I just wanted to um highlight this I'm glad that we're applying for this I we've hear a lot about the railroad crossings being unsafe and um I just wanted to ask director Milner uh sort of the timeline expected timeline I know federal grants sometimes take a while but um the application is going in with this resolution and then when do you think we'll hear back

the application's due late September early October um I think we'll hear back by the end of the year and then it's about a year study for these it's a safety review of The Seven Crossings we have in town okay and with the potential to eliminate the crossings we don't think there's a possibility not really focusing on elimination because they're all at grade crossings that would be major Bridges and major underpasses we're looking at safety improvements such as Crossing arms signage lights stuff like that

this reporting period there was a donation from uh a lady from Apple Valley named Holo winsky and it is a memorial bench at Centennial Lakes Park a $3,200 gift and that will be posted up on the city website so thank you Jackie holowinski from Apple Valley for remembering a loved one uh in the city of Edina and putting a special bench in at Centennial Lakes

I've seen kids on sidewalks going 20 M an hour two weeks ago I had a teenager play chicken with me on my bicycle came right at me and turned at the last second I almost had to hit him to keep him from hitting me uh you might be aware it was in the newspaper city of excel Shire has a new ordinance that requires anybody under 18 who's writing an ebike to wear a helmet City VI Dino should be looking at those types of things

I you know I sent an email we saw a kid on an ebike popping a wheelie down Vernon and I don't know how old the kid was but he was popping a wheelie down Vernon in the bike lane and my wife and I said you know if that was our kid and somebody told us they saw our kid popping a wheelie on an ebike going down Vernon because of the safety issue that's inappropriate... I think we should be I I understand enforcement right I get that and legalities um and so I I think that is one lane that we need to be in but I think we also need to be talking about um is there some and I don't know if it's awareness or what

I am aware that several other cities uh in the Twin Cities area have recently either considered or enacted um helmet requirements for use of vbikes in their cities uh I don't think that's probably preempted by state law... I think it would be possible for cities to consider an ordinance requiring helmets particularly for those under 18

under State Statute it's a little murky because we have city ordinance and state statute that kind of sort of regulates uh much of what we're talking about today but uh you can operate a ebike on a shoulder of a roadway you can operate it in a bicycle lane and in a bicycle route under State Statute um you have to be 15 years or older right so if you're under that you cannot operate an ebike

regardless of how we handle an ordinance you know research project or actually get it enacted it takes time and we're still on the back end of summer into fall and we have a really good Communications team and we already have statutory language in place and ordinance language in place we could do some marketing right away and get some information out because I think there's just a lot of people out there that are uninformed

I do feel like there's some immediacy to some aspects of this that we ought to be able to deal with while the Eden Transportation Commission looks at Best Practices around the country but the idea of making them wear a helmet if some of those other things I don't see why we wouldn't do something about that

two years ago it wasn't too early for the developer to predict an interest rate was it precise no but you can be darn sure an interest cost was calculated and shared with with investors what Mr Neil is really saying is that it's too early for residents to be fully informed too early to be told that interest on the Macy's Tiff notes will suck up another 15 to $25 million of city property tax revenue making this not a 23 million but a 4 million a $40 million gift of Tiff

no wonder the project meets the butt for test mayor council members when will the lack of transparency and Mr Neil's ongoing behavior of dissing residents with replies that are not replies become unacceptable finally a personal thank you to member Pierce and member Risser for asking probing thoughtful questions and voicing substantial concerns

we are not saying nor we would nor would we ever recommend from a staff perspective that the city just take $23 million of publicly issued bonds and hand that over to a developer that's not how it works it's never how it's worked here in a Dina we issue pay as you go notes meaning that if the developer does a project that is uh consistent with a pre-negotiated agreement with the city and they pay their taxes that's some of those taxes go back to pay that developer so if they don't do the project that qualifies under the agreement or they don't pay their taxes they don't get the money and that that protects uh the city and the taxpayers

yes there there is interest bearing there's an interest bearing element in this agreement uh those things are all under negotiation uh the council will see those numbers and you'll see precisely what they are uh before you know before or at or close to the time you're going to be asked to make a judgment on whether it's in the Public's interest or not uh to approve that agreement so you will not be asked to approve an agreement with major fiscal holes in it

