Okay. Well, good evening everybody. Welcome to Edina City Hall. Nice to have you all here. Uh it is already the middle of July, July 15th, 2025 and it is 7 PM and this is the regular schedule meeting of the Adina City Council. Uh as you heard Miss Benerat uh indicate, we are doing these meetings on a hybrid basis. Uh which means that uh people can call in from home uh for community comment or for public hearings if we happen to have a public hearing. uh we're accepting testimony that way and then they can also appear live here in chambers uh to also uh express their concerns to the um council and I think we've got some of those in that category this evening. Uh and so uh we're welcoming that testimony in all forms and having provided that information I'm now going to ask our clerk Sharon Allison to call the role as we call the meeting to order. >> Council member Agnu >> here. Council member Jackson >> here. Council member Pierce >> here. >> Council member Risser >> here. >> Mayor Hublin >> here. >> Uh, next everybody is the pledge of >> 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. We've got a meeting agenda that was published uh and we have things in different parts of the agenda that are connected to things in other parts of the agenda. And we're trying to sort out how we're going to deal with these things and then also um handle at least one projected gift matter a little bit earlier in the agenda. So, uh, manager Neil has, uh, recommended that, um, we move two of the, um, uh, recognitions items items off of the consent agenda, that's 6.16 and 6.18. Move them off consent and put them at the end of the reports and recommendations portion of the agenda. um that we move item 6.15 uh which would be a potential allocation of uh unassigned fund balance off consent and push that back into the reports and recommendations portion of the agenda uh near the uh two items we're going to be discussing about the aquatic center. And then uh we've got an item 6.17 which deals with a uh petition filed by the Chowen Park neighborhood with regard to stop signs. uh going to move that and couple that up with one of the items later in the agenda. And then the items that I mentioned earlier involving a potential gift uh are items 9.1 and 9.2. And we're going to move those uh up uh in behind uh 7.1 which is going to be a presentation by our Henipin County Attorney Mary Morertity. And um I hope I didn't confuse my colleagues too much. So, I'm going to ask for somebody to make a manager Neil did tip us all off on this. I'm going to ask one of our colleagues to make a motion to uh approve the agenda in its amended form. >> So moved. >> Council member Jackson moves council member Pierce seconds the adoption of the agenda in its amended form. Uh any further discussion? All those in favor of adopting the agenda in the form stated the amended form say I. >> I. >> I. Opposed. Carried. Uh the agenda in its modified form is approved. And um let's go now to um community comment. And I know we've got some uh nearby residents here uh that are going to visit with us and I see our Henipin County Attorney has just come in. So she'll be ready to go here fair fairly soon. But let's go to community comment and let's go to folks that are here in the chambers first and please come up and remember to give us your name and address and uh you've been with us before. You know there's three minutes that you'll have to make a presentation. You get a yellow warning light. You'll have 30 seconds left to complete your comments and then we ask you to wrap up when the red light comes on. So yes, please. I think and we know well that you're concerned about uh uh pedestrian safety over near Avdor and the senior center. So eager to hear eager to hear what you have to say to this this evening. Thank you. >> My name is Nancy Greer and I live at 5225 Grand View Square and I'm here again about the crosswalk. I've got an petition. You have the originals, Mayor Hufflin, and the council people. You all have copies of the petitions from building one, two, and three. In less than a week's time, I got 133 signatures on that. I went to Avador and to the senior center, but they were not allowed to put the petition up. I would have more if I could have. Um, I will tell you about an experience I had just this morning. I was walking from Avador to Grand View. I pushed the button. The people coming from east to west stopped. There was a a car in the turn lane going into Gran View Square. I had to walk behind that because it was not in the crosswalk. the people coming from west to east. The young girl fla flashing light. I said, "Stop." And she went, "Oh, sorry. The car behind her continued." And I had to flail my arms. I shouldn't have to do that. That is a bad bend. They can't see the flashing lights. We need a ste temporary speed bump there so that people are slowed down. And it's temporary. it can be removed when the snow flies or the project is finished. I think snowflying first is probably going to be the case with that. Um, we do have an increase of 13% 13.1% in our taxes and 5.46 of that is supposed to go to safety. I think a temporary speed bump and a flashing light on that bend is a good use of that money. You need to protect the people that are crossing there. We have several people that go to the library that at best you could say their speeds are slow and stop and they can't get across in enough time with these cars flash, you know, speeding by them. I don't think we're asking for much here. I think we're asking for you to look at the safety of the people there. You have funneled traffic where there is um Vernon Terrace senior citizen the three condo buildings the majority of the people are senior citizen the senior center the library avidor is 55 plus you've got two medical buildings and then a dental office along with other businesses had I been rooting people around I would have sent them to Tracy to Benton or Hansen to Benton they only have to deal with 44 four-way stops from Tracy to Ben cross the bridge. If they go left towards the police station in front of Normanddale School, they have a half of a roundabout instead of several. Or if they go to the right and they go Valley View and turn at Wooddale to get to the 50th and France area, they have a light at Wooddale. They only have to deal with stop signs. People have not learned how to use the roundabouts yet. And it has buggered up traffic. and you've got senior citizens trying to cross and I'll stop now. Thank you. >> Thanks, Greer. I've got your original signed petition here. I'm going to pass it down uh through my colleague so that we'll have to file it with the clerk. You want to be you want to be part of the record, I'm sure. >> Great. Thank you. >> Yeah. Okay. Uh anyone else uh you wish to from the same Yeah, come on. Please come up. And then there's somebody behind you that wants to speak on possibly the same topic, maybe another topic. Go ahead. >> Same topic. David >> David McBride and I also live at 5225 Grand View Square. Um >> what's your unit number, sir? >> 410. And um I I went over to to Ace Hardware today later than Nancy and did not was not aware of the difficulty she had. Um, coming back from Ace Hardware, I usually wait try to wait until there's no cars coming to press the button to get the flashing lights. Uh, so that people on their on their way that are almost there don't need to stop. That's getting harder and harder because there's so much traffic now, far more than what there was a year ago. So, I did try to wait as and not many cars were coming. I pressed the button and I started into the crosswalk. And after about two steps, a young woman from the other side also stepped into the crosswalk. And we were going to meet oh, a little farther than halfway. But as I got to about halfway, there was a car coming from the east, not from the from the curve, but from the other direction. It was a truck. Didn't even slow down. Went right behind me about a foot or so behind me. If I had been about two steps slower, he probably would have hit me. And uh I didn't even realize it until he was starting to pass by me. And he hadn't even slowed, hadn't done anything. Just zipped right on through. >> So it is a huge problem. And u somebody's going to get hurt before long. >> Yeah. Thank you, Mr. McBride. Yeah, we've been trying to deal with it, but uh we're going to continue to work on it, I think, here. So, thanks for coming this evening. Anyone else? Yes, ma'am. >> Different subject, same building. Good evening. Uh, my name is Jan Delzo. I live at 1125225 Grand View Square. I'm president of the homeowners association there. As you know, that building is a 70 unit, not 55 and over, but believe me, most of the people are over 55. I want to talk about the street light replacement project over there. In April, we got a notice that there would be a street light replacement project, and that sounded just fine. They sent along a pretty picture of the decorative light, which we already have decorative lights. So, it was great. We were going to have just a one for one replacement, as I interpret replacement to be. However, that is the source of the whole problem. Um, then it really wasn't a problem until we found out after they came and took the all of the lights away about two months ago. It is very very dark over there. If you go, you're going to have a long council meeting, drive through there at 10:30 tonight or something and you'll see how dark it really is there. And um it's going to then the problem became we got I went out one day to talk to the workmen who were working across the street from our house, our building, and said, "When you're working in front of that building, there's an irrigation line. Be careful of it." And he said, "Oh, we're not putting any lights over on that side of the street. We're not putting any lights around the park either. And I said, 'Well, where are you putting the lights? Well, we're putting them in front of the building across the street from you, and we're putting lights on the corner of the park on the opposite side of the street. Well, that means that's going to be very, very dark from now on. I got an email from a person in our building who has a brother who walks frequently at night because of insomnia. He's already during the dark night has seen a drug deal deal going down in the parking lot of the senior center and what looked like a homeless man sleeping on the park bench in the park. Now, we never asked for a meeting or anything uh to explain this project because we thought it was perfectly standard. Now, we find out that we're going to be losing 10 lights in that area. the lights along 5225. I've sent you some or given you some handouts there and um and