Okay. At this time, we'll bring the uh January 12th, 2026 uh city council work meeting the open. Uh I guess we're going to jump to number two first. Garbage haulers are here. Yeah, Mr. Mr. Mayor and Council, uh we had a um kind of a request come forward about uh garbage hauling and uh what other communities are doing and and I wanted to kind of start this discussion a little bit. Um I know that um there was some presentation of what Ham Lake has done. I know I've sent you now Ham Lakes's contract and um and then it came to mind that well I've I've got friends with ACE and I thought let's have them come in here and and kind of give us their uh perspective on this discussion and how it impacts cities and some of the laws that surround it and that sort of thing. And um and then as that generates questions we get gain a better understanding of what route we want to take on this. But uh we've got with us uh Mr. Dave Wiggins who works uh for ACE and been a good friend for many years. We also have Chris Deer Forest, former state rep uh who lobbies for ACE and other haulers and uh is heavily involved in this discussion right now. An NOA um city of Anoka is um on their second round I think of of this discussion. They took it to the voters. It was uh voted down and they they're bringing it back. And so these these two gentlemen are kneede in that discussion right now. And I and um and I think they can offer us some uh valuable insight into the pros and cons of of what cities get into when they when they want to talk about these uh different projects. But anyways, um I'd invite them to the podium if they'd like or one at a time which um however they want to do it and um go from there if that's all right. Mr. Mayor. >> Yep. [clears throat] Would you like us to offer some experience? Mayor, members of the council, again, I'm Chris Dila Forest with a solid waste. I've been involved with organized collection and these issues in the statute of chapter 115A.94 uh for for many many years. And my purpose here tonight isn't to come in and tell you that changing your garbage system is some sort of inherent evil. You know, ACE works in both types of systems. But I do have some perspectives on how it might get done, how it works best, if it's done at all, and some of the challenges and other issues that you might face in waiting into this. And I would say first of all at the outset, as I mentioned, there is a a statute, a law that governs all of this. It's very complex. And so you're going to need to follow that. Of course, there's a step-by-step process to negotiating a change to the waste hauling system with the existing haulers, etc. So, you're going to have to have your your city attorney or some other council heavily involved. I would advise to guide you through the process. That's the second point I would make is that it's a very involved process. Uh you may think it's pretty easy because most of us get great garbage service. You move the cart out to the end of the driveway once a week and garbage truck comes by and picks it up. But now you're talking about all those thousands of household contracts that you have that are individual with haulers now getting swept up into one city contract. And that's going to take under the best of circumstances a long time, a lot of staff hours and some money to do because you're talking about a complex legal document. staff is going to negotiate with haulers and you've got to negotiate all the many hundreds or thousands of details that you take for granted about when you as an individual citizen negotiate your garbage contract or more or less just sign up. You don't negotiate it with your hauler. And then you're going to of course have to have lawyers uh take a look at it and bless it. And on average it's about 25 to 35 maybe even 40 pages of dense legal contract. So at the outset, you're going to have those kind of complexities even under the best of circumstances. A second point I would make is that the cities where I've seen this process go well, no matter how it turns out, a lot of times cities look at this and decide it's not what they want to do, take your time. Be very inclusive. Talk to the haulers that you have. We're always available. Cities that I've seen do it well. Uh sometimes they survey the residents. they'll commission a survey and ask some questions about whether or not they want to do this. Um, other times they'll have town hall meetings and invite people in to talk about the issue and get the citizens involved because no matter no matter how you decide to do this, if you decide to move forward, it's going to be controversial. It really is. You might think that garbage hauling isn't all that controversial, but people tend to get uh to get really emotional about it. Uh especially the idea that they a lot of people Look, I want to choose my hauler. I can negotiate that. I can pick the price. And the best thing about that system, they would say, is that if I don't get good service, if I don't get a good price, well, then I am in the driver's seat to choose to hire another hauler if I wish. Whereas, if you move to the other system, of course, you're you're picking the hauler for the person. And so, they might get emotional because they like the hauler they have. Now, the city has picked a hauler for them, and it might be a different one. And if there's bad service, if the can doesn't get picked up, well, they're going to call you. Well, they're going to call Matt. And and so people tend to get a little bit upset about that. And that raises another issue for me. I have never seen a city that has moved to this type of system not have to hire additional FTE to deal with it. I've never seen that. Even the cities that enthusiastically embrace it and say, "It works super great. We love it." Ridgefield is an example. even folks in Richfield to say we had to hire extra FTE to deal with all these issues that we take care of right now in our customer service center. I would pause there maybe if anyone has a question or if David would like to say something >> and and in Richfield specifically that was in addition to the fact that the haulers do all the building city on the surface you would think don't do anything because we we were in Mounds View two year and a half ago and they had invited the gal from uh Richfield to come and talk and they said oh you know how much time do you spend you know we're not on adding any help or anything like so I spend 40 hours a week with hauling issues and then they then their next question