Council work meeting to session to order. Make motion adopt agenda. Second. Have a motion and a second to adopt agenda. All those in favor? I. Item three. Uh Mr. Mayor and council members. Um at the request of uh Council Member Smith, we're bringing forward the 2027 law enforcement contracts. We've included in the packet which you did all receive, I'm assuming. um the law enforcement contracts that um I think there's three of them in here that we've had over the years uh with the sheriff's office. And um it's kind of funny. I'm looking at the Scott Schulty chair then um and there's a crazy guy in here as a chair um right there and then uh Mike Gamash. There's four [clears throat] of them actually. So, wanted to um the question was kind of brought up about um hours and and um we have 36 hours right now that we contract with and the question was kind of brought up of what would be like 18 and 24 and how would that uh play out in terms of cost to the city. Um, I sent that email off to uh the county and while they kind of pow-wowed a little bit, they all kind of came to the agreement that um that the cost to try and generate these hours was significant. Um, and so we decided then that what we would do is bring it back to a work session right here today and kind of talk about um the contract as it is. You've had a chance to read through it. Um you kind of you get you you'll be getting an update today on the council meeting um and kind of want to get feedback from the council as far as how they feel it's going and if there's a need for reduction in um in hours. I will say that um this is the fence one. I will say that the sheriff is um reluctant to re reduce hours based on what they um see and um the calls they're getting uh in the community. Um some of which arguably is are um are medical calls. Uh but uh and some of them are are calls that uh you know the sweeping car that goes through the whole county can cover. But largely it's it's based on the on call deputies uh that we have here that are patrolling the city um 36 hours. So at any rate, I just wanted to bring it up and get your feedback. If there's a consensus to to um pursue this, we can try pursuing it. it again. Um I think that there's a reluctance from the sheriff to to provide anything less. So what are the options then? Well, um there's always been a conversation about a a northern police force, right? Northern County police force. Uh you get towns like Bethl and Lynwood that you know uh are currently contracting with the sheriff and oh no, Bethl I think is with St. Francis. Lynwood is with the sheriff. Um, but what would a Bethl Lynwood, you know, East Bethl, Columbus, you know, maybe El Grove look like for a regional police force? You know, how how would that pan out? Well, we don't know. We've never really put those numbers together. Um, but um but that is certainly an option. The other option, of course, is to to uh put together your own police force and and uh hire your own deputies. um your insurance obviously for the city would change dramatically because uh one George Floyd scenario and I think Minneapolis paid out $20 million on that one. So [clears throat] uh it can get very costly. Um so that's kind of very preliminary but kind of laying the groundwork of um of where we're at with the contract. Um, I would say if the sheriff was here, um, he would say that they believe that the current contract right now is is um required, mandatory, whatever for this community. But you guys are the policy makers. So there in lies the discussion. Well, I when I looked at it, I'm I we decreased um we went from 7 6 for two years to 7.56, but we also increased to 10 overtime hours. And I was thinking, why do we even need the overtime hours? If we can get rid of anything, let's just keep what we've got, but get rid of the overtime hours because I do have a question. Don't we don't they still get backup? if they need backup, they're going to get backup from the state or the county or another county or something if they absolutely feel they need it. If they're going feel like they're going into a dangerous situation. Am I correct in that or am I incorrect? Yeah, I think that's one of the benefits of using uh the sheriff as a as a um provider is that they've got options, right? whether it's dive teams or SWAT teams or um whatever the case may be, they do have a a larger bench, you know, to be able to draw from in the event of, you know, um a shooting of some sort or whatever the case may be or or um active shooter or somebody's held up in a house type of scenario. You you hear some of those type of events that happen. Um, if you were to have your own police force, it'd be difficult to res, you know, respond with the numbers. Um, and as far as mutual aid goes, of something of that nature, the countyy's rather large. I mean, we're, you know, 36 square miles and and depending on where there's another available officer, who knows? You know, they dis they may dispatch, but it may take them 20 minutes to get here. And by then, um, you know, anything's possible at that point. I'm trying to figure out though why we need 36 hours a day. My own thought is that I see well just what I've seen just recently actually between Quick Trip and Holiday one day, there's a sheriff's car sitting there. What he's doing, I have no idea. I mean, if he's taking radar or whatever, why is he doing this on a highway? And he's a NOA County Sheriff. So, my thought is with their uh contract, they should be in our city patrolling our roads, not the highway. So, it's like, I don't know how much of that stuff goes on. You know what I mean? And like Suzanne said, too, if we had an emergency, we're going to call 911. They're coming from everywhere. It's no different than if we're sitting here supposedly having three cars and Ham Lake calls, our guys are going there. So, I mean, it's like I feel that we're paying for 36 hours when we really don't need to do that. I mean, if we could reduce this to 24. I've talked to B Grove and they have 24 hours. Granted, their population is 9,577 and we're higher than that. 12,100. But they're basically $600,000 achievement. So I really think we should look into the 24hour thing. And I mean for the sheriff to say that basically I look at it like you're trying to hold us hostage. You know what I mean? It's like we're the city and we should be looking at all alternatives on this. Every which way because just like when I brought up the last meeting about the car that was told that they buy us a car every year, okay, at the end of the year, we should have that car so we can sell it. You know, stuff like that. You can look into their contract and it's like, well, okay, this that. Just because they've had this thing for many years doesn't mean that we don't have the right to look into it and say, hey, we don't need this. We don't feel we need this. Like I say, the protection's going to be there if we need it. They're going to come from everywhere. You know, like I said, they should be patrolling our roads. And then I'm thinking, too, is I would be willing to bet we should probably do an analysis and see how many are medical calls. It's not like we're not like Blaine where they have issues, you know, with criminal stuff. We're up in East Bethl. I mean, we have, of course, you get the methheads and all that stuff, but whatever. We don't have the situation like down there. So, in order for us to have I mean, we're not going to give up sheriff's protection, they're going to be here. But, I mean, if we can save the residents half a million dollars, I don't know why we would. I will clarify one thing on the car. We did get an answer back on that. Um the uh what's not included in this contract is damage that happens to the vehicles while they're in use. Uh they had a report on East Bethl and we had about 50ome thousand dollars in damage to vehicles over eight years period and um and so the sheriff goes out and gets vehicles fixed and brings them back online. They don't bill us for those repairs. Um they use the essentially the the resale value of these used vehicles to cover that expense. But if you go through the contract too, we're paying for their insurance. You pay for insurance and maintenance. Yeah. We're paying for all that. So, you don't pay for the deductible though. You know, the generally insurance is is um complete loss type scenario. Um if you if somebody sideswipes a police car or whatever, you know, you got to get that body work fixed. They get pretty good rates actually from the the companies that do the work for them, but um but that generally is less than the deductible at that point. And so somebody's going to eat it is what I'm saying, right? Um I just don't want us eat it, right? So they don't include because they don't know how many times they're going to get sideswiped or how much body work they're going to need to have done. uh they just call that a wash in terms of the vehicles when they're sold, you know, at auction. They don't reimburse us for, you know, they don't say, "Okay, well, we got 50, you know, we had $50,000 worth of damage and $48,000 we got back on the vehicles. You owe us two grand." You know, they just call it a wash at that point. How many times h in reality have a vehicle in East Bethl been sideswiped, damaged, had their windows broken, had a Minneapolis, yeah, you see that every day with these protests and stuff, but out here we don't see that. The they ran a report there's $50,000 on average a year from East Bethl from East Bethl. hitting deers, whatever. Yep. Could be taking rocks to windshields, could be a whole, you know, who knows? I can remember years back we killed a deputy out of a car that got t-boned at Klondike at 65. [clears throat] It happens. You You can't Oh, right. You can't say when it happens. That's actually one of the fears of our fire department when we don't have a backup. um fire engine is that if that gets t-boned in an intersection while on a call and lights are going and someone t-bones them by accident, we're in big trouble because we got a vehicle down now and it's a year to get one of these trucks replaced. You know, a little different for this. But um you know the the um sheriff can then allocate a different vehicle to East Buffalo during the hours and you know either get a new one going or get the one fixed or they have floaters. But um that was the explanation on the car. Yeah. On the messenger. As far as like the hours and stuff, can we request their calls what they're doing? Well, in the presentation uh this evening um Where did that go? Um, they will cover some of those calls. Um, oh yeah, this thing here. And, um, but all they're doing is putting on, you know, stuff like they're arresting people and stuff like that. Yeah. They're kind of giving you the So, I responded to 451 calls for service, uh, one salt, five [clears throat] uh, theft reports, and four damage property calls. 16 arrest for miscellaneous offenses. 