"could do it okay I'll call today's work session to order if you join me for moment of silence and Pledge of Allegiance Pledge algi to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation godible with libery and Justice moving on to item two citizens comments it's opportunity for anybody that's here that wants to share comments on issues that are not on the agenda moving on to item three a our 2023 Invision Lakeville update draft report and I'll turn it over to our assistant City Minister Al Ken but just uh before that I want to just express my gratitude for those who served on the committee and that are here today I appreciate your willingness to uh engage with us and to share your thoughts and your um on where we should go so again thank you for your willingness to serve thank you mayor uh just real quick we started this process four or five months ago we initiated it with Craig W to facilitate the process um this is the third update we've done or second from the original um L build update so um I'm just going to turn over to Craig and I think he's going to go into more detail and kind of go through the process and look through any questions you may have all right thank you very much I will uh pull up a PowerPoint presentation hopefully all of you can see that yes I'm assuming that makes sense all right uh I'm going to go through the whole process very quickly but if you in fact have questions uh just speak up and we'll deal with it as we go along but I think it's probably best if if you don't have any serious questions to wait until the end I'm going to go pretty quickly so as Alan mentioned we started this update uh a number of months ago this is the 10th anniversary of Envision Lakeville and I just want to express mayor and city council members my appreciation for your continued confidence in me to assist you as the consultant I've really enjoyed it the task force this go around was uh a real Delight to work with all very committed folks and I really enjoyed the back and forth that we had over all the meetings that that we were in uh we started the process with the charge to the task force which is your charge to them and then very briefly it was your expectation that they would use their unique Community perspectives because you did appoint a broad range of folks to examine the vision statement the Community Values and the priorities for ongoing relevance 10 years on I think that was a very important and key Point uh to direct them on as well as any desirable changes that they saw as they went through that and looked at the variety of information and then finally recommendations on some initiatives for the future the project schedule started back in April May with the launch we did a lot of data analysis there was a we'll talk about that briefly in a minute we did some Council interviews or I did some Council interviews I also did some employee sessions where we took input from all of you the task force themselves went out into the community and they were charged with the idea of interviewing a number of folks and they did a great job of that lots of really good information that they gathered through their interview interviews we had a council boards and commission session at the end of July which I also thought went very well and and had a lot of great back and forth uh all during that process that I just described you were undergoing a community survey the national Community survey uh from NRC and PCO which culminated in a report in early August the task force had four meetings one to kick it off at the uh end of May and then they picked it back up after the community survey and had sessions in August September and October that all culminated in a draft report in November which you recently received and tonight's presentation the task force as I said did meet four times many of them also attended the council boards and commissions Workshop in July and as you can see from the right hand column there a lot of data was reviewed and analyzed and I know for a fact that number of the of the task force members poured over that because we had plenty of questions about the details of that and that was very impressive the community and stakeholder feedback I've mentioned much of that I won't repeat it but it was significant this time and uh and people did go through all of that and had lots of questions about it and here's what we heard in a nutshell and the report is chalk full of pros and cons strengths and weaknesses opportunities um what we pulled out just for this one particular slide tonight are the following lots of people said we love Lakeville because it has both that small town feel within a big town you have an actual downtown which is unusual for a suburban community of course the quality of schools and the parks and then a lot of stuff around safety Community feel Community Spirit very family oriented all of that you know but but it was it was very uh wonderful to to see that reflected in the interviews and in all the feedback that you got from a variety of sources the biggest challenges you have again these are things that you know but you're coming to the end of the growth cycle or at least very near to the end of the growth cycle so maintaining what you have and planning for that was really a big challenge identified by lots of folks particularly those who are in the know or who are engaged with the community on a regular basis affordability of housing is is an ongoing issue the engagement within the community and throughout the community particularly inclusivity was mentioned a lot uh a lot you you're probably tired of hearing uh want greater Variety in retail and restaurants U but again balancing small growth or small town field with continued growth was was the big challenge because people really enjoy the way Lakeville is but inevitably know that it's going to get bigger and then finally this this piece about accommodating an aging population kept coming up in a a lot of different venues and I think people wanted to point that out to you ultimately after sorting through all the information that they looked at from a variety of sources including all of the surveys and interviews they had five primary recommendations and a couple of them related to each other uh the vision statement as it exists right now until you officially change it if you do they thought for the time and and to be fair to the original vision statement it was just too much and it was sort of an all in including the kitchen sync kind of vision statement they and encouraged you to simplify it and put forward a draft uh that reflects that they thought that the plan should be restructured to reflect the priorities as the primary focus uh as the focus for implementing your vision and then linking that to the priorities one of the things if you go back 10 years ago there were these eight fundamental values that were very important and we needed to reflect that as the foundation for your vision and the foundation for your priorities uh over time people get confused they look at these eight values they look at these five priorities and say well what's the most important it was important to say these are our priorities this is the direction and the focus that we have and so that's how the new report was reoriented putting those priorities up front not getting rid of the values but linking the values and then the third and fourth recommendations are linked the rewording of cultivating a sense of community priority was done to include concepts of welcoming and inclusion a lot of Conversation Over a number of meetings of the task force talking about this idea of inclusivity and welcoming and you'll see that in a minute as I present that and then modifying the description associated with the value that's stated as a sense of community and belonging to also reflect that welcoming and inclusion concept and then finally update The Envision Lakeville plan to include the suggested initiatives that they brainstormed at their final meeting so here's your current vision statement I'm not going to uh read through it all but as you can see it's a very all-encompassing thing and again In fairness to the original task force they had a lot to take in it was the first time that the community embarked on something like this and I think they wanted to touch on every single issue and make sure that it didn't get lost in the in the vision statement the the current task force looked at that and they appreciated that but said you know let's let's get to the core of what we have and and slim that down a bit so the new and proposed vision statement reflects most of those elements welcoming and connected exceptional schools thriving economy outstanding nature and Recreation vibrant culture cultural institutions safe neighborhoods responsive effective Public Services all of that got in there but as you can see between those two it's just a much more focused and and streamlined vision statement which I think is a testament to the thoughtfulness of the task force the priorities that you have are these five these are your current priorities and as we mentioned the idea that came up during the discussion was well maybe we should just add a sense of community and belonging to that but then they quickly realized well we already have a value that says that so what are the core tenants and then they hit upon that idea of welcoming and inclusive so they transitioned and they changed that uh priority which was cultivate a sense of community and they changed it to cultivate a welcoming inclusive community and to further make sure that you understood and the community understood what they meant they added uh a little bit of text change to the description of that and I'll read that now a welcoming inclusive community arises from connections across social and physical systems Lakeville will support its social institutions and improve its physical design to ensure that families friends and newcomers can easily connect and cultivate a sense of community and belonging again not really that much different than their previous one but they wanted to make sure that welcoming and inclusive and newcomers to the community were were called out in that description taking that then to the values as I mentioned you had a set of eight values that underpin and create the foundation for your Envision