Based on the context provided and the details within the transcript, here is the formatted version with speaker identifications. [00:00:00] **Jason Mallinger (Fire Chief):** ...this point because we've been doing this for long so long the larger multi-families know what they need to be doing so for the most part they are being in in good condition. So if we're going into units and we find units that are severe, then we'll just continue to go into more units. But typically for a complex like Sea Review Commons that has 12 buildings along with boiler room and laundry room common areas, the exterior other garage type areas, we spend about two days on site with the property owners and Property Management just trying to take our time and go through the building and the units with them and taking notes, writing up the reports. Once it's completed, they come back and put together the report, they attach it to the OpenGov and send it back for them. Typically give them 30 days to fix the corrections as they're needed. If there's other things identified that are Life Safety that would need to be immediate, obviously we make them address those. But once they have corrected everything they're supposed to let us know, we come back out, we do a re-inspection on what failed and look at those make sure that those have passed inspection and write down to every last item on the inspection report to make sure that it's good. Once that's completed again, come back and just complete the process for payment on their end. I guess I could have included our rental license fees as it relates to multi-family buildings, but typically we charge 150 dollars for each building and then for each unit that we go into is an additional ten dollars. So depending on where it's at, we add it all up at the end of the day and submit them an invoice for the cost. Once they pay is when they get their rental license for completing that process. So that's kind of a large group, the multi-family process of how we go things. The single family and the duplex those licenses begin on July 1st and go through June 30th and again we like to take the time in the summer to focus on exterior issues because typically the single family and duplex homes are your typical houses that could have exterior property issues. You know you could have siding or paint that's chipping and peeling which is a huge concern or even worse, so we look at the property as a whole when we're doing rental licensing. We're looking at the exterior property and the interior property of the property, the garage, the yard as it relates to code compliance issues as well. So if you know there's garbage debris or an inoperable vehicle, those things are being addressed as well on the single family and duplex. Any questions regarding that otherwise I'll kind of move on—you can always come back. [00:03:15] **Cassidy Schweer (Council Member):** Excuse me, yeah. I'm curious, thank you for your presentation so far. One question I have in regards to that housing piece is: what are some of the challenges that you find when you're working with the variety of housing sites? [00:03:30] **Jason Mallinger (Fire Chief):** You know for us, the larger multi-family units for the most part, the majority of them within the city, we have a good working relationship with our inspectors. They email, they call each other directly on issues. There's people set in place typically in those and they know what their roles are and they know what the expectations are from us in the city. So those aren't typically our challenges. However, there have been other property maintenance of some smaller multi-family buildings where the property maintenance and the ownership aren't doing the right things what need to be done. And just like anything else that you're going to hear tonight, when people, you know, work together and know what needs to be done and complete things, that's great. But when they fail to correct things or respond—a lot of times especially in the winter if we have complaints come in from tenants—a lot of times tenants will call us directly and be like, "Hey I've been without heat for a couple days now." And our first question is always, "Okay have you reached out to your property manager or the owner or whoever and have you talked to them?" And if it's no, it's going to be, "Okay you need to talk to them," but most of the time it's yes and they haven't done anything. So then that's when we step in to help them out. So for the most part the multi-families are good that way, but I think the challenges are for the single family areas where people don't realize, especially the first time if they're just getting into renting their property and not understanding you know what is really involved. So the first time we do our initial inspection with them, we want to make sure that the property owner is there and where we can walk through with them and talk to them about some of the things we may be requiring that aren't there. You know, why do we require smoke detectors in an older home that have never had them before and just try to give them some information on that. So I think that's the biggest issue is where we have people that want to be a property owner and a landlord but maybe shouldn't be a property owner or a landlord because they don't take care of it. So we spend a lot of time and resources all around—it doesn't matter if it's on inspections or the Code Compliance side—for those that fail to keep up with the requirements we spend most of our time there. The fire certificate of compliance, that's in chapter 91 of the code and that really covers commercial properties. And I think I brought this up before but previously when we went down to two of us in the fire department full-time staff instead of the three, and just one inspector, at that point is when we decided that we're not going to be proactive on our commercial fire inspections because we didn't have the resources to be able to do that. We wanted to remain focused on life safety and the rental housing was that area of life safety that we could make a difference in, so we focused on that. Now when a business owner or somebody came and requested us to do an inspection for whatever reasons that they needed for their insurance or whatever, we were more than happy to assist and go out and do that. But as what we were doing previous, we were trying to go through businesses on a regular basis to make sure that again they were maintaining their properties and keeping things safe. And it also gives us