We're live. Joe, did you have to go to Cairo right after your accident? No, I was scheduled to go anyway today, but I went Thursday, I think, and then he told me to come back next week sometime, so I was a little sore, so I figured I might as well go. >> Sure. >> Not bad, though. >> That's what it called. Postman right away. >> Yeah. Ask Gary or Nichollet. Oh goodness. Call to order the work session on February 23rd. 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. >> Roll call, please. Kate >> Mayor >> here. >> Council member Robinson >> here. >> Here. >> On to the agenda items. Chief Council as in your packets, you can see the we have Lieutenant Mcno with the North County Sheriff's Office here today. Um their office is in the process of implementing a real time crime center, otherwise known as the Anoka Regional Crime Technology and Information Center. Um this project is set to include use of automated license plate reader cameras, um strategically placed live view cameras, drones responder technology or DFR, and some other types of technology. all part of a safe county initiative. So, um we've been meeting with the lieutenant here and and then some other sheriff's office representatives um over the last several months um and they've been keeping us updated with their their goals and their progress on this project. And uh Lieutenant Mendoza um I'll hand it over to him um tell you a little more about this project and then answer any questions that you might have at the end. in a minute. >> Thank you. >> Welcome. >> Thank you for having me, Mr. Mayor, council members. Uh I am Anthony Mendoza. I'm the lieutenant overseas patrol operations uh for the county sheriff's office. Um a little bit of background about me. I've been with the sheriff's office for 21 years. Um I have been >> Yep. Oh, should be red. >> It's green now. >> Stop touching me. I hear that on >> you good. >> Okay, >> not red yet. >> I can be loud. >> There you go. >> There you go. As easy as pushing another button. >> Um I currently, like I said, is oversee the patrol operations uh for the sheriff's office. I'm one of the mobile field force um command staff and I'm also the assistant commander for the Anoke County SWAT team which is another regional asset for the for the county. The reason why we're here today is we as uh a sheriff's office and I'll speak on behalf of the emergency communication center dispatch. Um we saw that there's a a rapidly growing opportunity to um utilize existing and uh newly developing technology to assist in uh first responder uh calls for service as well as investigations after a call for service. And so today I wanted to give you a little bit of a brief overview of what we're looking at, but I also wanted to dispel any kind of rumors, um address any public safety privacy concerns that you may have and um get out in front of it before, um any misinformation is out there. So the project overview, um like the chief said, ALPRs, automated license plate reader cameras, uh live view cameras, drone first responder or DFR, and another assist of technologies that are part of this project. First things first is the automated license plate reader cameras. There are two main players in this in this field. There's Axon which makes body cameras and tasers and squad cameras and everything and the other one is Flock Safety and this uh particular uh project is uh currently using the Flock safety uh platforms. Um there's been mixed reviews in the media about them, but again I want to dispel some rumors um and why we're still work why we're still moving forward with this company. So what an ALPR is is it is a it's a stationary camera that takes still photographs of the rear of a license plate. It does not um capture the front of the place. We're not using any kind of facial recognition. Um, all it does is it takes a rear picture of the plate of the vehicle, make, model, uh, and license plate. The algorithm that's built into their software, then corresponds that license plate to the BCA's hot files list that the BCA uploads to Flock every uh, 6 hours. If the plate is not on that list, there is no notification to law enforcement at all. It just takes the picture and in 30 days uh due to data retention laws, it's gone. It's it's deleted. It is still there for 30 days. If there is a reason to search for that vehicle, um investigators can go back and they can look at it, but there is no notification to to law enforcement that this vehicle passed a camera. So, the algorithm compares the characters to the plate on the hot list and then it is not they notify us if there's a hit. And so what a hit is um every 6 hours it's updated. Uh commercial vehicle license is revoked. Um Canadian police information center alerts. We currently have that turned off because in 21 years I've never had a Canadian police uh information center alert. Have Have you ever seen that, Chief? Nobody I've talked to has ever seen that. So we just turned it off. Uh disqualified driver. So if somebody's medical uh somebody's medical doctor revokes their privileges um they become a disqualified person. Uh extreme risk protection order very new never seen a hit come across on it. Uh it's just one of the things that are are alerted to in the NCIC database. Uh group member capability or that could be gang member, foreign terrorist organization member, some other member of a protected of a a suspected uh criminal organization. We don't have a whole lot of uh Kosanostra here in Minnesota, but that could be somebody that gets put in there as well. More importantly, cops alerts. Um, keep our police safe is what the acronym stands for. If uh one of the St. Francis Cars puts out a cops alert for somebody that is armed and potentially either suicidal, homicidal, or they're a threat to public safety or they're wanted for domestic. Whatever the public safety reason is that we're going to put an alert to try to find somebody after 6 hours or within that next refresh window, it'll come on uh to the system and it'll notify us. Obviously, warrants, missing persons, uh non-compliant sexual offenders, um protection orders, whether they're served or not served, um driver's license status, stolen vehicle, stolen license plate, uh violent person alerts, don't get those very often. And probably the most important one is Amber Alerts. So those are the hot list items that are uh updated by the BCA to both Flock, Axon, and any other ALPR provider that is authorized to work and provide services in the state of Minnesota. In order to do that, they have to go through a vetting process from the BCA. The BCA has to say, "Yep, you have enough safeguards in place that your data is not going to be released." And um they allow them to conduct business here. What they do not do, what the cameras do not do is they do not openly search information. So if your plate runs by a camera, your private information isn't searched. If your license plate shows up on the hot list, that is the only time that we will get an alert for that. Does that make sense? They're not running license plates or not running driver's license and stuff like that is if you're the registered owner, then the license plate u and your license is suspended. That's the alert that would come through. There is no uh facial recognition technology. There is no direct access to criminal justice information system. Um that is I hate to keep repeating it. It's a spreadsheet that is uploaded to Flock and Axon and all these other guy uh companies that's cross cross referenced with the image or the plate and the characters. There is no personal identifiable data that comes across the system. Each officer will still have to run a plate independently once they've located the vehicle to verify the status. Um ABC123 might be a stolen plate or a stolen vehicle out of Wisconsin. If there's a mistake in the read of the state of the plate, it may trigger a response saying, "Hey, this vehicle could be stolen." You come up behind it, the stolen vehicle alert will clearly say it's a Minnesota plate. And if you see a Wisconsin plate, there's the difference. So um that's why the each officer must still independently uh verify the hit. They also verify the validity hit before taking any action u matching vehicle characteristics and etc. If the plates do not match anything on the hot list, the photo remains in the system for 30 days and then is automatically deleted. There's no manual uh deletion that is required. It's just an automatic retention period and it deletes. If within that 30 days there's an a need for an investigator to find out where this person's been, kind of establish a pattern of life or anything like that. Um the law and the office will require a search warrant to be executed to access that data if that. So that's the extra layer of protection on the privacy uh front. Um, there are concerns about data retention being brought up around the country. The concerns are valid and there are several safeguards in place in Minnesota. Minnesota stopped nationwide searching capabilities. There is no longer um can an agency from outside of Minnesota search a vehicle and get a Minnesota hit unless that vehicle is a Minnesota vehicle in their state on their cameras. If that makes sense. They won't get any returns from Minnesota. They'll get them if they're in their in their state. Um, like I had mentioned, if they're trying to establish a pattern in life or track a suspect down, they will need to uh provide us with a signed judicial search warrant from the 10th district. So, on this next slide, I wanted to kind of show you what an alert looks like to the officers in in their car. Initially, you'll get a they'll get a blink um or a ding in their inside their uh squad car. And on the left there, it'll show you it says that plate revoked. As you can see on any all of these uh photos, there is no personal identifying information. The first one says the justification for the hit. It's revoked. The second one shows the camera or the device which it was located on and the estimated location where that camera is. The third one shows you a picture of the vehicle. As you can see, it's the rear of the vehicle. If you're not clicking into those specific alerts, the one on the the far right one that shows you the hits from the different cameras that keep coming through. That's it. And so the officer, if they're in the area of the of the alert, they can attempt to locate that person and then take enforcement action if they see fit. For searching, um these are some more safeguards to make sure that we are properly tracking and people aren't misusing the system. So on the left side of the the photo, uh there has to be a specific offense type. There has to be a violation of criminal law or there has to be civil process that needs to be uh served on somebody. So if the sheriff's office is going to serve a harassment restraining order, order for protection on somebody, they may use this to try to find u uh the vehicle. There has to be an associated case number. This cannot be just a random search. you have to uh you have to have a a case number that is generated by emergency communications to search and then there's the justification again. So you have the offense type, the case number and the justification. If you do not have those three, you will not be able to search there prevented. These are required fields before search can be performed. Um the vehicle details license plate otherwise there is a vehicle fingerprint. You can make enter the the body style, the make, the color, um the identifying characteristics of the vehicle if that's all the the victim has to go on. And you can help establish potential suspects. But there is no, as you can see, this is the entire these are the search fans. There's no way to look for a white male walking down Bridge Street. That that is not even a possibility of a search. What they will the what you can do is you can search for a red jacket or a black backpack moving down bridge street. You cannot put the specific characteristics of the person. You can do object recognition. Um and that depends if you have a camera in that location and um the person was picked up by the camera. Any questions on ALPR before I move on to the drones? >> I know I do. Go ahead. You want you want to go? >> I was just curious. So, I think the biggest concern with a lot of people and and one thing I don't understand irrelevant to this situation, you've already dispelled that myth, but like in Minneapolis, I think they're doing the speed cameras now again, >> which confused the hell out of me. Um, I thought aired those Arizona companies that were doing it. It was ruled unconstitutional cuz somebody else could be driving the car type of thing. Yet, now they're doing it again, which blows my mind. These at any point, they don't do that. >> No, they do not have the capability of registering speed or anything like that. Could they be used for that in the future? >> No. Okay. >> There's no metric to which you could tr you could uh measure the person's speed. >> That's about the only question on the cameras that I had. >> Sir, >> I can make anything at this time. >> I got several. So, just so I think I understand it correctly. Let's just say somebody had a medical that they shouldn't be driving a car >> and and it d it dings them. It's not it's not issuing them a ticket there because you know >> it's alerting the officers in the area and the St. Francis cars if if this project goes through St. Francis cars are not going to care about what's going on in Fidley Columbia Heights or any of those cities they can turn those alerts off they can say I only want to know about the things that are happening in Oak Grove now then and St. Francis if they're in that position to take action on something that might be coming around they can turn all the rest of them off. So those matrix matrixes are controlled by our PD >> by the individual officer on who what they want to know. Okay. >> Uh I don't know why they would want to get alerts from Columbia Heights and Fidley. Um >> ding ding ding. >> I mean it's it would it goes they go off a lot. Um most of the guys even the guys that are working in the the startup of the center have a lot of them turned off because you get alerts off of 87 cameras already. It's just not feasible. Uh then you you reference and I think I know the answer kind of on a search warrant. >> If if they're just looking for witnesses to something, do they have to get a search? So they they're trying to find something happened over here on 47 or whatever and they're trying to locate witnesses. Can they use this to access witnesses? It'd be really hard to find any way to search that specific reason because in order to do that, you would have to drill down to that camera and then search a time frame through that camera and then you'd have to go individually by every single car. I guess it could possibly be done, but that is a very labor intensive um task. And so just blindly searching the database. I think that would probably require a a search warrant. >> Okay. Was wondering >> that's that's honestly out of all of these I've done, that's the first time I've heard that. And that's a good question. But I think I would lean towards that's that's a search warrant. Okay. Uh justification. >> And then on this this just has to go down with the maybe I'm looking at the wrong thing here. >> And is St. Francis opting into this? Is is that correct? is a city we're opting in or >> so I'll I'll cover the whole project here um once I cover some of the other if that's >> fair enough. Yep, that's fine. >> That's really all I got right now. >> I do have one more question. >> Sure. >> Um for these cameras, do you have an idea or like a map set out to the location and >> uh Yes. Um and I'll be honest with you, the all of them are are directed by calls for service. Um, we did a we went back three years to look at calls for service and types. Um, there's not a lot in St. Francis. Um, the benefits of St. Francis is the next part that I'm going to talk about. >> Um, the real the true like meat and potatoes of the of the project. So, >> all right. So, the next part I'm going to talk about is the UN is uh drones. UAS, we have a UAS program. You have UAS program. The drones are really what's going to um benefit the city of St. Francis and your citizens. So, in 2024, there was 704, sorry, 708 total UAS flights in the county. Um, that might not seem like a lot, but that is just over two a day. Um, and I can tell you that a lot of them are flown from the sheriff's office because we travel all over the county to to fly for other agencies. 