here's okay we'll call to order the October 9th 2023 East bethl regular city council meeting can we please stand and say the Pledge Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the repblic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and jce Brian's not here so somebody else want to make a motion to adopt the agenda so move it okay we have a motion do have a second second motion made and seconded to adopt tonight's agenda all in favor say I I I opposed none heard okay the first thing on the agenda 4.0 a is East bethl Fire Relief Association Pi pension presentation Mr Troy Linsky Mr Mayor and Council thank you for the opportunity to present tonight uh I came to you several months ago with the idea of asking for your permission to at least explore moving the East bethl firefighters relief Association from a self-managed plan over to the state volunteer firefighters fund and uh at that time you gave us permission to explore which we have done and uh it is our recommendation that we move forward so uh just a little bit of background for those that don't know the relief Association is a separate corporate entity that is separate from the city and separate from the fire department with the sole purpose to provide a pension benefit to our firefighters and the pension benefit is a tool that's used for retainment and recruitment of firefighters uh it is very beneficial to the city to make sure that we are able to recruit and retain the most talented firefighters possible and one of the ways that we do this is through a pension plan our current benefit level is $6,000 per year of service for firefighters that are on the fire department for at least 10 years we have 10-year vesting and they can collect that pension after they have completed 10 years of good time and reach the age of 50 years old and at that time they can re they can request their lumpsum benefit I can tell you some of the realities of a relief Association are that it is a full volunteer um run organization uh we have regular meetings and uh we have to maintain bylaws and we have to go through annual audits that are all done by volunteers and when I say volunteers true volunteers there is no pay for anybody that u participates in being a trustee of the relief Association so state of Minnesota came to the Relief Associations many years ago I don't know exactly it's in the packet uh between 8 and 10 years ago they designed this pension plan that was going to be run by the state and at that time the main um the main uh target audience for the state plan were very small departments that didn't have the means or didn't have the expertise to run a relief Association and what they were going to do is take all of these cities that had very small amounts in their relief Association or didn't have a relief Association set up at all and at least put all that money into one pool and manag the bylaws for them so they didn't have to do that so that they even the small departments could offer a pension benefit to the firefighters over the years it has grown some larger cities have joined the fund and they've made a lot of changes to the plan as well to make it more attractive in the beginning uh I for example was very against the plan for many reasons uh a couple of them were if you join the state plan you could not get out once you went in there was no way to leave which I was very much against uh they also had a freeze period so that once you join the plan at whatever benefit level you went in at that benefit was locked in for 4 years with no chance of increase no matter what happened with the stock market no matter what happened with your funding uh some other items uh they only uh they they forced everybody to go in at fiveyear vesting which in the beginning I was a little bit against but it actually that idea has grown on Me So currently if you serve on the East Bethal fire department for 9 years and you quit for whatever reason let's just say that you move out of the city the benefit that you receive is $0 and one of the reasons that we have 10-year vesting is we want to encourage our firefighters to stick around for at least 10 years because it takes a firefighter a good two years or so some cases three years to become a good active um proficient firefighter on the fire grounds and in an EMS situation so what we don't want to have happen is that everybody quits after 5 years we wanted to keep them for at least 10 years now with that said if somebody serves the city for 5 years I think that they are fully entitled to receive something in the form of a pension so that idea where I didn't like it in the beginning it has actually grown upon me and I do think that it's a good idea some of the other realities of the relief Association besides that it's run by all volunteers it is uh meticulous it's tedious and it's important we need to make sure that we do things the right way if we do not do things the right way we can get in big trouble we can show up in the newspapers and be on the news uh we can get um we can have our annual state aid revoked by the state auditor lots of bad things can happen if we don't do things the right way and we're all volunteers and we don't always know the right things to do we don't know what we're supposed to do and none of us really have financial backgrounds and know how to exactly to uh invest our money and how to manage funds like that so for some of those reasons now is the right time to move to the state plan because a couple of things that it will do is it will free up our volunteers to not have to do those things anymore we won't have to manage the bylaws anymore they will be managed by the state it is a major pain it's just like changing an ordinance in the city is a major pain to try to change the bylaws it takes hours and hours and hours hours of work to even to a benefit increase were literally two lines of the entire 100 page document change it takes many hours and we have to go get Council approval and we have to get state auditor approval and we have to make sure that we're following State Statute so getting rid of that will be huge for us another thing is we currently pay our financial advisor in excess of $10,000 per year for Passive Investments meaning we sign up for a plan that's like a 401k where you sign up for the 4060 plan and everything just happens automatically we pay over $10,000 a year for that which that goes away the other thing that it saves us is every single year we have to go through several audits for the state auditor uh we have to do the gasby which is something that helps the city um and those audits cost us in excess of $10,000 per year and it takes many man hours to actually do the audits that is done by volunteers uh Mike jorski is a huge asset to the relief Association he helps out immensely with those audits but it still takes time from the volunteers to do it that goes away as well another big reason to move to the new plan is that under the current self-manage plan we get to assume a 5% annual return on our investments with the state plan we get to assume a 6% annual increase on our investments which is good for us and one of the biggest things that uh is in the plan that's maybe not super intuitive is that it will allow firefighters that have to move for whatever reason if you move to a different city and you are able to join a fire department that is also on the state plan your benefit will move with you or your years of service will move with you so it could help a current firefighter that's in our city that moves to a new city and wants to move their years of service over but it actually might help us recruit train firefighters as well from other cities because they can move from wherever they're at now that's on the state plan to our city and their years of service will move with them so a perfect example one of our firefighters Mark duain worked uh at the City of Blaine for four or plus years and when he moved to the city of East bethl those years of service went away and he had start over at zero in East bethl um so uh you know that's just one example that I can recall so uh there's a lot of other things in there that remain the same uh one of the other things that maybe is attractive to the city is the city will have more control over the relief