e the rep stands Nation indivisible andice for all make a motion to adopt tonight's agenda second motion made and seconded all in favor say I I I that's unanimous okay I don't have the agenda a copy of the agenda in front of me what's next on the agenda let me just get to that quick okay we already did that so opening remarks by me okay all right uh welcome to the meeting glad to see you could turn out tonight I want to give you a little bit of a fiscal summary on on where we're at as a city uh for the 2024 budget uh we only had a 2% Levy increase uh in spite of having a 14.4% increase in the sheriff's budget it was a big hit last year and our 2% was compared to the county which I believe is 10.4 10.4 10.5 I believe Y and originally started like 17 or something and they worked at Blaine was 19% Ham Lake was around 8% and Oak Grove was around 20 20 plus so that's good we're starting the uh budgeting process now for 2025 just is a point of information about 80% of the city's revenues are from property taxes just as a point of information uh probably expect increases in property valuations to be more moderate than in recent years uh that've been pretty high the past few years so they'll probably moderate a bit with the higher interest rates I expect inflation and the cost of goods materials we buy parts we buy Etc supplies uh to be rate of inflation to be slightly lower than last year in particular and expect uh pending residential and Commercial developments that are already on the books to generate an increase in building and building inspection permit revenues and also property taxes once they're finished and on the roles a big issue in East bethl uh these days is development direction or direction of development or the vision that the residents have for the city and it's a big it's a big item for us too uh I would really like to do a resident survey a proper resident survey of the city izens of East bethl like by a professional outfit who does that for their living you know it's good to ask questions through the East bethl bulletin I have QR codes and stuff like that that's you know that's that's a start but I really would like to have a proper survey I've lived here 28 years and I don't recall ever being asked my input and it's it would just be nice to have a broad sensus uh sense of what the feelings about of the resident are about the development direction for the city but I haven't gotten a whole lot of traction on that one yet uh the recent low density and higher density residential developments thinking specifically of elevage which is over on San Hill Parkway and uh after that will be the uh Capstone homes development on the Viking Meadows Golf Course property it suggests at least to me and I think the city council and the staff of the city that we may want to revisit it's about time to revisit our comprehensive plan anyway it's been six or seven years since it was last updated and and adjust some of the uh goals in terms of the amount of high density low density and commercial property in the city a little bit more toward commercial and Industrial uh so it's more a place where you can actually work not just live and also commercial properties tend to be a higher valued use of land than just building more homes uh they pay twice the property tax rate that residen is use or residences pay so that's kind of a sense among the group uh so I'd like to I'd like us to uh open up the comprehensive plan for having it Revisited and that's why getting this getting the feel of the residence of East Beth would be used useful as part of as the input necessary to work on the comprehensive plan again Chrome grown jobs higher valued land uses another big big picture change in our approach to development is a shift toward more a more analytical approach uh up up until recently it basically was well does a propo a proposed development conform with the comprehensive plan of the City and the second thing was uh to do a traffic impact study and those are both completely valid uh this time with Capstone we added a third item and that was to do what what for lack of a better term we call a fiscal impact study what's the cash flow impact to the city as a result of a proposed development and it seems to be a useful tool as part of that just to look at because the City Bears expenses when things are developed taking care of roads and Etc Services whatnot and then it also collects revenues for property taxes or fees so it's just looking at that like it's a a kind of a business-like approach to development so we got those three tools and then we look at another thing and that is and this is where um Matt's Matt look our new city administrator um his background and experience both as a business owner and also as someone whose clientele was at the state capital largely uh has a brings something different to our city than what we have done in the past and that is to to look at leveraging local Resources with State resources and at this time we have a proposal in in the current state bonding uh for about $10 million 10 or 11 million to um do sewer and water upgrades that would help Service East bethl and Cedar Creek Elementary Schools as well as stage potential commercial Industrial Development up up the uh Highway 65 Corridor but to leverage local Resources with State resources is a is a smart thing to do instead of just looking to the residents to