". >> Good Evening Everyone And Welcome. I Will Call This Bloomington City Council Meeting To Order Tonight Is Monday, March 17Th, 2025. Thank You To Everyone Who Has Joined Us Here In The Council Chambers And Thanks To Everybody Watching Online. We Will Begin Our Meeting As We Always Do If You'Re Able Here In The Chambers To Stand If You Could Please Stand And Join Me In The Pledge Of Allegiance. I Pledge Allegiance To The Flag Of The United States Of America And To The Republic For Which It Stands One Nation Under God, Indivisible, With Liberty And Justice For All . Once Again, Welcome To Everyone And Thanks For Joining Us Tonight. We Have I Know Councilmember Moua Will Not Be With Us Tonight And I Think Councilmember Lowman Is On The Way. So We Have Five Of Us Here And As We'Re Getting Set Up We Do Have A Quorum And We'Re Ready To Go. Our First Order Of Business Council Is To Approve Tonight'S Agenda On Our Agenda This Evening Under Introductory Items We Have Item 2.1 Which Is A Our Appointments To Our Local Board Of Review And 2.2 We'Re Going To Hear The Work Plan And The The Recap From 2025 Of Our Sustainability Commission. So We'Ll Be Hearing From Our Sustainability Commission Tonight. Our Consent Agenda Includes 11 Items Councilmember Rivas Has Our Consent Agenda This Evening Under Item Four Hearing Hearings, Resolutions And Ordinances. We Have One Resolution And This Is A Resolution Called Allocating Our Local Affordable Housing Aid And Then Under Organizational Business We Have A 5.1 Which Is A Franchise Fee Discussion And Then Council We'Ve Got Item 5.2. It'S A Closed Session To Discuss Real Estate Acquisitions Related To The Community Health And Wellness Center And Officially On Our Agenda Then It Goes To Item 5.3 The City Council Policy And Issue Update What I Would Like To Do Council Is Actually Flip Those Two And Actually Make The City Council Policy An Issue. Update Item 5.2 And Then The Closed Session Item 5.3 Just To Make Things Flow A Little Bit Better Here This Evening And Then Adjournment And I Think That Is The Only Change That We Had This Evening. Council Unless There Is Additional Questions Or Changes If Not I Would Move Approval Of The Agenda As Stated. Second Motion And A Second By Councilmember Carter To Approve Tonight'S Agenda As Stated No For The Council Discussion On This All Those In Favor Please Signify By Saying I Opposed Motion Carries Six Zero. First On Our Agenda This Evening Is Adam 2.1 The Appointments To Our Local Board Of Review. For Those Of You Who Don'T Know We'Ve Got A Local Board Of Review And We Had A Memo I Think That Came Out On The Last Week I Believe Monday, March 10Th With The The Report From Emily Larson Who Is Our Staff Member Who Manages And Handles All Of These Appointments For Our Boards And Commissions. Few Things To Point Out On This Are City Assessor And Staff Liaison Tim Bolger Reviewed Each Application To Confirm The Eligibility And Provided A Recommendation About Who To Appoint To The Full Terms And Who To Appoint To The Vacant Term. And Emily Writes That Are Recruiting For The Local Board Of Review Has Traditionally Been Challenging To Do Its Requirement Of Real Estate Experience. The Application Has Been Open Until Filled For The Past Six Months And We Recently Received Enough Applications To Fill The Three Openings And The Annual Local Board Of Review Meeting Is Scheduled For On April 16Th Of This Year. So Just Some Details Filling It In The Recommendations For The Appointments To The Local Board Of Review As I Can Find Them Here The Recommendations For The Appointments For The Local Board Of Review Are To Appoint Andrew Robinson To A Term From The Date Of Appointment To June 30Th 2027 To Appoint Jason Oliver To A Term From The Date Of Appointment To June 30Th 2027 And To Appoint Marge Bates To A Term From The Date Of Appointment To June 30Th 2026 To The Local Board Of Review. Those Are The Recommendations Of The Folks Who Have Reviewed The Applications And They Have Made These Recommendations For Us For The Local Board Of Review And I Would Move Those Appointments As Stated. Second Motion And The Second By Council Member Nelson To Make The Appointments To The Local Board Of Review As Stated Any Further Council Discussion On This Hearing? None. All Those In Favor Please Signify By Saying I Opposed Motion Carries Six Zero. Thank You So Very Much And Congratulations To Andrew, Jason And Marge And Thank You For Your Service On Our Local Board Of Review. Next Up Item 2.2 Our Sustainability Commission February 2025 Review Of Their Work Plan Or Review Of Last Year'S Work And Their March 20Th 26 To 2026 Work Plan. And With Us Tonight We Have An Address And We Have Angie Ghosh Who Is Our Chair Of Our Sustainability Commission. Good Evening And Welcome. Good Evening, Mr. Mayor And Council Members. Thanks For Having Us Tonight. Well, Wait Until Our Slides Get Up In The Wall Going Perfect. So Tonight We'Re Going To Do A Brief Overview And Just A Reminder Of Who Serves On The Sustainability Commission. I'M Going To Highlight Some Of The Work That The Sustainability Commission Did Last Year. Chair But Ghosh Is Going To Go Over Highlights From The Proposed Workplan And Then We'Ll Do A Brief Update About Staff Support And The Emotion That'S Recommended. So As A Reminder We Have 11 Members And The Sustainability Commission Is The Largest Commission. We Have Two Seats Reserved For Young Adult Members. We Have One Council Member Liaison And Eight Adult Seats . We'D Like To Pause And Think Beth To Go Through For Her Three Years Of Service. She Was A Very Active Member And Is Spending Time Doing Other Things And The Sustainability World But Did A Lot For The Community Over The Past Three Years. Highlights From Last Year With Big The Sustainability Commission And Their Work Plan Wanted To Focus On The Energy Use Of That Facility So They Did A Tour Last February And Looked At The Plans For That. There'S The Annual Garlic Mustard Poll That We Had A Lot Of Community Participants With In The Summer As The Sustainability Commissioners Worked With Communication Staff To Put Together Videos About How Various Community Members Save Water And Then Last August There Was The Energy Workshop Primarily Focused On Folks Who Have Recently Purchased A Home In Bloomington. So We Had Commissioners Help And Collaborate With Staff On That Initiative. We Did Door Knocking Looking At Areas Of The City Who Haven'T Participated In The Home Energy Squad Program Before. Commissioners Helped Volunteer With Staff For Energy Fairs At Penn Lake Library. The Last One That Was Held 57 Community Members Came To That. And Then There Was The Annual Buckthorn Bust In The Fall Where We Had A Record Amount Of Volunteers. So Those Just Highlight Some Of The Things That The Commission Was Busy Working On Throughout The Year In The Community. The Commission Also Has Reserved In Their Workplan Each Year Time To Provide Feedback For Initiatives That Council Was Asked For A Closer Eye On Or Staff Wants Feedback On Or Community Members. So Here Is An Overview Of The Gas Presented Options That The Commission Received. It Spanned From Topics Such As Solid Waste To The South Loop District Plan Update To The Urn Forest Master Plan. So All These Different Areas That The Commission Provided Feedback On. There Were Five Specific Memos Or Letters Of Support That The Commission Wrote A Letter In Support Of Using Federal Funding For Geothermal And Solar Projects, Water Park Project Recommendations A Letter Of Support For The Updated Natural Landscape Ordinance Sustainability Recommendations For The Community Health And Wellness Center And A Sustainable Building Policy Recommendation . So That Was Last Year And I'Ll Pass It To Chair Bogost To Talk About The Work Plan Proposed For This Year. So Starting In December Staff Facilitated Two Planning Sessions Where The Sustainable Sustainability Commission Identified And Prioritized Goals For The Following Year And These Were The Priorities Were Identified Where Commissioners Will Play A Major Role In Can Decided That We Can Dedicate Time To And The Priorities Are Work With Staff To Enhance Alternative Transportation Identify Areas To Incentivize More Sustainable Behavior Education And Outreach For Behavior Change Emphasizing New People And New Places. A Policy Discussion With Council To Review The Sustainability Commission'S Charter And Roll And Implement New Changes If Needed. And Then Support For Their Current And Outgoing Outreach And Education Efforts. Yeah. So Then The Next Step Is We Identified Specific Actions Related To These Priorities And Each Of Each One Of Us Committed To As Many Of These That We Felt That We Had Time To Dedicate To Move Forward To . And These Are Priorities That We We Are Going To Play A Major Role In But We Will Also Do Additional Tasks As They Come Up And Work With Staff Driven Priorities Such As The Climate Action Plan. Thank You. And To Reiterate That This Plan Is Before You Is Really As Chairman Josh Said Owned By The Commission It'S 80% Of The Commission Carrying Out The Work With 20% Staff Support. So It Doesn'T Encompass Everything The City Is Doing Around Sustainability And The Next Year. And Then Just A Quick Update I'M The Long Term Staff Liaison For The Sustainability Commission. I Anticipate Being On Parental Leave Starting In May. So We Have Julie Long And Scott Anderson Filling In As Co Staff Liaisons And Then Kim Larson Will Continue To Be The Commission'S Secretary. And With That We Have Time For Questions And The Proposed Motion. Thank You, Madam Chair. Ms. Truss Thanks Much For The Presentation And The Information Council Comments Questions That You Want Them To Sound Well Done So That Doesn'T Happen Often. >> Councilmember Dallessandro Mr. Mayor, I Was Waiting For Mr. Nelson To Have A Comment. I'M Teasing. I Wanted To Thank You Very Much For The Presentation. As Always, I'M A Big Fan Of What You All Do. I Did Have A Question For You About There Were A Decent Number And Maybe You Could Go Back To The Plan For 2025 For Me Just To. Here We Go. Thank You. Perfect. So If We Think About What You Had In 2024 And The Different Opportunities That You Had For Both Input And Recommendations To The Variety Of Things That Are Going On, Are The Are These These The Boxes That Are In The Kind Of Green The Darker Brown Gray Green Whatever You Guys See Are Those Are Those Explicit To Those Liaison Opportunities Or Are Our Delays On Opportunities Like The Ones You Had Almost Every Month Throughout The Year Last Year? Are They Kind Of Peppered In Here As You'Re Working On Each Of These Things? I'M Asking Because I Want To Understand How Much Overlap There Or How Much Collaboration You Feel Like You Have With The Other Either The Other Staff Members Or Other Committee Members That You'Re Working With And Whether That'S Increasing Or Decreasing As You As You See It Over The Year Before. Mr. Mayor Council Members, Council Member Sandro I Would Say That This Year There'S A Lot Of Collaboration Between City Staff Initiatives And Commission Initiatives Under These Areas Looking To Especially Expand Outreach To New Areas. How Do We Boost Those Efforts? There Are Conversations About How To Include More Collaboration Between The Various Commissions. For Example, Last Month There Was A Special Meeting Of The Sustainability Commission With Parks Commission To Talk About The Community Health And Wellness Center. So Looking For Opportunities To Continue Collaboration When There'S Topics That Cover More Boards And Commissions. But I Would Say That There'S More If You Would Agree With Me More Collaboration Between Staff And The Commission This Year On The Work Plan Compared To Past Work Plans Where Maybe There Were Initiatives That Were Completely Separate Than What Was Already Being Planned By Staff To Work On. Okay. Is That A Good Thing In Your Mind? Okay, Great. Just Wanted To Be Sure. Thank You. Thank You. Now There'S Council Councilmember Rivas. Just A Quick Question. Are Any Funds Being Allocated Or Had Been Allocated For This Planning On The City Staff To Visit Especially Planning On Future Transportation? They Just Got To My Attention. It Is A Very Ambitious Plan To Put That In There. And You Know Although We All Kind Of Dream Of Having All These Issues Solved Or Resolved, I Am Just Wondering If There Are Any Funds Already Allocated For That For That Purpose, Especially The Transportation Part Of It. >> Mr. Mayor, Council Members Council Member Rivas Great Question. So You'Ll See Under The Work With Staff To Enhance Alternative Transportation Those Actions Are Very Specific Of Learning More About What Is Currently Going On As Far As The American Boulevard Transit Study And Other Work That There Are Transportation Engineering Team Are Working On Participating More And Having An Active Role In The Existing Outreach Open Houses To Be Able To Provide Feedback. So Attending The American Boulevard Transit Study Was One. And Then Also Looking At Safe Routes To School And Then Being A Stronger Participant And Feedback For Bloomington Ferry Road. So When It Says Enhance Alternative Transportation It'S Providing Feedback Through Those Events. It Isn'T Creating Something A New A New Transportation System For The City. So Very Specific. But There Is A Small Budget That Is Saved Each Year For The Sustainability Commission To Help With Their Initiatives . For Example A Marketing Budget Or Something Like That. Thank You So Much. I Just Wanted To Clarify That For Some Of The Residents That Question Me On It. >> Thank You. Council Additional Questions? Councilmember Logan Just A Comment. Nice Job. Seems Like Each Year This Process Gets More Clear, More Succinct And Just Hats Off To You And The Rest Of The Staff That Helped Out Was Putting This Together And Your Leadership Chair. Than You. Very Good. Thank You. Councilmember. If There Are No Further Council Questions Council I Would Look For A Motion To Adopt The February 2025 Through March 2026 Sustainability Commission Work Plan Is Attached To The