really e being 6 pm on Monday March 3rd a call order the city council regular meeting please rise for the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right R call please Jenny mayor boogo here council members Robinson here mow here IG here FIS here on to the approval of the agenda anybody want to discuss anything under the approval for the agenda I'll make a motion to approve the agenda I have a motion from councilman adig you I have a second second second by councilman Robinson all in favor signify by saying i i p the same sign meeting open to the public anybody wishing to speak please come forward consent is that a consent oh I'm sorry I'm sorry I dropped the gun my fault I I'm the only one to sign up did I not oh consen yes indeed sorry uh centen anybody have anything they want to discuss on the consent agenda only discussion is I'll be abstaining because my okay anybody else do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda make the motion mayor motion by councilman Robinson do I have a second I'll second second by councilman FIS any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I opposed sorry I was oppose abstain I by councel on on to the meeting open to the public sorry so you're up right please just please state your name and address name's Anthony C out of West St Francis over the area that's called Franny Town um address is 4852 239 Northwest right up Roll Oak zip code 55070 okay what do I have here I want to talk about tourism and I don't know how you take it to a vote through the community but there's um precedent for it out west where a home rule Community votes in um private gaming versus uh tribal gaming now um to do that quickly in this state you need you need to show that you're not going to compete with a tribe and you have to get approval through the racing commission but if we voted in like Blackhawk did where I happen to be undefeated at their poker room but that's another story I got called back here um we could just vote it in if everybody wanted to I I can tell you you you people are at the limit of your enjoyment with the gaming and even the gambling and stuff is it's getting kind of dry around here but um as far as lobbying for support I mean I've worked with the Mala tribe I was hired by the ojua and let go by released by The Chipawa I think they're out of Wisconsin um we've got South Dakota Sue doing powow at the High School I think the band member that used to live here Rett inducted me into the Sue it sounds like out Red Lake when I was in eighth grade so I'm the closest thing you got to a wind talker or someone prepared to claim Chieftain status but I don't think we have to go that far I kind of like the guy and he's older than me he's just not around right now last I heard he's in LA but um that's the politics go in this state that I understand and if you don't if you doubt the viability just look up blackhaw Colorado and um Central City and they get PE buses through there from all the way up the hill it's really hard to pay a business to travel uphill even though that's the distribution center of the states um I don't know what else do I have here okay for tourism we could do like um River tours down to an NOA with canoes rafts and my idea would be jet boats that can jump a damn but um that's it in the future uh all you have to do is watch the monitor the the water flow in the spring because my dad almost lost some bodies one day I was a little too tired to accompany them and uh you really got to watch the the current flow we'd have to have someone locally monitoring that constantly like every 15 minutes and that would be a good place to start with just canoe and raft tours going down to the bars bar District in Anoka there's a landing on the left right before the dam with the walkway and stuff and I believe snowmobiles use it now and uh uh as far as being a home rural community um I can tell you what's kept me out of trouble these 50 years is is being able to understand government and sidestep of jurisdiction in St Francis um we need to loosen the grip on these zoning restrictions and be a little more flexible over periods of time because we've got a lot of great ideas here and um there has to be a time period to to um establish those opportunities it's not I mean um supposedly the president is going to be reducing regulations at the rate of replacing one out of 100 that he gets rid of now every time you get rid of one regulation it creates undefined um risk so you really need to add that regulation in if you get rid of a bunch of them or or you never know what the worst case scenario is you might be deal with me alone eventually who knows but um name's Anthony I'm still here takeing interest in the community I want to put you on the map so don't let the county tell you you can't thank you Anthony thanks for your input anybody else from the community wish to all right we'll move on at 607 on to special business uh fire service consolidation presentation by Triad uh Dave or do you want Charlie to just go here y perfect welcome Charlie thank you Mr Mayor uh mayor counselors City staff thank you for having me this evening uh I've been working with the city uh both cities uh and elected officials for about the last 11 months on this project so this is a chance to meet all of you I've worked with a few of you throughout this process but a chance to meet all of you and give you a brief on where the uh project is at uh this time so let me just bring up my uh excuse me for a minute so I'm going to go through uh an introduction myself the company uh what we've been doing for the last 11 months and then the structure on where we're at so far and then your feedback at the end of the meeting if you desire to do that uh so my name is Charlie Smith as you saw in your agenda uh the company I founded is Triad Paradigm uh we're a consulting firm out of Rapids and I guess I'm the consulting firm so I'm the CEO uh founder of the organization uh we started back in 2022 uh after I had retired for a period of time from the fire service and to give you my fire service background I'm 30 plus years in the fire Service uh I was a fire chief at SPM if you're familiar with that Spring Lake Park blae Mounds viiew I was there for about six years uh and then retired and then moved on I'm also a veteran uh both in firefighting and military police uh but the the time I had atbm really gave me a lot of insight into what it's like to manage uh a fire district with multiple cities sobm if you know anything about SPM it's a nonprofit corporation that contracts with the three cities to provide Fire Protection section so there's a lot of moving Parts uh within that fire district to make things go and a lot of different personalities uh each Community has its own personality