nothing to replace them. I know it's too late on this project. Um the build bids have been let the work has been quite a bit finished. I'm here to kind of guilt people a little bit. Be careful of your communications. If you say replacement, I would say that the majority of people would say I give you something, you give me back the same thing or slightly different. But no, you don't take away 10 lights. Um, so there we are. I I don't think there's anything else that can be said except we liked our light. We liked our old lights. How about giving us back our old lights? >> All right. Thank you, Jen. Um, just so I understand you correctly, uh, you're not you're not anticipating getting the form of street light back that you had before. The decorative >> it's very similar. We were very happy that it is a decorative light that is going to be put in there, >> but there are just few there are fewer in number. >> They're fewer and they're not on our side of the street. There's no way that a light on the other side of the street is going to sign shine enough light on our side of the street to help people. As I said, we've got a lot of over 55 people. There's going to be problems with falls. There could be problems with crime. It just doesn't make sense. I wish we'd have had >> Yeah. Thanks for coming tonight. I don't think any of us knew about this, so we want to drill down a little bit on it. Thank you. >> Okay. You've been enthusiastically putting your hand up back there. >> I have young kids. Raise a hand. >> Good evening, mayor, city council members. My name is Emily Vilis. I live at 4008 Grimes Avenue South. I had originally come here tonight to kindly request discussion and planning surrounding EMS response times in the Morningside neighborhood. In light of the recent Suncurrent article that outlined barriers to adequate staffing of our EMS team, I would also like to speak up about the importance of adequate staffing of the city's paramedic firefighters to our city as a whole, but we'll focus my plea on Morningside for tonight. About a month ago, I was called to a neighbor's home who had suffered a cardiac event. This was my first interaction with Adina EMS and the first time I understood the physical barrier for EMS responding to the Morningside neighborhood. Due to distance from the fire station, which seems to be further complicated by adequate staffing. In a previous chapter of my life, I worked in the cardiology world where I encountered numerous patients that suffered cardiac events outside of the hospital. I experienced firsthand what all the data supports. Time matters. Every minute from the time of cardiac collapse to the initiation of CPR and our defibrillation is directly linked to survival. Again, every minute counts in a cardiac emergency. And the difference in patient survival between a six-minute response time as compared to a 15-minute response time is huge. I have worked with some of the world's best and most talented cardiothoracic surgeons and cardiac interventionists at Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Abbott Northwestern in the University of Minnesota. And despite all this talent and wisdom, the time from the cardiac collapse to initiation of CPR and defibrillation is still the most important factor in survival and patient outcomes. After the neighborhood event, I reached out to request data surrounding the AMS response times to the Morningside neighborhood be collected and reviewed. I have not heard back from the fire chief yet regarding these current numbers. However, the data collected from the five bugles design in December of 2018 demonstrated EMS response times to Morningside of 12 to 15 minutes with recommendations made for a third fire station in the next 5 to 10 years. As we are approaching the 10-year mark from the study, I kindly request the planning for the proposed fire station begin. I also request that a plan be in place in the interim for the EMS response times to meet the Adina city goal of six minutes. Other communities have successfully shortened EMS travel interval by adding response vehicles and placing those vehicles strategically in the community and perhaps city hall would be a fine temporary location. Unfortunately, my neighbor passed away. Although I am confident that the response time would not have made a difference in this situation, I do know that the standard 12 to 15 minute EMS response time to the Morningside neighborhood falls short of expectations for my neighbors and the children that attend school in the Morningside neighborhood. I am here tonight as a single voice representing the Morningside community, but please know that there have been many discussions in our neighborhood with concern surrounding the EMS response times. I look forward to discussion surrounding how the city of Adina can positively im impact the MS response time to the great neighborhood of Morningside. Thank you. >> Thank you, Emily. Thank you for coming in. >> Good evening. >> Hi. Thank you. Uh Ed Matthew, 411 Kipling and a 33 now 33 year me uh neighbor in Morningside. Uh, I wanted to echo the as you consider budget availabilities and where those monies might go. I wanted to echo the um the points around EMS response time. Um, your your team heard this about a month ago, but I want to make sure all of us are thinking about this as we talk about it. what the fire chief reported um that the current staffing only allows um three incidents at one time and in the first half of 2025 167 times there were four or more incidents that meant somebody had to wait. And so rather than a national standard of six minutes or the expectation from the 2018 study closer to 10 minutes now up to 15 minutes as we look at monies available. I love parks. I've been here talking that sort of stuff up. I love all the other nice to haves. This is a thing that almost 10 years ago we said we have to have for a safety standpoint. So, as we look at available funds, whether it's staffing now uh and eventually a third uh fire station, those are super important. There are a ton of people, 750 families in Morningside, all living almost 10 years now with poor response times. So, uh, I would urge you to prioritize those and keep those front and center as we look at ways whether it's contracting with other people to fill the gaps or, uh, additional permanent staffing for fire department. All those things we should be looking at for safety. Thanks. >> Thanks, Ed. Joanie Bennett, 4003 Lynn Avenue. I've been in your seats before and I know how difficult is it is to decide where the money is going to go, but in the priorities you're considering now, whether it's for the unallocated funds from the 2024 budget that you're considering tonight, whether it's looking forward to 2026 budget, please prioritize public safety p. Please prioritize the number of fire of paramedic firefighters. We know that we're short. We know that we're short and that that's one of the issues. Fire station fire station number three. I'm sure that you will get to it, but in the short term we can add more paramedic firefighters and I really urge you to put the money toward it. It's a matter of reputation. Edina has long had a reputation for excellent uh public safety. It's a matter of it's a matter of livability of the city. It's one of the ways that we build ourselves as being livable. We are known for being livable, but literally it is a matter of life and death. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Bennett. >> Anyone else in the audience wish to address the council on a matter of concern to them? >> Yes, ma'am. Please. >> Uh, my name is Rose Bay. and I live at Grand View Square and I'm actually talking about the same thing that Jan came up to talk about. >> Sure. Would you give us your unit number two, please? >> Um 107. >> Thank you. >> Okay. So, I I I'm a singer. I love to sing and uh but I'm not here to serenate you today. I'm here really to talk about a problem that we're maybe going to have. I don't know how it's going to work out, but I'm originally from Iowa and when we came up to Albertville, we had a home built and my husband got sick. So, I was having a hard time getting him here and there and everywhere because we were on the highway and I didn't I wasn't very happy about that. And the kids I talked to my kids, I said, "Kids, it's too much for me." So they said, 'Okay, mom, we're going to find you a place where everything is centrally located. I said, 'Th that's great. So here we are in beautiful Edina and I love it here. But the one reason big reason why we moved to Edina was the location. Everything was close by. And when we got to the Grand View Square, of all the condos that we seen, this turned out to be the best one because my husband could actually wheel himself through the doors. So the one thing that really is important to say today that really bothers me is another reason why we chose this area was because of the lies were lit it, the parks were lit it and my son hurt his back and he had to have an operation and I had to take I took care of him till he healed and I took care of the dog and we went out outside and all kinds of weather, morning, afternoon, and at night. And I can tell you there are a lot of people in our area that are walking their dogs and it's dark and it's spooky and I'm scared. I'm concerned about what is going to happen if those lights aren't put back in. So hopefully you will be our ears and our voice to do what is the right thing to do for our area. Thank you for listening. >> Yes. Thank you. Thanks, Joyce. Anyone else? Okay, let's turn to see if we have anybody waiting online to speak to the council during public comment. >> We do not, sir. Okay. Okay, folks. Well, thanks for coming in. Um, our practice is that we'll uh refer all these concerns to staff and then we'll address them in two weeks uh at this meeting again. And you may see something online from manager Neil on Friday as early as Friday uh in response to some of the questions. Um, and I think I'm probably like my colleagues were curious about this lighting plan for Grand View Square and we don't know much about it yet, but u it does seem like an interesting issue. Yeah, Mr. Mayor, I' I'd like an update on the crossing because we had a pretty vigorous conversation about that pedestrian crossing and how danger it was was >> and I thought we were um taking some actions and I know we trimmed some trees and stuff, but I'd like to know immediately what the plan is because it is has been a problem all summer and it is very dangerous there. >> Manager Neil may have some thing that he was going to give in his report, but nonetheless, we'll turn to Director Miller. Yeah, he's the guy. >> So, thank you, mayor, mayor's council. We