City Council Packet Motion By Councilmember D'Alessandro Second By Councilmember Rivas To Adopt To Adopt The Sustainability Commission Work Plan Is Attached To The City Council Packet For The Council Discussion On This. All Those In Favor Please Signify By Saying I I Opposed. Motion Carries Six Zero. Thank You Very Much And If You Could Also Share With The Rest Of The Sustainability Commission And With The Staff Liaison'S Who Are Working On This And Who Will Be Working On This That Share Thanks For The Work That They Do On This . We Know How Important It Is And Know How Hard Especially The Sustainability Commission Works. I Mean They Are They'Re A Hands On Group And They Put A Lot Into It So Share Our Thanks With Them If You Could. Thank You. Absolutely. You. Item Three On Our Agenda Is The Consent Business. Councilmember Rivas Has Our Consent Agenda Tonight. Councilmember Rivas, We Thank . And If Councilmember If You Could Make Sure Your Microphone Is On. >> Thank You. I Will Hold Three Seven Also Just For Comment Not Necessarily For Any Reason Just To Make A Comment On It. >> All Right. So Item 3.7 Is Held And The Others And 310 3.10 Also And 310. All Right. And I Think I Moved To Moved To Approve 3.1 To 3.6 And Items 3.8 To 3.9 And Item 3.11. Councilmember Low Is Holding I In 3.3. Ten And I Will Be Holding Item 3.7 Just For Comment. Second Motion By Councilmember Rivas Second By Councilmember Carter To Accept Tonight'S Consent Business As Stated No Further Council Discussion On This. All Those In Favor Please Signify By Saying I Opposed The Motion Carries Six Zero. Why Don'T We Start With Item 3.7 Councilmember Rivas. Yeah, I Just It'S Just A Typo I Wanted To Bring To The Attention It In Regards To The Amount The Total Funds For The Second Year Of Not The First Year Of The Increase On On The Fees For The Internet And I.T Resources So It Should Read 588,819 36 Rather Than Eight 588,881 36 I Just Noticed That As I Was Going Through The Whole Thing So So Councilmember If Just For Clarification Just So We Had This I Believe You'Re On Page Is That On Page 52? You Know I Just Have My Notes. Okay. Just Give Me A Second. I Have It On The. So We'Re Talking The 2025 Total Cost. Is That What We'Re Talking To? Okay. So A Correction On That. Just A Small Correction Or Typo. Thank You Very Much For Catching That. >> Is There Anything Else? Councilmember Nope Should Do It. Very Good And I Move Item 2.7 I Moved To Approve I Mean 3.7 Second Motion By Councilmember Rivas Second By Councilmember Dallessandro To Accept Item 3.7 On Tonight'S Consent Agenda No For The Council Discussion On This All Those In Favor Please Signify By Saying I. I Opposed Motion Carries Six Zero Item 310 I Believe That Was Councilmember Lowman. Thank You, Mayor. This Is A Resolution To Update The Council Meeting Procedures One I Think Staff They Did A Nice Job With This Really Kind Of Pull This Together I Know This Is Just The Opening Stages Of A Number Of Items Here And I The Reason Why I Hold It Held At Mayor Is I'D Like To To Vote. I Support 75% Of This But Just That Change With The With The Minutes From Five Down To Three Unless We Want To Do An Amendment So I Can Vote Against It, I'Ll Be Out I'Ll Be Voting Against This And So Just To Clarify, Councilmember In On Public Hearings The Proposal Is To Reduce The Time Allocated For Per Speaker And Public Hearings From Five Minutes To Three And You'Re Opposed To That, Is That Correct? Yeah. You Know And I Originally Wanted To Stay At Three And A Number Of Years Back And We Went To Five And I Just I Don'T Like The Idea Of Reducing That But I Think We Had A Consensus Up Here To Move Forward With Moving It Back From 5 To 3. Councilmember What I Would Suggest Here Why Don'T You Offer An Amendment See Where It Stands In Terms Of The Vote And Then We Can Decide We Can I'D Be Willing To Do That. So Mario Moved To Pull That Section Out Of The Of The Motion. I Would Recommend Councilmember If You Could Just Do An Amendment To The Entire Two To The Policies Just In General Both The Motion For Yeah So I Think We'Ve Got To Get It Out There So Let Me I'Ll Go Ahead And Put It Out There When We Put The Motion Out There And Then I'Ll Amend That Here. So I Moved To Adopt A Resolution Amending 2025 Meeting Schedule Of The City Council Rules Of Procedure And Listening Session Guidelines Second Motion By Council Member Lowman Second By Councilmember Carter Okay Now For Action By Council Member Nelson So I Appreciate The I Think That You Appreciate There'S A Great Catch Now Councilmember Lowman We Have A Motion I'Ll Move To To Amend The Main Motion 310 Of To Reduce The Time From Five Minutes Back To Me From Reduce It Or Increase It Pardon Me From Three Minutes Up To Five Minutes As It Has Been In The Past. So We Have A Motion To Change It From Three Back Up To Five Minutes For Speaker A Lot Of The Time During Public Hearings. We Have A Second. Mr. Mayor, I Just Wanted Clarification Since The Since The Original Document Says Five Minutes Wouldn'T We Just Be Striking The Change I Think Would It Be Easier Just From A Tracking Perspective To Say We'Re Striking That Change To That? >> Yes, I Believe That Would Be That That Would Be The Easier Way Of Saying That. Yes. Yes. Both Things Are True. Both Things Are True. I Think That'S Fair Enough. Whichever. I Mostly Just Wanted To Make Sure We Understood That What We'Re Doing Is Basically Saying We'Re Not Changing That Part Of The Of The Rules. I Think As Long As Everybody Understands The Intent What We'Re Talking About Here Sure, No Problem. I Thank You. However, We Want To Say Just For Clarification This Is Just On Top Of This Just On Top Of The Motion. So If You Know If You Vote Against This Or Just Go Back To The Wording Correct? Correct. So Councilmember Logan Has Made A Motion To Either Strike Through Or Amend. However, We Want To Talk About This. Do We Have A Second For That Ticket? We Have A Second Both Councilmember Rivas Council Discussion On This Councilmember Dallessandro Yes, Mr. Mayor. >> I'M Ambivalent On This. I Mean If It If It Is It I Guess The Question I Would Ask Is It Important That This Gets A Unanimous Vote Tonight Or Does It Matter If Mr. Lemon Doesn'T Vote For It? I Guess Because I Don'T Really Have An Opinion And I Would Just Like To Get It Done. So If If What Would Be Easier I Guess Is Is It More Likely That We'Re Going To Get This Done In Five Seconds If I Say Yes, I'M For This Five Minutes. Okay. I Think I Think This Is Probably A Quick Procedural Vote And Then I'M Guessing The The Document As Presented Will Pass Pretty Easily. It'S Just A Matter Of Whether Or Not We Want To Go 3 Minutes Or 5 Minutes. >> Okay. I Am Truly Ambivalent. I'Ll Do Whatever You Guys Want. I Will Take Honestly We Have A Motion. >> I Don'T Believe We Have A Second Yet. Anyone? Oh, We Did. I'M Sorry. I Apologize. Councilmember Rivas. I'M Just Councilmember Lemon. So Just Quick. I Just Want To Be On The Record That I'M You Know, I'M For Keeping That Five. So If We Get To Move This Quickly, That'S All So We Can Just Get Right To Them In Motion. Very Good. Vote Your Conscience And Then We'Ll Get Back To We Have A Motion In A Second To Increase Or To Strike Out To To Go From Our Proposed Three To Stay At Five No Further Council Discussion On This. All Those In Favor Please Signify By Saying I Opposed Name Nay Abstain You Got To Vote No. All Right We'Ve Got Then 3 To 2 And With One Abstention So We Moved Back Up To Five Then Is Okay Very Good Now Councilmember Moments And Aren'T So I'M A Councilmember Nelson Excuse Me I Think Just A Quick Comment On The Main Motion Here. I Got This Information From Staff Earlier But This Does Not Preclude What We'Ve Talked About And I Think There Was Agreement On Of Having Public Comment With Regards To Our Budget Process As We Move Forward That That Will Come Later As Part Of Those Discussions And Will Be Worked Into The Agenda. This Is Not Precluding That Even Though It Doesn'T Specifically Mention That We'Re Doing That That That I Just Want To Make Sure That That'S That That'S What We Understand. Councilmember Nelson I Did Not Read That In Any Way To Preclude That Possibility For Additional Comment Or Public Involvement In Our Budget Discussions. But I Think That'S All All Right. So We'Ve Got The Motion On The Table For The The Main Right In The 3.10 The Update To Council Meeting Procedures. Any Further Council Discussion On This? No. All Right. All Those In Favor Please Siify By Saying I Opposed Motion Carries Six Zero. Thank You. Councilmember Rivas. Councilmember Lowman, Thanks For Bringing That Forward. We Will Move On To Item Four Are Hearings, Resolutions And Ordinances And This Is A Resolution And Item 4.1 Is A Resolution Allocating Our Local Affordable Housing Aid. Mr. Niemeyer, Welcome. How Are You This Evening? Thanks For Thank You. I Mean For Tonight Mayor Councilmember Us Thank You. Yeah So Tonight Is An Item To Consider A Proposed Usage For Local Local Affordable Housing Aid And I'Ll Just Jump Right In So We This Item Is Familiar We'Ve Done A Lot Of Discussion On La As It'S Called But Just To Ground Us Again And For A Quick Refresher Of What Law Is Local Affordable Housing Aid Is Funded By The Metro Area Sales Tax That The Minnesota Legislature Passed Back In 2023. So This Is A Sales Tax And A Quarter Percent The Sales Tax Adds A Quarter Percent That Goes Specifically To Affordable Housing Activities So That Money Is Collected And Then In The Following Year It'S Distributed To Metro Area Counties And Cities That'S Larger Specifically. So There'S A Lot Of Eligible Projects And Activities Under Larger But Broadly There'S Two Buckets There'S Rental Assistance Which Eligible Projects Are Those That Benefit Households Earning At Or Below 80% Of Their Area Median Income And There'S Home Ownership Projects Which Are Those For Households Earning At Or Below 115% Of The Area Median Income And Last Year 2024 Bloomington Did Receive A Little Over Half A Million Of Law And This Year And Going Forward We'Re Expected To Receive Approximately $1 Million Annually. So The Council, The Port Authority And The Hoa Met Back In December Of Last Year For A Facilitated Discussion On Usage Of Larger And We'Ve Pulled Out Some Of The Highlights From That Discussion Which Include That There'S A Lot Of There'S A Lot Of Opportunity For The Usage Of This Funds There Are A Lot Of Priorities And Of Course The Funds Are Limited And The Priorities Are Many And There'S No Easy Solution And There'S No Silver Bullet. So Staff Took Takeaways From That Discussion And Developed A Proposal And As Part Of That Discussion As Well There Was It Was Highlighted That The Roles Of Each Of The Bodies With This Fund Should Be Well Established And It Should Be Clear Who Administers The Fund . So That Takes Us To The Proposal That Was Included In Tonight'S Packet And That Is To Split The Annual Larger Funds 5050 Half Would Go Toward Affordable Homeownership Programs And Half Would Go Toward Affordable Housing Development And Preservation. So We'Ve Included Some Example Programs. Some Are Already Underway, Some Would Be Potential Programs To Fund By Using Larger So For Affordable Homeownership Programs I'Ll Highlight Our Existing Program Which Is The Bloomington Affordable Homeownership Program. So This Is The Hra Program That Was Funded With Minnesota Impact Funds To Develop 27 New Affordable Homeownership Opportunities In The City Of Bloomington And That'S Underway Currently. So This Fund The Larger Fund Could Potentially Go To Further Subsidize Those Units And Then We'Ve Also Highlighted The Heights And So That Was Approved By The Council Back Last Year. It Was A Special Allocation Of Larger To Support Direct Income Based Assistance. So Gap Financing For Households Within The Heights Condominium Association And Then We'Ve Also Called Out Downpayment Assistance Program As An Eligible Use For These Funds Knowing That The Bloomington'S Previous Dumping Assistance Program Has Been Extended. So That Program Is Not Currently Active. And Then On The Other Side Affordable Housing Development, Preservation The This Would Closely Align And Follow With The City'S Affordable Housing Trust Fund Rules And What Can Be Thought Of As A New Funding Source For That Program As We Have Expended The Original 15 Million That Started Off The Affordable Housing Trust Fund. So Those Original Funds Have Been Committed To Projects That Develop New Housing In The City. So There Are Some Projects Currently That May Seek To Utilize This Funding. One That We'Ve Listed Here Is Southview Estates So That'S A Preservation Projector Existing Affordable Housing And So Potentially Larger Could Be Used To Meet A Required Local Match And Then It Would Also The Lack Of Funds On The Side Would Also Be Eligible To Support New Housing Development. So That Is The Proposal For That 5050 Split And Then I'Ll Go Through Quickly The Spending And Reporting Process For Lack Funds As Included In The Proposal. So The Proposal Is That The City And The Hra Would Enter Into A Mutual Agreement Which Would Mirror The Process That The City In Nature And To Enter Into For Community Development Block Grant Funds So The Cdbg Program So Each Year The Hra And The Council Enter Into A Mutual Agreement. The Hra Then Administers As That Fund Allocates The Usage Of That Fund And At Year'S End A Report Is Brought To The Council And So The Proposal Tonight Is That Law Would Follow That Same Process Closely And The Hra Would Include The Larger Funds In Their Annual Budget And Then At The End Of The Year In Addition To Annual Reporting That Is Required To Minnesota Housing, A Report Would Also Be Brought To The Port Authority, The Hra And The City Council And So That Is The Proposal Next Steps For This Proposal If Tonight'S If Tonight'S Item Is Approved Would Be Entering Into That Mutual Agreement That Was Mentioned And Then It Would Be To Administer The Remaining Funds From Last Year So There'S Still Around 250 A Little Over 20 50,000 Remaining From Last Year'S Law And We We Will Receive Our