Association going forward the govering body which will be made up of um the council people uh our financial um officer as well uh for the city will be the governing body along with the fire chief so it'll be more up to you decide how things happen and when benefits um should be raised and taking out of the hands of the of the uh the firefighter so uh for all of those reasons those are the reasons that I think that we should move to the state plan like I said I was very against it for many years I'm in full support of moving forward with this right now so uh you might be asking yourself how do we come up with the um the idea to move over from our current benefit of $6,000 year per year of service to $7,500 per year service so regardless of what was happening here every single year the relief Association looks at what has happened in the last year uh in about the middle of the year every single year we have to fill out a bunch of paperwork for the state of Minnesota the state auditor and during that time we analyze what's happened in the last year we look at how many firefighters we have how many years of service and we do some calculations and determine what our funding ratio is we do that anyway and it was kind of like a I would say a perfect storm but Storm's not the right word but it was a perfect scenario for a benefit increase anyway because it was a good stock market year where last year was a terrible year uh we had several firefighters leave that were not vested so that money goes back into the pool moving to the state plan lets us assume a 6% increase versus a 5% increase and um for all of those reasons we were due to be coming to you to ask for a benefit increase anyway um one other thing that's to note is that the state of Minnesota has uh some money in a pool and they're incentivizing departments to switch over to the state plan this year we don't know how much money it would be but any City that moves over to the state plan during this year they will take all this money that's in this pool and they're going to divvy it up amongst the uh the newcomers to the plan after the first year so we don't know how much money that will be but it will be some amount of money as well so those are all the reasons that I think that now is the time to move forward um and I guess I will open it up to you to hear what kind of questions you have I already asked my questions before the meeting sure but if you want to ask them again for the benefit everybody else I one of my questions was you know you guys must have looked at this to come to the conclusion you'd be better off going with the state than your like say volunteer hours or volunteer hours yeah so uh Bob had mentioned I've been doing this for a long time back when Bob was on Council before I don't know the exact number of years it's either 2007 or 2008 I've been the president of the relief Association it has literally been my baby all along uh I take a lot of pride in the fact that we were able to get that benefit increase so many times over the years with our good relationship with Council uh and prudent Investments and um you know doing things the right way with full transparency so uh I was very against this plan like I mentioned before but all of the objections that I had in the past have been cleared and now I definitely think is the time to move forward I just want to say that a excellent presentation really very thorough and succinct appreciate apprciate it Troy one one thing that's going to be on our bill list tonight is fire state aid that we received currently for this year that will go away with the conversion to the state plan correct yeah so we the the plan will still get that money but currently the way that it works is uh we receive state aid every single year which is basically part of the homeowners insurance 2% of that money goes into a giant pot in the state of Minnesota and then they divvy it up amongst the cities yeah uh to to help fund these Relief Associations So currently the way it works is the state of Minnesota gives that money to the city it shows up as a budget line item even though it's a pass through it gets AED to the city then the city cuts a check to the relief Association and to be honest with you even that is a little bit of a pain because I have to get a physical check and I have to drive it to downtown St Paul and hand it to the the financial people and uh what we'll happen in the future if we switch over that money will go from the state of Minnesota directly to the state volunteer plan so just cut off the mental man and uh that money will just go that way and similarly uh we also have currently uh with the city every single year there is a $144,000 voluntary contribution to the relief Association uh which we came up with many years ago it kind of takes out the uh the ups and downs and it's uh you know it's basically calculated at the time as roughly $400 per year per firefighter that goes into the releas Association for pension benefit so what happens now is the city cuts a check to the relief Association then we have to go bring it to the um Financial um investor and deposit the check that way and what will happen in this case is the city will cut the check directly to the state account I might add that $114,000 was implemented in 2011 and is remain unchanged since that date so what up to do I take you guys already did a majority vote or yep so we are the Rel Association uh I think it it's on here it was in uh August August uh 26th I believe we took a vote uh as the trustees and we approved to move forward um we brought we're bringing it to you tonight for your approval so uh we have a little bit of time sensitivity we need to have it approved by the city if we decide to move forward by November 15 to get into the plan you can only join the plan on January 1st and the cut off to move forward would be November 15th well that being said I guess I move to let the firefighters go ahead and do what they're going to do so it be resolution 2023-2024 hi I closed none heard thank you very much thanks for all your work on behalf of all your colleagues city council and everybody and the firefighters appreciate uh the backing of council uh it's very much appreciated thank you very much thanks for your thank you the next item on our agenda for B is the tobacco violation hearing thank you Kevin an employee at Dollar General store at 13000 209th Avenue North East and East bethl is reported to have sold tobacco products to a minor as part of a compliance check by the enoa county sheriff's department on August 2nd 2023 Mrs Emma bookwalter was approached by an underage individual and sold the tobacco products to the underage buyer in violation of city code chapter 18 article 4 section 18 176 prohibited sales a copy of the sheriff's report is included as attachment one in your packet the city has provided the license holder an opportunity to be hold notice was provided to the store manager on September 12th 2023 of the compliance violation hearing scheduled for the September 25th 2023 city council meeting no representativ from Dollar General appeared at the September 25th 2023 hearing city council tabled the hear ing until tonight September October 9th 2003 on September 27th 2023 the store manager from Dollar General was Ren notified of the hearing that was rescheduled for tonight and is currently present city council has several options with respect to the administrative action any person included including an individual LIC C who sells any tobacco products to a person under 21 years of age is subject to an administrative penalty this is dollar General's first violation of the ordinance for a first time violation the city May impose a civil fine of up to $150 in addition the city may also suspend the license for a period up to 20 days City may agree with the license Z to wave up to 10 days of the suspension at the rate of two days for every eight hours of community service performed by the licenses employee copy of resolution 20 23- 66 is attached which provides for finding conclusions and admin ad ministrative penalties for the case Council should review the resolution and make a determination of the appropriate penalties to be imposed this time staff is recommending only a fine staff is recommending Council