an opportunity to do our pre-plans from the fire response standpoint, so we can take in their information, upload it into our CAD system so that we have documentation of who the property owner is, who we contact in the middle of night if something happened, what kind of chemicals may be in the building, locations of utilities—all these factors that eventually, well I shouldn't say once it's put into our CAD which we have things there now but a lot of it's 10-12 years old. So when I'm out on a fire call and the address pops up, I can hit a button and I can see the pre-plan and that information is right there for me. So I know where to send my people if something's going on and where to go or who I need to contact. So it's a really great thing. Previous to that we were doing a good job and then 2019 we just we had to make a choice and that's where we chose to go. So my goal is to eventually, hopefully by the end of this year and for sure by the early next year, to get back into going back out to these properties that we really haven't been at for a long time to just walk through again and do inspections and update our pre-plans and CADs. Any questions on that? Another area that we do is school inspections and that's through the Great Minnesota State Fire Code. We're one of 13 communities in the state of Minnesota that the State Fire Marshal allows us to do fire inspections, and that's predominantly because we have had a history of joining them ourselves and we send our staffs and our inspectors through the required training. Besides going to the fire inspector one and two certifications, there's a module for school inspections that they have to go through and then we just submit our reports to the state. The one thing we do differently than the state—and this is partially the reason why too—the state will come out once every five years and do other school districts, whereas we're going into the schools once every year to address issues and be on top of things. So that's a good thing in my eyes because a lot of the times, just like most places and businesses, you run out of storage and things start getting blocked whether they're exits or other things. So five years is a long time to address some issues. Group home daycares is another specific area that we look at and again those are requested from the state as needed and require specific training on that as well that our folks have. "Dangerous buildings" is just another chapter within the code; however, that's done in conjunction with our building officials. So if we have a property that's dilapidated or in severe deterioration or there's something going on that we need to really be concerned about, typically I call our building official, Scott Qualey, and him and I or our inspectors will get out there, take a look at it and do a very thorough review to determine what next steps need to be done. And usually if it's going to hit something where something needs to be done, it's going to be coming to action directed towards Council for us to follow up on. So if we need to mark this building that we found to be dangerous, we're going to need a council resolution from you with our guidance basically recommending that. Some of the other fire code issues that are minor that come through: fireworks, fuel tank removal installations, fireworks displays, temporary member structures—so those large events where you may have a tent—those are all items within the fire code that require us to have a review on to make sure that things are being done properly if you will. Along with those responsibilities they're also working on code compliance issues. However, I will say most of the issues that the fire inspector are going to be dealing with may be much larger as on the scale than our part-time Code Compliance person or people would do. They're dealing with if there's a complaint coming in with potentially if it could be related to a larger rental property or a business, or concern of garbage at a business, or just a larger event, where our part-time staff are going to be handling more of the things that are related to a single family type issues. And then obviously fire and EMS response. So that's the bullet points of the fire inspector and kind of their duties. Any questions? Otherwise I'll talk about code compliance. [00:10:45] **Cassidy Schweer (Council Member):** Yeah. [00:10:46] **Jason Mallinger (Fire Chief):** So our Code Compliance, again, they're part-time staff. We do up to 24 hours a week for those positions and like I said, we have one right now and she's been with us for a couple years. And you know, it's definitely a job where you have to have the right mentality to deal with because you're dealing with property owners—it's their home—and you're dealing with issues on their home. That can be difficult sometimes when there are problems, but you know we try to stick to the code and what we need to address and talk to them about that. So they're dealing again, the majority of what they're dealing with is code compliance issues. Typically it's coming out of our what's called our International Property Maintenance Code book. Actually this is the new one I just got today and I got a little excited, I was kind of happy and clapping about it but because I've been waiting for it for four or five months here. But this basically directs us to the requirements of what we're looking at on the property. So we've adopted this in our code, that's chapter 156 in our code book. Currently we're using the 2012 one; this is the 2021 book. And really there's just some changes as it relates to more or less the scope of requirements and applicability, and it really hasn't changed as far as codes as it relates to properties and that we're finding more things to throw the book at you, but it's a guide that helps us along. And the one thing that I am always telling our people is that we—and this can be, I've been taught by Soren's office as well over the years—we want to make sure that we're directing a problem that's in the code book, right? We're not making something up, we're not saying "Oh I don't like what's in your yard, it's tacky" or whatever, that's not the case. That's not what we're doing. We're pulling actual codes from the International Property Maintenance Code, it's coming from our city code of ordinances, it's coming somewhere, and we're documenting what that problem is and then we're trying to get a correction for that. So that's kind of the gist of the Code Compliance piece. I think there's a lot of... I'll get