This transcript has been formatted with speaker names based on the context provided and the dialogue within the meeting. **[0:28]** (Silence/Background noise) **[0:58]** (Silence/Background noise) **[1:28]** (Silence/Background noise) **[1:58]** (Silence/Background noise) **[2:28]** (Silence/Background noise) **[2:58]** (Silence/Background noise) **[3:28]** (Silence/Background noise) **[3:58]** (Silence/Background noise) **[4:28]** (Silence/Background noise) **[5:17] Mayor Michele Hanson:** All right, call to order the March 3rd, 2025, meeting of the Bayport City Council. Let’s all rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. *(Pledge of Allegiance)* **[5:17] Mayor Michele Hanson:** All right, thanks. Matt, can you please call the role? **[5:17] Matt Kline (City Administrator):** Councilmember Doe [Orin Kipp]? **[5:17] Councilmember Orin Kipp:** Present. **[5:17] Matt Kline:** Councilmember Bliss? **[5:17] Councilmember Carl Bliss:** Here. **[5:17] Matt Kline:** Councilmember Hill? **[5:17] Councilmember Katie Hill:** Here. **[5:17] Matt Kline:** Mayor Hanson? **[5:17] Mayor Michele Hanson:** Here. I’ll just note that Councilmember Gilmore is absent tonight, and also note that John [Councilmember Orin Kipp] will be leaving at 6:45 just for another engagement. All right, do we have a motion to approve tonight’s agenda? **[6:04] Councilmember Katie Hill:** So moved. **[6:04] Councilmember Orin Kipp:** I'll second. **[6:04] Mayor Michele Hanson:** All right. Wow, that went so fast. You guys are getting so good at this. All right, all those in favor? **[6:04] Councilmembers:** Aye. **[6:04] Mayor Michele Hanson:** All right, we'll move on to proclamations, accommodations, petitions, and announcements. The February recycling award recipient is Mona Label at 4843 Street South. She'll be awarded for recycling efforts with a grant from Washington County. And then we have a proclamation that no one printed for me. This is what happens when Sara [Taylor]’s not here, right? Oh, so let’s see where is it in here? Like so many pages. Is it after the third page? Really, did I go right by it? Sorry, I should have seen all the "whereas"es. There it is. Okay, this is a proclamation for Slow-mo Summer. This year we switched from Slow-mo May to Slow-mo Summer. Do we always read all of this when we do proclamations, or can I just—Matt, can you give a brief overview? **[7:36] Matt Kline:** Madam Mayor, you don’t have to. I can give you a brief overview. Essentially what we’re seeking is Slow-mo Summer is kind of a takeoff on No-mow May. What we’re hoping is that—and some research was done—it’s preferential actually to leave your grass a little longer the whole summer rather just than in the month of May. And by longer we mean six inches essentially. That’s what we’re hoping for. The proclamation in the past has been that we needed to deviate from the length of grass because anything over six inches is a violation essentially. So this Proclamation is more of an announcement rather than needing it to specifically deviate from city code. So yeah, if people are willing to leave their grass at six inches, it’s good for the honeybees, good for the insects, pollinators—all of that would be appreciated. **[8:22] Mayor Michele Hanson:** All right, thank you. All right, so then we’ll move on to the open forum. The open forum is a portion of the meeting to address the city council on subjects that are not part of the agenda. The city council may take action or reply at the time of the statement or may give direction to staff regarding investigation of comments expressed. A total of 15 minutes is allotted for public comment during the open forum. Anyone want to come and address the council now? Okay, we’ll move on to the consent agenda. Consider a resolution adopting items 1-9: February 3rd, 2025 city council workshop and regular meeting minutes and the February 3rd city council and Planning Commission joint meeting minutes; the February bills and receipts; February building, plumbing, mechanical, and zoning permits report; the no waiver of statutory tort limit liability limits for city insurance coverage; joint powers agreement with the County Sheriff’s Office to purchase fuel for the Police Department; an application for a short-term rental license from Rob Schmitz at 445 Lakeside Drive; and the appointment of Dean Chamberlain to the Planning Commission for a term to expire at the end of December in 2026. Do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda? **[9:58] Councilmember Carl Bliss:** I move to adopt the resolution approving the consent agenda as presented. **[9:58] Councilmember Orin Kipp:** Second. **[9:58] Mayor Michele Hanson:** Thank you, John [Orin Kipp]. Roll call vote please, Matt. **[9:58] Matt Kline:** Councilmember Doe [Kipp]? **[9:58] Councilmember Orin Kipp:** Aye. **[9:58] Matt Kline:** Councilmember Bliss? **[9:58] Councilmember Carl Bliss:** Aye. **[9:58] Matt Kline:** Councilmember Hill? **[9:58] Councilmember Katie Hill:** Aye. **[9:58] Matt Kline:** Mayor Hansen? **[9:58] Mayor Michele Hanson:** Aye. Passes. No publics, no unfinished business, so we’ll move on to new business which is to consider a final plat for Barker’s Alps School addition submitted by the Stillwater Area Public Schools Independent School District 834. **[10:49] Dan (Consultant Planner):** Good evening, Mayor, council members, and those watching at home. If we could switch to the screen there. As the Mayor said, this is the final plat application for the new elementary school being requested by Independent School District 834. Council previously approved applications related to this development back in November including the annexation, comprehensive plan, zoning map amendment, as well as a conditional use permit for the school itself and variances related to impervious surface and grading within the site. This current application that comes forward is related specifically to the subdivision. It’s the final plat of the property, which is the next step in the subdivision process after the preliminary plat, and it essentially dots the i's and crosses the t's on establishment of the lot and block for this property and dedication of right-of-way for Fifth Avenue North. There's also the development contract, which is the legal instrument drafted by the city attorney that ties all the approvals from November and this final plat together and gives the developer the ability to move forward with the project. It provides for payment of city fees and provides security for the public improvements included in the project. This property is the 10 acres located west of Barker’s Alps Park, south side of Fifth Avenue North. It’s undeveloped and was annexed into the City of Bayport. Surrounding uses include undeveloped property to the west as well as public uses including the fire department and correctional facility to the north. The final plat establishes the one lot for the school facility, dedication of right-of-way to Washington County for the county road. It also provides for construction of the utilities to and through the site which would ultimately serve land to the west of the property; dedication of easements over those public improvements within the site including storm water facilities and utilities; and then provides for payment of a park dedication fee in the amount of $85,000, which the city can use for improvements to public park systems. The development contract, again drafted by the city attorney, combines all the approvals into one, provides for the financial securities that are required to construct those public improvements, provides that the city engineer will oversee those public improvements as they’re constructed and make sure they comply with city specifications. And then there’s also four easement agreements included as part of the development contract to cover the ISD 834’s use of the city park, the reciprocal off-street parking areas, the shared use of Barker Alps Park, as well as the access to the school parking lot by the city in special occasions, the emergency vehicle access on the south side of the building, and then a storm water easement and maintenance agreement covering protection of those storm water areas within the property. The site plan has been finalized from the Planning Commission and city council reviews to include the site plan and