did trim trees, improved sight lines. We installed advanced warning signs. They're not the flashers. And the same contractor that's doing the street lighting project is installing the base for the flasher. So, it takes time to install this stuff. A big concrete 6'4 or 48 in deep base. So, the base is going to get installed in the next week or so. And then we have the flasher that would be installed after that. So, we're working on it as quickly as we can get contractors in place to do the work. That's the struggle we're having. >> What about one of these temporary uh speed bumps? What about the We've got We've got those in our arsenal. I think we could put out there to slow people down, especially the ones, I think, that are coming off the curve and down the hill heading west to east. >> Yep. Um we're going to make some major traffic changes in the next week. We're going to close this northbound on-ramp. I think traffic is going to get more dense, more There's really not a speed problem there. It's just there's so many cars and there's bad behaviors. Um I think the safest place to cross is the Vernon signal which is just a few yards up the hill there and that's a fully controlled traffic signal. Um that suggestion was made but it wasn't received very well from some of the res. I know it's a longer walk and a longer distance but that I don't know if we're going to make this crosswalk safe with the many how many cars are going to go through there now and there's going to be way more when we start closing these ramps. Just to be frank, I think they should use a Vernon signal. >> One, Council Member Jackson >> for the summer. >> Frustrating. >> Yeah, it's it's it's >> Yeah, >> it's very dangerous. And you know, I >> Council Member Rouser, >> I um when you say use the Vernon signal, what kind of pathway leads to that? Because I know some of the sidewalk is just this meager brick kind of narrow thing. Is that what we're talking about? >> No. There's an actual sidewalk on the south side of Eden up to the intersection of Vernon. Then you'd have APS push buttons with countdown timers and flashers and full signal. Then as you're heading to the towards Jerry's, then you have opportunity to go past the bus stop. So there's a sidewalk there and it enters right into the Jerry's parking lot which most of these individuals are trying to get to. Now, if they continue to go down there, then yes, you're going to enter that brick crosswalk that's only 2 feet wide if you're trying to get to Caribou or Holiday. But if they're trying to get to Jerry's, that could be a better, safer route. >> I think speed, we did hear speed is a problem. And I agree with my colleagues, you know, that having a speed bump seems to be a logical thing, but I mean, we need to do something. We we can't just punt this. So, um, thank you, >> Council Member Pierce. Uh, thanks, Mr. Mayor. So, I just had, um, Can you help us understand why not the temporary speed bumps? >> I don't think it's going to change behaviors. I think you're going to have those same interactions. They're just going to be more upset now that they bounced over a speed bump. They're not going to yield to the if they're not yielding to pedestrians today with flashers, with cars bumper to bumper, a speed bump, I don't think, is going to change that. >> If that's the case, do we think the the new intersection controls are going to change it? >> This summer, I do not. >> Okay. So, your position is because of the level of density and traffic, >> correct? um because of the closures um it's difficult to control that. >> It was difficult when traffic was low. We had these bad behaviors. Now we're tripling that because there's we just need the route to detour traffic. >> Yeah. I I guess I'm trying to like I feel like I'm trying to help you. >> It's appreciated. >> It's not a bad thing. >> Um like we don't want to send the message that there's nothing we can do. Um, I totally hear you on the density. Um, that actually makes sense. There's more traffic going through there than should be uh once everything gets done. Um, but it sounds like the intersection in and of itself is challenging and I don't and so maybe there needs to be a different solution for pedestrian traffic across that that street versus saying to someone, well, you got to go to the light. I agree the light is going to be the safest, right? There's a crosswalk there. There are lights there. It's a controlled intersection in all four directions. Um and so my question would be if we don't think what we're doing now is going to help u in future then we need a different solution for it. >> Well, we're at the nearly the highest level that you can provide for a midblock crosswalk. But what we have installed is not for the >> highest level of I'm sorry >> of safety features. Oh, >> there's only one more level, and that's almost an a a signal over the top of the road, which there's no way we'd have time and money to install this year. So, we're at almost the maximum. After the big interchange project's done, traffic's going to go way back down again, and it'll be back to what it was. This is just this interim solution during this major construction project that we need to consider whether this is best to have a crossing there at all or not. If we looked at warrants today with the number of traffic, we probably wouldn't recommend a crosswalk to be there today. So, that's where I'm suggesting that maybe in the best interest and safety is not to have one. >> Well, I do know that um when I met with you guys to understand how we make those decisions, one of the primary concerns and adding additional controls is it gives it can give a false sense of security which causes more issues. Um, and so that would be a a concern as well, but this is just one I'm not sure how we solve it in the interim. Um, I just wanted to make sure people understand that we do care about it. I'm actually not sure how to solve it in the interim. >> Ray, do you think? >> Yeah, I guess I'm curious. You mentioned um that you don't think that a speed bump would necessarily improve the situation. Do you think it would harm the situation or is it something that we could try? >> We could try it. Can always try. >> Yeah. I think goes back to this lived experience that we talked about upstairs in our work session. I mean you you've got we we've got a problem. you don't even think the solution that that member Pierce asked a really telling question and you gave an honest answer that even the things we're going to do aren't going to help that much. So, let's let's throw some more attempts at it and see if we can help with that lived experience and make people a little bit safer. Okay, we'll talk uh with through the traffic safety personnel >> and put up some big signs that say slow down and this bad behavior thing is that's that educational component of it is difficult. >> Correct. >> It's it's really dis disturbing that people driving realize that the tight quarters in there. People trying to go back and forth across the street because of the construction on 100 and they should be really mindful for pedestrians. So I don't know, member Jackson. So, I have a very low tech idea that I don't know what the residents would think of this, but can we put a a laminated sign that says, "Please be warned. This is this is not its usual safetiness. If you want maximum safety, go to the corner to cross the street." Um, or something, you know, word it in a polite way. But just to to let the pedestrians know that there is an alternative because people get in their habits and don't think and maybe say this is a temporary situation for maximum safety go to the corner and use the light. Um so that's a low tech answer. >> Low tech. Yeah. >> Okay. We'll consider it. Thank you. >> Okay. >> All right. Uh on to manager Neil to report out on some of the concerns of residents that occurred a couple weeks ago. >> Thank you, your honor. And I'll try to be brief because I know we've got our speaker in the audience today, too. Um, we had four questions at our June uh 17th meeting. First question was, what is the cost estimate for the France Avenue underpass? How has that information been communicated? The estimated cost of the conceptual project has been posted to the city's website since August of 2024. The November 7th, 2024 uh feasibility report included an early stage cost estimate of the con of the conceptual plan of approximately $19.5 million including uh engineering, financing, administration, and contingencies. It's also on betterto together.org. Um and it has been uh we loaded that in in the spring of of this year. Next question was why was the public not notified when state legislators were put under police protection June 14th? Um this was called something called a protective detail and we do not share uh the details of that with the public u because alerting the community of that kind of protective detail can compromise the tactics and the and the logistics of the people that are trying to do their jobs um and can lead to increased risk to not only the officers but the individuals. And that's a pretty standard um that's a pretty standard uh way of doing business for police departments. Uh when a potential threat is received by the police department, the department will take the necessary actions as soon as possible to protect the safety of the community and that's indeed what happened in this case. Uh the next question was will the police department develop a policy for residents to call in and make sure their contact uh with police officers is legitimate? Uh we think that's important too. Uh the Adina Police Department encourages anyone who questions the legitimacy of a police officer making a contact with them to contact the police department at 911. So call 911 if you're concerned and get a verification that that person uh on your porch who's knocking on your door is indeed an Adina police officer and they would tell you that if it was. Uh finally uh there was a question about will the city limit parking on Wilson Road. Uh the answer is no. uh at least now it the the traffic safety committee found that the road width and sight context adequate for one-sided parking uh that those pavement markings have been installed and the new condition is in play. >> Good cause any questions for council member? >> All right, thanks manager Neil. Uh, we're now going to go to the consent agenda and um, council members, let let me know if I got this right. We're going to remove 6.15, 6.16, 6.17, 6.18 and deal with those in different parts of the agenda. And if there's anything else that I missed there that we should be removing from the consent agenda before we vote on the consent agenda, let me know. Okay, hearing