Okay. At this time, we'll call the November 24th, 2025 city council meeting to order. I'll rise if you can for the allegiance. >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation, indivisibley for all. Make a motion to adopt tonight's agenda with the addition of item J under the consent agenda. >> Second. >> I have a motion and a second. All in favor? >> I I none heard. >> Uh sheriff's report. Good evening everyone, mayor and councel. Can't believe it's October, November now, but uh this will this report will obviously reflect October. Uh we had 413 calls for service equaling our total from August of 2025. We had four thefts and one assault report. We made a total of 10 arrests and 147 traffic stops were conducted which resulted in 26 traffic citations on our roadway. Uh a few of our notable calls. Um on the 17th at 11:56 we were dispatched to an address in the 20800 block of Tyler Street on a report of a loud party. Information provided was that uh there were many juveniles present and they were showing off guns. Shortly prior to our arrival, the anonymous caller reported that they had heard three shots being fired. Um, increased our response obviously. When our deputies arrived, uh, they approached the home and spoke with a partygoer who hadn't heard any shots and knew nothing about the possibility of guns. As they got closer to the home, they called out to a male who was standing in the driveway. That person uh, fled on foot. The deputies chased this male and eventually arrested him a short time later. While securing the mail they had in custody, the organizer of the party spoke with our staff, stating they didn't know what had happened. It was learned that someone had leaked this address on social media, which resulted in many juveniles arriving at this address. The deputies cleared the party and called the reporting party back and determined that no gun had been involved. Deputies charged the party organizer with underage consumption and released everyone else that was present there to a responsible adult. On the 18th of October at 7:45 p.m., Deputy Borguson was traveling westbound on Viking near Jamestown Street and observed a truck approaching him in the eastbound lanes, traveling at what appeared to be a speed above the posted limit. Deputy Borguson activated a squad radar and obtained a speed of 89 miles per hour. He turned on this vehicle and activated his overhead emergency lights in an attempt to stop the vehicle, but it kept traveling at a high rate of speed eastbound and biking. At one point while trying to catch up, Deputy Borguson obtained a speed from the vehicle of approximately 100 miles per hour. He noticed that the vehicle had turned its lights off before turning northbound onto Wild Rice Drive. As soon as the vehicle turned northbound on Wild Rice, the deputies made the decision to terminate that pursuit for safety reasons. On follow-up to this case, it was learned that the vehicle was caught on camera at a local business. So, our investigators are currently following up on these leads and will attempt to identify the driver for consideration of charges of fleeing a police in a motor vehicle. And then finally, on the 19th at 109 a.m., Deputy Martinez was on patrol on Aspen Road and observed a male who he knew to have a warrant standing in the front yard of his residence. Deputy Martinez saw the male flee inside, so he stopped his car and eventually went to the front door to knock. After receiving no response from inside, our deputies called the suspect on his phone and ended up speaking with a female who was inside of the house and advised her to tell the suspect to come outside as he was under arrest. While speaking with the female, uh, a struggle ensued inside of the home, which was heard by our staff over the phone. The deputies believed an assault would occur if they didn't immediately intervene. The deputies made entry through the home through the open front door and ultimately arrested the male for his outstanding warrant. They determined that no other additional crime occurred because of this incident. The male was transported to jail and released to staff without incident. Um, I usually brief this every November, but as our holiday season draws near, our temperatures continue to drop and it's uh a good time to start thinking about our ice safety. Once the lakes begin to freeze over, please remember that you need at least four inches of solid ice to walk on it and at least five inches if you're using a snowmobile or smaller ATV. Um, as we all know, the ice conditions uh especially in Lake vary widely depending on many different factors. So, when in doubt, it's always best to stay off till we get a solid streak of cold weather. I will be out for the remainder of uh the week on Thanksgiving break, but wishing everybody a safe and joyful holiday. Thank you. Thank you guys. >> I got a question for you, Derek. On your uh calls here, it looks like we're 200 below from last year. >> Yep. >> But we're like almost 600 above on the traffic stops. How's that? >> I can attribute