We're going to open the meeting. Today is the 10th of June at 6 o'clock and we will get started with the pledge of allegiance. and the flag United States. Miss Johnson, you take roll call, please. Mayor here. here. Council member Glazer here. Council member Rainville present. Council member Swansson here. Chief Deputy Jacobson here. Fire Chief Miller here. Administrative assistant stool here. And myself Natalie Johnson. Roll call is taken, sir. All right. Thank you for making roll call. The code of conduct is posted in the back if there's any questions on that. And we will move to approve the agenda. Mr. Mayor, Randall, um I would move that we um move item 6A under planning and zoning up to consent. Cindy is uh our planner is not here to comment on that and it's pretty self-explanatory and there's nothing prepared for planning in Okay. Is there anything else for uh agenda moves? Mr. Mayor, council member please. Go ahead. I'd like to move items three, I J, and K from the consent agenda to um see new business or can someone be old business? Let's see. Okay. Can you drop old business? That would old business, please. Okay. I J and K to old business. Um I would also like to provide an internet update. Um, so if we could make that uh after K under the three we just dropped down, move them under uh nine for in the old business, that would be all right. Um, Mr. Mayor, I just have a I don't know if we need to move it to pull it out or or just a clarification for a 3C. Um, if it's easier, we can just move it down to item L under old business. Let's just move it down. Okay. So, going down. Anything else for the agenda? Okay, it's all good. We'll we'll for a vote. All those in favor say I. I. I. Oppose. Motion carries. All right. We'll open up the public forum. Um, I'd ask you to keep it to three minutes. Please state your name and address. First up is Deb Dryen, please. Certainly can. All right. Senator Eric How do you pronounce your last name? Lucero. All right. Well, thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, city staff. I'm very pres now. I have Eric Lucero. I'm the senator for this area and it's my privilege to come by here with an update when so that's why I'm here tonight just give a brief uh overview of of some highlight. A lot has happened and it's so deep. For those who don't know me, I am the senator in my first term for this area. I live in St. Louis and the Senate term is for four years. I'm in my third year of a four-year term. Prior to this uh office, I was in the state house representative for eight years. It's your fourth term before redistric being opened up this season ran. So again, interpreting this capacity for for the three years. So as we came into session earlier this year, uh just as a a brief reminder of where the dynamics were, we uh had a $72 billion budget that was passed in 2023. And that represented a 40% increase, roughly $20 billion, and also having spent an $18 million surplus and raised taxes by 10 billion. When we came into session this year in 2025, we were facing a $6 billion budget deficit. The dynamics were significantly different. Additionally, in rather than having control by one party of both houses of the legislative branch and the executive branch, the House of Representatives up the election was split. In fact, uh right after the election, it was 66 Democratic, 67 Republican. and some of the dynamics that happened in the beginning of session. The the Democrats in the House, they didn't show up to session for 23 days. So that delayed the start essentially of session for for nearly a month, little over three days. So we adjourned this session then on May 19, not having passed the budget. And when I say pass the budget, the budget that we retire to the state budget must pass every two years. Last time was 2023, this time 2025. And the entire state budget is consist of approximately 12 to 15 separate bills covering the different state agencies. So we had not passed uh most of those budgets. So the uh negotiations continued then since May 19th, unfortunately most of those conversations were behind the lack of transparency publicly. very few had any idea what was going on. Of the 201 legislators that make up the House and the Senate, approximately half dozen to a dozen were even involved. And so all of a sudden we find out last Friday called in this special session on Monday. Yep. And so we have 14 bills, roughly $18 passing bill. And there it is impossible to read 14 massive spending bills and then have you know generally we pass one or two maybe three budget bills on any given date. We passed 14 yesterday. So lack of transparency, lack of hope knowing what was in there, but they were all taxed. And so just some of the highlights, uh, unfortunately there was a failure to pass any anti-fraud provisions. We saw many many headlines in the last uh, most of last year actually, not almost not a single week went by without some headline of a new discovery of a new fraud. and we are over $600 million in confirmed funding. Unfortunately, there were no safe. Unfortunately, we failed to pass any school funding reform in terms of the program reform because many school districts in our community are are getting burden on the stick in terms of the way that the fun work. many of the costs and this is directly multih districts and come is that that costs many mandates for in the last couple years but because we're faced by the deficit there are importantly several costs that are now going to be shifted to the local level so the mandates remain state won't be paying program but the burden of those mandates will now fall on the shoulders of various community uh there are cuts to special education to nursing homes and to road delivery that needs to fill. Some of the things that were beneficial, we did stop the proposed cuts to nonpublic students. That was a huge victory. Uh we I heard communications from across our community from any and we were able to make that. Uh we were one of the biggest hang-ups and there was many day yesterday being the one of the provisions that was passed in 2023 was to extend taxpayer funded healthc care to be illegal foreign entrance. And that started January 1st of this year. And so one of the rollbacks then was enacted was rolling back then adults. So taxpayers will no longer be funding the health care of adults as of the end of this year. So they'll be rolling back And then uh one of excuse me the last item for highlight is a bonding bill that happened. There are multiple there was a bond bill focus on infrastru but uh many different things there for across the state. Last couple weeks I was up in the on housing panel to discuss housing. We have housing crisis housing authority supply for business and at this council well aware there were some zoning land reforms most of those are adamantly not work well in our community and things that I've been working to not support and tomorrow morning University of Minnesota on on AI in my background for those who don't know I don't cyber security so tomorrow University of Minnesota does a great conference on various technologies in healthcare space. I'll meet up with one of the panelists uh speaking again on the so with that Mr. Mayor, members of the council, I know that's over three minutes. I appreciate the breaks trying to go as fast as I can, but I again appreciate the opportunity to bring a lot going on in the state. It's going to be a very busy summer and for anybody who wants to reach out to me, I love hearing from everyone. The best way to reach out to me is by email which is sen correspenator sen. Eric llucero mns senate.go. So if there is a minute or two I can take questions regarding if not I'm going to move on because we have any questions for the senator. I really appreciate you coming in. It was very nice very nice update. Thank you sir. And thank you, Mr. Mayor, for coming down to the capital. I don't know when it all was together. Mark, maybe maybe Mark, I don't know. We got to spend a half hour together, but I appreciate the time. Thank you. And I look forward to hearing the summer. So, if we can post this u email address on the website or something, so if they've got questions, they can reach them. Thank you, sir. All right. Thanks so much. Thank you. Was his mic not on? Hopefully they could hear him a little bit. Uh, Mr. Iden, would you like to uh press the council, please? We didn't have the mic. Deb Dryden 6680 Viking Boulevard. Sorry, it's difficult for me. Randy and I have been taxpayers in now then for over 40 years. It's clearly a shame what Now then has done to us. um they weren't paying attention when your new planner and old attorney and the old um administrator decided to have conversations and conversations about our developers agreement over and over costing us over $9,000. It's clearly a shame that that happened to us. Um, now I hear we're having another $325 bill that we have to pay. Sounds like it's something to do with us not paying the 9,000. We had till um the bill said March 31st for it and evidently sometime in mid-March they the attorney came again and discussed what to do to collect our the escrow and is what we were assuming that is um usually when we ask it's unnecessary and unreasonable for I don't know Also, I want to address the um the Facebook and social media where one of the members posted that the Dryens were disruptive at one of the meetings. One of the meetings that we went to that was cancelled. We I had I wanted to say something and it was taken away from us, our freedom of speech. And all I said was, I would like to say something very calmly. I didn't get disruptive and it was just me and it wasn't my family and I was put on social media as the Drydens were disruptive and I don't appreciate that. Guess that's all I want to say. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Move on. Move on to the uh consent uh consent agenda. We've already made modification for it. So, approval of the consent agenda as is. Mr. Mayor, Councilman Rainville, I would move the consent agenda as amended. Okay. Is there a second? Second. Second. Um, with Steuart Bo, all those in favor say I. I oppose. Motion carries. Okay, moving on to Chief Miller and the fire department. Mr. Mayor, council members, I am here to give an update um on uh where we're where we uh are at six months into my employment and kind of where we're going. It is on. Yep. So, um so we're g update for for June of 2025. Um talk about some of the accomplishments that we've had. Um we've completed um a needs assessment um in the first six months. Um, we've talked about that in in prior meetings, kind of where we're at, what uh what the needs of the fire department are. We've updated expired equipment and supplies. Um, we had a lot of supplies that were outdated um when I first um got here. Um we identified immediate safety needs and made repairs on the vehicles um including a replacement of 18 um separate tires for the trucks that were either outdated or um in in need of repair along with uh brakes for um our tanker. Um we are currently securing donations um for updated office space in the fire station um with the local cabinet shop that is going to go into um so they're going to take our our office space that we have um and actually make uh uh two uh two uh office spaces in there um both for the the deputies and for the the fire department. Um and that's all uh complete donation. So um that'll be going in on the 24th of of June. Um not as Lakeside Cabinetry that's going to be doing that. So we'll bring that donation forward to to the council. So um we have converted uh inventory training and equipment and accountability to an electronic form for efficiency. Um we were doing everything by paper when I when uh when I first uh came here. Um and so with the help of uh uh Pil Stokal, we're able to convert all that um paperwork into electronic form. So now our firefighters can actually do checking the trucks and the equipment and things like that right off their cell phones. So it makes it much much more efficient. Um and we actually have recordeping for that now. So and that's important to us because part of of training is actually making sure that we check our equipment correctly. So, um, we're able to capture those hours of training that we couldn't before. And I spoke to the importance of of, um, having good training records when it comes to ISO ratings. So, um, we completed an emergency operations plan for the city. Um, all of you, um, I think have signed off on it hopefully and we've got copies out there, so you've seen that. So, next slide. Um, we have made applications for several grant opportunities for equipment and turnout gear. Um, I constantly looking for new opportunities for us to get um, uh, equipment or or turnout gear or ways that we can reduce the the fiscal responsibility of the citizens through different organizations. Um, some of the grants that I've applied for have been through National Volunteer Fire Council and um, Centerpoint Energy. So, we've got a couple of them floating out there. Again, these take months to to kind of mle through the applications to find out if we we'll receive any of those. So, um currently meeting regularly with the county sheriff's office and bar none staff. Um we're trying to problem solve the issues that we're having there and reduce the call volume that we're having and we're having great success in that. Um and I'm sure the sheriff's office can speak to to the partnerships that we're creating there. Um, we are partnering with the state fire marshall's office in Sentry College through the donation of a local uh family who has a farmstead that the home is no longer useful to to them and so they need to remove it. So, um rather than just tear it down, they're allowing us to do some training in that um building and we'll actually be able to train fire investigators from um both Henip County and Anoka County along with um department members if if they so choose to do that. Um and so that'll be the first phase of of training um for that building. We all are also using that on a drill knight basis where we can actually maneuver hose lines and things like that through the structure where we couldn't do that in in um say my house or anyone else's house. Um but since it is kind of an abandoned house, we can do that. So they've been they've been um wonderful to let us do that. Um and then um at the end of this fire investigation class, which will be in September and October, um we will do live structure fire training with the department and other surrounding community departments where we'll actually take the entire house down to the ground. So, but that'll be coming in the fall. So, it's a great partnership. We're um very fortunate to have that um a resident that will allow us to do that. So, um, we've established connections with countywide partners. Um, again, I I spoke to the fact that we really want to make, um, connections with our neighbors. Um, we've struggled with that in the past and we've done a wonderful job. Um, I've reported on how many times that we've assisted, um, mutual aid and auto with our neighbors. Um we have a very solid working relationship with our our neighboring and community departments um uh up until the point where um we're all talking about starting to to train together. Um we've created a a a noa county um training committee now. So each department has a member on it that is part of this training committee so that we can actually discuss um how we can train better, how we can do things together. Um so that is is something that's up and coming. Um, so that's that's the first half. Let's get on to strategic posts for the second half. Um, we need to recruit firefighters and that has been a top priority. Um, but we have to get our house in order to do that. So, we're at the point where we have our house in order. I think we're in good shape to start recruiting firefighters. So, um, we're going to have some signage going up. We're going to work with um, city staff to do some social media announcements. Um, we're starting to track recent home sales so that we can look at um are there opportunities to to seek out new residents that are in the community um to do that. Um we are in the second half going to identify potential future leaders. Um I think it's no um it shouldn't be a surprise that I am not long-term for for now. Then um I um I have a six-month contract. I am willing to and want to extend that contract because I feel um it is in the best interest of the community to grow this department from within grow the leaders from within but right now um twothirds of our department is around that three years or under mark for experience um we don't have the experience to to cultivate leaders today we will tomorrow and in the future so so we are looking at who can who can we identify who can we start to push down those leadership paths that that want to do that. So in the second half we'll be identifying those those leaders. Um the uh we'll be identifying budget priorities and needs for 2026. We'll be coming forward um through the budget process for that. Um we'll uh we're going to accept and put into service this new tanker finally. Um, next week we have three members that are traveling to Florida to finalize that that tanker to make sure that everything that's in that was in the bid has actually come to fruition um on that piece of equipment before we accept it. So um that is something that's um not funded by the taxpayers. That um factory trip is actually included in um with the purchase of the vehicle. So excellent. Um so they'll be going down there. They'll finalize that. We should have this tanker end of the month, first part of July depending on transport. So, um, takes a while for them to get from Florida to here. So, um, and we'll be implementing training when we do that. So, looking forward to 2026, um, what we what um we would like to do is is look at some program implementation. Um, we want to look at a implement a structured plan for online and hands-on training. um that is more department instructor-based. Right now we we are contracting different instructors from different um entities out there um which costs us money to do. Um again identifying those future leaders um getting them to step forward, getting them to train other firefighters, we can do this internally. It will save us money doing that. And so that's what we're going to be looking at. We also have to balance, you know, the firefighters time. So work life balance. So, I want to look at some ways that we can do some online um training that allows them to not spend every Wednesday at the fire station doing training, but allows them on their own time when they have when they have that extra time to go ahead and complete a course that might be online that um something that um would be very easy to do and allows them to do it at their own pace um which allows them the flexibility then to to spend time with their families too. So, um, we would like to introduce a fire inspections prevention program, um, and ordinances support that. We don't, um, do fire inspections in the community. I've talked about this in the past here. It is a liability that we're not doing those, and we definitely need to do those. Um because the first thing that's going to happen is if a business has a fire in their in their um establishment, um they're going to look for the city to find out when's the last time we did a fire inspection there. And we really want to produce that to make sure that we're providing safe um uh environments for