First Half Distribution Of 2025 Larger In July Of This Year And Then The Second Half Would Come In December And Then The First Annual Report For The City'S Lot Funds Would Be Due In December Of This Year. So That Would First Be Sent To Minnesota Housing And Then It Would Come In Early 2026 To All The Bodies That Were Mentioned. So With That I'Ll Stand For Any Questions And Discussion. Thank You Mr. Niemeyer. Council Questions On This. I Think The Question I Had I Appreciate Your Recap Of Our Meeting Last December With The Notion Of Enormous Need And Limited Resources We Could Literally Spend Ten Times This Amount And Probably Not Even Dent Some Of The Issues That We Have. My Question Is So As We Talk About This Funding And Spending Plan, What How What We'Re Going To Do With This Money Is This Is This Carved In Stone? And I Ask That Question Because If Things Should Change At The Federal Level, If Something Should Change As We Move Forward In The Coming Months If Need Be, Would We Be Able To Perhaps Reallocate Or Re-Use Some Of These Funds In Different Ways If There Was An Outstanding Need That We Had To Meet In Some Way? Thank You Mayor And Council Members. So The Hra In That Annual Budget Would Have The Opportunity To Allocate Those Funds Within That 5050 Split To Specific Projects And Then As Well As Projects That Come Throughout The Year They Could Deploy Funds For Those Projects As They Come. But And Then For The Fund As A Whole And The Agreement As A Whole There Would Be An Annual Renewal Of The Mutual Agreement Between The And The Council. So That Would Be An Opportunity To Assess Through That Reporting Process If The Funds Are Being Used In A Way That Aligns With The Council'S Priorities And So There Could Be A Change To The Agreement At Those Dates. I'Ll Also Mention That The Mutual Agreement Includes A Clause That Allows For A Termination Of Convenience So If There Was A Need For Example In Your Example That A Change Of The Federal Government Resulted In Changes To Local Priorities For The Usage Of This Fund, The Hra And The Council Could Agree To Terminate The Existing Agreement And Renegotiate And Change Those Allocations But Do Not Thank You Council Additional Questions Council Member Dallessandro Thank You Mr. Mayor. >> Good Evening. You Mentioned That The Hra Is Due To Receive Additional Funds Of $1 Million. How Many Years Going Forward Is That Anticipated And Is That Also Under Potential? I Don'T Want To Use The Word Threat But Just Given The State Environment, What Are You Thinking About The Likelihood Of That Year Over Year? Thanks. Mayor Councilmembers Councilmember Bill Sandro The 1 Million That I Referenced Is The Estimated Amount For The Larger Fund So That Would Come This Year In Two Half Payments And It Is Expected To Occur Every Year Going Forward And A Change To That Allocation Would Have To Occur At The State Level And It Would Be A Change To The Language That Enabled That That Sales Tax. So Is That The Fund That Is That The Funding That Yeah Great. So That Would Be A Change That Would Occur At The State Level. I Haven'T Heard Of Any Changes Proposed To That Sales Tax In The Current Legislative Session So That'S What I Can Say On That. Yes. Counsel Any Additional Questions? I Had One Of Those Oh, I'M Sorry. >> Councilmember Dallessandro. Yes. Thank You, Mr. Mayor. So I'M Curious About The So I Just Want To Be Clear What I Feel Like We'Re Being Asked To Do Right Now Is To Is To Say At A Very High Level You Can Use These Funds For These Two Types Of Activities But It Doesn'T Feel Like There'S Any Explicit Activity Being Proposed. I Guess My First Question Would Be Why Not Why Don'T We Already Know What We Might Be Able To Do Explicitly Would Be One Question And Number Two When Will We Know Explicitly And Does That Also Have To Come Back To Council Because My Understanding Is That Might Just Get Approved By The Hra Without Council Requirement, Correct? Mayor Cosmo Was Correct That As This Proposal Is Worded The The Specific Projects That Receive Funding That Would Be Decided Through The Hra Or If The Funding Is Following The Framework Of The Affordable Housing Trust Fund For Example, It Would Occur Through That Framework And So That Could Be Initiated Through The Application Process To That Fund And Seek Approval At The Entry Level. The Other Component Of Your Question I Wanted To Highlight One Thing That Staff Heard At The Facilitated Discussion Is This Desire To Ensure That The Funding Is Nimble And Can Be Responsive To Projects As They Come To The City And As Priorities Shift. So The The Benefit In Not Designating Specific Projects Within This Approval Is That It Maintains Some Of That Flexibility So That If Projects Come We Still Have Uncommitted Funding That Can Be Committed To Those Projects . Okay, I Understand That I Will Save The Rest Of Mine For Comments. Thank You. Appreciate Additional Questions. Council If You Have Comments Councilmember Dallessandro This Might Be The Time Now So Okay. >> I Wanted To Be Sure That We Didn'T Have More Business Before We Got To The Committee. >> No That'S Fine. This Is This Is Not A Public Hearing And This Is Not A Is Just A Resolution. So Yes. Okay. So Here'S Where Here'S Where I'M Struggling At The Moment. I I'M A Huge Fan Of The Fact That We Got These Funds. I Appreciate All The Work That We'Re Doing. There'S Two Things. One Is That I Feel Like We'Re Being Reactive As Opposed To Proactive With These Dollars First What I Mean By That Is We'Re Going To We Want To Be Nimble Enough That And I Don'T Mean To Put Words In Your Mouth But We Want To Be Nimble Enough To To Be Able To Pick Up Things When They Come. But I'Ve Been And I'Ve Been A Little Bit Unhappy With Some Of The Things That Have Come Our Way. For Example, When We Had The The Proposal On Park Avenue There Were A Lot Of Restrictions Associated With That Property On Park Avenue, Right? It Needed To Be A Single Home. You Needed To Build An 80 You And Then It Had To Be A Multi-Generation Household And Everything And That Was Also That Was All Brought Upon Us Because Of The Means By Which The People Were Coming Together To Put The Funds Together. Right. But It Wasn'T In Our Best Interest Necessarily And Here We Sit Without That That House Being Built At All Still A Year Later And That Does Makes Me Uncomfortable In The Sense That What I'D Like To See Us Is A Bold Move To Say We'Re Actually Going To Build X Number Of Homes. We Have The Lots To Do It And We Have The Funds To Get It Done And We'Re Going To Do It . And To Me That Puts Us In The Ownership Bucket Of Saying We'Ve Got A Plan For The Dollars. We Have A Means By Which To Make People'S Homeowners Or Home Rental Dreams At Affordable Levels. True. And We Have A Timeline That'S Within Our Control To Do It. We'Re In We'Re Going To Get Some Some Something Good For The City Done That'S Generally Speaking More Comfortable For Me Than This. And So I Don'T Know How To Reconcile That Although I Trust Our Hra And I Know That They'Re Going To Act In The Best Interests Of People So It'S Not That It'S Just It'S A Question Of Like How Do We Reconcile What I'M Being Asked To Do Tonight With What I'D Like To See Happen When I'M Not In When In No Way, Shape Or Form Is The Council Involved In What'S Actually Going To Happen. So That Would Be I Don'T Know If A Discussion For Us There'S Not Really A Question For You There Because I'Ve You Think You'Ve Done A Great Job Laying It Out And Everything But That'S What I'M Struggling With At The Moment. Thank You. Council Member Councilmember Nelson Thank You, Ma'Am. Just Want To Follow Up On Councilmember Della Sandra'S Comments. I Actually Agree With You In Terms Of The Specificity Here And Being Proactive. My Concern In Terms Of How You Framed It Up Though Is For $1 Million Will Build Three Houses At Best, You Know And So I Think The Other Way That We'Re Looking At It Leverage Is A Developer Getting Other Types Of Funding For A Project So That Our Dollars Go Further And Build More Homes Apartments That People Can Live In And Afford. So That That Would Be My Only Concern About If We Say We Have A Lot And We Want To Build A Home That Really Limits The Number Of Opportunities For Us. That'S Just My Thoughts And Thank You Council Member Councilmember Lowman Thank You, Mayor. I Appreciate My Colleague'S Comments And Those Of Customer Dallessandro Absolutely Right There With You And Terms Of Where What You'Re Thinking In Terms Of The Vision I Think That'S An Opportunity For Us To Kind Of Pull This Forward Into The Future. You Know, Mayor, You Had Mentioned The You Know, This Breakdown If We Can Change That Too. And That'S You Know, I Wasn'T There And I Just Think That'S I Think It'S So Important That We'Re We'Re Focusing On This We'Re Using This This You Know, This Trickle Of Money That'S Coming In And And I'M Glad That We'Re Seeing Some Money Going Into That Housing Trust Fund And I Know We'Re Looking For Additional Ways In Which To Kind Of Do That And I'M Hoping That We Can Leverage These Funds To Do Additional Things And I, I Do Trust That The Hra Is Really The Right Place To Kind Of Make These Decisions. And I Guess If I Had To Look At This By Myself I'M Like Well Maybe You Just Tick Off The 50% You Know, And Let The What The Hra Figure Out What You Know Is The Biggest Bang For The Buck At That Period Of Time And Let Those Those Folks Who Are Kind Of The Experts There At The Hra Kind Of Kind Of Move That Forward And Make A Decision Is How I Look At This. But You Know What? You'Ve Got To Start Somewhere. This Is A Good Place To Start So Thank You For The Hard Work . Councilmember Carter Thank You, Mayor. So As One Of The Council Member Representatives On The I Would Say This Conversation Was Had Because The Jury Had An Opportunity In Front Of Us To Provide Some Funding Using Had But There Was This Kind Of Looming Question Of You Know, We Haven'T Really Had A Discussion On How We Want To Disburse These Funds And Who Has Who Is Kind Of The Authority, Right? Is It The Council? Is It The Hra? And So I Want To Thank Staff Because I Think You'Ve Done Exactly What We Asked You To Do In Terms Of Helping Us Find That Clarity. I Agree With The Assessment And I'M Glad That It Sounds Like Most Of The Council Does To That The Decision Making It Makes The Most Sense To Be At The Hrc Because They Are Closest To The Work Happening And Then Of Course You All Are Even Closer To The Work And I Know And Correct Me If I'M Wrong But It Sounds Like To Me That City Staff Are Very Frequently Approached With Opportunities And Some Of Them Might Be Longer Term. Some Of Them Are Short Term Which Speaks To Kind Of The Reasons We Need To Be Nimble And Sometimes It Is Like We Just Need To Leverage Some Resources To Get A Project Done To Get It All The Way There. I, I Totally Agree With Councilmember Nelson. I Don'T Think That We Can Use These Funds To Like Build A Bunch Of Houses But Ourselves But To Leverage Getting The Funding Into To Get Those Houses Built So I'M In Full Support. I Really Appreciate The Work Done. I Think That The Conversation We Had As A Report In Council Was Really Helpful And It Sounded Like We Were We Had Some Consensus There So I Guess I Will Leave It At That. >> Thank You. Councilmember Rivas, Just A Quick Comment. I Just Won'T Say Much. I Just Want To Get To The Point I Just Don'T Like The Idea Of Just Giving The Ability To The Hra To Just Manage The Funds. I Think It Should Come To Council And Deciding Once They Have Something Concrete To Put Out There. Where To Council And Council Decide How The Funds Are Spent I Think Is In A Way Releasing That The Ability From The Council To Control The Fines It Makes It A Little More Difficult To Explain To The To The Residents In The City. So I Got Thank You Thank Council Member I Mean My $0.02 And In Response To Some Of The Comments That Have Been Made First Of All I'Ll Go Back To The Original Point Or One Of The Main Points This $1 Million Does Not Go Very Far In Terms Of The Housing Needs That We Have And What We Have Just Across This Across The Region But Certainly In Our City $1 Million Does Not Go Very Far Which Is An Odd Thing To Say But That'S Exactly The Truth. I Will Say Also That Conversation That We Had Back In December I Think What We'Re Looking At Here, The Not What We'Re Looking At The Usage Proposal Earlier The 5050 Split Was Exactly What We Had Talked About. It Was The Conversation And In My Mind It Was Kind Of A Compromise Somewhere In Between Solid Specific Ideas About What To Do With It And The Ability To Be Nimble. I Mean This Notion Of Using The Affordable Homeownership Programs We Have Downpayment Assistance Already. We Have A Program In Place. We Have A Program Bloomington Affordable Homeownership Program. We'Ve Got Those In Place Already. So This Is That'S Something Specific For That Half Million Dollars That Will Go Into That Bucket And Perhaps The Nimbleness Comes With The Affordable Housing Development And Preservation We Saw That With The Heights We'Re Hearing That Seeing That Now With The South View Estates Possibility Just An Opportunity To Be A Bit More Nimble With What We'Re Doing With This And To Respond Accordingly. And Again I'Ll Say Again Unfortunately Not In A Huge Way Because It'S $500,000. I Mean We Can Use It To Perhaps Leverage Additional Amounts. Perhaps We Could Save It Over A Course You Know, A Number Of Years And Use It On A Larger Project. But It'S It Gives Us A Combination I Think Of Specific Programing That We Can Work Toward And Affordable Homeownership Has Been A Priority Of This Council For Some Time And Then That Nimbleness To Address Things That Could Come Our Way. So I'M I Appreciate The Work That Has Gone Into This. I Think This Is A Good Proposal And It Does Give Us Flexibility As We Talked About The The Opt Out Just In Case Something You Know, A Lightning Strike Kind Of Thing Could Where We Could Use This Money Elsewhere If We Absolutely Needed To. So I Think This Is A This Is A Good Proposal Moving Forward. >> Councilmember Dallessandro And Then