2025's numbers are still being reported, so I can't get you the accurate number in 25, but I can tell you that they're higher. Um, all right. What is a drone as first responder? It's a resource to able to put eyes in the eyes on scene before the first responders arrive. It allows for a faster arrival of uh resources typically within 90 seconds from launch. For law enforcement, we get a faster response to the scene of the crime where if somebody is fleeing from a location after a crime or there's an evidence that is uh dissipating based on it could be um could be a myriad of different things, but we have eyes or the camera on scene with typically within 90 seconds. Um help locating missing persons. We have located a lot of people whether they're missing or a fugitive um or a person that's running from a scene using utilizing drones. You guys have the drones. I know you guys are been successful with yours as well. The location of missing persons is one of the highest reasons why I want to have a DFR. We have a lot of um a lot of issues with uh group homes. We have um those that are um that are mentally uh handicapped, if you will. I apologize if I'm not saying the correct uh verbiage, but you have those with autism that typically um based on the training that we go through tend to be attracted to water. The faster we can get eyes on where that that person may be, the more lives can potentially save. Officer needs assistance calls. Um, St. Francis is one of the smaller agencies within the county and tend to have less backup available. If one of the if one of your officers calls for emergency assistance, we can launch that drone and have eyes on and provide real-time information to the responding officers um without having to the officer have to error all of that information. Um, and then this one is depends on the location, the speed, but potential assistance during pursuits. Um, we've seen other cities around the country that have a little bit more clustered amount of drones and they are able to monitor pursuits and have the squads back off a little bit more easily. Um, but that's all dependent on the location and the speeds of the pursuit. For fire, this is the one that uh I'll touch on a few times here. Again, faster response time to scenes for information. Obviously, they're not going to make a fire truck get there faster. um hotspot detection using onboard fleer and thermal. Um there's a couple images I'll show you here in a little bit incl uh including the SWAT call out we had in um now then at the end of last year the hotspot and the thermal imaging that comes off these drones is amazing and we've investigations have help been helped with this but it also provides information to the the um the fire personnel on scene. It can provide wind uh and weather information uh regarding spread of the fire and they can staff up or down faster when they get that information in real time. Now, that doesn't necessarily help law enforcement when there's a a a grass fire, but dispatch will be able to fly these and be able to monitor and give that information to your fire department in real time and they can make those staffing decisions um instead of just going off a straight box uh drill and saying, "Yep, okay, this is the type of call we're going to have to upstaff or down staff." It makes it easier and a more informed response for your chiefs. Uh EMS, obviously, crash information and approach and evac routes. And then emergency management um damage assessments during natural natural disasters, faster information for response uh for resource requests. And then there's more. Um part of the I didn't touch on this, but uh part of the package that we're looking at for ALPR, it does have some traffic analytics. So um if there are questions based on where the cameras are, the traffic flow, and how we're seeing, we can provide a lot of that information for your public works. um if it's requested. Okay. All right. Docks. A drone dock is a self-contained base uh station that stores, charges, and launches these drones uh at the command of a remote pilot. And that's the key thing is these they will not fly by themselves. They'll be prompted to dispatch or the real-time crime center depending on who's working at the time. This is the type of call. Do you want to launch a drone? There has to be a human being that says, "Yes, we're going to launch this kind of this drone." And they have to take command of that aircraft. They'll at a autonomously launch, fly to the scene, and hover. If no one takes control, it goes back to the dock, and it lands. I know there's this is going to be some privacy concerns, so I want to make this abundantly clear. It goes up, the camera focuses on the horizon. There is no downward facing camera that tracks where it's going. It's a horizon facing because it has to avoid and detect and avoid animals, airplanes, everything like that. It flies to the coordinates of the call and it hovers until there's a person that takes control of that aircraft. Um, so the dock is a rugged environmentally sealed enclosure that houses the drone. When the drone lands back on the dock, it's a contact charging or it's a battery swap depending on what drone that we put out. There's a couple different ones um that are included in this package, but this one up here would likely be a contact charging. So, as soon as it lands within 20 minutes, a fully charged battery and off you go again if there if there's another call for service. Autonomously launches the drone at the command of the pilot. Again, then it closes the lid so the weather stays out of it. And then the dock uh typically are staged on rooftops at key locations across the county. If we go forward this, I think the uh the police department's probably the best part location for it. It's secure and uh it covers the a good majority of your city. Couple of different uh drone options that we currently have access to uh that are part of this are the Flock Alpha and the Matrice. Uh they're industrial grade drones designed for public safety. Typically have a 40 to 50 minute flight time. um can uh have a flight uh speed of about 45 miles an hour and have a three to four mile radius depending on the type of the drone which covers a good chunk of your uh property. I know of your city. Obviously out by North Grumman we're not going to be able to fly. There's CFRs and stuff like that in place for that. So the majority of your populated uh area will be will be able to be covered by a single drone. telephoto camera lens capable of detailed close-up checks of incidents and then obviously the thermal camera which will provide a multitude of benefits to both law enforcement, fire, EMS and um emergency management. Um this is a little bit more centered for the south end of the county. Part of this uh project does include three radars that are going to be required around the Blaine Anoka County Airport. Again, you're far enough out of their airspace that the the the altitude flight uh does not affect uh the Blaine airport from here. This is a an image of the um proposed uh docking station locations. There's eight of them. It covers from the Columbia Heights all the way up into Ham Lake and over Ramsey and all the way over to Loel Lakes and covers the Centennial Lakes Police Department area. And then obviously we have one station or we would have one stationed up here to cover um your city. This covers about 90% of all residents in the county that are serviced by a police department. Um the sheriff's office patrol area typically will take the hit on this one because we're more rural and we um and this is based on calls for service. That's um this is basic that's the basic plan for it. Um there are plans for future expansion um grants that we can potentially apply for to expand our the patrol area our patrol area coverage but this is what we're proposing to um with the current plan. Um some of the technology that's going to be included uh flock operating system premium subscription which will allow us to have full control of the ALPR cameras, live view cameras, the DFR cameras. Uh Flock 911. This is a program that will allow um the officers in the cars to hear live 911 calls for their area. So if there's a 911 call that comes in and it's in St. Francis, the dispatchers can push it out to the car and they can hear the change in tone of inflection of a victim that's trying to talk to see if if things are escalating, if they're if they're deescalating, if um they're giving information about a suspect that's fled the scene and they're still coming into the area, they can have that information in real time. Instead of having the delay of the phone, the call taker adding it to the notes, the channel 7 dispatcher acknowledging the notes and then putting it out over the air. It might only take 10 or 15 seconds for that to happen, but that in that time the officer could have already passed the suspect. Um, so obviously it's a it's a benefit for the officer to hear that. They don't always have to hear it. Um, there is an option to not listen to that. Um, but it also that Flock 91 will also trigger the prompting for the DFRS to be launched. They hear certain criteria in there and it'll it'll uh prompt the pilots to uh either accept the mission or decline the mission. um uh flock safety gateway similar to uh another system that we run. We run uh we have Axon Fus which is a real-time crime center software that the sheriff's office is currently using. The gateway from Flock Safety is very similar to their devices that they we have put on to third party systems. For instance, we have um Axon cores on the city of Andover, city of Anoka um internal camera systems. So we have access live access to their cameras to be able to see with live in uh with live ongoing incidents and dispatch has that information as well. So they are able to provide those live updates as well. Free form allows you to specialized search engine for the uh the real-time crime center. It's basically a Google search for all of the cameras and drones and everything that we need to do. Additional technology that's included is a traffic analytics package. Uh utilizing flock cameras. The technology can provide real-time actionable data on traffic volumes, speed trends, which does not it's it's very uh subjective. It looks like the vehicle is going fast is basically about what it's going to tell you. Um you're going to be able to see if vehicles are moving fast on the car or slow. There is no radar. There's no way to uh tell you what the speed is. Have you guys used speed signs? >> Yep. you comparing some of though that data can be brought into the system and it can be used to help give you a better um a larger picture of what's going on in your city, not that you don't already know. Um the NOVA is a comprehensive data im integration platform that connects all of our disparate technology systems. So, our CAD, our RMS, our VMS, our jail management system, our inmate tracking system. All of that stuff can be pulled in to allow for investigations to have a little bit ready access to that information. It's all information that's already shared amongst the county. It just gives you that faster integration instead of logging into all these disparate systems. It'll allow you to get that at one at one location. Any questions on DFR or the technology before I move forward into the next part? >> I don't know if this is for next part or this part. So it's same same situation though. You say the drone take somebody hits the button, the drone launches. >> Yep. >> Flies on the horizon oversight. Then I assume the camera goes down to >> at at that point does the camera point down. >> Not until somebody takes control of the of the aircraft. >> Okay. And that's your dispatcher back at >> either dispatch or somebody that's working in the Arctic. >> Okay. And then when it let's just say it's a suspicious fire, whatever else. And now they can go do they have to get a search warrant to there's a there was a vehicle over here like like this. And >> well, you're not going to see the you're not going to see any identifying information from above when it comes to vehicles unless you're at a certain unless you're at the right angle and it can get the played from that distance. That's all part of the initial investigation. That information can be be provided to the investigator to get more information or to track their whereabouts. Then they have to get the search warrant to say, "Okay, where was this? Where did this person go?" >> If the vehicle's on on site and we have a uh the plate, that's that's not a problem. It's evidence at that point. >> Yep. It's continuing on to track that person or establish a pattern of life. And there's only 11 there's only 11 reasons to fly um in the state of Minnesota. There's only 11 exceptions to this the search warrant requirement. And if it doesn't meet one of those 11 exemptions that are laid out in state statute cannot fly. So there those all of those uh statuto restrictions will be built into the system and if it doesn't meet it um we had one city council member that was concerned. attorney. He's like, "Well, if they have a revoked commercial driver's license, are you going to launch on that?" I said, "No, it's illegal. You just can't." Um, if it's a stolen vehicle, yeah, we can. That's a felony in progress. We can we can launch on that. But license status violations and protection orders and stuff like that, you can't fly on that stuff. So, it has to be a crime or a life-saving incident basically to be able to fly that. And kind of different question, same same thing though. When it's when it's flying and the operator can see, can they they can send that to the St. Francis squads or they can send it to the fire department trucks. So they can actually see that they're the ones seeing it or is the dispatcher seeing it? >> Both there. So when in Flock OS there is the ability for uh the officers, the supervisors, the chiefs, whatever to have access to seeing that in real time. >> Okay. Um, and they just they log in under there. Uh, do you guys have computers in the fire rigs? >> I don't know if we not sure that either. >> Okay. >> Well, if it's if it's a computer with internet access, they can get on it and that information will be pushed from dispatch out and they can they can view the live drone footage. >> So, it's a website, not an app necessarily. >> Correct. And the that's the downside to everything now in law enforcement. Everything's a subscription. You can't just buy a taser. You got to buy a subscription to to the taser. >> Yeah, it drives me nuts, but >> you and me both >> nowadays. >> So, um but yes, that's uh that's all able to be viewed in real time by supervisors um or the firefighters that are in route. >> Okay, Kevin S again, >> nothing for me. >> Um a little bit of overlap with uh Mayor Vogle here. Um, so you get the call, it goes to the area by itself. Pretty much >> it will autonomously it it can autonomously fly to the the GPS coordinates that are given on the 911 call >> for the dispatchers trained and flying. Like can you fly it manually if you need to? >> No, these are so these drones are mouse and keyboard flight. And so yes, the dispatchers can fly it. They can't right now because you have to have several different licenses and once this program gets approved they will get the ones that are going to be assigned to work this will get those licenses as long with along with everybody that's will be working in the Arctic. >> Okay. >> And that's all regulated by the FAA. But you, yes, there is a potential that you could go to the dock, manually remove the controller, which is