conduct the hearing and provide staff with Direction on the penalties to be administered with the adoption of resolution yeah sure hi my name is Jessica conable I'm speak into the microphone please my name is Jessica conable to where it's comfortable I am the store manager at the Dollar General um I have Emma here with me tonight during the time of the incident I was on a 8-day vacation Emma had ran and operated my store while I was on vacation it was the last day of my vacation she was pretty overwhel WellMed exhausted and ready to go on her vacation um she did read the ID she said she had misread the ID um and I believe it was an honest mistake she does card every person we all do card every person for tobacco sales um I guess we're asking for forgiveness it won't happen again she will be more thorough and take more time to thoroughly read the ID and scan it sometimes we have issue scanning on the register um but I I believe it was an honest mistake she's a great worker she's very dedicated to her job um she's always there when we need her help um I'm not the best speaker so my apologies doing great I'm I'm just hoping for forgiveness and we will prove to you that it will not happen again well that was kind of my reasoning of asking that you guys show up to be at the meeting because I mean everybody makes mistakes definitely I mean you look at it I've missed numbers on things um I don't think she woke up that morning going well I'm going to sell tobacco products to somebody under age um my past years on the city council what was kind of what was done was the fine the fine was waved first first let me ask you what what kind of training do you do we do computer-based learning on the computer so every employee will do depending on their position would be like 6 to 10 hours of computer training and then they're able to work on the sales floor they can't work on the sales floor unless those um videos are completed um and there is comp tobacco compliance videos in the training also um we C every customer no matter the age um I had multip multiple people yell at me that they're old enough to be my grandpa and I car them every day I'm well I'm sorry sir it's not worth my job um so that that is the training and then personal one-on-one training also with me Emma you want to come on up don't be nervous we're pretty much pretty laidback um okay I don't know how really to speak into this um I just want to say that I know the importance of checking IDs um especially selling to miners that was never my intention um I will do everything I can to prevent this from ever happening ever again um I'll take my time to read every ID correctly and if I have trouble um I will like you know call a coworker over to help me so this never happens ever again well again yeah in past history and some of the other councils do other but um I again I don't think it was an intentional act and I I think everybody makes mistakes and I personally would say to wave the penalties however if it happens again that the penalties would be doubled MH because first time shame on me next time you know what I mean and I know that's just my feelings we got well three other people up here first of all it's not easy to come up here and do this what you're doing right now it's pretty mind it's nervous and it's it's tough to do fact that you're doing it you sound sincere both of you and I I believe you I'm intent to believe or go along with what Bob is saying down here it was an honest mistake I'm glad that you showed up tonight because there was nobody here the last time so that does tell me that you guys do care about what you do and I believe it was an honest mistake too and I agree with Bob so what's the format of doing this table this resolution and have a different one or how how would you handle it he's our City attorney so we have to ask him how to do things properly that that's what I'm here for what I hear is a uh move to wave the administrative penalty uh with respect to um DG retail LLC doing business as Dollar General number 22023 correct I believe that would be council member D Ro's motion second okay the motion as described by the City attorney has been made and second of uh all those in favor say I I opposed none heard yeah just uh next time we see you hope everything you a good report on how business is going instead of something like this but it does matter you know so well not when we were coming up you know you was a different world but that's the world we live in now so yes I understand thank you yeah we don't want to make your lives miserable so thanks for coming tonight yeah thank you for coming ladies thank you so much the next item on our agenda is the public forum and I'm I'm forgive me if I pronounce this wrong is is a Derek Lind right you have the same last name as my brother-in-law so lucky guess and your topic is election reform thank you for your time Mr Mayor could you state your name for the record and your address and all I'm sorry my name is Derek Lind and I actually live in Ramsey this is Lisa Hendrickson I believe you're in LW yeah we're part of an NOA County where we're two people from a citizen Advocate Group called asit and we're pushing for election reform in inoka County we're we're primarily focusing at the county level we've been dealing directly with the no NOA County Board we've given them 75 presentations we've had uh 28 people go to the mic um recently we've been uh going to the CI you're the sixth City we're visiting so the purpose of me being here tonight is just kind of introduce who we are and what we're trying to do hand out these cards I'm not trying to talk you in anything um if you could look at the first card please there's a blue card at the top the three main problems with our elections is unfortunately we live in a world where somebody's always going to try to cheat in elections that's that's been true throughout our history and it's true now no electronic technology is Totally Secure that's another reality we're going to have to come grips with and third our current system is not transparent at all you guys can tell me who won the election but you didn't see it with your own eyes I didn't see it you didn't see it nobody saw it none of it's transparent those are the three problems the second card if you could grab the one with the flag on it watch you through that real quick these are the six things we're trying to get the county to do so we basically narrowed it down to these six things because a lot of the laws the bad laws that we have are at the state level and the county can only do so much security our election judge Jada verify the registered voters a lot of our voters a lot of our registration is actually done at the state level through the DMV and we don't know who those people are the way it used to be on the old system as a county was responsible for that they had a list of everybody who was registered within the county validated paper ballots you know we got the mail and ballots and all that stuff now Paper Pull books this is a very important one this is one that we're we're pushing hard to get rid of up until 2018 we were using the Paper Pull books and now we've got these electronic pull books and we think that's where a lot of the dirty work is being done in fact the manufacturer describes these pull books as being able to register and report and everything in between it's a One-Stop shop it's so it's an easy place to do all this stuff and we don't really need it that paper that we used just six years ago worked just fine handc count and paper ballots the state just passed along May and not sure if you're aware of this mandating the use of machines you have to use machines that's state law well we still want a hand count you can parallel count alongside or you can do tests after or before just to make sure the machines are accurate I don't know why the state passed that law but they did and finally small voting precincts I think we've already got that right now an NOA County does a pretty good job uh we averaged we have 128 precincts in an NOA County and in the midterms we averaged 1,200 voters so we're not talking about a ton of Voters if we wanted to sit there and hand count votes and by the way Europe they hand Count Their votes some European countries went to