for businesses. And it's not about penalizing businesses, it's actually about educating them. So a lot of people don't know fire safety in the businesses till somebody walks in and points it out to them. So, it's important for for the business who's to accept the few businesses that I've had conversations with have welcomed um a fire inspection, would like to see that. They want to know if they're doing things wrong or if they're doing things that um aren't safe. So, um so in 2026, we want to do that. Um we want to build community relationships with businesses through that prevention education. Um and we want to search out and apply for grants and we're going to constantly do that. Um and so um this isn't a a and I what I'm doing this is what we are doing as a department. So um all of our firefighters are looking at you know they're they're always constantly sending me emails. Hey, have you seen this? Have you seen that? Um so we have the entire department really fiscally looking out for um the community. So we're bringing those forward. So the future strategy and implementation for 27 um we're going to maintain and improve our recruitment and training. That's going to be an ongoing thing. Um, as as we bring people in, I'm sure there'll be people leaving. It's always a constant churn in the fire service. And so, we always have to be looking for that. So, in 27, we're going to we're going to maintain and we're going to improve that recruitment. We're going to look at if we had a successful recruitment in 26, um, great. We'll do the same thing, but if we didn't, what can we change to improve that? So, constant, um, continuous improvement on that. Um, we want to evaluate our prevention efforts. Did we get into the businesses that we needed to get into? Are we having good feedback from the businesses that that um that were inspecting? Are are we having any issues um in uh in those businesses with fire or anything else? Um, one of the things that we haven't done is a public education program. We have different um daycarees and things like that within our community. We have um senior groups that meet. Um we just haven't been able to, you know, reach out to them and provide education or training or information to them um because of staffing, because of time, because of just a lack of structure. Um we want to do that in 27. That's a that's a a goal of ours. Um and we want to examine our S ISO rating um for improvement because we're going to improve our training. We're going to improve our our water supply by having a second taker. um we're going to try and do all the things we can to to improve that ISO, which will then improve the the um insurance ratings for the community overall. So, we want to make sure that we keep doing um and re-evaluating it to make sure that we're doing the right thing. So, service delivery levels, um this has kind of been a topic I think it's interesting. Um I shouldn't say it's interesting, I think it's a I think it's a a a great topic to bring out there. There are several departments within the metro area who are examining our service levels. What should we be providing? What should we not? Um so we look at things like EMT versus EMR. Um medicals versus fire. What do we want to provide? What does that get us? Um right now we're running around 250 calls a year. It's not a lot of calls, but it's a significant amount. Um, and what's important about service delivery and and running medicals is that unfortunately we don't know what that call is until we get there, right? So, someone calls 911, they explain the emergency best that they can. Um, the dispatchers send what they think is the appropriate resources. Um, and we get there and we find out what that is. um if it's a major medical or or any type of medical emergency, there starts to be a a chain of survival. So each link, there's a chain in that survival and each entity within that link or each entity within there is a link in that chain. So, sheriff's department, fire department, EMS, a line of ambulance, uh the hospital, um emergency staff, things like that. Anywhere in that in that in that chain, if the link is broken, the chances of survival go down. Okay? And so, um we want to make sure that we are delivering the service level um to the best of our ability and to the best for the citizens. And so, we look at things like bar none. It's a there's a establishment that has staff on on um at their location. Do we need to be running all these medicals at Bar None? Probably not. We're working on reducing the calls there. Um we can we can control that service delivery a little bit. It's a little harder to control the service delivery out in the community because again, we don't know what that emergency is till we get there. Um, we're working with Alina Ambulance to do some pre-arrival instructions to see if there's ways that we can cut our calls down that way. Um, and so, um, I think it's important that we don't look at just medical versus fire. Um, is there a way to cut this for that? Um, when you look at the expense of a fire department running it, the costs are relatively the same regardless we run medical or fire. um the the labor costs are are negligent compared to overall budget. Most of our budget is in equipment, supplies, things like that. It's not in it's not in our response. Um our firefighters are paid on call. They're only paid when they when they come to a call. Um they are only paid when they train. And so the the the labor piece of that is is insignificant compared to the rest of the budget. So, um, when you look at EMT versus EMR, um, I had to I had to think about, is it important to be an EMT? Is it important to be, uh, you know, versus a emergency medical responder, which is emergency medical responders, very, very basic. Um, we're talking CPR trained, um, some bleeding management and and you know, just really emergency control versus EMT, which is more about patient care. And that's really where when we elevate our service delivery, when we talk about patient care, um, people call 911, it is the worst day of their life, and they don't care who shows up. They just want them to be competent, compassionate, and caring. Um, and our fire department does all of that and it does it very well. And because we're at the EMT level, it it we do it extremely well and we do it professionally. Um, the EMT the the burden of EMT versus EMR really is insignificant. When you look at a 40hour course versus 168 hour course, EMS is EMS is EMS. If I'm bringing in a new firefighter, there isn't anybody who's discouraged necessarily by the EMT. If I tell them, hey, to be a firefighter, you have to do fire one, fire two, hazmat ops, um, and EMT. Okay, where do I sign up? That's what they want to do. Um, nobody is coming to us and saying, uh, I just want to be an MMR, you know, because most new people in the industry have no idea what the difference is between the two. And so, I think it's very important that that we don't sell ourselves short of EMT versus EMR. Um, I did include a letter from from one of our firefighters and and I I apologize because he just got it to me today. Um, but this was the letter that I included was over a conversation I had with this individual. He's been on the department for 17 years. Um, he was an EMR for all of that time. He decided to to go out and and take us up on getting his EMT. Um, and I haven't experienced EMR versus EMT. I started out as an EMT. So, having having someone who's been doing this for 17 years as an EMR go do this EMT. He wasn't excited about doing it, but um the letter itself will explain how much he got out of that course and how better of a firefighter and a skilled responder he feels um going through that that course. And so, um, I think that letter explains kind of all of that or encompasses all of that in a whole. So, um, when we look at service level, we want to balance enough activity for our firefighters to be involved, but not too much activity that we're burning them out, right? And so we are going to work very hard on making sure that we go to the calls that are important and emergent. And the calls that are not and we don't need to go to, we're going to try and eliminate those so that we have a good balance between what we're running to as a fire department and what we're requesting our people to be involved in. So I hope that answers the question on kind of service delivery. Um, the other piece I want to touch on is um, the chief's position. Paid on call versus part-time versus full-time. Um, paid on call fire chiefs. Um, there aren't um, many in the area, especially in Mil County. Um, Oak Grove um, and, uh, and I believe, uh, Lynwood are about the the last of that. Um and so um what you get from a paid on call fire chief is somebody who's available nights and weekends in between everything else that they have going on. And so yes, it's a it's a fairly reasonable um as far as expense model. Um it's you know much much cheaper to have a a paid on call fire chief. It's usually somebody who's very experienced, who's been in the department for a long time and rises to that level because they've risen through all the ranks. Um, unfortunately here in in uh now then we don't have that opportunity to to even promote somebody from within to do that. And so that's going to be a struggle for us and we're we're we we're probably not going to be able to be in a position like that for many many years because it takes a long time to cultivate that kind of leadership. Um, so what you have right now is this part-time fire chief model where you're paying somebody to be here 20 to 30 hours a week. They're handling the administration. They're handling the the programs, um, the budgeting, um, training, kind of encompassing all um, right now that seems to be working very well for this department. Um, I don't know what this department looks like in the future. And so I can't today tell you that in in two and a half years or three years or four years that a part-time fire chief is going to be where you need to be. Um not there yet. I don't know what our organization looks like. I don't know what we're going to be able to build out of that organization. Um right now you're kind of in between. So having the the the part-time fire chief seems to be working very well for this organization. Um do I think that you need to hire a full-time fire chief today? Absolutely not. I think we're we're we're doing what we're doing very well and we're growing this organization. And I've talked um at nauseium about incremental growth. My firefighters hate me saying incremental growth because I say it all the time. Um but that's what we're doing here is we're growing this fire department incrementally, slowly um from within. And so you got to think about this. We started a new fire department in 2021. Um, we are just getting on our feet. Um, and we're doing it really, really well. And so, we may only have 13 personnel, but they are 13 dedicated, highly trained, highly motivated people. I couldn't I couldn't tell you that this is these are some of the best people I've ever worked with in my 37 years in the fire service. I couldn't be prouder of these people. Um, and so I think we have a you have a a a great fire department and um and we have a great organization here. So these are where we want to go. So what I wanted to do is tell or put the slide up on the on the um up here to talk about what is the per capita cost? Where do we sit with our neighbors? You know, per capita cost of the fire service. We're at $69 for now then. And you can see Oakrove is 71, St. 75 um Ramsey 71 73. We're right in that ballpark, right? We look at Lynwood Township with paid on call fire chief and a pay and Lexington. Both those organizations not a not a huge population um but a different budget structure. So Lexington's a very small community. um obviously their budget is going to is going to pay out to much much more expensive for for them because they're spreading that pie a lot thinner. Um and so I would say when in comparison we're right in the ballpark of everyone else. Um so I don't think we're spending too much and I don't think we're underspending ourselves. Um I think we're right in that ballpark. Um and and again incremental growth. We're going to talk about how we can how we can improve the fire service here um and improve um the city services through that. So, and with that, I'll stand for questions. Chief, I got a question for you. You had said that there's some calls that you may not have to go to. Could you give us an example of what that would look like? Sure. Um, I would say people that are in a psychological crisis may not be the best use of our fire department, right? Not a lot we can do in that situation. Um, outside of of assisting the deputies or backing up the deputies and something like that, but that really is a a a BLS ambulance call that we wouldn't have to handle. Um, things like that. Um, you know, some of the calls that have been mentioned out in the community are things like, well, do we have to go to a fall? Do we have to go to a broken bone? Again, let's go back to what what is the call, how it was dispatched, what is the information that we know. So, just because it comes over as a fall for us, that could be cyclical episode, that could be um that could be somebody had a seizure and there's a lot of different translations. And so, we don't know till we get there. And so when we look at our our calls, we're going to try and parcel these out with the line end and see if there's a better way for us to to take out the calls that we definitely don't need to be at. So um I can't fully answer the question um because we haven't had a chance to sit down with the line and try to really figure out what they're how they parcel those calls out. Just one one more statement. I asked Chief to talk about multiple items and he's discussing them just to get everybody up to speed. But the service level is something that's determined from the council. So absolutely it's just it's not something that's been brought up. So I asked him to talk about service level. We don't have to vote on it today, but it's really about the awareness of you know we don't have to have a fire department. You could but we do and we want to maintain it. So these are some of the things you don't have to do and there's a cost associated with some of them. Y and what the chief described is um what he believes is a very good model for us. So I just want to throw that out there for the council. Absolutely. Any other questions for Chief Council Blazer? We've had some conversations about what new firefighters that have completed training and how they get paid. Have I'm trying to recall if you were going to put some time into doing some research in in regards to surrounding communities. what they're paying their paid on call firefighters after they're completed training. Yeah. The as far as like a budget or or I'm sorry, wages, what they Yeah. With the hourly wages, you know, well, you know, I think it's great that we have 13 of the best people that you've ever worked with in your 37 years. 13 people isn't a lot. No, it's not. Absolutely. So, when it comes to recruitment and retention, right? You know, are we are we even in the ballpark? So, right now, um, I would like to come back with council in July, um, with a more information on on our recruitment and what does that look like? Are we paying enough? You know, are we paying our people enough? Are we is there enough incentive to get people in the door? Um, it's hard for me to say, well, this department next door pays this much, so that therefore we should be at that same level because, you know, let's take Ramsey for example. they have, you know, 30,000 people to draw from as citizen crowd um or population and we have 4,500. And so it's much much different. And so how what's the incentives to to get people to to come here and do this? Um we'd have to we have to put some more thought and some more study into that. So I I don't want to speak off the cuff tonight about that, but that's definitely something on my mind that I would like to bring back to the council. Does that help? Yes. Okay. Any other questions for the chief? All right. Thank you, Chief. Appreciate it. So, we'll go right into the uh uh the resolution final number for this request for council action. Go ahead. May I request that the sheriff go first? We can jump in with the attorney at 6:45. Yes. Can Can you do it? That's like two minutes. I know. Perfect. Do the best you can. Might have to do the abbreviated version. I can handle that. Again, good evening. My name is Bill Jacobson. I serve as the chief deputy for the county sheriff's office. It's going to be back with you all. I'll briefly cover some highlights from the uh from the June, which covers May 2025 reports. We were at Barn a number of times as the chief mentioned and we are working closely with their staff to try to get those calls down. 19 calls to bar none. 32 total calls, 19 reports, four alarm calls, 24 medicals, and a few animal calls. You'll see on your report a large number of calls to bar none. And they sort of detail what what Chief Miller was talking about with mental health crisis calls, medical calls, disorderly calls. Um the fire department does co-respond on quite a few of those. I'll just bring your attention to one. um 5:25 uh 25 at 10:12 pm. A rather serious assault on staff um resulted in a pretty significant law enforcement presence in your community. Um because the assault was rather serious, ended up being a first-degree assault um where uh a staff member was assaulted with a chair um and we ultimately located um all the juveniles and they were arrested. Charges varied from first-degree assault, thirdderee riot and theft. Third degree riot is a charge we use anytime there's more than one person that works in conjunction um in this type of assault. So that's why you see that charge on there. Some note really calls. You'll see some proactive work. Deputy made a stop for someone with a Henipin County warrant. Um we did respond to a shots fired call that ended up being a BB gun. You'll see a domestic assault call we responded to on the 14th. Um again, uh call where we arrested the suspect in that case. On the 14th at 11:52, we had a stolen vehicle report. One thing people don't realize is our deputies are equipped to take uh DNA swabs at scenes now. So um he was able to take some DNA swabbings of uh of the scene and some possible evidence and we'll send that to our lab for testing. Then uh the last one I'll mention on the 19th is we responded to a uh it was basically a vehicle stop. Um, we found that, uh, the driver had revoked plates, was running with the wrong plates on the vehicle, which they'll do, um, to try to, um, keep their registration up to date, um, when it's been revoked. So, um, sorry, very brief today, but, um, a lot of a lot of activity at Baron and we're looking closely with their staff to try to get those calls for service. I'll stand for any questions. In two minutes, Mr. Mayor, go ahead. I do have a question. I I saw some information on a a major call for the a bar none facility or a VA uh facility and I believe it's Andover. Are they experiencing there the same magnitude of calls that we are? That's probably a group home. I don't know the exact call you're talking about, but um we do have a large number of group homes across our various communities and we are seeing an increase across all of those locations and in um uh in your neighbors over in East Bethl at um the facility at 65 in Viking. Um