screwed into the back and everything, and fly it manually, but it's all controlled by mouse and keyboard through the system. >> Okay. >> Um, and I will say one thing, this one's come up with a couple other city councils. You guys currently have trunk deployed drones. I would keep them, >> right? >> This does not this doesn't take over that that uh those roles. They're still a huge benefit um to your PD and the community. I would not get rid of those drones. I would continue to use them. The sheriff's office is still going to have all of our aircraft and we're going to continue to invest in that. This is a first responder drone. If it's a longer prolonged uh call, we'll switch to the the the trunk deploys. >> That answers one of my other questions, too. So, that makes sense. Um And then so I guess I don't know if you want to take me through this is backtracking a little bit but >> absolutely >> uh the the cameras the flock cameras >> they get pinged and then you just dispatch whoever's closest pretty much if you if you were to like take me through that scenario. >> Sure. Alerts come through all the time. >> Yeah. >> Doesn't mean the the officers or the deputies are taking action on all of them. >> Okay. um we still have discretion. And so if it's a suspended driver and it's out on Sugar Bush and your officers here at the PD or over on the east side of the city, I would never expect them to rush across the other the city the city to to find a suspended driver or even a stolen vehicle. If it's a homicide suspect, sure, I'd expect them to start heading that way. Um it falls down to discretion. So, they're not going to be dispatched to these traffic related violations. It's going to give them information to see what see how they can stay proactive in your city. Um, it's going to give your investigators information of who may be u in the area for during certain crimes. If the victim of the crime said, "Hey, I saw this black pickup truck driving around for the last 3 days and my car got broken into and my neighbor's car got broken into." That might be something for your investigators to look into to find that black pickup truck that was in that area. If there's cameras in that area and once they identify it, then they can start working back to u identify that person. So, um the flaw cameras are a great tool and that's what they were actually designed to for HOAs. Um they were they would have the HOAs buy the cameras and provide the information to the police departments. um they've evolved to say, "Hey, it's actually they still ser they still serve HOAs, apartment uh complexes, um large scale businesses, all sorts of stuff, but they also sell the law enforcement." So, I hope that answered your question. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um last question is more administrative, not necessarily. Uh looking at first, you see the the annual price tag after the first couple years goes up quite a bit. uh for the county or the the cities involved in it, it's 1.772 million. Um our city listed here is roughly a thou or $11,000 um just under that. Um given we're kind of nickel and diamond to try to get our levy down. Is it in the budget or in a police budget or where would this necessarily who's funding it? >> Yep. So, if I can if I can cover that here in the next part, I' I'd gladly do that for you. >> Let's do it. >> All right. >> One question before you go. >> Um, this is nothing new. I'm sure there's other municipalities already enacted this or created this type of network. >> Have you seen what can you share with us the pluses or minuses that you've seen so far? Because obviously you've done a ton of homework here and you've seen the the good and the bad. >> Yep. So, many of the cities, many of the agencies throughout the county have already deployed flock cameras. Um there are 19 other municipalities throughout the country that have gone with the safe city package. It's a very new it's a very new package. Um we would be the first county. We're unique because of all of the other uh systems that we share. The benefit to that is there's less to integrate. We have one central record system, we have one CAD system, we have, you know, it's very uniform across the county. Um the downside is uh technology is expensive. That's but the benefit of having the information and being able to assist in the the solving of cases and the um the speed at which some of this information can be handled is where the benefit comes in. Um Flock will never say that and I will never say that it's going to save you officers because it it it's not that's not what this system is designed for. is to make them more effective and to be more effective in in their policing. Um so the downside is obviously going to be the cost. The upside is all about um the return on investment for the for the community and that's going to be the the increased safety um for wandering individuals. If you have somebody, if you have uh population that tends to walk away or run away from home, uh whether it's a juvenile or an elderly person, having a drone up, getting that information faster is going to locate them faster, which will reduce that risk. Um but the main the biggest hurdle is going to be the price. And that's why I'm out talking to everybody and show trying to show the benefits um of the price. So, >> of the 19 networks out there, would Anoka County be the only one in the state of Minnesota that would have this? >> Yes, we will be the first one in in Minnesota to have a safe county from Flock. Um, they have Dal County is it's just it's deceiving. Dicab County uh is a police department, but it's a county. It's kind of weird. Um, they do things different on the East Coast. Um, Hamilton County in Indiana is about as close to a representation of what an NOA County is between the urban and the rural as you can get out there. Um, they haven't deployed their system yet, but they are in conversation. They're in the same point that we are in this conversation. So, it's really it's a really close match to what they're just going to pay double what we are um because they're adding so much more technology. Uh so many more cameras, everything for this. We s we wanted to be remain effective, but we didn't want to go and say we want to cover everything in this in the county with cameras and drones and everything because it's not realistic. The price point would be so it would be a non-starter. And so what we did was we show we looked at realistically what the county as a whole would need and we we even trimmed some from that. Um mainly the patrol area for the sheriff's office. Uh we didn't trim it all but we trimmed out some of what was recommended for us. Um so I hope that answers your question. >> Aside from corporate presentations, have you been to an actual uh gone to a location where they're using this or county or law enforcement? I've been to several of them. Um I've been to a lot of them around Atlanta. Um it this kind of really originated out of the Atlanta area. Um it's amazing. Um some of some of the infrastructure that's been put into some of these uh locations. Um of course right now I'm drawing a blank on the city, but there was one um police department that had eight people working in it 247. That's not our That's not our goal. Our goal is to hopefully staff 10 hours a day with the in the Arctic and 24 hours a day with with dispatch and then grow from there. But the amount of information that can be pushed out to the squads to make them safer when they're get before they even arrive on scene is immense. But right now, we lack the we lack the technology to be able to provide that to our officers or our firefighters or the medics or any of the first responders that are out there. So, >> thank you very much. One I got another question here. G given the launch parameters that you've >> discussed here. How many times in the last year would it would it have launched from St. Francis? >> It's a great question. Um I would say you're probably looking Well, that's it's going to be hard to say. Um, I would assume that you're going to be actually a little bit busier of a drone site than some of the other ones because you have the schools, you have the 47, which is a fairly major thoroughare for up here, but it doesn't just cover the city of St. Fr., it also covers down into Oak Grove. It covers um it could even cover over into Bethl. Um, and so I would say you're seeing flights every day. You're not going to see it stand still for days on end. It'll fly every day. Um, 911 open lines. There's no reason we can't have a drone on site uh over 91 open lines. I mean, you get a lot we get a lot of those. We're not going to launch for burglaries or burglar alarms, but if it's a if it's a verified burglary, there's no reason why we can't uh fly that. That's a felony in progress. So, there's a lot of different um you'll fly for a little bit more up here than you will for the some of the drones down in the southern part because you're going to see different types of calls for service and that's the big thing. Um so, it's it's hard to say a number, but you're going to see it flying a lot or hopefully you don't see it a lot, but it'll be flying a lot. >> But your best guess is one a day is just wild, >> if not more. >> Okay. >> Okay. and being strategically located at the PD. Um there is a facility nearby that gets a lot of attention from the sheriff's office that would also um be saying that and unfortunately some of the results of that those people fleeing said location turn into crimes in St. Francis. >> So the benefit would be stopping them from getting to St. Francis and being brought back to the facility. Um, so it's not a direct benefit to the city of San Francis, but it it it is. Yeah, if that makes sense. So, all right. Um, Axon is still going to be used. We use that for a few of their things. Um, the flock the flock safe county is slated to be in ACSO purchase for the first two years. Um, they want us to uh join their their program. They want us to be the first. So that's why they're giving us such good incentives up front. Um the first 12 months will be a zero cost to the sheriff's office. The second 12 months will be at 245,000 to the sheriff's office. That'll be paid for out of the patrol division's budget. From years 3 to 10, we would hope that we can bring it to JLE to to fund it similar to the PSDS system using the super formula. Um, the reason why is because the the usage would match up very well with the cost uh formula that the PSDS system uses. That's if you if you're not familiar with it, it's a 5-year rolling average of calls for service and then it's broken down by percentages from there. Dispatch still takes 60.58% of the cost. It's county budget. That's that's why the county will be taking the majority of it. 5% would still be the sheriff's office. That's based on the current 5-year rolling average. And then everything else would be broken down by the P the super formula. That would include 200 cameras countywide. Uh 12 community partner cameras. So if uh what those are is you're going to have um you see the trailers that have the red and blue flashing lights up there. It's a little bit different. It's a fixed camera with a green light on it um which streams back into dispatch and the Arctic and we can uh go from there. uh eight DFR drone plus docking stations and three detect and avoid radars. So in the end um St. Francis would have 10,989 as their um budgeting. It would be an increase to your to your current jail funding. For comparison, one drone dock is going to for up here is $50,000 a year. One camera is $3,000 per camera. And we're looking. If you want to give me a second here. Excuse the photos of the kids. Of course, when I disconnect from my desktop, it everything goes haywire. Let me go back. I'm gonna have to look at something real quick. I want to say there's five cameras in St. Francis. Please don't quote me on this. Um I will get the chief >> five I think is the accurate. So, if you wanted to go with just if we just talked about the price of the drone plus the five cameras, you're you're well in excess of $65,000 annually with the benefit coming that the rest of the county is it's uh spread out. The cost of it is really spread out. Um, yeah. I I I don't want to try to sell you how much uh it's going to cost, but but the benefit for the price is is there. >> So, it's then it's a rolling five years, you say? Yes. >> So, every year this price would be recalculated. >> No. So what we would do is well kind of um it would be close to that. Um right now Bla and Rapids keep fighting for the top spot of calls for service. So they're more likely to get bigger changes in their cost than you are to yours. I think your calls for service over the last 5 years has been pretty steady. Am I right? Um, you haven't seen a wild jump of >> but you're consistently at the same percentage with the with the jail funding, right? You haven't gone up or down. That's so the price for the program is the same. So, it's 17725 for the every year from 3 to 10. >> So, it's locked in for 10. >> That's locked in for 10 years. Uh, for those seven years, eight years. Um and the first two years are taken out by the sheriff's office and the and dispatch. So um that price won't go up unless as part of the jailick if So some of the things that have to happen, we're going to go in front of the county board next month and we're going to have this conversation um and hopefully get their blessing to move forward with this pilot program within the first two years. Obviously part of this part of this contract is going to be there is a non-appropriations cost. If we lose funding completely and we are unable to to pay for it, we have that exit clause. The county attorney has been working with Flock really hard on that to make sure that the countyy's not on the hook for $14 million. >> Right? >> So, we have that protection that if we don't, if for some reason the state of Minnesota said from here on out drones and ALPR and all this other stuff is now illegal, it's illegal for us to fund it. We can't fund it. We need to get out of this contract. Um, so we have those exit causes in those first two years. is going to really be our proof of concept. Um, I can talk theory up here all day long. I can show you, I can point you to other agencies of why it's a good idea, but until we have cameras deployed and drones deployed and the technology deployed, I really can't give you the true metrics of how this will benefit all of the citizens of Noa County. If we determine that we need to up whatever technology we have and take it back. So, I'm going to go in front of the county. They're going to approve or dis decline the first two-year project. Our goal is for year three to have Jaylick take it on as one of their expenses just like the mobile fuel force paging app and PSCS systems and all that kind of stuff. Any change to the project from there would have to be brought to Jay and request in the same way the the new CAD systems and everything else will. So this contract if we did nothing else and kept it status quo for 10 years that's what it's going to cost. If we decide that we want to upgrade drones to the next greatest thing where guys can fly off them, I don't know what they're going to come up with in the next five years. I would never thought they would be talking about DFR when I started. I just was happy to have a cell phone that worked. Um, >> but that's all going to go through the the jail whole committee and all the people that are associated with that um will be a part of that conversation. So, it's not the sheriff's office going to be running it. it will be a JPA with the with um amongst the county and the jailick. So, >> so the one complaint that I'm going to get cuz I already get complaints for uh agency assist which whatever everybody helps each other. I get it. Um Oak Grove is not paying for this. Why are they going to Old Grove? >> They are. This is >> that's what they're going to say though. >> Yep. and they can and you can defer them to the uh sheriff's office contract with those contract cities and they will be the increase