80 to 90% of the properties are usually fall in compliance once they receive their first or second letter. There's a couple that don't and I wanted to bring those up this evening and just um have a conversation about direction. Um I have uh Nick with me here this evening. I've asked him to attend as he's been kind of the front guy on um on the whole process. And when I mean the process, we we are a complaint based community. So when a complaint comes into the community, we follow up with that. We send out a first letter, second letter, third letter. Uh then we send out um fines and um some cases they're paid. Most often times they're not. uh if there isn't compliance then the current process is to bring it to the council and to see if you want to uh proceed with prosecution. Now what we've done in the past with prosecution is followed that all the way through. In some cases the individuals have chosen to uh opt for the jail time as opposed to cleaning up their properties and then and then the uh courts recognize that as being done and yet the pro the property remains the same. And so we've kind of started to move the discussion now into abatement, which is a civil procedure. And um and this is a uh an option whereby I'm going to call it the nuclear option whereby the city um contracts out with a service to come in, clean it up, store it, and um and uh and essentially bill it back to the property owner. And and that's again kind of the nuclear gloves off option. And so we're we have um three properties here this evening that uh is it four? We have four this evening. Uh three listed. There is um a fourth one that uh you've we've copied all this information. We had one council member, council member ask for copies of the of kind of what what's transpired thus far. Um, I had Nick kind of pull up uh not all the information, but the majority or the lion share of the information as it relates to the letters and the process that's been followed to date. You'll notice on each of these individual properties dating back to a long time. This has not been um a process that was started yesterday. This is a process that was started years ago. And uh and we've done our best to follow through on it. And and honestly, we're at a point now where it's um it really um I my my best uh recommendation is that uh you know a prosecution type of scenario doesn't yield the results that we want. But that's a decision you guys get to make in terms of policy. And uh and we haven't done the abatement as of yet. And so that was kind of the um desire for this work session item one this evening is just to discuss um abatement options. And then specifically as it relates to the Foss property uh in there that's one of the thicker ones I think uh you'll see some of the pictures in there of um um a gentleman kind of operating a car business out of there and storing vehicles, vehicles that are in need of repair and kind of working on them. We have neighbors that are kind of wondering what's going on and continue to call in and say, "What's being done with this property?" And um and in the past, honestly, he's, you know, he's tried to clean up. He's uh he's paid fines, but unfortunately, it just kind of reverts back to um the reason why we contact him in the first place. So, um this one, the the Foss property might be one that would be a candidate for prosecution. uh as sometimes, you know, when when the letter head from an attorney comes through, people take that a little more seriously at that point. So, that might work for Mr. Foss. I'm not sure. Um as it relates to the other properties, we've reached out to them numerous times. Uh the Dwit property, for example, is um continuously delayed in the courts and uh and they've and uh I'm not sure if they've chosen jail time yet or not. >> Um court. >> So, that has been probably one of our longer Setter Home and Dit [clears throat] have been one of our longer uh running properties, [snorts] but it really boils down to and I'll I kind of I've mentioned this before. Um as as staff, we we don't get to make the rules. Um we get to enforce the rules that you folks make. And uh and so we are here to ask for direction in terms of where you want us to take this next. Um if we don't enforce um on our on what we have on the books, we really it's brought into question what what else is on the books that we can and may not enforce on. And I don't know that that's uh necessarily the right message to send. I I think if if um if there's a dislike to what's currently on the books, we can change that. Um you folks can change that. That's not a problem. Uh but what is currently on the books, we have we have Nick go out, we have Nick and force and um and it's, you know, thanks to Nick, I just want to say publicly it's not an easy job. It's very difficult job. Um people don't like getting his letters. People don't like being told what to do if they're in violation. And um and yet you have neighbors who um if you're trying to sell your home or whatever the case may be and there's a lot of cars and things like that in other people's properties, you're likely going to have a lower sell price or uh a difficult time selling your property. And I think that's kind of what some folks are up against right now. So anyways, just wanted to bring it up for discussion. Um, I know this is a lot of information that was just given to you. We've we've kind of tried to bring up the specific cases in the past, so I know you're aware of the of the various different properties, the four in particular. Um, I have Nick here who can answer any questions uh as it relates to what has transpired up until this point and um we can take it from there. So, I do have a question on the matter of policy. Um uh you'd stay that uh it gets to a point where it goes to prosecution and there may be jail time involved. How much jail time is that actually? Is it like a weekend or a week? Two weeks. >> You want to come up here? [snorts] >> Nick Schmidt, building official, code enforcement [clears throat] officer. Um Happy to be here. Thank you. Thanks for inviting me. Uh to answer your question, it's really up to a judge. A judge can dismiss it. A judge can give u jail time. Um I'm not quite sure, you know, I don't always sit in the court cases. Uh a lot of times I go there and they don't show up. So it's really up to a judge. >> Okay. Because and this may be a question for the attorney, not you, but once that uh has gone through the courts, okay, jail in the scenario where jail time is served and then that now the case is considered closed. Why? Why? Why is that? >> That's actually just happened. Uh you're probably aware of it. Yep. >> Um, honestly, I can't answer that question really for the attorney. >> Yep. >> Um, >> cuz I'm looking at uh say the possible scenario by policy if I don't know if we can enforce it, if be a judge that can enforce it, but if it reaches a point where there's jail, okay, so you get uh three days in jail or something. I don't know. Then rather than considering the case closed, that that person has 30 days to take care of their problem. If they do not, then they go back to jail for now 6 days. They get then they get another 30 days to cure the problem. If they don't, well, now it's two weeks eventually. You know, if we have to have teeth, have some sort of teeth in our ordinance that says, you know, please comply with these codes. You know, what what can we do? It's I'm just wondering why the case would be considered closed after we've gone through all this and now we have to start all over. It It just Why can't we continue going further to until this problem is cured? That may be hypothetical to everybody, but no. Um, Mr. Mayor and Council Member Mundle, I think you're you're thinking with common sense, actually, [laughter] and I'm and I shake my head sometimes and what what we're seeing coming out of the courts. I think I think not to be disrespectful to our courts, but I don't think the judges like to see this stuff. I mean, they have murders and, you know, things of that nature. And this just doesn't really >> necessarily rise to a level of super important to them. It does to us because it's >> we're protecting our ordinances. We're [snorts] we're protecting the law of the city, so to speak. Um, but I I know they just think this is like traffic court, you know, like this is a waste of time. >> Yeah. >> And um >> to be fair, we don't like seeing it either. So, >> no. No. And honestly, I've said it before, you know, we don't want to be here. We wanna we would love compliance. We would love people to say, "Oh, yeah, sorry. Yeah, we'll get that cleaned up." type of thing. But and most do, but uh for those that don't, it's a indignant response where they're, "Nope, you're not going to tell me what to do." And it's like, "Well, unfortunately, it's the way it works. It's uh you have to do it." So, yeah, I I'm as frustrated as you are right now. Let me just say that. Um and I think Nick is too. It's just do we start over from you know now we have to send out another letter and you know follow this process through and if we don't the courts can throw that out saying we didn't follow your process you know >> so [clears throat] I'm just wondering if we can find some answers to that if instead of have after the instead of having the case considered closed that did not solve our problem can we keep going further with call it sterner ramifications. Why why do we have to start over at this point? It's >> Yeah, the it might be something for the city attorney to look into, >> which is why we're bringing up the abatement issue. >> Yep. >> And which and with the abatement, I assume that has to go in front of a judge. >> No. >> No. >> Um I believe it does. We we we take it before the judge to um authorize the abatement then we proceed with it. Yes. >> Because >> I assume we such as the same as having a search warrant. We just can't go onto a property and we don't have that authority. The authority have to be granted somehow. And correct me if I'm wrong, but most of these started in 2021 >> in the floor. >> Yeah. >> We're looking at five, six years just