This transcript has been formatted with the identified speakers based on the context of the Moose Lake City Council meeting and the official names provided. [0:01] [Music] [0:48] [Music] [0:56] [Music] [1:45] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** 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. Welcome everyone to the regular meeting of the Moose Lake City Council for Wednesday, May 9th. The second item is the agenda. Do we have any additions or changes to the agenda? [2:23] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** Motion to approve the agenda. [2:25] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** Somewhat second it. [2:26] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** All in favor say aye. (Group: Aye). Under consent agenda A, the minutes for April 11th, 2018, City Council regular meeting minutes. Have any questions? We don’t know, they’re in a separate email. Okay. Anything from the Council? Questions? Hearing none, do we have a motion to approve? [3:00] **Council Member Kris Huso:** So moved. [3:02] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Second. [3:05] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Okay. Under B, financial reports. Number one, the city accounts payable for May 2018. Number two, the city financial statements for April 2018. And number three, the liquor store's profit and loss statement for April 2018. Any questions? Discussion? [3:35] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** I do have a question. Yes, check 43725, the third check down on the first page. Is that balance sent for the building inspector? [3:51] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** Yeah, I talked about him closing out there. There were two projects that were basically done: the credit union, Thrifty White, and then there were two homes that were 90 percent of the way done. So just to make things smooth, there were four projects that he and I discussed him closing out. So if there are any additional fees, it will come from just those four projects. [4:15] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** Okay, thank you. [4:18] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** There are other questions? Discussion? Hearing none, who has a motion to approve the financial reports? [4:25] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** So moved. [4:27] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** I’ll second that. [4:30] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** All right. Okay. Moving on to number three, public comment. This time you reserved the comments from the public on matters not listed on the agenda. Please keep your comments to three minutes. [4:53] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Maybe not. Move on to number four, Department reports. Please, Chief, Department report through May 6th. [5:13] **Sheriff Kelly Lake:** Mayor, Council, to the right pager you'll see the police reports. A little different this month, it's with our new system—it doesn't really give a whole lot of information. We're kind of working on that, hopefully to get a little bit of a better picture of what we're doing, so that's kind of in progress. But the new system is going well, definitely a learning curve. It has a lot of features and a lot of nice features, but there's a lot to learn and a lot to get used to, so it's going good though. [6:02] Went to the Chiefs' conference, very good, interesting conference, a lot of good topics. There is a mistake on this police report—it said I did meet with Shield 616 and we donated enough to buy one vest. They didn't actually give me the vest at the conference, but we do have one vest paid for thanks to the Moose Lake Kiwanis. They donated enough money to buy a set, so we're going to be getting that and issuing it to an officer hopefully in the next month. Drug take-back day was last Saturday, very successful. We had 17 pounds of unused medications and we emptied all of our bins. There were 10 boxes that were between 15 and 20 pounds, so that went to an incinerator in Alexandria. So, very well used, and that's what we want. [7:20] Helped with an ATV class two weeks ago. Kids just kind of love knowing what we expect of them and what we're seeing. I know this is an absolute hub for ATVs. We do get complaints on them, but it is a very small percentage of the riders. The vast majority of the riders are law-abiding and good. You know, like most things, it's just a couple idiots that screw it up for everybody, but by and large, people are very respectful in town with their ATVs. Last weekend we had the Moose Run—I think 170 runners, keeps getting a little bigger every year. It went very well, we were able to help direct traffic; one of the deputies came down and helped as well. It’s a great event, a beautiful day. I talked to the organizer and he's very pleased with it. [8:23] I’m just doing some maintenance on the squad car, circuits, and new tires. Needs some front-end work, probably from the roads prior to last year. Other than that, things are going very well. [8:35] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Looks like a busy month, 298 calls. [8:38] **Sheriff Kelly Lake:** Yeah, it gets busier when the warm weather comes. [8:48] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** A question of you, do you still have that—is the box out for the expired medication always in the entrance there? [8:55] **Sheriff Kelly Lake:** Yeah, it's in the vestibule. It’s Monday through Friday, 8:00 to 4:30, or by appointment. We can certainly open it up if somebody can't get there during the day. [9:06] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** One more question on your calls regarding MSOP incidents—are those both? [9:11] **Sheriff Kelly Lake:** Every time an ambulance goes up there, we escort them. We go up