Lakeville Vision plan and the one that they called out specifically was a sense of community and belonging and and in particular they wanted to tweak the descript destion of that a sense of community and belonging in the original document said we value the sense of belonging that comes from our traditions and institutions and we strive to support and preserve them the group didn't object to that but they felt that it was limiting or could in fact say we're we're not particularly open or it didn't reflect that feeling of welcomeness welcoming and inclusion so it was it was amended to say that we value the sense of belonging that comes from openness to others and we honor the traditions and institutions that have made us the community we are today so it was a both and uh change to that particular value that I think the the group came to uh understand as a as a good way of evolving this particular value and connecting it back to the priority that was changed as well and then finally they took a look at implementation so the task force reviewed all of the implementation and and if you recall the implementation was that each priority had a set of owners who would own that and for example in the education area it's the school districts and then subject matter experts come attached to that and City Liaisons because not every priority is completely owned by the city there are other actors and other folks in other sectors but they all come together to in to implement the priorities the task force confirmed all of the owners subject matter experts in liaison with one modification uh the change to supporting quality education only L listed one school district and they said that that that should be all three school districts should co-own that particular priority and then finally they did do a brainstorming at their final meeting and they came up with a series of ideas for new initiatives in each priority area and those were included within the document itself uh at the end so with that I am very happy to answer any of your questions go back over this U but I am pleased to present it to you very good thanks any questions counil C or anybody on them I guess my question kind of is are we in the mode of accepting this today and then we're going to work through it or what's what's kind of the there so it's up to the council our thought was that if you were okay with tonight or if you had any tweaks we could make those and then we would probably bring it back either to your next meeting or the second meeting in December for formal approval okay I had some tweaks we want to just go by through sections or so um this is not in order but the one just because we just covered it I appreciate the talking about the three districts we do have that which is obviously accurate we have a handful of private institutions so changing something to say enhance or including public and private institutions or something along those lines that Encompass you know 192 196 194 All Saints etc etc I'm going to start from the beginning here um the some of the my question for kind of the council and staff is I appreciate some of the recommendations Community Center and pool like are not on our Capital plan so I wonder you know like how do we is that we're just going to take that in or that's something like oh we really need to pursue that so I don't know what the answer to that is but I want to put that out there to say say um I continue to get feedback on both of those things so I'm trying to decide do we just leave it in there because that is a recommendation or say you know that's a policy discussion for later I don't know what the answer to that is so in this opinion you know I but part of me says okay taking the recommendations is one thing versus like changing the vision and values is another so I'm trying to figure out how do we separate those and do we so any input would be appreciated um so you're at the moment you're talking about under I'm jumping around okay so I guess I looked at the suggested initiatives and issues as potential things to look at between now and the next review of this so okay I I'm okay accepting those and putting them as a part of the document as that's Community feedback that we need to follow up on whether it's happening or not as an notter so then maybe there conversation is to maybe just a paragraph that to describe the recommendations say the council will between now and the next five years these are these are priority items that discuss I don't know how you want to word that does that make sense yeah we can um I think what you're saying is that you want something in there to say this list is Broad and or may not be be done and I'm putting word in your mouth but that the city will explore these as well as other options over the next five years to to fully implement the plan yeah we'll have conversations about I mean because it's not a commitment to make those things happen right it's a commitment to look more deeply into and that's fair if and when it could have yep um so we can we can figure that out the other if this is a like living document the business that's featured on [Music] page 13 is no longer in business so if we wanted to just swap that out that would be good yeah easily done Y and then again maybe this is a a part of that ongoing conversation but the you know I under the Community of choice economic stability it's creating incentives for affordable housing is that a recommendation we want to talk about but that hasn't ever really been um you know that's more of a county and a state issue unless of our focus and so I'm trying to decide do we want to talk about that now to still have that included or is that a longer term conversation or let me find the page on I just wrote notes down but I was reviewing it over the weekend is it it's mentioned in there a couple times I think it's under economic sustainability on page 19 and then it's again under community of choice on page 20 Mr Mayor and councel if I might I think that the way to look at what the task force did is simply a brainstorm set of recommendations and uh they were only offered as their review uh for your consideration so I think it's a it's at the early stage of a series of discussions that you'll probably need to have in your normal process of figuring out what your priorities are for the year and how you want to pursue each of these individual priorities as you uh work with outside groups that might touch these and and support you does that make sense um yeah partially yes mostly and we can change we we could change the report to identify these as um as preliminary recommendations or something that might give you greater Comfort to identify them for what they are not as you've made a commitment to these because they appear in a document and they do say suggest suggested initiatives yeah I see say adopted I just know how many times we reference other Invision L fil updates and I don't want the ideas to get lost over time um on things that have come up as a part of this this task force so um I don't see it as it is as a suggestion and things to be looking into but not a mandate yeah I mean I guess that's good but for like the housing thing we just did a study based on where we're at that study was okay so I'm just thinking about timeline is St but if that's if we are just setting out aside that we're goingon to have a further conversation that's fine um and then the last thing I had is I appreciate where I assume people from the task force are coming on changing the cultivated a sense of community uh I don't necessarily think I agree with changing it that I would keep it the same I just I don't and I'm not sure that changing the wording is going to impact our initiatives and things that that we've done the last couple years and where we're going I think the changes the vision statement are great Mak sense so that's kind of my about that I I think there was a lot of community feedback around um a commitment to belonging and a sense of community so to me it's a nod to V commentary that came from that and the discussions that the task force had around that um I was actually impressed by the the tweaking of this one in a way that especially around the honoring the Traditions that brought us to where we're at but keeping staying open and welcoming to the the future I thought that wording was really um well done um and I I just I don't really see an issue with where we're at in terms of the current or the uh the proposed wording I think it reflects the the comments really well um so I don't know other people's thoughts I agree um just having done the cultivated sense of community task force back in the day last year whatever that was um this is this is an issue that comes up consistently and I Echo your comments where um I think it's diplomatically written I think this is this this could be a a division point and I think instead it was it's really um it's well well written so okay yeah I couple comments um to go back to the recommendations uh that we talked about I I agree that those I mean to me I see them as recommendations um and I have no issue with those being in the report as long as there's that L we maintain that language that these are suggestions that come from a group that was a pretty diverse group that we put together that did a lot of work over some time uh in terms of the sense of community and belonging I appreciate actually that the adding of the value a sense of belonging that comes from openness to others and we honor the traditions and instit tions uh that have made us the community we are today and I think that's important and I think both of them are important I got a little confused um this is predominantly a sense of community and belonging and then we have the one time I believe and I can't see in the document where it is right now um where we add the inclusivity language along with um I can't find it right now a cultivate a welcoming inclusive people um that comes up as a strategic priority and yes I I agree we need to do that that information is in there but to me it was a little confusing where that says create a welcoming inclusive community but the rest of the document essentially says I create a community of belonging a sense of community and belong um I can live with it uh yeah right there call to welcoming inclusive community um arises