the machines and they got rid of them because they didn't trust them and they wanted citizen participation in their elections so this isn't crazy stuff we're talking about they do it in other countries but for some reason here we do this last card real quick it's picture of a guy in a front Mark cook he was called into the Trump white house after the November 3D 2020 election he's considered one of the top election cyber security experts in the country he gave a presentation to a NOA County two Commissioners 90 minutes and he told them you can't trust this system you got to change it it's vulnerable he showed him on a hack into the system I was there we had other people there too he has this thing called an echosystem if you could look at that grid next to his picture there basically it shows that Cy should be a local function you should go to your local Precinct to vote and it should be handled there what's happening today is a lot of the election power is being moved to the state and ultimately what they want to do is they want to move it to the federal level in fact cloar is sponsoring legislation right now to have the federal government control a lot of this stuff so the way to solve this to make to make it the safest and most secure is get it back to the local level the reason we're here talking to you guys is you have that joint Powers agreement with the county you you take the votes you you run the precincts you hire all those people so with that being said do you guys have any questions is acit does that uh do you know a guy named Channing yeah yeah okay Channing friend of mine he's uh he's said we we we cre he's a football fan and so my he's 70% of our offense he does a lot of work for us so so we just came from a meeting we meet every Monday and Channing was there us tonight so any other questions thank you for your time we really appreciate it well thank you thank you thank you anything anybody else for the public forum okay well we'll close the public forum then if we need to use the gav business or not so we're on to the consent agenda item six on our agenda uh do uh people have items they want to pull yeah I'd like to pull a and C A and C yep like to pull a which is already [Applause] pulled I'll just pipe in when a is discussed okay uh to that I'm adding well I'm pulling a and C as well as and also d and e so if we want to approve items b f and g we can go ahead and do that I move to approve okay we have a motion to approve items b f and g of the consent agenda all those in favor say I a second a second what second oh who seconded Jim okay now that we have it made and seconded all those all those in favor of approving items b f and g of the consent agenda say I I posed none heard okay item a Jim Jack I got some questions here on the fire department the pension can you speak into your mic a little the pension thing there for like 76,000 212 and then the one below it 13,000 is that from the state yes that's what we discussed the question that I asked Troy those are funds that we did receive they were pass through funds and then we paid the relief Association then it was paid back from now on these funds will go directly to that par okay so then the 14,000 is the city's contribution that's correct that's talking that will remain in the future direct payment thank you City then uh just done on the Fire Department 2 the motor vehicles services that 353 times that's is that for license or what is that no those were pump test for three different or three different pumper trucks okay the pump and hose test on the pressures on those okay thank you then I'm curious on the second page on 25 the Verizon bill for 56014 how many phones are we buying these phones and giving them to Firefighters or how's that work uh uh that is part of the paging cost the pagers okay cuz now if I understand it right they don't have pagers anymore it goes over their phones right that when I say pagers that that's the cost of that service for to go over there pH okay so that's what that is for okay that's all I have Tim all right let get to where I need to be of question about the arena stuff up here on top starting out how do we get a $4,800 electric bill cuz we started putting the ice in at the 1st of September so it's a high cost for the cooling uh our electric bills for that Arena probably will run us $35 to $40,000 a year uh so the sooner we start putting it in the higher cost we have it goes down in the winter is the temp cool down but that's the reason the fort that bill was that for September because we started putting the ice in earlier for their use and they're billing for those hours to cover those costs and I see that the management company is getting $10,000 I mean I've I've seen that fee go up and down over the last half a year all over the place yeah the fee is proportioned out so during the offseason Peak it runs $1,500 $22,000 when he's in service when he's got all his staff there that jumps to 10,000 but it still says within that $887,000 contract amount he has okay that's all I have okay well mine was answered so I guess we can have a motion to approve no I got a couple question you got some okay how do we go from $525 for Conexus all the way up to uh what am I looking at here 4,800 where is it here I had it and then I hit the M 4570 no that's a different one sorry 140 756 753 aren't the 5 and a quar is that street lights is that that what that is that's the the siring cost for the electricity for our tornado warning sirens here's one for 989 I mean they fluctuate so much I is that just normal or yeah that that's normal Conexus does they don't build stump some they break it out for everything it's metered so a lot of these things the smaller things are metered the street lights are a flat fee the sirens are a flat fee they're they're not metered but everything else is a metered cost for everything where their service okay good good okay someone want to move to approve item a of the consent agenda to approve item a on the consent agenda second made and seconded all those in favor I oppos None heard okay item C Jim Jack I got a question okay on it says delinquencies on utilities what does that involve is that water sewer sewer or is that electric or gas no that's that's just essentially Water and Sewer bills okay so each one of these are connected to the Sewer understand then Water and Sewer so then they haven't paid this it's a monthly thing ain't it it's a monthly thing that's correct so I mean like some of them are up to like 2,000 some dollars it's like what do we do to collect that put it on their taxes put it on their taxes okay how long do they have to take care of that before we do assess it it's done every year so any delinquent balances are assessed at this time so they can be put on taxes for next year okay all right thank you anyone else have a question on item C someone want to make a motion I'll make a motion to approve item C of the consent agenda second motion made and second to approve item C on the consent agenda all those in favor say I I opposed none heard um item D is the Anoka County Law Enforcement contract and the only reason I pulled that is I wanted to make some comments about it and that is that uh I had the pleasure of talking with Commander Paul lensme and our liaison with the Inova County Sheriff's Office uh Lieutenant Derek Peters last week and I had asked a question at the last meeting and that was if we went from 36 hours per day of sworn Deputy sheriffs to 32 hours a day and then 4 hours of community service officers who are also connected with the sheriff's department what would the cost impact be and so they gave me the answer it's $80,000 okay um and my second question to them was have you seen any effect any impact yet on this increase the 145% increase uh in the pay rate and they said yes there's been a positive impact in terms of Attraction and retention of qualified Personnel so the good news is I mean we're all a little frustrated with the the impact on our budget but the good news is that it's having a positive effect in terms of attracting people and retaining their people that was their main concern was training up people and then other departments would bid them away basically so that's good news and uh the final thing is that over the course