there with them, do a perimeter check, escort them to the hospital, and we also do take calls from their investigative staff and sign the complaints if it's a criminal matter. [9:30] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Thank you, good job. Pass it on to the crew, please. [9:46] **City Superintendent Phil Entner:** Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. Another very busy month. We completed our year three of sanitary sewer cleaning, which was over 17,000 feet. We realized there was a lot of problem areas that now are documented and recorded for quarterly inspections. Moving ahead on that, that's really good. We did have two water main breaks this last month. Pumped 5.2 million gallons of drinking water. Hydrants are flushed, they were finished today, so they're all ready for the summer. Collected 14.6 million gallons of wastewater. Starting our spring discharge here next week at the ponds. [11:00] Locate season is here, construction season is here, so we're all over the place doing locates. The new Public Works truck was delivered April 24th. The spray-in bedliner went in on the 27th, and we're just waiting to get stickers, but we're on the road. Last Wednesday, I had the opportunity to get a phone call from the MPCA. The Commissioner, John Linc Stine, wanted to come out and take a look at our wastewater facility. We got on their "good list" as far as the sewer project we did meeting our phosphorus limits. A lot of towns do these projects and it takes a long time to finally meet that goal, and we were actually able to do that the first year that we had this in place. He brought 18 guys out of that car—it was like holy cow! It was good, they were very happy and very proud of Moose Lake and our wastewater facility. Hats off to us. [12:38] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Hold on Phil. With all the runoff and melting, did we have much? [12:43] **City Superintendent Phil Entner:** Yeah, it went very quick. We only had about two weeks of high run hours on pumps and it's already starting to crawl back down. [13:00] **Council Member Kris Huso:** Yeah, you went from 10 million the month before to 14 million. [13:03] **City Superintendent Phil Entner:** Yep, and we got a lot more lake customers on Windemere's line now contributing. We'll be updating you on that next month. [13:30] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Now that we're on TV, what was the award that you're nominated for? [13:35] **City Superintendent Phil Entner:** Honestly, it's like this long. It was a wastewater operator award of Minnesota. Anyway, that was part of that whole meeting with the Commissioner. So yes, I did get nominated for an award, I'm probably gonna have to go to Grand Rapids in July and see if I win it. [14:15] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Well deserved. Pass the thanks to the crew also. [14:25] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** For the technology and library report, the big thing is we had a firewall installed. With the installation of the new firewall, we are now able to have a higher speed internet at City Hall, the Muni, and everywhere we break our internet up to. Is that something that you would like us to discuss with Moose Lake Power, and how would you like to handle the cost of that negotiation? [15:15] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** You have no idea what that would be? [15:17] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** It was eight hundred and fifty dollars a month for the upgraded speed from where we are now. My understanding is that the cost—the total cost to the bill for Moose Lake Power—is less than eight hundred and fifty dollars. The problem that I'm having is that we would pay more than a hundred percent of the bill that's going to them. The explanation is that we have a lot of different locations. But as you'll see in the packet here, we are paying to have it installed to different locations. I'm not sure why we would pay more than a hundred percent of the monthly bill. [16:47] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** I think it makes sense that we have a higher speed; we're capable of it. I think you could negotiate and if it needs to be brought back to us, we can do that. I'm looking at this fiber—either we should keep on going on with it or maybe it's not working and we eliminate it and go to something else. I need a lot of input. What’s your wishes? [18:14] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** I’d like to see the technology committee consult the Power and Light and see where we are going. Can we provide this to businesses downtown in the future? Can we get an advantage to get people to move downtown with it? We need to get direction and I'd like to get a lot of input on it. [19:40] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** We're gonna have a joint meeting with the Utility Commission coming up. We will have a joint meeting either in June or July for the audit stuff, perhaps we could schedule something then. We can have it go to the technology committee first. [20:34] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** I think you should go to a Chamber meeting sometime also to talk to some new businesses at the Chamber. See some of their ideas. [21:21] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** It’s a tool in our box right now. How are we gonna use it? [22:08] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** We’re technically fine right now, it's just we are now capable of a higher speed. Do we have consensus for the June meeting? (Group agrees). [22:58] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** For the City Engineer report, Phil and I sat down with the City Engineer for our monthly meeting. We spent a lot of time talking about mapping, zoning maps, utility maps, GIS