This transcript has been formatted with the appropriate speaker names based on the municipal context provided. [1:59] **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** Call to order for the city of Canon Falls City Council meeting Tuesday, November 18th, 2025. If I could get a roll call, please. **Sara Peer (City Clerk):** Diane Johnson. **Diane Johnson (Council Member):** Here. **Sara Peer (City Clerk):** Zimmerman. **Lisa Zimmerman (Council Member):** Here. **Sara Peer (City Clerk):** Chad Johnson. **Chad Johnson (Council Member):** Here. **Sara Peer (City Clerk):** Jeppesen. **Ryan Jeppesen (Council Member):** Here. **Sara Peer (City Clerk):** Nobach. **Chris Nobach (Council Member):** Here. **Sara Peer (City Clerk):** Kronenberger. **Laura Kronenberger (Council Member):** Here. **Sara Peer (City Clerk):** Montgomery. **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** Here. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. [2:19] **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. **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** If I could get a motion to approve tonight's agenda. [2:36] **Lisa Zimmerman (Council Member):** Motion. **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** Motion from Lisa. **Chris Nobach (Council Member):** Second. **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** We'll give the second to Chris. All those in favor? (Council votes Aye). Opposed? That carries. Uh, gets us to our public input. Public input is intended to afford the public an opportunity to address concerns to the city council. The public input will be no longer than 30 minutes in total length. Each speaker will have no more than 3 minutes to speak. Speakers may address topics relevant to the governance of the city. Speakers must sign up in advance and must provide their name, address, and the topic they intend to address. Comments must be on topic, respectful, pertinent to city business, and adhere to the applicable data privacy rules. Any speaker that violates these rules will be asked to sit down, and if the speaker refuses to comply, they may be removed from the meeting. Speakers shall not address topics that are the subject of a public hearing. All such comments shall be made at the public hearing. The city council [3:22] will not generally act on issues raised by the public input, but may choose to schedule consideration of the item on a future agenda. Tonight, Aaron McMahon, the fair and text amendment. [3:39] **Aaron McMahon:** Hi, Aaron McMahon. Hoffman Street. Wasn't planning on coming tonight, but I got a call right before I came [clears throat] from Tim Schwarz of the PCA. Apparently, the city also has this information. But, um, he let me know how the study went for the monster truck event on September 13th. [4:01] Um, Tim... the PCA was so kind as to drive down their equipment this time. Um, two years ago, two summers ago, they offered to coordinate an equipment drop with the city, but the city ignored those requests. So they dropped it down. Jon was not the administrator at the time. Um, so um the measurements were completed and I believe they were either completed at the swimming pool parking lot or a residence close by. [4:36] Um, according to Tim, they measured during the matinee and they measured during the evening. During the matinee measurement, the total time they measured was 47 minutes and the total time they measured um during the evening event was 57 minutes. [4:59] Um, with regard to the noise standards classification and descriptions, an L10 indicates that the noise exceeded statute levels 10% of the time, and L50 indicates that the noise exceeded state statute levels 50% of the time. For the L10 or 10% reading, a PCA standard is 65. [5:30] Again, the L10 exceeds state statute levels 10% of the time. The PCA standard is 65. The pre-event baseline measurement for noise was below that at 58.9. The matinee measurement was 105.9. The evening measurement was 125. Again, the standard is 65. The L50 classification means that the noise exceeded state statutes levels 50% at this time. [6:08] The PCA standard is 60. The pre-event baseline measurement was 55.5. The matinee measurement was 97.5. The evening measurement was 119.5. [6:26] Again, the standard is 60 for 50% of the time. Tim did have some caveats. Um, again, the measurement was under an hour, but he said that wouldn't affect the analysis. And he said that the wind speed may have had an impact, but we don't know if that impact would have been to lower the measurement or the data or to raise it. [6:55] So, I think it's really unfortunate that we didn't have this information for the recent planning commission meeting. And I'd like to just express one more time that that text amendment does not need to be rewritten. They don't need a new classification. [7:14] Um, perhaps the city would consider doing an overlay, a zoning overlay during July 1st through 6th where the Canon Valley Fair can have their event at the Canon Valley Fair and there can be noise. But other than that, there's actually no reason to change the zoning ordinance. Period. Thank you so much. [7:37] **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** Thank you. Tonight we have a presentation uh Goodhue County solid waste and Dick Thompson is here. **Dick Thompson (Goodhue County Solid Waste):** Hello. Thank you very much for giving me this time. [7:55] **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** Do you need the camera right there? There we go. **Dick Thompson:** Yeah. With this one... This is just an overview. I don't know if you... It's laminated, so it's... There we go. A little shiny. There we go. All right. That's um that's a 20-yard container and we empty those. Now we're up to four days a week. When I arrived with Goodhue County back in April, we