its own needs so there's a lot of different aspects of that type of leadership and and management that you have to really take into account to make these things successful um so that's me today we are going to go over uh from a high level uh some preliminary findings and then get your feedback uh the project description uh when we started out is mapping our current fire realities for you uh between the two departments between St Francis and bethl and what does it look like today and what can we expect in the future for any type of merger combined operation that we're are that you're already conducting you're already into uh the big part of that relationship where you're already working together with the two communities but to give you data and other types of information to make decisions as elected officials as time goes on I'm just providing you information uh it's going to be up to you in the future to make any decisions on where you would like this to go uh and and things of that nature so we started the shared services study uh transparency and to determine our response model Staffing facilities funding uh funding formula and the jpa uh structure so some of the things that we were when we first started out when we when I was meeting with the different groups elected officials firefighters one of the big things that was a recurring theme not only with city of St Francis but also with bethl is fiscal implications of this type Arrangement and how much is this going to cost what does this look like for the future and how does it all work out uh and what what who's going to pay what what kind of percentages that look like uh so there was a lot of concern uh with that one of the other concerns or one of the other requirements is that it would be scalable so your community and bethl together are far ahead of a lot of other communities that are just now realizing the staffing issues that they may be having recruiting retention issues and the ability to provide fire and EMS and emergency service around the clock 24 hours a day uh throughout Minnesota uh we are having a significant issue with retaining and hiring and retaining firefighters not only on the volunteer paidon call side also on the full-time career side it it is has switched within about probably the last five years significantly so we are having issues and undertaking an Endeavor like you're doing right now is putting yourselves in the Forefront of taking care of this problem before it becomes a problem for you before you hit crisis mode when you no longer have firefighters to respond to emergencies uh so on and so forth so we're going to give you that information uh as the study comes out uh as we release the final um final findings so past and current relationships that you have with the city of bethl together this will help you in the future on whatever you decide um what I found when talking to people is you've already gone through the really rough part of any kind of relationship that you may have in the future and that rough part is the combining of personalities and the meshing of culture that's really the most difficult part that you're going to find there's a lot of dissension a lot of anger a lot of than uh just for that change you've already achieved that process and kudos to to Chief Schmid there and having to work through this it is a very contentious thing it can be very very difficult as as you go through which I'm sure at the start you probably saw uh so uh jpa structure one of the things we'll talk about so our project goal areas uh are on the you're seeing the slides right so okay I don't see them in front of me um work with City staff identify Staffing and program strategies which is going to be something that you'll see for the future is is how do we anticipate any issues that we're going to have and how do we plan for those issues that might occur in the future whether it's a lack of retention uh unexpected retirements increased call volume uh all the things that affect deploying a fire service inside your community and for it to be effective uh which is a big key uh additional project goals that we're working on uh is a strategic plan so at the end of this project you'll have a three to fiveyear strategic plan uh that will operate off of uh advising and organizational change process which you've already been doing and then a draft jpa creation as as a benchmark if you will for you to go off of should you decide to engage in that relationship in the future after all this information so just some things that we find in the study as we have not only worked through with your two communities uh but also other fire departments other experiences uh and things that work well and then things also to watch out for that could um submarine a project could destroy a project could cause relationships and harm throughout uh both communities so some of the major sections I'll go through these really quick anybody have any questions up to this point alter mayor yeah got got a hold right now sorry um I I just got one real quick so you say Consulting and is this the primary this kind of agreement so this your Consulting work are you Consulting other places or uh I am not at this time you're my first one that I've consulted with I do have other employment that I I work at this time so this is not my full-time job but it this project was a lot of work and is a lot of work so but no that this is not my primary employment could be in the future right maybe I'll retire again at some point then we'll kind of go from there you know kind of play kind of play that game anybody else that's saw not this time okay thank you uh we met with stakeholders the stakeholders and we met with the first group in the initiation meeting uh both communities we set out who we wanted to talk to and who we needed to get that information of at least in from at least initially so I could get a good feel for the organization and and develop uh basically a picture of what we're looking at what we're dealing with and what that end result would be uh to me from this perspective as a consultant Culture Your Fire Department culture is probably the biggest thing at least from my perspective that's going to affect how anything works out whether it's successful operations whether it's um successful mergers uh and providing great service to the community so figure out where the culture's at and then we can dive in from there so we worked worked uh and met with City staff which was fantastic uh Kudos uh I want to give kudos to the city staff that I worked with and that I met fantastic staff you're blessed to have fantastic staff here in the city and your firefighters all of the firefighters I met with were very open honest respectful uh and they're passionate and