59 traffic stops, 25 traffic citations. So, um, one good question this evening because they're going to be presenting is how many medical calls did you did we have this last month or whatever the case is? I think they they respond very similar to our fire department just about every medical call in the event that they're needed. Um, and uh, and that's been that's a discussion that we're having with fire, too. you know, do you need to go to every medical call? You know, um but um yeah, as soon as that call is in at 911, you're going to get the ambulance gets dispatched, fire gets so police automatic. Wow. Every time. Then if they don't need them, they'll cancel them sometime in route or whatever. But it automatically triggers all three of them. So it just taken 451 calls for service in one month. Divide that by three for the three deputies that cover the 36 hours. They're covering 150 calls a piece per month. Divide that by average of 30 days. Uh each deputy is responding to five calls a day. And sometimes when you see a a deputy sitting somewhere. They could be on break. They could be writing reports. They, you know, they could be radar, you know, doing radar for vehicles, traffic monitoring. Yeah. The documentation part of this whole thing, it's pretty extensuous, right? Yeah. They've got the computer modules in their cars for doing all the report taking. And part of it just being out there, a presence, being a presence. Yeah, that's got to be a deterrent for some folks. There's a reason some cities put up cop car or plywood cutouts of cop cars. I, you know, this doesn't apply to me, but I know when some people are driving, they'll, you know, they see a cop, they'll slow down. I don't need to, but but um yeah, I mean, we can ask them. I I do want to say that they will probably be some push back on providing less than 36. That's fine. I have no problem with it. I want to be included with this negotiation with them because it's like they need to me it's like 1.6 million. It's nuts. It's crazy when you start looking at the other cities too. I understand the population is different, but still, like I said, we're not Blaine or anywhere where we need the police to help us because of all the crime and all that stuff going on. We don't have that here. So, I think if you did a cost analysis, you'd really have, you know, if you wanted your own department and that, and I think they did this years back here in East Bel because they're looking at this that just the startup cost is so astronomical. It's crazy. I know. Cuz I checked It's crazy. I checked with St. Francis, too, to see if they'd be interested in partnering because they have their own fleece. Yeah. But then the expense with them also, you got to have more cars, more cops. So, it wasn't efficient for them to do either. It all adds up. So, yeah, you'd have to have a regional north noa county force of some sort to really have economies of scale. Um, and that's a possibility. It's just um coordinating all the cities to to do that is where the you know negotiation lies. But it's um yeah it's it'd be a challenge to put that together and keep it together without infighting. Because it never gets any cheaper. That's the whole thing. No, it don't get any cheaper. And then the other issue is, you know, if you do decrease the hours, uh, the service to the residents, how is that going to affect them? See, that's what I mean, though. It's like I don't look at it that way because if you need it, they're going to be there. They should. They should be. Yes. The three cops aren't here. They're in Ham Lake. It's no different. You know what I mean? So, they're not guaranteeing that they're going to be here for those 36 hours either. That's the whole thing. That's my thought with that. Yeah, I think it's 36 hours and a 24-h hour period. There's three cups, but there's overlap. Yeah, you got three shifts that overlap. Part of the part of the challenge that we have being that we're um I'd say at least a half an hour from the jail. uh is that you pull somebody over on a DWI, bring him to to a NOA County jail in the city of Anoka, your city is down now as far as you know, law enforcement goes, right? for for not only the half hour each way, but [clears throat] the booking time, which is [snorts] significant um depending on who else is in line, so to speak, uh to to get get booked in and um and they could be there for 3, four hours easy. Um or I mean 3 four hours total, which means they're off the street. Um, well, one of the benefits of that is, yeah, we get something serious here and a Ham Lake deputy could respond if there's nothing happening in Ham Lake, there's some economies there that that we can benefit from. Um, and vice versa, too. I mean, I think I think if Ham Lakes was at the jail detained, you know, we'd probably be helping there, too, right? Um but I don't know that uh you know so so largely speaking aside from the overlap you have one deputy you know in the city working at any one time right like I said though I'll be in negotiation let's do it don't hurt to ask to me the taxpayers are paying dearly if we can save money that's what I'm all I tend to agree. I think we're overprotected. Well, maybe Jim and Suzanne and Matt, you get Mr. Wise out here and have a sit down meeting and then report back. I think that would be a good idea. I agree. Okay, Matt, you can set that up. Okay. All right. Thank you. Let's move on to the next one. Uh fence ordinance. Okay, Mr. Mayor and Council, we have the fence ordinance here and the next two uh were proposed by um council member Urkel to bring to uh work session here to discuss kind of what our current fence ordinance is and and what our current parking ordinance is for vehicles. Um fence height is kind of was kind of the issue as I understand for residential. Uh we have um you know a fence height of four feet. If it's on the um on your driveway side you can have a four up to four feet fence. Um on the side of your house you can have up to six foot fence. And I think where the where the challenge has come in is on 22. There's some homes that are on 22 and can have a sixft fence, but their driveway is off on a side street and there's some homes that um 22 that have to have a 4ft fence then. Um and then I think what uh the challenge then is if I'm not mistaken, it's sound abatement and maybe light or something like that. So um so this is what our code is currently. Um and um and part of the challenges we we met, staff met and talked a little bit about this. Part of the challenges as we foresee is if if you had neighborhoods with 4 foot fences in their front yards, you know, it look kind of like a alleyway. Uh and that may be why the common code is 4 feet, you know. Um you know, a lot of these codes we didn't we didn't invent. we copied from other communities or what's uh best management practice perhaps. But um but at any rate, wanted to bring it uh for discussion to to get some dialogue on this to determine um you know where the council's at. Do you want us to to modify the ordinance? Do you want to you know what are the how many how many people would this impact? That sort of thing. So, my proposal is if the speed limit is over 45 miles an hour, which would mean you're probably having big trucks and uh loud motorcycles and those kind of vehicles zooming past your house and people cannot watch TV with their window open because of the the loud noise and the fumes are coming into their homes on these diesel trucks and the some of the other vehicles that pollute. Um, and we've had complaints and I had a guy in here last time um, who begged and begged us to let him have he, in fact, he had paid for a six-foot fence and they made him take it down and put up a 4ft fence. But um I sitting in somebody's driveway watching these vehicles go by. It's loud and I don't understand why if I my driveway faces Viking Boulevard, why can't I have a sixoot fence when neighbors on both sides of me have six foot fence? Um, I think it there should be a standard that it's appealing that it um, you know, that it's not pallets that they're stacking up. You know, you'd see some people who do foliage and just to to block some of it, but that doesn't even do a whole lot when it comes to these vehicles, these big trucks and stuff. So, I think if that's probably the Best way I can say it is if it's over 45 miles an hour they can and the ordinance can specify that that you can u have that. Now I don't know about um areas like whispering aspens or the um places where those mobile homes are that might need some different um what's the word? analysis because I don't know if that would work there. But on regular residential homes, yeah, I think it would be important to appease these people who are having issues with the noise. And I've talked to a lot of people on biking and so it would be on biking on East Bethl Boulevard on um 15 and 74 and 221st maybe. Not there. Not a lot of roads that we have those high speed limits. Basically your county roads. [clears throat] Yeah. Yeah. As far as Whispering Aspen and some of the other sewer and water areas, uh, typically what I've seen is they're just mentioning in the backyard. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think it needs to apply to um them because well like Elivage has is not on a they might get a lot of 65 noise but they also have sand hill so they wouldn't qualify for the 45 mph rule but that that' be the backyards that they're fencing and so they could do the well not all of them but most of them yeah I did have somebody complain who lives was a mile in from 65 and she says the noise is horrendous. So I'm like well I can't help you with that one. [laughter] Noise is horrendous on 22 alone period nowadays. Yeah. There's a lot more traffic. I I only live two blocks in. So it's just a proposal. Um, and I got houses and trees buffering everywhere. You still hear it. And if they're going to go six feet, they as far as looks and everything, they got to require a permit anyway. So, well, I thought it said 8t for a permit. Or did I [clears throat] anything over six feet in height right there? Over six. Yeah, that doesn't say six. Item B right there explains it. But I don't I mean even up to 8 foot for some of these roads, I wouldn't care if um but a permit, you know, where the city would have to go and evaluate it. Just change it roads. Yeah. Do Well, do we have any county roads that are slower than 55? No. Oh, yeah. County works works for me because each case is going to present a whole different issue. I mean, you know, depending on the person, you know. Yeah. And they don't have to. It's it's not like we're man mandating they do it, but for the people who have medical issues and who don't have AC or don't want to run their AC in the summertime or on a nice cool day, you know, in the fall and want to keep their windows open, it's a benefit if they can. And I don't even know how many people would um apply because you do have people who live in big fancy houses and keep their property immaculate [clears throat] and like to show it off, you know. And then you have people who have big fancy houses and immaculate yards and don't like to show it off either and like the peace and quiet and move out here for peace and quiet and find out, you know, they see their property at 1:00 in the afternoon or 11 o'clock in the morning and there's no traffic and then come four or five o'lock. It's crazy. So, well, we could change it to being allowed on a county road. Um, uh, same with the the 4 foot provided they comply with traffic visibility requirements. We wouldn't want to be cutting off line of sight. All right. Yeah, that that would definitely have to be a certain area from the road so that if a car is coming out, they could see both directions and both directions could see the car. And I'm guessing that uh even a 4ft fence would have to could not be placed in right away. So that apply to 6T as well. Anything else on this? But we can certainly um [clears throat] take a look at this, consider what properties where you could add the county part of