benefit on why they would do it the second piece on the overall certificate of need for the landfill that's an ongoing process we're right now on the supplemental environmental impact statement that's moving forward we've got the scoping document done and now are doing the work with waste management to finish that document the other item is certificate of need and that is has not opened yet there is still the the need to make sure the waste energy facilities are full in the in the region here that is something that the landfills can control and help our understanding is in October they were full and we're monitoring to see if they are continuing to be full is this month and next month and so I think we have seen increased activities by some of the landfills to help make that doable and possible and we're encouraged by that part of that is also the help of Dakota County and working to find a solution to this - along with and we've been in conversations with them waste energy facilities and landfill operators and so there we are seeing progress towards that on multiple fronts on the environmental review and meaning of the capacity at request energy facilities which opens up the certificate of need process sealing thank you any other questions okay Jenny so we're gonna narrow it down from the state level to the city level and Kurt and Hans have talked about a lot of things that I think I had in my section of this but of course covering the city priorities they are environmental we talked about the potential impacts to the water quality and getting things in a line facility and then the redevelopment potential of the different scenarios that could be higher and better land use adding you know we are we have this river in Burnsville but people don't think of us as a river community and you think about what that land use could be and how that can change kind of the type of community that we are and of course the tax base so we did do the numbers and you talked about them already thank you you've read the report I'm impressed and so the evaluation on the preferred option and and what we did is we use the plan that kmm had previously submitted and ran though they give us the square footages acreages potential land uses ran those over to Ehlers to do their calculation and their financial analysis that's how we got to these numbers so 733 million dollars in today's dollars would be the future value and total property taxes it doesn't it includes all taxing entities is 8 million dollars per year and what is the projection on that development journey the projection and value in a projection of when the when the product will go up so that you will you will see the value of that product well it depends how it's financed man that's right right yeah it could be within the ten year period if it's non thirty seven and a half year limitations privately financed but probably not sooner than that yeah and maybe much longer than that and then on the dig in line I just used the forty acre the option that will leave forty acres of developable that's a thirty four million dollar valuation of mostly office warehouse uses because it would be next to a landfill in those property taxes are approximately 1 million dollars and that's the forty acres that's closer to the freeway absolutely yeah and so when we did this analysis it does become clear as you've noted there is a public payoff to getting this to dig in Hall off site there's a huge public payoff these are public dollars from our standpoint that are going into this from the state potentially the city in the county with fees this taxes property taxes pays the public back so to speak so that's part of our case to make with the legislature as this goes forward question yes you mentioned that definitely in 1 million or all taxi is that city county state yes yes we can email you the detail if you want just roughly what's our sure yeah what's our chromes know if you can't compare one to the other because the state does not collect property taxes on multifamily in a big part of the 733 million is multifamily development so it's not apples to apple it's a bigger share of the 8 million would be the city's because it's multifamily where industrial office would be a bigger shirt potentially to the state because at CIA versus 40 acres we'll have a lot 33% of that goes to the state I can email you out of the chart that has the breakdown I just based on that presentation though how can we not love the 733 at 8 million because we're getting a bigger share of these compelling you think if it cost 160 million to clean up that's payback in 20 years yeah that's not bad that's today's dollars no if it's 1 million per year and it's a hundred million that's a hundred years right the cost to do that for development isn't there put in the date online option as it is on the digging hall and if it's an 80 million dollar cleanup then you're talking - exactly exactly so in looking at what the city's options are here there's a continuum continuum of options for what we can do to participate certainly on the Left we've got low risk low cost of the city and that's if the MPCA continues down the path they are with cleaning up the land they own the cleanup they're the responsible entity along with the property owner right now - something that we are much more engaged in if the city were to step in and acquire the property we own the cleanup high risk high cost to the city third party is somewhere in the middle right what can we do to help to get to that 733 million dollars of investment at minimal risk possible to the city so I put together kind of some options our our pathways as the city to get to the preferred option and we've kind of talked through some of them today but it seems I think obvious that we should be prepared to bring some financial tools to the table at some point or another in this if it's not host fees it may be something else to help cover some of the costs if there is a difference in cost once those bids come in we'll know for sure what that difference is but it's it's I think we should it would be safe to assume that we were gonna be asked to put in as a benefiting party what are you putting into this mix we certainly can work with the property owner to facilitate them entering into a binding agreement a few years ago we were we had kind of came up with a conceptual agreement where the city would assess the property we were gonna put in some money some TIF money and some landfill money that we had along with the county to help write down the cost of the land for the MPCA to buy the land from the owner and then we were a set would assess the property back so we could do something like that or try to do something like that again yeah isn't this all part of the mrq TIF district already or no this was the the legislature was very clear that the landfill is not part of it in the quarry good question thank you number three certainly we can continue to work with a third party to facilitate cleanup and development of course if it's done voluntarily it's done through what's called a binding agreement with the MPCA and certainly there would be those funding gaps I think for us to get to the preferred option there's also working through the voluntary cleanup part process now that would be the property owner or a third party taking on the funding of cleaning it up themselves right and then you know getting their payback on some end with the development or something like that so that would be completely brownfield outside of the state's land close landfill program I mean depending on how legislation goes deed has a brownfields program as well if that's the way it goes with development at the end of it Hans and Kirk talked about their process this is a typical for their process to go through this to bid option so we can't thank them enough for working with us until this point to get to that but there are other state agencies that deal with brownfield cleanup and kind of the way that we're talking about so there's different kind of layers of regulations that kind of could help us get to the end but right now it is part of the closed landfill cleanup program and falls under their purview and then lastly we could as an EDA we were not listed as a responsible party but we could get into the chain of title and work with the property owner to acquire the property and then enter into that binding agreement ourselves of course there doesn't come without risk or expense which are unknown but I just wanted to lay that out there so you know about this range of options that we have to consider so the challenges of as we have heard the actual costs are unknown and that's what makes us a real challenge at this point you know how much is the city going to be asked to put in how much do we want to put in where is that number same thing for the county so once the bids come out and we know what those costs are I think that'll be a lot easier for us to have something to deal with because it's we just don't know what it is right now in the land acquisition costs I think are unknown at this point so what is how does that piece come to play into all of this we do have the numbers at the MPCA went through from their feasibility report we believe that special legislation is likely we've already kind of talked about some of the things that are going to be asked and we do and have been working very cooperatively with them so we are more than happy to to go down as a group to help get to the end and this preferred option as much as we can that's just the win-win for everybody in this and certainly host fees waiving of the hosts fees help bring the cost down which we already know about that so I do want to spend a little bit of time talking about the host fees and just get some assurance I think from you as a group of in some way shape or form on this we have verbally agreed to waive our host fees on this we don't have anything in writing I think at the end of the day I think Kirk mentioned it the legislature is going to ask for a commitment from the city on this and so I thought the easiest way to do that would be to amend our resolution support the close-up the closure freeway Atlanta that was adopted last year so and I put the dollar amount on there now that we know some more of the cubic yards of garbage so our contribution in choosing to weigh those is about twenty-six million dollars the county is not taking a formal position George mentioned that they'll be having those discussions they estimate their fees to be sixty million dollars am I in the ballpark right George 60 million okay so our next steps and Hans talked about this 60% design in March they'll have a public meeting now after hearing what he said today I think we'll want to regroup and see if you have a preferred option - from the city standpoint for that April meeting on dig in line if you have a preferred option we probably should talk about that and then with the complete design in September going out for bids and then finding financing 2021 and then this question has come up I just want to make sure that you have this information that there's no permits that are needed by the city for the MPCA to do its remediation project right so the state authority supersedes city in this case but certainly the something may come before you for a PUD to increase the capacity at the landfill they have concept stage not development stage so once they get their sewer line and get through their environmental reviews they'll be back before you for development stage and then of course any land use clearance and future development would need your pool at some point so my questions for you is if there's any other