dedicated to their duties and I think you see that out on the street here and community events and things like that so you do have a great uh department and a great City so kudos to you uh that you get to work with such wonderful people on a on a daily basis so we met with that and then we really developed our our strategy after that and who we were going to meet with uh those are some good moments to be able to really get meshed in uh to to what's going on here and why this study was commenced in the first place and where you need to go uh pass and current collaboration we talked about that a little bit already those agreements that you've already have in place for the contract with bethl will already help uh or will help anything that you decide to do in the future there's a lot of parameters in there that already lined up that have already occurred should you decide to do a full merger that uh have already given you many many steps ahead instead of starting from Ground Zero um so this has been two-year process at least uh a two-year process already uh year already ahead in where you would already have to be from to start from you probably add another two years to that to be able to accomplish these type of objectives so and then prior to that even Auto Aid agreements Mutual Aid agreements working with each other on the fire scene uh within each other cities things like that so those were already in place and already uh Cooperative uh the firefighters spoke well from from bethl the firefighters spoke well of St Francis firefighters and how they've worked well together in the past and effective so those relationships are really key uh to building something great and something new for the future staffy model will also be one of the things that you will see when this is when this is final so the current Staffing model your under is effective right now but is is that going to be an effective model for the future knowing what we know about recruiting and retention especially of our senior and our our veterans uh retention for especially for volunteer firefighters approaching some departments can be two to three to four years and you invest a lot of time and money in new firefighters uh a lot and we want to make sure that for the future that those people are sticking around so what kind of strategies can we do uh to help that but also how do we hire those people but in lie of being able to maintain our our core of volunteers and paidon call Personnel what are we looking at in the future if we start losing that pool what are our models going to be what do we have to transition to uh and what are some of those options to transition to As you move forward so from personal experience I've worked all the way from volunteer a very small volunteer department when I was in college uh all the way to communities that have 120 100,000 population and two very different um organizational deployment models uh but we're all having the same problems when it comes to people and we're not we're not alone I know Public Safety in general uh nursing military service occupations are running short on people to uh which is a big change from when I started when we all probably started when it was very competitive so there'll be a lot in staffy model uh and and uh there's an analysis on your Staffing what are some options for the future uh your response times which your response times here according to NFPA uh standards are pretty darn good for structure fires and EMS you do very well in that uh in that endeavor and that's something we want to make sure that we keep especially as your community grows uh thankfully a lot of your growth is centered right here on the 47 Corridor so that helps because fire station is right here so that helps a lot uh instead of I've seen communities that put fire stations in place places that are really far away from where they probably should be so um great to and by the way beautiful facility very beautiful facility your calls for service uh analysis on those your calls for service are what I would say traditional uh fire service blend of about 70% EMS calls and about 30% fire and other service calls so you're not out of the ordinary uh on that at all with probably about a 10% increase per year um for service uh there's some dips in some of the data it was a little difficult the covid pandemic really threw uh an anomaly into our our data uh where we expected a massive amount of calls uh and and we actually didn't right when the pandemic started so it calls actually went down but traditionally um it's about 10% a year so you can expect that your call volume will increase as time goes on especially as communities become more and more dependent on the fire service and the and the police department for things that we maybe would have taken care of ourselves uh when we were growing up or when we were younger things like that so there's a lot of dynamics that play into those calls for service uh Capital asset analysis so this is more for the bethl side of things uh should you move forward with the merger on what does that look like uh your community is in very good position uh Capital wise you have a new fire station you have new apparatus uh and and a capital replacement plan so you've done a lot of the heavy lifting and a lot of good work already that puts you in a very strong Capital position here now bethl on the other hand is not in as strong a position as you are so there's some considerations on should you decide uh to merge what does that look like how do those asset assets get transferred uh some of the options would be to lease equipment if it gets all Blended together um purchase have all those options will be included in there as well so those have to be considerations that uh will be taken as well for Capital asset but you here are in very good position uh for for Capital so it's it's good to see uh your ISO um rating within your community is a 69 is Anybody Everybody know what the iso rating is some do some don't so the iso rating Insurance Service office is a measure of structural fire capability and response within a certain community so the higher the number the better um your ability to handle structure fires is so yours here in your community is pretty standard for a community of this size and the water supply that you have here which is about 40% of a score is a water supply you have so the more fire hydrant you have the better score you get there but it's a it's not an end all Beall it's a measure of Effectiveness within the community and it also for some communities and some insurance agencies determines what they'll charge you for fire Insurance uh and and that as the number goes up traditionally your fire Insurance costs go down uh so a one a class one which I think there's