we'll call the meeting to order if you could stand for the Pledge of Allegiance all right welcome everyone [Music] um to our January 17 2023 uh regular meeting Jenny can you take the role council member Cole here council member schweer here council member nordby here mayor Maggie is absent and mayor elect Wong here all right um the next item is um adopting the agenda do I have a motion to adopt the agenda emulsion is there a second second is there any discussion all right if not all those in favor signify saying aye aye aye aye opposed the motion carries all right and the next item is the consent agenda I'll turn it over to city manager frandel to read the consent thank you consent agenda item a January 3rd 2023 Workshop minutes Item B General claims of one million seven hundred and fifty two thousand and ninety dollars and eight cents item C HRA claims of 12 449.32 cents item D police employees suspense our overages of 2022. item e appointment to arts and culture Commission item F building permit report November and December of 2022. item G resolution accepting donations for December of 2022 item H resolution repealing resolution number 2022-113 adopting the 2023 city council meeting schedule and item I resolution repealing resolution number 2023-008 and approving pause on the employee union contracts and employee manual policy regarding vacation accrual thank you does anyone have an item they would like to pull from the consent agenda council member Cole I do I would like to pull D the police employee suspense our overage 2022 and move it to the city business in action okay we'll make that item C anything else um so can I get a motion with that adjustment um for the agenda so moved your honor second all right um any discussion I do I would like to have I am going to approve that's not a problem I do have concern with with h the resolution repealing the shortening Council shortening the workshop whatever all the numbers and letters Brian are at was um I have I I have a concern that we haven't adopted um what what our discussion topics are going to be we haven't had the retreat and the concern really lies is 60 Minutes at certain times is definitely going to be tight and I don't know if that gives staff a fair opportunity to get everything they want to have done and said in that period of time so so what I'm so if we if we're if we're struggling with time I'm I may ask that it could be reverted back thank you um yes question it's fairly easy to table a workshop item until after the meeting if we need more time that day correct um typically when we um don't have enough time but we need a revisit we'll revisit the workshop after the regular meeting and that's a practice I don't want to don't want to move forward with um all those in favor of approving this consent agenda say I I council member Cole and council member schweer um any opposed the motion carries um the next item is meeting open to the public so this is an opportunity for the public to share something that is not on the agenda and it is for three minutes I have John Schmall ow oh this time it's not on the agenda we've visited that before John small 2750 Chisholm Avenue uh the first item was uh what came up in the last meeting it was the naming of the commissions and the commission members and for The Economic Development Authority uh uh the former mayor was named and it said it was a three-year term but the term was from 1 1 20 23 to 12 31 2024 now if I count on my fingers that's two years so what are we trying to say does he get a three-year term I'm sure he would love to have it because he's never met a TIF district that he didn't fall in love with and would be probably wanting to burden the citizens of the city with having to provide services for a TIF district that they won't get taxes for to be used to provide services for 25 years but anyway that's a just a comment that I'd like to make but what is that is it for two years or is it for three years because below that Robert Dew is supposed to be having a three-year term but does in fact have a date predated of 1 1 2022 to 12 31 20 24. uh and above that there is uh the mayor and uh council member Cole where they just say that the date of the ending of the term so I'm looking for consistency which is the hobgoblin of little minds and divines and uh you know can you make it you know clear just what you're dealing with here what is the term and what is the dates what are the dates of the term that's just a suggestion you won't give me an answer on that but I can clarify that for you quick it was a clerical error on uh Terry furlongs it should go through 25 and council members are every year they have to be reelected every single year so their terms are only for one year well but it says that they're the mayor's term goes to 12 31 2026. if it's only for a year then you got to change that date too and I probably will the other item I'm up against the clock is that there was something in the newsletter that the electric utility ponied up fifteen thousand dollars for refrigeration equipment for the food shelf now is there a known quantity of dollars that is available from the electric utility for uh use in buying things for uh activities can other people put in for those dollars if they're a 501 c 3 or a type of organization how do you get into getting those dollars is there a procedure involved in getting these dollars and how many dollars are available on a yearly a monthly