"All right, it is 6:32. I will call this official city council business meeting to order Monday, April 21st, 2025. It's officially a study meeting. We won't be taking votes tonight. We'll be hearing a couple of presentations, but officially it is an official city council business meeting. So, we've got to follow the same protocols as we would do otherwise. So, we will start our meeting as we always do. If you would 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. Thank you everybody who is joining us online and thanks to everybody here in the college staff. Thank you for being here. Our first order of business council is to approve tonight's agenda. Uh under our agenda we have nothing under item two introductory or under three consent or four hearings resolutions and ordinances only we get to number five our organizational business. We've got two items. Item 5.1 is a discussion on franchise fees and item 5.2 is an update on federal grants and what that impact might mean for the city of Bloomington. And once we wrap that up we will adjourn. So unless there are any additions or corrections to the agenda tonight, I would move the agenda as stated. Second motion and a second by council member Carter to accept tonight's agenda as stated. No further council discussion on this. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. Opposed? The motion carries 70. And we have an agenda. We will jump to item 5.1 franchise fees discussion. We have the gang of four in front of us. We've got Julie Long, our city engineer, Bob Simons, senior civil engineer, Alice Dross, our sustainability coordinator economy shoulder, our CFO to present this item for us. So long, you're taking it away. Yes, it's all yours. Thank you. Um, our goal tonight is twofold. One is to answer the questions that you all asked us at the last organizational business when this meeting was presented and then second to get some direction from you so we don't have to prepare eight different ordinances. Um so we're going to do a discussion on our two new categories um which is retaining walls and sustainability. So this first graphic shows you the retaining walls all with around the city within the city right away. Um uh retaining wall work has been funded using the general fund and then council is aware that we often do carryovers mainly because the $45,000 that's in the budget doesn't really put a dent into our retaining wall needs. Um for instance there's a retaining wall project coming before you next Monday and that engineers estimate somewhere between $800 and $900,000. As you can imagine, it takes a really long time to be able to fund that um because we like to pay as our go as we go. So, that will be coming forward 90th Street along with in future years we have West Bush Lake Road and then some retaining walls on the Normandale Lake um Boulevard project. So, we were looking for some additional funding. So, this is a picture of the condition of some examples of some failing retaining walls. You can see that they have visible deterioration. Um, and a lot of retaining wall actual structure is behind the wall. And so the one that I mentioned on 90th Street was a beautiful looking wall and it still managed to fall over. So isn't always our best judgment of the tiebacks and their health. So I will turn over to Emma now. So now we'll dive into the newly proposed sustainability franchise fee section. And last time we discussed one of the staff recommendations to use funding to fund um energy efficiency residential projects. Um this comes more context. This comes from our energy action plan. Um we completed under the after 2020 goals for residential of having um energy disclosure but then there was a followup um initiative to finance um energy efficiency improvements similar to what was already begun in the um housing and redevelopment authority. So those programs so that is where this is coming from for some context. Left side here. I don't know here. I'll for you. They're not moving. Here we go. Um, last time, thank you. U, last time also there were questions about beyond the direct homeowner, what are community benefits of saving energy? Being able to explain that to residents. So overall, the community is benefiting from less pollution from generating energy. Also less pressure on the energy grid, especially during peak demand where we have power outages and um build we have expensive power plants. Money saved on energy bills can be reinvested in the local economy and also overall boosting community resilience especially during extreme temperatures. So the city has invested in the past few years in energy education and disclosure. A reminder with the home energy squad, the HA has been buying down visits for residents since 2013, and then time of sale energy disclosure. Both of these programs are helping residents understand how their home is currently functioning, what are recommended upgrades, and how to finance those. So, we have all those pieces, but we have heard feedback that still u financing projects can be difficult. um to talk about some of these energy upgrades. Obviously, some of them like LED lighting switching a light bulb doesn't have a huge cost to it. Um but then there are larger initiatives that are being recommended in these disclosure reports like attic insulation, wall insulation, high efficiency appliances. So those are things that folks are looking for potential financing for. Do I still have? Okay, perfect. So, we have uh over a hundred years, as we talked about last time, to complete all of the um of Bloomington's housing stock and the estimated need for attic insulation, for wall insulation. We're on track with our current pace for 300 years um to meet those goals as two examples. So, one of the questions is always what are our neighbors doing and how are those programs structured? So, staff did some investigation. We have we're aware of 20 cities that similar to us buy down home energy squad visits that are provided through the utilities. Um also similar to us um there are about 15 cities that have home improvement loans. So one of the questions from last time was how is our current home improvement loan through the HA doing? We found um that over the past two and a half years that uh it was one or two that were added for insulation. And then we saw windows and um um siding, which aren't our top recommended energy efficiency um actions to do first, but they could be tied into that. Um, something to note with our current program is it goes to 80% AMI and something that looking at how other cities have structured loans and what staff would recommend is that we actually raise that to be higher. Um, recognizing that there would be more conversations of what that specifically would mean, but open that up so that um, more residents would have access to that lending opportunity. And then something during our research that we also found is more and more cities are looking into climate grants, cost share, and rebate programs. So here's a list of the different cities that in addition to loans have also decided to set up specific financing um for, for example, Fidley specifically for installation. Other communities have looked at having a broader scope of what those funds could be used for. Um but having energy be a theme for all of them. So as an example, there were also questions about the role of the energy utilities in this. So um this is just looking at one of the energy score reports for wall insulation. What we do is we call out the incentives. So you'll see a $1,500 rebate for wall insulation. So that's um coming from Centerpoint Energy. Both Centerpoint and Excel Energy are required by the state through the Eco Act of 2021 to for electric utilities to spend up to 1.75% of their sales each year and then natural gas 1% of their sales towards um energy saving and climate um saving actions. So that totals for Excel for their Minnesota territories about $600 million um over the course of three years and then for um I believe is around 60 um million for um on the natural gas side for Centerpoint Energy. So that's where the rebates that we're seeing in our community are coming from. Um there's also uh tax credits that federally are available. Um, one thing to note is that for both the rebates and tax credits, you have to wait for them. So, if you don't have the upfront financing, it's hard to go forward with projects because you're waiting between for two months for a rebate or, you know, up to a year almost if you work to complete a project today and then file for next year's taxes. struggling here. Okay. Feedback from other communities. So, one of the questions was, \"How do we know this is going to be successful? What have we learned from others?\" Talking around um to different cities. Um definitely more interested in doing follow-ups of seeing what has been the impact. Edina shared their recent staff report that they shared with their council. Um this is from their climate action fund. So, this wasn't a loan. This was um a cost share program, but they found that $96,000 of public investment has led to almost a million dollars of private investment in the community. And then St. Louis Park, they did a survey about a year ago and they found about three4s of the respondents said that the cost share program motivated them to complete an energy project that essentially they wouldn't have done. 8% said no I would have completed the project but you know they they got it you know benefited from saving more money but they would have done it otherwise so those were two um points that we were able to find from talking with other communities existing programs then funding administration going back to conversations about could we be doing this with Bloomington's HR combining programs um initial conversations with staff definitely seeing um pathways forward and opportunity in that um knowing that you would have to be going through details and do a cost analysis what it looks like to do internal versus um hiring out the service. We also had an initial conversation with Center for Energy Environment. They do lending for um 19 Minnesota communities and so we talked to them about what their services would be and if council was interested in moving forward there would be further conversation of what would be the best structure to go um doing this internally or hiring out for a financing program. And along with that with program development, recognizing that with any new program, we want to make sure that there's community engagement. So next steps would be allowing time for staff to listen to the community, get more feedback on what those income qualifications would be. What are the exact, you know, energy actions is broader than that. Um, also racial equity impact assessment. Um, we would also want to make sure since franchise fees are paid from homeowners and renters that multifamily um, buildings were thought about um, in the process of financing and how we can benefit those um, buildings as well and those residents and then ultimately coming back to council with an approval of a financing structure for a program. Now, another question that we had was why energy? Are there interests in other areas of sustainability? So, um Bob will get to that with the survey question that we put out, but other cities have definitely looked at um their plans around climate or urban for forestry. We have two plans on the horizon that are being worked out. So, recognizing that um although we've talked about a first step responding to the energy action plan that in the future this could be a way that other cities have financed um their climate work as well. With that, I will pass it