maybe 30 in the nation and Nationwide there's not that many they're going to have the those are usually your Los Angeles city um big places like that so now there's a cut off in there so you're a 69 and it goes 1 through 10 10 be no fire protection at all uh when you get about to a five is when you stop seeing significant insurance benefits for homeowners but you still continue to see significant insurance benefits with class change for our commercial occupancies and our business owners so that continues on throughout that and I they won't give you numbers ISO won't give you numbers on what one change will be um but there's there's some theoretical cost savings that can happen on an annual basis with better fire protection so so you get uh hopefully a break out with a Improvement in ISO uh rating you get a break in insurance at a more effective fire department which is really the big thing that we're shooting for is making sure that our fire department is effective it's a benchmark it's not an end all be all but it's one of those uh benchmarks that we could say okay this is where we're at here uh and it's an official Nationwide um recognized rating uh so when you're fire service to fire service or Insurance to insurance people know what you're talking about um so there's a good piece in there on your ISO rating and then to the kind of the last three are kind of the meat and potatoes of what any kind of relationship will look like over the long term uh funding formula options which is one of the big questions we ask is how do we figure what which Community pays what for for fire service Fire EMS fire department cost um and surprisingly when I was running the numbers on most of the funding formula options that will be included within the study they're very close in in breakdown for cost between the formulas some formulas are extremely easy like a per capita formula and then divided by percentage of population uh but all of them are really close with the exception of if we just decide to split if you decide to split fire department cost 5050 that would be unusual but it would be the only option that would be um kind of far out there the fting formula options kind of run the gamut there's there's six really common ones that are going to be in there um for you to look at and see which option works for you and a lot of different uh parts of each funding formula um which can vary cause the formula to vary quite a bit um but something that for you there fire taxing district option which about two years ago the Minnesota Legislature passed uh fire taxing district legislation which allows communities to enter into a jpa more one more two or more communities to enter into a jpa with each other uh and then form a fire taxing district which is with the financials will then be handled like a school district it becomes its own entity within the community and then that entity is governed by a board of directors who are appointed elected officials from each community and then they operate autonomously from the cities for they issue levies and all of that all by themselves so there's a heavy administrative load that comes with that uh because now your own entity but in we're going to include that for an option in the future should your District grow as you move forward with this um and you start off with bethl and St Francis once other communities see what you're doing they may want to get on board with what you're doing uh so um as it grows uh from my experience trying to coordinate with three cities and five cities in the end uh for fire protection with all the varying different things it became an administrative load that was extremely heavy uh on on the administrative staff for the fire department so just having one people to report one group one person uh one group essentially to report to makes it very and they're the decision makers makes it very very easy you know imagine if you had five different bosses that wanted different things some of you might I don't know some of you might but it makes it for a lot of footwork and a and and can be frustrating at times so um but that'll be an option in there as well um there is one Fire Department the state of Minnesota right now that's operating on taxing district and that is po Area Fire District uh south of duth and they have nine cities and nine I think it's nine nine cities and townships within their service area and they started off as an EMS taxing district so there are models uh here in Minnesota that have gone into uh this type of agreement there are a lot of fire districts as well within the state of Minnesota there are a lot of jpa surprisingly um throughout Minnesota that have a lot of examples on where things work and where things don't work because there have been there have been fire districts that have dissolved uh most notably the latest one was I think it's called Uh West Suburban now was a new fire department So Long Lake um out in that area not oio um but out in that area so they're and then there's some new ones that are popping up as they go uh so that is the financials are the big one I know that was a that was a main theme throughout the study with input was what are the financials going to look like for the communities especially St Francis because you're the you're the community that has the economy of scale that's the largest one so you're going to be essentially the big big player in any relationship around here because you are the the largest community and have a largest fire department and then at the end there'll be some jpa considerations for you it'll be a draft jpa for you to look at some other parameters that are included in there first and for foremost I should say I'm not an attorney so I can only put things down that are suggestions but a lot of the stuff in the end will be determined by um by our attorneys uh but it'll give you a starting point for you to look at based on a lot of other uh jpa models around the state uh and engineer that what it looks like it'll be what looks like will fit best for your communities uh because everyone's unique right even though we all have fire departments we all have police departments uh we all have governing bodies all our communities have their own personality and we have our own unique risks and Hazards and personalities that come with our community so what works next door might not necessarily work for you here uh so something tailored unique for for the city of St Francis city of bethl and anything that may come in the in the future so where are we at on Milestones uh the next slide is anything you see outlined in green on this on this slide is complete uh the blue the stat the study draft is in its second draft so that's coming up on being final here uh this month uh the jpa