locations, and policies. Then we talked about our well project that is coming up, probably for next year. There are two different options for the well project: one is to leave the wells where they are, or the second option is to move the wells to a different location. That's a much more expensive project. One of the things we're looking at right now is we have wells in a location where we've never had water problems from quantity or quality. Does it make sense to move them? They will also be looking at the capacity of our sewer ponds and inspecting the inside of our water tower. [26:04] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Because either Councilman Lower or myself, or both, are on that committee, did you guys just forget to invite us to come to this meeting? [26:23] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** I didn’t know that you wanted to be. I'll send an email out tomorrow. It's the same day, same time of the month. Since it's for engineering, you'll have to have three council members there. [27:38] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Anything else for the engineer? Moving on to 4D, Chamber of Commerce updates. [27:45] **Chamber Representative:** Hello, Mr. Mayor and Councilmembers. We did have two grand openings: Thrifty White and Northwoods Credit Union. We had the Business Expo at the Arena, 55 different businesses. We decided on a theme for the 4th of July parade: "History Remembered," for the hundred-year anniversary of the 1918 fires. The water cross is June 2nd and 3rd. Our annual golf event is now August 10th. [29:45] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** Just a statement that Agate Days will be at the Arena instead of up at the new school. [29:56] **Chamber Representative:** Yeah, everybody’s wishes were that it stay in the downtown area. [30:35] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Thank you. Moving on to number 5, previously discussed business. Gas franchise fee. [30:42] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** In talking with the school, we both thought that their fee was unusually large. As it turns out, the very first customer that Minnesota Energy looked at was wrong. They are reviewing the report. I will eventually talk to the prison, MSOP, and the hospital once it is corrected. [31:31] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** New business 6A, Emerald Ash Borer treatment grant. We will start taking a look at treating about 20 trees or so. It's pretty expensive. Many of our trees are 100 years old since they sprouted after the 1918 fire. We've sent in a pre-application for a state grant to help with funding for inventory and treatment. [33:36] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** Can an ash tree on private property be ordered through the City? [33:45] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** Not through us, because it’s a contractor that drills holes in the tree. It’s about 100 bucks a tree. I can give the contact information out though. [34:42] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** 6B, image design banners for streetlights. These have been ordered. They are a mesh material, hopefully to let the air through. We're planning on 40 total, 20 of each. [36:12] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** 6C, DMV driver testing. The sandstone exam portion of the driver's test has moved to Moose Lake. Exams are at the Depot and CDL exams are down at the Arena. It's not our DMV staff doing it, it's the state, but it will bring more people into town. [38:35] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** 6D, 2017 annual financial audit update. Our auditors came up two weeks ago. Everything went very well. Katie did an excellent job. We're thinking the presentation could be in June. [39:23] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** 6E, EFT transaction design. The state has a regulation now that we have to annually appoint somebody that can do EFT transactions. I need a motion and second approving Katie and I to submit electronic fund transfers. [40:40] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** I'll make that motion. [40:45] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Second. (Group: Aye). [41:00] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** 6F, Friends of Animals. They sent out renewal contracts and increased the fee considerably, up to $265 per animal for a five-day stay. She stated our average number of strays was 26, but talking with Bryce, we have reports on only five over the last two years. Many dogs brought there aren't even from the City. We now have language saying anyone bringing a dog needs an ICR from our police department first. There's an option to sign up for just 15 animals for $3,195 per year. [44:25] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** City of Cloquet reached out to Animal Allies and they charge $25 a dog instead of $60. It’s farther to drive but cheaper. Or we could just not do it entirely. There is no state law that says we have to do this. [46:18] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** I'll make a motion that we opt out of the contract with Friends of Animals and we leave it up to the Police Department to go to Duluth if we have to at that reduced rate. We also give them the opportunity to purchase equipment to capture a dog. [46:42] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** I'll second. [48:22] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** I would just question if a dog has rabies, is that something we want our police officers taking care of? [49:15] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** If there was a mad dog, you would have to protect the public. [50:40] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** I will look into the Animal Allies thing and see if