it and yeah, what properties might be impacted with driveways on county roads and um and then run it through planning and zoning and see what they have for comments on and and go from there. Sounds like a plan. Yep. Okay. All right. Moving on. Item five, five car rule. Okay. Second item was a fivecar rule and uh we included on here the off- streetet parking and loading requirements uh part of the appendix. Um and um and to find the exact location in here. I wanted to include the entire code for you so that um you can see how what has gone into the code that we currently have and second parking residential off street parking. So, one of the challenges that we have right now is um is parking on unimproved surfaces. And a lot of driveways, I think, can only have can only hold so many vehicles to begin with. And if uh if there are more vehicles in the house than than a driveway allows for, you have people parking on unimproved surfaces. And at that point, you know, uh, you have a violation of the code essentially. And sometimes we are a complaint based community. So sometimes neighbors call and and complain about that. Um, people parking on their lawns. And um, and so we allow up to five. I'm just trying to find that. It's 3B3, I think. Um, and it kind of defines some of the snowmobile trailer accommodations, lawn equipment, construction equipment, other equipment or trailers, recreational vehicles. Maximum of five of the following must be parked on designated driveways and improved surface outdoor storage area located in a side or rear yard. Yeah, I think it's kind of ridiculous giving a a limit and rather than um the condition of property and as far as the um surface they're stored on, I think gravel would be also an that they could put down gravel in between like a garage next to a garage And it doesn't have to be asphalt. I I think requiring it to be asphalt is an expense that especially as expensive as asphalt is right now, I think that doesn't need to be. And I think if people want to put it on gravel, that should be okay. that I think that it's not reasonable to have it listed as recreational vehicles, boats, snowmobiles, lawn equipment, um construction equipment, trailers, and a combination limit to five because right now we have kids moving back home, parents living back home. You have whole families, they all drive. That's 10 cars. If you have couples, you know, m the owner, the wife, the son, the wife, the mom, the dad, you know, each has a vehicle, then you have lawnmowers and you have boats and you have campers and you have everything. And I don't think we should limit it to five. I think it could we could stipulate condition of vehicles it because I understand that we don't want junk vehicles sitting in people's property. We don't want people doing um neighborhood car maintenance on everybody's vehicle changing their oils and stuff like that on and stuff like that. But I I just think this is almost ridiculous. And I don't I've seen a I've kind of researched a couple other cities and a lot of them do not have it. I don't think H I think Ham Lake had it for a while and then they didn't have it. They had it and they got rid of it because it just doesn't make any sense. And I think property size should be taken into consideration too. If you have a small lot over in Capstone or Elivage or Whispering Aspen, yeah, you you don't want to have, you know, 10 vehicles to on, you know, you you wouldn't have any yard available, everything would be parked. But if you have half a acre, a acre, three acres, 10 acres, you should be able to park anything you want outside if you want to, rather than be forced to store it. another expense on our taxpayers or build a a pole barn or something to put it in. And who's to say pole barns are are are not the best looking things, you know, on a property, especially the size of property. So, I think um I think we should put conditions and not a number in there. Well, the way I'm reading this, it states a maximum of five of the following vehicles: recreational, boat, trailer, snowmobile, etc. Those following vehicles do not include cars or trucks. And then up to two automobiles or other motor vehicles or two snowmobiles or all-terrain vehicles may be located or displayed on any property for the purpose of sale. Okay. So, it's talking about sale and it does address inoperable vehicles. Yep. currently not licensed by the state, incapable of movement under their own power due to mechanical deficiency, which are parked or stored or outside for a period in excess of 96 hours. All materials stored outside in violation of city ordinances are considered refu or junk and shall be disposed of according to city regulations. Yeah. The the way I read this is it uh restricts where to park but not the amount of cars or trucks. So, the only place that I could find it is under the Rural Residential District section 42. Uh item five, interim uses uh 5C. The following interim uses are permitted in the rare rural residential district with the interim use permit. outside storage of fi more than five vehicles, recreational vehicles, items of equipment or trailers. That's the only place that I could find it addressed, not in the ordinance that we're looking at. And and frankly, my my viewpoint on this is if the the scenarios that you said that uh you have kids, you have four kids that they're driving age, they move back, you have six, seven, eight cars in the driveway. If it's not a nuisance, I don't really care. Yeah, I don't care either. Where we have the ordinances is in the situations where it does become a nuisance. We need to have some sort of ordinance that we can enact to discourage that nuisance. And that's where the complaint basis comes in. Yeah. because I did get a complaint and I don't know if the city got it because I redirected them to the city about vehicles. Um they said there's multiple families living in this house. It's over near the school somewhere and that u they're parking on the road. They've got multiple cars and multiple um lawn equipment and recreational equipment in their yard. That's what the guy said. I didn't know the address so I couldn't go look at it, but I directed him to the city and I said the city B it's based on complaints so you have to go there. But I was thinking that if I brought this up, if that was if this is the ordinance they were referring to, um, it could reduce city staff time addressing these complaints because if it's not a nuisance, I mean, I don't care what my neighbor has, if he has boats [clears throat] or lawnmowers and four-wheelers and campers and all that stuff in his yard. It doesn't bother me and I don't know why it would bother anybody else if there's more than five because some people have everybody has different fancy cars in their garage. Everybody has different expectations of themselves [clears throat] and their neighbors. It's the world we live in. Oh, well that's something to think about. We don't have to decide on it tonight, but I did want to bring it up then I think the number five is um accept the arbitrary number in it should be reconsidered like I said if they aren't causing an issue I really don't care but in the small cases where there is an issue that We need an ordinance that we can fall back on to enforce. We can deal with that with a case by case situation, too. I I feel the same way you guys do, too. It's It's not hurting anybody's whatever. Doesn't bother me at all. But we do have issues where neighbors are right [clears throat] bickering over any little thing and oh this person has a light in their yard and it's pointing to my house and I don't like it and where's the ordinance for that and you know just you're always bring every each other I mean we've dealt with them you're always going to have that yeah everybody had 80 acres live on it, [clears throat] we probably won't need as many ordinances, but fortunately we don't. And and I think that's really the issue. The more acreage you have, the less concern people have, but the tighter the neighborhoods are. Um, we brought up Trioke and uh earlier this evening and it seems like there's always someone pointing at somebody doing something and uh I remember a former council member with a fence that was built that uh on the prior fence thing he's still pretty sore about. Um but um yeah, the tighter these these homes get, you know, the the more useful these ordinances become because you're going to have a lot more complaints. But your larger lots, of course, wooded or whatever the case is, nobody no one can even see what they have for the most part. [clears throat] Then you of course you have the extreme violators and I don't know the gentleman's name but um um lived over by council member Miller with quite a few vehicles in his yard from what I recall. Um, so those are those are the anomalies, shall we call them? But um um yeah, there is Minnesota you've got uh you got seasons, right? And you have toys for seasons and they add up just part of life. You know, your boat's not going to be in the water in the winter. No, [clears throat] unless you live down south. or we'll just play it by ear, see if uh how many complaints come in type of thing and see if we need to ratchet this one up, but otherwise keep what we have right now. Yeah. Okay. I agree. Thing is the complaints too, make sure they're written, otherwise we Yeah, we always so much time. We always recommend that they're written to to qualify as a complaint and um and then we have a process that we go through to um there's three letters sent out and we're hoping for compliance and then there's fines that are sent out and we're hoping for payment of those fines and and eventually um uh it gets to a council decision of what folks want to do. Is it uh do we prosecute? Is it abatement? What do we how do we want to handle this? So, um, you're no strangers to that in terms of some of the discussions we've had recently. So, all right, sounds good. Anything else? Need a motion for adjourn. Motion to adjurnn. Second. Have a motion. Second. All in favor? I. Okay. 15 minutes. Okay. Okay. At this time, I'd like to call to order the August 24th, 2026 uh council meeting to order. Please rise if you can for the pledge. To the flag of the United States of America and to the stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Make a motion to adopt tonight's agenda with the addition of item E under the consent agenda. Item E is a supplemental payment summary. Second. Motion a second. Any further discussion? Not hearing none. All those in favor? I post. None heard. Uh no county sheriff. Uh good evening council. Uh July, we responded to a total of 451 calls for service. We had one assault, five theft reports, and four damage to property calls. We had a total of 16 arrests uh made within the city limits. We conducted 159 traffic stops which resulted in 25 traffic citations. Uh some of our notable calls on the 4th of July at 11:28 p.m. Deputy Martinez responded to a twocar crash at Highway 65 at Klondike. Uh remarks on the call stated that one of the vehicles appeared to be attempting to leave the scene while the other was stuck in the ditch. Uh once he arrived, Deputy Martinez contacted the drivers of both of those vehicles and determined that nobody was hurt. Thankfully, uh while he was speaking with both of these drivers, each of them showed signs of impairment and asked them to perform standardized field sobriety tests. Um both of the drivers that were asked to do that failed and were asked to provide