to Bob. Right. Thank you. I'll give a little bit of information on the public engagement that we've done um since we met with you guys back in March. We had an open house held uh last Thursday the 17th at the rehearsal hall fortunately during a thunderstorm. So, we didn't get the best turnout, but we did have two attendees attend. And historically, we haven't had the greatest turnout for the open houses for this franchise fees event, but um we had two people attend. Uh the two that attended, both of those were um along the mindset where they prefer to see something other than franchise fees be the funding mechanism for these these components. Um for example, but they were not in favor of franchise fees. One individual did mention that um they uh were not in favor of road diets or decreasing the roadway with in order to accommodate uh peds and bikes users in the area. So they got into a little bit of a conversation on trails and peds and bikes. Um we we've used our franchise fee website which we've had in place for a few years now um to get the word out and also through esubscribe and social media. We did a post a couple of weeks ago about the event and then also last week just prior to the event to get the word out there. And with that we also had a let's talk Bloomington page that's still open right now. Um and on that page we have all the information that have on our website as well frequently asked questions all the information that we brought to the open house. But we also posted a question on there. If city council were to approve an increase in franchise fees, how should the funds be used? And we put five different categories on there. One of course and the sixth one being all of the above. But they could check all that apply, all that they were interested in. Um, as of this afternoon, we had 38 responses. Um, so as you can see, we had well, five different categories. We had financing home energy projects to lower utility bills, financing business energy projects to lower utility bills, sustainability projects to reduce air pollution, and then retaining wall improvements and additional trail and sidewalk improvements. Um the top vote getters were additional trail and sidewalk improvements as you can see and then financing home energy um to lower utility bills and then also um retaining wall improvements. We will have that page up and open here through May 2nd. But that's the response we see received thus far. I'll pass it over to Lori with wrap up. So our first slide, you've seen pretty much all of these slides the last time we presented, but we'll go through them again. um in 2023 when we went through our last model increase um to bring it to the $5.95 um per residential per utility. Um we were estimating that for 2026 we would come in and be asking for $6.70 which was a 75cent increase with that. And then um and it was across the board uh the same percentage increase for all of the um energy users there at 13%. And then we had the three graphs um and I'll go from the increase percentage wise. What we found over the last few years is that the users in each of the categories had changed significantly since 2020. So to bring up their percentage of um actual usage in each area, their percentage it increases changed based on the number of new users in each one. So um with a million dollar for sustainability and retaining walls um it would be a 16% increase for the residential at a total of 93 cents or $186 a month. Um, and then we looked at sustainability at a half a million dollars and retaining walls. That is at the 58 cents um for the at 10%. And again, I'm just focusing on the residential piece. And then if we just um did nothing for sustainability but did the retaining walls, it's 23 cents. Um, and that would be what% increase on the residential piece on that grouping. So, the recommendation that we brought before the council before was the $1 million for sustainability efforts, $250,000 for retaining walls, and then normal inflation on the existing categories that we have branch would bring it um to $13.76 for both combined um utilities. Again, that's a change of $186 a month from what we have at the 595. So, these were the options that we put in both the memo and then in the presentation. And we are looking to see if we can have some direction of um any interest on council to at least bring us down to one or two options or give not moving forward on option A, we would look to bring come back again um again next year this time. Um and instead of a fixed rate, we'd be looking at a percentage because several of the cities around us are going to a percentage rate increase um in their rates. Option B is the 23 cents for the retaining walls. C is just a half million for sustainability and no retaining walls. D is half a million and retaining walls and E is the million dollars and retains. We have a variety if we absolutely what kind of discussion you'd like. But I'd like to start with council's questions and then we can get into discussion about uh the direction. But if you have any questions that need answered, I've got a couple. Um the the first slide that you put up that seems like a lot of retaining walls in a city of this size. It it am I imagining that or it just seems like an inordinate amount of state of retaining walls. It is a large number of retaining walls and one of the issues that we have is they're built in the public right of way. We don't have records back in the 50s and 60s that say who built them and therefore who owns them. So, we have to assume that because they're in the public rightway that they're ours because we don't have any data that shows anything else. Do we have data? How many are there? Mr. Mayor, I don't know that answer. Um, all right. Well, that that that's one question that I had. The other question. When we first had this conversation about uh franchise fees, one of the draws was that whereas property taxes are for residential, commercial, industrial, and so on. Property taxes include a larger group, including schools, churches, any nonprofit, anybody that typically wouldn't pay property taxes has to pay a franchise fee. Do we know what that delta is? the the folks who typically wouldn't pay property taxes, what are they now making or what what would they be paying uh in these franchise fee scenarios? Is there any idea? Give me a ballpark here. Um certain I fully understand what where I could find those those numbers for you. Um, so you're looking to see if we had not put franchisee in. How many how many properties do we have in the city that don't pay property taxes because of schools, public buildings, nonprofit status, and so on. So then they would be paying franchise fees because they wouldn't be exempted because they if they get electricity and gas, they're paying franchise fees. I I would need to check on that. Council, additional questions or just clarifications here before we start our discussion on the on the direction. Council member Rebos and then council member Dallasro. Council member Rebos. Oh, I'm sorry that sold the danger. Council member Rivas, I might have missed it when I went through the agenda, but I I'm curious um what is the total if there is anything available for us to look at how much we collect in franchise fees from residents as compared to businesses and the three types of businesses that we have the on demand non on demand large CIS? Yes. So you have any other breakdown mayor and council? Um we on average on an annual basis for him 8.6 million and 60% of that is residential 40% is commercial and that's the breakout generally on the energy window and we've had conversations with the utilities of where usage is is that 60% is residential 40% commercial questions. Council member Nelson. Yeah. Um, if we didn't increase the um funding for the retaining walls, what is the risk? If we already have funding for them, and we just draw that out and take longer to repair those, or are we just in a situation where that's not feasible? So, if we don't do this, would we then have to essentially increase property taxes to do that? Mayor and council right now, as Bob indicated earlier, we're putting $45,000 a year in that budget. Yeah. And we're doing some carryovers and we're going to spend pretty much everything they have on this one project to get it done and then we need to accumulate more or have carryovers and carryovers is not a certainty at any point. So, it's either property tax is really slow the retaining walls and and so I think it's kind of critical situation at some of these Thank you, Mayor. So, when we look at the retaining walls, they're all all the way across here. It seems like the retaining walls seem to impact kind of more similar to like we have been using our our franchise fees around roads and sidewalks and trails, but is that true that it would impact schools, churches, and that type of thing? The retaining walls are in the public right of way. So yeah, they are more closely related to trails and roads. Um they probably do impact some schools like we have sidewalks and walking routes to this those schools, but there are there are other retaining walls that aren't adjacent to sidewalks as well. Um that is just more of a curiosity in terms of that. Then um uh with the HA component of it um I'm not sure if anybody can answer this one. I think it was 40 to 50 loans the packet uh that are eligible each year. My understanding is is that once those dollars kind of return uh to the uh city, we have a little more freedom with what those dollars can be used with. Am I am I understanding that correctly? We have the expert. Good. Well, I can just shout from the back. Um actually, please join us. Join us. Got it. So that program is funded through CDBG dollars and actually when they come back they are still considered CDBG CDBG dollars. So we can use them in any way that CDBG is eligible to be used but we still have those restrictions. We don't necessarily have to use them for the loan program. So the restriction if you decided to do another loan with it would still be at the 80% AMI. Yes, that's correct. doesn't want to kind of wash that that out when you when you kind of do that. And then um so if we were to, you know, do that top option of the uh where we got all the money for sustainability, what would that equate to in terms of loans? Would it be 40 to 50 or is it just depend on how we cut that out for the installation? It depends on Mayor C. Um it depends on how we would structure that. So for installation, for example, you're looking $6,000. So um again, one house could want to do a high efficiency water heater, put in an air source heat pump, replacing their AC. So it could be multiple things, but um typically what cities have done is cap, you know, 10,000, $20,000. half. So then it would essentially be dividing that out whatever that threshold. And then one last question here. If we were to take out um could we levy through the H restricted if we levied to create a loan program with with those dollars, right? We'd be okay doing that, right? If we we levied it out, we wouldn't have that 80%. Uh yes, mayor, commissioners, that's correct. The H so the the council approves the H levy amount and then within that the H can kind of dictate like how those dollars are spent. Exactly. But yes, generally that is correct. The H levy can be used for a wider variety of things than the CDBG dollars. At this point, we pretty much have that all spoken for, right though, in terms of how we we all. Yes, the budget for this year at least is set. Um I know for next year because of the recent split between the port and the HA and you know the ins and outs of what happened there the H is levying below the max. So um there is opportunity to for the H to increase levy and that impact for that that tax though would be across across the city right. Thank you Dallas. Um, are all the retaining walls actually necessary? Like has anybody done a any kind of surveying to understand? I mean, you know, they the retaining walls they look nice and everything, but you know, are they required? Was there some structural requirement for them and and that's why they they exist? And we do we have the option of like something else that wouldn't require the ongoing maintenance? We have um we have essentially assigned them a score similar to our pavement condition index from zero to 100. We graded them all and if they're short small walls, we normally work with the property owner to grade them out. So nobody has to have a infrastructure replacement fund in the future. Um but the ones like on 90th that are really tall, that isn't really a possibility. So we have looked at a variety of different solutions. So all the ones on here would be the ones that you didn't find an alternative for. Those are all the walls. We're not we're not judging. We didn't grade them and just bring you like the ones that are we think are failing because we have only done um a visual look at it. We have not done any training radar to see if those tiebacks are failing. Sure. So, it's not as sophisticated as that. So, and because we had the one on 90th that fell and it looked beautiful. Um we didn't want to mislead you and say, \"Oh, this one's not is going to be fine.