00:00:07,530 Is join me in stand for 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. Tory. Roll call. Aldrich. Here. Nelson. Here. Weiner. Here. Sponheim. Here. Gregor. Here. Peterson, here. Washy. Here. 00:00:36,830 That brings us to the Plymouth form. Individuals may address the council about any item not contained on the regular agenda. A maximum of three minutes is allotted per individual, with a total of 15 minutes for the forum. The full 15 minutes are not needed for the forum. The City Council will continue with the agenda. 00:00:55,070 City Council take no official action. Items discussed at the forum, with the exception of referral to staff or commission or committee for future report. I do have three individuals who want to speak at the forum. 00:01:08,970 If you want to speak at the forum, please fill out a blue card that’s in the back and pass it up to staff. Uh, also, if you exceed your three minute, your the what happens Andy that starts buzzing. It’ll be bad. Yeah. So just so you’re aware, that’s when your three minutes are up. First I have Jan Fleming. Good evening. I’m Ward one. 00:01:29,700 First time here. So little nervous. Uh, my name is Jan Fleming, and I’m the secretary of the board at the West Branch Townhomes. Uh, we’re located off, uh, east of Dunkirk and, uh, 41st years ago, we were able to use your break room occasionally, like, maybe twice a year. 00:01:46,400 Uh, to to hold our board meetings. And then all of a sudden, it stopped. Um, I’m here to appeal to you tonight. Uh, if we might be able to come back. We take very good care of your equipment. We do not wreck anything. We will leave everything the way we found it. 00:02:00,670 And, uh, we only meet from April to October, so it’s not a very, even a very long period of time. So if you could, uh, think about it and let us come back, we’d really appreciate it. That’s all I got to say. Okay. Thank you. 00:02:18,470 Jan, the staff will follow up with you on that. Uh, then I have Sheryl Holm Hansen. Welcome, Sheryl. Thank you. Good evening. Council and mayor. Um, I want to speak tonight about community engagement. Several council members have recently pointed to the listening sessions held over the summer as an example of the city’s efforts to engage citizens. I appreciated those sessions. 00:02:51,600 I attended all but one, and I think that they were worthwhile. They gave residents an informal opportunity to ask questions and to speak directly with council members. But I also think we need to recognize those limitations. Perhaps a dozen residents attended more sessions, and many were the same people or represented similar segments of our community. 00:03:12,930 I did not see meaningful participation from many whose voices are often least represented in local government, including young people, immigrants, lower income residents and others who face barriers to traditional civic participation. More importantly, the sessions were largely disconnected from policymaking. 00:03:37,800 We could raise whatever was on our minds, but there was rarely a clear path from those conversations to decisions. The council was actually considering. I think we are seeing a similar problem with public comment. Many residents have come to council meetings recently to raise concerns about FLoC, protest, safety and other issues. We understand that council protocol generally does not allow responses during public comment, but the problem goes beyond that. 00:04:00,870 Follow up conversations with council members and city staff have left residents feeling not simply that the council disagreed with them, but that their concerns had little bearing on the decision making process at all. That distinction matters. Community engagement does not mean that council must agree with residents, but people should have reason to believe that participation matters. 00:04:20,070 Authentic community engagement means intentionally seeking out the people most affected by a decision. Removing barriers to participation. Asking for their perspectives early enough to influence the process, and then closing the loop by explaining how community input was considered. Even when the ultimate decision goes another way. 00:04:41,030 Giving residents three minutes to speak is valuable, but it is not the same as engaging them in policy making. And when total public comment is capped at 15 minutes, even when additional residents want to speak, it becomes even more important to create other meaningful avenues for participation. 00:04:58,100 I would like to see Plymouth adopt a more intentional approach to engagement for significant decisions. Ask who will be affected, whose voices are missing? How will we reach them? How will their input inform the decision and afterward, how will we demonstrate that we actually heard them? I appreciate the steps the council has taken, and I’m asking you to build on 00:05:15,630 them, to move beyond opportunities for public input, and to create more meaningful opportunities for public influence. Thank you. Thank you. Cheryl. Uh, next I have Scott Johnson. Thank you. Mayor. city council members. Um, almost two years since I started coming here to learn. 00:05:46,170 What did I complain about when I first or mentioned when I first came? The disconnect that I hear from the residents and the city council. But I’ve learned over the last two years, you guys do do a good job, and it’s because I’ve learned running for city council that the city government of Plymouth is running layers. You have the city council and below them you have a great, fantastic staff. 00:06:13,230 And that’s what does the majority of the work here in Plymouth is. Our great staff. That’s what brings everything to the council for review, for everything. It’s not all what we come here to this podium and talk to them about. 00:06:35,630 There are other inputs that are put in throughout the city that I’ve been learning over the last two years, and I pray, and I hope to implement over the next four when I’m elected for city council. Mike Thompson, he’s really helped me out a lot as a resident. When I was more of a resident advocate. 00:07:01,270 Anything I brought to him was taken care of. Within weeks. Um, JT, with the park system, when I lived here as a child, we didn’t have no parks. Parkers Lake Park was a farm run by the workhouse. We still had cows there. The tunnel that goes under County Road six was where the cows went to go to the lake to drink. 00:07:26,870 That’s how big Plymouth has grown. Like I said before, the reason we don’t have a downtown per se is because the residents before us didn’t want them. They were farmers. They wanted land and not concrete and asphalt. And I applaud the efforts of this council to try to make a downtown. 00:07:50,930 But like I mentioned, in other talks, it would be expensive and we need to work out the existing businesses, especially around the center, city center area here, of how many vacant retail spots are presently open. Before we approved, put in more retail space. 00:08:18,130 If we aren’t filling what we got, why are we going to put in more and use funding to and use state and local funding to do that? While our bones and Tiff funds and things like that for multi use buildings. I just want to do a good job for the city of Plymouth and the city residents should know how hard the city government actually works. 00:08:44,200 Two years ago, when I first started here, she found and I were at odds with each other. We’ve come to an understanding with each other. Some subjects we agree to disagree, but eventually we agree. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. And then I have d solares. Good evening, Mayor and Council. 00:09:13,130 I was at the candidate forum last Wednesday, and there were topics that were covered. There were many and ones that I got interested in is taxes and city planning and just focusing on taxes right now, as you know, Minnesota is a high tax state throughout the United States. And we’re not losing ground on that at all. 00:09:34,500 So regrettably, there’s an outmigration of medium and high income wage earners and in migration of low wage and earners, as you know, what taxes are for, they pay for essential services, infrastructure, common defense, safety, general welfare for those as a whole, a topic that came up was the half sales tax. 00:09:56,400 And it’s for this Ice project to improve it. And that’s a necessity. Since we have it, we need to be responsible to keep it maintained. And a park, a new park at the for season mall. And this is one of many from what I understand, there’s 39 parks and one is enough, enough. 00:10:18,800 One person said at the forum that it won’t cost me much because there it’s only a half a half a percent and there isn’t big ticket items to buy here anyway. This is not a leadership reason to increase my taxes. That’s an opinion and a personal judgment. 00:10:40,170 How often have you heard and has it been said it’s only going to cost you $10 a month. It’s only going to be another $100 on your property taxes. The just onlys add up to many who are wanting more from the taxpayer’s paycheck year after year. That just only amount is now the cost of that big ticket item that I am buying year after year. 00:11:00,070 Also, the those who use certain things the city center I hardly ever use, but I’m paying for it. And as one example is given back then when they were debating it, it was the cost of a drink at a certain establishment. And as we know, drinks go up quite a bit. And that establishment, by the way, is now closed. 00:11:18,730 And hopefully that’s not an omen. Omen for where Plymouth will go. Instead, it should be user fees, fees, which is another word for taxes. So those who use it and businesses that would benefit from the hockey activity, not me who don’t do hockey that doesn’t use the city center and don’t use the parks. 00:11:42,070 Also, this necessity I noticed, is coupled with a nice city. I’m putting out a new park at the for season mall site. Another one of the 39 that has an expenditure to sustain and maintain maintain. I suggest more purposeful sites. 00:12:03,800 Um, for example, like Coon Rapids, they have a recycling center, and might it be a satellite of the Hennepin County site down here at, um in Plymouth? I noticed that our recycling day projects are very popular. The lines are long, but often those are deterrent for people participating. 00:12:26,000 I don’t have time to sit in a line for like 40 minutes to an hour just to drop off a box of metal. Um, also with the Coon Rapids site, and I’m using them, um, nicely here. And can you wrap up. Your okay also at the, um, the site, there’s a reuse room where people drop off their, um, lightly used or new items that they don’t use, and the citizens can just pick them up. 00:12:45,600 Only one candidate at the forum, um, commented on leadership under principle factor by choosing is it constitutional? Not necessarily just affordable. When you do your feasibility studies, is that part of the categories that you think of and by who? Um, just because you can doesn’t always mean you should. Necessities over niceties. I asked you to end. 00:13:11,770 Oh. Did you. Oh, okay. You’re way beyond, huh? You’re way beyond the time limit. Oh, okay, I didn’t know I thought you. Oh. All right. Thank you. There you go. All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Um, we don’t have any presentations or public information announcements. 00:13:28,500 We’re going to move on to approving the agenda. Council members may add items to the agenda, including items contained in the council information memorandum for discussion purposes or staff direction only. The council will not normally take official action items added to the agenda. Anything to be added to the agenda. Seeing none and look for a motion. 00:13:49,170 Motion to approve the agenda. Second. We have a motion a second. All in favor, say aye. Aye aye. Any opposed that passes. Then we have our consent agenda. These items are considered to be routine and will be enacted by one motion. 00:14:04,900 There will be no separate discussion of these items unless a council member or individual. So requests in which event the item will be removed from the consent agenda and placed elsewhere on the agenda. Go to the Council first. Council member Nelson. Mayor, I respectfully ask that we remove item 6.10 from the consent agenda. The proposed minutes. 00:14:26,500 From oh, are we on minutes? Oh, we’re on consent.. Well. point well, sorry. Oh, the last one. Yeah. For an amendment. Okay. Thank you. 6.1 will now become item 8.4. Anything. Go to the ordinance or anything. Request to remove anything from consent. Seeing none back to the Council for action. Motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. 00:14:59,630 All those in favor say aye. Aye, aye. Opposed. And that passes. Uh, we have two public hearings tonight, so we’ll go on to 7.1 public hearing for certification of delinquent utility accounts, false alarms, tree removals and weed eradication charges. Andrea. Hello. Mayor and council. We do this every year. It’s a very short presentation. 00:15:25,970 Um, basically just looking for your approval to send the delinquent bills to Hennepin County for certification on the property taxes. So I just have this one slide. Um, summarizes where we are in the process. You have the actual listing of all of the accounts in your packet. 00:15:43,430 What we see here is just a little bit of history. So we send out notifications of all overdue balances. We do that in August. So that’s the first line showing you the history from 2022 on. 00:16:05,300 Um you can see it has grown a little bit in the number of notifications as well as the dollar amount over time, people come in and they make payments and that amount goes down. So the next line is where we are tonight, uh, for the public hearing. And then that third line, which we don’t know, 20, 26 yet, but that is what actually gets certified. 00:16:24,470 So everybody has until the end of October to make payment before it gets certified to property taxes. And that is all I have. I’m happy to answer any questions. Any questions for Andrea. Okay. Motion. Oh, sorry. That’s right. Uh, I’m going to open the public hearing. Anyone wish to speak on this item? Seeing none on close the public hearing? Yes. 00:16:47,100 Then bring it back to the Council for action. Mayor. Yep. Councilman point I move. We approve. The. Um. Certification of delinquent utility counts, false alarms, cheer moves and weed eradication charges. Do we have a second. Second? We have a motion and a second. Any other discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye, aye. 00:17:08,230 Opposed in that passes. Next is item 7.2, public hearing for the renewal of franchise agreement with CenterPoint energy. I’ll leave you with. This. Yes. Mayor and council. Uh, tonight, we’re here to consider the franchise agreement between the city and CenterPoint energy. 00:17:42,930 This is a non-exclusive franchise agreement between us and CenterPoint. It allows them the use of the public right of way in public grounds, and establishes the terms for the construction, maintenance and operations and the responsibilities as such. Uh, this is a 20 year franchise term. We do these every 20 years. It’s effective once we approve it. 00:18:00,070 And then CenterPoint does, um, have their written acceptance. It has been reviewed by both the city attorney and CenterPoint, and we all agree that, um, this franchise agreement in front of you is agreeable to everybody. Uh, it is important to note that the franchise fees, uh, remain unchanged for this consideration tonight, as the franchise fees were adopted in 2023 under the ordinance 019. 00:18:23,030 Uh, this does allow for the private company of CenterPoint to use public right of ways on public grounds to install and maintain their gas lines for all of our uses. 00:18:39,530 Uh, it is still subject to the right of way ordinances and subject to right of way permitting, and we still collect fees on them as their permits come in. Uh, there is language in the agreement for restoration and for responsiveness to residents, ensuring that they are able to take care of their their construction sites after they’re done with them. And in making sure that our residents are made whole, the recommendation tonight is to hold the public hearing and adopt the proposed ordinance. 00:19:02,030 All right, a short and sweet. I like it. Uh, any questions for Chris? Council member Gregor? Um, are there any significant changes to the agreement I see in the packet? It just says, you know, extends and renews, uh, updating terms and so on. Is there any particular changes that we should be aware. 00:19:19,600 Of, mayor and council, whether or not it is largely, uh, an update from the previous franchise agreement that we have, and it is consistent with our neighboring cities. Thank you. Any other questions, Councilmember pointer? We don’t have any cost in this. 00:19:35,600 So if something happens and something gets damaged, they have to take care. They’re fully responsible for fixing it. Clean it up and making it whole. Nothing. We don’t have any costs. Mayor and council that is correct. And we have language in there about performance, bonds and the ability for the city to intervene if we need to and then charge that back to center point. Thank you. 00:19:52,170 Other questions. Then I’m going to open up the public hearing. Anyone wish to speak on this item? Mr. Johnson? I just want to confirm with Council member pointer said that was the two incidences that I had Mr. 00:20:17,400 Thompson take care of were Xcel Energy backed into a boulevard and didn’t fix it, and they also did work by Midwest Rubber, where they left just a big pile of dirt and road barricades, and it looked like crap. And I brought it to his attention. It was taken care of within a week. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. All right. 00:20:39,600 Seeing no one, no one else to speak, I’m going to close the public hearing back, bring it back to the council. Make a motion to approve the renewal of the franchise agreement with CenterPoint energy. I second. We have a motion and a second. Any other discussion? All those in favor say aye. I opposed, and that item passes. Then we have general business 8. 00:21:02,800 1 is approving the 2027 preliminary General Fund budget. HRA levy and General Property tax levy and set a budget public hearing date. Andrea. Hello again, mayor and Council. Thanks. Chris. Okay, we are here. 00:21:25,200 I’m going to give you a little bit of background on the budget and the levy just for council for everybody in the audience and anybody that might be watching from home. And then obviously go over the budget and levy and the impact to the median value. Home. So to start in with that background, this is our budget cycle. 00:21:42,670 We can refer to it as the hamster wheel or the merry go round, but we do essentially the same thing every year. However, the city does have a biennial budget. So what that means is that in altering years and one year, we focus on the operating budget, and in one year we focus on the capital budget. So last year we built the 2627 operating budget. 00:22:03,170 This year we’re focusing on capital, although every year council approves the budget. So we do make some tweaks to that second year of the budget. Um, we essentially city staff builds the budgets early in the year. We have a few touch points with council to get us to this point to set the preliminary levy. 00:22:23,830 And then we sent the city sunset to Hennepin County, and the levy can go down for December, but not up. These are the council’s strategic priorities. This and the next slide I have, which are the budget goals. They really drive our budget decisions. 00:22:48,400 I’ll just point out operational excellence up in the upper left hand corner. It covers so many of the core services that the city does. Um, much of the general fund, which is where those core services live. It is public works and park and rec and public safety. 00:23:11,470 These are the budget goals that stay pretty static from budget to budget. And I just I’ve highlighted in yellow. Hopefully you can see those okay. On the screen. Um kind of the key ones that are hitting us for the 2017 budget in the middle, we’re talking about addressing our capital needs and not deferring that to future years. 00:23:28,970 And we we’ve done that with our 2027 budget and increasing our funding for our fleet and our facilities. IT and risk management to make sure that we have enough to cover the the repair and the replacement of those assets going forward. 00:23:52,470 And the upper left hand corner, it’s the continuing to provide quality services to our residents. And that comes from having quality staff to provide those quality services that our residents really require. And all of that we’re doing in that last yellow box is balancing that. What needs to be done with the impact to the taxpayer. 