from connections across all the systems I I can live with it I just it just seemed to me that through this document it'll probably look different than the final document if it's titled like that and dis like that it just in this document I think it referred back to the other one and it confused me a little bit but I'm yeah well um if I might to just respond to that I I get it and I think part of the confusion it it may be more confusing now but I think if if we go down the tree of logic that we were using in the previous version the priority was cultivate a sense of community and then again if we go forward we have a series of uh values and one of them was a sense of community and belonging so there was people saying well that's a distinction with without a difference and what are we doing here and and there and I tried to explain that when we did the first uh set of priorities and values we were trying to link them in a way without repeating them and so I think what the group's process was well let's not just repeat that because the first idea they had was let's just make it a sense of community and belonging but they they quickly migrated away from that as just being dup duplicating the other so they said let's make it welcoming and inclus inclusive and welcoming an inclusive going back to the original concept was not just about diversity but it was also you know our social systems our physical systems and connecting people and places so it was a much more encompassing priority and then it laid on the foundation of a value that that talked about belonging and and the sense of community as well as design that connects the community uh over the other side so there was there were a couple of values that related to that and that was one of the changes that we made I didn't show this so much in the uh PowerPoint presentation but all of the uh priorities that you have here have a number of the values underneath of them so that's the new way of balancing or presenting this is it says we have these five priority areas and then we have a a set of values many of of the values link up to different uh priorities and and there is a tree of that and that's shown in the document itself but I'm hoping that over time people see that as as being connected and not confusing which I probably just did with that long explanation well and and for me it was I just wanted to make sure that we are we weren't just word smmi sure trying to say the same thing but but just using different words um I think that was helpful to hear that explanation that you're trying to tie in a number of things um but I I just don't want a situation where we're just you know word smithing to so we don't say something the same thing all the time um so that was helpful and then the other with the vision statement I'm all for in my mind a vision statement should be something very concise very short so I appreciate the work that was done on the vision statement I think that really works well I think it captures it well without getting into too much deta okay other comments on the document or if anybody from the committee task force wanted to share anything now's your chance okay I'll take silences that we're with uh you here's another question yeah um there's a reference somewhere about Place making um I just wanted to know what that reference meant I also didn't write down the page number it may page one what number page 12 I'm not sure apologize I should have a better reference to where I saw that yeah oh it says Community challenge next 10 years can we address placement I don't know that me so this is coming from sorry Craig I was gonna say this came from a list during the senior management team discuss right and I'm trying to remember exactly um the context of that but um yeah I think it just related to let's be sure that we're continuing to build things that people want to come to and and be at and not just keep doing the same thing and have some uniqueness to some things that we're doing sure yeah I remember the conversation now I'm sorry Mr mayor council uh they the context of that was trying to make sure that you're continuing to have destination locations and differentiate yourself and take advantage of opportunities as you're in the last phase of growth okay so sounds like couple of tweaks we'll bring it back to accept it and then we'll get to work over the next yeah time and maybe we'll even carve out some time in our January Retreat to couple of these items that are at least maybe more in the immedia yeah my thought was um we could spent some time at the retreat talking about it but also talking about how we want to share this revised plan and how we want to um promote it and let the community know about and I think that'd be a good a good time for that discussion it probably be at the the retreat in January okay waitting until then I just wanted before we um thank Craig again for the time he spent thank the task force members who are here and those that um who make it tonight B they were very active and they know if you don't remember Craig to task them with talking to five people on their own um and their Circle and so that expanded the network in addition to the survey that that we had and um they took this seriously and they came with lots of topics and um we added a fourth meeting I don't think we planned that so we we appreciate time there we probably could have added two more if if we wanted to but um I just wanted to thank them for for their time and and their um their participation very good and you know Allan and Courtney did all of this I just I just said [Laughter] side well thank you Craig I appreciate it thank you very much and to those from the task force here today thank you again for your willingness to serve and I would assume hopefully your continued engagement with us on this I appreciate that thanks again thanks again thanks again for your confidence in me I will uh after I sign off I will send uh Justin text messages on the pro making game that was probably received we you know we're just five like people but having you guys hold us accountable on this stuff as support thank you thank you you're welcome to stay for um our budget discussion in item two or you want to do so we're g to move on now and we'll turn it over to Julie stall to talk about the 2023 year end preview and final 24 budget thank you Mr Mayor um so when we adopted the preliminary in September we had a 10 84% increase in overall ly Council asked if staff could do work their magic and sharpen the pencils and and that's what we did we worked through a lot of different scenarios a lot of different what can we do and still be okay in a lot of places so um identifying those things we were able to bring the property tax the levy increase down to 9.62% um what that en encompassed um we've got some changes we got the um new police positions that were added so we shorten the time we we pushed out the start date of those to November 1st um so that that was some cost savings there we did have um also some employee transitions engineering department we had account for those so there's some changes that happened our health insurance Dental rates we really tried to tighten it up to what we are going to see so the thing we also reduced the transfer out to the equipment fund by 300,000 in the expenditures um we removed the new facility lead position um and that was uh justtin if if you want to remember background on that Paul that was a discussion with Paul homy um we also because we got more fire and Lease state aid those are accounted for in here fire Aid is you know comes in it goes out to believe but police Aid it's actually you know we get to keep those dollars so those small changes um all factored into some Savings in the expenditures or some increased revenues that we could lower the property tax levy um excuse me some of the other Revenue things that we did um besides the the property taxes reduction we did have some additional license and permit Revenue that we felt confident in um increasing those and they're very they're conservative still with the development as it is um and like I mentioned those police and fire Aid we did get um another Grant approved so that helped things out as well um so that's the in a nutshell the revenue and expenditure changes that we um put together we had um we're also um like we had mentioned before at the September meeting we are using fund balance um this is intentional we are with the 2023 projections we will end 2023 at a 52% fund balance um can I ask a quick question on that does that 52% include the public safety Aid or is that separate uh yes it does okay so without that state transfer what percentage would be more like 49 or 50 probably 50 and have we identified expenditures for that AG yet or no um gotone back and forth so much on that I can't decide where we land we've actually we um we've got it plugged to go into the equipment fund vehicles and equipment and also the um building fund both and that's again it can be Public Safety and that's what we're thinking Place fire there are restrictions you can't have police infrastructure things but you can have fire infrastructure costs being covered by it and again just one time expenditure need to pay salaries figure some out just one and putting into those funds does make it still where we can still move it right okay so yeah so we're still looking at that um roughly the general fund f going down to like 47% 2025 expenditures was which is within the 40 to 50% fund balance policy that the city has um so when we're looking at the debt or I'm sorry the levy as a whole for 2023 was 39 [Music] m771 um with this proposed we are bringing it to roughly 44 million 43,000 43,600 th000 so um a lot of that and then the debt piece alone we had a million in debt for for the 2023 Levy and for the 2024 Levy that was 11.5 million so it's 1.5 million on just that piece Alone um we did uh we've still got the payement fund getting 1.8 million of the levy and uh the park Improvement fund is getting a levy of 350,000 and the trail Improvement fund is getting 400,000 for a luy dollars so still looking at those funds keeping them POS positive and with the projects that are you know going to definitely happen in 2024 and 2025 we were confident in in shifting those numbers slightly so that's how we came down to our