additional information you need or would like at this time certainly we'll get you that that chart with all the taxes are you still supportive of us working towards the preferred option with the third party just want to check in in case something's changed are you open to amending the resolution to include waiving the host fees at this time do you want to take any formal action to advocate the county to waive their fees do you want to weigh in and have discussions with them or are there any other ideas you'd like us to explore one of the things that I'd like to see is that that we continued their discussion with the county so that there are a partner in all of this and staff already knows that we have consensus to waive the fees but I don't think that we should jump and and amend the resolution because staff already has clear direction from us that that is a tool that they can work with the negotiate but then we need to get the state to be a partner we need to get the County to be a partner as we move forward we have we can by the time we go to the legislature in 2021 make that decision for an additional piece but I think for us to do that now without the county being a partner with us in waiving those fees we stand alone and I would suggest to my colleagues that we because it's the minutes that we have in this discussion that's on television allows our staff to move forward that there is consensus to weigh those fees but we don't have to do a resolution at this point that's my thought and I think there's a lot of work yet to be done and I think our staff needs I mean we all have consensus to say staff this is what you're you can have this tool that we have consensus but to put it at a resolution at this time I think is premature till we get the state and that and the county to come along with us doesn't it show support for digging hall if we putting our reservation they know that we we preferred to get hall well I think we need to strengthen that position by putting it in a resolution because I think for me there is only one option big in line is not even it's the digging Hall is we agreed that that's the option that we all support and that we are waiving the fees to put it in but I would like to Berlin to be a partner and I would also like the state to understand that but we also have it on record but we don't have to do a resolution at this point come back and forth on this a bit today but at the end of the day you get the trash off of our aquifer that's our number one priority we need to work with our partners which is the county and the state to make this happen and I don't think we need to just go for a windfall because in my mind this is garbage this it's in Burnsville it's we're moving to a safer location in Burnsville and why should anybody get a fee out of it as far as any government agency agreed and yeah I understand what you're saying and a mayor that we want the county to be with us and we want the state to be with us but someone's got to lead someone's got to step up and say we're there so come with us and let's make this thing happen and we gotta make this happiness no choice yeah and I think we've done that in the discussion last year and we gave that and we have an end a discussion now we agree that the dig in Hall is the preferred option we also said that we would waive our fees and that is a negotiating tool for our staff to have but I'd like to see the county step in also that we're leading we're doing that staff is asking for a resolution so I would like us to do that resolution but I'd also like us to take action to advocate that the county waive their fee and we some sort of formal action and send it to the county so they can start discussing this and getting it on their agenda and talking about it I know the staff at the county's talks with the board a lot but it would be very very good if the city that actually hosts this dump steps forward and says come on we're here with you agreed I tend to agree with mayor that we have time and I'd like to get some more reassurances from our partners that we've heard heard some things but I'm comfortable waiting this process out a little bit longer to get some more reassurances from doing I think we've said to the county where we want you to be our partner that we have a lot of time and I don't think we do because this process is underway the earlier you effect the process the more likely you are to get an outcome that you wish to have happen once the gears of bureaucracy start turning you are not going to get in like you don't have a chance to effect it at that point so I think the idea that we have time is an illusion I think things generally get decided earlier than the dates of a process say happens absolutely I do want to take formal action to advocate that the county waive their fees that all that all that is doing is just saying we are publicly asking you to do this will you do this instead of doing the wink-wink nudge-nudge would you kind of like to say that this just puts our cards on the table and ask them to to do the same and just have the conversation I I don't think it's you know when they say oh it take formal action it that's not like a forceful thing we're just saying okay we're making this request of you would you do it I am also in favor of revising our resolution to include waiving the city host fees I think that that lends strength to the depth of our of our preference not just that we have a preference but like this is where we're planting our flag okay staff you here three to two to move forward with the resolution correct madam mayor and then also three to two to get something to the county a letter to I think there's consensus to get something to the county that's not that's not the that's know that the three two is the resolution that's all that is because there is consensus that we're going to have we all have digging Hall and there is consensus that we will waive our fees it's you know do we do it tonight or do we do it in October of 2020 before we go before the the the legislature in 2021 so for me we have time to have that conversation this meeting on television in minutes says that we are weird we're all in favor of waiving our fees but we're not going to do a resolution just yet but you have three members of the council who said go ahead with the resolution but everything else there is consensus madam mayor members of the council Mike I guess my question is is should do you want to include in that resolution that we are advocating that the county also waived their fees do you want that absolutely in the resolute absolutely yes not only that we also I would say that we also asked the state to come in as a partner because this is not just for the city of Burnsville when we're looking at protecting the water table it's for the region the Jordan aquifer just doesn't serve just Burnsville it serves a lot a lot bigger footprint a lot of other cities so that's where I look at its the health and safety and welfare of the people but you know I want people to be a partner okay I think gonna potentially is was small although eighty million is not small to add 60 million on top of it it's basically a deal a deal killer and I believe our our Commissioner has already expressed that opinion and I can't imagine anyone on the Dakota County Commission that would think it wouldn't be a deal killer so I think it's it's I think we're making the right decision by just putting it in our resolution because it's almost a foregone conclusion I mean it cats out of the bank they know these numbers and they know they're number 60 million and they know that if they throw that on there it's basically gonna kill the deal so I feel that's why I'm very confident that we do what we just decided to do and I think it's the right thing to do this presentation before the county board I don't think so list but I mean we've been at the city level highly engaged in this process I think the county has been engaged but yeah maybe not quite to the extent that the city has not the boy point I mean we haven't heard any formal reassurances from the county board about their yeah Oh up to this yeah the board has not been educated on this and the board needs to also see the kmm proposal and what that looks like so because that's where the projections are being made in terms of the tax base all right Jenny is there anything else that Melanie and Jenny you need from us okay so mr. McGowen for this opportunity there were some things said this evening that I must respond to and I have another option to suggest to the council mr. Cadell cos suggested that there be a robust conversation Freeway landfill would be happy to have a honest truthful robust conversation about the facts related to freeway landfill in the old freeway landfill one of the things that people must keep in mind is under these circumstances freeway landfill must relinquish control of the property for people to believe that somehow freeway landfill will retain ownership of it is something that is not a possibility there was litigation initiated by the MPCA in the early 1990s which resulted in freeway landfill and all of its customers turning over insurance proceeds and the insurance that the state of Minnesota collected millions of dollars on so just for people to be aware that this is an attempt by the MPCA it sounds to take a second bite from the Apple something else that is very important is that the natural flow of the groundwater beneath freeway landfill was up and toward the river the Kramer mining lowered their quarry sump which freeway and Phil notified the MPCA of and in fact Kramer mining reversed the ground water flow from up and toward the river to down and into the quarry after freeway landfill closed in 1990 the city then began taking water as all of you are aware from that water in the quarry in order for the MPCA to find chemicals in the water they took the unprecedented step of putting wells in the garbage so for the last few years the MPCA has been testing water in the landfill mr. nabi said and I quote that there's risk to human health in fact the MPCA has no evidence that there is contamination or pollution off the site of the freeway landfill and they have been aware of this for 30 or 40 years mr. Navy also said that once Kramer ceases dewatering which mr. Ravi stow has said from Kramer mining that that will be an additional 30 to 35 years from now because they believe that they have additional capacity regardless of whether they expand their mining operation or not mr. navi suggested that there in the feasibility process freeway landfill was required to do a remedial investigation in the mid-1980s and in fact did to at the request of the MPCA which done by two different independent engineers showed that freeway landfill was not a risk to human health or the environment despite the fact that freeway landfill did two remedial investigations and as a part of that process the feasibility study suggested that nothing be done because of no risk to human health and the environment mr. Navy also intimated that there was waste off the property that is not true he also suggested that there was waste under the mini storage that is true because Astle Ford had a landfill underneath the Mini Storage and the car dealership at the same time that the old freeway landfill was operating for some reason the MPCA wants to ignore the fact that there was another landfill immediately adjacent to the old freeway landfill mister navi also said that they didn't find chemicals of concern in the rock which is fascinating to me because if in fact all of the water from freeway landfill that now percolates through it and goes down into the groundwater