transforming the art center into a vibrant Rally Point for fostter Unity and inclusivity for our d diverse Community it d as home for people from various cultural backgrounds this proposal celebrates Embrace that uh diversity and identity the new use of the space will unite individuals from diverse backgrounds fure culture exchange and mutual understanding

we are currently still utilizing the art center it is in use while it's not open to the general public we utilize it for programming um now and into the future um as you know and uh many members of the community know we are working on a uh potential agreement with hennipin County to be a tenant in their new library for our art center space but uh that is a a distant few years into the future and as you indicated uh the art center isn't just on a certain parcel it's actually within the confines of Rosland Park and um that would have a whole other set of uh requirements and research and land use uh portions of that site as well

we understand your desire for a church home um and it was really uh I think really uh um wonderful that you came in to talk to your city council tonight to express an interest in in uh if there's ever an opportunity to think don't don't forget about us you know your group in terms of of if there's something that we ever do with that property it doesn't have a purely public purpose so uh thanks for coming tonight and I hope to see you uh out walking soon we can continue that conversation

her office that she operates which is called the Consumer Affairs office uh is the correct person is the correct body within state government specifically the Pu to address uh for formally address comments about excel's performance directly to her um there is currently right now A a filing period uh that closes on September 12th uh where if people have complaints they could get them into her office and they'll be considered uh through the they'll be they'll be researched for for example but they will be considered by the Pu in that filing process

I was really disappointed in the performance of Excel Energy on terms of being able to get people back up and operating with on the electrical grid you know it wasn't that many months ago where they had another episode somewhere in the state where they had to bring in several hundred people to try to make things work and um now they brought in I think 700 people from around the country and it just seems that if this if this new climate that we're operating in they better figure out a way to be more resilient

we've gotten a lot of emails after the storms and I think the optic and storms and the severe weather that we had this year um and got a query about about how we used to offer City operated um brush disposal um spoke to Scott a little bit about this we don't anymore um and it seems like the site had some logistical issues and probably some things that we'd need to figure out as a city if we wanted to resume that type of service um so I just would I think it would be interesting to explore if there are other sites around the city that we could offer that

I really like what member U had to say about the the pick up and pick up of the brush now talking to director veter about this we'd probably have to get some more equipment and figure out how we're going to do this but I do think it's a great service I mean it's it's just one of those wonderful things about living in a city and um and so I'd like to I'd like to think more about that you know people bring their things to the to the burm or the curb and then we figure out we're going to get it picked up just like Minneapolis does every year with leaves

I kind of left not really exactly sure what the next steps were I know like we were doing this like phase of the project and knowing that we're within the next short amount of time within the next couple of months going to be reviewing um that project again I'm sure we'll get another revisit from the Macy's furniture site again I I think it we need need to continue pushing it forward and I'd like to see it progress and so for this one I don't know if the right next step is to ask staff to prepare a resolution so that we as a council can like have that conversation then um and decide on next steps but I think that would be my direct ask is let's let's push it forward and let's discuss it formally as a council

we we as a city council received notice from the Met Council that their population estimates um through 2050 have been published and there's a comment period right now um the population estimates are unrealistic in my mind and I wanted to um put forward that I'd like to know what the process is for us as a city to comment on these population estimates and um see if we can't um get them pushed down to something more realistic

without being involved beyonda or in the region or in the state or as I am with the US Conference of Mayors on the transfer ation committee us Conference of mayor has had a tremendous amount of influence on the iig ACT and also with respect to uh the IRA and so uh and and another good example of it is this Grant application we're going for with respect to railroad crossing elimination programs that is possible to apply for that Grant because of the things that cities and and City organizations like our city council we were able to influence Congress to a significant degree on some of this major leg legislation that's passed under the Biden Administration

there's a half a billion dollars in this fund and this is the first go run the first two Awards in Minnesota you can see where we had two of them here one was to mot and I think one was to hopan County but you know many in many of these states it's it's some of the major cities that are getting really significant financial support for building out their EV network and so I would encourage us to be thinking about that too and that opportunity exists because of the the work that that local government does on a federal level