to get to this point with these >> uh yes to answer that question. Yes. >> So the cost the cost that the city is incurring >> that's what I'm thinking in my head here. This is five, six years into the making here and we're starting from square one. >> Well, let me answer let me explain that. Um, due to staffing, I'm not the only one who works on code enforcement and we, you know, when Aaron was here, Aaron Berg, you know, he he did a lot of the uh filing, downloading, you know, all the all the really a lot of the work behind the scenes. you know, me as an inspector, I go out, I take pictures. I, you know, um, put in the calendar when to go out next, you know, and fill out some paperwork. Then I the next process would go to our city planner. That's how we've done that over the years. And, um, you know, and before Aaron Berg was here, there was Aaron and she was here under Stephanie. Stephanie was the community development director and some of the paperwork you'll see her letters from her and uh it's it's not just a oneperson operation because it's it's too overwhelming for that. >> Well, don't get me wrong, Nick. I'm not blaming the staff. >> No, I'm just trying to explain, >> you know, trying to figure out why sometimes biting this or something. >> Well, a couple things. We a couple reasons. one, when we go out to do uh an inspection to see if it's a valid uh violation, if it is, we we give them at least 30 days. And uh then we go out and do a second and a third. And usually we give them about 30 days. Sometimes they want a little bit more. Okay, no problem. We grant them that. And then after those three inspections, we do three more and those are citations if they don't clean it up. So then they get three more that are citations. Yeah. And then after that we talk to the attorney, see if it's if it's that's something that they can take to court. Um again, some of these uh properties sometimes they get it cleaned up to some degree and then it goes backwards. There's different every property is almost a different situation. For instance, Jeremy Foss, uh, he had his property kind of cleaned up. The duets also had it cleaned up. If you there our first time we went out to do an inspection, I believe it was 2015 and they actually went to court and and uh got the property cleaned up and within like a year and a half it went backwards really fast and worse than ever. And I got pictures you can see all this stuff that you know uh happened on their property. And again, we try to work with people and give them time to accomplish what they need. And not only that, sometimes when it go even gets to the attorney, you know, it just it's a very timeconsuming thing. Even once it's out of our hands, it goes to the attorneys and it takes months. And a lot of times they don't show up uh for court cases. Uh like the last one I went to on the duets, it was I think it might have been their third or fourth time that uh they couldn't make it for one reason or another. So that it does take some of these it takes a long time and I feel the same way you do. Not it shouldn't take this long and it's very time consuming on staff to go through all this. I mean you know we we you know it's very time consuming. >> So essentially Mr. Mayor and Council what we're looking for is direction tonight. And if I can kind of maybe lead the witness a little bit here on direction, I think that um that there's two properties in particular that would probably be candidates for abatement. It would probably be to the dwit property and the setter home property. Okay. In my estimation, you guys can agree, disagree, or do whatever you want on that. As far as a prosecution goes, I think that we could try prosecution for the Foss and the Gimple properties. Um, Foss seems to have responded favorably to >> trying to do something. You know, he may very well do that with a um with a letter from the attorney. >> Um, you know, um, Miss Gimple, we've been in conversation with her numerous times. She's we've sent out the letters. She's claiming we're harassing her um on the letters, but essentially we're informing her, we're following the process that um in her particular situation, the IUP has been revoked and nothing has changed on the property. So, um that would be my kind of recommendation. And for the abatement process, we would need um we would need some legal oversight on that to make sure that our ordinances are in line, that we're following exactly to the letter uh what we need to do so that it's not um the essentially costing the city at some point in the future. >> Okay. I have a couple of questions. Um because I'm more I'm the probably the only one here that's for a more lenient um type of I don't even know what the word is >> property rights. >> Yeah, I'm more for property rights. I've been by one of those places um the dwitz and it it looked like they cleaned it up. I mean, I I saw I read the um some of the case and you know, it it said that they have electrical going to this um built in, but it's an extension cord. They don't have electricity inside of there. So, my thinking is, are you not allowed to run an extension cord from one building to another? That I didn't see in any code. Um I I just I just don't want us to be harassing somebody. I am thinking that okay, what was the I wanted to see the original complaint and if they fix the original complaint, why are we going and picking in all this other excess stuff? Um because that's not what was in the original complaint. I I've driven by a lot of properties that are way worse than any of these. And um I'm just thinking, well, we're we're not being fair to our I feel like we're not being fair to all of our residents. They went they they did spend jail time and they um spent tens of thousands of dollars on legal fees already. So, and they they did make efforts to clean up. I mean, they have a lot of health issues. They have a lot of things going on in their life. And they're I I don't even know what you guys are planning on abating on that property. Anyways, so those are my comments on that pro particular property. >> Yeah. So on that particular property, yes, people can run extension cords to various different places. This is a permanent scenario. It's been there for many, many, many years. The structure is a two-story structure. They did not get a permit for that. There's a health and safety concern on that. Um there are vehicles that are unlicensed and they're you know, on their property, school bus for example. Um, and uh, there's possibly some other issues as well. So, I understand that people can get ill, aren't physically capable of doing. That's why there are services out there that can do this. Um, and um, you know, essentially the uh, you just can't build a twotory structure without a permit uh, in the city. >> Isn't there a dimension though? because that particular dimension it's more like a small shed it that they're allowed to have a certain dimension you're allowed to have because um >> for a single story shed. Yes. >> Yes. But it's not exactly two stories. It's high so they could store ladders in there but there's not a second floor on there. It's just a tall building. >> So it it looks two stories but it's really not. Oh, there's still a sidewall rules if they're if they did not get a permit. Nick doesn't know if it's uh structurally sound. >> Yeah, that size of a if you don't mind. That size of a building um they're permitted up to 8 foot sidewall heights and they're well over 8 feet. Again, um you know, I don't make the ordinance, but that's what the ordinance says 8 foot sidewall height for a shed, >> but they could get they could apply for a variance for that then, right? If it's just because their excuse they're storing extra tall ladders in there. I don't know for sure, but that's what she told me. >> Well, we can get you can apply for a variance for about anything, but whether that is granted or not is another question. But in order to even get a variance, you'd first have to apply for and get a permit, >> right? Yeah. I I agree. They should go through the process. I I'm not arguing that at all, but I am arguing that that was that building part of the original complaint or did was it added by the city because the city happened to see it dur while they were inspecting the original complaint? >> To answer that question, the original complaint came in over the phone. It was way before uh the city adopted the written complaint rule. So that you know again the first time we were out there was 2015 I believe >> right >> and um and then like I said after they had it cleaned up about a year year and a half later all of a sudden stuff started showing up all over the property and you know it's it's shown in in pictures I have um and then again we were getting uh phone calls u by more than one uh resident on that street. And I think, you know, people are concerned about their property values. That's what they're always telling me. They're concerned about the property values. And uh me, too. I I'm a I believe in personal property rights, but I think sometimes those, you know, I think sometimes they affect the neighbors and now it's affecting their property. And you know, my belief is my understanding, you know, if it's a violation and and it's affecting other neighbors, you know, it's a public nuisance at that point. Maybe I'm wrong. It just seems >> So, did you see her neighbors property which is looks right across the street? >> Much worse. And are you getting complaints on [clears throat] that property? because it that's why it makes me feel like there's some kind of harassment or something going on here because nothing's happening to the person across the street. But this particular house is really getting it. >> You bet. I understand. Nobody's filed any complaint uh any written complaint on that. Nothing's come in on that property. So, we can't address it. I can't address it because we haven't had anybody come in >> So that makes me feel like it's a personal vendetta against this particular [clears throat] person anyways because why if they're worried about your if I'm worried about my