I'll say that. >> Welcome to the March 3rd um workshop. Sorry about the delay. We're having a little technical difficulties, but uh call to order, please. Roll call. >> Council member Nordby >> here. >> Council member Woods >> here. >> Council member McKenzie >> here. >> Council member Schwar >> here. Mayor Mongi >> here. Thank you very much. I have been a motion to adopt the agenda, please. >> So moved. >> So moved. Council member Schwar. >> Second. >> Second. Council member Woods. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Thank you. >> All right. First topic up tonight is u review of estimated 2025 budgets and general fund and enterprise funds. We have uh department director Dan Winnick here to discuss finances. >> Mayor, council members, I have good news. Yay. But before we get into the good news, first of all, the good news is really because of the dedication of our department heads and the leadership that our city manager gives in your ultimate decision- making that you do for the city. Um, we developed a plan. Um, we've been carrying that plan out for the past, uh, four years. Um, where we've uh, heavily invested in uh, infrastructure through our capital improvement plan. um tonight going to show you uh kind of where we should fall out for the 2025 budget. Not everything is totally finalized. There's still some journal entries and so forth. Um and you'll as on an annual basis when you get the financial statement, you'll get the final numbers um that we um that we um have, but these are pretty close. There's not a lot um that's left into it. um enterprise funds will have depreciation and so which hasn't been wasn't run at the time that I have updated this. I've run it since then but not included in here but it's really good news. Um we have uh performed better than our budget. Um and so I'm going to walk you through kind of looking at and it's in your packet of materials uh the general fund. Overall the general fund you know we we start off with a balanced budget. Um we did have uh city council make one approval during the year um that took uh that increased the expenditure but not the revenue of $20,000. So we were looking at a change of fund balance of a decrease of $20,000 from a budgetary standpoint for 2025. Um we are right now with actuals um we should have a $934,000 surplus. Um this isn't the first year. Um that's how we've built our fund balance. Uh the good news is is that uh we are as of last audit um time we were over that 50% fund balance in and which we needed to maintain. Um, and because of that, um, even with this increase, we will still maintain our 50%. And I think that we should we will have the ability again, city council needs to make that final decision, but we'll be able to u more than likely transfer a half a million dollars out of this u where we could transfer it. Again, it's a one-time fund into capital items and maybe lower some of our um need that we've been doing with the levy. Uh remember when we're looking at the capital improvement plans, we're looking at an approximately 6% levy just to fund that capital improvement plan. This would be able to offset um some of that of that levy um component to it for their again um one of the goals that city council has set out for staff is that to be cognizant of the residents and the impact and trying to lower that levy. So this will give us that ability to do that. But we'll discuss more and make decisions as we go through the budget process. But when we look at at this um our revenues um pretty much came in um on target. Um we didn't get as uh as much revenue through our permitting process, but then again our expenditures are a lot lower on uh uh the building inspections because we didn't have that. Um but overall in revenues in the general fund, we were only down $51,000. Uh you know, on a $10.5 million budget. Um so that's pretty we we did very very well on the revenue side where we really have made up um the ground here to to get that that $934,000 savings is really on the expenditure side. I kind of just touch on a couple of the highlights on to it. um where we were under budget, we were under budget by about a million dollars. Um and some significant um areas were administration in the contractual services areas. Um uh again the community development um I mean I'm sorry the uh building inspections was down about 328,000 but then the revenue was also down um approximately the same amount. So they kind of offset one another. um police was under budget by about $225,000 and I guess from the about half of the year we had vacancies. Um fully got got to full staff about Julyish um when he hired I think three or four additional um and finally got to full staff. So we had some vacancies um that were included in the to the police throughout the year. uh street maintenance, we had a savings of about $162,000 and again the most most of it was in contractual services. Um the city manager and myself have had a conversation due to the fact that this isn't the first year. This has been a repetitive that we've been under budget that uh when we go into the budget process with the department heads, we'll try to tighten things up so we have less of a levy need um and try to get it closer and closer dialed in. Um and um so again, it's to make sure we're trying to minimize that levy impact and property taxes to our residents. The general fund performed very very well would be my um in speaking with uh the city manager would be our recommendation that we probably transfer some of the money to offset um the impact of of the capital improvement plan. And if we look at our enterprise funds, um we have uh the water fund. The water fund um