they can just do a per-animal thing. [51:30] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** The motion is to opt out. All in favor? (Group: Aye). [51:56] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** 6G, fiber line to campground. This estimate of $2,300 would allow us to have them on our phone system and put cameras up there. [52:30] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** I’ll make a motion we approve the estimate for the fiber line to the campground. [52:44] **Council Member Kris Huso:** I’ll second. (Group: Aye). [53:30] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** 6H, Earl Ellens paving. Phil would like to have this paved. It would be included in the bond we already have. I would say we need to go with Option 3—one continual stretch of new pavement rather than patches. [56:45] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** Make a motion to get a bid for this project, Option 3. (Group: Second/Aye). [58:11] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** I have a question about the gravel on that blacktop—it's a bike right away. Is there any way we can figure out those ATVs making that corner? They keep throwing gravel up. It makes it almost unusable for bikes. [1:00:30] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** We can look at that area. [1:02:40] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** 6I, Third and Kenwood change order. The total cost is $20,045.06. [1:03:00] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Where’s the money coming from? [1:03:10] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** We have money left over in that bond. If that is not enough, I would suggest it come out of the sales tax fund. [1:03:57] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Motion to approve the change order. [1:04:10] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** I’ll second it. (Group: Aye). [1:04:54] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** Boland & Mink are over the engineering budget. They are forgiving some overages but won't close out the project without an additional fee. One of the people from our new engineering firm (SEH) lives right down here and drives past. I’m wondering if you're okay if we just have that person stop by to give us guidance on the contractor? (Group agrees). [1:08:47] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** Highway 73 is the same thing, they'll be coming through town closing out that project. [1:10:13] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** I just had one quick one—that speed limit sign down by the stoplight. I think it should get moved back to where it originally was by the bridge. [1:10:58] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** Let's ask Brandon if they'll move that. [1:12:57] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** 6L, Economic Development housing rebate program. This is a recommendation from the EDA for a housing rebate for new home construction. We will rebate the city property tax portion back to the owner for two years. [1:15:15] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** This is just within the city limits, correct? And just the city's taxes? [1:15:30] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** Correct. Only things we have control over. [1:15:40] **Council Member Kris Huso:** I move we adopt the recommendation. [1:15:45] **Council Member Douglas Juntunen:** Second. (Group: Aye). [1:16:04] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** Potential purchaser of the old school. The group buying the school would like to have dock space available for future residents. In return, he would give us the tennis court. [1:17:23] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** I’m not in support of that exchange. To redo tennis courts is about eighty thousand dollars. [1:18:09] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** The purchaser has been awesome to work with. I can mention we are interested in having a buffer there between the campground and housing. [1:20:29] **Council Member Lou Ohly:** Are you talking about a marina? [1:20:45] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** Not nearly as big as you're thinking, but he just thought a dock would be a selling point. [1:24:55] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** Potential dates for a joint meeting with the Moose Lake Town Board. They would like to discuss an orderly annexation agreement. This sets up how properties could come into the City, not that we are annexing the whole township. They prefer after 5:00 PM in June. [1:27:41] **Council Member Kris Huso:** I won't be here the week of the book sale. [1:28:25] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** Let's suggest June 13th at 6:00 PM, June 27th, and July 11th. [1:30:35] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Committee and board meeting minutes. 8E, the EDA minutes. [1:31:00] **Council Member Walter Lower III:** One Parks and Rec concern—the bank's effort toward remodeling the beach bathhouse. [1:31:21] **City Administrator Ellissa Owens:** Larry Peterson from First National Bank wants to help move this along. Structurally the building is fine. We are putting together a list of projects so we could go to contractors for donated labor or matched funds for roofing, concrete, and plumbing. I'm also looking at ways to update the park picnic tables. We have 120 and they are all old. If anyone wants to donate labor to build tables, let us know. [1:34:30] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Phil told me he didn't want to do it! Any questions, Council? Next regular meeting is Wednesday, June 13th at 4:00 PM. EDA at 12:00 PM. Water and Light, Tuesday, May 15th at 4:00 PM. Fire District, June 12th at 6:30 PM. [1:36:04] **Mayor Jim Michalski:** Anything else? [Music]