The second question is is that the city it city indicated that their proposed action document that they reached out to the state department but they do not reach out to the United States Fish and Wildlife Services. So we'd like that to be considered and reach out because Soulberg um is under that control and they border that property.

First of which is the natural resource areas and that document does not identify soberg waterfall waterfall production area and I that was that's a huge gap in the document and it is not the sober wall waterfall production area is not identified 114 acres with any map in this document. So it's not identified and I think that's a significant natural resource that the community has enjoyed uh since 1994.

And then the school district, again, right now the school district's trying to um put together a 10-year facilities plan, looking at asking the taxpayers to support a $250 million bond referendum in order to be able to keep up with what the city's been doing and approving homes. Um this is a tall order and I'm not sure. And then after that, we'd have to follow an operating levy to operate those buildings for those additions.

each firefighter earned their fire 2 certification, hazmat op certification, emergency medical certification, an emergency vehicle operation certification totaling about 450 hours of training over these past two years.

Congratulations. um listening to your training. You folks have worked really really hard to get to the place you're at and uh the work is just beginning. Um so you'll have plenty of training and plenty of practical opportunities. But I just personally appreciate your commitment to our community. This is going above and beyond and you are going to be sacrificing a lot uh to be part of the fire service and uh it's cool to see your families here and uh that support is so important.

East Community Park will include a large shelter and restroom building. It'll include Lakeville's first community garden plots. We're building a trail head in conjunction with Dakota County as well as a new dog park and new trails. Uh that project will be going out to bid here in uh in winter and we would anticipate construction starting in 2026.

Fall programming recap for recreation. Uh we increased our programming this fall by 40%. Some of those new programs included cookie decorating, nature homeschool, uh the fall music together, and expanded Rev Sports offerings sitting at just under 300 participants in the last quarter.

It's basically forgiving the entire amount. Um and I I would like to encourage some some discussion on that and reconsideration if that's at all possible, but if not, I just would like to vote against it. In my view, this is we have a fiduciary responsibility. This is $50,000 of taxpayer money. Um, and at a night when we're approving a levy uh increase. Um, and I I I I just I I don't feel like it's I I understand the circumstances and the the the purchaser had some issues, but in my view, that's something that needs to be adjudicated. Um, and is not for us to put up uh taxpayer dollars to to to resolve the situation. So, that's my rationale here.

in since that meeting, we have come up with a more transparent way to show what assessments are on the bill. Since then, we've been in conversation with the county and there are going to be some procedural changes that make it much more clear going forward what assessments may have been cleared prior to forfeite to the state. So I think what this situation highlighted was some issues with the process which have been resolved and while that is not necessarily fair to the city I think it is unfair for the individual to go back to and try to assess those those funds at this point.

So right now the property on the right side of your screen displays the land use. It's currently guided medium and high density and the applicant has requested that the property be reguided to lowdensity residential to support the single family proposal. With that, then we have a comp um zoning text amendment to change it from RM2, which is shown at the top of the screen, to the proposed RST2 to support the single family.

Just one thing as I looked and it's that it's that intersection, it's that crossing. Um, as this becomes populated and you have kids, I could see I could see that uh becoming just a place where they want to cross. Um, and it's more of a comment about just keeping an eye on the pedestrian traffic there and then applying our pedestrian policy uh if we reach thresholds.

Unfortunately the pavement section is a very is very thin u based upon the geotechnical report that we have completed. So, we'd like to add about a foot of uh sand section to this to this roadway um to beef it up to more commercial standard collector road standard.

So staff is recommending uh that we use a per unit basis method. So every all um uh units would be assessed the same amount. This is consistent what we what we do with or have done with our street reconstruction um projects as well.

State law does require that the establishment or modification of our fees to process land use applications must be established by ordinance after the public hearing is conducted. Uh the fee schedule is reviewed annually to ensure that rate structures accurately reflect the cost of services provided.

what that means for the tax levy dollars that we need to provide the services and run the city. We've got a total of 51,986,475. That is for all the funds. This is a 6.4% increase from our 2025 levy. We were able to bring it down from our preliminary September adopted which had a 7% increase.

Lakeville continues to hold the lowest tax rate in the major cities in Dakota County. So, we are at the lowest at 33%. This is showing um what that median value home would pay at our tax rate. So on the far left side of this graph, they're paying $1,500 a year. If they were in Egan, they would pay $1,70 a year. So that's an increase of $240. If we look at that same Lakeville median home in Apple Valley, it's roughly $600 more that they would pay if they had Apple Valley's tax rates.

Um, and I think the only way we can get to the to to the lowest increase in the county is through uh foresight, sound foresight, good use of the funds that are being that are uh provided to uh staff for the various uses. Um, and then our finance committee who's advising us on and ensuring that we're uh maintaining our financial uh sustainability policy.

my back of the napkin calculations show that this actually is a ma a modest decrease when you when you factor the population growth in. Um, so I I I applaud again the work that's been done on this. Um, again I want to acknowledge though I mean there are there are there there is real pain people are feeling with property taxes um largely because of other layers of government as well with some of the the the uh the cost that the state has passed back down to the local level. And I think that's important to acknowledge and I appreciate the work that uh that we've done to to help manage that.