same thing will be in its final draft stage here this month as well and then the compensation study and the Strategic plan also are a work in progress one note on the Strategic plan uh talk Chief Schmidt about the Strategic plan because if this relationship uh comes together it's going to change what this looks like for the future so this will change your strategic plan and the input that goes in to a strategic plan for what we're looking at the next 3 to five years uh so I talk Chief Schmidt we're going to work on a structure of a strategic plan and get the basics down but make it scalable and and amendable to what a relationship may look like uh in the future to make sure that we have the basis covered but also leave something open for change as time goes on because we would expect there'll be some different parameters that will fall into that plan uh should that should this relationship um take off so timeline we'll have the majority or I'll have the majority of your items finished uh by the end of this month the big one that'll be out there will be the Strategic plan uh and maybe some fine tuning on the compensation plan with the data in there so those may carry on into April and don't worry I'll stay on for uh for that to make sure that this Project's complete um and and then it'll it'll be we'll work with City staff and figure out when everything's in the final to make sure that you get all of the data and all the reports and the study and we'll go from there so that'll be that's our timeline so end of the month for the big big ones for this the study is probably right now sitting close to 40 page about a 40 page document so there's a lot of information in there uh to digest uh and to look at as time goes on so any questions from mayor councel got some I'll start Kevin you got um I'm just I'm glad we were able to get a grant to to fund this little process or big process Joe Kate and I were in a quite a few meetings many many meetings when this first got started and during your presentation you said should we go forward it should be when we go forward uh it's been a long process uh I'm just glad we can help a neighbor helping a neighbor and sets a tone for uh some things down the road other communities now are venturing off into building new buildings and structures and stuff and as we talked about for a year and a half that how many much money is being spent the communities are bearing the burden and it is a burden tax burden but the communities are bearing the burden of duplication of equipment and when you know fire engine is going for 1.4 million and you have a year and some waiting period but yet uh some some cities their ego is in the way and and there's some things in the way of progress and to me joining forces like this is is real progress and I think a lot of cities are missing out and the citizens are paying the price for it so that's all I have absolutely counselor and thank you for bringing that up because ego uh is is the thing that will destroy or Pro prohibit any relationship like this from happening and I have not seen any of that through all the interviews I've done all the interaction I've had with people uh these are are exactly what you said these are people that want to work together and helping out neighbors and want to make sure that we're providing me that's our responsibility right provide effective fire protection EMS emergency services to our community that's one of our pillars of of government is to do that so yeah thank you it is a lot of work and I and I want to say it again that and reinforce the work that you've done so far is fantastic and there a lot of heavy lifting and you said it's been a couple of years and that it is it it's been it's been really good work so far I don't have any questions any I joke um just curious with the timeline the timeline kind of moved with the moving parts we had last year um so I was just curious so you mentioned that the by the end of the month are we looking at like a presentation on the first meeting in April or second meeting or work sessions or great great question counselor and I think I I think I will speak with the city administrator on that on scheduling things but I think that would be easier for everyone to digest this in Parts uh instead of look in total because that'd be a long meeting if we just did everything all at one time so we could do strategic plan we could do jpa um we could do the study give you all the information the documents you need to review it first and then we can come in and start working through it so I would think work sessions would be an appropriate place for a lot of a lot of those items but that's up to you okay um so I can I can talk to administrator and and work those schedule details out but yes absolutely how how uh I guess I don't know I don't know how to ask this um scale of one to five I guess where you leaning as far as positivity as far as finding a good solution for everybody or finding something you think that looks like it's going to work I would say at from what I've seen so far I'd say 4.5 uh for Success there could be some outliers out there that might cause some issues with this and maybe even higher than 4.5 but uh from what I've seen so far it has been pretty fantastic on the process that's gone on so far and really have done the really heavy lifting to get this to to be this far uh is pretty significant for you all to come together on your own and recognize the issue and work through it so unless there's something odd I would be surprised if this doesn't go through now there'll be some wrangling I'm sure with the jpa and you know different things some discussions and and but I don't think there'll be any surprises you know there from what I've seen there shouldn't be any surprises whatsoever I think the finances are probably going to be your biggest yep that'll be the absolutely that'll be the number one uh Financial operations and capital those would probably take the most time and the and the largest discussion within the between the two communities so it's it really is and I'm not making this up because you hired me this is really fantastic where you are that's the last time I'll say it because it's probably getting but um it really is and and helping the neighbor out and you will see your model be become one of those models that people ask you about and they will they will say how did you get the how did you get here how did you do this what steps did you need to take to make this happen a lot of discussions in the fire service pipeline out there about consolidations and fire districting and and blending together uh and mostly because we're losing people as a resource so how do we come together to make sure that we're providing what we need to our communi so