Here is the transcript with speaker names added based on the context of the meeting: [2:21] **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** And we're going to call the meeting to order. The clerk, please note those in attendance. All will be noted with the exception of Council Member Hughes. Yes. And note for the record that Miss Hughes gave us a heads up. She's coming from a kiddo soccer game, so she'll be here as soon as she can. Will you please rise and join me in the pledge of allegiance? [2:42] **All:** 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. [3:02] **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** To entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the regular city council meeting from April 22nd, 2025. **Council Member:** Second. **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** Motion to second. All those in favor say I. **Council Members:** I. **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** Any opposed? Motion carries. The minutes are approved. Item three, adoption of the agenda. Are there any changes or corrections to the agenda? [3:18] **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** Seeing none, I'd entertain a motion to approve the agenda. **Council Member:** So moved. **Council Member:** Second. **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** Motion to second. All those in favor say I. **Council Members:** I. **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** Any oppose? We have an agenda. Item four, consent agenda. I'd entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. **Council Member:** Second. **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** Have a motion, a second. All those in favor say I. **Council Members:** I. **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** Any opposed? [3:35] **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** The consent agenda is approved. Item 5A, uh, visitors and presentations. We've got a public works public works week proclamation. Sorry, is this very, very loud for everybody out there? All right, I'll try and back away a little bit. All right. I have the great privilege of reading a proclamation dedicating the week of May 18th through the 24th as public works week. So without further ado, I will read that now. Whereas public works professionals focus on infrastructure, facilities and services that are of vital importance to sustainable and resilient communities and to the public health, high quality of life and well-being of the people of the city of White Bear Lake. Whereas these infrastructure, facilities and services could not be provided without the dedicated efforts of public works professionals who are engineers, managers and employees at all levels of government and the private sector who are responsible for rebuilding, improving and protecting our nation's transportation, water supply, water treatment and solid waste systems, public buildings and other structures and facilities essential for our citizens. Whereas it is the in the public interest for the citizens, civic leaders and children in White Bear Lake to gain knowledge of and to maintain an ongoing interest and understanding of the importance of public works and public works programs in their respective communities. And whereas the year 2025 marks the 65th annual National Public Works Week sponsored by the American Public Works Association and Canadian Public Works Association. Now therefore, be it resolved that the White Bear Lake City Council hereby designates the week of May 18th through the 24th, 2025 as Public Works Week in White Bear Lake. And it urges citizens to join representatives of the American Public Works Association and government agencies in activities, events, and ceremonies designated to pay tribute to our public works professionals, engineers, managers, and employees, and to recognize the substantial contribution they make to protecting our health, safety, and quality of life. [5:46] **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** And with that, I will just extend my thanks to the public works department for all the hard work that you do. Um, I consider so many of the jobs that you do is the stuff behind the scenes that we take for granted, but is as I read in the proclamation critical to our everyday way of life from water treatment to sewer, the stuff underground. Um, thank you for all the dedication you have to keep our city running at at the high high quality that it always has. So with that, I think we should give these guys a round of applause. [6:24] **Lindy Crawford (City Manager):** Mayor, if I may, this would be a really good opportunity and a missed opportunity for me to um share our public works uh open house that is happening next Wednesday, right? Wednesday um from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. at the public works facility. This is our second annual one just to invite the community and the public in to see all of our different um divisions within public works and get a tour of our public works facilities. So that is next Wednesday from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. And it's not on the agenda. Um but we do have a little surprise um and so I want to invite Mayor if it's if I may um invite uh White Bear Lake Rotarian Ken Galloway up to the podium. [7:11] **Ken Galloway (Rotary Club):** Good evening. Welcome. Jim, speak into the mic. I take it. Can I have the other club members come up? Sure. Come on, folks. We have a large representation from the White Bear Lake Rotary Club here tonight. And among them, our president Kevin Donovan and our community services chair Carol Nelson. And just wanted to read a little statement. So for many years, the White Bear Rotary Club and Public Works have been working together on various projects, some of them quite challenging uh and unusual. They have been wonderful collaboration. They have been wonderful collaborators on many of our projects such as Rotary Nature Center, the area on Clark and Lake Avenue, Beach Dance, recently created gazebo lighting ceremony, the barely open Golf and Ice, and many, many more. In fact, many of the great community building projects and events that Rotary has initiated would have never been able to take place without the support and cooperation of our great public works employees. We look forward to that partnership to continue for years to come. And to show our appreciation, we have a plaque we'd like to present to the public works department. And I'd like our club president, Kevin Donovan, to read and present that to our public works staff. Well, if I can have the public works people come up, that would be wonderful. [8:33] **Kevin Donovan (Rotary President):** All right. So, we have this plaque that we uh made and I'll read the plaque so it goes on the record. The Rotary Club of White Bear Lake recognizes and thanks the public works department of the White Bear Lake City for your many years of service to our community, valuable assistance, and cooperation with so many of our community service projects. Thank you for helping make our community such a great place in which to live, work, and play. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. [9:19] **Carol Nelson (Rotary Community Services Chair):** And I do want to say one quick thing that I've toured the public works department with leadership tomorrow. We brought the students through and I have learned so much. I never knew what it took to run a city and so did our leadership tomorrow folks. So I am so appreciative to the men and women that make this thing happen every day. So thank you. [9:42] **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** Thank you. [9:50] **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** Anybody at public works want to make a little speech? I'm kidding. No, no. Very good. All right. Staying with public works, we have item 5B, public works engineering department biannual report. Mr. Copy, whenever you're ready. [10:12] **Paul Copy (Public Works Director/City Engineer):** All right. So, next up here we have our public works engineering department biannual report. Um, just kind of a few of the uh uh basics. So, we are current uh department staffing. Uh we are 100% full. Uh we we uh filled our last two positions in our parks facilities last fall with our uh um parks technician and then also our building maintenance technician. Um so those two uh filled up our uh public works staff. Uh we've been pretty steady since then. So um no changes to our staffing. um infrastructure statistics. Um really nothing changes for us too much because of our static nature of uh development in town. Um and most of it being offline uh really not a lot of uh opportunity to extend public utilities mostly services to uh service the buildings that we work uh with uh community development to uh undertake. So uh this is just the overall statistics for those watching at home um or might be watching later, as far as the uh infrastructure that our public works folks maintain. Um I'm going to go through each of the departments kind of what they've done over the last six months or so. So kind of November through uh April. [11:30] **Paul Copy:** Um really a lot of what we do over the winter is snow related. We live in Minnesota and and um um that really um hinges everything that we do and we fit in other things in between. So, um, this year—and I kind of put snow operations under the streets divisions. They're the ones who primarily lead that uh operations. Um, but I will call out that all the other departments um help out in some way, shape, or form, um either coming after the fact, uh cleaning things up in cul-de-sacs, doing um outlaying sidewalks, um to um helping with downtown operations. um that's primarily done by parks, but uh streets operations drives that. Um overall, uh snow event uh operations. Uh this year we had 18 snow events. Um 10 of those were downtown operations where we had full call outs that we uh stack and remove snow from the downtown area. [12:31] **Paul Copy:** Um it's a difficult area to deal with due to the um confined nature of it and not really a location to store um snow for the long term. So it has to be stacked um put in the trucks and hauled out most of the time. Um so that's um 10 of those uh events had those downtown operations. We had about 31 inches of snow compared to about 27 last year. Uh not necessarily um a whole lot more snow, but uh quite a few more events than we did last year. Um I think last year we had 11 call out events, so we had seven more events, but only four more inches of snow. Um we did uh due to those additional um events um some of the smaller ones are the worst for us because the snow gets packed on the streets. So we used a little bit more salt this year. We were just under 300 tons last year, uh just under 400 tons this year. So we we did do a uh a fair amount of uh snow and ice control at major intersections where we put salt down to prevent those accidents at intersections. Um in the um off time when they're not plowing um a lot of time is spent tree trimming um both along sidewalks to make sure that the uh snow removal equipment on the sidewalks don't hit those branches and cause damage to the equipment. Uh tree removals, things like that. And then kind of the last thing in this season is to get out as soon as we can and start uh street sweeping. This we collected 265 cubic yards of material. So we're not doing that first thing in the spring—that material is going into our storm drains into our lakes and ponds where it's much more difficult to remove. So, the quicker we can get out—and this year we had a fairly uh uh cooperative spring uh where we didn't get a whole lot of rain up front. Uh we were able to get out and get most of the city swept before we had any major rains or we didn't have any of those weird uh spring snows that messed us up. So, it was really a a quite effective spring for street sweeping. [14:35] **Paul Copy:** Um, next up, I'll go over parks and facilities. So, um, aside from doing the uh snow removal operations, uh much of what parks is is doing is our seasonal um in the fall they do their seasonal park shut down, shut the water off to the and blow out the uh parks facilities. Um, but a lot of it is doing holiday decorations. um 300 plus hours spent decorating the downtown and the community as a whole, 50 plus miles of lighting, 600 feet of garland, 100 plus holiday trees. So, they spent a lot of time getting that up looking good for uh the events um such as the uh the gazebo lighting ceremony and things like that that are um quite uh well known throughout the community. So, um other than that, they did a lot of uh tree trimming this year. obviously, you know, just under 400 hours. A lot of what they did was uh get ready for this year's uh Lakewood Hills trail paving project. So, in order to get the equipment in and a lot of down branches, things adjacent to the trail, uh overhanging branches. So, once we get in there and we can start maintaining that year round, how to get those, you know, overhanging branches, dead trees adjacent to the