00:24:18,070 There’s a lot on this slide, but it shows the city’s fund structure. So the city is organized. We have buckets of money for all the different things that we need to do. And I’m going to walk through it briefly. If I’m going to walk through it from right to left. So on the right, it starts with the internal service funds. 00:24:34,670 So that’s what I, I mentioned earlier. That’s where we have our fleet, our facilities, IT and risk management. And we’ve centralized the budget for that, for the expertise. But those costs then get charged back to these other buckets on the chart. And then again working to the left. 00:24:58,130 We’ve got the ice center and the fieldhouse, which I think everybody has an idea of what those are. To the left of that we have the utilities. Those are pretty self-explanatory. To, um, keep moving. Left are the special revenue funds, which just means there’s a dedicated revenue source that comes in, uh, which tells us how that money must be spent. 00:25:16,870 And if I move up just a little bit, we have the debt service funds and the construction funds. So the construction funds is where we build everything. Um, for the general government. So think of our parks and think of our streets. Debt service. 00:25:35,470 And I bring that up because it’s a change in the levy. But it’s actually very simple to, um, we levy to make our debt service payments and then we pay that out. So the city has the two levy or bond, um, bonds out there right now for the Plymouth Community Center and for the fire stations. And then last but not least, is the general fund. 00:25:56,430 It’s actually our biggest operating budget. On this slide. And then the green funds are just our budgeted funds. Since the general fund is such a big piece of the puzzle, um, this slide breaks it down just a little bit more. 00:26:19,200 So on the left we’re looking at what are those components of the general fund. And what I said earlier is it really houses those core services. So you see police, fire park and rec, public works and the pieces this represents their piece of that pie. And then on the right is how do we how do we pay for that. 00:26:38,400 So the general fund does have some other funding sources, but there’s core services or funded primarily through property taxes. And this is a summary of our levy. So what we were just looking at was the general fund. And it feeds into the top line of this chart. So that general fund tax levy, if I’m working down the page we have a few other specific levies. 00:27:02,470 You’ll see the debt service levies here and the HRA levy. So what this is showing we’ve got some past years 2025 and 2026. Also the 2027 concept levy, which is the one that we we built last year when we’re building that two year budget. So when we did that last year, we had an increase of 4.8%. 00:27:25,930 What we did is we went back and we really sharpened our pencils this year to try to get that 4.8% down, and we brought it down to 3.9%, which is the levy in front of you tonight. 00:27:47,330 This is showing the city’s tax levy would be the blue chart or the blue bars. And then the annual increase from year to year. Um, as I mentioned, we had the two bond issuances for the Plymouth Community Center. The expansion and renovation, and that we kind of phased in those payments. But that started in 2020. 00:28:08,070 And then we did the build of the new fire station and the renovation, and that started in 2022, really phased that in again through 2024. So we’ve done some some really big things, I guess is the point I want to make on this chart, why we have had the increases that we’ve had. 00:28:26,270 And then in the later years, we’ve been, um, implementing our market rate study so that we can ensure that we remain competitive with our staff and attracting and retaining the quality staff to provide those quality services. 00:28:47,600 You might ask, well, what are the changes? How do we get from last year to this year? So that’s all this is doing, is just walking through what those big, um, changes are. And no surprise, um, when we first built it last year, going from 26 to 27, that increases our I. I didn’t mention earlier, um, the general fund, it is 60 to 65% made up of people cost. 00:29:10,200 So one of our biggest increases is always people cost and then the other the allocations. Those are the charges from our fleet and our facilities. IT and risk management really making sure that we have the funding there for the repair and replacement of the city’s assets. 00:29:28,370 And then when we went back and we sharpened our pencils, then we built in these updates down here. So we’ve deferred some new position requests to future years or when we build those budgets, um, we’re tweaking our capital a little as we’ve built our ten year capital plan, and we have some new news. 00:29:48,170 Um, and then at the bottom, what you’ll see is the reduction to those debt service levies. So per state statute, cities are required to levy 105% of our bond payments that we need to make. And when we get the property tax money in, it sits in the account for a little bit before we make those bond payments. Um, so we’re earning interest income on it. 00:30:12,770 And as a result of those two things, we have a little extra money and our debt service funds. And so we’re going to reduce the levy this year. So we don’t need to collect any more. Um, that’s not a permanent thing that we’ll be able to do, but it is something that we can build in to this year’s budget. 00:30:35,100 The other piece of how it impacts the taxpayer is what is the market value doing. So this page, it comes from Hennepin County. They give us the assessed values of all the properties. And it is showing that single single family homes went up 2. 00:30:54,730 3%, commercial industrial went down just a little bit. So that’s going to move a little bit of the tax burden from commercial to residential. But you’ll also see at the bottom that we added the 198 million of new construction, which helps to spread that property tax burden. And what is the impact the median value home. 00:31:18,430 So I’ve calculated the median value home this year. Um, based on Hennepin County Assessment report. Uh, a little bit different from the last slide that they have a different report that actually said 2.6%. So conservatively, I’ve built that into the median value home. And last year we were five, a little over 500,000. 00:31:39,030 This year we’re a little over 513,000. And the first line here is what is that impact to the property taxes on the median value home. We’re saying $51.43 for the year. And then it’s broken down by month. 00:32:00,930 And just for transparency purposes, we put the increases to the utility rates on here too, because it impacts, um, all of all of our residents and our property owners. Um, so that is based on we do a utility rate study every five years or as needed, just to keep, um, positive cash flow and our utility funds in order to cover not only the operating expenses, but also the capital 00:32:21,200 needs of those utility funds. We always like to kind of compare ourselves with other peer cities, and I, I have to give the disclaimer that these aren’t final numbers by, um, by any measure, because other cities are going through this exact same process, I won’t have final numbers until their councils approve their 00:32:48,530 preliminary levies. But this is kind of what I’ve heard through my peers. Um, these are Hennepin County suburbs, over 45,000 in population. So Plymouth highlighted in the lighter blue 3.9. And we only have one city that is a lower levy increased. And that is all I have tonight for budget and Levy. Again happy to answer any questions. 00:33:16,200 All right. Any questions Councilmember Peterson. Thank you mayor. And thank. You, Andrea. Um, would you go back for a moment to the, um, well, first I, I saw, you know, I always ask, how do we compare? And so consistently, we are always at the very bottom of that list. 00:33:38,930 But I saw Eden Prairie at the bottom this year. And so I, I tried to read some of the news coverage of it to learn more about how they were able to do that, because I do like to keep us, um, you know, on the right hand side of a chart like this, 00:33:53,070 but it reminds me of what I learned, reminds me of if you go back to the one with the budget goals and the yellow, the three yellow boxes, um, because from what I could tell, it did seem like in order to do that on this one off year, they 00:34:07,100 were using one time funds for ongoing needs, which is something that is a foundation of our budget goals and something that has helped to get us into the very, um, optimal position that we are from a financial perspective. 00:34:25,700 So, um, while it might look good to Eden Prairie this year, they will pay for it. And, um, it will come back to them at another time. And so I just want to point out that, um, it is important to us that we keep Plymouth at a really good place compared to our surrounding communities. We’re doing as good of services or better with the need for less resources. 00:34:47,600 So we have a lot to be proud of. So, Councilmember Peterson, what I hear you saying is like, we operate our budget with integrity in terms of we don’t kick a can down the road. 00:35:04,900 We don’t, um, we pay for our operating costs on ongoing operating costs with our operating funds. We get from levy increases. I know when we were going through Covid and having all that money come into the different cities, there was a lot of temptations to use that in operating. But if we use that in operating a year later, we’re going to have to pay for it. 00:35:21,130 With big levy increases. And so we use those properly for capital projects. So I think that was an excellent point. You raised exactly. Are there other questions? Councilmember pointer. A question. 00:35:36,200 And so I mean to point out that you said and I thank you for saying it is the amount of money we’re now putting into the cyber and things like that, because our city has experienced that. And I wanted to make sure that was definitely in in our budget and stayed solid in there. And the other one is that picture that you have of the general fund budgeted revenues and expenditures. 00:35:54,370 Um, taking a look, if if I go out or residents talk to me, um, you take a look at that and that’s 81% if my math is correct, is in police, fire park, rec and public works. Um, I’m, I’m super proud that that’s what we put our money in our our safety and our residents enjoyment. 00:36:17,170 And I thank you for everything. Andrea. Councilor Sponheim. Um, Andrea, thank you to you and the team. Um, again, for just the ongoing discipline work and our continued status as a city of really high credit rating and such for our fiscal management. 00:36:41,670 I want to take a moment and just, you know, we’re going to have, per the mayor, the lowest sustained, uh, tax rate. And we’re not kicking the can down, uh, which is great. 00:37:00,830 I also, though, you know, as I think about the budget, I think it’s important to think about why we’re able to do this and we’re able to do this in part because of a decision made in around 1965, when leaders in the city at that point decided to zone a lot of land industrial. 00:37:18,530 And we created what is today a little known fact, the second largest industrial tax base in the entire state of Minnesota is here in Plymouth, and we’re home to some of the most successful biomedical facilities in the nation here in Plymouth, and a whole lot of other really great companies. That decision in 1965 means that we have a very diverse tax base that most of us take for granted and don’t realize that that’s why our homes have a lower tax rate. And it doesn’t. 00:37:38,800 It wasn’t an accident. It was a decision that we’ve continued to invest in as that business community has grown. We have also, though, and we hear consistently from residents that we don’t have some of the small businesses. We would also like restaurants, shops, etc.. 00:38:01,800 And one of the things is, as we have very clearly seen this year, is that our smaller businesses and also other businesses that have lower income employees, including some of those manufacturers, struggle to find employees because it’s so expensive to live in Plymouth. We have an imbalance. We have a great community. 00:38:23,800 But we have owners who want to move out of their homes, can’t find a place to live that’s affordable to them. Younger people in their career or some of our frontline workers and health care workers can’t afford to be here. 00:38:42,870 And so I bring all this up because the success that we live with to get that very low tax rate was a result of difficult decisions when people were like, ah, let’s just be a bedroom community, let’s not have industrial. And other people said, no, we got to have industry. For us to be successful moving forward, we need more housing. 00:38:55,800 It’s affordable and there’s a slide that I’m going to ask that you put up. I think at least it was in the packet. Um, because one of the things that the council has discussed is because we are a successful community, we do not get to access affordable housing funds provided by the state, um, or other grants. 00:39:17,330 That other inner ring suburbs and central cities get to tap into, which makes it harder for us to create the affordable housing that our employers need. Right now, we are very fortunate. Thank you. Um, this council has been working hard to increase the funds available to invest in affordable housing to make up for the state gap. Again, we’re making decisions. 00:39:40,000 We are setting aside funds when we have them because when developers come here and are looking to create a blend of housing, there is a gap in what the market will bear. And it’s often where government plays the role to ensure that we have a dynamic economy. Tonight, our proposed tax levy is low. 00:40:02,470 Um, and it’s a great thing because people’s income isn’t going up. People on fixed incomes are seeing their costs go up, and we’re going to be one of the lowest tax cities in the region, and I’m really proud of that. I had raised. 00:40:19,330 And I’m going to just say raising the HRA levy to increase the amount of funding that we would have available to invest in senior and affordable housing. And I want to thank staff for showing here very tangibly what that would cost. The average household. And, um, if we were to increase the tax base past the first column of the 3. 00:40:42,530 9, in order to raise $1 million to invest in affordable housing, it would increase taxes on the average home by a little over $2 a month, or $26.34 if I have that correct. $2 doesn’t seem like a lot, but it is for folks right now on a fixed income. 00:41:00,970 And I want to say that I think the council has worked hard to support what staff has brought forward as a 3.9% increase, and under any other circumstance, I would probably be asking to raise the HR, HRA levy in order to create that incentive for developers to come and invest in our community. But we happen to have, as you see on the right hand side, currently. 00:41:21,500 Again, thanks to the prudence of staff and council guidance, about over $6 million available now, $6 million may seem like a lot, but frankly, that’s one development. That’s one project at most. 00:41:46,530 Um, so I think I just want to point out that by not raising our HRA levy this year, we probably can support a project or a couple small ones this year, but we are going to have to come back because once we use that large amount of money up, there won’t be much left. There’s a small amount. 00:42:01,230 And if we were going to continue to support our employers, continue to support our seniors and people that want to come and invest in our community, we’re going to have to invest as well. So I’m not I’m choosing not to make a motion tonight to raise HRA levy, but I it did want to take the time to help us think about where we are in this moment. 00:42:17,530 Much like our previous leaders did in 1965, about decisions that we need to make to ensure that we’re successful over the long term. So, Andrea, thank you for presenting all the information, preparing this detailed analysis so that we could have visibility and transparency to what it takes to be a great city over the long term. 00:42:38,300 And just that, a little bit more background on what happened in 1965. That’s when 484 was going to go in. And Curt Carlson actually had the foresight to go in and suggest to the council that if they create this industrial park on both sides of 494, that would have businesses come in because 00:42:57,800 people aren’t going to live one and live next to a highway. Um, and it also that went in front of the city council, um, at that time there were five members of the council, so four plus the mayor. 00:43:11,500 Uh, the mayor was the final vote and he voted for it. So we got approved 3 to 2. The community at that time wanted to be a bedroom community. They did not want businesses and industrial coming in, and they voted that mayor out of office. The next go around. 00:43:31,430 So I, we, we sit here and thank him today for exactly our council members, Boone Hampton, because of his foresight, he has you know, we all have the benefit of lower taxes. Mayor. Council member. I just want to support something else. Um, Council member Sponheim said. And Grant, you can fact check me if I’m wrong. 00:43:53,200 Um, we are building at the Boulevard right now, and we have some apartment buildings going in, but currently the developer cannot get restaurants to come in because they want more building in there. They want more people living in there to make them more attractive. 00:44:11,870 And I think to what council member Sponheim was saying is we we can put density in there and we are putting an affordable building in. But restaurants need, um, not just workers. They need people to go to them. 00:44:32,000 And a desire for a beautiful, wonderful non chain restaurant needs to be supported at all levels, not just, um, a restaurant coming in and say, yeah, we’re going to we’re going to build, um, but it like Rantoul say, it is going to need people that that want to go there. Workers have to be able to get there. And we’re going to need funds to help people move into these homes and apartments that we’re putting in there. But Grant can say, if I’m. 00:44:49,700 Wrong. Granted you, I make any comments. Mayor, I don’t have anything to add. Okay. Council Member Aldridge. Yeah. Andrea, I just want to compliment you and your staff on getting the levy down at 3%. 00:45:12,130 I think what’s important to me is, is anytime we talk about increasing taxes on people, we need to say, this isn’t our money. This is other people’s money. Um, and we need to always keep that in the back of our heads when we’re thinking about how do we want to spend that? We have an obligation to be judicious with the money we’re spending. And, uh, I think you guys did a really good job this year. 00:45:29,130 So thanks for doing that. Councilmember Greger. Thank you, mayor. Um, thank you to my fellow council members for some of their comments. And, Andrea, to you and your staff and all the rest of our staff and directors for putting together this budget. 00:45:47,030 Um, I agree with with Councilmember Aldrich was just saying, I’ve always felt the weight of these decisions that we are, um, settling our residents with additional financial burden so that we can make it as low as possible is a good thing. Um, and to Council member Sponheim point on the HRA levy, I, I really hear what you’re saying, and I appreciate you bringing it up, Councilmember Sponheim. 00:46:12,430 And what I think we should do. Um, with the HRA is in their work plan for next year, you know, direct them to put some specific, you know, things that they would want to spend that money on so that it’s not just putting it in a pot, um, or giving us some goals or 00:46:32,670 suggestions and some policy guidance from that body. Who is a group of passionate people who care about the issue and the topic and have the time to think about it. So, um, if we do look at increasing our HRA budget in the future, we’ll have something more concrete to react to and not just a number. 00:46:54,570 And I would just to put all this in context, why we have a 3.9% levy increase and we’re trying to be very responsible in making sure we’re only spending the money we need to spend. 00:47:15,070 We’re doing this in the context where the wife’s at a school district bond referendum went out in that payment’s going to start next year. So that’s a 5 million, $500 million bond payment. So our residents, a lot of our residents, about 60% of the school district comes from Plymouth. Um, are going to have a big tax bill next year. 00:47:36,230 Also, we know valuations are shifting as the valuations in downtown Minneapolis and all those office buildings keep coming down. That means that tax base is coming down and the pressure is put on. More on all the residential and Hennepin County. So Hennepin County taxes are going to go up. 00:47:54,130 Andrea, have you heard a levy increase from Hennepin County yet? I don’t have that. I’m looking at Dave to see if he has any hearsay. Yeah, I’m just curious because I know they’re going to have a larger levy increase in plus the distribution of who’s going to have to pay for that is going to come down on our property owners, our residents. 