reduction in the overall Levy increase so when we do this Levy increase bringing up from the 10.84% increase down to 9.62 it gets our tax rate at 30182 just still a slight increase from 2023 that was 29.6 6% um but again the impact to homes is I say minimal it it it's not it's not overburdensome if you're looking at the increase for the median value home their City portion of their taxes increases $82 a year so um in our in our eyes I think that's a very realistic real appropriate for all the things that we're making you happen I mean that's fire the full the six is a large chunk of the increas for 2024 that model we did have in there the 2023 like I mentioned projections and how the fund balance is looking a lot better than mentioned it's the public safety a but perfectly that change AC um anything else that jumped out with the information that was the long-term plan we were able to update that model and get all these the new changes from the the CIP the the CIP changes that were adopted in October those are all in the long-term model now so that is a a good and updated snapshot for that on the construction permits did we take in the fact that you think that County Road 46 project comes in next year was that already kind of baked in so it's 170 units was that kind of in um I don't know it'll be hard pressed to have that in next year oh really yeah okay I don't know Tina if they agree the Sundance I mean they'll pull some maybe pull the commercial permits next year okay but um it's got it to wait 90 days probably for the med Council to get back to us oh still yeah so they might start grading next year but I'd be surprised if they P residential permiss next year okay but we have received um drama blank the the senior Co-op to hosana the story yet they've applied for their permit um but I don't think they paid for it yet so that could be something that's a big one for next year and any conversation about those two projects we approved a year ago at Cedar and D are they still on hold is on hold one is hold oh holding okay interest rates are not favorable for at all okay so with these changes how is is Council feeling comfortable with the what staff is recommending as far as the shifting out the police officers till November 1st and and making these other changes or he would prefer something different yeah I mean my initial take and I have other people weigh in you know I'm I think about you know the decrease from 10. whatever to nine is to me it's partially symbolic I just whatever we can do to buffer what looks like will be a very difficult 25 based on these projections um so it's like but the things that are identified on here I don't know well except for the police maybe um you know uh you know twoth thirds of their first year salary is 25 budget thing is there a way to maybe pull that back in I I don't know I'm just if we can know we've already kind of taken the hit in the property tax uh information's gone out to people that but if we can try to save ourselves a little bit from an even steeper increase in 25 be supportive of that idea but um I mean for my money I 25 and probably the two three years after that um look like they're gonna they're going to be tough so whatever we can do to to even that out um and to spread it out as much as possible uh with this 9.6 6% how much of that 9.62% how what percent of that were personel don't have that the top of my head okay well I mean I could probably back it into back into it um you know roughly 2% is um 2.5% 2.5% is the park referendum 2.4 is the rest of our debt so that together is 4 9 5% um so then you take so you're looking at 4.9 um 4.8 for everything else so I'd say probably two of that probably at least is just increases in personnel and cost sure and and I mean we are getting any smaller right now so I mean just knowing that and just kind of knowing okay what can we expect Personnel wise over the coming years because we we do want to continue with the fire department program and and trying to get that to a hybrid um you know in the next few years we may have a need for more police officers and more Park people and all that so to me it's just knowing okay if I can think in the back of my head and expect that this percentage is probably what we're GNA have for people but to to the mayor's point it's like the later we hire them yeah we save some money this year but we we put more but that money would be there anyway I mean they're going to be we're GNA be paying for them at 25 anyway yeah so it just doesn't matter that much and in the the long-term model we did put in those additional six more six more fire six more fire so those are built into what you're seeing on that long-term model the 12 the six the 12 more and one more one more question about the hiring so I know when you hire Public Safety police officers and firefighters you're hiring a person and that involves equipment I mean there's a lot of personal issued items that are cheap is that included in the cost like when we say we're going to hire a police officer does their weapon their ballistic vest their belt and radio and that that's included in that it's not in the general f we have those in the equipment fund but that's yes we're coming for New squads news here so if you can even get yeah order this year last year or two years ago you got to order other questions uh not a question I guess but more of a comment about appreciate the the mean approach to this pushing back to officers I think makes sense in terms of putting them back at the original start point I think the only thing that really helps is budget wise is if we use those savings on something like an infrastructure project like Mill and overlay or something um that we wouldn't then put into next year's budget um and and unless those projects exist um to your point yes it's already there I if those if those savings can be used in things that can relap next year's Levy then I would be interested in that um but putting the Personnel back doesn't really help us budget wise next year so logistically it does help with the training aspect you think about you know hiring two officers in July first and then two more in November that if they're doing all four at once it saves on the training cost of those new officers so that was one of the caveats that's that's a plus sure you TimeWise of the existing officers did have two of them starting in November right and two we going to be at the end July so um it's negligable prob actually consolidates a cohort for training does and I I spoke with Brad about it before we did this and he was fine with it but I think the Joshua's point though if some of those cost savings if we decide not to you know that whatever that July to November is there another place in the budget just and not use it to shift the levy number but actually use it to um help us in 25 if that's possible you're looking at 121,000 right so is it half a percent well I thought around 340,000 was 1% so% okay other comments yep Dan I I appreciate the way this is laid out with the challenges to to keep in mind for 2025 because that really really struck me um significant tax levy increase needed in the equipment fund significant increase in Levy needed for fund uh pavement maintenance significant increase in Levy needed to fund Trail repairs increase needed for the building fund significant increase for Debt Service funds in 2025 that really stood out to me especially when we're talking about slow down and growth um so I think that's that's the concerning thing um like I said before I I had sticker shock when I saw this to begin with the percentage the more you dive into this it is a lean budget that accommodates a growing Community we just saw Community survey results that said people appreciate the Public Safety in the Parks and and the community assets we have so I think it's very needed Investments so I appreciate the work you've been doing on this I would just add um you know this would be the first time that the tax rate has increased since 2012 maybe something like that 2013 oh another huge economic slowdown but you know chart I mean it's been a pretty substantial decrease over those 10 so years um my my Mantra is always nobody likes to pay taxes everybody thinks the taxes are High um Dakota County has the lowest tax rate in the Metro not the state and we will still be either the lowest or the second lowest tax rate in the county so um when you compare that to our court you take the same house and L fille go put that in another city and Cota County and they're not getting the same same tax bill who might be the lowest if we're not we don't like to talk about is that some information that you would like presented next week uh we historically we do it's it's been in there in the past if we're just going to compare app even though we're not one of ones I I just I just it's tough to know the other cities at this point we've just shot our history just start yeah what I'll say you know also to your point I mean I think the challenge that I think a lot of at least I'm hearing is you know you have this and then on top you've got the school that went up considerably because of the changes to state law and then they're going to couple on the order approv referendum so I get that we don't have control over that but we're part of the tax bill so I you know people are are feeling it for sure so um I get that any other comments about budget so did you want to cover any of these items there in equipment or facilities plant stuff or that just here for reference that's for reference just to show you um the L going out projects ands are behaving with that activity okay um I want to make sure thank you very much so your part public hearing is next week okay um can adopt the budget at that time you don't have to but you have to by the end of the year we've always done it this first um so you'll have that public hearing as well as the public hearing on the fee schedule which you've seen CH as well that'll be next week okay thank you um we will move on to the Downtown parking needs assessment turn it over to you Tina and look at that we're 30 minutes of his schedu thank you mayor memb of the council I just wanted to run through um the results of the parking study so the purpose of this study um we started this in the summer um we um hired H KGI to assist in this efforts and work