\" Sure. Because we we're not competent. Sure. Okay. All right. I just was trying to assess whether or not what amount of money was actually needed to to to for lack of a better way to put it to shore up the walls literally. Um because maybe not all of them are actually going to need that if they if we have other alternatives like or something like that. We've worked with our maintenance division and their estimate was another $200,000 a year plus some of some of the walls are on state aid routes and then they're eligible to use state aid funding. So we're thinking if we can combine that with what's already in the budget of so about $250,000 a year plus the state aid funds would address the program the problem as we see it right now. Hopefully it stays that way. And what's the what is the um what is the timeline for let's say we do that funding? What's the timeline then for getting all the walls up to code if you will? Um it it will be a rolling asset management program. So it I don't think we'll ever be done. I think as we catch up other walls will age and get on to the list. So it'll kind of just be a rolling program. Okay. Um how long do they generally last? It really depends. Are you timber? Are you um the concrete block? If you've ever seen some of the concrete spall, that's because older walls didn't have the salt requirement that they now have to pass with the testing. So, I don't know that I can actually answer that question. The newer walls that we're putting in, the big block walls, they have like a 75 to 100 year design life. Okay. the older ones, the smaller modular block walls, the timber walls. I'd say broad venture to guess probably more like the 35 to 50 year, but that's that it all depends on the the soils and stuff around them too as well. So, and you're planning to change change out all of the walls that exist to this new format wall that lasts 75 years or so if possible. Not nec Yes, if possible. Yes, if possible. Some might be sheet pile walls, some might be the big block walls. So, it it all depends on the area. Yeah, definitely an upgrade to what they are current. Thanks. Hey, mayor. Have we looked at what would happen if we reduce PMP from this instead of raising the rates? If we just said, hey, my favorite topic ever. I know one year we're going to take a pause with PMP, use all the funds to shore up a sustainability fund so we can get that million dollars, take the rest of the money, get the retaining walls that need to get done done and whatever left we have for PMP, use that to finish out two roads or whatever we have to do before we get back to the site. Have we looked at that? We have looked at that. Um, when you pause the PMP, it does degrade the roads. It also creates an issue with staffing and engineering because we pay for our staff using the PMP capital funds. So, a lot of not everyone um in the engineering division is paid through our capital funds. So, we would have to elim figure out how to eliminate that staff or reassign that staff um in order to achieve that savings. So, we have not figured out how to solve that issue. Um, we did look at reducing the overlay, which is why we were able to not have as high of an increase um that you're seeing with the franchise fees. Um, but we couldn't figure out how to pause it the entire year without doing some staff layoffs. So, if that's council's direction, we can pursue that. Carter, thank you. So, if we were to move forward with the sustainability projects, are we set on the home energy program? And um within that, are we set on it being loans or would the next step to be to determine if it was loan, cost share, grant or at this price or at this like the million dollar level? Is it pretty much like it needs to be a loan program? Mr. Mayor, council councel charter, nothing is set at this point. um hearing direction from the last meeting that there's an interest in loans over cost share. Um we've also seen that other communities have success with cost share. Um so at least from staff's perspective, there's flexibility within that and having more community engagement and looking at those different thresholds and coming up with a finalized program for council to consider would be the recommendation. That would be like the next step. Yes. Okay. Yeah. because I would before determining which one would love to understand the you know the pros and cons of the programs staff just doesn't want to get into that level of detail and investigation if we don't have the budget to work. Okay, other questions council. So just quick math here by uh just and tell me this is right for option D. I just want to set some context here. So so option D where we would add retaining walls and sustainability projects at half a million dollars. uh 58% or 58 increase and that's per month, correct? So 58 per month is $6.96 and it's for both utilities. So it'll be a total of it'll be $14 a year increase per payer of franchise fee. It's not just households, but it's the perayer the franch Well, this would be the uh the single family homes, but it would be commensurate increases elsewhere. So it'll be an extra $14 a year for those specific projects of retaining laws and sustainability projects funded at a half million dollars a year. So just just to put the the whole cost together in the context for example for option D what's the number again? 14 bucks a year. Nelson. Yeah, thank you. Mayor, I'm just wondering if we know how much the um school district has to pay for the entire program because frankly that's also just paid by property taxes if I assume correctly. So, do we know how much they have to pay? because that is one of my challenges with the franchise fees in general. Part of it goes to the school district which then they just property taxes to pay it and they have it's my understanding fairly significant budget problem already. So, mayor and council member Nelson, it gets back to the mayor's earlier question. I need to go back and research um how many properties are tax except we'll figure out how how many of those are schools and we'll see if I can see if we can swag whatever commercial rate that they might have. I don't know their utilization and um energy companies. can share that. So, we'll see if the school district finance people can break out if they can find hopefully they account for it. Our bills have a question. Yeah, I'm switching to sustainability questions now. Sorry, I was down the road of others for that second. Um uh do we how how confident do we feel given given our track record so far with the number of families that need advantage of the improvement programs that do exist today that if if we said okay we need $2.64 million if we did this franchise fee at 500,000 that would take us five years to get the two and a.5 million that we need. We could get 440 houses a year up and running. we'd have to that way we would get those um they would get all of those buildings up and by then we would get that 2050 goal, right? That's kind of the math I'm doing in my head. How confident do we feel like we are that 440 homes will actually sign up to do the work? Like I mean I know you can't you can leave the meal with water, you can't make a drink. I get that part, but like given our track record of of success in terms of getting folks to use the programs we do today, how how how confident do you feel like we are? Mr. council members, council member Dellesandro, I would say if we know there's a need, we've dedicated a staff member to do outreach. We know that other funding sources are being cut. Um, so I would say I mean again, we haven't done this program, but looking at what other cities are seeing uptake in the program, I would say pretty confident that we can get the money out. Yeah. Okay. Um, right on. Okay. And if if if you only had the money for attic insulation versus wall insulation, um, would you would you do one program over the other? Would you give the customer the choice? Like what what is your thought on that? For that, I would leave it open because every home is different. Um, I would actually recommend to have a suite of any of the recommendations that are done through our energy disclosure programs um to be able to finance those. So, definitely know insulation is a big thing that we want to hit, but there's also some homes that have done that, but they would really benefit from a high efficiency, you know, furnace. So, um, having that flexibility based upon what the resident needs, I think that's the route to go. Okay. I'm asking that question because we have some pretty good data around attic and wall installation but we insulation but we don't necessarily have in here uh much on you know the number of homes that have converted to hot water heater you know uh electric water heaters or you know um other electric um ranges or you know other electric choices. I'm just kind of curious if we were we'd want to focus our energy, no pun intended, on on actually doing a program for which we know if we like could tick off these houses on this box, we would get the benefit that we were looking for. Um, so I I throw that out there just as something to think about. Um, not that we would necessarily I understand your point, but maybe we give priority to those because we can track them more efficiently or we can we can we can be more certain that it it will move the needle towards our climate goals. Um, I mean, you know, for me, for example, I I don't know that I don't know that insulation is the best choice for me. I would, you know, certainly could get my water heater updated and that would be great. Um, but do I do I apply for this program um before somebody who truly can move people by because of attic and wall insulation being such a big powerful way of of solving energy problems. So, that's I'm just thinking through that particular piece of it. Um, can I please clarification? Yeah, just for ease of examples, I provided more detail of the cancellation, but through Excel and Centerpoint, we do get annual data on the rebates that are associated with a larger suite of programs. So, we do know about water heaters and furnaces and um