which is allegedly their concern it has to go somewhere and it has to go through the rock so either there is a problem or there isn't a problem the MPCA in order to put freeway landfill at the top of the list has falsified misled and ignored the facts the MPCA is attempting to double tax waste that has already been taxed at one point in time freeway landfill paid tax on the waste that was going into the landfill and I want to make very clear frequent landfill was owned and operated by my dad at no point that I ever owned or operate the landfill and the ownership of the landfill has not changed in over 20 years there was a waste energy facility which mr. Cadell Casa guested earlier that they be reaching capacity that failed in Elk River there is a need for additional waste capacity so one of my options is this why not expand the freeway landfill freeway landfill asks for an expansion in the 1980s and was turned down if freeway landfill works ended we would have the same ability to put the same cap liner that Burnsville landfill and mr. Cadell k has suggested that they have in addition to that the conditions upon the expansion of the landfill would be the freeway landfill would be able to address the concerns of the MPCA so I welcome any of your questions have always welcomed any of your questions and I appreciate this opportunity and thank you yes there's a question Mike okay Kara so that I understand it correctly in your proposal to reopen the landfill and be able to take additional waste on to the landfill are you saying that you will agree to remove the waste line it put the waste back in and then new waste could join that as well did I understand that correctly no we would do exactly the same thing that Burnsville landfill has done and they did not remove the waste and put a liner under that waste Burnsville landfill open before either of the two freeway landfills well we would be willing to put a cap liner once completed then I I struggle with this piece of history Mike and whoever else can contribute but when the the amphitheater plan was on the table were these same concerns being discussed at that time with the land which concerns the toxic garbage well I mean madam mayor we're going back 25 or 30 years well at least know the amphitheater was not 25 or 30 years ago the amphitheater was about yeah 18 years ago when that application by the Minnesota Wild was put on the table for the amphitheater but to address your question the MPCA has been aware since the landfill closed in 1990 since the remedial investigation was done in the mid-80s and there has been quarterly monitoring done since the late 70s or early eighties there was an agreement that was reached with the MPCA to close the landfill as part of the amphitheater development yeah can I answer your question the reason why the issues and and and Kirk can also I think Kirk might have been at the MPCA the amphitheater was going to be in the area of your quarry that was the that had 30,000 foot where the landfill is now is going to just be a parking lot but not asphalt it it was just going to be gravel so it wasn't going to so cars can come in park but the amphitheater was going to be down in the line quarry that you now have storage you you use a recycling hungry yeah yeah so that's where I think Kirk I don't know if you because it wasn't good there wasn't going to be a building on it and it wasn't going to be asphalted it was just only going to be gravel and parked cars were going to be parked on it so Kirkham from the MPCA z-- perspective as we move forward with the amphitheater so that's the reason why some of that because there wasn't going to be any impact on it with that statement you're saying the garbage would just sit there and there'd be gravel over the top and it would be a big parking lot but the gret but the land so mayor I have a little bit of information in history and the agency has been working through that or other opportunities to find a way to make sure the landfill is protective human health and the environment and under that plan there would have to be put in there engineering to make sure that it was handled in the proper way now that was in some of the earlier studies mentioned were done where there was different understanding and contamination health standards have changed it become more stringent or new chemicals have been found such as Peethas one for dioxin which has led to an evolving understanding of the potential risk of the landfill and thus where previously certain things mean I've been allowed today they would not and this is not only for this landfill this is for others to including those under the state's care I use the example of the Washington County landfill in the closed landfill program already previously it did have one system cover in place in the liner but because of additional understanding growing knowledge of the contamination and the potential risk it had to human health in the environment that was dug up and put on a liner so these things do evolve over time and explains why certain things thirty years ago when some of these first studies were done I may have had different conclusions than today okay then I'm not trying to be a devil's advocate or anything but with the Burnsville sanitary landfill next door I think we have a couple spots that are capped and not lined and as our technology and understanding evolves as you stated you know we find more hazards that we didn't know about maybe 20 years ago are those things that we need to be concerned about at that location or you know even with this location in the bedrock we don't maybe visibly see something but it exists you're talking about the waste management yeah I mean facility I mean it's just if something's there that now that we don't know about but with technology in 40 years I mean I you don't want to live in fear but it's apparently proven that that you know protecting the water source yeah Marin and councilmembers said is it a good point that mr. McGowan's brought up and it's something that the agency is looking at in a supplemental environmental impact statement if you go through the scoping document there's a large amount looking at what is the true depth of the waste at the burns Hill there are some cells that are mined but there are numerous ones that are lined and up to modern landfill standards and so that analysis will be done as part of the environmental impact statement looking at you know what would the potential groundwater and how does that interact with the waste under the scenario where Kramer quarry stops pumping so that a similar analysis has looked to be done for Burnsville waste management facility so that they the freeway facilities and the Burnsville facilities would look under the same I look at the same things to make sure we have both of them take care of we don't want one taken care of and then had the other one and that was a good question because that allows us to address the the the allegations that mr. McGowen made and then confirmed by mr. Kord alta so we'll move forward and there'll be more information that we will get to make better decisions as we move forward dan mr. Cadell Kauai you're at the table I appreciate you coming back and Mike being here Mike McGowan has brought up some other similar situations to that portion of Brazil Sanchi landfill that predated lining requirements so maybe one day it'll have to be remediated itself the storage facility asell Ford's property that has garbage under it and then the dealership that is adjacent to freeway dump Howard though is going to be addressed tested yeah because I mean I understand mr. McGowan's position a great if you're gonna hold me to these rules and hold everybody else with online garbage to the same rules how will those other locations be addressed Marin councilmembers each facility is different and has its differences for instance this freeway landfill is much closer to the river and drinking water than others there's a difference in the amount of waste or waste may be collected and so that's something we will look at as we move forward to on the character and the characterizations there is a dump that was located there that we understood was in the 50s and 60s potentially operating I would have to check back most developments when they do are done they do come through our voluntary investigation cleanup program Vic and there's a level of review done at that time and so if there is something that's different because of any understanding those would be tackle a future earnings those Academy yeah the asla Ford landfill was run at the same time that my dad operated the old freeway landfill on the east side of the freeway in early mid-60s late 60s and that landfill was much closer to the city walls than the old freeway landfill I think these are a lot of investigative work that needs to be done that needs to come back to us in terms of information for us to make good decisions on moving forward there's a lot of work yet to be done and we need all of that kind of information dan K well I I'm curious if there's any other landfills first of all it seems like the entire riverfront the the dealership that you mentioned Mr McGowan was that is that the one next to the Allstate storage yes is all state storage on top of landfill yes and the that was new at seven or eight ten years ago with dealership so is everything on top of allegations that mr. Nephi suggested that waste has been disposed of or migrated off the property boundary that is not freeway landfills waste so we have lots of work there's a lot of work and so I thank you for coming in thank you and speaking and Kirk thank you so much you enhanced for being here and giving us more information and I just see more information coming so that we make good decisions for the people of Burnsville whom we work for and serve okay and Jenny and Melanie you have your direction and so the resolution will come before us on a consent agenda okay anything else okay the next item Jenny I believe this is also yours this is the proactive maintenance discussion well Jenny's cueing it up thank you I just wanted to circle back this came up a couple weeks ago and they're talking about the budget there's a question some staffing recommendations for the 2020 budget and then there was a question about some of our operational approaches to proactive code enforcement so looking forward to some what I asked Jenny to put together tonight it was kind of a look back how did how did we get to where we are today and then hopefully we can get some council direction about what does code enforcement look like for the council so with that I'll turn it over Jenny thank you I'm Melanie she highlighted the background of kind of why we're here today it's a continuation of your budget discussion on the CIP a couple weeks ago this had been on the all day work session for January so you asked that that discussion be moved up to having that to address some of your questions about FTEs that are requested in the inspections area and any relationship to your direction or future discussion to be had now on proactive Co enforcement so to give you a little bit of history and I'm gonna try to summarize all the information that was in the background and there was a lot in there because there is a lot of history and it's a lofty topic I mean this is this is uh this was taken with a heavy heart I think back in 2012 when the council food council was grappling with this and what to do and probably you have some similar feelings today when you think about this so prior to that discussion in 2012 the way the city operated was we were on a complaint base for property maintenance complaints and