well yeah but you do the billing and customer service. No, I don't do any of that. The haulers do all that and so there's always more to it than meets the eye from a staff standpoint. Um one thing I I've heard two things and I've read one thing up here on the thing where you use the [clears throat] word RFP and you mentioned Ham Lake. I'm actually AC's person that negotiates with Ham Lake and we actually have that contract is sitting with their legal review right now for renewal. Uh and obviously I wasn't here uh back in 1990 when that consortium was created but looking [clears throat] at the file um you know back then there was three or four or more haulers in Ham Lake whenever in that time frame I think it's about when the state passed the burning ban. So uh cities had to figure out we got to have manage have garbage service for in our city one way or another and you know cities are tasked with assuring that that's happening whether it be through the current system you have or some other means. Well, Ham Lake at that point decided we want to have an organized system and so they got with all of the haulers and that group of haulers created a a consortium actually a company called the Hamlay Hollers. And so then that group essentially the portion of that company Hamlay Callers that each one of them owned was their percentage of the city that they picked up. And so the city got divided up in zones and one neighborhood got this hauler that another one got that. So the city assigned a hauler like Chris is pointing out. Through time some of all those haulers retired, passed away and different things and their families sold their businesses either to ACE or Waste Management and today they're just two haulers, us and them, and we split the city. So, I I know a lot of people think that was just a bid that the two companies went together and done at some point, but that's not the case. It comes from creating that consortium, which is part of that 115A statute that Chris is talking about. Uh, but there's a lot goes into all this and he and I have fortunately or unfortunately worked together on this for the last almost 12 years. So we can potentially answer answer a lot of questions. Uh like Chris said, it's a becomes a controversial and passionate issue for people. I shared a picture with Matt of the city council meeting at Anoka the other night and it had an overflow crowd into the next room. Uh pretty vocal group. So, we're happy to answer any questions you might have. >> Mr. Mayor, I just wanted to touch on this as well. I um I know that I think there were some numbers shared as to what Ham Lake was paying. I think it's $17 range or something like that a can. And people are kind of then thinking, well, I pay X amount more, whatever the case is. Um, I checked with their finance, human resource director and their city administrator. Every city gets um what's called score money from the county. Um, we utilize our score dollars in our recycling facility here. [clears throat] Uh, I think almost exclusively there. And in um in Ham Lake, they take their score dollars and they use it to subsidize the recycling cost for the residents on the pickup. So the haulers that would normally charge that as part of their monthly pickup, uh you know, they're being paid by the score dollars in lie of the residents um you know, picking up that tab. And then if Ham Lake has a recycling center, I'm assuming they do, um that would have to come out of their budget or general levy to offset those costs. So it's um I I sometimes when we hear about how come they're getting it for less or whatever the case is, sometimes it's kind of like a shell game of dollars, you know, it's like what's the color what's the color of money? Uh because as as was explained to me, the cost is the cost is the cost. um what the resident pays is somewhat unrelated because it could be subsidized by the city. Um and uh and as is the case in Ham Lake, but um I think I pay 25 or something like that in in Ramsey and uh and I get both services. And so if you deduct $7 off, that's probably similar to what Ham Lake would be paying uh if they weren't being subsidized with the score dollars. So you can use your score dollars for that. Uh but again, I think we run a pretty successful recycling center drop off. You got to pay for the people to come and pick up, you know, um I whatever uh uh electronics that get dropped off or recycle the oil or or you know, pick up plastics and things like that. And there's a cost to that. I know we we give some of those dollars to the Boy Scouts. I think they come through and and and do a lot of that work as well. So, um might be Lions groups, one of the two. But um at any rate, wanted to mention that. And um so it's not always what you're paying. It's kind [snorts and clears throat] of behind the scenes some of the dollars that are being subsidized on that. So >> Matt, that's right. There are a couple of things to bear in mind. I would start with just the simple human observation. We all know that there's no such thing as a free lunch. You know, the competitive marketplace does a pretty good job when haulers or gas stations or grocery stores are competing against one another for people's business. And I know it gets tempting to look some other cities and say, "Well, wait a minute. Look at the price that they get." But as Matt noted, there are a lot of factors that go into it. The the price that you see at the headline maybe not be the real price. And especially when these cities, you know, have the organized collection system under the statute. You know, for example, what I find in general, a couple things to bear in mind is one, a lot of the costs that haulers bear 100% of get taken on by the city and sort of get spent out of the general fund. And so there might be a headline garbage price that looks like X, but it's still pretty much probably Y because there are a lot of functions that are paid for out of the general fund that citizens just don't see. So the headline looks really attractive. Another way in which organized collection cities and and the haulers who service them, you know, in a way the the price gets bought down, for example, is they make everybody have service. You know, right now, I'm sure East Bethl is like a lot of cities where you have citizens who don't pay for garbage service. and and that's okay because they're sharing a can with their neighbor, for example. Or they're senior citizens and their daughter comes by every Sunday to have dinner and then she takes