00:48:10,170 So you got the combination of those two factors going on. Um, it makes it really tough. And it’s an environment where groceries are made way more expensive. Gas is $4.60 a gallon. Um, this is the time to be frugal. When we had the Great Recession, we had four straight years of 0% levy increases, no levy increase. 00:48:33,670 And I think we’re in a time and place where we just have to be tried, not necessarily get back to that, but be very, very careful with how we spend money. Other comments. Look for a motion. I moved to approve the 2027 Preliminary General Fund budget, HRA levy and General Property Tax Levy and uh, set. 00:50:15,600 Um, that were. Involved in the planning process to those who attended the outreach events, um and community listening sessions, those who submitted answers to our community wide surveys, those who called to share their thoughts and opinions, and those who are showing up to the public meetings involving the plan and those who are championing environmental 00:50:35,370 stewardship in their own lives. We could not have done this without you. Thank you so much for your time and efforts. Our discussion tonight will provide an overview of the planning process, the feedback we heard from the community during the planning process. 00:50:54,170 Some important definitions to know while we go over the plan and overview of the plan’s goals. A sector by sector overview describing how we plan to reach the plan’s overall goals. A breakdown of potential emission savings, potential household monetary savings, as well as the cost of inaction. 00:51:10,330 In addition, there will be a summary of major changes that were made from the first draft to now and the next steps in the process. In November of 2024, I gave the City Council their first ever briefing on climate change and provided recommendations on the next steps that I believed the city should take in its pursuit of improving environmental stewardship throughout the community. 00:51:30,370 One of those recommendations was to develop a community wide climate action and resiliency plan, which, moving forward, I will refer to as simply the plan. 00:51:48,570 We received the green light to pursue the development of the plan and got to work in January of 2025, the city applied for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s Local Climate Action Planning Grant program for the creation of the plan. In June of that year, the city received notice that we were granted a $49,000 grant award through the Local Climate Action Planning Grant program in June and July of 2025. 00:52:07,770 City staff worked with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agencies staff to refine the grant work plan and budget, and City Council and City Council approved the acceptance of the grant award, as well as the city’s partial cash match of $35,126.85. 00:52:31,900 The funding for the city’s partial match was found in the Public Works budget in July of 2025, a request for proposals or RFP was issued for the completion of the of community wide Climate Action and Resiliency baseline assessments that would be needed to build the foundation of the plan. These assessments included the following A greenhouse gas inventory, a Climate vulnerability assessment. 00:52:54,770 Renewable energy Potential study, a ground cover, heat island and carbon sequestration study, and a Climate Action Baseline Assessment, which serves as a summary of the previous four assessments and provides baseline recommendations for the city to consider. Pale blue Dot was awarded the contract to complete the baseline assessments in September through November of 2025. 00:53:16,300 Background data was gathered and sent to the consultant to complete the baseline assessments and an additional request for proposals was issued for the facilitation of community engagement and the development of the plan. In November, the city held an environmental fair to kick off the planning process for the plan, a community wide pulse taking survey was posted to the city website and promoted for community listening. 00:53:35,930 Sessions were held and the applications for the community Steering Committee were posted and promoted in November through December, the community wide survey was promoted. Community Steering Committee applications were reviewed, community members were chosen and targeted. Outreach was conducted. In December. The city received the initial baseline assessments from the consultant team. 00:53:57,230 Pale blue Dot was chosen to be the consultant team for the facilitation and development of the plan, and Community Steering Committee members were notified that they had been chosen to serve on the committee. All right, moving into 2020 6th January through March, city staff reviewed the baseline assessments and provided comments and revision requests to the consultant team. 00:54:18,330 In February, the first Community Steering Committee workshop was held for additional community listening. Sessions were held and an overview of the plan and planning process was given to city committees. In March of 2026, the second Community Steering Committee Workshop was held. In April. 00:54:36,800 The third Community Steering Committee Workshop was held and the city received the revised baseline assessments from the consultant. In May. The fourth and final Community Steering Committee workshop was held. The final Community listening session was held, bringing us to nine total community listening sessions. The first draft of the plan was reviewed by the Community Steering committee and city staff, and targeted outreach was conducted. 00:54:56,000 In June. Targeted outreach continued from June to the to July. The first draft of the plan was put up on the city’s website, and a public comment period was opened during the same time frame, staff completed an extensive review of the plan and provided edits and revision requests to the 00:55:13,100 consultant team. Excuse me. In August, version two of the draft plan was received. City staff completed an extensive additional edit. Um and sent the final edit request to the consultant. 00:55:38,630 So far this month, city staff have finalized edits with the consultant, gotten the final version of the plan, which has been packaged and is ready to be published, presented the final plan to the Environmental Quality Committee on the ninth of this month. And finally, tonight I am presenting the final version of the plan to you all. 00:55:55,530 From the very beginning of this process, we knew that we really wanted to make this a community driven plan, so we made sure to build in plenty of touchpoints with the public, as well as creating a 12 person community steering committee to help shape the plan’s development and ensure that we captured what the community actually wants to see. The city do, not just what we think they want us to do. 00:56:11,170 Public feedback was received in many ways throughout this process. Touchpoints included the community wide pulse taking survey, the environmental fairs, interactive polling and solicitation of input from attendees, targeted outreach to youth, renters, local businesses and nonprofits. 00:56:35,630 Local HOAs, community groups, retirement facilities, and faith based communities was conducted nine community listening sessions, as well as the offer for any business, nonprofit, community group, or other type of collection of people with vested interests in the community. Um, to meet with the Environmental Stewardship Coordinator was available throughout the entirety of the plan’s planning process. And finally, the public comment period on the first draft of the plan. Here’s what we heard. 00:56:53,900 The first community wide survey was published in hopes of taking the pulse of the community regarding general attitudes about, and actions taken to prepare for climate change and its related impacts. On the slide are some highlights of that survey. 00:57:14,230 When asked how familiar they were when with the concept of climate change, 65% of respondents considered themselves to be very familiar with the concept, 30% considered themselves somewhat familiar, and only 5% said they had heard of climate change but were not confident in their understanding of it. 00:57:35,970 When asked how concerned they are about climate change, 90% of respondents answered very concerned, 10% answered somewhat concerned, and 0% answered not concerned. When asked how much they think climate change is affecting the community, 40% answered a lot, 40% answered somewhat, and 20% answered a little, meaning that 80% of respondents think that climate change is affecting the city of Plymouth at least somewhat. 00:57:58,130 When asked how important it is to them that the City of Plymouth takes action to address climate change, 90% of respondents answered very important, 10% answered somewhat important, and no one answered not important. When asked how ambitious they wanted to see this plan B, 45% answered very ambitious, with steep emissions reductions at an accelerated pace, while 55 answered moderately ambitious with a focus on realistic and achievable goals, with gradual 00:58:24,100 improvement seen over time and no one answered. Not ambitious. Finally, when asked how prepared they feel, their household is for extreme weather events, only 15% of respondents felt very prepared, 65% felt somewhat prepared, 15% did not feel prepared, and 5% were not sure. 00:58:52,200 During the first round of the community listening sessions, we heard an echo of the desire for the plan to have a focus on realistic and achievable goals, with gradual improvements over time. Community members said that they noticed climate impacts of hotter summers, flooding, poor air quality, loss of trees and higher energy bills affecting the community. 00:59:12,230 Community members also identified clean air and water, public health and parks and natural spaces as their top values or reasoning for wanting to pursue climate action and resiliency. During round two of the community listening sessions, the consultant gave an overview of the planning process thus far and presented community members with potential draft actions for the plan. 00:59:31,370 Community members were then asked to prioritize these potential actions. The top three priorities that surfaced were reducing emissions from the transportation sector by increasing public transportation use, reducing emissions from the building sector through increased energy efficiency and renewable energy consumption, and increasing the number of households that have received an energy audit. 00:59:53,830 The third community listening session had a bit of a change in tone. The consultant provided an overview of the draft plan and asked community members to prioritize the refined draft actions for the plan. 01:00:08,370 However, there are many community members in attendance who wanted to make a statement or comment about the plan and process itself, and after a round robin style of sharing throughout the room, we were over time and the prioritization exercise was not completed. Concerns that were brought up at the Session include general skepticism of the science behind climate change and the need for a plan. Concerns about city level taxes. Increasing. 01:00:30,770 Concerns about maintaining the city’s sovereignty, and distrust of the origin of, and or the drive behind the plan’s creation. On the screen is an overview of the breakdown of the types of comments we received during the first draft plans. The first draft of the plans. Public comment period. 50% of the comments received were positive and shared suggestions to strengthen the plan. 01:00:55,270 32% were oppositional, opposing the plan itself or the cost of the plan, and 14% were neutral, providing only copy edits or procedural feedback. I do want to take a minute to acknowledge that there were many mistakes and an extensive amount of copy edits were needed on each draft of the plan. 01:01:10,300 We really appreciate the public feedback pointing out some of these, um, edits that are needed, and we went to work fixing them right away. Um, the top, the top concerns from the supportive comments were a desire to go further, faster and with more ambitious targets such as net zero by 2050 and wanting to match or beat peer 01:01:32,200 cities in terms of climate action and resiliency work, a large desire surface to consolidate trash hauling into a single citywide hauler or hauler by zone approach. Community members noted that financial incentives would be needed in order for businesses and community members to take part in reaching the plan’s goals. 01:01:51,500 A desire for improved bike and pedestrian infrastructure throughout the city, and a desire for a short plan. Summary plan, FAQs and increased public education. All of these are currently in the works, and the plan summary and FAQs will be posted with the plan. Top concerns of the opposing comments were. Fear of high costs of implementation of the plan. 01:02:13,630 Fear of local government overreach. The thought that the implementation of this plan will have a negligible global impact. Skepticism of climate science. Distrust of the plan’s origin and drive to create a community wide plan, as well as pointing out the several instances in the draft where content was talking about the city of 01:02:30,170 Plymouth, but appear cities, either programs or data or name was used. Crosscutting concerns and comments include confusion about which goals of the plan are binding versus aspirational. Request for clarity on the general recycling rules and a large interest in the water quality and maintenance practices performed for Medicine Lake. 01:02:56,430 Before we go into the plan or sector overviews, I wanted to give a couple of important definitions to know as we go through it, just so that we’re all on the same page. The plan measures emissions in what is called metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. 01:03:15,030 So what does that mean? Let’s break it down. A metric ton is equal to about 1000kg. And for those of us who do not use the metric system, that’s approximately £2,204.6. For comparison, a small to medium sized passenger car with a gasoline powered engine weighs roughly 1.2 to 1.5 metric tons. 01:03:40,270 All right, so now that we can conceptualize a metric ton, we can add in the rest of it. So what does metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent mean. This is a commonly used way to better understand the impact of several different greenhouse gases. When they’re all added together. Each greenhouse gas has a different impact on the atmosphere, and therefore climate change. 01:03:59,700 This is a way to get an apples to apples comparison of the impact of differing greenhouse gases. The equation for finding metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent is to take the amount of metric tons of emissions from one specific type of greenhouse gas and multiply that by that gases specific global warming potential, which is just a 01:04:19,430 fancy way of saying the amount of heat that that gas traps in the atmosphere over a certain period of time, which is typically set at 100 years. Scientists chose to compare everything to carbon dioxide because carbon dioxide has a global warming potential of one. 01:04:37,300 Throughout the plan, our communities emission levels are measured in metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. All right. So on the screen is a snapshot of our 2024 community wide emissions in 2024. The community admitted 794 947 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions, 3.8% came from the water or the water sector. An additional 3.8% from the solid waste sector. 01:05:09,370 42% from the transportation sector, and 50.3% from the buildings and energy sector. We began the baseline assessments in 2024, so that was the most up to date data that we had at the time. And that’s why, um, that’s why that’s our one of our baselines. 01:05:28,170 Um, however, we also really wanted to get a more complete picture of the community’s emission trends over time, rather than just a one year snapshot. So 2020 and 2016 were chosen as comparison years compared to the 2016 baseline. Emissions from the water and solid waste sector increased, while emissions from the transportation and buildings and energy sectors have decreased. 01:05:50,430 We heard from the community that they wanted this plan to focus on realistic and achievable goals. Because of that, the overarching goals chosen for this plan are to reduce community wide greenhouse gas emissions by 40% below 2016 levels by 2035, and longer term, to reduce community wide greenhouse gas emissions by 80% below 2016 levels by 2050. 01:06:15,000 Also on this slide is a compilation of our peer communities environmental stewardship related goals. The most aggressive in this list is Saint Louis Park, with goals of achieving 100% renewable electricity citywide by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2040. The least aggressive in this list is likely Coon Rapids, with a goal of reducing citywide greenhouse gas emissions by 35% by the year 2030. 01:06:38,130 This is the least aggressive because it does not define a baseline year, of which they’re reducing the emissions from. So they could be reducing emissions from today. They could be reducing emissions from 2016. From 22,002. We’re just not sure. And um, as time progresses, we typically see an increase in emissions. 01:06:59,300 We are taking a middle of the road approach compared to our peer cities. Next, I will discuss the sector specific overviews that detail how we plan to meet these overall emission reduction goals. For each section, there will be a sector specific emissions reduction goal. This goal will be compared to our 2016 emissions level baseline. 01:07:21,370 There will also be subgoals for each sector detailing how we plan to meet the sector specific reduction goal. This sub. These subgoals will be compared to our 2024 numbers. The transportation and buildings and energy sectors contribute the most to the community’s total emissions, which means that these sectors also have the most opportunities to reduce emissions. 01:07:42,600 For that reason, you will see that these two sectors have larger emissions reduction goals for the transportation sector. We would like to see a 40.9% reduction in sector emissions. 01:08:05,500 To achieve this, we will work to reduce community wide vehicle miles traveled by 5%, increase public transit use by 127%, which I know seems like a lot. However, in practice it would mean adding approximately 3000 riders or giving an additional 1002 rides per year compared to what we did in 2024. Additionally, we will work towards increased community walkability and increasing the community’s of registered electric vehicles to 15% for the buildings and energy sector. 01:08:29,300 We would like to see a 43.5% reduction in sector emissions. To achieve this, we will work to increase renewable energy use to 12.5% community wide, whether that is from onsite renewable energy generation with, say, solar panels or from purchasing renewable energy from the utility directly. 01:08:53,170 Additionally, we will reduce electricity use community wide by 5%, reduce on site fuel combustion, which occurs when, say, natural gas is used in the building by 30% and achieve fuel switching from onsite fuel combustion to using electricity to meet those needs. For the solid waste sector, we would like to see a 27. 01:09:15,170 5% reduction in sector emissions and plan to do so by working to reduce the total amount of solid, solid waste generated community wide by 10% and increasing our organics recycling diversion rate by 1.6 times. For the water sector, we would like to see a 5.3% reduction in sector emissions. 01:09:39,670 To achieve this, we will work to reduce water use and therefore waste water by 5%, as well as work to increase stormwater resilience throughout the community for the local food and agriculture sector. We will work towards increasing local food production and access, as well as reducing food waste and food insecurity. Currently, there’s not great data on, um, local food production and access or, um, food insecurity. 