of the winter uh the Mayors and some of the surrounding communities we're going to talk about this topic some more uh as far as what options we have going down the road uh in case next year it's another big increase in the in the offing I would say from the initial news that I just reported that it may not be the case that just that big bump may have been enough to do the job but we don't we don't know yet so it's just something we should talk about from time to time anyway so with that I give my a little report so with that I'll I'll move to approve item C excuse me item D on the consent agenda second okay motion made in second all those in favor say I I None opposed and I pulled item e and that is simply could you please elaborate on what we have as far as the the uh liability coverage waiver form just so we can better understand what is involved in it actually this comes from the league of Minnesota cities and we've traditionally at the recommendation of our City attorney wave the liability limits and purchased additional liability coverage of a million dollars and this is something that uh I discussed this with Eric again this afternoon and uh if he has anything else to elaborate on that I'll let him join in this conversation and provide any comments he has but that's been the way we've handled this in the it's been recommended to us since 2011 is that an umbrella policy no no no um so what you the general policies that are out both in the private as well as the public market is basically a uh million and then two million with respect to aggregate coverage under the statute there's a Tor cap liability coverage of 1.5 million but the statute doesn't really reflect what the market um puts places so you're sitting here you're sitting here with a like a $1 million coverage or a $2 million coverage the statute is clear however that when it comes to Tor cap as far as what municipality if there is a Tor claim and the municipality needs to pay out because of you know personal injury and so forth um it's either that statutory cap of 1.5 million or whatever your insurance limit is whichever is higher what this form says and I know there's a lot of language and if you read it you go does it really say this Eric yes it does okay and this wa what what it says is go ahead you know get the insurance coverage that you really need which is going to be that one two but do you wave that Tor cap liability cap at one .5 or not there are reasons to wave it but as your city administrator has indicated you generally have not and the city administrator and I talked earlier today and I say yeah I like to essentially have all protections of defenses possible so don't wave it understanding however that you do want to get your one2 million insurance coverage just to cover uh the city and also the best way what you're doing is covering your public assets and monies thank you thank you both that's just what I needed was a better understanding so I guess I'm the only one who needed it though so that's fine but uh anyway with that explanation I'll move that we approve item e on the consent agenda second maid and seconded in favor I I I opposed none heard so that's it for the consent agenda next item is item 7even new business and they have the variance hearing Drive driveway entrance on thirr Street 185th Avenue thank you Mr Mayor members of council um the consideration for Avance request for Frontage or front lot line reduction at the right of way for an administrative sub Vision in the city of Oak Grove this property is located in the city of Oak Grove abing the Bear Hollow subdivision in rural residential Zone in East bethl the property is approximately 40 acres and is located adjacent to the right of way on Third Street Northeast the applicant is looking to subdivide the property and build two single family homes the city of Oak grve has advised the applicant that permission from the city of East bethle would be required prior to moving forward with the subdivision application the East bethl city code for Rural residential development regulations require that a minimum lot width of 200 ft at the public right of way exists for each lot the applicant's parcel excuse me has a total of 105.8 Ft of Frontage on the Third Street Northeast right of way and is requesting a variance to the standard of 200 ft of Frontage to a reduction of 52.94 Ft in order to subdivide the property and allow for two access points or driveways through the East bethl Third Street rideway to the parcel located in Oak Grove section 4-10 under variances states to to hear requests for variances from the literal provisions of the ordinance in instances where their strict enforcement would cause practical difficulties because of the circumstances unique to the individual property under consideration and to Grant such variances only when it is demonstrated that such actions will be in keeping with the spirit and the intent of the ordinance practical difficulties as used in connection with the granting of a variance means that the property owner proposes to use the property in a reasonable manner not permitted by official control the plight of the owner is due to the property due to the circumstances unique to the property not created by the land owner and the variance if granted will not alter the essential character of the locality economic considerations alone do not constitute practical difficulties on September 26th 2023 the Planning Commission met held a public hearing eight residents from the Bear Hollow subdivision attended and voiced their concerns about additional traffic driveway proximities Road repair and maintenance costs tree clearing the utilization of City resources without the ability to collect tax revenue and emergency response times the applicant and orderer was provided an opportunity to respond to the concerns at the conclusion of the public hearing the Planning Commission made a findings of fact and recommended to the city council unanimously to deny the variance request as presented in resolution 20 23- 68b the recommendation or the city council should review the variance request consider the planning commission's formal recommendation of denial and approve or deny the variance as presented in resolutions 2023 68a or B if the variance request is denied under section 4 subdivision 10 I reapplication uh which states no application for a variance for a particular use on a particular parcel shall be resubmitted for a period of one year from the date of denial of the previous application unless a decision to reconsider such a matter is made by a majority vote of the full city council the applicant is requesting a a reconsideration reconsideration decision be made if denied in order to allow for him to reapply for a variance for a front lot reduction from 200 ft to the 105.8 Ft for a single access point as opposed to two access points in his current request so for clarification here Aon we have a variance request for two accesses if denied can he still reapply for variance for one access within that one year with your unanimous permission okay so we have to approve that well I was at that Planning Commission meeting and I'm surprised the gentleman isn't here I guess if I were going for variant I'd probably show up however um there are concerns from The Neighbors and I can't remember all of them eron you might remember some but one of them was the people that live across the street from this lot were concerned about traffic headlights coming in and out and going directly onto their house where now it's well it's just natural uh another concern was okay so Feast bethl gives them one entrance wants to prevent them as soon as they get inside the lot that they split it off and then they go to two driveways because East bethl once it's off the road East bethl has no say and I really don't see the advantage of allowing that variance for the driveway on on the street um other than the fact we're just being nice guys about it and saying yeah you can use the street and go ahead um there's going to be wear and tearing the road which there probably would be some anyway but taking the neighbors concerns um I just don't I don't see it if if it was an East Beth resident it's still a tough thing to question but being that it's from another