whatever basis just a question thank you thanks we have Roseanne McCann up next welcome I think that's the right height can you hear me okay my name is Roseanne McCann I live at 2275 15th Avenue East I would like to present the proposal that the city of North Saint Paul the community that cares in state a free snow removal program for seniors and physically unable this could include sidewalks driveways roof edging and at the bare minimum the end of the driveway where it meets the street up to six feet into the driveway it could follow the two inch snow plowing mandate or any other cleanup effort something like the mess they got today and they were doing the streets qualifications for the snow removal program would be AIDS physically or medically unable and if there were renters only if it's in their lease that they must maintain the sidewalks some things that would come into play would be other members at that address that are capable of snow removal you could register in September October but you could be added at any time due to circumstance such as breaking a leg or something will be required to maintain a registered list organized by address it could be simple for identification as having a big sign on your yard now the major problems would be timing it would need to be done right after a snow or a snow plowing situation also equipment needs to be determined now my question is what do I do from here do I get a council member to work with me do I have to get a petition signed where should I go what should I do because I hate to see some dead people on the street from Sovereign snow I can follow up with you um if you I'll get your name phone number if we can and then I can touch base with you right if you got it right now I don't have the phone number oh it's here I got it here did you add that please certainly can let me give me my card you bet absolutely all right thank you Roseanne I guess that's it appreciate it um the next item is City business action items and recommendations and I'll turn it over to city manager frandel thank you bear uh I'm actually going to turn this right over to Brandy's Brandy's show tonight uh our economic era excuse me community development director and this is first on the encroachment agreement at 2470 McKnight Road welcome Brandi thank you good evening again um this is a item that came to staff initially as a fence permit uh the addressing question is 2470 McKnight Road North it is on the corner of 11th Avenue and McKnight and there's an image on the screen of the property in question so the applicants came in and had asked for a fence permit to reinstall or replace their existing five foot chain link fence uh to put up a six foot vinyl privacy fence and in this process we discovered that there existing fence and playground area encroaches into the right-of-way and so digging back into the property files we found that a conditional use permit was issued for this piece of property back in 2001 and the site plan that was included as part of their approval was the one that's shown on the screen where it has a misrepresentation of the location of the property line in relationship to the fence and the playground area so the approved site plan which is the one shown includes a 32 foot by 50 foot play area outside and the dimensions of that play area are requirement of the state licensure for daycares and yeah so it's it's misrepresented and so they built it as it's depicted but it didn't align with the actual property line so this image shows an aerial photo of of where the property line is so you can see this kind of peach color here and see that their playground goes over the line by about eight feet um so that's about 400 square feet in total area so on reviewing this with staff we kind of came to the conclusion that it's been in place like this since 2001 without any conflicts with the right-of-way because we're not talking about private property it's not really a zoning issue so a variance wasn't the route to go in terms of how can we work with this property owner to rectify this um so the encroachment agreement was what we came up with with the city attorney Soren and he helped draft that agreement reviewed the changes that we that we had put in there and that's included in your ordinance or sorry in your packet and one of the main features of that is that it can be terminated by the city at any time if we come up with any reasons why it would be an issue to have that in in place so our recommendation from Council is to approve the enclosed encouragement encroachment agreement between the city of North St Paul and Mandel Properties LLC for property located at 2470 McKnight Road thank you are there any comments or questions for Brandy council member call one quick question are there any easements that exist between the city each City's got what the first 11 feet well let's find out um from from which point I believe it's from the curb isn't it well we can get a my only reason for asking is certainly you know the Improvement the Improvement of privacy fence would be great um and the security for the kids I think is is awesome as well I just want to make sure moving forward that in the of that in the event that it's within the easement area that all parties recognize that in the event I don't they are going to be doing con road work on McKnight the county is within the next two years and I just that's that's my only reason for asking okay uh I don't see any