[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] good evening and welcome tonight is Monday November 18 2024 this is a regular meeting of the minetonka city council I will call this meeting to order and ask you to stand and and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all Miss Larson would you please call R Wilburn here Calbert here R here kley here Foster Bolton here sha here where some here um next item is approval of the agenda and we have an agenda Mr Funk yeah thank you good evening mayor members of the council I have two items for your consideration on tonight's agenda the first one is related to item 14a which is our cannabis discussion later in this evening in section 6 or excuse me in section 6502 0.1 of the retail registration ordinance the words um need to be altered and those are listed in the addenda and I'll just read this out loud to you uh so we're striking at and at least and the new wording that you see in your denda is within 1,000 ft from any elementary middle or high school or within 500 ft from any attraction within a public park that is regularly used by miners such as playgrounds athletic facilities splash pads and beaches or so it's a it was pointed out by a council member earlier today and so we found a language that needed to be amended and so that is part one of tonight's agenda and then the second part of tonight's agenda is related to item 14c which is ordinances relating Rel regulating dogs at large and animals in Parks staff received public comment since the publication of Thursday's city council packet and those comments are attached there is no action required on any of these two agendas and I turn it back over to you mayor and councel for your consideration all right um thank you Mr Funk is there um any comments or questions or a motion regarding the um agenda and the agenda Council M Calbert thank you mayor I'd like to move approval of the agenda as amended is there a second Council M I'll second all right we've got a motion by council member Calbert and a second by council member Miss Larson please call roll Wilburn yes Calbert yes R yes kley yes Foster Bolton yes Shaq yes weome yes motion carries next item is approval of the of minutes and we have one set it is the October 28th 2024 regular meeting minutes um are there Mr Funk or anything okay um so we've got any any comments or changes or a motion on those minutes Council meley I move to approve the minutes for October 28th 2024 Council M Calbert thank you mayor I'll second very good so we've got a motion by council member ra and a second by council member Calbert and Miss Larson please call rooll Wilburn yes Calbert yes ra yes kley yes Foster Bolton yes sha yes whereon yes motion carries so the next item is special matters and we have two special matters and the first is recognition for the 2024 photo contest winners and um I can read the staff report and uh you know for over 20 years minaka residents have shared the beauty of the community and its people in the city's annual photo contest whether it's a landscape an activity or event the photo contest is a great way to celebrate and recognize all nanka has to offer the city the city strives to promote and celebrate the minetonka community through this contest and so um we have uh let's see we have four winners and will the will the photo show as I uh as I uh walk walk through this or not okay they won't so I'm going to just recognize some folks for the uh for the um outstanding work that they did so um in the animals um category marleene Smith everyone out of the pool was the the photo that um that was a winning in that winner in that category and in uniquely motanka Ricardo Bonner Fire Sky over Libs Lake um is is the picture and then in the landscape category Bill o bur mini haa Creek and another outstanding picture and then finally um in the lifestyle category um Amy mishio dark rainy night so um I want to congratulate all of our photo winners and um is somebody pulling those up Abracadabra thank you so much I don't get this kind of service at home so I'm very [Applause] appreciative Cy um thank you mayor while uh Julie's pulling those up thank you very much I just wanted to really commend them and um hope everybody will look and see in the conference rooms where um they get hung um here and and hopefully in the marsh and Williston and elsewhere and uh I made a suggestion to Mr Funk uh today hopefully what I'd love to see is to see cards of these either sold at the Landing or um at the marsh or here at the community center so all of us can kind of enjoy them and maybe send them to family and friends here kind of a great way to to spread the word and the beauty of our our city um and it looks like here here here are the pictures well I'll tell you what if you look out the window on the wall hanging um in the hallway you can see you can see the pictures there but um I mean every year I will say that I'm I'm just amazed at the talent and Beauty I mean certainly the beauty of our community but also the talent of our um amateur photographers maybe some of you are professionals but um the the photos were were great and um appreciate the level of interest that this contact uh contest brings in and I will say that the uh again um the results were spectacular um couny yes thank you mayor maybe we can take a break at some point along the evening when uh these are able to be brought up otherwise you'll see them coming soon links to them or actual photos and a minona memo coming your way soon thank you council member meley so that's not an action item but I wanted to recognize everyone who participated um whether you won a category or not and then the next item item is um a proclamation for uh 2024 small business Saturday and rather than doing a proclamation and formally reading that we have a we have a video so the city of minak has partnered with henan County to support small business Saturday on November 30th with the look The Love local Campaign which encourages residents to support local independently owned businesses this year instead of reading a proclamation we want our proclamation to be from small business owners themselves so please start the video did you know that more than 96% of all businesses in henen County are small businesses that's more than 39,000 businesses small businesses are crucial to Minot tanka's local economy local independently owned businesses create [Music] jobs they boost the local [Music] economy and they make our community more vibrant and livable November 30th is small business Saturday we invite you to come into our shop and our shop and hundreds of other small businesses right here in [Music] minanga thank you Julie and your staff for a nice job on that video and uh just a reminder to everybody um you know we're all proud of our community and minona is a Vibrant Community and it's the small business owners who really make our city unique and so um um it's a challenging time for for small businesses and anything that we can do to get out to support our small businesses will be appreciated appreciated and uh we've got some great small businesses as was represented in the video but there are many more so please consider that um through the entire holiday season um but particularly on um November 30th um uh small business Saturday Council ra you you're itching to say something yeah thank you mayor as a former small business owner myself this is uh close to my heart and I just wanted to throw out a couple of an additional uh stats um between 45 and 50% of all jobs in the US are created and supported by small businesses so something to keep in mind and when we buy from our local small businesses it really helps our entire Community Thrive because a larger percentage of dollars that are spent at local small businesses remain in our community as opposed to other types of businesses to just a couple of other factoid to keep in mind for small business Saturday so thanks to the staff and uh henen County for for putting this together thank you Council R and Council any other comments on small businesses or we can move on but um next item is reports from city manager and council members and uh Mr Funk why don't you take that away thank you all right thank you again mayor good evening again councel a couple items for this evening first uh exciting upcoming event is the light up the commons event which will be at Ridgedale Commons on Saturday December 7th from 4:45 to 6:00 p.m. uh last year was our first year of that event and this will be a follow-up uh for this year there'll be bonfire hot cocoa crafts food truck music and more uh there'll actually also be a dog costume event as well so that'll be fun uh then also want to just mention that on November 5th was our presidential election and give you some of those statistics uh absentee voting represented about 57% of our total uh vote cast here in minaka which was around 2,790 then on Election Day there were 15,721 vote casts which is about 43% of the total votes so in total voter turnout for motanka was 85 5.91% uh Statewide average right now is estimated at 76.1 14 so as as we all know here in minona we have strong voter turnout as indicated by the results I do want to again take a moment to say thank you to our election staff uh that was our fifth election that was conducted here at the city this year uh not only thanking our election staff for conducting the elections but certainly all of our election judges and the volunteers that work to make our election such a success and then also last one to mention that the Suns sailor recently profiled one of our very own police sergeants Mike Johnson who serves as an Air Force Reserve medic so that was an honor uh in Veterans Day and certainly appreciate uh Sergeant Mike Johnson for his uh service to the military and to our country and so with that mayor worson turn it back over to you thank you all right thank you Mr Funk and councel anything that you would like to report anyone Council M Calbert thank you mayor yes I I'm proud of our police sergeant and all of our veterans who served we were not here for Veterans Day so thank you to all of our uh residents who served and um I just want to mention two events that took place this month one of them um city manager Mike Funk just mentioned which is um the election and both of these events just make me very proud um of minaka and public servants in general um and so I want to thank minona election staff and the election judges who executed an outstanding um election process and deserve a lot of credit um whether or not you agree with the outcome it is indisputable that minaka has high voter turnout and that every single one of those votes counted thanks to our elections workers so um just makes me very proud and the second um event that made me um very inspired was uh we just all returned from the national league of cities uh City Summit and Centennial Celebration and uh as usual I attended my energy environment natural com uh natural resources committee meeting and many many informative sessions that really helped me be a better informed and more effective city council member um but it was also just very inspiring to be in a group of Municipal leaders from all over the country from all over the political Spectrum who love their towns and want to do the best for their residents and um it's very inspiring to see the hardworking National League of cities staff um one of whom actually used to work here in minona a a young woman um and uh I just think it's it's very inspirational to know that there are people all over the country that are really working hard to make sure that um the quality of life for their residents is as high as it can possibly be so um you know it was just a very um it's been an an emotional uh month for a lot of people but those two things just make me very proud to be from inaka and to be a public servant thank you Council M Calbert is there anyone else um I'm going to I'm going to just touch briefly on two things um one I did want to mention the light up um um ceremony on December 7th um I will not be there this year I will be attending my son's wedding so I think that qualifies as a valid excuse for not being there but um last year was our first um our first um light light up um event at um uh ridgill Commons park it was a great event I encourage you to come out um it'll um the city does a great job it will be be a lot of fun and um and a very festive atmosphere for the holidays so um I encourage that and then just um to um follow up on Council M Calvert's comments about the national league of cities um you know our city is a member of that organization and we all learn as council members we go we we certainly have networks of people that we know around the country but we learn a lot from one another and having the opportunity to be exposed to both education um educational aspects but then the challenges that different cities face across the country we all learn from one another and it makes us better civil servants so it's a time very well spent and I'm thankful that we had the opportunity to attend so um that's it I want to give everyone last call for any council members otherwise we'll move on and the next item is Citizens wishing to discuss matters not on on the agenda so we have we we have some things coming up on the agenda and there will be opportunities to comment on those but is there anything that you would like to make the uh Council aware of that is not on the agenda this is an open mic opportunity and if there's anything please come forward state your name and address let us know what you want us to know and we won't take action on that tonight but we'll refer it to staff and we will report back at a future council member a council meeting so is there anyone who would like to inform the Council of anything tonight if so please come forward again state your name and address good evening hi my name is Garett Gardner I live at 2953 Fairchild M and uh just wanted to say that uh over the next few years we're going to lose about 25% of all of our trees between the ash trees and the bur oakite maybe 30% and so you know it's time we started taking a look at doing something about it I think one thing we should be doing is taking a look at all the uh uh commercial buildings and all the commercial areas that have t taken down their trees over the years uh they were all pledged you know when they come in they say oh we'll landscape the property but within a few years later they're taking out the trees um I had a tree service for many years and if I worked in in Negan for instance we took out trees on Saturday so the city wouldn't find out here we don't have to do that uh I've taken out some pretty big trees on commercial commercial properties nobody even does anything about it so I think we should probably take a look at what trees are supposed to be there and maybe that' be a place to start um you know the the city looks bare in a lot of areas uh 101 and seven all the trees have been removed from there 101 in minona Boulevard the bank all those properties the big trees are gone in and when they're putting them in um you know requests that they're putting in native trees and not little toy trees like lilacs or you know Spire trees so that's something I think we need to do for our you know for our air quality and everything else thank well thank you for that I will say that the city has been doing quite a bit um over the last several years we've been proactive on the emerald ashbo and understanding some of the challenges there and we do have a pretty active reforestation program so if you want to check with um you know check with staff and check with natural resources you could be informed on some of the cities that some of the things that the city is proactively doing to promote trees because we are very committed to trees in our community so um there may be more uh there than you know about but the reality of it is with Emerald ashor there's going to be a lot more trees coming down than get replaced in the short term and we're actively talking about different programs we can do to reforest our city including um one of the things we've talked about is providing seedlings and small trees to people so that we can get more trees in our community because we have a 58% tree cover in our city and we don't want to lose that so I share your sentiment and I appreciate you coming forward yeah yeah just down the street there five big a trees are out and they should be those commercial properties I think should be required to put the trees back in thank you is there anyone else all right then seeing no one we will move on and um next item is bids and purchases and we have none of those tonight um and then the that brings us to the consent agenda and consent agenda items are typically routine so what happens is we um we read them into the record if anyone either on the council or in the audience would like to pull an item for further discussion uh please raise your hand and let us know um if um no item gets pulled we will just vote on them all with one motion and one vote if an item gets pulled we will vote um have a motion and vote on the remaining items and then we'll Circle back to the items that have been F uh pulled for further for any further comment and discussion so I will read these items into the um into the record item 13A is a joint Powers agreement for Basset Creek watershed management commission item 10B is an agreement with 9mile Creek Watershed district for the holiday Wing Rose uh wing wing Rose Birch Island Lake drainage study so that's kind of a mouthful um item 10 um 10 C is a um premise permit applications to conduct lawful gambling and liquor establishments item 10d is a resolution to approve the dissolution of the joint Powers agreement for the Home Remodeling Fair item 10e is a resolution approving a conditional use permit for an accessory dwelling unit Adu at 2211 Windsor Lake Drive item 10f is a grant agreement with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources for urban wood reuse and item 10g is the 2025 Union employee salaries item 10h is an ordinance amending section 1.010 relating to the terms of the diversity equity and inclusion Dei commission members and establishing transitional terms and finally 10i is a resolution for the Brightwood Force main replacement project so would anyone like to pull any of those items Council M Calbert thank you mayor excuse me I'd like to pull 10c and um for questions and um comments and 10 f for a quick comment all right um is there is there anyone else all right is there a motion on the remaining items council member Shaq thank you mayor I move approval of consent agenda items 10 a b d e g h and I thank you is there a second council member Calbert thank you mayor R second all right we've got a motion by council member sha and a second by council member Calbert Miss LaRon please call roll Wilburn yes Calbert yes ra yes kley yes Foster Bolton yes sha yes weome yes motion carries so then returning to item 10 C Council M Calbert you had a comment or question yes so um and I know I have to be extremely judicious in my uh questioning and comments because it it is um because of the the what's contained in the material but I will just say that um it it was a little concerning um that so many of the um gambling managers that applied have legal issues and I just wanted to um see if there was any way for staff to answer um it as if we approve the application um sort of how are we how are we tracking does the is it just the reporting that goes to the state and I know that there's one issue that we're just you know causing a conditional um permitting and I just was hoping to get a little bit more information about that Miss wishnack sure uh mayor and council members uh in terms of enforcement and I'll give you some examples um let's just say there's something in the gambling operations that is uh problematic or there's an issue with maybe someone who's in charge of the gambling operations or what have you the state of Minnesota is the entity that would um do the enforcement on that if um there is an issue with compliance with documents and receipts and information again that's a state requirement the city does get the reporting every year in terms of what uh income and expenses there were for the organization so that we can verify the city's 10% and we will receive those documents so we have that checkin if you will so that will that will be next year at this time and um with the conditional permit we're going to check back on the one issue that was discovered so um again all of the entities that you're reviewing do have licenses in other locations and so if there were problematic issues I think we would have uncovered that but at this time uh that doesn't seem to be the case hopefully that helps thank you m wishnack and um so my my comment is you know I don't want for instance legal issues from the past to plague someone throughout their life um and so uh but I just you know kind of keeping keeping our eyes wide open about um how we're doing it and so if there are if there so enforcement will only be through the state so if there are issues it would be the state that would terminate the uh mayor and council member Calbert I think there could be a couple of scenarios but the one that probably applies mostow Al is that if there's some issue in the gambling Arena all of your licenses are issued to alcohol establishments you every year have that control over someone's liquor license and so if you find that there are issues um between the two or as a result of each one there are other avenues I think the city has other than just the gambling all right thank you should I ask my uh or make my comments about 10f as well um well let's just first let's see did anyone else want to comment on this um particular item um I'll make a quick comment because as I read the staff report on this item um you know you like when we we get these confidential back background reports on people who are um getting a position of responsibility like like being a gambling manager for a uh charity um we do a background check and the police department conducts that and so I and and as uh cber Calbert indicated some of these background reports did not come back spotless I mean we like them to be spotless but then I started thinking about myself um and I thought well if they did a background check on me what would that look like and it would be pretty good but it wouldn't be spotless I mean have I been pulled over speeding at some point in my 50 years of driving well I'm afraid I have and have I I mean these background checks get everything if I made a complaint if made a criminal complaint against my neighbor who I felt was doing something illegal well that pops up it shows up on your background check so I you know I I really had to take a step back and say okay I'd like the I I'd like the background check to be spotless but I'm sure most of the residents here would like the background check of their mayor to be spotless and I'm going to tell you it it's pretty good um but it's not spotless and so I want to make sure that I'm reasonable in the standard that I have and the other thing is um there there are times in the spot background checks where somebody's been accused of something well it shows up they haven't been found guilty well we have a system where you're innocent until proven guilty and sometimes the things that show up in a background check have not been convictions they've been accusations so you know I really I really respect coun Calbert asking the question but I also want to make sure that I as a council member am not placing my residents who are signing up to do something I community and holding them to a higher standard than I would hold myself to so I think that some consistency there is uh is really important so I just wanted to add that so with that Council M Cal if you'd like to make the motion we'll vote on that and then we'll go to the next one thank you and I I agree with what you said which is why I was saying that you know people's past shouldn't plague them for the rest of their lives because we're all right and we were all young one time too indeed um so yes I make the I make the motion to uh approve item 10 SE and a second council member Foster Bolton I'll second all right we've got a motion by council member Calin and a second by council member Foster Bolton Miss Larsson please call roll Wilburn yes Calbert yes ra yes kley yes Foster Bolton yes sha yes weome yes motion carries and then um your comment on item 10f so uh this is you know we we have a very full agenda today I think there are 20 items and this item is about a grant that um the city has received for our natural resources staff to put on workshops about how we um use um wood so for instance today we had a gentleman talking about um tree loss here and uh one of the things that we've done um certainly since I've been on the count is um start a wood reuse program and so this is going to enable our natural resources staff to train other cities and what we do and how we do it and a good example um that was actually in the packet has to do with um some oak trees that we lost in in during the construction of our new Public Safety facility and um we had learned that um those trees would normally would often go into landfill which considering they were oak trees just seemed practically criminal to me and so it actually became paneling um decorative paneling in our Public Safety facility and there are many other uses I know that some of the trees that come out of our city are actually being reused for uh furniture and so I just want to say I'm so excited about this I'm so proud of our natural resources and Forestry staff and um I'm really hoping that we can actually take this sort of on the road maybe to the league of Minnesota cities and even the national league of cities so other cities can learn because we are a leader in this and I just think it's I just wanted to make sure that I expressed my appreciation because it's fantastic thank you and that was pulled so we do need a motion in a second so yes that's a I I absolutely move approval of 10f and councilor I'll second all right we've got a motion by council member Calbert and a second by council member R Miss LaRon please call roll Wilburn yes Calbert yes R yes kley yes Foster Bolton yes sha yes where some yes motion carries item 11 is consent agenda items requiring five votes and we have none of those tonight which takes us to item 12 introduction of ordinances and 12a is an ordinance related to collection of recyclables and Organics and Mr Mr Manchester I believe that's your report I do thank you mayor good evening mayor and councel uh before you tonight uh our ordinance related to the collection of recyclables and Organics and so if you recall on October 7th uh 2024 Council directed staff to proceed with the contract negotiations for the 25 to 27 organized curbside recycling and then Organics as well as part of that so during that um negotiation we did look through the ordinances uh of the collection and we have a few items we wanted to address at the same time as part of that working with our City attorney um the recommended amendments so the existing Provisions for recycling and the Organics um are left in place um we are looking at potentially a new section um to address just a couple items and clarify a few things so the city contracted services that would be performed by the huler for collection and then setting the rates for recycling and organic charges um would be by resolution just to clarify those items um the revised or the proposed draft is in your packet as well as redlined very good um just a couple more quick things okay thanks pardon me yep no problem if if uh the council would choose to move forward uh with the intro uh would be posted in a t a matter similar to the other ordinances and then we would bring this back as well with the negotiated contract at the December 2nd meeting for another look so it be considered at that time with the option for