city I just don't see it I agree with what Bob saying I was at that planning meeting also the residents of East bethl spoke and they had a lot of legitimate concerns and I do agree with that also and our city really doesn't benefit anything from this so I believe that our residents have spoken and I agree with what they say and going with what Aon said from a fiduciary standpoint he can come in from the backside would it cost him more money yeah he pretty much laid that out and then the question was posed to him well can you guarantee us if we just put one driveway that as soon as you get in there that you don't split it off I mean the guy was honest enough he said well no I can't so and and again once it leaves the road that's Oak Rove we can't do anything you have any you fellas have any other thoughts I would not be in favor of the two for the split that uh from 200 to 50 approximately 50 that's too much of a it's a big stretch I I could see the understanding for one driver way not a road access onto it um because looking at this indiv individual parcel is 40 acre parcel by itself if it did not have access from another source a property owner is to be given access by either easement or other other means and I could see giving one access um being that if he has plans to develop the develop this whole parcel with the attached parcel to the West that brings it up into a different light um so just as addressing the variance request that as in front of us I would not be in favor of well as a legal question us telling him that being that he lives in Oak and we're e bethl that the law really doesn't pertain to us as far as but we're not giving him access to his property we're not land loocking his property we're just saying well we live in this city and this is east bethl and these are what our concerns are we're just not going to let you or is it just not no matter what do we have to give him access well he does have access to the on the parcel to the West right from the west but when I was saying that I was addressing just the single 40 not the parcel to the west but because he does own both Parcels he does have access to it well the question on this particular prop property and so forth I'd have to have a better understanding of essentially what his situation what if is that what the access possibilities are um in light of the but if your question is is does the city of East bethl have an obligation based upon the facts before us to provide this particular property owner uh access I don't see anything there that would uh am mandate such a legal conclusion so I'm back with essentially you have discretion to either uh you know affirm and agree with the denial of the Planning Commission which is recommendation or reverse it any thoughts Tim yeah our Planning Commission voted unanimously to deny this request did they have anything to say about the reapplication at all no that wasn't brought up the um the applicant would have to make that request so after he was here and heard the denial he called me the following day and said what can I do you to apply for one access point or one reduction and I said our ordinance states that you can't apply for 365 days unless the council gives you permission to do so so we decided to run the variance tonight and if the confirmation of the denial is uh confirmed by you guys he then immediately wanted to request your permission to reconsider so that he could apply for a variance for one reduced access or reduced Frontage but if we deny in the single which we have every right to do correct well he's going to have to apply for a single after tonight If you deny it we're not going to just automatically Grant him a variance for one reduction he's going to need to reapply but you have to give him the permission to do that within a calendar year because our ordinance says he's not allowed to apply for the same variance within 3 165 days of a denal without your permission well from what I heard in remarks so far and again with the concerns I don't see and he he didn't come right out and say it but and in sort of he did that he's going to wind up with two driveways as soon as he gets off the road and he's going to go in there and the same concerns are still up out there from the neighbors and I we represent that we represent these vessel people so for your consideration is the variance request for two access points or reduction from 105 to two access points at 52.94 for tonight the denial is there a motion I'll make a motion to deny it go along with what Planning Commission said second any further discussion all those in favor of denial I say I I I that's unanimous so no need to ask the question and then uh would you uh be willing to allow the applicant to reapply for a variance for one access point well you can reapply but again my comments aren't going to change I'd like you to ask the Planning Commission what they think about it I mean I know we have to give them the permission but we're why don't we defer to them on the issue so do you think the council should allow allow him to reapply given one access point would you would the council like to go with the planning commission's recommendation or would you like me to bring their information back to you for you to make the final decision our ordinance states that you have to make that decision yeah I know okay well we're making the denial decision on the two access point he wants to know if we if we'll approve a single access point I'm saying why don't we ask the Planning Commission if they think that would they'd like that or not our ordinance says that you I'm trying to be inclusive no understandable our ordinance says that you have to give him strict permission to apply for a the same variance or something very similar within 365 days so regardless of whether the Planning Commission thinks one access is fine or not until you say he can reapply within a calendar year he can't reapply right if I if I could speak uh mayor so forth uh um so to our community development director what I'm hearing though is that the Planning Commission does doesn't have to formally take up the application but can hear the potential applicant and provide guidance to that applicant as far as what um type of variance for single access may be acceptable for the Planning Commission and that this body would want to hear from the Planning Commission on an actual application but there's no reason to have this property owner even go through their formal process without at least getting some feedback from the Planning Commission on an informal basis that's what I was trying to say okay yeah thank and I think that's that's a very that's a very apt rule for the Planning Commission they are there in that advisory capacity to be able to handle these type of detailed type of analyses with respect to a variance other words i' just like to get their advice their opinion okay moving mov on Section 8 Department reports City administrator number one Reserve capacity loan amortization proposal at our last meeting we discussed the reserve capacity loan which will be coming due in 2024 because of our unmet sack goals uh at that time there was one amortization schedule that was provided it was for a 10year term which showed a payment of $231,000 a year we did go and run a 15-year and a 20-year term uh on the 15-year term we would pay an annual payment of $164,200 in a 20-year term with an annual payment of $31,988 a year and $62,900 interest paid I've got a comparison chart I'll pull up here to show those um so going back if you do the 10-year term all these interest rates are constant here at 2.73% so in this column here you see what the total loan interest payment would be for each one you see what the principle and interest payment would be uh on each one of those so with the 20 10 year you're paying approximately $100,000 more per year than you are at 131 uh the turn interest is a figure that's calculated on the difference between the 231 annual principal and interest payment versus the difference between what the principal and interest payment is on the other two so on the 15-year term you would save $644,000 or You' gain $64,000 in interest payments and the 20-year $814,000 assuming everything remains constant revenue streams and interest return if