conflicts with McKnight so is the question where it is correct from 11th then yes but they generally always come a couple of feet in and if there's any updates the Public Works wants to do I just want to make sure that accessibility is there and that everybody everybody holds hands as we move forward so that everybody understands that I might have to move move fence or I might have to do something for a short period of time so it looks like it's about 20 feet from the curb to the property line so subtract eight feet from that so you get about a 12 foot I'm not entirely sure where the easements lie if there are any easements on 11th Avenue but if if and when 11th Avenue comes along for reconstruction we would have conversations with city engineer and also with property owners to figure out how we can that's uh it's just just a risk for the business owner and I just want to make sure that they know it if if it did exist that they knew it going in okay thank you for that comment thank you any other comments are there any comments from the audience yeah please come on up welcome hi Council thank you for your time my name is Christina Dvorak and I'm the owner or I'm the least C for our kids walk-in child care they're at Mandel properties and I really think it was fairly smooth process to work with the city to move this along and get you know recommendations that made sense not just for us and our needs but for the city and I fully understand the liabilities that come up in this type of situation who I have an idea of liabilities I should say and I think that this recommendation will allow me to maintain my compliance with the child care statute minimize or with the requirement minimum of 75 square feet per child for outdoor space and so we had you know configured a couple different scenarios and we had found that ultimately you know splitting up the play Space to the other side of the building we'd only have six feet of right-of-way there too or for with the property line for the high school uh so this really is kind of our only option and so a recommendation would be that's agreed upon by all of you would be really good for us as the the daycare there that's new so thank you thank you City attorney uh thank you mayor-elect I just wanted to sort of reiterate from a legal standpoint that this is a permission that the city is granting that this is not sort of a blanket anyone can encroach on any right-of-way this is specific specific findings based on this property we've worked with the city engineer talk with Public Works to make sure that there is no you know conflict between the current uses and then it can be if there is a conflict in future it's a 30-day notice is all that's required to terminate thank you for that clarification right do I have a motion to approve the encroachment agreement between city of North St Paul and Mandel Properties LLC for the property located at 2470 McKnight Road all motion motion by council member schweer second and second by council member orpy any discussion all right if not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye um those that oppose right the motion carries um the next item is is the sign ordinance Amendment and I'll turn that over to Brandy for those of you that are new on Council um we the city updated the sign ordinance we did a complete overhaul of that which was approved in June of last year and that was about an eight-month process with the Planning Commission and it was a complete rewrite more or less I just wanted to point out a couple of exceptions to that the multi-tenant building regulations remained largely intact and then the dimensional standards by districts also kind of stayed the same in order to prevent from having um wide swath of non-conforming signs so that was approved in June and following adoption of the ordinance we noted a few amendments that would be helpful so the there's three of them one is clarification of the definition of what what is a sign phase the second is the setback for non-permanent signs which is our new word for temporary signs in the sign ordinance and the multi-tenant building sign regulations so the definition of sign face was actually in the ordinance or it is currently in the ordinance it's just in a place where it doesn't make logical sense where we talk about the how to measure a sign that's where we describe the sine phase so instead of keeping it there we're kind of pulling it out and just putting in the definition section so there is no change to the definition it's just moving it from one place to another the second item is setbacks for non-permanent signs this is one of those regulations that was retained from the old ordinance that all non-permanent signs have to be set back a minimum of 10 feet so all 10 All Temporary signs have to be set back from the right-of-way by 10 feet and in the city sorry in the September it came to our attention that a city a city specific sign was put in the right-of-way and not compliance with that ordinance so in addition to staff educating other staff members on the new regulations the Planning Commission has discussed this issue and they came to the conclusion that a modification to the ordinance would be appropriate that would allow for smaller signs like the tiny garage sale type signs to be a little bit closer to the street so if it is four feet or smaller those signs that are non-permanent can be placed um to feedback from the curb otherwise larger