very closely with the downtown businesses throughout the process we had um three meetings um including the last meeting as an open house so the purpose really was to understand what's going on with parking in downtown and determine if we needed to make any changes make any increases to the parking for now to um meet the business demand as well as what do we need to be paying attention to in the future so the study looked at past planing efforts um all of the previous um comp plans and previous downtown plans including the 2018 Downtown Development update and when we started the project we really kind of started really understanding the parking user so all of us is going to feel pretty familiar to all of us um as you think about your daily life um and when you go about running your errands or um entertainment or anything like that kind of understand what kind of parking user you are in any given situation and this really kind of helps um identify how people then choose where they're going to park and those quick users that quick um stop in for fast casual or convenience or you really want that closed spot whereas a longer term user a sit down restaurant they might be willing to park a little bit further away we also wanted to understand kind of that user expectation which is often different when you're talking about a downtown compared to a typical shopping center so if you're at a Target or a Walmart um we've all been there um the store is busy imagine Black Friday you're going to be parking a little bit further away but it doesn't seem unreasonable when you're in that first pink circle um you're about a thre minute you know between a one and a three minute walk um to some of these outskirt parking areas not a big deal we've all done that we've all been there um on a day like this it's a little harsher but we've all lived with that kind of a walk when you overlay that same walk you do Encompass the majority of the parking with a ntown lake up um but because you're at a downtown setting that might still feel too far so we're trying to get people to kind of shift your mindset and kind of understand that you know this is still a pretty quick route into your destination in the core of downtown so we studied the parking area we looked at all of the on street parking the public Lots we're kind of calling the semi-public or private lots for a total of 797 spaces um so the public is in blue the semi-public are in purple and the map I didn't get a corrected one from the consultant they're showing blue they should be red all of these stripes are where we have the on street parking so again about 797 spaces we're not including the apartment or any residential parking we're not including the parking behind the post office for the trucks um Lakeville tire and AO has their own spot in small office parking um on the edges of downtown we didn't include can you go back a second why why are we excluding the post office in that because many of the issues in that area are caused by employees of the post office parking in that lot instead of parking in the post office lot their their lot is empty during the day because their trucks are out delivering the employees are using the spots that could be used for other economic activity I get you're like looking at what's available but to me that's got to be part of the solution whether it's you know this would suck obviously but you know they gotta pull their post office truck out and then put their car in there or allowing during you know whatever hours of delivery to be open to the general public and I don't know how much that would solve to me more it's the fact that they're taking up all the spots in front of curling and Toppers and that's a lot of parking that is unavailable during Peak business certainly lunch hour yep yeah and I think you know originally that was part of the understanding of what the directors were supposed to be doing but it's not but your point it is an issue I think when um HK did this it was just observed as Parky that was in in their minds dedicated towards that use so it wasn't included yeah I mean I mean is this is this well we can I want to more about that because I have some thoughts but I'll let you keep going and then I'm noticing a lot of east west parking spaces aren't included in here are there really no parking spaces on 200 is that Fifth and upper 200 um well there probably there are a few in here that aren't marked um anyone's that's Dair delay right there right yeah three spots yeah we probably missed a few in here so it probably doesn't change the total study here but yeah okay but yeah good point we really tried to you know a question about Luke's question about the so you know you put up signs to tell the public that you can't park here or whatever can you put up signs that that go against business parking the employee parking do you know what I mean where where where a sign would say something this is for public use only put Time parking on it are you're gonna get to you know four hours then post office staff can't park there except that we'd have to enforce it and the problem is with Time parking nobody's enforcing it where it's in other places I mean I've seen timed parking and and it doesn't get enforced so I just that's why I was looking for kind of the opposite you know on on that for where I'm sorry but I was say it's not as easy I think just to say that the post office workers can come in drop their car move because they have to go in and do all their oh yeah it's not and then when they take their truck out yeah that's an incentive for them to find a new place to be so maybe it's not lit up what about the little parking spot that's um on the other side of the post office a n there's a they just park behind the Nord law law office is where a lot of times people that are going to the post office will park there but why can't the employees park there they'd fill that up pretty quick it's not very big I it's 20 spots at least because it's both sides of the historically he monitors his parking lot pretty closely and I would believe that if someone was parking there that he didn't allow I'm sorry say that again Glen Nord monitor his parking lot pretty closely and I would think if someone was parking there that he didn't allow um he they have um behind Nord there there is a row of parking for just his like employes and I'm talking about just a little bit further east there's a little small lot and it's usually available for when we go into the post office when you can't get any parking in the purple area there you're on the other side using that um because the street is too hard and it's a real you know it turns over pretty fast in there but I just didn't know I want to talk a lot who owns it I mean are you saying it's privately owned but it's not but it does show up here as a GL both of them are I would do you mean both he owns that grass lot there too because there's like a lot with like six spots but then there's a lot with like 20 right that's what I'm talking about the 20 spot one he his employees are using the six I'll look it up yeah Glend he owns both of those yeah for sure all right the grass lot to the north is owned by Metro that one yeah all right well we'll keep that in mind yeah I want to talk more about po I wanted to no that's right no um so we talked a lot about this whole public private um parking debate and really try to to focus on more of a district-wide approach and not be um you know try to get past um some of those received privately owned lots and then we dug into parking realization we did counts um the consultant did counts in may we did this over the arw weekend but we did have some rain so we had them come back out on Friday June 15th um this is when it was a much nicer day patio patios were open and so we did parking counts um based kind of comparing to the industry standards so for underutilized normal utilization approaching capacity and at capacity so for the different counts in the morning afternoon and evening you can see how um the on street parking fills up both all three time areas um once we get into afternoon and evening the really hot parking within the core um starts filling up um or getting close to full utilization um but some of the outskirt locations are definitely very available um both around Wells Fargo and what we're calling this lot as lot a which is the furthest out City lot that we own um so We examined that City lot compared to some of the other spaces and the amount of utilization or amount of available spaces and obviously we all know that West lot or lot a is has historically been underutilized and so we started paying a lot of attention to um in this St what could be done to improve that because overall we found in the study that we really don't have a parking need at this time we've been able to make some immediate shifts and changes and with improvements to lot a um we're certainly going to be able to write it out for some time without adding a parking having conversations about adding more parking in terms of structured parking so what it really came down to after looking at all of the utilization um is a shift in um users of 15 Cs and some of that could be a lot of conversation with the businesses about and just how our employees Market um we have some businesses that you know know that they're employees are parking right on the street or in some of the those spaces what can they do during training or onboarding to get that mind shift to change and to park a little further away and make those Hol spaces available for customers again not all businesses are super comfortable doing that um if they have employees there late at night but it's just a mind shift to to try and get some of that caring moved and ultimately shifting 15 cars to the core um will really help the nor help normalize realization in the during those peak times so this graphic just shows what 15 stalls um represents and we were really able to make that shift um in a sense with the Wells Fargo parking um that agreement that you approve this freed up 25 spaces um during the weekdays at six o'clock and Beyond and then on weekends and so that was a win I don't know if all the businesses agree because it's not available during lunchtime and some of the businesses expressed well people park there anyhow but it's not been fully utilized