a public hearing and then at the December meeting we include a Communications plan as mentioned in October um I'll just a quick intro Darren Ellingson is here tonight our operations manager if there are any questions as well but we'll turn it back to the mayor um for any questions or comments with a recommended option for a motion to introduce this ordinance thanks all right thank you Mr Manchester and and again this is the introduction of an ordinance so it's the first reading so Council any things that you want to make sure that staff looks into and can report back to us next time um coun sha thank you mayor um just one of the things that I think is really critical I think it's going to be a point of some confusion is to make sure in the communication that it's really clear that the Organics fee that hollers are currently charging on all of our individually selected hollers invoices will go away when once this is the the organized collection of organic starts cuz I I know there was a lot of concern about that in early this year and I think folks are going to be understandably upset if they think there's going to be another you know 350 or whatever we land on charge for that so hopefully people will see a little bit of a decrease in their overall cost because of this negotiation but uh just make sure that that's clear very good other counc yes thank you mayor um I would like U Mr Manchester if possible to see if the negotiations can uh include single day pickup of both so we're not having trucks coming in multiple days throughout our neighborhoods be ideal if they could do both in One Sweep thank you thank you other other comments or questions con Calbert thank you um this point was made in a in the previous meeting and and um this effort is this endeavor is is in an effort to save our residents money and you know all of our fees for everything have been going up and so of course I support um the effort to reduce uh fees including Organics fees and but I just want to make sure that you know as we move forward we also understand that we are removing some element of competition I and that in the future um it may contribute you know it may never happen but it may contribute sometime in the future that prices become inflated because there's there's lack of com competition and so uh I just want to make sure that you know as the ordinance is considered moving forward that that is something that people uh think about including um our El and appointed um decision makers and um so I just want to mention that it's come up before Council mayor kley thank you mayor also I think it would be important to let residents know rather they um use the organic um they still would be responsible for the henpen county fee I know I talked about I sent my organic can back last week um because I just couldn't get there and so I think it's going to be important to let residents know that there is still going to be a fee um whether they use it or not and then um yeah that's it thank you councelor uh yes following up on that um yes very important uh council member cley's uh comment to let people know that this is not a optional fee so we're paying for the service anyway um however Organics uh waste contributes significantly to methane emissions um and greenhouse gases so I would very much urge residents to take make use of this um service and even if you're doing backyard composting with commercial Organics recycling you can um do things like uh recycle pizza boxes and food soiled paper items things that you might not necessarily want to put in your backyard composting animal bones eggs things like that that can attract rodents so all of those things you're paying for the service anyway let's really try to do the right thing and start Recycling and doing our Organics recycling right now we have about 10% of residents doing Organics recycling in our city and I think we can and should be aiming higher than that thank you thank you everyone anyone else sorry I have I have one small addition to the comments that have made because um we have a certain level of utilization this is a mandate that um as coun kley indicated whether you use a service or not you're going to pay for it but the there there's something that's a little bit counterintuitive typically when your volume goes up your price per unit goes down because of volume purchasing if you will um it's opposite here because the program and the bid that we have is based on an estimate based on what we've we're currently collecting and it's anticipated will collect if a lot more people sign up that means that the company will have to make that many more stops their costs go up so even though our participation increases our cost will similarly increase it'll be cost per per household so you know it's not one of these things where okay we've got it we've got it locked in the bid was based upon a certain an anticipated level of participation if we meaningfully exceed that the cost per household hold and and the cost to our residents could go up but in the scheme of things that's a much better scenario even it it cost a little bit more we'll being we'll be doing much better on uh recycling on minimizing methane production from landfills and things like that so it's one of these things that's kind of complex it's um a little counterintuitive but um um it's the right thing to do and I and I support it but I want it to make I want to make make that clear because um that indeed could happen if we get strong participation and I hope we do so thank you respond yeah you well I I didn't know we were in a debate but you can you can add something if you'd like I'd like to add something thank you mayor um just to clarify as well is that we're looking at an increase if um there's greater participation of maybe2 or $3 do a month so this this would not be a significant increase and I hope that we can mitigate that again by Mr Manchester hopefully negotiating so there are same um route pickups for this and regular Recycling and that would decrease the fuel uh costs and Hauling costs so those are things that we can do to minimize that increase thank you all right we've had a good amount of um comment um is there a motion council member Shack thank you mayor I move introduction of the ordinance uh regarding I don't know if we have language here um it just says motion to introduce the ordinance so I introduc make that motion we introduce the ordinance is there is there a second council member Wilburn second all right we've got a motion by council member sha and a second by council member Wilburn Miss Larson please call roll Wilburn yes Calbert yes ra yes kley yes Foster Bolton yes sha yes weome yes motion carries um item 13 is public hearings and we have three public public hearings tonight the first is um 13A is a temporary onsale liquor license for the Rotary Club of minetonka foundation for a fundraising event at 15,000 motanka Boulevard Miss wishnack thank you mayor and council members just a quick report this is at the marsh uh City owned building and this would be to allow the Rotary Club of minetonka the opportunity to um sell during a holiday happy hour with Benny who is a local pianist uh jazz pianist so uh with that mayor we REM that um all the information is in order and we do recommend approval of the temporary license all right and uh thank you Miss wishnack and before I open the public hearing um uh Council any questions for M Miss wishnack on this all right then I will open the public hearing and I think I see a representative the minetonka Rotary Club Mr Roseman if you would like to um introduce yourself and make a few comments absolutely well thank you Mr Mayor and and council members my name is Chris Rosland I live at 8672 medal Drive in Eden Prairie and I'm here in support of the minaka rotaries application for a temporary liquor license for the Marsh's holiday happy hour event on Wednesday December 11th the event as you just heard uh features holiday music with jazz pianist uh Benny webeck there's light Refreshments food beer and wine uh will hopefully be available uh and um the uh uh ticket information is available through the marsh uh their service desk or online at their website um the net revenues derived from this event uh will be going to our minaka rotary Foundation to support local Youth Development programs uh places like IC food shelf and scholarships at minona and Hopkins high schools and if you're not familiar with the minaka Rotary Club uh we are the club for building responsible Youth and the club that's more fun than you want it to be um and uh we meet each Wednesday morning at 7:30 a.m. at the marsh and all are invited to attend and I'd be happy to take any questions uh or comments regarding our application great well um thank you so much and thank you for everything that uh the Rotary Club does council any comments that you'd like to make council member Shaq thank you mayor and I bet Mr didn't think looking at the agenda that he'd be on at 7:15 so that's good um no I just want to reiterate I'm the rot I'm a part of the rotary as well and the events are a lot of fun I mean I think there's no such thing is too much fun or more fun than you want it to be but um and so I'd encourage people to come this is their first event and um it would be great if we have a a nice turnout and there's a little bit of a disc account for marsh members correct I believe so I believe that's correct very good well Mr Rosland thank you very much for coming tonight and for your comments um it's not it's a public hearing so when you're done I'll ask if anyone else wants to comment but I think we're probably done but thanks very much and and it's exciting that I'm glad I'm excited to see this new event I will be there and I'm gonna I'll see if I can drag my wife along but the opportunity to uh use the marsh the opportunity to have holiday music in a festive atmosphere I think is a is a nice event for the community so I hope a lot of people show up absolutely thank you very much thank you is there anyone else in the audience who would like to comment on this item all right seeing no one I will close the public hearing and I will ask the council for comment or a motion counc sha I would make the motion but I council member Cal okay go right you're a member okay I will make the motion to Grant the license and is there a second councilor Calbert I'm very happy to second I will say that my daughter got married at the marsh last month I think it's the first wedding at the marsh and it is a fantastic place to do events so good luck to you and I'm really happy to support your effort very good so we've got a motion by council member Shack and a second by council member Calbert Miss Larson please call Ro Wilburn yes Calbert yes R yes kley yes Foster Bolton yes Shaq yes weome yes motion carries thank you good luck um next item um public hearing item is the Villas at chaswood housing Improvement area and miss wishnack another report from you thank you mayor and council members um I went through a lot of this information last time however um I know there's a lot of folks in the audience maybe they didn't come here for this but perhaps they'll learn a little bit about um hia funding which is housing Improvement areas for certain um developments and so this is the Villas that chaswood as you know um the city adopted the policy regarding housing Improvement areas uh in 2011 and we do so by State Statute so State Statute allows us to do to do this as a city and the city has in the past done this um before to help uh residents who live in these types of um properties that have extra maintenance issues and and challenges it was built in 1989 there's 188 units um 21 buildings 147 of those are owner occupied and 41 of those are rented there's both one and two bedrooms throughout the development and the values range from anywhere from 101,000 to 275,000 as we talked last time um the rents are also in the $1,400 to $1,800 a month month area so as you saw these pictures last time the building has some deficiencies there's definitely damage to the sheathing the framing there's been some um unknowns that have happened uh as a result of all of this kind of uncovering of the damage that has occurred um and basically folks that uh work with Freddy or Fanny May can't actually get any loans and so that is part of the problem um selling property or or someone trying to acquire property can't do that with all of the uh problems that need Improvement so the cost of the project is $12.2 million uh it involves a variety of things building facades masonry a uh the attic area other building costs Etc and when I get to this slide I mean you know that's a lot of money right it's important to understand the city is acting as the vehicle for the financing the city is not paying for this project to be done so it's the we're uh allowing a bond to be issued again not affecting the city's Bond qualified Bond rating um Etc and uh the the people that live there have to pay the dollars back um this just goes through how the uh bond is issued it's a 20-year Bond there's some prepayment Allowed by the residents after the bond is issued the prepayment allowance period goes away way uh and there's a lot of reasons for that that I talked about last time um again this is a 20-year Bond and so the people who have a one-bedroom unit are looking at an assessment of about 57,000 those in the two bedroom are around uh $71 ,000 so if you want equate that to a monthly or projected monthly that's in the bottom chart about 848 for a one-bedroom and the 1,000 uh 57 for the two-bedroom again that goes to the bond payment that the city is issuing on their behalf they did have really good support 84% of the people that live in this development supported this um housing Improvement area to be enacted we also did some um uh quality control meaning we check with residents to make sure they understood uh what was happening and what they were being what they asked of the city and as you recall too there's a 45% uh OB objection that can happen after the ordinance is uh adopted and so if that happens tonight you adopt the ordinance there's a period a waiting period that occurs there's still another opportunity to undo uh the request so with that uh the process is in the chart below November uh December is what we're doing here where you're looking at the ordinance itself creating the housing Improvement area and you're looking at the ACT actual fee resolution that you're charging these homeowners and then uh December it would be the effective date of the ordinance and then you would have a development agreement that comes back to you so not we're not quite done so this is just kind of the front end of the process and then you would actually issue the bonds later um maybe in the next couple of months so that's the process so your action tonight mayor is to hold the public hearing and uh we're requesting that you adopt the B ordinance I'm sorry the resolution and the ordinance establishing the housing Improvement area with that I'll turn it back to you for any questions thank you Mr wishnack Council any questions for Miss wishnack on establishing the hi Council thank you mayor thank you mayor I'd just like to clarify a few things both for myself and maybe for other people listening so I'm understanding this is essentially when you say a 20-year bond for those of us who are not as familiar with this financial mechanism you're essentially saying this is almost like a 20-year loan that these residents are going to be paying back with interest over 20 years and it's going to be assessed on their um property taxes each year that's correct okay um and so we agreed that it meets the criteria of but for funding because uh this development because of the construction issues of a 1989 construction which essentially did not use Ty or weather guard on top of the gypson board um means that they can't get traditional loans through Freddy or or Fanny and regular commercial lenders correct or is am I Incorrect mayy and council member melee I would never go on record to say exactly what caused all of this I mean generally it feels like an intrusion of water based on the pictures however if there's any legal issues between the association and the Builder I'd rather not comment on that because I haven't had an inspector of the city um verify that all right to clarify then that um when this was built in 1989 there were not the same construction codes that are present today okay um and uh am I correct could you talk about um we're talking about 100,000 to $200,000 units here for one and two bedrooms can we talk about what the Ami is uh for that for Minon both in terms of Housing and Rental MH U mayor and council member R the 80% would hit a 305 number so 305,000 would be affordable to those making 80,000 isll uh a year and so hopefully I'm talking about a twers household here so there's lots of charts that go with number of household members Etc but generally I'm speaking about 305 for at 80% so we'll we're well under that and and if you're in a one-bedroom you know you're you're really um getting into the affordable range for uh acquisition or ownership product so I mean in my view at least and correct me if I wrong this is kind of preserving some pretty crucial naturally affording uh occurring affordable housing for families who probably really need it um and uh meets all the other criteria that we ask of hias and also you know from my point of view this is is much more sustainable to preserve uh the the you know housing of these families and repair it than to tear down and start a new and maybe this tear down would include a much more high end and high cost development so by doing this we are you know preserving that critical uh natural naturally occurring affordable housing is that correct uh mayor and council member of melee I do agree with that statement yes all right all right thank you thank you councilor melee are there any other questions for councel before we open the public hearing um Miss wishnack I I want to make one quick comment um before could could you put the chart up that you um uh no the that this one because I want to clarify one thing that the 2024 Association monthly dues are already existing and so they are for one bedroom $362 a month and $451 the incremental amount attributed to the hiia is $486 making for a one-bedroom making the total cost of the association fee and the hiia for 20 years a total $848 and and I assume if it works like most associations the the association dues are um are um modified every year because costs go up and there's there's lawn mowing and thing and snow shoveling and things and those costs go up over time so the association does may change over time but the hiia dues would remain would be fixed based upon the loan and the interest cost if I'm not mist may so I just want to be clear that that I mean that big number on the right 848 for a one-bedroom and 1057 um for a two bedroom um includes both the hia fees and the association fees I think that's an important consideration for everybody to be aware of so want to make that comment and then if there's nothing else from the council I will open the public hearing and if there is anyone who would like to comment on this item anyone uh from from the association or thing please come forward state your name and address make your comments and then we will uh we'll take it from there thank you for being here tonight hello good evening thank you for having me I wanted to introduce myself I'm David Al now I am the current board president for the Villas of Chasewood here in support of this hiia is fellow board members and community members if you may raise your hand please greetings thank you for being here thank you very much I appreciate the council taking its time to review this I know this is a lot of detail and um you know it is a rainy day tonight but I am excited to be here uh excited to talk to you guys and girls about your you know your future support in our community as as mentioned before Fanny and Freddy Mack the two largest financing companies in our country have blacklisted our community our homes are in dire need of repair until these are fixed we will remain blacklisted which means our community cannot obtain financing from 70% of the mortgage Market uh this stagnates sales drastically reduces our home values in fact we just had a property for $ 200,000 sell for $71,000 Less this will also lead to owners abandoning properties once we do the work and complete the items on the hiia contract Fanny and Freddy may have mentioned uh removing us from this blacklisting uh this hiia is our only way out of this and it allows people that live there a way to live safer structurally and for people that need to sell their ability to do so I am in full support of this hiia contract and I want to thank you very much so again for your support in our community thank you very much for your comments this is a public hearing would anyone else like to comment if so please come forward state your name and address and uh we will listen to what you have to say good evening Mr Mayor and council members my name is Donna Sternberg and I live at 17376 frondel court in Eden Prairie but I'm here because I'm a owner of a Chasewood condo one of those 41 that is currently rented out and I hope I'm not stepping on David or the board's toes but I also wanted to take the opportunity to speak and to urge you to support this the costs are significant that's been thoroughly explained to the homeowners the necessity has been thoroughly expl explained to the homeowners by the board and um there's just no other alternative other than the hi and it's also been approved by the majority of the home homeowners to in effect increase this financial burden on ourselves so I just want to ask for your support to adopt the ordinance and I appreciate your consideration thank you very much for the time thank you m Sternberg is there anyone else anyone all right I will close the public hearing and bring it back to the council for our consideration Council M sha thank you mayor um we talked about this for a long time at our last meeting and I will say so so appreciative of the board president and the neighbors for coming tonight cuz it really drives home for us the importance of this I'm very supportive um it's critical I mean this is really you know um not it one step below life or death for these people it's their housing and making sure that it's safe and sustainable so it's a lot of money and that's too bad I guess I D I I try to remember that if one of us were redoing all of our exterior you know we maybe have to take out a home equity line and see monthly payments along these lines so I think that's a kin and I'm glad that we can be a resource and can support these folks in a way that doesn't you know that we're not on the hook for so it's it's just a no-brainer for me thank you C rack other comments anyone Conor ra thank you mayor um yes you probably could tell my my line in questioning I'm quite supportive of this project I think that um first of all it has so many uh benefits not only for the residents but for us as a community um you know prevents blight prevents foreclosure and abandonment so all of those things as well as helping our neighbors this is an investment in our community that actually doesn't doesn't require us it's a net gain for us in the end um so it's really you know a a community you know neighbor helping neighbor thing here and and we'll get fully paid back with interest so um again I agree with council member sha this is a no-brainer support it any other comments from Council Members C what they said I mean very good yeah very good um and I'm going to add just a little bit to that because um um I remember as a member of the council when we passed the hi um uh ordinance and that was in 2011 and this is the third one of these that I've had the opportunity to participate in and as um as you indicated um this is really a last resort type thing um nobody no homeowners association wants to get into um this circumstance but um as all homeowners know um there are um homeownership is a wonderful thing but um there are unexpected expenses for every homeowner from time to time and uh this is a device that en enables the city to help that without taking any risk itself but using the um the creditworthiness of the of the city to enable you to get a reasonable loan at a reasonable price and I've had the fortune or Misfortune of Being on numerous um um homeowner boards and um been president of a homeowners association and I get to go to my homeowners association meeting tomorrow night just if you're wondering what I was doing tomorrow night that's it um and um and you know one of the things um I really appreciate about you know I'm very sorry about the the fany man and Freddy Mack um blacklisting but even if that didn't exist homeownership homeowner um associations have a very hard time getting credit even in the best of circumstances so this device is really um is really a safety net that that um helps us preserve um naturally occurring affordable housing and I was at a meeting today in St Paul talking about housing and affordable housing and the housing Supply and we talked about the vital importance of preserving affordable housing because if you if this couldn't happen and if your houses were determined to be unlivable and you had to write the whole thing off the next house even if it was if they rebuilt exactly the same properties would be double or triple the cost that you are facing and the and they would not be affordable and so we talk a lot as a city about the importance of affordable housing and I personally believe that if a person does not have a safe place to live in our society they have no chance and I believe I'm maybe a little old-fashioned but I believe America is a land of opportunity and we if we are the land of opportunity we need to provide find a way to provide adequate affordable housing to our residents and to anybody who's interested in living our community because that is the fabric of what makes a democracy and a society work and so I think it's fundamental and so I'm really pleased that the city can help out and I think the support is here so I will end my comments and if someone would like to make a motion I'd appreciate it counc m Calbert thank you mayor I'd like to make the motion um to adopt the resolution and the ordinance for the Villas at chaswood housing Improvement area and is there a second council member ra I'll second all right we have a motion by Council M Calbert and a second by Council M Miss Larson please call Ro Wilburn yes calber yes R yes kley yes Foster Bolton yes sha yes weome Mo yes motion carries thank you very much so we have one more public hearing and that is on the youth of the community investment fund to finance renovation of ice arena rink B re Refrigeration Improvement project Mr Manchester your your report thanks mayor uh good evening again mayor and Council before you tonight is uh item 13c the use Community investment fund to finance the reservation renovation of ice arena rink B Refrigeration Improvement project so at the October 7th 2024 meeting Council authorized the ad for bid for the project um and open the public hearing uh regarding the use of the community investment fund dollars to finance the project this project proposes to install a new ammonia refrigeration system at rink B uh bids were opened for the project on November 12th 2024 unfortunately we only received one bid for this project um in the response for bids So based on the higher than um estimate bid we did receive from our our Engineers estimate and the lack of comparables we are at this time recommending to reject the bids which we don't do too often um but we would look to return in 2025 uh we would look at kind of the time frame the scope the equipment used um we looked at kind of the info on this one it appears the time frame over the summer was very competitive with other projects that were working on Ice uh Arena work as well so there was