[music] Good evening. Welcome to the January 5th city council meeting. If you'd join me for a moment of silence in the pledge of allegiance. Hey, roll call, please. >> Michelle Vulk >> here. >> Luke Kelly >> here. >> John Burmal >> here. >> Dan Walter >> here. >> Joshua Lee >> here. >> Okay, very good. Move on to item three, citizens comments is opportunity for anybody to address council for up to three minutes. Typically, if there's an issue later on the uh agenda that you want to speak about, we can wait for that, too. >> You want to state your name and address for the record when you get up here? [clears throat] >> Hi, my name is Alicia Schulp and I live at 20537 Idalia Avenue in Lakeville, Minnesota. >> Go ahead. All right. Um, members of city council, I want you to imagine being watched, photographed, tracked, not because you committed a crime, but because you made a deeply personal medical decision. Imagine every moment recorded, stored, shared without your knowledge. This is not hypothetical. This has already happened. In a widely reported case, authorities in Texas use a license plate from data from more than 83,000 automated camera systems like Flock to track a pregnant woman across state lines after she sought an abortion. Open to an investigation into the death of the fetus and then considered prosecuting her. A surveillance tool sold to communities as way to stop car theft was used to follow a woman during one of the most vulnerable vulnerable moments of her life. That should stop every one of us in our tracks. Flock cameras do not just capture criminals. They collect location data on everybody. Parents, students, workers, patients day after day. When that data can be assessed, retained, or shared with little oversight, it becomes a tool for intimidation and control. It turns our streets into a digital drag net and our private lives into searchable records. This is not about politics. This is about whether we accept a system that allows a government to track people's medical choices, their movements, and their lives without consent or suspicion of wrongdoing. If it can be used this way once, it can be used this way again. I urge city council to act with courage and principle. Terminate the flock camera contract. Reject mass surveillance. Protect the privacy, dignity, and the freedom of the people you represent. I do not want flock cameras tracking my or my family's movements. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for being here. Are there any other public comment? Hello, my name is Jacob Borealis, 20618 Captain Court. Uh, Mr. Mayor and members of the city council, thank you for the opportunity to speak today about an urgent issue which previous speaker also brought up. Uh, the misuse of license plate data collected by flock cameras and the cyber security issues with their systems. Um, and after this I will be submitting a white paper that identifies over 40 known security issues found with flock cameras. When it comes to cyber security, flock cameras have been found streaming directly to the internet with no encryption, no security requirements. Anyone can watch this footage. There are videos of journalists doing it on YouTube. These cameras reads their own security policy in front of it and the camera records them doing it. The problem isn't the lack of flock safety. The problem is cities wanting a cloudconnected AI enhanced mass surveillance system but not properly conducting their own security audits. We need to know if our IT director has seen this white paper and whether or not a cyber security audit was performed before approving these cameras. We are not alone in raising these issues. In Norfol, Virginia, two residents filed a federal lawsuit challenging the city's use of more than 17 automated license plate readers, arguing that a constant, warrantless tracking of everyone's movements violates their Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and threatens basic privacy rights. A federal judge ruled that this lawsuit can proceed, recognizing that citizens could reasonably believe their privacy expectations are being violated by such pervasive surveillance. Similarly, civil liberties organizations have sued the city of H San Jose, alleging its widespread use of hundreds of license plate readers amounts to an invasive mass surveillance system, capturing and storing millions of scans and searches that concern even people not suspected of wrongdoing. We've also seen actions by state officials. In California, the attorney general sued the city of Elcohone for unlawfully sharing its ALPR data with outofstate and federal agencies, violating state law that prohibits such sharing without proper authorization. These legal challenges highlight a broader problem. Without strict limits and robust oversight, this data can be stored, shared, and searched in ways that extend well beyond public safety and into the realm of everyday tracking. That's not what residents signed up for, nor is it what this community wants or deserves. As your constituents, we ask you to resend your unanimous approval of the flock cameras and conduct a legal review of the uses of automated license plate reader data, the contractual policies, and evaluate