the the garbage with her on the way out and puts it in her can. Or you've got folks who have the ability to just throw their trash in the dumpster at work. You know, they may have a rental property they own and they throw the garbage in there. They're not going to pay for garbage service twice. So, there are a lot of things that go in there. Even uh I had a mayor ask me, and I I don't want to use a lot of names if it's negative. Well, why can't I have the price that my daughter has up in Elk River? Well, the Elk River landfill is a stones throw from her house. The transportation costs are really low. And this mayor was in the sort of the near north metro about 25 miles away from the landfill. Well, we've got transportation costs. So, it can be tempting to look at those headlines and and look at a price and say, "Well, why can't we get that?" Well, there's a lot that goes into it and you have to dig in and have your staff understandable. Is that really the price that people are paying? >> In many cases, [clears throat] cities that have had a system in place for a long time, frankly, if you call and ask them what how much time do you spend, you know, they they've just kind of just become part of their jobs. And there maybe half a dozen people in some of those offices that answer questions and do things that are just kind of built into their tasks that get paid for out of their general fund, but they don't really realize that's a cost that if they weren't doing didn't have that system, they wouldn't be incurring. So it becomes hard to say here's the exact cost that that city incurs at out of here this bucket or that bucket because quite frankly they don't even know I don't know either completely but we know there's a little bit of that that's call it undefinable so to speak and like I say this becomes a very passionate [clears throat] issue when it comes up I >> I got a question is what kind of weight are those garbage trucks. >> Our trucks typically if they're the when I this came up in a nota last time around and I went and checked the weights of our trucks that dump at our transfer station and our side loaders that are dumping are around 60,000 pounds. They all have we run on the rears we run three what's called 315 tires. So they're as wide as we can put with DS and we run three axles in the back on the vast m all of our garbage trucks and our recycle trucks they tend to be a whole lot lighter just because you can imagine they're hauling plastic bottles and sort of stuff. So a lot of them only have two axles on the back but then in the front we run the 425s or 485s. So they're as wide as you can stuff under it. And out through all this in an NOA, I actually did a study. Uh I met with our tire vendor. We he and I measured a bunch of tires and so forth. And and I can't remember the exact pounds per square inch. But a fully loaded garbage truck puts less weight on the road on a per square inch basis than a school bus. >> So a school bus runs a little narrow tire and >> and that you know the I I used I think it was 75 pounds per kid. >> You know, if you loaded it up with a football team, obviously weigh more, but if it's full of kindergarteners, it would be less. So >> that was that was my next question because I was thinking on my street alone, I mean, a school bus goes by, I think there's a couple of them, so it's four times at least a day. >> There's three different routes runs on my street. It's like And I'm in St. Francis District. >> Yeah. Because I think that's kind of one of the reasons this brought brought up by a resident because his road was being destroyed. >> But that's I was trying to figure out too, garbage truck versus school buses. School buses are good size, too. And they're going there a lot more than sometimes garbage trucks. >> One one that has drawn my attention and I don't know what it weighs. So, is these new Amazon battery powered vans, those things, they got four tires that are this wide. They gota have a huge battery because they're running way out here. U I don't know what those things weigh to our roads and just the other day on my street there's two of them at the same time and it's like can't you you know can't you can't you guys just do what you can? They only come once but >> right >> and everybody sees it but that one's one that's got my eye. I'm a load guy and so I That one's got to be one of the heaviest vehicles on the road as far as what we're >> Oh, yeah. I agree. Yeah. >> All the batteries and stuff like that in there. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. And I would also add that's what interesting what's interesting if you change the the garbage system and some people say, well, a benefit of this is is we would have fewer trucks on the road. You still have the same amount of garbage to get hauled out of East Bethl every week. So those trucks are actually going to be heavier. A lot of times our trucks coming through East Bethl, they've got a part of East Bethl, they'll move to Ham Lake, they'll move to some other city, right, and pick up. Whereas if you have trucks that are dedicated to picking up East Bethl, they're likely going to be a heck of a lot heavier on your roads. But even having said that, you know, we've researched this issue. We've even commissioned an independent study on this issue. And it's not real surprising that the engineers have concluded that, you know, really the culprit in beating up our roads is the thing we can't control. And that's mother nature. That our harsh climate, the freeze, thaw cycle, that's really the enemy of our roads here. And unfortunately, there's just not a whole lot we can do about it. And you know, I certainly understand, you know, your road budget, like any other city. I mean, it's an expense for you and you have an obligation to to look out for it. But I just in my all my years of experience, I've I've looked at this issue more than I've ever wanted to. And I have never seen a city transition to a new system. And then I've looked at the road budgets after. They haven't really saved any money. The road expenses have all gone up and there's no way I you can discern it because that's one of the things some city councils will say, right, is hey, we're we're going to save on the roads. But then citizen the road budgets don't change, but then the citizens also ask that question like, well, how much and how much of a property tax benefit am I going to see? And and it always ends up not turning out that way. You know, St. Paul's another example. Uh St. Paul's