some competition there that's why we think it happened um we did have our Engineers investigate that quite a bit and they do this this work often so we would look to come back in 2025 with a new plan without that other comparable bid we don't feel it's responsible to recommend to move forward at this time so we would recommend to reject the bids based on the reason stated and then come back in 2025 to consider uh with some revised parameters based on that we would recommend canceling the public hearing tonight and then we would redo the process when we come back um in the future with Council so we would start the process over so with that I'll turn it back to the council and mayor for any questions Mr Kelly OD is here tonight to Rec director as well if there's any questions that come up regarding Ice Arena thanks very good thank you Mr Manchester um before we start um I'll ask the council if they have any questions uh Council M kley thank you mayor I did have have a question but I think um Mr Kelly answered the question um I was um speaking to Mike earlier and I asked about um the the cost um being more if we wait um for to do another bid but you explain why is because we didn't have a comparable Bid And so and then it's priced you know um a lot more so um that makes sense to not U move forward or reject it at this time so I'm I'm in favor of rejecting The Proposal very good any other questions um Council or um or comments um Council M Calbert yeah I actually wrote out a few you I mean you know I talked with uh Mr Funk earlier today and um there was a lot of talk at the conference we were just at about how uh the the cost of big projects like this has actually gone up in part because um cities got federal dollars or other Grant dollar there's just been an influx of dollars to deal with these kind of issues and so um vendors are busy and so they're they're inflating their prices and um so my my but now we have a change of administration um it's going to be a significant change in um sort of economic policy and um th they may or may not but there is a chance that they would also contribute to inflation and so you know it makes all the sense in the world to me to wait and try to bid out again um but I also wonder um if there has been any talk about um I know that that I'm sure you discussed the factors that play into the inflation that's happening right now but you know here's my concern you are heroic Mr Manchester and you know you defer things and you make things work for a long time and you know this is uh I'm wondering how long can we go if the the bids come in insanely high again sort of you know what's Plan B um and um if if the conditions don't change like is it is this just a factor of no vendors is this a factor of just the competitive atmosphere because a lot of people are trying to do the same kind of work or what is it Mr May Chester good question uh council member Calbert mayor and Council we did you know after we received the bid we certainly made some phone calls we think it was very competitive and the time frame on this one is what caused it so we had opened up this bid to have the work completed over the summer months essentially there's a three-month window um when we made some calls to some other contractors who generally would bid projects like this they did say they were booked up and so we feel like if we would maybe look at the time frame a little differently and then give them another um time basically to bid that you know there was a few that did say they would actually bid the project um our plan B um certainly we hope we come back with a better Bid And there's some competition if we do get bids in the same range something we will need to discuss with you um we hope we don't but I mean there's always that risk if we reject them and try again as far as inflation goes we've you know we've seen competition and inflation on a number of projects um you know we try to make our estimates in line with that the best we can so we're always constantly adjusting that was one do you have another one yeah so uh I mean I'm just wondering how many how many contractors do we have in that line of work sure a good question council member calber mayor and Council we had five plan holders on this and so there were five folks that looked at this specifically they took out plans and looked at potentially bidding it um there's more than that you know the number kind of varies depending on if people come in or how they try it depends on workload from different companies you know if they've got the books are full they don't look at this stuff very often but if they're not they certainly do thank you Council M ra thank you mayor yeah just a couple of quick questions Mr Manchester when was this uh when did this RFP go out uh council member we gave biders about three weeks and when did it go out the date of it um I can pull it I'm sorry I don't have it in front just ballpark um it would have been about three weeks before we took bids on the 12th so November 12th okay curious because you know inflation rates have gone down significantly we're between 2 and 3% now so that shouldn't be a significant factor at this point um although I understand that supply chain catch-up issues can play a factor as can can as you said schedule and uh so can companies uh consideration of what the market is at that time or AKA uh corporate gouging I don't know if we want to call it that here but it's been known to happen um that said we'll have to see again agree with council member Calbert what the future holds and uh but I I you know tend to agree that it's best to hold at this point and appreciate the work that's gone into it and that your recommendations on this any other comments uh Council just a couple a couple of quick things I mean a couple years ago we bid um improvements to the community center and the bids came in high we rejected the bids and we rebid again we ended up not doing the work but but they came in at almost half um because in bidding um there there's competition there's um um what's the labor market what's the avail of workers um there's a lot of factors that that can cause um timing is everything in these sorts of circumstances um if somebody's Book is Full they don't need the work they're going to bid high and we only got one bidder um you know six months from now um the situation could be totally different um the one question I have for Mr Manchester is I know the reason we're doing this is not because our current refrigeration system does not work it's because the cost of operating that refrigeration system due to the use of uh Freon and so forth continues to go up because um Freon they're not making any more freon in the United States and there's a limited Supply and that's a supply and demand issue as well um you know if we had to how long could we how could long could we go with the current uh refrigeration system where um where we could get to the point where we're basic out of business on on Ice yeah good question question mayor mayor and councel I there's about a 20-year lifespan on what's in there it's about a year 21 currently so everything's operating find you know the thing we would run into is if there's a repair we need to find some of the R22 refrigerant but I I think we you know it's not failing currently but we want to make sure we're ahead of it so we don't get to that point and we're in an emergency situation very good so I too I'm supportive and and I really do believe that timing is everything and if the time I mean clearly inflation is a factor but I don't really think that's the driver I think it's supply and demand of what we need when we need it and so I think if we can bid strategically we can be at a much better place and and so your recommendation is a wise recommendation I support it so with that unless anyone else has any other comments we a motion council member Wilburn I move that we cancel the public hearing and reject bids for the ice arena rink B Refrigeration Improvement project and a second councilor Calbert thank you mayor all second all right we've got a motion by Council per Wilbur and a second by Council C Calbert M Larsson please call R Wilburn yes Calbert yes ra yes kley yes Foster Bolton yes sha yes weome yes motion carries so um thanks everyone for that so I've got 10 minutes to eight we've got some items here that probably are going to take a little time so I think we'll take a break now for until 5 minutes to 8 and then um and then we'll go through the um remaining items where we will be taking public comment and we'll try and move along as quickly as we can so let's take a 5 to 7 minute break thank you e e e e e e e e e e e e we to call have but then all right we're pretty close to on time and um I will reconvene the meeting and um this brings us to other business and um item 14a has a a brief forward description items relating to cannabis and I will turn that over to miss wishnack and thas miss Thomas welcome Mr Mayor and Council I'll start and then miss winoak will uh pick up so to ensure compliance with the adult cannabis use laws that were passed by the state legislature in 2023 and to utilize uh the authority that was given to the cities under that law staff is proposing uh three ordinances here this evening you introduce these ordinances at a uh meeting in October the first ordinance is uh some amendments to our zoning ordinance which is chapter three of the overall code and that uh or clarifies where cannabis related businesses are allowed in our community the second ordinance then uh refers to Chapters six and seven in city code and that is specific to the retail registration or the registration of retail businesses in our community it establishes a maximum of five uh retailers outlines the process and sets minimum buffers between the retailers and and certain land uses which we'll go over and then the third ordinance is the public use ordinance uh which sits in chapters 10 and 11 of city code and that regulates where cannabis products can be used or cannot be used in public places so the first ordinance then is the zoning ordinance Amendment um the 13 different types of cannabis businesses that will be licensed Ed by the state of Minnesota could generally fall into our existing um zoning classifications but staff is proposing this amendment to really add Clarity to where businesses would be allowed and to in the zoning ordinance reference or point back to um the retail registration ordinance that Miss wak is going to discuss the zoning amendments are um under existing ordinance residentially zoned properties can be used for commercial agricultural purposes basically someone could buy a vacant lot in our community and grow potatoes or said vegetable any vegetable uh for commercial sale but under the proposed ordinance cannabis cultivation for commercial purposes would be specifically excluded um from commercial agriculture a cannabis cultivation for personal uses is protected under state law the second change then is that cannabis retail businesses would be permitted as permitted uses in those retail districts where we already allow retail P B2 and B3 subject to the registration ordinance third cannabis businesses would be allowed as accessory and conditional uses as retailers in our i1 or industrial district that really reflects the the retail levels that we already allow in that district and then finally cannabis cultivators manufacturers wholesalers would be allowed as permitted uses again in that industrial district where we already have similar uses uh occurring the commission or the Planning Commission I should say considered the zoning ordinance at their last meeting uh November 7th they had very little discussion on this zoning component and uh unanimously recommended that the council approve this so I'll turn it over to miss wishnack to talk about registration thank you Susan um again as she stated earlier it is for five retail locations within the city and just a note we talked about this last time this does not apply to secondary retailers so if you think of low potency hemp those sorts of products are still allowed to be sold at various locations in the city this is specific to cannabis uh retailers so basically what happens is they would apply to the Licensing Division that's in Community Development they date and time stamp um as we received them we would do that and then with we would review the ordinance um and make sure uh that they were in compliance and obviously in the way the ordinance is written today we would give preference to the P zoning District now if the C council is and I'll talk about what the Planning Commission thought about this particular issue but if uh you're not ready to do that we do have some alternative language for you and it's prepared and we'll pull it up when we come to that um again back to the process so the registrations then would be issued um by the community development director myself for compliant businesses and once they're registered uh the remaining applications would then be denied officially so again back to this SL ation standard um and issuing them in the order they're received um the thought process of the P zoning district is because they have a high con concentration of commercial businesses already and a third of the commercially guided businesses are uh of that area is in um the ridal area um in terms of what the Planning Commission said about this there were two people that felt maybe um this is not a good idea at all so we should just remove this uh from the ordinance the remaining Commissioners there was kind of a variety of opinions and there was an idea to have um maybe only the top three uh be considered for this area after speaking with the city attorney uh we're a little bit too close to controlling location um too intimately and so um we were not able to do what the Planning Commission some of the planning Commissioners thought we should do so um if you have any specific questions about why that is uh Karine I'm sure can explain a little bit more about what the state law says and why the city probably um is a little bit too far in the regulation of that buffers also was a topic of discussion so the way the ordinance is drafted retail locations would not be permitted within a th000 ft of schools or 500 ft from any attraction within a public park and there's a lot of language about how that works in the actual ordinance um the way it's or uh drafted it does not apply to daycares or res Residential Care Facilities because of the difficulty and trying to figure out all those locations and the movement and the um ability for daycares to set up pretty much uh anywhere in the city and um you would have then a nonconformity with with a business so uh again they were purposely put into the registration ordinance instead of the zoning ordinance uh for that very reason but um again there would not be any uh in the current ordinance so when the Planning Commission talked about this they did talk about having it for only conditionally permitted daycares and so I'll just go to the map for a second I believe yes on this map so it kind of shows you the differences and Susan if you can kind of Point as I talk on the left hand side um this is what it looks like under the current drafting of the ordinance but if if you did then apply these buffers you basically remove uh many parcels and in fact some neighborhood areas for instance Glen Lake is totally removed by uh that kind of ordinance so um I think it really again is a uh an opinion of the council whether or not how far you want to go in terms of that buffering language again the Planning Commission kind of tried to hone in on not so heavy on the daycare but tried to do the cup but you can see from the analysis that perhaps we're um maybe um preventing it from being in certain locations uh finally on the buffers just we would not have a buffer for any industrial type businesses so that's not including the orun one last thing now we're going to talk about where it can be used on public property and you've gone over this I think this is your fourth time going over this so I hope it makes some sense um but it's important to understand what a public place does not include before you get into what you are regulating so it does not include a private residence including a yard uh does not include private property that is accept accessible to the public unless the property owner explicitly prohibits consumption on the property um and then finally a premisis of an establishment or a li even a location license by the state for on-site consumption under the ordinance smoking vaping or ingesting any cannabis product is prohibited within 50 ft of any city outdoor swimming beach playground Etc um all those locations now last time it was confusing right when we introduced the ordinance where can you smoke today on city property and where can you not where can you consume alcohol where can you not so there's a a pretty uh I would say um quite complete chart on you can use those things and so um and then smoking and vaping a cannabis product would actually be prohibited on any City Park property including recreational Trails located within the park um but not including recreational Trails outside a park and I always give the example of like 101 or Plymouth Road that's a trail that isn't located in a park the second part of that is on any property upon which a city building is located so think City Hall campus you cannot smoke cannabis on City Hall campus um can you smoke yes in certain areas uh but you cannot consume cannabis that's the way the ordinance is drafted the proposed ordinance again does not restrict use on city sidewalks or Trails located located outside of those Parks um also it does not restrict that use on private property um there is a caveat though state law does prohibit cannabis use in any location where where a minor could Inhale Smoke aerosol or vapor of a cannabis product so there's kind of this overarching law as well um if you look closely at um I then we had some private property questions last time I think you can kind of see the detail on especially multi-unit structures and in some parts it says rental and then in some parts it says multi-unit generally and not rental it doesn't clarify that so it just depends on uh what section you're looking at but I would refer you to that chart it's very helpful to kind of piece through what those requirements are uh the park board did look at this public use ordinance and was in support of the language as it stood for the public use portion so you've got a Planning Commission recommendation you've got a parkboard recommendation we heard from you at the intro and I think we've um hopefully answered most of the questions we had last time and again we do have parts of it drafted both on the buffer and the um P side if you choose that you want different language we're more than happy to do that right on the fly so with that Mar I'll turn it back to you all right thank you miss wishnack and miss Thomas for your report um so I would um I'll turn to the council and ask if you have any questions of staff not comments questions then after we get our questions answered then um there will be opportunity for the public anyone interested in commenting on these ordinances you'll be invited to come forward and comment and then the council will make its comments and we'll um we'll vote on the proposed ordinances so that's the way we're going to move forward so uh Council questions council member sha thank you mayor I think I have a pretty straightforward question I appreciate all the work that's gone into this and we have talked it to death um the one thing I'm still struggling with probably no surprise to you but is the P provision can you just tell me again um staff's rationale on that wishnack uh mayor and council member Shaq the I think that when we first thought about this we thought about where the concentration of businesses are located and obviously that's the 394 Corridor and the idea is that the priority given that area would be like other businesses in that area when you put it in a neighborhood commercial area it tends to get maybe a little bit more attention um it's a little bit closer to some um housing areas that sort of thing um think Glen Lake uh near the strip mall um you know putting a use like that in is right against other housing areas whereas in uh the p district that tends to be a little bit more commercial and freeway and that sort of thing so I think that was um definitely part of our thought process also the most zoned property for this kind of use is in that area a third of the commercially uh guided businesses so I think those two factors uh led to that recommendation again I wouldn't say we feel totally strongly about it I think um if you asked us we could go either way of course so just depends on the council's opinion about it thank you thank you m wishnack other questions Council R yes could you also clarify you said that um we couldn't do like a a three out of five with the preference so I'm just kind of curious um about that I take your word for it that it's not possible but could you maybe just say a couple words Miss H the state law um mayor and members of the council the state law talks about allowing cities to set a limit per population for the entire city and it doesn't talk about setting limits of you know numerical limits for specific zoning districts in a separate ordinance or in a separate part of the statute it does talk about setting locational um requirements which are those distance requirements of 1,000 ft 500 ft and so my concern is that if you're looking at the statute and how it was drafted that it was not intended to say you can set your limit by zoning District can I yes um thank you mayor so if it's a problem with three why isn't it a problem with five the state law specifically allows the city to set the limit according to the entire pop uh city which for 60,000 divided I mean div I I I yeah thank you I understand that but I'm saying if we're circum circumscribing location for three and giving preference for the first three to go into the PID 394 PID then what's the difference between doing it for three versus doing it for up to five businesses that's what I'm kind of struggling with a little bit and again this isn't a big deal but well my understanding was that the uh Planning Commission was saying that there should be a an established limit of no more than three right within the district the p district and maybe I got this wrong but regardless of how the applications come in so it wasn't just an a matter of sorting the applications as they come in but setting a limit and saying in this District no more than three which is true that's true oh my understanding I'm sorry I thought my understanding was you know preference um bumped to the head of the line until one through three are filled and then it's wherever am I incorrect in that and is that what we're looking at thank you Miss wishnack thank you mayor and council member I think it was a little of both so you heard some from uh some Commissioners I didn't think there was consensus uh from that uh discussion whether or not there were some that said a limit of three some said move the three to the top so it just depended on Whose testimony you were listening to thank you I guess to follow up on that given law then are we saying then that it isn't possible to do that filling one two3 preference and then after that first come first serve if the if we're talking about how the initial applications would be um processed and not something that lives on Beyond initial processing that might be possible um thank you um that would be my preference and I think uh council member Shaq might be also let's give preference to you know bump the those who are in um the the I 394 p p ID um you know for until spots one through three are filled and then let the others you know be wherever instead of bumping everybody um up to that you know preference one through five I think that's um more of a Middle Road um to what's being proposed here and um so anyway that's that was my question not my comment miss m wish yeah I think mayor and coun council member weree I think we're in new territory here so I think that's why we're a little nervous about how the it's drafted and I think um if that's the council's consensus then uh perhaps we would have to just be clearer about how that would be written um I don't think our redrafting I think we took it out entirely in the redrafting um if if people just didn't want that at all and that frankly might be simpler I don't know so we'll see what the rest of discussion brings Council other questions council member Foster Bolton um I just wanted to be clarify the minor so so the state law prohibits minor any usage of vaping or smoking where a minor could inhale so does that mean that and number one how would that be enforced so if I had my grandkids I don't have any yet but my little kids are going along the Plymouth Road Trail right and somebody's vaping and the kids could inhale this or you know I mean um the would I technically be able ble to call the police I mean how does that work Miss wishnack excuse me I I uh Clarity uh council member Foster Bolton again vaping cannabis not just vaping yeah that's what I me clear for the public not for you um but uh technically it would be a violation yes um whether or not police would arrive in time to witness and whether or not they have the capacity to do that I'm I'm thinking that would be difficult but the chief's here so if you want to talk to him I'm sure he'll come up Chief I'm not sure we want to put you on that spot but uh good evening welcome good to see you good evening uh mayor council council member Foster Bolton yeah you know the I guess the statute the black and white the statute would make it a violation the the uh it would be very difficult I mean it would have to be timing and I look at more educational I mean I I just think the the those encounters are an opportunity to be more educational unless it's an environment that we think is very unsafe I just think it'd be very difficult to enforce um Council m r uh question Chief well we have you have but you know since this has been enacted and I know we're all has there been any incidence of issues along these lines uh mayor council member m we we looked at the last this was as of October 7th and when this law was enacted probably 400 some days prior to that in in our more so in our city facility Parks we had six calls for service so it's a very small number in general uh possession marijuana use even prior to the law change was very rare and we have uh have not done much enforcement in henpen County around the use of marijuana for several years even prior to the law change thank you Chief Council other questions um for staff thanks Chief you can you can sit wherever you want um um other other questions if I'm not seeing any from Council but but I have one regarding kind of a jurisdictional issue um we um are talking about um limiting or not allowing um use of cannabis smoking of cannabis vaping of cannabis um in Parks or on Trails within Parks but we have a lot of trails that are not within Parks um we have the LRT trail that goes through the city and is is heavily used but that's not within a park um and um jurisdictionally is that still the city's right to um um do that or is that up to Three Rivers or do they H I mean who has Authority for a trail that's controlled by another government entity within the city limits of mitaka because I could if if Three Rivers has that jurisdiction I could see them um imposing rules on vaping and so forth on their Trails but they might not and so I'm just wondering where does that fall or or will it because nobody wants to touch it it kind of um kind of fall through the C and so we have unintended consequences there because nobody wanted to step up and and take responsibility for that jurisdiction within the city so help me with that one um K can correct me if I'm wrong mayor um but that would be under