the potential for misuse. Present your findings to the people of Lakeville and hear what they have to say. Public safety and privacy must be protected together. It's not a trade-off. Thank you in advance for hearing these concerns and thank you for your time. >> Thank you. >> Any other public comment >> city council? My name is Dane Schnean. I live at 16851 Javelin A in Lakeville. Um, and for the last 18 years, I've spent my time working for aerospace and defense companies, some of the largest contractors in the world, identifying and reducing risk. And I'm here today because the risk of implementing flock cameras in Lakeville and anywhere poses an unbelievable risk to the people who live in our community and and our neighbors. The flock systems are used by ICE to carry out an abusive removal program. Okay. Reporting from around the country shows that police officers have used these systems on behalf of ICE agents to search them and to report back to them even though the ICE doesn't have the contract to use the the technology. Right? So when they say that it's only there for 30 days or it's only accessed by your your police department, Flux Safety is misrepresenting themselves and they're lying to you. There's proof of this. It's out there and we're not we're not taking ICE seriously enough in Lakeville at all. At any given time right now, there's hundreds if not thousands now according to the federal government coming to Minnesota. They're masked men carrying assault rifles and body armor and they're abducting our friends, our family members out of their cars on their way to work, where they're picking up their kids from school, out of their houses. I was a first responder at an ICE kidnapping not 10 minutes down the road from here. Over 20 men carrying guns chased people from a restaurant to their home. They tackled a man in his driveway. They kicked open the front door. They pointed guns at his family, the grandparents, the children that were in there. And they kidnapped three people out of the house. These aren't criminals. They're people who maybe their paperwork's not in order. I had children come up to me and pull me by the arm and say, "Where did they take my mom and dad? It's not okay." I hope that the kids get to see their their family members again, but they probably won't. So, we're we're asking you to help us. Just do something. We don't need automatic camera readers in our town. Our neighbors don't need them. They're dangerous. We're better off without them. Thank you. Okay. Any other public comments? Okay. Seeing none, I would encourage the three of you my email and cell phone number on the city's website. I'd encourage you to connect with me uh so we can follow up. Thank you. Uh moving on to uh additional agenda information, Mr. Miller. >> Nothing here. >> Okay, we'll move on to presentations, introductions, and I'll turn it over to our public works director, Mr. Omi, for our public works quarterly report. Right. Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. Happy New Year. So this is the fourth quarter report for public works um street side street division. Uh so uh so far this this um uh snow season we had 13 call outs that a little bit higher than other callouts we've had so far this year and we've used a little um almost 1,600 tons of salt uh this year just because of the icy conditions that we've had. Um back in our third quarter, my my third quarter report, I we talked about um the uh staff meeting that we had with our snowpow drivers talking about our route assignment, safety um and then small smart salt usage. Um it's one and um after that um meeting uh that we had uh we had a u behind the wheel uh training course at Dakota County Technical College as well. So, I just wanted to highlight um that training course uh that we provide to our staff. Oops. Let's try that again here. Today, we're working with snow plow drivers. Uh we're doing various exercises [clears throat] out on the course. Uh Mr. Byron's doing serpentine and breaking exercises. I'm doing evasive maneuvers and backing. This is important because it obviously with the skill areas that we focus on gives drivers an idea of their limitations when they're driving their vehicle and also vehicle limitations. We do various speeds out here. We increase speed, but we also decrease it so they can find out how maneuverable their vehicles actually are. >> We're not all used to driving big trucks. It gets you to understand what the truck can actually do. It really gets you to test the truck on the power, the capability of the handling. time. I've been here for seven years, so it's kind of cool to do it again and just gets you familiar again and just gets you back in the groove, gets you comfortable with the with the steering, everything. >> It's very important that the community go ahead and know that these drivers are trained, and these drivers have some kind of knowledge of their vehicles and what they're doing out on the roadway. It's safer for the community. It's safer for the drivers that are driving these snow plows and for anybody driving any type of vehicle at any time. Should be very important for the community. If the snow plows are working, they're working in tandem or