01:10:00,830 So we don’t have percentage reductions for that or increases goals for them for the green space and ecosystem sector. We will work towards increasing our urban tree canopy cover, achieving a 1% turf conversion rate where we remove underused or unnecessary turf grass and replace it with native plants, achieving a 1% reduction in what is considered dark, impervious surfaces and 01:10:24,830 increasing the use of climate resilient land practices for the thriving community sector. We will work to support our climate vulnerable population as well as our local businesses in increasing their own climate resilience. We will also work to empower and educate our community on the risks and adaptation strategies surrounding climate change impacts. 01:10:48,930 If the plan’s interim 2035 goals are achieved, we will have achieved the plan’s overall goal of reducing community wide emissions by 40% below 2016 by 2035, and and the wording gets a little tricky here. 01:11:16,170 But in 2035 and moving forward, we will have reduced at least 330,424 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent of emissions community wide on an annual basis. All right. So that’s a lot of metric tons. Right. But that’s really difficult to conceptualize on its own at least for me. So I wanted to break it down a little bit. Um, 3000 and 3424 metric tons equals £728,452,750.4 of emissions avoided annually. 01:11:50,970 That is equivalent to the weight of approximately 330,372 adult African savanna elephants, which is the largest living mammal on Earth. If you can’t quite picture that many elephants, let’s think about it in different terms. Um, so there are 330,424 metric tons of carbon dioxide. 01:12:16,430 Equivalent reduction is also equivalent to removing 77,000 gasoline powered cars from the road annually, or taking all energy related emissions from 44,000 homes offline, including generation and transmission related emissions or not burning approximately 37 million gallons of gasoline, or the total carbon sequestered annually by approximately 330,000 acres of U.S. forest, which is roughly 516mi, or the total carbon absorbed by 5. 01:12:47,370 5 million tree seedlings in their first ten years of growth. So it’s a pretty significant impact. We broke down the plan’s estimated potential community wide savings to a per household basis, and that’s what you see on the screen. 01:13:05,530 Um, the average Plymouth household that makes the changes outlined in the plan could save up to $890 per year on climate related expenses. I do want to clarify that’s in $2,026. Um, as we all know, the value of a dollar changes with inflation and the overall strength of the US dollar. Um, but in 26, $26, $890, the savings could show up in the following ways. 01:13:30,270 630 could be saved by driving fewer miles and or switching to an electric or other alternatively fueled vehicle. Even after accounting for the increased purchase price of an electric or alternatively fueled vehicle, the average Plymouth household drives 21,712 miles per year, so even a 5% reduction in that would make a significant impact. 01:13:53,630 $51 could be saved in home energy savings by replacing older equipment with new, more efficient equipment. $83 can be saved from wasting less food. The average Plymouth household generates a total of £2,371 of solid waste per year, and $125 in avoided climate damage from things such as the cost of storms, heat and flooding. 01:14:16,200 Now, I want to talk for a minute about the potential cost of inaction. If we take no action at all. The city of Plymouth and its residents would see an increase in infrastructure damage, an increase in emergency response needs, which will lead to operational strain and revenue loss for the city, 01:14:32,570 which may have to be made up for by increasing taxes as well as health and social related costs from things like an increase in or aggravation of respiratory illnesses, heat related illnesses and mortality, and vector borne diseases. Reduce air quality and water quality. 01:14:51,900 Would reduce opportunities for recreating and gathering outside, which, as we know, leads to a decrease in mental health and so much more. Some major changes to note between the first draft of the plan and the final version include the comparison of peer communities goals, was edited to reflect our typical peer communities. 01:15:11,130 Perhaps the most notable is that in the water sector, correct data was used to determine the number and percentage of Plymouth properties that are at risk of flooding in the next 30 years, which resulted in a change from 12% of properties to 3.2% of properties being at risk of flooding in the next 30 years. Pretty big difference. 01:15:30,430 References were updated to be more reflective of current science and attitudes about climate change, and an appendix was added to show the methodology and data calculations used to find the local social cost of carbon, as well as the plan’s 2035 emissions reductions projections. All right, next steps. 01:15:51,400 In the process, you all will discuss the plan and make a decision regarding adopting the plan. If the plan is adopted, we will move swiftly into implementation. Thank you all for your time tonight. I will now stand for questions. All right. Open it up for questions. Councilmember point none and then Aldrich. Thank you. Okay. This is wonderful I love it. 01:16:10,300 And I thank everybody who participated in helping create this document. I do have one question. Um, you didn’t I and maybe I didn’t see it because I, I read it a couple times, but not this recent one today. What what could we do if we implemented citywide garbage pickup? Um, I do not have that information at this time. 01:16:27,470 I would refer to public works for that information. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Mayor and council. That’s, uh, a larger discussion where we need a number of work sessions. Um, so I don’t have any information or points to make at this time. Okay. I just wanted to ask. Thanks. Councilmember Aldridge. 01:16:50,100 Yeah. I was curious how many community members applied to be part of that steering committee? Um, how how did the selection process go? And was there any thought to putting someone on the committee that then was also going to vote to approve for it? Did you guys feel that there was any issue 01:17:08,800 with that, or did that come up? And if you could talk about those. I’d appreciate it. Yeah. Mayor council. Great question. Um, that is the one number I didn’t write down. The number of applications off the top of my head. I want to say it was 60 something applications. 01:17:26,730 Um, and the review process for that was a couple different things. So we had a overlap of people who participated in the Energy Action Plan steering Committee, um, that applied for this. And we wanted to make sure that other people had an opportunity to participate. 01:17:47,770 And then we also wanted to ensure that there was a diversity of income levels, um, educational backgrounds, work experience, etc., about that. Um, we did include Council Member Gregor in the plan. Um, in the community steering committee meetings. And um, we did so because that was asked of us for the Energy Action plan as well. Um, and Council Member Gregor is the ex um council liaison. Was there more to that question? No. You answered at all. 01:18:12,030 Perfect. Thank you. It’s. Council member Gregor. Uh, MK, thank you so much for this very detailed presentation. Um, and the very detailed plan. Um, like you said, I’m grateful to all the community members who for years have put input in on this and then participated specifically in the committee that helped with this. 01:18:42,730 Um, I also wanted to just thank you for what you highlighted in the presentation about targeted outreach. We had a comment at the beginning of the meeting today about making sure that we do that more in other areas, and I think we worked really hard to have these the community sessions for this plan in different areas of town and different. 01:19:03,100 Um, you know, community groups and all of that. So that I think is a great example of what our residents are asking for, to make sure that our plans are reflective of, um, real community input. Thank you. 01:19:25,500 I also found it very interesting in the survey responses that 90% of the respondents said that it’s very important for our city to take action. Um, that says a lot to me. And I have been working for four years on this, so I’m very excited to see this coming up. And I can see that it took two years to pull all this together. 01:19:44,900 And, um, it’s a lot of, a lot of work that went into this plan. Um, I do have one simple question. Hopefully in one of the sectors you talked about turf conversion, and I know the council will be discussing that later this year. Uh, you talked about a goal for a 1% turf conversion rate. The word rate stood out to me is that every year. 01:20:05,000 Is that over the ten year goal period. Um, can you just give me a little bit more detail on that, uh, goal? Mayor. Council? Absolutely. Um, I believe that that is a 1% reduction total over the ten years of the plan from 2024 levels. Okay. Thank you. 01:20:27,400 I may have other questions as we go, but I’ll leave it at that for now. MK, I have some questions that I’m trying to when I read through this plan. Again, just trying to connect the dots to understand if we do this, then this will happen kind of thing. Um, and so on. 01:20:47,600 Transportation and land use obviously that in the building sections are the two drivers. Um, much more so than the other two issues. Um, but we have on here. So we’re trying to achieve by what is it, 20, 35 of 40, almost a 41% reduction of CO2 emissions, right? Yes. And so to get that. Clarify quick all emissions but CO2 equivalent emissions. Okay. All emissions. 01:21:15,430 All greenhouse gas emissions. Okay. So not just relative to what is generated from transportation. So transportation, um, everything every sector contributes multiple types of greenhouse gas emissions. So yes, inclusive of all transportation emissions. Okay. 01:21:42,130 So if we take 5% of cars and you said in your report that from 2016 to 2024, um, I think it has all the cities one 1% increase in vehicle miles traveled since 2016. VMT per household has decreased 4.8. How did that? I’m just curious how did that happen? How did vehicles. Because I understand the city is growing, so we’re adding more houses to there. 01:22:05,070 Um, so it’s natural that we’re going to have more vehicle miles traveled. But I’m just curious like but over that time, it went down almost 5%. Mayor. Council. Um great question. I believe it’s, um, a handful of things. So more efficient use of vehicles as in, um, combining trips. 01:22:26,070 So when you, um, you know, maybe before you pick up the kids from school, you go to the grocery store and you’re not doing two separate trips there. Um, as well as during the Covid, um, shut down, there was a lot of there was not a lot of use of vehicles. So I believe those two things really contributed. 01:22:42,930 And then I will ask our community and economic development coordinator or director, excuse me, um, if he has anything else to add. There. Right. Uh, mayor, mayor and council no, I don’t. Yeah. Okay. Um, and then increasing the use of public transit. 01:23:08,330 Michael, how what happened? You know, we all know that public transit went down, way down during Covid. How much? How much have we bounced back B to where we’re at today compared to where we were pre-COVID? Yeah. Mayor and council, it depends on the type of service. So the fixed route service. So your commuter service that still hasn’t fully recovered. 01:23:29,500 Um, to pre-COVID levels. So Covid really hit that hard and that hasn’t recovered. But our on demand transit service. So the click and ride that has rebounded very well. And it’s actually grown an additional 50% over pre-COVID levels. So our click and ride program is very successful. 01:23:54,600 The fixed route service or commuter type service still hasn’t fully rebounded. Yeah. And I know back when I was chairing the transit committee, one of the things we did when we were under budget constraints was, um, restrict started pulling back on hours that, um, dial a ride, as it was known back then, was available and it was primarily being utilized by businesses 01:24:15,330 where workers might be staying somewhere, and then they’d pick them up and bring them to their business. Um, part of this is like, what’s going through my head is, how are we going to get 5% for your vehicle? Miles traveled. 01:24:31,100 How are we going to get how are we going to achieve that? I mean, it’s a nice goal to have. It’s a great goal to go towards that. 40.9. How are we going to get a 125% increase in public transit? You know how much of a difference is community walkability actually going to make? There’s no numbers attached to this. 01:24:50,670 And that’s my disconnect I’m having as I’m trying to say, oh, if we take 5% of vehicles miles traveled off the road, that’s going to equate to this. If we take get people. 01:25:06,130 And what is the strategy to get people to ride public transit? You know, and what is the cost? Um, and to do that, how are we going to create enough increased community and walkability? Because the only thing we really can do, you know, is like the Boulevard, it’s a new development. 01:25:25,900 Um, we have, um, the city center area here is something that we can try and work on, but City Wide is a sprawling suburban city. So I’m not quite sure how we achieve that. Um, not. And it says 15% increase in registered vehicles. So again, it’s a disconnect. 01:25:51,400 How are we going? I mean, how are people going to choose to buy more electric vehicles? Um, especially when those incentives, those federal government tax incentives were taken away. I mean, I don’t see this as part of the plan to explain other than to say, oh, we’re going to do this and we’re going to do that and that. It’s not saying, here’s how we’re going to do it. That’s what I’m trying to look for. 01:26:08,030 Mayor. Oh, good. Mr. mayor and council members. Um, just a couple of comments on that. So for each strategy, we have separate actions. Largely most of these actions. we’re starting from zero. So we’re starting from the evaluation phase. So one of the baseline assessments that we need to do is an evaluation of current ridership. 01:26:28,600 And then routes to optimize, you know, different timing and the location of those routes so that they are the most effective and so that they are the most attractive to our residents. 01:26:45,400 You brought up the Boulevard, which is an outstanding example of a land use pattern that can support alternative forms of transportation, having, you know, 12 to 1500 residents within a 10th of a mile of a grocery store is how we really start to impact and achieve the livability of our neighborhoods. Um, and as we’re going through the comprehensive planning process, we’re looking at a few different ways of how we get to that. 01:27:00,330 So you mentioned City Center as well, which is an excellent example, but from the parks and recreation perspective, we’re looking at how can we retrofit areas to create trail connectivity in existing residential areas and in existing commercial areas so that we give our residents more options for how they get around? So the more the more, 01:27:17,400 um, options residents have for getting around, usually the less dependent they’ll be on their cars and single use occupancy vehicle travel for those shorter trips. And our goal really is to focus on those shorter trips, because that’s how we can make the biggest gains in trying to reduce the CO2 emissions from the transportation sector. 01:27:38,730 So part of it is in the implementation phase, um, a lot of it is like we’re just getting started on this. So I think annually, as we report back to the council on the metrics and the goals that we’re achieving, we’ll start to build out that methodology and a way to track all of those 01:27:54,270 things in a way that is both transparent to council and to the public, so that we can start to show how we are making those gains. All right. 01:28:12,000 And one thing that reminds me that I remember when we had developers come in, this is probably back in 2019 to talk about the city center. Um, they made the comment that if somebody has to walk more than four blocks to get somewhere, they’re going to get in their car and drive. 01:28:29,930 And so part of this is just I’m having a real hard time connecting the dots here on that. And you want to like are you to prove this next steps. We’re going to go with this this and this. We really don’t understand. If we have these reductions right now, if that’s going to get to what we want to set as a goal. 01:28:46,000 That’s what I’m hearing you say. And so we’ll, you know, the next step is to get there. So that’s what I’m struggling. With. Um, mayor, that’s a good point to bring up. 01:29:09,170 I would like to, um, just say that we did work with the consultant to make sure that all of the actions, um, and then strategies that those actions are paired to do lead up to the add up to the overall emissions reduction goal. Right. But I’m being asked to vote on a plan that doesn’t have those dots connected. And we don’t I can’t I can’t go in and see how we achieve this in the goal. 01:29:29,270 I just feel more comfortable understanding what the impacts are to each of those strategic actions, and how that will lower the carbon. Mayor. Absolutely. Um, I do believe there is an appendix, which, um, does explain kind of the methodology behind the 2035 emission reductions projections, which are based on the sector goals. 01:29:52,830 Um, however, I don’t think it breaks it down action by action, but I could, um, get that math and follow up with you. All right. NJT relative to public transportation and bus use. I mean, when I was on the transit committee, we were asked to reassess every single route. 01:30:13,070 And our our committee, transit committee put in a lot of time and effort, you know, and a lot of them we ended up cutting stuff because it wasn’t being utilized enough. Um, I think that’s a really, really hard thing to do. 01:30:32,270 I know we do have experts that know how to do that more effectively, but I think a lot of it’s dependent on, you know, is Minneapolis ever going to come back to people Monday through Friday, going down to the office or not? I mean, my day job is in Blaine. You’re never going to have a bus route go from Plymouth to Blaine. 01:30:50,100 I know the suburban transit providers tried the suburb to suburb service, and they they had trouble solving for the last mile. And it just it just couldn’t transport enough people to make it a viable route. So it’s it’s a tough nut to crack, but that’s why I’m just a little skeptical going into this. If we set an action plan, I want to know we can achieve that plan.. And Mr. 01:31:15,530 Mayor and council members, just from the information that we have collected, the data behind it. Um, we tried to set these at achievable levels. That was something we heard very clearly from our residents, is that they did not want to we were not looking for like overly ambitious plans. 01:31:33,670 Um, the the work of figuring out transit routes is very detailed and I imagine fairly mind numbing. Um, however, I think some of the other moves that we’re making kind of in the greater system with the station 73 project and the city investing in the infrastructure there in the highway 55 line, that’s where we can really, as a city, 01:31:52,130 start to impact the travel patterns of our residents so that we are providing more opportunities for them to have different choices. Yeah, and I know I’ve been working since 2014 to try and get a BRT route. Um, transit corridor on highway 55. 01:32:10,730 And I know the whole part of that idea was it’s going to drive land use, and we’re going to have more development that will be along public transit. So I think, you know, we want to keep doing that. I know bus service, Michael is going to start in late 2027, I think. Yeah. Mayor. 01:32:25,430 And yeah, I think thanks to you pushing for highway 55 starting in Q4 of 2027, there will be an all day bus service from Minneapolis out to Plymouth. And the end of line would be our, uh, city center, which which is great. And so that would be a bus every 30 minutes every day. 01:32:46,800 And so that’s hopefully would set us up for a bigger investment with a BRT type system. So we’re excited about that. That’s why we are investing in station 73 area. And we think this will be good for the city. Yeah. 01:33:03,600 Mayor and council I’d also like to add, as a user and fan of our public transportation system, that there are several efficiencies that can be made in our current um, system, such as labeling the bus stops and adding, you know, infrastructure to keep people warm in the winter, cool in the summer, or not getting rained on, as well as trail connectivity where they get dropped. Off. 01:33:23,130 And I also want to highlight the great things our city has done in terms of we, you know, we did a public private partnership for EV charging stations throughout. I mean, they’re in our parks. They’re in city center. They’re out front here. They’re all over in our maintenance facilities. We have EV charging stations. 