some modifications to the landscape plan. Essentially the areas shown in green are those areas that are being disturbed as part of the project and then being restored in accordance with either prairie restoration or planting of trees. We’re also clarifying that they aren’t planning on installing any irrigation as part of the project given the water-tolerant species that are being planted, so that will no longer be necessary. City engineers finalized the construction plans in coordination with the developer and the Watershed organization has also approved the storm water management plans for the site. So city staff recommends approval of the applications based on the final plat being consistent with the subdivision ordinance as well as the preliminary plat approval. The development contract is again consistent with the requirements of the subdivision ordinance as drafted by the city attorney including the easement agreements. The Planning Commission did review the final plat at their meeting on February 18th. They had no real comments and voted 4 to 0 to recommend approval. There were some comments during the open forum portion of the Planning Commission meeting concerning potential future uses or expansion of the school, also construction of sidewalks going east of the school on Fifth Avenue North and some questions pertaining to the landscape plan. The landscape plan in full is available by contacting city staff. There is a grant application being submitted for the sidewalk to be constructed along the public street. And then obviously any expansion or change in use for the park or the school is not even being contemplated at this point and obviously would require involvement and approval from the city council to happen and then subsequently, if that were to move forward, would involve a planning process similar to what’s been carried forward for the school itself. So city staff is recommending approval of the applications again subject to the 18 stipulations included in the city council resolution. **[15:26] Mayor Michele Hanson:** All right, thank you Dan. I know I spent a lot of time looking through this very closely and then spend a little bit more time looking very closely with Matt this afternoon, so I got all of my questions answered and then you did a great job of incorporating some of those into the description that you just gave. So I feel very comfortable with everything that I’ve seen. I don’t know if anyone has any questions or needs clarification. Were we able to—was anybody present for the Planning Commission? I watched it meeting. Were we able to answer the concerns and questions of the residents? **[16:12] Dan:** Yeah, it was mostly that fear of, well, you know, "if you give them an inch they’re going to take a mile" kind of attitude. They were worried that the school is going to want to expand. **[16:12] Mayor Michele Hanson:** We didn’t give them anything; they bought their own property. I’m just saying—they didn’t say those words, I’m just saying that was sort of the fear that it seemed to be coming through. And then I remember there was just a comment about the prairie being up against the woods and how was that going to work. So I’m sure if he has more questions he can be filled in with the details on how that’s going to work and then side access to it along Fifth there. And so we talked about the safe routes to school. Likely not an assessment? I think that was a concern. **[17:00] Dan:** Assessment, yes. **[17:00] Mayor Michele Hanson:** And who’s going to take care of the sidewalk? Are the residents responsible? And the answer was yes, that they have to shovel it. Not maintain it, but shovel it? **[17:00] Matt Kline:** Yes, and that’s the city code requirement if you have sidewalk into your property. Some cities, when the sidewalk does access a school, will have the city crews handle that because of the need to get it cleared in time for kids to walk to school, but that’s a decision for a later date. **[17:46] Mayor Michele Hanson:** Right. I don’t think we do that with the sidewalks that kids use right now, right, to get to the school? So I don’t know how that will work or not, but we’ll have to figure that out. I was trying to think of what else was going to say but yeah, I mean other than that, I maybe didn't go over it two times, but there's a lot here. It’s a lot but I had questions a little bit about like because we’re very specific about some of the agreements, but there wasn’t anything that said like the bus parking in the shared lot that's mostly on Barker’s Alps land is also going to have car marks on it so that after school hours it could be used for cars as well. And then if you look at the actual whatever number this plan is of the plat, it tells you that you can see it marked, but it's just not written anywhere. So things like that that I was just confused on. Got all that clarified. So I guess unless anyone has any other comments, I don't... we have no one from... I don't either... okay from being at the meetings and just listen to it all before already. Yeah. Wow. Okay then I guess we can have a motion. **[19:17] Councilmember Orin Kipp:** I will move to adopt a resolution approving a final plat for the development of a new elementary school at 135 Fifth Avenue North subject to findings of fact and the conditions of approval. **[19:17] Councilmember Katie Hill:** I'll second. **[19:17] Mayor Michele Hanson:** All right, thanks Katie. Roll call please. **[19:17] Matt Kline:** Councilmember Bliss? **[19:17] Councilmember Carl Bliss:** Aye. **[19:17] Matt Kline:** Councilmember Doe [Kipp]? **[19:17] Councilmember Orin Kipp:** Aye. **[19:17] Matt Kline:** Councilmember Hill? **[19:17] Councilmember Katie Hill:** Aye. **[19:17] Matt Kline:** Mayor Hansen? **[19:17] Mayor Michele Hanson:** Aye. Motion approved. Check, check, there you go. Our TVs weren't working for a minute. Now you’re welcome to skedaddle if you want, District 834. Thanks for coming. Sorry that you came all the way here and we had no questions for you, but maybe that’s good, right? I have a feeling—wait, I have one question. Is it going to be Bayport Elementary School like it says in the renderings before you leave? Because everyone's been asking me. Okay, good. Just want to make sure because I’ve been saying yes based on the renderings. But all right, thank you. Okay, bye Dan, thank you. Okay, consider an amendment to Chapter 58 Utilities of the Bayport city code of ordinance to adopt a storm water utility and summary for publication. And we have a guest. **[20:49] Matt Kline:** Yes, while she’s getting ready, Mayor Hansen, I’ll just do a short update essentially. So at the November 13th, 2024 city council meeting, city council reached consensus on the establishment of a storm water utility. The determination was that approximately $6 per quarter for residential properties was what was considered. Essentially we’re creating the storm water utility as a means to pay for different things related to the storm water system—items such as education, monitoring requirements, compliance with local and state and federal requirements. And this utility provides a more equitable method than just using property taxes. The reason being that establishments such as the school, churches, the prison system aren’t paying property taxes, and with what we’ve developed or with what SEH has developed, it spreads out the storm water charges more evenly rather than having them specifically based on property taxes. So with all that said, I will pass it along to Lily who is here to present. **[22:21] Lily Hawk (SEH Engineer):** Thank you for the introduction and good evening everyone. I’m Lily Hawk, I’m a Water Resources engineer with SEH. So speaking about the storm water utility program, the funds garnered from the program could be used for the administration of the program itself, but the main purpose is to help fund storm water utility maintenance as well as capital improvement projects that might include replacing storm sewer or constructing storm water management BMPs to help reduce flooding or provide pollutant removal. A lot of these items are in line with a permit that is administered at the state level that the community also has to adhere to and provide maintenance for the storm utility. The storm water utility would be calculated two different ways. The first