trail so that they don't cause damage. Also, the uh will uh help protect the equipment as we uh do plowing and things in the wintertime. So, it kind of opens that up to allow that uh to happen. [15:59] **Paul Copy:** Um and this year, I'm going to highlight facilities. Um with uh our new facilities uh maintenance technician starting last fall, uh we were able to really uh get in and get our uh preventive maintenances done to all our municipal buildings. And people think it's just, you know, the uh public works that they're dealing with. They're dealing with every municipal building that we have. So, city hall, public safety, South Fire, um their own public works building. So, they're doing all of the uh HVAC and other preventive maintenance. Um and just day-to-day repairs going throughout the buildings as they get work orders through our system uh just to get those repairs done. Um some planned, some not planned. Um they also did a quite extensive uh assistance with the police evidence room improvements uh downstairs. So uh really rebuilding that. We had some water damage if you recall about a year or so ago. Um they uh did a ton of work with the uh police getting the new shelving and revamping that whole area. Um turned into quite a project, a lot more than we initially thought, but uh they were able to get that pulled off. And I'll get to the uh the next one in a few slides, but the city hall improvements. Uh we did a number of projects throughout city hall that they assisted um engineering staff who was kind of leading those projects on, but uh very critical in getting those done, coordinating with uh some of our vendors, our um security folks, um things like that. [17:26] **Paul Copy:** So, uh the water division, um here's kind of uh again, they're fairly static throughout the winter. um just really uh making clean water and uh continuing to uh run the treatment plant. And then um they also help with snow operations. So I'm going to jump back on that. Um they're very critical in doing our outlining sidewalks. So once the — so they're on call, they they rotate because they work all uh seven days a week. So they have folks that are on call. So they're not the key folks that do uh snow operations, but they jump in the next day and they jump in the sidewalk machines and they're doing all of the sidewalks um throughout town. So that's their primary function with the snow removal operations. Um this year we had uh um pumped 275 million gallons of water. It's kind of interesting fact about that is that's exactly what we pumped last year in the same time frame. So that's kind of our gold standard as far as our, you know, um core amount of water that we need to serve the public, you know, for that period of time. If you divide that by 12, I won't try to do math on the fly, but um that's kind of a per month. It's um um about 40 million gallons that they, you know, pump just to drinking water, cooking water, bathing, that kind of thing. anything above and beyond that and we'll see that at our next biannual report. But that's summer usage. That's where people are washing cars and sprinkling lawns and things like that. [18:55] **Paul Copy:** So, we're pretty consistent. Um, which is good. Uh, we're not seeing a whole bunch of spikes in that. So, um, pretty steady. Um, the other thing that we watch in the winter time is water main breaks. Uh, we did have—last year we only had 11 water main breaks. Um, but if you remember, we also put the docks out in March. So, it was a much milder winter last year. Uh, but pretty comparable to past winters where we have 20 to 25 as our typical. Um, if you look back, you know, through history, we've had some that have exceeded 30, but very cold winters where you have a lot of frost going in the ground. So, um, this year was pretty typical. Um, no bad ones per se, pretty routine overall. Um, and then the last thing that they do is they do a maintenance shutdown on the plant each spring, typically the end of April. A lot of it hinges on the road restrictions. Um, so road restrictions are where the Department of Transportation put restrictions on what kind of weight trucks can have out on the highways and and streets and county roads. So, um, where that plays in the fact is that we have to haul out all of the kind of the lime sludge buildup that builds up over the previous year within the plant. So, they um clean all that out, truck it out, so they have to wait till after the load restrictions. Some of it goes down to the St. Paul Water Utilities where they decant it and ends up on farmers fields. [20:22] **Paul Copy:** And then this year we actually um if we can get local farmers that will take it, it's kind of a free of charge thing for us um versus having to pay at St. Paul to dispose of it. So if they can truck it away and put it on their fields, it's a benefit to us that we're not paying for that removal or paying St. Paul to have it um disposed of. And then uh coming up here very soon uh following the shutdown they're doing a few other little maintenance activities but in the next couple weeks we will get our um hydrant flushing complete as well. Um, as far as projects and equipment, this year was on the uh uh uh for some reason we had a number of um uh schools that wanted to visit the water treatment plant for various reasons from learning about water treatment to um the uh um you know, maybe even going into a public works uh profession. So, um it kind of varied. We had about three or four different schools that uh toured the plant uh since the uh over the school year. um picture up there that was Matoska, I believe. And uh it's cool to be able to uh get our public works to interact and and especially our water treatment plant. They're kind of isolated down there and no one really goes to visit them very often. So um they welcomed it and they did a great job with um um leading those tours. And then uh one thing is, you know, kind of we're always on our toes. But that valve you see on the bottom picture there, that is the valve, the main valve that feeds the plant. When they turned that valve this year to shut the plant down, it broke. [21:55] **Paul Copy:** You know, it's 30 years old. It um the uh previous valve was the wrong style of valve for that um you know, um application. Uh we uh our water folks uh met with our vendors uh got the right style of valve um had it fabricated and got it in place within about 24 hours. So um kudos to them to be able to react because that's our main feed out of our plant. If they didn't get that fixed, we don't have water. So