then we also did sweeps of certain areas over certain may be parts of town that looking like they had a lot more violations than others if we got a complaint in one area you know we usually kind of do the whole block because the next-door neighbor will say well what about this one or what about that one so it kind of creates its efficiency to kind of kind of get them all in one area and so there were parts of proactive code enforcement that are automatically built into our complaint based system I'm looking at same and similar so at the time we had one to two FTEs dedicated to code enforcement so there's always one FTE and then there was a full-time seasonal position that we had had and at the time we also had five volunteers that helped us out from time to time doing things like signs and basic re inspections and then and the recession we eliminated one of those positions the full time seasonal position was eliminated so our proactive initiative then was adopted in 2012 it was supported in the council's ends and outcomes and looking back at the backgrounds the rationale was that the council wanted to bring back this position that was cut they saw the value in code enforcement and also to prevent properties from falling to significant states of violation at that time we had an apartment building that had gone into somewhat of a state of disrepair and that was the the challenge at council was put in do we post it was posted as uninhabitable because of its management or lack thereof and people were dislocated from their homes and the council was put in the position of do you let people continue to live in squalor condition or do you shut down the building and have them be relocated because people deserve better for the rent that they're paying I mean it really was a tough tough decision for this council to me especially when people came to the council and they were sick yes and it had a direct implication on their health yes I remember those now that you say that so the pictures told us thousand stories yeah horrible our inspectors falling through a floor either yes tough decision so with that the city implemented we already had a rental license program but it was voluntary up until that point so we instituted regular inspections we go through every unit every three years we engaged the Minnesota multi Housing Association and other groups of interest as part of that discussion and then it wasn't it I don't think it was at the same meeting but it was on a similar track about the same time Council talked about proactive code enforcement and also canvassing the city every three years for code violations and so as part of the proactive code enforcement program one FTE was hired and we were given direction to look at violations as viewed from from the street only it was systematic we kind of had we had a map a geographic location picked out and it was on the website so people know where we were gonna be in any quarter of any year open and transparent yeah there was a lot of Education that was done on the front end so we've had some changes to the program since it's been instituted so we have in some of these are these are all good things too as we've worked through kind of the growing pains of this program and and one of the things we've done is implemented a clear appeals process we had someone go through our appeals process two months ago and it was seamless and it worked out great and they were heard by a non-biased third party a mediator of sorts and so we didn't have that before 2012 those processes in place we have adopted an administrative citation process to keep things out of district court you know one city's issue these citations they go on on people's records right well that's not really where we want to end up for property maintenance violations so the administrative citation process helps us with that we adopted the 25 tene international company maintenance code this is a standard health safety code more than 40 states use that our previous property maintenance code had been loosely based on that so a lot of the codes were similar um we have a policy that this council has adopted that speaks to prioritization of our violations timing for compliance timelines repeat within a certain period of time how we're gonna treat those we've had some it's efficiencies and staffing so one of the things you asked us to do every year when we look at our budget is where are these efficiencies and we talk to you about that and one of the things we learned since we started this program is having people compartmentalized to just rental or just code or just proactive isn't very efficient and so our inspectors were kind of combined into all-in-one so they do all three things code enforcement rental license and some of the proactive I should say and they're given geographical areas of the city so they really get to know the multifamily properties and the single-family neighborhoods when they're dealing with code enforcement and then another thing because we have kind of a staffing group of experts in process this division has become the clearinghouse for all other departments that are dealing with code issues so if we have a sewer issue they go to our code enforcement folks what's our process for this because these things need to we want them to be consistent and we want people to be treated fairly if someone did work without a grading permit what does that look like so we don't have folks in engineering off doing their own process it all kind of goes through this department so it's kind of the same timeline the same letters the same appeals process so it's really been beneficial to the city from that standpoint and then other changes we've made as you know a lot of ordinance changes along the way and it speaks to what we enforce now take a breath now so I wanted to highlight some of the staffing changes there's been some questions about what is the staffing and how many staff do we have in 2013 when we started this division we had 5.5 FTEs right so you can see them on the left we had it the existing code enforcement inspector and then we added all the other positions and then the staff at that time noted five volunteers that we had we're right now with some of the efficiencies that we have created we're at half an FTE more because the business licensing component was moved out of the police department up into this division because there's a lot of crossover with the enforcement piece with the compliance checks and process and then also we were having trouble with the half FTE rental license inspector that was turning over and a regular basis so counsel at the time had asked that we used consultants where we can and so this was an opportunity where we thought well let's try a consultant in that position so we have a consultant helping us half time with that and we're down to do two volunteers that are helping us now instead of the five yes so in 2012 we had one to two full-time employees and now we're at six was that just a gradual increase since 2012 or did that kind of work with the direction to inspect rental license programs this new division was created yes so this was yes so we added one two three four and a half people at one time okay in the rental license sort of ballooned and now City after the recession a lot of people put their single-family homes into the coming rental property and that created a lot of issues matter of fact two days ago Jenny and I are trying to work with one of our residents in the novel area who has been frustrated so there hasn't been any gradual increase if anything it's been a shift from a half FTE from police to this to this division and then decrease by going to a consultant helping us out halftime dance that just reminded me as I was talking with city manager Lee this morning I thought it was one and a half or something I didn't realize it was four full-time equivalents that were brought on yeah in 2013 after we made the decision in 2012 over with was to create this deeper resource division to take on all the inspections and the proactivity etc mm-hmm danke has there been a decrease or increase in rental housing well I have some information that we have about 7600 multifamily units right now the single-family single families we had we do write about that right now I think we're up to maybe 1,200 but yes yes so what does this division do I thought it might be helpful just to share with you and maybe those watching what they do so code enforcement the way we look at it or your staff looks at it's preventive maintenance of property we do a lot of other preventative maintenance with our roads with our utilities flushing of the hydrants is one storm sewer clean out clean out of ponds that's all preventative maintenance and so this is a program that gets to preventative maintenance of property the IPM C is based on life safety issues it it's very it's a companion I would say code to the building code right so it really is based on a life safety issues and then we have Burnsville codes which we have some of our nuisance codes right and so those would be things like our outdoor storage or screening issues those things get more to quality of life right hours of operation for businesses I think it's 7 to 10 quiet hours those kinds of things and then we spend a lot of time this division spends a lot of time educating the public as noted in the background most people don't know when they violate the ordinance and they're violating the ordinance right so it's a lot of Education on those life safety and what are nuisance codes are so the rental inspections because we have so many of them do make up about two-thirds of the time of what this division is doing we have a aging housing stock most of our units as you know are well over 30 years old and the majority of our apartments do not have sprinkler systems in them and there's an article today about the city of Roseville canceling withdrawing a rental license on an apartment and one of the things they talked about was complete lack of carbon CO and detectors in units that made it unsafe for people in addition to the varmint and all that kind of stuff so but those are things that when we do rental license inspections when we're in the units we're able to check to make sure smoke detectors are working on a regular basis at least when we're there and then this and the rentals inspection side because a lot of this work was handled in the police department before this division was created we help them with the strike letters so when they get we have a program that deals with strikes with tenants and so this division helps deal with the paperwork in the process part of that and then we have a resource for tenants that we did not have before a lot of times the tenants had issues they would call us and there really wasn't much we could do because the volunteer gram was voluntary so there was nothing for the city to work with with the landlord who wasn't maybe managing their property strikes we've had I want to say about over 15 years a three strikes and you're out program for rental license program so that's a best program that we had thank you madam mayor says the star program for tenants and rental because what stands apart it's the star program and then Nate you get councilman Gustafson I'm not as I'm not familiar with that I can get you some more information on what that is information I believe it goes both are copied on it and the violation was the violation was done by the property owner or the tenants or both madam mayor and council I learned a little bit about this program when I did a ride-along earlier this year and Captain Smith was sharing with me a little bit about what their