PBTs. One of the drivers refused that uh ask and then provided the second driver later submitted to a sample which resulted in a 228 BAC. So both drivers were ultimately arrested and transported to the Noa County Sheriff's Office where each driver provided evidentiary breath samples. The results of those tests were 0.14 and 08 respectively. Both drivers were booked into our jail on charges of second and third degree DWI. So, it sounds like two drivers that didn't know each other traveling northbound on 65 hit each other and both were impaired, which resulted in two arrests for us. Uh, on the 6th of July at 4:55 p.m., Deputy Madson was dispatched to a vehicle theft report. The reporting party was an employee of a car lot along Highway 65 who reported one of his vehicles missing. The reporting party said that the vehicle was left in front of the business with the keys in the ignition. Deputy Madson collected that information and entered the vehicle as a stolen. While he was checking the area, the original reporting party called back to report that an unknown vehicle was now parked in front of his lot and then that it didn't belong to the business or any of the employees. Deputy Matson responded to that scene and determined that that vehicle uh that had been left behind was listed out of of listed as a stolen out of the city of Burnsville. It appears that the stolen vehicle from Burnsville was driven to East Bethl, dumped here while the thief stole another car from one of our lots and that is what generated our initial call for service. We later learned that the owner of that of the vehicle's cards were fraudulently used at the Quick Trip just across the street. We currently don't have any suspects at this point in time, but we are working on uh going through some video footage. So, we continue to investigate that matter. Um that case is pending for us last month. And then finally on on the 19th of July, Deputy Johnson attempted to stop a vehicle for speeding along Highway 65. The vehicle continued a short distance and pulled into the Holiday gas station parking lot. The driver immediately got out of the vehicle and attempted to walk into the store. Deputies Johnson and Guru told the male driver to stop, which he did, but became argumentative with the deputies who were there. The deputies attempted to handcuff the male, at which point the male resisted and began to tense up and pull away. Deputies struggled with this person for approximately three minutes from what we could see on our uh on our squad cameras. During that struggle, a knife was removed from the belt line of this person and one of our deputies received a laceration to the to his leg as a result of this. The male driver was eventually taken into custody and transported to jail on charges of assault. So thankfully no one was seriously injured because of this altercation. Our deputy was transported to the hospital, received care for that laceration to his leg um and we were able to move on from there. So thankfully that wasn't worse than it could have been knowing the information that we have now. Um so September's nearly upon us which means our open house is just around the corner. So I'd like to invite anybody uh that's available to come join us on Thursday, September 24th from 4 to 7:00 p.m. at the sheriff's office in Andover. Um with there will be food trucks and a number of public safety demonstrations that we put on including swap marine unit and canine. So check our social media pages for more details on that. Any questions for a deputy? Yeah. Hey, I noticed the numbers year to date are down, but then under burglaries there's an increase. Is there any similarities amongst those that maybe residents should be aware of? Yeah, I think that a lot of that stuff is going to be daytime based. A lot of our burglaries happen during the day when people are at work. Um I think the the um you know conclusions that you can draw on that is simply when people are gone, just double check your stuff. Make sure that you lock your key, lock your house, make sure your keys are out of your car. You know, we had some of those vehicles stolen from the lots along 65 there. Make sure that that stuff is secured. Um, get a good working camera system. Uh, if anything comes up, our investigators have the capability to to download that information and further our investigation. You know, back in the day, we didn't have that. Um, it was kind of new when I was working patrol in the city. So, uh, those are all good tactics that you can use, uh, as residents within the city to make sure that you, uh, have some equipment that supports us, uh, moving forward down the line. Definitely, as I always say, call us if you have something, if you see something, we'll come out. Um, we'll drive around. You know, if it's a phone call report or if you want to just talk to a deputy, that's that's one thing, but if you want somebody to come out, um, verbalize that to the dispatcher. Sometimes we have that confusion where the deputy thinks they can handle it by phone. Let's not do that. Let's get a let's get a black and white down your down your street. We'll get into the area and check it out. Thank you for that. So, I have a question. You guys had 159 traffic stops but only 25 citations. That seems like not very well balanced. What is going on with that? Yeah. So, that's going to depend on, you know, some of the discretionary measures that are afforded to the deputies. um we get a new crew every single year in the city. So sometimes we get new deputies uh that are learning the ropes a little bit maybe perhaps and then we get some very experienced deputies who might focus their energies elsewhere. So last year at this point in time we had a lot of new deputies that were writing a lot of traffic violations. This year we have some senior folks. Um they're working on some of that narcotics, some of the things that we have going in and out of our streets and our neighborhoods in that regard that might lower that traffic number. Um, but we certainly expect our folks to be out there and remain visible to our citizens. A lot of that too is going to be um, you know, like I said before, discretionary. So the deputies aren't told that they have to write a certain number of tickets. We we allow them that discretionary measure. And certainly we want to change bad behavior on the roadways. So if we've got somebody, let's say a 16-year-old kid that might deserve a break on something or or a soccer mom going to soccer, we're going to take the time to educate rather than enforce. So, um, we see these swings every now and again. We see these in all of our cities, and I think it's cyclical. I think it'll come back. So, you think that was mostly speeding that they let go? Okay. Anybody else? Thank you, sir. Fire chief, mayor, members of the council. Thanks for having me. Um, so one thing, uh, this report will be a little bit shorter just because I had been doing these reports from the the date of the last council meeting until this current council meeting. Uh, we're now doing just the month. So Jan or July 1st through July 31st. Uh so some of the numbers might look a little uh familiar uh just because it encapsulates most of July which we talked about last month but uh we did 76 total calls uh 12 shortness of breath, seven unconscious and six heart issues on the medical side. And on the fire side uh we saw six uh vehicle crashes and one structure fire that was a mutual aid response uh to the Rum River Fire District. Uh we are gearing up for fire prevention week. Uh schools are getting on the calendar. Uh we're looking forward to getting out there and hanging out with the kids and showing them the trucks and talking fire safety with them. Um our open house is October 5th starting at 5:00 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. Come on out. Uh we're working on increasing uh our community partnerships and getting more vendors out there and uh more participation uh from uh from outside uh people just to showcase the the public safety that we have and and uh different opportunities that are out there. Uh we were invited to the East Bethl Farmers Market um uh by the organizer. Um, her name escapes me right now and I apologize for that. Um, but we've been trying to get out there each week. We've been out there two weeks in a row. We had a crew that was out there for four hours today and ran out of materials to hand out. So that means they're coming in contact with a lot of kids and a lot of families. Uh, so that's been fun for us. We've been able to just kind of get out and mingle with the community. Um, and then as far as anything else goes, uh, we're continuing to work through a bunch of small projects, updating small hand tools and such. Uh, and then one of the slightly bigger ones, uh, we'll be changing out our computers for iPads. Uh this will uh mark a move uh from our current cell provider to AT&T FirstNet which in the event of an emergency widespread emergency will give us priority access to cell service and cell towers in the area. Um it'll upgrade our equipment. It'll lower our monthly bill and it also coincides with a change um at dispatch as they transfer uh transition into a new uh technology for computer AED uh dispatching. So all in all, it's going to be it's going to be a win. Uh it's just going to be a little bit of a process here. We'll have everything in place by Halloween. All right. Anybody else got questions? Can you give the date and time for the your open house again? October 5th, 5:00 pm till 7:30 p.m. And we'll be also we'll be putting stuff out on social media uh and I'll make sure to mention it again next month. All right, great. It's always a good event. I always like attending that. I um saw your fire engine at the farmers market, so I was going to ask about that. So, thanks for the update. Um, I do want to ask about the switch over. Are you Verizon right now and you're switching to AT&T? Have you tested the AT&T before you switch or is it just a cost thing? Because I've tried AT&T out here and it doesn't work. I will double check that. We haven't signed any contracts or anything. According to AT&T, they put a tower out in this area, so the coverage is okay. Increased significantly. Uh, I will definitely double check that because T-Mobile doesn't work out here. Neither did AT&T, but if they put a tower, they may it may have changed. It's been a few years since I've tried them. I I will double check. Again, we haven't signed anything. This is just that we we're testing out different things to make sure it's going to work, but I will make sure we test that out. Wonderful. Thank you. Thanks, Chief. Okay. Public forum. Uh Nancy Hager, I remind you of uh three minutes. Try and hold it too. Please pronounce your name, address, and everything up here. Speak into the speaker, please. Three minutes. Well, try and keep it to that. Yes. Okay. Nancy Hager is my name. You would you say you need me to spell it? No. Okay. Address pretty easy. 707 199th Avenue Northeast in Cedar. And I don't know, I guess my deal is pretty black and white. I live in a dead end neighborhood in the Cedarbrook edition. Um, in the last three years, I've noticed, and I never put two and two together, but there were just a lot of trucks going by, and I kept thinking they were people were building houses or doing something. And then I noticed that they were all Williams landscaping. And as of today, I have about five trucks that go by my house and they're big trucks. Some of them are