come up with the money and uh finally on the development front is I think it's time that we control our destiny more as a city and and I think getting the survey of the residents the update of the comprehensive plan and then being more proactive in pitching the benefits of the city to those who are are the decision makers on investments on where plants are located where businesses are located where residential developments are located and to be more proactive about it would be a goal that I think we all share too that's about it anybody want to add anything okay if not update by elected official I see state senator Cal bar right there do you want to say any comments Cal I'm the only one here right could be prob yeah to get on the record I could turn this around like to face my audience sure um so I'm your State Rep state senator I used to say state representative but it's senator now so um tons of updates um don't even really know where you want to start there's so much moving to I'm sure most people are familiar with the senator Mitchell situation no yes okay um Tuesday next week there will be an Ethics hearing on the charges against Senator Mitchell that will be live streamed so you can either go to the capital and watch or you can tune in on the computer that should be on multiple places you shouldn't have a problem finding it Facebook or just go right to the uh revisers the Senate website and it should be on there so you can watch what happens my assumption is they since there's a one-seat majority in the Senate they are going to hold they will postpone any judgments from the Ethics Committee until after session and my guess and this is only a guess that the the actual ruling from the Ethics Committee will wait until after the judicial of at least the first judicial ruling comes out which her next hearing is the 10th of June they will postpone that to try and move an agenda having said move an agenda the house has been meeting till midnight every night which they have not waved the rules so they go home at midnight and come back the next morning and take up whatever they didn't finish the next day and add some more they've moved some gun bills safe storage bills things like that uh an enhanced red flag they've moved a bunch of these things and the Senate isn't doing anything we didn't hear a single bill on the floor today we're coming in tomorrow and we will actually hear bills tomorrow the uh office of cannabis management has a lot of things they need to fix from last year when they rushed that massive Bill through it was not thoroughly vetted so medical cannabis how that interacts with uh uh recreational Cannabis how the deposits are made since it's still a schedule one drug with the federal government how the money is deposited because the federal government can take all deposits from those companies because it's still a schedule one federally um if you put the money in the bank the bank it'll be confiscated so how those deposits are done the rules on on the licensing who gets a license when and how the what went through the bill last year was a very um I think it was actually called racist because it it like discrimination it was very discriminatory because it uh said you had to be uh more licenses would be issued to people in areas where they had uh high density of prosecutions for drug rated crimes so those were that's where they wanted to put the majority so now they're going to change that to a lottery system but that's the office of cannabis management how those um how the you how you would submit your name and and how you would uh acrew a license in that Lottery system that all has to be developed they have to put in uh give licenses to Growers so the the business people have something to sell there's all these pieces and none of them are figured out yet so this bill tomorrow is going to address some of those we've got a a bill tomorrow on uh the Legacy all of the Legacy funds where that money is going to be spent and how it's going to be who gets what and how to spend it a lot of it will be given to different art groups and they will decide after we give them the money how they want it spent the state's going to be buying another 14 if I remember right it's 1 1400 acres of land every year they come out and they buy a little more land and a little more land and a little sooner or later there won't be any to buy um so that is going to need to be addressed in in the future like next few years how the state determines what they're buying for land with the Legacy funds um trying to think there's another one up tomorrow we've got four on the floor tomorrow that we're going to be hearing and all of them are rather large contentious bills um and today was nothing yesterday was one we have not finished our state government uh Omnibus bille that hasn't gone come out of committee yet they haven't even started putting it together and yet after tomorrow session we will have eight legislative days for the rest of session constitutionally mandated 120 and no more we have eight days to work with and we haven't even started the end of session stuff yet we haven't had our conference committees we haven't negotiated with the house for a an overall position to send it to either the house floor or the senate floor we haven't started negotiations on a bonding Bill none of these things have been done because Senator Mitchell kind of took