into kind of our notification of that and in a minute here, but besides the Code Compliance piece, our staff—and most of the time it's the part-time staff—that are doing the zoning inspections as it relates to the driveways, the fence, the signs, the sheds, the retaining walls and the patios. So basically that has already gone through the process of submitting a permit and it's being reviewed by other staff, you know whether it be Brandy or WSB through zoning and improving it. We're just, once everything's been approved, OpenGov basically kicks it over to us and lets us know that it's ready for an inspection and we're just basically looking at what's laid out in the plan, what's been approved, going out to the property and verifying what is completed was done to the plan and what had been requested. So the majority of the time things are done correctly, but every once in a while it's not and that's when we need to step in and address the issue. Because if somebody's putting up a fence or whatever the case may be and they do it incorrectly and that's shown as passed inspection, then that property file is going to have that in there years down the road. So we're making sure that those things are being done as once it gets kicked over to us. The other areas: chicken and bees, and that's fairly more of a spring, summer and early fall type thing when people apply for to have those, and they're doing the fire and EMS response. Any questions? Otherwise I'll talk about how we notify about the issue. Exciting stuff isn't it? [00:14:40] **John Monge (Mayor):** One thing I was going to ask: when somebody is renting a place out, their home, is there any regulations or any rule about if they live outside a certain distance, that they need to have a property management company or something like that? [00:14:55] **Jason Mallinger (Fire Chief):** Yes. So that is addressed in our ordinance that if you're outside seven County Metro area, I believe it is, they have to have a property management. They have to have a designated person as a property management, so they have to list somebody that's going to be responding. Either they're... if they're the owner and let's say they're in Florida, they may still want to be notified and have a CC their property management. So each one's different, but if they don't live within the area, they do have to have a property manager on it and that's one of the things we'll find as well—that they don't—and then we have to let them know. Because it relates to just making sure we have somebody that, again, if there's a problem out there for us, whether it's fire and EMS or some type of issue or even as it relates to the tenant, that's somebody that they can go to. But yes we do require that. Notification of Code Compliance: how do we find out about the issue? Majority of the things that come in are complaint driven. So there is online submission through OpenGov that will come to us. We also have phone lines where they're listed on the city website as well, so our Code Compliance line or the code tip lines where we'll take in information. And then each fire inspector or part-time Code Compliance person also has their own phone line that they'll use to share that number with if they're dealing with somebody so that they can communicate with them. And then obviously City staff observation: so that's whether it's could be Public Works or police or anyone that notifies us, even along with our own fire staff as well, that maybe I'll see something and I'll just let them know. But a lot of the times what staff—internal staff—will do is just create an incident within the OpenGov module, just type it in there, then it's filled out and it goes right to our people and they can deal with it from there. And it's basically tracking it as they go through the process. And then obviously proactive inspections on our part, you know going out and specifically looking for things. There hasn't... I would say we're not as proactive as we used to be, but that's partially because of the lack of staff. So moving into this summer hopefully we'll be able to be a little bit more proactive and looking for some concerns and dealing with those. [00:17:15] **John Monge (Mayor):** Is there any—like on the website—where you could, you know our website, post the five biggest issues that people... so people can look at it and go "Oh I didn't realize that was an issue" or "We got that out back we should think about." Is there anything we could put on there as a helpful tip for people? [00:17:35] **Jason Mallinger (Fire Chief):** So... we can do that, yeah. I'm trying to remember... do we have something like that? So one of the areas is... you know, and Carrie and I are talking constantly about how to make things more visible because, you know, with rental licensing and everything going through the fire department and some Code Compliance, even though on a page it will say "Code Compliance" and direct you where to go, if people don't look for that... but there is information out there and it's just trying to get it visible where everybody can see it. Obviously there's lots of information out there. [00:18:15] **John Monge (Mayor):** Good time now, yeah. They're ready to take a good look at their yard when they're... [00:18:18] **Jason Mallinger (Fire Chief):** Oh definitely. So as it relates to the busy time for Code Compliance, you know spring and fall are busy times. Definitely summer if it'll slow down a little bit. And in winter it's usually the biggest things we're dealing with—and especially this winter has been snow on sidewalks and making sure people are getting those done. And this last snowfall there are so many people that just gave up and I see it and I struggled with the last day or two sending people out to spend time and notifying about it when it's going to be melted in a couple days. But you know, there were a lot of people that went out and gave the effort, but there were a lot that didn't. And I get it, but it's difficult especially when they're around schools and we have kids walking on the sidewalks to get to schools. So you know, people get frustrated when we have to tell them to shovel their sidewalk or do a better job of shoveling their sidewalk—not just a little path, the entire sidewalk. So yeah, as it relates to the top things that we deal with, I mean that's one of them. Obviously we're going to get to it sometime here I hope where grass turns green and starts growing, but we always have that late spring push where things just grow like mad and it