semis. And the most disturbing one, okay, well, first of all, our roads were awful. And I had told Nick about the roads and he said, "Yeah, with these trucks, we're going to have to get a handle on it before or the roads are going to go bad again. And so we now have our roads done and I have five at least five I have a security system in my house and I see them and I've sent all my pictures started sending all my pictures to Matt and the most disturbing part of it probably is the fuel the big fuel tanker trucks that go back there. So, I don't know if they're storing gasoline, which is a whole another issue, you know? I mean, what if our what if we have pollution then after that? But, I mean, there's definitely two blocks from me at 550. They have a big, you know, they've got a website, Williams Landscaping, and all the trucks, they start at 6:00 a.m. and they come back about, well, they're usually done by like 6:30, but they go by and I have five, at least five. Some are semiis. Other ones are big trucks with a trailer with all their stuff. And A, our roads are going to be ruined again. B, I don't really know how they can have, like Nick said when he when they moved in, he said he went on the property to do the last inspection and he could kind of tell and he said, "You know, you can't have a business run out of this address." And they said, "Oh, no. We know." Well, obviously they've been in business for 20 years and they decided to move to East Bethl, two blocks from me. And I've got all those really heavy trucks. We just got our I mean, my husband was bike riding one day and one whipped by him. Little kids go on their bikes. It's just our roads are going to be ruined, first of all. And I don't really see how they can be there. It's just become a really big irritation. I mean, I moved my cameras so that I could show Matt and you've gotten all the pictures of the trucks. They're big damn trucks, aren't they? and my road roads are going to be ruined. Yet they say we can't go on their property. We can't do anything about it. So I don't know what we I just want guidance on what could a person do about it because I don't think it should continue. Great big trucks like that, they're big construction trucks all the way up to semitrs and they're going right in there. Right. Right in there. Five, six times a day. Every day. H Have you uh filled out a complaint form yet? Yeah. Okay. Um I believe she has and I believe uh like like she says Nick went over there, but we can't really go in there. We've issued him a letter. I believe he called Eric first and Eric referred referred him to Nick. I know there's been a phone call between them, but I don't know where we're at right now. Yeah. Nick said that they sent a letter the 19th of June. He said, "So, you know, they actually have a month, right?" So, I thought, "Okay, we'll just That'll be He said, "So, mark your calendar." So, that would be the 19th of July. And nothing ever changed. And now we're past the 19th of August. I think he said that legally or something they have to at least have three letters or something he told me. But I don't know if they had gotten a but I mean it's just wrong. Yeah, we'll do a and our roads are so beautiful right now. We'll do a staff follow up on it and I appreciate it. I appreciate your time. All right. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. [clears throat] To respect your time, I wrote it down. So, I'll just read it. First question I have basically have two questions. Arty, what is the current market value of selling your integrity and your humanity? In other words, what is your motivation to participate in an evil scheme to sell out your late fellow city council member Tim Miller and his grieving widow Stacy in front of some of their children and G grandchildren at the last city council meeting. Second question is for you, Dino. I checked your Facebook page and saw that you're an active member of our Savior Lutheran Church. Outstanding. So please tell me if our Lord were standing right here right now in the flesh, what do you think he would say to you about your participation in this scheme? Think it would be, "Well done, good and faithful servant." More likely, he'd ask you, "What are you doing, Dino? And why are you doing it?" Final thought, Luke 12, 12:es 2 and 3. Whatever is said or done in the dark will eventually be brought into the open light. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Kevin Donigley. I don't know if I I think I but I think I butchered it. It's Spiggney. Civy. Civany. Yeah. The G sign. It's French. [laughter] Yeah. So, um, that's a tough act to follow. Um, I'm Don Civany. I live on Madison Street. I'm going to kind of continue where Angie left off. And I will tell you everything she said is 100% accurate. Um, I personally watched the like, you know what a belly dump is, these are the side dumps. Come in with boulders the size of pickup trucks. Drive back in there and dump them. Those are less than three ton roads. The city's engineer told us those roads weren't even put in at standards at three ton. And yes, thank you for putting the coating on them. My mechanic started wondering if I moved to a low m minimum maintenance road with the front end stuff that was going on in my vehicles. And we're just kind of growing tired of it. It's we posted some things on Facebook. People said, "Why don't you go talk to them?" We're getting harassed already. I mean, they they go by NY's house in the middle of the day, night and early morning and stop and honk her up their orange when they're going by. Um, I nothing against Williams Landscaping. Their website and everything looks like they do a great job. They're open from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. 7 days a week. Their website says that. Do an aerial shot of their place. There's boulders and things back there. There's fuel tanks back there. There's an accessory structure that should be accessory to the home that is not accessory to the home. they're using it for business purposes. Nick told me the same thing when I reached out to Nick and I said he said I they were told when we we gave him before we gave him the CFO you can't run a business out of here. He said I was directed to tell them that and I did. And so I think it isn't what we can do, it's what you have to do. And it's time this company moves to the district where it belongs out on the highway, out in the commercial district. Plus the tax dollars are there. city doesn't survive in residential taxes alone. Land use is owning done a lot of that in my career and I will tell you that doesn't happen. You need the business district and you need them there. I'm going to start sending the bills to the city for my car repairs when the roads go bad again because it's not right. It's not right. We're paying for it as citizens in that neighborhood. We're paying taxes. We're doing everything else and they're reaping the benefits. You know, we talk about fraud in government these days. This is really bordering very close to that. They should be out on the commercial district and paying the commercial taxes if their business is that great. I Hey, hats off. I love to see that. But I mean, when I went through your ordinances, I I just took a quick look last night for about an hour and a half on the online. I could find six or eight items in here that I could argue very effectively to tell you they shouldn't be there. But again, it's not what we have to do. I worked for a city years ago where I was doing the property maintenance code things on a lot of places. You can go on their property. You just have to follow the proper steps. We gave a no, we can't go on their property. You can. We have law enforcement here who can go with you. That's part of their job to see what's really going on. The neighborhood doesn't want to speak up because they get harassed just like we are now that we spoke up. My wife has been called names. She's been called an alcoholic on the on the websites and on the Facebook and things. My wife doesn't drink a drop. Neither do I. Okay. Yeah. Breakfast. Other than breakfast. How's that? Other than for breakfast. We're not We're not that way. We don't do that. And we don't need the harassment from them. I don't have any problem with them as a company or them as people. But get your business that's so successful. Put it where it belongs. It belongs out in the commercial district, not in the residential rural where it's sitting right now. Can't do it from the audience. Sorry. Please wrap it up. So, I mean, again, it's something that you all need to do and maybe get them in here. And I'd love to sit in on meeting with you guys and them and say, "What are you doing? Why aren't you there?" I think we have that right as other citizens to actually and they have the right to face us. That's fine. But I'm not going to do it on the street. The way we're getting harassed now, that wouldn't be bad. That wouldn't be good because then law enforcement would probably be out because it may get out of hand. And I don't want that to happen either. But it's time the council steps in and does something here. We've been complaining about it for a long time. Our roads finally got done. Hidden Haven's had their done three times since we've been living there. This is the first time ours got redone. We just want to be treated like every It's fair and equal treatment is what we're looking for. And that's what we're supposed to do in government. Just asking you to give us the same treatment you would anybody else and have them do what they're supposed to do. Why do we have rules? Okay. Statutes, rules, and ordinances. You guys enforce ordinances. We need to enforce them. Don't make the rules if you're not going to enforce them. Otherwise, I'm going to start a car repair shop or a car shop where you like you pull our parts in my yard. Make a lot of money. I could do that. And you couldn't tell me no because you're letting him do it. That's what's going to happen. No. All right. Thank you, sir. Thank you. [laughter] Item six, consent agenda. Make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. Second. And I'd like to pull item D. Pull C, D, and C. Your amendment including the new A or E, I mean. Yep. That includes item E. Okay. Somebody want to make a motion as amended? That motion was okay. So, we have a [clears throat] motion and second. All those in favor? I I Okay. Item C, I believe was first one. Yeah. See, I want to I want to table these minutes. I'll meet with staff and go over it. I think there's needs to be a lot added to it. So meet with staff on that. So we're table C. Y need a motion for that? Yes. Yep. I'll make a motion to table C. Second. Motion second. Any further discussion? None being heard. All in favor? I. Item D. Item D is approval of higher of seasonal ice arena attendance. It seems like there's a lot more people. we are hiring is maybe I'm incorrect but um is this a lot more than what we usually have back there because I thought we only had like three or four and this is six or so. Not that I'm aware of. Seven. Okay. Um I was just curious because I don't remember having that many names in the past. They they don't necessarily all work at the same time. We're just trying to fill the schedule, make sure that we have someone to staff. Okay. And it's all out of the um ice arena budget. So, right. All right. With that, I'll make a motion to approve item D of the consent agenda. Second. Motion and second. Any further discussion on it? None being