Councilmember Nelson Quick Question For You, Mr. Mayor. Based On What You Just Described, I Am Curious Why The Why The Heights Assistance Fund That We Did Was Not Put Into The Affordable Housing Veltman In And Preservation Portion Of The Funds Here It Sounds Like That Based On The Way That You Described It That You Would Look At That As An Example. So I Was Curious As To Why It Ended Up On The Left Column As Opposed To The Right. That'S Just One Question I Have The Other Comment I'Ll Make Related To What You Said However Is That I Am 100% Okay With With These Funds Being Directed By The Way, I Don'T Think That They Were They Were Sent To The City But They Weren'T Sent To To To The City'S General Fund Or Anything Like That. They'Re Very, Very Specifically Used For Housing. Right. It Can'T Be Used For Anything Else Anyway. So I Feel Like We Have The Right People In Charge Of That . The Only Comment Only Comment I Would Make Is I'M Very Keenly Aware Of Issues Related To Eviction And One Of The Things I Don'T See Here Which I Don'T Know Whether Or Not We Get Into Or We Don'T Get Into So Maybe This Is It. It Is. It Is Way Less Expensive To Help Somebody Stay In Their Home Than To Deal With Them Once They'Ve Been Evicted. And I'M Not Sure That We Have The Eviction Problems We Have Any Had Any More Related To The Pandemic And Everything Else But Some Portion Of This Being Allocated Or Potentially Allocated To Some Kind Of Emergency Rental Assistance Or Emergency Mortgage Assistance To Help People Stay In The Homes That They Already Have Would Be Another Area Of Opportunity I Think For Us . So That'S Just A General Comment On The Funding Sources. I'M Not I Am Not Opposed To Anything You Have Here But I Did Have Some Open Questions There And I Don'T Know If You Can Answer The Question For Me Specifically About Why The Heights Thing Isn'T Over In Your Affordable Preservation Section Of The Program. Mayor Councilmembers Councilmember Dale Sandra That Project Is A Little Bit Unique Because It'S A It Benefits A Mixed Tenure So Five Of The Households That Will Benefit From That Fund Are Owner Occupied And One Is Being Rented. So We Staff Felt That The Most Accurate Characterization Of That Assistance Was That It Was For Homeownership Since The Majority Of Those House Beneficiaries Are Owner Occupants. But I Think You Could Make A Case That It Is Could Be Characterized As Preservation Of Existing Affordable Housing And Actually Councilmember That I Was Going To Say Just About The Exact Same Thing And Your Example About Eviction Assistance Is That That Is Exactly What I Was Thinking When I Talked About Being Nimble With This In Case Of Something Happening At The Federal Level Where We See A Rise In Evictions That We Could Then Address That If We Needed To. So That'S Exactly What I Was Thinking When When I Made That Earlier Comment. Councilmember Nelson Yeah. Thank You. Just One Quick Thing Following Up On Councilmember Rivas, Those Comments In Terms Of Control, I Assume That The Hra Programs Like The Down Payment Assistance, The Bloomington Affordable Housing Program Would All Be As They Are Today Administered By Hra . But If Anything Came Through That Was A Development Project There Would Probably Be A Bundling Of Various Tools And Approvals And Things Of That Nature That Would Come Before The City Council And I Would Assume That Those Would Include Approval Of This Money Just Like We Did. That'S What We Did With The Heights. You Know We Looked At A Bunch Of Different Tools And Said One Of Those Is This Affordable Trust Fund Or How Are We Did That? So Am I Correct In Understanding That Those Types Of Development Project Would Still Come Before The Council For Approval And That Would Include The Financial Terms Of Any Development? Matt Merritt Council Members Councilmember Nelson The Just To Be Clear The Hra Request Did Come To The City Council As The To Follow The Hra Procedure Which Is That It Is The Final Approval Of An Hra Request Does Need To Be Made By The Council As That Policy Is Currently Written In The Case Of The Foreclosing Trust Fund I Do Think It Also Follows That Same Framework That The Hra Considers That Those Requests For Funding And Then The Council Gives Final Approval. I'M Fairly Certain That'S How The Manual Is Currently Written So There Would Be Likely An Opportunity For The Council To Weigh In On Usage If It'S Following One Of Those Existing Policies That Bring It To This Body Council. Anything Else On This? Very Good. We Have A Resolution And Council I Would Look For Action That Item 4.1. Councilmember Carter I Move To Approve The Resolution I'M Sorry Resolution Approving The Use Of 2024 And 2025 Local Affordable Housing Eight And Authorizing Execution Of Related Documents. Second Motion By Councilmember Carter Second By Councilmember Lowman To Approve The The Use Of The 2024 And 25 Local Affordable Housing Aid And Authorizing Execution Of Related Documents For This Council Discussion On This. All Those In Favor Please Signify By Saying I Opposed Motion Carries Six Zero Thank You Mr. Niemeyer Council We'Ll Move On To Item Five Our Organizational Business For The Evening. First Up Is Item 5.1 A Discussion On Franchisees And I Think We'Ve Got A Number Of Folks We'Re Going To Be Talking About It Tonight. I See Julie Long Coming Forward. Is She Bob Simonds And The Stress And Or Economy Shoulder Job Just To Okay Sure I Was Mr. Mayor Counsel, We'Re Here To Update You On A Franchise Fee Discussion. I'Ll Be Hitting Some Of The Background So Franchise Fees Are Used In 100 Cities Across The State Of Minnesota. 61 Of Those In The Metro Counties Which Is A Third Of The Cities In The Metro And Then 24 Cities Out Of The 45 And Hennepin County Use Franchise Fees As A Funding Mechanism. The Goal For The Franchise Fees When It Was First Stablished In 2015 Was To Implement Changes In Funding For The Pavement Management Program To Provide A Consistent Funding Source For The Pmp Overlays Seal Codes And Both The Trail And Right Away Construction And Maintenance. So Some History Of The Franchise Fees In Bloomington In December Of 2015 City Council Approved The Implementation Of The Franchise Fees And That At That Time That 2015 Model Had The Next Increase Occur In 2021 And Then Every Two Years After That In April 2016 We Began Collecting The Funds From Both Center Point And Excel And We Continue To Do That Each Quarter In 2016 To The Present We'Ve Used The Franchise Fees To Fund The Pmp Overlay Seal Codes And Trails And In The Coming Slides We'Re Going To Show The Work That'S Been Completed In Through 2024 That Are Meeting The Objectives Of The Program In The Summer Of 2020 Staff Analyzed The Franchise Fee Funding To Determine Given The Economic Conditions Was A Delay Possible And Due To The Consistent Revenue Collection We Were Able To Model Our Delinquency Rates And Draw Down The Fund Balance To Finance That Delay One Year And Then In Both July Of 2021 And May Of 2020 Through Three Council Went Back To That Original Model With The Two Year Increase And Though We'Ve Also At That Time In 2023 Added Sidewalks And Ada Improvements As Part Of The Program So Utilization Of The Franchise Fee You Can See From This Slide Most Everything On The Pavement Management Program With The Exception Of The Reconstruct Uses A Component Of The Franchise Fees. Some Of The Components Like Sidewalks And The Overlay Have Additional Funding Sources But On Some Of The Items The Only Fund That Is Used Is The Franchise Fee Like Seal Codes . So This Shows The Seal Codes That We'Ve Done Since The Implementation In 2016 It'S 202 Miles Of Seal Codes Across The City Overlays We'Ve Done 75 Miles Since 2016 And Then As Far As Trails And Sidewalks We Have Had Nine Miles Of Right Away Trails Three Miles Of Park Trails And Because The Funding Was Authorized In 2023 For Sidewalks That Number Is Much Smaller. But Bob Will Give You An Example Of What We Are Proposing To Use That Fund For For Sidewal And Now I Will Turn It Over To Bob. All Right. Thank You, Julie. >> Good Evening Marion Council You Know I'Ll Give A Little Bit Information On Our Status And Condition Of Our Pump And Our Franchise Fees Dollars That Are Used For Our Existing Techniques And Then Also Some Information On Some Upcoming Projects Like Julie Mentioned To Start With For In Status Of Our Pump You Can See Here On The Screen For Our City Streets We Have About 340 Miles Of Streets As You All Know. We Have A Pavement Condition Index Value For Each One Of Our Street Segments. We'Re Doing Very Well Overall In The Program The 0 To 36 Range As Those Streets That Are In Need Of Reconstruction And Then We Go From There To The Marginal Range And Then The Good Range The 66 To 100. So We'Re Doing Very Well. Staff Actually Took A Closer Look At Our Overlay Program Here Later In 2024 Look Took A Close Look At Our Past Few Years Of The Dollars That Were Spent On The Overlay And The Project Costs Andlso We'Re Reducing Our Was In Our Plan Originally To Reduce Our Mileage For Overlay Down To Eight Miles From Nine Miles In 2026. But When Looking At The Overall Costs We Were Able To Adjust The Funding Needs For The Overlay To Free Up Some Some Dollars For Items Such As Retaining Walls Or A Sustainability Component That We'Ll Be Talking About Here A Little Bit Later As Well. In Regards To Sidewalk, We Have Just Under 250 Miles Of Concrete Sidewalk In The City Generally In Really Good Condition. We Have About 75 Miles Of What We Would Call Deficient With Sidewalk Meaning Sidewalk That'S Under Five Feet And With Our Standard Is Five Feet. So Typical Install It At 5 Or 6Ftith Our Sidewalk Maintenance Of Our Sidewalk. We Have Two Different Techniques That We Use. We Have An Annual Sidewalk Maintenance Program That Run Through Our Street Maintenance Group And That'S Funded Through Our City'S General Fund And Then Also As We Come Through With Our Pmp, Reconstruct Or Overlay Projects Will Replace The Damaged Sidewalk Where Be Installing Or Filling Sidewalk Gaps. Now That We Have The Ability To Do That, These Franchise Fee Dollars Will Fill In Sidewalk Gaps. As An Example, In 2024 We Replaced About 10,000Ft Of Sidewalk With Our Pump Projects. We Installed About 40 500Ft Of New Sidewalk Filling Sidewalk Gaps And Adding New Sidewalk In Different Locations And We Replaced Just Over 150 Pedestrian Ramps With That That Sidewalk Work As Well. In Regards To Trails We Have About Just Under 50 Miles Of Asphalt Trails In The City, 32 Of Which Are In Our City Right Of Way And The Other 15 Are Within Our Parks Once Again Our Our Pci Ranges Are Similar To That That We Have Of Streets In The 0 To 30 6 To 30 6 To 66 And 66 And Above When We Started The Program The Including Trails With The Franchise Fee Program In 2016 We Had About Nine Miles Of Streets That We Are Trails That We'D Consider To Be In The Red And That 0 To 36 Now We'Re At About Four And A Half But Pretty Much All Of That Four And A Half Is Along Norman Dale Boulevard And Also Old Chicopee Road Which Will Be Coming Up In The Near Future For For Replacement All We Like To Show This Graph You'Ve All Seen It Many Times Any Time We Bring Up A Pompey Item We Like To Show This Graph Just Showing That By Implementing Different Maintenance Techniques We Can Increase The Life Of Pavements. This Is No Different For Trails. When We Implemented Trails We Typically Will Do A Crack Sealer A Fog Seal Every Five Years To Extend The Life Of That Pavement So This Franchise Fees Dollars Help Us To Be Able To Do That To Extend The Life Of Our Pavements. I Mentioned Earlier About The Sidewalks Of Deficient With These This Here Shows You And It'S Kind Of Hard To See But The 75 Miles Of Walks That Are Of Deficient With Under Five Feet And With When We Come Through The Pompey Project If We'Re Replacing A Damaged Sidewalk We'Ll Bring It Up To Sufficient Width And As I Mentioned More Now We Are Routinely Filling Sidewalk Gaps And Adding Sections Of Sidewalk To Make Connections Where W Can And I'Ll Highlight One Of Those Here In A Second In Regards To Our Ada Compliance And Are Our Pedestrian Ramps They Go Hand In Hand With Our Sidewalk Replacement When We Did A Inventory Of Our Site Pedestrian Ramps Back In To The 2022 As Part Of Our Ada Transition Plan We Have Over 4700 Pedestrian Ramps In The City. About Half Of Those Were Shown To Be In Compliance But The Majority Of Those That Are Not Just Have Minor Defects As An Example, We Have Only About 500 Of Those 4700 Ramps That Don'T Have A Tactile Warning On Them Currently. So Just Minor Defects And As We Come Through With Our Projects We Typically Do About 150 To 200 Pedestrian Ramp Replacements Per Year. And As Julie Mentioned Earlier, One Of The Items Was Going To Highlight Here Is We'Ve Done This The Last Number Of Years Now But One Example For This Year Is Our 2025 Reconstruct You See Highlighted In Orange On 84Th Street I Reconstruct Project Is From Old Cedar Over To Portland We'Re Looking To Add A Trail Connection. What You See There Is Right State Park Just South Of 84Th Street Looking To Add A Trail Connection. Those Two Lines You See In Red Are Making A Trail Connection From Old Cedar Over To Rights Lake Park. Just One Of The Items That We'Ve Been Including Where We Where We Come Through The Summer Before A Pump Project We Do A Full Scoping Meeting With A Bunch Of Different Departments, Come Up With Different Ideas And Areas Where We Can Make Connections And We'Ve Been Finding A Number Of These Over The Past Couple Of Years And Then For Us For Our Future Trail And Sidewalk Work I Just Have A Few Circled Here In Blue And Then Coming Up In The Next Couple Of Years This Shows Combination Of Pmp Cap Multiagency Projects, Our Park Master Plan, Things Of That Sort In The Near Term For Sidewalks And Trails Within Our Right Of Way. The Big Stretch Of Normandy Boulevard As Part Of Our Normandy Trail And Sidewalk Project Which Was Just Ordered Here Later In 2024 We'Re Looking To Start Construction If Not Late This Year In 2026. Also Nicollet Avenue Shown On Their Working With Hennepin