garbage bills and their road budget have never been higher. And they went from like a consortium system down to a monopoly with one hauler. And it's sort of like they exchanged no financial benefit for customer service complaints. I mean, there's been news articles about how bad St. Paul is so I've just never seen a road savings in 23 years. >> It's true. >> So I got two questions. Um if you have the information and uh to answer them. Um first with the cities that have uh developed a one or two uh garbage supplier that they went down this route and not considering supplementing it with any city funds. Do they actually see cost savings in in their monthly bill for that service? And uh the second one would be uh you mentioned having put together a big 40page contract and the city taking on more responsibility. Uh if in your experience would you be able to put on how much that actually costs the city to put a program together? Well, we we what we what we've seen on the the first question was some people will pay less, some will pay more, some will pay about the same. And historically, that's because uh you know there's here in your city, you've got four haulers. I think you got your website says you have five, but you actually have four. >> SRC was sold to Waste Management about a year and a half ago. So, They still have two licenses, but it's one company. Um, and then, you know, they're ran that your area is picked up out of Cambridge is where they're picked up out of the uh waste management yard there. Um, as to the second one, uh, we we know that the city of Anoka said that the piece that they would do would they would add they're and they're guessing at it that now they're going to add $2 per home to the rate themselves to for their piece of it. But every city's going to have a different number. And believe me, I've never worked for government and I don't understand how all that works, but uh that's what they said. So, >> so really on the first question, it's kind of a horse of peace that there you might see cost savings, but you might not. And the second part, I mean, what would it cost 10,000, 50,000 to put a program together and expenses towards it? You know, is do do you know of a ballpark that it takes? >> Yeah. And it and so I understand your question, council member, is that you're talking about that initial cost like what would it cost to just go through this process? the the initial cost and if there's if the after the initial cost are there now new ongoing costs >> as to the initial cost there will definitely be initial costs and there might be costs you track or not like your your folks on city staff who do all this work they're obviously going to put a lot of hours into this and you can probably track that in some way where you're not actually writing an extra check of course you already budget for salary and benefits and things like that but a lot of times Sometimes you this gets so complex, cities need to bring in outside legal counsel and pay them how muchever they charge an hour. Like I know that uh on legal fees alone, the last time we went through this with the NOA, the city said it was about $40,000 in legal fees. Um Council Member Weaver will tell you that other expenses he thinks put it up over $100,000 to go through the process. And so we certainly see that if cities go through this, a couple of things if they decide to start the process. The cities that do it right have engaged their citizens to find out if there is an appetite to do this in the first place. But then they go through that process of making it a priority for the for the city and therefore a budget you know for for cities. There are some cities that sort of jump into it pal and that really starts to cause a lot of problems and frankly it isn't in noa right now because it wasn't identified as a city priority and there's no city budget for it and so again council member Weaver is one who said what are we doing we know this is going to cost us money it did the last time around and there's no budget for it and then to to answer your second question council member it really depends upon how [snorts] much the city wants to own in those ongoing costs some cities take a very involved involved approach. They even own the garbage cans. They buy the garbage cans. They service them. They do the billing. Uh but at some level, if East Bethl were to change its waste hauling system, your city would your staff would be taking on some level of more responsibility because obviously you wouldn't change a system if you weren't going to have the city take more on and control more. You just leave the current system in place. >> Okay. >> One thing too, back to your first comment on price, honestly, you know, you have four haulers and residents that, you know, like Chris said a little bit ago, you know, if you don't like what you're getting from one hauler, pick up the phone and call another and be a smart shopper, quite frankly. Um, we encourage that and uh that's how you end up as a as a consumer get what you there was one uh one of the council members on in an NOA the other night was talking about what she paid and uh I have no idea what hauler she has or anything like that but she said you know if anybody you know I think I'm getting a great rate and you know and here's what I think our rate ought to be and then two people in the audience Well, I'm getting a better rate than that already. And then she's like, "Well, we need to talk." I don't know if they talked or not, but you know, that's in the public forum the other night that honestly that's people that if they don't like what they're getting from me or whoever, that's the beauty of the system you have in place now. They can fire me today. >> [snorts] >> I was quoted in the Star Tribune Sunday if that ACE we want to earn people's business at the end of the every week by doing a good job and in a government sit somebody you guys tell me what neighborhood I'm going to pick up in. And so then those consumers if they don't like me they can't get rid of me. They're stuck with me because you said so. >> That's right. I I would also if I could just one other thing too is I think sometimes the debate becomes all about price and and that's not what goes into picking a waste hauler or any other service right for people shop on things besides price you know they may like their hauler they may have long experience with their hauler they may want to go with the local business we have plenty of residents who go with ACE or some of their