heard. All in favor? Uh 8A Eric. Thank you, Mayor and Council. Um in your packet and under this item, there is a consideration of a of a final development agreement between the city and final approach um as part of their East Bethl plat that uh the council reviewed last July session. um which also included the site plan review, bringing final flat um and ultimately to enable all of those development pieces um a development agreement is required. Um the entire document is in your packet. Ultimately that um lists all the responsibilities of both the developer um and the city but fundamentally rely on the developer to install the road, provide the utility extensions um pay for all the design, the engineering, um oversight of the project by the city engineer, um installing all the storm water and drainage improvements, securing all the easements. Um and so a developer agreement is pretty standard tool to to make those things happen. Um but I would note two uh interesting items. Um I think noteworthy, I guess. Uh there is a provision under uh item 12.7. It's a short provision that basically requires the uh developer in the city to enter into a pilot understanding or payment in le of taxes. Um so in the event that project or that property would turn into a nonprofit or potentially a complete uh facility and owned by a place of worship or other nonprofit. um the property owner would be required at that time to make a payment to the city equivalent to um what it otherwise would be for the city share of those costs or the city share of those annual taxes. Um what is the likelihood of that? Hard to say. Certainly, it's up to the developer at some point in the future if they ever decide to sell. Um but something do consider as a large um tenant as they proceed in the short term is a church is a place of worship. So maybe they want to sell and who knows what happens but the pilot agreement is pretty standard. Um and lastly or second interesting piece is um city does not have any downstream storm water facilities that would take the city's water. Um, so in effect, the developer is uh going to be building their own ponds and at their expense will be paying for capacity of of public water, if you will. However, the city will have a a perhaps 25% share of ongoing maintenance costs um that stem from the runoff generated from the city's roadway. So, water, the rain falls on our streets and we're going to share in some of their out-ofpocket maintenance costs. Um in the event the city's water is diverted elsewhere, those responsibilities would go away. Um but that could be a while. Um and who knows what would happen. Um ultimately uh mayor and council, the uh development agreement that you have in your packet still needs uh some final engineering plans from this from the city engineer. Um and those will be inserted into the packet. um and uh a few cleanups here and there, but ultimately what we're asking for if you would uh approve the development agreement that's in your packet subject to any final amendments or needs from the city engineer and city administrator and uh allow the mayor and the city administrator to sign that document. So, why are we approving it without all of the um final review and approval by the engineer and administrator? That just seems like we should see those documents before we approve it. I I'm not I understand that. Um the the vast majority I shouldn't say probably all of those documents simply relate to engineering design um are objective in nature. Um pipe sizing, locations of curb, elevations of road, you know, some of those things and those would just be submitted into the packet or into the agreement when they're ready. Um, I do know it takes quite a bit of coordination between the developer engineer and the city's engineer to come to um they they they've worked together great and in good faith and everything seems to be lining up, but that just takes time to get signatures and the documents in place. I I see your point, but I have also seen mistakes, engineering mistakes come through that have been approved and the council has been like, uh, I don't remember that. Why don't I remember that? Oh, because it came after we approved. Right. Well, I think it's a good point, um, council member. Um, however, when the city receives the full design package with the the elevations and the cut sheets and designs, frankly, we have to rely on the engineer to tell us they're ready to go. It's his signature. It's his or their PE signature and stamp that we have to trust. And if they've made a mistake, well, that happens. We're human. But but they're not held accountable. Well, if they are if if there's a problem that comes up that's that's something was egregious or could have missed should shouldn't have been missed. Well, there's remedies for that. And let's just hope not. And and to be fair, this say like this. It's it's a great project, but in the big picture of the world, you folks have done much more complicated ones. This is a a relatively short street extension um with some relatively short utility extensions. Hope for the best. Right. Okay. I agree with Suzanne. It's like you're trying to put the cart in front of the horse until we have all the documents to go over and look at it. I don't think we should approve anything. That's my opinion. What do you think, Mark? Well, I think if I recall, part of the reason why we're why it was put on the agenda because Eric and I did have a discussion about this about being on agenda was ready. I think it was at the developer request to try to move things forward. Our next our next council meeting will be for two weeks and there's the possibility that paper could come in between now and then and development signed and finalized before the next meeting two weeks and so they can move forward with their project. Um so I think that was why the request was made to have the council approve the draft of the development agreement as it is knowing that essentially the terms are there that we're concerned about and the things that will be coming in next these engineering things that I wouldn't know to change as an as an attorney you know so likely that the documents we're waiting on aren't going to be adjusted by this because we're not the experts in that regard. So, there hasn't been any timeline set at this point. Uh, nothing committed to on the part of the city. Certainly, the applicant who's present would prefer um the council consider this this evening. Um, so they are they still looking to start this fall? Yeah, they'd like to start in September. Okay. Yeah. Two weeks in construction season right now doesn't make a big difference. is the critical mass. But to the city attorney's point, um I don't know if there's anything in the final engineering that, no offense to any of us, that we might know what we're looking at with great detail to say something is wrong. We're not engineers. We're not engineers. Um, but in terms of the language and the commitments of of paying the fees, who's responsible, who is paying your connection charges, your park dedications, your letters of credit, all of those things are clearly spelled out in the document. I'll make a motion to approve the developers agreement for final approach east beth edition subject to final review and approval by the city engineer city administrator authorize the mayor and city administrator to execute the final agreement I'd like to add in there uh and any final review from the city attorney I'll second that motion because we've we've did these agreements in the past in the same way and so I'll second it. So we have a motion in a second. Any further discussion? I do have uh one question on this pilot, Eric. Uh oh, question or scenario. So, right now, the entity that owns this property is not a nonprofit, but we there potentially will be a church in there. Uh with a church being in there, are taxes still normal taxes are still paid? Yes, the the the taxation element falls to the owner, okay, not their tenants. Okay, so that leads me to the second question in the scenario that okay, this is a flex building right now. The church is looking to use uh twothirds of it and the other portion would be commercial or some sort of commercial entity that okay now 5 years later uh they sell to the church uh church keeps the same uh 2/3 use and still has a commercial entity of that other third flex space. Uh does that become a whole does that pilot apply to the whole parcel or is it a partial that the they can I'm going to do my best to answer. But you see where I'm going with this question, but I will uh certainly defer to our our county assessor who could break that down a little bit further for us or even potentially our city attorney. However, the the place of worship, I think, exemption might only apply to those places, you mean those specific spaces of place of worship. However, what the nonprofit world might look like and what those rules are too, you know, probably has a similar caveat that it has to be actually used by that entity for their 501c3 purpose. Um, but if they have a a tenant in of the church, um, how that will all have to align, I would I would be pretty confident to say the county is going to extract from a valuation standpoint, those amounts that are due under the annual levy, and then the city would get what it's due under the pilot agreement in some way, shape, or form. C. Certainly, I would I would agree with that. Okay. Thank you. Any further discussion? Have a motion and a second. All in favor? I opposed. I motion passes. Um item G, city administration. Okay. Um, Mr. Mayor and Council, before you this evening is the a notary policy. We discussed this on the June 22nd work meeting and currently East Bethl does not have a notary policy and uh we thought it was prudent to put one together that would kind of define the form and function of of those that have notary uh capability here in the city council or in the city hall rather. And um and we have that policy before you here. Um in the work session, a large part of the discussion was um about uh a recent meeting that that um that our staff had where they were introduced to current practices that we have may not be in the best interest of the city in terms of some of the documents that they're signing. They may not have the uh right to sign those documents or should be signing those documents. And so currently right now on average we make about $30 a year on notary services. So it's insignificant. Um and if it was 300,000 you might assume the risk but at $30 you probably don't want to assume the risk. Uh so we did include uh in the notary policy here kind of the purpose of the document established standards and procedures. Uh we identified um um kind of what's going to be required of those that hold uh the ability to to be a notary. Uh the different types of documents that are signed um and uh you know kind of identifying those oaths or affirmations or um uh permit applications, you know, candidate filings, things of this nature um are all identified in here. And um and what's not identified in here essentially we are we are not going to be be providing those services to the public as a service that somebody can come in and and have a not find a notary. There's other notaries out there that they can locate. Um but uh we certainly uh need a notary in the city hall to perform the notary work that uh the city requires. So having this um this policy somewhat identifies that um provides people some direction and then um you