the jurisdiction of Three Rivers Park District um and I haven't looked up their regulations lately um or if they're considering additional regulation on um cannabis so that's something to follow up on but uh Karine unless you know something else I would need to look into it I don't know the answer to that okay um if somebody's riding an electric bike um that's beyond the below 10 miles hour by the way right that VI that VI that violates state law and they're rting it on their Trail could our officers um take action I think they probably could even though it's a Three Rivers um Park Trail but it's something we would need to look at very good um Council any other questions all right then seeing none I am going to uh offer the opportunity for anyone in the audience who would like to comment on these proposed ordinances um as is the as is the case we expect you to come forward state your name and address please be brief but please comment and let us know what is on your mind regarding these proposed ordinances is there anyone who would like to um address the Council on cannabis anyone if you do please come forward state your name address and and tell us what you'd like us to know good evening good evening my name is Wendy Holland I live in minetonka um and and could you give your address to please oh 5537 County Road 101 thank you uh I'm not even here for this issue so I'm not real educated on it but I just have a comment because I've worked in the field of alcohol and drug addiction for 40 some years with hazeldon and probably every level of care there is an addiction and um I I would just really encourage you I know uh to take the time someone said that um people are nervous about this issue I think it's okay to be nervous about this issue it's a big issue that affects you know families uh you know every gener generation and I would just encourage you to extend the boundaries of um cannabis use around um children and around daycares I would I would encourage you to take your time with that because if it takes more research I think it's worth it um affects a lot of families and I don't think the little kids should even have to smell it and 500 500 uh feet not a real big deal in my book so anyway um it's a huge issue and it's um you know again it affects affects every member of a family and in a lot of a lot of generations these days if that's said if I said that right but anyway that's all I have I'm not even here for this issue but it's a big one thank you very good thank for your comments is there anyone else anyone at all okay I've asked does anyone else want to speak enough so I'm gonna I'm going to end the public comment on this item and bring it back to the council for comments and U and a vote anyone Council M Shack thank you mayor um cutting right to the chase I mean I I think we've talked about the public use so much and I'm comfortable with where we landed even if it maybe wasn't how I would write it I think we've kind of gotten there together as a group um regarding you know the PID is really the the issue that I've thought a lot about and I just think about you know this morning I kind of flushed out a scenario so say seven applications come in and and the first three are for the PID area so they move forward and then the next two is say one's for S and 101 and On's for Opus I you know I don't know and then the second two are for the PID then we would have five for the p and the other ones would fall you know and I I just don't I don't feel right about that I also think you know we've we are so deliberate with our liquor stores and you know geographically where they're located and how they're spread out and to take kind of the converse on this I I just what I I'd be comfortable maybe with what I mean I my preference would just be let the Market Drive this I think the Market's going to manage itself one way or another there probably are going to be a disproportionate amount in the ridgel area and that's fine um I I would be comfortable with something that said we'd give preference to the first three in the p and then the rest would be you know just the same but maybe not the five but again my inclination is probably to go um just drop that all together which I think is how staff has an alternative drafted um on the daycare piece I I just think we're asking for trouble if we include the daycare because of the fluidity of how those dayc carees are operating and so I I'm comfortable with everything else as drafted thank cber kley thank you mayor um I'm kind of um don't agree with the p um I think that it pays favoritism and I I feel like if it's a smaller company who wants to uh well a smaller business who wants to get into this um I think it um gives favoritism um for Ridgedale area and so I don't really agree with that at all I think we should do away with that because um it's competitive and rale I believe is going to be more expensive to be in that area um because of um the mall area so um and that that would make it harder for smaller businesses to compete and so that's how I sit as a could be favoritism so I don't agree with it other comments from Council Members councilor Calbert thank you mayor I just want [Music] to you know I've really struggled with the PID issue as well and uh I just tend to agree with uh Council MERS Shack on her assessment so Little Tor I completely appreciate the rationale that staff gave for uh you know how they're thinking about the PID but the whole point of all of the other regulations is to make sure that that they meet our requirements as a city and so whether it's in a PID or someplace else um they'll be they they have to meet all of the the buffer um requirements no matter what so um I really appreciate what uh council member kley and council member Shaq brought up and I'm a little torn I'm not quite sure I I don't know that it's something that I would need to stand on a high hill but there's good rationale to council member Sha's arguments on that point other comments Council councilor Ry thank you mayor um just briefly I again I I agree with what's already been said um I would be able to support either the three or if staff thinks that's problematic I would do none in terms of the P preference anyone else council member Foster Bolton thank you um yeah I would prefer to do none as well all right anyone else all right um couple of quick things on that you know I'm I'm kind of torn on on that one too I think um I think having preference for the Ridgedale area the PID area makes sense because that part of our city gets 1.3 million visitors um including mitaka residents every month it is it is the commercial hub of our city so I think even though it probably is more expensive I also think that from a business perspective um anyone who wants to start a new business and have it succeed would likely want to locate it there but but that's kind of a free market issue and I I think free market in this circumstance makes sense I think that if we put no restrictions on it we'll probably end up with you know probably at least three um um dispensaries in the um in that part of the city you know I've debated you know just in conf ation with myself um is this something well we've got four Wards do we want uh do we want one dispensary in each Ward and and maybe two in our biggest commercial area and that that would be another way of doing it but you know let's let's let the market work I mean people are going to put their businesses where they make the most sense for them um I'm I'm on record as saying I'm not a big fan of this business but that doesn't matter we we're need we're going to need to regulate it to the degree that the city is allowed to do that we want to do that but I think uh let's make sure that um that the things that we do make good sense and to me being as restrictive restrictive as we can um in terms of the sale of cannabis in our city to keep it away from Youth and and not create more um health and addiction problems within our city is what I what is what I want to do but our hands are pretty much Tied by the state and uh we are required to um Implement something you know let's do it uh let's do it as well as we can but then let's not worry about it too much let's just let's execute well because I I think strategically in terms of the rules we're going to make it's not really going to make that much difference in our city so let's just let's let's pass this and and move it on council member Wilburn sorry I thought of a question afterwards um a a question for staff so if we did the option that you're showing at the bottom there with uh on the conditionally permitted daycare adding that buffer um do you think that's then getting to exclusion areas as far as where where uh uh businesses would be allowed to operate um mayor and council member um I think that it does take out quite a few Parcels of land um what was the number again Susan was is it it's a little over 40 I believe yeah 40 more Parcels of land if you do the cup uh buffer for daycares um it does take out full neighborhoods though so like you're excluding Glen Lake in this situation and some other areas by 101 by the high school um and then south of Ridgedale there's another area you would remove because of like Tiara canata that area anyway so it does take a number so it depends on how comfortable you are with that okay thank you and you know just a comment on that um you know there's there's a big part of me that would like to be as restrictive as we can be and I certainly want to protect um you know people in dayc carees and and limit the risks to um to underage people um but I understand the staff difficulty of well we don't know where everybody is and we're not in constant contact with them things like that so then to as I thought this through my thought was that what happened is if somebody located a um um a dispensary somewhere in the city they they got their approvals they were somewhere in the city and then they found out that they were not meeting their buffer requirement um for a daycare the the onus would not be on the daycare it would be on the dispensary and so then that dispensary would be required to move which would be an aens of proposition I mean wouldn't they um you know if if they were if they were not consistent with the the buffer requirement they have in place what what would be the implication to that business uh mayor what would happen is basically they couldn't resell or um like a new business could come in that same location but they could continue until such a time something all right but given the rules then I mean that would that would have a diminishing impact on the value of that business I think it's to say exactly so then kind of the unintended consequence but maybe a beneficial consequences by having those buffers we would force the business the the business to avoid this problem because they couldn't control it to go into places where they can control their Destiny and that would significantly restrict the location of dispensaries because who wants to take the risk that all of a sudden I've made a decision and through something totally out of my control um my my my business is going to be devalued so in a way in a perverse Way by implementing that restriction I think we would significantly restrict the locations of um of dispensaries because people would uh business operators would want to avoid that uncontrollable consequence so I mean that's I think it's it's a little bit convoluted but I also think it would if if we put those restrictions in it would have a significant impact on how many where we would where dispensaries would end up locating because I think people would not want to take that risk as a business person council member Wilburn so but just so I'm clear so my understanding is with this option so it's only for conditionally permitted daycare so with the city not be aware of where those are and if an application came in for a property within 500 ft would you know would would let them know ahead of time right so I think I mean there I think there's a lot of things going on here so I think the mayor might have been talking more globally about any daycare right mayor well well well yes well yes and I mean because I understand the difference what we're saying between conditional conditionally um um approve condition use permit dayc carees and others right but but I think you know there it creates a bit of an unknown for a licenser and so I think they'd be very very careful in selecting their location and that might not be undesirable from a policy perspective right cup locations are definitely known those are processed by the city and we know that and they're larger daycares like we were talking about so mayor if I could uh just summarize so what I've heard so far is maybe option the first option here is the only option that maybe what I heard in terms of consensus would be just taking out that language altogether P not do the three not do the 500 ft from conditionally permitted yeah I I'm not pressing for that I'm just trying to point out what the consequence of having that could be and if that's attractive to council members they can say that but I'm not pushing for that in any way councelor Calbert I also had a question that I have forgotten to ask and that is you know there there are definitions for cannabis business and they have to do with what percentage of the business is cannabis does that include paraphernalia like is or is it just the substances Ken do you want to take that one my recollection is that it just relates to the Cannabis products which are defined in statute and includes the flower and the okay uh I I don't believe that it that it would include only paraphernalia like a pipe okay all right so we've got our we've got our we're really in the commment period is there we've got we've heard from the public com um com Shack would you like to move us ahead yeah I mean to the extent that we can I I I mean I I heard a general consensus to what what Miss wishnack um outlined a couple minutes ago I I hear the mayor's point I I'm not personally and and he and I may disagree on this a little bit but I'm not personally really interested in getting into you know managing the market in in some kind of a way I just I feel pretty uncomfortable with that um so I would be prepared to make the motion to approve the ordinances all three as discussed with no preference um on locations or p p and then no restriction regarding dayc carees is there a second coun member second pton okay we've got a motion by council member sha and a second by council member Foster Bolton any last comments anyone wants to make before we vote this is harder than it looks we talked about it a lot so here we go bu all right Miss Larson would you like to please call Ro Wilburn yes Calbert yes R yes kley yes Foster Bolton yes sha yes weome yes motion carries all right we're making progress item 14b is certification of delinquent utility charges to the hanpen county auditor and um Mr Mary welcome good to see you thanks for being here yeah y thank you good evening good to be here uh mayor and members of council um so the item before you is uh our annual delinquent certification of utility charges um for collection in the following year in this case um 2025 property taxes um consistent with previous ccil action staff proposes the certification of delinquent accounts um include an interest rate of 10% on the unpaid balance and interest is calculated December 1st of 2025 through December 31st of 2025 um and these are just a a one-year assessment um additionally there is a $25 administrative fee that is added um for the cost there um so all accounts uh that are going to be certified have been not or all the count holders have um been notified in writing of the pending certification have had at least a month to pay the past due AAR um it's actually been about four months um the the outstanding balances are about four months past due um and then additionally throughout the process Pro uh property owners were provided information um on available resources resources for assistance in helping to pay the these balances if if they were to qualify for those um and the actual number of accounts to be certified um is always lower than um the original list that was sent to you it's just a matter of the timing from from when it has to be prepared to when the deadline is for henpen County Case in point um in the the listing that you have the number of delinquent accounts was actually up 26 accounts um or 64 6.4% compared to last year um however over the weekend we did receive um about $35,000 in payments um about 44 accounts so that actually reduces that number down from the prior year um to 18 counts lower a counts lower um or 4.4% lower than last year so within the ballpark um and also I wanted to note that um about 70% of the properties are the same properties um so justess food for thought there on that um so for appeals um in the formal notification we did um uh notify customers that they had the right to be heard before Council uh we have not heard anything yet of anyone but um you know if if there is anyone here that wants to present their case in front of council they're uh afforded that opportunity to do to do that this this evening so very good um any questions for Mr Mary um Council Wilber really quickly um so thank you for the information I was the one that had asked about um what what options uh residents have if they're in financial difficulty and um so thank you for letting us know but so if someone was having Financial difficulty and wasn't able to pay the full amount is there can they make you know a deal with the city and say I can I can make monthly payments or or whatever to not we we do work with customers that are in that situation we help them you know try to come up with a payment plan to to catch up and and get caught up on their bills but ultimately at the end of the day if it can't get paid and it it's at that cut off point it is in this list for certification okay thank you y cons Cal did I thank you mayor did I understand that it's did you say 70% are the same approximately 70% are the same properties from prior year so a lot of it is well I mean I'm curious so right right um some Property Owners just find it easier to have it certified to their property taxes and pay it so a large portion so okay and then so I have a second question so one of the largest amount is in a multifam was so those those payments I referred to that came in over the weekend one of those was that property so okay because my my question really was you know if if a multifam property manager owner is not paying I started wondering how that would affect the residents and sort of what the recourse is for them and for us right it would just increase their bills because they're going to have those fees um but they've been collecting it from residents as well so but they did pay that so that that large one did get paid that that's a huge relief that's great thank you very much very good cber kley thank you mayor I had a similar question to that and I'm glad that to hear the large one got paid there was another large one um for the 6,000 and just curious about that one did that one get paid I believe that one was paid as well okay because my my question that I had like if they're not paying this large amount of bills I know it goes to the property tax but then um if they're not paying that bill it led me to think okay maybe um they're in a bad situation and maybe they can't even pay the property taxes then I was asking um city manager is that like saying that they could possibly lose their property if they haven't pay um well that that process would go through the state and the county for that for not paying the property taxes um so I guess maybe a legal question for Karine on that about the the whole legal process of of somebody losing their their property because they're not paying their taxes but well I mean I I do understand the part where if they don't pay any taxes then they could possibly lose their home I was just wondering like do we have situation or have we had situ situations where someone has got so far behind in their water bill that it went to their property taxes and the property taxes then they just couldn't get out of the hold and then they start to lose their property so I was just curious about that um not that I'm aware of um I can't say it's never happened but I would assume we probably would have heard about that if it would have happened so I I have not heard of that so thank you Mr Mary I think I think you qualified for getting the most question on this um topic that I can remember in um in probably the last 10 years so you you handled them admirably so I really appreciate that any last questions Council I think we're good so thank you so much and um I mean this is uh I would I would say to Residents this is probably not the the cheapest way or the most conven well maybe the most convenient way to pay your uh pay your um utility bills but it's not the cheapest way to do it so uh um I'd recommend that if you can avoid this process um please do that but anyway so with that council is there somebody would like to make a motion Council M Calbert thank you mayor I make the motion to certify the delinquent utility charges to the henpen county auditor and a second coun M kley I'll second all right we've got a motion by council member Calbert and a second by council member kley Miss Larson please call Ro Wilburn yes Calbert yes R yes kley yes Foster Bolton yes sha yes weome yes motion carries which um brings us to item uh 14 C ordinance ordinances regarding dogs at large at large excuse me dogs at large and animals in parks and I believe Mr kka you have that report thank you mayor thank you city council yes so a little bit of a background um but I want to remind Council that um this is something that the city has been considering for well over a decade now um the the issue of offleash dogs in the city but more recently City staff prepared two ordinances that amend the existing regulations related to off leash dogs um both in the city at large and public parks specifically the ordinances were introduced at the October 28th city council meeting just last month uh city council at that point motioned to have the Park Board review and comment on those ordinances related to the parks and I'll get into the details of what the park board said about that in a little bit here um comments from the public have been received on Minot Tonka matters for the last few weeks and there's a summary of those um included in the packet so minetonka city code section 92585 dogs at large dogs at large generally refer to animals um being off the property of the person who owns them that's Citywide obviously the new ordinance would require dogs to be on leash currently it's written that that leash would be a 20ft retractable leash and that dogs would be required to be brought in within 6 F feet when near others um the proposed effective date of that ordinance if if adopted would be January 1st 2025 um in the report you'll find a a list of our comparable cities and their related leash ordinances um you can see in this table here the city of Woodburry doesn't require for require a maximum leash length and only the the other city of Lakeville doesn't have a current leash requirement at this point um city code section 11352 animals in the Parks so the new ordinance requires dogs to be on leash or allowed to run off leash in designated areas um again a 20ft retractable leash with dogs being required to be brought in within 6 feet when near others there would be designated areas that would be defined by signage Andor fencing the proposed the currently proposed effective date of this would be April 1st 2025 this would be after a Community work group and I'll get into more details about the specifics of that would provide their recommendations to city council and the park board related to these um designated offleash areas um and how they would be defined and determined um we did receive as I mentioned comments from the park board at their November 6th meeting um they received a presentation from me um they expressed concerns regarding the the concept of a 20 foot retractable leash they listed a variety scenarios such as the leash being pulled out in front of a biker on a trail in a park um and the inability of that dog owner to be able to bring that dog in from a 20 leash in a in a relatively short order um to avoid disturbing another um again they to use the term disturb they talked about this concept of Hazard and disturb in the language um and we have checked in with the city attorney and she advised that no really further clarification would be necessary as that language mirrors state statute on uh generally disorderly conduct so we wouldn't need to further Define hazard or disturbed um the members also questioned the concept of the ordinance um prohibiting dogs being off leash on another resident's property maybe they had their um backyard barn fire and they had their dog running around in the leash uh off leash in that other person's yard um but we want to note that enforcement is based on complaint in that scenario um so um if there was to be a call received um the the police would arrive obviously but um to enforce this ordinance would be uh related to a specific complaint um the members also discussed the Staggering of these effective dates between uh the Citywide ordinance going into effect on January 1st and the effect of the the park-wide ordinance um beginning on April 1 there was some conversation about that but ultimately the park board recommended no changes to those ordinances um we did receive in the packet a statement from the police department and we have Captain Mian tonight um to go through some items there good evening Captain welcome evening thank you mayor council members the main issue that we have with enforcement right now with our Citywide ordinance has to do with the terms at heel and under voice command those are very undefined terms and so it's hard for us to enforce those as far as the parks go our biggest Enforcement issue is that we have unclear off leash areas they're not very well designated the signage isn't good and we have actually had uh citations dismissed because of the lack of defined boundaries and signage so those are the issues with our current ordinances I'm looking at the new ordinances we don't see any specific enforcement problems for the Citywide ordinance uh we do we do support the proposed retractable 20in leash length because we believe it'll be easier to enforce from a distance 20 ft not 20 in 20 foot sorry about that thank you good thank you pardon my clarification as far as the parks go we also believe those ordinances will be easier to enforce because it will give clear boundaries and good signage where it'll be easier to tell which areas are designated as off leash we will continue to have the ongoing challenge that the size of some of our Parks makes it difficult to find offenders when we do get complaints but that would be an issue even if the whole park was made off on leash or off leash so that's an issue no matter what so while there's no perfect solution the police department does believe that these ordinances new ordinance will make our enforcement much easier thank you Captain couple more slides here very good I briefly mentioned the resident Community work group um this the mission of this group would be to develop recommendations regarding the specifics of these designated offleash areas um currently we're thinking it would be comprised of 9 to 15 residents City staff council members parkboard Public Safety folks um this would be a crosssection of individuals that we would invite to this group um there would be certainly um uh we would we already met with Consultants who are specialists in this sort of community engagement um around um issues that require a lot of conversation and ultimately the group would provide input specifically related to our Park systems and those the characteristics of those