No. Yep. It's not my phone. Mine's in my back pocket. So, it must not be phones then. All right. We'll bring the uh May 28, 2025 uh work meeting to order. Item one, Mr. Mr. Mayor and Council, uh we as of the last council meeting just uh kind of transitioned over from citizen involvement on the EDA to um to council. And uh I had kind of brought up this uh opportunity possibly for a business advisory council to be established that would essentially um afford you that that community input. um and uh kind of threw around some names that were out there out there um such as Brad Slawson, Paul Johnson, um uh gentleman from Classic Construction, uh and perhaps there's other members as well that uh that we could reach out to and ask them if they want to uh participate in something like this. I know the former mayor and I uh sat down with some of these individuals and just kind of asked them a point blank question. what do you think's going good? What do you think's you know needs improvement? And uh and essentially that could be some of the discussion points that we have with them uh to advise the council. And I just wanted to bring it back seeing as this is the first meeting since the changeover. Um I know it was uh council member Mundle addressed in the planning meeting uh and wanted to just bring it back and see what your input is on that. if if you guys would like us to pursue this, we can kind of start putting together the necessary framework on it, make uh invitations and that sort of thing and and go from there. Well, to start off, I think it'd be an excellent idea. Get our business leaders together to talk about what problems they're having, um what we can do better to serve them, uh what they envision, problems they've had in the past. I mean, this could open up doors for a lot of different things for the city. you know, getting that direct input is is is so valuable, especially at that level that they've completed in the city already. Uh, I'd be all for moving forward with something like this. Okay. I kind of agree, but I think we need to make sure it's business owners and this is going to be a business thing and not just not the residents and retired business owners or um even people from other communities which I've seen join different uh organizations not just in East Bethl but you know in the metro area. So, but I think their in input is absolutely invaluable and it is a timeconsuming thing trying to um coordinate times to meet with them and stuff like that because their schedule is busy and our schedule is busy. So, I think it's a great idea. Okay. What do you envision them coming in as? I mean meeting and then coming in like once every three months or quarterly or Yeah. I you know uh mayor and council members I think we would ask them what they felt the appropriate time was but I would think um you know certainly quarterly would work. Um and um and again just trying to you know to Council Member Urkl's point you know there may be some retired business people out there that are highly successful that live in the community that could be you know um could be uh you know uh provide valuable input in in this type of committee. Um certainly those that are running very successful businesses I think understand some of the realities of what people are dealing with out there and uh and if we can if we can kind of harvest some of those ideas and and uh kind of craft the way we approach things maybe that'll help them and I I you know ultimately I think uh government's primary business is helping uh my business be successful you know and Uh public safety obviously is very important as well, but one of the one of the important things is is helping businesses to be successful uh because that builds a good strong economy in our communities. So, but yeah, quarterly probably I would think to start with. So, we just basically set it up as a work session. Yeah, you know, it can be work sessions are televised. It could be a work session. It could be just a a private meeting somewhat like um booster, you know, uh day type of committee work there. um you know, I don't know if if they necessarily want to be televised and maybe they do, but um um but just basically get together and and kind of launch those questions, kind of give them maybe a state of the city in terms of what's going on, what the latest uh uh things are that we're working on and and get their input on that. I think it'd be a great idea because a lot of our business owners have different walks of life and they can bring positive and then let us know if we have negative stuff that we can help them with to be more successful. So, I'm all for it. Okay. I think the consensus is go forward with it. Yep. All right, we'll we'll get start getting that framework put together and send out some invites and see if we get positive response back on that. Okay, item number two, senior center liquor license. Yeah, Mr. Mayor and council members, uh, council member had brought this forward as uh something she wanted staff to look into. We did some preliminary looking into it and um and I've included in your packet some information as it relates to League of Minnesota cities and and um how how it relates to um publicly owned facilities such as um uh the the senior center. Currently, right now, we have uh parks that say specifically you, you know, without a special permit, you can't you can't consume alcohol. Um and um and and that's kind of the way our code is set up that it's all based on special permit. So, essentially, an applicant would come along and say, you know, on July 4th, we're going to have a, you know, shindig or whatever. We want to sell alcohol. and they would apply for that that um that license that day and it would come before the council for approval every single time. And uh and so we we think that the senior center would be a little more difficult to come before the council try and you know every other week to try and fit that in. My my my assumption is that they're they're thinking about um I was talking with Dallas too. they're thinking about uh kind of marketing maybe the the weddings or the receptions that are maybe a little they want to spend a little less money than than uh going down to a yacht club or something like that. Um but um but again that can you know whether it's that or whether it's a retirement or whether it's a anniversary or something like that be a little bit harder to make sure that we have a specific you know day and permit and and authorization for that coming for the council. Um so the the question I have for you this evening is uh one do you want to pursue this senior center liquor license? Um I know council member Urkel had brought it forward. I kind of need a consensus uh to do that. Uh two uh we need to make you aware of the fact that it's going to require some uh significant rewriting of code. Um so that we make sure that you know at least as regards to the park verbiage and that that it's allowed uh or that we allow it um in publicly owned areas uh with some sort of control. obviously. Uh, so I would envision a uh permit of sorts that um we'd still have the the special special day permit, but then in in instances such as this, we may have um you know, for this group of people, it's an ongoing permit. And just so you know, um there was some discussion as to whether uh they would uh have their own drram insurance. Um I think initially their thought is to to work closely with um with Route 65 because they have the insurance, they have licensing. Uh they also would provide food um cater food if need be and um and would be able to kind of cover a lot of those bases. uh kind of see kind of start off with that, see how that works and if that works well, then perhaps there's a a change then for their own license uh and their own insurance. insurance can be very expensive and um and I know that uh talking with Brad um you know it takes takes a lot of training to to kind of make sure that people aren't being overserved and um and there's a there's a huge liability obviously if you do overserve them and they they go out and get in an accident um it's um you'll be named and it's a it's a tough tough thing to try and fight fight in for it. So anyways, uh the question first and foremost is do you want to pursue this and um and do you want staff to then uh undertake the changing of the ordinances to get this done? I think it' be something worth looking into. Can I ask a question though? What is the difference between this community center and Lake and Whispering Aspen? Because they serve alcohol at the other two all the time. uh whisper and aspirin. They don't they have well it may not have been approved. It's part of the parks department and it states no alcohol. So whether somebody brought it in, but those are the rules. Well, the seniors are under the impression that they're allowed to have it up there because they have been up there when alcohol was being served. So, but I know Lake serves it all the time at almost at many of their events. So, is Lake not associated with the city? Is that just a community center for Lake? A private group? I believe it is. It's a private group. They have their own staff, hiring, everything. They do all of it inhouse over there. So they're they're under their own rules. I was under the impression Lake was city owned. No, I don't believe so. Not that I'm aware of. We just have to make sure that if we if we do go down this road that we can't be contradicting our other code. You know, that's my issue here is it'd be nice to get some kind of estimate what it's going to cost us uh for the code change the uh which will include attorney fees, you know, and then uh you'd have to somehow provide security so people ain't bringing booze in and it's only being served inside. I mean there's issues here that you got to cover all the bases. Yeah, I think it's worth looking into for at least the first steps to answer those questions before we actually dive into it and start making changes etc. But at least yeah I if I was to estimate just in terms of you know if we had Kendra look into it, if we had our attorneys look into it, I would say we'd have a minimum of $10,000 into it. because you really can't I mean you can start looking at code that's going to take time and cost to do that you know um but then once you start kind of rewriting that code and trying to find best management practices out there of other cities that are doing it um and then bring it through planning and bring it through you know public comment period and all that sort of thing you're you're talking significant time um not so much for staff necessarily, but if you're paying someone like Kendra, then it's, you know, it can be some money. Um I'd say the first steps would be then to identify what steps would need to be taken and put a price tag on those. Okay. You want this brought back then? Yes, I think so. So, we have cover everything. Okay. then we have a better understanding I think. Okay. Okay. Moving on. Item three, whispering aspirin discussion. I'll be abstaining from this agenda item from discussion and any direction given to the city. So, uh, Mr. Mr. Mayor and Council, I wanted to put this on the uh work session. We've um under the prior council, you might say, we started looking into this uh by way of history. Uh we reached out to the attorney general to um to render an opinion on this. Their opinion was it's a civil matter uh and that they wouldn't render an opinion on it. Uh and so uh we then uh had our attorney kind of look through this, look through the contract and uh drafted a letter. I know that um um BDM's uh attorney responded to that letter and um and has some information on there, but we wanted to just kind of bring this up in terms of uh gaining next steps for for this discussion. Um we um you know essentially there was a contract dated back in 2002 which was then uh modified in 2004. Uh there's a couple of uh topics if I can summarize in terms of um you know concern maybe uh the first is use of the um uh the facility up there. The second is uh expenses in that facility. Um and um whether it's electrical or water, sewer, that sort of thing. Um I think that there there was a um the county had raised an issue concerning um a tax exempt property but used for commercial purposes and they kind of carved out whatever square footage that was. They um they have worked through the the tax portion of that. I know that tax portion was identified in the contract as well back in 2004 and um and just want to kind of understand uh where the council wants to go at this point. Uh we have two new council members obviously our mayor and council member uh and want to understand where we should take it from here. If it's um if it's something we want to pursue uh then it um it can become a costly item as well. And if it's uh something that uh we want to I think there the attorney had some options for compromise in there uh in the in the letter that was returned. We have not responded to that letter yet. Um but uh if that's the direction folks want to go, we can certainly take those steps too, but uh wanted to just get it on the on the agenda here so we can get some further direction and uh and go from there. So, I guess I had a question, Matt, is where are we with it? I think this was brought up last September if I remember right. Y and I know that we sent stuff to the attorney general, which in my opinion, I know that was a waste of time anyways, but where are we at right now? What's the most current thing on it? So, currently the, you know, there there's this purchase agreement. There's um some uh I ended up meeting with uh uh with senior and junior if I can refer to you as designate that way. Um and uh when was that? Um this was back in right right after you got back from I think a week after you got back from your vacation made on April 14th. Really? Who called that meeting? Um I believe it was um council member Mundle that arranged that meeting. Oh really? That be it was between you and Okay. Senior. Is that how you seen it? I have I don't recollect exactly how it went down in terms of was So was council member Mundle there at the meeting? Yes. So I guess I got a question is who were you representing at that meeting? Yeah, as I said, I'm abstaining