the wind right out of the Senate that whole situation has scrambled everything around up there and different reporters different things bills were put on the calendar and pulled the next day they've got uh with that one seat majority there's uh they can't get agreement within their own caucus of what they want to move and what they don't want to move so basically we're at a standstill there will be a few things move but not a lot um so that's the best I do for an update right now what's actually going to happen in the last eight days is anybody's guess I don't think our Senate Majority Leader has a clue what's actually going to move or how it's going to move but I can tell you that I seriously doubt we will get all of our work done within the eight days we will have left for the next two weeks so if anybody has any specific questions is that all right to take a couple of questions sure if anybody has any questions go ahead and ask away I'll do my best to answer them sir want me to identify myself sure my name is Brian bans 22337 Quincy uh you being here means that I'm not going to be ask M's question okay the um I'm familiar with how the legisl works um if I have any questions I just call up Sean Cole know Sean yep yeah so and I asked Sean has where what's the status of our application on a 10 million grant for the water tower down behind the post office is that included in the bonding bill you does anyone know where that's sitting in the bonding bill was I mean I well Cal just said it was stalled because of what's going which water tower is he talking about behind the post office this is the one you drafted the one I drafted okay so then in the Senate the bill was drafted we haven't started negotiation on the bonding it was heard in the in the house Matt came down and testified did Peggy with you and Peggy right so it has been heard in the house bill I have not seen the house bill I don't know what was included we don't know at this point in time if it's on on the bill or not no and we probably won't know until the last day of session or the next the last day I will let Matt know when I see what's in and what's out and see what I can do about getting some pieces put in but since the Senate is very dysfunctional right now I mean just point blank we are very dysfunctional right now entire State government's dysfunctional well if you think the state's dysfunctional come the Senate is even worse right now that's kind of driving some of the dysfunction sure um the we talked there was mention of a bonding Bill yesterday the governor and all four legislative leaders had breakfast yesterday yeah it was yesterday morning they had breakfast uh Wednesday morning and they uh we made a an offer to the governor over breakfast on bonding of approximately half a billion dollar it's a $500 million total package the governor's response back was we want 900 they had an oddball number it's like $986 million or $968 million and we'll decide all the projects that go in in the Republicans get no input so it's not a bipartisan Bill we'll just decide everything that goes in which is not really the way that bonding is supposed to work it's supposed to work be what are the needs of the state to borrow money against right I mean we're going to be paying for these projects for 20 years so what are the most important projects and I've always contended that if we're going to borrow money it should be for sewer water roads and bridges the core functions of government those are the only things we should borrow for and everything else if you want an ice rink that should be on the citizens of the local community to build an ice rink if you want uh a skateboard park a cultural center those should be on the communities that request these things not on the taxpayers of everybody in the state so to short answer to your question is nobody has a clue what's in there yet but I as soon as I find out something I will you know Matt and I text when whenever we have a question back and forth and we have a good communication there there's no problem with that we're we're quick with each other responding so soon as I find something I'll get with Matt and he can make sure you guys know it sounds to me as a long time Observer and I understand why Governors are very Lo to call special sessions because then they lose for those that don't understand then they lose control of what's it almost looks to me like a special session is g to have to be called I'm not going to disagree with that it looks that way but then the flip side is that if Senator Mitchell resigns or is prosecuted for any reason and or pleads out how do you manage a 3333 tie in the Senate so they're going to want to do as much as possible ahead of time because if if anything happens where Mitchell actually loses her seat or Kelly Morrison they're asking G to ask her to retire at some point because she's running for a congressional seat at some point they're going to ask somebody to one of those two to retire or resign I should say not retire but resign from the state senate and at that point there's a tie in the Senate and the governor loses if you thought he lost control in special he'll totally lose control at that point so I know they want to get as much done as they can before uh the end of session because like you said they will lose control and they will lose more and more control over what is what they can