when they shut the plant down, they basically are running the system off of the towers and the um reservoir. So once those are empty, if they can't, they have to do a few things. they have about 48 hours to um clean out the plant, get that on before they can start running water back through the plant. So, it's very important and they uh um succeeded in getting that uh corrected very quickly. Um sewer division, um they are probably the most routine during the winter time. Uh the only thing that really affects them—they they did a little bit less. Typically, they're more about 10 miles that they get jetted and clean. But um if they're out, two of the uh sewer division are full-time mainline plow truck drivers. So they get pulled off. So they uh end up getting pulled off of televising and jetting. [23:16] **Paul Copy:** Um the other thing that affects them is temperatures. Uh when they're jetting it deals with water. So they're out there and if we have sub-zero temperatures it's very difficult to do that work. It's freezing. It's um not really um um um easy to do. So, they uh got a little bit less done, but on the flip side, they uh got about twice as much done as they typically do last year. So, it all evens out in the end. Our goal is to do about 10 or so miles per year to kind of rotate our system um you know, on a 5 to 10 year basis so that we're we're always in and checking those. And then based on this we um I recall each year we do a sewer lining project. So what they find out each winter is what we then turn into a sewer lining project. So um otherwise um we had one service uh main backup call. Nothing major. Nobody flooded on that one. Uh most of our calls that we get are service line backups going from the main into the home. It's the homeowner responsibility, but um our folks do react and help those homeowners navigate that with their plumbers or um help out in any way they can. We have a televising machine that we can go into the home and televise and help our customers out. So, um that's a uh again a little bit lower than our typical—typical is 10 to 15 per year. So, that's a little bit off of our uh typical year, but you can see in the pictures of what they find in there. Big clumps of, you know, uh vegetation that grows in there. [24:49] **Paul Copy:** They uh um a lot of nutrients in our wastewater. So, the little roots find their way into the cracks of the pipe. Um the one on the top is the main um at that service. The uh picture on the bottom is actually turning—we can pan the camera up and look into the service line to see if there's blockages. There's just a little bit of a blockage at the main itself, but um that's where we can alert customers, too. If we see that as we're televising, uh we alert our customers of, hey, you have a blockage in your line, you might want to have it looked at. So, a little bit of a service that we can offer to our uh residents. Uh fleet maintenance division. Um, again, pretty routine over the winter time. Um, a lot of times, you know, so they do their preventive maintenance, their major repairs. So, preventive maintenance is oil changes, tire rotations, you know, filter changes, pretty routine stuff. Major repairs are anything above and beyond that. So, if we're correcting issues, check engine lights, uh, brake changes, tire replacements, things like that. Um, they also do our DOT inspections in house. So, they uh inspect our uh trucks that are required to be um certified through the Department of Transportation and do any repairs to correct them before they put the sticker on them to say that they're safe to be out on the road. Um and we only had 15 outsourced repairs. And typically, they're not things that they can't handle in house, but we don't have a tire shop, tire machine in house. Uh we don't do body work, you know, fixing dents and painting cars. And then uh warranty work and recalls that's sent out, but we still track it to show what um gets sent out. Um but nothing that they have had to send out in the last couple years that they can't figure out or can't do themselves. So a very talented staff that we have in our maintenance division. Um unique projects. They always get thrown things. [26:45] **Paul Copy:** Uh fun stuff. But they continue to do the squad car outfitting for both fire and police. Uh the squad showing up on top, that's the new uh fire um squads. Uh they're starting to do those builds uh here in the last few weeks. Um and then the one on the bottom is the uh uh will be the police CSO, the Lakeshore CSO vehicle. So they are getting that outfitted with lights and the proper safety things um and markings. Um so they're working on that as well. And then the other thing that they did over the winter is completely—and I think it was in one of the Friday connections—they completely revamped the Marina pontoon. I did all the repairs on it, revamped it. It looks brand new. It's uh fantastic. So, uh very talented folks in the fleet maintenance that were able to do that for us. Um engineering, um pretty—I hate to say routine—but you know, a street rehabilitation project, pretty routine year to year. Uh we did get the mobility and parking study final report completed uh in the last six months and uh which is leading to the uh downtown parking lot project. So keeping us very busy getting those plans done. I'll be bringing that back to you at the next council meeting. Uh we also uh did a lot of work with the White Bear Lake Area High School parking restrictions, that whole area, the notifications, getting that uh work through. Uh some of that signage will be going up in the next week here. Uh we're continuing to coordinate with the county to get that uh completed on their end and uh um City Manager and City Attorney are working on the uh um ordinance provisions that will allow for the permit parking in that area. So more to come over the summer um and that should be in place by the time school starts. Um the other thing is like all of our public works engineering—we get thrown a few curve balls at us with window replacement. I did not go to school for window replacement. We figured out uh we did the City Hall finance and the mother's room rehabilitations and this is where I talked to that it's not just myself and my staff that are leading it in engineering but public works from figuring out working with our um HVAC contractor vendors and our security vendors to get everything tied in and working as one. So, um, also the other staff working to displace them and I think we're going to be doing one last one in admin here in a