offleash areas and where they're possible we did receive a variety of public feedback the minaka matters page was open for several weeks to collect resident feedback we saw 1300 page views and 125 Guest book posts all those comments have been attached to the report as I mentioned and finally next steps our recommended actions tonight would be a motion to adopt the ordinance um related to the animals within city parks and a motion to adopt the ordinance relating to dogs at large Citywide thank you thank you Mr kka um I will ask Council if they have any questions for you first we've been through this a little bit but are there any questions ccber you know I I knew I could depend on you thank you council member ra thank you mayor um thank you mayor um yeah and I appreciate the opportunity I have to say this has been a learning experience for me um as a newer council member so um who came in kind of partway through this process and so I'd like to ask um for staff to help you know clarify a few issues and the more recent timeline and kind of the overall context both for myself and also for those in the audience who haven't read in granular detail either the staff report or attended or listened to um the you know many Park Board and City Council meetings on this issue over the last uh year or two um so if I could just start out um the first issue or clarification I just wanted to get at is according to the police report and um Sergeant me uh one major issue causing problems is unclear or actually in reality a lack of definition of what at close heel or voice commands mean because both of those things are in the current um ordinance um that also wasn't clarified um you know here in this report or elsewhere and um so according to my research just you know for all of our uh context according to my research a dog being under voice command um means that when you verbally command the dog to sit or stay or down you know get down or Cal or heal that means they immediately obey um without additional body language treats toys remote collar or a leash and it means they obey regardless of whether they see another dog a squirrel or another animal or human that they may want to investigate or play with or Chase and so by that definition according to you know kind of the research that I've done less than 20% of dogs are under voice command um according to at least one statistic um and there's not a lot out there but you know that pretty much Dives with my experience as a dog owner lover and park Observer so um is there anything first of all to clarify uh Mr kka or anybody else does that seem clear is that seem about on point mayor council member that's my understanding of under voice command as you get an immediate response from that dog upon the First Command yes okay so I just wanted to make sure everybody else in our viewing audience as well on c as on councel kind of is cognizant of cognizant of that as the discussion goes forward um another issue and clarification that was brought up um by the Sergeant's un unclear signage and a definition of maintain versus non-maintained areas um and that has brought upon us non-compliance and enforcement challenges um correct okay so for me coming from my perspective for well over a year before from my looking at you know previous Park board meetings even before I came on Council Park board members had repeatedly expressed an interest in clarifying signage uh regarding leash and non- Leash areas and Purgatory Purgatory Park in the immediate term um so that was my observation from going back as a new council member and kind of looking at past and also since um and I have to say since March um which was my second month in office of this year I have also repeatedly advocated for clarified Park regulation signage uh not only to provide Clarity for residents but also to enable the collection of hard data um regarding compliance with it um so for whatever reason you know regardless neither the park board suggestions or my input got traction I take that upon myself because you know I now realize that in order for it to get traction I needed to get other support from members on city council which I did not do I voiced my um concerns and and desires uh you know through the channel of the the city manager without having that additional support so I that on me um however regardless um new signage was posted in purgatory only after a joint city council and park board meeting in September when I finally called for it publicly and at least one Park Board uh commissioner verbally supported that call unfortunately the new signage was added but it was also unclear and secondly the old signage remained so this really didn't do anything to remedy the situation or allow any meaningful data collection which is what I personally had hoped for so point of clarification for all of us on that um next issue in clarification is that non- leash areas are adjacent to leash required in private property areas with currently no fencing or other type of barrier and this has been cited as a non-compliance and enforcement challenge um and for me personally um um from from you know kind of question to comment this brings into question for me for staff the viability of compliance with these uh issues without fencing I'm just not sure you know how and I would like to hear from staff um but again we haven't had clear regulations against which to measure compliance of the current uh regulations uh so we really lack a a would be a useful data point as we go forward with this process um and that leads to our unenforceable ordinance which was also uh just commented on not only you know the unclear signage and the lack of clarity in our ordinance itself has led to cases being dismissed which has then fed further non-compliance because people realize that they're not going to be cited and and so you know the compliance goes on and they can simply say hey we don't have clear regulation so in terms of the leash and the retractable leash length and and the fact that I wanted to reiterate that minona is an outlier in that our current dog ordinance allows non- leashed dogs in public areas and Parks outside of designated dog areas as long as they are under voice control and we've just gone over the issues with that aside from Lakeville however I'd like to also be clear when we're talking about this retractable law is that according to the chart that staff provided a majority of other cities are not allowing use of a retractable leash at this time so that is why in the last meeting uh that introduced this at uh I I looked forward to park board's use on the retractable leash and length so there was no formal recommendation on this issue from the park board so again I I feel like that's on me and in the future I will more clearly state that I am requesting a clear recommendation from the park board we did not get that in this instance [Applause] Next Issue sorry for the long uh kind of going on but I think all of these issues are important as we consider going forward resident feedback on the Purgatory Park master plan the initial U master plan I want to give Credence to you know some of the folks here in the audience tonight who pointed out and rightly that while a significant minority of Resident feedback on p on the Purgatory Park master plan opposed current off leash dogs and wanted change in a more stringent regulation they did not constitute a majority they were a significant minority however um and there and that thereafter we had heated Park board meeting hearings on this topic some of which went off the rails and unfortunately um included harassment of proponents of more stringent leash laws which I felt was very unfortunate and didn't reflect well on on those who were opposing it so the decision was UL ultimately made not to include the leash law in the final Purgatory Park master plan passage in June and to consider the dog ordinances separately however while this decision never meant that the leash issue was going to go in way away in in regards to either Purgatory Park or the city at large it's really clear from the comments that we' recently received that a good number of residents didn't understand this so when staff then proposed these leash ordinances again and put them forward for city council and parkboard considerations some residents have perceived as we can see in the comments that these ordinances are sus suspicious or you know as somehow being unethical but which by the way I categorically reject so um from my viewpoint this hasn't been an ideal process but I really wanted to be transparent make sure we're all on the same page um about that um you know despite my immense respect for staff and the personal pressures that staff has been under over the past year um you know I think we all needed to have this Fuller understanding of how the process has kind of played out um as we hopefully respectfully discuss this issue for the remainder of the evening thank you so is there a question yes because we are in the in the question so if if there is a question would you please state it yes I will um so uh why uh I would like to hear the rationale for um keeping the 20 foot retractable leash in the ordinance given you know the co the the comments and the other issues with it I'm going to have to oh mayor Mr kco I'm going to have to refer to Public Safety on the particulars of why a 20 foot retractable relash seems reasonable at this time captain man yes thank you there's a couple of reasons for this the first is that um we thought that it it makes kind of a um an e your transition from having no leashes to allowing a 20ft retractable lead it's also a really really common leash that people use um and so we were a little concerned that if you take away a leash that people use every single day um that we then would be still dealing with trying to enforce people that have a retractable lead saying my dog is on lead it's just not a six- foot lead um but also it's the extremes it's easier to see um a a that the dog is on lead even if it's a 20ft lead down to a 6ot lead you can see that um we just don't want anything in between we don't want it 8 10 16 that's what makes it starts making things more complicated so that's why we support the 20 foot lead I do have one followup question I'll be done um 16 ft is also a very common and typical leash length is there any uh thought to that consideration of that length I think it's just a matter of the the distance the 20 foot seems to be a reasonable um distance that we can see from a distance um just a bigger distance from 6 foot if that makes any sense at all but um it it's just more common in our from our view of what people are using out there more reasonable thank you Captain me um so does council are there any other questions for staff um one question okay one I have one question mayor thank you um my understanding so first of all all of these ordinances are complaint enforced and um I just wanted to know uh my understanding is that the complaints have been quite low over time that is not to say there are probably unreported in incidents but in terms of you know attacks bites complaints do we do we have stats on that [Applause] Captain I'm sorry um that's okay Captain I'm just wondering also the time period for that number so it's a little the stats are a little bit difficult when it comes to this because of the way our computer system works they all animal complaints are quoted just as animal complaints whether they're dog at large whether it's turkeys in the roadway whatever it is so to pull out specific uh complaints regarding dogs at Large or or dog on dog fights that's a little bit difficult to do um but just to give you an idea in 2023 we had 1,219 animal complaints again that's all encompassing um and to pull those out the dog complaints themselves we'd have to go individually through each and every call so that's why that's difficult however last year when we were looking at this we did pull the numbers for Purgatory Park in it of itself so from January 1st to October 10th of 2023 we had 26 calls to Purgatory of those 22 were related to dogs and it had to do with lost dogs found dogs dogs running at large and a couple of um dog on dog fights and a dog bite to a human so that that's kind of a snapshot of what we had last year when we pulled these numbers um this year the only other stats that I have is we for 2023 we wrote only six dog at large citations and again that happens to fall under the issues that we do have with our ordinances um this year uh trying to control a little bit more we wrote 17 citations this year for that same thing thank you any other questions from uh Council all right well I see a a room full of people and I have a sense that at least some of you are going to want to make um comments tonight so I I'd like to just first start out and ask if you intend to speak tonight on this topic would you please raise your hand I'd like a sense for how many people we're going to have okay that's that's helpful so what what I'm going to recommend is the way we want to work this is we want to be orderly we want to be respectful and I promise you that um you will be uh treated respectfully by councel and by staff tonight but um you know this is a this a CH these issues are challenging and they're emotional um because you know I have a dog I love my dog I think most people love their dogs and so this gets to be very it can be a very emotional issue and what the council wants to do is make good objective decisions that are fair that are fair to the residents of our city and the people who come and visit our city um and use our Parks so that's our goal tonight so we want information but we don't want accusations we don't want name calling we don't want app plotting um what we want to do is hear factual information and I will hold you to that um if I feel like we're getting out of control I will just adjourn the meeting and um and I have the authority to do that so I expect people to be respectful to be brief and to tell us what's on your mind and please identify yourself as you come forward now I've done a number of these thing meetings where we've had um large groups of people and what I found works the best is that people line up at the podium and not everybody has to come at the same time but please line up and watch the line because when there's no line I will close the public hearing and if somebody wasn't paying attention or looking at their phone and they wanted to speak and they missed it too bad you missed your opportunity so we're going to have an orderly process I ask that um you keep given the number of comments we're going to have um limit your comments to two to three minutes if you get too long I'll tell you you're getting too long and ask you to wrap it up but but we want to hear an orderly process a respectful process so that the city can the council can bring the information that we here tonight back and make a fair logical decision that works for as many people in our city as possible not everybody's going to be happy with what we decide but we want to do it fairly and we want to want to make things work we we there's a lot of dog lovers at this deas I know that and and what we want we want to make sure that we are doing things that um that make good sense our City and that are clear so that they're enforceable um I find that most dog issues in the city um really aren't dog issues they're people issues um and we're not trying to regulate dogs we're really trying to regulate the behavior of people and how they control their dogs so let's keep that in mind let's be respectful and so please come forward line up and and the reason I ask you to line up is often times when people come forward um they're a little nervous about coming forward so they don't come forward then a person comes forward and they go sit down and then you look around you think oh boy we're not going to get any more comment and then okay after 30 seconds goes by then somebody else so I better go up and so we waste a lot of time between Speakers by lining up we will not waste time we will make this as efficiently as possible and we can hear from you um um as efficiently as possible and we can all get out of here at a reasonable time although it's already late so that's we do it that way and um so please come forward state your name and address and and let us know what you want to say good evening hi good evening my name is uh Michael Hayes I live at 3811 County Road 101 and thank you for letting us speak um I just want to say a couple things actually have a couple good friends here I've met at the park uh all with dogs all respectful uh I was hoping that the council would be a little more open-minded on this issue than I'm getting the impression that a decision's already been made I'm I I can promise you that that is not the case but continue excuse me um I I recommended on a minute talking matters a couple couple Alternatives uh that were less Draconian kind of a not an all or none whether it's a pre-screening of dogs alternate days or certain hours and I just made that suggestion so it wasn't an all or none but I do appreciate you listening to us I will say I was taken a little bit AB back uh by uh you may Mr Mayor and Council uh person that uh we were going to be disrespectful and put us back on our heels that was not my intent and I don't think that's the intent of the majority of people thank you for your time great thank you Curtis Henry 1901 Vernon Drive South I've been a long-term resident of the city of Minon and I've been using Purgatory Park daily for 30 years I've talked to you Mr Mayor at the park um in the 30 years I've been using this park I have never seen a major problem yes people have been knocked down by dogs when they get a little rambunctious um dogs will get in skirmishes but they usually are over in 15 seconds and then they're just fine dogs live in the moment they don't hold grudges once a fight is over it's over um I would really like things being left as they are as a disabled veteran it is my therapy at I serve as connected disabled veteran it is my therapy to be at Purgatory Park with the dogs daily I'll be there tomorrow in the rain I'll be there when it's 30 below I'll be there when it's nice it is the only piece of city property I use I don't use the schools I have no children in the schools I don't use oh I guess the police protection maybe they'll come if I'm being robbed but who knows um but another subject I talk about is the leash retractable leashes do not work the problem with a retractable leash a dog on a retractable leash is not under control that problem is you got 6 fet of retractable nylon out you try to pull a dog back that thing is going to stretch two feet you cannot control a dog and dogs live flight or flee you put two dogs on a leash they're going to fight one dog and a dog off leash the dog on leash is going to want to fight the dog off leash you know I just hope the city leaves things as they are there is no problem do not create a problem thank you thank you Mr Henry and thank you for your service good evening hello thank you for listening to everybody and working on this uh my name is Jillian McGary 18315 minetonka Boulevard and I'm here um with the community group pause for Parks we support the city's efforts to clarify park rules and reduce unwanted dog interactions um we want to help create a more comprehensive solution a clearer ordinance is just one piece of the answer uh like the mayor said this is an emotional issue so I'll just use a metaphor for something that is more neutral um think about other Complex Community issues a city doesn't just pass an ordinance to solve the problem um think about uh uh creating more designed spaces um and really setting up the environment so people can succeed I love the community work group idea um and just for an example imagine the problem of littering there are a few people who throw their water bottles their granola bar wrapper on the ground vast majority of people are responsible but there are the few and imagine if to address the issue the city decided to ban food and drink in the Parks those who obey the rules would no longer be able to have water on their hike or a granola bar or a picnic but let's face it the people who obey the rule are not the people who litter to fix the problem you could install additional trash cans empty them regularly put up signage organized community cleanup events and ticket violators in other words like make it easy to do the right thing and punish the people who choose not to the problem is not the presence of food in Parks the problem is the behavior of littering so we need to address the behavior and in purgatory and and the parks the problem is not offleash dogs the problem is unwanted interactions with dogs both leashed and offleash so to reduce unwanted dog interaction the city could increase the distance between the formal and the informal Trails utilize barriers or plantings to put line of sight barriers in between so that the dogs are unable to be drawn utilize uh Community groups to educate visitors and then have the police ticket people who just repeat offend you know walking with your dog through miles of natural Trails is essential for dog socialization mental stimulation and exercise it's also the only way uh those who can't risk being pulled by a leash or Tangled in a leash can walk their dog me being one of those and M MC I'm GNA ask you to kind of wrap it up one more sentence we look forward to the work group and we really believe minona can be a leader in solving this problem in a comprehensive way thank you for your comments good evening hey good evening this is my first time ever being here cuz uh my dogs are like my kids I have four kids I have two dogs and depending on the day I love my dogs more than my kids hopefully they don't see that and your name and your name sir oh sorry Mike saada and I live at 1600 grav Bay Boulevard I believe I'm a member of ward 3 uh from a standpoint I am one of those guys that did get a citation from the police about 5 years ago I was throwing a ball to one of my miniature poodle and at gronka Park 7:15 in the morning not disturbing anybody but somebody called literally I was the only person in the park my dog likes to play fetch the cop drove out onto the field and CIT me or gave me a citation I paid it gladly because I was in violation um but dogs you know do need space to run and other cities like Plymouth had well-defined dog parks within a fence my vet multiple vets uh blue pearl emergency vet service has said don't ever bring your dogs to those places too many dogs too tight of a region it is unhealthy for them unsafe for them and in one case cost me a few thousand dollar to cure a dog um that's life it happens but I avoid those places I frequent grow Tonka Park I frequent Jana park right here if you haven't walked is a beautiful Park I do that every day twice a day day with my dogs it is my therapy it is their therapy they are better behaved because I do that meanwhile while I do that I pick up trash minimum every two weeks at those Parks partly because I do have my dog off leash and I can be picking up trash and keeping of them and making it a better place if there's dog poo on the trail I pick it up I hate the people who don't usually they're on leash and the parents don't want to do it where I live I get dog poo every week in my yard I see them walk by they're on a leash and they still Po in my yard and they still don't pick it up it happens the leash ain't going to change that but from a standpoint of I appreciate that I mean a dog needs a place to roam a dog needs a ball to chase after with the proposed ordinance I literally can't throw a tennis ball from my dog outside of my yard my dog really plays fetch it needs more I can throw it out of my yard so it's not going to accomplish anything so I would appreciate it to take a look at it Park like Jadon the way to set up yes it needs better signage but it's a great place for a walk it's a great place for dogs I walk twice a day I got cited once when nobody was present and I've never seen another issue now it's kids in my neighborhood and the parks are worse behaved than the dogs in general but I love my kids too thank you Mr SWAT appreciate your comments thank you good evening good evening mayor city council uh my name is Dane chromer I live at 3725 Elmwood Place um my wife and I have lived here over 25 years and we've always had in that time at least one large dog usually two and they're always uh walked on a six foot non- retractable leash they get walked several times a day in our neighborhood uh since we've retired we've also fostered uh over 20 dogs uh mostly required re retired also retired Greyhounds and again always walked on a six foot leash we're in agreement with the proposed changes that would require uh the dogs are leashed everywhere except in in dog parks we do not however agree with 20ft retractable leashes I feel they safety hazard in our neighborhoods a dog on a retractable leash can go from 20 ft in someone yard someone's yard next to the owner to 20 feet on the other side in an instant that's basically across the street um on our multiple uh uh on our numerous multi-use Trails today six foot leashes are required so allowing 20ft leashes with limited sight lines becomes a bigger issue um a retractable leash doesn't give the dog owner enough time to react and reel in their dog when they're 20 feet away a dog at the end of a 20ft leash is not under control which has been stated previously further um I don't see how a 20 foot leash law is enforceable um certainly the police or or community service can tell that somebody has a 20ft leash or less but in in the moment who's to determine that the leash was retracted to within 6 feet um before an in incident occurred I I don't understand how it's enforceable I don't think you know the police can tell that a a leash was retracted in time so I also want to point out that a lot of the 20 foot retractable leashes are not easy for other people to see from a distance they're very thin lines so please adopt a six- foot leash law everywhere in Monona like so many of our neighboring communities um the exception should only be at the dog parks uh uh all menaka residents deserve to feel safe in their neighborhoods in their parks and on our Trails thanks for consideration thank you Mr chromer good evening hello um my name is Ellen hag I live at 17080 chter Hills Road um my husband and I have a four-year-old golden retriever um and moving to motanka uh he was a big part of encouraging us to get out into the parks and to be invested in the environment here in minetonka um the proposed changes would really limit our connection to and use of our Parks um we do have a recall trained dog I realize we are in the minority and that is why we're having this discussion um uh however one of the reasons our dog is trained this responsively is that we don't expose them to rambunctious and highly populated dog parks um so limiting the offleash spaces forces more dog owners into fewer spaces which causes more issues like the ones that have been highlighted today um many dog owners like us avoid these spaces and we don't want them in these big groups of dogs um also a lot of us are here to enjoy the parks outdoors and be solitary with our dogs um and the fewer spaces we have to do that the less likely I am to spend time in minetonka parks and the more likely I am to go to other cities west of minetonka to find those spaces um the best solution here would be to develop clearer off leash areas to draw in dogs and owners who desire a highly social experience but to maintain offleash unmaintained spaces for recall and heel trained dogs I know that's a very difficult distinction um and for owners who just desire a more solitary Outdoor Experience um I agree with the earlier commenter um representing pause for parks that we just need to address the behavior and the varying needs of the population um essentially I feel like this change really punishes recall and heal train