hauler because they like the driver I mean they they know the driver I use the example I'm a veteran and so I get my insurance through USAA. I could probably get a cheaper rate somewhere else, but I don't care because I want to do business with a veteran service organization. So, I might pay a little bit more. I don't even call and ask because I don't care. So, if government proposed to come to me and say, "We're going to pick your insurance company for you and it's probably not going to be USAA." I'd get pretty peeved about that because because price isn't paramount for me, right? I don't want to get ripped off, of course, but the price I pay, I look at my bill, you know, quarterly for my car insurance and I say, "Yeah, it works for me. might not work for my neighbor, but that's the beauty of the system. It doesn't matter. If it works for me and it works for USAA, we're good. >> So, um, for reasoning, we're kind of looking into this because we have four or five haulers and the the damage potential damage to the road, etc. Um and you explained how it came to be in Ham Lake when cities typically go into a limited hauler contract bidding system exact etc. What is their reasoning for wanting to do that? Is it similar to ours or is there other unique circumstances that actually make them go into a one or two hauler system? >> There there are generally about three reasons why cities say they want to look at the issue or actually change and one is one we've already discussed. There's a belief that there will be a savings on on the road budget. Uh, another argument is that uh we've got too many garbage trucks. They're big. They're dangerous. Uh, we usually pull them the traffic records, accident reports, make a data practices act request, you know, traffic citations, and we always find out that accidents involving garbage trucks or speeding tickets or moving violations are exceptionally rare. And I hate to say this, but the other thing we find out that we don't really publicize is that city vehicles are involved in a lot more incidents than than what our garbage trucks are in another city I won't mention. You know, we found a report that uh one of their employees got out of a brand new utility vehicle and didn't set the parking brake on a hill. And you know what happened to that? The third argument that that we see is the the belief that government can negotiate a better price than the citizens can. that that will negotiate a better price and that's better than what citizens uh can get on their own. So those are really the three arguments and if I could I'd throw something else in there. I mean certainly we've talked to cities who have said look we don't think us taking on garbage hauling is good for us. By the same token we think perhaps maybe we have too many trucks or there things we can do with the system. And I would just throw out there a couple of things that we have done in the past is of course we say very diplomatically well you license all the haulers. I mean we we don't you have one city moderate moderate size suburb had 10 licensed haulers. I was like you're way out of market. I don't know if you need 10 haulers. U so we've encouraged them first of all take a look at your licensing fees. Take a look at some of the requirements you have for insurance and things like that. uh you you might find out I don't know Matt it's your case here but a lot of cities will say geez we haven't looked at our licensing requirements in 20 years and so you know that's one way you can have higher standards and ensure that the haulers that are coming into your city are professionals got the requisite insurance and you know they can pay more than a $50 licensing fee. We welcome those kind of things because we find that the corner cutters in our industry are the ones that cause most of the problems and cause city councils to call us and say, "Look, we're we're kind of ticked off." Another thing that we have done in the past is, you know, cities have limited the number of licenses they offer in a city. They may say, "Hey, a city of our size, you know, we've done some research and it looks like about five, I'll throw that out there as an example, is the right number, you know, and so we're going to limit the number of licenses at that." So my point council member is that there are certainly a lot of steps in between [clears throat] on the one hand having the current system or going all the way to saying we're going to take over the garbage system. >> We found one one city that was actually down in the city in a immediate suburbs out of Minneapolis. Their insurance requirements for a garbage truck was less than I had on my car. I was like I was shocked. I said, you know, you need to add some zeros to that number. And a number of things like that. Um, you know, in in the there there's some of those cities that also put and that was also one of them that put a limit on licenses. And what they the way they did it is, you know, let's I think they said we're going to get down to three or four haulers before we will allow issue another license. So, you know, just like in your city, you got five right now, but in reality, you got four because one was just bought out and over time garbage cage businesses just like in Ham Lake, they had several. And to tell you the truth, I don't I can't tell in the documents how many they had, but they had four or five back when they started and now they got two. Uh, so over time, that number goes down as long as you guys don't say, "Oh, yeah, we want we're going to give you another another license and Fred showed up with a pickup truck. We'll give him one. And that's how this thing snowballs into your concerns. That's something we might want to look at then [clears throat] review. >> Remind the folks again of the website that they can go to because solution runs. >> Bo. >> Yeah. Yeah. Hollersforchoice.com really has some good information on there that [clears throat] you can if you wish to to learn more about uh learn more about the issue. But certainly council members said there there's a lot of steps that can be taken in between to try and address concerns and avoid the expense and the complexities and the hassle and frankly the long-term ownership o of this issue. You know another thing and Dave I don't know if East Bethl has it here but but you know day zone collection is another thing that >> I don't think I don't think you do. So, for example, you know, you could get, you know, folks call up and rightfully say, "Hey, I'm a little bit