signs still have to meet the 10-foot requirement and the final issue was the multi-tenant building signs so the existing regulations require for a a master sign plan for these buildings and a lot of them are in existence or a lot of the multi-tenant buildings are already in existence and none of them actually have multi-tenant signed plans so it's very difficult to enforce and to require them to go survey their site to get a complete Master sign plan seems a little onerous and not very business friendly so we're suggesting that we eliminate that requirement and another issue with the sign ordinance was that the the rules for multi-tenant science were inconsistent the total surface area of individual signs and the multi-tenant specific regulations was that the the total surface area of those signs can't exceed the district standards but when you look at the district standards it says that the square footage is based on the aggregate of all signs on the site so when you look at buildings like the one on the screen this is just the the um the side that's facing the street if you were to apply that standard that the aggregate of all signs on the site could only meet the district standard which is like 300 square feet and then you add up all the signs on the front um the street side and the parking lot side we're going to way exceed that um so we've modified the rules so that every leasehold area would have one building facade sign for each building facade and that area would be limited to 20 percent of that of that wall area and then all other signs on the side would have to adhere to the typical standards for other none non-wall science so that was vetted by Planning Commission and they held a public hearing last month and they have come to the conclusion that they recommend Council approval of the proposed amendment to chapter 154 the signed ordinance of the municipal code thank you Brandi any questions comments council member Norby on the small signs less than four square feet is there any do um what's the word wording to rent to prevent them from being Electric uh if you wanted to have an electric sign that would be a permanent sign presumably and so that would be a completely different process than it was there are specific regulations for electronic message boards okay they're they're starting to sell some of the even you know vote councilman signs that blink now so I didn't know if that was oh I haven't seen those before I don't I think that would still fall under the electronic sign okay I appreciate the clarification thank you thank you any other questions next item city manager frandel thank you may elect uh next item is the uh yeah we have to approve that I'm sorry do we need to approve it or was it just okay excuse me correct do you have a motion to approve um an ordinance amending chapter 157 of the municipal code so moved motion by council member Norby second second by council member Cole is there any discussion all right if not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye opposed the motion carries and then now I'll turn it over to city manager frandel thank you so item C is uh under the business action items what's the item D from the consent agenda that was pulled for police employees suspension hours overages of 2022. we'll open up for discussion thank you um the reason I had it pulled was I didn't I didn't find enough information in the packet to make a true assessment um as to what the suspension hours actually was the total dollar amount involved so I would like to propose a motion that this be tabled to the next council meeting and it'd be added to the agenda for the next Workshop so that we can talk through just exactly what the dollar amount is and how that relates to the overtime pay and where where the whole thing stands any other questions or comments um one of the questions I wanted to ask about it and possibly add to Tim's very valid points my understanding is this was a result of the unfortunate ability for them to not be fully staffed if they were fully staffed this wouldn't um have happened that being said if this motion gets approved the money that's approved for this motion is it fair that that be allocated against a 2022 budget rather than the 2023 budget that's a good point and uh we can bring that up with our finance director just to make sure we can bring that information forward at the next Workshop okay thank you so do I have a motion to table um the police employee suspense our overages so moved your honor [Music] um by councilmember Cole second second by council member Norby all in favor say I I sorry I jumped the gun opposed the motion carries right and the next item is um reports of city manager and departments thank you may elect I'm going to turn that over again to Brandy right away um have her here to do a department update and then I'll take the rest of the Departments after she's done thank you um I have a pretty informal report for tonight but I wanted to let you know that I have staff working on a like a 2020 annual review so I think we'll be doing that forthcoming and so the next one should probably be next January for 2023. excuse me so the Community Development Department is uh comprised of myself and three administrative assistants Jill Sarah and Chris and we're all fairly new Jill started as full-time employee this January sorry last January 2022. Sarah came on board in September and Chris turning in myself started in November