neighbor having sloppy u property and the neighbor on the other side is worse. Why wouldn't I call on both of them? >> You know what I'm saying? >> Yeah. We don't really get into that aspect of it of why are you complaining or you you know do you have a personal vendetta against your neighbor? Uh and sometimes that is the case. >> I know it's the case. Sometimes >> we're [clears throat] simply complaint based. So it's you know um there are quite a few properties that would that are in violation. Yes. And until we receive complaints or until the council changes the policy to say all properties need to come in compliance um you know would uh you know would we be able to follow up on those other ones. So >> yeah to essentially uh take this to another level to try to evenly enforce across the city we would need more staff than just Nick. Well, I understand that and I don't want more um prosecutions, more I just want people to be treated fair and if they've gone and taken care of what the original thing was, then I think we should be leaving them alone. Now, if we're still getting complaints, it's the specific thing. So I you know I know that bus she they have they are working on remodeling it into a camper but it's not a camper and it's not a bus anymore. So what do they do with it? I mean how do they get permission to keep it there so they can remodel it? Because I see that going on all the time. I've seen gajillions of people with buses that they've remodeled into campers and stuff. Maybe not gazillions, that's an exaggeration. >> Yes, that is true. So that people convert school buses, they call them schoolies to uh [clears throat] to campers and they're generally licensed. >> But you can't get it licensed until it's done, can you? >> Oh, sure. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Or keep it licensed as a school bus until such time that you're done with your conversion and then >> Well, I'm not sure a private party can license it as a school bus. They probably need to license it as their as their own vehicle and pay tabs and whatever. It can be licensed somehow. It can be licensed. >> Be licensed as a recreational vehicle. >> Yeah, there you go. >> So, Nick, has there ever been a written complaint on the DITS from anybody? >> Not Not that I'm aware of. So, we're still going off the original complaint way back when, 2015, >> which was all cleaned up and but they got original they got all new stuff because the original complaint had to do with they were um getting new roofs done because they fixed up their house. They got a new roof. They got new sighting um and all that debris was out in their property and they cleaned that up. >> They cleaned it up, but then it came back and it came back and we were addressing it before the council changed the policy. We were addressing it before that [clears throat] again. We were >> so and then I have another um comment. Um, I know this one property that's in here, um, has a ton of debris on it, but they also have a storage container. I was under the impression that the previous council changed that storage container ordinance. Is am I wrong on that? Because I thought we were starting to allow people have those um, shipping containers as storage units in their property. Or is that not true? I believe there's a requirement of uh the zone where you can have those. Yes. >> And this per this particular property does not meet that zone. >> I'm not sure. >> Okay. >> I'm not sure. Have to look up the zoning of the one you're referring to. >> You know, I see two things unfolding here. One, if I make an investment in a house in the city, I want the city to be able to guarantee my investment is going to be safe and in a good area and so forth. I totally understand that. At the same time, I totally understand what Suzanne is saying in terms of the particular things involved in in some of these going back to 2015. Uh, I think all of us here are are for property rights for the for residents, you know, point blank. But what are we missing in our ordinance that doesn't allow this city to basically enforce this with residents who might be a little feisty about it, so to speak, and not want to, you know, clean up stuff. Is is there something we're missing here that we don't have as a tool that you need >> to get people to clean up their property? >> Correct. Uh yes, I think our citations um which are fines, you know, the first one's $50. The second one, I can't remember what it is. It's like $100 or$150. They're they're very And the second the third one is a little bit higher than that. Uh most people are not paying for it. Um actually boss has actually paid for his but it turns out to be just a cost of doing business for him. he'll come in and he'll pay it and and then he'll continue doing what he's doing. Um, personally, I think if I was a homeowner and I had was a scrapper, I brought stuff home, I think if if I got a $50 fine, you know, and I look at, you know, my my stuff, my scrap, my stuff, I think I can bring home and resell or do whatever. I I think that's pretty minor. I think the if you were going to have a fines, I think there needs to be more teeth in it. That's just my personal opinion. >> To to clarify, the first citation is 50, second is 100, third 250. >> Okay. >> Having said that, with tools, >> does the DNR get involved in some of these? Obviously for environmental cleanup vehicles outside leaking gas into the ground near the lakes. Uh can we use you know some of their tools or use them to help in this matter in some cases or no? >> I think in certain cases uh probably if it's on a lake or wetlands other than that no. Um that's my my belief. Okay. So, your recommendation or opinion would be to increase the fines. Say >> I think it would help. I >> say the first one uh $100, second one $250 or is that that not stern enough? Say, well, I I I could see the first one being 100 and then next one obviously being more. you could go to 500 mark. >> Yeah, I think if I was a homeowner, I wouldn't want to have to pay $500 and you know and you know that'd be a lot of money. >> Yeah, I I can see the first one that's kind of a we're getting serious now. You know, you're going to have to pay something, but it's kind of a fair warning. But >> I mean, >> next one's 500, next a thousand. >> I mean, I think that would really get somebody's attention. I mean, nobody wants to throw money away and you know, um, I I think it would help. I I'll leave it at that. I think it would help. >> I think there was some raised question in the past and prior attorney may have answered that question as to whether you can apply it to their taxes if they don't pay it. And I don't believe we were given the opinion at that point that we could. That may be different now. I don't know. Everyone has a different opinion, but um but that was kind of the hangup. What if what if they don't pay it? Now what? >> Yeah. Does it do jail time and then it's considered done again? So we need some sort of solution so that it it's it's not considered done until the issue is solved. So, it seems as though, and maybe I'm reading the room wrong, but it seems as though we're a little apprehensive about abatement. >> Well, I I would make the s suggestion possibly that uh the four cases he said two could potentially go to prosecution. Um, I'd say go ahead on those if though that's staff's professional opinion. The other two for abatement, we just got all this information. We can read through it. We can have discussions with staff and at the next meeting we could come to a conclusion if we would like to do that or not. Does that sound like a reasonable? >> Yeah. And the the reason why we're bringing this up again is, you know, we're kind of at a standstill. The the courts say it's resolved, but the property remains the same. So now, do you start back at square one, as Council Member Miller was saying, or do you shift gears now and go to a civil abatement versus doing nothing? If you do nothing, it's kind of like, >> why do >> you start getting the call, right? What's going on here? I mean, is nothing going on? Why is no one doing anything? We we get those calls on a regular basis. So >> yeah, if nothing is done, then why do anything in the first place? Why add rules, >> right? It's just a waste of staff time and taxpayers monies. Big waste of money. So what stress do you think about going with the two to the the prosecution part of it and uh we we look at the other two to a future meeting? I don't know if I'm really comfortable with prosecuting. I'd like to look at all these files. I mean, I've heard bits and pieces of all of them, and I know the city's frustrated, but at the same time, are we putting the city in any type of legal situation here with this abatement? And if we go in and do this abatement, aren't we cleaning it up and having to store this stuff for people and run the risk of them saying that, hey, this is broke, this is broke, this is broke. >> So, I don't like that scenario at all. >> So, generally in the past, the city would hire an independent contractor. any contractor would have insurance um and and we'd have to follow state statute to a tea on what what would have to be done. We would have to make sure our ordinances are in line. Um and um and it's something new for us. I will readily admit that. We want to make sure we we are not uh I I use the case of Ramsey. Ramsey got pretty excited about one property. They um they abaded it. It was challenged. courts found that they didn't do it right. It got ugly. Okay. So, we we want to use that as the example of what not to do. Um and and do it make sure that if we go down this road that we're doing it right. Um as far as the prosecution goes, um again, my hope I think with one that has shown compliance in the past, they may say, "Uhoh, you know, I got to I got to clean this up." Um the other I think may not care if they go to court again on different issues. So I'm not sure the compliance is going to be there. But um but at any rate it's um you know I we try these things again with with the hope of compliance. We hope they comply because we don't want to keep ratcheting it up. Uh we can we can certainly abate the Gimple property. There's a farm down the road that'll take horses. They charge you, I don't know, $500 a month per horse. You know, it's going to get costly uh for eight horses, six or eight horses, whatever are on there right now. Um so, we want to make sure that the city's not eating in that situation, eating that money, that it's actually going back to the uh property owner and being assessed to their taxes. But, um yeah. And and the reason for copying you on this paperwork here is is you can tell by the size of the reams of paper that were used to print this out. This has been an ongoing thing with the city. Um lots of time, lots of money, lots of effort, lots of frustration, lots of followup. and um and it's just not a you know we got a call yesterday and we're we're trying to you know put the screws to them. No, we've we've tried and tried and tried and tried and tried to to work with people. I need a consensus of three for direction. [laughter] I want [clears throat] personally time to go through all these and see what they're about before I make a decision on it. Same here. >> Same. >> So, we'll bring it back to the next work session that we have and I'm not sure when the next one will be scheduled, but we'll we'll um I'm not sure if it's next council meeting or the council meeting after, but soon as possible. >> Okay. I mean, it only take a couple days for this. >> Okay. Thank you, Nick. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. Thanks. Item two, >> Mr. Mayor, uh we had a request by a council member um to bring up a discussion about in God we trust. Um this would be a um sign that could be placed either up there, I'm thinking probably at the front of the dis. Um you'll see these in various locations including the county. We we placed that at the county and um and uh it's uh something that we want to discuss before we proceed with any doing it or not doing it. So, >> personally, I think it's a good idea. I think it's a real good idea, especially in today's world with what's going on all around us. It doesn't tell anybody that we want you to change religions or anything like that. I believe it's a model that the United States adopted sometime in the 50s, I do believe, on a lot of things. >> It's on our money. >> Yeah. Well, and it's a good model and um I like it personally. [clears throat] >> Yeah. And I just wanted to say that um there is that nonprofit group who said they would pay for it, but I wanted to make sure it's a nice quality one, maybe even permanent. So, um, if they want to bring forward, you know, their idea of what it is and maybe the city go in half and half or a quarter and 75% or whatever, you know, depending on how much money they raise. >> Yeah. Generally, Mr. Mayor, council members, it's generally cut letters that go up that can be adhered to the wall. Unfortunately, with this wall, because it kind of dips down in the cameras, you probably wouldn't be able to see it up there. Um, that's ideally where it would go, but maybe the front of the DAS would work, too. >> Yeah, I like it. I'm I'm all for it. >> I think it's a great idea. It's important. The words mean a lot of who we are and what we are about. So, I'm all for it. >> Yeah, I'm good with it. It's no problem with me. It's fine. >> I'd say go ahead. >> Maybe maybe we get some designs back. >> Be nice, too, though. Kind of see what we're looking at. >> Do you know who that outfit is or >> I can't remember the name of the outfit. I know the person's name and I can um get back to you >> probably before I leave tonight. >> They may have some good ideas. Otherwise, I can design up some fonts. >> Okay, third item. >> Okay, third item, fire apparatus discussion. Have the fire chief here with us this evening. Wanted to just kind of circle back. We were had brought this up as a prior discussion about a couple of opportunities that existed out there. And what we wanted to do as staff is kind of get together and talk about what our current CIP process is. I will drag this over show you current CIP process. We have a balance in there. We have an amount that goes in every year. And I will try and shrink this down here. Where's my Anyways, um but then as we're as we're kind of scheduling out for parks or streets or fire, as we're scheduling items out, then you start to see that we we get into um deficits in terms of not having dollars that are left in there. >> Matt, if you go down to your lower right there, just bring >> Oh, right here. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. No, the other one way in the right corner there. >> Right here. You're saying? >> Yeah. Just grab onto that and go one way. Yeah, it's kind of loading here. Hit the plus sign. It'll go slower. The way it was created. Um, at any rate, so you'll see here at the top we have a balance of 1.8, 318 goes in annually. Then you start looking at what's uh what comes out, what the totals are, and what sort of deficit you're running. The parentheses are deficits. And then you get another 334 because we kind of raise it every year to try and account for inflation. again have um uh you know payments coming out for various different vehicles over here. And these are vehicles that when you when you set up your capital improvement uh you use a process called depreciation. And essentially what that means is say your vehicle has a 10-year lifespan and it costs 100 thou $100,000. Every year you need to put away $10,000 right to get to that $100,000 by the 10th year so you can afford to pay for it. Um we've had two different models of doing CIP in the past. You've got uh one model uh where or uh public works has been to the to the penny. And then the other model that uh was kind of used by the fire department in the past is kind of a ballpark model. And the challenge that we've run into with the ballpark model now is that and this might have been brought on by COVID. I know a lot of agencies were using the um CARES dollars to kind of purchase equipment and I think manufacturers kind of saw an opportunity to raise raise the prices and you kind of see those prices still carrying through to today and essentially you're seeing a higher inflation rate on these vehicles than maybe was anticipated uh in the past. And then um so so essentially we haven't had the dollars in there u necessarily um as we should have to account for that inflation. Um but then the other the other thing that's kind of pushing on this whole fire apparatus discussion is it used to be kind of believed that this equipment lasted for 30 years. Um and what we're finding is it's kind of more of a 20 year life cycle on some of this equipment. So, um, 10-year difference in putting dollars together for a 30-year purchase obviously has a pretty large impact. Um, so we want to, um, just kind of circle back on, um, kind of where we're at now. We have these two vehicles right now that are slated here, the 800 900,000 for a pumper, two pumper replacements. And if we were to do that, you'd see in the next year we'd have a deficit. We'd blow through the entire, you know, dollars, including the other items that have to be purchased. We'd have a deficit. We're not sure we want to do that. Um, but we did want to bring this to your attention because we were somewhat talking about wanting to uh take advantage of some of these vehicles that are available. um you can purchase them kind of stock, lack of a better word, versus um uh purchasing them custom, which is significantly more. And we we thought that um that a stock vehicles would work for the most part in these cases. Um and there was, I think, a manufacturer that came in that was pretty aggressive on on trying to secure some market share. So, we're kind of waiting into the water of trying to determine if this was going to be a good time to pull the trigger on this. That then brought about the CIP discussion and uh you can kind of see where we're sitting with CIP dollars. What what a lot of cities do uh is there's two ways of managing this. Um uh we, as I indicated, kind of do the depreciation model where we plan for an eventual purchase. A lot of cities just bond for it. they'll take out, you'll slap the credit card on the counter and take out debt. And [clears throat] fortunately, we've not done that. Uh because now you're paying interest on rather expensive equipment. Um but on the other side of the, you know, ledger, you have an opportunity that comes up and you have, you don't really have the dollars there to capture that opportunity and potentially save money later. Um I think the later price so 800 900,000 later price um in the year of which it would be purchased would be somewhere in the 1.5 each. Uh depends which manufacturer we went with. Um the the savings with these two vehicles that are on your screen is the pre27 emissions that are coming down by the federal government. Um well depending on which administration is in in the seat uh and that's not a political I don't mean anything political by it but what I do mean is that those are coming uh uh Cummins a diesel manufacturer as well as other manufacturers have already met that requirement because it was uh a requirement that was going to be in place. Um [clears throat] the manufacturer prevent presented here actually there's two of them that still have pre-emissions engines uh which are a savings of somewhere between 50 and $125,000 depending on the engine that is placed in the uh the apparatus. Uh again this was an opportunity that was presented to us. I brought it forward. Um the CIP has been adjusted now um after talking with uh Nate and Mike to get this more in line with where we need to be. Um this is there's only a finite amount of these engines available. Um after they're gone, we will see the price increase. Um, depending on how many years we wait, there's typically a 3 to 5% increase regardless, but we know that there's going to be that onetime increase of that, what do I say 50 to 125,000. So, we're looking at anywhere from uh on the 800 we're probably at 1.1 on the cheaper end. Um there's current apparatus that are being placed with