irritated that on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I've got garbage pickup on my street." And we've worked with cities to have day zone collection, for example, to say in this quadrant of the city, Monday's the pickup day. In this quadrant, it's Tuesday, Wednesday here, and Thursday here. So, at least citizens can know in my neighborhood, Monday is the pickup day. No matter who we have for a hauler, the trucks will come in on Monday and take the garbage out. And then the other six days a week we're not going to have garbage trucks. >> The way and one of the ways to accomplish that and whatever other a lot of your the issues you may as you think about it as you realize you have you know have a meeting you know have staff have a meeting with the haulers have them come in and talk about those issues and as a group the hauling communities really work can work together with you to help solve many of your questions and concerns. You know, if you got some specific roads that are maybe your gravel roads and especially in the spring whenever weight's an issue, you know, to have a specific roads that you have a concern about, work with those haulers say, "We want you to pick those road those h those roads up first early in your route, not last in your route, so they'll be the lightest you can be." And you know, I know most of the haulers you have in that pick up in your city, either the owners or their managers or whatever. And virtually all of them are reasonable people, more than happy to work through issues that can solve a lot of them. And and no, nobody's got you won't have a line of people complaining about because all they'll see is a benefit versus any of the controversial stuff that you can run into with this. And I think that's a big concern of our residents as we put in these new roads in specific areas. These aren't straight roads. These are curved roads. >> I've driven on some of them. I live on the other side of 65 in Oak Grove, so I'm right. >> I'm nearby. >> And uh and that's the concern. We want to keep them new. >> You know, that's the goal here along with road maintenance and so forth. Is there anything else you can suggest other than that morning pickup, which makes a lot of sense that would help keep these roads >> looking better, looking new? >> One benefit you have versus cities that are closer to Elk River to the dump. >> You're the far you're the kind of for most of these routes, you're the farthest away from the dump. And so if they're going to go from your city to another city, odds are they're starting here first already. So geographically, you get some benefit. You're alone. You know, the nearest either transfer stations or landfills. Our transfer stations in Ramsey, the landfills in Elk River. Um there's transfer stations in Blaine and that's it. So you're you're not right next door to where it's beneficial for the truck to, you know, end its route here fully loaded. So you you get some benefit geographically that, you know, Ramsay doesn't get because they're right on top of our transfer station, for example. >> [snorts] >> Well, I know we talked about the roads a lot and everything and it's kind of twofold. I think part of this was to see if we could get some rates down to, you know, I know like in my area I have all the haulers five days a week. >> Mhm. >> And the rates are unreal between it between you all. >> So, >> there's quite a difference. >> Pick up the phone. [laughter] I know that's my problem, but I mean I can't believe the rates are that far apart on some of them. >> They I have no idea what different people's rates are, but >> Well, I've been with you guys forever and you're at the high point. [laughter] >> I I would encourage you to call our office then do it for me, too. >> Yep. Certainly. That's absolutely right. goes back kind of to my point where your neighbor might be okay paying that price that they're that they're paying, right? Um, you know, when I check into a hotel, the person next to me may be paying a lot less than I did, but I made the reservation and it worked uh it worked for me. But I can't emphasize that enough that we really, really encourage customers to be smart shoppers. You know, if you don't think that you're getting the right price or the right service, please call >> call us. And no matter whether it's us or your your whoever your hauler is, call them. They typically there's things you can do to work through it. >> Call and demand it. And of course, you again under this system got that choice. Feel like you're not getting that cost and that service level, you're free to to hire one and and fire the next. That was a point that was made by a lot of the residents in Anoka when they came when they finally demanded to be heard at the city council meeting and uh and they said you know hey look once we go to this system there's no going back may look like a great rate today what are the rates going to look like like in St. fall five years from now, what do we do? Because it's it's really really hard to transition back. It's not like a light switch. Even if the city council came back and said, "Man, we made a mistake." It is really really hard to sort of unwind that. I mean, you really are committing to I wouldn't say permanent, but really a long-term change in everything that comes with it. Well, one thing that a point that got brought up in an ochre the other night was, you know, today you're saying your admin fee is going to be $2 a month, but what happened and you raised our tax levy. It was, I don't remember, 9 something%. So, call it close to 10. What's to keep some future council from saying, you know, we don't want to raise taxes by 9% this year. We want to keep it flat, but we're going to raise the garbage admin bill to 20 bucks >> or you know it becomes a like it's never going to I've never seen it change back once it goes to a organized system and what can what would future [clears throat] councils how would they handle that? I don't know. And but at the end of the day, you're the ones going to have your name on it. And so just make sure you work through this. We're here to more than happy to answer questions. Uh Matt has both our cell phones. Uh and we're more than happy to answer any question if you you know I go to bed about 9:00 and I'm up by 5:30 or 6. So anytime in between those two, you can call me. [laughter] >> Yeah, we're happy to participate in any kind of meeting at any time. >> Absolutely. >> But if you just got a question, call me. So this is what I do. I