negotiate away from Republicans so I know their starting position last uh last year when we started when we did the bonding bill it was um we negotiated back and forth pretty much all the way through session I mean it' be a hit and miss uh we'd negotiate one day and then it might be two weeks again before bonding projects came up and then we'd make a counter offer and back and forth like that but nothing serious happened until the last week of session and that bonding is always the tail end piece that's always the last piece out of the legislature so it's not unusual to be starting negotiations now I think a little behind on where we were because usually we agree or get a general agreement on an overall number and we're not even close on that yet but then what are the you have a rough idea what the total dollar amount is that have that has been requested it's over four billion wow there's been over four billion in dollars in requests for bonding put in this year and if we go at the 500 what is that like 12 and a half% or something above requested projects so as I understand it from Matt not being one of the people who's hip on the process so I I've asked Matt about it it's good to get in the queue even if you don't get it because then when you're the second time or third time it's kind of like you you become more and more worthy of it yes so it's good to get the process started but the key thing being to leverage local Resources with getting back basically some of the taxes that we pay to the state that's I felt you know having watch things a littleit I thought the chances were very slim the first time you asked yeah it has to be an over and above uh kind of project uh to get it on the first time around those are pretty rare but yes we we got it in it is it was heard in the house um I don't know if we've even heard any capital investment bills in this in the uh Senate this year I don't know of anybody who's actually had one herd will probably take the house bill and adjust some projects off of that because they did hear many many projects over there so we can adjust off of theirs we'll just use their bill and basically just do the the the negotiation of which here's our dollar limit and then they'll split it up who gets what kind of thing it's usually like uh TR they try and split like a Metro outstate Republican Democrat you know they try and split it up so everybody gets a little little piece of fonding or a project that they can they can say we got something done they try and benefit the whole state we'll see what happens in the final negotiations because like I said the first one was we'll get we want 900900 plus million dollars and we want to say what all the projects are well that's an opening bid that's not what's going to be the final Bill thank you yes sir sounds you got an interesting eight days ahead of you I have a very interesting eight days in front of me because I was on the ethics complaint with Senator Mitchell so I'll be front and center in the uh uh Ethics Committee on Tuesday so we're thinking Tuesday is probably not going to be a floor day for us because there's too many of us and the president of the Senate is one of members of the Ethics Committee so um yeah it's it's probably going to be a zero that would be one of our off days one of our four then we probably do four or three the next that week and try and save some for the last week but we will run out of days so does anybody else have any questions things I might be able to answer so Senator just a quick question can you um kind of identify how many republican votes are needed to pass a bonding Bill 41 well total of 41 so 33 Republicans so we need eight eight Republicans have to buy off on that so that's our leverage to make sure we at least some of us get some projects in there and then just as a sidebar on the if anybody wanted to expel Senator Mitchell for any reason it does take a two two-thirds vote of the Senate so 45 of the 6 seven of us would have to actually agree with that and depending on exactly what happens with the court case that is possible that that would happen there's there's a lot of angst amongst her own members um with what she has put them through this last couple of weeks so anything is possible at that point we we all know how fast the court works that ain't going to be in eight days no that won't be in eight days because her next hearing is until 10 June but depending on exactly what comes out the court case I mean I've heard a lot of rumors plus minus things are retracted whatnot um it's going to be the 10th of June is an omnibus hearing so it'll be more than one thing done at that hearing so it would be kind of interesting it will be very eye openening to see what happens at that point I think we'll get a lot more clarity of how things proceed after that when that hearing is done yeah Ju Just for clarity this is senile 5309 we do have a request in with the um with Emmer's office for a um E mark for a water tower that's in the northern portion of of the city but this particular 5309 project is a Clean Water Project has a water tower in it but a treatment facility as well because it's located in close proximity to the decommissioned landfill so there's um some not so good things found in water there right there's a lot of PCA money that's been moving around on that I know and over's gotten some a lot of money out of the PCA