that's a rather large facility larger than Barnon and we're dealing with a lot of the same concerns, a lot of the repeated calls and um um so it's definitely something that's not limited only to your community. We're seeing it quite a bit. Thank you, Miss. Any other questions for Chief? All right. Thank you, sir. Good to see you all. Thank you. Good to see you. All right. So, we're going to move on. Uh just due to time, we're going to jump down to the uh attorney Elsets at 6:45 Zoom. So, Gileia, are you going to put them? There we go. So, shifting on the agenda to business item eight. So, we're doing time on target with the attorney. Um, so it'll adjust our schedule slightly. So, Mark, we'll turn it over to you, sir. Perfect. And can you hear me, Mr. Mayor? Can you hear me, Mr. Mayor? Loud and clear. Yes, we got you loud and clear. Very good. So, I I think that uh you have me here today, Mr. Mayor, for two issues. Uh the first of which is to speak a little bit on the excessive use of law enforcement services ordinance. The other is to wrap up the personnel policy. Uh so if it's okay with you, Mr. Mayor, maybe we can just start with the excessive use of law enforcement services ordinance. Law enforcement services. Yeah. Yes, sir. Perfect. So with that, I believe we've received a brief memo from the Anoka County Sheriff's Department. uh it's indicated that the total cost per hour for their response comes down to an average of $69.76. The reason that we had talked about getting this memo is to figure out the fee that should be imposed um if we were to uh invoke the ordinance and certify the costs for the service charges against a landlord or property owner who is propagating a nuisance on their property. who is propagating and using on their property. We wanted to uh come down to a a solid number so as to not make the ordinance um punitive in nature or to punish an individual, but rather it's intended solely to recuperate the costs. Um and it's not intended in any way to deter uh calls to law enforcement. calls to I understand that the sheriff also expressed some possible concerns with liability for the township or dissuading calls. Um there there is a statute that is on point for this that I had presented to the council before which is Minnesota statute 504B.205 205. Specifically, subdivision 3 of this ordinance indicates that um if there are domestic incidences or mental health crises, there in no case can be a certification of the costs. However, the subdivision of this ordinance allows for an ordinance that penalizes landlords or property owners uh who do not abate nuisances uh that are propagated on their property and gives deference to the city to define what nuisance is in their local ordinance or code. And sorry if I sound just a little bit off. I'm getting a bit of a a back delay, so I'm trying to speak just a little bit slower. Um, so I I can hear myself. Okay. So, I can hear myself. Other than that, I I think that addresses kind of two of the concerns that we had. One of which was the cost um and what we were going to certify. I would have language that I would propose to be drafted into that final um excessive use of law enforcement services ordinance that would set the price at $69.76 for this year and then to be adjusted accordingly in communication with the sheriff's department. And if anyone is speaking, I cannot hear uh anyone speaking right now. That's because nobody was speaking. Um just wanted to touch base on the exceptions on page 152. Um so if you take a look at the exceptions, what would not be included in this? And then if you look at right below that is F is the a process to appeal. Just make sure everybody has read that thoroughly and we have a good understanding. So if it's a medical or mental health emergencies, that's number one under E. um this would not be imposed and then domestic incidents would also not be imposed for this fine and Mr. Premier, I will also say that again this is this is where council has discretion as well, right? The council gets to make an evaluation of each instance of conduct and make a determination on a case by case basis by case basis which would fall under the appeals for what you're stating. Correct. Correct. Okay. So, we'll open up to the council for any any questions on what the attorney has stated here. Customer Brian, you want just a minute just to reveal? I read this over and I didn't see any concerns with it myself. So, um, would we be ready to move to a vote on this? I know we got to get a motion first, but not a motion. Randall, there it is. Um, I would move that we select a fee of $67 and 90 $67.76. I think it's 69 $69.7. Thank you. Um, to be adjusted as appropriate um for an excessive use of law enforcement service contract city code violation services. a city code violation to be added to ordinance uh 25 2025-04 so the ordinance can be codified and added into the city website and enforced. I'll second that. Mr. Mayor Council member Glazer, go ahead. Is is there any reason that that fee couldn't just be $70 as opposed to 6976? I would I would be amenable to changing that to $70. I'll second that. All right. So, it's seconded now to $70. Is there any other discussion or can we move the vote? All right. Let's move to vote on this. All those in favor say I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. All right. Uh Mark, will you take us to the next section, please? Of course. And I am just pulling up uh my notes from the personnel policy here. I believe the last time we left on the personnel policy, we had a rather um holistic conversation about the personnel policy, but did omit just a few things. Um so I wanted to take time today to go through and just touch on a few of the items that we had missed. Um while I pull up my email that detailed that list, does council have access to that list? Did was that distributed? I had sent an email back maybe the day after the May 6th meeting. Yes sir, we do have that. Okay, very good. And I am just pulling that up here on my end still. I had it up and that email got closed out of. So, one of the first things that I wanted to talk about with respect to this, and I have a a section typo. Uh, the sections that are highlighted in yellow are the sections that uh we omitted to have conversation on. One of them is section 6-7, not 7-7. It's on page 20 of the policy, paragraph three. We said that we were going to come back and have a conversation about uh this provision after we had made a determination or rather the council had made a determination on uh the PTO policy. Um this provision says absences of less than 4 hours do not require use of paid leave as it's presumed the staff member regularly puts in work hours above and beyond the normal 8 to 5. Uh the question was does council wish to regulate those hours and have them logged or leave that language as stand? Leave that language. Sir, I remember about talking about this specific thing and we were um I believe it was council member Swenson that said remove that section if I remember correctly. No, no, my recollection is we were the council open up for discussion. Yes, Mr. Mayor. This is for exempt employees or all employees exempt. Exempt. Correct. Correct. Mr. Mayor, Council Member Swanson. Um, yeah. I I think it makes sense to leave in as is. I think we can I mean I've always trusted my employees when I've had employees and I I think if they got to come and go for doctor's appointments, I don't feel the need to track hours or get doctor's notes or this or that. Um I trust that our exempt employees are putting in hours above and beyond and they don't get overtime. So I'm I'm all right leaving it. I think it's sensible. Any other comments? believe in. Okay. So, it sounds like we have no more questions on that, Mark. Perfect. Then we can jump to page 25, section 9-4. I'm just getting there myself. And that section number might be messed up again. It It might be 8-4. I might have been just one ahead in in my numbering. So, it's a provision regarding the use of unacred PTO after one year employment. It doesn't appear that there is a a cap on that. And I was wondering if the council wanted to impose a cap so somebody could not use unlimited unaccurred PTO or maybe if I'm misreading it, somebody could um indicate to me otherwise. I just didn't want to leave a carveout that would allow for somebody who's been there for a year to take unlimited unaccurred PTO. Take unlimited unacred PTO. I I got to say I am not a supporter of using PTO that has not been earned at all. So even at the one-year mark or greater, I'm not fan of that at all. That's what you have PT PTO for. You save your PTO, you use your PTO. So going in the hole is not something that I'm normally accustomed to in the civilian side. I don't know if it's different on the government side, but I'm not a fan of that at all. Mr. Mayor, I would agree with you on that. Okay. Council member Brian, any comments on that? I I know this there's a lot of disc Yeah. Okay. Thanks. I know there's a lot of discussion about this provision and I think at the time anyway, this was a compromise. I would agree. I would also be in favor of not allowing unacred vacation or or PTO time to be to be used up. Um I mean there may be some some provisions if we want to go back and revisit this to use um unpaid time off if if that's if more time was needed. Um, but I don't know if if we want to go through and re re um revote on this entire this section about how uh vacation gets or PTO would get paid out if it's not acred. So, I think it was not discussed and that's why he's bringing it up right now. So, I don't think we've had a discussion. Any other comments uh from council member Rainbow or Council Member Spencer Rainbow? Uh, thank you. Um, I would like to ask if we could entertain input from um our interimm city administrator Johnson as to in her time here. Have we had employees that have gone and and use nonacode PTO? Um, no we have not. they'd be taking it unpaid and that would be the normal case because it takes a significant amount of time to save up you know some hours so in order to take you know a week off they have to save it or they take it unpaid and then I would ask Miss Johnson um are you comfortable and I know it's the council's decision but I do want staff's input are you comfort able with us removing that ability to using an acrude PTO? I am. And it isn't something that we were in favor of. I don't remember why it came up in discussion prior. Um, but I've never worked anywhere that you could use unpaid. Thank you. I'm sorry. U earned. I I would then, Mr. Mayor, I would be in favor of removing the ability to use. All right, Mark, I think we got our answer on that one. Excellent. Um the one more that's uh highlighted in yellow on that list there would be a um sample salary increase policy. Uh that was down at uh the bottom of the initial draft. Do you have a copy of that sample salary increase policy? Anybody know if we have a draft of that or what page that would be on? I it would, Mr. Mayor. I think the the place that it could be located would be in the council packet from May 6th. It was all the way at the bottom. It it wasn't um integrated. It was just a proposed policy. I don't know if council has ability to access that briefly. So, Dia is working on pulling that up right now. I'm sure Very good. The the basic premise of it is just um an annual increase to um for cost of living adjustment to combat inflation. It's relatively standard in workplaces to where you can set um you know a rate that you will have all salaries increase. It's something that is not in the personnel policy as stand and was just curious if it is something that the council would want to entertain. Um given I've seen it in other places um totally a policy call by the council. Mr. Council member Bryant, turn up my mic. I don't I I guess, you know, we had this discussion last year regarding if we're going to have a set cost of living or not. And I know in several past years we've I know last year we kind of combine merit as well of cost of living. So, I don't necessarily want to have a um in place because that rate could adjust a set policy of this is exactly what people are going to be getting because um salaries could be could be addressed and cost of living can change and I'd rather have a a set pool. I personally would rather have a set tool that can be used for raises um across the across our entire staff instead of um having a specific cost of living adjustment because that provides an ample um in theory more money in the pool that can be spread out to compensate our employees. So that your recommendation is something once a year the council would address it and determine what that's going to be. Okay. And I'm fine with that. I I don't need anything set by a policy on what that that should be. We can review the budget. What month does that take place for our employees for our staff? Uh the reviews are all done in December and then the pay would take effect January 1. So we'll talk about it during the budgeting cycle. And then I believe what happened last year is they just took a dollar amount and then Scott sat down and kind of went through and kind of just determined who who gets what on that. Okay. So I I'm definitely okay. Anybody else want to make any comments on this one? That'll be determined by the council every year. We don't need to set for a cost of living. Okay. Back to you, Mark. Okay. Very good. Uh the last thing that I would um think about that I didn't put in this email or note um but it was a thought that I had earlier on was with respect to uh employees who um work after expected hours or before expected hours if those employees I know comp time is not a part of the policy and that's been decided on but if there is any flex time component um that the council would wish to entertain i.e. If somebody works 3 hours in the evening, could they come in 3 hours later the next day? You could condition that upon supervisor approval, whatever, whatever you may wish. Um, but is that something that council wants to entertain for the final draft of the personnel policy? Swanson. Yeah, I think that sounds like a sensible policy because I think that actually saves us money. It's paying time and a half for overtime for those after hours hours versus straight time, time off the next day of three hours or whenever. So, I think it actually saves us money and probably, you know, even though it, you know, maybe connects the employee less, you know, they probably would appreciate that, too. So, sort of seems like a win-win to me. Can can I ask Miss Johnson to give an example of uh taking care of the council meetings? Um, because that's probably where it's most applicable. It is most applicable here. Let's take Miss Stokel for example. She's going to be here past hour. She did come in not till 10:00 today instead of 9:00. Um but she's still going to be over her eight hour threshold. So if she wants to come in tomorrow, a little bit later or she wants to leave a little bit earlier, um I don't have any kind of problem with that. Um the times when it would not come into play I don't believe is like um when you have to work a Saturday uh potentially um or if we have some deadlines that have to get meet um depending upon their supervisor they might say no no no flex time this week because we need to get this project done. So just a question would it be only applicable for the staff in the office and not applicable to public works? Uh, no. It has been applicable as well to public works. Um, the days that I don't I believe that it isn't is like on the Saturdays when they have to go cut down some trees that that went down in the storm or over snowing, you know, time that's um basically on the weekends away from their family versus um being out plowing until 7 o'clock at night and then come in early. I do know that Joe has done a really good job managing that for when we have a big sto snow snowstorm. You know, he'll send the guys home at noon and tell them to take a nap if we plan on, you know, snow falling all night. Um, so when Mark and I were talking about this, it's just something that we wanted to make sure is acceptable because the comp time was removed and I just wanted to make sure that council was ex, you know, okay with them doing that. Did you? Uh, no. I was just actually Uh, Miss Johnson touched on something that I was going to say that Mr. Glaze has a has a history of managing that when storms are coming in. So, I think the other thing just to look at is this should be pre-planned events. Meaning, we know we have a council meeting. It should be not, hey, I woke up late today. I want to flex my time two hours. So, you still operate off your set schedule and it's for pre-planned events and pre-planned events only. Is there comp time or flex time? I don't know what the proper term is. Um but it's to help manage so we don't have as much overtime. So I would support it as long as it's pre-planned events that are discussed with the supervisor to approve. And um also in the circumstance if somebody doesn't have enough PTO, they decide to work for 9 hours so they they can leave at noon on Friday or something like that if it's approved by a supervisor. I'm less inclined with that explanation to vote for something like this because then you're shifting your your set hours. Okay. So, it shouldn't be the I want the office cleared out on Friday and everybody works additional hours so the office closes at noon. That that would be not how I would and the supervisors wouldn't allow that to happen. It's you know different circumstances. It should be pre-planned events for city events that are take place and it could be for plowing. Absolutely. It could be used for that but it definitely to cover the city council meetings but not to leave early on Friday. That would not be the example that I would include in here at all. Council Rainville. Um, I agree with having the ability to do flex time. I mean, at our meeting last week, we scheduled, I think there were four budget meetings um that are going to affect our staff's evening hours. We never asked them, are you available, excuse me, are you available these evenings? How does this affect you? And um so I think the availability of doing flex time is important. Um in the summer for public works, our parks are highly used in the summer and if you wait until Monday morning to come empty the garbage, they are overflowing and we have had complaints over the years that our garbage is full um over the weekends in in the two different parks. And so if um public works is able to flex some hours there that um we can service our residents and service keep our parks clean during the weekends, holiday hours. Um I I think that's very important to have for them. So I'm in favor of it, Mr. Mayor. All pre-planned events is what I'm hearing. Yeah. Right. And I would like to give an example of that is that they did just do that last weekend with one of the seasonal employees. He cut his hours short during the week so that he could go out on Saturday and Sunday because the parks were very booked up. I think that's a great example. All right. Any other discussion on that? Do we need to do a vote on it or is everybody in favor of what we just talked about? Mr. Mayor, before controlled flag time. Before the council moves to a vote, I just want to be clear on some language. You keep using the phrase pre-planned, which I I think I have a good understanding of what it is to draft language with respect to that. Um, snow plowing though to me does, you know, something