rains and people don't keep up with their grass and keeping it mowed. And again that's an area that we continue to push on and a lot of those notifications for that type of violation... you know, we want to be proactive on it right away so we have, you know, a type of door hanger or something that we can leave on the property to just kind of be like, "Hey let you know your grass is long, can't be over six inches and we need to get a cut" type thing. [00:19:55] **John Monge (Mayor):** What about that—I don't mean interrupt—what about that "No Mow" some month? Is that May? What do we do about that when people... [00:20:00] **Jason Mallinger (Fire Chief):** Yeah, so we don't have... we haven't approved or have it in a resolution or anything to do "No Mow May." I know it's a good thing out there and a lot of communities are doing it, but I think you have to have the conversation and weigh those pros and cons to it as well. [00:20:15] **John Monge (Mayor):** Yeah, that's a whole separate conversation. [00:20:18] **Jason Mallinger (Fire Chief):** Yeah we have... yep. Is it legal or not legal? So from what I've seen, this is because we have in our code that says it can't be over six inches. So if we're doing "No Mow May," then we're going to have to have something that says well during the month of May we're going to let you grow your grasses as long as you want and come June whatever, you know, we're going to start addressing the issue again. But that's kind of what I've seen from other communities—they have to through their Council approve it. [00:20:45] **Cassidy Schweer (Council Member):** Yeah this rides on the coattails of John's question a little bit, but one of the things I was surprised wasn't outlined—and I think we will all be supportive of—is actually creating a formal education piece to your plan. You know, not only... excuse me, sorry, not only like the top five but other ways that we can get the education out there for those that... so the lack of compliance isn't through ignorance. [00:21:10] **Jason Mallinger (Fire Chief):** Correct. I do like the idea and that throughout different times, going back we've had different types of flyers, and I think we can definitely add that in as a learning component and probably do a much better job of notifying people about that. Yeah, and it's always... I can remember when we used to send out letters—or I'm sorry, notifications—that would go out in the monthly bill if it would be "Hey if your garbage cans are on the street make sure you get them pulled back" or if you see... we would talk about things in the newsletter that would go out monthly. And inevitably the next couple days after that newsletter would go out, we would always get you know phone calls regarding issues to go take a look at. So it definitely is good to have that information forefront. So I'll make a note you know as to put some something together on the on the learning access side of things to get out there to people to be aware of especially coming in the springtime. We've already had individuals you know call or come in to discuss you know some things that they've been looking at this winter and don't want to look at this spring and summer. But the notification to the property order basically how do we tell them? I mean typically the first way we try to is face to face. But that's not always achievable, especially if you know they're not working or they're at work and not at home during the day. So then typically if we're unable to reach them we'll follow up with documentation and a letter mailed to the property owner. And like I said depending on the situation, we do have the door hangers for them, the tall grass and maybe parking violations as only it relates to commercial vehicles that could be in a lot that they're not supposed to be in. Anything parking related that's on a city street we let the CSO and the police department handle and we kind of work together with them on that. But if it gets on a rental property or on a business is when we'll work with that property owner to deal with some of those issues what's going on and again just what the code is telling us to do. So if that tractor trailer isn't supposed to be parked at that business and it's not part of that business, letting them know that it's not supposed to be there. [00:23:25] **John Monge (Mayor):** Corresponding cages all the time lately. [00:23:28] **Jason Mallinger (Fire Chief):** Yes, yep exactly. And so one of the areas that we've been dealing with down on 11th and McKnight are the semi-tractors and trailers that are in the parking lots down there. And that's been a long ongoing issue that our inspector has been dealing with property owners down there and kind of dealing with the a lot of issues there. So hopefully they were supposed to be... again, they gave us a date basically almost that it was going to be removed and done a month ago, but here we are and it's still not done. So again, you know we have to spend a little more extra time and digging in than finding out what's going on and trying to get the resolution. Time to correct the issues: again it kind of depends on the violation. Some violations may be able to be corrected immediately and could be corrected the same day, such as those garbage cans left on the street or somebody blowing leaves into the street—we get that all the time and we try to correct that the same day or when they're out there and have them blow it back into the yard. Because it doesn't matter where which tree they came off of—whether it's a City Boulevard tree or within their yard—if it fell in the street and it's there for us to clean up, doesn't mean everybody can blow everything in their front yard out in the street for the Public Works to clean up. So those are some of those issues that could be dealt with immediately. Some others that require immediate attention but need to be given a practical time to remove in case of abatement if we need to do it again: bags, garbage, the snow and ice and tall grass and weeds. I'm definitely on the garbage issue, it is the number one thing that there's no messing around. We're not waiting any longer. We notify them and if they don't get it taken care of within the time frame that we've notified them, then that exact following day we're out there with the help of Public Works if needed to remove garbage and debris in the bay and assess it back to the property owner. And we have to do that and that's okay. Thankfully this year on the snow and ice removal we didn't have as many issues as