uh the work that you've done so far has been fantastic so I I would say the most ult part is behind you 99% behind you I gotta leave some space open I know how things work um that's all I have Mr man you got two of my three questions Jo have one it's not so much a question as more a comment I I I mean I definitely I was talking to Dave about this earlier today I mean this is a lot of work a lot of work going into this I I don't want it to see it be some four-year thing it's got to be a longterm thing it doesn't make any sense because if this is isn't longterm you get another city council in another mayor in somewhere else and they and then you're back to square one because they throw it out the door so I I'm hoping this jpa can be at least 10 years or something like that so yes sir uh the and for example the jpa that governs sbm's relationship that's a 10-year Auto renewing contract is what they do so it's unless a city wants to bail out it it is re recertified at that 10year point automatically and basically the councils each just sign off just to make it legitimate but that really helped a lot to to do that because it's a lot of work if somebody wants to get out of it there are examples out out there so th this should be long term the SPM relationship's been around for 80 years 70 75 years probably about 80 years now so that's an effective one there's been there's a lot of districts out there that have been working working very well and there's a lot of districts outter that want to improve what they're doing so uh like we said ear I think the the way everybody is right now and working together but your concern is valid with changing changing elected officials because it it can be uh an outlier that could cause a surprise so well I I had the pleasure of talking to uh council person from one of the three cities down in Lio Centerville and somebody else down there they were all a big group and sounds like they failed and then unfortunately they split up and when they split up it ended up costing everybody in those cities a lot more money too to where the smaller communities I think Lio is the biggest down there so the smaller communities really got hit um with the capital stuff so it's once you merge too I think it's it's better to stay together and just like the you know met Council formula in a way where you got so many people pulling in yeah you have to engineer your GAA to make it very very uncomfortable and to pull out of it you know so it's not a it's not something easy that you would that you can't just sign something it that it would be difficult because we're all that's what everybody understands we're signing in for a a long term to work together and uh just like you said M uh counselor is the the communities change uh and the smaller ones are the ones that really get hurt in a relationship when that they just don't have the economy scale and the horsepower to to build back where they need to be any other questions well thank you Charlie look forward to look forward to your future reports here so all right thank you mayor thank you counselors appreciate the time thank you have a good evening at 6:40 here we we open uh public hearing anybody wish to speak from the public come on up Anthony quick quick thing public hearings are only for designated things this is just uh you're skipping the new business right now you're going meeting open to the public again I I screwed up Anthony oh yeah there is a chance it's coming up I screwed up twice it's all right there's nothing listed under public hearing so you don't need I see that now yeah jumping ahead thank sorry Anthony uh old business none on to new business Todd actually mayor counil I'm gonna take this one I wing it we'll work together thank you um so city code currently um states to appeal a dangerous dog or potentially dangerous dog would to come forth to city council to have them make the agreement or the um understanding of the potentially dangerous dog or dangerous dog our current Pro process of an appeal um is the dog is ordered by the police of chief of police to potentially be a potentially dangerous or dangerous dog um but we bring in an administrative hearing officer to determine that as a third party um they're unbiased and they come in and meet with Todd and s and the owner of the dog um and then they determine whether the dog is potentially dangerous or dangerous and orders whether that dog is to be destroyed at that time or if they deem it to be potentially dangerous we have a process of uh fines that they have to pay and they have to meet certain insurance requirements and do status checks with the police department um so we've amended the ordinance to um go with what the current process is um versus what the code states of having it be brought forward city council do you guys have any questions Jo no but I love this because I do not want to tell somebody their dogs dangerous necessarily so moving that I mean it's if it's part of the job it's part of the job which is would be another unfortunate part of the job along with assessments and whatnot but I'm all for this I think it's a great idea go ahead I just add that in the processes we've had before we've had sain madic who's another City attorney and he's Fair partial and he asks all the questions we have to present evidence on that so I think the process as is should be changed in the code because it it's working very well and people get the they they get their chance to talk talk to an impartial hearing officer who many years ago did reverse us so that that would be the only thing that I would have I think we had one situation during my tenure that and it wasn't it wasn't fun I think we deemed it we gave the dog another chance from what I understand if I remember right but it was uh it's just one of those things that I think it's it's better off going this route mayor council I can chime in real quick to I was part of the last process um where we had the administrative hearing officer and it went as they mentioned very well um they asked the city myself just as many questions as they asked the dog want to make sure they get their facts straight um I think they make the they made the right decision at that point uh the dog owner was very receptive um to the decision and uh we are still as Jenny mentioned we are still conducting compliance checks on that dog so um it was a very smooth process and and as council member m was mentioned the process before the time before that um it was up to councel to to determine if a dog was should be dangerous or not um very difficult decision for a console that may not be uh up to speed on all the the dangerous dog laws so sounds like this process is more fair as well to the the dog owner as well so we get so much information but