little bit. Um, so, uh, trying to work through those and and, uh, fun. [29:19] **Paul Copy:** We get to meet and see a lot of different people and work with them closely. So, and then, uh, just our typical day-to-day stuff. We do a lot of project reviews with community development, variance requests, um, little parcel related items. So, a lot of, you know, typically 20 to 40 of them a year. So, it's busy, especially during the winter time. It's gotten busy again with a number of variance requests. We do our right-of-way permits and then um um assist all the divisions within the city with our GIS mapping and uh um we have another intern this year in GIS. Uh and um we'll be doing some field work this year. So, uh, um, uh, pretty excited to continually expand our GIS. Uh, lastly, I'm going to hit on the two advisory commissions that engineering and public works works with. The first one is the Park Advisory Commission. Um, again, they get thrown into a lot of different things from, you know, the uh, Matoska dog beach operations review. they uh started working very closely with the—and this will be on the next slide too—but the EAC and PAC meet together to try to see what they can do within parks uh from an environmental standpoint from restoration projects, buckthorn removal, um pollinator gardens, any kind of things like that that they can work on. um this year not a crazy amount of parks projects. We have the Hidden Hollow Park shelter um and the Lakewood Hills trail paving projects are the two major projects that are going on this year. [30:54] **Paul Copy:** Um, our May meeting, we're actually going to meet at Hidden Hollow Park to do our Arbor Day tree planting and then we're also going to confirm with the parks commission the uh location for the new picnic shelter that um um will go in that park. um on the uh little map there, those are what the PAC and the EAC work on that identify different areas that they can do—again the Lakewood Hills, some of the buckthorn removal are some of the opportunities that each of the groups—and they meet together outside of even their meetings—those two pair up and they go out into different to all the parks with these maps and they look and walk the areas and and uh it's cool to see them work together. uh environmental advisory commission. Um uh one thing that they did over the winter is they did a electric landscape equipment survey. Uh so they sent that to 19 uh cities or they sent it to a bunch of cities. 19 of them responded. Uh really finding out, you know, people are utilizing them. Cost didn't seem to be—costs have come down quite a bit on the, you know, like lawnmowers and hedge trimmers and chainsaws, things like that. Um, and they, uh, the one thing that they really get, at least in a city setting. Um, they're easy to use. You know, how do you start it? Do you prime it first? Do you choke it? Do you, you know, your typical gas one? It's kind of put the battery on and turn the switch on and you're good to go. Also, in a uh residential setting, they're much more quiet. So, um, they've gotten a lot of good response from, uh, good feedback from those respondents that, uh, you know, thumbs up that they're not making a bunch of noise in the mornings, you know, blowing things out, things like that. So, uh, very positive. And then Excel is actually um working with them now to possibly expand rebate programs that they have. [32:48] **Paul Copy:** So, it's, um, they're using that survey information that our EAC did to uh, look at expanded uh, rebate programs. Um again the EAC and PAC at a joint meeting and then uh one thing uh we would note that uh chair Gary Shroyer has presented from the Ramsey Washington Metro District a Good Steward Award. Uh he's on their citizen advisory committee. He does a lot of work through our environmental advisory commission to help on a lot of different water related projects. So uh he was awarded that back in November and and uh kudos to him for his uh all his volunteerism. And lastly, uh like City Manager Crawford did, I will lay out our public works open house again next Wednesday, May 21st from 5 to 7 over at our uh public works facility at 3950 Hoffman Road. Uh we'll have all kinds of displays, hands-on activities, tours, climb on the equipment, check out what we do. So I encourage everybody to uh come and check it out. Um other than that, I'd be happy to answer any questions you have. [33:53] **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** Thank you, Mr. Copy. Sounds like you guys are are busy as usual. So, I just have one quick question. That main valve for the water treatment plant, what does something like that cost? **Paul Copy:** Um, that in the end is just—and Carrie's probably got the exact number in her head because we just were going over that here this afternoon as I was finalizing my presentation—but just over $40,000 for the cost of the valve, the installation, the uh um all of that. So, it's—they're not cheap. Um the it's a 24-in valve um kind of custom made. um typically—and if you remember in that picture the valve looked like it was kind of laying on its side. Um it's a fairly shallow line that goes into the plant. The other valve that was in there before was too close to the surface and that froze and ended up failing. This actually lays on its side. They put a special gear box. Um that's where our staff worked with the vendor to get the right product to fit in there and hopefully will last for many many years. **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** Is that installed by outside contractor? Is that done internally? What's the division of labor on that? **Paul Copy:** Yeah, the uh so it's a division of labor. Um we a lot of those types of excavations we actually do in house with our sewer vector truck. Um and the reason we do that is it's there's a lot of stuff that's criss-crossing utilities through there. It is also an easy way to kind of minimize the impact. Um because you can't go in there with a big backhoe and start really tearing things apart. Um so typically we're doing the excavation. We're uh working with the vendors and then we have a contractor um that we use for like our water main breaks um and special things like that that came in and actually did the install. So the majority of that cost was actually the cost of the valve was over $30,000. [35:42] **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** Thank you, council. Any questions for Mr. Copy? Council Member West. **Council Member West:** Thank you, Mayor. Um, you know, it it I saw and heard a few