it relates with a single family. We had issues and when we asked them to resolve it typically they did. We had more issues this year with commercial properties and even after notifying them multiple multiple times, they still didn't get it done. So at that point again we're abating it, so I'm having Public Works go out with the Toolcat and the snowblower and going down the sidewalk and spraying it or clearing it often, and we're sending an invoice to that company for the abatement of the snow. And we had to do that a couple times this past winter. And granted, most of these places know better and I just don't know why they didn't get the message through, but it was done nonetheless. Some of the violations that may extend longer time frames to complete—they could be 10 to 15 days or 15 to 30 days—some of those exterior property maintenance issues. So if we identify that siding or inoperable vehicle, unapproved driveway, parking on an unapproved driveway... we'll let them know. A lot of this obviously can't be completed within a short period of time and could pose financial difficulty, so we just try to work with them and keep it open and communicate with them, have them communicate with us and let us know what their plans are and try to get the issue resolved. One of the biggest things that we have as a problem in the city as it relates to driveways are the older homes with the smaller lots and the single car detached driveway. They're just not designed to have a family of four or five people and everybody have a car, and nobody wants to move a car in the winter time, so they end up you know parking in the front yard or in other places and then it begins this issue of the parking issue. So they're not on the street, which is a good thing for plowing because we can get it plowed, but then they're also yelling at us, "Why don't you let us park on the street? We wouldn't park in the yard if we could park on the street!" And so it's a battle on some of these issues. You know we try to offer them some help in the way of identifying how they can resolve that issue—maybe there's a way for them to add on to the driveway, maybe they have space, I'm not sure. But we have to look at that with them. But then again it gets back to the financial aspect, so we give them more time to deal with that issue. Those are difficult ones to solve immediately. [00:27:50] **Cassidy Schweer (Council Member):** Well with winter especially, how do you handle those situations if it's a single family? I mean again there's nowhere to park, you can't park downtown, so to which extent are you waving the fact that there is nowhere they can park? They park in their side yard, right? [00:28:05] **Jason Mallinger (Fire Chief):** So typically in that situation in the wintertime, basically we're letting them know that that's a violation and that we'll allow it in the essence of... because it's not going to be able to be resolved in the winter either if they are looking to add on to their driveway. But we let them know and, you know, for them to look at it over the next six months or summer time and see if there's something that they can do for it. But then the immediate of the winter, yeah we're basically just notifying them, making that note in OpenGov where that's been done and try to follow up with them at a later date and see if they're making plans. Sometimes you know they're able to figure things out with vehicles, but sometimes they're not and it's just a continual cycle for some. So there's no good solution. There really isn't. [00:28:55] **Cassidy Schweer (Council Member):** I mean as a community member and looking out for the community, if you say "I can't afford a brand new garage, I can't afford a brand new driveway," the affordability of living in the city is here, but if you're going to continue citations... at what point? [00:29:10] **Jason Mallinger (Fire Chief):** But we don't... we wouldn't do a citation in that situation. So we do a notification that it's a violation: "Hey this is our code, you're in violation of our code" and we would have that conversation with them. So typically if it's face to face, or having them call us once they receive the letter and they're like, "Hey got your letter but what do you want me to do? I have nowhere to park," and we'll have that conversation with them. But like, "Okay we understand that's going on this winter for you, we just want you to be aware of it and see what you can do in the next year or for by next winter if there's something you can do. Can you improve on making your driveway larger or is there something you can do?" So we don't go to citations in that situation. The only time we've issued citations for parking in the yard have been when they've had the ability to park elsewhere and they don't. So I'm not going to give somebody a citation in that instance. And to be honest, citations are basically the last thing that we go to. We're trying to work with the people, the property owners, to get things resolved. It's only when it's extremely severe and they're not working with us and there is no other way around it that we go to a citation. And even at that point, once we go to that legal option—the citation—the reason I don't like to necessarily go through it is because it's also a long process. It's not going to give us a resolution immediately. So just because I do a citation, it's different than getting that fine for speeding. We're looking for a resolution, we're looking for something that'd be changed and fixed. And so we're waiting. In this past couple years from COVID on it's been extremely difficult to get these types of issues into the court system and then also get a judge to basically support what we're doing. A lot of time it may be dismissed and then we move on and we have to start the process over again, or the judge may simply tell them, "You're on probation for a year, don't do this anymore." So then if they don't do it for a year that's great, but generally after a year then things start up again, then we go back to the beginning. So to me, Code Compliance is more about trying to work with the property owner and figure out a resolution. You know, if there's a violation, obviously garbage, some of these issues that need to be addressed... figure out if they have the resources to do it or not. Help them out, guide them. If it's something more severe is only when we're going down the road of citation. [00:31:35] **Cassidy Schweer (Council Member):** If it is about behavior change and getting to yes and