goals are and also sergeant's are us talking with me a little bit about it and the intent is to have you know it's not to be punitive thank you madam mayor it's not to necessarily be punitive it's just a be a resource so neighbors are good neighbors with each other and if we've got issues that are compromising perhaps the safety of their neighbors there's there's a mechanism in place ultimately the goal is to help individuals live in harmony and just be a resource for that but we could certainly get some more information in your hands Thank You Donna in the back there is nodding her head because she was part of that whole process also back then and she's staying engaged so what else this division does they also do the proactive and complaint based property maintenance or code enforcement inspections we deal this division deals with the at least last year in 2018 looking at the monitoring report as my source for a lot of these numbers from last year we had over 300 data requests that they processed they deal with our temporary signs and special events because they're very temporary nature and they assist other departments like I noted with their code enforcement so I give an example here a few examples so oh they we've worked with the city forester and how do we deal with the dead and dangerous trees on property well we've got a process laid out for that engineering on grading without permits I mentioned that one water issues we had a failing sewer line earlier this year so they were able to help get that corrected working with the property owner and certainly business license violations if there's someone's serving underage or something like that they implement the administrative side of that and our appeals process that goes along with that so that's consistent throughout the city they are also serve external to the residents that live here but also internal to other city departments here's the chart of some recent activity so the orange line there is our violations and then the gray line are our code cases so a case could have multiple violations in it and this information was in your background so certainly you can see before the 2013 decision was made we had just about I think it was two thousand our one FTE person that we had that was working complaint based only and then we had you can see over there little a thousand different code cases or violation properties that they were dealing with of course the number of violations went up when we went to more proactive and had more staff to be able to address those issues and we have since come down quite a bit actually because people are I think are more educated on what the rules are and we've changed some of our rules quite frankly so all that has kind of led to that the downward slope in the last couple of years and then the chart on the right talks about where our complaints generated from so the blue ones are from staff we're not able to break it down proactive complaint based our system isn't set up but this is this is a good as we could get on the ones generated from the public and the ones generated from the staff on the ones in blue also do include rental license inspections so if we went into a unit it's not just property maintenance it includes property maintenance and rental because our inspectors remember doing both as part of their jobs but so we're not able to separate Benson and I'll go to do sorry I'm asking my question thank you for addressing the spike as being related to the increase in FTEs because I had written a note to ask you about that but you beat me to it but the other thing I wanted to ask about just did the status of the housing stock and burns will play into that spike at all with you know the foreclosures of a lot of homes kind of tailing off around 12 to 13 that in if we don't have it that's okay but did that influence how these numbers kind of took a jump yeah I don't I don't know council member workman exactly because they know when we bought our house I'm gonna give up here pretty soon a lot of the homes we looked at were kind of in disrepair because they were left conservation go ahead mr. Keeling okay and any estimation of a breakout not an exact number chart how many are apartment rental license inspections versus all other code enforcement I mean you have any sense as to the where the volume is majority one way or the other minority I do not and you don't care to venture a guess because you're on camera no I don't want to be wrong I don't mind being the camera I just don't want to be wrong you know if these if I had data that was before 2013 on both charts you could kind of read into it a little bit but there are different years I don't have that for the one on the right to kind of know what the total was so if we had it I that was the intent was to get get it to you but we just can't we just don't enter in our data that way mom to be able to articulate that to follow up one councilmember workman's there is a very definite correlation to the hiring of the four people and the proactive nature but absolutely some of the numbers were homes that were in disrepair but I I would have to say the overwhelming majority of that spike is because we actually went out looking to to take care of things proactively as opposed to just waiting for people to call and if I can add to that I the violations I believe would include from the apartment inspections as well it's not just property maintenance it includes all the work of division which is which it was a lot you know we have those those historical places that had some trouble with something and yeah where we had to do a lot of work and support the owners of the mobile home park and some of those yeah dan gee did you have a question I was just gonna comment in 2012 you were there the cause of it was because we were doing it by complaint only things kind of festered out there and we didn't see it coming and then suddenly we had 128 units over here with pretty much anything that could happen happen in that building which kind of was the straw that we could have broke the back like we got topsis because we really had a slumlord charging market rate to people that couldn't get apartments other places and he was taking total advantage of these people and it was it was out of control I'm so looking at what other cities do we I'm not going to read through all of this but there's a mix so there's just these are just our market cities and then we had some other information in your packet from some non market cities that do specific proactive programs so there is a component to proactive in the majority of these code enforcement programs to how we used to do it before we had a specific proactive initiative where it was mapped out and we're going to these specific areas so some do some don't but it just leans a little bit more to those that do but not as prescribed as our program is on listening in your background the pros and cons you know certainly there's a lot on both on both sides and it's we hear from from residents that think we don't do enough in the code enforcement and others from why are you picking on me right so we get though we get the whole gamut and you get the phone calls too so I'll just read some of the pros and cons and not go through this whole list but you know there's consistency when we drive through the city so it's consistent throughout the city through all the neighborhoods and what we're looking for certainly it's preventative it's easier to catch things when they're smaller rather than their big problems and we have to kick people out of their their units or their homes and it's proactively keeping properties and people safe just like we do proactive our assets this is for private property you know and some of the cons are it's only enforced when complaints are received so only those that complain get the city service right so if people don't complain that's fine those that do and some of them do complain regularly are getting more of our city resources than others violation certainly can grow into bigger things over time and it's it's a reactive it's more responsive than being proactive and intentional and what we want to do and there's a whole bunch of other things you know people like that they don't have to call us and complain there's always a usually a concern about oh I don't want my neighbor to know and certainly people can complain anonymously we have different ways to do that but being proactive can help alleviate some of that concern so now turning this into your budget discussion and how does this translate to help you get the information you need to make your decision if we eliminate proactive I believe and our staff believes that we can save half of an FTE probably best to do that with our consulting dollars forty five thousand dollars our building inspection request is for two staff one building inspector one admin person certainly we could use two to three inspectors today we're that far backed up but we're not I'm not here asking you for that because we don't hire for the peak right we don't we know we're on this trajectory that's upward but under Kelly's guidance and city manager's guidance here in previous and your guidance you know we we budget for the average condition so sometimes its peak and we're busier and sometimes maybe it's a little slower we can get caught up and reach out to those who haven't closed out their permits and whatnot so the ask is for one inspector and we did shift work temporarily from a couple rental inspectors so that work they're behind on those to be able to catch up on some of the roofing inspections so we were able to do that we're still doing that that's four work days per week so it's almost the equivalent of one person being out there helping with roofs so some background on the building inspection staff just to give you an idea what we've got going on here we have seven and a half FTEs in this division you can see the staff there one and a half assistants a supervisor and our billing official someone who does the plan review so when someone submits a permit they review the plans and then we have our electrical or plumbing inspectors and then our building inspector which I think I left off there but it's in your background I apologize for that but there's a total seven and a half FTEs there dan what is the average lead time for each one of those to do an inspection well I think it depends on the time of year I mean our typical time that we tell people non busy time is two weeks for a commercial plan review for instance we can do a shed or something smaller within a week but if our lead time for inspections I mean peak this summer we were out three and four weeks to get someone out to someone's property especially when you get into those specialties of electrical and plumbing because we only have one person and there's only one person who can do those if someone has a wall up and they can't close that wall to those inspectors come three four weeks later to inspect that property that's correct which leaves them with a crew to do nothing until it backs everything impacts everything up impacts everything so what folks try to do when they get the permit come in and get their roofing you know they schedule their inspection right away when they get it rather than waiting till the work is done on some larger projects we block out time like on our multifamily buildings because we kind of know where they are so that this inspector can spend all afternoon out there for instance so there are things we try to do proactively to provide the best service that we can with the resources that we have certainly I mean like on the roof permits I mean our commercial