performed about $120,000 better um than um budgeted projected. I'm going to give you kind of some highlights of of that. Um charges for services uh for uh usage of water um was down again for the second year in a row. Um was down about a quarter of a million dollars. Um we made up that on the revenue side by investments. Um our investment income um was up about $280,000. Um so we kind of covered that. expenditures were pretty close all the way across the board. Um it netted out um under budget by about $68,000 on the water side. Um again, total um we did about $120,000 better than budget on the water wastewater. Um we did better than um budget by about $200,000. Again, on the revenue side, about $125,000 in additional revenue on in investment income, interest income. Um the expenditures were pretty much straight on. It was only about a $7,000 savings on on uh on our expenditure side. Um so uh we did have some some other savings in some other areas. Um revenues were over estimation by about $195,000. That's where we get to the $200,000 for um over budget again um in the positive direction. When we go to the electric fund, the electric fund did very very well. um in the electric fund. Um our charges of services to our customer um was um down from um last year in 2025. Um we were u about $200,000 down, but uh because the fund balance is is sizable in the electric um fund, um we had about a half a million dollars worth of investment income um in that fund. Um on the expenditure side, um we had savings pretty much across the board. Um in our supplies, in our contractual services, um purchasing power from what we had budgeted was about a half a million dollars under um what we the actual expenditures. Um so our our expenditures were under budget by about 1.3 million, which is an indication that we need to really look at the electric budget. In addition, um there's been some minor or beginning of a conversation with the um our electric director and our city manager maybe looking at uh we have a kind of like a fuel um clause that goes into effect and it usually hits in the summer months. So, our rate right now um has when there's a fuel adjustment um carries uh 6 cents of any type of adjustment, but if adjustments go above that, then that gets passed on to the um customers. Um and so we're looking at maybe increasing that so it's not that big of an impact to our residents. Um >> hey Dan. >> Yes. Um, the half million dollars that you were talking about in investment income, is that included in the other revenues? >> Yes. >> Is that okay? >> Yep. >> Yep. >> I just wanted to clarify. >> Yeah. Okay. >> All of the investment income is in other revenues. >> Okay. >> Um, surface water um outperformed our budget by about uh $250,000 and again about 200,000 of that is due to investment income. Um and um kind of the on the expenditure side was about a $42,000 savings. Um most of it was due to not all of the capital was expended um in um 2025. Um so we ended up outperforming our budget by about $250,000. Um solid waste. Um we strategically, um if you remember back about four years ago, we had a fund balance in there of about $600,000. Um we don't have um a lot of capital needs. Basically, the only capital that we expendure expend is um on garbage carts um for the residents. So there was a decision to kind of just draw down that fund balance. So, we've been running negative for the past um three years. Um and we if a rate needed to be adjusted, we would adjust as we went out for an RFP for um a garbage hauler. Um that time's coming up. Um we are currently, you know, we went out for an RFP. We've gotten um proposals. They're being evaluated. Um there'll be later this year um an item brought to city council for selection um of a trash hauler. At that time we would make any adjustment if we needed to in the rent. Um however um just on the preliminary looking at uh the rates that have been proposed again depending on who we select uh we may high like there's a high likelihood that we will not have to change our rate at all. Um the um proposals came in very very very good especially compared to where we're at today. Um but for the 2025 um budget um we had revenue um increase um over budget of about $55,000. Um we had increase charges um over budget under contractual services of about $80,000 for tipping charges. Um and so total um we are um running negative about 154,000. That's about 50,000 um worse than we had actually budgeted. Um but again um it's drawing down the fund balance. Um and then we'll make any adjustments if we need to, but right now a preliminary look looks like we probably won't even have to adjust our our uh rates. Um and then the last um enterprise fund that we have is the fiber optics. And if you remember the fiber optic that um it has a negative fund balance. Um it does um perform in the positive uh year after year. Um we should finish this year um you know with a positive of about $102,000. um little under what we budgeted because we did lose um a um the library um was on our system and so we lost them halfway through the year. Um so that kind of kind of kind of hurts there. Just kind of high level looking at um the general fund and this and the six enterprise funds. one, the general fund, we may be able to transfer that $500,000 to another fund. Um, and we'll we'll discuss that in the budget. Um, the performance for the water fund, um, we had been looking at probably about a 6.25% um, increase in 2027. Um, with the better performance, that would be reduced to about a 5.75. Um, wastewater, we were anticipating about a 6.75% rate increase. we could reduce that down to 6%a based upon um how the fund has performed in 