compliance, about how often is it related to lack of resources? [00:31:45] **Jason Mallinger (Fire Chief):** I would say when it gets to the severe point it's because it's lack of resources. So some of the cases that we have going on that have gone to that extent... I mean one of them most recently a couple weeks ago after the judge ordered them to clean their property... I mean it was so... there's so much on their property and they don't have the resources or the capabilities to do any of this. And the unfortunate thing is, in the middle of winter we finally get a resolution from a judge ordering them to clean it up, but to me that's also not favorable because it's in the middle of winter and it's the third snowiest once, so it's going to create some challenges. So we gave them some extra time, but the attorneys wanted us to make sure we were also showing the court that we're serious about getting this cleaned up. So the order also granted us access to go in and clean up the property if it wasn't done. Basically it was almost a month over, so they had a month and a half to clean it up before we came in and did it. And we spent a couple of hours out there with fire staff and code compliance staff and Public Works staff and even police. And we also got assistance from Ramsey County Crisis involved to help provide resources to them, which the county has a plethora of, and they refused everything. So those things are difficult. So we did what we could that day; unfortunately it's not everything and we're going to have to potentially go back there in another month if or when the snow melts. But usually it's when it's severe and they don't have the resources. But in the severe ones we have the option of looking for help other ways and that's through the county and they are there for us, but the property owner has to accept that. I'm always looking at things throughout the city and just like it's been a rough winter with snow and how things have been, I know we're going to have our hands full with some property issues out there this year. [00:33:55] **Cassidy Schweer (Council Member):** Chief Mallinger, thank you very much for thoughtfully walking us through this and it's great to know that the fire inspection piece is top priority. Our phone rings in the code compliance side, so thank you for walking us through that. This was one of my topics that I wanted to talk through through a workshop and figure out ways that whether it be as a city or a council we can help you get that educational piece out to the residents, whether it be "Code Compliance Corner" on the Wednesday newsletter that goes out and we pick a topic... [00:34:25] **Jason Mallinger (Fire Chief):** Yeah, and do something every other week or or whatever—it's that's a great idea. It really is because it's information getting out there and we need property owners to take pride in their yards. I believe it can be when I'm taking care of mine, then hopefully my neighbor sees that and wants to take care of his and vice versa. So when something starts going downhill I think that has an effect too. [00:34:50] **Cassidy Schweer (Council Member):** Yeah and just as a quick follow-up, my other question is: as a percentage of the code compliance—can I call them complaints that come in?—how many of them are residents that have called in or how many have been identified by staff? [00:35:05] **Jason Mallinger (Fire Chief):** 50/50 I would say. The majority of the complaints that come in are by residents. And the other piece of this as well: no resident wants to complain on their neighbor and have their neighbor know about it, right? [00:35:15] **Cassidy Schweer (Council Member):** So they're kept confidential? [00:35:17] **Jason Mallinger (Fire Chief):** Yes. However that's difficult to be when I'm coming out to your property and then something may be on the side of your house that's a violation that's clearly affecting somebody else. But we're not giving names of complainants and where it came in, it's merely addressing the violation as it is. [00:35:30] **Cassidy Schweer (Council Member):** Yeah, thank you. It's not a fun task. [00:35:32] **Jason Mallinger (Fire Chief):** No it's not. And that's, you know, with the part-time posting we have right now I'm hoping somebody within the department will want to pick it up and do it, but exactly, it's not necessarily something everybody wants to do. So we'll come across that bridge, we'll see what happens in a couple weeks. [00:35:50] **John Monge (Mayor):** Very important. We appreciate that because you know like you said if it starts, if something gets away, then it kind of works its way, domino effects. [00:36:00] **Jason Mallinger (Fire Chief):** I appreciate that. All right, thank you very much, appreciate your time on that. [00:36:05] **John Monge (Mayor):** Thanks again, no problem. [00:36:06] **Jason Mallinger (Fire Chief):** And again if you have any questions, complaints or concerns in the future on any of this or resident concerns, just send them my way. [00:36:12] **John Monge (Mayor):** Yeah, thank you. [00:36:13] **Jason Mallinger (Fire Chief):** You're welcome. [00:36:14] **Dave Mckenzie (Council Member):** Aye. What does the former button in front of you do? [00:36:18] **Jason Mallinger (Fire Chief):** It drops me through the floor and sends me out the back of the building in case of emergency. [00:36:22] **Dave Mckenzie (Council Member):** Does it get "Smart" theme song play if you press it? [00:36:26] **Jason Mallinger (Fire Chief):** Fall in the parking lot. I like mine way better though. [00:36:30] **John Monge (Mayor):** That'd be more fun, yes. Have the right person... and Pledge Allegiance to the flag of the United States. *(The Council recites the Pledge of Allegiance)* [00:36:45] **John Monge (Mayor):** Roll call please. [00:36:46] **Jennie Kloos (Assistant to City Manager):** Council Member Cole? [00:36:48] **Council Member Cole:** Here. [00:36:49] **Jennie Kloos (Assistant to City Manager):** Council Member Schweer? [00:36:50] **Cassidy Schweer (Council Member):** Here. [00:36:51] **Jennie Kloos (Assistant to City Manager):** Council Member Wong? [00:36:52] **Council Member Wong:** Here. [00:36:53] **Jennie Kloos (Assistant to City Manager):** Council Member Nordby? [00:36:54] **Jason Nordby (Council Member):** Here. [00:36:55] **Jennie Kloos (Assistant to City Manager):** Mayor Monge? [00:36:56] **John Monge (Mayor):** Here. Motion to adopt the agenda please. [00:37:00] **Council Member Wong:** So moved, your honor. [00:37:02] **Council Member Cole:** Second. [00:37:03] **John Monge (Mayor):** All those in favor say aye. (Aye). Thank you. Consent agenda. [00:37:10] **Brian Frandle (City Manager):** Thank you Mayor. All right, Consent Agenda Item A: March 21st, 2023 Workshop minutes. B: March 21st, 2023 regular meeting minutes. Item C: General claims $674,182.97, HRE claims of $3,553.71. We have a 2019 repair of a Bobcat. And that is the extent of the consent agenda. [00:37:45] **Council Member Cole:** So moved your honor. [00:37:47] **Jason Nordby (Council Member):** Second. [00:37:48] **John Monge (Mayor):** All those in favor say aye. (Aye). Thank you. All right next I'm going to open up the meeting to the public. 