so we're we're brand spanking new department and what we do in Community Development we oversee many of the commissions so that includes the Planning Commission park and rec commission the Arts commission and The Economic Development Authority our responsibilities include customer service permitting and Licensing planning Economic Development grant writing and management and our projects that are currently active include the Lily building which has actually just received notification today of their third um uh Grant award so they they applied for three and they got all three of them so that's great news for them we will be reviewing at the Planning Commission level next um in February a site plan for a new Dunkin Donuts at the site of the former gas station I'm not sure what kind it was but at the corner of 11th and McKnight in the polar Plaza it's the corner building there sorry the the easternmost portion of that building and then we'll also be looking at a variance request from ATT to extend the existing cell tower sorry yes the cell tower that's across the street from public works so they'll be evaluating that and then we were also working on ordinance updates as you have learned tonight other projects that we are working on as a as a department are improving our open gov platform to make the user experience a little bit better and better align the workflow with how things need to be reviewed internally I came up with a development review packet that kind of outlines what we're going to do process wise so that it's an easy One-Stop shop for developers that want to come in and have kind of a an easy tool to figure out how how it runs through the city and then I'm also working with Carrie as time permits on updates to the website and we're also looking at existing contracts contracts and evaluating if they need to be brought forward a council for consideration of different vendors so that is kind of the broad overview and I can answer any questions that you might have about Community Development any questions Dunkin Donuts huh it's exciting take the kids over from the daycare and get them all hopped up on sugar and send them away [Laughter] all right thank you city manager frandel thank you Miralax uh so meeting with the other departments today electric Department's doing a lot of line clearance this time of year it pays off tremendously for summer storms even this time of year we've been seeing it with this wet heavy snow we've had branches come down trees come down but we've had minimal damage to all red power lines due to their their trimming so that works out really well and Jenny Mabel put you on the spot here but we're looking at the ADT software and part of ADP excuse me uh which deals with the HR and payroll and you want to speak a little bit to that sure um I'll be bringing it to council probably next meeting or the meeting after that and I'll have a lot more information as to the um in in bringing it to the software system and we're looking and bringing it the fourth quarter it will help with open enrollment new employees everything will be a lot more convenient for employees and for staff as well where they're able to bring information up on their phone it eliminates our paper trail Double Entry so it'll eliminate and help with a lot of possible airs so looking forward to it and we'll give you more information thank you a lot of time is spent with employees whether or not they're looking up how they filed certain forms maybe at the beginning of the year throughout the year but then they'll have access to their forms anytime they want to go into that so I think it'll be a pretty nice program and that's been vetted out by the finance director as well so uh we're looking forward to that um fire department did hire somebody as their fire inspector and that's Ethan Johnson so he'll be starting up very soon excited to get him on board um PD is still looking to fill one position over there and then they'll be at the full capacity which would be great public works as well as fire department have been cleaning out around fire hydrants getting them cleared with all the snow we've had lately Electric's been doing that as well around their cabinets um stocking two Public Works they probably hauled a good 500 loads of snow down behind McKnight Fields now we've actually hired a contractor to push that up with a bulldozer so we can have more room depending on what the rest of the winter is going to deal to us um and that's about it that's all I have thank you do I have any reports from Council commissions and committees all right council member Cole so it's with a heavy heart that I'm handing the park and rec over to council member schweer I will attend the first meeting with you I believe I've got at least six years invested with them um they're a whole lot of high energy folks and it's it's exciting and it's fun so this will be my last report for the from the for the park and rec and that report is next meeting is Wednesday the 25th 6 30 here in council chambers um the Eda met on the 10th there were two primary areas of conversation the first the first area was the Ada is looking to solicit a video company to um create a marketing tool for the city they have agreed to pay for a portion of it and they're probably going to be presented to council they're looking for additional funding from HRA parks and again it's just it's highlighting the city it's probably been seven eight years