things um where you were talking about doing things in-house um in a variety of different areas. And I'm wondering what your criteria are or how you make the decisions to um maybe contract out or use other folks outside of the city for whatever projects there are. [36:35] **Paul Copy:** Um mayor, members of the council, um how we make those decisions, a lot of it hinges on the capabilities and the comfort level of the staff. Um just uh as we get to know—we hire staff. Um I'm going to use our mechanics for example. Um they uh a number of years ago brought in, you know, some of the builds for the police squad cars and the uh things like that. Uh they have more control over it. They know what's going into it. When something goes wrong with it, they're able to diagnose. You know, something stops working in a squad car—they they they put it together, they can then um subsequently over the years that we keep that vehicle, we can get in there and fix it quicker. Um for—you know, it's efficient from start to finish. Um and then for example the uh the marina barge—they're very talented. uh not only our our two mechanics that we have, but a lot of our other public work staff have welding and fabrication experience that they help the mechanics with a lot of that activity. So, um they're able to weld, fabricate, put those pieces together. So, um we really will sit down, we'll go over it and and make sure that they're comfortable, that we can do it efficiently, that we can do it safely. Um, and then we—if we feel they meet those criteria, we let them loose on those projects. [37:54] **Lindy Crawford:** I want to add to that, Council Member West. Um, in addition to everything Mr. Copy said, there are some pieces of equipment that we just don't have that we don't own. Um, a fire truck is incredibly heavy and we don't have those lifts to be able to work on on every piece of that to get all those angles that are necessary. So, some things um we absolutely have to contract out and just like any other city would would be doing. [38:11] **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** Yep. Any other questions? All right, Mr. Copy. Thank you for the detailed report. All right. Item 8A, under new business, sale of general obligation bond series 2025A. Miss Kinset, whenever you're ready. [38:34] **Carrie Kinset (Finance Director):** Mr. Mayor, members of the council, today we had our bond sale. Um, it is—the city council authorized the issuance of 2,430,000 in general obligation bonds at the April 8th, 2025 meeting and that was to fund the 2025 pavement improvement process and to purchase a fire truck. So, our bonds are a combination of improvement bonds for the um the street project and equipment service certificates for the fire truck. Since that time, when you approved or authorized the issuance, staff has been working with Ehlers and Associates to prepare this morning's bond sale. During this process, um S&P Global Ratings affirmed the city's bond rating at um double A+ for the current issue and all outstanding bond issues based on their review. Their outlook for the city is stable and their notes um said that their affirmation reflects their view of the city in the following aspects. The first is there's a healthy and growing economy with access to the broad diverse Minneapolis St. Paul area with notable residential development and strong commercial demand. There's strong budgetary performance reflecting on conservative budgeting and positive budget variances relative to the budget. Prudent fiscal financial management policies and practices which includes reporting to the city council, long-term financial forecasting, capital planning and investment management and fund balance policies. and um weak debt and contingent liability profile. Um that doesn't have a strong uh influence on the S. The rest of the three that we have are very strong and just any city issuing debt typically has that when they look at the debt um liability profile. The preliminary debt service schedules that were prepared by Ehlers um for planning purposes that you saw in April um used a 15-year payment schedule and in that the improvement bonds are a 15-year bond and the equipment certificates are a 10-year bond. So, as I talk for the rest of presentation, I'm putting all of that together. So, it's one big bond issue that has two separate components. Um, in that preliminary issue, they um used a true interest cost of 3.6643%. That was the market rate as of March 25th for um bank qualified bond issuers with a double A plus rating. So, a bank qualified would be an issue that's $10 million or less. So, then banks are qualified to purchase the bonds. Um there was an additional um 50 basis points which is half a percent that was added as a cushion to that market value for any potential changes in the market and interest rate fluctuations between that run report date and our bond sale today. So this morning seven investment firms bid on the city's bond sale. The bids were competitive as the difference in the lowest five bids um were less than a tenth of a percent apart. The lowest bid came from Raymond James and Associates of St. Petersburg, Florida with a true interest cost of 3.6129%. So when we look at Ehlers' estimate of what that market rate was and added that 50 basis points, um it's very very close to coming right on. So I'm excited that it came in under uh that estimate. Um the bid from Raymond James and Associates includes a $170,000 premium component. So a bond typically has a premium when the interest rate is higher than the current market interest rate and the smaller premium. So when we look at this, this 170,000 is a smaller size premium and that's a sign that the market is stabilizing a bit with the coupon rates on the bond very close to interest rates available in the market. Um, in this process, when there is a premium component, the city has the choice to either keep the premium funds as part of the bond issue or use the amount of premium to reduce the bond issue. Staff chose to reduce the bond issue to keep the true interest cost closer to the bid amount. This is consistent with how the city has handled premiums in previous improvement bonds and equipment certificate issues. The true interest rate on this bond issue um is very close. So when we take that premium, they recalculate the bond. So the true interest cost then on the actual bond changes, it's 3.71% and this is right in line with where other um issues we have have been. When we look at the capital improvement bonds, we issued two to do the public