6:34. Mr. Schmall, that's your three minutes sir. [00:37:55] **John Schmall (Resident):** First of all Honorable Mayor, Council. John Schmall, 2750 Chisholm Avenue. Just as a note, went to the open book today and there was no one there. All the assessors there, had been 12 of them—there was no one there. Everyone must be happy with their taxes. Well take that for what it's worth. Anyway, I was up for a week ago Friday at my cabin, happened to be watching Almanac and they had the political group. They said that the legislature had taken up a subject of the nursing homes and that if we don't do something about raising the wages of the people who work in nursing homes we're going to have in the next two years a shortage of 11,000 beds. And the comment was made that when that came out at the meeting, it took the air out of the room. The response was like that. And that leads up to me getting to the look at the newsletter this week from North St. Paul and what are we doing and asking for money from the legislature? We want to repair a broken down building. We have our priorities in order. Thank you. [00:39:15] **John Monge (Mayor):** Thank you John. All right, closed. Anything? We have Zoom tonight or we have to worry about anything like that? No? Thank you. All right. The rest of the City business and action items or recommendations. [00:39:35] **Brian Frandle (City Manager):** Thank you Mayor. We have one item on the resolutions for this; this is going to be rescinding of an old resolution and looking for approval of the new one dealing with the meals per diem. So kind of the background is the employee policy manual was updated in 2017. Section 8, which deals with the travel meals per diem, states employees and other City Representatives that are authorized for travel may receive a day allowance for meals. Per diem rates are established by city council resolution and may be amended from time to time. Last time the update was done for the actual meal per diem was May 7th of 2002. So quite a while ago. We've made some comparisons with other cities and the rates that we're using are very much behind the times. In looking at what other cities use for their policy, they use the website the GSA.gov which kind of goes over meals and rates that make sense for that area. So we have them like for us in Minnesota—there are probably three or four different rates. You have the Twin Cities area, Hennepin/Ramsey County, you have Olmsted County for Rochester, Duluth, and then probably just Greater Minnesota depending on where you're eating. It makes more sense where you have more expensive meals they give a little bit more. So we are looking to rescind resolution number 2002-36 pertaining to the old meal per diem and looking for a resolution to approve the new meal per diem amount if we could please. [00:41:15] **Council Member Cole:** Anybody have any questions or comments on it? It makes a lot of sense to have the GSA rates used especially because they're updated on a regular basis by the federal government. It accounts for inflation so it makes a whole lot of sense to me. There may just be a little bit of administrative five minutes extra but overall it makes a lot of sense. [00:41:40] **Council Member Cole:** So moved. [00:41:41] **Council Member Wong:** Second. [00:41:42] **John Monge (Mayor):** All those in favor say aye. (Aye). You know, every 20 years it's okay to increase. [Laughter]. I think that's what brought this up. He had a skinny Mayor like Terry, it was a little different. All right, thank you very much. [00:42:00] **Brian Frandle (City Manager):** You can say what you're thinking. [00:42:02] **John Monge (Mayor):** That's right. Reports from city manager departments. [00:42:05] **Brian Frandle (City Manager):** Thank you Mayor. We had staff meeting today, got updated from the departments. So we're dealing... we got the new insurance. We're going to have a meeting with Grier Insurance to deal with some redundancies in there and maybe some other things that need to be updated on that. We talked to the electric department today. We saw some power outages from the storm that came through; there were actually only 20 residents that were affected for power outages. 15 of them were for one fuse that blew it took out a single transformer that had 15 customers on it; that was out for an hour and a half. The other five were individual house occurrences, whether or not a branch ripped service down or what have you. And that ranged for anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours for the outage time that they were back on, but nothing over two hours. So that was good to hear. [00:43:05] **John Monge (Mayor):** Just a side note on that one: yeah, I had some friends that family live in Lake Elmo and different places and they were out for almost a day. So kudos to the department for keeping things trimmed and because that was a super wet heavy snow. Nice work from the electric department to be able to avoid stuff like that. [00:43:25] **Brian Frandle (City Manager):** And once again for our Public Works and the snow removal, for sure they've just had a heck of a year. I mean this snow was so heavy that even the heavier equipment was having a hard time pushing some of this. They're going to do some more downtown cleanup; hopefully this is the last time. They probably brought a guess somewhere around a thousand loads down to McKnight for dumping all that snow out on there. Update on the student built house: they have the electrical and plumbing done, they're looking at doing insulation this week and hopefully starting drywall by Friday, so they're moving along. And of course they're doing a lot of Road patching. The line out in front of Shiftys in the morning is long—people are just dying to get these potholes fixed. The brutal winter with the freeze-thaw cycles is just so hard