that you all said would qualify if I'm hearing correct. That to me doesn't appear to be pre-planned. So, are there any other carveouts aside from snow plowing uh that are not pre-planned that you would want to be contemplated or is it just the plowing? Makes sense. Well, here's a thought for regulating it. I mean maybe we just open it up to all after hours or before before hours or weekend events um where staff is requested or you know demanded to stay late and then maybe up to the discretion of their supervisor whether to offer it at the time as flex time based on what's going on that week or the next week or to you know offer it as overtime. Could we do that at the discretion of the supervisor based on you know that week's needs um and sort of let them handle that? Is that feasible? So needs of the city which you're specially stating needs of the city. Yeah. Is it Mr. Mayor? Council Rando. Another instance with public works is if we have a storm come through and trees are gone. That's not a pre-plan. Maybe mother nature probably planned it but we didn't. That's a when it comes to public works, it probably can't use the term pre-planned because we don't know when storms, snow storms or severe weather's coming through, but maybe it's coordinated or planned. Maybe it's not pre-planned, but plan. And it's basically trying to eliminate the willy-nilly of, hey, I want to leave early on Friday. If I flex and stay an hour late, that's the whole goal, not to do it. So, does that make more sense, sir? It does, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. It does, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council run. Yeah, it's more or less based it can be based on job the job description of public works that in in that the public works is necessary to be available for weather emergencies whatever it is and that that would be included. That helps that does help. Okay, sir. Back to you. Is there anything else for discussion? No, Mr. Mayor, this faster than last time. This is great. Mr. Mr. Mayor, council member Glazer, go ahead. I would like to address um the language that was added for the purposes of calculating overtime eligibility. Any holiday hours or PTO hours used during a work week will count toward the total hours worked. What page are you? Um so I'm I'm looking at the page 155. Okay. Um this was actually even though we talked about it, this is an item that should have been highlighted. it it should not have been put into the working draft of the policy. Um as as stated in the minutes that we just approved earlier this evening and going back to the um the video uh the YouTube video from that meeting. Um while Council Member Swinson made a motion to add that language to the working draft um that was rescended and should not actually be in the working draft. Um, I think we need some more conversation around how uh overtime is calculated. Um, I'm not and I'm going to state it again. I stated it at that meeting um made multiple objections that um for uh administrative staff um overtime should continue to be calculated only on uh when there's more than 40 hours worked in a work week. um we run into a um a uh um oh, what was the word that I wanted to use? Um it it's it's not un it turns out to be not unlike the policy that you were not in favor of, Mr. Mayor, and that's calculating overtime um on anything in excess of eight hours in a working day. Um, and that being said, um, Council Member Rainville made a remark in regards to public works. I think we do need to take a look at how public works is paid on emergency basis. But I what I would like to do is I would like to revert the working the policy back to what we previously had that overtime is calculated on a 40-hour work week. Has to be 40 hours worked. Um, and then I would like to um propose and make a motion that we approach the Minnesota Association of Small Cities to actually do a survey with specific questions and reach out have them reach out to the um I think it's over 700 member cities to inquire as to what their overtime policy is in regards to public works. Mr. Mayor, Randall Mike. Uh, thank you. I I understand council member Glazer's concerns. My concerns are, and I will go back to what I had just said, we just um, yes, we approve flex time. That doesn't mean that they're always going to be able to take flex time. We schedule four budget meetings, not asking any of the staff whether they have whether it's a a holiday week, whether they have pre pre-planned time off. And now we're penalizing them because we have scheduled meetings in a week where either it's either a holiday or they have time off and we never took consideration of what their schedule was that week and so we're penalizing them. I did go through and I wish I would have brought it with me um back to I think it was October or November of 23 of how many extra meetings we had. Um I am going to look at time cards as I mentioned before. um asked staff to assist me with looking at time cards to see how many of those weeks where we had those extra meetings. Were our employees penalized by having to be at a meeting during a week that was either a holiday or they had time off scheduled. Um I I just don't believe that's fair to our employees to do that. So, I'm going to continue with that research based on what has occurred within our city. Um, yes, public works. And I also don't want to treat our public works different than our administrative staff. That can create conflict between them. Um, and so I think we need to have a policy that covers everyone. Mr. Mayor, I've never worked any place in the in the private sector where I was paid overtime unless I actually worked 40 hours. and and those those hours could vary in a similar situation. As an as an example to whether it's fair to have a different structure for public works versus administrative staff, Kexus Energy is a perfect example. The um the line crews who are paid hourly, their pay structure is totally different than um professional staff, whether you're whether you're hourly or whether you're salary. and that that occurs in industries all over the place. So while I would like to be uh we we just we can't I can't think of it as just a fairness thing you you know so in regards to public works sometimes we're asking those folks to and it doesn't happen very often but we we maybe have a culver failure we don't have uh city store and water so we very we're not going to have the you know the type of issues that um a city like Elk River might have. We're asking them we're asking them to come in in the middle of the night on a weekend um or maybe on an emergency after they've already worked an eight hour day. I I can totally see setting up something a carve out for public works, but I as far as the the administrative staff, I'm just not in favor of it. It Mr. Mayor, Council Member Swanson, I'm inclined to agree with Councilwoman Rainville. Um I I think there are plenty of employers out there that do pay for um overtime for hours worked and that hours worked include PTO and holidays. Um you know this is not going to apply to any exempt employees. So um you know I I imagine you know whatever we end up with as head of our city office whoever in what kind of position that's going to be exempt. And so there's only a couple city staff that it applies to. And it really is just about those evening meetings. I don't think there really is any other opportunity, you know, where there are instances where they're going to be working where that overtime would come into play. And I think it's I mean, I think it's reasonable. There's a Monday holiday and they're asked to stay late on a Thursday, but they're getting paid straight time. It just it it doesn't sit right with me. And I think I think really the only concern I would have with this is if somebody did gain the system somehow. And I think that can be addressed by, you know, supervisors or even us if if we need to review it here and see, you know, what this ended up doing. I think the effect on our budget is going to be extremely negligible. I I would imagine there are very few hours where this would come into play. Um, and I just I do see it as a matter of fairness um to sort of not punish our staff for um you know, working beyond normal hours. Council member Brian, do you have anything? Just we we've come to an understanding when it talks about meetings that there's been plenty of times when it's like, oh, we have staff on vacation, so we we're going to have to reschedule that meeting. So then we have been taking staff's time of it into account when when it when as far as planning meetings and if there was ever any um exception where where staff was not available or or that they couldn't cover the meeting I would have I would expect that there would be a mention to go you know what we're not able to have that's a a conglomeration and and discussion for us that all of us aren't available to have a meeting that night. So if staff's not available and we need to reschedu it, then we reschedu it based on that. We've done that before. So I don't see where where that would be would that necessarily would be an issue. Um Mr. Mayor, can can I let me let me state something real quick. Um so two things on this. Council member Glazer brought up. He said, "Hey, I would like to get some data." And I think data will help us with this. One, I think the input from Minnesota small cities can help us get a better understanding. And then the other thing is the impact to the city. I think that would be data that would be very helpful to continue this discussion instead of keep going back and forth. Let's use the data that we have. We just don't have it in front of us. Um so my recommendation is let's shelf this portion. Let's move forward with approving the rest of this minus this particular spot. Uh and we can come back and address this in in a month when we get the necessary data instead of going back and forth. So Mr. Mayor, would that be all right? Mr. Mayor, I agree. Um, I will just say next week is a prime example of um, Thursday is Junth, the office is closed, but we have our public hearing on June 17th. So, whatever hours um, staff is here during that public hearing, they are going to get straight time for that even though it is more than eight hours in a day. So I would ask you to bring your examples back and and and good arguments back and forth. The good thing is we had a good professional conversation. Let's shalt that portion and move. So Mark, I'm turn it back over to you. Is there anything else that needs to be discussed before we can vote on this? No, Mr. Mayor. No, Mr. Mayor. All right. So, Mr. Mayor, it's my understanding we're taking that language out, reverting it back to what it was per your request because it was supposed to be taken out. And then we will as a as a council we will come up with the the questions that we want to ask the Minnesota Association of Small Cities to send out a survey. We can ask those questions. Yep. Bring the data to support the argument from both directions and we'll have another professional conversation. We'll come to that then. But yes, it was supposed to be reverted back. I know you asked for that to be resubmitted. I remember that. So, thanks for bringing that up. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. My apologies. Thank you. Very good. All right. So, approval of the personnel policy minus we'll call it I don't even know what to call it. Section 66. Is it 66? I was going out page 155 and that's different. So, it's 66. So, let's get that specifically called out. Page 174. Is that what I'm referring to? Yes, that's the one I needed. Page 1746 overtime pay. And it says second paragraph. Is that correct? Hold on. I got to find the right one. We just revert that whole section to our existing policy and we can It's actually the par the first paragraph on page 175. That's what I was trying. Okay. So, we're going to approve everything but the first paragraph on 175. So, let's find the Anybody know where the RCA is for this mother? What's that, ma'am? All right. So, would somebody like to move forward with a motion uh on page 219 for the personnel policy? All right. I'll move forward with a motion. Um, I will move uh with to approve the motion to uh approve the resolution adopting a personnel policy dated March 2025. And I think that's all the information that we have for that. It's resolution 25 2025XX and the we're going to resend on page 175 which is the top paragraph talking about overtime. Other than that, I believe the that is my motion. Would anybody like to second that? I'll second. Second from council member Glazer. Any other discussion? Okay, moving to vote. All those in favor of approving the personnel policy say I. I oppose. Motion carries. So we have a 99% personnel policy done. We'll come back and finish that last piece up. Council Rayville. So then we need a motion to move forward with staff direction to contact the League of Small Cities. Um, but we as council members need to submit our questions that we would like to staff so that they can move that provide those to the small cities. I I'll second that. Any other discussion on that? All those in favor say I. Oh, we need a time frame. So, um I would say um if we could have today is June 10th. if we could have those questions to staff by June 18th so that staff has time prior to the July 8th council meeting to be able to contact those city that association those cities through that association and get that input for the July 8th meeting. Does that sound uh okay for everybody? June 18th. Okay. So, you rescended your motion. You added the due date. Questions to the city? I seconded your motion. I'm going to rescend it. Are we ready to vote or any other discussion? All right. All those in favor say I. I. Opposed? Motion carries. Okay. Thank you for putting a timeline on that. Okay. So, we are complete uh with attorneys. Is that correct? Thank you, sir, for attending via online. Of course. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Of course. Thank you, Mr. Okay, so now we are jumping back to number four. I think is 4 C is where we left off. Thank you. Fire chief chief. Um, let's open this up for just discussion. So, we got a presentation from Chief Miller talking about the things that he's accomplished, his long-term plan. Um, talked a little bit about the emergency operation plan. I did uh give him some feedback that we've got some gaps in that emergency operation plan and something we work to tighten up. Um, and he said he would take a look at that. Any other discussion on this? Mr. Mayor, council member Glazer, if somebody could just, you know, help me understand the the two and a half year time frame. Is that because of the the overall strategic plan that he has for the fire department? And that's a great question. We as a city feel that that's appropriate or too long, you know, it's year and a half. Um, so that's, you know, that's a question I have. I I definitely can provide input on that. So one of the questions the same question I asked for is why two and a half years then does that make sense for our city it can be reduced bottom line but so what if you look at our our fire department they're only a couple years old so four years old so one of the things this two and a half year contract did is bring stability to it and that's one of the goals we want to do is grow grow within incremental growth as you talked about but bring that stability to the fire department so I think that's why the two and a half years was proposed I certainly didn't propose I'm going to tell you that. Um, but I believe that's why it's that make sense. Yeah, it does. So, we could talk it if you wanted to say, "Hey, this is up for discussion to say I would rather approve a one-year, could be a two-year, whatever the case is." This is complete open discussion. Mayor, Council Member Swanson. Um, I I think in light of the the rationale behind the two and a half years and the stability for the fire department and allowing the the members of the fire department, you know, that knowledge and reassurance that chief and his plan is going to be there for the next two and a half years along with his sort of six-month trial period, job interview. I mean, he's been here for a while and proven that he has good ideas and that he provides good leadership. I I would be comfortable with the two and a half years. I do understand the concerns. It is sort of a long period but I I think it you know given the the need for stability and and uh I guess development within the fire department given its newness I I do think it's pro I think it's appropriate would be my thought on it. submit. Just be aware that if you look at page 123, um we have the ability to part ways with the 30-day 30-day notice. Well, Chief Miller does. Um let's read that. We'll It doesn't Mr. Mayor, it doesn't cost us anything if you read that paragraph. If if we choose to part ways, you know, whether whether the chief decides to leave or whether so that it is an option. just say you sign up for two and a half years, it can u council member Rainbow, go ahead. Mr. Mayor, um I I believe based on the presentations Fire Chief Miller has provided us and prior to tonight and the information he's provided to to us tonight, I don't see two and a half years as being um a stretch as to what needs to be done, especially the issue of developing leadership within our rank and file firefighters. Um and the issue of doing the having a fire inspection program, developing that, getting that started. Um the issue of retention of of recruitment and attent retention of firefighters. I don't see that two and a half years is is an an exorbitant amount of time. I think that he's going to need every minute of that to do that. if we find and if he reports to us that hey things are really going well and we can maybe bump or backwards some of those time frames we can address it and we have that ability in the contract but I think that we cut ourselves short and we do a disservice to our firefighters to not give them some long-term stability that's something that they haven't had since we have um determine that now then is going to have a fire department in recruitment. Um they're going to look to what is your management and is your management stable and um I think by approving a two and a half year contract that shows uh the council commitment that that we want stability for our firefighters, our fire department and our firefighters which then benefits our residents. Mr. Mayor, absolutely. And just as a observation, there were only three firefighters in the room this evening, but he obviously has a good rapport. I just make a comment. I did make a few phone calls to firefighters last night just to get a sampling. You know, more of a statistic sampling. It was a little a small population, but both reported good working relationship. Appreciated the leadership. Um, and he's they said chief is all in all in on now then. So, you wouldn't know he's a Brooklyn Park firefighter. You would think he's the full-time chief here. Um, so that's some of the feedback from the fire department, but it was very positive. Um, but I did I did sample with two firefighters. I do want to bring up the wage because the wage has been a concern. Um, let's talk about 1150 $1,150 a week. Um, looking at 2026 going up to $1,200 a week. So, what the chief provided, this doesn't have a page number on it, but it's per capita cost. There's not a dollar sign, but So, he did clarify it was cost um per resident. And he's got I'm assuming this