nothing. Um, is there a motion to adopt the items on the consent agenda portion of the agenda in a single motion with the exception of items 6.15, 6.16, 6.17, and 6.18. >> So moved. >> A second. >> Council member Jackson moves. Council member Agnu seconds the adoption of the items on the consent agenda in a single motion with the exception of items 6.15, 6.16, 6.17, and 6.18. Any further discussion? All those in favor of adoption of the items on the consent agenda in the manner dis say I. >> I. >> I. Opposed. Carried. The consent agenda is approved with the exception of items 6.15 through 6.18 which will be handled in a different part of the agenda. And now we are on to special recognitions and presentations portion of the agenda. And while we were in community comment, our Henipin County Attorney, Mary Morertity, came into the room and I see some uh she has some folks with her and um coming to give us uh an annual update of the activities that the county attorney's office has been involved in. Uh we got to know each other a couple of years ago and haven't had as much interaction as I'd probably like. Uh and that's that's not her issue. we just haven't been crossing paths and been involved in the same sorts of activities like we were at the beginning of her tenure. But she has been involved in, as many people know, uh, the the criminal justice system for all of her adult life and has some real passionate thoughts and views of how justice ought to occur and um is steadfast in those beliefs and and um we're look forward to her report tonight about the activities in the uh Henipin County Attorney's Office during her time uh there and serving the residents of Henipin County, including the residents of Adina. So, uh, uh, welcome. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, I, in terms of us getting together, um, I'm hoping that you'll respond to my email about us getting together to talk. Um, >> all right. >> Because I would like to share what we're doing. And that's part of my reason for being here is that we at the Henipin County Attorney's Office are very transparent. We want to connect with people in the community and answer their questions about public safety. >> I guess I felt that was why I had to get a hold of you. I guess I forgotten that you had written to me. So my apologies. Sorry. I'll get back to you. We will get together. >> Okay. >> All right. >> Thank you. I was just curious about your comment. Um so okay so I you all have copies of our presentation. I am not going to get through that entire thing, but we still included some of the slides because we just want you to have a takeaway as to some of the initiatives we're doing with our office, but I just want to give a quick overview here because there are things that um community sometimes doesn't understand uh because the system is pretty complicated. So, uh we're on slide three here. This is a timeline about how what happens with cases. So, as you can see there, crime occurs and it says and is reported to law enforcement. As Chief Milberg can can confirm, a lot of crimes actually aren't reported to law enforcement. So, we have we start with the crimes that are reported to them. Some law enforcement agencies divert cases before they send them to us. Some don't, but law enforcement can also investigate. they can decide whether to submit a case to our office for potential charging or they can decide that there isn't enough evidence there to submit the case to us. When law enforcement clears a case and submits it to us, that is when we typically enter into the process. Although I'll give a huge shout out to uh Chief Milbourne here. We have a great relationship um with he and his officers and our people have worked with he and his officers before cases get to us. So I think we have a very good working relationship there. So what happens when we receive a case? You can see on this slide we our people look at the evidence and we decide okay do we want to send it to diversion? Do we want to charge it? Do we want to decline to charge it? Those are our three options. If we do charge it, we also have a number of different options that you can see there on the right. So the next slide, what we did in some of these slides is to just compare Henipin County versus Edina so that you could see overall in Henipin County and we have something like 38 different agencies in Henipin County. So overall the numbers of cases that we are receiving uh as you can see there juvenile is kind of the purplish color adult is blue. You can see it over a period of years. So for instance I came in in 2023 you can see um in Edina which is on our right side there uh you can just see the history of the cases that our office has received from the Adina Police Department. Now, this is usually interesting to people. It's the common types of offenses that we get from all agencies in Henipin County and from Edina. As you can see here, shoplifting, credit card fraud, that kind of thing is the number one type of case we get from Edina, which is not surprising at all given South Dale um retail. That is probably the highest uh type of case we get from Bloomington as well because of the Mall of America. So it just depends on the particular jurisdiction but but a lot of times people are interested in what kind of cases what kind of crimes do you actually see here in your community. Now the next slide here talks about charging decisions. Charging decisions on the left side for all of Henipin County and on the right side for Edina. If you look at Edina and this goes from 2018 to 2024. So for instance in 2018 through 2022 um ranges from 55% to a high of 62%. Um in 2024 we charged 55% which is the same percentage that was charged in 2018. So there's not a big difference there in terms of what our or how often our office is charging. What is a bit different there when you look at Edina if you look on the right side there to diverted you can see those percentages are higher than the average percentage percentages for Henipin County being diverted that is because we see a lot of property theft types of crimes because that's the number one offense here and those are the types of crimes that we often divert and I'm going to talk a little bit about the success of diversion there but that's why those numbers for Edina are a little bit higher than the average in Henipin County. So, youth diversion. So, what does this mean exactly? What is diverted? Diversion, that kind of thing. The idea is that uh we will send a youth or an adult to what's called a diversion program that is supposed to be tailored to address whatever the issue is that brought them to us or to the attention of your police. Now, the data on this on diversion is very good. When you look at this slide number eight, um recidivism means are they coming back essentially into the court system? Are they getting charged with another case? So if you look at youth um within one year, are they coming back to court with a new case? If they are not diverted, they come back into court at a rate of 32%. If they are diverted, they come back at a rate of 23%. So you can see the recidivism with two years and any recidivism at all. Overall if we send a youth to diversion they are 36% um likely to come back to uh the court system but 45% if we don't divert them. So those are pretty good numbers in terms of diversion. We are trying to figure out how to improve those numbers as well. So adult diversion these numbers are fantastic. What about if somebody doesn't do success or isn't successful in diversion, they are likely to come back into the court system at a rate of 20%. But if they are successful in diversion, they come back at a rate of 4%. And look at the overall numbers there, any recidivism, if somebody is unsuccessful in diversion, they will come back at a rate of 39%. But if they are successful as adults in diversion, it is 13%. those numbers uh have huge implications for public safety because obviously we don't want people coming back into the system. So for certain people um diversion is really really successful in keeping them from coming back into the court system which also means from harming somebody else taking somebody's property that kind of thing. So um I want to talk a little bit about law enforcement numbers and this is really whereina shines. uh comparatively to other police uh in Henipin County. So why does clearance matter? This is really important because I get asked uh frequently I or perhaps criticized for you know you're not sending people to prison for long enough or the sentences aren't long enough. And I will say to people actually the certainty of being caught is a much more powerful deterrent than a long punishment especially when you're talking about young people. Young people are not thinking if I do this then this. And so the key to deterrence is the certainty of getting caught and that specifically relates to the police activity and whether police are likely to catch them. So if people perceive that they are likely to be caught by law enforcement that is a big deterrent. In fact that's the most successful deterrent that we have. And as you could see there uh research is pretty clear that increasing the severity of punishment does little to deter crime. So this I I I was looking at this. It's very impressive. Look at this is clearance. So generally what it means is that when law enforcement gets a case and they submit it to us for potential charges, it it's clearance. Have they cleared the case? So if you look at this graphic, you're seeing all of Henipin in the blue, but you're seeing Edina in the orange there. Look at crimes against persons. Look at all of Henipin County. And these are going to be your robberies, you know, anything that involves a person type of related offense. The clearance rates for law enforcement in all of Henipin County are 37%. The clearance rates for the Adina Police Department on person related offenses is 80%. much much higher. And when you look back at deterrence, that is, you know, if people think they're going to get caught at that certainty, that does deter people from committing crime. These are also tougher crimes, crimes against persons, because very often when somebody is harmed, they don't have a good description of the person, understandably, right? So, they can be really hard to prosecute and hard for police to put together a case. So, I want to talk a little bit about motor vehicle theft. That's uh under the umbrella of crimes against property. So, you can see in all of Henipin County in 2024, there were 8,27 reported car thefts. Now, I said that a lot of cases are not reported to law enforcement, but car theft and homicide are two of the most reliable reports. Uh car theft because