2023. The electric fund based upon how it performed that we would be able to have at least no rate increase for the next two years. Um and uh surface water um we were looking at a rate increase of about 6% with how it performed we could um move that down to 4% increase. Um, and then, uh, solid waste, like I've, uh, said, we'll kind of wait till, um, you know, the vendor is selected and find out exactly where that's at. And then fiber optics. I I know the mayor always kind of asks about about this because he loves that fiber optics. Uh, right now we're kind of on the pace um for over 18 years to finally break even on that fund balance part to it, that negative. And then my my last piece is kind of a >> c and then I'll I'll stand for any questions. The last piece, it's going to be on the consent agenda tonight. Um but I' I'd like to kind of present it um here and then um if you have any questions um I certainly will stand for for any of those on there is that customarily it's kind of a custodian um component to do we um we do this um every year um this time where we kind of clean up and do a budget amendment if any budget went over um what was approved by city council. Um this year we have three of them. from the fire relief. The real reason for the fire relief going over is because we get state aid. The state aid went up. Um we're required to transfer that to the relief association. Um so it went higher than what we had budgeted. So this what this does is is clean that up, increases the um the revenue and increases the the budget. Um solid waste. um again kind of talked about that when we went through the enterprise fund um because of the tipping charges went out. So this is going to increase some revenue and increase budget, but overall it'll have about a about a $50,000 negative impact from where we had budgeted. And then um the third and final um fund that needs to have adjustments is uh the city mechanic fund. Um and uh we'll do uh some increases in in revenue about 2,000. We're going to um increase the budget about 8,000 and so it it'll have a negative impact of about $6,000 on on that. And again, it'll just come out of fund balance. And that'll be presented at city council uh underneath the consent agenda. And with that, I will take any questions that you have on how we performed in 2025 or anything on the amendments themselves. >> Thank you, Dan. Um Dan, uh the the increases in the water, um is is that due to the new water tower? Why we um you you were glowing with the praise of how we did, but still saying that an increase is needed? Is is that because of that new tower? >> Yeah, but the increase was higher um is what we were projecting. But yeah, that's the big need. I mean, that's a $5 million um price tag on that water tower. Um so that's really the driving force um from the capital side to it, which then translates into the operational and in the rates. >> Yeah. >> And the and when when you see increases in water or waste water or surface water, the real driver to those are again capital. That's why that capital improvement plan is so important that we go through that and we make sure that we're comfortable with that because that's the driver and the reason why those three go up is because of your street projects. Um you know anytime you do a major reconstruction and even when we do the pavement rehabilitation we still touch some of the surface water and uh wastewater and when you do that that's coming out of that fund. Those are your bigger expenditures out of that. And so, um, because we've been more aggressive on trying to get our streets, you know, at a higher rate rating, um, that it does have an impact on those funds also. >> We've improved on the streets quite a bit in the last couple years. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. And we'll we'll just again we'll you know when we go through the budget process we get in the capital improvement plan we'll have uh Morgan from WSB here to kind of talk about how we're doing on the rating and and kind of that projection piece to it. But um you know we've you know we've implemented you know some new components that payment rehabilitation so we're doing something every year versus just bonding every year or every other year. Um, so we're trying to do that off year and we're trying to pay and what we're doing right now is paying that in cash. Um, so we don't have to bond that additional amount. >> That's what I like to see too when we're looking at this. We are still making improvements. We're not cutting. We're but we're making improvements. We're still able to take a little bit off of some of the accounts. So to me, that's a that's a win. We're not we're not robbing Peter to pay Paul. We're not doing things to try to save money. We're still doing things, but we're able to back off a little bit, >> right? >> To help the taxpayers, but us all. >> Yep. And that's based upon, you know, just performing better. Yeah. >> I'm going to try to get through without talking about fiber. So, I'm done with my You don't want Okay. Well, we'll give you an opportunity when the financial statement. >> There you go. I I'll hold my powder till then. Anybody else have anything you'd like to add? Appreciate all the work. It's nice to be able to have this nice look before we start the budget season just to kind of get a little glimpse of where it was and where we're going. So, >> yeah. Yeah. So, we've done very good. And again, um you know, I I'm quite from a financial perspective, I'm quite impressed with our department heads because they are very conscientious. um there's not excessive spending and um they do a very um they do a lot of due diligent in anything