way is if you're a resident of a single-family home or a dwelling of 1 to 3 units, so duplexes or small rentals, you would be charged a flat rate for each quarter. But if you are a property that is not a single-family or smaller dwelling, you would be charged based on your land use and the area of your parcel compared to an average residential parcel. The land use categories have been established using both the county system and kind of different city divides based on what we’ve seen on what type of businesses are here. So the main categories we have are commercial, industrial, institutional, multiple family, municipal, parks and open spaces, and then vacant properties. Your institutional properties are going to be the ones that cover any of your community-based services or facilities—so churches, the prison (sorry, I don't know if there's a... the Correctional Facility would be what I would call it), elementary schools, other educational institutions would be included in the institutional category. And then multiple family would include any parcels that have more than four dwelling units. So that is the threshold between your single-family base rate and your multiple family. Usually in those cases you have a lot more impervious, you might have a small parking lot, so those parcels end up looking different than say a single-family home would. So we take that base rate and then we create this what’s called a residential equivalency factor. This is based off of that land use, and the land uses are divided by how much impervious they might have on them. If you have more impervious, that means when it rains there’s more storm runoff, so then you have more burden on your system coming from these parcels. And also sometimes when you have more impervious, you also have more pollutants. Parcels that end up having more impervious have a higher residential equivalency factor to account for the fact that they are going to produce more runoff and pollutants. That residential equivalency factor is then applied to the rate and the area of the parcel to create a total charge per quarter per acre. And then again, just a reminder, those single-family homes are consistently at the base rate no matter their size; they're generally less than an acre across the city and so there isn’t a large area discrepancy between single-family or smaller residential parcels. In order to create a system where you can charge residents based on their land use, we created a database based off of these county categorizations. When we're looking at this pie chart, it is based on the number of parcels in the city, so not necessarily based on area. And as you can see, most of the city is comprised by residential parcels, over three-quarters of the city. And then that is followed by vacant areas as well as your industrial, commercial, and municipal properties. So majority of the income and revenue from the storm water utility program would be coming from those single-family or residential parcels. How this program would potentially evolve if we apply these rates per parcel is that the first year there would be a base rate applied with those residential equivalency factors, and then each year the city council could opt to increase the fee. I’ve shown on this slide a potential increase in fees based on a preliminary financial plan put together by the city when determining if this program would be feasible. It shows an original base rate of $6 for 2025 that would then double in 2026. You would have a tripling from your original base rate in 2027 and then it would have a marginal increase going forward past 2027 at 3%. **[26:57] Mayor Michele Hanson:** Lily, can I just interrupt for just—to be clear, none of this has been decided that we are going to be doing any of these increases. I for one am not excited about doing any of these increases. I’d like to see how it goes for a while at this rate, just so I’m just afraid if anyone sees this they’re going to think it’s going to happen. **[27:43] Lily Hawk:** Yes, no, absolutely. And that’s why there’s a little note in the corner that says these are determined annually by city council. So say you implement it one year and it seems it’s feasible the next year to continue that base rate, the city council does not have to increase. It is an annual decision and that may or may not even follow closely to this; this was just the original assumption in that financial plan. It was in the financial plan but just as a recommendation—we don't have to do that. Just want to make it clear. Absolutely. So when also looking at the storm utility program setup, a question was what are the surrounding communities' storm utility programs, how are those established. So we looked at the surrounding area, not just Washington County but also cities that border Washington County that were of a similar population. Not all communities have storm utility programs. If you have a community in mind that's not on this list, they may not have a program. There is quite a bit of range as you can see across communities. Something to consider here that’s included in that right column is the residential equivalency factor. So when it says it is similar to Bayport's potential setup, that means that they are giving in very similar burden between say your industrial, commercial, institutional properties and residential properties as we are suggesting in this presentation. If it is lower, that usually means that it's more even burden between residents and industrial/commercial properties. If it says it's higher, that usually means that commercial/industrial properties are taking on more of the burden of the overall utility program. Sometimes this can line up with the rates in the sense that you see Circle Pines and Mahtomedi (excuse me, that pronunciation may be incorrect—Maud-ih-mydie? Mahtomedi, thank you. It’s not raised in this area). We could tell from that I left up, I was like, ah, very clearly I'm from Nebraska for those curious. But those rates are generally higher potentially because single-family homes are paying a smaller rate in comparison to the base rate necessarily, or more of the burden is on those other properties. **[28:29] Mayor Michele Hanson:** Wait, I'm confused because Mahtomedi says the quarterly base rate is $38 and then you're saying that— **[30:01] Lily Hawk:** I should rephrase that. Residents may be paying $38 and then the commercial/industrial properties are going to be paying much more, comparatively more, yes. Roughly, rough numbers here, at a base rate of six, your commercial, institutional, industrial properties—institutional is a little less, we have commercial industrial at the same level—are paying roughly $33. So significant difference there. I don’t have their exact numbers on what they would be charging per acre, but using what they gave me for the residential equivalency factors, they're going to be much higher than that $33 compared to $6 ratio. Okay. And also to note here, Taylors Falls has an asterisk next to it because when I inquired about their program, they let us know they're in the middle of redoing it or also changing their rates. So I included them because I think the REF comparison note can be helpful, but their quarterly base rate I would maybe take with a grain of salt as they are in the middle determining if that is accurate for their community. But looking through this list you can see $6 is roughly in a range that’s similar or lower than most of the communities with a similar residential equivalency factor. If you wanted to scale the rate based on that financial plan, you know, up to $18 in three years, you are exceeding the surrounding community slightly, but I would also note with that, you don’t know what their plans are to increase their rates. And everyone’s in the same position where every year they have to decide whether or not they would like to increase their rates. So over time, your surrounding communities will also be changing and going through similar processes to determine if they want to overhaul their storm water utility program. So in different considerations with the programs, you can establish whether or not vacant properties are exempt, if you want to charge certain properties, and if you want to establish a cost maximum. Looking at the vacant properties, we recommend that they are excluded from the program