you take this down here so the total loan interest paid for the 10year is 321 that's the Baseline so obviously there's no savings there you take it down to the 15-year line you're paying 464 170 in interest you're getting return interest of $64,000 or an increase or Savings of $139,800 over the 20-year term that savings jumps to 19239 again this is a very simplistic way of doing it there's a lot of permutations you can use to calculate this but assuming that you're we're going to get a 3.5% consistent or average interest rate over the term of this and their revenue streams stay constant this is what the figures would be for running those two additional term computations and the 3.5 I assume Mike did the calculations yes what we just came up with that as an average interest rate because we know interest rates are coming down 2.73 is our Baseline so we adopted a conservative figure there yeah it's a very conservative figure which is well advised in this case and the reason I wanted to look at this stuff is I mean this is directly analogous to folks who get a mortgage on a house and get a 20 or 30-year mortgage and then pay an extra $100 or $200 a month if they're able and it knocks down your principle which reduces the time period for paying off the loan and it's it's a it's directly analogous to that and we can do that and I didn't even I wasn't even making the case to reinvest the money and and earn interest on it any interest rate it was just the the flexibility of it of if we had the money and there's some crisis or something you know you know the sheriff dep budget allocation goes up 40% next year or something but uh at least you're not hammed in where you're you're hide bound to make the principal and interest payment at the highest level and you you're taking a hit on some other area too which blows up your like we're seeing happen right this year uh and I I plan to address it during our our town hall meeting in November but uh the numbers coming in from Blaine and other places are enormous the the levy increases I me 19% in bla or something I mean it's it's incredible uh so if what you what you really want to get is to have the flexibility to level this out as much as possible if you don't have this you know and and Anoka County as a county is going through the same thing too you don't want to be either crashing on the rocks or you know riding the ways just copasetic you know you kind of want to have a Level Playing Field and you know in regard to what Kevin says each one of these has their advantages and disadvantages uh the 20year one it does level it out more the 10-year one removes debt quicker and you can go take the assumption that this will be self funding based on the revenue streams we anticipate I use the word anticipate all these are based on anticipation you have all you can do is make reasonable assumptions yeah and I don't think there's a bad choice but uh just depends on what kind of goals we want to achieve on this yeah yeah at least it was worth looking at put it that way um when do we what is the drop dead date for making a decision we can make a decision if if we could do it that the next meeting would be great okay so this anyway it's worth just taking a look at contemplate the scenarios that might be in front of us um none of us knows what the future is going to hold but uh I'm I'm inclined to want flexibility in in financial matters maybe it's because of my own career path but anyway it's a I find it a useful useful thing and you can always prepay loans I've never heard of anybody never heard of a lender complaining about PR repaying a debt that that's correct if things went bad or went really really good yeah just think it always P off pay it off yeah uh and it and it wasn't so much I wasn't so much thinking of the money being invested at 3.5% in the earnings that would get come from that it was instead of taking the money to pay down a 2.73% interest loan aggressively I'd rather pay down something that's carrying five or six or 7% interest instead of doing this one you know this is the cheapest money we've got as debt so anyway that's why I wanted to look at it and I appreciate you accommodating me on that any uh comments discussion about this okay well then the last item of the evening other than a no well we have a close session coming up but but the last item on the regular agenda anyway as a city administrator job description thank you Kevin council member Brian mundle is requested that the job description for the city administrator be added to the agenda for the October 9th 20223 council meeting the current description was approved on January 24th 2022 replacing the one adopted in 2003 as there will be a change of Personnel in this position effective January 1st 2024 Council may wish to review an update the job description staff is seeking direction as to any updates to the city administrator job description and any further directives as to the process of filling the position so this to the first part of it is uh everybody satisfied with this uh the city administrator's job description is complete as presented at least the updated version version of it and just as background I had asked just just some background I guess it's been three or four weeks since I met with Mike jorski who's our finance director human resources manager and Deputy City administrator uh and that's that's an official thing by the way Eric that was that was created by resolution some time back during Co you explained to me Jack was that he would be the designated Deputy City administrator and that was to find out first of all if Mike had interest in becoming the new city administrator and he expressed a lack of interest in doing that but the other question was would you be willing to serve in that role for you know up to two or three months if necessary during a period if we had to go out in the market advertise sort through resumés interview and all that and he said he would so that was good and then I think it was two weeks ago I asked you to provide a city administrator job description and you did so and that's what you're presenting here in addition to your additional comments know if you've been through this we have the original job description of 2003 and then we have the updated one of 2022 and then there's another page and that's additional uh thoughts of on the matter so I guess the first question is um anybody see anything lacking in that job description is it complete and current okay so it's anybody have any other questions on the matter for now uh if this description is completing current when do we want to start advertising for the city administrative position well I've also been talking with Mr Larson U that' be the gentleman to your right and uh he has made it clear that is not a a state law requirement or anything that there go through that method of advertising publicly soliciting resumés and all that and uh so I have identified somebody who seems to meet all the criteria extremely well and because of I could I could say it's accurately say that it's a matter of the data Practices Act but uh for the time being I have to keep the information uh confidential because uh the person is employed and uh they don't they don't don't obviously they don't want that revealed until an opportune time at which time we would you know present their credentials and have them come before the city council and do the but I don't I I seriously doubt that we could possibly find someone better qualified for the job I'll put it that way in my honest opinion uh so if you guys will grant me a little forbearance I'll update you as we go along and as as soon as I can reveal that information and if it all falls apart then we'll go back to the typical you know advertise it and solicit resumés and applications and all that business and we'll still have time because I'm sorry I wasn't speaking into the mic uh because Mike will will serve the function the city administrator until we get it resolve so we're good on both cases covered that it anything else do I answer your question Brian uh maybe not to your satisfaction but I still think that we should advertise cuz uh well thing that Eric and I talked about is if you honestly believe that you have someone who's extremely well qualified it's