01:33:41,330 We are probably, I think, Dave, the first city in the metro area to put in EV charging stations, that all our facilities, uh, we have for, uh, buildings that have solar on them, on top of them. So we’ve been installing solar and putting that in. We’ve gone through an energy audit and converted everything. 01:34:00,000 Um, all the low lighting and all the, um, besides lighting. I know, Michael know what it was, what it was. But we switched everything to low usage, low electricity usage. And so we have done a lot as a city. 01:34:22,170 I think what we’re trying to achieve here, because we’ve done a lot in almost what we can do. Um, I know I asked Amy our, um, uh, a question earlier today and, you know, one of the recommendations is like, convert our city fleet over to EVs. So we have five EV units, EV units now running. And Amy told me about 10%. 01:34:44,870 Maybe it could be converted at this point in time. So what we can do, we can definitely look at doing that and being able to do that. Uh, but what we’re asking as part of this plan is for residents and businesses to start going down this path with us, and that’s where I kind of hesitate with this, because I 01:35:05,730 don’t know how well that’s going to work or how how achievable it can be. Thank you for your feedback, mayor. Um, I did want to say something on the first point that, um, it’s not the entire fleet that we’re asking to be converted. 01:35:24,100 We are, um, steering clear of the public safety fleet, as was asked by our public safety. Um, team. And also, we wanted to make sure that when we do have, um, opportunities that come up, that it would make sense to electrify, that we take that. Um, but we’re not saying, like, switch all of our pickup trucks or all of our maintenance equipment to electric or anything like that. All right. 01:35:44,030 And let me clarify that I’m not challenging what the, you know, global warming or climate change or everything we have. We know that’s happening. You know, it’s just one. I’ve already said that, Councilmember Peterson, you can go. Thank you. 01:36:08,070 Um, MK, what happens if we adopt this plan and these dates and milestones come to pass and we haven’t achieved any of them? Mayor. Council, that’s a great question. And I think I’ll pass that over to JT. Mr. Mayor and Council Member, the short answer is we don’t know. 01:36:26,730 Um, we don’t have the ability to, I guess, look into the future and see what that future looks like. What we do know is that some of the impacts that we see from increased flooding, higher temperatures, um, you know, just the health and safety, uh, impacts of climate change, they really impact the livability of our city. 01:36:45,930 And I think doing nothing, um, would probably latest on a path where we’re still experiencing all of those kind of aspects of the changing climate. So I don’t know that we can actually quantify what would happen if we didn’t do it. 01:37:02,000 Yeah, I guess I meant it more from a like, Will people get fines? Oh, will there okay. Is there any mandate. Here talking about. Consequences of not meeting them? I did a. Solid plan. Okay. Sorry. I could have. Been more. So. Mayor and council member, thank you for the clarification. Um, it’s a plan. 01:37:16,530 And one of the things that we have in the summary at the front is that this plan does not commit the city or anybody involved to actually any of these actions. Um, it’s not prescriptive. So there’s none of the, like, code language, like, we shall do this. Um, there’s there’s language. Not like that. It is entirely voluntary. 01:37:34,500 And is that the case both for residents. They don’t have to change anything about how they engage with any of these goals in their personal lives or their own households and businesses. Same. No requirements on any of them, is that right? That’s correct. Thank you. Um. Councilmember Sponheim and then Nelson. 01:37:56,430 Thank you. So to all the folks that have been working on this for years, I want to say thank you. I began my service to the city of Plymouth on the Environmental Quality Commission with Council Member Gregor. Um, as both of us are commissioners. 01:38:11,570 And I would like to say you’ve actually been working on this for seven years. You were championing this. Then you continue to be our leader on this issue. Um, you know, I, I actually see how vehicle models are going down. Mayor, people are using electric bikes all the time. 01:38:25,970 And if we get better trails, people aren’t using their cars and they’re being used at all ages. And now I’m seeing the tricycle electric bikes showing up more and more. And I mean people. It blows me away. Now, we also have a lot of conversations with Chief Fadden about the terrorism that’s occurring on these bikes at 40 miles an hour. Okay. 01:38:41,330 Wrong word. But it feels like that when you’re walking. But my point is, we are seeing changes in behaviors, and I don’t I don’t think we need to know how we’re going to get to everything, because none of us would have guessed five years ago electric bikes were going to be the number one bike sold 01:38:53,600 on a bicycle shop. Today. We didn’t know that. No, the bike shop industry kind of saw it. So shifts are happening. I think we need the goals. I think every single one of these things is an evidence based best practice. 01:39:06,930 And just like in medicine, we don’t always know which best practice is going to work, but we’re going to put them out there and we’re going to set the goals for how we improve the health of a community or health of an individual. 01:39:21,030 I’d like to say that another way that we’re going to see things is like in my work formally as a consultant around the country, working with school districts to implement safe routes to schools. We saw communities that adopted better sidewalks and better bike routes to schools. Not only that, they have fewer car miles. They had kids who learned better, who had better nutrition, had lower rates of mental illness. 01:39:41,000 So like, it’s not just an environmental issue as we’re setting up our kids to succeed in a changing world by getting more safe routes to school. And so I think that’s an application of like, how this is not only just about environmental issues, etc.. 01:39:58,330 And then the last piece about, you know, you know, what are why is we as one city thinking about it? I wanted to just point out, and I don’t think you probably have this in a slide. And I just froze my computer. But I want to draw people’s attention to slide 1.7, because Councilmember Greger and I talked about this seven years ago. 01:40:16,330 And, um, this is no, it’s in the report. 01-7. It is the one that shows the changes in rain in mosquito breeding days and air conditioning demand, etc.. That’s forecast. You know what, if we don’t achieve all these goals, but we achieve even a bit of them. We’re saving people money. 01:40:37,870 I mean, and I think the thing that I want to point out that is like profoundly boring to most people, but where I think that this plan prepares us storms, these summer storms that come and go, we all see how they’re getting more intense. 01:40:54,430 You just need to look a couple, I don’t know, 100 miles south of here to see what happened this weekend. With nine inches and a couple hours. If we don’t have plans like this and we don’t guide our wonderful public works team to say, you know what? We know we need to spend more money with a bigger stormwater system. 01:41:11,870 The cost to the taxpayers of a blown out stormwater system because of a storm that we chose not to plan for is astronomical. And so as a fiscal conservative, I actually think this plan is not only going to save us money in terms of avoiding money. 01:41:27,600 That’s being wasted because we could have planned, but it’s also going to save us money practically in terms of reduce energy, saving, energy costs, etc.. Um, so I think this plan, um, I’d rather stretch and see how far we can get than, than then wait. And so I just want to again, thanks to thanks to everyone who shared their opinions and weighed in and guided this thanks to the team that built it. 01:41:48,130 Um, but this plan has my support and I look forward to our adoption. Thank you. Councilmember Nelson and Aldridge. Um, I have a question first, and then I have a comment. Um, so, um, you know, oftentimes. When you’re. doing surveys on. A topic like this, right? Those that. Are interested. In the topic are the ones. that reply, right. 01:42:14,570 It’s just natural. You know, you’re interested in something, you’re going. To participate. Could you highlight once again kind of and I appreciate it. In the report you did mention, um, some of the things that people didn’t agree with or that, uh, were, um, cautionary or they didn’t want to see a plan. 01:42:34,270 So I appreciate you mentioning those things in your report, but could you highlight, once again, just the efforts that were taken to be proactive in, in reaching out to to everyone on this? Absolutely. As soon as we get there. Oh, sorry. It was actually back. Okay. So there were a lot of public touch points built into this, um, planning process. 01:43:06,230 We developed a 12 person community steering committee. Um, we published a community wide pulse taking survey, um, and promoted it at the environmental fair, um, through social media. 01:43:25,870 Had it on the city’s website, I believe email blast about it went out um, at the environmental fair, there was interactive polling as well as different, um, avenues to put give input to the plan. And then we did specific targeted outreach to youth. Um, for example, I went to Robbinsdale Armstrong High School and spoke with their advanced science, um, classes about this plan and got their input. Um, we went to several different apartment buildings. 01:43:52,100 We talked to several local businesses and nonprofits. We reached out to a lot of HOAs, um, as well as community groups that we could find, um, contact information for. 01:44:09,130 We presented at a couple of retirement facilities, and then we reach out to a lot of faith based communities and got great input from all of these groups. We held nine community listening sessions and then meetings with me were available throughout the entire planning process. And then we published the first draft of the plan and opened a public comment period on it. Okay. Thank you. 01:44:28,830 And were there efforts to reach out to big business in our area? There were um, I will say that at the time, the economic development coordinator was also doing a lot of outreach to those businesses, and we didn’t want to cause, um, engagement fatigue or outreach fatigue. So it was very, um, collaborative who we reached out to. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for highlighting that again. 01:44:48,270 And just, um, for the clarification or for answering my last question. Um, I just want to point out, as someone who works with the building trades that are large, our energy partners have been here for well over a decade now. 01:45:06,400 Xcel Energy and 15 years ago started focusing on what they can do to help out our environment and move towards clean energy nationwide. By the year 2050, CenterPoint energy has been an innovator in the industry, moving towards geothermal. 01:45:29,330 I’m a strong believer that, um, if you don’t have goals and you don’t focus on something, it doesn’t happen and I view this much more as an educational campaign for our community, our businesses and, us as a city than anything. So I appreciate everyone’s hard work on this. And, um, I’m really happy that Plymouth can finally, um, join big, big business, big industry in actually caring about our greenhouse gases. Thank you. Councilmember Aldrich. And Gregor. Yeah. Um. One thought I had on the public input. 01:45:53,200 I don’t I don’t think there’s much more you could have done. I feel like it’s never going to be perfect. Um, I think you’re your typical resident that’s grinding during the day, going to work, coming home, taking care of kids, going to sleep, repeating every day is never going to give their input or their opinion, 01:46:08,670 and they’re just hoping that the people that represent them kind of incorporate those opinions, you know? And so I’m definitely doing that with with my decision on that. Um, we did mention the it’s there’s no teeth to this. This is just kind of a, a map. Right. 01:46:27,330 But I do think that it’s a guiding document that is going to impact how we do ordinance changes and zoning changes in the future, which will result in, um, consequences or teeth if people don’t adhere to the changes. So I don’t I just wanted to clarify that because I don’t want people to think, oh good, that won’t happen. 01:46:44,930 Well, it might, right. And then, um, my other question for you is I consider this more of a living, breathing document and that there’ll be iterations on that. And how does that look down the road? How do you picture that happening? Absolutely. 01:47:04,200 Um, on the first question about the teeth, I think that every anything that changes with zoning or ordinances has to come back through city council. Um, so that will be a council decision ultimately. And then, oh, excuse me, mayor council. Um, sorry, what was the second question about it? Got distracted. How do you. 01:47:26,000 How does the, you know, this living, breathing document, how do we plan? Do we do we have a standing plan? Every year we’re going to look at it. How is that going to look? Yes. Great question. Um, we haven’t officially decided on anything. 01:47:44,200 Typically what happens with these plans is that every two years, a community will update their greenhouse gas inventory to track their progress, um, towards meeting those emissions reduction goals. And then every, um, this current plan is, you know, projected out ten years, but every five years, typically cities come back, look at the goals, see if they’re still, um, reasonable goals for our community and where the community wants us to go. And then they can reevaluate at that time. 01:48:04,470 But this is definitely a living, breathing document that will be updated. And Mr. Mayor, Council Member, I would just also add for our first year since we are doing the CIP this year, we’re in the off year for the operating budget cycle. 01:48:23,730 So our intent for 2027 is as we start to build out the 2028 operating budget, we can start to have those discussions internally on where it would make sense, you know, to plug some of these efforts in. 01:48:37,270 Um, and that’s something that we’ll be working at, at the staff level, where we have a steering committee, uh, representing all of the departments in the city so that we can better assign, um, you know, some of the heavier lifts, like, for example, if we were proposing a zoning change next year would not be a great year because we’re doing the comp plan. 01:48:53,670 So that’s where we as staff can internally align all of our work planning to make sure that we are a not burdening too much. Some of our existing programs and work plans that we have, but be also start to try to build it into the budgeting process. Um, in a fairly measured approach. Comes around greater unemployment. Uh, mayor, you were asking some, some great questions about how are we going to achieve this plan. 01:49:17,200 And, you know, those pieces aren’t in it. Um, and I really feel like I yep, that there are a lot of, um, strategies and tactics and actions that are listed, but they are going to require the leadership of us and of our staff, as JT was saying to, um, consider initiatives, whatever that may be, to I mean, I don’t 01:49:40,700 know, is it put up more flyers that say ride the bus, probably need something more innovative than that, but there’s going to need to be work that is done. But this plan is what’s going to direct it. 01:49:55,330 This plan is what’s going to just like our strategic priorities for the council, are going to help our staff understand what we want them to do, to help us to achieve that plan. So, you know, and as Councilmember Aldridge said, this is going to be a living, breathing plan. 01:50:11,070 And so it’s not going to sit on a shelf and collect dust and say, well, we’ve got it. We’re done. Like it’s going to take work from the council and from the staff and from the community to achieve it. Um, but as Councilmember Peterson pointed out, like, we aren’t going to force anybody to do something. 01:50:27,630 We are going to look at ways to be innovative, to be creative, to set an example as a city government, to work with businesses to help them save money, to work with homeowners, to help them save money. Like I think it is. It’s all about the implementation. And that’s what the next ten years are going to be. 01:50:47,870 It’s not like once we’ve we’ve passed it, everything starts. And now, you know, tomorrow greenhouse gases are going down because we passed the plan. So, um, to me, we are setting a vision as a council, as a community. And that’s what this plan is about. It’s about setting a tone for the future for our city. Thank you. Councilmember point. 01:51:08,200 I’m like, around the middle of this, I asked you, I had residents come to me and ask me, what can I do? And I had said, is there a spot that says, well, here’s a thing, some things that you do, some ideas and and you pointed that out. 01:51:24,530 Um, so I do think it’s important to understand that residents are asking. And at the very beginning, we talked about the energy audit. Mayor, I think you said you had an energy audit. 01:51:41,800 I mean, there’s lots of simple things that we can do that are not expensive, that we can change in our house, that as as Councilmember McGregor said, this is something that that is living and breathing. And we can say, oh, here’s another one. I had a friend in another city that had a clothes swap. I mean, there’s lots of things that we can do that can be exciting and fun in our city, um, that don’t cost anything but do something. So thank you. I’m okay. 01:51:57,830 Thank you. Yeah. And I would just say, you know, a year ago, I took advantage of we had the home energy audit done in our house, and we knew there was wasn’t enough insulation in the attic. 01:52:12,530 And so we still had the tax credit available to get it done. And so then there were rebates on top of the utility companies. Um, so I think I ended up paying about half of the cost of actually putting insulation in. Now the tax credits gone, the rebates still there. Um, but we’re saving more money on, uh, energy use. So Councilmember Peterson. 01:52:30,900 Thank you, mayor. And thank you again. MK. I. Um. I will say, I think that this. Plan demonstrates. Leadership on behalf of the council. If we adopt it, and I hope that we do. Um, if you don’t have a plan, then you can’t intentionally make progress. 01:52:53,400 And if we don’t start, we we won’t move the needle. And this is a roadmap to allow us to do that. So I’ll be happy to support it. Thank you. I do have three individuals who would like to speak on this subject. Um, so if you can keep your comments till about 2. 01:53:11,000 5 minutes, uh, because we still have a rather extensive agenda item to come up next. Uh, first I’ll call on Steve Jobs. Welcome, Steve. It’s good to see you again. I’ve missed you guys. So shocked that you’d be here tonight. Yeah. How about that? Yeah. You know, um, I think things have. 01:53:43,800 Plymouth has come a long way. No, no question about it. From when I first started talking about climate with you guys. And so I think this is a great step. The one suggestion I’d have is that as you look at the 2050 time frame and what globally, what we need is that zero greenhouse gas emissions. 01:54:06,030 And so that’s not really covered in this. And my caution would be that if it isn’t then you get this opportunity to, um, do things and spend money on stuff that won’t get you to where you really want to be. 01:54:28,430 If you follow what I’m saying, you know, you go over here and do this and there’s no way to get you to zero. So I spend money on it. Do something that will get you to do so. I. I’ll just leave it at that. Okay. But thank you. All right. Thank you. Steve. Uh, then I have Phillip. Adam. Mayor, mayor. And council people. 01:54:54,570 Um, I want to express my support for your implementing this, um, implementing this climate plan. Um, I just have a few anecdotal stories. Um, and I’ll just start off with, uh, in the last two years, the world has installed, um, enough about 1400GW of solar and wind, the equivalent of 600 nuclear 01:55:17,530 plants. So we should be we should be on the on the same on the same page as the rest of the world. Um, one little known. And this isn’t germane to, um, uh, the specific plan. I just want to point out that one, 2.5MW wind turbine eliminates 1 million gallons of gasoline a year. 01:55:39,000 So when we don’t know what the savings is going to be. So that’s one example. Um, and I’ll just talk about my anecdotal experience with my car. I just passed 100,000 miles on my electric car. My brakes are brand new. Not even there. 