now that the signs are changed and people know and are welcome to park there um people feel more comfortable versus breaking the rules when the sign the old signs were there so that is a positive change as well is moving on the farmers market from Market Square to the art center this summer and that will continue in future years for the market so we looked at um wayf finding um we've got some older signs that point in all different directions so coming up with a more intentional wave finding plan um coming up with a naming for our public Lots helping any visitors from any direction that you're coming into the city to be able to find our available parking um Within our public Lots so this is something that we'll have to carry forward with signage and so forth to implement an improved wayfinding plan for downtown and then ultimately we again this plan really focused more on what kind of physical improvements can we do to the West slot what kind of pedestrian amenities can we add to make that portion of the downtown feel like it is downtown and a lot of that is through all these different kinds of pedestrians safety improvements and so the plan comes up with you know the the ultimate plan is a concept um for the West lot or lot a and starts with trail head coming into downtown um at a 209th with a trail head improvements and this is something that would then extend east east um to Holio and then we would create a pedestrian grid pattern Within These two streets and then North and South on Howland um with sidewalks crosswalk improvements pedestrian skilled lighting and pedestrian skilled Landscaping um all of this is intentionally then made to bring that lot to feel like it's part of downtown employees may be more comfortable parking there and certainly customers again it's still a distance um this was well received during our open house I think the one hurdle we still have is we do have a great change in this corner and a lot of the feedback we heard the open hous is just fix that make sure that we handle that great change that would result in more costly improvements to change the grade of the parking lot um versus just extending the sidewalk people didn't think they would come out here and then walk North to get over to Lake M greine or again any of the businesses along buio but again um this is a concept it's intended to help us work through um in terms of budgeting for this kind of improvement um the plan did include preliminary cost estimates this is before engineering um has a price tag of a little over a million but I will say the Regional Trail portion and the trail head amenities is over half that and John hinnen has already had conversations with Dakota County about covering those costs and they are on board um we've participa in that so if this is a plan that City you know the council likes we can work um in the future CIP to try and Implement improvements to this slot and that's all I got only way to special services tax fun something where would that come from um questions or other comments one of thing I wanted to just talk about to and I don't know if this is part of this overall but a lot of feedback I hear obviously has to do with winter and snow removal yep and one challenge being that there's different businesses and landlords that use different snow services and so sometimes people are dumping and other and you're losing spots because they're you know the snow jockey is not being courteous to that right um I'm just wondering if there's like some sort of coordination we can do amongst the landlords to be more efficient in the snow removal in particular we're not losing spots yep we've already made some of those changes okay um we've heard that we heard that say that was one of the first um comments early on too and so the between Metro equities especially within this whole block Metro equities and the city own on the majority of the parking and so we've had uh Wells Fargo and the Metro equities and then the city all kind of piggybacking um we can't manage what Wells Fargo is doing but the city is now Contracting with the same company that Metro equities is okay and um mirors um theirs in terms of the timing for the swing on Ice removal um it's a little bit more enhanced than we have done in the past and the amount of removal over some of the Stalls in terms of hauling off the snow we're always going to have snow covered in a couple of spaces but I really emphasize to John and Paul when they were going through this to try and minimize that and match the timing that etra Equity utilizes for pulling that snow off site and they've already negotiated um the business on the North End of downtown to store that snow so I hope it's improved this year it'll be good to hear from the businesses to tell us and you know I'll drive through there more often but it'll be good to hear from businesses see what they think wellers real quick I stand corrected that lot behind Glenn nord's office is on by Metro so Glenn Nord owns the spaces right by his building that lot and then the grass lot to the north of it is I'm met um I was reading through this it seemed see seemed like such a common sense process to evaluate this problem and actually fairly simple changes to potentially ease some of the perceptions the only part that I kept thinking about was that what this report doesn't talk about is big events that happen and a lot of that perception coming from big events when folks who don't frequent downtown come and visit downtown and that ends up being their only experience they're having to walk even up towards the uh Piano Company um was that JC Park uh there's a parking lot um folks are walking from there to get to the art center uh and so I don't I don't know what the solution on that could be um large event parking strategies and maybe we have guidance as a city on how I I've helped now coordinate the tast of lill for two years in a row and a complaint major complaint every time is I had to walk a mile to get here which of course is not exactly true but that again is the perception yeah I don't know if there's to your point on just taking away like a really nice Saturday might be busy if you've got something happen you know play and then you've got Baldi so you're like losing a lot parking all at once but at one or two point if there's like a best practice with working with the school district on shuttling at Maguire um Surly for like Tesa Lakeville um what you know five big events if it makes sense to kind of just have a standard agreement to suggest to groups and entities that are doing I think well one thing I think will help particular like the art center and their events is having the wayf finding created a map making sure people who are whether it's the bonus room whether it's the art center the train Arts Center um any other entity you know even the the restaurants and the breweries um can utilize something that identifies all the available parking or where the public parking lots are you know something that's added to the website or through QR code um I think is something that we can work towards if you all I I have to give pandar a lot of a lot of people been on the shuttle system the last couple years for sure the drop offs yeah I you know I in a past professional life I actually managed barking and uh if Dante creates a tenth circle of hell what I would say with this is is this though I I I like the broad view and what you'll find is is there's plenty of parking but people want to park in front of the place even not even the definitely the short-term people but even the long-term people they the people that have to park you know up by the piano place to come to Pano they want to park like right in the middle of downtown on ppro day and get out and enjoy everything so I think a lot of it as perception when you hear that I had to walk a mile um it seems like that so I like the the kind of the regional districtwide view on parking the challenge is is you know what you have this diagram is making that like lot a look like part of our downtown last time we talked about downtown I made the point I'm going P Avenue is over on this side and Howland I mean I I'm really surprised that there aren't marked spots on a diagonal street that runs between like the child care center and angry inance stuff I'm really surprised there aren't marked spots on the east side of Howland as part of the district and that there aren't marked spots on the west side of P behind the post office and stuff and I want you know to me the more you can delineate this is downtown and this is where you can park I think you're gonna have a little more success because I think sometimes people drive through there especially if you're on hold or on Howland uh by uh uh by the uh the brewery Lakeville Brewing you don't know if that's a residential street am I parking am I screwing up somebody's house parking by parking on the east side pollen Avenue so I think whatever we could do and to me it just seems like a simple solution whatever we could do to delineate parking in that entire downtown area and it better defines it um I think that's a good first step because you can study that you can probably get by with minimal costs um and to be able to do that and and start to Def find that better and I love the the way finding and the signage and yeah I get out and I walk down if my daughter worked downtown I don't know if I'd want if she got up at 9:00 at night uh when it's dark I don't know if I'd want her parking at L um but the more that it looks like it's downtown and it's lit and and highly visible I think the better the other that you might want to consider for some of those further out ones is some kind of blue light device or something that would just make it more appealing for somebody to par there um but I think you could accomplish a lot with this plan and doing some other marking of spots in the downtown area I it's always mystified me why Holio is the only place marked spots a good point yeah I just make a comment though as we start to um get people to shift their ideas and you're trying to get them onto these other streets um East and West um and not in the parking lot the on my only concern right off the top of my head is um in front of the two senior buildings is that if you started changing people's um way of parking um that is the only way for the