bigger manufacturers on the custom side that are 1.3 to 1.5 and those are not the ladder trucks of of years past. >> Chief, how much money do you think we can get for the two vehicles that we want to replace? Uh, one manufacturer has said that they believe they can sell um, one of our engines for 100,000. The proposal would actually be to maintain one of the other apparatus that we're replacing as a reserve in the event that one of ours goes down and needs repairs. We would not be without. Uh, but uh, all that could be figured out if that's not the the direction that uh, the council wants to go or something. Uh, we could definitely figure out what that is, but I would guess it's somewhere in that neighborhood as well. So, if we did want to go through with the purchase of two of them, there would be savings. It looks like with this spreadsheet cash balance it'd be a 64 or almost $65,000 debt in the hole. >> Yep. >> Would we instead of bonding would we be able to do an intergovernmental loan from another one of our departments to cover that? So we would not have to bond. And then with this uh 65 almost 65,000 uh factor that into our next budget year so that those funds can be paid back. >> Certainly. Uh Mr. May Council, we can certainly do that. Um I think this number right here is what we're currently putting in for 2026 or 2027. It's that number there. I think given the cost of some of this equipment we're looking at uh we're going to need to bump this up for the future years uh to to again trying to achieve that goal of storing up the dollars so that when it comes time to buy a given piece of equipment the dollars are there to do it. Um, I don't know what that figure is, but you know, say you raise a $100,000 and you have 10 years to save. That would be a million dollars. That'd be great. We don't have 10 years. So, you're you're kind of behind the eight-ball on that part of it. It's going to be significantly more than that to be able to implement that program and not have to bond for equipment such as this. I I'm not a big fan of bonding myself. Um, but uh >> sometimes sometimes you're forced to, >> but I'd rather not be put in that position. >> I I would also I want to go on record and say, you know, I don't want to deplete that entire CIP fund for this opportunity. Um, when I brought it up, we were figuring all of this out. That's why it's before you today. Um, it's easy for me to to justify the replacement and the and the potential you the cost savings and that, but we also have to be fiscally responsible and make sure that we're allowing for the rest of the CIP to still exist as well. So, um, while this is up there and and you're able to see what the actual dollars are currently, um, you know, I just want to make sure that we're not throwing caution to the wind just to make this happen either. >> These two new trucks now, they're humper trucks is what they are. >> Yes, sir. >> Am I missing something here? If we put $300,000 away every year times 10 years is $3 million. Correct. >> We have not been doing that in the past. >> Okay. >> But then you but then on the public works side you have and and Nate's sitting in the um audience squirming a little right now. See that? But [laughter] but you can see he's got you know total down have. So that's kind of your mark if you go down to 20 here. This is our balance at this same point three years. We're 600,000. So that's significant. So if we went through with the purchase, correct? A lot of that money is >> it's not just purchases in here. >> Okay. So, if we went through with the purchase, it wouldn't just be that first 60 nearly 65,000. >> It compounds. >> It compounds down in 2029 and it starts to get a little bit better after that. >> When some of these other purchases come online, you're falling further into deficit then. >> I think the biggest problem was the funding side was not probably up to date on the fire department engine. So that got behind and they all got behind after CO 2 in 2022. Everything went up 20 30%. So we kind of keeping that um going. This balance that we have of 1.8 million, we make $80,000 in interest on that. So it's kind of an endowment that helps fund some of this, too. We get rid of that fund, we're going to be remember that $80,000 together. So >> yeah, >> we're trying to find a way where we can make this all work. We're still working on it. So All right. Uh, Chief, how long do you think these prices on these on the two new trucks is wood? Now, do we have a month? Do we have three, six, nine? Uh, the one man I can check and see what they still have. Um, each each manufacturer is different on what they'll allow out as well. Um uh the one that we talked to uh primaril well not primarily but one of the vendors said that they had 150 of these units and that was 6 months ago. They're still saying that they can meet their their quoted numbers but I can try and get an updated number of engines that they're sitting on. But again once they're gone they're gone. Um, I with with respect to Nate and what he's done with the CIP on his end, um, I want to make sure that this works for everybody, not just for for the fire department. Um, and I saw an opportunity, so that's why I brought it forward. So, >> no, [snorts] [clears throat] we appreciate the opportunity. It's a huge savings. >> So, are you doing the negotiation then with this negotiating for these prices? Um, I mean, right now it's all quoted because the the truck doesn't exist and you know, >> so when you negotiate, if we're going to buy two of them, get the best deal, >> we use that as a tool. Use it as a tool. >> We could definitely have that conversation. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> All right. At this time, we'll close the uh work session of the council. [clears throat] >> Reminder, if anybody wants to speak, they have to sign up here at the public forum. >> We'll have our presentation for legal services. They'll make some presentations on that. All right. At this time, we'll entertain the uh March 9th, 2026 regular council meeting. Please rise if you can for the pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Make motion to adopt tonight's agenda. >> Second. >> Motion second. All in favor? >> I. >> Okay, we'll move into the presentation. >> Yeah, Mr. Mayor and Council, uh, you had instructed the staff to send out RFPs on legal service. make sure this is a just a normal routine thing that should be done to kind of verify that we're getting good value for the for the contracts that we have out there. And we had uh two submitts come back and we have both uh candidates here this evening. Um and I invited them to come and give about a 10-minute presentation of their law firm and some of their uh what they want to essentially emphasize from the from the um submitts that they sent in and u and then leave some time for um uh for questions if you have that. But I I did want to try and keep it to about 10 minutes because if you go to 20 minutes and that's 40 minutes and night gets pretty long. Anyways, um I will uh turn it over to you, Mr. Mayor. I don't know how we decide who goes first, but but anyways, both are here this evening. Um I would just go with Dr. Berg Glammers first do the first on our packet. You still want to sign sheet? >> No, you're good. >> Mr. Mayor, members of the council, Mr. City administrator, can you hear me? Okay. Good evening. My name is Joe Vantoi and I am one of the attorneys uh with the law firm. We've had the privilege of serving your city for going on 15 years now. Uh myself, I've been with the firm since 2014. Um in that time as prosecutor, as city prosecutor, we prosecuted all types of crimes from impaired driving crimes, trafficking, fractions, crashes, persons crime, person crimes like domestic abuse, theft crimes, property crimes, nuisance crimes. We've taken cases to trial, to the court of appeals. We've negotiated cases and we've done it with an approach in each case that we initiate, in each case that comes to us that emp emphasizes the protection and rights of victims, protecting the community as a safe and vibrant place for people to grow up, to raise families, to live, to work, while also holding the defendant accountable and ensuring that their rights are respected. We do that in every case because this power is not ours. We don't get to go into court and say, "Hey, we're the attorney, big us, little you. We decide what happens." You appoint us. We have authority to be prosecutors under the constitution, state and federal, because you appoint us. And we take that oath serious with every case. Now, turning to some of the issues that confront the city, confront any city, code enforcement, code violations. some of the most nagging persistent problems that any city faces. There's a couple of ways that cities choose to enforce. You can go civil enforcement, which might involve a specific order that causes or or requires someone to bring their property into compliance. You'll get that specific order and you can enforce it if the person doesn't comply. I've personally done that. I've had temporary restraining orders on behalf of the city in the past on a civil action. Now the limitation there is sometimes it's cost intensive. Cities are concerned with cost. East Bethl is concerned with cost but you get a specific order. The alternative is criminal code enforcement. Criminal code enforcement is where you take a case take it make it's under the law. It can be a criminal charge. You bring that case to court. It's a misdemeanor, which means the maximum penalty they can serve is 90 days in jail. You can try to coax an agreement compliance somebody to clean up their property they own, but ultimately if that person chooses the penalty, that's the result that you get. Some cities decide that's a heavy-handed approach, that there's property rights at play, and some cities u decide we're going to look at it and we're going to send everything criminal. Now, again, we don't work here. tell you what to do. The city has sent us historically cases for criminal code prosecution. When we get those cases, we draft a criminal complaint with