on the basis of a few different factors. The first one being, while 8% might seem like a large amount of the land area, it is a relatively small portion of the land area of the City of Bayport to garner fees from. And that only actually equates to 2% of your potential revenue from these properties. A lot of these properties end up being a sliver of a single-family residential parcel that is next to someone’s main property that they may just not have incorporated yet. So there is also a question of whether or not including these properties would be an additional burden both on single-family homeowners and residents but also on the city to then kind of have to track down people who fall under that category and are now paying two fees, and/or other individuals who don’t live in the City of Bayport and who may be administering or taking care of their parcel from afar. And it was determined based on the small potential revenue from these properties and potential burden and the fact that they’re predominantly residential and you’re most likely already getting a rate from the parcel owners, a vacancy exemption is recommended. Which moving on would bring us to the other side of this—the cost maximum fee. Excuse me, one more note on the vacancy exemption: that would include municipal properties, non-occupied properties, or properties that aren't developed. So if there's a residential parcel that didn't have a home, that would be considered vacant. But say you have a commercial property that doesn't have a building on it but it's entirely paved—it’s a parking lot—that would not be considered vacant because it has been developed for a specific use. The third aspect of that is cemeteries, parks, and open spaces, just because those also usually have the least amount of runoff and are good for intercepting storm water. And also most of the parcel owners of those properties either ended up being the city in the case of the parks or undeveloped State DNR properties that are likely not to be developed in the future. Moving on to the cost maximum side, we looked at a few different options for establishing a cost maximum here. So what you’re seeing in these two charts on the right—and they’re the same data in the charts—is the spread of your non-residential properties and what their potential fee would be at $6 for your base rate. So in that left graph, you see all these dots above the graph, and those are to represent your outlier properties who are paying substantially more fees, or who would be paying substantially more fees than any of your other non-residential parcels. This is called a box and whisker plot—that’s the statistical method we use to identify these outliers—and then on the right, these outliers are removed so you get a little zoomed-in glance on kind of what your average non-residential parcel is looking at with that orange line at the top representing your outlier threshold. The big box in the middle is where majority of your non-residential parcels are falling in terms of the fees that they would owe through the storm water utility program. So that 75% threshold and below, most of your non-residential parcels are in there. It is only in this case roughly 10 parcels that are actually even above that far enough above that to be above your outlier threshold. So the cost maximum was established in the sense that we’re applying this residential equivalency factor to create a more equitable burden between the non-residential parcels and the residential parcels, but it’s not necessarily the perfect approximation in the sense that it can expand these rates for these extremely large parcels in a significant way that might represent an undue burden on the parcel. So we established an outlier at the outlier threshold which is that orange line. We looked at different options for the cost maximum, and one of those was also the 75th percentile, and it was determined that may have excluded too many parcels or included too many parcels in being limited by the cost maximum. So we wanted to raise that to the outlier. **[36:10] Mayor Michele Hanson:** So what you're saying is the non-residential properties will pay no more than $210 per quarter? **[36:56] Lily Hawk:** Yes, and this is also by parcel and not by taxpayer. So there are also a significant amount of non— **[36:56] Mayor Michele Hanson:** Is it 210 per acre per quarter, or is it just 210 per quarter? **[36:56] Lily Hawk:** It is just 210 per quarter per parcel. So many of your commercial and industrial parcel owners own multiple parcels. So it’s not necessarily that one taxpayer is limited to $210; they might have multiple parcels that are even under the outlier threshold and then a separate one above it, and you aggregate them to one rate per that parcel owner. So this does apply not per acre, but just over the one parcel. It might impact multiple parcels for a tax owner. **[37:43] Councilmember Carl Bliss:** Are the identified outliers—is that per parcel or is that per institution, organization, corporation? **[37:43] Lily Hawk:** That is per parcel. So I know for a fact that like three of these parcels are owned by the same taxpayer, and there are few others who I think the State of Minnesota itself, running the correctional facility, also owns several parcels that are above a threshold. So it’s fair to say if XYZ corporation owns six properties that are in that outlier range, they would get six $210 quarterly fees. **[37:43] Councilmember Carl Bliss:** Okay, thank you. **[38:29] Lily Hawk:** Absolutely. So the graph on the left and the graph on the right is basically a stretched-out version zoomed in and taking off those top points, mainly to show you—it took me a while to figure that out—but it’s very few parcels that are impacted by this. There's 1,200 total in the city and if we take out 900 of those are residential, so of your 300 roughly non-residential parcels, 10 of those would fall into this category. **[38:29] Mayor Michele Hanson:** What did you call this graph again? Whisker something? **[38:29] Lily Hawk:** A box and whisker. **[38:29] Mayor Michele Hanson:** I need to Google that after this. This is really interesting. I learned something tonight. **[38:29] Lily Hawk:** Oh, if you do salary surveys you see them all the time. Goodness, it's been a while until I looked back at statistics and said, "Ah, here’s how to determine an outlier." Apologies. So we looked at several potential revenue scenarios taking into both of these things into account. At first we had been talking with the city administrator and identified that the vacancies, due to the small amount of revenue that they would generate, could probably be exempted from the start. And from there we looked at several different base rates and then also on top of that those two cost maximum scenarios. The base rates we looked at were from $3 to $6, and then we looked into those 75th percentile outlier thresholds. There is a memorandum that has been submitted to city staff that does contain what the projected revenue would be for each of those scenarios—eight scenarios total. The one that was identified as the most feasible and the preferred scenario was a $6 base rate with the cost maximum set at that orange line, that outlier threshold. So not limiting the cost maximum further, and that did produce enough revenue to meet what the financial plan identified as the target. So in this graph on the left side are those financial plan revenue goals per year, and then we've also got what the potential storm water utility program revenue would be if we did all that doubling and tripling and everything. **[41:33] Mayor Michele Hanson:** Can I just—one other thing from my edification and maybe others here and people listening at home: when we talk about vacancies, we’re talking about a property without a structure on it? We’re not talking about a vacant structure on a property, right? **[41:33] Lily Hawk:** Yes, you’re talking about a property without a structure on it. The way we identified those using the County parcel database was that they would have zero dollar building value. So if there was a structure on the property, it would give a building value. And then just a note for those non-residential, if they were developed—AKA covered with a lot of impervious—those aren't considered vacant because they will be used for something and have