will be in their contract. >> Okay. >> Um that's just the way it's going to be in um it it it's part of the jail. >> So, >> and then fire it says is 143,000. What is that? >> So, the fire protection council. So, we presented in front of the the the Cleos um and we got a unanimous vote of support for the program, obviously non-binding from the the No County Chiefs of Police Association. Our chief deputy went and presented in front of the No County Fire Protection Council and they too unanimously voted in favor of this knowing that all of the different benefits they're going to have for their their their agency. Um >> so based on our percentage of what we pay them with their formula that Yeah. potentially be affected by this. But it was it's all Yeah, it's all into that super formula with with Jayl. >> I've been kind of a part of that. Haven't taken a lead lately, but I understand their formula too. So >> I Okay. >> I learned about the super formula about six months ago and I was like they actually called it that. Yeah, that's actually what it's called. >> So there will be a breakout portion of the 143,000 that goes to the Rum River Fire District. Correct? >> Yep. >> Okay. >> That's all I have. That was that was my only other question. Sarah Kevin, >> as far as dollars and cents, what if um again this is your initial presentation, say Columbia Heights, well they're to say St. Francis doesn't want or cannot get involved in that. Do you just pull back the size of your network then and adjust your things accordingly or you need it's all in or all or nothing? This is um without speaking for the sheriff, he is very uh he has shown that this is a this is really needs to be a countywide initiative. Um that way we're serving all the as many of the residents the same as we can. Um so if one city decides to drop out, um I I can't tell you how that's going to how that play how that plays out. Um >> we would like to be able to serve all >> 11 agencies. uh equally and so I don't have I don't have a solid answer for you on that. Um >> the question hasn't come up at all though. I mean even some of the remote cities I mean Franny's out here but >> Yep. >> Um all the PDs that I've or the city councils that I've talked to it's come up once and the the one chief flat out said this is something we need and I'm not trying to put this on uh anything on you but they said this is something that we're going to need and it will show in in the first two years of why we need it. Um, and I've always said since the beginning of this uh of this project was if we can't justify the need for this program based on the calls for service in the first few years, then we don't deserve it. And I truly believe that um implementing this is going to be uh a gamecher in law enforcement and public safety as a whole and it will save lives. That that's just my honest my God's honest opinion. seen many cities running this. Um, currently Minnetonka is running it. Rochester just signed on, not to Flock, but to a different company. So did Brooklyn Park. Um, they're paying a lot more and in my opinion, paying for less quality of product. Um, and we're we're doing this as fiscally responsible as possible to still be able to provide the services to the citizens. >> All right. Thank you. because I'm going to kick it back to you a minute here, Chief. I just want to hear I think tonight, you know, I think we're in the grand scheme of things, I think we're looking for from all the cities just a general support to move forward with this pilot program. Like the lieutenant said, we're not going to know how this project really performs until we put it into use. Um, and I think until we put it in countywide, we're not going to see that full effect. So, I think a general support, which is pretty much all we're seeking tonight, uh to move forward with this pilot to let the sheriff's office fund this thing for a little bit, get it off the ground, see what it can do, and then we can have those further um when it comes to budgeting, we can have those further discussions. Um and we'll also have those further discussions at the JAC level. I I know at one time there was even talk of maybe putting together some type of resolution uh with all the cities and jurisdictions in the county as kind of a general resolution of support to move forward u with this pilot as well. I haven't heard anything more on that. But I again right now it's it's uh we're kind of at that point. Let's see what this thing can do. And I think uh if it performs the way it's supposed to perform and it's performed for other cities, I think uh we're going to see a lot more benefits than that they're going to borrow away the you know the complaints and things we might see. But uh you know even when we we first got our drone and and former mayor Kelvin um I made the point to him because he didn't want to spend $18,000 on a drone. But you know I told him if if if we can find one missing person which we found multiple since then that kind of makes it worth it. So, um, I think that's what it's all about, saving lives and getting and and keeping first responders safe and keeping cities safe. And we're in the technology era and here we are. So, >> and if I may add, um, there are mandated annual audits of this stuff. It's not free reign for everybody. the we do have the sheriff's office currently contracts with an outside agency to come through and audit our body camera use, our drone use, and this will all fall under the same umbrella. It'll still be audited. Um, and uh it's the safeguards are there to make sure we're not we're not um >> How do you audit it if it's gone in 30 days? >> It's all tracked. It's still tracked. Every serious, every search is tracked. everything. Um the image is what's deleted. >> Okay? >> All of the your actions stay. So that's the big that's the big thing. It's um if it's not evidence, if it's evidence, obviously we're going to we're going to save that for court. But if it's it's it's non-evidentiary, it's deleted within 30 days and everything is tracked in the system. So there those are some of the safeguards and I can tell you that our the main deputy that is uh working on this right now. Um he's revoked command staff level uh access to several people in the office because they decided that they didn't want to finish the training. Guess what? They got done they got their training done and they got their access back. But um we're not going to we're not going to put this into a position where we're going to lose it because people want to be dumb, >> right? So the audits and the control will be there. So is there any other questions that I can answer for anybody? >> Not for me. >> Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> So well my thoughts on it are I think it's an awesome program. I think the intentions listed here are great. Um, obviously my I always worry about surveillance type stuff because you know you don't want to live in demolition man times. I don't know if anybody's seen um quick math. Uh according to our 2024 data from the web, we have 3,048 homes. Now granted, this is not the cost per household because every household is different based on the valuation, but if you were to average that out for every household for the number given, it's roughly $361 per household. >> Um, my only question again comes from and I I love the idea of it. I think though too when we're facing the budgetary stuff that we're dealing with, that is the biggest question for me is yes, it's only this or it's only that. But then, you know, how do you justify that? Because that'll obviously be an increase in the levy cuz it's money going out that we don't already have. So, that's what I would put out there. >> Sir, >> I I echo what Joe says too. Um I think it is a very very good and will be very effective and would be benefit for us to have. We just have to be able to find where we can find the money for it. That's our biggest hurdle. >> Kevin, >> well, like everything, where's the money come from? You know, would it saving law enforcement overtime? I mean, the chief could tell us what we currently pay for overtime. Now, could I mean that those are all potential savings there with something this, but I agree with technology. It sounds like it uh is is the latest and greatest thing. Um, again, where does the money come from? I like Joe the way he broke it down to, you know, three bucks a house, but and our drone you you sold it at the not sold it, but the information was if we could save one or two people from harm, $18,000 pretty small price to pay. That was our onetime investment. This is a $11,000 a year investment, per se. But I guess I would look at it as far as I don't want to put the burden on the chief, but from a law enforcement standpoint, where where would it save our department money that could help offset this cost is what what I would look at down the road as far as um if we in like in the past we've lost an officer and it'd be nice to have so many uh patrol officers, etc. Um would this do AI is this taking the place of an officer at some point? You know, >> I don't think we're there yet. I don't I don't see >> and I'm not promoting that. I was just saying, >> yeah, >> but again, I think it's the budgets are definitely something that we're going to have to look at. I agree. There's well, there's a way and I hope we can find it and I I I firmly believe in this program as well. And um we'll uh certainly do what we can to to make this uh >> and it goes with fire as well. I mean, again, not to put the burden on you to say, can you crunch the numbers and find some? I mean, the Rum River Fire District will have to do the same thing. You know, if this is something they want to be a part of, they've got to um then the citizens, I mean, if we can go a third fire, a third police, and a third public, we may have something here, enough ingredients to make it work, you know, and that's all I'm going to get at. >> We do have a little time to to get pretty good serious look at this. It's not going to happen overnight. That's the time to drop some numbers and figure this out. >> Do you know when they were going to meet with fire as well? I should have asked him that. As far as >> I don't know if they I don't know if they presented fire council. >> Yes, I was there. >> Yes. >> Um so I don't know any further meetings arranged with them. >> It wasn't it wasn't as indepth but they they did our last fire protection council meeting and they did an over overview and overwhelming >> and our fire chief remember chief was there as well with Okay. >> Correct. And overall the sentiment was yes. >> And something too that I was going to discuss with the road program too that quick number average whatever I again that's not necessarily to your home or whatever. Um but that doesn't include businesses. That's just a number of households would probably be less than that per unit. So just to throw that out there for information. Nonetheless, it is more. So something we need to consider. >> My only thoughts on it are simply I back in my public safety days I was on the cutting edge of it. a little bit of stuff like this and we busted we solved a case based on card access into a dormatory. I I I'll be honest with you, it was a little uncomfortable just because it felt like we were how do I want to say it spying or whatever else, but it did solve the case. So, I mean I know it works. I I I I reassured pretty much by the safeguards he's been talking about. And unfortunately, or fortunately, however you want to look at it, most of the public already, everybody's got a ring cam or everybody's got cameras up. It's I'm not saying it's for the better, but it's it's become a part of our lives already in a lot of ways. So >> there are obviously us and the public is they don't have the protection in place to keep us from violating people's rights and and breaking laws and things like that. That's why as you mentioned there's only 11 ways we can fly a drone right now and we need to mark them every time we fly and we get out on that process. which case number they are watching them very closely not that they want us to screw up but when we do screw up they let us know whether it's the agency and operator whoever um same thing with these camp protections in place people have already been dinged employees have already been dinged for for not doing what they're supposed to be doing whether it's training or whatever so um it's not go out there and do whatever you want um I can assure you in a couple of years that we've had our drone um we have not flew that thing illegally yet because we monitor pretty close and same thing's going to go for this stuff. So, I'm not too worried about the technology side of it. >> So, I I don't just to summarize overall I I guess I'm in favor of it and I think that's what I'm hearing from everybody here. So, I >> think we can move on to the next uh item on the agenda, the county ever chief. Uh so man council as you're aware the city um we subscribed with Nixl Everbridge which is now Everbridge they changed platforms and um a few years ago but we we subscribed with them in 2017 um currently we have about 1,400 people um that receive text messages uh emails or landline calls um I'm sorry that's just emails and text messages we have about 1300 that get them by landline. So, um, we pay about $4,400 a year for that subscription. And we send out I averaged it out over the last three years. It's about about a dozen notifications a year on sometimes more, sometimes less. They could be for anything, you know, to do with uh we sent them out for gas leaks, we sent them out for vehicle crashes, which is probably one of the more common ones, road closures, things like that. Um the county we recently learned um no county emergency communication center they recently signed on signed a three-year contract with now Everbridge. Um this is they use this as a platform for their iPod alerts which is more of the mapbased um geobased notifications for more serious types of events. Um this is not to replace iPod but this is another benefit of the Everbridge. they can now send out these community type notifications as well. Um, pretty much the same type of notifications we send out. If we need anything more serious like a shelter in place or something like that, we would notify dispatch already said, "Hey, we need an I pause for a shelter in place or an Amber Alert or something like that." Um, but this is this has not replaced that, but this is just kind of an addition to that. Um, so I think I just want to have a discussion tonight on um, you know, and knowing that central communication now has this capability. Um, I've spoke to the director um, myself and they, you know, I just concerned about, okay, what happens in three years? Would you guys you cancel this contract now? Do we have to re go through all this >> setup with with Nixel and everything on because I do >> they don't want to be without a messaging service. um they assured me that they don't want to be put in that situation either. So, they have no desire. They they've done extensive research on getting to this point and they have no desire to start over either. So, I kind of took that as all right, we're in the same boat. Nobody wants to start over. Everybody knows that needs they need this in some fashion. Um so, I I'm trusting in that director um that they're confident that they're not going to after three years they're going to renew that contract. So just a discussion tonight again how if direction if any do we want to just keep doing what we're doing do we want to you know use this kind of a in addition to what we're doing and and maintain our subscription with with Nixel Labbridge and I'm going to keep referring to Nixel Labbridge because we started with Nixon Bridge. So, um, or do we want to move to the the county notification entirely? And then again, there's no cost to this county notification system aside from obviously county taxes that they use to fund this thing. But, um, I guess again, we pay about 4,400 a year to do this. So, and it looks like they they would have the same. >> So, essentially, we cancel and