air source heat pumps. That is data that we'll be able to track. Okay. All right. Great. Thanks. Just follow up with some questions. How do we know as a city if um for instance um a group of homes are in need of updating their appliances? How do you get the facts that um you know a given home or a given block in the city is being affected by not having up to-ate appliances or water heater all that? you mayor, council members, council member Rivas. So, how we're getting that information is through the energy audits that the city buys down, and that's the home energy squad. So, when someone has a visit, we uh get data each year that kind of shows what the need is in our community. And then also through um our energy disclosure program, anyone who's selling a home, we get information on that home and what the need is. So that's how we're tracking overall where to target efforts. So so I know the worries of if let's say I have updated everything at home. We have wash your dryer the water heater or the furnace also it's brand new. Um but we haven't told anybody that we've done that. Uh so how would you find out that a home has done that if there's no out nobody has shown up to ask me have you guys outdated this? How do we know if all the homes are doing any improvements at all? Not. So, if they apply, so for um if someone applies for an Excel Energy or Centerpoint Energy rebate for an upgrade that they did, that's how we're tracking. So if people want that rebate then that's filed with the utilities and then they give us that data of how many counts and we can get that data by census block and be able to track that. But if someone does it and doesn't apply for that rebate, we don't have a we don't have an exact uh number of homes that that need improvements or that don't need improvements, right? Um it is we have an estimate based upon our housing stock what we see on average with these disclosure reports and we're then applying that citywide based upon how old the homes are, what we see when we go in and do the audits. And so it is an estimate of what that need is. But we're getting more and more data each year through disclosure with homes being sold. So that number is getting more and more accurate. Council member Nelson. Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Just quick follow up on Council Reus. Uh this question is would it be possible to work with building inspections to get permit records particularly for water heaters and furnaces? I don't think you need a permit to do a washer and dryer, but the other ones you should need a permit on. So, you should be able to get that information. Um and then the other thing just for clarification um when you talk about walls and attic you also talk about rim joist is the rim joist is typically in a lot of the houses built in the 50s and 60s has zero insulation. The walls are actually insulated minimally but there's a tremendous amount of heat loss in the rim joist and that's actually one of the primary places you can easily go after to improve efficiency of a house. Chelsea mayor, council members, council member Nelson for your first question. Yes, building inspections is great partner. They are already pulling data for example around the age of AC units. So we're able to do more targeted messaging this summer on switching to a heat pump if your AC unit is older. So um definitely that permit data comes in handy. Um, so staff, we're looking into that and how we can leverage that information that the city already has. Um, as far as the rim choice, yes, I believe that was part of the conversation that comes up in that energy visit. Oh, before we get too far down the rim joist rabbit hole here, do you want more information? U, so staff right now is looking for they've got five options in front of us. They're looking for to narrow it down. I'm hearing a lot of questions from staff that I think we could get answers to and it might help shape our decisions. What I might suggest and tell me what you all think about this if we perhaps ask staff to uh examine or or bring forward at a public hearing. That's our next step, correct? The public hearing. If we looked at uh two options and I would say I mean if we wanted to do for example option A no increase or option B the the increase that I the $14 a year that I kind of outlined earlier just as our two options kind of our as our end markers have staff answer some of our questions for us that we brought up and and brought forward have the public hearing and then figure out where we want to be uh from there. Does that seem to make sense or should we set the goal post somewhere else or other thoughts on that? Council member Lohan, I guess the question that I have as we're looking at picking those for you to go with two options forward is question I kind of ask myself is does it I mean the retaining wall makes sense because that kind of fits with what we've traditionally utilizes for but I'm having questions in my my mind about uh the sustainability component of it and whether or not that really fits with that if there should be another funding mechanism that we ought to go after to get those those dollars. So that's kind of in those options it wouldn't give me the the opportunity to So are you are you suggesting we throw C in that as well or uh we continue the discussion about what other possible sustainability? Yeah, I mean I wouldn't want I wouldn't want to go with C without walking out of here with a good understanding of what we would want to do to fund the sustainability. So I mean yeah I'm interested in that but I want to know you know for example what would that if we went down the H thing is there enough money to to fund at this level or higher those would be other questions I would have respect to that thought to set the goal post as we would council member Carter. Um, so I I understand where Council Member Lemon is coming from because and when we had our first conversation around this, I kind of was feeling the same way. Like, does it make a lot of sense to me, but as we had that conversation and as I've been thinking about it, um, improvements to the energy grid make a lot of sense to me? Um, and so, uh, two council members kind of questions earlier around the HA funding. I mean, I guess I'd be curious if there were any other options other than the tax levy or the H levy. I personally would not feel comfortable going down the route of the HL H levy right now because we don't know what kind of federal cuts are going to come down the road and I would want to reserve as much of that as possible if we have to like for example cover section 8 vouchers and make sure people don't lose their homes like we don't know if that's ever going to happen but um with the unpredictability of what's happening with federal funding um I just I don't know if I would want that to be an option on the table and so I don't know if there would the other funding options for the sustainability work beyond the tax money that I'm aware of. I was say I would have assumed that over since 2017 or whatever when this work started that we would have been overturning every rock to try to figure out something. Council member a question council member. Yeah. So thank you for that. I appreciate because that was one of the concerns I was wondering about that. But one of the questions I have is when we look at, you know, do the sustainability piece, you know, yes, I can make the, you know, the church kind of makes sense or a synagogue and that kind of things. So that kind of fits in there with the energy grid piece, but some of the other nonprofits that, you know, would be be hit by this and I'm just kind of a little more reluctant about that. And I wanted to know what your thinking was around some of that and some of these other I mean certainly schools kind of makes sense but and I just kind of as we kind of go down that that pathway that's where I'm running into problems. Um, so I guess my thinking is, you know, if those entities were they pay a little extra in the franchise fee, but then they take advantage of program, if they were allowed to, um, then they would see energy cost savings too, right? Like down the road, right? They could take advantage of this program too or not. It seems like there's more residential. They can I we put in the let's talk for businesses to also participate. Currently, we're piloting we're competing on anou that will be going towards council later um in May um to work with interchange which is a energy audit service that is funded through the state and the utilities for nonprofits and then being able to do some bonus rebates which we're doing a bonus rebate pilot on the small medium business side. So definitely I think there's opportunity looking at models that we are piloting and then also other cities have done to be able to help with energy efficiency improvements in nonprofit spaces as well. Uh so uh to answer your question, Mr. Mayor, um I'm fine with proposing um to to me it feels like um it feels like uh B or E potentially because we we're saying that the retaining walls are kind of a necessary we're going to put it into a program similar to the other infrastructure we have around our program. To me, it feels like it's B or E, but I I could live with A or E if that's what your preference is to bring back. B is the according to this is just the retaining walls. So increase it just for the retaining walls or increase it for everything and we could talk about that number. Um that would be my opinion at the moment. I did have a question. I last time we talked about this I did ask if anybody would be willing to go back to the utilities and ask them not to pass this along to consumers but I'm just wondering if that conversation happened. Um I still I mean again they don't have to pass it along. They don't have to and we I just don't know if anybody bothers to even ask them. It's just whether or not they're I mean especially when it comes to these sustainability initiatives. It feels to me like something that would not cost them much to get a lot of benefit uh as they are trying very very hard to figure out how to deal with a grid that will become overloaded by magnitudes in the coming years. So, I'm just wondering, did anybody anybody do that or are we have do we have a plan maybe to do that to just say, \"Hey guys, we're going to increase these rates, but we're not expecting you to pass all of this along to consumers because this is right within your wheelhouse when it comes to sustainability.