even if they're working by themselves, back off, reduce your speed, and let the snowplow drivers do their job. It's imperative that you do not try to pass them, that you do not try to go around them in any way, shape, or manner. make our job easier to get your garbage cans off the street in your driveway and just make sure they're behind the curb so we can get that the wing right to the curb line to make sure the road is completely clear. Same with your cars so we can get most of the snow off the road. Um other activities that the street department has been working on u this fall uh fall sweeping we finished that uh our goal there uh culver inspections and uh maintenance and then also a bunch of uh tree removals and and trimming uh was ongoing. We did uh survey about a quarter of their city streets this year um to get a idea of our pavement conditions and our overall condition index. So to try to meet to make sure that we're meeting our goal of our uh between 70 and 80 overall average our streets uh are maintained at that that level. And in 2025 we did add five a little over five miles of streets uh for through new developments. Uh this is about the average we've seen over the last 11 years. Uh moving on to utility department. Uh [clears throat] u just wanted to highlight a couple things on our lead and copper um program that we have. Again, it's a federal mandate that we inventory all of our services within our community. Um right to to date um end of this year, end of 2025. We had still had about 18 a little over 1,800 services that we don't know exactly the material that um they're made out of. Uh we have identified 28 galvanized service lines and three lead lead service lines and um we are in going to be inspecting in-house about uh 300 um services um by the end of this month here. So in total we'll have about 1500 services. So we still have to either pothole out in front of the house or or figure out some other way to identify that that the material. um trying to have that all wrapped up by the end of the year and then um have a plan to replace those galvanized and lead service lines here in the next few years. Um the rule say we have to replace at least 10% of those service lines um starting in 2027. Um and then have everything wrapped up by 2037, but we definitely should have that uh completed prior to that date. Uh water production was a little bit up from 2025. We produced a little over 2.7 billion gallons at our water treatment plant. Did uh have u uh the sixth grade classes uh through in Lakeville come through our water treatment plant to learn how water production and water treatment is is operated and um and produced. Um there's a little over again 300 students that uh we took a tour that took a tour through the plant uh in November. Uh moving on to environmental resources. Uh just a quick update on our MS4 permit. Um you can see the inspections that we've completed uh in 2024. Um pond outfalls and environmental manholes. Um this is in conjunction with the utility department, street department, parks department. Um we collaborate together to make those inspections happen. Um in 2025, we had three ponds that we were programmed to clean out. Two of those ponds have now been cleaned out. The Gemini or Spy Glass pond is scheduled to be cleaned out in January when the uh ground freezes a little harder so we're not damaging on the turf in that area. Um in the East Lake carp removal program that we've had going on for the last two years. This was again this was a grant from Bowser uh $300,000 uh where we're removing carp and and installed a carp barrier in that lake. Um to date uh through the program we removed a little over 9,600 lb of carp in the pond. Uh eliminated 70 75 pounds per year of phosphorus which would help clean the water qual keep the water qual improve the water quality in the pond. Uh next steps we're going to be monitoring the water quality and see how how the water quality has improved with this with this program. Um and we look for additional other strategies down the road to improve the water quality in in East Lake recycling and reduction program that we've got going on here. You can see some of the totals that of recycling that took place within our community. I want to highlight the pumpkin composting. uh the best in Dakota County. We recycled over or composted a little over 3,000 pounds of compost of of pumpkins this year uh that didn't end up in the landfill. So, it's a lot of uh materials and and uh that that we're recycling to to avoid landfill. Um you're here. We have three restoration uh grant that we're currently working on for um either wetlands or uh upland grasses uh restorations throughout the community. In total, we're working with a little uh under $400,000 worth of grants uh to improve uh three areas within our community. Uh [clears throat] th this past year we just wanted to highlight that we've um had 67 sites within Lakeville that we've u made some vegetation improvements with. This is kind of our annual program that we have. Uh we we're treating or um moving invasive species from 108 acres throughout their community either in uh outlets or parks or open spaces along shorelines, those type of things that are