a probable cause statement to address and educate the bench so that judges take these issues as serious as you do, as your neighbors do, as your constituents do. to try to get that person to see the problem. Where appropriate and with the with the direction of staff, we've attempted to negotiate plea agreements that incentivize people to bring their property into compliance. And when people say, "Hey, I don't want to comply." And they want a trial. We've tried the case to jury. We've obtained convictions. We've obtained orders, sentences from judges that say you must comply with city code. If that person still doesn't want to comply and they appeal it to the court of appeals, we defend it and have defended it successfully at the Court of Appeals. And at the end of the day, if there's issues, if people are still not in compliance, we can start over with another prosecution or we can choose maybe a more precise tool to solve the problem. That's how we've approached every criminal case is looking how to solve the problem. whether the person needs to go to jail for a violation of the law or there needs to be some other remedy. That's our goal to seek justice as prosecutors. That's what we've done as your prosecutors in our time here. Now, I want to talk about cost. East Bethl is a costconscious city. Every city should be. You want to know that your money's well spent. You want to know that you're getting what you pay for. It's easy to look at two numbers and one is the smaller number. So that's a better savings and a better value and a better service for the city. But as you know that's not true. That's not reality. In some cases possibly but that's not the reality when it comes to legal services. I encourage you to contact my cities, both the ones that are listed, my police chiefs, the ones that are listed and the ones that are not. Contact any one of them. I assure you, we have not ever asked for an uncontracted for fee increase in the middle of a contract from our cities. We've not done that with East Bethl and we won't do it going forward. I assure you that hasn't happened. And I encourage you to ask the references and the cities of both firms who are bidding for your services whether that's happened. So, you know, you will get what you pay for with us, which is superior prosecution services. Now turning to whether or not um I call it the character question. Character of your prosecutor, the character of your city attorney. East Bethl deserves a fighter. You deserve somebody that's going to go to the mat for you. That means trying a case in court, standing up in front of a judge or a jury saying the city's laws have been violated. The law needs to be respected. And if that case gets appealed, defending it there. somebody who's going to have those hard conversations with a victim or an officer or a neighbor or a judge. We're going to be able to look and say, "We are that person. We are that firm. We will assert we will ensure that the city has a fighter on its side." And again, we've never made it a habit. We do not make it a habit. You won't notice it in our RFP of talking negatively about other firms. There's a lot of good lawyers involved. There's a lot of good lawyers who who do this work. But I will tell you if we're going to compare apples to apples. We're going to look and we're going to say which firm and you have a fighter which firm is the better firm here. Our firm has represented cities against the competing firm and it might have been represented elsewhere in a different manner but city of Blaine and city of uh Lexington were involved in a very public dispute and you can check the court record and you can check the Star Tribune and our city our firm prevailed. We go to bat. We fight for our cities and we will continue to fight for East Bethl whether it be on the civil side or the criminal side. The city deserves that and I will continue to deliver that service for you and I humbly request that you reappoint my office as criminal prosecutors for the city of East Bethle. I see Jake is standing here waiting to address some civil things. So, thank you for your time. >> Thanks, Joe. Mayor Council Jake Softly Expert Lamers. I've been serving as a city attorney through the uh Expert Glammers firm since joining uh last spring. It's been a really wonderful time getting to know you all over the last uh 12 months or so. And um in the time that I've been here, I've experienced um a lot of great really great questions coming from this council about how to make the city better, how to use the current tools that you have in your code of ordinances, how to manage the political risks that are out there for decisions you have to make, including the one today about code enforcement. It's a tough decision. What I want to make abundantly clear is that I take a lot of pride in the legal advice that I give to my clients. take a lot of pride in that advice being legally correct and being apolitical. I'm not here to tell you what you want to hear. I'm not here to tell you the popular thing. But I am here to help you understand what the risks are for the decisions that you make, where you can go, where weaknesses are, and what your strengths are. And I'm happy to work with staff and the council as we continue this relationship with the firm and myself through this council and this city to watch you grow and continue to develop maintaining the character that you have in northern Noa County and respecting what that means while at the same time recognizing that you have some big city development issues that need to be addressed levels of sophistication that our firm can support and that I can provide. And so if you have any questions for me at any time, we are always an open door. I've had open dialogue with Matt on several occasions. I've asked for feedback and criticism and I haven't received any direct feedback or criticism that I think warrants any discussion at this party, but if you have any questions, please let me know. This is a good time to to have that discussion. With that, I humbly suggest and recommend that you choose our firm to continue providing services to the city. Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you, uh, Berkeland. Mr. Mayor, members of the council, I'm Scott Bombgartner. I'm one partner of three from the firm of Berglin Bombgartner and Glazer. My two partners, Mark Berglin and Kurt Glazer are with us as well. Um, I'm not going to stand here and tell you what we can do, what we will do for the city. I want to know what the city wants us to do. Anybody can stand up here and say, "Well, we can do this or we can do that or we're going to do this." But that might not be what you want. Our approach as a firm is to find out what does the city want and that's what we will do. Now, I know you've read the the proposal submitted by both firms and I'm not going to go through all of that. I will answer any questions you might have. I know you've got an agenda tonight. I want to be mindful of your time. So, I'm not going to go through all of that, but I will say that we prosecute. We do code enforcement. That's nothing new. Interestingly, Mr. Berglin and I were sitting here during the work session when you had a great discussion on code enforcement and some of the I got two pages of notes on the code enforcement discussion you all had. A couple of things struck me about code enforcement and some questions that came up. One was, okay, you can do the prosecution. All right, you do the prosecution and uh council member Mundle, I I think it was your question, well, how much jail time do they get? And then I think council member Miller, you said, well, after they serve jail, is that it? That doesn't make sense to me because a code violation, and I'm assuming it's the same for East Apple, as it is for most cities, is a misdemeanor offense punishable by up to 90 days in jail, $1,000 fine. You convict somebody on an offense on a criminal offense, say they get the weekend, they get a week, whatever the jail time is, you still have probation for a period of time, typically one year. That extra time is hanging over their heads, so you don't have to start all over. I was a little confused by that discussion because that didn't make sense to me. That's what probation is for. That's the time you keep hanging over their head. And when Nick was talking about how long it takes to go through the process, holy cow. Um, I'm a property rights advocate as well. I appreciate property rights. For every person we protect with property rights, there's another person that might be impacted and their property rights might be impacted as well. So, we have to focus on both sides of that coin. Yes, we want them to clean their property up. No, we don't want to harass them, but we do want to be mindful of the neighbor who also has property rights. Administrator look brought to you the question relative to abatement. We've done many abatements. We've got one going, excuse me, right now in Oakrove. We got a dual track going with both the criminal prosecution and the abatement. We prosecute for the city of Oakrove. They have another firm that does the uh the civil work. We coordinate with that city attorney. We've got a dual track going. You can run both simultaneous. Now, with the the abatement process and and I believe administrator Luke brought up a good point, uh that you want to be careful about storing property, taking property, all of that. The way we handle abatements with our firm, we have the council go through a resolution process. It's the council that passes the resolution ordering the abatement of the property. And in that resolution, the council gives the property owner a certain period of time to come into compliance. If they don't come into compliance, it comes to us, then it goes to court. The reason we go to court with it is now we've got the authority and the oversight of the court system that is actually authorizing us to go onto the property to abate the property with the court's blessing. Does a couple of things. Protects the city from any kind of litigation risk. It minimizes any potential exposure to the