we'd save 4,400. So yeah, just going to leave my question right away is I guess I don't know enough about how Nixel currently works. I mean, so right now if you have something, is it you who's putting next Kate or >> There's a handful of us that have the capability to to hop online basically it's a it's a it's a website we would go to and and do we want to send out an advisory or an alert based on severity of the incident? Um, and we would type in the message and send it out. So there's a there's a handful of us. >> So you'd go log into this website instead. >> Um we would not we would so that's the only change we would we would have to notify dispatch say hey we need an alert for this type of situation in this area. >> Um and then they would to do that. >> And do you feel that they would be so >> do you think as quick I guess >> you know that was my original concerns. I'm not sure. Um they assured um me that you know when talking to them that um it would get done fairly rapidly depending on time of day, how many uh dispatches you have on >> what you got going on. >> You know two o'clock in the morning getting an advisory out when there's not much going on versus 3 o'clock in the afternoon could be a little different. There could be some delay there. U but you know sometimes there's a little bit delay on our end too. uh you know, if we're out and about, we get this call and then I'm not going to, you know, send a message out on my phone while I'm driving. So, it's usually go go back to your office, send the alert. So, >> would everybody have to resubscribe then? >> Yes. >> That's another thing we would have to do. >> It's up to the cities to notify their residents of this program. >> So, you'd send a Nixon one out before you cancel it saying, "Hey, we're going to switch." >> We would have to do some type of a Yeah. So we would have to send out probably on our Facebook website even saying hey >> um you know this our this is >> I mean this is whatever you want to do that but >> and mayor mayor and council part of the the timing would be if we know this is the direction we want to go we would take opportunities at pioneer days information night we could hand out stuff at farmers market so advising people to move over or sign for up for the county. So, some of this is timing as well. The sooner we know the direction that we're going to go, we can start pushing out that education to have people move forward. But, >> yeah, because we have already renewed annually for our subscription now. So, it probably be a either end of this year or early 27 kit that we we have plenty of time to to make >> along your same question that Joe kind of asked earlier. So, the county seems committed to the program and it's probably going to stay in. Is this something where the county says it's free now and then down the line they start charging the cities? Have they talked about that at all? >> He's already paying for it though. >> Well, >> true. Again, I'm not sure on that. >> The county taxes, >> you know, they knew the the director, Carrie Morsy, she's pretty open and honest. Um, whenever I've spoken to her or heard her speak at meetings and things like that, I don't know that she would hide something like that. I kind of trust her on that. So I I I trust and I would sure hope that if she, you know, if there was any indication that some costs were going to be passed on these communities in the future, I would have thought they would have said something like that because obviously if they're pushing this out to try to get some of these communities on board here. So >> then is there like a box you check for I want county alerts for the whole county. Not that I would want that, but some people may or may not. From what I gather right now, it seems like at least for the time being, they're sending when whenever they send out a notification. Everybody subscribes going to get that notification. So, you could get >> advisories for Andover, whatever. I know when that big they had a big gas leak down in Andover here uh late last year and they had I think 40ome thousand subscribers at that point, different cities, they all they all got them. So, it's not map based. I don't know if they might have that capability to kind of narrow down see where you want to get these alerts from. Maybe um >> kind of the impression I got from their presentation, but I don't know if I got it right either. So >> I would think they would probably want I don't want to be getting alerts for >> So just I mean I don't want to put you on the spot. I I mean overall your your feelings towards it is >> you know and I've even spoken to Dave the fire chief about this and I I you know in some sense it could be a little easier. I mean, honestly, you know, just making that phone call um to dispatch and say, "Hey, we need this and trusting them to do that versus getting to my computer or Dave getting to his computer and taking the time sitting down and and sending these alerts out." And then you have to cancel them, too. You have to remember to cancel them. So, I mean, it's not that it's a ton labor intensive kind of work. Um, but it at the same time I don't think we're going to lose any of that uh, you know, time or urgency of getting these messages out. I think I think if anything it's going to it could save a time save us some time and allow us to keep doing other even if it's a serious car crash um, whatever it may be. you know, if a sergeant's out there, we we do have one sergeant that sends he's out as well. And um I even heard from him that, you know, it's one of those things when you're on a serious car crash and now you got to worry about going back to your squad computer and doing a Nix alert. Well, they'd rather be directing and and doing things out there. So, um that's one opinion that came from a street supervisor as well. So, yeah, it it could be uh could make our life a little easier in a sense. Well, it's $4,400 less she got to find for the new program if we do move forward with it. >> That's that's part of her funding right there possibly. And I think it I mean it looks like I don't think that Anoka County is just going to bail on it. I think they're pretty invested in it. They're going to set this up. Um and you know with everything you know changes happen so our residents will get used to that now they have to especially that we have a longer period of time it's not like we've had this rolled out in 3 months so we get enough time to kind of get them introduced to the program so that they know that hey at this point we're going to be switching over and you're going to have to reinlist and it's kind of like any other subscription you have to reup it every once in a while anyway. So, I think it as long as we have some time to present it to them so they know that change is going to happen. And like I said, hopefully, you know, we can there's an option of I mean, because there are some nosy people who want to know everything that's going on everywhere, but there's other people who, you know, at 2 o'clock in the morning, I don't want my next my new alert system going off because there's something going on in that as well. >> Yeah. And I will email the director tomorrow and ask at least them two questions about >> okay >> the possibility of future fees coming back to the cities and that as well as if you can narrow it down see where pass that back on you guys. >> What was the NOA using before this chief before they signed on with ECC? >> I iPod. So they were using iPods for for pretty much all their alerts that went out. You know, the city cities were kind of, you know, dependent upon themselves to send out the community stuff for the less urgent type of notifications >> and they still will be using iPods. So >> and then the 14,400 people that are already on board you. Oh, I want to know um Nick, is there an out on that? Do we have to give them 30 days or we contractually obligated? I'll have to look into that uh clause and it's again it's an annual subscription. It's not like we're locked in for three or five years. So it it should be fine. But I will look >> I think it's worth exploring. >> I think we're all on the same page. We'll just wait to hear back from you. But I think the general consensus is let's pursue it. So >> thank you. Anybody else? Anything for this agenda item? No. on to the digital sign. Is that Kate or Paul or who is it? Paul. Okay, >> go ahead. >> Mar council for you tonight is the a discussion about the community park sign. Uh public works um cleans these once a year. We pressure wash them, clean them up, make them look uh better. Um one of the things we discovered on this particular one last fall was that the actual sign that says welcome to city of St. Francis started to split. Uh, so I started looking into it, talking to Kate about it. Um, the sign was built in 2010. So it's, uh, it's nearing the end of its life, the different frosts. And it's it's two separate poles. If you've ever looked at that sign, uh, when the poles heave differently, it's actually starting to look kind of funny. It'll be interesting this spring. We have it basically band-aid together right now. Um, it's in pretty tough shape. A couple other things about the sign. that the actual digital sign itself is a 25 millimeter resolution. Recommended was 10 and it's very old technology at this point. One of the other things we recently discovered is that it can only be connected to by one computer cate. So if that person isn't on their computer, we each have our own specific laptops. Uh nobody can change what's on the side. It's very old technology, >> right? >> Um what I did is I reached out to think science just give me some numbers. I told him 50 to 150. Uh, show me what you got. Um, that's what you have in front of you tonight. Um, discussion tonight is just move forward with the project. Uh, is the location still acceptable? Design, size, and funding sources for if you want to move forward with it. Be happy to answer any questions. Both Kate and I. >> Anybody want to go first first? >> Go ahead, Kevin. Um, you kind of got you went lickickety split over this. Uh, let's go backwards then. Dollars. We know that the message board is the message board, but what's the dollar cents? Dollars and cents then or options of dollars and cents. >> So, when you go through it in the actual packet that I sent through it, I think he did three options for >> very bottom of our stuff that's got it spelled out there. >> What page was it? 66. >> 57. But yeah, 53. There's options one, two, three. >> Yeah. Yeah. And so so I went through and and and matched the prices to them. Uh and they talk about low and high. What they're talking about is a shorter sign or a taller sign. Um >> uh option one was 112. Two was 107. >> Um option two was 107. Uh option three with the with just a post the sign and a little bit of brick at the bottom was $100,000. Um just a post and a 5 by10 sign was $96,000. Um these prices have not gone down at all. They've actually gone a fair amount. Um and in the back it actually shows he gave me price of the actual just the signs and then the projects as well. So, I know it's a lot to throw at at council and and the mayor this evening. Uh, but definitely want to get a direction on what we should do. Um, it literally it went from we went from bulking the sign together to now I believe we drilled through it and we are literally lacing it with steel. If it gets any worse, I'm going to tell them to take it out. >> I got some black duct tape in my car. >> How come um this hasn't come up in the CIP in the last four to four to five years? I know it's out there every day. Everybody sees it. Why hasn't that been on our >> don't have an answer for that? >> That was my question right away as well. Kevin, >> well, the first thing I I guess I would say we got a lot bigger fish in the to fry here, but I would say liquor store money would be the first thing I would go to as far as where it comes from. I'd also maybe cut back a little bit on not to say it, but the Chamber of Commerce, we had 15,000 towards fireworks. you know, there's we were benevolent to a point as a city, but is this does this give them is this send the right message, so to speak. Do we need something um big or little or how it does look like the focal point as far as Highway 47, but we have this nice city hall here as well. And we we got a lot of reception from a sign just across the street that we paid $235 for. Um could that be the message board as well? I mean, people are coming through here through Ron Lake Boulevard. Um, I'll throw I'm throwing those up there right now. But I guess I I would say liquor store instead of us taking the 60K for a year and give put it towards a sign. I mean, that's that's a community involvement situation. >> That's counterproductive to the levy though, >> right? >> Correct. >> Yeah. Because then they the taxpayers will be paying an extra 60 to cover that 60 we get from the >> True. Mayor Council, we do have funds in the liquor store that that are not allocated that Sure. keep coming. >> I didn't really study as far as what I what my flavors of, you know, the colors and choices. So, but that's the first part I was thinking about. I'll let everybody else speak in. >> So, Mary Council, just go back one step to answer Mr. Robinson's question. >> Mr. Robinson, >> that is one that is one of the things that we are catching as we're working through things. >> Sure. >> He got a miss on the CIP and >> I wasn't shooting a dart at you. Don't get Well, the thing is the thing is it like you said you we're in the process of trying to it just should have been caught. >> It's housekeeping. It's another one. >> It should have been caught earlier. So, >> no, I wasn't taking a shot. Please don't take it that way. >> Nope. Not at all. >> Mr. >> Well, since you and Jen are so great at grants, are there any grants? Yeah, council. I actually I knew that question was going to come up tonight. I cannot. >> Okay. All right. Well, you know, I know you guys have granted up to >> I figured you were, but I thought, yeah, is there anything possibly out there for something? >> Good. Excellent question. >> But yeah, it's, you know, clearly we have I mean, it's hard because you don't really know what impact that sign has. How many people I mean, really read it. How many? >> I agree. >> It's really hard because I don't feel like I hear people going, "Oh, I saw that on the sign." Um, you know, I I like the idea of how of, you know, the welcome to St. Francis. That's all nice and good, but I I just don't know if we really need that digital sign. I just can't say that. >> I agree. I feel like it's that impactful. I could be completely wrong. >> Some of that is hard because we don't know if it's just the lack of the quality of the sign too. >> That's true too. Yes. >> We are limited on the size and the amount. There's so many parameters because the technology is so old. What was it? 2012 >> 10 >> 10 technology >> in a digital sign. So it is hard to know its impact. Are people seeing it? But are people missing it because we don't have the ability to put what we can on the sign. So >> true. >> It really is. Do we do we want to replace the sign or do we not? It's kind of where we're sitting, >> right? And that's what I'm saying. It it's hard to know what >> I think too if you talk about >> I think people I think people when they are coming to the farmers market they probably see things on there because they're stationary >> or they're squinting. >> Yeah. And and that's true too with with the the size and the you know lighting on it. I'm sure it makes it harder to read too. But sometimes it just kind of, you know, it's it's hard cuz I I'm sure there are there are people who see it. Um, >> Mary, if I may, that there's actually some numbers in there. >> You are correct. >> The sign now we're lucky to see what degree. So I go by that every day, >> twice a day at least, >> and and you do have to pause and you don't want to run anybody in front of you or behind you or cause an accident. But yes, diffult to see right now. That was one of the things that >> that the salesman talked about