County On Their Nicollet Avenue Reconstruction Project That Will Be Coming Up Here In 2027 Which Will Have A Large Sidewalk And Trail Component To That And Then Also Near Term For Our Parks We Have More In Central Park Shown On Here As Well As Bryant Park And Bryant. We Did Some Trail Work Last Year And Will Be Completing That Trail And Sidewalk Work Last Year Will Be Completing That This Year And Then Getting Into Our New Categories I Will I'Ll Give Some Information On The Retaining Walls And Then I'Ll Let Emma Review The Sustainability Component For Retaining Walls. I Apologize It'S Kind Of Hard To See This But This Basically Shows Our Inventory Of All Of Our All Of Our Retaining Walls In The City Of Bloomington In The Past A Retaining Wall Work Has Been Funding Funded Using Our General Funds So It'Ll Cover Repairs Done By Our Maintenance Division Over The Course Of Each Year Or If We'Ve Had Larger Retaining Walls That Come Up We'Ll Typically Carryover Dollars From Year To Year So That We Can Fund Larger Retaining Walls. We'Re Starting To See More And More That Are Going To Be In Need Of Replacement We Replaced In 2023 A Wall Just West Of 90Th Excuse Me Just West Of Penn Avenue On 90Th Street. The Wall Right Next To That Will Be Replacing Here In 2025 And Then One Of A Little Bit Further To The West In 2026 Along Norman Boulevard We Have A Number Of Walls And Then Also On West Bush Lake Road That'S The Next 2 To 3 Years Of What We'Re Looking At For Wall Replacement. So This If We Included Additional Funding Through The Franchise Fees For Retaining Walls, It Would Supplement The Dollars That We'Re Already Using To The General Fund For Retaining Walls. And Then I'Ll Turn It Over To Emma. Thank You. So For The Next Category That'S Going To Be Recommended, It'S Looking Initially At Solving A Very Specific Problem That We'Ve Been Gathering Data For The Past Five Years On. We Know With Our Housing Stock Over Half Of The Homes Are Under Insulated If We Look At 1 To 4 Unit Homes And That'S Something That We'Ve Learned From Investing In Discounting Home Energy Squad Visits And Also Our Time Of Sale Program. So We Have Pretty Specific Data Around That Insulation Benefits It'S It'S Not Always The Most Exciting Thing That People Are Thinking Of But It Ties In So Directly With Our Betty Objectives Of Having A Healthier Community And A Healthier Environment. First Of All We Know From Studies That We Did With See For A Time Of Sale Program That We Have Over 12,000 Metric Tons Of Co2 Equivalent That Can Be Saved By Insulating One, Two Four Unit Homes In The Community And Recognizing The City Has A Goal Of Carbon Neutrality Which We Have 25 Years To To Meet. This Is One Way To Reach That A Big Component Is Housing Affordability. So Every Month We'Re Paying Our Energy Bills And As You'Ve May Have Tracked Energy Bills Are Getting Higher. Both Of Our Utilities Centerpoint And Xcel Have Proposed Increases With The Puc Right Now Centerpoint Back In January Of 2020 For Increased By I Believe 5.3% And Then Xcel This Year January 1St Increased An Interim Rate By 5.2%. Xcel Is Asking For A 13% Increase Over The Next Two Years And Centerpoint Is Also Asking For A Larger Rate Increase Than The Interim Rate. So We Know Bills Are Getting Higher. So This Is Something With Franchise Fees. This Is A Fee. Annabel So You Might Ask Why Increase That When We'Re Seeing Bills Increase Insulation, Air Sealing And Insulation Is The Number One Thing We Can Do To Lower Bills In A Home. It'S Over Half Of Our Energy Use In That Home And As We See That Bills Are Increasing Each Month If People Are Paying Less By Making This Investment They'Re Saving Money Each Month, You Know, 20 Years Into The Future Or Longer. So That'S Something That We'Re Really Focused On. One Thing I Like To Think About Is If You Have A Car And You'Re Going To Fill It Up With Gas And You'Re At The Gas Station And You Knew That Your Tank Had A Hole In It, Would You Put Gas In It Knowing That You Know It'S Going To Leak? It'S Probably A Pollution Problem. It'S Probably Not Too Healthy. And Then Also You'Re Watching Your Spending Going Up And You'Re Not Using That Sheila, At All. That'S Essentially What Over Half The Homes In Bloomington Are Doing Right Now Paying For Fuel They Don'T Need And That'S Costly. Also Insulation Helps With Health Benefits So We Know With Increased Freeze Thaw Cycles Ice Dams Are Expected To Go Up. Ice Dams Can Add More To Homes, Insulation Lower Indoor Air Quality. So There'S Health Problems That Come With That Where Weatherization Can Benefit. Sohere'S Really A Multitude Of Different Reasons Why Insulation And Although It Seems Pretty Basic Really Can Benefit The Community It Also Has A Fairly Quick Payback Period Right Here We'Re Looking At 1 To 4 Unit Homes That Need Attic Insulation. The Lighter Green Circle The Yellow Is What We See Each Year With Our Annual Data From Our Utilities Of Who'S Completing Attic Insulation Projects With The Rebates At This Pace It Will Take Us Over 100 Years To Insulate All The Homes That Are Needed In The City. We'Re Looking At An Example Of A Random Community Member Who Received An Energy Score And You Can See Highlighted For Attic Insulation That The Typical Cost Is About 2500 To $6000. There Are Great Rebates And Really Appreciative Of The Utilities For Having Those Rebates To Lower That Cost. Currently There Is A Tax Credit. We Will See Where That Goes But You Can See The Yearly Bill Savings. You Can Save Up To $300 And Again As The Fees Increase For Our Fuel That Yearly Savings Will Just Increase. So We Recognize That If We Have 11,000 Homes Over 25 Years We'Re Looking To Insulate About 440 Homes A Year For The Upfront Costs, Not Looking At The Tax Credit Or Rebates. We'Re Looking At $2.6 Million A Year In A Loan Or Some Sort Of Funding To Enable More Residents To Be Able To Complete This Project For Wall Insulation Which Has Even A Higher Potential Of Savings. We Are At A Pace For Completing Our Housing Stock In Over 300 Years So Again If We'Re Serious About Completing That In 25 Years Recognize Bills Are Going Up, The Pace Of That Would Need To Increase And That Would Be About $1 Million Upfront A Year In Funding. The Good News Though Is When You Look At The Rebates Tax Credits If We Were Able To Set Up A Loan System For A Residence, The Payback Is Typically Under Ten Years 6 To 10 Years. So That'S Something That After That Point Whoever Moves Into The House Maybe Residents Still Live There. They Are Saving Money Continuously Having This Investment And Also Having A Healthier Indoor Environment. So With The New Funding Source Really The Primary Primarily The Main Focus First Is To Lower The Cost Of Energy Bills For Residents Really Looking At Insulation. The Specific Problem That We Have A Lot Of Data We'Re Able To Track Each Year Through The Utilities Of Progress. We Have Metrics To Measure Community Impact Both On The Carbon Side And The Dollar Savings Side Protecting Community Health And Safety Against Poor Air Quality, Drought, Flooding, Extreme Heat All Those Things That Are Coming. Also Grid Reliability The Last Pressure We Have On The Grid Because Homes Are More Efficient It'S Even If The Investment Isn'T Happening In Your House Your Neighbors Are Benefiting Too. When We Have A Really Hot Day And A Lot Of People Are Using Ac So Reducing Pollution But Also Recognizing We Have Plans Coming Up Like The Climate Action Plan, The Urban Forestry Master Plan That Are Using A Lot Of Community Engagement And The Purpose Of Those Plans Is Really Hear From The Community What They Want. So Wanting To Recognize And Have Flexibility Into This Funding Source To Address Other Areas That Might Come Up In Those Plans. So Example Uses To Finish Off The Section Looking At Loans Or Bonus Rebates To Increase The Adoption Of Energy Efficiency. This Is Something That We'Ve Seen Examples In Other Communities Around Us Doing And Using Franchise Fees For But Also Things That We See In Other Communities Plans Installing Solar Or Geothermal Investing In Our Urban Tree Canopy, Looking At Active Transportation, Hiring Technical Experts. Some Cities Use These Funds To Actually Hire And Pay For Their Staff That Work In These Areas. So Primarily The Focus To Start Is Tackle The Insulation Problem But Also Have Flexibility As The Community Voices What They Want To See To Be Able To Use Funds To Invest In Those Plans That Currently Don'T Have A Funding Source To Bring This Group Back To The Costs For The Franchise Fees. When We Brought This Before Council And We'Ve Brought The Increases In Adoption Of Franchise Fees In Odd Years So This Is An Out Here And We'Ll Be Bringing It Back In Two Years Depending On Council'S Movement Of Where We'Re Going To Go With This Back In 2023 We Modeled What We Increase For 2020 For The $5.95 Was An Increase And Then For 2026 We Had Modeled A $0.75 Per Utility Increase To 670 That 670 Covered All Of The Existing Projects For Seal Code Overlay And The Trails And Sidewalks And The 88 Compliance Pieces And What We'Re Looking At Here And I'Ll Start At The Bottom Square Box There When We Look At The Changes That Bob In Public Works Did For The Existing I'Ll Call It Five Categories We Have A 23 Cent Increase So That Would Give Us Retaining Walls. It Would Add All The Improvements That We Need For Existing Pavement Management Trails And Pieces. So That'S $0.23 For That One. And Then In Emma'S Site She Identified Between Attics And Walls Just Over $3.5 Million Of Need There. We Modeled A Half A Million To Start With And Then A Million To See If The Where The Council'S Appetite With That Would Be Adding 3 Million On Right Away Was Just Too Much. So We Modeled The Half Million In The Million. So When You Look At That We Are Looking At In Total With A Half Million With Changes With No Sustainability It'S Now A 58% Increase So We Would Go Up To 653 Again We Would Be Less Than The 670 That We Had Forecasted In. If We Go To The Million Dollars It Is At 93 Cent Increase So We'Re Just Over $0.18 More Than What We Were 1320 $0.03. Now I Got To Make Certain Now $0.18 More Than What We Had Anticipated From 670 To 688. So That'S Up The Million Dollars And Then What We'Re Hoping To Recommend To Council Is The Million Dollars For Emma Because And Sustainability And Attics And While Improvements To Get This Just Kicked Off And Started Because There Is Such A Need For That And So That Would Be A 93 Cent Per Utility Increase To $6.88 For A Total Of All The Changes. So The Monthly You Know Six, Eight, Eight Times Two The 1376 So And Then The Model Right Now For 2028 We Were Able To Actually Reduce That A Little Bit For Some Of The Other Payment Management Programs Again And Then Continue To Stay At $1 Million For Sustainability. So In 2028 It Would Be A 45 Cent Increase Per Utility. So Right Now We Have The Conversation With Council On Where They Think We Should Go With Our Franchise Fees And Then Depending On That Put For Tonight We Would Bring Up Like I Mentioned Page Lime We'D Have A Public Open House, We'D Have Community Engagement. We'D Have Advertised For A Public Hearing For Me Council Public Hearing Would Be In Later May And Then We Give The Puc And The Utilities Time To Get This Implemented For January 1St Start Date And That Concludes Our Conversation On The Slides. We'Re All Willing To Take Your Questions. Thank You. Thank You All Very Much. Appreciate The Presentation. Council Questions On This Council Question Specifically Of It And Then We'Re Going To Discussion Here Shortly. I'Ll Remember Nelson Thanks, Mayor. The Sustainability, The Whatever The Dollar Amount Is That Goes Into That, Would That Be A Loan Or Is That Just A Grant For People I Mean Essentially Would They Have To Pay It Back Over Time Mr. Mayor Or Council Member Is Council Member Nelson What Is Currently Being Proposed Is Alone Hearing Feedback That We Want To Reinvest In The Community Having A Rebate Or A Bonus Rebate Put Up There Recognizing That We Haven'T Done Any Community Engagement On This And Other Cities Do Have Models That They Use For That That Is An Option But My Initial Recommendation From What We'Ve Heard From The Community Is To Set Up A Loan So That We Would Be Able To Keep Reinvesting As Weo On Other Council Councilmember Lowman, Thank You So Oh I Just Wanted To Hear Again With The Retaining Wall Portion Of It Why Why Go From You Know To This From The General Fund What Advantage Do I Have By Doing This? >> Mayor And Council Member Lowman But We'Re Continuing To Budget In The General Fund In Public Works For Retaining Walls. This Is Just An Additional Resource So That We'Re Not Always Counting On Carryovers To Fund Major Projects And That Major Project It'S Just One It'S Not Going To Go To The Whole Program So This Is Going To Go The Whole Program So That We Can Actually Address All The Retaining Walls In The City In A Really Systematic Way. That'S Helpful Because I Thought It Was All Just Getting Moved To That On My Next Question Was Going To Be How Does That Work? What'S Going To Just Be An Additional Resource? Okay. And Then There Just A Couple Other Questions Here. If We Did Know You Know, If We Didn'T Add These Programs At All, Would There Still Be An Increase? I Mean We'D Still Be Looking At Some Type Of Increase Rate With This If We Did No Retaining Walls And No Sustainability Generally I Think We Could Contain Continue At The 590 Five That We Would Need To Wouldn'T We Just Keep It Right Right Where It'S At We Wouldn'T Be Funding Any Of Those Programs. And Then The Last Question That I Had Was Around The The The Home Loan Piece Of The Sustainable City Piece. So I Imagine There Would Be An Application That Would Go Through That We Wouldn'T I Mean There Would Be Some Restriction As To We Wouldn'T Want To Put Money In In In A House You Know Go Belly Up Or That Kind Of Thing. That Would Be Something I Assume That But I Just Wanted To Hear You Kind Of Talk A Little Bit About How Those Programs Work In Other Other Places And What That Looks Like Excuse Me Your Council