of insurance. People report it because of insurance. Now, if you look at the clearance rate, so how many of those 8,27 cases actually got submitted to us for potential charges? We have a rate of 3%. Now, Edina does a lot better than that, but all in all, law enforcement struggles with trying to put together a case on car theft, and that's for a number of reasons. We had um a Tik Tok video. How many of you are familiar with the Tik Tok video that encouraged or showed young people how to steal a Kia or Hyundai? Yeah. In 90 seconds or less, right? And so unlike most crime trends, car theft just skyrocketed across the country. That was not just here. It was all across the country. And I've got some data showing that we're doing much better on that now. And the trends are going way down. But young people, we're seeing a lot of young people in a car and they would ditch the car and run away or law enforcement wouldn't chase them understandably because of of safety concerns or somebody would get caught with a car a couple days later or a bunch of people would and it would be hard for law enforcement to be able to prove well who actually took that car. Um did the people in the car know um that it was stolen? And unlike TV, you don't get forensics like DNA and fingerprints in a day. It takes weeks, months. Um, and so there are many good reasons why it's difficult for law enforcement to sometimes put together a case on uh for car theft. And so that was something that we heard loud and clear. Um, when we met with law enforcement um in my first year here, I met with all of the police chiefs and I said, "What would you like from our office?" and they very clearly said communication. We've not had good communication from your office. And so what I did was set up meetings with all of the police chiefs once a month. We broke them into four groups. Um so I met with them four times a month in those small groups. I also appointed a a really uh senior prosecutor in our office to be a liaison to law enforcement. Um and so every police chief has his cell phone number and can contact him or me for that matter. they have my cell phone number anytime they need assistance. So, these are some of the things that we are working on uh at the office, but I want to skip to the youth autotheft initiative. When we met with police, they said, "Yes, it's it's difficult to be able to tie a particular person, particularly a young person, to a car theft. But we pretty much know who these young people are. So, we can't bring you a case, but we know who those these young people are." What law enforcement um crime analysts also told us is that unfortunately young people who are involved in car theft are escalating to more dangerous crimes within a matter of months. So before I took office, our office's position was if you cannot bring us a case, there's nothing we can do. But we were seeing, okay, well, for good reasons, law enforcement wasn't able to bring us a case, but we can't just sit and wait because that behavior may escalate into carjacking, robbery, guns, that kind of thing. So, we worked with uh law enforcement to develop our youth autotheft initiative. And the idea there was to create a pathway for voluntary services for young people and their families. And also we expedited the what our role in the legal system. When before I took office, it would take our office probably weeks maybe months to charge uh car theft on an out of custody basis if that person wasn't in jail. We re uh shuffled our staff to be able to do it within days. We worked with the bench to be able to have a very quick appearance for young people in juvenile court so that they weren't waiting for months because what was happening was it would take weeks for us to charge. It would take weeks or months for them to see a judge and then a year later you were trying to impose some kind of sanction for a young person who didn't even remember what you were really talking about. And we know with young people you need very quick interventions. So we worked on all of that. Um, and so what we did with law enforcement was to say, just give us the names. Don't worry about a case. Obviously, we'll look at a case. We'll charge a case if you've got a case, but give us the names. We will run them through all of our databases, and if those young people aren't receiving services through the county, through child protection, through our youth prosecution, through county behavioral health, our social worker will reach out to the family and see what they need. So that's what we did um for a year. We had uh one of our social workers on staff reach out and he was very persistent. He actually reached 97% of the guardians or parents because he would show up at their doors. He was very persistent. And what I was really happy to hear was that all of those parents or guardians said, "I am not surprised that my young person is on your radar screen." but they also said, "Please help. I don't know what to do." And so our social worker was able to refer them to a wide variety of services, which I think I don't have in my slideshow. Oh, there it is. Okay. On the right side there, what we would do was, you know, there's a wonderful uh county program called FRSS, Family Response Stabilization Services. My guess is most of you have never heard of it. You can call them, anybody can call them, a parent, a neighbor, anybody, and within two hours they will have a culturally specific group there at the person's home to find or to figure out a a stability plan. They're fabulous. Um, so we would connect them with them or mental health resources or case management. Sometimes it's transportation, sometimes it's food, clothing, all of those types of things. we would connect them to those services so that they that young person could get stabilized and hopefully get off that path. So we in the first year when we did this um we had 127 referred to our social worker for services. 85 of those young people which is 67% had no new case charge cases between that date of referral. 33% of them did. But remember these are young people who would never have come into the system. They never had a case because it just it wasn't diversion or anything like that. Because for law enforcement to be able to refer a case to us, they at least need probable cause. We need proof beyond a reasonable doubt. So what this says is these are voluntary services and you know 67% of those young people and families who took advantage of these services were not being referred to us. So in my mind, this is 67% of young people who will hopefully never come into the system at all. This is intervening early on to prevent that escalation of behavior and it's been really highly successful. This is also great data. Take a look at this. So year to date through July 8th, 2025, we received 30% fewer juvenile motor vehicle theft case submissions from law enforcement compared to last year, but 49% fewer than 2023. And on the right side there, um, from January to May 2025, the total motor vehicle thefts reported or known to law enforcement in Henipin County was 28% lower compared to the same time period in 2024 and 50% lower compared to the same time period in 2023. So the trends here are really, really good. Car theft is going down um, in Minneapolis and Henipin County. So I the some of the things I just wanted to touch on quickly. So we have a domestic abuse service center in downtown and I think this is a really important resource. The domestic abuse service center is kind of on the umbrella of the county attorney's office but it is also separate from our office. It's within our budget. But here's anybody can access it and you don't need to go through our office. anybody can call or just show up. Um, at the domestic abuse service center, what you're seeing there in slide 19 is a child's playroom. You're seeing it through some glass where a parent can be talking about, you know, what's happening to them with one of our staff where the they can keep an eye on their child, but their child can't hear what the discussion is about. So, our people uh we have we've served over 5,000 people in 2024. They meet people where they're at. That doesn't mean that there's pressure on them to prosecute. Our staff tries to figure out what do you need? Do you need a safety plan? Do you need housing? What do you need? How can we help you? And the hope then is too that they will build a trusting relationship that so perhaps if there is a domestic uh assault that that they will come forward and potentially prosecute. But I think it's a really valuable resource for people to be aware of because anybody can access it. You can just come on down. you can call um and our staff will meet people where they're at. So, gun violence is a huge issue. It is the leading cause of death for young people in the country and in Minnesota. There are a couple of things that we have done to try to address gun violence. So, how many of you know Minnesota has a red flag law? We have a red flag law um that came the legislature gave us a couple of years ago, but it was very confusing. What does it mean exactly? It is called an extreme risk protection order. Now the wonderful thing about it is that a family member, a household member or law enforcement can seek an order temporarily taking somebody's guns away if they are struggling with a mental health uh crisis. So this is a way of getting guns out of somebody's hands who may be at risk of using them and harming themselves or others. and a family member can petition for that. Law enforcement can petition for that. There is due process here. It doesn't have to be permanent. Um, and it's a good way of getting guns out of people's hands. And to show you how the red flag law part of it works, we had a case last year where a household member said, um, our loved one is threatening to go buy a gun and harm herself. They got the the petition. It's very easy to do. The courts have made it very easy. our office helped uh law enforcement helped. They got the red flag that day. That woman went to I can't remember where it was, Dicks or Shields or something like that where they sell guns. She tried to buy a gun and when the employee or or employee looked in the computer, which is what they were supposed to do, that flag popped up and they would not sell her the gun. She was very angry about it, but she left without access to that gun, which at least gives her some time to hopefully think about, you know, another path. So, this has been extremely successful, but we were aware that uh it was really confusing to community to law enforcement. So, I hired a woman who uh we wanted to try to coordinate and work on training with law enforcement. Um, and she her name is Rea Alexander. if