as well. >> It's so old that it's not probably you have about a 3se second window and what you're shooting for is between a five and a seven. So, >> and the other thing is is I mean we're going to be redoing highway 47. It's going to look a little bit different. How will that impact the traffic and how they would see >> actually thought about that and with a with a with highway diet >> road diet that they're talking about it's going to slow down >> and it would greatly increase the time that you'd have to see the sun. So yes, it did look at that as well. >> Kind of some of my thoughts on those initially. >> Good thoughts, Joe. >> I think the greatest impact would be things like the farmers market or pioneer day is when you have sign up there at the location where it's at. >> Um I think if you talk about moving the sign, not a bad idea, but that comes at different expenses. Electricity. >> Um whether or not you need it, that's debatable, I guess, for anybody to say whether or not we need it. Uh the fact that the liquor store would be covering it is good. And I don't know if this is such a good suggestion even, but I have to put it out there for uh the late Steve Feldman. Can we advertise for the liquor store on it or should we >> It's a city It's a city department, >> so that would work. >> So we could put stuff for a liquor store on there. >> I mean, that's possible to get more revenue or reimburse the revenue. Whether or not that's something we should do. Again, I know where we're at with some of that, but um yeah, I think the farmers market would probably benefit the most from it. But I think if it's if it's liquor store funds and there's a sufficient fund in there, that's kind of what that fund's for in a sense. It's not a cost of the levy. Not that you couldn't say that money could be spent elsewhere. Um, but replacing it with something as long as it's Did you have a do you have a version? Like my question I guess too is the versions of them, the three versions that would be, you know, we're dealing with the the support of it right now. That's an issue, right? Some of these brick obviously would be probably more structurally sound rather than a pole that could rust through or whatnot. Um I don't know if you have something or anything to say on the maintenance of it. If it was lower I would think would be cheaper or better too but then I don't know if you're getting the visibility. >> Sure. So right console but right now what happened was when this sign was designed it's two separate pillars that come up if you remember and it's got the cement in between. That's what's happening is as things are shifting it's it's causing problems. It's damaging it. Uh this would be a model sign. kind of be one be you see you bet you as you go down >> 65 you see them 47 uh >> the only thing um I would say >> if we were going to go in the direction my thought was because that is a community park and there's a lot of people there would be if we were go high enough where at least it couldn't people couldn't touch it or reach the actual screen itself would be my recommendation >> good idea else Not at this time. >> My thoughts echo pretty much all of yours. The big the biggest two two things really popped into my mind. When we rented that cheap sign across the street, we got more attention with that cheap sign than I guarantee that other sign has. >> Well, I think it was the topic that addressed >> it. True. I would agree. >> Increased taxes and water rates are a big topic here. I think it's more the subject matter that really >> got one other quick question and I don't know that we have an answer to it and I know it has limited capabilities but how what are we what are we currently pulsing on the sign right now? Council meetings. What else? >> Um you have events, council meetings, >> temperature. >> Yeah, the time update. Y >> but again some of that is we don't have >> very limited So it is it is your basics meetings holiday holidays events. Yeah. >> So if I may also so if you upgrade you go to the newer technology now you can have pictures on it. It's got some examples in there. You know the farmers market color uh a lot more a lot more advertising with the newer style side what we have there. Well, and on page 41 gives you, you know, the image of of the current sign and it of city council meeting, but we don't have the ability to put even the date or the time or so. It's >> very limited. >> And with the height, we would have to be a little bit careful because we do have structures with community parks. We'd have to make sure we're above some of those structures. So to not get too low that it's not being seen because of >> right >> like the garbage and different things that are as pass the park. So >> the city council meeting and then the next screen is the date and the time. So you're already driving >> by the time that next screen flashes >> the way it's >> you're hoping to catch it again. Say what date is that? You know for the meeting. >> My other thoughts are I'm not totally against the sign. It's not like I'm totally against it, but I really like Sarah, I really question the value of it. I mean, we're talking $100,000 here. That's the average of $100,000. And I I mean, I know I can't believe I'm going to say this of all people, but I can't help but thinking, geez, we hire somebody to be an online presence posting stuff on where everybody is on these for $50,000. Yeah, I I recognize that that'd be an annual charge, but I'm just saying what is the sign really that effective versus being a more out posting more stuff and and and being an more of an online presence? I I I don't know. >> What do you mean by online presence? >> Social media. >> Social media, >> Instagram, Tik Tok. >> Correct. Facebook. >> Yeah. >> Council, there's a lot of cities that don't have so >> so the the welcome to St. Francis or city of St. Francis welcomes you. Is that still going to stay there? >> That's or that's just so that's going to become >> so we will not have a welcome to St. Francis on that. >> So miracles that's what's broken down. So you look at the first page. >> Yep. Where it shows the say St. Francis welcome to >> this is an old pick. >> The one that's out there now is broken. >> Yeah. >> So it it should be removed. >> But if you look at the examples options one through four, they do place a a slab in there that still says that. So it's it's not being lost in a new design. >> Correct. Correct. >> Just >> right. But if we if we >> does that cost include all the structures that go along with >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yes. So the prices that I just ran through that's the sign the structure. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Correct. >> So yeah on page 53 it would have the top bar the digital bar the St. Francis welcomes you and the posting. >> Right. >> Correct. >> Yeah. >> Further further south on 47. Do we have a welcome to St. Francis sign further south? >> No. So the only other two signs that we have are on the north side of town on 47 and the 241st and 47 that says welcome St. Francis. The one here in community park and then the one down it's actually >> yeah neutral zone says welcome St. Francis. Those are the only three. >> So just so I'm clear on this. So you can't chop the two top poles off and the sign is that bad that the sign that the concrete sign can't stay. We can't take the poles down and leave the concrete and the and the pillars. >> Concrete's the concrete >> jump fractured. >> Yeah. He said there's a huge crack. This is an old picture. So the car Yeah. Joe has duct tape. >> Is it something where we could put a steel sign o over the front of it? It's a possibility. >> What was the purpose of that? >> But if the if the concrete is bad, that's not going to fix. We'd still have to replace the concrete. >> It's probably got rebar and stuff in it though. It could have some webbing inside where it's not going to >> Yeah, >> it's possible. But yeah, they can make an anodized aluminum something rather and some vinyl dye or some type of >> some reflective for the drivers >> cost. And what is the value? And if that's going to cost $50,000 compared to hundred,000 for a signific >> I'm just I'm just going to throw it out there. I'm just not crazy about spending $100,000 on this. I'm just not I don't I just don't think there's I don't think there's enough value. I I I I'm be confess that some of it's me, but people tease me about this all the time. I see a sign three times and I just kind of start zoning them out. I do. And I recognize we can get a racier one that grabs my attention, but >> But for how long is it going to grab your attention before you you're like, "Oh, that's neat." >> Is that going to bring people to city council meetings? >> Oh, no. >> I got a question. What did we spend on the liquor store sign eight, six, five, six years ago? Didn't we upgrade that? >> No, we actually >> that's why I threw that in about all of the electronics. >> And even the bottle shop is it it's running the same technology. Correct. Which the only reason it hasn't completely failed yet is because it's attached to the building, but they're struggling with the technology. >> I thought when Mayor Feldon was here that we had they came before us and we spent some money for a >> No, you wanted it, but we were already over our limit that we put, so we didn't go ahead with it. Okay, >> we talked about it, but we we did not spend any money on. >> Okay, >> that's correct. So, Council, I actually talked to the salesman that worked with Steve on all >> there was no upgrades. There were no changes to >> But the bottle shop is >> failing in technology right behind this. >> Um the only thing is they're not they're not becoming a issue by them. And I know we get a lot of I saw some of your traffic numbers on 47 or whatever, but what was what was our traffic numbers right here on Bridge Street that we just did? >> 10,800 cars. I think >> I'd ra I'd rather if if we're really about a sign, I'd be just telling you my thoughts. I'd rather just see us put a sign on on this building right here. If that's just my two cents. I don't >> also I have it in here. It's it's 105 on 47 as well. >> See, there you go. And this is this just see brings it more home for people, you know. Oh, city council meeting tonight. I don't know. It just seems remote and set over there. So, if we're set on a sign, I' personally, I'd rather see it on this building than over on 40. >> Would that increase the cost because of the >> electrical and whatnot? >> Yes, it would. If the sign was moved, it would increase the cost because you have to move. The other the other question I would ask is that if we do do a say we say no to this sign and whatever um if we do do a sign for the liquor store which would be paid out of theirs because you know it's self- sustaining the liquor store and that would be to >> in theory benefit them which I don't know how much it would benefit them but that's kind of why we said no last time I think >> um and we kind of went over our goal to stay under with the liquor store funds last time so I don't know if we want that at all or not and would that be utilized is similar to would that just be liquor store stuff or would you try to throw some of this stuff on there or not? >> I would definitely say both if we're going to >> message is a message. >> Correct. Right. >> City message. >> Correct. >> You kind of kill two birds with one stone if you put it there and then there'd be less cost. Grant like you're saying though with the the sign out front of hey this is city hall and this is what we're talking about type of thing if there is critical like >> the tax and water rates. I think the topic was more more of the the hitting home with people that got them here over the quality of the sign. I think it was the subject matter that really struck home for people because you're digging in their pocketbooks when it comes to taxes and water rates. >> And K, we moved a hotline from here to the liquor store so you could have control or somebody could have control of the sign as well or be able to monitor what's there or you could put a blurb. >> No. So, we had to remove the switch and the fiber, but that doesn't have anything with the sign. >> That was it. Uh the fiber capabilities moved. >> Um you know, there's a lot for a long time. The last liquor store manager had a sign across the street because of work on what were they working on? They were old. to work on 47 and because and >> I don't remember what it was for >> I think co he was right he was trying different things and it really is true that after you look at a sign for a while you stop seeing it so to put up a new sign would require some level of constant change or you know color or and as much as right we want to do as much social media and marketing and all of that. We still only have we don't have a marketing staff. We don't have social media staff. We have a handful of us that try to put together pieces to get it out. Um if if you were to change the signs on the bottle shop, it would be bottle shop information. People wouldn't look there for >> community information. Um, if you put something in community park for the bottle shop, you might catch an ad, >> right? >> But again, it's disconnected from the bottle shop. So, I really don't think there is one good answer. It's it's spending $100,000 to either to replace our sign and it's going to be the same people the same information but better. So, it it really is we can use the bottle shop funds. We don't have to dip into building funds. Um, >> so what do you have to go through to decommission and make it safe? >> Disconnect electrical, pull the breaker, uh, remove everything that's sitting there. And that would be my next question is if that's the I would need permission from council to remove the sign after cross is up. I I'm just I'm I'm just one vote, but my vote is >> I think we decommission it. >> Decommission it. That's my feelings, but I I'll I'll listen and defer the rest of council, but I don't I just don't think there's enough gain from replacing it for $100,000. I just don't. Do you have any idea what it cost to put it up in the first place? I guess I would agree with the mayor as far as the decommissioning portion, but then I also try and get some pricing from a sign company for jacketing the existing concrete one. First of all, see if there's some rebar and it's actually got structure, some infrastructure on it. Otherwise, if it's going to collapse on itself, then it's not worthwhile. But they make, you know, the lumin manized signs that are very vibrant, UV, you know, protected to replace a St. Francis one or at least mimic what's there. But if we can just jack it what was there already, sandwich it somehow. But yeah, 100,000 I don't I don't see it. >> So there's a I mean there would be a simple option as well. In the process of the dog park and sidewick, we we ran into an amazing just a normal amazing sign company that that well you've seen welcome to the St. St. Francis Park, right, to Sil Park. Those signs, we could go that road. If you want a welcome sign there, >> we could and I could find prices on a reasonable welcome sign and go that road that would be maintenancefree and we could light it up because I've got electricity there. So, >> I like that idea. I would agree with that. >> I would agree with that. >> I kind of like exploring that option. I >> wouldn't It wouldn't be the same as the one on nine though. And you're talking about a different design. And >> so the one on nine is concrete and the one on 47 the north is concrete. It would be a different design than that. >> Well, the technology is that they can make the signs look almost like duplicate what we have here. I mean, as far as the same shape and whatnot, it' be nice to have some uniformity here. Not one one part of town looks like this. And >> the one on private land, so you have no >> No, it's a neutral. I checked that out once before. I think it is donated, but I was told it was on private land. >> Replacing them anytime soon. >> Someday every sign will need to be >> right. But I