safety facility and they were at 3.72 and 3.75. So, this 3.71, it's right there. Um, the pre-sale report presented to the city council estimated the annual tax levy for the improvement bonds and the equipment certificates to be in the range of 101,000 to 234,000 over the life of the bonds. Based on today's sale premium, the actual levy went down minimally. I think the top range went from 234,000 to 232. Um, when we look at the average annual decrease, it's about $1,178. So, with that, it was right on with where our estimates were. Um, so I recommend that the city council adopt the resolution awarding the sale of the general obligation bonds um in the adjusted aggregate principal amount of 2,270,000. We do have Dan Tinter with Ehlers here with us this evening and he can answer any questions you have regarding the bond issue. [45:00] **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** Thank you, Miss Kinset. Um, that's good news. We came in slightly slightly under on the interest. Um, I don't have any questions. Does council have any questions? Otherwise, it entertain a motion to approve the resolution before us. **Council Member:** So moved. [45:21] **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** Have a motion. Do I have a second? **Council Member:** Second. **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** Any further discussion on this? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. **Council Members:** I. **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** Any oppose? Motion carries. Resolution is passed. Thank you. **Lindy Crawford:** Mayor, before you move on, I would just like to um thank Ehlers and Dan for all of his hard work at at Ehlers. We really appreciate all of that and working with you. Um and uh of course to Carrie and her hard work. Um this was—this took a lot of time. Um we're we're a little bit short staffed in finance right now, so this this one was um took time. Uh Tracy Shimick also worked on on the call and um and also importantly, thank you to the council for your support and your um your sound management of our of our finances. It it all plays in together and and we have an excellent bond rating. So I'm happy to see that that was affirmed. Just wanted to call that out. So thank you to everybody. [46:06] **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** Very good. Thank you. All right. Item 8B, comprehensive plan compliance review for property acquisition, P, a series of numbers. Mr. Lindahl. [46:27] **Jason Lindahl (Community Development Director):** Mr. Mayor, members of the city council, uh, as you mentioned, um, this item is a little bit different for the council because we don't do a lot of property acquisition, but what we're doing here tonight is reporting on the planning commission's finding related to acquisition of a property. Um, and I'll provide you a little bit more details here as we go through the slides. So, um, the subject property, the council may recall, is located at the southeast corner of Belair Avenue and Spruce Place, so just to the north of the County Road E and Belair intersection. Um, it's owned, uh, currently by Hammer and Northeast services. Um, it is um unused parking lot from their facility and it's parking that's not required uh for them under our current zoning standards. So, it's really surplus property for them. Um we came into a willing seller, willing buyer opportunity with them and so the council uh uh looked into approving a purchase agreement for the site. Um and the comprehensive plan identifies County Road E as a key economic uh area for uh redevelopment and investment in the community and uh the County Road E and Belair intersection. [47:42] **Jason Lindahl:** So this quadrant is identified um as some of—as one of the opportunity sites, actually the second opportunity site in our priority list of sites to consider and you may remember that back in 2016 the city purchased the property directly to the south at the corner at 2511 County Road E. So um again uh the subject property is highlighted again here in red. Uh you may recall the council entered into a purchase agreement uh back in September for the subject property. Um after the—one of the parts of the due diligence of the purchase agreement was the city had the ability uh to do um research on the property including soil testing and environmental review. Um, so as part of uh—after the council approved uh the purchase agreement, we—staff sought a grant from Ramsey County to pay for uh uh the that environmental review. Um so after securing that grant and selecting a a partner, an environmental review partner uh Braun Intertec, uh that process was completed. Um and uh the general report from that is that site is clean. Um um but there will likely be um some additional environmental review that needs to be done should there be a redevelopment proposed on the site that combines the two sites because the site at 2511 did have um contamination on it associated with the gas station that was located there. [49:14] **Jason Lindahl:** So, um, again, the reason that we're talking about this tonight is that Minnesota statute 462.356 subdivision 2 requires the planning commission to review all potential property acquisitions for compliance with the comprehensive plan. There is a letter in your packet stating that they have found it in compliance with the comprehensive plan. And just a couple of background items that were noted in their review. Um this is an underutilized use of property that uh provides an opportunity. Um again mentioning uh from a land use perspective the comprehensive plan again mentions uh the opportunity site of E and Belair. Um and this is a — as I just mentioned — a unused portion of property that's not required under the zoning code. Um it is consistent with the housing policy, the preferred housing policy that the council um selected after some discussion over the last uh year or so. Um that uh presents an opportunity to expand housing options to meet the needs of residents at various life stages and income levels. [50:29] **Jason Lindahl:** And the larger site creates a more uh attractive development potential for the area. And then again in the economic competitive section of the comprehensive plan, it notes uh the County Road E corridor is a key economic and investment area uh where the city should encourage investment in these areas and support intensification of redevelopment. So, um there is a letter from the planning commission uh stating uh that they have found it in compliance with the comprehensive plan. And