you would like her to come talk somewhere in community, she's wonderful. We were actually just able to hire a community advocate to work with community organizations, domestic violence groups, um, anyone who wants to know, hey, if I have a loved one who's struggling with something like this, what can I do? The other thing we did was that um a couple of months ago we were able to implement a collaboration with the department of public safety to get free gun locks in about 12 Henipin County libraries. So there are 12 libraries you can walk into. You just ask for a free gunlock. It's given to you no questions uh asked. So that's been going very well as as well. So I'm going to stop there. There are a bunch of other things that we're doing here and as I said you can take a look and I'm always happy to answer questions but I did want to leave some time for you to ask any questions that you might have. >> Yeah, thank you. Um there may be some questions from my colleagues. Um it was a great report with a lot of data driving it and uh very informative for us and I think for our residents who who watch the city council meetings and and pick up this information and I think we'll probably also post it on our website. >> Thank you. uh if if that's satisfactory with you, we'll post it up and I think it'll be helpful for people. >> And mayor, actually at the very end of it, we have uh link tree. So we have a data dashboard that's public. Anybody can look at it. >> Yeah, good thought. >> We have a bunch of explainers. So those are videos. So if somebody wants to know what ano is or they can always look at those videos. So thank you for posting it. >> Yeah, you're welcome. Let me check. Uh council member Jackson. >> Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for the presentation. Very helpful. Um, so just so that I'm a little confused and the public might be as well when you say successful versus unsuccessful in diversion. Tell me what is success? I I don't quite understand that. >> Yeah. When we're working on that because typically what's happening is that somebody who's not successful in diversion, it means they probably never got into the diversion program in the first place. And partly that is has been because we send out a letter and then the person has to do something and they have to reach out and contact uh the diversion program. So what uh one of our managers has been working on for a very long time is to try to get somebody from diversion in the courthouse so that when that person is in court and they agree to go to diversion they are walked right over to that person and that connection is made. So that is one of the things that we're doing. We're also trying to explore what makes a successful diversion program. Are we meeting people where they're at? Are we helping them? So, I think obviously getting them connected with it is huge. So, if somebody is not successful, that means they come back into court and they go through the court process. It doesn't just mean we forget about it and you know, too bad. They come back into court and go through the regular process. >> Okay. Okay, so just to be perfectly clear, diversion has been offered to people and some of them take it up and we have very low re rec recidivism. Some of them don't take it up and we have a higher rate of recidivism. But not everybody is offered diversion. >> Oh, absolutely not. And and I should say first, I think the issue is when we send out letters, we often aren't given accurate addresses. And that's because people are living a different place. they're going couch to or they're just unsheltered, something like that. And so, it's not necessarily that they turn down the opportunity. They may not have ever known about it. But no, diversion is usually usually for somebody who has no record. It's for property offenses. We don't divert violent offenses. Car, we don't divert carjacking, you know, that kind of thing. This is really for property types of offenses, low-level offenses that we have. >> Terrific. Thank you for that clarification. Thank you, >> Council Member Pierce. >> Uh, thanks, Mr. Mayor. Again, thank you for the the presentation. I had one question. Um, your slide 11 when you talked about clearance, that was really interesting. And so, the I guess the question I have, if police deter crime by increasing the perception that criminals will be caught and punished, how can we do more of that? How do how do we set that perception? like how does that get >> and I I think that has to do with it certainly gets around um if people get caught, right? >> And you know, I'll tell you with the car theft, to give you an example, in Minneapolis, I think we had 7,500 car thefts in 2023 and 1.6% of those made it to us for potential charging and very low, right? And so certainly people know and you know there was there's been a lot in the media about oh these are the same people and that's true that's true however if the case never comes to us we can't do anything with it and we certainly understand why it can be very difficult for law enforcement to make an arrest. So, um, you know, like when I look at the 80% clearance rate here, um, on person offenses, you know, I don't know if word of mouth gets around, but certainly it keeps people from committing those types of crimes again because if we get a case and we can prove it, we will prosecute it. Um, but I think it it I mean I think word gets around. people know, you know, whether people get caught and certainly with car thefts, people weren't getting caught, especially young people. And so, we do see some of the same young people that are out doing that. But I think just the the clearance rates themselves actually help because a lot of the people involved in especially car theft are repeat, especially young people. And so, if we can stop that um if a case gets to us or before, that's going to deter obviously. And then if people figure out, oh, if I steal a car, I'm going to get caught. If I rob somebody in Edina, I'm going to get caught. Um, people are going to know that. Now, having said that, lots of times people aren't thinking about crimes. And I'll give you an example. We prosecuted the very first successful wage theft case in Minnesota a couple of months ago, right? That's a situation where I think there's deterrence because the people who are engaging in wage theft up until now it's mostly been a fine if it comes to the attention. But when they start thinking, oh, I could be criminally prosecuted, not just, oh, I might have to pay a fine. That's a cost of doing business. That's really deterrence, right? Because people who are engaging in that kind of thought process are deterred from engaging that behavior if they think there might be a consequence. So that's probably a better example of it. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for the question. >> With respect, I was looking at slide seven on the diversion. Um when you make a decision to potentially divert, um do you talk to the local police department about that first or is that an internal decision made at the county attorney's office and then then you just alert the local PD? >> It's going to depend. You know, I think if law enforcement So, so since I've been there, um, and I think this happened with COVID and it happened with electronic filing, electronic everything. I think the communication between law enforcement and us and us and law enforcement kind of got more difficult because of email, um, that kind of thing where it used to be that we would see them in person, right? They would see us in person. And we've made it a priority to get out to police uh offices to do training if we can, but we have also made it a point of emphasis for our people to reach out to the investigator to talk about a case that's declined um to talk about a potential disposition to make sure we have all of the information that we need to make a decision. And we're not perfect at that, but I think we're doing much better. And so I think in uh a lot of our diversion cases that's probably a decision made um without consultation of police, but police probably aren't too surprised about that because it's a property case. Um really what people are looking for is restitution. They want their money back if if they've been damaged in any way. Now there's some cases where law enforcement and I can't think of one with Edina. Maybe there is one, but you know, we had one recently with Minneapolis. They were mad about it that we diverted it. And you know, to me, we're never going to agree on everything, but my goal has always been to have really good communication with law enforcement, really good discussions, so that when we're making a decision, we know what we need to know and we've heard law enforcement. And then we may make a decision that they disagree with and we can agree to disagree. So, I'd say in most of the cases, we're not going to take up law enforcement's time. You know, like there's a shoplifting or, you know, a felony theft from Southdale. Does, you know, Chief Milbourne or the investigator want to know if we're going to divert that? Probably not. But if it's somebody who's repeatedly doing it, something like that, hopefully we are having some discussions. >> Okay, good. Well, I think we all want to thank you for being here and it's it's good to have you out in Edina and I don't know if you can make it annually. We'd love that if you could and >> Yes, I would love to. >> And thanks for that gentle reminder that the communication balls in my court. >> Yes, >> I've been waiting for you to respond to my email to me. So, thank you. >> I I already sent myself an email. Hey, you're supposed to get a hold of Mary. All right. Okay. >> Thank you so much. >> Thanks for being here. And next I'm going to bring up we're going to turn now to uh items 9.1 and 9.2 before we go into the report from Andrew Cypion about the uh pedestrian cycle safety fund and Perry Veter has this matter and we've got a couple of our our longtime residents here and their family have been here for generations and uh they're so generous. um really wonderful to have him here this evening and patiently waiting in the back and we're going to go from uh crime and punishment to uh talking about a lot of pleasure I think and said that people are getting out of a particular kind of sport that uh the family foundations are supporting from this group of folks in our community. So uh director go ahead. >> Uh thank you members of the council. Uh good evening. Uh I am here this evening to present to you uh technically two items. Um but the first is the potential for a restrictive donation uh very philanthropic gesture uh to the community and that's for the expansion and upgrades at