from agenda a little bit ago here to clarify when we met. So, I'll be abstaining from this agenda because in my opinion, it's like I'd like to know who you're representing, the city or the business if you were at that meeting. So, that's a concern of mine big time because you can't be both in my opinion. Well, Jim, I I I'd like to uh jump in here. Uh I brought it up in September. Um I asked about the bills. I asked about the contract. Prior to that, I was told this is a good contract and that's all there was to it. Nothing else. I heard that we were covering all the expenses up there as a city. Electric, water, sewer, security, Wi-Fi, uh garbage. What else was there? Lawn care, snow removal. I I have to tell you, since then, we found out a little bit more. And as a councilman for this city and I was elected to protect this city's interest and ensure a transparent, honest governance, we've investigated this for the last couple of months and uncovered what would appear to be a pattern that has cost our taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. I'm not talking 10, I'm talking hundreds. In 2004, this city entered a purchase agreement with the developer for 75 acres of land. This agreement specifically stated that our city would retain outlet C, which contained the community center. The developer was granted temporary office space in use until that plat was completed per the purchase agreement. What should have been in my opinion a temporary arrangement has instead become a two decade two decade not two years two decade long and I believe one could call it a misappropriation of public resources and let me be clear about what what we found while we were investigating this for 21 years this private business has occupied anywhere between 400 and 600 square feet of the community center without paying any rent, any utilities including electricity, gas, water, sewer, internet, phone, security system, building maintenance or cleaning services, snow removal, lawn care, and they've had use of our public city-owned properties to put trailer storage on numerous occasions right next to the building. Their share of major improvements, including air conditioning units totaling 19,000, new doors at 13,000, repairs on the roof, haven't paid anything. Even more troubling, it seems, is this business has operated as a commercial enterprise in a residential zone while avoiding all commercial property taxes until this year. The situation now becomes a little bit more concerning when we examine the actual role of one of our city council members. The council member who works for the development company, it appears has misrepresented facts by claiming that business donated the community center to our city. This claim is directly contradicted by the original purchase agreement. It says quite clearly the city will retain outlot C. Outlot C has the community center on it. The same council member recently received two lots from the developer valued between4 and $60,000 each. Haven't quite narrowed it down, but we have it to that. But recorded them at only $3,000 worth of value or less. And this certainly would appear an attempt to evade property deed taxes. The bills that were paid on two lots, which I have here, right here, there's two of them. $162. I don't know how the residents in that community and that development are going to feel knowing that what they paid for their lots and what was given to a city council member. Now, I must specifically address the legal implications of these actions if true. Minnesota statute 471.87 87 explicitly states, "Except as authorized in section 47188, a public officer who is authorized to take part in any manner in making any sale, lease, or contract in any official capacity shall not voluntarily have a personal financial interest in that sale, lease, or contract, or and here's the key phrase here, or personally benefit financially there from." Now, the violations we're going to document may include the following or all of them. Failure to disclose direct financial interest gains, failure to pay deed taxes, deliberate concealment of true gift values, violation of state disclosure requirements, and potential tax evasions through intentional undervaluation. Now, regarding potential legal threats against our city for exposing these facts, every statement made is document documented and supported by the following paperwork here. The original 2004 purchase agreement, city property records and zoning ordinances detailed utility maintenance records for 21 years. Public tax records showing improper tax exempt status. County property records showing undervalued lot transfers, Minnesota state statutes, verified financial records showing taxpayer cost to the best of our ability by the data on record and presented to us. Truth is an absolute defense against any claim of defamation. This business has failed to pay their commercial taxes while in our building, while in the community center up until this year, failed to pay rent or utilities for 21 years for reasons we have not been able to identify. Apparently operated a commercial business in a residential zone with an illegal sign since 2005. looks to have benefited from taxpayer funded improvements. All the stuff that was done to that building while they were in there, participated in questionable property transactions with the city council member as it would appear from this paperwork and the deeds that were filed in 2021. We are trying to take immediate action to end all these unauthorized benefits. We're going to try and pursue full reimbursement of taxpayer funds if we possibly can. We might have to request further investigations where appropriate and we definitely need to implement a strict oversight measures to protect our protect our taxpayers from this ever happening again. Now, any legal threats against our cities would be at this point unfounded. In my opinion, our city's legal position appears to be very strong here. Our facts are all documented and it is our duty to protect taxpayer interest. That is very clear and we will not be deterred from our obligation to our residents to bring this to the attention of our residents as we took an o oath of office to do. We're here to protect public resources. We're here to ensure proper use of taxpayer funds, maintain transparency in government, and uphold the law and our zoning ordinances, and recover when necessary misappropriated public funds. The time for operating in shadows and in silence that has ended. Our residents deserve to know how their tax dollars and public resources have been used, and we stand ready to defend these truths in any forum necessary moving forward. While this may be difficult for some of our community members to hear, we cannot allow personal relationships to override our responsibility to protect public resources and maintain ethical governance. This isn't about politics or popularity. It's about upholding the law and protecting taxpayers interest. Every dollar that was funded appears that this private business and used this could have been used for the community's gen genuine needs. As an elected official, we have to act on these findings. We we cannot ignore this stuff. Regardless of how uncomfortable or challenging this might be, this is what is right. There's a fundamental thing at stake here and our residents deserve to be on the right side of this. To the 236 legitimate businesses in our city who have faithfully paid their rent utilities, complied with zoning requirements, and paid their proper taxes, operated transparently and legally, shouldered their fair share of operating costs. We owe you an apology. We really do. You deserve better from your city government. While you all played by the rules, paying your costs of doing business and following the zoning laws and contributing your fair share to our tax base, unfortunately, it sure looks as one business has been operating at an unfair advantage at taxpayers's expense for over two decades. That's two decades. This, in my opinion, this has to stop. We cannot claim to support fair business practices while allowing one entity to operate under a completely different set of rules. Every business in this city deserves a level playing field. The days of special privileges and hidden subsidies need to be over and they need to be over now. We need to be committed to ensuring that all our businesses in our city operate under the same rules, face the same obligations, and receive the same treatment under the law. No exceptions, no special deals, no matter who you know or who you're connected to. This is not just about recovering taxpayer funds. This is about restoring faith in fair governance and ensuring every business owner in our community knows they are competing on equal terms and on a fair trading field. Now the impact of this situation could extend far beyond our city coffers by operating a commercial enterprise in our community center. This business has effective effect effectively deprived three vital public entities of a rightful tax revenue for 21 years. Our schools which could have used these funds for educational resources, teacher support, infrastructure improvements, student programs. Two, our county which has been denied resources for essential services, road maintenance, public safety, social services. our city, which could have directed these funds toward community improvements, public services, infrastructure needs, and emergency services. When we calculate the lost cost of commercial tax revenue over 21 years, split it three ways among these entities, we're talking about a significant resources that could have been serving our community's children, family, and residents. Instead, these tax dollars apparently were effectively gifted to a private business through what appears to be deliberate misuse of tax dollars. This isn't just about one business avoiding its fair share. It's about two decades of lost resources that could have been investing in our community's future, our children's education, and our county services. Every taxpayer in our community has been carrying an extra burden while this business enjoyed all these improper benefits. To recap, 2004, city entered a purchase agreement with a developer for 75 acres. This arrangement specifically stated that our city will retain outlet C that contained our community center up there. The developer was granted temporary office space use until the plot was completed. What should have been a temporary arrangement has become a two decadel long misappropriation of public resources in my opinion which did not benefit the city its taxpayers for two decades and at this company's current pays are average through the years. This is going to take another 15 more years to complete. Minnesota statute 471 471.87. This law exists to protect taxpayers from exactly this type of what appears to be a form of selfdealing. The councilman's acceptance of these two lots valued between 40 and 60 each based on comparable sales in the same development while deliberately recording them at $3,000 each represents multiple multiple violations. And you can call in the question of is this a deliberate concealment of the true value of these gifts? Is it a violation of state disclosure requirements for public officials? And it may be considered a potential tax evasion through intentional undervaluation of these two pieces of property. This statue is unambigu unambiguous. Public officials cannot have hidden financial interest in matters they oversee. The councilman's dual role as both public official and beneficiary of these dramatically undervalued lots combined with his employment by the developer creates exactly the type of conflict and interest that Minnesota law prohibits. The deliberate undervaluation of these lots from the true market value of 40 to 60 to just $3,000 suggests a conscience effort and in my opinion to evade property deaxes and hide the true nature of these transactions for public scrutiny. This is a pattern of deception deception that directly violates the transparency requirements fundamental to public office. When an elected official accepts valuable gifts from a developer doing business with the city and they fail to disclose these gifts under reportports their value, they violate not just the letter of the law, but the essential trust placed in them in this community. And let me be absolutely clear, every statement that we've just gone over is factual based on facts and supported by the 2004 purchase agreement, which is a legally binding document. Our city's official property records and zoning ordinances, detailed utility and maintenance records spanning 21 years, and public t tax records showing failure to convert report commercial taxes. This has got to end. This was a terrible deal this city got into in 2004. It is one-sided. The residents of this city should be known. It should be known to them exactly what their money is being spent on. I don't think anyone would approve for 21 years that their tax dollars would be funneled toward a business because of a 2004 purchase agreement that was supposed to be temporary. As a resident paying taxes, I could tell you right now, I would I would not like this. I don't like it at all. I work very hard for my money. businesses should not be getting this kind of treatment. I don't know what happened in 2004. All I know is everything after that is wrong. It's wrong for the city. It's wrong for what's going on. It does nothing for our citizens except take money out of their pockets. And that's how I feel about this. I'm I'm outraged about it. Um, I don't like being here going over this, but as a councilman, is my job w once we know these facts to bring them to the residents. And we need to hear from the residents. The residents, I'm sorry. I I'd be upset. I really would be. That's all I want to say about this. Well, I can't say much about this period because I've not had any paperwork or knowledge of what's been going on since you guys have started this. Uh, so it's kind of hard for me to voice opinion. I know in the past last time I believe this was brought up Tom Verling from the same law office was the attorney and he retired but at that time I was brought up he recommended to the council not to pursue it. So that's all