01:55:55,400 I don’t, um, and I obviously have had no oil changes. So let’s say that that adds up to about $2,700 in avoided cost. Well, that was my energy cost for that 100,000 miles. I’ve used 30,000 kilowatt hours at $0.09 a kilowatt hour for for off peak electricity. So if you have a gas car, your brakes and your oil equal my energy costs. 01:56:18,270 So think about that 100,000 miles and let’s use that for 60, uh, number that you use today. Um, let’s say you had a 23 mile per gallon, uh, gas car. That’d be $0.20 a mile or $20,000 for a hundred thousand miles. 01:56:39,130 So that’s the operating improvement in my, ah, reduction in my operating costs compared to a gas car. Now, imagine multiplying that by 80,000 residents, or 15%. As M.K. Anderson said. Um, the other thing I want to point out is that Eden Prairie, about ten years ago, started implementing intentionally, uh, carbon carbon reduction strategies. 01:57:00,130 And that’s part of the reason why they’re number two or number one. Okay. So thank you for that. The next thing I want to point out is that if we can reduce our carbon footprint, our fossil fuels, here’s just a graph of the gas prices for the last eight years. And they’ll see the volatility of it all. 01:57:16,570 Um, and again, the point is, is that, uh, um. By reducing our fossil fuel footprint, we make Plymouth more resilient and less dependent upon, uh, energy costs, which obviously respond to global markets even. Thank you. Sorry, Declan. Uh, hello. Um, yeah. 01:57:55,870 So I just wanted to speak in support of the plan. It sounds like most everyone’s made up their mind, but I think climate change entered the global. I don’t know, consensus. Maybe 20 years ago for most people, but actually, people have been noticing it for 200 years now. There were scientists noticing it in the 1820s. 01:58:19,530 This has been a slow moving avalanche affecting our entire species across the planet. I know we might not see the benefits of this, uh, in our lifetime, but, you know, I think a lot of us up here and in the city have kids. We might someday have grandkids. Who knows? And this would really help them out. Give them air to breathe, water. 01:58:40,600 They can drink, a place they can play, run around in, live work. Someday. Uh, and just be themselves and save the planet. I know it might seem like a small drop in the ocean, but every little bit across the world helps. 01:59:03,500 And as the previous speaker just talked about, solar panels are kind of taken over and their growth has been very exponential. It’s been great to watch over the past few years. So thanks for putting together this plan and overcoming the obstacles that have appeared in the way of it. And then. And then I have, uh, I believe it’s Keisha. Keisha. Keisha. Sedlak also close. Okay. Um, hi. Thank you, everyone, for the opportunity to speak today. 01:59:35,530 My name is Keisha Sedlak. Um, I urge your adoption of the climate Action and Resiliency Plan. The plan sets a pathway for Plymouth on how we can address climate change and population growth in a dynamic political climate. On this issue, um, we’ve talked about a lot of things. 01:59:53,970 I don’t think we spend a lot of time on the co-benefits while I’m an environmentalist, and my field is, um, environmental law and have been in this for longer than I’m going to meet up here. Um, I do think co-benefits are are a lot of why you should Adopt. 02:00:13,930 This plan, especially as it relates to, um, you know, building a more robust local economy, better transportation options, better preparedness for natural disasters, or just a few that are highlighted in the plan. So I want to be a little bit transparent here. 02:00:29,430 I was part of the community steering committee, so I am a bit biased, but I just still want to come up here and urge the adoption of the plan tonight. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. Um, JT, just real quick. Yeah. I need a card from you, though I shouldn’t know when you’re done. Okay, I’ll give you one. Um, so I appreciate this topic. 02:00:47,170 And I participated, I think, in the third study session, um, which had some pretty robust, uh, pushback on the methodology and everything else. And I’m not going to rehash all that here tonight. My ask is, I appreciate that it’s going to be a living, breathing document and plan. 02:01:04,670 And as we get into it and we start to understand whatever the economic impacts are, either positive or negative, that we’re just very transparent about that, because I think the broader state of Minnesota is realizing right now that when we signed legislation to go to 100% carbon free energy, um, by 2040, that has an economic impact and energy costs are 02:01:27,130 going up because of that legislation, because we refuse to acknowledge that we need a healthy balance of energy from multiple sources, not just non carbon producing energy sources. 02:01:50,470 So as you go through this plan for the long term and you start to understand what the economic impacts are, I just ask that you be transparent in communicating what those impacts will be, because it’s not all. We’re just going to save the environment and everything’s to be fine, and there’s going to be no economic impact for our decisions. That doesn’t exist. And so the other thing I’ll say in this study is I kept hearing a mixing of words around, we want to save the environment. 02:02:11,270 Everyone wants to be good stewards of the environment. No organization has a monopoly on wanting to do that. No group has a monopoly on wanting to do that. But we can’t conflate what was said earlier around. We need to accommodate for more stormwater with this notion that we need to reduce our carbon footprint. 02:02:31,100 We keep talking about different things in a non sequitur array on this topic, and it’s not helpful. And so we’re either trying to improve our infrastructure and optimize our energy use, or we’re trying to lower emissions. And if you’re trying to do both, then be honest about how all those things are interrelated in this plan. 02:02:50,830 Does not do that at all. It was a wet dream for a consultant to come in here and put together these numbers. And again, I applaud the desire for what we’re trying to do. 02:03:09,070 But the way that this was executed was not as productive and as helpful as I think we all wish that it was. And now we’re basically virtue signaling that we’re all going to save the environment because Plymouth is going to do what it’s going to do here. 02:03:25,470 And so I just ask that we’d just be a little bit more transparent around what we’re trying to achieve in the economic impacts of what we’re trying to achieve. So thank you. All right. Thank you. And that was Kevin Peterson. Um, so just fill out a blue card and pass it off to our staff, JT or MK. 02:03:45,500 What do you envision the check backs with the council? Ah, because, you know, I feel better that we’re going to regard this as a living, breathing document, not something that write staff go nuts. Uh, go down the road. But I mean, to me, it’s like checking back in and it’s like, all right, here we are. Here. 02:04:03,400 I want to know what their milestones are, what the times to check back in with council when, you know, um, we’ve identified the strategies for getting 5% fewer. My miles traveled. Um, that kind of communication is going to give me more confidence that we’re heading down the right path and achieving these goals. 02:04:26,800 Um, I just want to be able to know if we can’t connect the dots now, we can connect them in the future. And you’re going to come back to the council to show what those are. Mr. mayor, Council member. That’s probably step one of our implementation. Scoping that we still need to do is and that’s something that MK and I will take back and we will start working through those details. 02:04:43,930 And then we’ll come up with an outline and a cadence of the communication that we’re going to be providing to you guys. The other piece of it too is the role of the EQC. 02:05:00,000 Um, in ensuring that we’re, you know, remaining transparent and that we’re we kind of have everybody on board with our plan moving forward. So I think our intent would be to include the EQC in the workflow of this as well, since they are the the body that, um, is responsible for submitting our Green Step cities information. Um, it’s a natural pairing for us to be able to work with them on some of those different efforts. 02:05:18,100 All right. Thank you. Other comments. Councilmember greater than Aldrich. Um, yes. Thank you mayor. Thank you. JT, I was basically going to say the same thing. 02:05:39,100 I think that as we as I commented earlier on, um, our budget discussion about directing the HRA to bring forth ideas for what to spend the HRA levy on, I think we should be directing the EQC and their work plan to, um, be looking at, you know, what are the what are the practical next steps that we should be taking. And they can spend time discussing those. And then, you know, the council can see those as appropriate. 02:05:58,130 So I think it really, uh, it all goes to implementing this plan, taking advantage of our staff and our volunteers and our committees and commissions to help with that. Um, I also just wanted to respond to some of the public comment. There was a question about budget impacts and so on. 02:06:14,930 And I think something that we’ve done a great job of being transparent on every single memo that comes in our City Council packet has a section that says budget impact. 02:06:30,200 And what does this going to mean for the budget? And so I’ve often thought, well, maybe we should add a section that says climate impact. And, you know, that’s a little bit harder to quantify on some of the things that come before the council. So I’m not I’m not pushing for that right now. 02:06:45,600 But I think that the budget impacts section will always be there as a way for us to remain transparent with the public about the cost of things. Um, and then as we saw in here, you know, part of the budget impact is hopefully it’s resulting in savings for homeowners, for residents, for businesses, and for our city government itself. When we find, uh, you know, energy savings and other reductions in costs. Thank you. Councilmember Aldrich. 02:07:08,570 Yeah, I think I think we’re all in alignment here that, you know, climate change is real. Environmental stewardship is a value of ours. Um, I think we might differ a little bit in how the city’s role should be in that. 02:07:24,770 Um, and so when I look at the plan, I think that there’s a lot of good things in there, but there’s also some things in there that give me the feeling of like an air of activism, environmental activism, that I don’t want the document to have that in there. I want it to be something I’m proud of. 02:07:38,930 Um, and I think your typical resident of Plymouth, we’ll look at some of these things and say, why is that in there? So I just want to mention a few, um, the Tl1 one has complete streets approach, and a layman will read that and just read on and understand what that means. 02:07:58,300 Well, complete streets approach D prioritizes vehicle speed and capacity and roads in favor of pedestrian traffic. That’s something that I’m not in favor of. I don’t think that should be in there. Um, another example would be roadway roadway reductions. 02:08:21,800 Basically, the similar thing, um, consider EV ready zoning, which would force new construction or major renovations of homes to install EV electrical infrastructure in their home, even if they don’t want it in there. That seems a little bit unnecessary. Um, uh, you know, taxpayer dollars for electric vehicles. I don’t really agree with that. 02:08:40,030 Um, the idea of installing community solar panels on city owned land using taxpayer dollars so community members can use that power seems a little bit strange to me. I don’t think that should be in there. Um, I have a few more. Um, there an interesting phraseology about billing incentives for reduced water use, which I was curious what that would mean, because we currently it’s a consumption base. 02:09:01,270 So I’m kind of wondering if we’re going to be punitive for people that use too much water. I’m not I don’t agree with that. If that’s what that looks like. Um, in Lf one for there is an idea to promote Meatless Mondays, which I don’t think we should be promoting people’s diets and not eating meat on Mondays. 02:09:20,030 I think that’s kind of crazy that a city would would even mention that we should do that. I think that should be removed. Um, I don’t think that we should be encouraging event organizers in the city to include plant based food options. 02:09:37,200 I think that they should have autonomy to decide what they want to put in there, which could include plant based food options. Um, I do not support, especially GE for three. Um, which implies foreseen private residents of Plymouth and lawn service companies to replace their gas powered lawn equipment with electric powered lawn equipment. 02:10:02,670 Um, that might be practical in Minneapolis, where your lots are 40 foot by 130 foot. Uh, that’s not practical in Plymouth. I think that should be removed. I don’t agree with that. Um, I also didn’t like the the T.C. three five where we’re going to be using our resources to work with school districts to increase increase climate literacy with Plymouth schools. 02:10:19,200 I think that can easily be done with residents that if this is something that they care about a lot, they can just reach out to their school board and tell them they want that. Um, yeah, that’s just the sample. 02:10:31,930 So, so there’s there’s a lot of good things I like and agree. Um, but there’s also some items in there that I just don’t think should be in there. And I, I would like to pull those out. And I just wanted to mention it in case it resonated with anyone else. Thank you for your feedback. 02:10:52,830 Yeah. Personally, I would like to see a more condensed version of this. Maybe tackle one item, maybe transportation or buildings. Um, a lot of our buildings get how much of our, um, buildings and homes get electricity from Excel. How about, oh, Mr. Mayor and Council, about 90%. 02:11:14,170 90%. So a lot of that is driven based on the work Excel does in terms of wind turbines, in terms of solar. Um, that’s going to control it. So the more they expand and get to get towards net zero, it’s automatically going to pull us with it to achieve those same goals. 02:11:33,030 Um, there’s a lot in here that I also had questions on. Um, on there. I’m not going to get down into, uh, wordsmithing this document, but I think that’s why I want to know, like step we come back here, maybe we look at some of these in more detail as we get closer and a better understanding of the impact of, 02:11:53,200 you know, emanating carbon emissions. Um, and deal with it at that point in time. But, um, I just don’t want to start wordsmithing this document at this point. Mayor, would you look, were you looking for a, um, a motion yet? Um, yeah, I can take one. You can make a motion anytime you. Want. 02:12:15,570 Once we get through the public input. Well, I’d like to make a motion that we approve this plan. Second. We have a motion a second. Any other comments? Jerry, do a roll call. Vote. Aldrich. Nay. Nelson. I Weiner, I Sponheim I Gregor I Peterson I washy.. 02:12:47,230 Um, I started out at this meeting with I was wasn’t going to support the plan after understanding it’s you know we’re going to get those answers and we’re going to go step by step on this, not just go gung ho. I guess I’m familiar at this point, going to the next step. So it’s I have a lot of questions on this plan. 02:13:04,800 Uh, but right now, um, I’ll, I’ll say yay, just knowing we have future connections to make on us. Okay. That passes. Thank you for your. Time. Yep. We’re going to take a five minute break. Call this meeting back to order. We’re going to go on to item 8.3. Continued use of the flock. Alpers automatic license plate reader cameras. Chief. 02:21:22,770 Thanks, mayor. Um, I thought about joking and saying that I’d just start the study session. PowerPoint presentation all over again, but I’ll save you all that. Uh, I just want to thank you all for the discussion that we had about our flock ALP readers. Um, at our special council meeting earlier this evening. 02:21:40,000 I appreciate the opportunity to share information about how our system works, the guardrails that we have in place, um, through state statute and department policy, and how the tool has helped prevent our our help, keep our community safer. 02:21:58,100 I’m also grateful for those in our community, many of whom are here tonight, uh, who have reached out with questions, concerns about flock. Uh, your concerns are important to me and all of us at the city. And I appreciate you taking time to be here today, too. Uh, especially now that we’ve been going at it for a few hours in this meeting. 02:22:16,170 I understand this topic is extremely complex, and I’ve done my best to respond to any questions and concerns as they’ve come in and will remain committed to continuing to do that. I appreciate the opportunity for discussion as we continue to prioritize public safety in Plymouth. 02:22:32,330 Um, and with that, I, you know, after the study session, I don’t have any more comments or presentations, so I’ll just turn it back over to you, mayor, for questions or comments. All right. Are there any follow up questions? I have, I believe six cards of people who do want to speak. Um, but I didn’t go to the council first for any questions. Councilmember Peterson. Uh, I will start with a question about just our transparency on this. 02:22:57,200 We don’t normally have our study sessions in this room where they have, um, you know, our cameras and recordings. So I assume that as is our typical process, that study session was not recorded. Okay. 02:23:18,170 Um, I guess to that end, to the extent this is the recorded meeting and publicly available, I’m imagining there might be some restating of things that we maybe stated in the study session. So I just want to clarify, you know, whether that was needed in terms of recording or not. Um, I guess maybe I’ll wait until I hear some of the public comments. 02:23:31,770 But I as I noted in the study session, I’ve got some questions I’d like to run by the city attorney. Okay. All right. I guess as I said, we have six cards. Um, chief, we have, um, Andy, we have, what, 2.5 minutes per person time limit. And I’d ask you to keep it to those comments. Uh, first I have Brian Lazarus. I believe it is. 02:23:56,600 And my sunglasses too. Um, I am Brian, I am I’m a local resident, and I just want to, uh, say my bit. I have been speaking with, uh, Chief Fadden for quite some time now, and he assured me, first of all, that these cameras can only capture, 02:24:15,300 um, license plates while I went out the other night. And I proved that to be untrue by walking past that camera. Uh, in the absence of any vehicles whatsoever in the dark. And I watched the infrared flashes go off. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop up like that as they took multiple pictures of me. 02:24:35,800 And, um, I’m not a car. I don’t have a license plate. But what I do have is a great a grievous concern for my privacy and for where this is going in 20 years. Sure. 02:24:54,930 The chief says that everybody’s got these, uh, checks in place, but what happens when he’s out of office and somebody who’s corrupt comes in? Then we have this infrastructure stuck in our city that can be used by anybody. And everybody knows that wireless technology is not secure whatsoever. It is inherently insecure by nature because it has to go, as you were saying, from point A to point B through the air. 02:25:14,500 And our security is only as secure, um, until it is no longer secure. Right? Just like the water, just like it happened. Your security was secure until it wasn’t. And just like, um, our public servants are honorable until they’re not. Right. 02:25:38,070 And so I don’t want in my city this this Orwellian, um, basically, dragnet system of of photographing every single car that drives by justifying it. You said the other day to me with, you didn’t even have numbers today. Everything you said today was, I don’t know, okay? You you didn’t know more than you knew. She Fadden. And I think that’s repugnant. 02:25:58,830 First of all, I think it is your job to know every little bit of that. And you didn’t even know that they were unsafe without breakaway plates. I. I, a high school dropout, had to tell you of that. That’s shameful. 