\" Thoughts on that? Mr. Mayor, council members, council member Dellesandro, so I meet with utilities monthly. I have not brought this up. Um, I definitely have the contacts that we could have that conversation. Uh again with ECO being so prevalent and the utilities investing money which is already required um it's to my knowledge we cities don't really get additional funding. It would it would be unprecedented. But if that question is something that council wants you to ask then it be I think to the council member's point you never know until you ask. I for one would be shocked beyond words if they said you're right. Let's not pass this on to consumers. But it's I mean we could certainly it feels to me fiduciarily responsible for us to just say like hey guys you don't have to pass this along you know could you could you not and see if they say that I mean you know but and I'll say this for for public knowledge as well. they can call their PUC and ask that not be passed along too, right? That they don't have to. I know we get blamed for all of this. Um, but what we're doing is charging the energy companies for them to use our city and its infrastructure to do their business. That's what our franchise fees are for. And we're leveraging those franchise fees to do the other projects that we need to to maintain that infrastructure that they then get to use. That's the point of a franchise fee if I understand it. They don't have to pass that along to consumers. And I all sound arguments, council member. I'd be shocked. Beyond words, you know, stranger things have happened, so I'll just throw out throw it out there. Thank you. I appreciate you being willing to at least ask the question. Happy to join you if you prefers not to be the one asking that question. So, is that clear direction from council? wants staff to follow up with both of the utilities. What do you think, council? We want to bring this. I think it doesn't hurt to ask, right? Yes. The worst thing they can do is say no and they likely will. So, um I'm comfortable with B and then either D and E. Um I guess like quick question. I assume that if we did D, if we were to pass it through this year and then the next time this was up, we could decide to increase funding for sustainability at that time. Mayor, Council Member C. Yeah. And when was the next time this would We're looking at every other year. Every other year. Okay. So, we'd have 500 for two years. 26 and 27. Okay. Council member mayor um for the piece on the energy companies I think it depends on how we frame it. I would love how we frame it maybe as a pilot program or something like that instead of just saying hey you can't just not pass this on. I don't think that would go over well but if we frame it as a program hey you want to be a pilot to do this for energy and start conservation that might be something they might be interested in. So how we frame it I think to me is very important. Uh secondly, pretty frank here, I'm leaning heavily towards option A. Um and would like to have that as an option, not purely just uh all options that are increasing. Um so if it's A and D, A and B, whatever, uh I want to make sure option A is still on the table. Well, I I do think I mean to your point, council member, I appreciate that and I don't disagree. Uh I think we could say I mean option A requires no more work for on behalf of the uh of staff. Uh but to to so that's always an option for us to say no we're not going to do any of these things. Uh so I think we could do I mean if we were going to do three if we included A it's really only two because third is you know a limited amount of work for staff. So we could do you know A and pick your letters in folks B or E or C or E or C or D however you want to do it. But I I do think there's always that option for us to say no to to anything. So yeah, and and I would for option A, from what I've heard, it's not impossible. It just takes a lot of creativity to figure out if we pause P2P or if we reduce it, what do we have to do to reallocate? Um, and I want to see realistic options of this was what could happen if we choose to pause part of this, reallocate or what do we have to do to to get the funding to do that without increasing the franchise fee. Um, so I want to see that work um and the creative options we can come up with because I think this is just the start of the conversations that we have to have, right? I'm picking looking at it 15 bucks a year, 14 bucks a year. That's a a dinner for a family. So, it's a dinner here, a lunch there. And I'm not just looking at it in dollars because it's easy to just pass off the dollars. But if I'm looking at it as I can't feed my family afford because I have to pay this increase uh and then I can't do it again because there's another increase somewhere else. That's where I'm really starting to look at what are the necessities that we have to do with the short term to get us to the long term because we can't get to the long term. Everything we do to try to get to the long term doesn't matter. C let's try to drive to consensus here on on how we I think a gives us the option of anything. Very quickly, council members on my side. Yeah. So, I guess what I I'd say is I want to join the the camp of the of the A's. Um that's part of the rationale with with the H portion I've brought forward. I'm very concerned by making this decision. We're not making a decision today. We're giving direction for this. What what I would like to see mayor have this is I need to know more so what that end levy looks like because this I I add this on to to what we're going to charge our taxpayers and so that's why I'm kind of in the A camp I understand the importance from sustainability we need to kind of move forward with this. Uh so that's why I I think to answer your question directly mayor A is one of the options I look at. I think D makes sense and I think that council member deandre makes sense. we we should go with E because that is the one that funds all of it. It also funds the uh sustainability piece. If there was an F1 where it was just sustainability without the retaining walls, I would probably look at that one as well, but that's not an option. Mayor to start to address council member Bowman's question. This is our timeline. Um, and because we need time at the PUC and time for our utilities to get it into place, we would not have um our final levy or through prior based budget that type of information before we would need to start the process through PUC and um utilities to get it in because they need 90 days needs period of time. So that's why we start this time of year. I I certainly appreciate that and thank you for including that. I do remember that. Now looking at that as I as I look at that that's another reason why I'm looking at looking at a because I know we're kind of coming into some we've got a lot of questions from the federal uh piece mayor and a number of other items that are going to that we're going to have to look at and I'm just concerned if we make this decision this year we may not be able to properly fund this. So, for example, if we got further into the budgeting process, you know, rather than doing, you know, this this amount, you know, the, you know, the this amount here, we could, you know, triple that or double that uh to get quicker down the road on the sustainability piece. So, I'd like to let leverage as much as we possibly can uh if that's possible. So, I think we heard we want to include option A is a possibility. Uh any other thoughts on B, CD, or E? I mean, I've heard a couple just um B just the retaining walls. I think council member Dallas brought that up. That's kind of bare bones stuff. Council member Rivos, what are you thinking? A&B. I don't want to elaborate too much, but I lean on AMB. PMP is very important. I don't think it should stop in any form. Uh, so I'm going to tell me if if people are okay with this if we do pay B and then we go to the option E as well which would fund the all all that we've been talking about and then that gives staff something as you answer some of the questions that we brought forward and it gives uh council the discussion to have and publicly at our open house and and the council an opportunity or the uh excuse me the community the opportunity to weigh in on this as well. So is everybody comfortable with that? A, B, and E. Is that enough direction for you, staff? A, B, and E. E like an economy or D like a David. We're spelling a fair. Look at that. That worked too well. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks for that conversation, council staff as well. Our second and final item on our agenda tonight is item 5.2. It's an update on our federal grants. And again, a lot of folks coming forward for this conversation. Uh Carlson, our deputy finance officer. Uh Sarah A, I think, will be sticking around as well. Uh Dr. Nick Kelly with public health and our fire chief. Good luck. Are we getting close? I don't want my first problem. Thank you so much. My eyes appreciate you. Carlson, welcome. Thank you. Thank you. I need to plug in my laptop. Um, if you join the WebEx and share your screen It's dinner Monday, don't they? All right. Okay. So um good evening council. Um so tonight um as you know we are seeing a lot of uncert uncertainty with uh federal grants and changing federal priorities. So just tonight, um I did hand out a large spreadsheet with um this is our schedule of federal awards, our official schedule, and we have the audited 2023 on there as well as um we have an audited 2024 and some estimated 2025 just for reference. But tonight we'll be um we'll have an overview of the city's major federal grants and in the areas of housing, public health, fire services, and then I'm um also the American Rescue Plan funds and those projects. And so, um, our goal is just to share where where we stand today and just highlight some potential risks that we're monitoring and outline some strategies, some potential strategies if federal funding changes. So, you're going to hear from H administrator Sarah Abe and then public health administrator Dr. Nick Kelly and also our fire chief seal. Then at the end, it'll come back to me. I'll just walk you through the status of our pending um our remaining American Rescue Plan funding um grant funded projects and just an overall wrapup. Um and then also I believe we have our yes our federal lobbyist um online joining us tonight. So she's available to help answer any questions related to federal funding or um grant programs. Thank you, Miss Carlson. Good evening, Emily. Welcome. Hi, everybody. Thank you for being here. All right, so um that I'm going to turn it over to Sarah A. Good evening again. Good evening, Mayor. Council members, can we go to the next slide? Yes. Yes. Um, so I'll just go through the two largest HA programs that are funded by federal dollars are the HCV program, housing choice voucher program, also known as section 8. Yes. Um, so this is kind of a summary of what that program is. I think if everyone is familiar with it, it is a really significant portion of the HA's total annual budget. It's around $6.5 million that we get a year to administer this program. It is purely a federal program. So there's a very tiny amount of HA dollars that go into this mostly for cash flow purposes. Um it's not it involves no city city spending. The administration of it and the costs of vouchers are fully paid for by uh through the federal government. Um the idea behind this is to cover the gap between what is considered affordable housing for a family and um what the the cost of rent is. And so we get around um $500 to $600,000 a month from HUD um that is then paid to pay rent for households essentially. And so um this program supports around 600 households which equals around 17,700 people. Um all of the money flows directly through the HR. The HR is directly designated as a public housing authority through the federal government. So doesn't come through city accounts, it comes through the HR. Um and then the last bit on this is staffing. So around three and a half staff FDES work on this. It's there are about six or seven positions that work on this program and then funded through a variety of different sources. Next slide. Um so some some strategies that the HR I would say the HR and the council could investigate. Um there's a couple that are already in motion. So the state has um started a new program or allocated funding for a program called Bring It Home. So that is basically it's a a state funded voucher program. It follows the framework of the federal voucher program. In fact, in order to be eligible to apply, you have to have a be administering the voucher program already. Um so we have applied for a fairly significant amount of funding through that program and will now await um