city. The other thing it does is we get an order from the court that authorizes the recoupment of the city's costs and expenses associated with the abatement. When we go back after we've got it cleaned up, we go back to court and in the order I draft the order for the court and it says the city shall keep a a toll uh tally of its expenses. We go back to court, have the court approve those expenses. Now we've got a judgment against the property owner that we can assess against the taxes that assures that the city is not left holding the bag that the city is not paying those costs associated with debatement. Um the other thing I wanted to point out didn't have it up there. Uh administrator look did a nice uh comparison of the of the fees and the there we go. The one point I wanted to make was the reimbursement of the developer rate. Now, both firms have that in there. That's pass through rate and that's smart to do. Essentially, what that means is with development, the cost of doing a development agreement, negotiating with the developer, that cost gets passed on to the developer. The city should not have to bear the brunt of those costs. Both firms do that. And I just wanted to make sure that you understood that that 325 is not something charged to the city. That is a pass through. Now, the other firm does that as well, but apparently their number is based upon what their attorney's hourly [snorts] rate is at the time. We charge 325. So, when you talk to a developer that comes in, they know right up front, this is what it's going to cost you. 325 per hour to go through this development process. the um you want to address that Mr. Glazer was part of the process. He represents the city of Lexington and the Blaine matter that was represented. Um I'd like him to clarify that for you please. >> My name is Kirk Blazer. I also represent the city of Lexington and uh Mr. Tommy was talking about that litigation between those two cities. One of the things that is important to point out is whether or not we should have litigation or not. Sometimes the city is forced into it like the city of Lexington was by the city of Blaine. And one of the things that's unusual about that is the city of Lexington was trying to negotiate a water rate for six years, which we now have done with the city of Wayne. That that whole lawsuit was frankly pointless because It was driven by decisions made by members of the council, advised by the law firm that represented them at the time, which was Expert Lambs. And now, after the litigation is done, the cities have gone in and negotiated the very same water agreement they could have done six years earlier without litigation. Now, I can't say who's responsible for that, but I can say that if you get good legal advice, sometimes you can avoid litigation where you can see that's a perfect example of pointless litigation. You paid my firm, my firm uh my city paid me, Blaine paid uh the Eber Lammers law firm, and in the end got exactly what the taxpayers needed, but had to pay lawyers for it. So that's one of the most important things here is that are we giving good value to cities in the advice that we give. Are we being too strong and saying hey let's go sue somebody let's go to court or are we trying to work with our neighbors our neighboring cities give you good legal advice in that regard. So it's not a question about who's the toughest attorney. Sometimes it's the question of who's the smartest attorney and what's the real benefit to the to the community and the advice that we give. You can see that we have we've analyzed the rates. Uh we are obviously u offering a cheaper rate. The Edward Lammer's law firm is a good law firm. The uh the folks there, they do good work. Sometimes price is the differential and that's what you see here is that we feel that we can offer u probably better services when it comes to some areas. I think we've looked at uh your code enforcement. we would take a different approach than what Eberks has done. Uh with some of our prosecution work, we would take a different approach that we talked to Mr. L about. So give you any specific questions about what those differences are. Happy to drill down as deep as you would want to go. But when also we can do this at a fair rate for the taxpayers and that's why we decided to give you this proposal. So unless you have any questions, that's all the comments that I have. Thank you. Any questions? [clears throat] >> Mr. Mayor, I'll just close with uh thanking the council for this opportunity. We uh we don't take this opportunity lightly. We uh we appreciate all of our cities and the relationships we have with all of them. And we understand that that cities share a lot of common concerns and problems. Code enforcement. You're not unique in the sense that every city has code enforcement issues. But we also understand and recognize that every city has uniqueness to it and different needs and wants and that's where we can be of value. We understand that. That's why I opened with I'm not going to tell you what we're going to do for you. I want you to tell us what you need. That's where the differences among the cities comes in. Not what I can tell you, it's what you can tell me. So, I appreciate the time. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. [clears throat] So, Mr. Mayor and Council, next steps would be um you've had proposals. If you have questions, they're here for for answers to those questions. Uh you would need to make a choice. uh give staff direction on what that choice is and then um we would work with them to produce a contract. We would then bring that contract back to council for review and ultimate approval. Um and uh and that can be done in this meeting or done at some time later, whatever your choice is. So I personally want some more time. I've talked to a few references, but I haven't talked to them all yet. And that's important to me. What's our deadline? >> I think the contract expires in um [sighs] June if I'm not mistaken. I don't have it right off the top of my mind right now, but we have a little bit of time. So, >> okay. Thank you. Yeah, I want to research a little bit more. >> You want to make that motion? Mr. May, I don't know that we need a motion for that. We just um just in terms of consensus to bring it back to the next meeting or we can bring it to a work session if you want for discussion too. Um >> say bring it back in a month. >> Bring it back in a month if you want. Yeah, >> sure. >> Yeah. Not as a work session. Bring it back as council. >> Okay. >> Perfect. >> All right. Moving on. Public forms. Anybody here to speak on public form? I don't think anybody signed up. >> No one signed up. >> Okay. Consent agenda. >> Make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Like to pull item B as in boy and D as in dog. A second. And I'd like to pull item F, >> D, and F. Any others? >> A A. >> All right. With that said, uh we have a motion and a second uh for the amended agenda. All those in favor? >> I. >> Item A. >> All right. Let me just find it here real quick. So, I have the right thing in front of me. Uh, Mr. Look, it involves gas receipts. I'm looking at gas reimbursement receipts in here and I am questioning why we are going back to May of last year in some of these payments. Yeah, Mr. Mayor and Council, this is for Speedway Fuels. Uh when Jerry Strike was here, he set up an account with them in which our uh firefighters could take various vehicles over there, fuel them up, and kind of put it on the account, so to speak. Um we don't operate with a credit card in the city here. Uh so it isn't an immediate payment scenario like that. Um but the process then is the receipts need to come back to us so we can enter them in the bills list. And those receipts weren't getting entered. Uh they weren't being paid essentially. And so, uh, once we found out that, uh, these bills are outstanding, you know, we want to we're obviously not going to not pay our bills. So, right, >> uh, we want to make sure we had to go back and and, uh, catch up for the receipts that weren't submitted. So, we're kind of changing the process on that to make sure that every receipt, whether you go to Menard's or wherever, you know, is given to your department head and then that is submitted as a bill and ultimately you'll see that come through on the bills list. >> Okay. I was just curious why it went back And that explains that. The other one was involving, let me get down to it. Where was he? The Osummit Fire Protection Company. I realize we have an annual thing going on, but we had a bunch of different bills from them totaling just under $7,000. And I'm not sure exactly what that's for within the fire department when we have our own fire inspector. So, I'm a little curious of what we're paying for here. Okay. >> You're uh I got Nate here with us this evening that can help uh answer that question. He handles that part of it. But this is an annual bill that we see for all of our facilities, checking, you know, uh fire extinguishers all the way through, uh including um some of the security systems. But I'll have him explain more in detail the changes that we made. >> Yeah. So Summit is uh they purchased a bunch of companies. They actually own our security company now too that we use at our water treatment plant. So one of those is our annual monitoring fee for that plant. Um we had to switch to a cellular service there to get rid of the hard line to uh it actually saves us money in the long run. So that's one of the bills. The other one is they do all the fire extinguisher inspections. We have to have an outside company perform that service. So they do all of city hall, all of our buildings, all the fire department, all of our vehicles annually. So those are broken up in there by department from summit. >> Okay. I was wondering about that if we had to have a third party do that. Okay. Very well. And with that, I approve item A. >> Second. >> A motion second. Any further discussion? None being heard. All in favor? >> I. >> Item B. Uh item B is the meeting minutes from the last meeting. Uh page 77 of the packet. Uh there's