is the chief's cost. I should have asked them for clarification money. So, he's got us at $69.95. And I I'm assuming that's per resident just to cover the chief's cost. Was that how you interpret this? Yes, Mr. Mayor. If you look, he's got the what kind of fire chief they have and that is the number. So that he explained and if I could just address the two and a half years as well is um with the history of the city and the length of time it takes to find and hire somebody and then have the over overlappinging time um with the chief to make that transition. I I think the two and a half years is quite um reasonable along with um tonight to address Mr. Glazers or Council Member Glazer's comments about the firefighters here. Um there were more here and then they got a fire call. And they had it out. Do you have a comment there? I'm I'm I guess there I would say there should certainly be some clarification of what this number means because as I understand it, Oakrove has a larger population and their their chief is is um overall paid less. So I don't I think there may need to be some clarification of what that number means. Um they have they have twi almost twice the population. They're at 9100 and we're at 4636 off the last uh census I see that came in the mail. So almost twice the population. Again, I I haven't validated any of these numbers presented. It's first time I've seen it. But the one thing that has been brought up to me by residents is the cost is expensive. Um but if you look at I'm going to say a complete value proposition where if we bring stability to our fire department, we maintain our fire department. The question is does that value that we're paying is it a a scenario where it's worth paying that cost? and it's been a little bit of my struggle. I talked to the chief. I said, "Can can you take a reduction in cost?" He wasn't really interested in doing that. But I did ask him that directly because it's expensive. It's one of our largest larger expenses that we have in the city. You know, police department's the largest, but um so is that service that we get from him worth that value for that cost? And that's the question that'll really determine the vote. Mr. Mayor, Council Member Spencer, how did we come up with that weekly salary for his set hours? I think we'd have to ask Council Member Brian or Rainville because it was before I, if memory serves me, um, we looked at what other cities were paying, but yet the information we had provided to us was not complete. Um there was not a a apples to apples comparison of of duties, anything like that. Um but we felt that that was a a an appropriate wage. Um given the fact that we are a new department um I say 21 um and since 21 we have been in a continual transition. So there is a lot of um a lot of policy building, a lot of um uh team building. There's a lot of things that he's doing for that money. I'm comfortable in paying him that money. He brings us 37 years of experience. Um I think he's done a wonderful job in what he has done so far. um especially on a part-time basis and um you in order to draw people and good quality people um they need to be compensated um and I think that's a fair compensation. When you look at Oak Grove, St. Francis, Ramsey, Oak River, um the the other Lynwood, Lexington, those are all established fire departments. So that chief maybe doesn't have to take on as big of a leadership role or a role of determining the how the department is going to be run because they have internal management higher up firefighters that are more experienced. He said we have a you know three-year average. Um, you don't get that experience in a three-year-old or three, not three-year-old, excuse me, threeyear firefighter unless maybe that firefighter has come from another department. Um, but it seems like a lot of what we're getting are our new fresh off the street recruits. So, I I'm comfortable with that dollar amount. Um, I think it's council. Yeah, I'm gonna I I totally agree with uh what Councilwoman Rainville said and as she was talking, it just caused me to think more and I I do think we have a a really good sheep and he's got a good plan, good leadership, everything. And I just now I'm reassured that at least that that weekly salary was based on some statistics, even if we didn't have an economist in here, you know, nailing it down exactly, as long as it was based on something and it wasn't just some arbitrary figure, I am comfortable with that. Um, Mr. Mayor, it was an arbitrary figure at the end. Um, we with the information we have, yes, it was kind of varying B based on whether it was um paid on call or in different communities had different different amounts. Um, the initial amount that we was proposed was considerably lower. Um, but at the time it was brought to our attention that there was the potential of that. um there was a potential for for a state law that required um exempt employees even if they were part-time to have a minimum salary. So when this was proposed that that arbitrary amount was used. So that arbitrary amount was higher than what we originally talked about um having for our part-time chief. So that arbit so that's that's so the number that's in there is is a pretty much an arbitrary amount that was basically set that if you have an exempt position at part-time but that that policy law did not go through so that does not have to be in court and that that state policy didn't go in force because a federal court in Texas um ruled on a case and the the threshold for um part-time exempt employees remained at it's a little over it's around $33,000 a year. So it was going to increase from 33,000 to 40ome and then and then up to 50 something. That's and that's why the council and there if we go back to the to minutes um and previous meeting packets, there was actually conversation that involved attorney Ruby um in regards to uh why we chose why the city chose that uh that cell. So, Mr. Mayor, can I add one more piece in here real quick? Okay. Well, and and I'm not the one thing that that I do want to say is is I recognize Chief's the years of u experience that he has, what he brings to the table. So, I I don't want to I I don't want to short him on that. Um but I I just, you know, want us to have all the facts and um be able to answer to residents that are asking about the cost of this. Just one comment. So, we also pay peril. So I asked Natalie to take a look at this. So this is an an additional fee of almost it's a little over 10,000. Look at make sure I get correct statistics that we're paying per on top of the wage. So it's not a just a straight 60,000. It's a little bit short of 60 right now, but starting in 2026 it would be 60,000, 1200 a week, but we have a pair on top of it which is 10,000. So you got to look at just like if you're starting a new job, you're looking at the entire package. That's what we're paying for. So we're really at 70,000. So there there is an expense. This is not coming cheap. Mr. Mayor. All right. I think council member Randall is next. Um I would just say that if if if we choose and and council majority vote um makes the determination. Um but if we choose to offer him less and he says no, what do we do July 1st? Because his contract is over the 30th. And if he doesn't extend it, then we have nothing on June July 1st. I'm not suggesting that's the best. Okay. But I that that's a consequence of it. And I don't mean it as a scare tax. I just need to make sure every council member understands the total cost that we're paying and what the value is. Council member Swanson. Yes. Thank you. Um I you know his his contract says 20 to 30 hours a week. Even assuming he only works 20 hours a week. I mean, that would, you know, to to get a full-time chief's equivalent salary, you just double what he gets. And I think a full-time chief is a mid6 figure job. And so, I I I don't know that we can find a part-time chief for less than that. I mean, we could go paid on call chief. I guess I don't know what that kind of pay looks like, but as far as a halftime chief, and I I suspect he's working more than 20 hours a week with getting the department organized, although I don't know that for certain. So I I think maybe we might even be getting a deal on him when you consider it's just half a sheet at half a salary. So you know he's being paid for 20 hours, but he's really putting in 30. Yeah. I mean, if he is because the contractor something in here says 20 to 30 hours a week, but even if he's working that minimum 20 hours a week, I still think it's a sensible wage. Um because a full-time chief would just be double that, which would be, you know, 120 something. And I I I suspect and just based on a quick Google search that most chiefs are paid more than that. I mean, I understand we have a small town. It's not Minneapolis or something, but I again I I think he's he's a good fit and I'm willing to pay and I don't think we're paying a premium. I think we're just paying a reasonable price. Is the PAR that we're paying if it was full-time, do we pay that same amount of PAR or is that double because he's gets more hours? it is a required by the state of what that amount is. Correct. So that's it. Um I would like to add that he did just text me back and he said it's for the whole department. So the per capita is for the entire department's budget. Um interesting. I did not know that. So it's great. Thank you for telling that. And one other thing too to kind of address what you were saying. Um I can confirm that he is working more than the you know 20 hours a week. Um he tries to work about 27. He checks with me all the time and he keeps a couple of hours to be able to make it to calls. Um now there is time that he's working at home and sending me things after hours as well. So I would agree with Mr. Council member Swintson that we're probably getting more than what the contract is stating. Any other questions or statements, Mr. Mayor? Council Rainbow. Natalie, if you can help me. Did I did I read or did I dream that there was something about the the issue of the title and affecting Cara? If we dropped the intermedi, you must have been having a dream. Okay. All right. That's fine because I can't find it right now. But I had that in my mind. All right. Thank you for clarificating. No, Council Member Brian did want to drop the interup if we are going to move forward with this. I think that should be part of the process because if that's the case, we're not. Is there any other recommendations to reduce the time or are we okay with the two and a half years? I'm Mr. Mayor. I'm fine with two and a half years and the salary as is. Okay. Any other comments? Council Brian or Council Blazer or can we move to vote? Sounds like we can move it to a vote. Would anybody like to make a motion? Mr. Mayor, Council Member Randall, I I would move that the council approve resolution 2025-XX um extending the contract agreement with Robert Miller until December 31, 2027 as fire chief emergency manager. I'll second that. Okay, we will move it to on page 127 is where you're reading. Yes. All right, we'll move it to vote. All those in favor say I. I opposed. Motion carries. So, we no longer have an interimm chief. We have a chief miller. Okay, we are back to we're on old business now. Old business number nine. Is that what everybody's tracking? Number seven. Oh, I'm sorry. I skipped seven, which is the administrator update. I got too many lines on my paper. So, turn it over to Miss Johnson. All right. So, as of actually today, we actually have 11 applications for that receptionist um front desk position. I have not looked at any of them at this point, but I will next week after I get back. Um, one thing that we did not discuss was a hiring committee. Um, in the past, one or two council members have been involved in a in the process. Um, I guess what I'm asking then is what is the process that this council wants to use? Um, maybe asked, does anybody want to volunteer to be on the hiring committee? Anybody has any time or would like to volunteer? Just was going back and looking at the days. Oh, I just want to please M. Sorry, Mr. Mayor. Go ahead. I just at least want to make it available and open that if council members are available that they can be they can attend the interviews and and at least participate to get a a heads up. I mean, I know I can't go every single time, but um it would be nice to, you know, and maybe if it's not the first interviews, be involved in in the second if there aren't any. and and just to at least have that flexibility that if two council members um want to be able to are able to participate that they can at least be there and either ask questions or sit in and and get information about the staff that we're hiring. I think that's a a fantastic comment that they should be available as long as they want to participate. So June 23rd or June 24th um what if no council members have availability? we move forward with the hiring process um and you guys do the interview and then you bring that recommendation forward. Um that's what I need approval for if that's what you're looking for. Yeah, I I trust the Miss Johnson to do the interview process and make a decision on a a you know front desk person. if it's a a bigger position, you know, perhaps it'd be appropriate to, you know, insist on council involvement. But for uh a staff person like that, I I think she has it more than handled and I would defer to her judgment. But I would also agree with Councilman Bryant that if someone is available that we'd be able to pop in there and would you put the meeting invite out there and there just can't be any more than two council members on it. That's all. Correct. So, so I do have the dates that I'd like to do it if it works out well for the 23rd 24th with a second interview on the 30th. So, if anybody is interested as well, please um send me a little note just to make sure and I'll make sure that you're on the invite. Are you is the plan to narrow the field down to two or three for the 30th or what's the plan for the 30th? That is my hope. I will go through and score them um first and see who hits the top and then we'll decide how many uh I should be interviewing based upon how many meet the qualifications and then we would do the interviews and then I would come back for a second if there's more than one candidate that fits everything. Maybe top two come back or maybe top three, whatever the case is. Mr. Mayor Council, would council be given the opportunity to review uh applications just like we were given the opportunity to review applications of seasonal employees? Those those applications were in the packet. Absolutely. That's what you're interested in. If you want to review applications, buddy, you go right ahead. So, Mr. Mr. Mayor, Council Reville. Um, just to clarify to Council Member Glazer, are you talking all 11 applications or just as she after she has scored them? Just so Natalie, I guess I'd be willing just to take the after they've been scored. Scored. Okay. Yeah. Because obviously there's going to be some that don't fit the the bill. And and Mr. Mayor and Miss Johnson, I am I I would be interested in in sitting in on them. I just I have commitments for the 23rd and 24th. However, the time frames on those have not been determined yet. They have not because I do not sure how many. No, I meant Yeah, I'm not worried about um No, I just um I have I have a gig that is going to be 23rd and 24th, but I don't know the time frame once I know. Um I mean, if I am and if I'm just an observer, that's fine, too. So, um, we at one time as a council, I had provided a a resolution, um, allowing staff to go out and look at, um, bringing in an expertise based on what the hiring was, providing that, bringing that person in wouldn't cost the city any money that it didn't pass. Um, but if Natalie would council allow Natalie if she feels necessary, if she can't get two council members to come in on it, um, would she be will we be allow willing to allow her to bring in maybe another clerk or administrator for from another city that has experience with hiring um, receptionist type positions. If that's something Natalie feels she needs doesn't that's fine. I can't speak for anybody else help her if she if we can't be of assistance. Would there be a concern from the count uh from the council if if she did that? So another city's clerk would come over and help in the interview process is what the request is. You okay with that? Not costing city money. There you go. And that was that was the qualifier. It doesn't cost the city money. Okay. So, that'll leave that up to M. Doesn't sound like you're going to get two council members, but it's possible. Thank you. Um, the next item that I also added was night that came up um just recently because the Lions reached out. This is normally an event that the Lions have put together. Um, the city really hasn't been involved with it much. Um, with everything that's happened in the city, I think it would be a really good idea for the city to participate in night to unite. Um, I would like to be able to have council members there. I would, um, love to move forward with this. Um, we had a conversation with Comcast. They said they'd be willing to help with some of the sponsorship. Um, the Lions would still provide um, some of their I think they did hot dogs and chips before. um the fire department would still come. We would be able to um hopefully do a few other things, maybe, you know, get some volunteers to face paint or do something to bring the community together rather than division. And um I did put in a request to the sheriff's department for a helicopter to land for us um because St. Francis always gets that. Um I don't know if we'll get it or not yet. Laura has not gotten back to me. Um, but I was just looking for council approval to move forward with this plan and be able to kind of count on at least a few of you to be there. Yes, Mr. Mayor, Council Brian. Yeah, I I I know in the past um the mayor and council member Rainville and myself have have attended at the night forite and have actually traveled around the city and visited uh uh different neighborhoods that have had that same event. So yeah, I don't think that would be an issue and I would um welcome the the now than Lions to be able to to help out and set up. I think just last year it was in just a matter of a staffing issue and having enough volunteers to do it. Yeah. And if that's something that we're able to help out with and we can partner with the Lions, that would be a wonderful wonderful thing for the city to do. Even I I mean it's even it's just showing up. I know the sheriff's had been, you know, the sheriff has been there and the fire department had everything open up and whatever else. So yeah, there's nothing wrong with that. What is the cost of the city? That's one thing it doesn't say. Is there any cost? No, I I don't know yet. I'm thinking that it's not going to be a whole heck of a lot. I was thinking, you know, um some staff would volunteer to go. I know I would volunteer to go and we could um give out some flyers trying to get people to the website and giving them any information about the city. Um anything that they would like. Um Lexi has created a new um resident little flyer with some of the main information um that we can email as soon as it's all finalized. Um it has information about septic systems and wells and different things that people from other communities may not know about. has contact information not only for the city council and planning and