been developed whether or not there’s a structure on it. **[41:33] Councilmember Carl Bliss:** Thank you for that explanation. **[42:23] Mayor Michele Hanson:** Yes, and we did before Carl was on the Council, we did go through this very—we looked at all the scenarios and we chose which one we thought was the most reasonable and get us to where we needed to be. There will be a test, Carl, after. No, it was—I mean we did, we all kind of looked through and picked which ones we... and we all agreed. I think we all kind of... except maybe Katie for that something, I don’t know. We... I think we all kind of all agreed on the same. So we’ve seen this before, maybe except Carl to the... **[42:23] Matt Kline:** Madam Mayor, to your point, the increases here shown are being presented to the council. Just want to be clear watching—it’s not a... **[42:23] Mayor Michele Hanson:** Sure, we have not decided any of those increases. I’m kind of surprised they’re in there, but yeah. **[42:23] Lily Hawk:** And to be clear too, the financial plan, those targets are set up based on those increases. So there is some wiggle room if you decide maybe to move a capital improvement project to a different year; those numbers in the financial plan would have changed anyways. So also you can see on the storm water utility program side, even if you didn’t increase the rate through year two or 2026, you would still be meeting that financial revenue goal. **[42:23] Mayor Michele Hanson:** That's what—yeah, that's why we decided like it’s easier to just let’s do the $6 instead of like we double it and then we make more late. Because it made more sense to just kind of not keep raising it on people every year. **[43:08] Lily Hawk:** Yes, so I wish that it actually showed what we intended to do more than what that plan might have suggested, but that's okay. I just don't want anyone to get confused. I completely understand. And I would also like to add to the increases in the rate don't ever have to be like a solid dollar amount; they could be 25 cents or 10 cents or 15 cents—it could be whatever the city council decides. So we see that other communities too that the annual cost rise—I know the financial plan described tripling it every year, but it could be like that 3% every year. Completely up to the city council. This is just a measure of whether or not it could be effective to what the financial plan targeted. **[43:08] Mayor Michele Hanson:** All right, thank you so much. **[43:08] Lily Hawk:** Yes. So as an overall summary, the storm water utility program would pay to help maintain all of your storm water infrastructure and potentially replace, repair, and implement new storm water management as needed for the city. Again, the major points on outlining and establishing the storm utility program are that the vacant properties would be excluded and that you would have a cost maximum cap for those few properties that are significantly high above that outlier threshold. And then I did show again the financial plan potential annual increases here, but again to note those are decided annually by the city council. They're shown on the slide because they were shown in the financial plan, but that is up to the city's decision every year what they do with the storm utility program. **[43:53] Councilmember Katie Hill:** Question—could you mind going back to that one where you compared our rates to the other cities? So I'm looking at this and then I'm looking at what's in our packets. **[44:38] Lily Hawk:** What page are you on? **[44:38] Councilmember Katie Hill:** I am on... oh God, I don't have page numbers. Oh well, seven to the end or something. Like we're close to the end. Thank you. It says the storm—so commercial/industrial, it says 62.85 per acre each quarter. And I'm trying to figure out—so that’s the—is that the REF that we're not actually seeing? **[44:38] Lily Hawk:** Yes. Yeah, so okay, they're depending on how this—the individual city did it. They may have taken that REF and multiplied it by the base rate. So if you’re looking in a particular community and their base rate was say the $12 and they're asking—I can't remember the number you said—62, they might have an REF of like six or seven. So the REF ranges here, for instance, were literally less than one to nine, and ours are hovering around the 2 to 4 range in the middle there. So you can have substantial multipliers on the base rate depending on the community. **[45:26] Matt Kline:** Madam Mayor, I'll chime in. Yes. So as Lily mentioned, that's what happened. So the per acre per quarter, the REF is already multiplied by the base rate there, and then in the billing system it’ll indicate what the acreage is for each property. **[45:26] Councilmember Katie Hill:** Gotcha. And then my other question is: is it common to have a cost Max cap for the non-residential? **[45:26] Lily Hawk:** I wouldn’t necessarily say it's common or uncommon. It's seen across other communities as well. So very dependent on the community and what they would like to do. I’ve seen communities both with it and without it, but I don’t have like an overall statistic for the State of Minnesota or anything like that. And it’s sometimes not—the information I looked at to get these numbers and the values for the other communities didn’t necessarily always come from the ordinance; sometimes it comes from a fee schedule that wouldn’t necessarily show the cost maximum, or from direct communication with the city. So sometimes it’s difficult for me to know researching this whether or not there is a cost maximum for each community. **[46:57] Mayor Michele Hanson:** Okay. Anybody else have questions for Lily? No. Okay, thanks for all of the details and the write-up for us. It’s been a while since we talked about it, so I'm glad we’re doing this. I know when we did the analysis when we were looking at what we were going to set for our budget and tax increases, that we were able to say that we were able to reduce taxes per resident so that then this fee is kind of covering what that reduction was, if that makes any sense. But then it’s also going across the not other entities that aren’t getting having paid paying property taxes like the churches and the prison and all of that. So it’s much more equitable even though it’s going to feel like it’s an extra fee for the residents, but it’s not, is what I’m trying to say. Because we were able to reduce the actual property tax by this similar amount—the $6 per quarter, $24. **[47:45] Councilmember Carl Bliss:** I think that point is something that could help me a little bit to get up to speed. I paid attention when I was a young, aspiring city council member a little bit, so I know that this is—this is something that can ease a burden on an existing property tax payer because of the fees on those that don’t pay property taxes exactly. Is there—is there something quantifiable I can share with my neighbors as we— **[47:45] Matt Kline:** Yeah, Matt, you're going to be on the spot here. Madam Mayor, members of the council, we did do a calculation showing that there is a certain point—I believe about 96% of the properties would see some actually property tax relief, we'll call it. **[48:32] Mayor Michele Hanson:** It was just a few dollars, like it wasn't like huge. **[48:32] Matt Kline:** Yes, right. And actually it was inverse; the people with higher property taxes saw bigger savings than the people with lower property taxes. So yeah, if you desire something, I can—I think I created a spreadsheet, it’s a really, really long one. **[48:32] Mayor Michele Hanson:** We're actually writing a newsletter article for the next newsletter coming out too, it’s in Sara's list. So maybe we could just be more detailed—explanation like what you have given. A brief synopsis. I think people might get lost with the spreadsheet. **[49:19] Matt Kline:** Right, and I think it's going to be summarized. Madam Mayor, I believe it's already been in the newsletter. **[49:19] Mayor Michele Hanson:** We did it in the newsletter and I think I just looked it up to see what she had in the plans for the next one and it did say "New Storm Water Utility." So I assume she's going to be writing about it again. **[49:19] Matt Kline:** Yeah, it'll probably just be a short update, Madam Mayor. **[50:05] Mayor Michele Hanson:** And maybe we need to give a little more