have a little quick question. So, a lot of the garbage companies I know have like fines if they put the wrong thing in the wrong bin or something like that. How does that work on a a monopoly situation like this? >> That'll all go into that contract as to how that's handled. Typically, right, I I in most cases, at least from what I'm familiar with, is with recycling, >> right? If people put contaminants in the recycling, you know, plastic plastic bags in the recycling is the absolute worst thing you or any of your neighbors can do. So, if you see your neighbor putting bagging their recycling, and I got a couple I've had to tell a dozen times and they still don't get it. either, you know, we that load's going to get fined when we take it to dump and that's that fine from the processing plant being passed on and at some point if there's enough bags in there that load will have to go to the landfill because the recycling center will reject the load. So then there's really a big cost to it. So it's that's the reason for that. >> I understand the reason it's recycling and uh that'd be something that would it become consistent and because it' be whatever the agreement said. But um then there won't be any oh this hauler does that or that does that. They'll all do the same thing and u there'll be something in there >> and it has to get negotiated. Again, that's one of those reasons why the lawyers get involved is suddenly it's well, what is the system going to look like and are there appeal rights and are there warnings and and pretty soon you've got pages and pages of documentation in the contract about how how this is going to be handled and that is really, you know, a lesson for every everything you take for granted. Now suddenly everything has to be spelled out and there has to be a process listed in the contract about how things happen and it gets in my view unduly formalistic and you know look when you invite lawyers to get involved in stuff it tends to get that way but really stuff that you and I would look at and say that's common sense or it just gets handled with the hauler and the resident the resident doesn't like it they're going to they're going to get rid of the hauler. Well now it's all spelled out in the contract and everybody rushes to the contract anytime there's a problem all the way I mean Lots of issues I could talk about and it won't take any more time, but what happens when it snows, right? What happens uh if somebody's can doesn't get picked up within six hours or a day and that's why you get a 38 page contract. >> So, it's kind of sounding like we should look at making small changes rather than making a large change and leaping into this. >> That'd be our recommendation. >> And we're happy to help all that. I'm sure the other haulers would be as well. Like I say, if you all take your time and create a list of the things that you are concerned about and and with the exception of price because that group of allers can't sit in the room with Matt and negotiate a deal because we can all go to jail for that. Other than that, uh, you know, the road issues or pickup whatever, uh, think about that list and we can sit down and work through that and potentially create in a simple manner create a whole lot of eliminate a whole lot of grief for folks. >> I'd say it's just like medical care, you know, you want to start with that. You want to start with as little as possible and have the lightest touch as possible. If you go and say, "Hey, I got a problem with my finger." The first thing is, "Why don't we cut it off and see if that doesn't help?" I know we're going to try something else, right? And [laughter] I and I think that's how I see it. I mean, that city taking over the garbage hauling contract, that's sort of the nuclear option, if you will, of dealing with garbage issues. And, you know, that's been our point is that there are a lot of options in between on that spectrum of sort of city involvement in the process. And we've just found that the lightest touch works for everybody. City doesn't really want to own these issues. if they can help it. And we've got experience, generations of experience dealing with those things. And again, with the system, I'll say it one last time, it's customer center. The customers at the center of this. They get to pick. They pick their service level. They get to negotiate their price. And they've got the ultimate control of picking another hauler if they don't like what they're getting. >> Okay. We don't want much. We want the best service, the best prices, >> make sure our roads are good. >> You don't want much. You want I get it. Yeah, >> we appreciate the information. >> You bet. >> No, thank we appreciate your time. We We really do appreciate you listening to us here tonight. >> Thank you. >> As I said, he's got our number. So, >> thanks for coming in. Thanks. >> So, moving forward, I think we really need a little more information. >> Okay. We can, Mr. Mayor, we can schedule another work session or talk through this. Um. >> Yep. >> Yep. Let's get a little more information. All right, move on to the first one there. Tax burden video. So, uh, Mr. Mayor and Council, we had a [sighs] both of these were kind of um discussions brought on by individuals coming to the podium and kind of raising issues and and um and it's good to have these discussions because there's sometimes understandings of the way things are and lack of understandings of why they they are the way they are. But at any rate, um I wanted to again this is maybe the first part of a of a longer conversation, but I wanted to kind of start off with a video that Anoka County had put together with regards to property taxes and kind of helping people understand how property taxes work in um in uh Anoka County particularly, but in the state of Minnesota as well. So I will start this and um I think we Yeah, it's four minutes, so we should have plenty of time. Have some questions afterwards. >> As long as governments have existed going back thousands of years, so have taxes. By definition, a tax is a charge or levy, money in this day and age, collected by the government from people or businesses for public use. Examples include the income tax, sales tax, and property tax. The money is used to pay for police protection, roads and bridges, human services, and more. In Minnesota, the property tax is collected on property owned by a person or business. Decisions made by government have a big impact on your property taxes, whether it be a decision made