an award or not award in fall of 2025. Um some other opportunities the HR could consider using some of its levy for um a program to fill the gap as I know came up during the last discussion but the council approves the the total levy amount but then within that the HR decides and and has control over the programming um what that looks like within it. Um other potential funding sources. So the council just considered I think was last month LAAHA funds. Uh an eligible use of those dollars is rental assistance and currently that is being allocated to the HR also for administration of those funds. But if the council would like to reconsider um where those are being allocated then that is another potential route that they could explore. Um and then um just a note here that there are other programs that offer um rent assistance, emergency rent assistance. However, we would anticipate funds in this area to be severely stretched if um funding for this program disappeared. Not only does this fund the HR significantly, but there are seven um different public housing authorities in the Twin Cities region and so it would have a huge um impact uh regionally and nationally. The other major program is community development block grants. I won't spend a lot of time on this. I know the council just discussed this at your meeting last week. Um, we just had the public hearing for the allocation of those dollars, but we get an annual allocation of I mean it varies a little bit, but it's usually a little under half a million. And then we have the program income that also varies widely depending on the year. Um, and so most of that funding goes into the loan program, but again, this is a city grant, so we could make um decisions to allocate that in different areas based on need. Um, and then go to the next slide, please. Some strategies. Again, I know this was a topic of discussion just last week, so I won't spend too much time on it, but there are opportunities to um look at reallocating some funds in order to address changes or reductions at the federal level. And that is the H council. Um, I'll talk a little bit about uh some of our public health grants. If we go to the next slide, we did have uh one grant that was terminated and then in the court system now, but uh we've now started to work on it. Uh there's about 700,000 in funding between the three cities of Bloomington, Dfield. Thanks to the great work of legal, we had some uh good language in our agreement that had just started. we were able to cancel almost immediately. Um, and then we did with hiring for temporary staff uh that were going to do vaccine education work. On the next slide, we have uh some of our other grants. Uh, so our home visiting, it's 5 FTEES. Emergency preparedness, it's about 1.2 FTEEs. And we have a CDC infrastructure grant for building and developing the public health workforce. Our early hearing detection and birth effects funding uh supported about 35 individuals to be screened and supported last year and we have a handful of cases of paranal hep that we follow up that's on a reimbursement basis. Next slide. So our biggest federal grant is our wick grant. And so on the next slide you'll see this is a substantial it's a $2.6 6 million. Uh highlight of that, 73% of that is our uh the vouchers that go out for food purchase. So Walmart, uh the Cub and Lindale and Target are the three largest recipients of those vouchers. Uh when we look at who gets those vouchers in their community, um we served about 3,239 individuals primarily across Wington and Richfield last year. So this supports uh several staff on our team to do this work. Um a lot of education and support navigating making sure that kids are not food insecure. Go to the next slide. So as far as strategies we can evaluate and look at uh WIC has been a cornerstone of public health programming for over 50 years. Um most people have come into the public health workforce understanding wick and navigating that process. Um and so our first strategy would be to work really closely with the state. Uh this is directly linked to SNAP funding and processes that occur at the state with food support. We can look at policy changes for food insecurity. um most of the people that are on WIC have some job or employment yet they still need food uh support and so we can look at policy options to navigate that so that people are not uh underpaid on that sense and don't have the food insecurity additional supports to support breastfeeding um our team does an incredible job supporting moms navigating breastfeeding in the community we would like to be able to keep doing that if we see changes is um because that has huge positive public health impacts for the life of that young kid. Partner with food shelves um in conversations with be they are we wait right now to get an appointment um and so anticipating that would be even a bigger challenge but working with our food shell partners to make sure we have food supply. We could also work with our employers. Um, as I said, most of our with clients have a job um or are working and we can be working with the different business groups to try and make sure that we have better resources to support their workforce. Um, in addition to work with our healthcare partners to navigate the challenges of food insecurity and health. Good evening, council and homeland security. And this line share this isn't safer. You want to go to the next slide. So the most recent three-year grants a little over $7 million. Um and you'll look in your column there. um our way down shows 3.98 for 20.5 and that is uh the 18 that we have just hired as of April 1st plus the 18 that um we hired two years ago. That 18 comes off uh April of 2026. So the 3.9 wouldn't happen in 2026. It'd be somewhat less than that. And then you get closer to that 2.5 to 27 and then a smaller number for part of 28 when the second group of 18 comes off. Say for that um we've submitted the first quarter um reimbursement request for 25. Um have not received it uh yet. And I did get an email tonight where um we had been notified that FEMA was putting a a pause on reimbursements, that that pause has been removed um and that they're going to continue reimbursing at the same schedule rate that they were prior to that. However, I would counsel you to remember that this changes very quickly from moment to moment and so who knows what tomorrow will bring. It is our hope that we continue to get reimbursements um as we as we as we apply for them. We got the last quarter of 2024 without any problem and so we just submitted for the first quarter of 25 which does not include um the the latest 18 that we just hired. Right. So from my perspective, if um if something happens to affect those grant funds, um the staffing is our top priority. Um the trucks and the stations aren't much good without people. And um so we're looking at several different potential solutions um with some other funds that we have with some fund balances built up in them that we might have to uh use to offset that. Um part of that also would come with perhaps changes in the uh capital improvement program that we have planned um as well as deferring vehicle replacements. So, which is two places or one place where we take take some of that money from is from our vehicle replacement fund. So, um the fire pension special revenue fund is the other place. So, we're looking at that to be able to offset um fairly significant part of the increase that we get. Um not necessarily all of it. uh we might have to do some more uh for lack of a better term gold digging to find some find something else out there because it's a fair amount of money as you can well see. All right. And then I will give an update on the American Rescue Plan ARP grant funds. This is part of the coronairus state local funds. A lot of cities had some major revenue losses during the pandemic including Boomington with our tax and emission tax um which took quite a while to come back. Oh, am I going to be a little bit louder? Y okay, sorry. Um so, uh American Rescue Plan Grant. So, as a a review, this was passed in 2021 to help communities recover from the pandemic and um provided funding to cities, counties, states, and tribal governments. And so, this funding could be used for public health efforts um helping residents and businesses that were affected by the pandemic. Also helped uh maintain essential government services. As I said, uh we did have quite a bit of government of revenue loss to fund our government services and also towards infrastructure. And so the rules were that the funds had to be obligated by the end of 2024 and then spent by 2026. And so we received in two different tranches in 21 and 22 in total. Um up front we have the money $1.4 million. And so to date, we have spent $9 million of that or I should say as of the end of um 2024. And so the way that that was allocated out um if you remember back when we received the money, it was 5.7 million for government services, 1.7 million for public health emergency, and then 4 million for water infrastructure projects. And so now we have about 2.37 million that has not been spent, but it has been fully obligated um according to the rules of the grant. And there's a lot of requirements for these grants and they are um audited um they're scrutinized by our external auditors. And so um we have we have everything um is under compliance and um we have everything documented um with the grant compliance and then we submit everything quarterly on the federal ARP grant portal. We are confident that we've met all of the requirements how they stand right now. Um we did have um an alert from the Treasury that there was going to be increased review um of our obligations, but we as I said were not concerned that we feel that we have met everything that's been sent out. And um but they did say that there would be a potential to recoup the funds that they already gave us if they were not properly obligated. So we just continue to monitor for future guidance um and if they want additional documentation, we're ready to submit that. And then just wanted to um go over these remaining projects where they're at. So as of the end of 24, there is a temporary position um that's helping out public health with the project. There's um a small um portion just a an upgrade for the public health mobile health hub. uh we have with the H um is administering some homelessness response eviction prevention that was all fully contracted and obligated. We were using or we are using some of the ARP funds for the battalion chiefs that were added on and um that is going to finish up this year. There were some natural resource management projects and parks and recreation with the park improvements. There's a project that's we have a small portion left for it that we're working on. Um there's the civic plaza restroom project that's happening right now. Um that was a um infrastructure project that was allowed under ARP um grant funds and then uh one um remaining water utility project that's there. So, just in summary, we just uh we went over the the main um am the large grant amounts in this $20 million. Um I also had the handout that has everything there. And just that the focus for um this study session wasn't to have a specific, you know, conversation on reductions or anything like that. We just want to make awareness. I'm sure you've seen in the news that heard things and we just wanted you to be aware of how this could impact our federally funded programs. Um so we're, you know, as you know, we're and to share with the public and with the council that we're actively prioritizing or planning for potential impacts. Um