activity took precedent over those so we're out for weeks we kind of had a separate schedule for roof permits then for everything else to be able to try to keep things balanced so our residents were waiting a long period of time for inspections on the roofs in order for their vendors to get paid we just put the roof on there a little bit longer and it's really frustrating to the point where I then get emails about I'm glad they're calling us yeah so and then I have to email Melanie and Jenny and all of that and so just the resident know that will Jenny will get back with an explanation but a lot of frustration yes for sure for sure it's not unnoticed that's for sure that's why we have the request here just a couple things about this department it's a little different than some of our other city departments are building official like his certification comes from the Department of Labor and Industry and he's accountable to the state right people call I want to talk to your boss well I can I can deal with so much but I can't override his code interpretation right of the building code and if somebody wants to appeal that his interpretation they cannot come to you they have to go to the State Board at the Department of Labor in industry so he is he is licensed and quality control is overseen by the state so he's personally responsible to the state for himself and for those working under him and so the inspectors are certified and they have to be qualified inspectors and we have we have very sophisticated buildings in Burnsville so we're not all just single-family in Burnsville we have a hospital we have a power plant we have schools we have UTC we have all that we have all kinds of buildings that are very unique that a lot of other communities do not have which makes the level of education and code knowledge and sophistication that our inspectors have to have at a little bit different level than other some other places and so the skills aren't necessarily transferable from maybe one city to this city or one let alone one department or division to another division so I just wanted to be clear it doesn't cross transfer as easily as was suggested at the last meeting to take a position here and just slide it over here in building inspections the physicians are different an admin position versus an inspector position and then someone who has certification in a certain skill level to be able to do the job and also to do it with confidence because we have our building officials certification that this kind of falls under okay Kara how has inspections changed over the years has it changed over the years well it appears and I assume it's because the position has changed the responsibilities have changed that there need that there is more time-intensive inspections going on more inspections for things now that may be used to not be inspected but I'm unclear on that so could you I would say that and I'm not the code expert right but I believe Chris pasty would tell you the codes have gotten a lot more complicated and they when they're updated it is like a big deal to be aware of how the codes are changing because it seems to me that changes aren't just minor changes they seem to be big changes when the building Changez right and it goes through a big long process so things do get more complicated we certainly have tried to build efficiencies in and how we think I always come to the how and the what right how we do things with some online services and you know there's a lot of opportunity to be had with our software it's it's not as good as it could be or should be for us to be able to do more permits online so we have there's a lot more that we allow more help and assistance and efficiencies that can be created when we get a new software system at the time it helped us because we had less people and we were able to offer online permits or the first time and then they switch vendors and upgrades and we just haven't kept pace with what the modern technology is that system is I think over ten years old now and it's there's way better products out there now that are more on demand so so we have tried to do efficiencies along the way roofing permits for instance you know we can take pictures we used to go up on roofs and that became too dangerous too much of a liability so now we take pictures and we accept those for the sheathing part of the inspection before we do the final so we do things like that as well yeah and one just two tiers the other part in all of that code is also the fire code which also comes into it so you will have to have that discussion with the fire marshal and it's not just for apartment buildings and for our single-family dwelling but for our mobile parks and what all of that means so in your right it's very complicated and there's layers of all of that so when the inspectors are doing their inspection and I know that they need to follow the State Building Code does the city have a layer of building code on top of that that adds to the complexity of their inspections no cannot the state is a minimum building code we they do have excellent thank you yeah it's just that it has so many layers and and the buildings that are being built today with the high roofs and all of the different things that businesses put into it is so much different than it was back in the 90s dan and then Vince going crazy about but you're what's in your pipeline you don't have to tell us what it is but what do you see coming at us that tells you is either going to get worse or slow down well we have just as many projects in the pipeline as we have done in the last 18 months that are coming online for the next 18 months interest remains very high in Burnsville for office office warehouse like John Allen's building down to the mrq and for apartment buildings and infill development and some tear downs you know we can't I cannot wait to use that elf money for a teardown you know so we're selling it and I'm optimistic that we're gonna have one of those projects were expecting new projects as long as fine Wells finalizing projects that are coming out of the ground Thank You Jenny I didn't want you to sit up here and defend yourself all night you mentioned earlier that somebody said or claimed that it was easy to move somebody from code enforcement to inspections and I just want to clarify that I I was asked I asked if it was easy to move somebody from code enforcement to inspections and that's why were I think discussing this and there was some other interest among the other council members so based on what you've said it's it's not something that's just simply done because there is some background there's some studying there's some licensing that needs to get done to get to that position and so the answer the question of is it easy to move somebody internally is kind of know you know you need to hire somebody that's trained and kind of ready to hit the ground running based on the things that we've kind of been discussing here tonight with all the activity that's here I don't want to put anybody in a position asking them to do more with less so I just wanted to clarify that I don't want to diminish the work that you or anybody on this staff does because I I understand it's it's hard and complicated work so thank you for helping answer that question you're welcome okay anything else okay I put some questions up here that will maybe help guide your discussion if is if there's any additional information that's needed and if if you want to eliminate the program that will result in a service reduction cost savings maybe you want to reduce the budget or put those dollars elsewhere maybe you want to continue the proactive maybe you want to modify it in some way shape or form so just looking for your direction so that Kelly and Melanie can move forward with bringing you a complete and hopefully supported budget document next week so a person I'd still like to look at proactive versus reactive you know as this is as in-depth as we would go or would we dive deeper like we had planned at the all-day yeah as far as a philosophical change or are we trying to do that right now Vince you know I agree with you that we should continue with the proactive here's the thing I know did you say she was asking if we should continue the discussion about proactive versus reactive or if we're trying to make that discussion I think what Steph is asking do you Bri do any cost savings I think smart part of the proactive process well I think the question was about the FTEs more so than the philosophical change of proactive versus reactive or are we trying to make that decision Melanie madam mayor and council I believe a couple weeks ago the two issues got yeah just together there a little bit and and when we came before the council we were talking about our budget proposal which was more the building and fire inspector positions the proactive code enforcement mm-hmm policy was brought up it and so I'll defer to the council on when you want to have that discussion and how you want to have it we certainly if the council wishes talk a little bit more tonight about what your needs and desires are for the program we had been preparing for it for the all-day work session so it's I think it's important for you to have a discussion on what your expectations are so we can deploy resources in a way that meets your goals and objectives okay Jenny and then I'll go to Tara if I can answer that thank you madam mayor the information that staff put together I don't know that you're gonna get any more information so at the all-day what I would think would happen is we'd say do we want to talk about this is it it just do it don't do it or future work session one of those options we prot you information that would be in a future work session kind of background for you to have the discussion because that's what was asked for for us tonight so that's the I don't know that you'll get any more information if you were to have a future if you do then just be clear about what additional information you would like I am in favor of eliminating the proactive program the reasons why I am in favor of eliminating that program is not is not even really to do with with cost number one I think we're in a position right now that we're doing pretty well with how everyone is doing you know we we don't have excessively rundown properties that are just blighted all over and that that thing that a city is needing to take aggressive action to correct number two it's not a good introduction to the city when we have new residents come in and one of their first interactions with the city is to get a letter and although we're used to them and we look at them as informative that is not how the recipient receives them when someone receives a letter even I like as kindly worded as you can be it still needs to state this is the violation this is what can happen that type of thing and that causes a lot of stress and worry and concern because this isn't something they deal with day in and day out this isn't just part of their work and that puts us in more of an adversarial relationship with our residents and I don't think that we need to be in that position or to seek out to be in that position now if something happens and it is brought to the attention okay you can look at it assess look at it and if if this is something that needs to be corrected but I don't think we any longer need to go searching that out to try to have a negative engagement with our residents I mean we did hear from a resident who talked about seeing someone patrol their neighborhood and taking down notes that was you know shocking and threatening to them that's how they saw it that