on the roads. They're out there doing their best to get at least the "tire breakers" out of there. Of course unfortunately, even with this cold weather you're putting it down sometimes on roads that are frozen; you're just trying to get the big ones. It's probably going to get plowed out if they hit it again, but they'll be back there in the summer when they'll actually be able to attack it and do it right and it'll stick for the duration. We had the Community Development permit report from March; we had 94 permits that were pulled. Finance has their new employee starting on Monday, the accountant. We're looking forward to that, she's going to be a good addition to the city she got really good rounded experience in accounting. That's all I have for now. [00:45:10] **John Monge (Mayor):** Okay. All right we'll go on to reports from Council, commissions and committees. Anything Council Member Nordby? [00:45:15] **Jason Nordby (Council Member):** The Planning Commission is this coming Thursday at 6:30 PM. [00:45:20] **Cassidy Schweer (Council Member):** Arts and Culture Commission had their "Patience and Security" for highlighting that in the newsletter. I think they had five or six attendees or so, which is good for a first I would say. And then the subgroup on the Arts and Culture Commission is working on utility box wraps; so they're currently deciding on what those images may be for about four boxes and then the community will take a vote on which boxes or which image they'd like to see on the utility wraps. And then their next meeting is tomorrow here in the chambers at 6:30 PM. [00:46:00] **Dave Mckenzie (Council Member):** I do not have an update. I missed the last meeting. Lauren was there, he covered it for you. [Laughter]. [00:46:10] **Council Member Cole:** Next ADA meeting is a week from today, April 11th, three o'clock here in council chambers. I have two things: one week from today Ramsey County is holding their 24-25 biennial budget information and listening sessions scheduled for April 11th. And you can attend either in person or Zoom and they are going to apparently have assessors there if you wish to discuss your valuation for this tax season—I know that's a big item for a lot of us. So one week from today is a chance to have your voice heard. And the second thing was I got a new telephone pole and I just wanted to give a huge shout out to our City Works. They did a wonderful job. [00:47:05] **John Monge (Mayor):** Take care of that pole though, be careful. No climbing it. [00:47:10] **Council Member Wong:** Yeah I just want to bring up maybe a little bit about the community center. I think a few of you were there so I'll let you share what your experience was, but Brian and Dr. Waldron accompanied me and we went to the capital investment committee at the House and we pitched our bills around the community center. I think we got some questions which is a good thing; they tend to be interested. I mean there were so many bills so I felt very fortunate we got heard and I'm just looking forward to it. There's a lot of other community centers being proposed as well so we're certainly not out of the realm of possibility of trying to reach those dollars for our community. [00:48:00] **Cassidy Schweer (Council Member):** Yeah good event. I've got a few. I had the opportunity to attend the Silver Lake Improvement Association annual meeting and I am happy to say that it has been officially turned over to Mayor Monge and it is in great hands as I step away from my two-year commitment that way. [00:48:25] **John Monge (Mayor):** Or did you run away? [00:48:26] **Cassidy Schweer (Council Member):** Yes. As Council Member Wong addressed as well, I also had the privilege to present a funding request to the Minnesota State Senate seeking funding for the North St. Paul Multicultural Community Center. We were not the only ones in the room asking for funding and so fingers crossed that we'll be able to get something moving our direction. We had great engagement from the Senate committee at the time and they had asked some good questions. Thank you Brian, thank you Kerry for your help with that as well. And final one, I had the opportunity on Saturday to attend the grand opening of the newest addition to downtown, the "Hang Time Board Shop." What a fun place. It's been a long time since there's been anything youth oriented around. It was fun, had a great time. Two of the owners are North High grads and the other one is from Stillwater. Looking forward to the ribbon cutting coming up sometime end of the month and May. [00:49:30] **John Monge (Mayor):** Can't wait for all the snow to be gone, right? That's it for me. Well thank you. Like Council Member Cole said, I was at the Silver Lake meeting. It was a great meeting as far as where we're going with the lake and looking at the milfoil situation out there, being able to address that as a "big treatment" where it's treated in the fall and then in the spring again. So what it does is when the natural plants go dormant, then they put the killer on it because the milfoil is still going, and then in the spring before the native plants come out of dormancy they can hit it again. It was a great group of people. I was glad that for the first time they have a full board for the Lake Association and it's looking promising. I reached out to Maplewood Mayor and so she's on the radar for that. This will be coming up more and just working forward to our wonderful Lake and being able to get that swimming area and be able to do a little bit more. I also had the privilege with Council Member Schweer and Council Member Cole to go to the Historical Society. They had the newspapers there, Paul Anderson spoke, it was a great event. And also I was down at the Capitol. First time going down there since grade school I think. I was down there for a different project, the path going around Silver Lake to try to connect for a walking path going down Century from 19th to the bus stop up there. Looking at different options to be able to complete that path. So I think that's all I got. All right if anybody has nothing else... [00:51:20] **Cassidy Schweer (Council Member):** Happy Easter and Happy Ramadan if folks are celebrating. [00:51:24] **John Monge (Mayor):** Yes, good. Thank you very much. All right if there's nothing else I'll call for adjournment. [00:51:30] **Council Member Cole:** So moved. [00:51:31] **Jason Nordby (Council Member):** Second. [00:51:32] **John Monge (Mayor):** All those in favor say aye. (Aye). Adjourned.