that they spend. Um and so I got to give a lot of uh a lot of thanks for them and then your support is is amazing. Um, and the city manager and I have already started strategizing for the the next 2027 budget. And so look forward to more conversations there when we start to present things to the city council. So I thank you very much. >> Thank you for all the hard work and your team and everybody. Appreciate it. Here he comes. He'd like to make a That's right. >> So, you have a computer you're going to use too. >> Well, that's the question. >> I'll have to ask Mr. Booth. >> Hello. >> Okay, we're good with him. Computer. All right, >> excuse us one second everybody. We just have to get We're having some difficulties. So, we're doing it through Zoom tonight. >> Ron, do you want to entertain us while we're waiting here? Be >> talking about water. >> Yeah. >> I thought you were in juggle. Yeah. >> While he gets ready to come on up and do water, >> please. >> Yeah. Hello, council and mayor. Um, city manager asked me to talk a little bit about the water, what's going on with it. I I know I talked about a little bit last time, but um kind of what the plan is moving forward here. I know there was uh lots of stuff that was kind of thrown out on Facebook or the North St. Paul Friends page. So, we're still continuing to chlorinate. right now. Um, we have I can say first and foremost that the water is safe. The water is safe to drink, safe to use. Everything is good about it. I'm working closely with the Minnesota Department of Health as always and we I'm also working with the WSB engineer for water right now just trying to make kind of a u a whole look at our system and and what we're going to do moving forward if we have to stay on chlorination um or if we have the opportunity not to do it. Um what we have since this whole thing has happened, we have not had an opportunity to flush our whole system just giving the time that it was. It was late November when we started going through this. Uh the flushing that we did was to distribute the the chlorine out to the system, you know, as quickly as we could, which took care of, you know, the the the bad test that we had. We had, you know, good test immediately after we did that. Uh we shut it off for uh four or five days. We tested again. and we had a bad test again. Turn the chlorine back on. In 3 to 4 days, we had good tests again. Um so what the plan is right now is to um we're going to chlorinate until the weather gets warm enough where we can flush the whole system. But before we can go out and start uh flushing all the hydrants, we have to for our SWIP and our storm water stuff, we have to get our streets swept. So before we start washing everything down and that goes out into the pond, out into the pond. So I know council member Mackenzie saw the sweeper out today. Any warm days that we have right now that we can get out and and sweep, we're going to um we're starting at the water towers and we're sweeping those areas because when we go to flush the system, that's where you start. You start from there and you um sweep out from there. So, what my plan is or what our plan is in working with Department of Health and the engineers is to um get get everything flushed out. It'll it takes us about uh two to three weeks to flush our whole system and that's if we can throw some extra uh personnel at it. Um we have roughly 600 fire hydrants. We go through all those. So, it's going and turning, you know, each one of those to to flush the water. Um, I've never we've never flushed with chlorine in the system before, so I don't know how this is going to look, you know. Um, but you know, it might stir some stuff up, but we're going to flush everything. Um, and then we're going to wait, let everything settle down after we get done flushing. You know, I I'm guessing like a week's week's time, and then we'll shut the chlorine off and we'll we'll see where we're at from there. I think that'll give us the best chance for us to, you know, kind of see where we're at and where where things are. Um, so that is kind of the plan for right now. It's going to take a little time. Um, just because it's going to be weather dependent. Um, but like I said, we're we're on it. We have the sweeper out, like I said, starting today and perhaps to preparation to get the, you know, start get out and start flushing the system. I missed anything. >> Could you touch on uh chlorine levels? um chlorine levels. So yes, thank you Brian. You you remember um so chlorine so our chlorine levels that we're putting into the system per the Minnesota Department of Health, they can be from 0.5 to four parts per million is how they how they measure it. Um today we took uh we we take chlorine samples every single day. Um couple different spots in the city, the further up spots out to make sure we have those residuals in there. Um, we're at about 1.1 at our shop and out towards Salvation Army on the north northern side of town. We're at about point one. It was today. So, it's they're well below um any of the levels. Now, the smell it chlorine technically doesn't have a taste. I learned that when we were working with the Department of Health. A lot of people say they can smell, they can taste um the chlorine in the water, and it's really because our levels are lower lower than um the system's really not balanced yet. We're we're putting them in putting them in, you know, temporary temporary uh temporarily right now just to make sure the water is safe to drink. Um, if we were going to ever do this full-time, they said it could take like a year to get everything balanced out and to, you know, get your system set up right. So, um, the