my recommendation is on this because I I have none no paperwork of what you guys all have. I have not been put in the loop like Tim since I've been here. We have all the proof of everything that he said. Yeah. So, if you have anything you want to look at, you can look at give it to him to show you that we have the proof of it. It's totally wrong in my opinion. Susan, you have anything? Um, I think it not only took away from those entities, it took away from other businesses in our city, it prevented other businesses from coming here, from um operating here. So, it it it's very disappointing. I think what we have to do is we have to decide how we're going to approach this now. I mean, the city's been told for years that all it was was a contract. They weren't informed that all these bills were being covered, nor the amounts. Um, this is a hard one because we were told two years ago that that it was just a contract and we pursued it. Um, which is probably what other councils were told in the past, that there was nothing here except a contract that was very one-sided. Uh but it's definitely not fair that that the other businesses in this community have to pay their electric, their rent, uh and all the other bills associated with having an an office open here. Um it's definitely not fair to them. It's definitely not fair to the people of this city. Uh unfortunately, it this is something that I don't think we can allow to go on. I mean, it it's just one of those things that how how can you tell the people who voted for you that you're allowing this to happen? I mean, we could go door to door and say, "Would you like your tax dollars or a portion of it to go fund this business?" I don't think you get one single person saying, "Okay." I really don't. What does uh what do you want to do here, Mr. Mayor? If I can. Um you know, having having gone through this um you know, there's one thing I didn't mention in here was um a portion of this contract uh has a a road rework that is um that needed to be done. Uh there was $2,000 set aside per property. Um once initiated or once a permit was um u taken out on that property, then that $2,000 would be paid. We've collected $148,000 uh for that for those properties. Um under um article one section E of the contract says if on the date of commencement of any part of the work in the city's engineers estimation there are not sufficient funds in the account established pursuant to this paragraph to cover the cost of that part of the work then the purchaser will deposit purchasers BDM will deposit additional funds in the amount to cover any such deficiency. Um the estimate was established in 2004. The work I believe was done in 2014. There was significant time between the two. Um and it does specifically state that the um the city has a sole right of determining when that work is going to be done. Um so our attorney sent off a letter saying that uh we've collected 148,000. And the actual cost of the work was $266,871.80 or a deficiency of $118,871.80. Um I talked to senior um in this meeting and they had said well we had agreed to 2,000 per lot based on that original estimate and uh and nothing more. Okay. So there's some there's some conflict there in terms of um what the actual cost was. what does deficiency mean? Is deficiency need to be, you know, accounted for here? Uh, and so kind of laying that groundwork, um, their attorney, um, Barna Guzy Stefen responded by saying that, you know, they they're not going to cover these costs or whatever, but from a practical standpoint, they said they'd be willing to sign a lease for the office space for a term of five years, no rent. um and um that uh they they won't agree to alterations or whatever improvements to the premises without consent of the city. Um so essentially the way I I kind of want to boil this down, I think we have two options. We have the compromise option uh which is you know uh if we agree to five-year no rent okay that that they operate in this facility I think that still leaves the the streets uh that still leaves the operating cost the operating cost was not identified in this contract at all saying that the city would eat that cost or anything of that nature over these years. Um our attorney believes that tax the rent is appropriate um and that taxes um you know as identified in this contract since 2004 um according to Anoka County had not been paid uh until this year. Um so the taxes as of this year are being resolved. Um so the compromise portion is five years perhaps. you know, we look at um uh agreeing if we agree to that, they agree to uh the you know, covering their operating cost. Um and perhaps uh you know, we can talk about operating costs for for uh you know, the the prior prior years. Um essentially, as was communicated to me, that the city never sent a bill for operating cost. I don't know that there's a timetable on that in terms of receiving a bill, but at any rate, that's kind of the compromise category. Uh the legal uh category would be essentially to go to uh Noa County courts to initiate a declaratory action to say um you know, we we believe that uh that this amount is owed to us. You know, can you judge please decide if that's accurate? and um and kind of get some sort of resolution from that standpoint. I think the estimate and Jacob I I'm not going to put you on the spot, but I think Eric said somewhere in the $50,000 range, maybe something like that. Uh so, um regardless of the actual cost, it's going to probably cost a significant amount of money to go on the legal route, not only for us, but certainly for BDM because I know that Bara Guzi is not free. Um and uh and so that kind of boils down to the two options of of you know staff's interest in this is I want to put this to bed. Been working on this since I've been here and um and I I think uh there's a unanimous consensus that maybe this isn't the best written contract in the world. Um there's a lot of uh you know kind of undefined kind of issues in there. Uh but nevertheless, if there's a way that I always believe in compromise. If there's a way that we can compromise um and and work something out for five years, perhaps that's the best route, the most efficient route. Um I think the legal will probably get drawn out and and um costly and there may be other options. I'm not thinking of. Well, I say no to rentree. I mean, I was working um paying the group that I'm with, we were paying over $1,200 a month for a space about two of those bathrooms in there and they wanted to raise the prices again. So, we moved out um and we just do everything virtual now. So, and I don't think there's any business in this city that is rent free in this state that is rent free. I and I don't think it's fair for anybody to be able to live, work part, run a business rentree. I think it's wrong. So in the in the contract under let me see what article it is here under article 4 um section E it says the purchaser BDM shall have use of office space in the community center until the whispering Aspen plat is completed. Use of office space. Um the question we had was how do you define use? Does that mean rentree? Does that mean you can use it, but there's a cost for using it? You It's not defined. Um, so this is kind of the I think the basis of what prior administrators have gone off of is that they're using the space. Um, it doesn't say use a space free of operating costs or you get your internet free or or anything like that. So, um I think that you know it could have been a lot better defined maybe in this contract than it than it had been inuh 2004. But, um do you have the current contract right in front of you? Yes, I do. What does 3.4 say? Article three. Yeah. 4 at the bottom. The seller hereby covenants and agrees that seller will cooperate with the purchaser in the preparation, execution, and prosecution of applications for necessary development agreements, conditional use permits, variances, plats, building permits, environmental permits, wetland permits, and all other necessary permits for the development of the real property as purchaser may deem to be necessary or as required of purchaser by applicable governmental units to enable purchaser to put the real property to intended use. All expenses in order to develop the real property shall be paid for by the purchaser. Right there, all expenses right in the purchase agreement. It's defined very clearly. Doesn't say the city's got to cover that. Nor should we. Exactly. You're taking that line out of context. It's word for word. That's not out of context. Completely out of context. No. wrong. Getting back to the road overlay. I mean, according to the contract, I've read that many times. It's like if there's a cost that the city is not responsible to pay for the roads, the purchaser is, according to what I've read. So, I understand they got they got $148,000. That's $2,000 a lot. At this present time, the city has $11,000 of my money. I asked for an audit. None has come. That's news to me. Anyways, getting back to the numbers. 266,87180. They've paid 148,000. So, they still owe 118,871. And you said that and you and they said that nobody gave them a bill for that. Is that what we got on record? I believe that's what was communicated. Okay. I'd say write out a bill. I'd say write out a bill and give it to them. They owe it according to their contract. You guys stop bullshitting up there. Oh, really? It's That's a solid contract. Solid. Yeah. One-sided. Who's paid all the bills? Have you paid Have you paid an electric bill? Yeah. Have you paid an electric bill? No. Have you paid any rent? No, you haven't paid the presidents have civil everything. Let's calm down and be civil here, please. This is a work meeting. He shouldn't even be talking very He's interrupting us. Pay attention. So, where do you want to go with this? We need to pursue this further. We We need to do something about this. I don't I'm not willing to let him have five more years rent free. No way. You You've gotten 21. 21 years. 21 years to do this development. You You're in You're at You're in no hurry to get this done. And it's being funded by taxpayer money. This industry that I am in has been shut down multiple times. And even today it's under fire. That shouldn't be a cost to the residents. Just because you shut it down doesn't mean this this city has to pay for it to reopen. What don't you understand about that? What don't you understand about I understand very clearly that our residents do not have to pay your bills. Trying to break my contract. I'm not trying to break your contract. I'm trying to get you to pay for it. There's a big difference. Big difference. You won't give me a cost. When I paid for this, there was $1.7 million put into a account that should have been interesting. And I've never seen one cent of that accounting for going into this cost. The $211,000 that I'm talking about that I put into this city, that money did not account to any interest. Both of my agreements were supposed to have been interesting. The city has not given any interest in that. And once that interest is found out, I believe the city is going to owe me $100,000. So go ahead, come after me. We're not coming after you. We're explaining to the residents exactly where their tax dollars is going. That's what we're doing. There is a lot of BS. What is BS about it? Have you ever paid for electric up there? Yeah. Have you ever paid for gas? Have you ever paid for anything? Well, when when I purchased that, that building was going to be mine and I agreed to not accept the building. The only thing I wanted out of that was to use the two offices that in the 20 years prior to my buying it had never been used. They were just sitting there. Nobody was using them. I did not ask for a reduction in my contract. If I would have, it would have been a reduction of $300,000. But you didn't. I didn't. There's nothing on that purchase agreement says that you owned it at any time. Is there? All I wanted was to sit in that office. You got your office. Where does it say in that contract that we have to pay all the bills? We even cover your toilet paper. Do you know that? We supply your business toilet paper. My contract said I got to use the building and the city accepted that. So now you're trying to break a city agreed contract. I'm not trying to break free contract. Oh no, I'm not say for free. Okay, let's uh let's move forward here. Make a decision what you're going to do. This going back and forth ain't going to solve nothing. What are you proposing we do? I think we need to hear from residents. I think we need to put some more time in what we need to do. I agree. I think the residents can reach out to us and let us know their feelings of all the bills that they've paid for yours. Give us a call. let us know. And I think maybe we need to pursue the court action that you were discussing where they have to reimburse us or if if he's right and we have to pay then he's right but we need to pursue this. So, what's your consensus then? Mine I I'm not staining because I have no knowledge of what's even going on. I don't have any documentation to go over with anything of it. So, it's pretty hard for me to determine something when I can't do a background. Exactly. We have the information for you. Happy to supply all of it. Yeah. So, can you read it all between you three? What do you want to do? I'd like to hear from the residents after they have the information that Tim supplied and ask them what they'd like us to do. They voted us in this position and we found out this information. I'd like to have them tell us what we they'd like us to do. I know what I want to do, but I want to hear from them. Agreed. So, we're just uh pretty much tableabling this till we get input. Yeah. Okay. Do we need to do like a public hearing? Is that what you're talking about on it? Public hearing or whatever would hurt. If we could do that, that'd be fine, too. However, any way that the residents want to contact us, they have all our information. If we want to have a public hearing, let's do it. So residents, well, we need to give direction to staff somehow here. What do you got, Mr. Wood? Any ideas on how to do that? Well, Mr. Mayor and Council, I would say maybe um maybe we let cooler mines prevail at some point in the future here. Um I think we had offered um you know yes opening up the contract um and uh and defining rent defining cost CAMS common area maintenance and it wasn't that much. I think it was $400 $500 a month or something like that. It was very reasonable. We got that uh square footage estimate from a local realtor and um I think um you know I think if you take $500 a month times five years you'll probably cost for legal on one side will exceed that. So um I think it's incumbent upon both parties to come together and to compromise to figure out a compromise. I mean we can we can we can line them up. That's that's the easy part. Um it's just going to cost a lot of money. So what that compromise looks like, that's the question. That's the question. Uh and um and I'm certainly willing to meet with senior again, talk through this and um and see if we can't come to, you know, an agreement of some sort. uh if if that agreement process breaks down uh then then we really are reduced to one option and that's the legal option if we want to pursue that. Okay, we got to wrap this up. We got another meeting here in 3 minutes. So So is that enough direction? You guys good with that? Okay, this time uh hearing no other discussion, we'll close the work meeting. H we're close. Yeah. What's happening? What is going on? No. What is this? You want to set up another meeting with me? I'm fine with that. Right up here. I got it. You ready, Matt? I can't zoom it in. Ready when you are. Yep. Okay. We'll call the uh May 28th, 2025 regular council meeting to order. All rise for the pledgece to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Make a motion to adopt tonight's Jeep meeting. Second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor? I I opposed. None. Uh, sheriff's office. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Uh, April had a total of 367 calls for service. Last month, we handled five thefts, three assaults, and two damage to property reports. We had a total of 17 arrests for miscellaneous violations. Uh, we conducted 234 traffic stops in the city, which resulted in that issuance of 73 traffic citations. couple of our notable calls last month. Uh the first one occurred on April 6 at 1:29 a.m. Deputy Martinez uh stopped a vehicle near Durant Street and Wild Rice after observing some erratic driving conduct. The driver did show signs of impairment, including slurred speech, bloodshot eyes, and the odor of an alcoholic beverage on his breath. The driver initially refused field sobriety testing but later agreed to one of our tests which was the horizontal gaze nestagmus test which is a fancy word for the eye test and uh that indicated signs of impairment to our deputy as well. Um the driver then declined to complete further testing or provide a breath sample. So based on what our deputy had seen, the driver was arrested for DWI, transported to our office, and was given the opportunity to contact an attorney, which he did not complete. The driver ultimately refused the breath test and was booked into jail for DWI test refusal. On the 25th of April, at 12:50 a.m., Deputy Martinez again observed a vehicle whose registered owner had an extraditable warrant out of Wisconsin. Excuse me. While following the vehicle, the vehicle made an abrupt turn east on 237th Avenue Northeast from Highway 65 and pulled into the gas station there. Upon making contact with the driver, the deputy identified that person as an individual who he recognized as someone with a cops alert uh for a felony level offense originating from the city of St. Francis. The driver was arrested without incident, searched and turned over to St. Francis PD who later transported that person to jail. the passenger that was present for the stop arranged for a ride home and was released from that scene. And then finally, uh on April 25th, deputies attempted a warrant uh arrest of an individual at an address in the 23800 block of Filillmore Street. That person had a confirmed body only warrant for domestic assault out of Max County. Deputies spoke with a relative who confirmed that the subject was likely at that location and they drove to that address to affect the the arrest. The subject was observed loading items into the car into his vehicle in the driveway and was taken into custody without incident. Male was searched, handcuffed, and transported to jail to be booked on the warrant. So, um while I was doing the monthly brief uh earlier this week, um our traffic arrests were up, which was really good to see. um when in comparison to where we were at last time this year, um our stops and arrests are are both up, like I said, um indicating a more focused effort um on some of our city roadways. So, a lot of the offenses are that DWI variation, the speed enforcement, stuff like that on 65. So, we've seen a vast improvement there. So, I think we've got a a new crew that's really out there really interested in in getting involved in in what we're seeing out there. So, um, we're excited to see that. Um, we're entering the busy season this year, too. So, if you see anything, anybody sees anything suspicious out there in your neighborhoods or out on the roadway, give us a call. We'll show up. Um, even if you don't want us to show up, have us give you a phone call. Um, you can talk firsthand to one of our deputies, advise him or her what you have going on, what your observations are, and we can kind of come up with a game plan to combat some of the things that that we usually see in the summer months. stand for any questions if you have any. No questions. Any questions from the public? I'm being heard. Thank you, sir. Thank you much. Fire department. Mayor, city council. Good evening. My name is Jerry Strike. I'm the interim fire chief. Tonight is my last night as the interim fire chief for the city of East Bethl. Uh, council, if I could, I just want to talk about what's occurred over the last, I guess, over a year now and three months that I've been in the weeds acting as interim. Since 1956, so 66 years now, residents of the city of East Bethl have acted in a dual role position. They've responded not only as residents and all the interests of East Bethl, but also as emergency responders going to some of the most dangerous incidents that occur in this city. And as I uh look and dive into the city the last three months, it's one of the largest cities in the state of Minnesota with 48 square miles. You literally need a Snickers bar from Ham Lake to get all the way to the the northeast corner to make it to to a call. It's it's a very big city. But within the city, there's of course a lot of major corridors that create crashes and rescues and trauma. There's water that create ice and surface uh uh issues. There's hazardous materials and commercial facilities. There's lots of medicals with 12, not only 12,000 people who reside in the community, but think of all the people that visit this community and come here for recreation as well. But for 66 years, we've come up with a total of maybe 250 residents have had the honor of serving as a firefighter, one of the nation's most trusted individuals. Um, 250 is not a big number. Um but today even today on the first Friday of the month those who have served in the past meet at the fire station to break bread together talk about the past and tell tell the great war stories that we have as firefighters. So we have some firefighters in the room today who are currently serving or may have served. Thank you for your service. I'd like to give them a round of applause. [Applause] Part of my job coming here was to evaluate the organization compared to others and maybe to best practices and standards. Uh one of the question the mayor had before uh is uh the previous mayor was are we doing it well and what could we do differently? And this council had the courage uh the past and today uh to make some pretty tough decisions and I commend you for that. Whenever you're focused on the interests of public safety, you're doing what I believe is best for local government. It's your duty to focus on all of these challenging issues as elected officials. And I also know that elected officials and public officials uh their jobs come with burden. We're constantly being scrutinized. Our courage, our courage, our dedication, our purpose is constantly questioned by others. Uh so congratulations there for you in East Bethl who live in East Bethl in this beautiful community of ruralness with lands and big trees and open lots. Other people want that too. And because they want that and because cities to the south of us are growing at such a rapid rate. This city is changing and so must the fire department. The fire department has to continually have a vision of what's going on in the future. Vision is sometimes more important than the mission because it's changing rapidly and and growing. The volunteer firefighter of the day was the least expensive model any city could have. But I'm here to tell you that East Bethl is now joining other cities. Blaine, Shakipi, Burnsville, Hopkins, Ramsey, Oak Grove, they're all going through a model transition on where the fire department needs to look different. Along with that, our generations look different and the purpose to serve is different today. When I joined in the 1980s, I joined because it was part of a family event. uh and uh I wanted to serve. I came out of the military. I understood service and I wanted to serve my community. Much it's much different today. Town homes cost $4 to $500,000. They can't do this job for free. So, we've been working with the city council for some time now to talk about what the fire department actually means. There is no law that requires it to to exist. It's your decision, this group's decision. today and the future to decide what that looks like. If you want to farm it out, you can farm it out. But I I I've said it many times when I've been up here. This department is an amazing department with great people and has a lot of future ahead of it. I'm really excited about it. So, we talked about those that visit our community. They come here expecting service. Most of us expect some sort of level of service. And the fire chief's role is to make sure that that service is provided at all costs. The fire chief, 735 fire departments in the state of Minnesota, there's about 20,000 firefighters. And of all of those firefighters, because a fire chief is a firefighter, too, there's fewer than 100 career fire chiefs in our state who actually get paid a full-time job to do it. when I received my uh full-time job many years ago at 37. Oh, maybe it was just a couple years ago. Um um it was like getting uh signing a professional football contract because someone was going to pay me to be a fire chief. And I take that I take that for granted or not for granted. But today we're here to swear in to give uh some custom to show the community some custom that the fire service has 250 years of tradition and service. One of the most trusted individuals in the in the country and I've had the opportunity to travel to Africa. I've taught the the National Liberian Fire Service. I've taught the Canyon Fire Service. And I remember when I first walked out there on the tarmac and I had people coming up and touching me and I asked, "What's going on? They're in my space, you know, and they said they want to touch a United States firefighter." And I'll never forget that. I'll never forget the the respect that was given to me. Uh, and I don't want any of our firefighters or any firefighter to ever lose that. So, today we're going to have a swearin ceremony. the first of its kind in the city, I understand, but not uncommon for the firefighters. We uh uh ca I came in in the last three months. We've done a ton of things. Uh but we fasttracked a hiring process as fast as we could to make sure we had the right candidates. We ended up with nine candidates. We selected one. Uh we had a personnel committee that uh included the mayor, council member, city administrator, and myself. I was the last one to vote. And um we ended up selecting um Jeff Siloka. Jeff Siloka is u served as a paramedic for over 20 years. And if you don't know the job of a paramedic, it's different than a firefighter. But Jeff has literally saved lives in the back of ambulances. Uh he served as a firefighter full-time in Virginia, Minnesota, fire medic. He served as a training officer in the city of Andover. And he came to us today. Uh he left as the emergency services director for the city of Delano. He came to the city because he likes the city, the community. It's a three station uh uh department, which is rare. There's only three of them in our county and there's a lot of opportunity. I'm very proud of Jeff for all the things he's done. He's not only become a paramedic, but he went to get his his a his associate degree, his undergra his undergrad degree, his master's degree, and he's currently in working to complete his PhD. You will soon call him doctor. I'm really proud of his education. He's young enough to stay here a long time. Uh he's it's going to take him some time to get in the groove, but know that this position has the burden of public safety on your shoulders where you're actually up at night wondering who's going to come to the call and what call is next. So, uh Jeff, thanks for stepping up. So, if I could have the mayor come up, I could have Jeff's wife and family, Stephanie, come up. We're going to have a pinning ceremony. On the collar of every chief, you can recognize them by five bugles. Back in the day, we used to communicate by shouting through these bugles. And it is said that the more bugles you have, the louder voice you have. Um, these bugles can sometimes feel like plungers where what you're trying to do just isn't going the way you want it to. But that's natural. Leadership comes with burden and sometimes you're standing at the top rung and there's nothing to hang on to anymore and you look down and there's a big warning sign and says do not stand here. And as I told Jeff Saloka recently, I said that's when you know you're making progress. Just keep leaning forward. Balance it as best as you can. I already know that the council has your back. I think since I've been here and I I don't get paid to say anything. I'm