mean, do we have a idea of when those might need to >> They're such a different sign, >> right? They are signs are just a concrete block >> with the name, you know, and out of it. Um, and I'm assuming they probably have a lot more rebar on the inside, but they're quite a bit bigger. I was told uh council member West wasn't a fan in Oak Grove and said why is it there? Because it's technically it's in Oak Grove the sign um headed north on nine there and they had no you know he was for whatever reason he was complaining about it >> burn saddle >> but they said it was on private land so I didn't know that that was neutral. >> I think the pawns owns that if it's not it's outside the rightway but that's the pawns >> situation. >> Okay. Must been because he was mad. I know he wanted to put his clubhouse. I think he's mad all the time. >> So, we pretty much I mean, are we pretty much all in favor of decommissioning the current one and exploring >> the lit portion of it? Yes. But I'd like to see us try and duplicate or somehow encompass what the design that's already there and just so it's equal to the one on the east side of town. But >> I I I understand that sentiment. I >> Yeah, I would agree. Well, I think that's a lot of those uh a lot of cities that I've seen have the style of sign that's kind of here with the digital sign without the digital. So, it's solid concrete right up to where it can't necessarily crack in the middle from shifting. I mean, maybe it could, I guess, still, but less likely, I would think, is a one solid piece. >> Giving you any direction here? Kind of. Yes. No, kind of. >> It sounds like It sounds like take it side down, right? Is that what I'm hearing? >> The lit portion, >> the digital part. Can we give that direction or has got to be official? >> Actually, so so okay, now we got a difference of opinion here. So the the the portion that's broken is the >> seat of St. Francis that's actually broken in half, >> right? >> And and the and the top partly I think the sign is seen a better day. I think the whole thing needs to come down. >> Take the digital sign down and then >> digital and the rest of it because >> the block as well. The block the saying the block is the main thing that I mean the digital part is behind time but the structure itself is what's wrong. >> Oh there's a white portion I thought you were talking about was fractured >> this part >> right but the brick the brick on either side the pillars >> I'll take a little bit closer look at I can't answer to the brick itself >> you can do that otherwise >> but it doesn't do any good to start taking the pillars there. What would you do? You could put a metal sign on top. >> Replace a metal sign over the top or take the broken concrete sign down and put a new metal one between the two pillars. I I don't know. >> But how is that going to I mean is a metal sign going to look okay with that's the other thing is >> you could have it mimic this. I'm I don't know why you could not I would only say metal and reflectivity on drivers. That wouldn't be my only concern on the highway. You can use flat. >> Flat. >> I don't. >> Do you want to take a closer look and come back to us? >> Probably should look at the pillars to make sure they are okay or not. >> Sounds good. Mr. Take a look. >> Do you want to do a field trip for that? >> Well, and mayor council, again, I would ask, you know, is if if we're just going to do a welcome, is this the right place or is that something we would put at the public works site? because this is again behind dumpsters and the structures for community park. So you take that digital off, nobody is going to see some of this. >> So I think >> this this if we're taking this down, this this needs to go, but what what do we put back and to what extent? So and where >> um to make sure it's >> as possible. So it really kind of No, I'm just I'm only joking. I I I agree, Kate. I think that's good good feedback. I I think I think get rid of the whole thing and if we're going to put a new one up, move it quote down more by the public works PD, something like that. I agree. >> Everything must go. >> And once we have the new Highway 47 in place, we'll we'll have different >> land and intersections as well. So, it may be worth waiting until that highway project is done to do it. >> Yeah. because with the change in the roundabout at that intersection, there's a little bit different of a swoop with public works. So, that would be a staff recommendation, but um but we are going to then be without a sign for a couple years. So, >> it's not the end of the world, I don't think. >> There's a nice green sign in 47. >> You're entering St. Francis. >> Yeah, it does. >> Right. It does. >> Anybody Anybody Anything else, Kevin or Sarah? >> No, sir. Thanks Paul. >> Thank you. >> Thanks Paul. Mr. Carpenter >> on to our next item. Home serve. I believe this is a Kate one. >> Oh Paul again. >> Mr. Carpenter. >> So uh mayor and council before you this evening is the home serve service line warranty program. I presented this to council oh three years ago now. um learned a lot more than I I know a lot more now than I did three years ago. Uh I've been working with Ashley um the one who runs this program. They're into several cities. Uh we've talked Grand Rapids, um Big Lake, uh what what they do. Let me back up. This is a this is a way to ensure the homeowner's line from the ma the water man or the sewer man to their house. Now, one of the biggest things that we have troubles with in St. Francis is very few homeowners know that they own that line. This program does a couple of different things. Uh it helps me get the word out. They they would agree to do it three times a year. uh they do it in a way they educate the people that they own the resident owns that line and that that line can be insured. The reason why I'm bring it back to council, we had two incidences this summer, both with waterline issues, uh, one on Arrowhead and one in Butterfield, that if they would have had this program, it would have saved me about 35 hours of staff time because what the resident doesn't understand is that they have to pay for this. That's that's their expense. That's not the city's expense. So, it's very difficult to walk them through that and they become quite upset about it where this program would help me educate the public as well as if they were interested in sharing their lines. If that line that was insured went down, we'd work directly with them. In fact, they we probably wouldn't even know about it. They could just work with this company and they'd find people to fix it for them. So, that's what this is all about. The discussion tonight is if council's okay with me moving forward, I would run this through legal. I'd make sure that it vets out well and then uh and then sign up the program. We wouldn't I wouldn't I would work with Ashley as to how we want to word this and how the program's going to roll out. So, we do have say in that. Um and the the the thing they changed is they went from I think it was from $5,000 to $12,000 an incident now. So, just to give you an idea, so the one on uh the one on Butterfield was $8,000 to fix that water line. Now, they were lucky. The main was on their side of the street. Now, if you have to go under the street, that's another probably five or $6,000 uh to repair it. So, um the other thing is the city actually receives 10% royalty on it. So, as as they insure people throughout the city, we we get a royalty on it. So, um, yeah, that's that's all I I have. It's it's pretty well laid out. There's three different ways, three different lines can be in insured. Uh, your exterior sewer, your exterior water, and then your internal if you want to inside the house. Um, I'm not quite sure >> how much of the sewer is the homeowner's responsibility, >> pardon me. >> How much of the sewer is the home >> from from the sewer main to their house? >> Okay. Same deal pretty much. >> Same deal. basically the same as from the the stop to the house with the water. >> Got any other questions? >> I got lots of questions, but that's um so Home Serve the the idea of insurance is great and my experience is completely different. I work for a company that had the contract for HVAC. Um the only thing and I don't think there's necessarily an issue to educate people. It's great. We get a royalty. I have several questions on the royalties. um dealing with home serving the HVAC industry. Um they cover up to a certain amount blah blah unless it's for instance I had I was in Forest Lake. I had an 11-year-old York furnace. Um it had an ECM motor which is DC or more high efficiency motor. Um that went out. Um they're going to run anywhere probably from $600 to $800. They deem this thing unrepable. That drives me nuts because this customer is paying for something to take care of. They didn't cover it. So basically an 11-year-old furnace is shot. That's not great customer service. They also use contractors. There's nobody in in home. Like that's the one thing Centerpoint used to use when I worked for them that oh we're we're actually Centerpoint employees somehow. That's a big deal which I kind of see their angle um working with Home Serve because they would have other companies go out to different areas so to speak. You're supposed to have your area but I would fall behind these other companies which I don't know why they were dispatched out there anyway when it's our area. Um, so I question how great the service is going to be, um, and how you can necessarily do it. I don't think it's a bad thing necessarily, and this is not really tied to the city other than the royalty part of it, um, which is good. Um, but just putting that out there as far as as long as they have quality work and quality contractors coming out, which again can vary, um, you know, that's I don't I don't see an issue with that. Uh, the royalty aspect of it. So, the company I worked for, they would not get paid out forever. Um, my question is, how do you track the royalties and know necessarily who's signed up for it, who's not? We get a list or something every Excellent question. Uh, so I haven't looked into that part of it yet. I haven't gone that's that's something that needs to be vetted out. I just wanted to see start start with mayor and council if we can move forward from there. Uh, that would be a question I would ask be, you know, the royalty part of it. I looked at it from a standpoint I actually didn't even consider the royalty. I looked more of a standpoint from an education standpoint. It would >> forgive me, but it would be a lot of free mailings for the city on education because they're extremely expensive for me to send things out and it would help me educate the public on what the residents own. And then if they did if they if they wanted to use this, they'd have an ability to pay for it, you know, instead of again get rid of some of the prizes. But you can insure yourself into the poor house. I'm I'm aware of that. Um, >> where would the royalties go? >> That would have to go to the the water city water fund or the sewer fund or what? >> My assumption on this because it's something outside of the enterprise. It would probably be the general fund. >> You hinted at it. My first reaction was I'm just being honest here. I don't like the 10% royalty. I don't I I recognize it's money, but I I I think if we're trying to help our citizens, it just and full disclosure, I'd want the citizens to know it's a 10%. I'd rather see no royalty to be honest with you and that just them pick up all the C. I don't like I don't like another hidden fee. Here's a customer who's going to get a >> hidden fee >> $8,000 sewer bill and then they're going to find out, oh geez, $800 is this got came from the city. Oh, >> no. That's >> Yes, sir. We'll be the marketing agent for them and we'll get a lousy 10%. My feelings exactly the last time this was promoted. Nothing against Paul or the company, but we'll be the marketing agent. Kate's phone is going to ring like crazy or Paul's phone's going to ring like crazy because our name is going to be on that leaflet. And if things go ary, we're going to be in the phone call chain and it's not worth the 10%. I thought if it was that good a product, they could go out and market themselves, go out and canvas door to door with the folks in town. We can still send out the message of what their responsibility is and is not as far as the city goes, but we're buying into them helping. We're helping them sell, >> right, >> in the long run. >> You're using they're using they're paying 10% to use our name essentially. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> And that means we've endorsed it and then we're going to be in the phone chain as far as >> Well, that's kind of my concern with the quality of contractor that goes out. Or you have these other companies like, >> well, I won't say any names, but the company I work for would go out and I'd actually be following behind another company that's somewhere else. And they said, "Oh, they walked in, they said it was the gas valve was bad, and then they left." Well, they're going to bill that to Homeserve, that company, which is crappy for the contractors. They literally I mean, they showed up, sure, but they walked in and left. And you get Home Serve does it really weird with their contractors, but um like you get paid so much for a furnace call no matter what. And then if it's over that, you're eating those costs. So the idea is that they pay the HVAC company, this is HVAC only, not necessarily related to this, but they pay, you know, so much per call, and the hope is that you get enough flame sensors to where you walk in, clean them out, don't sp don't spend money on parts coming out. So you're you're getting more than what you're spending is the hope. And the law of averages is kind of what keeps those companies afloat that they contract with. But seeing how they've handled a few and and I don't I don't hold any ill will. they cancelled the contract with two companies that I've worked for in the past that that was their primary business and that's those company's own faults for using that as their primary source of income is you know putting all your eggs in one basket. Um but I I just wonder I I get what you're saying Kevin. I think the the 10%'s not bad but I do wonder with our name on it how much that's going toffect our staff. >> I mean that's a lot definitely a good point. Well, we're going to be first call. No, no doubt. And then if they come out and say, "Well, this isn't covered." Like the furnace issue, and I don't know what it I've seen what they say is covered here, which I don't think's bad if they do that because blower motors are covered under their plan. >> And I think even the cost of the because they they don't I don't know how much they tell the customer, but they say up to a certain amount is covered and then after that you got to pay the contractor, so to speak, which Centerpoint pretty much if it's covered, it's covered for the most part. Um, if your furnace is 23 years old or 25 years old, they may say it's not worth fixing for us, you know, whatever. That is a possibility that happens with other companies that do these type of insurance plans. And there's tons of home warranty plans out there that I'm not a fan of at all. Um, we did some work for other ones, too. And there's always a trip charge and then they don't cover nothing. And not a fan of a lot of those um, home warranty type companies. But um it's just a different dynamic where if something's supposed to be covered and then you're saying, "Well, it it over exceeds the cost or whatever." That's my fear with these guys, then how does that blow back on the city, too, with our name attached? And that was kind of my concern with bringing up that whole story about the 11-year-old furnace. Um which is just crazy to me. But that's what I dealt with with them. And so I I can see that 10% royalty, so to speak. I mean, is that would that 10% royalty be with the signup cost or is that perpetual to where as long as they have it, you know, they they pay in I don't know. I don't know. Well, what's the cost to the customer? Does it even say >> base was $6.99? >> So, yeah. So, they paid >> 69 cents, >> right? >> Yeah. For each each customer. Yeah. I don't know if that number would amount to it necessarily over several years it could help and offset some things, but I think if the product's good enough to stand alone, they could come in town and they could be at our our pioneer days, you know, and have a booth there. This is what we do, you know, >> if it's a stand, you know, as good as it's supposed to be on by its own merit. >> I like the education piece of it, but why do they want our name on it, too, I guess, is the question. I mean, that's a good point because you could do mailings and they don't have I don't know. Well, we would put out stuff like at one point we were handing out stuff to try to further, you know, business and whatnot when I was working for the HVAC company. But I found it interesting in all their verbiage here, too. They've got down for each one of the price points. They've got down $6.99 a month initially. Okay. What happens next year? What's What's the initially mean? I I'm >> Yeah, they vary their cost depending on your your coverage. I mean, if you have everything covered here, you're looking at, you know, 111 and 7. So, >> y >> 30 bucks a month roughly, $29 a month, which we get $3 a month, you know, from each each person, which could if that's perpetual. That's what I'm saying. Like, I don't understand if that's perpetual and it could add up if they kind of lock down the area, but you'd have to have a lot of people signing up for it to benefit us. And that's a good point. I love the education piece of it and that they would do that and I think more people do need to be educated because I know how dumb I was when I bought a house and how much I didn't know that I quickly learned quite a bit. Um I feel bad. I I I know exactly what you're talking about. I'm sure our I'm sure you get the bear the brunt of it, but I just to me there's just too much here that I don't like overall. I It's >> Paul. Don't you educate people now in Pioneer Days? You have a you have charts and talk about stuff. You've been talking about sewer and water for this. >> We do. We talk about the flushable wipes. We talk about all that. Yep. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. >> We're there for National Night Out. >> Yeah. >> Oh, yeah. Yep. We are. We're there. We're always around. Absolutely. Okay. So, Yep. No problem. >> I don't know. I s How do you feel about I don't know. It's it's hard because it's hard to know. I mean, I don't have a good feeling on how many people we actually think would actually sign up for it. I mean, maybe that's an education piece we can look at to see at Pioneer Days. Maybe we see if the city went with this and we show them what the program would look like, how many people I mean, because it has it has to benefit to have enough people sign up, too. And if enough not enough people don't sign up, are are they going to want to stick with us even because is it worth it for one person or five people? I mean, what how many people >> worth it >> to them to even or are they just like, "Oh, we'll just be here and then what if no one signs up then?" That's kind of where I, you know, >> I put a Kai on the car warranty thing. I I I I >> I recognize that there's a few people who who >> a car warranty maybe helps them, but the vast majority it doesn't. It ends up costing them more over the over the lifespan. And then so I >> So my other question is is if we if we as a city don't buy into this home service line warranty program is there any type of I mean can a homeowner do it independently sign up for something like this? >> Absolutely. >> Okay. Because then I mean at least then we're telling them hey we have there is this program. We're not going to attach our city name to it, but here's this program because it might benefit. I don't know how that I'm assuming we probably aren't going to get any kickbacks because we're as a city aren't working with them, but it's still a program that's available to people if they choose. >> I think we have to be careful though endorsing any companies. So, we could just say there are >> Right. That's what I'm saying. just let them know that there are companies that if you know this cost is going to be yours and there are companies out there available if you want to look into it. >> That's kind of the biggest question I have is why is their why is our name on their mailing? Why don't they just mail it out to >> Yeah, that's what I was saying is they could go after that. >> It will create more work for us here as administration. I think the administrative people will be answering a lot of phones. That's a good point >> because I think council perfect. I've got my answer. Yep. Thank you very much. >> Sorry to be the death. No, no, that's all right. That's okay. It's all good. >> Thanks, Paul. >> You bet. Thank you. >> Thank to our last agenda item, the budget. >> Comprehensive plan. >> Compreh Oh, comprehensive plan. Excuse me. >> Council. So, >> Met Council buddies. >> Yeah. >> Uh before you is the initial discussion on the comprehensive plan. So what uh we have started to do is organize our scope of know every 10 years we we're going to do this we are kicking off our 2050 attached is the up to costs that we've received from HKGI and Hawinson would be roughly about 110,000 will be reimbursed 40,000 by that council this is the scope based on what's attached so I did include the pages pages from HKGI of the proposed scope. And then I also included just so you understand what the document requires of us, the local handbook pages and all of these final pages is what we have to put in that document and answer to. Um, as much of this is done and and can move forward, there are a lot of calculations and and different pieces that can also affect our budget. And that's kind of what I wanted to talk to you in regards to what would impact this budget. So, you know, keeping the the timeline as short as possible. That is something that we can do. Try to minimize our costs. Um, not moving our mus lines. So, in our 2040, we put MUA lines out there. We don't have to move those lines. By moving those lines, we would create new new calculations. we'd basically be saying now we're we're looking to expand our service this much further. And I think there's a piece there where we haven't caught up to the 2040. To keep our lines where they're at for 2050 is probably very um unexpected. Um if we start moving those lines though, we will increase our costs. Um some impact changes. Um if we create a plan that's not consistent or conforming, we will need to um justify that with Met Council that that could increase our costs. If we add elements she uh talked about some cities can kind of go off on you know we really want to add what's a good example 100 more trees per development and you really start expanding on things that aren't required in our checklist. That would be something by adding elements that will increase our cost. We are aware of a handful of properties that have to be looked at for zoning. We have about five or six that we want to really hone in on and go is this right? Is this right for the future? Um that is included in this cost, but that is really part of the discussion that we'll be having with with creating a comp plan. But if we want to make significant changes to our future land use costs, if we want to, you know, 10 years ago we redid our zoning districts, we moved remove some substantial pieces from that would in increase those costs. We're looking at doing a lot of our meetings as joint meetings because we need the EDA, the comp or the park commission and the planning commission. So having joint meetings with everybody so we don't have consultants in here two three times a month trying to get answers as much as we can we are going to try to do that to reduce those costs these are the costs with HK GI and Henson there is a value to staying with them as they do have all of the tables and all of the mapping and and lot of this data already. If we are to move to a new new consultants, we would be looking at at increasing those cost community engagement. You know, it says in here roughly 25 to 30% of our budget is really that community engagement. So, it is getting out surveys. It is being at events. It is getting that those public meetings. Staff will try to do as much of that as we can and lead as much of that we can to reduce But it is something that the more we we put out, if we want to do five surveys instead of two, right, then we're increasing cost if we stick to that budget or if the more staff can can try to help with on the back side. If we've got HKGI creating the flyer, but staff are standing at 199, right? We the more we keep the consultants out, we keep these costs lower. So a lot of this up to will really be move will be a moving needle based on some of these things. But if we look to make significant changes, we need to have HKGI give us a cost for that scope because this scope is to is to really stay kind of where we're at. So what I need from you guys tonight is are there any specific issues want u to look at with our comp plan? anything we should have HK HKGI scope out as far as a cost to add or increase. Um if there's any engagement steps beyond the obvious, right? We're going to do Facebook. We're going to do the newsletter. We're going to probably at least one survey. Um so some of that is is there's something else. We'll do the events and then just the comments, concerns, thoughts as we launch into this. You know, what what does staff need to know now so we can plan for it? We can figure out a cost for it. We can expand on something and just that first general discussion and then this summer is when that I'm happy to answer any questions. I >> just start with one general one. Kate, is there anything big that you anticipate? I I recognize that we can weigh in on this, but is there anything big that needs to be on our radar because other than that, it's just pretty much 2040 updated. I'm just going to call it correct. >> Correct. So, mayor council, so we 10 years ago, we really took the old comp plan, which had information that wasn't used, kind of ripped it in half and started over, and we consolidated voting districts, which made us consolidate ordinances, and it got right. It added up. We really don't have a need to do any of that. So you can just resubmit the other one with >> there's there's two new sections that they've added that have some calculations and some engineering, but a lot of it should be it should be about the community engagement, not about rewriting with this one. So there's nothing we're anticipating unless there's something council wants to see us change. >> How does 47 affect it or does it at all really? >> It doesn't at all. Okay, cool. >> Sarah or Kevin, >> you you took the words out of my mouth. I was just say 2040 revisited. Um I still remember that one family had a large track of egg land that was very adamant about you get us up. We are not purple anymore. We want to be back to green or whatever it was. And and God bless them, you know. And like the previous administration said, sometimes the generations change, money changed, needs change, and not money changes, but their ideals change. and you know it doesn't become the heritage is lost over time but it'll take its course that way but I I saw the budget here too as well and I I really agree whatever we can do minimal wise our focus is like you said a tighter belt this year or as tight a belt as we can get and then what 47 is you know should take everyone's energy possible that wants to contribute I mean >> to look 10 years into the future and say I think we really want to do this I understand all that but we're we're past. We're not teenagers anymore. We're in our late 50s here, so to speak. So, there's only and there's only so much land to be moved around, puzzle pieces, and it will probably take another 10 years before those pieces come in back into play there when we would have something to work with. So, >> well, mayor council, with that last comp plan, what we found was when we weren't even recognizing what the land actually was being used for. So there were people who felt very comfortable in an egg status, but it was somebody's residential house that had nothing to do with agriculture. So it was when we some of those egg designations >> that they really got kind of upset >> not understanding that it didn't affect anything because they were using it as a house. >> That's true. >> Yeah, there was there was some >> plant a couple beads. Yeah. >> Um, and then we had zoning. We had, I think, four other zoning constructs that we were keeping track of. And some of them would have just a use difference or it it was we had over kind of regulated and made our own mess with zoning. >> Yeah. >> So, I just about every parcel in this city, I think, got a letter that year. Somebody sat there with me for hours stuffing envelope. Uh, so we don't foresee any of that with this plan. It should literally be our regulatory update. Um, except for a few parcels that we're really going to need to go. There's the great one would be up 47 north of the the school building. Are we This is a great example. Are we going to hold out for an industrial business? Should it just be housing and move on? Right. And it's it's interesting because what we're building today was the plan of you know 20 years ago, 30 years ago. >> Steve's rolling right now. >> And when we're looking at what 2050 is, we are kind of setting a plan that the next generation gets to build and and and take on. So our projects today are all part of a comp plan that was 10 20 years ago. So, we really are thinking the future, right, and trying to come up with the best plan we can with what we have today. Some cities try to get really creative. Some cities fight really hard. We could fight for changes. We're going to pay for that and legal costs. So, it's just how in-depth do we want to go? How much do we want to push back or or just take our plan and it forward because there. We haven't had a significant change that would require us to really with our parcels. So >> with that process then Kate, do you see yourself being underneath that 852 or I mean saving considerable amount of money as far as cons consulting fees and whatnot? >> Mayor Council I don't know what considerable would be. >> Okay. A third. Would you could you lop a third off of there if we're not making that much of moving pieces around that big a deal? two. >> And I'm not gonna hold you to it. Let me let me rephrase that. Is it going to be less than the 85? I'll just >> Is there a chance it could be less than that? >> I think if if we can if we can get all of the groups kind of if we if we're in agreement, we keep we keep it moving. We don't make big changes. We have the ability to do that. But that is definitely not a staff control. That is a council, planning commission, park commission, EDA control. So if collectively as a group, >> get in the same room. >> You guys, this is what your vision is and we can move this along. But if if we're not agreeing with things or we're delaying things that cost, right, it's an up to until we blow our own budget because we're not giving HKGI and how >> thinking outside the box. >> Yeah. Yeah. If we fight stuff, we're going to blow our own budget. So, >> yeah. >> To be clear though, I I'm just speaking for myself here. I I mean, it isn't just even about saving money for me. It's just I don't see the reason to do any drastic changes. So, it isn't even just about saving money. I can't I don't know. >> We haven't changed enough in the last 10 years to >> Yeah. I don't >> warrant it. >> Okay. >> And that's that was some of the direction and then we'll lock in the the scope and then we kick this off the summer. Anybody? Anything else? >> I was going to give you guys some coffee and diet coke, but we don't need it now. >> Uh, meeting work session adjourned at 7:46 p.m. >> Thank you, Kate. Thank you, Jody. Great job, staff. >> Thank you, Mr. Carpenter. We're keeping