hired valley for the city. Our landscaping uh for clean water um wrapped up recently. So there were actually 12 participants uh through Lakeville that that uh attended the the uh the classes. Uh out of those out of that program there were five projects that actually were implemented and those projects did receive grants through the uh soil and water conservation district. That project this uh program is going to take place again in 2026. Um the the introduction class will start in on March 12th at 6 o'clock. You can get more information on our city website if you interested in participating in that um those classes and the Dakota County soil and water conversation is upping the grant to $400 this year for uh for the for that grant program. Moving on, the forestry department uh we're busy again, we'll be busy again this uh winter removing ash trees along our boulevards um and in our open spaces. Uh there's about 35 trees that we uh staff can't uh remove just because they're a little more complicated than we're uh set up for. So we'll have a contractor remove those trees. And then uh our forestry department has been actively pruning trees within our parks and uh right away or this fall as well. Um there are three there's there three removal projects and these are grant projects too that uh we uh have been working through. So these some of the totals in terms of the the trees removed and planted um that we've been working on um in the fall and um again there's a bunch of uh pruning and uh tree removals that or could be taking place in out outlots and parks and rightaways through our contractors again in in uh in 2025. So uh forestry department is again working on the uh tree sale uh program through the uh at the Earth Day celebration in April. So um tree sales will go on in in February and there'll be about 300 trees and shrubs that'll be for sale at a discounted price that residents can in order and then pick up uh in April. You can check the website for for that program as well. And moving on the facility uh facility division. Um couple couple projects that we just wanted to highlight. Uh we replace the snowmelting boilers at the performing arts center. This is uh the boilers that help um keep the sidewalks in around the facility um deiced during the winter months. That system was broke last year and we we budgeted to replace that um uh end of last year. Uh city hall as you know has bases have been repainted uh freshen up the uh the city hall a little bit and then the break room was was also painted and then uh the fire uh system panel at the water treatment plant was replaced. This was a a code issue that we had to deal with and uh we needed to upgrade that to uh make sure that um that facilities under compliance. So, with that, uh, that's my update for public works for the fourth quarter, and I'll stand for any questions you may have. >> Okay, very good. Thank you. Any questions? >> My question is about the tree cell. We seem to do really well every year. Is it Have we thought about a Are we kind of capped at that 300 number or is that something we could do more of? I'm just >> Yeah, we we can definitely uh we just budgeted we just budget for have been budgeting for about three to 300 trees annually for the last two years. So we can definitely look at up update. They go fast. >> Yeah, maybe just a wait list to just see what the real number is this year, you know, and if >> we can think about it for the year after. >> That's a good idea. We'll look into that. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay, moving on to consent agenda. Any items you want to highlight, Mr. Miller? >> Thank you, mayor and council. Uh, tonight is our annual organizational meeting and one of those is the designation of the legal newspaper. That's item 6E and for 2026 that'll once again be this sun this week newspaper. And then item 6R is an agreement with flagship recreational for purchase and installation of playground equipment at the area Lakeville area arts center. And I note this because it came with a $90,000 donation from QA1 that's going to go toward that. So we thank them for that donation. >> Very good. Uh council, anything that you want to pull for further discussion? And I'll take a motion to approve the consent agenda. I'll make a motion to to approve the consent agenda. >> Is there a second? Second. >> Okay. Any further discussion? >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> I. >> Opposed? Consent agenda passes. [clears throat] We will now move on to item 7A ordinance amending title 11 of the city code and summary ordinance for public publication related to auto pair businesses. I'll turn over to our community development goodro. Good evening. >> Well, it's way too tough. Good evening, mayor and members of the council. Happy new year. Um so, um it's kind of a two-part item because they're both um this item and then the next item um obviously relates to caliber collision, but staff is proposing an ordinance amendment. It came up with the application for a conditional use permit with caliber collision. Back in January, um city council approved an amendment to allow outdoor storage as part of the major auto repair use within the I1 zoning district. But