a consultant. I get to say what I what I need to say. But ever since I've been here, this council's talked about improved safety. We've talked about what's best for the citizens and what's best for public safety. Those three things council before when I arrived and the council now. So mayor, if you could read the oath of office to Jeff Saloka, who will soon become fire chief of the city of East Bethl and we'll have his family pin on the color glass. Okay. I Jeffrey Saloka solemnly swear that I will support Constitution of the United States Constitution. Excuse me, Mayor. He's going to say that you did it already for 40 years. So So you say it, repeat it, right? Okay. I'm sorry. He was doing that. It seemed like a long time, didn't it? All right. Go ahead. Go ahead. I just swear that I will support United States of America and the city of Minnesota and accept the role of fire chief of honor and humility pledging to lead with integity by example. Slow down. Slow down. Mayor, slow it down. Hand it to him. Wait. Hey, if you can do it, I'm going to promote you one more life. I accept the role of fire chief with honor and humility, pledging to lead with integrity and by example. Serve with courage for our firefighters and residents. Protect life and property with commitment and sacrifice. I will uphold proud traditions of fire service unity within the department and earn the trust of I will uphold the proud traditions of the fire service foster unity within the department and earn the trust of those I serve. The oath is my promise to lead with purpose act with honor and put duty above all. Help me out. The oath is my promise to lead with purpose, act with honor, and put duty above all else. So help me. Congratulations. [Applause] Welcome and congratulations. Thank you, mayor. You can be seated now. Go ahead, shake some hands. Give some hugs. High fives. This is your team. Little dude shake dad's hand. During the past three months, we've identified the need to not only keep the fire chief at a high level managing the organization, and I I brought to the council, I think the last meeting, the six pages of things the fire department does. The fire department is the largest department in the city, managing the most people. In fact, there's more people within the fire department than there are in the city as a whole from full-time staff position. And so everything applies to the fire department from human resources training and so on. Our volunteer firefighters who are paid but they're not full-time. So we use this definition of volunteer um are required to maintain their certification. So, keeping them well trained, keeping the the 13 pieces of equipment and three stations that we have uh ready to respond at a moment's notice requires someone to focus on that other than the fire chief. Although the fire chief has the overall burden of the entire operation, uh our fire inspector has proven that he is ready and and able to be promoted to the position of deputy chief of operations. And this position is in full support of the fire chief. And these two individuals sole mission is to make sure that the firefighters are prepared for the community. Whether that's starting a saw and making sure there's fuel in it to there's air pressure. Quite honestly, they're constantly looking at equipment with the officers and with the firefighters to make sure that it's ready to win because we don't ever train to fail. So, Ben Uden Uden, come on up. We're going to have the fire chief now swear in Ben Uden and his family. Where's his family? Coming up. Ben has been in the fire service since an explorer. He started in the city of Columbia Heights. He moved up the ranks. This is a very unique position in this county and in the in metro Minnesota, Minneapolis, is we now have two department heads who are paramedic firefighters. You will rarely see the highest trained in medical and the highest trained in fire serving together, but you do in East Bethl. And in I've been in a business 37 years. I've never seen this happen. So, I'm very proud of Ben, the work he's done, and the the support his family provides because his wife is the president of the fire service auxiliary, which puts on our pancake breakfast and everything else. So, we got quite the team here. So, I'll give you this and chief will swear in Ben Uden. I do solemnly swear I Ben do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States the constitution of the state of Minnesota the Constitution of the state of Minnesota and the ordinances of the city of East and the ordinances of the city of East as deputy fire chief as deputy fire chief I will accept the responsibility to lead I will accept the the responsibility to lead the daily operations of the East Fire Department. the daily operations of the East Bethle Fire Department. With professionalism, precision, and purpose. with professionalism, precision, and purpose. I pledge to I pledge to support the fire chief to carry out the operational vision of our leadership. memory. Support the firefie. Support the fire chief. And carry out the operational vision of our leadership. And carry out the operational vision of our leadership. Ensure our members are trained. Ensure our members are trained. Equipped and ready to respond. equipped and ready to respond. Promote a safe, respect, respectful Promote a safe and respectful and accountable work environment. And accountable work environment. I will Lead by example. I will lead by example. Honor the traditions of the fire service. Honor the traditions of the fire service. commit myself fully to protecting the lives and commit myself to fully protecting the lives property. Property and trust of the community we serve. of the community we serve. This is my oath to serve with honor. This is my oath to serve with honor. Lead with clarity. Lead with clarity and act with integity. And act with integrity. So help me God. So help me God. [Applause] That's awesome. Congratulations. only be you can see up here only because I love this stuff. I wanted to present you with uh with certificates of promotion that you can put on your wall and when you when you get in a mode that um I don't know that I can go any further. Just keep looking at that and uh you deserve the promotion. You're the right person for the position and just keep going on. Right. Lean forward. All right. The next thing, Chief, we're going to transition with a handshake. I'm out of here. You're in. You're going to give the update and we're going to introduce a new firefighter that just completed all of their uh training. Uh David Bailey comes to us from the city of Newport. He was a firefighter there for 15 years. And for us to get somebody who has that level of experience is tremendous. He went through the training program and now he's graduating uh and completing his promotion. So, council, uh this is my last word to you. Thank you for all your support. I appreciate um all your ears. I met with you individually. I appreciate your courage to fight for public safety and I look forward to the future uh of this organization. It will become one of the best in the county. I'm no there's no doubt about it. It's always been a good department, but it's going to take a step forward. Uh, I am not going to go away. I am a phone call away and I'm now part of this purpose. So, if you ever need me, you can call me all of you. All right. Thank you so much. Congratulations. Come on over here. We'll leave this along alongside each other. Mayor, members of the council, thank you for this opportunity. I understand I went up against eight other individuals uh through the hiring process. Um and I am excited to be here and excited to be part of this. Um everything that I've heard about this department is good. Uh we will move forward. Um, obviously it's been two days to take a little bit of time, but we'll get there and I'm excited about what the future holds. Um, just a few things that I have um for for an update. Uh, for the month of April, uh, we went on a total of 65 calls. Uh 38 of them were medical, 14 of them were good intent, seven were fire, three were service calls, two were hazardous conditions without the possibility of fire, and then one was a false alarm. Um our busiest days were Tuesday and Friday. Um and uh Ben and I will continue to evaluate that and see what how do we get the best service to the community and surrounding communities going forward. Um with that um I would like to uh bring up uh David Bailey here. Um we're excited to have you as part of our team. Um, thank you for bringing your experience here and sharing it with the rest of us. I will give you these [Applause] family's here. Yeah. Get on up here. Awesome. That concludes the fire portion. Okay. At this time, we'll move into 4C, the IUP hearing for 23 22359 Baton Street Northeast, keeping of two horses. Let people clear here for a second. Thank you to all you firefighters that have shown your support. Appreciate it. Before we open the hearing, we'll entertain a little background on this. Yeah, Mr. Mayor, I just want to say it was it's great to have uh presentations and new firefighters as they're coming in and also when they're completing their training and the community can get to know them, put a face to a name and and uh it's a big day for East Bethl. So, I want to make a quick comment. I think in our next East Bethl newsletter, some of those pictures should be included. Very good. We'll get that in. Uh, Mr. Mayor, uh, at the I think it was a prior work session, uh, we brought up a discussion of a current IUP that is out there right now for 22359 Baton Street Northeast, keeping of two horses. And, uh, it was the decision of the council at that point to bring this forward into a public hearing, which we are doing here today. And this is pertaining to IUP number 2019-55, a resolution granting an interim use permit for the keeping of two horses on on the property indicated. And uh and as promised, uh we um provided some pictures. Uh hopefully that's here. Well, if we can zoom out here for some of these. Um but essentially I um I drove by the property and noticed that in fact there are more than two horses that are on that property. Um this um this IUP of course defines how many can be on there. Uh there is reasons for that. There's uh uh there's so many acres that are necessary per horse in terms of not only acreage but pasture land. And uh so I think uh this is uh just being brought before you now. Um um you can open the public hearing. We can take testimony on this. Uh but essentially the council needs to decide uh what uh what the um next steps will be on this. I I know that there was some talk of suspension in the IUP here. I'm not sure how you would suspend. Uh so really your options I think are are um you know on one end you know ensure that there there are only two horses there or on the other end re revocation. Um as you know we we offer IUPs to uh residents in the community. Uh and with those IUPs we put uh conditions in there that they must meet and agree to before approving those IUPs. and um and violation of that of course is um is kind of challenging the authority of this organization. So uh that's being brought before you now for discussion and um and a decision. Okay. At this time we'll open the hearing. Uh uh to all you that are going to be speaking uh you're only going to be addressing the horse issue. That's it. not any other IUPs. There'll be a threem minute limitation. If you're here as a group, we would request that you have one spokesperson. So, with that said, I believe Tammy, you want to start it out with your Mayor Council Tammy Gimple. Do I have to give my address? You guys have it? Um, I have an IUP from 2000. The two horse IUP came to fruition when I had gotten a horse through animal control and I got a call again. It was in 2019. I don't remember exactly. I got a call from city hall that I needed to come in for a permit. Um, we've we had horses since the year 2000. I have the the IEP from the year 2000. I don't we've had horses since we moved here in 99 and I came in and got a IUP. I think it says January 5th of 2000 for six horses. So, I'm not Right now I have two IUPs. Uh, one for the six and obviously the 2019 for the two. Um, I thought this had been taken care of with Aaron Berg. Um, he sent me a letter saying I could only have two horses. I had four. I think it was in 2022. And, um, I I explained all this to him then. And and I thought it was taken care of. I think I ended it with, "If you want to take the two horse IUP away, then you owe me my $300 back." And I never heard another word. I thought he took care of it. Okay. Take that into consideration. That all you have? Yeah. Do you have do you have questions or That'll come later. Okay. Uh I believe are all you that have signed up on this public forum speaking during this hearing. Okay. Right now we'll address uh anyone from the public on the uh public hearing. No, right. Yep. My name is Christine Gman. I live at 17540 Highway 65 Ham Lake. No, I'm not a resident of East Bethl, but I lived here for 17 years and I've been involved and stay involved. Some like it, some don't. Don't care. I was at the planning and zoning meeting when Tammy Gimple came forward with her permit to ask for the horses. She never said a word about that. She never said that she had another permit. She never said that she didn't even have horses on her property at that time. And the one thing that really stood clear was that Wanda said that she's going to have two horses for her own personal pleasure. It's in your minutes from that hearing from that meeting. She is not only have more than two horses. She's breeding horses and she's brew breeding. That means she's breeding soon as they full she's breeding them again. She's also required to have one continuous pasture which she does not. So, there are several violations, but I would really like a copy of that paper that she handed you tonight. And if it's not in file, I wonder where it came from. Okay. Anybody else? Hi, my name is Mike Drager. I live 1546 153rd Avenue Northeast Ham Lake. No, I am not a resident. I am here because kind of want this whole shebangle to be dealt with. But here's the deal. She said that she thought it was taken care of. If she has been in business since 2000 and understands that the IUP situation needs to be taken care of regularly as a also small business owner, I know that I need to be on top of my paperwork because that's our responsibilities as a small business owner. So that is not an excuse to not be on top of her paperwork, especially when it comes to animals. So please do not allow that excuse to go through because that's unacceptable. And as someone who is in the military, cuz I was and you were too. We do not get to slide with that excuse, do we, Suzanne? No, it's not an excuse. She knows what she's doing and she knew what she needed to do and didn't do it. And if this was any other resident, you would s tell them the same thing. So, please hold Gimple to the same standard you hold everyone else, too. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? Seeing none, at this time, we'll close the uh IUP hearing for council discussion. Mr. Mayor, if I if I can address the 2000 IUP issue that was brought up. Um we we did some research into this uh uh claim of a 2000 IUP and there was a um on January 5, 2000, there was an IUP that was issued uh for six horses at that time. It clearly states on there it under item six uh the interim use permit expiration one year from issue date unless otherwise renewed by the board of adjustment. Um and and during that year, if uh if the property were to sell or subdivide, it would automatically terminate. Um we have record of that uh IUP being renewed in 2001. We went through and scoured the entire year of 2002 and there was no renewal whatsoever of that IUP. So that IUP that is referenced for six horses has expired. Now, when the when the council would have reviewed when staff would have reviewed the 201955 IUP for two horses, they would have done research on whether any IUPs existed. And there is ample discussion in there that there were three IUPs, one for animal containment, one for um uh the um um for uh dog food sales, and one for the two horses um in 2019. So, um, essentially what what we have here, and I had our attorneys research this as well, is that, uh, the most recent IUP is the governing document. That'd be 2019-55. And, um, and there was, um, absolutely zero mention of I have six horses in an existing IUP and I want to add two more horses. No discussion of that whatsoever. to pull that document out at this point is a valiant effort. However, uh that has since expired. So, uh the the standing document is 2019-55. Uh two horses, as you can see, there are more than two horses on here. And um and that is simplifying the matter to the best that we can at this point. Well, I have a question and I am just wondering why um at least the two-horse one was never brought up to the city by Miss Gimple to um have it increased or have it renewed or anything like that because clearly they state that it's the requirement. Mr. Mayor, best I can answer that is um under the conditions of the 2019-55, there are conditions set forth uh where the permit shall expire when the property is sold or non-compliance of IUP conditions. So evidently the city went from in 2000 an annual renewal process to um to a um a review if necessary based on uh the city staff can inspect and evaluate annually if they want to. Um but uh but the onus is on the applicant to comply with the conditions. Uh think of it like a contract. um they sign a contract with the following conditions that they will follow those and you'll allow them whatever they're asking for. Uh and um and essentially uh that's where 2019-55 stands. Um until there's the property is either sold or subdivided or a violation of the IUP is it is it brought before the council. So anybody uh Elsa have anything? How many acres do the horses have here? I believe it's seven. Her fenced in area according to GPS is uh 4.72 acres. Her above not wet land is basically 6.36 acres of the 26 some acres she owns. There's only roughly about seven acres that are high that could be considered but that's including house, barns, everything. Okay. We know how much is pasture. Pasture is basically what she's got in the fenced area is the uh 4.872 right now. That's the fence according to GPS which in the uh current uh IUP requirements are one acre plus one acre per horse. So basically it's three acres per two horses. We need some direction which way we want to go with this because um we got to set the standard uh per the city not just the individual uh for anything that comes in the future. Go ahead. What you see on this side pastured we have on the southern side also pastured also fenced off. We're actually putting up the white fencing so some of the fencing is down. Um, and in regards to the IUP and it expiring, that is how they started in 2000. And that they quit, I don't know what year where it was you had to go in and I don't even think it was annually. I think the first year was one year. When you first got it, it was one year and then after that it was like two or three years. And then they stopped it and it went to what it is now, which is if you It goes with you. So if you move then then you you obviously you don't have the IUP anymore. So that was during the time we had had horses before 2019. Um and I mean just and as far as pasture land and not we have two horses that can only be on a dry lot. So, I I think the I think the ordinance in East Bethl should change um lot size. Also, for I know people that only have enough acreage for one horse and they're her animals. You should always have two horses or more, but you should always have two horses. And and I think anyone who owns horses would tell you that. Um and for that reason alone, I think that it should change. My neighbor right across the road has horses. He has two horses and two goats. And I know he doesn't have nearly what I have fenced off. Um so what I'm saying is and they're in good shape. They're taken care of. Um it's it isn't just grassland that you need. It's that you're able to feed them. I mean ours get hay throughout the the entire year. Even in the summer now, you'll see a round bale that they're eating off of. So, my problem is that you didn't update your IUP with horse quantities and um and that is a requirement. it you became non-compliant with the IUP and you did not um take it upon yourself to come up here and request an update and go through planning and all the required steps and if you had that this would not be an issue right now. Okay. There was there is an IUP from 2000. It's expired. It expired one year afterwards. It did not. No, it did not expire. Okay. Yes, it did. That is the one you have there. And then where is the paperwork for the rest of them? We've we had horses way after 2000. That's when we got them. We had horses in 2010. So in 2010, we didn't have to come in and change anything. That is between 2001 and 2010. They changed it from it didn't expire anymore. It went from expiring to please no comments from the audience. Let let her talk. It went from expiring to not expiring anymore. That's everyone. There is no com no paperwork that says that. Exactly. There is no I mean it should be with the city. This city should have that paperwork. That is that was my I mean I can I'll go look for it if I have to go find it myself. But that was to me I I didn't know I needed that. This was proof that I had one from 2000. I am not if you hear that I have three IEPs right with the city and a kennel license. I am not obviously I'm doing the right thing. I'm looking to do the right thing. We I didn't go get IUPs because I I wasn't trying to do the right thing. I could go through this city right now and I could actually I could tell you people that have horses that don't have an IUP for it. I can tell you people that have more dogs than they should, that don't have kennel licenses. We I did go do this. I went and did it because I was doing the right thing. 2019 sign, please. No comments from the audience. It says clearly on there in in the words that were up on the screen that that was a horse from animal control. That was a horse from animal control. I think that's irrelevant. I think then the quantity of horses that you have exceed the quantity on your IUP. This IUP is expired. There are no other IUPs that got updated and renewed. Therefore, this is null and void. Suzanne, that that IUP is not expired. It's not expired. It expires one year afterwards. Exactly. And then in 2001, obviously, we renewed it because like I said, we had horses all the way through it was easy 10 years. I had horses before. Staff looked all the way through 2001 and beyond and have no nothing in there of you renewing. I think you Mr. Look, I think you stayed that this was renewed once. Yes. Do we do we have a copy of that renewal? Yes. Yes. the the the 2000 IUP was renewed in 2001. It was not renewed in 2002. Had the process changed that it would have been updated. We would have a copy of that IUP. This is all digitized right now. Easy to search. We have all this information. Uh matter of fact, when um when Miss Gimple came in for her 2019 IUP, she came in with that thinking that that she needed to have an IUP because they didn't have horses at that time. is they had gotten out of horses, gotten back into horses, and um and then found this IUP that dated back to 2000, but missed obviously the part that you have to renew it every single year. Okay. When did that change that you don't have to renew it anymore? What year did that change? For all intents and purposes, 2019, because that's when you applied for your next IUP. It was before then. It was before then. We then I would have been illegal the entire time I had horses and I wasn't. I would have been No comments from the audience and I wasn't. I've had horses. I could bring in a lot of people that knew I had horses from 2000 and we had them for a long time. Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor and Council, um there are certain code that identifies how many acres you need for horses. You cannot have back-toback IUPs to circumvent the code. You can't say, "I want to have 20 horses, so therefore, let me see. I need five IUPs on horses." It doesn't work that way. Okay, that's not the 2019 document controls and the 2019 document should have been applied for for eight plus horses, eight that we can see plus horses. And that approval should have been approved in 2019. You can't say we're going to add this IUP to this IUP and any other IUP we have and that's how many we can find. That is not what we were doing. That is not what I was doing at all. What I was doing. Well, if you have two IUPs for horses, you are adding the two. No, that I wasn't actually. And the two that are babies, two babies that are Well, I mean there are eight. We do have eight, but how do you get to eight then? I had an IEP for six. I have six adult horses and two babies that are for sale and will be sold. They aren't staying. Okay. I'm counting eight adult horses. No, there's six adult horses. Okay. And two babies. Well, I don't know that the IUP says that babies until sold. It says that for dogs. No, it does say I think a age for a horse in the ordinance. Mr. Mayor, again, I think your options on the table are you have an IUP for two horses. Um, either make eight turn into two or revocation. And after revocation, the applicant can come back, spend another $300 or whatever the amount is and uh and see roll the dice on how many horses she can get. That's the process. So want to move forward with a motion. I will make a motion to revoke this current IUP. And if Miss Gimple wants to um renew it, she needs to go through the procedure. Have a motion. Get a second. I'll second it. Discussion. I have a question here. The amount of fenced in acreage, what what are we talking about for an actual number of horses she can have on her property? Mr. Mayor and council member. Uh we would need to do an evaluation on that, but um certainly it doesn't fit eight. It may be more than two, but for whatever reason they decided when they allowed two that two fit the number per the per city code. So perhaps there's three. I I have no idea. We'd have to we'd have to look into it. Why was six the first number back in the day the board of adjustments did this work? Um, and today the board of adjustments looks at your property taxes and determines if they're if they're fair. So, um, there's obviously a different process of governance today than there ever was yesterday. That being the case, um, uh, we do have city code currently today that identifies how many based on acreage and pasture and fencing and things of that nature. And um and there's an agreement if they don't have that that if you go back through these records, we'll grow more pasture land, we'll fence more area, we'll do what we need to do. And there was some conflict back then as to actually getting that accomplished. Um but um regardless, it's um it's uh you know, it's a it's an agreement has to be followed. When this was brought to Aaron Bird in 2022, why was I not here then over this? I mean, I honestly thought he took care of this that we had conversations back and forth that I had an IUP for six horses and the IUP for two horses and we went back and forth and it ended with me saying if you're going to revoke the two obviously I would keep the six over the two um that you know to give me my $300 back and that was it. Never heard another word, nothing. Mr. Mr. Mayor, councel, we can't Aaron is not here to respond to that. Um, we can only uh guess as to why he would have dropped it, lost it, fell through a crack. Did I have no idea. Should have been followed up on. Okay, got a motion, a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. Before we go on, do I need to say the resolution number in that motion or does it matter? This is resolution 2019-55 for the record. Well, the revoking is 2025-27 resolution. Yeah. Sorry. Okay, we got a motion second. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion passes. 