at the local, state, or federal level. The term local government refers to your city, county, school district, and any other entities that have been given taxing authority by law. If you take a look at your property tax notification or statement, you'll see that it lists a whole host of taxing authorities. The county sends these notices on behalf of those taxing authorities, including your city, school district, the state, and several others depending on where you live. and the type of property you own. Every year, each of those taxing authorities sets a budget for the upcoming year, and they determine how much property tax levy will be necessary to support that budget. A change in any of those city, county, or school district budgets and levies could impact your property taxes. To make it really simple, think of the property tax levy as a pie. Once the levy amount or size of the pie is established, it's time to determine how to divide it. The number of slices [music] represents the number of properties contributing to the pie. The size of each slice is determined by value. Bigger slices represent higher valued properties and vice versa. How can the size of your slice become smaller? First, your government can lower the levy amount collected from property owners, meaning the overall size of the pie gets smaller. Second, more properties could be built in the community, which helps ease the share for everyone. No doubt you've heard the phrase, many hands make light work. And third, the amount of money local governments receive from state and federal sources could increase, leaving the local government less dependent on the tax levy. But what about your property value? Where does that fit in? Your property value probably fluctuated a lot during the recent recession. Your property taxes can be affected by your property's value. The market value of your property is the likely selling price in the current market. That value is evaluated or assessed at least every 5 years by an assessor hired by your county or city. The assessor will determine if the property is valued similarly to comparable properties in the area. Your property taxes are also affected by the value of other properties, whether it's a home or business, existing or new. A significant increase [music] or decrease in another property's value can affect your property's value. As we said earlier, new construction can help lower property taxes by growing the tax base and thus diluting the tax responsibility. So, the amount of property taxes you pay can be influenced by both your property's value and the value of properties around you. Overall, the amount you pay in property taxes boils down to two things. a property's value, [music] whether it's yours or someone else's, or a decision made by your local, state, or federal government. Collectively, the money supports law enforcement, the roads we travel, where we learn, where we laugh, and where we live. Okay. Um so a lot of this you're probably already aware of um but we had a um gentleman come in and and kind of bringing up how do we was mentioned in their kind of the easing of the share or easing of the burden of taxes and they said why don't we have more businesses to kind of take that burden off of um the residents and that is true um more businesses would do that more residents would do that as well um as they indicated kind of diluting that that that um that burden or reducing the size of your budget. And so um I I think I think the the thing that kind of went unsaid uh during that public comment period was we're not chasing businesses out. Matter of fact, we're encouraging them to come in in that uh corridor along 65. And um and so as they come in, I you know, we've kind of talked a little bit about Highway 65 and some of the dollars that are being invested in the Blaine area there and kind of some of the development that'll probably be coming as a result of that. Um all that development will essentially help to write down the burden as it is today. Now, tomorrow, you know, as kind of indicated, the future councils might say, "No, we want a 20% increase in our levy to fund whatever." And uh and that's going to have an impact then on everybody. Um and uh and I think it's just uh you know it's a great conversation to have. You you want to the cost of government I I've always said is probably around I would say 6% annually. What does 6% cover? Well, your insuranceances go up, your cost of fuel goes up. uh plow truck today is um you know Nate might be able to correct me but probably around $400,000 or more. The fire trucks are you know a million dollars to two million depending on if you get a ladder truck costs keep going up and um and if you try and put a percentage on that I would say it's ballpark in the 6%. Well this council last year uh raised uh the levy by 3.7%. So if you look at that and you had a 6% increase, you've actually reduced um you know what would would have been a break even in terms of the cost of government. Um so that's that's kudos to you for uh your work in terms of keeping control of uh of uh the expenditures. Department heads have done a great job of doing that as well. Um and that's in effect reducing the size of that pie because the pie should have been 6% larger. was only 3.7% larger as of last year. So, um this is the kind of discussion I wanted to kind of have. Um there are communities out there that um get a lot more involved in TIFF or tax increment financing. They try and um get more businesses in by giving them land or by by writing down their development costs. It's um not something the city has done a terrible amount of. We have some tiff currently right now. the the apartment complex and others um have been tiffed. I think we have three tiffs that are that are running right now. Generally, they're a 25-y year tiff. Uh but there are cities that um that have a lot more tiff because they're trying to bring in that development. Now, the question is is do the taxes they pay offset the the um you know the benefit that you're giving them? And that's the that's the equation that has to be run if it's financially beneficial. You can look at jobs coming in and instead of people driving down to Eden Prairie, they're, you know, driving to their community to work. That's a benefit. Quality of life certainly, um, something you can take into account. But, um, at any rate, it's, um, I think a good discussion that, uh, we should have. I think the message needs to be that we are focusing on development in the corridor along