when the ordinance was written, um we missed a couple things. Um one of which is the requirement for that storage area to meet the same building um setback requirements. So it really puts um buildings in the position of just not having enough space if that building is approaching their rear setback. So the language in um that's underlined is what we are proposing that the fence storage area shall meet or exceed required setbacks for structures when abudding a public roadway or residential zone property. If not, then that fence storage area at a typical rear yard in a um industrial area could be um 10 ft. So that's the first provision we're recommending a change. And the second really has to do with landscaping. So we're requiring or asking to change it to require when adjacent to a residential zone property then the fenced area should be landscaped. Um but when it's not that requirement is a little ownorous in an I1 zoning district. So that is the um purpose um for the ordinance amendment. The planning commission did review this at their last meeting and public hearing and unanimously recommended approval. And I would stand for any questions. >> Okay. Council, any questions? Seems pretty straightforward. I'll make a motion from Council Member Walter. >> I move to approve an ordinance amending title 11 of the city code and a summary ordinance for publication. >> There second. >> Second. >> Any further discussion? Okay. Roll call, please. >> Lee, >> I. >> W. I. >> Helier. >> I. >> Burmal. >> I. >> Walter. >> I. Okay, very good. We'll move on to item B, the caliber collision conditional use permit. And I don't Goodro or is the applicant who's gonna Good evening. Welcome >> council members. Happy new year to all. My name is Joanie Fearhabber. I am the lead construction uh manager for Kushman and Wakefield. and I'm here on behalf of our building owner, New as well as Caliber Collision, uh, who is our prospective tenant. Our ask is for a conditional use permit to allow a fenced in area where Caliber can store their vehicles that are awaiting parts delivery outdoors. The storage area will be underneath the 10,000 square foot allowance. Uh and then there is also Caliber has agreed uh that they will monitor uh so that there's a drainage pond behind so that uh we've got uh compliance so that we don't have any materials uh from the vehicles going into that storage pond. >> Okay. >> All right. Um so yes, so Caliber Collision has um submitted the application. The property is located 9583 217th Street. So it's just south of 215th Street and west of Dodd. Um it is in part of the great the outdoor great room building. Um the property is zone I1 light industrial and you can see the tenant space on the far west side of the building um next to Dalsum and then outdoor great room. Um the proposed storage area is at the rear of the building does meet the new ordinance requirements and it does fall under the 10,000 square foot limit um that is in the ordinance and they are proposing total of 36 spaces or 18 tandem parking spaces. They will have a 6-ft tall solid wood or solid fence um around the outdoor storage area. Um and access will be through two manual sliding gates. And as she mentioned, um this is basically to have space to store the vehicles as they are waiting parts and um getting them repaired. So all of the other conditions of the cup are being met and I would stand for any questions and planning commission did review this at their December 18th meeting and unanimously recommended approval. >> Okay, council of questions. >> I would just say I I do know there's other repair places that store vehicles that are not fenced in. So, this is a welcome uh change for sure. So, thank you for that. Um, council, I'll take a motion to approve. >> I move to approve a conditional use permit to allow a major automobile repair use and adopt the findings of fact. >> Very good. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any further discussion? Uh, roll call, please. >> Walter, >> I. >> Lee, >> I. >> Vulk. >> I. >> Helier. >> I. >> Burmal >> I. >> Very good. Good luck. Uh we'll move on to item C. Appointment of the acting mayor for 2026. This is a person uh who is on the council that will serve in chair of the committee or any meetings if I'm unable to be there. So with that, I'll take council member Walter. >> I move to appoint John Burmel, acting mayor for 2026. >> Okay. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Are there any other nominations? Okay. seen and I'll close nominations. You accept? >> I I accept. Am I supposed to abstain from the vote? >> Uh I don't think so. >> Okay. >> Okay. [laughter] A roll call, please. >> Uh Walter >> I. >> Lee. >> I. >> Folk >> I. >> Helier. >> I. >> Burmel. >> I. >> Very good. 50. Thank you, John, for doing that. >> Um we'll now move on to unfinish and new business. I don't believe there is any tonight. announcements. Our next city council retreat is Saturday, January 17th. Our next council meeting is January 20th. And with that, I'll take a motion to adjourn. >> So moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. We are adjourned. But we have HA meeting. So I will hand the gavl over to our first >> [music] >> Thank you.