Meals on Wheels drivers to get in to um deliver meals is right in front of those two you know what I'm saying is once you start to advertise and make these shifts in people's habits I'm worried about we're going to lose two spots be able to let the drivers in um at noon time or whatever for Meals on Wheels and I know that such a little thing but the problem is there isn't they don't have you know many places to go to be able to um pick up the meals and then start delivering them into those places yeah so and I don't know for sure I think they're still picking them up it's been a long time since I've done Meals on Wheels but I think they're still picking them up from the other senior building and then and bringing them out and so um we just need to protect those during the noon hour time um us pretty time specific it is that's what I'm saying if there was a sign or something that we could put out there so that there wasn't any parking between 11 and 1 I believe is when the drivers are coming in and out thank you yeah 15 minutes loading or something between 11 one or something yeah so that we that we um make sure that we have those available Josh um this is pretty preliminary but if we ever go down the road of an enforcement of parking new parking restrictions um I I'd be interested in looking at that um I actually have a parking background too I was a parking enforcement officer for two years yeah but popular guy yeah I got the record for the most tickets written in a year yeah in St Cloud but it you don't need enforcement every single day so I to get the message across and the enforcement piece across so there I think there are ways that you can do it in a way that's not creating records of for um you know income it's not an income stream that you can rely on but I do think it could help fund some of the other improvements we may want to do too uh I would say I'm I like the idea plan that's presented putting that out of the CP and figuring that out uh we can keep talking about the post office I can talk about it but maybe the messages is conveyed for the moment I the challenge is they have been unwilling to be a willing partner on other things and so going to them and saying hey be a partner with us I don't know that that will be successful and that's why I said you know potentially you know putting limits or something in the other lot they' have to start with the property owner right I mean they have to ask to enforce great um you guys need a five minute break or do you want just dive into the RO okay we'll go into the last item which is the national business survey which is kind of a um piggyback on our citizen survey still te to kind of dive into that too y um up y right there why I was all right yep we um did piggy back with the national um business survey we had 2,116 business um received mailings um as with any mailing like this um Poco ended up with their own list um we had our own um we also had our list that we shared with with them so we did receive a lot back we realized a lot of that was from our list so we've been able to update our own list which has been really good of the remaining businesses we did have a convention rate of 207 surveys so I don't know if you want me to go through all these slides with all the results or if you've been able to look at the survey I can go through this really quickly um in a nutshell it was really positive outcome on this survey I was really pleased um you know it covered quality of life um Everybody rated um all the businesses related to Quality of Life very high um just overall as well as a place for children older adults young adults would recommend living in Lakeville facets of livability were rated very well all away from overall economic health feeling of safety particularly in the bottom right um safety in our commercial areas during the day at 98% and safety in our commercial areas after dark at 89% um overall qual quity of infrastructure Services education just scored very well I'm very similar to the resident survey responses um we also ask the businesses to rate Community amenities um and I think sometimes a lot of what we've been trying to do in Community Development particularly with our new website if you haven't checked it out yet Lake business.com um is really try to enhance our Economic Development efforts with really um enhancing and really advertising and Market are whole community so it was great to see um really good responses on our community amenities um the overall reputation of the city um place to visit the appearance um Etc um all of those graded very well can you go back a second y was there any um like qualitative on the hotel and lodging anything else to glean there other than just no yeah it it didn't any more detail no so very similar to you'll see um you know shopping opportunities restaurants you know we've you know just like in the Resident survey scored a little bit lower in those categories compared to others and again I think that just tells us you know what can we do to expand the variety of restaurants what can we do to expand the variety of shopping but I think also as a city kind of understand why um we have less than some of our neighboring communities that have the really large dense areas of commercial activity Lakeville has historically been planned to not have that and so ours is more more neighborhood based um but still the cognizant of this feedback um I did reach out to to your contact and sent them some ideas so um we are reach doing that direct Outreach um when we hear ideas and have our own ideas um getting into business climate um Lakeville is rated very well as a place to do business um good ratings for recommending um someone else to work here to keep your business here at 94% so those are all very positive again getting into Workforce support So this deals with how our education is perceived um both our local education as well as trade education having access to that so I think this rating is all very good Workforce support um in ter terms of aspects for employees and so this is where some of the ratings drop a little bit um we have quality of child care but then affordability is rated lower um cost of living again affordability more of that Workforce housing is showing up um in terms of the need and then we get into Workforce Readiness our employees ready for the positions that our businesses have to hire and that was at 78% in educational qualifications EX 73% getting into that a little bit more this is where you want some of the readings to be low um we want to have a low percent um of you know any of these challenges for Workforce to be lower um as we get to the bottom again um access to affordable housing cost of living um underqualified employees you know those numbers are starting to creep up and again I think the too many under qualified mean that's just the workforce challenge that's going on across the state and the nation business growth um 84% expect business growth in the next five years and 78% already um over the past five years have seen growth and it gets into whether you know how the economy is going to impact them um whether the business is planning to higher that'ss at 52% that was a little lower than I was expecting but I think again um things are slowing down a little bit I think people are being a little bit more cautious on their hiring governance um and how we do our business and how we're perceived it doing our business is very strong um with the city um not so much with the feds um but we're doing a good job and again um categories at lak ville's government performance again um the overall direction the confidence that they have um not only in the direction that you all provide as Council but um we all provide a staff and you can see that um within this category Public Safety categories um all the way down to recycling Utility Billing all of this is High um you know getting into how we handle ourselves with getting building permits um reviewed and issued you know the timeliness and all of that code enforcement um land use and planning all of that is rated very well and higher um in many of these categories comp compared to you know all of the other communities of similar size that have completed a similar survey we don't know who those are just like in the Resident survey but um we compare well we did have a few custom questions we really wanted to get at the affordability of housing 68% showed no impact 25% said yes there is some P impact and of that impact what is you know what are the other resulting categories or problems that that might cause if there is an impact and you can see those on the screen between commute times employee retention um live where they work again the desire for being able to live in the same community that you're working in and then what do you see is top challenges face your business over the next three years again I think even we're facing this as a city but the increased cost for wages and benefits um is the highest um followed by local state and federal taxes and then to few qual too few qualified employees made at the highest and then um in the next 12 months is your business considering expanding downsizing closing in Lakeville or relocating and all of those numbers are scale so overall I think businesses um are pleased with our performance um not only again of the council but all of the Departments so that's we feel really good about that um the business climate is appreciated um in terms of desire to do business in Lakeville continue to expand your business in Lakeville is all very strong again all of these key findings are in the whole report that I linked you to so I don't want to read all of this to you um again businesses appla Workforce Readiness have a great School District um the connection that we have between our business community and school district is so unique in Lakeville and something we're very proud of of um but also Dakota County Technical College and other resources that businesses have available to them again the challenge is always child care we are growing in our child care centers which will be a benefit um we don't have any control over the cost but that is something that is kind of a common common theme that's all I have questions comments sure what do you plan to do with fins well we've got them um on the website but I think you know a