02:26:17,300 And the fact that we’re having this meeting, uh, two years after the implementation of these cameras, that is shameful as well. Okay. This should have been done long before those cameras were even considered. My time is up. Thank you. All right. Next, I have Daniel Wu. Thank you, mayor and council. 02:26:48,300 Um, first of all, I just want to thank everyone in the council, city staff and Chief Fadden for all these months of the transparency of you guys listening to our emails, responding and being open to this discussion on this issue. Um, I think that’s something that is one like we’ve a lot of us have been asking helps build our trust with the city. 02:27:04,030 Um, despite that, there are still a lot of concerns that we citizens have with this flock system. Um, tonight’s presentation, which is very well done. Thank you, chief, for the transparency on how our department uses these cameras. Um, there’s some things that I just have concerns with. 02:27:19,970 For example, um, you know, uh, the chief had pointed out that we have an extensive audit system of these flock cameras to make sure that when, if they’re misused, that we can catch that in time and we can make sure that those who misuse it are held responsible. The issue is with that is that audits always find misuse after the fact. 02:27:38,670 Um, and I think that’s, you know, part of the problem with this system is that at any point, anyone who has access to it can flip a switch and choose to misuse it at any point. 02:27:55,770 And it’s difficult for any department, any city out there, no matter how strong their policies are, to be able to control that without affording massive resources to constant oversight. That’s exactly what our governing and our judicial system is in place for. That’s why warrants exist. 02:28:11,570 That’s why constitutional rights exist, is to make a lot of those protections without having to put us so many resources into us having to watch that all the time. Um, another thing that was pointed out is that there’s 8000 variants of license plates around the country. I believe that’s a complex situation. That even flock is. A corporation cannot compensate for. 02:28:30,030 Um, even when you look at how many years it’s taken for a corporation like Google Maps to function and include all the types of driving and road designs across our country as license plates change. And there’s so many different kinds, how does a company like flock? Another answer that we don’t have from them is how do they, um, moderate and manage these different license plates? Um, and I’ll just finish with the fact that technologies at a 02:28:49,300 place actually, now that regular CCTV cameras have the ability to do this, um, most of us, actually, all of us have access and the ability to just spend a few thousand dollars and install cameras at our homes that can do this. 02:29:04,100 Um, you can go through companies like unify or even smaller corporations with much cheaper cameras like Wyze Camera. So why are we spending the money to do this and give our data up and control over to people who are based in Georgia, who are not under the Statute of Minnesota laws, even though those Minnesota laws are very protective of us. 02:29:20,270 Um, so I just want to say tonight, please vote in with a thought of Plymouth residents and consider the fact that if we vote to end this contract, we’re also saving our city money. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next, I have Scott Johnson. Thank you. Mayor, city council. Um, I’m in favor of LPR technology. It was it. 02:29:49,970 Look, help with Amber alerts. It will help with lots of things where we run into problems as people try to use it for more than what it is. Um, the when they initially first came out, I thought LPR was great in high speed chases down the highway. 02:30:15,630 Police don’t have to pet a vehicle and put other residents at danger. Flipping a car around on the highway to stop them. They can wait till they go up the ramp. The ramp poles puts it out that that car went through there. That’s how LPR should be managed that way. Not surveilling. Not every 100ft, putting the camera and tracking people. 02:30:40,170 Um, the other question I have is means that there is one on County Road six. Did we have to get permission from the county to put it there? Because we got to get permission from the county to do anything else on that road to adjust the timing of the lights, to put 02:30:56,230 the left turn arrow back at Fern Brook and County Road six, um, we can’t do none of that without county permission. So how were we able to put a camera on a county road six? County road nine? If we didn’t get their permission? And would they stop, step in and say, you can’t. Oh, you got one there. 02:31:17,100 You can’t have it there. That’s my concerns with it. Is all the county roads that run through Plymouth. I’ve talked to Chief Patton many times. It’s a nightmare because of all the county roads and trying to. I’ve talked to the director of Public Works, trying to work on roads. This is a nightmare. 02:31:39,370 19th and 101 where we we’ve been talking about with the Plymouth Plaza project. I suggested putting a traffic light in there. I don’t foresee that happening for about five years and maybe three more deaths, but the county has a death count on dangerous roads. 02:32:04,700 I’ve talked to Julie Beutler about Northwest Boulevard and County Road ten. There are two county roads. We got no say over how to control the traffic on them. Two roads. Thank you. All right. Next, have Doug mALDI. Yeah. Thank you. Evening. Council member. And in, uh, mayor, what was you? I don’t want to relitigate everything that I’ve said over the many months. 02:32:32,870 We’ve all. You’ve all heard from me. I mean, I appreciate the conversation and the feedback. I wish it could have been sooner, but that’s the way it is. Um, I also want to say I personally trust Chief Fadden with the the department. I don’t trust FLoC. The company, and most other ALP systems. 02:32:59,170 I believe they are unconstitutional. Per Chatra. Um, I could read you, Gorsuch. Words in the opinion that kind of try to highlight that. 02:33:19,830 But, um, that being said, I’ll just I’ll just highlight some of the points that I made with you in the email that I sent directly before this meeting or soon before it. Um, FLoC is not to be trusted, particularly their PR, their PR, they’ve been caught in lies so many times that it’s absurd. Um, they are a for profit company founded and, uh, backed by a VC that does not have a good record of public good in their dealings. 02:33:44,900 So this is a this is for profit on the audits. I’m glad that came up today a lot. I find that I know I’ve read our audit from last October. 02:34:01,630 I don’t think it I think it’s produced by the same law firm in Roseville that does most of them gives you the feeling that FLoC coordinates this for the city, and these are just rubber stamp audits. There’s very little transparency in that audit. I don’t know what I mean other than saying, yes, you satisfied the contract. 02:34:22,830 Um, the, uh, human impact I talked about, you know, the error rate is much higher than it really is said to be. 4% translates to roughly a quarter of everything being inaccurate with regard to the reads. There’s a reason that that plate wasn’t read. 02:34:44,830 That translates into the human impact of all the people that are stopped unceremoniously, unjustifiably and detained and or further. So, um, that that applies to the situation that we had with here in town with the automotive journalist. So my baseline request is to cancel or let go the flat contract. 02:35:07,170 Do not replace it with another one like axon required judicial warrants for search and FLoC, and make this the FLoC records much more transparent. Thank you. Thank you. Next then I have, uh, Nate Sinker. Welcome. Good evening. Thank you. 02:35:31,930 Uh, first of all, I want to state my appreciation for the mayor of the city council and the police chief in holding this study session and discussion here at the meeting. And I’m glad to see the solid support for public safety from the mayor and the entirety of the council. As someone who has been in public safety realm my entire career, I appreciate that. 02:35:47,530 And you will find no citizen of this city who is more supportive of our police department and wants them to be able to do their jobs to the best of their ability and effectively. 02:35:59,970 I don’t think anyone wants to see us turn into what’s happened in some of the other cities around the Twin Cities or in other parts of the country where law enforcement is simply not allowed to do their jobs. That said, there were some great questions raised earlier by council members about how do we know that this customer data is actually purged? Uh, I’ll use a different analogy than than, uh, Mr. 02:36:16,300 Sponheim, how do we know it’s not run through a copy machine where they’re keeping a copy of everything in some other database that we don’t have access to? Um, there’s no there’s nothing guaranteeing that’s purged just because they have a policy. Saying it so doesn’t mean that they’re following their own policy. And I would just say that I think a healthy distrust of government is probably the oldest American tradition. 02:36:34,930 It’s kind of how we started as a country. Um, there are numerous federal agencies that over the years have been caught violating, uh, federal law and maintaining databases and records. They’re not supposed to. 02:36:49,930 We have obvious issues that have happened with state agencies over in, in Minnesota in the last ten, 15 years that are now resulting in a lot of people being prosecuted. So I think there are plenty of reasons to not trust government. And that doesn’t have anything to do with anyone sitting here today or the police chief. 02:37:03,500 But it is an important reminder to think about what are the tools that we put in place that can be used by other people that we cannot predict being in those positions in the future. 02:37:19,800 And for that reason, I would ask that we discontinue use of this system and that any funds that we are that are saved from discontinuing that contract be put into the police department for either hiring additional personnel or other equipment that they may need that could assist in solving crimes and keeping our community safe. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. And then I have Eric Hanson. Thank you. Mayor and Council. Um, 31 year resident of fourth Ward. 02:37:49,730 And this is my first appearance for the council here in Plymouth. Um, what’s brought me out is this issue on the Alpers and my concerns echo those voiced during the study session on Fox use. And our data, not the police use of our data. 02:38:12,170 I agree that I have confidence in the guardrails there, but it’s the underlying, uh, use by FLoC, whose stated corporate goal is artificial intelligence analysis of the data. And they need to have the data and retain it to use that in a number of ways. And this is the basis of my primary concern, Fourth Amendment rights. 02:38:36,130 Now, I agree with Chief Hayden’s earlier statement that privacy cannot be expected on a public street. However, AI processing of every license plate, regardless of reasonable suspicion, crosses a line of safety versus freedom. I know this can be a useful tool for police, but for comparison, other useful tools policing tools have cross lines of safety versus freedom and have been restricted or prohibited. 02:39:07,670 Things like DUI checkpoints. Citizens. Citizens, stop and frisk policies. Entering a home without a warrant, uh, pulling over and searching a vehicle without reasonable suspicion of a crime. This is essentially what Alpers do. 02:39:37,670 And so as we look at a balance of safety versus freedom and uncertainty of our data in that process, I ask that you discontinue this contract and thank you. All right. Thank you very much. All right. That’s all the cards I have. Um, so during a study session, I heard three areas of concerns. Um, one was from Councilmember Pointer. No retention of info by FLoC for machine learning. 02:40:08,270 And the the chief is going to check in on that. And, uh, double check what that wording is in the contract. Um, there was an issue raised of the ability to hack and hack into cameras, and the council member Sponheim brought up. 02:40:29,900 How secure is the transmission from the cameras to the a AWS in the cloud where it resides? And what’s the protocols with that? Um, so those are the three issues I had. Um, there are a couple of issues I heard raised in the six individuals. One uh, chief, it says take the flak cameras. If you walk in front of them, will take a picture of a person. 02:40:52,370 Mayor, Council. Um, I, I know, Mr. Weiland. He’s not here now to to answer his questions, but, um, the infrared is not a picture being taken. Those are the sensors. 02:41:14,870 And as best I understand it, I equate it to, like, a trail camera that has a sensor when it detects movement, which those infrared sensors, I am presuming or doing, if it reads a license plate, then it takes a picture. 02:41:32,330 So our system in no way, shape or form, gives our officers in any searches that we’ve ever seen or any alerts we’ve ever seen, any pictures that are other than what is prescribed by state law. So we’re only seeing pictures of license plates being taken. Um, and once again, I mean, the infrared is a is a sensor. That’s not the actual camera lens snapping pictures. As best as I understand, this system. Okay. Thank you chief. 02:41:52,300 And then, uh, for our cameras that are located on county roads, do we have do we get permission from the county? Yes. Mayor and council. Uh, to that question, during the installation process, uh, our city engineering staff or public works did work with Hennepin County to ensure all the permitting was done. 02:42:11,400 Uh, and the installations were done properly and within county guidelines and in state laws. I would not presume to be the expert. I don’t know if I have to defer to Michael for any more details, but those have all been installed legally, so we do have them on local streets and county roads. 02:42:29,470 We do not have any on state highways because MnDOT does not allow that that permitting or that process at this point. All right. Open it up to the council then for any questions. Comments. Council member Peterson, you and. Thank you. Um, so these will be a few of the questions for the city attorney. 02:42:49,270 One is we’ve heard several people, um, suggest that the use of these cameras is a violation of Fourth Amendment rights. They cite some US Supreme Court case law, including most recently, the charter case. Can you speak to that again? Charter did not involve the LPR system. It involves cell phones. 02:43:10,070 Um, uh, the Minnesota Supreme Court has also recently addressed cell phones and geofence type warrants in state v Contreras Sanchez. And so I do understand that at this point, there are a number of challenges and lawsuits involving FLoC. Some of them are for improper use of the data that’s been collected. 02:43:30,330 Others are I will call in general Fourth Amendment challenges. I believe the principles developed in charter are what is being put forth in these lawsuits. But to date I am not aware of any court at any level finding that FLoC is violating the Fourth Amendment. Thank you. 02:43:54,930 Um, the next one is the chief has outlined for us in his presentation, the Minnesota state statute related to the use of LPR cameras. And one of my questions, and this is more of a curiosity one, but maybe the general public will appreciate hearing it as well. But what, if any? Um, cause of action. 02:44:12,700 Do, um, does the public have if there was a violation of that Minnesota state statute, for example, currently it says that data cannot be kept for more than 60 days. I think it’s what the statute says. Let’s say that there was an instance where data was kept for 61 days. 02:44:28,200 What remedy would the public have? So the statute I believe we’re talking about is found in the Minnesota Government Data Practice Act. Um, what the Data Practice Act in Minnesota says is when a governmental entity like the city of Plymouth receives government data, it is presumed public. Um, so as you possess it as presumed public, unless there is a statutory provision, um, designating it as something else. 02:44:50,470 And when they passed, I’ll call it the FLoC legislation or the LPR legislation. Um, they did say that that information is deemed private. And so it is not presumed public. It is, in fact, private. Um, the remedy if the if that is violated would be a suit under the Data Practice Act, principally I would say. 02:45:11,230 Thank you. And, um, when it’s deemed private to if there was, for example, a FOIA request and a resident wanted to say, I want to see all the instances of pictures of cameras, shots that have been taken with this technology produced those. 02:45:32,030 How would that result? The request would be denied in terms of the status of the um, data as private, they would not be entitled to it. Thank you. And then the next part is about, um, I’ve heard some reference to who owns the data, and I’ve seen some of the contract language that specifically says that, um, let 02:45:54,070 me just pull it up because it was just something FLoC in language, specifically from the contract, says flock does not own and shall not sell anonymized data. I guess that’s just the anonymized data section of the contract. So I don’t know. 02:46:13,630 But generally speaking, what is your understanding of the ownership of the data pursuant to the contract? It’s the city’s. Okay. And, um, I think another thing I’ve heard a bit about is references to, um, things that are on their website versus a policy of the company versus the contract language. 02:46:35,870 Um, does the city have, um, if we cannot hold them to something that’s on their website for marketing purposes, we cannot hold them to something that is maybe a stated policy. The only thing we can hold them to is a contractual provision, correct? Correct. I would I would branch out a little bit more and say if they’re beyond the contract, if they’re doing something that’s in violation of the law, we can hold them to that also. 02:46:49,970 And what remedies would we have as a customer for a violation of a contractual provision? Uh, we allege breach of contract to the extent there’s damages incurred. We could, in fact bring an action to sue for that. The when you’re dealing with contractual situations like this, I would say the most common remedy is to terminate the contract. 02:47:09,700 Thank you. That is all of the legal questions. I know that I have heard or had and wanted to get those on the record, so thank you. Other questions? Councilmember pointer. Um, you wanted me to talk about it. Or if you want. To ask a question. We can. Yeah, I had asked a question. 02:47:28,930 Um, Council member Gregor and I had the police chief wonderfully set up a meeting with us in FLoC. Um, and I specifically was very specific about separating Plymouth police and API Alpers and my support for the police versus support for the tools that we give to to our officers to use. 02:47:53,600 And, um, I specifically also went down further and said, okay, well, of the Alpers FLoC is one of those. And I told them that I had trust issues with with them and things that had happened in the past. 02:48:15,000 They were very gracious and gave me answers to what they did and what they were going to fix or what they had done to correct this. These things that had gone wrong. The other thing that I heard that was specific and that I wrote down, was that they had said that they hold, that they um. 02:48:33,170 And I’ll get sorry, I have to get the right date. Um, that the data is kept, the exact words, um, that they will share, um, that they keep the data. Of course, I can’t find it. Right. 02:48:55,470 The second that they will keep the data, um, and store it so that they can use it for training of their system. So I asked the chief, um, do our terms say that? And, um, you want me to keep going. Or you or I can just go over the break because I didn’t remember. 02:49:14,330 I vaguely remember the conversation that we had a month or so ago with our with some FLoC staff, but did go back into our contract and find that and looked at my notes from that conversation. And it does. There is a portion in our contract that we discussed that talks about anonymized data, um, which is differentiated from customer data, which is the data that we own. 02:49:32,300 Um, but the anonymized data section that we had a conversation about. And I’ll just I’ll just quick read the three sentences, uh, that is in the contract or the agreement. It says FLoC shall have the right to collect, analyze and anonymize customer data and customer generated data to the extent, to the extent such anonymization renders the data non identifiable to create an 02:49:54,200 anonymized data to use and perform services and related systems and technologies, including the training of machine learning algorithms. Customer hereby grants FLoC and non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, royalty free right to use and distribute such anonymized data to improve and enhance the services and for other department diagnostic and corrective purposes and other FLoC offerings. 