levels I know people think, you know, they smell it. I smell it in my own home. I've lived here my whole life, so I understand why people think, "Wow, this is really strong. I I've been through it with my parents." And the and the levels are I mean, well below the numbers. So, there it's not overcllorinating. And I just want to assure everyone that the, you know, the number one goal for me in the public works department is to make sure that we have clean, safe drinking water for the people. I know it's not what we're used to, but I can assure you that it is safe and and that's the number one thing right now and we're working through this. So, any questions? Okay. All right. I guess one question I have is is there anything, you know, >> other than being patient and understanding on behalf of our >> uh city uh residents, is there anything the residents can do to help? >> So, if I know a lot of the calls that we're taking right now are for brown water or dirty water. Um that is a combination of a couple different things. It's it's um the chlorine doing its job in the system. it's attaching to sediment that's been in the pipe for years that you know it's never been the chlorine's never been introduced. Um the number one thing we tell people um is that just if you notice that you have some dirty water, if you can go downstairs into a laundry tub and just run your water, if you run it for 10 minutes, you know, straight um nine out of 10en times that that clears it up. We offer to come out and flush, you know, we can flush out your, you know, water line coming in your house. When we do that, we basically take your water meter out, we put a valve on it, and we run a run a hose down into your drying or out the window um just to run it. But most of all the calls that we've got for dirty water um we've asked the people, hey, run it for a while. If it doesn't clear up, let us know and we can come out and take a look. And normally we don't get called back from the people. So, I mean, that would be my best advice right right now. I know that it looks um you know it I know that how it looks it looks bad but I can assure you that it it's safe. So, um, you know, people can put temporary, uh, filters that can go there. You know, some cheaper filters you can put under like a sink or, you know, an area like that, um, that can take out, you know, take out some of that stuff for you for, you know, it's not that expensive. But, yeah, if just be patient with us. You know, like I said, the number one goal is that it's going to be safe. It's, you know, you're going to have safe water and we'll work through all this stuff in time. So yeah, thanks for your patience with it. And >> well, you live with us. We all have the same water. You don't get special water in your house, do you? >> No, I do do not. And I can smell the chlorine in it every single day, too. So, >> we appreciate all the support. >> To be clear, when you say dirty water, chlorine is pulling the mineral sediments off the inside of the pipes. That's what they're seeing coming in their home. >> Yep. It's pulling the minerals off of there. And then it's also the chlorine mixing with the iron in the iron in the water and it discolors it and it's it's doing its job. So it's Yeah, I guess I thanks I wasn't clear on that. So >> and also you know everybody you know the our newsletter our our newsletter that comes out every Wednesday. You know we keep track of this stuff. So if you're able to read that we put updates as we're going along. So, if anybody has any questions, you know, go to our go to our website and go look at the emails and the or the the newsletter. And I know Ava does a great job of keeping up to date and what we're doing and where we're at in the process. So, yes. And and another thing we'll say, I know that there's, you know, some North St. Paul Friends websites that's really not affiliated with the city. If you have questions or concerns with your water, please, there's there's options on the website. You can call um city hall, you can talk to us at public works. We're happy to talk to you about it. Um but you know, when the stuff gets out on these non-affiliated websites, you know, kind of people rant and raving and turns into stuff. If you have questions about it, please, we're always I'm more than willing to answer any questions that we can for it >> and and our newsletter has it too. So, we appreciate that. >> Yep. Right. Thank you. >> Thank you, Ron. >> Thank you, Ron. So second uh agenda topic is uh community development department for the 2025 year in review and the 2026 outlook. We have Ken Roberts here, our community development director to discuss. Mayor, oh boy, I'm almost choked up already. Mayor, council members, thank you for having me tonight as put a PowerPoint together of a review for 2025 and outlook for 2026 for the community development community services department. And there we go. So this department brief overviews it in yeah consists of community services, parks and wreck, economic development, planning and zoning, permitting and licensing. We supply or support a wide range of services and as I'm going to briefly go through this. We coordinate with adjacent communities and partner with other outside agencies such as Ramsey County, the Met Council, the League of Minnesota Cities, Watershed Districts. And we also support uh the Plane Commission, Arts and Culture Commission, Parks and Rec Commission, and the Economic Development Authority. The staff, the new director, myself, started back on April 28th, 2025. We have a staff of four, myself and three very good and I'm very lucky to have in my department administrative assistants