dogs and owners and just destroys the ability for us to enjoy the quiet hidden spaces of our Parks um I have a dog so that I get outside and um this really just limits our um exposure and then I would also say um one in reality I think we know that like there's one park that is probably the majority of issues here um and figuring out some clarity at that Park um like I would I feel like Purgatory is the big problem it's the probably the most visited Park we don't go to that park with our dog off leash I find it too chaotic as well um and figuring out an a better option there would be good I also don't feel good about the 20ft leash um retractable leashes are really problematic they're not a solution most dog trainers don't recommend them because they hurt the training process they're an inconsistent boundary they encourage pulling and they distract from the Attunement that is the core of your communication with your dog so I also don't know that that is a great solution I um am hopeful that we don't have reduced off leash spaces and um I hope the city can work with that committee to find out a good solution so thank you thank you Miss help Miss heg appreciate it good evening good evening um good evening mayor and city council me Members my name is Melanie Wolf I'm at 5739 Eden prair Road um I'm here tonight rep representing a community that feels very strongly against these ordinances um the survey does show um that the majority of respondents do not want changes um I pulled some numbers and in fact 64% answered no to the question if the ordinance should not be Chang or should be changed to not allow dogs and 2/3 responded no um the majority of people in the park also responded and said that they do feel safe um there are many others like me that do not want our freedoms taken away um from um a small but very vocal minority um is there a reason why the city seems to be moving forward with policies that do not reflect the majority of respondents I frequent menaka Parks every day you'll find me enjoying an untethered walk with my best friend Frankie I love it there it's a treasure to me um at these parks and I believe our community is strong and responsible enough to solve the issues that come up without removing our freedoms um there has been several easy solutions suggested for a decade it sounds like even just with a signage issue um an education piece so I believe it's best if we could just start there thank you thank you Miss wolf good evening good evening mayor council my name is Ed wans I live at 6016 Pinewood Lane uh The Neighbors in our called toac there's a bunch of dogs and we often will will gather and dogs are running around and so um this ordinance as written would turn us into a den of criminals so what I would suggest to the council is uh to adopt the wording from the Eden Prairie ordinance uh which I'm you don't mind I'd read it here uh at large means whenever an animal is off premisis of its owner unless controlled by a leash not to exceed six ft with the following exception while on private property of another with the landowner's permission provided the animal owner is presentent so that would mean well we we're just not going to enforce it unless somebody complains we're taking that into account in our ordinance and saying yes this is okay as long as you meet these conditions um the other thing is a lot of uh I agree with a lot of people about the retractable leashes again dogs are not under control they're anytime I'm around a dog with I'm very wary um and then the other thing is that there is a very real need in their Community for us for for that we need to address with re with respect to uh dogs being able to exercise and and do the things that dogs need to do um and I think really the real issue is not necessarily leashes or not leashes these are dogs that are poorly socialized and not trained and I think that uh if we could make a commitment and I think there are members of our community that would be happy to work with the city to improve to uh do the analysis of uh the type and nature of undesired dog and coners and develop a plan and allocate resources for education and enforcement that really address the issues that a lot of people are are voicing so I really hope minaka of all the cities would take a lead in this so thank you thank you Mr good evening good evening good evening mayor and Cel I'm Robin baella I live at 2115 Morton Road um my family has lived in minetonka for 32 years now we have enjoyed walking our well trained hunting dogs off leash all these years I am also a responsible dog owner that picks up pet waste and trash when I I'm in the park every day we are the garden the Guardians of our Park this is our community this is very important to us offleash exercise is vital to the mental and physical health of our K9 family members simply walking a six-foot leash does not even begin to give the required exercise our dogs need I actually cringe at the thought of being on a 6ot leash on in the middle of winter enclosed area dog areas are not the answer I feel fencing in these areas only creates more aggressive dogs they um feel trapped has been on my experience they' also they tend to be dirty they spread disease and my experience has said that they tend to draw dog owners that are not have well train dogs those of us that are off leech have taken the time to actually train our dogs I've been to Brand Lake Park one of the few dog parks that I do visit most I do not visit and my dog has been attacked it tends to happen Always by the gate the owners are talking and they congregate around the entrance to these Parks I find them very very fearful when I enter into a park like that no longer will um attend a dog park we need to use this time to lead as a city we need to be creative we need to work together and we need to set a new standard for other cities to follow there has been some great options mentioned by the other people speaking tonight let's continue to embrace our current offleash dog or organes and not just follow blindly to match our surrounding communities let's set new example of how a city should have an offleash dog ordinance our current offleash ordinances are what makes minetonka exceptionally special and why my family continues to live here and why other families move to our community lastly so many people I spoke to at the park were not aware of this meeting tonight they were unable to attend and they did not know that this was coming to a vote tonight thank you for your time thank you Miss bi Bea excuse me welcome good evening my name is imra Moren I live on 344 Martha Lane say your name again imra Moren okay I'm trying to take that down go ahead that's I IM r e thank you okay um so me and my partner who's actually right behind me um we moved to minesona not too long ago one and a half years U from Minneapolis um and one of the reasons that we moved here and bought a house is because uh our property that we are so lucky to own right now backs into judena park and it's a absolute beautiful Park and we love meeting people there with our dog um there's a couple things that concern me with this uh proposed ordinance and one of them is that I'm very nervous about what the future will look like in that sense I'm a consultant uh I advise businesses on how they should proceed in the future and I feel like we Haven undone our due diligence here we don't know and I think I speak for everybody who was in line what the future will look like where can we go off leash with our dogs is it one park is it no Parks is it everywhere again what does it look like we don't know and I think that's what makes us all nervous and why I said I'm a consultant is because when I go to my client and I say I think you should change this or implement this and they say okay what does that look like and I say I don't know they will kick me out so I believe we need to I'm a big fan of that Resident group that we're going to uh look at can we do that first can we look at what the proposed future looks like before we okay this ordinance we don't need to go from one one end to the other end we don't need to swing the pendulum completely the the way we can look at our future first that being said at this point I don't believe minanga has any dog parks um so that's why I'm very nervous about what that looks like thank you thank you for your comments good evening hi good evening uh my name is Kieran Kuran I live at 3433 Martha Lane um and you had mentioned an interest in some facts and data well I just wanted to quickly present a book from Mil shaver called the headquarters economy uh where he underpins with you know research and data on why the Twin Cities has such a vibrant economy and why that there are so many companies with so many employment opportunities uh in this area and a lot a lot of that to do has to do with uh Talent attraction right this area this region is able to pull Talent from all over the world to come work at the different institutions and organizations that we have here part of that is driven by the amenities that are available so that could range from Great Schools uh you know great infrastructure uh all the way down to Great Parks particularly and specifically in our case great dog parks as my partner just mentioned we had moved um from neapolis but prior to that we were living in Amsterdam and when we were evaluating if we should move to Minnesota or not you know the couple of things that we evaluated are hey can we both find jobs can we both have you know a good socioeconomic outcome here and you know for our call it dependent which is our four-year-old chocolate lab can he also have a high quality of life as well and that is what brought us to Minnesota um that's ultimately what led us to Minot Tonka because of just the great nature and and everything that the city does to preserve that and I think this ordinance uh as it's proposed is a step away from that and in fact I'm here to Advocate against these Oran uh ordinances um I think it's a disservice to you know the people who really use and cherish uh uh the parks and the nature around and as you've heard from uh the police chief or police captain excuse me um you know she'll take the promotion yeah I mean you can have it uh as you uh as you heard uh you know the instance of crime and issues is incredibly low right I mean in what I think was identified in one of the most problematic areas there were maybe two dozen instances of animal related issues I'm willing to bet a large part of that has to do with turkeys or other Wildlife that are unrelated to this issue and so I'm a bit struggling to understand you know why this is even a topic because there doesn't seem to be a problem uh in fact what you've heard time and time again is people really value the time and the space and the location and the environments and things have been largely going really well and so all of that is to say you know I I really disagree with uh you know the ordinance as proposed and I I think we should move to you know eliminate it all together uh because there isn't an issue here at least based on what has been presented thank you thank you good evening I'm Garrett Gardner from 2953 Fairchild and uh I've lived in the city over 30 years I uh was born in the area uh when I was in high school there were horses walking up and down Min Tonka Boulevard and I never would have believed that we'd have gotten well so tight that we're worried about a five or you know 6 foot or 20 foot leash on a dog that's not why we moved here I've been going to Purgatory for 30 years uh my two dogs weigh about 25 lbs between the two of them so if anyone were going to have a problem with vicious dogs it would be me and I think it's kind of funny they talk about dogs under command I own a Shih Tzu and that dog isn't under command in my living room uh the only way the only way I know it has hearing is when I put something in its dish it comes running otherwise I swear it's death but it doesn't pose a threat nor do the other dogs pose a threat and I think we just go too far trying to protect everyone the minority 66% of the people agree AG ree with the ordinances that's from your survey so why are we even talking about changing something when the overwhelming majority say they like things as they are if any of you were voted with the 66% majority you would call that a pretty good mandate and that's what you have you have a mandate from the people in minetonka they don't want to live in that way and uh um you know there really there really aren't issues there and if there are issues for people that really feel need to be protected why don't we put the fences around them there's a walkway in pergatory put a fence around that and everybody that wants to be fenced in is fenced in and everyone else is happy and if there's an issue then you know don't close everybody off so um you know it's just like if I come here tomorrow and say you know I have a fear of water and I'm allergic to fish and I don't like people fishing I think put should put fences around all the lakes and streams and ponds and everything to keep us all safe yeah that'll keep us all safer but it degrades our quality of life and that's the same thing this thing does and the people don't want it thank you thank you Mr Gardner good evening good evening uh my name is Patty Peretti and I live at 16237 Tonka Lane um I agree with a lot of what's been said here tonight imra saying uh specifically the not knowing what's going to come and it does seem a little bit backwards to me in that um there should be I think there should be a proposal of this is what we're going to do um so people can really get an idea and have a clear sense of where that's going to be able to make a decision um and mainly my concern is with um jidana and Purgatory those are the two parks that I use with my dog um and maybe this has been you know addressed already but I just wonder how many parks are available for other people who don't have dogs and don't want to be in contact with dogs are there within the city for them to go there aren't that many places for people who have dogs that they can have them off leash and so I would like that to be considered and maybe it already has been but um I haven't heard anybody else say it and so I would like that to be to be considered and I'm against the ordinances thank you thank you fetty thanks for your comments good evening good evening um my name is Tess dehoff and I live at 5525 Conifer Trail um I wasn't really planning to speak so I'll try and keep it brief I agree with a lot of what um Mr Gardener said I've been walking my dog by myself since I was very young and very small when I was like you know less than 5T tall and very skinny and I we've always had a retractable leash for my dog I don't know the exact length of it um but it's never been an issue even from when I I just want to speak about leashes primarily um even when I was like very small um and I think that uh really you can't please everyone obviously there's a variety of opinions but in the end if a majority of people would prefer to keep things how they are then that's probably the most sensible way to proceed at least as of now I think that obviously a lot of times people who are attending meetings and votes are very extreme on either side of the issue but I think that probably the majority of people are kind of ambivalent surrounding it and honestly just want to be able to walk their dogs and for me the easiest way to do that is to just have my my senior pug he is the least threat to anyone um on his retractable leash and so I would say this um I don't really know too much about the off leash and the dog park specifically but at least in terms of leashes it seems a little extreme and nonsensical to put dogs solely on these like six foot tight leashes especially having an older dog sometimes he lags behind me a little bit and it's nice to have some wiggle room in the leash it's just very practical um so yeah that's what I would say I'm at least uh supportive of kind of the leashes staying the same but yeah thank you good evening good evening my name is Ste Maron 13314 in veress Road I am one of the people that lived in the city where we have the 6ot leash law and slipped on ice I was 8 and 1/2 months pregnant and broke my arm I really love being out in the natural world where the ground is soft and I can walk close to the trees leashes make that impossible my dog's 1 lb but still we like to be in there in the middle of places that are called I think in the ordinance unmaintained lands or was the word um and so I think it's really important to um keep these unimproved and unmaintained lands for opportunities for those of us who want to get in there with the trees and we're not on you know cement sidewalks and so on where it might be possible to use leashes um thank you for listening to uh everyone today I think they are good points having to do with creating spaces where we can get outside for our spiritual mental and physical health with those with whom we feel kinship uh human or animal thank you thank you Miss Marin good evening good evening Mr Mayor and Council um my name is Angela morera and I live at 5554 n Tucket place I am in favor of passing both the Citywide uh and park regulation ordinances regarding dogs I think this is long overdue uh based on community service testimony from February of 20122 officers described in detail the inability to enforce the current ordinance due to to its confusing language updating the language of the ordinance puts minona in step with its surrounding cities I have detailed safety concerns both in my neighborhood from dogs running into my yard from a surrounding Park and within the park itself I have video of an offleash dog running through my yard as recently as November 10th I described for you the harrowing experience of being attacked by an offleash dog last spring updating the ordinance is in society's best interest as for the park regulations if an offleash area is to be designated in our Park system it needs to be clearly defined and not open to Park Visitor interpretation this can only be accomplished with a clearly defined border such as a fence to be fair and Equitable a scoring system based on clear criteria should be created to ensure that the offleash area is located in an appropriate area with our Citywide Park system thank you thank you GRE evening hi hi I'm Wendy Holland um 5537 County Road 101 um I'm not quite clear on what um The Proposal is for the unleash but um but I can say that um I live by uh I I I walk my dogs behind U minona school on that trail and um there's many people who walk their dogs there and um I have a big golden and I have a little rescue guy anyway the um rescue guy I often have him unleash because I don't want the coyotes to get him and so he because he'll run around but when we meet other dogs um I let them off because um dog behavior a lot of times and so will the other people if they have their dog on the leash dog behavior a lot of times if you leave them on the leash number one they can get t they get tangled up but number two is they get defensive they get afraid so when once you let them right off the leash they they're all of a sudden they're like you know depends on the dogs but they're like very friendly with each other um so the it's not it's so I'm not I'm not for that I think that ordinance for proposal for the leashes but again I'm not quite clear on what how you're what you're talking about um the other thing is that Purgatory I love Purgatory besides the dogs even the people there's a lot of Fellowship that happens you know just with the people and um um I just hope and pray that you it doesn't change because my dogs are so excited they love it and um there's just never been a problem that I'm aware of I think it's education and I think the the people who go there um someone mentioned something about um somehow that a little community of people can educate um you know on premises or something I think that's a great idea every now and then um anyway I think it's just a lot of Education I hope you're listening to everyone that's here that's talking the a majority and and forgive me but I know there is a a fear of uh people that have already made up their minds so you you miror said that wasn't the case and I hope that's true so thank you very much thank you good evening good evening Cindy Iden uh 16824 excelsor Boulevard um I'm I'm here to voice uh be a voice of the people that um are avoiding some of our Parks because the dogs are not well controlled and quite honestly in the last year things have changed a bit since this has become more of an issue people have been taking better care of that but you know for a while I felt like well do I really not like dogs and I've watched myself over the last year and realized I like dogs I like dogs that are well behaved I like dogs that I understand how they're going to behave I am not a dog owner but I have a right to that part too and when somebody said it was their spiritual emotional you know just so important for them to be outside and on those trails the soft Trails not just on not just fenced in I'm a bird watcher I love being out in nature I'm a naturalist I love being in nature and if and when I am confronting dogs that are off leash and they are not responding to call because they often don't um it makes me fearful and I have backed off and I do I do not get to have that special place I've been going out to Purgatory Park for probably 40 years maybe more than that and um and honestly the you know in the last number of years it's just gotten the number of dogs have gotten more intense and it's become more difficult to be there and feel comfortable I put many hours in at paratory doing restoration work I do care about that Park I want to be able to be there with some sense of Freedom that is not to say I don't want dogs in that Park I would like to come to some some solutions and um I don't so I am I'm asking you that you go ahead and pass these ordinances because we will find a way forward from there thank you for your comments good evening good evening Heather home uh 15327 lak Shore Avenue um first I want to say that I fully support both ordinances and I would like to thank staff for all their work uh preparing the ordinances I think they will both they will both make our community safer um more Equitable people will feel more welcome to come to parks and I think more sustainable uh one issue that I see with offleash dog use currently is it is really degrading some areas of our park and I hope that we can find a solution I I love the idea of developing criteria to make sure that where we find designated places those places will uh not result in environmental degradation as some of the use is happening now uh the one comment I had regarding the animals in Parks ordinance is the the addition of the recreational trail definition um and I would like you to consider Maybe striking that because it it defines both the primary and informal trails and as these two written ordinances are written the atlarge ordinance is geographic in nature it includes the city minus the park and park system facilities and the dog animals in Parks ordinance is geographic in nature because it includes everything in a park or on a recreational trail or at a park facility so I don't understand why we have included the recreational trail uh the primary informal Trail definition my concern is that it's legitimizing unsanctioned trails and as a park volunteer and watching the work of staff and contractors as we remove Buckthorn in more and more areas of the park it opens up the park and unsanctioned trails develop almost immediately people start creating a trail so my concern with this language about defining these different Trail types when it doesn't seem relevant because these ordinances are Geographic in nature and the work group will work on a geographic in nature designation space for dogs to be off leash um why is the language regarding recreational Trails still included is my question for you or for staff so thank you very much thank you Miss Hol good evening good evening my name is uh Craig eliotti I live at 14414 Ferris Lane that was the hardest thing to say um so it's pretty late um I guess the thing that shocked me so far is that you've been doing this for 10 years and I mean I've only been involved for a year we've had a dog for 5 years and she's always loved purgatory and I haven't seen any problems but so and she's an offleash dog you know she's pretty well trained and she comes and we ask her and she's pretty friendly and it'd be sad if she couldn't couldn't do that anymore but I really think that the problem is why is it taking so long it's because you don't have data you know you're mixing turkeys and dead roadkill with dogs so I I would suggest that you know provide funding to the police to to get better data have them record who's calling why are they calling and get that stuff identified and then you can really say this may be five people that are terrified at dogs or maybe three dogs that are vicious let's get more data and find out what's going on and then we can come up with better Solutions I think it's unfair to the police officers to ask them to to enforce micromanaging rules like that you know people are not going to they're not going to develop good feelings towards the police and it's not fair for them you know let let people live it's been working well for a while there's room for Improvement but passing new ordinances that are more confusing or less confusing but new are just probably going to cause more ill will and the problem's not going to go away you got a lot of stuff to do and 10 years doing this I mean it just seems like there's better stuff for for everybody to do than continue doing this and then what do we got a referendum on offleash dogs you know thank you for listening to us thank you Mr alotti next hello uh my name is yam lightheart uh 2945 donka Drive um I'm a dock owner my uh I have got Bo and Bo is a king of Gina uh according to the other dogs um he's so popular um and so enthusiastic that I uh find finally figured out the rules that on paths I needed to be safer near near the parking lot so we have a bunch of friends there quite a few of them out here and we start to respect the law that are according to Paula need to be read bit better written but let's enforce what we have okay so I'm against it um we have very limited data on serious issues the survey there results are are against it we have it's largely limited to One Park which is bgry it's not good for the health of the dog we have plenty of evidence on that we need to share the park respect the park so the lady that is not safe like she was there in in purgatory right that's not good so how can we respect that and one of the things we do as dog owners when we go and see an I know the old lady she's always coming hook you hook your dog on it's not that difficult yeah the other one is and I think this heard before we have no solution we have no proposal that makes us very uncertain and one of the things in minona is the freedom to walk with your dog is a therapy I don't know but it's healthy for both a dog and for us so I'm against we need to stay with the current law and not enforce a new one thank you good evening hi I'm Karen Hansen and I live at 1701 sidola Road I live a block off Purgatory Park and I go to the park almost every day in the back south area um I religiously leash my dog across the trails even if there's no one there um because I want to respect the rules and teach my dogs that that's the rules I always do that I hardly ever see any in that area I mean really if I do it's a few people with some dogs running it is not very well populated and I think it's a better idea to enforce the rules we have have better signage and I as a person in the group that I'm involved P for Parks we we encourage people to I call people out in a nice kind way say hey there's an ordinance here this is what the rule is I talk to a guy you need to have a leash I really have a