so, uh staff has brought that to you tonight with a resolution um with a recommendation to adopt a resolution to accept that letter. Um what's notable um really about kind of this step is it presented an opportunity to report back to the council uh about the um environmental review and that that due diligence part of uh the purchase agreement has—is completed. Um we are now working with the city attorney and his staff uh to uh work on a closing date for the property. Um and then once we would close on the property under the terms of the purchase agreement, uh the city would control um about an acre of property at that intersection. So with that, I'd stand for questions. [51:52] **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** Thank you, Mr. Lindahl. Um no questions for me. I just have one comment. So I supported all along acquiring this piece of property. I think it it makes sense. It makes it so that we take a kind of too small piece of property and add it with this and we've got something that will be attractive to the private sector to put some money into and develop. Um, so my only note on this to staff and the council is I don't think we should be in the business of acquiring property just to sit on it. So, I do want us to aggressively go out there and and and market it and and hopefully we get some developers that want to come in sooner rather than later. Uh relieve us of this investment that we've made in it and and uh really put some money into that corner just like they've done across the street. So, good work on shepherding this thing through. I'm excited that we're close to closing on it and crossing the finish line and can't wait to see what ultimately gets developed on that site. Council, any questions for Mr. Lindahl? Otherwise, I'd entertain a motion to approve the resolution. **Council Member:** So moved. **Council Member:** Second. [52:38] **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** I have a motion to second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. **Council Members:** I. **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** Any oppose? Motion carries. Resolution is approved. Thank you, Mr. Lindahl. **Jason Lindahl:** Thank you, mayor and council. [52:55] **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** All right, item nine, discussion, nothing scheduled. Item 10, communications from the city manager, Miss Crawford. **Lindy Crawford:** Um, I don't have anything tonight. Just public works open house. I won't say it a third time. **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** All right. We have one more item on our agenda. Closed session under number 11. [53:14] **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** Uh potential and threatened litigation, fire service contract dispute between the city of White Bear Lake and White Bear Township. Um before I read my spiel, uh when we ultimately do close the session, I just want to say welcome to the high school students for being here. Hope you got a little something out of this. Uh you get to hear my spiel for a second. I think it might be 23 years now. Might be 22, might be 23. Um I sat where you are for Mr. Elm's American government class my junior year and completed the same assignment. So, I remember getting some something out of it. It was interesting. There were boring parts. We talked about bonds—no offense to our finance director. That's kind of the boring stuff, but it's also necessary. It's a part of how city government works and how we pay for all the things. Um, you guys got a special treat to hear really an in-depth review of what public works does, which is kind of the forgotten department. There's no lights or sirens on on their equipment—um maybe there's some lights—but um but it's kind of the forgotten stuff that gets overlooked in city government from when we turn the faucet on to when we flush a toilet, the roads that we drive on and our tires don't pop because they're in a good state of repair, all those good things. So, I would encourage you uh now and in the future to think about participating in local government. [54:26] **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** We've got voluntary boards and committees you can sit on. You might even be able to run for office. I believe there's an open seat or two coming up uh in the upcoming election. So please I would welcome you to participate in local government uh as you move forward in your lives and in your careers. And with that uh I'm going to spare you reading this spiel which I'll do in a second. Anyone on this dais can come up and sign your pieces of paper. So if you want to do that now, please do. [55:03] **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** You look so much nicer. I'll sign it now. See? Yeah. Yeah. We had to wait for the spiel. I'll quiz you on what you got out of tonight's meeting. He's already gone. Absolutely. Thanks for coming. Must have been exciting. We're in here for like—Yeah, this is only less than an hour. You got a good meeting. Yeah, you picked the right procrastination. [55:35] **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** All right. This part is proforma, but it needs to be done. So feel free to talk talk amongst yourselves here, but I'm going to read this. Uh we now need to go into closed session pursuant to Minnesota statute section 13D.05 subdivision 3B, which authorizes the council to hold an attorney-client privilege closed session under certain circumstances. Our attorneys at Kennedy and Graven are present to discuss recent developments of potential and threatened litigation between the city of White Bear Lake and White Bear Township over an ongoing dispute regarding the party's existing fire service contract. This need for confidentiality in discussing this matter with our attorneys outweighs the purposes of an open meeting law because legal counsel intends to candidly discuss recent developments including proposed settlement agreement and provide legal advice for how to proceed. Allowing these discussions to happen in an open session would jeopardize the city's legal position. Therefore, I request a motion to go into closed session pursuant to Minnesota statute section 13D.05 subdivision 3B to discuss the above described matters. **Council Member:** So moved. **Council Member:** Second. [56:17] **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** I have motion to second. All those in favor going to closed session say I. **Council Members:** I. **Mayor Dan Steffenhagen:** Any opposed? We are now in closed session.