if you don't ask the question you don't get the answer so having somebody do it more thorough I think is better for everybody that's all I have he I don't have any question well I just have one question now um hopefully this doesn't come up very often but I I like this idea to that you have an impartial person come in because small town people know people and you know you could be accused of of you know being unfair one way or under the other so I think this is good um what about um dogs that are dropped off do we have this is only coming up for me because this happened to my aunt just this weekend she here she Liv in another state somebody dropped off two pit bulls in her neighborhood another neighbor saw that happened and they actually got into her fence and killed her small little dog so it's just a question not really about this but do we have a they show up and let them lose yeah and a neighbor saw that happen but didn't realize what was happening so I mean do we what about dogs at large um and we can't we can't ask the owner if we if we can find them so I'm I'm not asking you for an answer I'm just hoping that doesn't happen and if if it if it was a stray dog does it go through the same process probably I'm hoping um well I I guess the first part of that we would conduct an investigation and do our best to find the owner because they are ultim responsible for that whether they Dro or not um if we can't then there would be a quarantine period and things like that that regardless if we can if we can find that owner or not we would conduct quarantine period with our Animal Control um keep an eye on it make sure you know it doesn't exhibit certain signs I think from that point on then a determination would be made um whether the dog is potentially dangerous which is typically um the first step um but if we can't find an owner then likely it's going to be an impound uh in a pound and then um the pound you know run its course run its time with that pound and they they would follow their policies on that but I wasn't really asking you to explain it I hoping it doesn't happen a lot because that's and it does not goad for all right thank you sir I don't have any questions I think it's a a fair and good press it is hard I think when you're up here and you we do know a lot of people in the community and and it's it would be a I I can see sometime where it would be very tough because you might have to say I can't I know that person I can't really vote on it so I think it takes it off of our plate and puts it on a more fair basis for residents Kevin it seems more fair and streamlined in the past where where would the funding come for an administrative hearing officer and how soon could you get one does it condense the time wait usually normally waiting mayor council I can take this one uh so we have a in our fee schedule a process for the administrative third party um we typically just schedule it we work with the either the property owner if he's here for a coda issue or with a dog issue to line up that meeting as soon as we can um he comes up here for other things when we've got somebody that's appealing a a code enforcement dispute or so he he's on call to do this and we'll come into town as we need him okay and also who where is the dog held during something like that again we haven't had an experience like this in quite a while but um how does that get determined right determined well typically if if it's like I said if it's if it happen one time it's typically we start with potentially dangerous they're issued some paperwork we conduct a quarantine period that could be at the person's residence that could be at a pound um but typically it's at the person the owner's residence and they per code they have to allow us access to to keep checking on that that dog um make sure it's not exhibiting signs of R and things like that if if it does then we have to take other steps um and the same would be for for a dangerous time we would conduct that period again um typically they would be allowed to keep the dog until we go through this hearing process um and then as Jenny mentioned if it is declared dangerous um there's lot of insurance steps and things they have to provide uh things they have to provide at their residents in order to keep that dog with the city so well it's good to hear like you said um takes some of the emotion and some of the take the publicness the public portion out of the way people can be a little more um there's more um cooperation and there don't feel like spotlights on them either it's more let's focus on the event itself not the individuals who own the the animal CI event so um that's all I have um all makes sense to me so I don't it's definitely the right thing to pursue thanks for thank you bringing it to our attention it so got rule call on this or what do we I'll make a motion to approve ordinance 345 amending the city code chapter 8 section 3-1 animals dog licensing and regulation motion by councilman mu do I have a second I'll second second any further discussion and roll call please mayor Vogal yes council members Robinson hi IG hi FIS hi Neil bow hi you everyone okay Anthony sorry I got it right this time meeting open to the public come on up 650 nope if you want to speak you you can get a to speak talking a little bit of input I guess um name and address again please about the doc about on my name yep name and address again please Mr Colby 4852 239th Avenue Northwest St Francis Minnesota 55070 um about the dogs um we've got kennels at the dog park the one on the left is was a is a pumpy pound or play area um a a peace officer could drop off a dog there and there could be like five people that aren't raising kids or something willing to stand outside the fence and monitor them while they're waiting if if you could speed up the times and stuff and you can put dogs there for now I suppose but um about this uh merger um I know Crown went under how are they doing shouldn't we be focusing there and um if we're going to be working with the bar District of um bethl wouldn't we have to assume that or some kind of stuff because they don't even let you grow livestock within City Limits and their East bethl is the on the other side of 65 so like what are we going to get out of that and also there's um Oak Grove probably has a better water Supply but it's just some stuff to think about there isn't a border on this planet that hasn't been disputed and um you ever need help with that let me know but it shouldn't be difficult um you got to open your minds and focus on the priorities because I know I was hiking through Bethal and everything's just gone I mean how much debt do they have it can't be a lot to just mean must be some administrative cost anyone willing to give up their