is not the only person that feels that way and and I don't think that that's out of you know where we're looking at it and thinking oh well that person's just a snowflake for thinking that no if you're seeing someone driving around and taking careful notes of your property I mean that's gonna ramp up stress again and having that negative interaction you know because you have a car with a city logo on it and that's what's happening and they may not know exactly what's going on why are they taking down this information why are they looking things over so I I think at this point we're in a good position we've already seen that the number of complaints and violations are really coming down we have recovered from that you know kind of housing crash where there were a lot of abandoned properties and having issues going on so I think we're in a good position and now we should work a little more on having fewer seeking out fewer negative interactions with our with our residents and again I'm not saying our department is negative I'm also not saying that once they're contacted that they are not polite and professional and helpful that's not what I'm saying I'm saying we get too used to how we look at things and that these are just very normal things and we forget what it's like to be on the receiving end of that because it's not normal for everyone else to do that you know it's like being called into the principal's office it's not pleasant so that's that's why I'm looking at doing this if it ever became a problem again in the future we can always change policy again to go back to you know a proactive stance or just do a one-year sweeper you know whatever that is but I see no reason to keep it for now it served its purpose so we should we should be done with it a little bit on top of what we're also gonna see an influx and until units in our apartments understood our proactive code enforcement can still do their job but my thought would be to focus more on the life safety hazards on their to-do list rather than the aesthetic standards of well we've talked about this at length so well I don't think we should completely eliminate code enforcement I think it would be wise to consider re navigating the compass to focus more on life safety issues rather than dandelions Jenny would you be able to talk a little bit about the prioritization of responses cuz I think that gets that councilmember workman's question about where we focus our resources just first yeah point of clarification it might might be helpful for you to understand how Jenny's for everybody yeah approaches thank you so we do have a prioritization list where life safety is first and that's where most of our resources go to we get that that I mean that's just just a priority and I think it's even outlined in your policy where we talk about what the priorities are I think there's about three tiers so usually the the nuisance or the aesthetics ones are kind of supplementary to something major that's already happening on the property for certain so I think at this point I would be comfortable just doing away with the supplement so if somebody is out looking at a life safety issue one of our code enforcement people doesn't need to supplement their report with those aesthetics this is what I'm getting at ultimately well one of the things that staff did not do is put all of the emails that have that we had from all of the different people but when the article hit the paper in August there were a lot of response one of them is in the background where the gentleman talks about how sad watching a once-thriving and beautiful City fall into decline and the council is willing to let it happen and doing a lot of that I think if we're looking at proactive and to get to your point Kara is there a way that we can do the letters that go out in a more humanizing and caring way so change the letters because I support the proactive approach because we're not getting at all of them and we do a sweep across the whole city once every three years so you're not in the same neighborhood but we're trying to cover the whole city the other part about all of this is we talk about improving our tax base when the value of a property begins to decline because it's not being taken care of it has a direct correlation in terms of market value and it has a direct correlation then in the overall market value of the city and why we have the kind of rating bond rating that we have but our staff can't get to everything so they do a good job and try to get to all of it but when I see all of the letters that we get from residents because there's a lot but staff didn't put all of it in here I think you only put two these letters from in the background members of council that's correct that's all that I had at the ready I would I would just like to note that we had very little time to turn around this background to get to you in short order this was planned for January so my apologies if I left something out because the thing is I think I'm are gentler a kind or a letter because I've seen we've talked about this with public works public works letter have been amended and it's it's more human speak and get out of government speak so it's kinder it's gentler and people do we have seen from the beginning when people know what is a violation and there is a human contact they get it done when I look at where we were and where we're at now it is about who we are and what our culture is as we continue to move forward and and just to making sure that we all practice good neighborly I mean right now we have a gentleman that is living next to a rental property and is frustrated because the owner isn't addressing the issues but it has a direct impact on his property and frustrated with our process because it doesn't get to it as quickly as they want so you have a conversation but your conversation is trying to also find out where the owner lives so that you can have a conversation for him to him where she to repair the property so there's a lot more to it and it's it's a lot of housing stock and I think we need to continue to do what we need to do but in a gentler more kinder way Cara first of all with with all due respect to our resident i strenuously object to the characterization of Burnsville that we are sliding into decay and ruin i strenuously object to that and that we were a once thriving City i strenuously object to that characterization of Burnsville as well we are a thriving city and we are a really good city to live in and we're thriving and we are doing well so I do object to that characterization of Burnsville as for the the resident who is upset because there is a rental property that's not being taken care of whether it's proactive or complaint based has no bearing on that whatsoever because I am sure that they have put in their complaints on that property so either way that situation is either addressed to their satisfaction or not addressed to their satisfaction no matter which model that we would follow whether that would be a complaint based only or proactive what we're looking at is do we seek out systematically inspecting everyone's property do we send our employees out you know driving around to take notes to look at people's homes and take notes about things that aren't just life in safety situations but everything because you know our enforcement persons are both experienced and highly trained when they're looking at a property when they're looking at it from the street their eye is catching everything they're doing a really good job of that and they're writing it on down so is that the highest and best use of their time and absolutely I know you guys prioritize I have no doubt that you prioritize your times what I'm saying by this is I do not agree that we should continue to send them out especially looking at our residential and our single-family homes and just looking at each property and writing everything down they have a lot on their plates already and I would be much happier if they were able to get to those types of things because if I remember correctly we also have some overtime we have some volunteers that assist we as counsel are directing them to try to do too much so let's scale it back to complaint based so that they can do the job that they need to do because two-thirds of their job is in rental and needs to be focused on rental and rental inspections so that's what I'm looking at on this so there's there's multiple aspects of why I think we can go back and our properties do look good our housing stock looks good in town when you go around town it does look we can always change back at a later time if we decide that this just is not working Jenny man mayor members of council just point of clarification we are paying them overtime to do roof inspections only roof inspected is correct that's correct not the other that's correct okay Dan Carey I agree that we are we never we are not a city in decline in any way whatsoever but I will submit that at one point we were struggling we had we had police stations inside of our apartment buildings we had to gather all of our multi housing people together because we were having issues throughout the entire city we we created a rental licensing that was a voluntary registration charge we had a kind of a strike system that if you were doing well you would never pay and then country abilities came upon us and when that happened and we had to displace 128 families working with the county and other agencies to shut that slum down because it was a dangerous that everybody's help our eyes kind of woke up a little bit that we need to pay attention to what's going on in our city and all and throughout the years which is what 2013 I was gone by then unfortunately but they hired everyone I was looking at that graph and it was amazing because I was I was working with the investors at the time in the housing business and I was just looking how from what is it 2013 2014 down to 2015 we had that dip that was probably one of the height of all the houses being sold that were foreclosed on and everything like that so it wasn't it had nothing to do with the recession but I think it had a lot to do with the fact that we were out knocking on doors and doing that thing I've heard from a few people about the letters and I agree at that I was talking to a gentleman a few weeks ago that he had gotten a letter from us a while back and I don't we didn't tell me when and it kind of upset him because he felt like he was being told something was wrong he felt like he was being threatened at the same time by the city but then he went on to say when he called the city to talk about it he had a very good response from our staff and they work things through and he was satisfied with the final result so it was the initial contact which you alluded to as well which really creates angst with people and that may be part of the big issue of this is how are we dealing with our people you know how are we approaching them to say hey you got a problem here if you have if you need help let us know let's see what we can do to find resources to help you as opposed to you have 10 days to fix that you're gonna get this and blah blah blah and get that out there and I understand that has changed and our letter is going forward I do I do agree we are doing better in town and I don't know if it's because we're inspecting but are but we when you look at the graphs it's going down and it may be because we have been on top that and we're keeping the property better properties up and people are in tuned all that Vincent I'm glad you brought up priorities and inspections because that was something I wanted to talk about as well