lot of the outcome you know it's it was nothing that was surprising to us I don't think it was anything that was too surprising to the EVC but I think we keep doing what we're doing um I think in speaking to um Workforce continue to make those connections where we can strengthen the relationship with Dakota Tech in our businesses there's a lot of specialized programs that they can do um making sure through our website that that information is out there um and we can educate people and I think from um business growth standpoint is continue to do that Outreach to businesses really be intentional who we want to welcome and bring to the or do the best that we can to welcome and bring very businesses to L um I think the results are clearly positive is there a question that we didn't ask that maybe you or the EDC are interested in asking in the future to to get at something that we need to work on mind my mind instantly you have any thoughts no I think the one important thing to remember in these types of surveys is that there's a standard set of questions on a national level and using those same questions gives us the ability to compare to a benchmark where it's a custom question you really don't have a basis or context for it sure we did have some yeah the last ones were the the ones about the affordable housing what is your plan to move um I I suppose in here it would have been nice to break this down even further like if you're you know it was a small small percentage but closing why is it a family owned business that doesn't have the next owner or is it you know lack of space having the ability to dive into that a little bit better or even know who they are um and kitty and I will be you know really be more diligent or diligent in a more of a business retention Outreach and I think this is kind of a first step to that um to be able to share these results and have some of that one-on-one conversation with businesses and maybe we'll find out who some of these are and can try and provide assistance you said it was 200 businesses and for % would be what eight yeah well number one for them to take the survey it's because they're taking it knowing that you don't know who they are yeah um and and number two for something that's small I I wouldn't I wouldn't think that we should be too concerned Why that they if the number were bigger that would be a concern the number small enough that I can't see the city being in the personal business of a of why a business is going to close yeah yeah no the whole intent of this was to be an yeah the website looks great I mean if you wanted to break that down the only thing that you could do is the type business is it manufacturing is it retail is it you know something like that to be able to give the city a little bit more of a flavor of what type of business is closing but not really the reason why yep or I was even thinking is there without asking who they are obviously we can't do that but is there something the city could do right you know is there a financial resource that we're not providing that we could getting at something like that well again the benefit exactly like Don said the benefit of the national survey is then to Benchmark ourselves again when we do this um problem with that is the customiz you're limited in those kind of customizations no it's really good it's positive very good thank you very much for the moving on to item four items for future discussion um I'd be interested in U talking about the newsletter that went out getting kind of an update on the response to that um well I'd like and then also talk about the cost factor and if we should be looking into removing ourselves from the paper to help the cost Factor so just a future discussion about it okay any committee or city administrator updates we had the uh dorda 911 meeting in nth uh pretty pretty generic meeting um one topic uh that got approved and might have even seen some postings uh the board approved um implementing a part-time dispatcher uh program to start trying to help fill uh some of the gaps uh it's one of the first in Minnesota it's just not very common um why is that I think it's because of uh finding qualified people in standards and you know it's like anything else you have to do it enough to to be proficient at it so so it's primarily the target audiences people that are currently working or just retired as uh Public Safety dispatchers and here's an opportunity for you to keep your toe in the in the pool um probably the cost of training too because it takes them so many year months yeah to get them trained to get them on the desk yeah so if you're already working and just retired you're youve gone through well I'm just saying the reason they probably haven't live for the part-time people is because of the cost of what it takes to put into just even the same cost is going to be full-time versus part-time on training I think it also agreement from yeah you know and it got to a point where they comfortable knowing that they were having a hard enough time finding full-time positions then we're going to try to just replace them all with part-time positions so yeah it's it's a supplemental program and and you know could lead to more full-time or whatever it's it's Unique it's new and we'll see how it works I pretty encouraged by it uh but other than that it wasn't go um Personnel St was that which you're gonna update on okay um just a reminder to do your City administrative review um HR Director search is still in process um and then the on from a Fire Relief board standpoint continue conversations about Target pension rates uh vesting schedules and the impact of a hybrid Department I think the the board feels strongly about just advocating for appropriate comp compensation particularly when there's going to be full-time folks doing similar work um department so you'll see them coming forward with proposal coming meeting in December good um the on the arena just the um update on the outdoor rink um so basically they had the engineers come in and then um the construction company Etc and um there's an agreement to extend the warranty to an additional five years the engineers feel like if anything is going to go wrong it's going to happen in that um time period it was kind of our way of um getting some closure on the issue that worked out it's kind of how do I want to say the middle ground for us and them you know because we we were looking for full replacement they're looking at not one to do that obviously so um the engineers felt that this was the best solution for us because if anything's going to go wrong will be covered so um so unfortunately it did set us back in timelines to get that done but in the meantime we'll have good product so uh are we still not till January no it'll be December next I okay so a year from yeah for the ice the slab and the structural quity ready dry land and then I just um this is kind of a weird little update but um I'm gonna pass this along to the chief too um some of the um police departments Across the Nation are um sending a message out to parents because the latest update on the iPhones um has an automatic setting that if I put my phone next to Dan's iPhone it automatically pulls the contact information and it's an auto setting that you have to go in and um change but who knows that every time you update your phone thinks about what they did so anyway it's a safety do that these other police departments are yeah I've seen social you have to approve it to release it from your phone yeah now you have to go into your phone what they're trying to do is give the instructions to the parents to go in there and and remove this opt out let's put it that way because you're automatically opted in um 35W Solutions is canceled for November and December but uh house the house bonding committee did hear a presentation on the 3550 project it was in Bloomington it was a f minute presentation from Dakota County and representative Woody was there as well5 W where is so for the priorities of the alliance for 2024 session are we still the top one on the list I think we're still determining that still determin there's committee work going on I think everybody's on the subcommittee on policy so okay everybody's signed yeah else a couple things so just a reminder your uh December work session is December 11th as opposed to the fourth uh Monday of the month that should be on your calendars right now the topics are uh tin is going to give a presentation on potential uses of the housing sales tax that we're going to start receiving um the Rel Association probably be in Joshua mentioned and we're going to have draft of the legislative priorities for next year and then um City Hall remodel project that you approved a week month or two ago um that is going to start to come to fruition next week with some Demolition and um so officers those groups that are moving have been packing up and are relocating temporarily that does mean that the council office that some of you use time to time is going to be a temporary office for the planning and zoning department for a little bit um we can just sit on their laps right sure if you do have a meeting that you'd like to hold it City Hall let me know we'll find a space for and then in the meantime Parks and Recreation is going to move down to the new Fine Arts building so they'll be located out of there during the um down next to the art center um a lot of other staff are going to be working remotely and we're just gonna kind of hearken back to co times and be both here and there and everywhere so will that be on the website for the park and wreck movement yes we're have side of the door too uh and then as What's the timing on that project and then where are we on do we want to stay here for work sessions in the first part of 24 have we had that discussion well we haven't been alen can talk about the schedule yeah it's proposed to be completed by the end of March okay um so we're hoping that your first work session and be have that new room would be be the apre so we're okay with moving it we don't have to we'll have to change it on the website and notices but we just so we have to commit to be here for six months okay have to set the meeting dates and time say got it okay all right with that I'll take a motion adjourn second all in favor I post adjourned second"