city name should be available I would think and um we've also our industrial district has been bought out by northri Grumman I believe and they they headquarter out of Elk River now so I mean all you can reach is like one um security guard station there uh they made me wait like two months to get cleared at the secret level so I was like no I ain't waiting on a 200 Grand a year job for something that sounds like work just to try to come a sales guy to sell a state defense against the feds but um yeah you guys got to open your minds and start thinking big because this stuff's going to start popping an NOA county has always been the the statis basically the fastest growing county in the state and um Oak Grove has no business being north of 47 I'll tell you that with the with the um uh what's it called is it a golf course yeah Country Club no it's Golf Course um what else yeah I mean as far as I know there isn't any industrial land available is there you'd have to lease it from NLC wouldn't you sure on that one we do have some light industrial and business Parks okay light industrial could you build a fire truck there we usually buy our fire trucks we don't usually build them anything's possible but how many i' love to see somebody come in and want that land for that that'd be great how many acres do we have available mayor council I don't have that on hand with me tonight it can't be a whole lot but there might be some light industrial all right go get them thanks Anthony anybody else from the public all right close the public at 654 on to reports see none council member reports Uh Kevin I was able to attend the work session we had last week it was lengthy and lot stuff taking care we tried to make up for the short meetings we've had in the past year and I think we did just that so I also get the privilege and the opportunity tomorrow Kate myself and Paul will be going down to the Capitol Building be testifying in front of the capital in front of the capital investment hearing talk about Highway 47 infrastructure and not with our hands out but our uh our information in front of us as far as what we need to do and move forward again uh Kate was good enough to get us her we achieved a $7 million Grant last year and this will we're asking for $3 million tomorrow apparently it's going to be there'll be what 18 other cities there as well and we have a pecking order that we not sure if we're number eight or number 18 but uh we are prepared and we'll do the city proud we'll do the best we can thanks Kevin Sarah um I too attended the work session and yeah it was it was a good one um it's always good to to get our ideas out there at a work session um and kind of work through things um tomorrow I will be attending my first upper Rum River water meeting so I'm so excited I've been trying to Peck away away at the at all the stuff that I got sent and I'm like this is a lot of information so um but well we'll go with that and then um also I just wanted to bring up all of us should have gotten a uh email from Michelle Anderson about the council partaking in their little shark P thing so just um if you have a few minutes look at that email and let her know what you're thinking thanks sir Amy um I also attended the work session fora and I had everything all in one week um that was last was that last Monday and then Wednesday I attended the Eva meeting and then Friday and Saturday the found foundational program through the leag of Minnesota cities um Mr Mayor and I went did that together and it was very informative and I look forward to the next one Joel attend of the work session and the Eda meeting and uh I'm excited to hear what you guys end up with tomorrow that's awesome so go get them um I have a pitch pork if you want it but usually you catch more flies with honey that's all I have thanks jel as Amy mentioned I attended the LMC League of Minnesota City training as well and I got to be be honest I was pleasantly surprised sometimes these kind of train things can be how should I say dry and boring but I actually think they did a very good job with the speakers that kept us engaged and and they learned some things uh on to the work session as well the work session I thought was very fruitful I thought we had a really discussion about several different items on Friday I with Mr Carpenter over here with the public works the MP CA came and did their every three is it three to five year inspection of the wastewater treatment plant so it tended that and I just only two real takeaways from that one is Parish Barton who who runs that operation fantastic we we have on staff here somebody who really knows what he's doing and it's not just the knowledge he has he knows how to engaged with the public so he's a very shout out to parish for the job job he does and one other takeaway from that it's not something you need to go into right now or whatever else but sodium is going to be our kiles heel with our wastewater treatment plan been saying that for a few years yeah well it's it's it's we're slowly creeping our numbers creeping up and and what what that means is one of two things either we reduce sodium in the system through whatever kind of programs or we have to create something on the sewage side which is troublesome but we're talking 18 to20 million if we're going to do it on the city side so I just want to give everybody the heads up that I don't I don't know exactly where this is going to go yet but sodium levels are continue to creep upwards and we're going to have to address this one way or another sometime sometime soon you can tell the love of my life that you can't have a softener I didn't say it uh one of the quick things I think I mentioned it before we putting together a meeting with the school district District just to meet about just a general level meet and greet kind of thing to just talk about how things are going and maybe someday pushing brid street through to 47 so we'll see where those discussions go and lastly but not least uh Paul could go into more detail if you want to but just be prepared to you'll probably be getting some phone calls they're going to start I believe it is tomorrow on the trees is that correct Paul uh yes Mar Council either tomorrow or Wednesday Wednesday mid morning we'll start uh land clearing across the street here that's correct behind this behind Subway there straight to the north of us here so that's all I have so we got Charter commission meeting city council regular meeting next one is March 17th and then March 24th will be our next city council work session so anybody else anything else do I have a motion to adjourn I'll make that motion Mr Mayor by councilman second by councilman FIS all in favor second by Hussein I meeting adjourned at 7 pm thank you everyone