hard time with people not putting their dogs on leashes in the parking lot assuming that they can just run up the hill off sidola road so I'm doing my due diligence and I think most of the people here that are encouraging for the dog off leash areas do that same thing I'm more concerned about offl of um electric bikes that are driving too fast in purgatory park that is dangerous my neighbor was um had multiple surgeries because of that that's more of a danger than people that have well-trained dogs thank you for your time thank you Miss Hansen good to see you all right I see no one in line so I uh will close the public hearing hearing um time now and I will bring it back to the council um for comments thank you all and um thank you for your comments and um everyone was very respectful and I very much appreciate it so thank you so much um anyone uh coun Council mayor sha thank you mayor um I really appreciate that folks here I think um the tone and tenor of this meeting is a St contrast of the other meetings that we had so it's refreshing to see um see that happen also have a lot of faith that the folks in this room have well behaved really obedient dogs I mean that seems obvious you're attuned to what well some of you are attuned to what the ordinance says but I think like the rest of us up here the ordinance is quite cloudy and so one of the things that keeps coming up is enforce the current ordinance but I think if you talk to all seven of us we'd probably each give you a different interpretation of exactly what that ordinance says because it is so cloudy so there's there's clearly that that is a is a problem because we don't really know what we're enforcing um you know I this issue came on my radar uh as a council member in about 2019 when we were talking about another issue in the Parks and it's something that's been in the back of my mind since then you know I'm in my mid-40s and I've had a dog probably all but I was thinking about this last night four or five years of my life I've only ever walked my dogs on leash I've had rescues I've had dogs that probably could have been trusted I currently have a dog that despite a lot of training and engagement can't be trusted off leash the problem is um and in reading the comments in the menka matters is that it's not probably you folks that are the issue right it's it's I live on Big Willow Park I walk the dog in the morning my husband walks the dog in the afternoon I would say we each encounter an offleash non-healed non well-behaved dog at least once a week so that's twice a week those are people are probably not in this room but it is a real problem it's a problem that I'm seeing um on minona matters and it's a problem that I'm hearing about in the Parks as I've talked to folks over the P course of the past several years and so I'm committed I you know I'm really committed to honor the F the people who the problem with a dog coming up to my dog who I can't let off leash is that that is dangerous for me it's dangerous for my dog it's dangerous for the other dog and the other owner that's going to come up upon the dog um it's just it's not a good situation and so we can't create a situation where we're only making a s making a safe environment for one segment of people really has to be as inclusive as possible I I agree 64% of the survey of folks in purgatory Park who go to Purgatory Park were comfortable with the rules as they are that said we know that a dispropor amount of people are going to Purgatory Park because of the dog situation so that's a skewed survey and we also know that people are not going to Purgatory Park because of the dog situation so I also you know if 36% of people say they don't feel safe that is a huge number to me if 36% of our population said they did not feel safe in the city because of another issue we would be talking about about it every week and so this is a big deal um I am committed to making sure that we're working on a solution to allow your well-behaved dogs to have their opportunity to be off leash but we need the clarity it needs to be across the city and um we need to make everybody safe to that end this ordinance these ordinances apply across the city so you folks it sounds like focus on purgatory and Jadon but anybody can take their dog off leash in any park in the city and the unmaintained trails under these conditions so there is no place for somebody like me to walk where there's not with my dog where I'm not going to encounter a dog off leash so that it's just not working we've got to fix it this is the foundational piece pass these ordinances and then come up with options where the dogs can be um off leash as well and I'd appreciate if you just give the respect to my colleagues and not try to you know Talk Amongst yourselves while we are discussing this so I'll pass on to the next folks thank you Council Shack um other comments from anyone council member Calbert thank you mayor so you know this is a really difficult issue and I have to say that I you know the mayor was right when he said that our you know my mind certainly isn't made up there are there are a lot of issues there there were good suggestions I thought the suggestion about odd and even days was very compelling and um just to you know I've always had a dog right now I have a pitbull mix a rescue and a Golden Retriever Rescue um and I very often have my parents little mut and and my daughter's Little Chihuahua at my house as well and sometimes we all go for a walk together and um they're all very different so actually the the most reactive dog is the Chihuahua and that's the one that ever like kids are drawn to the chihuaha but he's not trustworthy the golden retriever we could let him off leash he'd stick to us like glue he's on command even though he's a rescue and lived in a puppy mill cage for 8 years every dog's really different so um all of our dogs are rescues they've been rescues for a long time and I don't you know I don't let my pitbull off the leash in part because you know just reading through the comments which some of which were really disappointing there are people in the community that would want me to muzzle her simply because she's a pitbull and so I don't want her to get cross wives with someone through no fault of her own just because someone's afraid of her and so I keep her on a leash um all the time and so I really sympathize because she needs a lot of exercise and I have to be really creative um to find places for her to exercise and I just want to assure people that there is no dark political objective here when I first started door knocking when I was running for office one of the first things that came up actually was leashing dogs dogs at the dog park people feeling safe people wanting it people not wanting it the other was garbage those were the two things that uh came up garbage collection and um so even though it didn't come up as an issue in particular until the Purgatory Park master plan um started taking shap um and it presented a threat to some people in terms of either not having a leash law or having a leash law um so I just want to assure people there's no dark political objective this is something that people talk to us about um sometimes it's an email sometimes it's at the doors and you know I really was very disappointed you know some people wrote in comments about us becoming a totalitarian state and you know it's very difficult because we're here to try to balance the needs and desires of people with very different needs and desires and try to make the best decision for people in the community and we have you know Public Safety is is really job one and even though there aren't very many in in incidents of conflict we do do have a member that came a member of our community that came to the uh Podium tonight because she has been attacked and I don't want to minimize that that happened to someone in this room and so um our purpose is to balance competing interests needs and concerns of our residents and maintain Public Safety um I understand what people are saying about dogs needing to run free and the limitation of dog parks I don't I don't take my pitbull to the dog park for the same reason that she's on a leash and she's the one that needs the most exercise and so I get a lot of steps in um and I did go to Purgatory Park during a spring thaw and there was a wonderful very fuzzy large dog that um it was a very muddy day and he was just solid mud just solid mud and came running up super happy but totally not under voice control and um so uh you know there are conflicts that would be really scary to someone or just really messy to someone if you're dressed up to go somewhere and you get slimed by a dog full of mud um so some of my thoughts are this you know I really appreciated the comments about writing the atlarge dog um ordinance The Way Eden Prairie did I'm I'm kind of inclined that way for the same reasons that the gentleman mentioned um it just makes more sense to me and in terms of uh of retractable leashes you know I think about my parents who are older and they they have have a younger dog who is very sweet and needs a lot of exercise and they can't walk very far and they can't walk very fast and everyone in their complex has a retractable leash and they all have little dogs and very few large dogs are on retractable leashes and it's not that hard to reel her in so um I think I I'm inclined not to to impose um the 6ot leash law for the same reasons that the young woman that came up that has her dog on a on a retractable leash you know you have an older dog that stays behind you have older people that can't keep up with their little dog and it's and you know we are imposing something that residents aren't used to and I do feel like we have to meet in the middle somewhere and I don't think that we can inoculate ourselves against every danger so to me a retracted leash just isn't that big of a deal and it's helpful to some people and some dogs um and um the other thing that somebody brought up in the um in the comments was um sound emitters and like shot callers that get their dogs under control and you know I think they work um I think they do work but I also feel like it's hard for people that don't know that your dog is listening to a sound they can't hear or has a shot collar on that they can't see and um and my other my own my last comment is that I do kind of agree it would be so nice to know before we impose something that so many people oppose and it does really change the lifestyles of a lot of people um if we could have a little more clarity on you know of what the working group would come up with um as a space or uh an accommodation for dogs to have a place to be and um and I do also want to mention that what Miss talked about we have we have volunteers that work very hard to restore natural habitat and as much as I love my dogs and I and I know that people also need their exercise we love our parks to death we walk them to death we do make trails that shouldn't be where they are and our pets you know trample habitat and so wherever we put um dogs it has to be something where our hardworking volunteers and staff are not trying to restore natural habitat that just gets trampled on by people and our pets and so that we can be respectful not only of people and our pets but also the animals that actually originally lived there and the Flor and the faas so you know that is to say I'm still really uh conflicted and um I do think that we need some kind of a leash law but um I don't want it to be too restrictive thank you Council mayor Calbert um Council mayor kley thank you mayor I just have a couple comments um one of my comments is that you know I appreciate everyone coming out tonight speaking and coming to the podium I know that it's um not easy to do that and um really when you really care about um issues um you know it's good to be heard so I really appreciate that but one of the things that I I really want to say is that um like um council member calber I also have a um daughter who has a Chihuahua and she's taken this dog to training school um sometimes the dog listens sometimes it don't um I've had times where the dog was in my yard and my neighbor walk with their dog on a leash sometimes she'll take off and she'll go barking at the neighbor's dog and we know traas are small dogs but my neighbor has a big dog and I watched the big dog get really nervous cuz yes it's on a leash but um I can see how um that dog was my my dog is impacted my neighbor's dog and so I do think about that with being in the progator park um when folks are walking they have their dogs and some people don't have their dogs on leashes some people do um and how it caus other dogs to be fearful but also I've been in progator park where me and my close friend was in progator park and her dog was attacked it was in a different city and her dog was on a leash I'm attacked by other dogs and when me and her was walking in progator park um a dog came running over to us and I saw her get really afraid um we both kind of Stood Still to hope that the dog wouldn't attack her or me and so I have had that experience walking in progator park not knowing if a dog was going to attack us at you know while we were walking and so I know what that's like as well um but also I know what it's like to have a dog off leash and um wanting your dog to run around I'm a dog lover um but also know that um sometimes dogs don't respect space because they're dogs and um if your dog is not well trained or even if your dog has been trained sometimes dogs you can't predict what dogs will do um I do like um one of the comments that I heard earlier um someone had said um what about having the groups come together and um talk and come up with a plan before we vote um I do like that idea because maybe um there may be some more um Solutions um but also I know that um the ordinance need to be updated because police talked about how it's really difficult to enforce and so um you know I know that's important so um for me um just hearing everything if we can't come to a solution tonight um I'm okay with um maybe delaying and um seeing if we can have groups come together and and have these conversations um beforehand um maybe there's something else that um can um come out of these conversations um and so that's kind of my thought process but um I'm going to go with the majority of my Council but um if there is something different that um um we can come with um like the idea of having the groups come together because to me there's a lot of um folks here who's willing to have a conversation on both sides and so I'm willing um as one council member to see what the groups come up with instead of us just um making a decision tonight that maybe everybody won't um feel comfortable with so council member Foster Bolton um the re it keeps getting mentioned that we've been at this for 10 years and it's because we keep pushing it down the road and it's because we can't come to a conclusion and we can't make a decision and that's the part where the city council has to do the hard thing and again this isn't just about Purgatory Park to me it's about all the parks and it's about the city and we have to do what's best for the city and I totally my concern is the sustainability of Purgatory Park it's the biggest park and and it's the most Prairie Land I mean it's it's um it's going to be when we look down the future this is going to be a gem because all of the Prairie is being eaten up and burned up and if we can preserve this um it's I I feel like it's best for the city and so I mean we I feel like we should we need to make the decision tonight and I love and I agree I think the work group is um essential and as far as I know even none of the um the Purgatory Park it's the Purgatory to park dogs in the park isn't going to take effect until April so um so there there is time to figure it out when you know whatever happens tonight there's time to figure out what's going to happen in purgatory Park um but and I'm I'm a person that I don't own a dog and I've never I mean I own a dog when I was a kid but my son has a dog it's a little long-haired Doxon and we take care of him all the time now and he's adorable and we love him and I was taking him for a walk um in on my block and a dog comes from his house a bigger dog and tears through the front yard across the street picks Marty up in his jaw and starts running him around like this and I had to physically jump on this big dog I mean this dog and this the owner was lovely she came running out and she was mortified but she said this NE this has never happened before cuz he went through the invisible fence the dog went through the invisible fence and so dogs I mean it's you know it it can happen and if it happened I mean I was terrified I thought Marty was bleeding and he could have I thought he was a goner and he you know it's my my grand puppy and I was like oh I just killed my dog um but I'm but the thing is is that it's like dogs are not controllable for the most part I mean I think that there are dogs that are um but it's but it it's not always true and um again I I think I I really think that we need to we we need to stop kicking this down the road um so Council go ahead I my hand I thought okay well Council I'm going to call on council member ra at this point okay um thank you mayor and um thank you again uh echoing uh um council member Sha of thanking all the people who came up here and did make respectful comments and you know noting that um for those who who may have been uh curious as to why that comment was made is because we've had some meetings where that certainly wasn't the case so this was a refreshing uh um occurrence so thank you all um I do want to clarify some things that were said by some speakers here um so regarding the Purgatory Park Master planning survey that is certainly true and I said that during my remarks is that a significant but you know a minority but a significant minority of over 30 to 40% of people um were uncomfortable hello I'm sorry did you have something to say sir we're not debating um council member melee has the floor and uh please no comments from the floor at this point um so that is certainly the case and and I totally agree with that and and those comments that were made however on the most current feedback survey that um was cited tonight that was more of a 5050 um so I think we have to recognize that um yes um again I would ask staff to do the count on that I did an unofficial count of 5963 um and that did not include some of the other uh things that come anyway we were about 50/50 just to to get there um the fact that we had over a thousand animal related calls yes they weren't differentiated I would have to say and maybe defer to the police department and saying there's only several dozen citations because partially there has been a lack of ability to site because we have an unenforceable ordinance which has been pointed out by council member sha um so I will agree with what some of the other you know I'm a dog lover have owned dogs my entire enre life um I will say that the lack of data for me is disturbing I will say on my personal walks however through Purgatory on a number of visits over the last year um echoing what uh council member Shaq has said I would say 40 to 50% of dogs were Unleashed on the maintained trails and I would go up to people and this was on heavy weekends and I would ask people to please leash their dogs that you know this was against uh regulations and some of them would some of them just looked at me as scance others would you know kind of huff and Leash their dogs for 10 feet and as soon as I was past them would unleash them again so this is an issue and I think we have to talk about it um and do something about it uh so given that background regarding the non-park ordinance the at large ordinance I do agree with uh council member sha and one of the speakers uh regarding looking at Eden Prairie's ordinance regarding what constitutes you know private property versus other private property with uh owner permission um I am not willing right now to die on the retractable leash issue even though I maybe would prefer 16 ft but if we do adopt that for again the non-park uh areas I I think it's really imperative for us to find a way to um have uh reasonable and efficient way for residents to report data in instances of of non-compliance and also for us to track that data going forward regarding dogs in the park ordinance it is clear that many people here have very well defi um behaved dogs I do not um so that's why my dog is always leashed um you know for the safety of her for the safety of um you know other dogs and children and uh for sustainability reasons cuz she is not on on voice command um the way I described it earlier this meeting uh so I do feel that we do need clarification on the signage in the Parks we need clear regulation um I would say in contrast to some of my other council members here given the fact that this ordinance was only scheduled to be uh enacted on by April first um I would be willing to work toward that goal but have that um work group meet in the interim with the goal of having a clear plan in place before a final vote on that April 1st uh adoption but it is clear to me personally that we need to have clearly defined language clearly Define borders and barriers whether it's plantings or whether it's just a line with Stakes on it that shows people where they can be um whether it's language that needs to happen and um that should happen sooner rather than later while that work group is working on um further things whether it's a large dog park whether it's we take one park that or two parks or three Parks that's only for offleash dogs I don't know that answer but um that that would be my preference at this point I would love to be able to take care of this tonight um and I know all of you would too uh but I think uh at this point I would prefer to uh enact the atlarge or non-park ordinance as is for scheduled for January 1st uh convene the work group like toot suet um and with the goal of having that done and everything worked out in in time to enact something by April 1st regarding the parks and I'm willing to kind of have status quo in purgatory and otherwhere elsewhere in between time I would prefer to have very clear language remove all the signs put re clear language on there now and in the meantime I guess the only thing I could say to people is I would repeat what apparently minona police those who are fearful right now and and I I really empath empathize with those of you who are um but minona police apparently have recommended to one resident that they carry pepper spray to use on non-compliant offleash dogs who don't behave and I hate to go there but that may be a short-term solution at least until we find work out these Solutions and have something else to enact and uh Implement by April 1st thank you council member Wilburn thank you so I'm going to try not to repeat everything um that's been said I just for me when I'm when I'm making a decision where safety is involved it's not just about the numbers um and to me this is a safety issue we have had a woman who was a dog owner who had in who was in tears um after having having an incident in the park when she was walking her dog and another Unleashed dog came up and and attacked them so it's to me it's not okay to say well it's only you know only three people have been bitten or what that's our job is to is to make our our city and our Parks is safe for all of our residents as we can um and so I'm a veterinarian I love dogs when we moved here we had a 100 lb chocolate lab and had been through training he was familiar with heel but he was a lab so you know um so I will I I think you know none none of us here want to get rid of dogs in the Parks and I understand the problems that come with dog parks I agree that dog parks are not for everyone and they're not safe for everyone um so you know I I don't know there have been some good suggestions I don't know if the work group can come up with something better that would that would allow for some some offleash areas but um you know as as said if there's not barriers then the dogs aren't going to stay in the offleash area and not wander into the to into the nones non non-designated areas even if they're signs because dogs don't read as far as I know um so what um and just to address a few comments so the statistics that uh Captain Mian shared when she was talking about the few dozen instance instances in purgatory Park those were dog related instances when she talked about the Thousand that was all of the animal things they pulled out specific data on dogs in purgatory Park last year that's what those numbers were um and someone you know stated that you are punishing the people with well-trained dogs I would POS it that many of our laws and and statutes they're they're aimed at the the poor Behavior people who behave poorly um that's that's just the nature of of it um as far as the retractable leash well I'm also inclined not to um take a stand on that the all the all of the things that have been um brought forward about the dangers of retractable leashes are true but I also say I almost had a a very bad incident where that would have injured the dog myself and probably the humans that were with the dog where somebody had was stand had a stroller we're standing there and then the dog with the leash stretched all the way across the tra Trail and it was it wasn't 20 ft it was you know it was a 6t leash and I where it not for me standing on my brakes it would have been it would have been a horrific scene it was a small dog it would not have fared well um so you know we can't there's no statute that we can come up with that is going to account for every incidents of inattention or misbehavior it's just I recognize that and nothing that we come up that we come up with is going to be perfect for everyone but we have to to do the best we can to provide safety and for everyone to visit our Parks I it's I think it's unfair to say well just go to a different Park um so uh was there anything else and I yeah I don't I'm fine with adding the the the Eden Prairie language on permission in properties I think I think that's it thank you Council M Wilber so and thank you um I want to thank my Council um our Council for um all of their comments I want to thank everyone um who commented tonight and everyone who showed up tonight um as you can tell this is an emotional issue and a challenging issue but I really appreciate that everyone here was respectful I think were articulate and clear on what their concerns were and that I think benefits us all um you know as a council our job is to solve problems and I think that um the council has demonstrated that we didn't pre-plan we don't have a solution that we're going to jam down people's throat we haven't colluded you know we all have individual thoughts on this and we've all listened we may have heard different things from different people or different things may have resonated with us but I can tell you you've got seven people up here grappling with what's the right solution what's the best thing to do and we're sincere in that now um as I consider our current leash ordinance I believe it needs Improvement because for the reasons that have been cited it's uh it's vague um at heel is very it's easy to Define but um you don't see it very often but some dogs are at heel some dogs are but it's fewer than their owners think they are and so for me an ordinance needs to be clear it needs to be enforceable and it needs to be practical I think those three things are essential as we decide what we need to do and I think the proposed ordinances are clear and and they're enforcable but I'm concerned that they suffer on the practicality count because when I think about how I am with my dog and um my wife grew up with snowers as a result my kids grew up with snowers we've had um in 41 years of marriage we've had um 40 Years of snowers um five in a row sometimes we had two and