almost like unfair to everybody else to waste their time you know but we we don't know who else is out there or who else we could attract that could be better well well I'm asking your forbearance I know to trust my judgment that I'm not it's not an actx to grind with me or anything else I didn't say anything I just my opinion we have the time right now to advertise and my opinion is we should but if you want to hold on off on that just just trust me a little bit on this this one I I think you'll be pleasantly surprised and I will keep you all updated as soon as I'm able to uh reveal the information we'll Pro proceed with it and all that is there anything else on our agenda other than on the open Agenda so we don't we don't adjourn this meeting we go into close session correct that that's correct mayor but generally you go through your staff reports Council reports and other matters before you then uh go to the Clos session okay any staff reports counil reports I have nothing else to add I got for Council reports I'm just uh curious cuz now we basically are not doing the work meetings anymore so my thought is I believe the league of Minnesota City's on our packets that my opinion anyways we should be getting them on a Wednesday for the following Monday supposed to have it three days not including weekends for our packets and my reason is a lot of stuff when we have residents addresses and stuff to look at I want to go out there and look at it a lot of times when I don't get my packet till 3:30 4:00 on Friday then I got to try to make the weekends to go and follow up with all that so being that we're kind of done with the work meetings I believe is Staff capable of doing that that we can get it earlier like on a Wednesday we'll have to see a lot of it depends on what's going on on a lot of Depends too on waiting for consultants and other people to furnish us the information we'll try to get it out as soon as we can but sometimes it's not possible to do that okay I would just appreciate if you can work on that that'd be great cuz like I said I like to check out addresses and stuff when there is issues just for my own benefit so we can make a good decision for the residents I guess my question is is getting the agenda out early too which shows the topics rather than that that is helpful you know you can you can at least see if there's addresses you need to look at and we always get that out on Wednesday right yeah that is helpful but if you guys can do that that would be greatly appreciate I I would say the chances of getting out on Wednesday are somewhat slim though because of the amount of stuff we have to review prepare and get ready for this we'll do our best but I won't give you any can't make any promises no okay but now that we're not doing a work meeting you shouldn't have to focus on that that part of it and give us information that we can't make a decision on anyways until we have a council meeting you know what I mean so the only thing the work meeting did was there was only one meeting in between that it really interfered with but there's also Aaron's got aon's got this Planning Commission meetings I've got the Eda meetings so there's still a lot of stuff to do so we'll try our best but I can't guarantee anything I'm just just just as an exciting prospect we'll probably be bring bringing back the work meeting to discuss that very the topic I was just talking about I talked to Eric earlier today and a work meeting would probably be a good venue for and and we still have the schedule so we just cancel them unless there's a need to have we just wanted to get away from the every month thing you know where it's like baked into the cake you know right the worst part is with the work meeting you can't make a decision anyway so if you're getting it presented if if we can do it at a council meeting we can decide so you know what I mean so I see your point yeah on that then also I'd like to just say like tonight we had the open house at the fire department which was a good turnout but one thing I would like to see if possible if we could do it on a night where we don't have a council meeting because like just for an example Mr Miller was there and he brought his grandson and his grandson's eyes were about this big happy as could be to get on a fire truck and I have a great-grandson that I would like to do that with also but time was limited so if that's possible if staff can work with the fire department maybe have it on a off day or something like that if that works we can check that I think generally the reason they've had it on Mondays is because that's their training night and it eliminates one more night that the firefighters don't have to be out sure but whatever you can do that'd be deeply appreciated thank you that's all I got yeah I'd like to the fire department tonight that was a a fun time my grandson had a great time I saw a lot of kids up there enjoying themselves and um engaging with the firemen and the sheriff's department even the state patrol um if you didn't go I highly recommend that our residents attend as many of these as they can to show the support cuz those guys do put on a very nice open house up there very informative and it was a good time well it's a pleasant surprise to stopped by the arena on the way up here boy what a night day difference clean it's really nice looking inside wasn't crap laying all over the doors were closed kids were having a great time big difference from last time I was in good to hear council's been out and about I was at the fire station so yeah good that's what we're supposed to to be doing get out in the community see what's up so what's our procedure for going into a closed session other than just saying we're going into a closed session so many of our council members I will announce at this time that the uh Council will be uh uh recessing its regular scheduled meeting to go into a closed session to discuss the purchase or sale of real property it's closed pursuant to Minnesota statutes 13d um um subdivision 3C regarding the discussion of sale of city property pin number 36-33 23-34 d002 and pin number 29- 33-23-33 Point well same pin number at least on this regardless it's noticed uh correctly on the agenda at which point once the closed session has come to a conclusion we will come back into regular session and um proceed toward adjournment with that uh mayor you can announce that we are recessing this particular meeting and going into Clos session we are re recessing this particular meeting and going into Clos session good job k now no one of the 35,000 General Dollar General stuff helmet City military excited he was like that's really cool example right thank you mayor this is uh Eric Larson East bethl City attorney uh for the record the closed session of the city council uh was adjourned as of 8:52 p.m. and uh it is now 8:5 4 uh p.m. where the East bethl city council is back in a General Session it is my role to uh indicate what the decision of the city council was during the closed Council session for item 9.0 D discussion of the sale of city property p number 29-33 23- 33-2 Council directed staff to um engage in independent appraisal and upon obtaining that appraisal inform the market that the property is on the market per the appraised amount and then engage in any willing and interested uh uh purchasers about the possibility of an actual negotiated uh purchase of that property with respect to the second closed uh session item with respect to the sale of uh property 36-33 23-34 d002 uh the potential uh sale of a 50 wide foot strip that the city owns that runs between Long Fellow Drive and East bethl Ham Lake corporate limits Council directed staff to uh enter in negotiations with the adjacent property owner for the sale of that property from the city to uh those individuals with all cost um with respect to that sale to be uh imposed upon the purchasers as well as any other reasonable sale items that staff felt was appropriate and when and if a purchase agreement uh was uh agreed to then bring that purchase agreement for the council's review and decision and action with that I make motion that we adjourn thank you for your uh summary there Eric so we have a motion to adjourn made and seconded all in favor say I I I opposed not