were at three days a week, but we were compressing these down three or four times with a skid loader. So, we're packing them very, very tight. So, I had to increase to four days because we were just getting so much garbage in. Now, this consists of more than just Cannon Falls—I want you to understand that—that is a 20-yarder and so that's basically we're filling almost a day... one on a day almost. So, um it's increased rapidly, [8:45] not just here in Canon Falls, but also um another area that we have issues with is Pine Island. So those two are pretty consistent where we have compartments in our rolloffs and they're separated by the glass, paper, cardboard, and aluminum. [9:05] And it seems like the one that's usually violated, if you will, the most is the compartment that holds the plastic. That usually is where... well, and it's understandable because people think, "Well, I can throw a milk jug in there, I might as well throw the plastic pool in there as well." Obviously, those are not... both of those are not recyclable because the only thing we can recycle are ones and twos, and that's your typical water bottle and most of the bottles that hold juices and that kind of thing. Outside of that, milk jugs would be the next category too. Um, coffee cans, those type of things. That's about it. So, we're very limited and and that's probably what most people don't [9:51] understand that we really can't recycle more than the ones and twos. Um, they're just not recyclable. So, it's all understandable why the plastics are a little more so than the others. We did have an exception though here recently. I did an isolated picture shot of a couple of our containers a couple weeks ago from here in Cannon and this is strictly Cannon Falls. And what I'm showing you here, all this came out of our newspaper compartment, which is one of our smaller compartments. And inside there, you probably aren't going to be able to see it—I'll show you a couple pictures here—but inside there are four brake rotors from a car of all things. [10:34] Um, in that same container that day we had... and we've kind of seen a trend. The guys separate these so they do see the trends. It's the same guys separating these all the time. So they're going to see the trends and a trend that they see is a lot of diaper related, adult diaper related chucks and those kind of things that are going in these same-colored garbage bags. And you see them right there, the gray ones. Those are all full of those chucks. [11:04] And the guy who picked up this particular day, this is what he found here on the outside. Those are plastic containers obviously for plants. Somebody realized they're not recyclable, so "I can't put them in the container, but I'll just leave them outside." [11:21] So obviously somebody who did that, they knew that wasn't recyclable. And there gives you... this gives you a little bit better idea of some of the different plastics that we can't take. And again, the plastics... we have a little more understanding where people might question, "Well, if they can take one kind of plastic, why can't they take all?" We can understand that. Um, here's the last one. Again, I show another closeup of those bags. So the breakdown... what our cost is right now, it's roughly about $538 every week. My best estimate is between Pine Island is probably a third of that, Cannon Falls is probably a third of that. So most of our garbage is [12:08] coming from these two locations. And it's because they're really the most active and that's a good thing. I mean the residents are using them. That's good. That's what we want. But what we would like to see is just maybe some kind of communication, some marketing, whatever, directed to what we... and they could go directly to our site to see what's acceptable and what's not. So, if there's any way you can help us out with that kind of marketing, I'll do what I can on my end. And I've had some luck. [12:37] Uh, when I got there, I started... I didn't print some professional signage right at first. I wanted to see what verbiage worked. So, I just kind of changed it in and out every week or so. And it did work. It did work because what I was trying to target there was to for them to break down the cardboard. And my objective was break down the cardboard, I don't have to put as many containers out, don't have to process as often. By doing that, I eliminated weekends. So, my guys didn't have to work on weekends. It worked in a matter of three weeks. So, I know that just changing the verbiage and the communication helps. [13:16] So, and I'm just basically going for that middle group of people because you're going to have your 10% no matter what we do, they're going to keep doing what they do. Probably got another 20% probably always going to do the right thing because we got some people who in Red Wing they're really very conscientious about recycling. They are. [13:34] And then the middle group, that's the one I want to... if I can just reduce that group by about a third, we'll be happy because we're never going to eliminate all this and I don't expect to. Any assistance would be appreciated. **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** Thank you. **Chad Johnson (Council Member):** You say plastic recycling one and two are okay? [13:54] **Dick Thompson:** Yeah, they're okay. **Chad Johnson (Council Member):** Okay. **Dick Thompson:** The bad thing about it is, and I wish the manufacturers were forced to... when they print these on the bottom, they're in a triangle like this, you can barely read the one and two. You can barely read it. So, it's very difficult. [14:10] So, again, we understand why the plastic's a bit of an issue. **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** Any other questions? **Lisa Zimmerman (Council Member):** Milk cartons