know provide some clarity if there's lack of direction you might see time for questions. Got any questions on this? Looks pretty good. It's pretty much just we don't want to notoriize every piece of paper that comes in here, right? We want to protect our liability. So, we're just approving a resolution modifying the fees, not approving the um So, the resolution is for the fees. Um and then just a motion under U G1 to adopt the administrative policy first of all and then the resolution is to change the fee schedule that has the public fees that are in there that we will no longer be providing. Um so two motions. Okay. I'll make a motion to adopt a uh municipal notary public policy for East Bethl. Second motion and a second. Any further discussion? None being heard. All those in favor? I opposed. None. Motion passes. Okay. I'll make a motion to approve resolution number 20 26-42 modifying fees to be collected by city of East Bethl. Second. Motion second. Any further discussion on this? On being heard, all those in favor? I I next item, firearms. Okay, Mr. Mayor and Council, before you this evening is a possible ordinance amendment regarding firearms and disorderly conduct. In a work session on August 10th, the council discussed chapter 4 of the firearms ordinance and at that time it was decided the ordinance was somewhat vague and might need further refining um as it relates to nuisance discharge of firearms. We did a little research. Minnesota State Statute 609.72 defines disorderly conduct as engaging in offensive, abusive, boisterous or noisy conduct or use of offensive, obscene or abusive language tending to reasonably arouse alarm, anger or resentment and others and those that violate the position provisions of the statute may be guilty of a misdemeanor. Um, we had received a complaint of kind of a all hours of the day reckless discharge of firearm. um and uh kind of some of the fears that the neighbors had of even letting their kids play outside, not sureing not sure if there's bullets flying around or what's going on. And uh and I we believe uh that it may have been uh due to some neighborhood disputes and um possibly some retribution there. But at any rate, um I think in situations such as this, we kind of know that well, you're not sighting in a gun. you're not, you know, um necessarily um using it for hunting or something of that nature, but when you're when you're um intentionally trying to cause a disturbance like this. Um that our firearms ordinance should somewhat identify disorderly conduct or at least give the opportunity for the city to contact the individual and say, "This is our ordinance. You're kind of out of line." You know, currently right now there's nothing that says that you got to be 500 feet from a structure. I am, you know, but I'm irritating everyone in the process. So, at any rate, um, it's before you hear this evening. I did include kind of the firearms portion here and the language nuisance discharge of firearms consistent with the state law as indicated there. And um and um again, it's a um whether or not it's charged, that's a discussion with the attorney, obviously, but I think it gives a little bit more teeth in terms of discouraging behavior that might be out of line. Okay. I have looked at this and I don't think the penalty is clear enough. Um I from what I've heard on this whole situation, I believe this is going to create more gunfire and not less. So here's what I'm I'm thinking. I know how the court system works in East Bethl and I know it takes months before somebody actually gets to court and that's going to intensify the um rebellion the vengeful behavior. I think the penalty needs to say and before I even say this, I want to say I am not pro taking away anybody's constitutional rights, but I think that the police need to get involved and be we need to give the police permission to temporarily confiscate that gun. And if they if it happens again, if he has 10 guns, then you have to keep taking them temporarily and let the judge give them back. And I know that's a possibility because I did kind of research it, but um I don't know if what it would entail. I have a couple thoughts on that. So, first off, the um this is this is a different type of scenario than what we're talking about when we have these ordinance violations where we come to council about whether we want to charge somebody for having debris or junk in their yard and that kind of stuff. This type of modification that's being made here and the the crime the way it's defined is such that law enforcement would be able to charge it right away. It wouldn't be something that has to come back to our office. They would be able to issue a citation to the person right then and there and they'll be in court within within a couple weeks different than when we're talking about these things. So that's that's one thing. Secondly, as far as the ability to to take the firearm, I mean there are you mentioned that there are way of doing that. I mean, if if a firearm is used in the commission of a crime to hurt or harm somebody, then you can perhaps take that one firearm. Law enforcement could compensate as part of the crime. If you're thinking about asking or trying to take the entirety of somebody's firearm collection, there's a new Yeah. Well, I was just going to say there's a newly passed some newly passed statute regarding emergency orders or to do that, but that's only if the person is an immediate threat to themselves or others and it's a it's a scenario that we we our office we've done a handful of times in the appropriate circumstances but I mean I think uh the way this is set up is is it does give law enforcement the ability to to charge if they come upon the scene while that firearm is actually still being actively used have the ability to to for not forfeit it but to to compensate that firearm crime This is kind of a happy. Yeah. Because I I think it's a threat to public safety. Even if it's not a threat to physical harm to somebody, you're are causing trauma to those children in that neighborhood. And it could give result in permanent PTSD. You don't know. And I believe that that's the intent of this going to this is because our deputies didn't have anything to fall back on to really do anything, right? But and that's what the intent of this new language is. If if they think that that deputy can take their gun, they might think twice about violating this ordinance in the future, you know, because I know these guys, they like their guns. And I mean, I think they like their guns better than their wives. I'm telling you it's true. M Mr. Berglin, did you just state that if the deputy believes that the fire firearm was used in a crime that they can confiscate that firearm? Would this citation as a crime be to that level that uh based upon the deputies um powers of deduction that they could then use this to in a scenario confiscate a certain firearm. Yeah. A firearm used in the commission of a crime can be confiscated by law enforcement. This is defining the discharge of in a manner that is otherwise a nuisance or or harassment of other people. So therefore, the officer on scene determines that that crime has been committed and they have the ability to obtain that firing. And I think that this should say that in the penalty block. And that's all I'm asking for is that that they may that not they will that they must but you know upon their discretion they may and then they can see that and you know when you send them when you cite this ordinance I think it'll make them think twice. That's all I'm saying. Well I think if you want to consider that I'd say maybe then table this and we can the language that that says something along those lines. I wouldn't want to do it on the spot right here. Oh, right. Right. Absolutely. So, I'll make a motion to table this. Second. I have a motion to table it and second. Any further discussion? Um, how big is the this issue with the uh that certain neighborhood right now? U Mr. Mayor Council, I'm not sure that we've had uh any complaints recently. That's not to say it couldn't happen tomorrow. Um but um you know, I think I correct me if I'm wrong. I mean, we may need to bring this back through uh [clears throat] planning then uh if we make significant change to it. Okay. Um, so if if in a scenario where we approve this tonight, it would become law tomorrow essentially that the sheriff could enforce it. We would need to publish it and yes. Okay. Um, can we amend it anytime at our next meeting after anytime because uh we're doing this to uh bring resolution to that neighborhood for potential harassment. Can we pass what's here tonight and then still have bring it back at our next meeting? The attorney will amend the language and we can pass a new version at our next meeting. You can pass this tonight and like Mr. L just said at any point in time, but then it will have to go to planning and or not with the amendment. We'll have to double check on that and you know if it's a significant change, if it's a smaller change perhaps not, but um the main thing is it's going to give the deputies discretion right something and I can assure you that a violator probably doesn't read section 42.171 before going out and violating. I mean, they they're going to be educated by the officer. It'll be a learning opportunity, I'm sure. Um that, hey, I can take this firearm from you right now, so you're going to comply or we're going to ratchet it up, you know, and that might be what they need to say, okay, we're good, you know, not not going to do this anymore. Um, but it gives it gives the deputies a tool in their toolbox to be able to handle an outofcrol situation right now. So, so I would like to incorporate your language, but I also want to get this passed right away and then just have it come back. Okay, I'll resend my motion. Okay, Jim, you're good with it? Yeah. Okay, we'll need a new motion to go ahead with this. What's written now? I'll make a motion to um pass ordinance amending regard amendment regarding firearms and disorderly conduct. A second motion a second. Any further discussion? And so, um, Mark, if you'd like to work on some language that then we can bring it back. Yes. At the next meeting. All right. Thanks, Mark. No further discussion. Uh, all those in favor? I opposed. Motion passes. Staff report. No, there's the advisory board. Oh, advisory board. Excuse me. One more here. [clears throat] Um item 8.0 G3. This is advisory boards and commission code of conduct. In the work session August 10th, council discussed creation of a possible code of conduct for advisory board of uh members and commission members and the city of Orno was brought up as a as a example of a possible um code of conduct document. So staff researched that. Um, I made some modifications to it and um and have it presented for you here this evening. What I will say is I went through this and a lot of you have too as newly elected members. Uh, the League of Minnesota Cities puts on a a um a day or two event that you go down and you lack of a better way of saying it, you learn the dos and the don'ts and um and it can it can be a little scary what the don'ts are in terms of what you should stay away from. um as appointed members, there really isn't that option out there right now. And so this document here kind of gives a uh just a bullet point type of a this is what you need to be aware of what we our expectations are and um and you know we it's without without saying it um it's our expectation