that to some of our young and hungry deputies that are new to the agency. >> Okay. Okay. So, an expectation of mine is to uh definitely immerse yourself in this job. Jump in with both feet. Um when you see something, stop it. Make those contacts in the public. Make sure that you're visible out there on our public roadways. Um we've seen a reduction in a lot of those hazards that we see on our roadways just based on um based on the red lights flashing. When people see them, they slow down. So that's an expectation of mine and ours in the patrol division and that will continue with with all of our staff, but our new people definitely take that to heart. So um I'm actually very glad to see that we see an uptick in enforcement and we see the crashes and the safety increase as well. So >> all right, thank you. >> Thank you. >> I have a question. Um, do you is it possible that when you let somebody go stop a pursuit that encourages others to run to pursuit to avoid capture road two? >> It's a good question. Uh, I'll give you the philosophical response and that's possibly certainly. Um, if people know that we're not going to chase them, they might be more uh inclined to flee, if you will. Um, but overall public safety is our concern. And in this case, this um call that I briefed this month, um, this chase was getting to the point where it was endangering other people on the roadway. And that chase was dangerous because our presence there was forcing this along down the roadway and the decision was made to cancel just simply because if we're not chasing anymore, the person will probably stop. So, um, yes, but also there's a method to that madness as well. Um, we do see we don't want to be on the receiving end of a pursuit that goes bad. So, that's the reason why we make those decisions. And you know, those decisions are made on the fly with limited information. And I I uh definitely commend them for making that decision. It's hard to pull yourself back from something like that, especially when adrenaline is high and these uh these deputies are young and hungry and they want to catch the bad guy. >> Yeah, I appreciate the safety first motto, but I was just curious um if it if there was a trend if that was a kind of a trend thing. We usually don't see that. Um, but it is certainly a possibility that we're prepared to do. So, the investigative portion of this is ongoing. >> I hope to get found anyways. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Fire chief. >> Uh, Mayor, members of the council, thanks for having me. Um this past month, um we did a total of 55 calls. Um and you see a slightly different graph than what I've prepared in the past. Um I wanted to start presenting this in a slightly different way to give an idea of what our people are responding to on a more detailed uh scale. Um when we say that we're going to fires, canceled calls, and medical calls, it breaks it into three categories. Um what this shows you and what this shows everybody in our community is what our firefighters are capable of on a daily basis. Um you see this call, it's broken down into a bunch of different uh medical calls, fire calls, the canceled calls are still in there. Um, out of all of the 55 calls, 40 of them were medicals. But of those medicals, we had everything from medical alarms, which can be someone hit uh a bracelet or a necklace pendant um accidentally, to the unconscious person. Um, within those calls, uh, we had three different grass fires. It is that time of year, especially with, uh, no rain and no snow coverage. Um the uh one was at uh the city uh the abandoned dump site. Uh that was on the 4th. Uh that was approximately 8 acres. Uh we had another one at um uh see one was at 29th in Staples that was on the 16th. Um that was approximately 5 acres that was in the backyards of some of in in a residential area. Um and then there was another one on the 4th. Um we had a vehicle fire on the 12th uh that was just outside of Quick Trip on uh Sand Sand Hill Parkway. Um we were able to to put that out and mitigate it as we needed to. Um and then back in uh towards the end of October um we had a water rescue where we were able to deploy our boat and uh help a a hunter that had capsized his boat and was sitting on top of it and couldn't get back to the shore. Um, again, just from the medical calls, um, and the the other calls, I just wanted to give everybody a little bit different view of what it is your personnel are doing, you know, on a monthly basis. Um, duty crew is entering its second month month. It's moving along. It's, uh, providing some relief during the day and making sure that we have, uh, staff available. Um the officer positions have been posted and they're actually closing tonight. Uh the deputy chief uh or the sorry the district chiefs uh will be uh interviewed by an outside fire chief panel. I have three neighboring uh fire chiefs that have committed to helping us out with this. Uh so that'll be happening the first week of December. uh and the deputy chief uh deputy chief uden and a panel will