02:50:19,800 Parties understand the aforementioned license is required for continuity of services. FLoC does not own and shall not sell. Anonymized data is what’s listed in the contract. And so that took me to that point. That. We they say that perpetually they can keep the data. We have to trust that that’s what they will do with the data. 02:50:51,330 And and previously there have been issues and we were not able to trust them. They had in this discussion, they said that they had changed their data to 30 days. And then a couple of weeks ago now, they said to seven day storage options or seven. Yeah, seven a week. Yeah, it’s a diff. 02:51:10,470 They changed their default setting for customers that it comes with seven days, but customers are able to select whatever time frame they they wish within statute. So again I say supporting police officers giving the tools that they need 100%. 02:51:33,070 But I am not sure that I trust this tool, that this is the tool that Plymouth needs in the city. Um, and I have never had no one email me on the other side. I don’t know if any of you have gotten emails from somebody saying that this keep this, but I have not received one email to me and trust has to be earned. 02:51:58,200 Trust has to come first. And I think we need to separate the trust of a tool to the trust of our police officers. And we need we have that in Plymouth. And I just that’s just where I’m sitting right now. Is, is, is this trust? Councilor Aldrich. 02:52:23,130 And along the lines of the trust, one thing that I think about is even if FLoC is perfect, the public trust isn’t there. No matter how perfect it is, I feel like it’s a hard pill to swallow to say, hey, it’s good now don’t worry. Look the other way. Um, so that that’s the one thing that doesn’t sit good with me is that. 02:52:43,400 That even if it’s good, people are still not going to trust it. And and I don’t like that that residents have that issue. Um, I did have a question for the chief on how they were retaining the anonymized data. 02:53:01,370 Could you give me an example of what does that mean? Like when they do, they anonymize the license plate and replace it with something else, and then, you know, how does that work? Uh, mayor, Councilmember Aldrich, I, I truly, I don’t know, um, it’s it’s a carve out in the, the, uh, the contract. 02:53:22,930 We, you know, I do recall, you know, the the conversation that Councilmember Poizner, uh, and Councilmember Gregory and I had with some FLoC staff and, uh, you know, as, as I, uh, took that conversation to mean that they are utilizing that data to make improvements to the system, to make it more efficient, to make it better for no other purpose than they have to use that data to improve the system. Right. 02:53:43,730 And that’s that’s what our FLoC representatives that we talked to told us. So I mean, take it for what it’s worth. All right. Councilmember Peterson. Uh, I as someone who reviews a lot of technology related contracts, a lot of them have provisions around the use of anonymized data. So it’s not an unusual provision, really. 02:54:07,830 But, um, I think as Councilmember Aldrich stated, you could guarantee me with 100% certainty about all of these guardrails. And yet the trust really isn’t there at the moment with this company. 02:54:28,730 And I think I don’t know that there’s much that could be said to overcome that piece of where we are right now with these. And, um, if you don’t have the community’s trust of it, then you’re starting from not a good place. So, um, I’ll, I’ll leave that for there for now. All right. Councilmember Nelson. Thank you. Chief, I. Thank you. Chief. 02:54:58,130 I appreciate all the information you went through at the study session, but also in my meetings with you and via email. Any question I had for you? Um, you’ve you’ve answered to the best of your ability. Um, and I appreciate everyone who’s here tonight who’s kind of made public comment on this issue. Um, I appreciate you being here. Um. 02:55:23,070 However, I mentioned it before, kind of the squeaky wheel gets the grease, so I made sure that I went out and talked to residents about this issue because I was curious. I know there’s a lot of passionate people about the issue here. 02:55:38,370 A lot of us on council are passionate about it, but I actually went out and just any average, like any neighbor I saw, I’d ask them what they thought, um, thought about this. Um, and it’s, it’s wild because, um, most of them are okay with security cameras, video. They’re fine with that. 02:56:01,170 But when I explained to them, the Alpers it’s it’s almost it’s a bridge too far for them right now. Right. It’s a bridge too far. Um, that we’re snapping photos and that, you know, and especially if I say, well, what if we. What if we aren’t quite sure if that data is here, right. And it’s really a bridge too far. Right. 02:56:19,070 So, so I think, you know, our neighbors are again, I think they understand we’re kind of in an era where, yeah, we’re being surveilled. We all got our cell phones, right. And they can accept that. 02:56:40,900 Um, but the but us kind of just, um, uh, gathering data and retaining that data and then having a system like FLoC that potentially has the ability to combine that data with surrounding communities who also have those kind of systems. Um, that’s that just brings up a lot of concerns. So I absolutely support our public safety department. I want to provide you all with every tool that we can. 02:57:00,700 Um, but when I like, recall our, our annual surveys and the one of the top reasons people love living in Plymouth is that we have a great, fantastic public safety department always way up there. Right. Um, I want to be able to provide the tools, but we can’t replace trust. And this really, really does jeopardize trust. 02:57:26,870 And we could give you guys all the fancy bells and whistles. You want to do your job, but if the trust isn’t there, then to me, I’m not doing my job. So, um. So I’m not going to support a continuation of the contract. Not. I just can’t do it or nor any Alper at this point. 02:57:47,130 It’s the community trust. It’s just not there for that. Council member Aldridge. I think I might be similar in thinking, but I’m still thinking in my head. 02:58:09,530 The one thing that makes me kind of feel sick to the stomach about getting rid of them is, what if your kid went missing? What if someone, a loved one, or someone’s having a, um, psychological issue and you can’t find them? Um, and you need to find them. You would want every possible piece of technology at your disposal or at the police’s disposal to find that person. 02:58:29,870 So that’s the only scenario to me that feels like it just it kind of gives me a sick feeling to the stomach if that ever happened. So, um, yeah. So I struggle with that. Um, and I in my mind, I think, do we want to table it until we learn more about the security concerns and just restrict searches to missing persons, do we want to just get rid of it completely? 02:58:48,070 Those are kind of the two thoughts in my head. Um, and I’d like to hear other people’s opinions on the council, see what they think. So Councilmember Peterson. Um, I, I don’t have anything specifically in response to that. 02:59:09,630 Um, but I will say that people talk about what we’re already okay with, with our phones that we have in our pockets. And the big difference between this and Alpers that the city of Plymouth might use is I don’t use my tax dollars to be surveilled by this. I, my, our tax dollars are used to use this technology and it’s used by the government. 02:59:28,900 And that is a distinction that makes it different. Um, there’s probably a whole lot more surveilling going on with this. Um, surveilling. But, um, that is a big distinction. I think that makes them different things to talk about. Councilmember pointer. I have an answer for. You. Great policing, because I’m older, much older than what. 02:59:52,700 of you and cases got solved. We have great police. I trust that our police, whatever happens, they will take care of it. I think that technology, I think that to technology is great. 03:00:12,470 And I also have one of these that I carry around and everybody knows how to get Ahold of me, but I think that we cannot neglect the fact that the this is a tool. It’s a trust in a tool. We, we, we many residents don’t believe is a good thing. And I have a trust in the police to take care of us. If anything that happened to my granddaughter or my daughter or anybody, I do have that trust. 03:00:37,430 Who else? Councilmember Sponheim. So for those who are just tuning in, we’ve been at this conversation for nearly five hours. Um. Literally, there’s more than a dozen people in this room who’ve been at it for over five hours. 03:01:01,530 I want to thank everyone for the stamina and commitment to Plymouth and having this conversation. Um, at this hour, we are not going to get to ask the chief to retell all the really important, if not life saving, life protecting instances where this technology has been used on a near weekly basis in Plymouth, because our police department has found a way to use it effectively and 03:01:23,530 safely. I don’t have a concern about the Plymouth Police Department using FLoC. I have a great amount of concern about FLoC. Um. The questions that not only tonight haven’t been answered, but just haven’t been answered in all the research that anybody that we’ve talked with has brought forward, um, 03:01:48,500 Are substantial, and I spent over 15 years in health care. And I look at flock and I’m like, there is no way that this data management would be allowed in the health care system from a data protection perspective. 03:02:08,800 It, it it is quite striking to me, and it’s quite striking to me that the, the software that is being used to operate the system is highly vulnerable. It has been proven to be vulnerable. And in Plymouth we’ve seen how wireless systems are vulnerable enough to even hack into some of our own systems that we use for our water management and fortunately, to no harm. 03:02:33,400 I, um, I wish tonight like my my being a public policy thinker is I would like to take the questions that we’ve asked me or thank you for recapping them. 03:02:55,430 Um, and I think there are others about like how how should we how do we know that the data are transmitted securely and not having a copy made? How do we know that the configuration of the AWS cloud database, as designed by FLoC, truly is secure only to us? These are questions that people have been raising and that we don’t get good answers from flock. Um, and and the anonymized data is actually not defined in a specific way. 03:03:22,070 How do you anonymize a license plate? I don’t really get that. I actually do know how we anonymize when we’re doing genome sequencing and stuff, because we can remove the name and the birthdate and the identity of the person from the the actual coding number, but a license plate would have to go through an anonymization process. 03:03:42,900 Ultimately, it’s somewhere it goes back to a source of truth, and that means it’s saved somewhere. Flock isn’t answering these questions, at least not in the public realm that I’ve been able to find. I, um, I appreciate something the chief said earlier tonight. I think it deserves reiterating. 03:04:06,730 Um, our police department will continue to solve crimes, will continue to protect the public safety. It’ll just take longer in some cases, because this technology does speed up the ability to track down people with malicious intent. As a elected official, the public is asking us to make a decision to take the risk of people may suffer harm as we don’t have the ability to move as quickly. 03:04:35,600 Um, so a decision I take lightly. I, um, but I, I echo the concerns that my colleagues have raised about. People outside of Plymouth being able to access this data and not follow the ethics that we see so rigorously upheld within our department. 03:05:02,470 And so I, I’m struggling with continuing our relationship with FLoC. I am not opposed to LPR. I am not opposed to the use of data. Um, but I am gravely concerned about the company that administers ours. Thank you. All right. Any other comments? Councilmember Gregor. 03:05:27,930 I don’t need to reiterate the points that many of my fellow council members have made, but, um, I just wanted to share a few of the things that are going through my mind as I’ve been thinking about this for the last several months, if not longer. Uh, as Councilmember Pointer noted, um, we sat down and met with representatives from Flack. 03:05:46,230 We I’ve read articles and podcasts and videos and, um, you know, I’ve spoken with other local elected officials from across the region and across the country in different meetings, uh, to consider what the impacts are on their communities. Uh, and so, you know, I’ve been I’ve been putting a lot of thought into what we should do here. 03:06:10,630 One of the things that came up in the study session that we, uh, the chief, uh, excellently presented, was that the state statute allows for three things to be captured. The license plate number, the location and date and time, and a picture of the license plate or the vehicle around it. 03:06:29,370 But to me, I already listed like five things date, time, location. Okay, that’s three license plate number. Then the picture of the vehicle. And if we hear about Flack wanting to all the attributes and analyze all the attributes of the video, uh, or the vehicle, the bumper stickers, colors, make and model, it’s it’s able to capture a lot more data and 03:06:53,830 then what I think our state statute contemplated when it was written. So to me, that is, uh, another challenge. And as we’ve heard from so many of us, I think trust is the core of all of this. 03:07:12,000 So trust in our local government is is core for our citizens. Uh, I don’t think that most of us have any trust in flock, and that’s their problem to solve. And until they do, I think it wouldn’t be appropriate for us to continue this. Um, there’s so many questions. 03:07:31,930 Uh, there’s so many unanswered questions that I think they need to work on answering. And maybe they could someday earn that back. But I think it also, as we’ve heard from others, it brings us to the slippery slope of collecting so much data in, in a government that I don’t think we ought to be doing. 03:07:54,730 Um, you know, we need to have a more defined and restricted ability to collect that data as, as has been set so far by courts and, you know, the use of warrants and all of that kind of stuff. When we’re doing surveillance on people. So, um, to me, I think it makes sense for us to discontinue this service at this time. Okay. Councilmember pointer question. 03:08:12,670 Mayor, how do we go about doing this? How do we stop the contract? There’s no resolution. There’s what? Sorry. So these are our choices then? Yep. So I did not review the termination or whatever out on the contract is. 03:08:37,930 But if we receive council direction to terminate the contract, we will pull it out and proceed accordingly. So if there’s a if there is in fact a motion or direction to terminate the contract, we will do that as early as possible. Can I make that motion? You can make the motion. As you told me before. I can do whatever I want. 03:08:58,800 I would like to make the motion that we discontinue all services for flock safety for our, uh, automatic license plate readers. Second. We have a motion. A second, I’m going to weigh in here with some comments because I share, um, Councilmember Aldridge’s position that Flack just has a bad name right now, and no amount of PR that I can think of is going to solve that bad 03:09:21,970 name. Um. I would like to know some of the questions on the security issues. Um, and I, you know, the contracts expired, right? So on. I apologize, I have to take a look. At that. Mayor and council, uh, the contract we are due for a renewal on a portion of our camera system. It’s coming to. 03:09:52,730 It comes in two portions because we expanded it at one point. Um, that payment is due. The system is still functioning normally. Um, as I’ve communicated or been in constant communication with flock, um, indicating that we have a discussion tonight at tonight’s meeting so they understand that I am not going 03:10:11,930 to or was not going to make a payment to renew until there was a conversation had by you and the council. And regardless if we were to like to it’s I mean, I can see where this is going, but I wouldn’t want the language in there that they get to retain data for the machine learning, 03:10:34,330 you know. So if we were to sign another contract with them, which I know we’re not going to, I would want that. I’d want to understand the hacking concerns. I’d want to understand the overall security and just get more comfort level. 03:10:53,070 But if we were able to do that, the chief in his recommendation has said this is a tool we need in order to do our job. And the council member, Haines Point, I’m not just concerned that we won’t catch the bad guys as quickly as we possibly could. We won’t catch the bad guys, period, because we don’t have the tool anymore. 03:11:11,800 Um, this is a tool our police has said they need. They wouldn’t want that. They need. And to help keep our community safe. And I understand Flack has a bad name, I understand there. I will tell you, I’ve. I’ve how many? I can’t think how many. D’oh! Thousands and thousands of doors. I’m knocked since early July. 03:11:33,770 And for people have raised this as a concern. Now, unlike Councilmember Nelson, I wasn’t purposely asking them what they thought about flock, but no one raised it with me in thousands of doors and no one’s raised it with me except for people. 03:11:51,270 And then I had discussions with them to understand what their concerns with. One of them didn’t want police to have any cameras. By the way, Chief, um, so I’m I question how pervasive it is out there in terms of the concern people have. 03:12:12,200 I know people have concern, but I’m weighing this against what we all talked about the ability to keep our residents safe and catch the bad guys versus basically the bad PR. Um, that flock has. And I’m going to come down and get on the side of our public safety, our police department. Um, to say if they need a tool in their toolbox, I’m going to be okay. 03:12:35,170 And if there’s a little heat to take for that, um, I will, although I think the we can all see how this vote is going to go tonight, but I also will come down on supporting our public safety. And if it can be done securely, um, and we can protect our residents from any kind of worry about that. 03:12:56,700 What going to happen with the data, their license plates that get recorded and picked up? I think it’s a tool our police need to keep up, keep our community safe. So that’s my thoughts. Are we ready to do a roll call? All right. Aldridge. Could we restate the motion. Because I want to yeah. What is the motion. Motion to discontinue service with flock safety for automatic license plate readers. 03:13:24,630 I. Nelson I. Weiner a. Sponheim. I. Greger I just want to add, uh. That, uh, I have heard both sides in, in door knocking and talking with people. I’ve heard people say I’m not doing anything wrong. 03:13:54,670 So I don’t care if I’m if they’re taking my picture. I’ve heard people say, I beg you not to get rid of this. And I’ve heard people say, I beg you to cancel this. Um, so I’ve heard I’ve heard that full spectrum from residents. And I do see, uh, the struggle in the balance. And that’s what our job is, is always balancing. 03:14:14,400 It’s balancing public safety with civil liberties. It’s balancing, um, freedom, as we heard from someone who spoke earlier with safety. And, um, right now, you know, I think we need a lot higher than our city to solve some of these challenges with security. And that’s why I’m voting in favor of this. I. Peterson. I washy. 03:14:37,770 Nay, and that item passes. Uh, we now have item 8.4, which was 6.10. Councilmember Nelson. Yes, my apologies to members and my colleagues on the council here. Um, I pulled this item simply because I failed to meet Jody’s deadline to submit my name. 03:15:04,530 So I’d like to add, uh, amend it to add my name to the NLC conference or NLC. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any other comments? All those in favor say aye. Aye, aye. Opposed in that passes. Dave, any reports? No reports. All right. Thank you. We stand adjourned.