Members Councilmember Lowman Exactly. Other Communities Have Set It Up That There'S Either The City Of Minneapolis Is Green Zones Or They'Ve Dedicated Certain Areas That They'Ve Determined Based Upon Demographics And Income And Age Of Housing Stock That That Investment Would Happen In Those Geographical Areas. Other Cities Have To Focus On Area Median Income. What I Would Recommend Is That This Program Would Really Be Focused On 50% Am I To 150%? Am I Mean Our 50% Am I Am Below Qualifies For The State Weatherization Assistance Program Where This Work Could Be Done For Free. So Really Focusing More On The Middle Income Areas Where Residents Are Still Struggling To Complete These Projects But There Wouldn'T Be Necessarily Investment For Those Who Can Afford To Do These Upgrades On Their Own. In Just A Follow Up Question To That. So If We'Re If We Went Down That Pathway, Are Other Cities Doing That That Target Area Loans Or Are They Looking At Some Other Setups With That? There Are A Combination Of Two. Some Cities Have Decided We Just Want To Do Bonus Rebates, Get The Money Out. Others Have Set Up A 0% Loans For Folks That Fall Into A Certain Demographic Of Income To Still Get The Money Back With It Just Wouldn'T Be An Interest Rate Associated With Correct. You Councilmember Dallessandro And And Councilmember Carter Councilmember Bill Sandro. >> Thank You Mr. Mayor. What Is The What Is The Guarantee Against The The How Do We See This How Many Homes Are Actually Going To Take Advantage Of This If We Do It So Here'S My The Reason I'M Asking The Question. Right? So We Have We Definitely Put Out There That We Get The Money But We Don'T Know For Sure If People Spend The Money. So How Do We Help Them? How Do We Know They'Re Going To Spend The Money? I Would Like To Know How They'Re For Sure Going To Spend The Money. How Are We Going To Get Them From Zero Taking Advantage Of It Now To All Of Those People If I If I Can Be So Blunt, Mr. Mayor, Council Members, Council Member And All. Sandra Great Question. I Wish We Could See In The Future And Be Able To Say Yes, You'Re Taking Advantage Council Did Invest In A Staff Member That Started A Year And A Half Ago Specifically Focused On Doing Outreach Around Energy Programs. So We Do Have Staff Capacity To Rlly Promote This Program To Use The Channels We'Re Already Doing To Promote The Utility Rebates. But To Go One Step Further And Say Hey, There'S This Specific Offering In Our City That Now Makes Those Projects More Feasible To Complete. So Again It Is You Know, Every Community Is Different. We'Ve Seen Success In Other Communities And We'Ve Heard A Lot Of Feedback That Financial Barrier Is A Huge Barrier To Completing These Projects. So This Is Taking What We'Ve Learned From Other Cities Recognizing That We Have Outreach Channels That Are Very Strong In The City That We Could Promote This Opportunity And Then It Is You Know, Trying It Out And Seeing Where It Goes. >> Two Two Quick Follow Ups And On One On On The Other Cities, Do You Have A Sense For The Improvements Like Percentage Wise Like They'Ve Gone From 10% Of Their Homes Being Insulated Appropriately To 20% Like What Is The Trajectory On Those Places Where They Have Seen Success? I Do Not Have Those Specific Numbers But I Can Follow Up And I'D Love To See That. >> Yeah. And Then Secondarily To That I'D Like To Know I Guess Related To That If If We Have The Resource That We Have Working On The Programs That We Have Today, Are We Feeling Good About This The Improvements That We'Re Seeing In Those Programs? So Can We Make A Correlation That Says When Staff Member Resources Applied To X We'Ve Gone From Participation Number A To Participation Number B We Expect To Get Something Similar From Going From Doing This. Can We Do That? Do You Have Anything Around That? And You Don'T Have To Have It Tonight But I'D Love To Know If We Have Ways We Can Make Correlations. >> We Are Starting To Track The Information With The Staff Number Being In Place For Under Two Years And We Get Data From The Utilities Once A Year. We'Re Still Waiting To See Impact But That Is Something That We Are Tracking Pretty Closely. All Of Our Outreach And Engagement Efforts And Then Also Program Participation Due To Data Privacy We Rarely Concede The Direct Correlation But We Are Tracking The Trends. Okay, Thanks Councilmember Carter. Thank You, Mayor. I Have Two Questions. The First Can You I'Ve Gotten This Question From A Community Member And So Can You Just Talk About Kind Of The Thought Process Of Why We Would Use Franchise Fees Versus Just Including This As A Funding Request As Part Of The General Fund And Using Tax Levy? >> Let'S Remind Our Council Members, Councilmember Carter One Thing That Comes To Mind Is That Franchise Fees It'S On Your Utility Bill And We Are Specifically Talking About Natural Gas And Electric Electricity Use And Those Bills. So The Money That You Know The Additional 98 Sense That'S Being Proposed That Is Directly Being Reinvested Into The Community For Programs That Are Going To Lower Those Overall Bills. So That Is One Of The Direct Correlations Where This Is Specifically Related To What You Are Spending Each Month. Got It. And Mayor Councilmember Carter, The $1 Million Would Just Be Another At Least Another 1% In Tax Levy Increases If We Were To Go That Direction Including It In Property Taxes. Okay. Right Now A 1% Is $880,000. Okay. And Then You Did Talk About Having Flexibility. So At Some Point In Theory It Could Be For Things Not Related To Energy. Correct? Right Now I Mean Looking For Council'S Direction This Proposal Right Now Is Very Focused On Insulation But I Recognize Seeing Ahead That We Have These Large Plans Coming With Community Input And There Isn'T A Direct Funding Source For Those Plans Right Now. And So Seeing That This Could Be An Opportunity Looking At What Other Cities Have Done To Have A Broader Scope. That Being Said, We Could Focus On Insulation And Have Plenty Of Work To Do As Well. And I'M Sorry You Probably Said This But Can You Talk A Little Bit About Why You Focus Specifically On Insulation Completely Because There'S A Lot Of There Are Several Things, Right People Can Be Doing To Increase The Energy Efficiency Of Their Homes. And So Why Did You Pick Specifically Insulation? >> Insulation Is The Largest Savings Opportunity So In A Home In Minnesota We'Re Spending The Most On Heat And Cooling And So Insulation Is Going To Cover How The Largest Impact Both On Carbon Savings And Also Financial Savings. That Being Said, A Home Might Be Beautifully Insulated And Have A You Know, 30 Year Old Water Heater That'S On Its Windows. Yeah, Like Last Leg Or Old Heating System They Want To Replace Their Ac Unit And Do Air Source Heat Pump Those Also Have Amazing Savings Potentials. So Broadening That To Focus On All The Major Energy Efficiency Opportunities, I Think It'S Definitely A Good Idea Too. But Just To Show One Example Of The Direct Impact Of The Financial Investment Focusing On Insulation And For This Presentation I Was In Say I Think If We Were To Move Forward In The Program Was Established I Would I Would Think Having Maybe Like A Tiered Priority Kind Of System Where People Who Have Upgrades They Need To Make Could Apply Knowing That Maybe They'Re In Like The Tier Two Prioritization Or Something Like That. So Um And Then I Guess My Last Question Is Kind Of Related There Are So Many Different Things That We Could Do From A Sustainability Perspective And I Guess I'M Just Curious Why You Chose This Specifically Specifically Insulation Because Of The Direction Home Energy Efficient Home Energy. Yeah, Because I Mean Like There'S Just So Much We Could Be Doing There'S So Much We Can Be Doing Insulation And Specifically Looking At Franchise Fees And Thinking How Is This Going To Impact The Resident Who Is Paying The Bill? This Has I Think The Most Direct Correlation. It Also Having The Tie In With Indoor Air Quality And Asthma Rates And All Of The Research Around That Having That Health Benefit, Financial Benefit And Climate Benefit It Just Is A Really Strong Triangle Of Meeting Various Priorities Of The City. Okay. Thank You. Councilmember Lohmann, Just Real Quick Just Auestion Here. What Would Prevent This Body From Changing Our Home Loan Program To Just Taking On The Insulation Concern? And Then If We Could Do That, Could We Generate $1 Million Out Of That Program? You Know, I Just I'M Just Curious About I Don'T Have The Numbers In Front Of Me. I Know There'S A Home Loan Program And We Go Out Each Year And I Don'T Know What Those Dollars Look Like But I'M Just Curious What Would Prevent Us From Doing I Know We'Re In A Budget Crunch And So I'M Just Trying To Think Outside The Box And I Know This Is Unfair To Ask This Right At The Moment But Since This Is A Discussion Area That'S Something I'M Curious And Councilmember, You'Re Talking Specifically About Our Home Improvement Loan Program, Right? Yeah. Mm Hmm. Mayor And Council Members We Would Have To Check Into Its Budget And Where They At And Their Home Loan And How Much Of That Is Obligated And How Much They Have Available For Other Activities Such As This At This Point I Can'T I Don'T Have Any Information On That. I'D Be Curious About That If We Could Bring That Back To To Have A Look At That Because I Think If We Say That Insulation Insulation Is Is Where It'S At, Then Maybe We Ought To Change Our Our Direction With That To Make That Where We Invest Their Money. Councilmember Rivas I Hate To Be The One To Say This But Since When Is The City Responsible To Take Care Of Insulation In The Private Home? I Think To Put The Burden On All The Residents To Pay For An Incentive To Somebody That Will Benefit Just Putting Insulation In Their House To Have To Pay Less In Utilities. It To Me Doesn'T Make Any Sense That The City As A Whole Has To Make The Entire Population And Subsidize Something That You Can See As An Obligation Because Your Bills Are Getting High. I Just Cannot Comprehend How We Get Into This Of Subsidizing Everything That Is Out There To Help With Everything. I Mean I Know Of People That Have Put Insulation In Their Homes. If She Goes Especially In The Inside Because There'S A Lot Of Asbestos In There In Their Teams And That Removing Those 30 Or More Thousand Dollars So That'S Why They Decide It'S Not Worth It To Put Insulation. But That Said, Is The City Going To Be Responsible For That Also Since They Say Somebody Gets Approved To Get The Loan To Put Insulation? I Mean The Cost Of That Is Prohibited To Me I Guess So I Just Don'T Understand Why Do We Have To Get Involved As A Body To Subsidize Something That You Know, I Considered It My Responsibility As A Homeowner To Take Care Of It So That I Can Benefit For Myself. So Why Do We Have To Bring The Entire Population In To Pay For This? It'S Just I Have A Lot Of Emails Of People Asking Me Why Are We Going This Way And This Is Even Before Today And I Mean And I Personally And The Opinion Of The Opinion That If I Own A Home It'S My Responsibility To Make It Viable For Me. And So Why Do We Have To As A City Maker Take It Upon Ourselves To Do This? And I Mean I Don'T Know Any Any Explanation. I Don'T Find It Sufficient To To To Comprehend Why We Do This As A City. I Mean I Understand That There Are People With Needs Out There And That It'S Okay For A Brochure City And Perhaps We Have The Funds To Help Them But To Put A Burden On Everybody Just To Have To Find These Projects I Find It Very Difficult To To Swallow To Be Honest. I'M So I'M More An Opinion Than A Question I Guess. But If You Can Clarify It To Me I Mean Make Me A Believer If You Can I'M Open To That But I Really Have A Hard Time Taking This. It'S Just You Know, If I Own A Home I Find It I Assume It'S My Responsibility To Make Sure It'S Efficient For Me And So I Don'T Rely On The City Or The County Or The State But That Might Add To To Fund Me To Fix It And To To Do All That Too. I Have A Real Hard Time With This Home. >> Mayor Mistrust Mr. Mayor Councilmembers, Councilmen Rivas Great Question Or Comments. So One Question I Have For You Is Your Home Connected To The Grid Or Are You Completely Off Of The Energy Grid? Yeah. So That'S That'S One Reason If We Think About Days Where It'S 95 How Much Energy Your Neighbors Are Using To Keep Their House Cool And Next Door Neighbor Their Homes Affects The Power Going Out And That'S Losing The Ability To Function And Have Businesses And Everyone Work. And We Also Know That There'S Going To Be A Greater Demand On The Grid As More Cars And Vehicles Go Electric. So That'S Something Any Way That We Can Lower That Demand. It'S Very Expensive To Build The Infrastructure Too. So That'S Also Why The Utilities Are Interested In Energy Efficiency Because It'S Really The Cheapest Way. So Whether We Like It Or Not We Are Most Of Us Connected By Sharing That Energy Grid. The Other Thing Is With Where We Get Our Energy Right Now There'S Pollution Affecting It And If Your Neighbor Is More Efficient And The Community'S More Efficient We'Re Using Less Energy, There'S Less Pollution. Looking At The Folks Who Are Potholes With A Changing Climate, We'Re Seeing A Lot Of Things In The Community That Are Going To Be Costly. The Road Budget Is Going To Go Up So Everything That We Can Do To Prevent Those Problems That Are Coming Really Helps All Of The Tax Payers And Everyone Yes, There'S That Personal Benefit Of Your Home But There Is The Broader Community Benefit As Far As Our As Far As The Roads And The Sidewalks And All That Stuff. I Think Is That'S Very Much At Variance Habitable To Everyone . I Mean I Know One Has A Negative Comment In Regards To That Once It'S Explained That We Do The Franchise Fee Because We Want To Maintain The Roads In And You Know There Are A Lot Of Potholes Right Now Because Of Winter Right So That Makes Sense. You Know You Can Easily Explain But When You When You Try To Explain To Us Is You Know We'Re Going To Have Increase Somewhat It'S Not A Lot I Can See That However When You'Re Trying To Explain Them To Them I You Know I