Chris, Sarah and Jordan. That's how the department shakes out. So again and we we mostly they uh provide service by monitoring seven different telephone lines, five different email accounts, walk-in customers that uh may appear and this could include resident inquiries, notary services, data requests and again support for several departments. So, it's answering the telephone calls, emails, providing information as needed, and entering work orders as may come in for whether it's water complaints or sewer breaks or whatever electric outages. First division touch on is park and wreck. We coordinate with the public works staff for the city parks and athletic facilities. Specifically, uh, our staff work with residents on park and facility rentals, ballfield scheduling, and serve as liaison for the parks and rec commission. And then we, uh, as a department staff prepare and manage consulting contracts that come up such as the comprehensive park and open space uh, system uh, contract that we had. Okay. Next division is planning and zoning which I'm most familiar with and that's the services include the comprehensive plan imple implementation zoning administration development review grant writing conducting long range planning for the city involves the planning and zoning applications development project review zoning ordinance review and revisions and we serve again primarily myself as the leazison for to the com planning commission. We also are involved with permitting and licensing. City requires licenses and permits for a variety of areas, plumbing, building, mechanical permits. Those are processed through Rum River, but we still end up doing some coordination with those. uh city licenses are issued through the department through open gov and civic wreck and it's staff's responsibility to maintain those systems, run the reports that may be necessary and process the applications. So accomplish accomplishments for 2025. The mobile food vendor license was presented to the council last Feb or February a year ago 2025. That ordinance established the licensing procedures for all mobile mobile food units in the city. Up to that point, the city did not have one. As you may recall, we just did an amendment to that at I think the last council meeting. So, that's already been on the books a year. Second accomplishment was the mechanical contractor license. Our staff read our code and found there was redundancies in state city licensing re procedures. So we recommended to the council to eliminate city issued mechanical and general contractor licenses as those contractors were always already getting licensed by the state. That seemed redundant and unnecessary. So council approved a code amendment to change that take that out of the city code. We uh as a staff uh what back up a second. The city council, as you're aware, establishes a fee and rate schedule for permits, licenses, and services every year, and staff annually reviews the fees and charges, and we would make we make recommendations for adjustments if necessary. These fees apply to all city departments and electric utility. 2025, community development staff took the lead on this review and updating the fee schedule, coordinating with the other departments, brought that to the council in uh 2025, and that was approved and is now in effect for 2026. Just as a bit of information, in 2025, there were 818 building permits pulled with a value of almost $11 million in the city. City's revenue for those permits was $238,755. Then I touched on this briefly uh earlier but again the community development community services department serves and assists three voluntary commissions and one authority again the arts commission economic development authority plane commission park and rec commission the arts and culture commission again so I'll go to the most important in part. Few of the events and projects they facilitated 2025 included the art cart, utility box wrapping, take-h home snowies, art nights, and the autumn arts festival. And I should say if there's any questions, please interrupt me, jump in. Happy to take them. Economic Development Authority works to uh with the city council to achieve a shared vision of building a strong adaptive local economy. Uh that authority has seven voting members and the most probably uh interesting program of note from 2025 was the facade improvement grant program which the EDA approved two grants for facade improvements which were doors and windows in 2025 and we hope to continue that forward in 2026 with maybe even some more opportunities for uh further building improvements in Downtown Planning Commission. Again, as touched on, they are responsible for advising the council on long range planning and land use activities, review recommendations or provide recommendations, excuse me, to the council on a variety of items, land use applications, site plan reviews, review the capital improvement plan. Uh the commission has three, excuse me, seven members, each three serving a three-year term. Some of the highlights for the plane commission 2025 made reviewed and made several recommendations to the council, including the parks and open space master plan. There were comprehensive plan and zoning map amendments that we brought forward, zoning and subdivision ordinance amendments that were also brought forward. The probably the biggest development related project was the Cowan school expansion project and the capital improvement plan parks and recck commission. Another commission again that this department's affiliated with, the uh parks and recck commission acts as an advisory capacity to the council regarding parklands, preserving natural resources, providing