be conducting the captain and senior firefighter interviews. Um I will then conduct the secondary interviews after that based on the panel's uh recommendations. Uh some events that we have coming up uh there is going to be a Santa parade. Uh it's being planned by a couple of the firefighters in the department. Uh December 13th, uh the fire department's annual banquet is on December 6th. The fire department was invited to the tree lighting ceremony that's happening this year on December 5th. Um so we're working on equip or getting staffing for all of those events. um minus a banquet. That'll be that's something that's for our firefighters to show appreciation and and uh feed them for a night. Um this past month, uh District Chief Lashinsky uh led an CPR and bleeding uh class for uh 10 students that were pursuing a merit badge. Um he was able to do this on a Saturday. It lasted for about 2 hours. Um the students were engaged. Uh DC Lashinsky did great with them. Uh this is something that he specializes in. So um it was great to have him as part of that. Um and then uh I'm proud to report that our flooring project for our stations has kicked off today. Uh station three is currently being done. We're hoping to have it done by Wednesday um and get that station uh put back together and uh move on to the other stations uh the first two weeks of December. >> How many applications do you have for your open positions? >> Uh we have two for the district chiefs. Uh we have uh two for the captains and two for the senior firefighter. >> It does close at midnight tonight. Um I posted it two weeks ago after leaving this meeting to be a uh with your blessing to post those. So kept them open until midnight tonight. >> Your one grass fire at the landfill was a DNR controlled burn that got out of control. It was not. >> Oh, it wasn't though. >> It was not. Um I believe I know what caused it. Um and in talking with the DNR, we did have the DNR requested their investigation person to come out. Okay. >> I have not seen their report on it, but that was not that was not something that got out of control. That was accidental in nature. >> Do you ever go to help Forest Lake out with their fires or is that not a area that we support? We'll support anybody that calls us for mutual aid. Since I've been here, we haven't been called to Forest Lake. >> Okay. >> Um I have had talks. I've met with the Forest Lake chief and I anticipate us having a more formal agreement in the future to um assist in the Columbus area as well as have them assist us in the station 3 area. >> Okay. Well, I want to thank you for publicly for helping those uh students that they they loved it. I took a lot of pictures and it was a great time and a great learning experience. I appreciate your help. >> We were happy to do it. >> Thank you. >> Thanks, Chief. I don't believe anybody signed the sheet over here. >> Correct. >> All right. Moving on to the consent agenda. >> Make a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda as presented with the addition of item J supplemental payment summary. >> I'll second. And I'd like to pull GH and I. >> I'd like to pull E. like to pull E and I. >> Okay. Have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda as uh amended. Polling E, Gh, and I. All those in favor? >> I I >> item E. First of all, uh I'd like to take a moment to recognize and congratulate our fire chief on successfully completing his six-month probationary period and doing so with outstanding results. From day one, he stepped into a role with a clear purpose to strengthen, refocus, and uplift the East Bethl Fire Department. In just this short time, his leadership, work ethics, and dedication have made a visible difference. Morale within the department is high. Our firefighters are thriving under his guidance, and recruitment continues to grow. You can see the pride in how our fire personnel serve this community. And that pride starts at the top. Chief, we are deeply grateful for your commitment, your professionalism, and your protection that you and your fire teams provide this city and its residents. and I think you brought a renewed sense of purpose and unity to this department and we look forward to many years of continued excellence underneath your leadership. It truly is a new chapter for our city and I think we're blessed to have not only a talented chief but a dedicated family man leading our department. So on behalf of this council and the residents, we say thank you. >> And I definitely second those sentiments. >> I know. How can you beat that? That was really good. But I want to say too that working with the chief has been my pleasure big time. It's it's great to be able to speak to somebody and you can get an honest opinion from him. And I always told him that he can call me anytime and we can discuss whatever. And since he's taken the role on and I'm glad I feel we made the right decision without a doubt. and uh my phone doesn't ring off the hook like it did before from other firefighters. So, I know you're doing a great job. Thank you. It >> is an honor to be part of this department. >> Thanks. Thank you. Make a motion approve. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second for item E. All those in favor? >> I >> opposed. Unheard. G >> G, I just had a question on what the improvements are. I didn't see them anywhere and I I would just like more specific information on some of these resolutions. >> Good evening again, everybody. Um, so G is part of our Oh, that's Sorry, I'm looking at the wrong one. That's grease. I thought we were talking road improvements. >> I can get a list of what those improvements are for you, but um >> I'd appreciate that. It doesn't have to be answered tonight. >> Yeah. Essentially, you know, there's certain requirements under the development agreement that are have to be met and the city engineer makes sure that they're met. Uh and then um their letter credit then gets reduced because they're met. uh the letter credit I'm ballpark was 150,000 or something like that and it's going to get reduced down to 17,000. So there's a couple of items uh you know warranty items that they have to finish over a 2-year period and once that's completed then we'll you know uh reduce that uh letter credit to zero. But I'll I can get the exact specific um improvements that were in there and uh and copy the council on that. So, >> thank you. >> Somebody else have G. >> Okay, I'll make a motion to approve item G on the consent agenda. >> Second. >> We have a motion in a second. Any further discussion? On being heard, all those in favor? >> I opposed. None. Item H. H is the Municode um service provider that's being upgraded or changing their service subscription. I'm just wondering is this the only option we have for this service or are there other services we can explore or I just think this is uh excessive increase. >> Um okay then couple of topics mayor and council that I'll touch on here. Um first of all uh it is a about a $300 increase. uh to what we were paying annually. >> Um about a 10%. Um and if we sign up to the new one one price covers all type of um type of system that they have here, they're going to give us a discount for the first year. So we saved, you know, quite a bit of money off the first year. But essentially, we were on a per page basis. And every single change that we did to the MUN code, we had to pay per page. And I think they're trying to get away from that, you know, accounting nightmare perhaps is a good way to put it. But anyways, we can submit as many pages as we need to based on the uh based on the annual subscription. They're trying to trying to standardize that. Uh MUN code, I believe, is owned by uh Civic Plus, and that's who we have our website through, and it's um they were smart in and buying and and putting it all together so it's seamless. Um, I would say that there while there may be others out there, it would be very difficult to try and blend the two together or multiple together. So, um, and I'm not sure that there would be savings either, um, for what the other what other providers may have, but anyways, this is, um, yeah, sorry, it says right there owned by Civic Plus. But, um, it is a seamless system that works well and, uh, we've had no problems with it. So, >> okay. With that, I'll make a motion to approve item H on the consent agenda. >> Second. >> I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? >> None being heard. All those in favor? >> I opposed. None heard. Item I >> I Hey Nate. >> Yeah. I'm just curious, according to what I've read here, basically on this archway, did we have any other estimates on this? >> We did. Yep. >> Did we? Why don't we have a copy of them or did we? Uh, >> I didn't send it out. I have another one I can give to you. It was $9,000 for the gutters and then ice and ice stuff was uh more too. So, it's almost double the gutter cost. >> So, then what the snow retention just reading through archways? I mean, so basically what they're going to do is put 6 in gutters, gutter apron first, but what's the retention system? What is it? >> So, when they originally put the gutters on the building, they were almost like a residential style gutter. Um 6- in seamless gutters. They weren't mounted probably as as well as they should have been, but the ice slides off the roof and rips them off. So, the ice retention system are those posts that kind of hold on steel roof to keep the ice from sliding off. That's the expensive part. >> Okay. >> You know, >> that's what I was curious because I'm trying to figure out all this. I mean, they don't have any lengths or footage or nothing. >> Yeah. It was like 260 ft of gutter and like four, eight, nine down spouts. And they're more commercial. They're going to mount it significantly more spots to keep it from getting torn off. So, right now it's all tore off the whole building. We're having all kinds of water damage issues. >> So, they're putting on 3x4 down spouts, which is good. the residential are too little for that. >> Yeah. >> Okay. With >> Yeah, that was my question about why was only one quote submitted. >> I can I can email it to you tomorrow too, just so you have it. But yeah, I've got it right here. >> Just just for future then, Nate, if you would just, you know, send all the so we got an idea. >> Sure. >> Yeah. >> So, >> thank you. >> I'll make a motion to approve. I >> second. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? None being heard. All those in favor? >> I I opposed. >> Motion passes. >> Thanks me. >> Uh city administrator, >> Mr. Mayor and Council, just a couple of updates. Um uh first of all uh in the last council meeting we had a um a request to reduce a utility or water bill uh for those impacted by the shutdown. Um wanted to report back that um on the advice of our council that is council with an s attorney uh that uh because this does not meet the requirements of public expenditure that we would not be able to offer a uh a discount on that or reduction. Um, I don't know if Jake wants to talk more on that, but essentially, um, uh, we would not want to go down that road at this point and try and prove public expenditure on each one of those. Um, so I just want to give a quick update on that one. And then uh the second uh thing that I want to touch on, I know I've spoken with some of you and and people have gotten their uh property tax statements from Noa County um and um and there seems to be a lot of chatter on Facebook. Um Council Member Urkl kind of mentioned some of the um perhaps those that aren't that aren't very happy with it. Um I wanted to just kind of give just a a quick rundown. Perhaps this might answer some questions for folks, but essentially um just like at home you you know your cost of electricity goes up, cost of groceries go up, cost of gas goes up. As a city here, we we rely on those same costs. Uh whether cost of electricity goes up for kilowatt hour, your cost of gas for uh vehicles or diesel for trucks or purchasing vehicles, everything goes up. And I kind of put a a figure on there at about 6% goes up on average 6%. So whatever was budgeted last year, if you add 6% you're you're probably going to be safe. We came in at 3.7 and and I will attribute that to um our department heads and keeping very tight budgets, making sure that the expenditures are are need-based and not uh frivolously spending money. And there's generally dollars left over at the end of the year and and that goes back into the general fund. And so, um, if if we did have a 6% increase and we only raised 3.7, we're actually below what, uh, what we should anticipate in terms of, uh, general increases that are out there. Wages, of course, are the are the main driver of that. Um, but, um, the, you know, some some people were reporting, well, I got a 12% increase in my city portion of my taxes. The city increased their levy by 3.7%. Not 12%, not 30%, 3.7%. Now how that translates out is every property within the city gets divided into five se sectors. Every five years someone gets re gets assessed at that point. It goes around around the horn basically till the next five years and you get assessed. If within those five years you put on a new deck or you've made improvements or a pole barn or you know whatever the case may have tiled something or whatever the case may be your property could go up in value that wasn't assessed prior and that would represent a an increase beyond what the levy amount is. Um and and the the other uh um concept I want I kind of want to introduce to folks is what I refer to as and I believe I coined the term uh the uh waterbed concept that if you get on one side of a water bed the other side kind of goes up. Okay. And and it fluctuates that way when you're looking at commercial industrial and residential. If commercial industrial goes up, residential goes down. If residential goes up, commercial industrial goes down. And um and so depending on how residential markets are are fairing, you could have a massive spike in housing prices. That would be a lesser burden on commercial industrial. If commercial industrial is skyrocketing, that would be a lesser burden on on residential. So what I mean by that is when you look at a pie, our levy is a pie and it's divided into slices and everybody gets a slice. All the residential properties, all the commercial, industrial, even egg get a slice of that pie. And depending on how thick that slice is is dependent on how that how the market is playing out for that respective commercial, industrial or residential. And so, um, you will always have this shift where you could keep the council could keep the levy flat and you'd still see an increase because of that shift that happens and you start to bear more uh of the cost or you somebody else bears more of the cost and it and it kind of fluctuates. I will tell you that at NOA County, we bought a tax program. Um, and um, and tax programs, by the way, are about a thousand million dollars. Okay? And in in Noa County, I'm talking nationwide, about a million dollars for these tax programs. And in Minnesota, it's $5 million because it's so complex. And so what I'm explaining to you