Rosland Park for the Moody pickle ball courts. And I'd like to acknowledge uh Mr. Bruce Moody and Mr. Paul Moody are here this evening. Um take you back about 10 years. Uh Mr. Mr. Moody approached city staff back then about building the city of Edina's first dedicated pickle ball courts. And those were uh studied by park staff and the parks commission and were uh the site that was selected was at Rosland Park kind of between the art center and the aquatic center along 64th Street right on uh County Road 62. Um those courts courts were donated by the by the Moody family in recognition of um uh Mr. John Moody and Mr. Melvin Moody. Um uh dear members of their family and since then the sport and their popularity has exploded. Um recently in the last several years, city staff has uh converted the existing tennis courts to four crossover courts, meaning they're allowed for dual use. They are striped for pickle ball and for tennis. However, they are not dedicated courts due to their size limitations. Uh so recently, Mr. Moody has approached the city again about an an additional philanthropic donation on behalf of the family and that is to expand those courts. So they need to expand a little bit to the north about 11 feet and that would create six dedicated pickle ball courts at that um um playing surface. And then uh once that portion of the project is completed, the existing pickle ball courts would be converted to four pickle ball courts. And the idea there is that each one would be dedicated courts. They would have fencing separation and gates uh which they do not now. So balls can go in between play versus various courts. And this would be a better situation for players to contain the play within those courts. So, um, we would go from the five dedicated, the four, uh, overlay courts to an actual 10 dedicated pickle ball courts that would be of high-end use. Uh, this would be considered one project. Um, but it would be broken up in two phases. So, the first existing work would be on the tennis court side to prep and prepare and open up those courts before work would begin on the existing five tennis court. So it would be one project in uh two phases. Um after that's completed, city staff would install windscreen for uh for those courts and a small shaded structure um for people to relax and enjoy and either wait for a game or um take some time after their game. Um as the pedestrian bridge is replaced over County Road 62, um that bridge project will bring electrical to that area. One of our goals as a department is to install additional outdoor um AEDs um defibrillator devices. We have um had some success with the one at Rosland Park that was donated by the Rotary. Um that is an outdoor climate controlled AED. We would look to do that as well at that location. And then longer term solving the issue for parking and a more permanent restroom at that site. Um but this would be a uh platinum level donation by the Moody Family Foundation. that is our highest level of donation that we do recognize. Uh they are here this evening. Um the subsequent item that we have right after this um if you do decide to accept the donation is the actual purchase contract for the construction of that. Um we would look to if approved get going um as soon as we can to get these um ready and open this year yet. >> Oh. All right. Uh questions from council members. Council member Jackson. So you would be able to get it up and ready this year. So you your staff has been super busy. The reason I hesitated like they they're doing Braar, they're doing Fred Richards. You have the capacity to do that. >> Uh correct. So actually these this work would be contracted out. So, um, item 9.33 or 7.3 in your packet. However, we move those around tonight is a request for purchase, um, through the source contract for Batuminous Roadway to complete that work. Um, we have a tremendous success rate with them on projects. Um, so it' be our observation, but city staff would not be doing the work itself. We would be observing and implementing. So, we're comfortable with that phase of it. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Right. Other questions? No. member, >> just a comment that um and I think this was commented on before, but having the pickle ball courts located where they are is just so brilliant because it's doesn't bother people with the noise or anything like that. And I do walk over to Rosland Park um quite a bit and it seems like there are always people interested in playing pickle ball. So, this seems like a very generous gift and a no-brainer to me. Um, that's all I have. >> All right. Um, would either of would either Bruce or Paul Moody care to comment on this matter. >> Good evening. >> 10 years ago, I'm Bruce Moody, I'm sorry, and my cousin Paul Moody. 10 years ago, I came to this group and and uh I'm seeing a lot of new faces. Jim and Scott were around and meeting with us, but uh your comment uh uh council member Rizzer is right on that when we first selected this site, it was all because of noise. That's the biggest problem with pickle ball. And uh when I appeared last time, I said, I'm going to create the biggest problem you have because it's going to be the most popular game that we have. And those courts are far and away the most used courts in the city. And we're hoping that this will allow more people to enjoy the game. When we first started, it was old people playing. Uh, and, uh, now tons of young people are playing, too. Uh, and I want to compliment Perry and his staff for their work and helping to get this thing moved forward. Uh, Paul and I have a mutual love of our fathers and that's why this is all happening. We grew up spending our Sundays at uh Chowan Park and Beard Park playing a variety of different games. And when I got married in 1982, we played pickle ball on my driveway. Um and so, uh it's a game my both Melvin and John played that day and they would have loved it because it was a great family game that you could have fun. Now, the comment that was made earlier by the mayor was not totally correct. uh that we've gone from safety to to pleasure. Uh I've had two ACL problems playing. So, so uh uh it's generally true, but um and so we we uh this is both a love of uh of giving back to the community where we've all lived and have been richly blessed by being here, but it's also uh and I think most importantly uh a love of our fathers and what they've done for not only this community, for uh uh the greater uh uh Twin Cities area in a lot of the different ways that they were involved. So, uh, thank you for letting us say a few things, Paul. I didn't mean to take all. >> Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Bruce. So, well said, T. >> Oh, good. That's lucky for you. Um, yeah. Well, Paul Moody and uh first of all, I want to thank Bruce for his leadership and vision on this because we're here because of Bruce and his thoughts on this. But he he couldn't be more correct that the the fond memories we have growing up here in town and going to Chowan Park, Beard Park with our our grandfather, John Moody, and then my dad Melvin and Bruce's dad, John. And uh the memories are great. And to be able to be able to do this is just a real honor to them and and uh and something great for the community. And I think it's I think also maybe Twin Cities Orthopedics is benefiting as well. So, thank you so much. >> Yeah. Thank you, Paul. Thank you, Bruce. [Applause] >> All right. Well, resolution um 2025-55 would accept the donations uh from the various Moody Foundations uh on behalf of the city of Edina. Is there anyone who cares to make that motion? >> So moved. >> I second. >> Jackson moves. Member Agnu seconds the adoption of resolution 2025-55 which would accept the donation of the various Moody foundations uh for um additional pickle ball courts at Rosland Park. Any further discussion? All those in favor of adoption of resolution 2025-5 say I. >> I opposed. Carried. The resolution's adopted and we give you our generous thanks. We're going to approve the contract with uh by 2 minutes roadways, I'm sure. And this is just incredible. Thank you. Thank you. And the rest of your families as well, please. >> All right. See you. And then I I need to talk to you, Paul, about a couple of things. So, yeah. All right. >> All right. Um All right. Let's handle 9.2 while we're at it. That's the um uh request for purchase on the expansion and the upgrades. And let me get to that buminous roadway contract. That was the agreement between the city of Edana and the contractor buminous roadways uh to build these pickle ball courts and refurbish everything that's there. Uh any discussion on that matter on that contract? Okay, that was item 9.2 two and they're showing up in our agenda just under the um form of agreement between city vine and contractor for Rosland Park pickle ball project. Uh director veter any further comp uh com comment there >> uh no mayor members of the council I'll just stand if you have any questions. >> Any questions for director on that? All right. Is there a motion to adopt that uh approve the approve the entry approve the city of Vidina entering into the agreement with the contractor uh by Tuminous Roadways for the construction of the Rosland Park Prickle Ball uh courts. >> So moved. >> I second. >> Member Jackson moves again. Member Agnu seconds the adoption of the uh uh form of agreement between the city of Edina and the contractor by Tuminous Roadways Inc. for the construction of the Rosland Park pickle ball courts. Uh any further discussion? All those in favor of approving the form of agreement say I. >> I. >> I. Opposed. Carried. The form of agreement with Buminous Roadways for the uh Rosen Park pickle ball project is approved. All right. Now, let's go back again and go to our own Andrew Cypion who's coming to us to give us an annual report that's important to be getting. And that's the pedestrian cyclist safety fund report for 2024 and what he's thinking about for 2025. >> Thank you, mayor, members of council. Always a pleasure to be here to talk about the fine work we do with the pedestrian and cyclist safety fund. Um for our uh viewing audience at home, I'll provide a brief recap of what the PAX fund is. Uh go into what our 2024 expenditures were. um give an overview of the projects that were constructed in 2024 and then give you a preview of the work we've started in 2025. So the PAX fund or our pedestrian and cyclist safety fund was created in 2012. Um this is a fund that is uh created from revenue generated from utility franchise fees. So, customers of Centerpoint and Excel Energy, um, uh, this fund generates about $1.3 million annually, and that money is dedicated exclusively toward improvements in our