as what is our priority when we inspect and you know how do we get things done it's it's when you really kind of put out everything that our people do it's not just driving by somebody's house and tell them they have peeling paint on their eaves it's so much more than what then what I even knew we were doing with that group and so I thank you for that input right now I think it may behoove us to sit down and at our all day or what some time and talk about what are the priorities in our inspections how do we put this together how do we communicate in a better way with our public and let them know that it's not us in them it's we're all here together and make this thing work and so I thought I was going to be in favor of a more of a tail on your neighbor kind of program but I don't think so I think I think right now I think we should stay the course and keep doing these inspections inspections are code enforcement or code enforcement and inspections both and it's and we can work our way through it and find out what our priorities are along the way I don't think it'll get done in this meeting a lot of things came out in this meeting tonight that were I wasn't expecting and I think there's more to talk about I don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater here danke I'm waiting to hear what mr. he was gonna say to clarify and that Jenny indicated that this is as much as we're gonna get so we could kick it to the all day for more discussion but it sounds like as far as data goes this is it I mean I'm happy to abstained to stay the course no everybody what if the Preferences I'm just trying to understand it to January I mean I don't think my opinion is gonna change but if if we need to do some more soul-searching amongst other council members I'm okay with I'm not looking for soul-searching I'm working for us to just identify priorities yeah I think make statements a facts here Jenny made mayor members of the council so we do have their code enforcement policy which we can get before you that has our priorities in it I have a list that we use as a working document and I just don't recall if that's crossed over into your policy or not and what our priorities are I mean we can bring that if that's additional information that you want we can bring that we can bring back a revised letter if that's what you're looking for we certainly can do that if there's additional information you're looking for I think that would be helpful a revised letter that you can work with our communication staff bring some of our volunteers and say if you receive this how would you react to it yeah you know humanize it take all government's speak out of it so where are you because Dan K is waiting to hear what you have to say waiting for Dan k answer the question number three I flip a coin for you guys yeah I just does the council want to continue with the current proactive program structure you think I answered that earlier on they said I'm okay with continuing proactive code enforcement if it's related to life safety issues but I'm not interested that's why we have the priority conversation and life life safety is has a higher priority yeah but it's not you should continue that I'm I think what we were getting at was prioritizing that over dandelions or Mike completely off-base nope so do you want proactive or complaint if someone has dandy line number three you want to answer complaint complaint base I'm losing my voice so that's the policy discussion that staff is waiting to get answered tonight and that's one of the questions do we want to move to complaint based on property maintenance for Schultz is a yes you're a yes councilmember Augusta citizen oh no I stay the course well I think it has to be said we are still going to be doing inspections we still are going to be enforcing our property maintenance code we are doing what the discussion is is is to go back to a complaint base which it was forever until we put this proactive in place and what really triggered the proactive was not the property maintenance long grass dandelions it was a serious apartment problem we've now addressed that we've been through all units twice in the last six years and the trend is going down because I think the message is clear plus the heavy lifting is done for me it's really now switching into maintenance mode protect what we've created but we do we you know does that have to be inspections every three years I would propose that we move that to a six year cycle and cut it in half today so a property would have six inspections to complete the entire cycle of all of their units I think we can back off I I don't think we need the same level of activity in the in the area of apartments and I'm okay with going back to complete base because that's what it still per is to some degree we still get complaints I still submit complaints because I see things that the proactive aren't catching because they're they're not gonna drive every street and look at every house every day or every building or every property because it's impossible to do so I think our greatest inspectors in fact our residents who care about the city and are willing to do an anonymous what's a call action tracker what's our app tracker request tracker to fill out the request tracker anonymously and point out an issue and the city does very well in working with that property in order to get it fixed and and so I would go to complaint based as a philosophy and I would also stretch out the apartments to six years from three and staff can work out the details I am in favor of that so you still go on a proactive but six instead of three no let me understand so you huh it stays on complaint but what's the six years so apartment rentals just the apartment rental inspections go on a six-year cycle not a three year cycle okay we can protect what we do all of the good stuff that we've done and the heavy lifting they've done we're gonna maintain it we're not gonna let anyone turn into a slumlord again well we don't have to cycle through every three years I think to do that you know it's six years well no one say oh that's what you think yeah I mean they're gonna get inspected every year they're just not gonna cover their entire number of units in a three year cycle it'll be a six year cycle so it's still Chee's the same goal but it'll be a less of a burden so you have good ideas three members of the council who says go to complaint based madam mayor just for point of clarification the six year rental inspection is we didn't get into a rental inspection in the presentation so I just want to be clear that was not covered that's something new and if you want information on the impacts of changing rental inspections from every three years to six years that may be information that you want that was not covered here but I'm just I'm confused cuz we're adding in a new a new initiative program with rental license inspections versus proactive property maintenance and we should get that we put that on the all-day work work session to look at the rental licensing part of the inspection it's just a process change we're still gonna inspect we're just gonna do it over a longer period of time in other words we're gonna come in it'll take us six years to complete all of my units that if I owned a building instead of three years I don't know if I have all of the information from multifamily team I don't know if we have all of the information from our multifamily team who works with the multifamily managers and what their issues are and how they need us to help with some of that Jenny in Madame mayor how would the fees be impacted for the decrease in service I mean we I think want an evaluation that outstanding for the rental license that I'd like to understand better do something Madame mayor and council perhaps can we have a little bit of a compromise it sounds like we've got a three to two to move to a complaint basis some but perhaps we can keep this the rental cycle on the all day work session allow our staff to do a little more research and bring it back for discussion and it could very well be a just do it you know don't do it or we need more information refer to work session topic I don't think we'll lose a whole lot of time councilmember Keely being there at the holidays but that's I'll offer that up as a compromiser I'd like to get to go to the all-day work session so that we staff will have time to pull the information together and we understand what that means as the impact of what that means to our multifamily housing I think it's it's I don't think it requires any further discussion personally I think the impacts are positive for the city positive for the owners we're still inspecting we're just not doing as many units when we come visit that's all it is yes my only question would be with the increase in units would I and he goes back to what I had mentioned it Jenny earlier is I don't want to put so many in a position that's asked to do more with less so if I had one question it would be if we were gonna change it from three to six with the apartments that are gonna come online you know in the next year and then the ones that we are anticipating in the next three years is there is it necessary to look into that with this modification and I'm asking your city manager that Kara that's also why actually going to sixth is attractive because I'm looking at the number of apartments we are gonna be having come online when you have a set number that you have to get through every three years versus now you have six years to get through a slightly larger number that to me seems like a more manageable ask for our staff to do good and you know the nice thing is we do have you know the ones that are coming on board are are new so they're not going to be run down and teary ated I mean they have you know they have the working fire alarms on them that type of things so I I have a lot less concern over the new ones I was gonna say the same thing I'm not concerned about the new ones but the ones that are on the fringe yeah if we wait six years to see some of them will be well have a country village on our hand again in the 70s give them six years to just do it yeah we're not we don't go visit a spot or visit a building or a location every three years inspect the entire thing we do a third of the units in that each year the brand that's correct yeah so it's every building every rental project will have a certain number of rooms one sixth of their sorry rooms inspected so every 30 unit building I'll inspect five and I'll come back the next year inspect another five that's what we're doing now only in three years that's exactly how it's been done ever since we put it in place yeah so all we're doing is inspecting fury and it's over each year over a six year period we're still going to every property every year I can understand why you might have had a concern going from thinking that it was I only come by every that's why that that first five I inspect it's not gonna be six years before I see that first five again and if they're already on the fringe yeah you have to acknowledge we've already seen them all every single unit twice in the last six years I mean and you can see the trend in the number of situations I think it's more maintenance mode now we don't have a country village situation anymore you again something can be close to it but we're not Jenny I believe that you have the majority of the council you have a 3-2 to go to complaint base hmm thank you okay and the six year cycle for an apartment inspections thank you so you have three two okay um Melanie is there anything else there's not madam mayor okay with that we stand adjourned you