places for people to gather and play. And that commission has six members, each serving a three-year term. Some of the highlights from 2025 for the parks and rec commission include the Casey Lake Park revitalization reutilization plan, excuse me, polar park improvements, the adding of gaga ball pits, and the recommendation to have a certificate of survey survey completed from McNight Athletic Complex, which we did get uh was completed in September. So we have that now in our in our city hands for future planning purposes. The department is also in uh involved with sustainability initiatives. The score grant is a very important one for the city. Those have been around since 1992 funded by Ramsey County. In 2025 the score grant for North St. Paul was $47,684 and the city completed a variety of projects in 2025 because of this core grant that included the citywide cleanup event and the shredding event that was held. Speaking of the citywide cleanup event, another highlight that the department's involved with a clearly a very big one in 2025 that occurred on May 10th in the morning. There were 313 participants which I think is a vehicle count which is the largest cleanup event to date. A lot of coordination there with all the various vendors and contractors and volunteers to help get the event be successful. Also have to give a shout out to public work staff because they're there and help uh move things through the yard and keep things running there, help loading and unloading materials. They residents were able to dispose or recycle wide variety of items including household trash, furniture, mattresses, electronic waste, appliances, scrap metal, and tires. And we have some numbers thought some interesting statistics. So 2025 is in the yellow. Uh really a record year in all categories. Uh the percentages on the right hand column are increases from 2024 to 2025. So increases in the number of vehicles, e-waste, number of appliances, number of tires, mattresses, and loads of trash, which are the dumpster loads. So all all a record year. As a sidebar, I'd like to think North St. Paul would be done getting rid of all their stuff, but apparently it's >> Oh, you haven't been around. >> I know that's the wishful thinking. And we are starting the planning process for the upcoming uh cleanup event. There will be one coming up this May. So, that's a look back at 2025 and here is a I have a few items that we're looking at as a department for 2026. Continue with the Casey Lake Park Hockey Rink Grant Process. We submitted the application after the council meeting for a preliminary review by the DNR. uh they will review it, give us comments, things that might be missing, ways to improve it. We then turn that around as a staff and are required to submit that by March 28th. So hopefully we don't have many changes uh to what they recommend. They will be awarding the grants in the summer. They haven't narrowed it down real tightly yet to exact timeline. Our goal is if we do receive the grant, finalize the construction plans, get the quotes and bids that are necessary, assuming they come in acceptable to the parks commission and council, get those all awarded and set, and then have the construction occur during the summer of 2027. So, just a little more than a year from now. That's the hope. We will be continuing the solid waste recycling yard waste RFP process. Dan touched on that earlier. We did get uh seven proposals and we are in the process of reviewing them. We'll be hopefully bringing a final recommendation to the council in May to get a contract signed by June 1st and the existing contract expires the end of August. So that if needed gives us trans time to transition from one hauler to another if necessary. We don't know that yet, but that's why we have a timeline in place. We are working on a new landscape escro agreement process that we will use for development or building projects that are not complete when they are requesting a certificate of occupancy. Common situation where that occurs is someone builds a house and all the building stuff is done say December 1st, but they haven't got the yard in. and they haven't planted the trees, maybe the driveway isn't in. We need as a city to make sure we have an escrow agreement in place with sufficient escrow to ensure that those outside improvements get done in the spring. And so we're working on a better way to manage that and make sure that all the work that needs to get done gets done in the following spring if that's the case. more things that our team, my team is working on, creating a pamphlet of the park system with little uh maps and photos and an description of each park that could be handed out at the counter. We do get requests for that. Where's this park or where's that park? What does it have? This will be a one-page folded up that can be a handy dandy handout to give those who are interested. I expect we'll continue with zoning ordinance revisions and updates. Started that process as you're aware and I'm sure we'll find more to continue to work on on that. Uh we're looking at some further ordinance amendments regarding uh business licenses. some of the park and recreation ordinance language uh my staff has identified as ways to clean those up, make those better with what's actually happening right now in North St. Paul, what should be happening. We have started with the plane commission and give you the council a heads up on the comprehensive plan update that is required to be done and adopted by September of 2028. So, we're starting the review process with the planning commission. I expect there will be one or two council workshops. If not in 2026, certainly