and not the plastic milk jugs, but you know, the like cardboard type ones, can they or can they not? [14:25] **Dick Thompson:** Now, are the cardboard ones? No. **Lisa Zimmerman (Council Member):** Okay. **Dick Thompson:** No, not recyclable. **Lisa Zimmerman (Council Member):** No, unfortunately. [laughter] I've heard people tell me both ways and I thought I would ask. **Dick Thompson:** Yeah, that's just garbage. **Lisa Zimmerman (Council Member):** Okay. Thank you. **Ryan Jeppesen (Council Member):** Um, I guess my... if I have a question, it's probably for our staff, but don't we have cameras down there? So, if we have repeat offenders, we probably find out who those people are. [14:49] **Jon Radermacher (City Administrator):** So, we don't have cameras down there. The fair has a camera kind of pointing at it. Um, we don't have Wi-Fi over there, so there's not any way for us to actually have cameras over there. **Ryan Jeppesen (Council Member):** Okay. **Dick Thompson:** I think Jed and I, I think we did speak that there has been a couple situations where the fair board got a shot and they put them on Facebook. **Ryan Jeppesen (Council Member):** Sure. [15:11] **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** I mean, that's nice. If they could do that every now... that helps, especially the atrocious ones. **Jed Petersen (Public Works Director):** Camera at the pool, too. I think something could be done. We got the pool. **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** I don't know. We'll talk about that. But... **Jed Petersen (Public Works Director):** Yep. **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** All right. Thanks again for your time. Jon, Jed, appreciate it. **Dick Thompson:** Thanks, Dick. [15:27] **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** All right, that brings us to tonight's consent agenda. Consent agenda items may be adopted under one motion as presented or may be removed for discussion and resolution as council business. Uh, item A, adjust and correct claims accounting period ending November 13, 2025. Item B, meeting minutes, November 5th, 2025, city council. C, second reading and adoption of ordinance 412, an ordinance of the city of Canon Falls, Minnesota to amend Canon Falls zoning ordinance by amending a zoning district. Item D, resolution 2845 authorizing 2026 city license renewals. Item E, approve the WWTP headworks engineers report. Item F, approve final pay request for the 2025 street maintenance project. Item G, approve purchase of an IV infusion pump [16:14] for ambulance department. Item H, approve hiring of part-time paramedic. And item I, approve 2026 agreement for state building code administration. Is there anything the council would like to pull down? **Chad Johnson (Council Member):** Uh, E. **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** Item E. Okay. Item E will become city business Item A. Anything else from the council? Hearing none, I would accept a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda. **Lisa Zimmerman (Council Member):** Motion. **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** Motion from Lisa. **Ryan Jeppesen (Council Member):** Second. **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** Second from Ryan. All those in favor? (Council votes Aye). Opposed? Passes. Gets us on to city business, which was item E. It's now item A. Chad. [16:57] **Chad Johnson (Council Member):** Um, it's a very simple question really, but we're just approving the report, right? And then we want actions because there's a lot of action items there. Those will then be voted on on what comes first in priority. [17:14] **Jon Radermacher (City Administrator):** Yeah. The... Bill can answer this more, but the next meeting we actually will have proposals available for some of the actions that we're going to take for the first levels of work that we want to have improved. So, in aligning the project with what we have for resources within the budget, um part of our conversation was doing the planning and design work for this so that we could then do a bigger project in 2027 and have the resources available to cover those costs for that first part of the project, mainly the headworks of the wastewater treatment plant. [17:54] When you toured, that's the conveyor for the grit screen removal. That piece of equipment was something that we talked about earlier on in the summer in our budget planning as replacing, and we did have funds set aside in the preliminary budget for that project. Um, in the evaluation, looking at there's a lot more needs that also need to be addressed in that building. Um, we believe that we can kind of keep that limped along up until the point where we just do that whole building all together comprehensively. [18:28] **Chad Johnson (Council Member):** Yeah, 'cause I saw we had fair, good, you know, for the order, and if we don't start them for two years, you know, those things might change. So I just wanted to make sure we're not... **Jon Radermacher (City Administrator):** Yeah. So the timing of it would be plan, design, bid in the fall, start project early. Since this is more of an interior project, it's probably something that might be attractive for a contractor to work on in the winter. [18:50] **Chad Johnson (Council Member):** Okay. Well then I have no issues with it. That's basically all I wanted to know. **Jon Radermacher (City Administrator):** Sounds good. **Laura Kronenberger (Council Member):** I'd just like to say uh beautiful job on doing that report and was very helpful. So thank you. **Bill Angerman (City Engineer):** You're welcome. Pictures tell a good story. [19:05] **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** Uh with that said, I would entertain a motion to approve item A, the wastewater treatment