Haven'T Been Successful With That. So That'S What I'M Trying To Listen To What You Have To Say. I Think If If If You Want To Sell This A Small Amount That You Know Very Well Become $1 Million A Year I Guess Is If You Want To Explain It Better And Sell It To The Public I Guess You Know More Power To You. I, I Like I Tell You I Have Not Been Successful In Convincing A Large Amount Of People That Email Me Over It Since We Got The Agenda Thirsty But I Mean I Understand The Roads And The Sidewalks That'S Easy To Explain And We All Want Good Condition Roads And Sidewalks But It'S Very Hard To Understand This Part. I Again I'M Not A Believer And Saw A Lot Of People That And That Side I You Know A It'S Very Difficult To To Take I So It'S A Minimal Amount Of Money That You Contributed In The In The Large Amount Becomes A Because Everybody Contributes To It But It'S Still Very Difficult For Some People To Do To Digest So But You Have Time I Guess To Explain It To The Public. I Mean I You Know I Personally Don'T Support This Myself But When It Comes To The Other Part Of The Roads And All That, I'M Perfectly Fine With That. But The The The The Helping People Insulate Their Homes They Just Have A Real Hard Time Accepting That. But Thank You For Your Explanation And I Appreciate It Takes Me Thank You Council Member Councilmember Lowman And Councilmember Dallessandro Councilmember Lowman I'Ll Try To Be Brief Here. I'M Going To Try To Convince You Otherwise. Councilmember Phil Already. All Right. And The Good Support At All You Know You Know Councilmember Well So I Guess When I Look At This I Think About A Grant And Then I Would Agree With You, Councilmember ,If We Were Just Giving This Money Away, You Know, Then I Might Find A Little More Of That. But Actually The Way I Look At This, If You Do A Loan Just Like Our Yorkie Okay Over There. Yeah I Didn'T My Argument Is That That That Penetrates You Okay. Councilmember Councilmember Yeah. Okay. So Okay When I Cut It Just It Hurts And I'M Sure Okay. Okay. Maybe Okay. I'M Sorry. Go Outside. Okay. Serious? Yeah. Okay. All Right. All Right. I Don'T Want To Hurt You. So To Just Wrap This Up Here, You Know, I Think When We'Re When We'Re Making An Investment In Our Community And That'S What We'Re Really, Really Kind Of Doing Here With Is This Proposal We Do It With Our Tree Removal Program. It'S Along When We Do Our Our Home Improvement Piece It'S A Loan. It Incentivizes Our Community Members To You Know, Take From The The Wealth Of What We Have As A Community And Invest In Their Own Property To Bring That Property Up So They Can You Know, Pay Their Fair Share Of The Levy. That'S The Way I Look At It And For There'S Some Folks Who Just Don'T Have The Access To To Get A Loan From A Bank Or From Another Way That Kind Of Do This And So I Think That What What The Staff Has Kind Of Put Forward Here Or The Argument Here Is Around This This This Idea Of Something We'Ve Done In The Past Here Is This Idea Of A Loan. So This Is Kind Of Where I A Little Bit Disagree With It Offers A Grant I Might Feel A Little More Strongly You Know, In To Your Your Way Of Looking At This But I Think If This Is Going To Be You Know Pretty Much A Loan I Can Have That I May Have Other Problems With This But That'S Kind Of Where I Kind Of Disagree With With Where You'Re Kind Of Looking At This And I Do I Think What You'Re Bringing Forward Is A Really Good Point Because I Think There Are A Lot Of Folks Who I Talk To You Know, Talk To Them At The Doors They Share Your Point Of View And Your Perspective About This. But That'S That'S What I Would Say To Them Is This Is A Chance For For You Know, It'S A Hand Up Rather Than A Handout So I'Ll Somebody Else And Then Councilmember Nelson Hey Mr. Mayor, Thank You So There'S A Couple Of Things That I'M Of Just A Little Bit Of I Guess Somewhat Of A Different Mind. The First One Being That You Know First Off I Continue I Say This Every Time I Know It Sounds Crazy But These Are Franchise Fees That We Apply To The Public Utilities Because We Say You Come Into Our City, You Are On Our Roads, You Are On Our Public Infrastructure, We'Re Going To Charge You For That So That You Can Do The Business Of The City. They Don'T Have To Push It Back On Consumers. They Do It Every Time But They Don'T Have To. I Just Want To Let Everybody Know That Maybe They Instead Of Yelling At Us For Making A Bunch Of Increases On Franchise Fees Maybe Go Talk To The Puc About Why They Feel The Need To Pass It Directly Through To Consumers Because They Don'T Have To Do That. Secondly And I'D Argue That In This Particular Case On Sustainability They Shouldn'T Do That. I Think We Should Be Able To Raise These Rates Without Them Sending It Off To Our Bills Frankly Because They Have An Obligation In My Opinion To To Help Us Invest In The Kinds Of Savings That They Want. Having Worked With Excel And Others In The Past On On Initiatives, They'Re There. >> They'Re Gung On Anything That Will Help Them Not Have To Invest Billions Of Dollars In Building Out Infrastructure That They Cannot Build Right Now. And I Would Be Thrilled If They Said, You Know What, Yeah, We'Ll We'Ll Just Eat Those Because It'S Still Cheaper For Us To Eat Those And Not Send Them Off To Consumers Than To Try To Do The Infrastructure Work That We Know We Need To Do Because Of The Consumer Demand That'S Coming. So There'S A There'S A Lot We Can Do At The Puc And Other Places To Not Burden Our Our Taxpayers. Anybody Wants Me To Go Testify At P C You Just Let Me Know. I'Ll Make That A Plug. But I'M Bringing That Up Because I Think People Think That We'Re Just Sending Off A Tax. Here'S The Thing It'S Not A Tax. It'S An Investment In Community Infrastructure. And To Councilmember Rivas This Point Every Time We Do Sidewalks, Trails Or Roads It'S Considered Community Infrastructure. I Can Promise You There Are Miles Of Roads In This City That I Have Never Stepped Foot On But I Pay My Taxes To Make Sure That They'Re Well-Maintained And I P My Franchise Fees To Make Sure That They'Re Well Maintained. I Would Like My Neighbors To Also Think That The Electrical Grid Is A Community Infrastructure That They Should Take Better Care Of. Now Interestingly Enough, I'M Up Here Telling You That And I Have 20 Solar Panels On The Roof So You Know I'M Going Above And Beyond A Lot Of People But I'M Still Paying My Franchise Fees Every Month Even Though Technically Speaking I Could Give You Everybody You Know The Salute Here And Say Go Go Get Yourselves Right. I Don'T Want To Do That Every Time I Get My Center Point Energy Bill And I'M In The Most Efficient Area Of My Bill Right There Like You'Re Doing Better Than Everybody Else. Sorry, I. I Love Seeing That. I'M Very Proud Of Myself For Doing That. But Also I Don'T Begrudge That I Pay That Franchise Fee Every Month Anyway So I You Know I'M I Know That This Sounds Preachy But Here'S The Thing Like We Have To Start Caring About Other People Including Like The Fact That We Have Climate Problems. We Know That Energy In Buildings And Transportation Are The Number One Reasons We'Ve Known It Since We'Ve Declared A Climate Crisis. The Number One Problems In Bloomington Building Building Use, Energy Use And Transportation And We Keep Trying To Solve For Them. So I Commend You For Coming Up With Another Innovative Way Of Trying To Solve For Those Things And I'M Happy That It'S Focused Right Now On Buildings Because It'S Our Number One. So Thank You For That. All That Having Been Said, I Don'T Want To Increase These Numbers Because I Want To Move The Money And I'Ve Said This A Million Times From Our Roads And Infrastructures Into Other Things Like Sustainability. So My Question Is Why Can'T We Get The $3 Million Just By Putting A Pause On Our Pmp For One Year And Taking That $5 Million That We Would Save And Putting It Towards This Initiative? I Throw That Out There Like I Do Every Time This Comes Up. I'Ve Never Gotten A Satisfactory Answer On That Front But I'Ll Put It Out There Anyway Because That Is A One Easy Way For Us To Get This Kind Of Money In Front Of In Front Of This Group Very ,Very Quickly. All That Having Been Said, I'Ll I'M Going To Do Whatever We Can For The Climate Because I Care About My Neighbors On That Front Even Though We Don'T See Electricity Like We See Roads. It'S Definitely Community Infrastructure And We Need To Support It. >> Like Thank You Council Member Councilmember Nelson And Thank You Mayor. I'Ll Be As Quick As I Can. Just A Couple Of Things I Think Councilmember Logan Had Brought Up The Home Improvement Loan And I Actually Think That'S A Very Good Idea To Look At That. I'D Be Interested To Know How Many Projects That Are Related To Energy Efficiency Were Funded By That And If There'S More We Could Do Through That A Part Of It I Think Councilmember Dallessandro The Idea Of Partnership Of The Utilities They Do Have Funding For This. Is This Something That Instead Of Having To Go On A Franchise Fee And Or Getting Passed On To Consumers, Do They Have Funding? Can We Negotiate With Them To Cover The Cost Of The Sustainability Part Of These Things As We See They Have Rebate Programs And Things Like That. I Think It'D Be Worth Exploring That But Part Of My Concern About The 1 Million And When I'M Looking At The Home Improvement Loan And Things Like That Is We'Ve Had For Many Years Discussions About Our Trail System And It'S One Of The Top Priorities For Residents Within The Community And We Have A Very Disconnected Network. We Have An Alternative Transportation Plan That Has Huge Needs If We'Re Actually Going To Do It And We'Re Doing Some Stuff But Instead Of Focusing On That And We'Re Going To Do Something Else Too And That'S My Concern Is We'Re Not Completing What We Set Out To Do With The Trails And We'Re We'Re Already Adding Something Else In There So My My Feeling Is We Should Talk With The Utilities To See If They Can Help Fund More Through Our Home Improvement Loan And Just One Other Thing I Think The Idea Of Having Two Different Loan Programs That Can Both Do Energy Efficiency Is From A Staff Perspective Not The Way To Go Just Administratively I Think We Just Have One Loan Program And Run It Through That So Even Funding Came From There. So Those Are My Thoughts. I'D Rather Focus On Trails And Things That We Know The Community Strongly Supports. We Know We'Ve Underfunded Them. You Know That'S Why We That'S Why This Originally Got Set Up And Why It'S Been Approved Every Time. Last Thing I'Ll Say Is I Prefer To Get Rid Of The Franchise Fees And Just Put It Into The General Fund But I Bring That Up Every Time Too And And I Know That I'M Probably In A Minority On That . I Like To Thank Councilmember Councilmember Carter Thank You, Mayor So I Won'T Add Much Else Other Than I Guess I Would Just Be Curious To Know What The Community Thinks And I Think All Of Us Up Here Say Well We Hear From So-And-So And So-And-So Or Everyone Says This Or Whatever But I Think Most Important To Me At This Point Is To Just Hear What The Residents Think. And So When You Set The Let'S Talk Bloomington Page, I Hope That There Are Some Kind Of Maybe More General Questions Too Of Like, You Know, If We Had Some Additional Sustainability Funding Would You Want It To Go To More Trail Work Or Home Energy Efficient You Know Like Some Of The Because Obviously It'S Also Sustainable Ability Work Too Right But Yeah So That'S That Would Be My Last Comment I Just I Think I'M Most Interested In The Community Engagement Piece At This Point. Thank You Council Member And Council Thank You All For Your Conversation And Thank You All For Your Conversation. I Think This Is A It'S Been A Good One And I Think You'Ve Heard Some Feedback. I Would Say To All Of The Comments That We'Ve Heard Tonight The Work That They'Re Proposing Here I Think Reflects Perfectly Our Bloomington Tomorrow Together Strategic Plan And Not Only The The Healthy Community But Well Primarily The Healthy Community And A Lot Of Different Ways. I Mean It Could Be Whether It'S Additional Trails, Whether It'S Energy Efficiency I Mean There'S Just A Lot Of Different Ways To Look At That. So I Appreciate That The Work You'Re Doing Kind Of All Feeds Into That And Feeds Into It Very Well. I Do Like Councilmember Carter'S Notion Of We Can Get This Set Up But Let'S Ask Also Because I'D Be Surprised To I Bet We'D All Be Surprised To Hear What People Might Think On This One Because I Don'T My Own Take On It. I Don'T Know People Would Right Away Go To Any More Installation. I Don'T I Don'T Think They'Re Going To Go To That But I Could Be Wrong On That. So It Would Be Interesting To Just Get Their Feedback And Get Hear More From The Community About What They'Re Thinking And How We Could Do This. So Council Any Last Words? >> My Last Words I Mean 10S It Wasn'T A Part Of It And Wasn'T That The Next Step Anyway Was To Go Get Community Feedback? Yes. Okay. Thank You. Yeah I Just Want To Say I'M Not A Heartless Person, Okay? I Do Care About My Neighbors. I Am Missing Half Of It But That Doesn'T Make Me A Heartless Experience And I Just Had To Pass Along Where Most Of My Considerations I'D Say You Know, It'S Pretty Heavy Emails, You Know, And To A Certain Degree I Just Don'T Believe In It Either. But You Know They Could Be Innocent Comments From Everybody So You Never Know. Next Time On My Vote Yes On The Whole Thing. Yes. So But Thank You Anyway. Thank You. I Appreciate All You Do. It'S Not You Know, I'M Not Dissing It In Any Way. I Really, Truly Appreciate That. It'S A Very Learning Experience To Hear All Of This. Thank You And Give It To Me. Thank You. Council Member Do You Have Enough Information Now? >> Thank You Mayor And Council. We Will Get As Much We Can Of The Answers For What You Asked And Questions And Keep Corresponding With That We'Ll Get Everything Set Up And For The Public Here It We'Ll Be Back In Two Months. Very Good Thank You. Thanks Much Council. Next Up On Our Agenda If You Recall When We Approved Our Agenda We Flapped Item Items 5.22 And 5.3. So We'Re Going To Move On To Our City Council Policy And Issue