zoning people, but also for different contractors that would do things for us as far as um that are available in the city. Um who our contractors are as far as the building permits if you decide you want to do something. So, it's kind of a nice and that could be something that we could be handing out that we can make right inhouse. I would volunteer my time for this. What is it? Oh, thank you. Um, at the last meeting I was also directed to try to find um, somebody else besides our current planner that could give a proposal. Um, I do have two companies that I have spoken with. Um, and planner Nash is also working on something. Um, trying to come up with a plan as to what it is. Um, from the the training that I went to, I had two different cities reach out after I put it out on the bulletin board that the clerks um is that the one you get 500 emails on every time you somebody asks a question and then you No, not all of them. Okay. So, I didn't put it on the LMC. I put it on the the clerks only and I had a couple of them and or administrators as well that reached out that said that they were in the midst of doing something. So, I have WSB is looking at it and I have another individual that did not write down his um name and I should have. Um, so I'm hoping by July to be able to have something with some sort of a number knowing that it's not a budgeted item, but it is something that we seriously need to look at. That' be wonderful. You can bring your proposal back. Then an update as well. Um, just a reminder that I will be out the remainder of the week. Um, so you're not really gonna I'm probably won't do an update, so I'm just going to do it tonight a little bit where, um, the administrative staff will continue to do, you know, what they normally do. Um, we are closing an hour early tomorrow because they don't have staff. and Friday. Um, public works has been out doing hauling gravel and still waiting for a new cylinder for the packer. Uh, the John Deere tractor, the ditch tractor is supposed to be back on Friday. So hopefully without those repairs, they'll be able to start on that. Dust control will start down tomorrow um provided on the weather, but as of right now, we're scheduled for tomorrow. Um, crack sealing should be starting on the June 23rd. Um, just meaning that it's going to be a tenative again based on weather. And also um we had kind of a little blimp in some of our uh internet investigation this week or I'm sorry, Friday, Monday again, Friday I think it was. um that there's a zale information in our system and that is what Craig was looking at. That was what we um directed him to look at the different buildings and if there was a way to connect them better and as he was doing that he inadvertently um doing some testing shut off a switch which somehow turned off St. Francis. Oh, it's all one big line. Yeah. And but nobody has any information on it and the people that set it up. There's a map somewhere because Yeah, it's it wasn't Sorry, it wasn't an Oka County thing. Yeah. Yeah. So, there's one line that travels through all the different cities and um Yeah. From here it goes up and then I believe it hits Old Viking and then runs up to 47 and then shoots up to St. Francis. Yeah. Well, there's no documentation anywhere, but you can find I have to see. I don't know if I still have my Okay. Well, the county and Zo are trying to find him a map. They we were able to get St. Francis back up and going. Um, as far as I know, um, Craig is going to continue to work on that and he said, "I will have everything documented as to what it is and if it works the way that he thinks it may work, um, it may be a good solution for us as well." Um, but he's still investigating. So, just kind of an update on that. We had a hub. We in in in your office. Yes. And then but we weren't ever using it and it was when it was a conference room, it was very annoying and very loud and so at the time because we weren't using it, we we requested that it was just be taken out. So the zo goes up through the office as well. My goodness. Okay. So it would if it is truly all working, it should save us some of the ARV um payments that we would have. Yes. No, there was hookup fees and if we're going to use it in the office, then we'd have to pay to rehook it up and Arv might just very well and or Comcast be cheaper. But yeah. Okay. Well, because the fire station was using it as a backup at least or they were at the time. Yeah, it's just so interesting that I can't find any documentation and so um Craig is going to work on it. That's so just kind of an update for you that that's where we're at on that and he's still continuing to work. I just found it a little amusing that and unfortunate that we tone St. Francis with trying to investigate. Okay. Any comments from Miss Johnson? All right. Let's move on to old business. Well, looks like we started on B. I don't know what happened to A, but okay. A resolution for Veterans Memorial Ad Hoc Committee. Council Randall, you can take this one. Yes. on page 221. So, council last month determined or voted to um have ad hoc committees um from time to time to deal with specific issues or projects. Um, I'm requesting that we provide we adopt an ad hoc committee to work on the renovation of the Northern Memorial Veterans Memorial here at Northern Memorial Park. Um, I would like um to include veterans uh residents that are northern residents that are veterans um andor their families. um if we have people that are interested in doing that to try to come up with the plan to re renovate our our memorial. Um the original was back Bill Schultz and Isaac Schultz is a not even probably a teenager did that. So it was time it needs to be redone. Um, so I'd like the council to determine how many people they think we should have on a committee, the timeline um of advising the community for the opportunity to serve on the committee, and then how do we want to choose the committee members? And then the ad hoc committee would determine a timeline for the committee to meet and develop three proposals. um and that is what should that area reflect? Do the granite memorials that are there needed to be updated? Added if we add in the the more recent conflicts that the nation have been in um with our military. Um should the area be designed to reduce ongoing maintenance? Um do we need to change any electrical out there? I know when the Lions have had time done the the tree lighting, there's been issues with the electrical. So, do we need to look at updating that electrical? Um, and then do we need to look at redoing the now city of NAND sign to make that u reflective to what we doing within the memorial? Um, I don't have a cost because we don't have um proposals yet. Um, but they would come out of the park dedication funds because it would be a permanent structure. Um, can anybody remember how much money we have in the park fund? 200 a lot. So, it's not it's not going to be an issue. So, if we spend 30 or $40,000 on this, it's part of the park fund. Mr. Mayor, that maintenance or is that considered maintenance as it's in? This would be considered new. And last year we did have $30,000 reserved out of the park funds for this. Um it just never got completed. So um at last week's or last month's meeting, I asked if anybody had any suggestions for committee members um to forward them to Natalie and she would forward them to me. Um so I'd like to ask permission to to move forward with this. Um, I would work with with Na uh with Lexi to have a update on the website, on the Facebook. Um, we could put some posters at city office here um to try to get um residents that are interested in participating in this as part of our um fee schedule. And I don't remember the resolution number um but the members would get a stipend of $40 for each meeting that they attend. They are not allowed to um commit the city to any monies um any expenses. So anything that they do for bids would have to be no no cost bids things like that. Um but so that's my and you bring the recommendation to the council is what I'm assuming. Yes. Yeah. You're looking for input. Uh do we have input on the number of people to serve on the committee? First one any input on that one. As many people are interested. Is there a lot of interest in it? I don't know if there's any interest. So we'll have to find that out. made a couple phone calls last night and you probably have two people that are interested that are veterans. Um I've worked with a lot of teams and if you're looking at a team trying to make a decision as a committee, it sometimes makes it very difficult. So, my recommendation is five to nine people, okay? Something like that. You get over that, you might as well throw it out the window on how you're you're going to get any type of and I would suggest an odd number because if there's any votes and and let me clarify what I said. I just assumed there'd be a low amount of I didn't imagine we'd have a 30 people committee, but yes, your suggestion was for an odd number for a timeline. Does anybody have a recommendation? Mr. Mayor, council member Brian, I we may we may need to look at this maybe particular maybe in different phases. Um, as I understand it, um, someone came Natalie, somebody came out of the office and was asking about the the marker at the ball field. Yes, there was one over there that asked and wants he wants it put back and that was part of the original plan. got the marker got taken out and just is sitting next to the garage. And so I would if if if renovating this might take a little longer, I would seriously entertain trying to do something a little more immediate with the marker that was taken out. Um because it was just all covered with brush in the back in the trees behind home plate behind the fence. There's a marker in there for with a veteran that needs to be addressed. Okay. And I mean I If it's if it's just rep putting it down and doing something then but it would be nice to incorporate that in some way shape or form just sitting there. It's be included in this memorial. It either needs to be included in this memorial and plan or it needs to be because it was originally separate that it be because it it has it I believe it was Mr. Miller because he was in World War II, but it, you know, it literally has um a ball player engraved on it as well. So, it it would be nice depending on it to incorporate a flag pole. Not that we have to keep a flag up there, but the ball players might want a flag or something. But instead of just having it sit by the garage as it is, it either should be re it either should be buried in concrete and in the ground and put something around it or at least temporarily or incorporate that somehow. But I in my opinion that needs to be done sooner than later. Okay. I I'll talk to Natalie and staff on that and see what we think is I mean is it like is it just a round flat? No. No. It's a big It's a um practically I would say it's a cemetery marker. Oh, okay. Can I give a recommendation of 6 to8 weeks once the committee is formed? Yep. Would that work? And the last thing is how will members be chosen? Is there any recommendation to council Rainville on how members should be chosen? Give some input if you got less than nine people and I think they can all be included. Amazing. Maybe we cross that bridge when we get there. Get there. Well, do we want to include I know there's at least two veterans on the council as well as family members of those who serve that it could be a matter of having two council members um either participate as or participate or be involved in um selecting membership as well. And I can certainly help. I'd be willing to help on this one. All right. I I did also I thought I had it in here that I would like a public works member to be part participate in it. This is they're the ones that are going to have to maintain it and maybe have some ideas. So I thought I have that in my draft. Oh yeah, I do. Committee should consist of community residents, veterans and or their families, a member of a public works staff and council representative. So okay. Okay. Any other discussion on this one or can we send it to vote? You've got your You want to make a motion first on it? I know you talked about it, but I don't think we got a second. I I'll go I will move that we uh move forward with an ad hoc committee um for the renovation the Veterans Memorial Park at Northern Memorial Park. I will second that. Okay. Any other discussion? No. Move it to vote. All those in favor say I. I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. Okay, we are going to see city council. Um, so if you had a chance to read this, one through five were the original goals that we had uh I'll say started in January or February. They're either completed or they're almost completed at this point or we've moved on to other things. Uh the next list of 10 things were some additional things that were in process at this point were already completed. Um and their request was to discuss what should be our new goals um moving forward. And you put one in there. Uh Miss Johnson, you put number one in there. Approve the job descriptions for city clerk, treasur, administrative staff. We did because I feel that's really important that we get that done and I would be fine with it. Just do they need to be updated first or they just need to be approved? They need to be actually created and Okay. All right. So, we got some forward. We have um some old job descriptions. Um we've definitely changed how the admin administrative staff is working than what was previously done in the past. Okay. Yeah. So, we have job descriptions. They just need to be updated to reflect changes in they need to be updated. updated and then approved. There's two requests there. All right. Is there anybody else write anything down uh for goals that we would like to set for the city? Well, nobody's going to go. I'm going to talk. Um first of all, I would love to get some emergency weather sirens. And I say sirens, but it might be a siren. Um I know that Chief Miller was working on a quote. I don't have it in front of me. I don't know what the cost was. 37. 37. It was not budgeted this year. that may have might be a fine goal, but we can't do anything with it this year. So, I think we have to shelf that, but there's one I wanted to bring up as as a goal. And I think the high volume well ties right into that same thing, but we don't have any money. So, it's got to get shelf how we can budget the item. When I say we don't have any money, we don't have any budgeted money. So, let me clarify that. Anybody else want to go with goals? So, one of the things, Mr. Mayor, in regards to um the emergency weather sirens, I I would like that to include a um sound study by because the manufacturer actually provides that for free. Yes, please. So, know where the zones where they got to go to cover it. Yes. So, I I would like that uh that to be incorporated into that and have that happen first. So, maybe maybe that is the goal right there. Try to do this study so we understand how many we actually need. I I don't I I heard something that we need four or six is what chief said, but I haven't seen the document. But did that include the study? I don't know. Well, and it so one of my questions is that since the last since the siren was installed here and now then the surrounding communities have grown up quite a bit. So, are our residents that are on more on the fringes of our of our city picking up um sirens from surrounding communities? Yes, we are. So, so I I think that's important to so we we're not just throwing, you know, a dart at a dart board. We definitely don't want to throw darts. So, just give you an example. Ramsey has is 29 square miles. We're 35.1 square miles. They have 17 sirens. We currently have one, but you're correct. The whole north side of now, correction, south side of now is all covered. So, there's coverage. So, that's why we're going to end up having a lot less. I guess there's one one good thing about growing slow and not taking action. We're going to have a lot less sirens to maintain because there's a there's a maintenance cost these things, too. $260. I looked at the invoice. It's $260 per year per siren. So, so the person to talk to about I think maybe to start with is is Rob Schiller with is it what's the name of his electric company? Ready. Ready what? Oh, Ready What? Ready? Because that that's that's a a very very much a part of his business is is the uh installation and and service work on weather sirens. So he has a relationship with the manufacturer and I think that's who Chief Miller reached out to and talked to specifically and that's a free study. The the manufacturer I was told by Rob that the manufacturer will provide that service. Okay. Mr. Mayor, Councilman Randle, I would just say our one and only siren was was donated. Bill Schultz got that for us. How many years? I think right before when right after return we turned to city and I think AMB um donated them. Okay. The tower for it. Okay. Yeah, I'm sure they probably did. Yeah. Another recommendation is implementation of cups and IUPs. Um we had talked we had to change up some ordinances or rewrite some ordinances, but I think that's a really important one. So, it's understanding who needs them, who has them, and then the enforcement piece that comes along with it. And that would be a that's going to be kind of a long-term working with Cindy. Um, so we'll have to kind of go back to the budget portion of that. That may be something for 2026 depending upon how much time we're going to spend. Let's hope we don't have to wait that long, but yes, if we have to. Yeah, there's quite a few. Another one you brought up is roads and the the the differentiation of adding some clay to roads so they bind together and the calcium chloride. We have some roads that are terrible as far as dirt roads. I would like to make some forward progress. You know, we don't have a lot of money, but do we have anything out there that we can use for roads to make them better? Um after a conversation with um Mr. glaze today about that after all the hauling that they did. They did try to use the the better quality gravel this year with things. Of course, it makes the budget a little bit smaller with some of the repairs that we have. Um he wants to wait until we get those invoices back to see how much they are before he does any more hauling after today. Um we we would know when he's paying for it. I know we don't have the invoices yet, but we would know. So we should be able to calculate and estimate how much he's spent compared to well we have on on the gravel and such but he's thinking but we don't have enough money in maintenance in the maintenance line. So um he is wants to wait and see what we have for those invoices and what the grater and the tractor are going to cost because it's a larger amount than he was anticipating having to spend. Um right now he thinks he's got about $5,000 left in the gravel money. Mr. Mayor, Brad, question for Natalie. So, I know in the past we've gotten the gravel from place. Yes. And now we're going to be to get it because it's got a higher clay content. Do we know a I'm just going to call it a cost differential per ton of the difference between Elk River and going to OV? Well, there's going to be a difference because of mileage as well. And I know that Joe has that number. I just don't know it off the top because I'm just thinking we budgeted for one thing based on past practices of going to Elk River. So now we're doing something different. So