detail so saying—and I know there will be people who are going to be—oh yeah, thanks for sticking around, John. I think—do you have anything, any opposition to this if you're going to vote? Okay, all right good, sounds good. People... there will be some properties that are going to see a bill that have not had a bill in the past because they didn't pay they don't pay utility, right? So that will be—I just want to make sure they’re all well aware of this happening. Okay. Do we want to make a motion or do you have more questions, Carl? Okay. **[50:05] Councilmember Katie Hill:** I move to approve the amendment to Chapter 58 Utilities of Bayport city code of ordinance as presented and summarized for publication. **[50:05] Councilmember Carl Bliss:** I'll second. **[50:05] Mayor Michele Hanson:** All right, thank you Carl. And a roll call vote. **[50:05] Matt Kline:** Councilmember Bliss? **[50:05] Councilmember Carl Bliss:** Aye. **[50:05] Matt Kline:** Councilmember Hill? **[50:05] Councilmember Katie Hill:** Aye. **[50:05] Matt Kline:** Mayor Hansen? **[50:05] Mayor Michele Hanson:** Aye. Right, thank you, that passes. And now you’re free to go, Lily. Thank you. All right, so now we’re going to consider an amendment to appendix D, the fee schedule, the Bayport city code of ordinances and summary for publication. Matt’s going to present this. **[50:50] Matt Kline:** Thank you, Madam Mayor, members of the council. Normally on a yearly basis, we try to do it once a year, we do update the fee schedule that is located within our zoning or our city ordinance. This year I believe we’ve already done one of these updates but had to do another one because there’s a few additions, mostly related to cannabis charges—registration charges, renewal and initial registration—and storm water, the storm water utilities that we just passed. We did add in a couple of other ones. The building department or our building inspector asked us to make some changes to building permits, just minor changes at this point, mostly reducing some of the permits that we have related to maintenance and not making it so cumbersome to have so many. And then one additional burial addition—an increase to one and then elimination of another. I don’t know if you have questions on them specifically. I wasn’t going to run through them all individually. I did want to mention that the cannabis ones are... I don’t believe are at the max that you can charge, but they’re similar to what other cities are charging. **[52:23] Mayor Michele Hanson:** I have a question about under the building section. Why does it say "permit maintenance"? What does that even mean? **[52:23] Matt Kline:** So it’s a permit for like general maintenance. So if you’re replacing a window, replacing a door, doing a garage door, it’s replacement of those things. So instead of having—we used to have permits for one to three windows was one cost and then four and above was another cost. And then now it just got all incorporated into one general permit for those items. And so there are other categories under building—it's just... yeah, we need that. **[53:10] Mayor Michele Hanson:** Okay, it just seemed weird. **[53:10] Matt Kline:** Yeah, there’s a—there’s a significant list of other ones on the building. Yes, we just put the ones that have changed on this list. **[53:10] Mayor Michele Hanson:** So we did have a fee? We were supposed to like get a permit for replacing like a storm door? **[53:10] Matt Kline:** Storm door, probably not. Okay, it wasn't clear to me, so I don't know how that works, but no, just an exterior door, which would be your permanent door, right? Not necessarily storm door. **[53:10] Mayor Michele Hanson:** No permit needed for storm door. Okay, good, because I didn’t get a permit and I’ve done that. So I had no idea. All right, except for "window and door or for project"—it is kind of confusing, isn't it? I don’t... **[54:36] Matt Kline:** No, that is not per window anymore. That is just—so if you’re—if you’re not changing the window size of any of your windows, that’s just one general amount now. **[54:36] Mayor Michele Hanson:** I feel like I maybe should have S’s in parentheses after each word or something. That’s fine, we can make that change. Windows, doors, or garage doors. You know what I mean? Because otherwise it does sound like it’s per. Do you think that would fix it? I don't know. Okay, that's all I had. And you’re taking away the winter burial one because we... do you even do the same price? **[54:36] Matt Kline:** Yeah, Mayor, members of council, we’re taking away the winter burial mostly because the person who digs the full casket burials charges the same price winter or summer at this point. So that’s why we removed the extra for the winter burial. **[54:36] Mayor Michele Hanson:** Okay. Anyone ready to make a motion? **[54:36] Councilmember Katie Hill:** I move to approve the amendment of appendix D fee sheet of the Bayport city code of ordinance as presented and summary for publication. **[54:36] Mayor Michele Hanson:** Do we have to make note of the notes of the changes with the S in parentheses? One second... okay. **[54:36] Councilmember Carl Bliss:** I'll second. **[54:36] Mayor Michele Hanson:** Thank you Katie and Carl. Roll call. **[54:36] Matt Kline:** Councilmember Bliss? **[54:36] Councilmember Carl Bliss:** Aye. **[54:36] Matt Kline:** Councilmember Hill? **[54:36] Councilmember Katie Hill:** Aye. **[54:36] Matt Kline:** Mayor Hanson? **[54:36] Mayor Michele Hanson:** Aye. Feels so very empty in here, doesn’t it? Okay, so we’re going to do Council liaison reports. Katie, do you want to start? **[56:09] Councilmember Katie Hill:** Yeah. My first one I went to was BALE [Bayport Area Local Enterprise]. Farmers Market people are meeting. They are going to do the "design a shirt" contest—the bank’s going to handle it. They’re going to do a kid one and an adult one and then hopefully sell those shirts at Derby Days, and they're Derby Days themed shirts. Okay, yeah, great. And then ice cream social is going off with a hit. Churches are all—I think all three churches are involved. They’re going to do a food drive. Some of the members of the churches will help scoop along with hopefully city council members. So if hopefully everyone's still up for it, I think they’ll send like a little sign-up sheet—half hour only to scoop out some ice cream. They are looking for the city to donate some ice cream for the ice cream social. Really? So yeah. Because Mabel's donates some and the rest the decal buas [?], but they’re wondering if maybe the city could pay for that part. Jill [Smith] will also be doing the music down there, and that’s what I have for—not herself, but she’ll hire. Yeah, I think it’s—she’s not that talented. That same guy she had at maybe Derby Days she was talking to again. Oh, who was during the duck races she had somebody come down, I think. And then I also remember she had circus people one year. I can’t—maybe that was two years ago. Yeah, maybe that circus was two years ago or was that last year? I don’t remember. I don’t know. I also went to—I'm a part of the board for the Anderson parent group and they had a couple questions that I’ve talked to Matt already about for their Buggy Dash up at Barker Alps and their field day at the end of the school to see if maybe we had to think about moving it to a different park. But it seems like the park area that we’re at will not be disturbed from the parking lot getting fixed up, so we should still be able to have it there. And I relayed that to them and they’re excited because then you got to change all the paperwork saying where it is. Yeah, because they just walk from the school, so you don’t park or—yeah, it's just parents that come and there's enough parking on the street for them. And then I also went to Planning Commission meeting on the 18th—the final approval for the school that we approved as well. There was a couple people that came up about the prairie, which we are still working with the U of M on the right plants and everything to go, so I think that’s going to be fine. And then the park getting taken over—which I'm hoping people know that that’s... when we're here, it’s not going to—we’re not going to let that happen when I’m here. And then the sidewalk as well. So those were the main concerns. And then I also did