I'll tell you what we love our dogs um and some of them have been um the the one we have now is just she's a sweet little 14 PB dog who is quite well trained um but she's quite well trained until um snowers were were um bred to be rers and squirrels and rats have a lot in common in terms far from a snower perspective and my well-trained dog um can be very well trained until a squirrel enters the picture and then all bets are off and uh I can tell a little story that we have a cabin up north and my uh and we would let Lizzy go off leash on our property and in the vicinity and and it worked great until she saw a squirrel and one time she took off and chased a squirrel and she was gone for an hour and a half and she fell off a cliff and we found her sitting on a rock in Lake Superior after falling 20 ft she' never been swimming before but she swam and that circumstance we were very very excited to get her back but you know the notion that she was under voice command I'm talking to myself so um you know I think um in another circumstance with Lizzie I was taking for a walk in um on our trails in in the city and I went across the Graze Bay um uh Causeway and I had her unleash and there was a family coming toward me and it was a mom and a baby and a stroller and a dog on leash um but even leashed dogs are not always under control and so I reel Lizzy in close to my close to my leg but guess what that the the bridge across um across graay Bay um is not very wide and that that dog got up to us and she jumped on Lizzie picked her up in her mouth um punctured her skin and the the people said the same thing that everybody says when something bad like happens you heard it once already tonight well my dog's never done that before I can't believe this but guess what dogs are dogs and they they do certain things so again um you know I respect I respect dog owners and I respect people and I resp and I love dogs but to say well my dogs always under control they're usually under control maybe they're 99% of the time under control but they're not always under control and that's that's the issue here it's not a leite that we're really concerned about it's control and um and that's that to me is a real is a real Challenge and so you know as I look at the problem the issue we want a solution that makes sense and I don't want to take people's freedoms away but I also want um um an ordinance about dog control that is practical that protects the safety of people and I've been doing this for a long time and every time we do a state of the city um uh meeting I say Public Safety is job one in cities and if I and we as Leaders cannot develop um Public Safety you need to vote us all out of office because we're not doing our jobs Public Safety is essential so I think we are talking a safety issue so I again I believe you know I would really like to solve this tonight but I'm not ready to solve this tonight because I think this work group is so important and I when I talk to the city manager today the thing that I feel is is incomplete is that we do need places for dogs to be off leash we do I mean the thought of having um a medium-sized hunting dog that could never be off leash where you can't go throw the frisbee where you can't go throw the dog has to be on leash all the time and the only exercise they're going to get is walking around the city on a at the end of a leash whether it's 6 ft or 20 ft that just doesn't pass the smell test it's not practical so I think we need our work group and I think you know I think there this a lot about Purgatory Park but I think a portion of Purgatory Park should be continue to be designated um um um off leash but it should be smaller but and then it should be fenced or it should be there should be barriers so that the offleash pl uh places are are clear but then if we're taking part of Purgatory Park away I think we also need to design one or two or three other Parks I don't want a dog park that's an acre big and has all the problems that people have cited for dog parks I don't think those are a good solution I think they create more I mean they may work for some dogs but they create more problems than they solve but I think we need to have some clearly design I mean we've got 51 parks and the reason people move to minaka a big reason is the outstanding Park system we have so let's let's designate a portion of several parks where dogs and people have the freedom in a controlled space but a large enough space so a dog you know it's not one acre it's multiple acres and there is space for people to enjoy the park and not have to worry about dogs and people who have dogs that um need to be off leash and they want to take them there and they have the opportunity to exercise their dog appropriately within parks in the city and I think it's probably two or three locations now admittedly that's an expensive solution because if we're going to have barriers that's fencing and fencing isn't free but I really again go back to what I said earlier our ordinance needs to be clear enforceable and practical and I think these ordinances are both clear and enforcable but I think we have to without a solution they're not practical and I think we have to take that step use the working group and come up with practical Solutions so that and again I'm not trying to keep everybody happy but I think the reality of there's a lot of dog owners and a lot of dog lovers in minaka and i' love to think that well you know I I get the fact that people argue that there's not a problem but I'll tell you what I will believe that when there are no poop bags laying along the streets of of mitaka and the sidewalks and trails of minona if everyone was absolutely absolutely responsible and there's no poop bags to me that would just poop or just poop y you know that would that would demonstrate to me that all the dog owners are responsible but until that problem goes away there's evidence that not all dog owners are responsible and we need to take action and do something I but I'm sorry to say I'm sorry to say to saf that I'm not ready to um approve the um ordinance on animals within city parks until we can be more explicit about what the solution looks like so with all due respect that's where I am so long story but anyway yes um May thank you mayor for your comments I do have one question though and and it sounds like we're pretty much on the same page um in terms of wanting to enact uh the um at large uh non-park ordinance tonight would we then question to staff and to you could we set a deadline you know again kind of with the eye of towards you know meeting that April 1 deadline um that we had originally envisioned for the in the in the I'm asking staff if um if that's possible Mr kka uh mayor and Council we have already spoken with our Consultants generally about that deadline and they had anticipated three or four meetings relatively tight order trying to set strategy right off off the bat and accomplishing recommendations by April 1st that's what we've discussed in that case I would agree um with the suggestion yeah Miss heiny mayor I do have a followup or a clarification question fair enough is the council looking for the ordinance to be adopted by April 1st or effective by April 1st Because by the charter it's not effective until 30 days after it's published which so generally that's about 40 days after the ordinance is adopted so are we looking to bring it back in a time frame where the council can adopt it and 40 days later it will be April 1st or are we looking to bring it back for adoption before April 1st but maybe it's effective after you know um I I want to hear from my council members but I'll I'll answer the question I think it's really important to get this right and and I think you know one of the challenges is um you know I don't want to I don't want to confuse the issue by saying well we got to we got to um we've got to do all this stuff and okay what parks and where but I think that's got to be part of the conversation I think I think getting it right is more important than the deadline so I would say let's let's adopt it by that date and if we need more time we can kick the can a little bit further down the road but let's adopt it and so if it's a if it's effective 45 days later I I personally can live with that I don't know how other people feel council member sha thank you mayor I disagree with this so vehemently as somebody who negotiates for a living without any kind of deadline or mechanism to motivate people to come to a resolution we're setting this work group up for a tremendous amount of failure because we're saying that we might adopt this ordinance sometime in the future and I think that disincentivizes people to come together and try to come up with a really workable resolution so we're saying well we're not really committed to this and you might be able to get us to you know we might change our minds and um but let's see if we can work something out and I think we're putting residents and and um commission members potentially in a difficult position again where they're in um being asked to kind of make policy or direct policy in a highly contentious issue that said I I appear I might be in the majority but um I I would be remiss as somebody who deals with highly contentious issues all day every day to think that we can have kind of a polanish attitude to say well we might work this out and then we'll come back and we'll and we'll pass an ordinance um but that's what I have to say all right and cack I'll just I I disagree with your interpretation of that because I I think I think that the date we're talking about is enacting enacting on April by April 1st and um affecting it um uh 45 days later or 40 Days Later whatever is appropriate um you know that's fine but you can interpret it whatever way you want but that was not my intention to to say that uh um let's just let's just leave people hanging out there I I agree deadlines are important but at the same time I think getting this right is um equally important and I and I'm you know I'm struggling with the Practical practicality aspect and feel that we should um um take steps to build that in so that's that's my perspective and I respect yours coun Wilburn yeah so kind of in line with um what council member Shaq is saying I guess I don't understand the reason for not adopting the ordinance now as the way it was explained to me as we adopt the ordinance the the work group works with a goal of having um something that can be enacted by April 1st and if the work group needs more time then we can give them an extension for for enacting um so I don't see if they're going to do the work with the goal of being done by April 1st why do we need to wait to adopt the ordinance um Miss heiney and then Mr Funk mayor council member Wilburn if the ordinance is adopted tonight and it is adopted with an effective date of April 1st that means that as of April 1st all dogs will have to be on leash in every Park every part of every Park unless we have areas designated and that's what the work group is going to work on so if we get to April 1st and the work group hasn't completed their work and the council hasn't you know blessed where these designated areas are parks are going to be leash dogs everywhere there will be no off leash areas if you adopt the ordinance tonight and the group doesn't get their work done Council other other thoughts or comments and and Mike I'm Mr Funk go ahead oh thank you mayor and Council I know it's getting later I just want to I think summarize a little bit of what staff has heard this evening and Miss haniny jumped in and and said much of what I was going to clarify for the council because I think that's for US policy makers that's what you need to decide this evening is the you have two ordinances in front of you and just to reiterate I think what the the goal of Staff working with councel on this issue is finding that balance and so the the intent of having that April 1st um deadline was for that work group to do that work the work that we're talking about the ordinance language itself probably doesn't look any different today than it would look April 1st really the the goal of that work group is to identif Iden ify areas that you've all talked about whether it's one area two areas could be five or 10 areas um I know Eden Prairie was referenced a few times this evening Eden Prairie for example has six offleash dog areas and so I I would assume that's what this work group will look at is knowing that I think we've heard from the council that you do want to tighten up the ordinance that you do want to have some sort of leash law in place in Parks it's a matter then what are the areas that will be for or Unleashed dogs and so that's really what that work group will will do and so really the policy question for you this evening is do you feel comfortable adopting an ordinance this evening that puts in place an April 1st deadline allows the work group to do the work that we're talking about that's really kind of one option or I think also what's been suggested is um not adopting the ordinance tonight still convene the work group have the work group come back later in the spring or quarter 1 of 2025 with recommendations at which time you adopt an ordinance along with any identifiable areas that would be off leash but I do want to just make clear I don't think that the ordinance language itself changes whether it's adopted tonight or next spring coun Calbert I mean I just having been through some really you know difficult Park related Parks related issues like the mountain bike trail and um issues where there was a lot of community input now we're going to have a work group that has not been formed yet and we are in November that's that's that's what I'm a little concerned about because they are just going to be volunteers and um there's going to be a lot of pressure and so I so to the I'm very sympathetic and very much respect what council member Shaq is saying I don't entirely disagree but I also feel like these are volunteers that this is going to be a hard task and they're they're not even a group yet I don't know how many times they're going to meet a month and so I'm very torn between what council member sha is saying and what the mayor is saying because I do think it's really important to get it right and I think it really is important so you know it's going to be enacted we may Identify some uh area offleash dog areas but to everyone else's point how they're demarcated how they are able to be used I just don't know that the park staff is going to have time to you know get signage up and get fencing up and you know just make it so people know where they can go without violating the ordinance so that's that's one of the reasons why I'm a little hesitant on pushing the timing and it it's not that I actually think that the people on the work group are going to feel a lot of fire under their feet to get it done because they have a vested interest in making this work for themselves so I'm not worried about them not working hard council member Foster B could we change the April 1 date pass the ordinance and then change it from to May or whatever could we do that mayor count council member Foster Bolton yes the council can pick whatever date you want all right any any further comments council member R sorry council member Foster Bolton were you talking about changing it after if we adopted it tonight and then changing it later no oh okay thank you so we're going to we're going to have to make a decision here and and I think I mean I think I I think there's General agreement that and uh we've talked about this enough to know that there's a need for an ordinance and that our current ordinance needs some clarification and you know with all due respect to the various opinions stated um you know if if if dogs were as manageable as we'd love them to be um we maybe wouldn't have this conversation but it's it's not it's not the well-trained well- behaved dogs that we really have to deal with it's it's the others and uh and so um you know so the the question is kind of what and when and and I you know I think again probably the the the thing that I've been struggling with the most and I mentioned it to Mr fun this afternoon is is um is to answer the when we have to answer the where and this isn't just about Purgatory Park this is more broadly and I think we have to identify places for for um for dogs to have the freedom to catch a frisbee chase a ball and but people also need to be safe so we're talking about spending taxpayer money for potential barriers and things like that to make that happen so it's not going to be every park I think we're goingon to have to Des so so the qu but I think for us to for me to pass it tonight I have to I have to have some sense for where that for answering the wear question if I had the answer to the wear question I would I would uh seek a motion to pass these tonight but that's where I'm really struggling I don't have the answer to the wear question and I think that if we just limit this to Purgatory Park we are missing an opportunity to make minaka more livable for our residents so those to me that's the issue I don't know how anyone else feels about that but I'm struggling with the wear question that's been my struggle con Shack I I just I I'm I'm a little frustrated because I think we've spent so much time talking about the public safety component of this that to say I'm not comfortable kind of keeping this open-ended and kicking the can down the road because I mean to me the public safety component of It kind of Trumps all of it so you know I I think we can figure out the where I think we could figure out a couple of Wares and know that maybe we have to you know we can get one spot by April 1st and know that we have to move on but I we've got to come up with something so I suppose somebody just has to make a motion and we see where it goes let let me throw out something okay let's let's let's you know um we're going to have a workg group um and let's have them study three or four park locations in mitaka including Purgatory maybe we identify some of the larger parks that have some open space perhaps staff would have an idea of where that may be and then we make a proposal there we narrow the scope of the work for the work group that will enable them to speed things up and then maybe we can do something by identifying some areas where we could we could have greater um um off more offleash areas within the city that would be contained in such a way that it would that would work both for non-dog owners who are afraid of dogs versus dog you know but but um maybe something like that and that could move the move things further down the road so that we could take some action tonight I throw that out as a thought Council ra yeah I'd like to uh make a motion to adopt the ordinance relating to dogs at large at least for now and get that one knocked out all right is there is there support for that is there a second C yes for clarification there was some discussion about whether or not to add the I'll call it Eden Prairie exception in I have that prepared if the intent was to include that all right and Consul let I'm remiss yeah I would make the motion with the inclusion with the caveat of the inclusion of the Eden Prairie type language inserted very good is there is there a second so we've got a motion by Council member R and a second by council member Calbert to uh pass the um the at large ordinance with the language of the um the Eden Prairie exception added and Miss heiney could you read that perhaps uh yes mayor if you can if you can it's okay if the council is looking at the dogs at large ordinance section two of the ordinance um amends section 925. A5 of the city code and it has a subdivision one so in that paragraph it would read and I'm only going to read it as it would be finally adopted not reading the strikeouts an owner or caretaker of a dog must not cause or permit the dog to run at large within the city limits except as Allowed by section 11:35.0 20 of this code a dog is quote at large end quote if it is off the property of the person owning comma harboring or keeping the dog and not under restraint with the following exception that's the new language while on the private property of another with the landowner's permission provided the dog owner is present and then that the rest of the ordinance is unchanged thank you C any any conversation on that U Mr Funk and just to be clear mayor and councel if staff could just also reiterate the the language for this ordinance does have the 20 foot retractable language so just make sure you're clear on that because I know there's been conversations evening over 6 foot 20 foot retractable not retractable so just make sure you're clear on what's being in my sense is we've discussed that but it's not a heal to die on it was my takeaway I don't know if anyone sees it any differently all right right yeah I'm not yeah I'm not wanting to die on that hill but I would like to um make sure to follow up with staff that city manager does to make sure that we provide a mechanism to report incidents and that that data is tracked thank you all right we've got a motion in a second um any other last comments all right U Miss Larson please call roll Wilburn yes Calbert yes ra yes kle yes Foster Bolton yes sha yes weome yes motion carries so um kind of bringing this back I I don't want pardon me one well you know we're halfway there but hopefully farther than that um so the thought that I shared with Council and you know I mean kind of grabbing grabbing Parks out of the air based on our knowledge um but it seems like there are certain parks where there could be space base for um for some off for an off leash are and if we had um if we named let's say we had in in addition to um Purgatory we named two other Parks um kind of geographically dispersed and as as Target Target parks for the um the work group to um uh consider would that move thing this a staff question would that move things further forward and does our does Mr kka do you have any thoughts on recommendations for parks that we might consider to to broaden the scope of um of um offleash areas selectively partially uh mayor and Council um I would preface my response with um there would be a variety of characteristics of a particular space parking availability the general square footage of that space the status of restoration the prioritization of the natural resources according to our natural resources master plan so it's it's a little more difficult than just saying here's our three largest Parks those would make sense it's a little more nuanced than that a lot of the interior of our larger Parks could potentially make sense but then there's concerns about Wetlands for instance or the minihaha creek so it's a little difficult for me to just pull I understand that and perhaps it's not a realistic request it's just that you know we'd like to bring we like if we can bring closure to this tonight we'd like to do that but on the other hand I think there is that aspect that that for my view and I'm not saying I'm speaking for anyone else but from my view having having some sense for where else if we're going to restrict Purgatory some should where where in the city could we compensate for some of those restrictions to provide more availability and I think having it geographically dispersed in the city would make would make good sense so those are some Topline thoughts and uh we don't want to we don't want to talk about this for another hour but I'm um I'm you know I don't know if that's helpful or if it confuses things and if we should just uh um defer I don't know I don't know what my council members think I know what some think coun Wilburn so can we go with council member Foster Bolton's suggestion to just set a later um we can do whatever we want so adoption date um and so that because it does seem like a really short time for this work group to come up with with something actionable um and if they get done sooner yay we can you know we can visit it earlier than than the the adoption date so that would be my suggestion very good any other any other thoughts or if someone would like to just a date you know we do want to get some closure here C mer Shack well what if we just try this what if I made the motion to adopt the ordinance with a May 15th adoption date and uh you know I mean that's six more weeks than April 1st um with the understanding and you know you guys vote how you want to vote but with the understanding that we will have at least identified the goal will we we will have at least identified and implemented one place at that time not limiting it to one but that we will have be ready to go with one off leash place by that time um I I'll just comment and I I'd be comfortable with that um because I mean we we want to take some action we we think that if um if we're going to put some restrictions on Purgatory we need to have some alter atives because um I think we generally agree that dogs need an opportunity to be off leash more than a strict 6 foot um or even 20 foot lease restriction allows because let's just be practical we don't want we don't want to pass an ordinance that our responsible dog owner um residents will ignore because they think it's a bad law and I'm concerned about that too I think people want to be law-abiding and they want to respect our laws um again I'll go back to clear and forceable and practical and I think if we if we debate rather than not pass something tonight delaying a bit and um with and understanding that we need some more territory I think that that those constraints work and of course of a workg group gets done early we can we can move that date up so I I'd be supportive of of council member sha suggestion any other thoughts from Council Members I I think that's I love this Council we compromise we find consensus I think it's a good idea all right so if you'd like to make the motion I think you might get a second um Mr Funk thank you mayor council member Shaq just not to slow things down just so you're aware on May uh May 19th is a regular city council meeting in 2025 so rather than May 15th which is a Thursday if you would suggest maybe May 19th is a city council evening thank you for your friendly suggestion excellent I will make the motion to adopt the ordinance relating to dogs at large with the modified date of in implementation of May 19th and I guess it wouldn't be a part of the motion but the guidance to staff is that the work group will be established and a off leash at least one offleash dog solution will be implemented by that date as well it's the dogs within city parks excuse me dogs within city parks thank you yes all right any other comments council member Foster no I was going to Second it okay very good I'll take your second I'll second all right so we've got a motion by council member sha and a second by council member Foster Bolton does anyone have any last comments before we vote are we all clear and mayor we some and Council just just as to per my comment here a few minutes ago just to be clear uh because you had a lot of conversation on retractable leashes and six foot leashes this ordinance too has the current language of a 20 foot retractable leash to be consistent with the early we want to be consistent with the earlier adopted ordinance Council meley and so again I would uh reiterate my uh instructions to staff to again set up a mechanism for reporting issues and tracking that data thank you um all right um Miss Larson please call roll Wilburn yes Calbert yes R yes kley yes Foster Bolton yes sha yes we some yes motion carries absolutely all right so uh that takes us to item 15 appointments and reappointments we have none of those tonight and um um item 16 is adjournment is there a motion to adjourn council member Wilburn I move adjournment is there a second council member Calbert second um um all we have a motion by Council M Wilbur and a second by council member Calbert all in favor say I I we are adjourned [Music] for