it's you know so we I understand we budgeted amount and it might not be enough but we you know do we do we have an idea is like okay well we always got pick an example 40 tons for Elk River and that's this cost well if we are going to Oglevie because it's better clay and the road should last longer then 40 tons is going to be one and a half or two or whatever it is and I can get back to you with that because I know that Joe knows that number I just don't recall what we had talked about you know and again. Is there other options for gravel rows to mix in something else other than just adding the clay to that would keep them keep as a binder to keep it together? Yeah. It's just that play studs didn't um offer the higher amount, right? Yeah. So, um OGO I know he did say was the closest and the cheapest for him to be able to get that mixture. Like to go to the next one. city ordinances as we've talked about it's going to go out for bid we're going to rewrite them but the next target on that the long-term piece is to get a feebased system for permits so it's not an escrow base but a feebased system now will we accomplish that in the next two years I don't know but I would certainly like to drive in that direction so if a resident says hey I would like to do said a build a house we could give them a feebased cost and not here go turn in a bunch of money and we'll figure out what you get left that's where I'd like to see it go and it ties into our strategic piece work. Uh I think we owe that back to our residents. Mr. Mayor, council member um Glazer, go ahead. I I would I would like to see us work towards a goal of reopening the office to our previous business hours and as opposed to once we get back up to staff and hire this this fourth person. Um, we have residents that that uh need to do business with with the city and may not be able to get there. Um, they may need to get there before 10 o'clock in the morning. And so I'd like to see if we can set that goal to to restore our our normal office hours. I don't What are the previous hours and what are the current ones? I don't know. They were four 9h hour days and noon on Friday. Well, there have been a couple things. Um, there were four 10-hour days with Friday off. And then there were 8 to 4. People complained they couldn't get there by 4, so we went to 4:30 and then we went to five. But we also at at one time were open at excuse me at 7 a.m. but that was when we were working with contractors and they were doing bringing permits in which now is all through river so that's not an issue. Um can I ask what our current hours are? 10 to 5. Um they're open to the public 10 to 5. Monday through Friday. Monday through Friday and staff is there by I'm usually there by 8 and the rest of staff is usually there by 9. Um I started doing that earlier because I just needed the time. Um we have had some conversations as staff to try to go to an 8 to 4. Um they are keeping track of how many phone calls we're getting before 10:00 that go into the voicemail or it rings because it'll tell you how many times we miss. Um, and they're also keeping track of how many people, how many residents are coming in after four o'clock, between four and five. You have a recommendation what hours you were looking for. I guess I would look to I would look to other cities to see what they're doing. We definitely make it a goal to evaluate hours from other cities and see what the best hours to be open. Absolutely can be a goal. Mr. Mayor, Council Member Swson. Um, the only idea I had to add to this list, I felt maybe was a little too general for it, but um, just figuring out how to encourage development of of commercial and industrial in the city, attract them, make us more attractive. I I don't know what specific goals we could set to work towards that. Maybe um, Natalie would have some good ideas talking to other city administrators, you know, what they've done. I mean, this is not a new issue. probably have to reinvent the wheel or do something crazy like I suggested last week and water up a quarter of the city. I mean, there's got to be something we can do. So, um I mean that in my mind that that ought to be a goal to expand tax base without cramming in houses and keeping taxes low and getting some money in the city. But again, it's pretty broad. Got one more I'd like to add. do make sure we schedule the tabletop exercise for the EOP for the emergency operation plan. I think that's really important. We got a new chief. We got a lot of new staff on it. We're going through that process. It like I just emailed chief. I'm like there's some major gaps in there right now. So going through the tabletop exercise, you start asking questions and you're going to identify what these gaps are and it'll show that the EOP is not complete. It's it's a good draft. I know we signed it off because we didn't have something signed off, but we need to develop this. I do got one more. I know that I've been requested to add a crosswalk on 22 on Viking Boulevard so they can walk from County Road 5 across without getting run over. Um, that's definitely one we can talk about for discussion. And then one final one is just street sign evaluation that the street signs, some of them are very nice and some of them are so old they're not even reflective. If you've tried to like find a street at night, it's sometimes it's very difficult. Now, that one has been started. They do have a list that's been going um where Via and Joe have been working on that together together to um determine which ones they are. My answer from Joe was the signs are very expensive, so he replaces them when he gets complaints about them. I don't think that's a very good plan. I think it's a terrible plan. waiting until somebody complains about a specific sign. How about if we evaluate our signs, get a total cost, then we can Exactly. Instead of which is why they've started it and moving on with that. Is there any other goals? It's just mostly the cost. So, Mr. Mayor, not suggesting we can fix them all right now, but we can budget and plan for Council Rainbow. The crosswalk on five and 22 would be county project, but maybe it's just to turn it into the county to get them rolling and say we we would like this. We don't want to see anybody get run over. I will um if council doesn't mind, I will contact the county on that. Yes, please. That would be wonderful. Anyway, I can't speak for you. No, it's basically saying the same thing. That's county county county road, so there's not going to be a lot that we can do, but it's a matter of just striping it with the painted crosswalks. I don't know. But I'm assuming the county takes care of all that. All we do is put the request into them. Yeah. I'm going to also at the same time talk to them about the lights on the stop lightss on Clearary and 22. When I had asked them to do the ones like 47, they went a less expensive route. And I would like to see the lights that are on 47 and 22 also be on Clary and 22 because we have accidents there. Yes, please. The seniors asked for the same thing. I did request that to Natalie and they said not right now. They said no, but maybe you can help encourage them. Is that a good enough list of goals right now? We can come back and refine them. Okay. Can we close that chapter? Do we got a vote on this or are we okay? No, we're good. All right. What is the next one? approval. Okay. Add comments to city Facebook. Is there a resolution for this one? Also, I think you're just looking for a motion. Um, as you can see, and if you um understood everything in the RCA, basically Lexi explain how that works. How many followers are on there? Um what's happening? She wanted me to read an example. She said recently the most interaction we had with a post was a post made about the fire department. When we shared it or when other residents shared it into the community groups there were much more interaction and very many views. This is an example of how to comment on a boost. On our page we had zero comments and 25 likes which is the highest which is a a record for the city on a post. The now then bulletin had four comments comments and 36 likes. And the now then bullet bulletin had 19 comments and resulted in 84 likes. Because of those likes, it gets them in the algorithm. Therefore, it'll pop up when people are are um surfing on Facebook. Um all of the comments were positive. Most of the posts that we have, I don't know that there could be anything negative. Um they're talking about, you know, the holidays. We're talking about the fire department. We're talking about the burning bands or not a burning band. Um, but in order to get the engagement with the community, we really need to have some comments to get into that algorithm. One of the things that was brought up when we go back to the septic system um compliance portion was whether or not residents could potentially opt out of a mailing reminder and ask for an email reminder. If they're not going to our Facebook or not going to our website, we can't capture that information. Um and if you look, she's not spending a lot of time on it. A lot of times we won't even um respond to any kind of comments. It would might just be, you know, visit our website. But if if we put it on Facebook and say, "Hey, if you want to share your email with the city so you don't have to get a postcard," which would save money on your septic information. Boom. Or if there was some sort of um activity going on and they wanted um emails about when every meeting is or if they wanted um copies of the packet or something sent, they could possibly sign up for something like that. I would um I don't know. We just need to get the word out because we're just not getting the algorithms. Council member Swenson was in the office today and he said he rarely even sees our Facebook page. It just doesn't pop up. It doesn't pop up because it's not an algorithm. Okay. So, that's the the request. Let's just talk concerns we had in the past on this concerns. If I remember right, we went for legally city training for Facebook stuff. You couldn't remove the comments. I think comments are on there and you can't remove them unless they hit a specific category, right? We can monitor if they get defamatory or um vulgar like that kind of a thing. But otherwise, you can't. And again, the posts that the city would be making are informational. It really shouldn't cause too many negative comments. Um, and if it does, we just kind of ignore it, I guess, is kind of what the other cities are doing. We are the only city besides Hanover in the communications group that Lexi is in that does not allow comments. And her comment was handover has its own set of problems. That's why they didn't. So, can ML go ahead can followers of the city Facebook page create an actual post? They cannot. It would only be a comment. And because it's a post, they typically would comment on that post. Correct. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I think this sounds very sensible just to increase the engagement and, you know, have our uh announcements seen in the city and be able to make announcements to a wider group and have it seen. I mean, I just like I told Natalie today, they just never pop up on my Facebook. Sometimes they'll pop up weeks later or something. It's like where the hell would this come from? Um, so and I agree. I mean, I've never seen the city post something that's even mildly contentious. It's just straightforward announcements. So, I think the risk of of, you know, objectionable comments is pretty low. And the the risk of that happening is, you know, vastly outweighed by the benefits of having more people see it by increasing it in the algorithm in my opinion. And the other advantage that she pointed out as well is because to remove the comments, you actually have to make the post and then go back and remove it. Where if we allow the comments, she could schedule like a week and a half worth of different posts or two two months worth of posts of things that she wants to get out. and it would just automatically post and she could only spend, you know, a couple hours one day and then she's got a month of them scheduled unless something new comes up to shut up. It would actually take less. It would. Yeah. Not something we discussed before. So, it's interesting. Yeah. We didn't know that you had to be able to go. We thought you could just turn it off with a button, but you actually have to post it. Go back. So, she can't schedule anything to just automatically post. All right. Any other concerns on this one, Mr. Mayor, Council Member Ryan, what what is our objective with Facebook? I mean, we're I can't imagine we're out to be the number one visited page in all of Anoka County. Um, if it's a matter of getting information out there, we have the information can be on the website. I know with the our new website provider, they they offer mailing lists that if people wanted to that we we have a newsletter and and they can get that's because that's what we used to do. We used to email out the here's here's the packet and you could sign up for that and th those were all administered by hand. I know that looking at the website um people could literally go on the website and go okay I want the PNZ and I want announcements and emergency information and they could could literally pick what they wanted to get and then an email shows up in the inbox. So if it's something that's there it's um it's it's readily provided. I don't think that um the goal is to have the Facebook show up on everybody's Facebook page who lives in Now then because if they're interested and they're going what's going on in Now then they can literally if I understand Facebook say show me the city of now then page and it would would show up whatever's there or add that to their feed and so I don't see why we need to be you know um necessarily looking at comments because yeah that's a lot of time to manage comments regardless of what it is and and I just don't think that that's something that we'd want to to get into needing the comments turned on. And Mr. Mayor, the option the um um what did you say? The objective would be to send people to the website. So if she's got something on Facebook, you could click right to it. It could bring you right to the email location on the website. But the whole goal is to get people to start using a website and you know and I'll ask you all directly, you know, how many times do you go to a website or are you breezing on Facebook and see something that catches your interest? Mr. Mayor, Council Mayor Spencer, um I I do get your point, Councilman Brian, but if you look at a lot of these Facebook posts, I mean, a lot of these are just alerts, not necessarily something that people are going to go looking for. I mean, you know, there's fraud alerts from N County that are reposted. I mean, a lot of this stuff is just sort of announcements to residents that they might not necessarily even know to look for because they don't know what's going on. That's the purpose of it is to notify them. And so, I just again, I think the objective is to more broadly and adequately keep our citizens up to date, not put the burden on them to go to our website, proactively look for news or announcements or sign up for emails. they'd be emailed out because they said, "I want to find out about X, Y, or Z." That's doable. Now, Mr. Mayor, Council Member Glazer, go ahead. I'd like to recommend that we baby step into this where we take the next step because the I have two concerns. Is it going to take more staff time than it does now? And are there are comments going to get out of hand as far as types of comments and information that's being shared by followers of the page. So I I would like to recommend that we I think this is going to get approved tonight whether regardless but I'd like to ask that we come back with a report n either 90 60 90 180 days whatever it is to say we've had the we've had the comments on for this period of time. Here's the it's either taken more time or less time for for Lexi to manage this and here's what the comments are that you know the level of comments that we're getting. That's fair. So something similar to what you did here as far as this information. Yeah. Exactly. And and then and then we could say, you know, it's it's a good thing or it's a bad thing and we need to change what we're doing. You want 90 60 90 180. What's reasonable? Yeah, I would ask um to like not count the month of June. So if we could do like July, August, September maybe. The reason that's why just because I know um she's got some posts that are already set that Dia's going to be making while she's gone on her honeymoon. Make a motion. Mr. Mayor, go ahead. So, I just Natalie, do you know if um I like the fact that it'll allow Lexi on January, let's say we're starting January 1, to go in and post all of the meetings that are currently scheduled for the year, whether it be council or PNZ. If you have to go in and change one, um then change it if we because if we allow comments, she can do that. she can do like memorial, you know, holiday updates, things like that. Um, if we then take comments off, we have to go back to posting individual, but those wouldn't stay on. That's that is my understanding of it that the schedule one would not stay on because you have to actually physically go in and turn in locks. I I I I have faith in our residents. um that again what we're posting is just info and then directing you to a website. People are people want to be spoonfed information and going to a website on your own is not being spoonfed. Having it come up if you're a Facebook user and having it come up on Facebook, you have that info what you choose to do with it. Um I have faith in our residents that the vulgar vulgarness things like that we won't have that you have to put your name on it and it's a you know I ma'am can we do this just a request can we go with what council member Glazer said review it and bring it back up in September let's review the data and we'll revote on it and if it's if we got too much vulgarity we'll take them off but looking at a short-term thing revote it and look at if it's Great. Great. It stays on. It's not great, we'll take it off and and I think we can bridge this gap. But I think your proposal was exactly what I was going to look at. Let's look at something short-term and we reevaluate. Okay. So, would you make a motion on this? Yes, sir. Mr. Mr. Mayor, I would like to make a motion to allow comments on the city Facebook page to help growth and community connection online with the um addition of a review period. um for the October council meeting. I'll have a second. Good. That would include uh July, August, September. Yep. A second. Got a second. Any other discussion? Move to vote. All those in favor say I. I. I. Opposed. We have one nay. Motion carries. Okay. So, we're done with that. Next one. We are going to go back up and jump into the consent and agenda. I JK council member Glazer, will you bring up what you would like to discuss on them? So, what page are you on? You go. Did you move them to the top? Yes. 69. Thank you. 69, sir. So, uh, Mr. Mayor, uh, my question, and I guess this question should be addressed to Miss Johnson. So both June 20th and July 3rd, we have a staffing issue and forgive me if there was an I and it's sometimes it's a little tough for me to read emails during the day. Um, but are you asking for clarification? Just clarification. Okay. So the 20th, uh, Lexi is still on her honeymoon. I have that day scheduled