hiring—or interviews—for Planning Commission. So we had two interviews and we hired the Dean guy. **[59:15] Mayor Michele Hanson:** Great, I sat in on those too. Wonderful. Looking forward to meeting him. He’s going to be a good fit. He has city background qualifications. Yeah, excited. Well nice job, you were busy. **[59:15] Councilmember Katie Hill:** I was busy, awesome. **[59:15] Councilmember Carl Bliss:** Last weekend spent two days with a bunch, probably 300 city council members and mayors from across the state. The League of Minnesota had their newly elected official leader institute. They do one for more experienced people like you too, but it was just—it’s valuable to learn how cities work and how to do the job we do. But super valuable just to meet others who are doing this in similar-sized towns or bigger towns or much, much smaller towns even. And love getting together with council members from some of our neighboring communities and getting to know some of them. That’s been probably the most valuable part of getting started is meeting some of our neighboring elected officials. Wonderful attended my first meeting of the Lake Elmo Airport Citizens Advisory Commission. It’s a commission made up of 50% representatives from cities and townships around the area and 50% airport users. Just a couple of updates worth mentioning there: I guess the Lake Elmo Aero is installing a new fueling system with a leak detection system which I think our grandkids will thank us for somewhere down the line. Good. And then of course for anybody who’s aspiring to be a pilot, the EAA chapter 54 is doing their Young Eagles youth flights again in May, which is always worth getting a kid up in an airplane. Yeah, wonderful. And then the April meeting I think is the last of my pre-election conflict, so I just wanted to—I’ll miss the next meeting. Understood. Thank you, Carl. **[1:00:46] Mayor Michele Hanson:** Okay. In March I had a couple different meetings with Simon on that SPAR grant—the St. Paul Area Association of Realtors for the walkability study which is part in his write-up. And we're waiting to hear if we got the extra National Association funding from them. I'm not sure what the date is that we'll hear back but seemed pretty positive so we'll let you know how that goes. And thank you, Simon, for working on that with us. And I met with Jill [Smith] because I’m now a new Library Board liaison and so she taught me a little bit about how the Library Board works and my role. So we had a separate meeting and then I also went to the actual Library Board meeting and her summary in our packets is usually... kind of tells us most of what you need to know because she pretty much takes what we did there and puts it into our letter. But it’s exciting how that book club that someone, some random resident I believe, started the book club in conjunction with the library and it’s—it's growing. They had to move out of the little room into the big room. She has lots of plans for spring break so families should be looking online on the calendar for all the activities that are going to happen. And she also hosted Representative Josiah Hill and our new County Commissioner Bethany Cox at the library so they could learn a little bit about why our library is so important to our community. And she has—we have two new services: Canopy video streaming, and you can also get the New York Times all-access subscription—all you need is a library card, so go on and check that out. I went to Regional Council of Mayors meeting on February 10th and also the Fire Relief Association on that same day. Regional Council of Mayors was just about—we had some futurists there, it was really interesting just kind of looking ahead and what we need to be thinking about. So I was like, again, like you said, getting together with peers was very helpful. Fire Relief wasn’t—nothing too exciting happening at Fire Relief. I did go to a couple of the Bar Crawl meetings with the local businesses just to help them with their new event and make sure they were, you know, on track because I started the summer Bar Crawl through BALE when I was on that, so I thought it could help with that a little bit. Leadership in the Valley had their Education Day, so that was what we did on the second Thursday of the month and we went to Century College and we went to Stillwater Area High School and we each got assigned a different elementary school or different type of school in the area to go come back and report on. So it was really interesting to learn about all the different options that our community has for education. Also met with Clayton Dumc from Sustainable Stillwater. He asked to meet about the work that they’re doing with Met Council to install—they’re hoping to get solar panels at the wastewater treatment plant and so wanted to see how we as a community would feel about that. And I thought we would probably feel pretty good about that. So if we need—he was just looking for support and maybe might be sending us something where we would like say a letter of support or some proclamation or something, I’m not sure. And just kind of talked about other ways that their group could maybe connect with our community and because they don’t want to be known as just Sustainable Stillwater—they want it to affect the entire valley. So working on that. Matt and I had the meeting with the partners for the Fire Advisory Group and that was on the 19th. And I think everything went really well. We’re all kind of on board with doing some more meetings that we’re supposed to be doing so we can stay in touch and kind of keep things rolling so that we can renew or create a new contract probably eventually with some different criteria in it, but we’ll all have to—it was interesting. Then we also met with the newly elected Baytown chair and vice chair and went over a little bit about our fire advisory team and how we’re—Matt said it will probably take us a couple years before we kind of come to a conclusion about it. And she said, "Are you kidding? Let’s just lock ourselves in a room and figure this out," you know. So she... it was very interesting. Yeah, so it was good. We got to get to know them. Nicole Doll, and who’s actually related to John—it’s her brother-in-law—and she’s the chair now of the Baytown board, and CJ Randazzo, who we’ve met through Rick Fosi when he comes to do those—he’s the vice chair. So they had just some questions about our relationship between the city and the townships and things that we have in common, the annexation that’s going on, and just able to kind of get up to speed with them and seeing how we can already—how we already work together well and what we can do to partner on things again in the future. So they’re doing a great job getting everything kind of digging in and learning more there. I went to what was called the Greater MSP partnership. This was through the Regional Council of Mayors. Their president came and spoke to us and they—their mission is, I'll read it: "to accelerate regional competitiveness and inclusive economic growth." So it’s like kind of like a Chamber but more about economic growth instead of like the actual businesses. And so they had an event that they invited the mayors to and I invited our new commissioner Bethany Cox to because Washington County contributes $50,000 a year to this partnership. And then they’re trying—their goal is to bring economic development, you know, if someone wants a new business and they’re not thinking about Minnesota or the Greater MSP, it's their job to kind of go out there and try to get those people. So we just wanted to know: what are they doing for Washington County? And I’m still not sure that it's clear, but I’m going to keep meeting with people to understand that. Anderson Corporation also contributes to them and Excel, so I thought kind of interesting that they all feel like it’s a valuable thing. So I’m wondering what they’re actually doing for us and if there’s more we could have done. And I met with Mary Richie; she’s with the Stillwater Community Foundation to keep continue my pursuit of the best way to come up with an endowment, a way that people could like give endowments to the city if they want, and I think I'm finally getting close to that. So and then I also had a meeting with Eliza Klebeck from—she’s the VP of Communications and Community from Anderson Corporation. And I just think it’s good for us to stay connected and kind of update each other on what’s happening with them and what’s happening with us, so just kind of keeping those lines of communication open. So we just had coffee and told her about what’s going on with our school and the annexations and things like that. And she’s going to try to to hook us up with—she’s going to plan a tour because I haven’t been there for a while and maybe meet the CEO, and then I would invite you guys when we get that scheduled. So that was my month of March or February, I guess. So now we’re on to staff and City administrator reports. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Fire Chief? **[1:08:30] Gabe Kinney (Fire Chief):** Madam Mayor, council members. For February the call volume was 78 compared to 78 2024. I couldn’t believe it when I did the prep this morning. I know, I was... I had an error in the one—it says 100... but our year-to-date volume is 205 compared to 178 for last year. Monthly drills are fire behavior, fire officer right to know, Hazmat—which by the way we did have two Hazmats last two days, one down here at the Holiday Station and then a semi that turned over today, so going through that. We had Washington County Hazmat training; some of us attended our Cirrus training for active shooter in Woodbury. We attended Fire Advisory Board, as the Mayor mentioned. Our Fire Officer class continues; we have one this Wednesday and one next Wednesday. Our anniversaries are Aaron Pritchard with 15 years, Ray Valley with 15 years, Kyle Peltier with six years. Upcoming events: some more Cirrus training, the township annual meetings, and the Fire Officer class. With that I stand for questions. **[1:09:16] Mayor Michele Hanson:** So the actual call volume for February was 78? **[1:09:16] Gabe Kinney:** 78, yep. It was 78 last year. **[1:09:16] Mayor Michele Hanson:** Okay, so both of those numbers were wrong. Okay, sorry. **[1:09:16] Gabe Kinney:** That’s okay. I went and updated because Sara asked for it—well, I had placeholders and I forgot to update that. **[1:10:02] Mayor Michele Hanson:** That’s okay, it happens. All right, thank you for clarifying that. Thanks for coming. Police Chief Jackson? **[1:10:02] Jay Jackson (Police Chief):** Madam Mayor, council members. Somewhat of a couple of announcements: Officer Lowski did a meet and greet at the Bar Crawl; she stopped by there for a little bit, said hi to a couple of folks. Officer Nick Tesky has hit his 5-year full-time anniversary with us, so thank him for his service if you should run into him. Officer Lowski also did a couple of tours for three kindergarten classes of our Police Department this past week. And we did sign on to the BALE ice cream social June 4th—we’re going to have a presence down there for that. And then the big announcement is safety camp July 14th and 15th. We did change the date this year just to be a little bit easier on staff members; it’s a lot when we do it combined with Night to Unite, which is August 5th this year. So we’re kind of starting the planning process with that, but hopefully with the date change that’ll make it a little bit nicer for staff. So I will stand for any questions. **[1:10:48] Mayor Michele Hanson:** So you guys moved it to the night of City Council? **[1:11:35] Jay Jackson:** Yes, that way I only have a long day—the rest of the staff... **[1:11:35] Mayor Michele Hanson:** Yeah, like it’s not helping you, Jay. Okay, all right, thank you. Any questions? Thank you. Public Works Director Worth? **[1:11:35] Simon Worth (Public Works Director):** Madam Mayor, members of the council. For the month of February, snow plowing and cold temperatures and painting was the name of the game at our public workshop. Couple of things that we are kind of exciting here for the future: the 3M P settlement priority 2 grant program was released and the city intends to submit a letter of intent for a project. There is $20 million available for—that has been allocated to supporting projects that restore aquatic resources, wildlife habitats, and outdoor recreational opportunities in affected areas. We are looking at the LWP property—which is Land Water Legacy program—along the river, potentially looking at adding a park and a boat landing. So it’s pretty very exciting. We’ll be putting that letter together and submitting that by April 4th. The other thing was the SPAR community’s application update. That is—SPAR, as Mayor Hanson indicated, is the St. Paul Area Association of Realtors. They have a grant that they have money available for communities in order to essentially make the neighborhoods more saleable to realtors. And we decided to take advantage of that by trying to do a walkability study. And we reached out to the contractor who takes care of fixing our sidewalks by smoothing out the cracks, and it’s all called Safestep LLC. They had never done one of these walkability studies before, but they are very confident that they are able to do something since it’s kind of a niche that they’re in already. We’ve talked through that with them. It sounds like a really fun project for the city, for the Safestep, and SPAR seemed on board with it. They did seem positive and in the sense that we’re hopefully going to get that grant, almost in the amount of $15,000. Walkability is a big buzzword these days and really aiming to just get an idea of what our walking trails and pedestrian sidewalks look like and if there are any gaps in those in that system that we can fill to make Bayport more walkable. That’s the aim of that project. So other than that, with that I stand for questions. **[1:14:42] Mayor Michele Hanson:** All right, thank you Simon. Okay, does anyone have any—what? Oh yeah, you, I forgot about you. Go ahead, Matt. **[1:14:42] Matt Kline:** I get to fill in for two people. Sara’s out sick tonight unfortunately. Communications: the new website is progressing, we’re getting a fair amount of content on there. Looking at potentially online payments for a number of different items. Also finished up tonight the workshop for 2025 City goals and priorities. The council went through and identified areas where they want to prioritize on the goals and made suggestions for other ones. As far as the City Administrator report: obviously tonight we finished up the elementary school with the final plat. Intent there is, I believe, they are fencing off the area tomorrow—of the parking lot area and the kind of the perimeter that goes between the two properties essentially. So they will not start—just a heads up—they will not start tearing apart our parking lot tomorrow, so you will still be able to park there in the short term. And there will be an opening in the fence to use like the pavilion and different stuff. But when construction comes, they want to get the fence in place so they could start moving immediately on construction or removals actually, which will be coming probably in the next week or two. **[1:16:16] Councilmember Carl Bliss:** Question there—I was waiting for the right time. That’s something as as this stuff expenses go up as parking lots get ripped up, I don’t think we can communicate too much. **[1:16:16] Matt Kline:** Yeah, it’ll be stark here for a little bit while construction gets started and it’ll take a little getting used to. But yep. And the intent would be to probably here after final plat was passed, if Sara’s in tomorrow I’ll have her do an email blast just on the short-term schedule that we know. We have been in contact with both the VAA [St. Croix Valley Athletic Association] and the St. Croix Prep regarding ball field use, and then obviously Anderson parent group who has been talking about using the field. But yes, there’s been up until the schedule that came out last week, we haven’t had too much of a schedule that we knew about. So with that, I will stand for questions. **[1:17:48] Mayor Michele Hanson:** Okay, now we’re really done. Unless someone has an announcement? Okay, anyone? **[1:17:48] Councilmember Katie Hill:** I move to adjourn the meeting. **[1:17:48] Councilmember Carl Bliss:** Second. **[1:17:48] Mayor Michele Hanson:** All right, all in favor? **[1:17:48] Councilmembers:** Aye. **[1:17:48] Mayor Michele Hanson:** All right, we’re done. Thank you all, thank you. **[1:18:23]** (Quiet/Background noise)