Update And I Will Kick It Off With Our Recap Of Our Listening Session. We Had Five Speakers Actually At Our Listening Session Earlier Today And Once Again I Think We Had Two Of The Five Were Were New Speakers. So I Think Once Again Our Notion Of Trying To Get More People Involved And Make It An Uncomfortable Situation For Them To Come Forward And Speak Is Paying Off. We Did Hear From Folks We Have Heard From Before Robert Coleman Spoke To Us Again And As He Always Did, He He Speaks Pretty Passionately About Parking In Public Transportation And Specifically Toward Where The Community Health And Wellness Center, How It'S Located, How It'S Oriented, What It Might Be For For People To Use Not Only Public Transit But Also To Get Into The Community Health And Wellness Center. So Thank You Robert, For Speaking Once Again This Evening. We Heard From Mary Gannon Again, We'Ve Heard From Her In The Past About The Community Health And Wellness Center Speaking In Favor Of Things Like The The Boutique And Other Very Specific Programing Towards Seniors Within The Community Center. We Heard From Lawrence Levitan Who Is A Relatively New Resident Of Bloomington From Lacrosse I Think He Said He And His Wife Moved From Lacrosse And As We All Noted, He Was Obviously From Originally From Chicago Because He Kept Referring To Alderman Alderman Nelson But Was He'S Also A Public Transportation Advocate And He Described Bloomington As Being A Transportation Desert Too And Wanted To Get More Information About What The Metro Transit Plan Is For Additional Transit Within The Community. And Actually As We Left I Saw Robert And Lawrence Speaking. So I Think There Is Probably A Good Connection For The Two Of Them To Make. We Heard From I Think Dennis I Think It Was Bamford Or Dawn For It. I Couldn'T Get His Last Name Exactly. I Also Had Questions About Activities Of The Community Health And Wellness Center And Again Wanted More Details On That. We Agreed To Get Him Some More Information There And Also Concerns About The Veterans Memorial And Again Agreed To Connect Him With The Folks Who Are Directing The Veteran Memorial Because I Know They'Re Always Willing To Talk And It Kind Of Surprised Me That He Hadn'T Been Able To Make A Connection With Them Because Those Folks Are As Talkative As Any Group We'Ve Got In The City And We Will Make That Happen For Him. And Then Alice Seth Morales Talked About Parking Issues With In Front Of Her House And How It Needed To How You Count The Number Of Cars That Are Either Visiting Or Within Your Neighborhood Or If They'Re Parked In Front Of Your House Or If They'Re Actually Attached To Your House. A Lot Of Questions And Our Environmental Health Folks Will Be Following Up With Her To Talk More About Parking Within Her Neighborhood. So But Again, A Good Listening Session Where We Had A Lot Of Folks Attend A Variety Of Different Issues. So I Was Glad To Hear The Folks Showing Up At Our Listening Session To Other Things That I Want To Comment On Before I Pass It Off To Our City Manager. Last Week Council Members Dallessandro Rivas And Carter And I Were At The Congressional City Conference In Washington D.C. For The National League Of Cities Very Interesting Conference. A Lot Of Interesting Topics Lot Of Concern From A City Level About The The Unpredictability At The Federal Level Right Now Just Because Whether You'Re A City Or A Family Or A Business, The The Unpredictability And The The Barely Controlled Chaos Is Not Good For Future Planning And Figuring Out What The Next Steps Are. And So That Was An Interesting Theme I Think Throughout The Conference We Had The Opportunity Specifically Meeting With Senator Klobuchar And Senator Smith'S Office And My Colleagues Met Specifically With Representative Morrison As Well Talking About Our City Priorities Which Of Course Are Increased Store Capacity Especially As It Relates To South Town And The Concerns About A Potential Government Shutdown Which Thankfully We Avoided The Funding Levels The Funding Just In General And As Some Earmarked Projects That We Have In A Couple Of Different Places That We'Re Hoping To See Funded And Get The Money Here In Bloomington For Water Projects That We Have Specifically Identified. And Then I Actually Came Home A Day Or Two Early Because Then I Was On A Panel At The Minneapolis Chamber Of Commerce Annual Meeting Down At The Mcnamara Alumni Center At The University Of Minnesota. Again A Very Interesting Group And A Very Interesting Conversation As People Talking About A Variety Of Different Things The One That Might Be Most Interesting To The Group Here Is The The Burgeoning Conversation About A Potential Merger Between The Minneapolis And St Paul Chambers Of Commerce, Which Is Something That I'Ve Been Advocating For For About A Decade Now Just Based On The Absolute Just The Sheer Number Of Members That A Combined Chamber Would Have And The Voice That We Could Speak With On A Variety Of Issues That That Impact The Minneapolis And St Paul Region. And I Think It'S Something Very Interesting And I'M Fully In Support Of Continuing The Conversation, Making Sure It'S The Right Thing To Do. But As I Said In My Mind It'S Been The Right Thing To Do For A Long Time And I Hope We Can Continue To Move Forward With That And Continue With This Conversation And Ultimately A Bit Of Action. And Then The Final Piece This Friday Is Our State Of The City Address. Hope Everybody Can Make It. I Know On Our Council We'Re Getting A We'Ve Got Most Of Our Folks I Know A Couple Of Folks Aren'T Able To Make It For Some Reason Or Another. We'Ve Got A Lot Of Staff Coming. I Hope We Get A Lot Of Members Of The Community There As Well Because It'S Going To Be A Good Recap Of What The Best Of Bloomington Has To Offer And That Is The Theme This Year The Best Of Bloomington. So Looking Forward To An Interesting Time On Friday So I Hope To See You All There. And With That I Will Turn To Mr. Dean And An Update From Our City Manager. >> Absolutely. I'M Going To Take The Opportunity To Lift Up One Of Our Staff Here At The City Of Bloomington. It'S Always Important To Do That Because We Have Amazing Staff. We Should Probably Do It Every Week And It Will Take Us, You Know, All Year Long Because Everyone'S Amazing. But Kudos To Bernadette Gillespie Featured By International Code Council The City'S Building Official Bernadette Was Featured In An Article About Women In Construction Industry In The Building Safety Journal Produced By The Icc For Women In Construction Week This Month. In The Article Bernadette Said I Am In The Position I Am In Because I Was Given A Chance And Had Someone Believe In Me And My Potential. I Just Want To Encourage Others To Become Mentors And Believe In The Potential Of Others Because Code Officials Come In All Varieties And There Is No One Size Fits All As Long As They Have A Passion To Learn And Given The Opportunity. Bernadette Is One Of Ten Female Building Officials In This Entire State Covering 431 Cities And Only A Few City Building Officials Cover Multiple Cities So That Can Tell You That What A Big Deal This Is. So Congratulations To Bernadette For Being Acknowledged In The Icc And Congratulations To Her On This Well-Deserved Recognition And Thank You For Bringing That Forward. That'S Great To Hear. Thank You. Yes. Yeah. Bernadette Running Floors Counsel Anything To Add To Our Policy And Issue Update Councilmember Logan I'Ll Be Real Quick And We Got One More Item Left To Go Here. I Just Wanted To Mention That A Staff Member Julie Long And I Serve On The Thrive W Solutions And I Won'T Go Into All The Details Here But I Do Know That My Council Mayor Is Working On Some Micro Transportation Plans Within The City And Some Other Things That Will Help Improve The Routes Across The City And I Know That Councilmember Nelson Has Served On That For Many Years As Well And Thanks For Your Contributions To To That . But There Are Just A Lot Of Items That Are Going On With That And So Folks Should Know That If You'Re Focused On Transportation Next I Wanted To Just Mention That You Know, I Appreciate Your Comments. You Know In Terms Of It You Know At And I'Ll See Around You Know The Uncertainty And I And I Know As We We Look To Try To Put Together Our Budget And Our Levy And Those Folks That Are Tax Burden And We Try To Balance Between That And Then Also The Priorities That We Have With The You Know, For A Bloomington Tomorrow Together That We Will Try To Do Our Best To Try To Try To Do That, To Try To Try To Meet Both Buckets Of Things As We'Re Trying To To Move Forward. And So I'M Just I'M Very Just Keen On Every Decision We Make That Increases Fees Or Taxes That Come Forward This Year. Thank You Very Thank Councilmember Councilmember Dallessandro Thank You Mr. Mayor. >> I'M Excited To Share I Have A Neighbor That That Called Me. It Was Very Heartening To Get A Call. She Just Wanted To Tell Someone And She'S A Elderly Woman. Her Name Is Mary Parrott. She Lives At Dupont Dupont Avenue And She Is I Don'T Know How I Don'T Want To Say She'S I Don'T Know How Old She Is But She Was Over 70 Some Years Young If You Will. And She'S A First Time Published Author And She Wanted To Share That News With Us And I Thought That That Was Super Cute. And Then I Got The Chance To Stop By Her House And Talk To Her A Little Bit More About It. But Anyway, I Appreciate That That Staff Has Put Me In Touch With The Folks In The In The Community Outreach. We'Re Going To Maybe Get A Little Bit Of A More Story From Her On That Topic. Quite An Interesting Lady But She Wrote A Children'S Book Called Sarah'S Garden And It'S Been Picked Up And Published And Available On Amazon And I'M Not Sharing That Because I Am Schlepping Her Book Per Se . But To Say It It Never Fails To Surprise Me That We Have So Many Notable Neighbors In Bloomington People Doing Extraordinary Things At All Ages And From All Persuasions Making The World A Better Place Little By Little. And So Since She Was Willing To Call Me And Tell Me About It, I Wanted To Make Sure We All Knew About It And Hopefully Will See A Conversation With Her Through Our Community And The Outreach Group. >> Thanks. Thank You For Sharing. That'S Great And Congratulate Her For Us Please. And So Anything Else? >> Councilmember Nelson Yeah. Thank You Mayor. I Just Want To Follow Up On One Of The Speakers From Our Listening Session And You Indicated That We Get The Speaker More Information On The Programing Particularly For Seniors. I'Ve Received Correspondence From People I Think We All Have It. I Would Just Ask If There'S A Way We Can Get That Up On Our Website So People Can See It So We Have A Source To Show Them Because I Think There Is A Misperception That That It'S All Going Away And That Couldn'T Be Further From The Truth. There Are Obviously Some Discussions That Are Ongoing In Terms Of Particularly The Boutique And That Part Of It. But You Know The Other Stuff I Think It Would Be Good To Just Make Sure That We Can Address That Concern And Perception In The Community. Good Suggestion, Councilmember Thank You. Anything Else? Council. If Not, We'Re Going To Double Back To Item 5.2 On Our Agenda And This Officially Is A Closed Session For A Discussion On Real Estate Acquisitions Related To The Community Health And Wellness Center Site. As We Have Talked About When We'Ve Gone Into Closed Session In The Past, There Are A Limited Number Of Reasons Why A Council Can Go Into Closed Session. We Can Do It To Discuss Employee Evaluations. We Can Do It To Discuss Negotiations And And Like This We Can Do It To Discuss Potential Real Estate Acquisitions And What We Will Do Is Going To A Closed Session We Will See A Presentation And Have A Discussion Among The Council. We Will Not Make Any Decisions At That Time. We Will Come Back Into Open Session And We Will Look For A Motion To Move Forward With Just Kind Of A General Notion Of The Discussion That We Had Within Closed Session And But And Then Be Able To Adjourn Our Meeting After We Come Back Into Open Session. But There Will Be No Official Official Decisions Made Within The Closed Session Of Our Of Our Meeting Is Man Decided To Get Everything Correct There I Always Try To And I'M Never Quite Sure That I Managed To So We Will Officially Go Into Closed Session Will Probably Take Just A Minute Here To Make Sure That We'Ve Got Everything Taken Care Of. Doors Closed And Microphones Off And So On. Councilmember Nelson, A Question. Yeah, Just A Quick Pesky Question. We Modified Our Rules That To Say That We Had To Be Done By Nine I Don'T Know If That Applies As Of This Meeting Or April 1St. April 1St. Great. Thank You. Council I Would Look For A Motion To Adopt A Resolution Directing The Csure Of A Public Meeting Of The City Council So Moved Second Motion And A Second Motion By Council Member Dallessandro Second By Councilmember Carter To Direct The Closure Of A Public Meeting Of The City Council. No Further Council Discussion On This All In Favor Please Signify By Saying I Opposed Motion Carries. We Are In Closed Session . We Have Passed A Motion To Move Back Into Open Session. We Are Now Back In Open Session And Council. I Would Make A Motion To Direct Staff To Follow The Information In The Direction Of The Council That Was Made During Closed Session Second Moti In A Second By Council Member Lowman To Direct Staff To Move Forward Based On The Direction That Was Given During Closed Session. No Further Council Discussion On This All In Favor Please Signify By Saying I Opposed Motion Carries Six Zero. Council That Completes Our Business This Evening I Will Look For A Motion To Adjourn. I'M I'M A Motion By Council Member Carter Second By Council Member Rivas To Adjourn This Evening If We Have No Further Council Discussion I Want To Hear Say I Is What I Want To Hear You Say All In Favor Please Say I I Very Good. Thank You So Very Much. Six Zero We Are Adjourned. Thank You So Very Much For Sticking With Us This Evening Council Nice Job. Thank You To The Staff Thank You To The Members Of The Public Who Are Watching. Everyone Have A Good Evening"