a couple corrections about selecting the town hall date. On line 13 it reads Mundle noted that if they choose later in the month might be better weather etc. Um that should be Miss Urkl that originally brought that up. So it should read noted that they chose later in the month and at the end of the sentence they can add the statement Mundle agreed. Um then on line 16 it reads Mundle suggested doing a short informal meeting about booster day at the town hall meeting. That should read Mundle suggested doing a short informal town hall meeting at booster day. Okay. >> And those are my changes. If anybody else has any, then I will make a motion to approve the minutes with those changes. >> Second. We have a motion, a second. Any further discussion? None being heard. All in favor? >> Item D. Item D. Find it in our packet here somewhere. I know that's in a packet. >> Page 85. Page 85. >> There we go. Um, page 85 is resolution number 2026-12. Resolution recognizing firefighter Porsche for his service to the city of East Bethl. Uh, is he in attendance tonight? No, >> I do not believe he is. No. >> Is there anybody that can come receive the resolution? >> I don't believe so. We will definitely get it to him though. >> Okay. Well, at the last meeting, we uh recognized his efforts towards the city 37 years I believe it was of uh firefighter service. Uh with that we decided to approve a resolution recognizing that very long service for the city. Um with that I will make motion to approve resolution number 2026-12. >> Second >> motion a second. Any further discussion? None being heard. All those in favor? >> I. >> Item F. >> Item F is the um Maynard Peterson field use agreement. My question on that is is the price that they we negotiate with them the same as what everybody else pays or is it less? Is it more? >> So [clears throat] this is the Mayor Peterson Park that's down in the Lake Beach neighborhood. It hadn't been used for a long time and was in kind of disrepair. We were approached by a youth's fast pitch team and they wanted to uh put some money into the field to make it playable and kind of make it their home field. This was uh like five years ago. They were the Minnesota I think it was Minnesota Smoke at the time. >> Yep. >> So, we entered into an agreement with them and we fixed the field up. It's really nice now. It's uh um and the and the amount that we agreed upon has been just kind of carried along. We do not charge this amount to other teams. They just pay our regular rental field for like Booster Park, but they're both they're okay paying that. They want to see the money used at that field though, too. So, >> okay. All right. That's good history. Thank you. With that, I'll make a motion to approve item F. >> Second. Motion a second. Any further discussion? None being heard. All those in favor? >> I. Motion passes. [clears throat] Uh looks like we're down to staff report. Mr. Mayor and Council, just a couple items I want to touch base on here. I want to first of all give a shout out to uh Congressman Emmer. Uh we received an application from their office for a um community priority project. Call it an earmark, whatever you want to call it, but uh he uh is afforded 20 of them this year. And I'm not sure what each one can maximize. Uh but we have submitted the uh SIMS uh 65 water treatment uh plant um water tower project if you will um to um to that uh application. I sent him a text saying, "Hey, you know, I really want to highlight this. It's really important." Um he sent back a text saying, "Thank you for doing that." So I know I know they're aware of it. I'm not sure what other projects are of the 20 or how that's going to rate compared to those. They'll probably evaluate the importance of all the projects. But at any rate, um if you if you have any connection with them or if you have connection with the staff, certainly try and light a fire under them. This is an important project given the proximity to the decommissioned landfill and the fact that we're trying to hook up the schools and take care of a thousand kids over there. and and um the amount we applied for was $3 million about a third of the project. So we'd be phasing the project out um and this would cover one phase of that project. The important part of it is if we are successful in getting these uh dollars that somewhat gives more credibility to the project when we go to the state and we would then reduce the state amount instead of 10.5 we would ask for 7.5 from the state and um I've seen that you know the state has always liked to be kind of last dollars in so to speak and they certainly don't want to put at risk federal dollars so we're hoping that um that we can parlay one for the together and get this project completed. As you know, um that whole area kind of will provide some economic development as well as solutions public to public for the schools and uh it would be a great great opportunity to help fund uh that project. Uh >> why did you call that? He's got community what what's the title of that program he's got? >> Yeah, I'm trying to come up with the exact name. It's a high priority community projects and uh they came up with that a different name than earmarks because people didn't like the name earmark. [laughter] So, but essentially it's um it's uh you know federal dollars that are afforded to uh Congress members and to bring to their respective areas and and fund very important projects. Um and um last year uh Highway 65 got say $35 million or something like that. And um and as that is now fully funded, we're hoping we can we can secure some dollars for this very important project. I know he's he's definitely aware of it because I pressed him hard last year and we're pressing them again pretty hard this year. But, uh, hopefully, um, like I say, um, there's a lot of good projects, so we'll see how how how it stacks up. Um, the other thing is I got a notice today from Anoka County that they're going to be sending out the uh, payable 2026 property tax statements and payable 2027 valuation notices for property owners. I just want to just want to say again when you get these notices and you see the number on the bottom, go back up to the city line uh because that'll tell you what the increase was from the city. Uh and we don't control increases from school district. We don't control county. We don't control uh any of those. Only thing we touch is city. and uh and we had a very u reasonable u 3.7 I think it was percent increase this year. So uh for the amount of expenses we've seen it was a very responsible increase and um but then again if you if you put on a deck or if you finish off your basement or you know how you stack up to similar houses of the of the same size will determine your value. And then to further complicate matters is how the uh economy is impacting the commercial industrial versus residential because that'll that'll impact it as well. Very complicated tax system that we have here in in Minnesota. But again, as it relates to city, go to the city line, go across, you'll see what that increase is from year to year. And um and that's what that's what we're responsible for. the rest of it. While we may agree with you that it's unreasonable, that's out of our purview. So, um, anyways, that is all I have unless there's questions. >> Council reports a poster day meeting on Wednesday at 6:30. Uh, still we got some more a couple more volunteers. um they look to be very very good volunteers that we're hoping to add to the excess the success of booster day. We are still looking for a couple more. Um so if uh anybody out there has any interest in uh serving on the booster day committee, helping plan that, helping plan the parade, uh please um we have our meetings right here in the council chamber. uh 6:30 on Wednesday. Thank you. >> Can I ask a question regarding that? >> Yeah. >> Are they [clears throat] changing the time of the car show? Because if they are, there's not going to be a car show. >> There's been discussion on that. >> Okay. It's to uh uh bring it from uh behind the city hall over to the general location of the rest of the activities to incorporate it more with everything else. >> Yeah. Yeah. I'm hearing um some grumbling about the relocation and the re the retiming of it because our car show guys just everybody's information. As soon as the car show is done here, they go down to another car show in another town that starts at one o'clock. So, when they're out of here and then a lot of them are older and they like the shade from back there. So, um I just wanted to bring that up as that they might reconsider if they are considering the people and the seniors discussed that with me. So they asked me to bring it up and I just did. >> Okay. >> Thanks. Anyways, I had a airport meeting. I got reelected as a community chair. Um and the other airport chair was going to remove himself but change his mind and his schedule is allowing him to remain. Uh we're working on the comp plan and they are looking for volunteers who anybody who is interested in an Oka Blaine airport comp for plan for 2045 I think they said we're starting that there's going to be community meetings. It's probably four meetings a year they said that it will entail. Um and that's all I have I think >> Jim. Well, on uh Sunday morning, Jim and I, uh, Councilman Smith here spent some time over at the newly acquired Sims property. Um, and we're coming up with various amounts [snorts] of ideas and business plans for it, which I will get back to the city as soon as we get them all set for you. Some short-term and long-term planning that we need to talk about for the near future, right? I believe, weren't you the one that come in looking for the God we trust? Well, you talked about that at our work meeting earlier and you going to get in with them and talk to them about it? >> Yep. I I texted Jamie already. Um Okay. >> So, and it's pretty much approved. So, now we just have to get the designs. >> All right. With that, I'll entertain a motion for ajourn. >> Make a motion journ. Second. >> Motion second. All in favor? I >> council meeting has been adjourned.