because they have a closed landfill that's infiltrated a lot of well water down there so those Wells have to be closed and the city well the state is actually paid to truck in 5 gallon jugs of fresh water because you can't drink it you can't cook with it they don't they request that you don't use it for bathing you can but it's not not uh recommended to use for bathing so they've got whole communities down there that they need to get on city sewer and water or city water anyway and those are those kind that's the kind of PFA money and a lot of that is just you don't complain about that those are the kind of projects everybody wants to see done so um woodberry's got some stuff around 3M and and Lake Elmo out there and over has some I think we've got some up here anything that's near a closed landfill these days seems to uh qualify for those we have problems with the well water so it needs to be water filtration systems City water so that you actually have something clean that you can drink and shower in and different things like that so those are kind of at the top of the list what we want done and most I have not seen anybody complain about that thank you for your support on that sure anything else thank you K thank you thank you okay do we have a sign up sheet there for folks to sign up on who want to I do not believe we have one no but I'm not sure if okay well uh we'll just I'll take people in order they want to come up we're in the citizen input general public input portion of it if you can come up and state your name and address you do need to be a current resident of East bethl uh I'll invite Folks up speakers are limited to three minutes to present their comments or questions if there are multiple residents who want to speak to the same topic they should choose a spokesperson to speak for them and uh at its choice the city council May simply Lim Listen to listen to the comments or may engage in dialogue with residents just that's kind of our ground R so and we can thank thank Mr Aaron Berg right there who's our community development director who sits on the city council of the city of Cambridge and that's what they use so we we borrowed their rules thanks Aaron so if anybody wants to come up and ask questions make comments please feel free to do so me again Kevin I was disappointed in um watching the meeting at the end of uh March where you said that if uh I'm going to paraph paraphrase it if you if you felt like you were getting too much harassment too much heat uh is that a fair just is that a fair paraphrasing of what you said you were going to cut this you were going to cut the microphone off here you're going to cut the session short I would said I would close the meeting but uh I I uh last fall was my first town hall meeting okay i' I've been at one last spring but I didn't lead it you know and uh so I I don't think I handled it particularly well um but uh yeah what we what we want to do and why we're having the rules of conduct is this to have some level of mutual respect instead of what I perceived is this being a coordinated attack last November's meeting I and I I if I had been experienced I am now I would have responded to it along that line at the time but I mean you could say I attacked you well I've always I I guess I've always tried to deal with you respectfully and I I didn't sense I didn't sense it so much in your comments I and there were others who have sense more of it but more to the point is I was you know I was kind of green to this and so you know cut me a little bit of slack if you would I was going to remind you about about the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and how it still applies in East bethl um in okay I mean you do know what the first amendment is obviously I do yes I do um I didn't think that I wouldn't have characterized that as a um organized group attack I think that the people that came up there and I knew a number of the people that spoke they were just speaking their own opinions and you had you had a had a tough job that night and I I I appreciate your comments and that's why we opened it now and you and I perceive it differently probably because we were in different positions in it you know I was up here and you were a member of the audience but uh anyway so we can perceive things differently that's that's fine contrary to the common ethos in the world nowadays we don't all have to agree on everything you know it doesn't mean anybody's wrong or anybody's right or anything we just have different perceptions of things that's all I'm surprised when you made the comment earlier that you've lived here for you said I think you said 26 years in 6 days it'll be 28 years okay um we have lived here for 46 years not that that means anything but I remember means you like living here you um I thought the the comp plan had to be amended every 10 years is what it was personally I would Advocate every five because of the degree of change occurring in East bethl in recent years people going people coming you know it's probably good to take the Pulse of the residence every five years after having been just in a personal opinion after having been involved as a council member or a pnz member or as citizen with with three different comprehensive plans I mean that's a lot of work and and frankly I thought that I thought at first that ten years seemed to be excessive with I mean once