here is not even the tip of the iceberg in terms of the complexity of these taxes. But what I will assure you is that the city has been very diligent in keeping the cost down. We've been adding new businesses. We've been adding new um uh residential properties, all of which will shoulder some of the burden and help to reduce the costs for people overall. And um and that's ultimately what I want to convey to folks out there is that um is that this council and mayor have been very diligent in keeping the cost down and that translates directly to the amount of taxes you pay. So want to just touch base on that and we're certainly available for any calls that come in. I know that I've had council members reach out to me for explanations and and um and happy to help in any way possible. So that's all I have. uh council reports >> I have Oh, go ahead. >> planning commission meeting tomorrow night and uh I wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving. >> So, I got a call today. I have a couple other things, but I want to bring up the call because um in August we voted to evict um the Mundles and they're still there. The sign's still on the fence up there. Um we're wondering if there's a permit for that. This is I I told the person I didn't even know about the sign, but um I'm just wondering what is the status of that because they're watching and they want to know. Uh Mr. Mayor and Council, um the end of this month is the amount of time that was given to um to vacate the property. Uh my belief is that uh that there will be a response of some sort maybe from uh they're legal uh by the end of the month and then we'll determine what the process is from there. As far as the sign is concerned, um uh there was u there is a an argument I believe for grandfathering on the sign. Um I think that uh that it was placed before there was a requirement for a permit by the city. Um the where the where the challenge comes is was it moved? hasn't been modified from its original location and size. And um and we have um we have the kind of the top down view the it's called LAR um that uh that kind of shows where over the years but we only have like 2004 2007 you know it's not every single year and um and so I I would say that the sign may not be as big of an issue um that um that Um, you know, it'd be pretty difficult to prove that it's been moved or or modified. >> But you're talking about the one outside the property. They mentioned one that's hang that's attached to a fence. There's a sign attached to a fence up there that I don't know what >> I know that there's one as you enter Office 65. There's one there. And then there was a sign by the uh by the um uh offices. Um those are the only two I'm aware of. I'm not aware of one other. >> Okay. I'll dig more into that. I'm just repeating what was said because I didn't know about that. >> So the other things I wanted to talk about was there was an airport meeting, a couple of airport meetings I attended this month, the official one and then the one for the community event they're planning for June of 2027. They are asking that communities uh put on their websites a request for volunteers if that's possible because we are looking for to set up this whole nonprofit for this community event and all the cities are invited and to participate and to have information uh tables and whether it's for development or whatever there. And so they would like the cities to put up a looking for volunteers for the um Anoka County Blaine Airport uh community event. So if that could happen, I can get um specific wording that they'd like put on there to the city if they're welcome to do that. And then of course the senior dance is Friday, October 5th, followed by the Christmas tree lighting. Um, and it's going to be a great event. It's going to have um samores and Christmas tree lighting and other outside activity activities inside. Uh, cookies and all kinds of goodies, hot chocolate. It's going to be a great event. So, I there are flyers out here. I had printed one out that I could read off of and I forgot it, of course. Um, >> December 5th, not October 5th. December 5th. I didn't say October 5th, did I? >> Yeah, you did. >> Excuse me. >> How did I do that? >> Talking. >> It's not even October anymore. >> You're late. >> Oh, where's my mind sometime? I think that's all I have though. I hope to see everybody. City council, city staff, everybody at this Christmas tree lighting, though. That's all I have. >> I've got two uh meetings that were uh cancelled this week. So, get a little bit of a break from from doing some work. Uh, enjoy your Thanksgiving. Uh, be safe out there. There's a lot of deer running around. I think they're probably still in rut. So, be careful driving at night for sure, especially out here in East Bethl. But enjoy family and have a have a nice time this week. >> Yeah, you hunters, get out there and get them. >> Anybody else? >> I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> I'll make a motion to adjurnn. Second. >> I have a motion and a second. All in favor?