facility headworks engineers report. **Diane Johnson (Council Member):** So moved. **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** Motion from Diane. **Chad Johnson (Council Member):** Second. **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** Second from Chad. All those in favor? (Council votes Aye). Opposed? [clears throat] All right, that passes. That gets us to... we want to do reports first. Let's do reports. Uh, EDA met on November 6th. Jon, do you mind taking that one because Laura [Qualey] is not here? [19:51] **Jon Radermacher (City Administrator):** Yeah. So, EDA, um, actually had a quite extensive meeting on that. Uh, excuse me. Let me pull it up so I have it ready. I wasn't prepared for that. Sorry, I was absent from that as well. [20:10] All right. So, um Laura discussed the loan fund where we're at in that stance. Uh, we had one, I do believe, loan that is behind, but it's kind of a common practice. They get behind, get caught up, and then, you know, end up there a couple months later. Um, the small town grant from Smith was for the packet. Oh, here we go. $8,000 for a small town grant to develop and create welcoming packets. Um, I know that Laura primarily uses them, gives them to the realtors so they can use them for closings for the people in Hardwood Estates because we have been getting quite a few that are boomerangs—so they are coming back to the community—but quite a few people that are new to the community as well as up at Timber Ridge we've seen some more activity and the Cannonball apartments. [21:11] So, we're doing that and then it's going to be in a partnership with students for Amy Donbeck's class at the school to help with that design. I believe Abby Rep was one of them that's helping out with that project. Uh then on Hardwood, um no activity. We haven't had any additional lot sales or closings on the second part, but which is the first phase of the project, but the second phase third edition is going. The construction has been active out there. So if you have seen, they've moved a lot of dirt, put in pipe, so we had some fortunate good weather to do that. Uh then she discussed the contract and the [21:57] board made modifications to the CEDA contract language to kind of build out, make it more current to the work that Laura is doing. But that contract was recommended for approval. And then I gave my presentation, some summary presentation about the data center technology park that happened at the previous council meeting. Um, and then Laura spoke about the egg industry cluster meeting that she had. [22:33] It was really focused on Cannon Falls things, but the person that was organizing it through USDA scheduled the meeting in Red Wing. So they were hoping to do some tours over here afterwards, but I think there was a little bit of coordination questions, but Laura said when she was there, it went really well. There was a lot of positive feedback about the things that are going on and just a lot of praise to the food systems and interconnection that are happening around this Cannon Falls area. [23:01] And I'll attest to that as well, having done some of that work up in my previous community working with other organizations. I do believe you're ahead of the game for where we were trying to get to. So kudos to this community for the efforts that they've made on that front. [23:18] **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** Awesome. Thank you, Jon. Uh, planning and zoning commission met on November 10th. **Diane Johnson (Council Member):** Um, we had a very lively discussion about the proposed fair zoning text amendment. Um, and after a lot of information shared on all different sides, the planning commission voted to postpone the issue to the December meeting. And I know a couple members and our city administrator attended the fair board meeting last night as they invited us, and that was another good discussion. [24:05] **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** All right. Thanks, Diane. We'll go around the horn. Jed. **Jed Petersen (Public Works Director):** We almost got snow today. Um, we were prepared. All the plows were already hooked up, but thank goodness we didn't get anything. Um, but just want to remind people that as winter is coming to observe... especially if we get plowable snow, that not to park on the streets at night so that public works can get out and get the roads clear. Um, and then I'd like to just shout out to my streets and parks crew... the lights downtown, the changes we made, I think they look amazing. I understand we don't have the garland, but I think we definitely did a good job at the changes that they did make. [24:51] **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** I know we've got a... I've heard a lot of good things about the city parking lot, the extra lights and the trees. That's really nice. Yeah. Thanks, Jed. Bill? **Bill Angerman (City Engineer):** Nothing unless you have any questions. **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** We're good. Izzy? **Izzy Carlson (License and Permit Technician):** Nothing. **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** Chief? **Jeff McCormick (Police Chief):** Deck the Falls will be coming up on the 29th. Um, really doesn't have much of an impact on parking restrictions and stuff since we try to just utilize the roadway rather than closing the road off. [25:14] Uh, but just for the residents, it may be a little bit of delay especially in the Mill Street/City lot area. **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** So if you're planning to come, just come early, dress warm, watch the parade, then hang around for the lighting in the tree. **Jeff McCormick (Police Chief):** Yeah. [25:30] **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** Sara? Jon? **Jon