since they've done their last one um it's just it's just time to refresh that was one of the areas on of conversation uh the other area of conversation was McKnight North and putting a left-hand turn lane into Target parking lot and the adjacent build the adjacent businesses that run right along that side of the street as opposed to having to go all the way up to 11th to to make the turn so a lot of questions that need to be addressed but that was part of the conversation next Eda meeting will be Tuesday February 14th three o'clock here in council chambers thank you councilmember schweer has not no no nothing thanks Norby um I I wasn't able to attend the Planning Commission on the fifth but I did watch it by YouTube um one of the sentiments that they really wanted to convey is I wanted to thank you um and there was a lot of talk about this they really wanted to thank you for your Insight and your time for the two years that you were the council liaison so I wanted to make sure I passed that on and thank you and then as for the arts and culture commission we met on January 11th Tom Sonic was re-elected to chair Carrie Nadu was elected to Vice chair there's two new Commissioners that were approved by this Council and they joined that meeting we also looked at a student application which you all approved this evening as well and we discussed an ordinance for project snowy which we discussed in Workshop um I think the arts and culture commission is extremely efficient and and they are go-getters so I think we've got a lot of things coming down the pike from that group from guided paintings to electric box wraps partnership with the parks and rec around fall frolic project snowy the art cart and exploring a mural so they're they're busy but they're very committed all right any general business council member Cole um the community center Core group had a meeting here a couple of weeks ago um and again those who aren't familiar uh the city has hired a Consulting Group by the name of Wold w-old to help take a look at what the community center is going to look like going forward the community the uh the city has had several meetings in town and then the residents feel that it truly is an asset to the community so what is it going to look like what's it going to do what's it going to be utilized for so the last meeting that we had we reviewed possible users of the building and we'll reach out to a few of those that we hadn't been able to get in contact with what you know what their use what their use for the property would be the group is planning on presenting to council at a workshop in February to bring everyone up to speed they're also looking to apply for Grants and to find some additional funding to help offset some of the maintenance that needs to be done on the property um I also want to bring up the fact just help the fire department see red uh I know that the uh the firefighters when they've been out on calling out on training and been digging out fire hydrants and I know public works also went out I think today and cleaned a bunch of them out as well but uh if you if you have on your property or live near we had a lot of snow this year so uh helps everybody out if you can just go shovel a couple of a couple of scoops of snow out so that uh when they're pulling up they've got greater visibilities to where the hydrant is I want to give a huge shout out to all those who helped with Fire and Ice that was at housing Park a couple last weekend two weekends ago the fire department for Staffing and and taking care of the bonfires uh I want to thank public works for flooding the rink removing all the snow making sure the sidewalk was clear getting everything done there um I want to thank Jill and Kerry just for their efforts and and getting everything pulled together and taken care of the park and rec did a did a did a great job in getting getting a good turnout and a good crew out there to to help as well and I truly believe that there needs to be a little three on three hockey tournament between the fire department and the police department both of which had good representation with their skates on on the ice so uh just like to bring that up um and well I buy yeah and the fire five percent of fires two we just want to thank the fire department excuse me the well I think the fire department as well but um I want to thank the Public Works they've really worked hard this season and especially over the past few weeks of snow removal uh driving downtown today I recognize that majority of the uh fire hydrants are wide open and it just brings peace to me that uh our fire department can reach those as needed recently in the city of Saint Paul I believe it was that their hydrant was covered and it unfortunately the house ended up burning to where they can't use it anymore so thank you for the Public's works for working hard at that thank you council member Norby I would just want to thank councilmember Cole on Twitter for their sentiments and I agree wholeheartedly um we're working with a great crew and thank you yeah same anything else do I have a motion to adjourn I would first like to congratulate you for the first time sitting in the mayor's chair you did a phenomenal job very proud of what was done thanks and yes motion to adjourn motion by council member Cole I'll second second by council member schweer all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed all right meetings adjourned [Music]