you actually get an A comp plan drawn up then it seems like it takes two years before it gets approved so okay it's yeah we usually take a one whole year just to get everything reviewed and opinions from residents and that's assuming that they don't see changes that they want you to to do it you know that you're not in violation okay well remember the three minute thing yeah yeah okay okay so thank you for your comments thank you for your time alen Holmes 2773 222nd I can't believe that this Council disrespected the Planning and Zoning planning zoning is here for a reason if you don't want to have planning zoning get rid of them h it's very disrespectful to have them go through all the motions and everything to do what they're supposed to do and then you just do 180 that is ridiculous all right well thank you for sharing your opinion my other thing is why wasn't the city administrator position posted I already addressed this last fall well and I've addressed it since uh and everything's working fine contrary apparently to everybody's expectation or their hopes whatever they wanted things are working just fine with Matt as our city administrator gets along with the staff staff get along with him City's Op City is operating efficiently so all the other commissions you're not going to post any uh vacancies then well I don't know why you would say that no we're going to post for you didn't post one here and that's probably the most position there is that's not a commission you said we not you said commission so yes we are going to post post for I'm not going to argue commission openers I could talk to the wall and get more information well thanks for your uh comments anybody else anybody on the city council or Matt or any of our staff have comments Mr Mayor and Cil I just want to thank our staff that is here this evening um and uh as you know they come in early in the morning and in these evenings they stay late so want to thank them I know Mike jerki is here Carrie Frost set up Nick schmidtz is here Aaron Berg of course as mentioned Nate Ashford uh Desiree Stanford's in the back and Derek Peters of course not our staff but works for us at the Sheriff's Department thank you for being here and um and uh it's a as you had mentioned it's a great staff to work with great team yeah uh that's been assembled and uh we're getting the work done on a day-to-day basis and and things are looking up so thank you yeah very good staff anybody else have any comments on the city council anybody else in the audience have comments or questions okay if not thanks for coming oh that was that wasn't intentional I didn't see you stand up drive I just had a question uh do we have any thoughts about any updating on our website I know that's been a topic of conversation last few years and and I thought of it as um Ham Lake had all their garage Sals and looking at their website going wow nice modern looking website so I just curious if we had any updates on ours yeah in fact I just talked to Matt about it with Matt about it the other day you want to give her the update sure thank you Mr Mayor and Council thanks for the question Karen yeah there's there's been some discussion on updating the website we are going into obviously an election year this fall and things are going to be very busy around here Carrie Frost who handles a lot of the administrative work here and will be the key person in in establishing changes to the website or information that um that a a web person might need is kind of has our hands full right now and requested maybe we wait till after the elections before we tackle that so out of respect to her and her sanity um I think we're going to hold off to the first part of the year and then start to evaluate there's wonderful website providers that are out there a lot of different examples uh and um and I think um you know I've been forwarding the mayor kind of some links of different cities that you know what do you think of this one what do you think of that one so I think we're kind of in the the front side of that but um uh we will certainly be investing a lot more time at the first of the year here to to get that uh undertaken so appreciate everyone's patience on that yeah yeah that is a priority for us too we agree I believe with the service that we use Civics plus that we do have a free upgrade available we do have a free update um and the belief is that it'll probably be very similar to what is currently on there just the way they operate and I think there's maybe more userfriendly platforms that are out there uh and uh and so that's going to be part of this this um conversation maybe is what's out there what do people like what might work better for the city of East bethl than just a Civics plus you know canned type of website which I I don't mean to speak ill of them but there are other website providers out there that seem to be a little more userfriendly so yeah I think some of the dated things on their events and such think Karen didn't you send me an email on that some of the things that were on the city website that were outdated from 2016 or yeah okay so we're on it okay do we want to have a I think I got out of order there do you want to have a motion to adjourn I'll make a motion to adjourn second motion made and seconded all in favor say I thanks for coming folks thanks to the staff for staying late thank you Senator bar