we're going to continue to monitor, we're going to continue to communicate as we learn more. And then also with the priority based budgeting process that we're taking on this year for the 2026 budget, we'll use that as well. If there's anything that needs to decisions that need to be be made, make sure that they're thoughtful and strategic aligned with the the city's values, community values. So with that, just sharing this information. We just have some questions that we prepared here. just any questions of clarity that you have kind of what stands out to you, any feedback as we're looking into strategies or areas that you'd like more information um places you'd like us to prioritize. Just we're looking for that feedback this evening. Well, thank you all for this um cheery way to end this Monday night Monday night. Thanks for that. Uh I I guess the biggest question that I have and you don't have an answer, but I think at least something to be thinking about. Uh we talked about this at our HA port meeting last week. If there are significant funding challenges or cuts at the state level, it's going to it's going to work its way down to us. For example, when if and when Medicare or Medicaid gets cut, it's a two billion hole. Two billion dollar hole in the state. Two billion is what it I don't know, maybe not. It's a big hole in the state budget and it's going to it's going to come down to cities also. And I'm I wouldn't expect you to have answers about or even an idea of how they might how legislators might deal with that type of issue. But knowing full well that we're probably in addition to this great work that you've done and really good consideration that you put into this, there will probably be additional consideration that we're going to have to look at depending on what happens uh at this at the federal level as it affects the state level and then comes down at the city level. But I know you've already all have already thought about that. So I just wanted to say that. Council member Dalisandro question uh regarding the safer grants. I I know that because because the first grant was only going to go through 25 anyway. Um we have 26 first quarter of 26. Yes. Right. Okay. Um I was thinking about it from a our budget perspective that we were going to have to start absorbing the costs in 2026. Right. So so the the I guess the first question I have is there an expectation that I mean you're not going to know the answer. I don't know why I'm asking this question but I'll ask it. One of the one of the questions I have in my own head is, you know, whether the changes that we might get from the federal government are are, you know, stoppages versus clawing attempting to claw back the dollars. That's what I that's a big difference, right? There's a big difference between like we're not going to go forward versus I expect you to pay back those dollars. And that's you're not going to know the answer to that question, like I said, but I I think I'm operating on the assumption tonight anyway that we're thinking about stoppage of dollars. we're not necessarily thinking about and we have to give it all back. So with that in mind, um if I think about the 2026 budget that we are going to be working on soon, um we are preparing to take on those first 18 firefighters in 2026 anyway. So would it be reasonable for for um if we have been preparing for that anyway? Is that is that those dollars that we've been prepping for at risk also? Or are they part of the calculations you all might be making towards how to how to address any shortcoming in the future? you know, because I I would think that one way or the other, we've we've all kind of have to have planned for the fact that the first 18 of these folks are going to be paid for by us, you know, in our in our budget in 2026. So, how do those dollars how are they how are those dollars translating into like total impact, I guess, is what I'm saying like or net impact, if you will. Sure. So, um, mayor, council members member Delisandro. So, we did have we do have a plan to use money from the fire pension fund that's had some really nice years of investment gains to and it's it's not the fund for the fire pension, but it's our special revenue fund that we put tax levy money in so that when when it is time where we have to make a large obligation, we can and that we have that money set aside. So we have a plan to bring in some of that as we start absorbing these firefighters into the general fund. So that was that is already part of the plan. What we might like Chief Seal was look was talking about is we might potentially use some more of that money than we were intending to like start that plan up ramp that up a little faster and also look at our CIP our plan for our fire station remodels and maybe delay those maybe push out some fire truck purchases a little bit. So those are the the big dollar. Okay. So that that original plan for the revenue the special revenue dollars is in place for the first 18. Anyway, what we would do then is look at whether or not we could absorb more of that that funding uh or use more of that funding to kind of maintain the other 18 that we're bringing online this year. Assuming that we don't have that safer grant to cover the the next three years. That's one source. Yes. Right. Understood. Okay. Hold on. Yes. Mayor and council member, I think something else that this conversation will lead to is into the conversations that we will have as a retreat and what your priorities are moving forward into that next budget cycle. So solving for fire may not mean fire has to figure out fire. If your priority is to continue to respond uh by a certain time uh to a fire, then we know we need to prioritize the fire department at a certain level. And so we need to then adjust how we're going to do that across the city and how we fund things in the city, not just the fire department. So I just want to something that we'll continue to talk about and figure out together. Yep. Okay. Thanks. Additional questions. Council member, no. Thank you, Council Member Mua. Thank you, Mayor. Um, yeah, I'm sitting here and $20 million can't come from just one spot, right? We literally will have to be scraping the bottom of the barrel for everything um everything that we can. And that that to me potentially um is really scary because those are our dollars that are no longer coming back here because I paid my federal taxes. I want to come back to my my town. Um, my one question I really have is for legal, are all our contracts moving forward, including language that allows us to get out of this if federal funding gets cut. Miss Magers, uh, as Sarah can attest, because we were just talking about earlier tonight, um, we have very expansive termination language, uh, in our templates already that would allow us to stop with no notice or excuse me, with no reason um, or any reason at all. Uh but we are actually adding um when there are grant funded programs specific language that says if we are midway through a payment cycle and we get the funds pulled back that we do not have to make payment or anything once if the if if we get the if we get the money pulled back from us. So we are adding more specific language. Short answer to your question yes but we are we're already in a good position. Thank you. Additional questions. Council member Carter. Yeah, I'm just curious. So, um I was just think about like when the pandemic hit, philanthropy really stepped up in a big way in giving. And I'm I guess I'm just curious are local city governments having conversations with some of our big foundations and other organizations to get an understanding if they're preparing for all of a sudden section 8 vouchers are gone with is gone. maybe during the farm bill conversations we have a huge reduction in SNAP and tanniff and like I mean it could be really devastating for our communities and so I'm guessing I I guess I'm just curious if you all are hearing anything about um foundation world and what conversations might be having happen happening there nothing that you want to hear me say I mean I heard at the federal level that they're looking at tax exempt status all those entities which would be devastating to So I think everybody's a little bit gunshy right now and kind of watch it and wait to see what happens. Um then we'll flex where they can flex to absorb they can absorb customer. We had a conversation with beep last week and you know they they talked a little bit about the dramatically changing reality for their donors. um they're not a lot of their donors are the smaller uh families and uh they're getting squeezed in other ways and changing some of those donor patterns. We're seeing similar conversations with some of our other partners where other things going on. There's some realignment of corporate giving and other things that are impacting me revas. I'm just I'm gonna say something encouraging although I don't have any tangible proof of it. I I just got an email from the advocacy group from the National League of Cities and what they're saying is that the safer grants uh they have some good news on regards to that that we might be able to get 100% of what they have promised already. Again, you know, it's just up in the air. uh and they do have a list of u senators and and um house of representative people at the federal level that they have contacted directly and so they're leaning on on the fact that they will those files will be forthcoming but again that's just here say it's just an email I got and I got a couple of letters I hope they're also sending out to u to Congress and directly to the president to uh to encourage them to maintain in sort of uh health urban housing urban development and stuff. So I don't know I just hope it's truth and that it's you know that we continue to get those not just for only for our sake but for everybody around us. It's um so it's a big push and I have requested from the city managers information that and from the county also on regards to the grants that we have been getting and uh I have also sent letters to the you know especially to the Republicans that I have met uh so there's a group of Republicans on both sides the house and the senate that we have been contacting u um consistently weekly to uh encourage them to vote for those funds to continue to come to the cities. So, uh the National League of Cities is really involved in that and I got lucky that I got called to be part of uh the federal advocacy group that is doing this. So, it's really nice to learn all this stuff. I mean, whether it will materialize or not, if I can promise that, but it's there. So, it's encouraging to to read that stuff. Hopefully, we don't have to uh find all the firefighters, you know, for now. I mean, I know it will come in the future, but I hope it works. I hope that that you know they vote for it. I mean including the the uh MUN funds also or bonds. I mean MUN bonds uh those are also part of the the thing that the National League cities is pushing uh to Congress and Senate. So I mean I hope it works. you know, we don't want to be missing any firefighters or sort of a helper people get out there with their health, you know, assistance as they get. So, let's see what happens. But, I mean, it's very encouraging. I I you know, I wish I could share this stuff, but it's too bunch of letters that takes a lot to read. Yeah. So, it's I I mean, I'm encouraged, right? I hope that it does work and that we continue to get the funds. I mean I I I thank you uh both of you and the accounting uh department has been very uh gracious providing information for me to uh forward to the national legal cities and