off and um it has been common well Mary's not available to volunteer and Chris is not available that day as well and it has been um common practice since I started that we don't have one person in the office alone due to the safety and being able to actually um help all the residents. We did have one resident who did some intimidation um in the first few months I was well actually six months I think I was there um and that was when the council had approved saying nobody but you know no one person in the office. So Lexi's off because of our honeymoon but and you're off for I'm out of town. It was already on the schedule. We should have had Chris or we would have had Shel. So there still would have been two people when these when the time was scheduled off. Okay. Clarification on July 3rd. And then July 3rd, that's a that's a due to a family thing. Family thing for us. I ask the same question last night. That's what prompted the somebody else must ask and that's what prompted an email because these are same same questions, right? Are you good with that one? Yes. All right. We got a vote on this one now because it was part of consent. We pulled it out. Yeah. We just need an approval that it's okay to do with the motion. Mr. Mayor, council member Rainbow, I move to approve the closure of the now city office on Friday, June 20th and Thursday, July 3rd. Due to limited staffing and holidays, full-time employees will take PTO for both days. Second. Second from Council Member Brian. All those in favor say I. I. Oppos. Motion carries. All right. Let's see. Now we're going to J on page 70. Sir, that's what we're looking at. Roman consultants fix. Okay. So, page 70. Um, Mr. Mayor. So, Miss Johnson, would you help me? I I just need a little bit of clarification because I'm not sure if I'm understanding what's being proposed based on what um Andy presented um at the meeting back in May. Um the the additional cost to the city for having Rum River do this for us. Could you please clarify what's in here and the additional cost that the city will incur by having Rum River do this for us? Uh my understanding with them is that it won't cost the city much more other than updating the ordinance, which could be up to $900, but she thought it was going to take potentially less than that for creating the amendments to replace the current ordinance. Um basically what will happen is they will take care of um doing the permits through baseline just like we do our building permits. Now it will all be kept through their system. Um it will automatically generate something that could say hey this person needs to get their septic system either assessed or pumped within the threeear system or within the three years. So instead of us which we have not been doing apparently in the past they used to council member Brian you said we actually found one of the postcards Yep. And we discussed the cost of postage, which is how the email part came up. And then they have a $2,000 annual fee for the SDS reporting that's required by the MTCA. Um, which is what they need to be able to keep all of this information. Um, it was quite a task last year that they did for us. Um, I don't think it's something that the previous council understood had to be done. and it's an annual report and they collect all of this information. What would be nice about it as well is I know that there are some non-compliant septic systems out here right now and Rem River would take over trying to get them in compliance. And after speaking with Mr. Glaze about this again today, he said he knows there's several locations that have not been pumped in many, many, many years. But what we will do is the the cost well there would be a little bit of cost too with Dia's time because she would go through every file that we have entered into their baseline when the last time it was pumped or assessed which we have been keeping track of. We've just been filing them though and not really doing anything with them. We haven't met the reporting requirements from the state of Minnesota. So this will allow us to be in compliance. Correct. Total cost $900 was for the estimate that was also to rewrite the city ordinance or revise the city ordinance. So, it's that and then the 2,00 correct with the two and it's it'll be annually that tells them they're doing the report. Then there's a cost to residents for doing this said thing. Well, yes. I'm sure that the contractors will probably pass it on to residents. Mr. Mayor, the one thing that I don't want to happen with this I So, I'll use myself as an example. I I give myself a reminder every three years to pump our septic tank based on the number of people that are in the house and and the size of the system. What I don't want to have happen to residents, we have some residents that have homes that are and the capacity of their of their system far exceeds the input. Correct. What I don't want to see happen is is that a resident who who is already capable of managing their system knows when they need to it doesn't need to be pumped every three years. I don't want I don't want to see those residents have to pay an expensive fee to have a contractor come out and assess just to tell them what they already know that they don't need to pump their system because, you know, they they don't need they it would be detrimental to remove the affluence from the tanks. And I I think even council member Rainville might be one of those people. Oh, yeah. And um Council Member Glazer, he did um I know I believe Andy addressed that that we know that it doesn't always have to be bumped and they're not going out and knocking on people's doors and saying, "Hey, you have to pump it." They're just going to keep track of all of the records. Um it's up to the city whether or not we want to do a reminder or not do a reminder. That is not part of the mandate. We just have to keep track of all the information so that the report can be done at the end of the year. so that the state knows how many non-compliance systems we have, how many systems are in compliance, and how many new systems went in. It's again another one of those unfunded mandates that, you know, the Minnesota uh pollution control is requiring and it wouldn't force them to pump it. So, they didn't it wasn't inspecting is what it was, but there's some cost that came along with that inspection if they wanted to stay within that three-year compliance. Right. And it is not um Rum River that does any of those inspections. The only thing they inspect is a new install. So this would be your your um contractor that pumps your system. And you know, quite frankly, most of the time they're going to know if you're really in compliance or not. And that's when we get notified is either at the time of a sale that um you're transferring deed or transferring title or um at the time of getting it pumped of when they'll notice that it because on the permit you they have to circle past a fail. Mr. Council member uh Brian Natalie, do you I I know because we've used the postcards in the past and we just sent out the reminders, but we didn't really do anything with it. So to take that information and if we were to do that ourselves, how much time I'm just making the argument, how much time and effort would it and cost do you think it would take to um implement implement that plan to to do this this thing oursel to keep all the information or just do the to keep the information and to to assemble the reports? And um at this point I would say that there's nobody on our staff that's qualified to do the report. Wasn't it a couple hundred hours as I read in this is what they were looking at per year. Two to $300 or something. I don't remember how many the actual report took. But that's why they were charging their $2,000 was to be able to do the report. But I am certainly not qualified to be able to run this report. But I'm just trying to weigh the cost in here because we are because there the the fee to get your tank inspected is going to double as far as what the city's charging residents in order to do to do this. Correct. But the city is taking the permits and we're not doing anything with it. That's what I'm trying that's what I'm trying to get at. We've had the we basically did the first part of sending out reminders and and and having people um fill out the permit and get the information back, but we've never really we haven't finished did the second part of evaluating that and compiling that information together to in order to process the report, right? And if we use a baseline, baseline will actually keep track of all of that information. And if so, we can move to an email reminder or we just don't do a reminder. We just put stuff in the newsletter. We put it onto the Facebook and the website page. I I mean, we're all adults that own our homes. The biggest problem that now has had and other rural communities have is that you have somebody moving from Bloomington and they don't understand what you can and cannot put into your septic system that you should not have a Well, they're going to find out real quick because things Yeah. It all gets all done and yeah, you should not have a garbage disposal in your sink. So, total cost of this city uh to the city is $2,900. Correct. Annual fee. The $900 is a one time. So, it's 2,000. So, our cost is pretty low compared to the hours. That's the way I was looking at it. I thought this made sense for the city and to be in compliance, right? But the residents will pay a higher more than likely pay a higher permit fee. I because because it's going from $10 to 20. Okay. $10. Okay. It'll be incorporated. I'm sure. I'm sure that incorporated into the per or into their fee when it would be incorporated. So $10 every three years. $10. I think it sounds pretty manandable. Yes. But good. I did not know that. I didn't know it double the fee. Is there any clarifying questions that you got? Any more questions? Can we move move this to who wants to do the motion on this? I will. All right. Please. City Council moves I I move that the city council approves resol resolution 2025 XXX authorizing Rum River Consultants to revise the septic system ordinance and implement a septic compliance system for the city of Mel. Second. All right, let's move through the vote since there's no more discussion. All those in favor say I. I. I opposed. Motion carries. All right, Mr. Glazer, you want to take the last one? Yes, sir. Mor, go ahead. Um, I believe I'm of the opinion that we we the now then and and I say we council staff contractors that we The Dryens had a date of March 31st that they were told that they had to pay their bill by the that date that the city should have had the the the foresight to say, you know what, that date is not going to work because the Dryidens were in continued dialogue with members of the council in regards to the bill that they had received on January 7. And that that actually wasn't even going to be addressed until the April meeting. I believe was was it April 8th or I I feel that attorney Rupy's decision to be preemptive about filing paperwork on a resident that has been here for over 40 years. Um Miss Johnson, did did the Dryens have the Dryens ever not paid any of their other bills to the cities to the city? Not that I'm aware of. Were were the Dryens proactive in in contacting you throughout this process the last couple of years to say do we have any additional bills that need to be paid? Uh they were they were and the amount that they paid prior to receiving their building permit they did pay as well. Mr. Mayor, I I feel that although this $325 may not seem like a lot of money to me, it's the city is being punitive in in a in making the decision to file the paperwork on something that was that was never going to happen because shortly after after the the the decision was rendered at that meeting in April, um Deb Dry paid that bill wrote a check for the entire amount. And and I think this just pours salt on on a very large already very large wound that we didn't need to do. My my recommendation, my motion would be that that the city take responsibility for this and and write this one off. I'll second Can you add discussion real quick because I wanted with discussion? Um, and you were correct because we were still in discussions with the Dryen when that was being written up. So, it should have been not done at that time because we hadn't got to the April council meeting where we were going to discuss it. So, I concur. Any other discussion? Oh, I think Mr. Mayor C, whatever your council member's name is. I'm getting tired, guys. Council member Swansson. Yeah, I um I don't disagree with uh council uh and Glazer. Um you know, they still had time on this. I understand, you know, in the legal world, you sort of got to be preemptive and meet certain deadlines and all that jazz, but you know, I I don't think maybe sufficient notice to the dry was provided that that was ongoing. I mean, they probably reasonably relied on on us discussing the said future meetings. So, it was still in discussion. Yeah. So I think it's reasonable. Councilman Rainbow, do you have anything? I I know it's punitive. Um, in the legal world, you have to be prepared and that's what our attorney was. Um, and so I believe that the the Dryens should cover the cost of this. Um but I will go with the majority of the council. Any other discussion? Mr. Mayor, I just just thought of this um based on the resolution that was provided if I mean if and I don't know if it needs to be amendment or not that we can um amend the motion that this is this will be the that there will be no more invoices for this property unless they decide to do something else on the property. But this matter as far as building their house is closed. I I would not support that because if further action is taken by the dryness to challenge any of this part of that developers agreement is they cover attorney's fees. So I don't expect that they will but if a month from now they go back and challenge any of this stuff. We need to maintain our ability to tax attorney's fees and I think that would be appropriate. But I, you know, as I said, I think in our last meeting or the one before that, I mean, for all intents and purposes, this is it. I mean, if nothing else happens with property, this is it, you know, and so I think this is it. But I I don't think we can put a hard end on it because we can't control others actions and we can't control what's going to happen. We need to leave that ability open. But again, I do think it makes sense to to wave at least a small bit of it. But a hard end I would not support. So, going back to council member Glazer's motion, does that still stand? Is that what you're looking for? Yes, sir. Okay. Still stand. Your second's good. You resend your last portion. Nobody Nobody's looking to carry this on. That's not the I'm just trying to clarify that. And since the motion was not amended by the made person who made it, there's no we don't do anything. Perfect. Are we ready to move this for a vote? Yes. Okay. So, all those which already been we got the motion to resend it. Uh we got it second. All those in favor say I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. Mr. Mayor, may I just make one comment on this? Um, in the future when you guys are reviewing the bills, if it's brought up at the time, because the way that it's said is I have to bill because that's my direction. If council wants to pull something from going on an escrow statement, when I send you the bill for approval prior to approving claims is when we would want to talk about not including it on an escro going forward. That this was brought up. I know we've talked about we specifically talked about this. We didn't know what it was for, right? You wanted an explanation. So there was I needed the explanation to understand what it was for and what the timing was and how but when you read it, it makes sense. Yeah, that would make marks that would be help. Anything else, Mr. Mayor? Council member Ryan, just want to go back to the the basketball pickle ball court. I just wanted to make a motion to approve. Did we have one? Yeah, we did. I pulled that one, too. I just wanted a clarification. You wanted Cat. Sorry, I skipped over. Okay, don't worry about it. Let's look at it after. We're good. Okay. Um I just want to make a motion to approve the resolution at 2025 accepting the quote for striping the um striping the existing basketball pickupball courts. Um so that the pickle ball courts would get striped in one color and the basketball court would get striped in another color and that the source of funding it will be come out of the capital park capital fund not the repairs and maintenance. Was the quote to do it in two different colors or is this going to be Yeah, that's what we talked about. Yeah, it was just it was just a clarification on where the money from. It's not a repair, it's a capital improvement. Perfect. I'll second. All right. Okay. I got to provision on this one. Just kidding. Is there any discussion? No. All right. All those in favor say I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. Mr. Mayor. Ajourn. We're going to do an update. An internet update. Yeah. Internet update. Can I un unjourn real quick? Can you put the map up there? I forgot about the internet update. I was so excited to be done. Everybody has a copy. Yes. So, you do have some maps in front of you, but if you can put it up there to show the rest of the residents because they might not be able to see it. Um, that's what I uh Miss Johnson and myself did did a uh a meeting with Comcast. Again, they're still working with Kexus, working through the packets. Uh they've currently identified 418 of the midspan poles that need to be added. This is already in progress on some polls. Uh permits are being approved on a timely basis and there's no major setbacks. Um, but what they propose and if it goes up there or it's on this map is that there's dates that go along with it per zone. So like zone one is June and July which covers the main city area. And here's a little sub mapap that ties in with that. But as long as the permits get done in a timely basis and there's no major setbacks from mother nature, they should be able to hold these time zones. Uh, zone two is August, September. Zone three is July August. Uh zone four is August, September and then uh there's zone five which is October, November which a lot of that is already covered by the uh uh arvig. Um the one main point to to recommend here is that for residents there's no cost to get connected. Um there might be an exception if you lived on a private road or a shared driveway. So, as you're going through this and they're coming to your house, um that is your time to get it pulled all the way to your house. That's a no cost. So, I would recommend that for everybody. If you wait two years and you say, "I want to get connected, you have to pull it to your house," then there's going to be a cost. So, the biggest thing is please uh even if you don't subscribe, get it connected to your main takeaway. And then this map could be shared. It's going to be shared on on that, but it's not shared on that, right? It was It will be shared in the packet, but this is not currently in the packet because we just received it. Okay, so that is the update. Any questions on that at all? Things are on track. We're working hard to make sure the city gets internet. Way to go, Rogers Lake. You got internet. Faster internet. It's coming. That's the math. All right. In June. All right. Thank you. Beating.