4 D booster day report and update. Hello, Mayor Council. Thank you for the opportunity to come before you tonight. I think this is the latest I've ever had to do this. It's a long meeting. Um, I just wanted to we wanted to come before you to just give you an update as to where we're at for this year's event. Uh, booster day will be taking place on July 20th right here at Booster Park. Uh, the main um things will be taking place at Booster Park West, but we know that the seniors were planning to do the pancake breakfast. Is that still on, Suzanne? It is. Perfect. The pancake breakfast which is usually from 8 to 11:00 and then there'll be the annual car show. Um, and then followed by that, um, all of the rest of the events, um, kick off around 11:00 a.m. over in Booster Park West. Uh, we will, um, be having vendors, food, free inflatables, and a petting zoo and entertainment. Um, we are bringing in, um, the Spellbinding Sky Dancers Aerialist group. They performed two times last year, and they're really fun to watch. Um, this year we're having a mariachi band and a Japanese drum group. Um, and then, uh, Anoka County Sheriff will be on hand doing a K9 demo again this year. Um, the evening, um, we will be having a dance again this year with the Express Band. There is no admission fee to come to the event for any of the, um, you daytime or evening activities. So, we really want to invite everyone out for those things. Um, we also do have the parade in the works. It is coming back. We had a community member step up and join the committee. And after uh about a month of, you know, her thinking about it, she decid she came back to one of our community meetings and said, you know, I'm going to step up. I want to do the parade. So, um, I'm very excited. So, Paula was a godsend this year, um, for bringing that back. Um events like this are important um for building community, but um the heart of it um is our volunteers. And right now um we are in desperate need of volunteers for the day of the event. Um on our website there is a sign up available if you go to the volunteers tab um where you can sign up to help cover a shift um with setup in the morning a couple hours manning the inflatables um helping with tear down. Um there is on Friday we would have a need for an on call help for helping set up the dance floor. Um and then our cub scouts come in and on Sunday they do the park cleanup. Um, but there may be some need for some extra help on Sunday. Um, I do want to take a moment because I don't know if people realize this event and it there was some criticism during meet the candidates of the event. And I don't know if the community or even the city council fully understand the number of people that man this event and put it on. We are a volunteer committee and it is made up of myself, Scott, Ricky, Paula, Pam, Dan, Jess, and Bruce. Plus, we have Carrie Frost who is here or with us from the city. So, that is nine of us that put it on and spend from sun up until sun down in that park. So, I'm sorry. There is a need for help. That also goes to we're like any other group. We're struggling financially with sponsors this year. It's tight. We understand that. Businesses are feeling some crunches this year just because of political climate unknowns and things like that. We have some great sponsors. The city of East Bethl is one. They always have for the last I don't even know how many years now uh brought the fireworks to life each year and that will be done again. So I appreciate that. Um, in addition to that, we have um some incredible sponsors who've already stepped up um with pledges or have already contributed financially. Uh Route 65, uh Brad and his team are amazing. They're they support so much in the community. Um, Cedar, East Buffalo Lions, Ham Lake Lions, Highland Money Management, Quick Trip, First Bank and Trust, Kexus Energy, uh, the East Buffalo Chamber of Commerce and Advantage Construction have already committed in one way or the other. So, if you know, and I sent out an email to each of you already, um, saying this is what we could you could do for us, helping us spread the word. If you know of anybody who wants to be a vendor in the parade, um, or even a sponsor, please, please, please give them my name. Give them the directions to our website, eastbloosterdays.com. Our crew is passionate about this event. But we're going to get burned out if we don't have some community support and some community help cuz we want this to be something where East Buffalo can be proud of can come out and can gather as a community. We are in a day and age where everybody sits behind the computer and plays on their Tik Tok or plays games or our keyboard warriors and will tear each other apart. But we need to build community instead. So that's my passionate talk for tonight. If you have any questions for me about the event, I'd be happy to answer. Otherwise, please spread the word. If you see posts on social media, please share them. Um follow our Facebook page so that you can share them directly from there because I know in the groups you can't share um necessarily share from there. So just follow our Facebook page. Um, we'll be updating the website too with all of the pertinent information as far as schedule goes and stuff in the coming days. What time is the parade? The parade is going to be in the afternoon. It is going to be at 400 p.m. Um, it's a nice kind of a bridge for the daytime kind of stuff and then bringing into the evening. So, we're hoping to get some of that. The people who come for the parade will stay for dinner and the dance. And Stephanie, like I texted you last year after the uh booster days, you and your crew do an amazing job. Amazing job. And you should be very proud of what you've accomplished so far. And I I hope it grows a lot bigger and we'll see what we can do about getting you some support. Thank you. That's definitely our hope. I appreciate it. I do want to say I appreciate you and I know how hard you work. I kind of want to invite you to the airport meeting and see maybe we could get helicopter rides out here or something and but I think you'd be a better convincer of that than I would. So, um depending on on when June 11th 4 o'clock at Blaine Airport. If I can't make it, I might be able to have one of my other committee members make it. But can you send me an email and just Sure. I I've been um bringing it up and at the past meetings and the next official meeting I thought maybe we could bring either the Young Eagles could bring something or Chris Webb with his helicopter company and charge 2550 bucks a ride and make some money and shoot me an email and and and we can talk off of it. Okay, I'd appreciate that. Stephanie, just for clarification, this is uh Saturday, June 19th. Oh, sorry, 20th. No, I am on last year's date. It was the 19th last year. So, Saturday, July 20th. Thank you for catching that. July 20th. Okay. Because I had uh clarification that's a 19th, not the 20th. But we'll uh maybe if Carrie's up in the back there, she can clarify. Wait, what day? No, it's the 19th. Oh, is it the 19th? Oh my gosh. Last year was the 20 was last year. I Okay, the 19th. I corrected myself. I'm sorry. Two days. That information will be on the on the website. So, if anyone has any questions, this is what happens when I'm making notes while I'm also working my full-time job. So, I apologize for that. The 19th. So, is there is there a dunk tank for the mayor this year? Well, so I'm not going to name names on who tries to get a dunk tank every year at this event. There is talk. There is talk. So, you may be contacted. I've been in many. And oh, and I didn't mention we are trying to bring back bingo. We did bingo last year. We're working on it. We're not quite sure if it's coming back. If it does, please, please, please come out and play because this would be the first time that it would benefit us, our committee, to help us raise money for the event. So, we'll know more in the next few weeks on if that's going to be a go or not. Good to know. Thank you. You guys have a wonderful night. Thank you. Thanks. Good. Okay. 50 public forum. Uh, let me remind you again to limit your presentations to three minutes. Um, Christine, you're up first. I go over. Yep. That's okay. So, I was a little disappointed that Tammy sample IUP for dogs was taken off the agenda to say I was really disappointed because more dogs are being harmed than horses. But there's two things that the city attorney last time didn't bring up that are violations. I don't know if that's a mistake. One of them is the rescue. I have a email here from the city attorney of 2021 from an official complaint and it says, "I agree that the acco does not permit Miss Gimple to operate as a pet rescue. I do not know whether we have any evidence of this happening." I have lots of evidence of it happening and I sent it out of this city multiple times of Tammy Gimple. She calls herself a rescue. I have it right here. Tammy Gimple rescue signed on the bottom of a slip. She says it herself on her Facebook page. She take any dog that is taken in that is not an impounded dog sent in by a sheriff by law enforcement is a rescue. You don't have call out numbers for them. They're being dropped off by random people. Puppies. Puppies. Reservation puppies. Random dogs from anybody who wants to drop them off. She even says that she'll take them from anybody. She don't care. Here's the most recent stack. These are all rescue dogs. Three Pomeranians just took in recently. Just gave them away this week. There's some more dogs. Not Impound, just taken in. Here's a bunch of French bulldogs. Not rescues, just taken in. Here's another one. These are not impounded dogs. She is not a rescue. She should not be operating as a rescue. Number one, rescues do not do animal control work. They're not acco. And they also don't breed. Second problem I have with Tammy Gle is the ongoing boarding. She boards. There's an email from Oh, my glasses on. This is from the board of animal health. I think you need to know what they believe she does. Gratitude Farm is solely an impound facility. For the following cities, list her cities. Tammy does does have her own dogs and is a hobby breeder. She only impounds dogs. That's not true either. She's taken goats, horses from her own admission, pigs, chickens, birds. They're all online. You can see them all. Boarding. She's been doing it since 2009. You know it. It's in all of her IUPs. Here's a letter from the former mayor boss where he says, "We were told by Tammy that occasionally she will board dogs to their friends and members of the fire department. The city reiterated that dog boarding is not allowed under the IEP. You are correct that commercial kenning commercial kennels are not permitted use in residential areas. The city will be following this issue with Tammy's IUP to monitor compliance. Have you? Clearly not. You know why? Because she's still boarding. Please, please wrap it up. I got We got other people. 15 minutes. I took I They re yield in their time to me. You have three minutes. No, you're not going to let them yield their time. Okay. So, you don't want to know the violations? Boarding is strictly prohibited by any means of devices. It is not allowed in any other area than commercial. Now, you have a problem. You've had two other people come to this council, come to your planning and zoning, and they asked, "Well, why can't I board horses?" They didn't want to set a precedent. That's what they said. You can't do it. One of those residents actually asked, "Miss Cample, you were in the back row that night. Tammy, when did you get your permit?" 2009. That's a lie. Boarding is strictly prohibited. You now have her boarding. Here's the rescue that boarded with her. They did a fundraiser for her. Here's the dog again. Tammy saying, "I'm boarding this dog." You have post after post of people saying, "We board with Tammy. We boarded with Tammy." You're so afraid that Tammy is going to sue you if you do anything. Stand up against her. She goes after you for this. Call these people into court. You think they're all going to lie and say, "Oh, no. We don't board with Tammy. Think the rescue's going to lie. They're a nonprofit. Go get their documents." This is enough. The stuff that she does is unbelievable. is taking dogs that aren't hers. Dogs that are posted lost online. Tammy don't look to see. And Tammy, why would you give that dog back to that rescue? You had that dog for two days when they contacted you and you refused to give her that dog. I do know what you're You're addressing us, not Miss Kimble. She had a dog for two days. The owner surrendered it. It came from a rescue. That rescue said, "I'll take that dog. We'll pay the fees. 10:00 at night, she request asked Tammy asked for the documents. The rescue sent Tammy the documents the next morning. By 10:00 the next morning, Tammy forgot she adopted that dog out. It needs to end. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just for my hand, it's on the agenda. Mr. Mayor, just just for the council's knowledge, um as per the last council meeting, uh we had agreed to look at this IUP, uh the first meeting in June. So, we have this scheduled for 69 to review 2021-74, the IUP of contractual animal services. You said we would have changed. I thought it was July. I thought it was July, too. Why? Why? after her court date or it has nothing to do with the city. I thought it was June, but I can I can relook at that. We can change the date on that if that's July. Anybody else on the public forum? My name is Renee Beckman, 4642 229th Avenue, East. Um, your failure to act puts a city at the risk of being sued. A city can be held liable if it knowingly allows a business to operate illegally, particularly if the city's inaction or action contributes to or causes harm. Refusing to allow uh police to inspect your property, is just another uh violation. When will you realize that she has no intention of complying? Never has, never will. You um put conditions on her and she ignores them. She's permitted to have two horses, but she has eight. You tell her that she can't board dogs. Uh, she puts ads on Facebooks and collects the reviews on Googles. Why? Uh, because she knows you will do absolutely nothing about it. And she's right. Cannot fathom why you continue to make her to let her make you guys look like fools. And now it's a whole new city council and she's doing it again. I just don't get it. So, a city has municipal liability, which means it has a duty to protect the public. If it permits illegal activity, it could be found liable for damages caused by the unlawful activity. So if a city uh city if the city has a reasonable opportunity to prevent that illegal activity but fails to do so, it could be um uh sued for negligence if harm resulted. It's only a matter of time. She's operating outside her IUP and the council has been aware of it since 2018 and has done absolutely nothing about it. Because she is operating illegally, any fees paid to her may be subject um uh may be subject to recovery. This means that every person who has paid her anything uh has the right to recover the money as well as any possible damages. All it would take is for six people to agree to file for damages and this city would be involved in a class action suit. She has or should I say had contracts in multiple cities. That's it. Uh that's a lot of people affected by your failure to act. As a council member, you have a fiduciary duty to act in the best interest um of the public. This means uh this means you must uh prioritize the public good over your own personal or any individual interest, including financial ones. By continuing to allow her to operate illegally, you're putting this city at risk for being sued and myself and every other resident in this city is going to be the ones paying for it. And um you took an oath. I ask you do do the job um myself and everyone else is paying you to do. I mean really it's it's enough. We are going to get sued. Thank you for your comments, Renee. Uh, Micah. Okay, Kurt. Kurt. Okay, that's all I have signed up. No, Tammy, you you didn't sign up on the forum, were you? you. No, there's a sheet to sign up. I was in the back row. Sit down. So, at this time, we're going to close the public form. You're seriously not going to let a resident just There is a process. No, we're going to move on. Item 60. Make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. I'll second. I'd like to pull item E. Item what? Anybody else want to pull anything? I want to pull a A. So, we have a motion. Do we get a second? Suzanne second. Suzanne second. So, all those in favor of the amended uh agenda, I I I opposed. None heard item A. I got a question. I'm just curious. When I look at the bill list and I add up under engineering, Hokkinson for this month is 13,63950. Now, if I understand it right, we pay Craig 40,000 a year, I believe, and these fees are over and above that. So, my thought is, and I don't know if it's real or not, but can we hire an engineer full-time and save the city money? I I'm just throwing stuff out there. I see these fees all the time. Wow. Yeah, Mr. Mayor and Council. So, um, under under the bills list here, the majority of these are escrow. So, um, Hidden Prairie, for example, submits an escrow. We we draw from that escrow. Um, Blanco Dola submitted an escrow, we draw from that from that escrow. And, uh, that's the majority of these bills. We do have some um architectural engineering for Sims Road and Davenport 2025 street surface improvement and uh general engineering town hall council staff meetings. Um but uh so a lot of these come back to us is what you're saying. A lot of these get paid by for example Elage Strand Farms uh Viking Meadows they're paying out of an escrow for that. So this just it comes back to us. Then we we get reimbursed, you might say. Yeah. Is there any way that so I don't have to question that? Can you put an asterisk by there or something just to say, hey, you know what I mean? Because right now it doesn't tell me what it is. Yeah. You know what I mean? Is that a pain in the butt or something you could do because that way there I wouldn't have to question it. I'd have to see if we can give you this form of payment which is different than your sheet there. Has always been a point of confusion for me. So, I'll um I'll see what we can do on that. No, I'd appreciate it. And it says escrow right on it. So, okay. No, that'd be great. So, I'll make a motion to uh approve item A. Second. A motion, a second. All in favor? I opposed. None heard. Motion passes. Item E. Item E is the amending of employment date for some firefighters. And I'm just curious as to what the supporting documentation said, the reason why the dates changed. I don't have anything against it. I'm all for it, but I just am curious as to why the change. Was there a mistake made that we can make sure doesn't happen again? Um, that kind of thing. Yeah, Mr. Mayor and Council. So the prior um process that the city had was um the firefighter would be um would be considered employed once completing training. The years back they went through and they tried to correct all those. There was a lot of corrections were made that once they're hired they go into training, right? Um and uh that's the way it's currently done today. So these two were missed in that last correction years ago. Uh and they brought it to the attention of Jerry who said, "Yeah, this everyone else had that correction. You should have too." Uh this has no impact on on the city financially at all. Uh but it just updates their date and then it um as far as their uh um you know the the the money that they received for um I'm trying to think the trust or the um mayor what is it the the the the money the firefighters received for so many years of good service. Oh the pension. Pension. Thank you. Uh it will impact the pension but uh but it does not impact the uh don't impact the relief. Yeah. the relief association doesn't impact that marginally not very much but um but this is the right way to do it in terms of once they're hired then they go through their training they should have been accounted for for that time so this is their training started in September of 11 is what this is saying is that correct yeah that's what happened what happens is the firefighters brought on and they're they start training and everything. And I think what got confused here is the date that it comes to council for our approval to accept the firefighter, which it already started. It's just his probationary period basically what it is. So, okay, that makes sense. All right. With that, I'll make a motion to approve item E on the consent agenda. Second. Okay, we have a motion. Second. All in favor? I motion passes. Uh let's see. Item 9A, staff report. All right, Mr. Mayor, I just have a couple of uh things I want to address here this evening. First of all, we had a very successful um conclusion to the property issue that we were dealing with. I want to thank the fire department, the sheriff's department, everyone involved in in working through that. They found multiple um concerns in that property that were health and safety related and um and they were successfully posted on the doors that that the you know, anyone entering now can be can be arrested. Um, I know that uh there was a lot of effort that went into it. I know there was a concerned community member that came and passionately uh spoke on this numerous times and and my hope is that um that this helps to to um you know at least give them the understanding that we've been working hard on on getting that done. Um, I wanted to mention too that uh as of the end of June, I believe uh Eric is going to be transitioning over to the city of Blaine as their city attorney and Jacob is going to be taking his position and uh and so we we wish Jacob well. Are you sure you're you sure you're up for this? I sure am, Mr. Luke, Mr. Mayor. Very excited about it. Very good. Um, and then also I just wanted to uh give a big shout out to Jerry who has just came back in. Uh, he's done an absolutely an awesome job uh in a difficult situation. Uh, you know, transitioning fire chiefs is never easy, but being that he was a seasoned professional, um, I think he anticipated a lot of the concerns, was able to address them and win people over. And that's really what it's all about is influencing others. uh he suggested promotions. You saw one of them here this evening. Uh and somebody who had a lot of experience and was never really promoted uh during that process. And so I think uh I think Ben rightfully deserved that. Uh he built morale. He recruited nine I believe people. Is it nine? Uh we have nine applicants. Nine applicants. Okay. We were struggling in in recruiting in the past. Um we have nine applicants. So we'll go through those applicants. make sure that there's no felonies and things of that nature. Uh but uh hopefully um hopefully that'll be um a good applicants that we can pick from. Even cleaned up the office or the offices that had kind of throw rooms and that and kind of uh you know wanted a a cleaner, better operating uh fire fire department that uh that people can be proud of. And so all that kind of helps build build uh a morale. And had I not served on the Ramsey City Council, I probably would never have gotten to know Jerry. Um had I not uh served as a county commissioner, he would not have been my one of my constituents. Uh but we want to thank uh certainly him, but also Lori for loaning him to us uh during this during this transition time. Uh he's done a great job and I I really want to thank him for helping us through and helping us select. I think uh uh you know Jeff's going to be a tremendous tremendous maybe not as as as good as you, Mr. Mayor, but certainly, you know, up there uh a fire chief and uh and I think the combination of the new deputy chief too, Ben, uh they're going to make a phenomenal team. So, anyways, that's what I have for updates. I'll stand for any questions. Any questions? Council reports. want me to start? You're looking at me. Um, I just want to talk a little bit about the seniors. I do have a question if Mr. Luke knows anything about the freezer and the ice machine over there. They've been fixed. They're all fixed and good to go. Well, I know the freezer is. I'm I You raised the ice machine. I'm assuming I can check on that. But, uh, thank you. That was uh It wasn't inexpensive, but it's fixed. Wonderful. Uh, that was quite a dilemma we had over there. I do want to remind people the first Friday of every month there is a senior dance out here. Uh great oldtime pa and country music and uh snacks and uh community and socialization. So come on out everybody. Um and we do meet the third Thursday of every month um starting at about 10:30. So, we are always looking for new members and uh people who would love to come and volunteer and help us out. So, I guess there is something else I was supposed to bring up, but I'll remember that by next time. Thanks. That's all I got. I want to thank Jerry, too, personally. I mean, he stepped up. We made the right decision by hiring him to help us through the stuff that was going on at the fire department. I've not heard anything negative about it. He's a fantastic guy. He knows his stuff. And man, I'll tell you, I appreciate that because I know our city is going to be better for it. Our fire department is going to be fantastic. Our residents are going to have the best of the best. So, thank you. Thanks for hiring. We were glad to have you. Feel the same with what he said, Jerry. Thank you very much. Uh I don't know if I mentioned it, but I was fortunate enough to have an expert with me in the last parks meeting um in not only uh rating parks equipment, but uh using them. I got to take my six-year-old grandson along. And uh thank you, Nate, for setting that up. We took a tour of the parks in the city. Uh I found some parks that I didn't know we had, to be honest with you. and I got to see some of the new equipment that we have. Uh, I got to tell you, Nate and his crew does a heck of a job with our parks. I mean, I'd be very proud of it. And, uh, my grandson gave it all top ratings, so we're good. And I thank that. Yeah. I'll just thank Jerry. We've known each other for many, many years. And, uh, I think he's brought us to a better future. And uh I think things are good. Uh we had a planned zoning meeting tonight. We have two great recommended candidates for uh the two open seats that'll be coming in front of us at the future meeting. uh we had uh a number of variances and one thing that we will have to address we had a a concept plan review of a subdivision. Uh it was a 20 acre parcel that the applicant wanted to split into three lots approximately 6 and 12 acres each. um under our current code that is allowed. Um apparently with the uh land form consulting that we have, they compared that to our comprehensive plan. The comprehensive plan says one lot per 10 acres. Uh apparently the they state that the comprehensive plan rules over the codes and ordinances that this should have been codes and ordinances should have been updated to reflect comprehensive plan. I don't know why in the comprehensive plan it says one and 10 acres because it's always been a lot minimum of two to two and a half acres per our ordinance. Um so that is one thing that uh we will have to address. Uh in light of that, the uh plan commission did make a recommendation recommendation to pass the concept plan where it's just a concept plan. Uh concept plans are usually submitted just for feedback uh for the preliminary, but they did pass that with three lots on it. So, um I and I I do share the concern about uh the one and 10 versus the two. Um this is something that we will need to address so that there are no confusion about any uh lot splits or future developments that would come in that you know cuz if we have uh one one per 10 acres that greatly reduces a lot of things including people's property values. So, um but otherwise, uh the meeting went well and it's a long meeting. Finished up just before 10:00. Anything else this time? Uh we'll be going into close session and we'll be back when We're back. We need a motion to go into close session. Okay. So, Mr. Mayor, if you would u indicate why we're going into close session on the record, that would be very helpful. Okay. I guess we'll need a motion to go into close session for contract negotiation Minnesota statute 13D. 3 sub1. Make a motion go in close session for the reasoning the mayor gave. Second. All in favor? I Are you guys going to stay or camp out? Okay, at this time we're coming back from our close session and resuming the council meeting. Uh looking for a motion to adjurnn. I'll make a motion to adjurnn. Second. Have a motion and a second. All in favor? I I meetings adjourned. [Music]