Radermacher (City Administrator):** Well, Aaron stole my thunder. I was going to talk about the sound study reports. Um, yeah. So, we did finally get that back. It also included the evaluation for the IUP that was approved. That was part of contingency for that IUP. Um, didn't have a formal response to it because I was still waiting for additional feedback from MPCA. Um, we do... you know, there was some back and forth communication about that today in terms of the validity of those studies. Uh, we do believe that information is valid but if we were trying to enforce this in a legal capacity, we didn't meet the standard for an hour-long test, [26:17] which is what the state law requires. I mean, they were... 47 minutes was the shortest one. A couple of the others were right about that hour timeframe, maybe a little bit under. And some of the other environmental circumstances like the wind speed were off. But we do believe the numbers to be pretty close to reality for that. [26:43] Um, I would say there was a little bit of a misunderstanding I think with Aaron's explanation. One of the study locations she quoted numbers for matinee show and evening show—that was actually for the evening show and two different locations. So both those high decibel numbers were just during the evening time for that event and the two different locations where they were moving the device between. [27:03] The matinee show didn't actually have recorded any... or did not exceed the state standards. So trying to kind of figure out how they were so different between the day, but I wasn't in town during that event, so I can't speak to the actuality of how that happened. [27:26] Um, but I did share that information with the fair board president as well, who has been very interested in finding out the results and knowing that they've committed that an event like that is probably not going to be something that they're going to request. And I think it provides some good understanding of how noise travels in that area. So we're both pretty happy that we got the results back regardless of what they indicated. [27:50] Um, you know, I can provide more explanation if I get some more finer details from that, but I didn't feel I was in a full capacity to explain how all these numbers actually are calculated and they work. Um, with that, too, I had a finance committee right before the council tonight and spoke about one... next council meeting we'll have an upcoming budget transfer resolution. Um, there are some changes to that in terms of what we originally budgeted for 2025 [28:19] um, you know, primarily in the positive, but you know, gives it... we have found some opportunities because of just the way things were calculated before and that in conversation, a lot of conversations with the auditors, that we can kind of change things and use some resources in a little different way to cover some current costs/needs and offset some future expenses. So positive things on that front. [28:44] Uh, and then just another couple quick announcements that we did get word that Shelley Ryan, our attorney through Hoff Barry, is going to be leaving the firm and transitioning out at the end of the year. So we'll have [29:06] to kind of look at what we have, but you know, this is not unusual. Usually, when you work with a larger firm, that tends to happen. Attorneys get cycled out. Some may not leave the firm but they take on different cities or different roles. Um, so they do have somebody that would be dedicated and assigned to us as a replacement. Um, already been through that once even with this firm a couple years ago. So just wanted to make sure that the council was aware of that. [29:35] **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** All right. Thanks, Jon. Laura? **Laura Kronenberger (Council Member):** I'm good. **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** Chris? **Chris Nobach (Council Member):** Good. **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** Diane? **Diane Johnson (Council Member):** Um, Maggie is also retiring... Maggie Wilson, the chamber director. Yes, she has accepted a position—she informed me last week—she's accepted a position with the school and will be no longer working for the chamber after the Deck the Falls event. [30:04] But I was going to say in addition, the Rotary Club is presenting Maggie with the Paul Harris Award at an event this Saturday at six o'clock at Nick's Diner. So if anybody is interested, I can sign you up and make you buy a ticket. **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** And good for... go out on top. Maggie, good job. **Diane Johnson (Council Member):** Well and that's it. And we did this obviously before we knew she was resigning, but it is to honor her work in the community. **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** I like Diane's explanation of volunteering [laughter] and "I can force you." Lisa? [30:37] **Lisa Zimmerman (Council Member):** I'm good. **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** Chad? **Chad Johnson (Council Member):** Um, I guess I was at the monster truck event this summer and I thought it was good. I just hope we go easy on them there for a couple of minutes of the entire summertime. But I don't... I remember asking the police chief, there was no complaints aside from, you know, people just knew that was a short event this summer. So that's all I got. [31:00] **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** All right. I got nothing. So motion to adjourn. **Lisa Zimmerman (Council Member):** Motion. **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** Motion from Lisa. **Chad Johnson (Council Member):** Second. **Matt Montgomery (Mayor):** Second from Chad. All those in favor? (Council votes Aye). Opposed? We're adjourned. Thank you everybody.