it's you know it's they're pushing uh they're making a big effort to make sure that we do get those funds I hope that work council additional questions comments council member Nelson and council member len council member Nelson yeah is very quick and I don't need an answer to it but we have another project that we talked about with our marketing capital. In my mind, this changes that in terms of how we approach that um and because I think the needs may may vary. So, I just ask that this information be incorporated into that study that you're working on so that we are making sure that we under capitalize ourselves given the risks that we're facing. Moment. Thank you. Um, thank you for this this presentation and this update that you've given here. So, I just uh shout out to my fellow council member. Glad you're working with the federal advocacy with that. Uh, I think it's great the contacts you have um and your voice there. Um, glad to have you there at that level that the network is helpful to us. I think um so this as I look at this mayor um both the sheet that we've been provided here and then also uh the slide presentation we got I guess the thing I think of is I'm hoping that we kind of move forward and I know part of the the issue run to municipal government is when you use the word flexibility um then you run into regulations and that kind of thing you know so I'm hoping that we will continue to be flexible as much as we possibly can um and then I'm hoping that, you know, as I look at the, you know, the 56 and a half uh staff that are there, we really can kind of protect, you know, those staff members that we have as much as possible, uh, whatever flexibility that we have. And then I kind of goes for me into the those vulnerable residents that are out there. Um, I look at all the health type of things there. Some of the other departments kind of have other ways that we can leverage for it, but, you know, we don't necessarily have a dedicated way to kind of go after that. So, I'm, you know, particularly concerned about the wick and and any of those things that kind of fall into that because those folks are already um really kind of facing a difficult circumstance situation. So, I just hope that we're able to to to really with those folks uh kind of look at that. And then the other I kind of put this under my bucket of concerns, mayor, is that, you know, we have, you know, as a community come together um and put together strategic priorities. And my concern is that um there may be some challenges to some of the things that we have as a community kind of said, hey, this is what we believe in and here's what we're trying to trying to fund. And I just I'm hoping that we can figure out where that proper balance is. Uh if that that does come to light. Um and I'll just leave it at that. And then finally, uh Mayor, um again, not not necessarily today, but I you know, the markets haven't been doing great. And so one of my my fears is that you know obviously not this year but you know in future years we may have um you know have to make some contributions to that that pension fund. I know we've got a balance there and that type of thing but I am concerned um that you know the perfect storm happens where some of these other things kind of disappear and we've got to then kind of move this and that around and then we're we're in a position where we find ourselves in a couple of years back to back like we did a number of years before I was even around. Um, I know this is one of the reasons why we did this, but I'm just I'm very concerned. Um, we talk about that flexibility as we look to do this and we uh just be very careful as we move forward knowing that, you know, it's not just this next year, it's it's future years as well. And certainly concerned about about those future years, we leave those future years. The last piece, um, thank you, mayor, I want to make sure we still do is continue chasing grants. whatever they're opening up, I hope we're still chasing them. It's just because we're worried about the stuff that we already have, I don't want us to stop. Every single dollar we bring back in is something that I want to chase after, even if we know it's going to change. So, as long as it's still open, I would still like us to continue to do that. Delado, just a quick uh question. I apologize. I should have asked you, Dr. Kelly, before. Um there's a fairly big number, 580,000 in the CDC infrastructure grant. Um, and I don't I I apologize. I don't remember what you said that was for. Would you mind just articulating that a little bit more what we're using that for right now? Council member, that is a fairly silo funding stream for building. So, right now, uh, we are partially funding a position that's also funded by another grant. um in using that uh that grant goes through almost the end of 27 to manage that uh staffing cost partially funding a staff member right and the other so so I see that it um but the other half a million or so that's in there or is that not correct that uh we had a project adjusted based on changes. Okay. Yes. Okay. Understood. So that's money that's already been impacted essentially. Okay. Thanks. My last comment I think um I guess I'm just thinking about how we communicate this to the community um and whether or not we do or when we if something happens and we lose a substantial amount of funding and need to communicate that out. So, I'm assuming that those conversations are also happening and thinking about those things. It's interesting you brought that up, council member Carter, because that was going to be my next comment because uh this this this is this is big stuff and this is important stuff and it was going to be topic in the council minute on Wednesday. Just the potential what we've talked about here. This is a public meeting. So, what we've talked about here is going to be part of the council minute and explaining this in in detail what the impacts could be. And you know, we we look at our firefighters. Obviously, that's an an enormous impact. You know, they need to be fine printed. Always look at the fine print at the bottom of the page, folks. Uh the community health and wellness center geothermal and our solar projects, that's $8.8 million. That very likely will go away. If all this other stuff goes away, that's going to go away as well. It's going to impact the uh uh the sustainability efforts in the community health center. But to council member Lman's point, I mean, I look at some of these numbers of households impacted and I'm most worried about the 608 families that would be impacted with section 8 housing or the,00 families by temporary assistance needy families, 1,800 families with with wick. Those are the folks. I mean, there will be actual impacts here. This isn't this isn't we might be another few minutes slow on the on the on the uh on the response times for fire or we don't get the solar panels on top of the community health and wellness center. These are people whose lives are going to actually be impacted and I fully intend to talk about that on Wednesday and I think we should all talk about this as openly as possible. Uh this the relationship and the the the working balance between federal and local has been it's long established. It's based on trust. It's based on shared goals like making sure people have enough to eat and people have enough to a place to live and that public health is a really good idea. Long run public health is probably a really good idea and to see that eroding right now is something that's just appalling and it's it's breaking uh breaking agreements that have been in place for 60 years now even longer. I mean, if you 60 years, 70 years, and to see it uh to be to see it be uh pulled apart like this in uh such a haphazard and frankly cruel way is is is really disappointing as a as a public official to see this happening. So, I'm going to talk about it. Uh I think we should talk about it as a city. I think we're not I'm not going to be as shy about it. And uh I'm encouraged, Council Member Revas, if you few your folks at NLC are are saying good things. I'm I'm glad to hear that. Uh I would like to see more of that and we just have to continue to keep up the battle. We really do. Uh and with that kind of as a summary, uh Emily, do you have anything to add from DC? Um, well, I I just think for one, this is just such a thoughtful exercise and I really and sincerely commend the city for spending time on this because it is very um, you know, chaotic. There's lots of things going on. There's lots of information, misinformation. Um and so spending the time to really just you know have a baseline understanding of where threats are and where opportunities are um you know if needed uh is really is a really good use of time um because it is you know you can only control what you can control and so being as prepared as possible I think is the right move. Um I do uh you know I think that preparing for all of this is good. Um I I think we are seeing somewhat trends that things are getting at least unstopped or you know unfrozen. Um and there's a lot of obviously you've seen this you referenced it earlier a lot of legal action around this. Um we are watching very closely to see you know if we can get any uh heads up where the trends are going things like that uh to make sure we're we're communicating with staff on a regular basis on that. But I think I just want to add that you know uh some of these things that were we are seeing a more of a trend of things being unfrozen and I'm not trying to be you say in this apolianish way that you know everything's going to be okay and we shouldn't worry um but it is uh at least trending in a more uh with the safer example today um where things are on pause we're seeing uh when we're talking to congressional staff we're hearing a lot of um word out of DOT that things are being unfrozen. So again, we're watching very closely and and I think it was said earlier very well that things are changing uh from day to day, but they seem to be changing um more often as you know things move forward uh with with unpausing of funds. We hope that trend continues, but once this the next step of the reconciliation process um you know when Congress really digs in in this budget, that's where we're really going to see where where cuts are going to come down for future spending. And hopefully um you know, they they will honor what has been allocated already. And I think that the advocacy around that is really strong and really felt uh by cities and um and states as well. And I think that Congress is is hearing a lot from from their constituency. So that's that's a good trend to keep up as well. Thank you. Council, any questions of Mr. Tranter? Thanks for joining us, Emily. Those young staff members, get them working hard. All right. Thanks. Thank you, council. Anything else to add on this final item on our agenda this evening? If not, uh, I would entertain a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. Motion by council member Mo, second by council member Revas to adjurnn this evening. No further council. We have further council discussion. Council member Gelson, are you going to do a summary listening session or do that here? Uh, I was going to do that the next time at our regular meeting, but uh, turn into a regular meeting. We don't we don't have council issue update updates on this agenda. Thanks. We have a motion and a second on the table and a second on the table to adjurnn. Any further council discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Motion carries 70. Thanks for the conversation tonight council. Well done. Thank you. Good stuff."