into 2027. And we'll be preparing an RFP for consultant services to help us get that done on time and meeting the requirements of the Met Council. At this point, I'm viewing it as an update, not a major rewrite. The last time was a major rewrite. As best I can tell, much of it is still very relevant. There's always things that need updating, but I don't I don't foresee having to start from scratch, which is clearly a a good thing for the city. We hope to be able to work toward starting to get engineered plans for the M McNight athletic complex fields and how that will redevelop and lay out. As I said earlier, we have a survey that now we can work off of. We need to as a staff and the parks commission start working through what will be the priorities, what how can it be done in phases and those kind of things. And we get some of those items figured out. Then we'll need to get actually engineered design plans prepared. So, if we're going to construct this or that, there's plans that a contractor can bid off of and do the work from. And that'll be a process, but we hope to get that going uh later this year, if not not too later, but that'll be another item for 2026. Continuing on, uh we're looking to implement a new trash to treasure event uh before the citywide cleanup day and that's intended to promote the reuse and decrease amount of bulky waste the city receives at the cleanup event. The idea the idea with that is you pick a a a Saturday or Sunday and tell people put your stuff at the curb and people can go around and they can pick and take what they want and maybe there's that much less that ends up coming to the the uh cleanup day the next week. Again, we'll be having another cleanup day that'll be on May 9th this year. Again, we're as a department staff helping with the planning and coordination of the event. again multi-ep department uh event planning with police, public works, AVA and communications and the staff in the in my department looking at having a parks cleanup day AMA as well. We'll work on that with the parks commission. We'll want to we are proposing to continue with the green steps program. The uh city has been successful in reaching steps four and five which are the highest level or best steps that one can or a city can reach and there's some energy use related metrics that need to be reported every year to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to continue to stay on that high level of success. Green steps and Chris is very good at coordinating that and taking care of that. It's one of those things that we do every year and if there are grants that we want to apply for tied in with the MPCA, we get bonus points because we're good with the Greenstep program. So, it's worth the effort. Last slide on this. We're uh want to uh as a staff work on updating and creating documentation on the city processes that my department's involved with and organizing all our document our department documentation so they're in one location so future staff can know where to look how we do this or how we do that. the arts and culture commission. We are continue to work through a formalizing a planning process to help foster the long range planning and clarity of projects. And ideally for 2027 projects, the goal is to have the Arts and Culture Commission have those established as a commission by July and August of this year. and that will help with the planning and budgeting for 2027. And then we are looking to move those applications rel related to ACC to open gov to be consistent with all our other application processes to keep all them consistent and how we do business. So I'll take questions otherwise I have one more slide. There's a lot there. >> I think it looks great your planning process. I have a question for you regarding um the trash treasure. I think it's a brilliant idea. Are you going to have that coincide with the citywide garage sale? >> I don't know. We'll we'll talk to you about that >> immediately after. So it' be like Friday, Saturday, I believe, for the um garage sale and then Sunday would be the trash treasure. We can go around. >> Excellent. >> Yep. >> Excellent. >> And the garage sale dates are when? No, >> first weekend of May, I believe. >> First weekend, the last couple days of April, first day of May, I think. >> When are registrations open for that? >> Okay. Excellent. >> K. Ken, thank you very much. you've been a wonderful addition to the city. Um, recently, not recently, we have made some changes um to the uh parks facilities rental um policies and pricing. Um would you be able to let us know where we're at as far as percentage rented now versus where we were at where percentage rented last year just to see if those changes had effect? >> Not off the top of my head, but I could get you that information. >> Awesome. That's what I was expecting. Thank you. Okay. Lastly we >> got another slide. >> Well, I got one more. I want to get your >> Yeah, this Oh, this is the best one. >> That's why I figured you seem to be very excited about this one. >> I want to make sure to give a big thank you to from me to all the following, mayor and the council, the commissions, city manager, uh Chris, Jordan, and Sarah, great team, and all the other city employees for great first 10 months here at city of North St. Paul. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> You appreciate your work. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Nothing further. >> That's it. All right. It's 619. Can I call for adjournment? >> So moved. >> So moved. Council member McKenzie. Second Schwear. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> We will see you back at 6. up here.