that it be followed and again it's a living document be changed at any time um but it's kind of a a starting point at least for um a code of conduct for advisory board members as you see here It gives a purpose and standards of conduct. Touches on um you know personal gains, you know, soliciting gifts or favors. Obviously, things you can't do. Can't secure special privileges or anything like that. I believe there was someone in Minneapolis that um that as I recall got some contractor work for free and they got caught. Anyways, can't do that. Um you know, disclose to the public uh for personal gain. can't do that. Information is is uh attorney client privilege is confidential. Uh use of city logos, things of this nature. It's a lot of I think anyone reading this would probably say, "Yeah, it makes sense." You know, it's not uh it's not outrageous. And then if there's a complaint that's that's issued uh against somebody, there's a hearing process for that where people can defend themselves and say, "That's not at all what happened." Or, "Yeah, you're right. I did do that." Or whatever the case is. And uh and so you have that process as well and I think it just kind of clearly defines I think Orno did do a good job of clearly defining a reasonable code of conduct. Now what I will say is that we changed ornos from including uh elected officials that were in there. um elected officials have I think a different um you know threshold and that that's being that they're elected and you are responsible to the the members of the public. Your your conduct is evaluated every time you run for election. You know are you you know are you out of line or you not out of line, etc. And um and uh and they have an opportunity to to uh evaluate that every time you're up for election. Um there's some of you are familiar with um um censoring things of this nature. It's absolutely pointless. Um you could censor everyone on the board tonight and it doesn't mean anything. I mean it doesn't invalidate their election certificate. And so um that as you know combining the two I think confuses matters a little bit and this kind of just zeros in on advisory boards and commissions and um at some point later if council wants to do a you know an elected uh you know code of conduct that's certainly up to you but I think as it relates to kind of a missing document you might say that helps newly appointed navigate the the complexities of the of the position that they've been appointed to. I think this document does that. I think one person said, "Yeah, I got appointed and next day I had to show up and you know, I didn't know what I was doing, you know, but we want to try and avoid that a little bit with this." So, uh, open to questions. Hey, Matt, who determines, uh, whether there's been a violation or not and what the consequences be of those? So if a violation occurs generally we would get a call here at at the city you know so and so did this or said that or whatever the case is then we would set up this uh you know hearing process the council would be the the hearing uh board to determine if that's you know if it's happened or didn't happen then the council would decide because they're the appointing entity what are we going to do about it you know warning you know ask for you to resign you know that sort of thing. Um and uh obviously it would it would be done uh confidentially and and not a you know open to the public type of deal but um but at any rate the council is the ultimate deciding as they are the appointment to the advisory boards. So I have a question not so much about the code of conduct but I think people put on planning commission and parks commission for the first time should have some kind of a mentor that of a longterm standing and I don't know if we need a policy for that or if that should just be an informal thing that we as a city decide to do but I do believe mentors are needed for some of these positions especially planning because that is a complicated position and there's a lot of codes and stuff that they have to understand and some of them might not even know where to go to look for it. So would that be the lies and that's appointed that they could take on that role? I don't know what you mean. The what the the council lies and to planning or parks where they are at every meeting. Oh, I think it should be somebody on the planning commission themselves. The the only the only um I I think that probably happens kind of the way it is. Maybe the chair reaches out to them and helps them understand. But what I would hesitate in in doing there is you've got, you know, say you got five members on a board, you can only have two people talk. Otherwise, you have an open meeting violation. and you say the two of you talk and then you call a third person, now you have a serial meeting violation. And so we want to we want to be a little cautious about that. Um if there's if the chair takes somebody under their wing, then they can't really talk to anyone else about, you know, those topics unless it's in an open meeting. But you're right, it is a difficult situation. Um this is I've often referred to elected office as an education you cannot buy. You cannot buy that. Uh you will learn things that um that no school will ever teach you. And so yes, there is a learning curve. Um council members, I always said it took four years to come up to speed um before you really start, you know, making an impact on directions you want to go or policies you want to change. Um the rest of the time you're learning and and it's somewhat with a fire hose that you're learning from. So, um it would be it would be good to have um a mentor. Um but it would probably be best to have the um the liaison probably do that I would say because then then that person doesn't serve on the board and you're not not in risk of of open meeting law violations. Makes sense. It was just a suggestion anyways. I No, I think it's a good idea. You don't know what you don't know and people that help you. That's great. Yeah. On item N. Uh we need a little edit. Still has uh city of Orno listed. Oh, does it? Members. All right, we'll make that change. I mean, the the statement's true that uh members shall explicitly state they do not represent the city council or the city of Orno, and they certainly wouldn't. Well, they shouldn't be representing the city of Orno either. No, no, we can we can make that change. Uh or if there's a motion to adopt with that change, we can make that change. Yeah. Um good question. I I would also like to add some links to the league website. Okay. uh because we're part of this was uh uh educ educational and just a quick search that uh I did on the league website they have planning commission guide learn ways the city may create change or discontinue a city planning commission provides information on appointments of members commission powers and duties and meeting rules uh etc. Um, so [clears throat] there's that. They have a planning and zoning 101. They have uh some some stuff that may apply more towards council, but uh uh a role with it, individual versus council authority that covers some of the authorities. uh they have a link for resources for newly elected city officials given that's more towards council members but uh there still could be some information and I just did a quick search on this but I think the uh planning commission guide should be and if we can look up something for parks as well. Can you shoot me a link on that? Just copy the link and email it to me. I will um I'll include that in here. So, I'll make a motion to um add the advisory boards and commission's code of conduct for the city of East Bethl with the changes that we discussed. Second. Have a motion, a second. Any further discussion? None being heard. All those in favor? I. Okay. Staff report. Mr. Mayor and Council, just a couple of items uh this evening. I wanted to give just an update on digitizing files. Um we have currently to date um 7215 files that have been copied. every file can have between 10 and 20 um um every property can have between 10 to 20 files within it. And so currently we have about 20,000 pages that have been scanned and um and categorized and put into property uh addresses and um and we are on our way. But what I will say is of the roughly six months that we're working on this, we've got about a year and a half to go still. So, um there is no small amount of documents that uh date back that um that should be digitized. I I say this because I I think if I say it, it won't happen. But if we ever had a fire, uh we'd be in a lot of trouble because of the paper documents. They just they'd be absolutely gone. The history would be gone. So, this digitizing is very important. Um the um we have a um you might call it a summer intern currently working in that position. Uh and uh we met with the um personnel committee this evening to kind of talk about what does it look like to extend that uh to potentially um finish this project and uh staff will be putting together some information and bring that back to council uh for that part of it. Um the second thing is is you may get phone calls this evening. We do not have live recording of these council meetings. Our DVR went south and uh we did find one uh it's in Nigeria uh and it's a little difficult to get a hold of. So we are in the process of trying to contact the vendor to say okay we've got this old system. Is there anything that can get us online for a live People like watching the live live meetings. Uh is there anything we can try and band-aid together to to make it work? Um I think a lot of the sales people have moved on to 20 different uh variations since ours and probably don't have the expertise on how to how to bandaid something together. So um at any rate, we're working on it. Uh we are we don't have a solution yet. We're trying to find a solution and uh we ask people to be patient because we do know that you can see the numbers. There's you know 10 to 20 30 people that that I don't if they pop popcorn and watch you know watch this but maybe it's the best show in town on Monday nights. But at any rate uh we'll be working on that try and find a solution and and give you an update on that we do. So aside from that concludes my report unless there are any questions. I have a question. Are those 20,000 um scanned online now where we could search them if we want? Are they public or it's all private or These are just on our drive right now. Okay. Um the goal is to get um we're hopefully working with Civics Plus here to to put in a community development module and that would give us the opportunity to put these things online so that say a realtor uh is representing a property needs to know when the septic was pumped last and they could go online, pull up that address, go down to this plumbing file or septic file and say, "Oh, that was such and such a date." um and answer their own question as opposed to calling in here and you know right getting it online helps us because then we can quickly source that as well. Um walking into the back and digging through endless piles of paper to find it is not helping anyone. So takes a very long time but um yeah it's a it's a great project. Uh wish we had jumped on it earlier but it's a long journey starts with one step I guess. We're getting there. All right. Council reports. I don't have anything. [clears throat] I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn. Make motion journ. Second. Motion second. All in favor? I meetings adjourned.