non-motorized transportation network. So, that includes like what you see in the picture here, sidewalks, bikeways, transit facilities, associated signage, and pavement markings. In 2024, we had about $1.6 million available. Um, this includes revenue generated from that franchise fee in addition to some rollover funds from the previous year. Of that, we spent uh 1.3 $1.38 million on PAX items. Uh, roughly 50% of that was on new pedestrian and bicycle facilities. About $30,000 was built on maintaining existing pedestrian and bicycle facilities. Uh and then we had kind of a larger amount of uh final payments on previous projects uh this year at $230,000 um to bringing us to a total construction cost of just under a million. Um professional services were a little bit higher this year and I'll go into what those projects uh involved later on. U but professional services were $300,000 last year. Um maintenance supplies kind of miscellaneous costs were about $10,000. And then uh my salary and benefits uh also comes out of the PAX fund. In 2024 um the uh some of the key projects we built as part of roadway reconstruction projects in the conquered B and C neighborhood. You can see labeled A on the map here. We put in new sidewalks on Conquered Avenue and 64th Street. We also put in a new sidewalk on Wooddale Avenue as well as repaved the bike boulevard um between Highway 62 and uh Valley View Road. We also replaced the existing uh pedestrian flasher at the intersection of Valley View and Conquered with a more up-to-date rapid rectangular flashing beacon. In the Southdale reconstruction neighborhood, we put new sidewalks on Berry Road, Heritage, and 65th Streets. We also put in a number of accessible bus pads in this neighborhood as this is one of the few residential neighborhoods we have that has transit service. Um, further north on France Avenue, we built another segment of that sidewalk that's missing on the east side from Fuller Street to 57th Street. Uh, further north on France Avenue, the PAX Fund uh helped pay for a new retaining wall on France and uh 47th Street. This is adjacent to uh one of Metroransit's Eline uh stations. Network was needed uh in order to maintain this existing sidewalk that's on the west side of the street. Um we also paid to replace another pedestrian flasher at 70th and Wooddale with a more modern rapid rectangular flashing beacon. The Rosland Park pedestrian bridge, uh the design is underway, the preliminary design. Um director Milner's provided updates on that. The PAX fund is paying for that preliminary design work. Um, we're the PAX fund also paid for preliminary design work for the Interlockan Boulevard Trail, uh, which would connect Blake Road to Mirror Lakes Drive. Um, not shown on the map here, but kind of circled because it includes a number of locations. Um, the PAX fund helps supplement our sidewalk inspection program. Last year, that work was focused on the southeast quadrant of the city. Um, so this includes funding uh sidewalk panel replacement, grinding of trip hazards, uh pedestrian curb ramp replacement, uh as well as more of those accessible bus pads, which you can see a photograph here of. We installed uh about 20 of these uh bus pads throughout this quadrant. Looking to 2025, uh obviously one of the big projects uh going on is the Vernon Avenue Highway 100 interchange. The PAX fund is contributing toward uh the shared use paths that'll be uh on Vernon Avenue as part of that project. In addition to paying for some upgraded bike racks at the Edina liquor store within the president's A&B reconstruction project, there'll be new shared use paths on Washington Avenue and Belmore Lane in addition to a new sidewalk on Monroe Avenue or sorry, yeah, Monroe Avenue. Um, the next phase of the France Avenue sidewalk uh has been substantially completed actually from 60th to 62nd. So, this connects to the Eline, another Eline station at 62nd Street. Um, we now only have one more segment left of France Avenue between 62nd Street and Highway 62. And then we will have sidewalk on both sides of France all the way through Edina, which is really exciting. Um down at the Pentagon Park neighborhood as part of a scheduled overlay, uh we performed a road diet on Normanddale, Normanddale Road and Viking Drive. These streets were previously four lanes in each direction. They're now two lanes, one lane in each direction, or sorry, they were four lane section segments, two lanes in each direction. Now they're one lane in each direction with a buffered bike lane. Um the Rosland Park pedestrian bridge design is continuing this year. uh constructions anticipated for 2026. Um uh we have uh ordered uh additional RFBS um that were approved through the traffic safety committee. One of these is on 62nd Street adjacent to Pamela Park. This is on the south side of the park. Another one will be installed on Braar Boulevard um where the new mountain bike trails cross the street. um was mentioned earlier today, the Eden Avenue um advanced flasher for the eastbound direction um has been ordered. We are waiting for uh for that to be shipped by our vendor and hoping to get that installed as soon as we can. And then the sidewalk inspection program will again continue to support that work. Um this year it's focused on the southwest quadrant. So if you drive around Edina High School along valley view or Gleon and you see all of the new ped ramps that have been uh installed there that work was performed by public works but it was funded by uh the pedestrian and cyclist safety fund. Another big project that we're working on this year is our safe and equitable mobility action plan. Um this plan is focusing on reducing um fatal and serious injury crash crashes on all roadways within Edina. Um the goal of this plan is to identify projects and policies that can help the city in achieving those goals. Um this work is technically funded through a grant through the safe streets and roads for all program. Um but because it is a reimbursement grant, the PAX fund is paying for the initial costs until we get that reimbursement um from the federal government. Uh I wanted to put a plug in say there's been a community survey that's been posted on better together for the last month or so. That survey actually closes tomorrow. Um, so if anyone wants to provide additional input on safety issues that they see on our roadways or suggested improvements, um, there's a link here to the website as well as a QR code they can scan that takes them right to that project page. And with that, I'll stand for any questions you may have. Um, this is about the Rosland Park Bridge and I know I have heard from residents who really want to see a stairway go down and there's a safety issue um, in that they are thinking about the ramps and they're thinking about bikes and they're thinking about I would feel safer walking up the stairs and then I'd be at level um approach on the bridge itself and then I'd go downstairs, but I don't think I'd feel safe going on the ramp because bikes are going to be there. And so that's the first comment. The other comment is um people talking about the Rosland Park Bridge and there's a tradition people up there holding signs, protesting, all of that kind of stuff and with the cladding that's not really going to be possible. So, I don't know if the design could be altered so that at least with the bridge, the cladding would be brought down so that you could continue that because it really is a form of community coming together. And the point with both the stairs and the cladding that will make it impossible to be up there with your signs is that we really, you know, need to think about function and use um before we think about form. And that's hard for me to say because I'm an retired art historian, but um you know, the best design takes into account function. And I think there's got to be a way to bring that cladding down so that at least the protest can happen. And if there's any way we could figure out how to get those stairs, that'd be great. And I might be addressing this question to the wrong person. >> Yeah, I snuck up here. Thank you. >> Yes, >> since I'm handling the design of that bridge. So, we're meeting with Mindot now. We're talking cladding. We're talking estimate cost estimates and stairs. And we'll be back to you soon to have an update on that. But I would say the council approved a architectural rendering and that's what we're going forward with. And that will include cladding that's going to block people's view from the bridge. So unless we hear otherwise from the entire council, that is our architectural design we're moving forward with. And it's 30% designed already. I I understand that, but I feel we didn't get enough information when that design was given to us and it should have been noted the way the bridge is used and that that function would no longer be available. And I feel like a lot of times things come to us and we are tasked with anticipating all these issues that we should be told before we have to make our decision. Um, so I I would say that the design we approved, at least from my perspective, needs to be revisited for that part across the bridge. And you could just, you know, lower the cladding so that it didn't have to go all the way up. >> Thank you. >> We've approved a preliminary design at this council level. you're running numbers on it to see what it's going to cost us. You got some issues with Mandot. We're looking at the stair issue. >> Um, as for people who may potentially want to stand up there and and um uh engage in free speech, it's a quarter mile from another bridge where they can do the same thing at the France Avenue Bridge by the hospital. So, right, >> it's uh there's another there's another venue close by where they could express their opinions. So, I'd say keep going forward until we know what the costs are going to be and then we can make some decisions. >> Yep. I'll be back here shortly after those discussions. And I'll just add one comment to to Andrew's presentation where he's mentioned the Rosen Park bed bridge. We're getting all that reimbured back. You know, we've talked about all the state funding. So, PAX is covering it initially and we're making those requests for payments back to reimbured. And then the other question I had in my mind is didn't show up in your report, but I think it's premature. And that is looking at the sidewalk on Interlock Boulevard that we've been discussing that would um connect all the way down to Mirror Lakes, I guess, and try to get that done before 2029. Was that the Was that the date? >> You've approved a design preliminary design contract at a recent council meeting. We have a kickoff meeting next week with an anticipated construction, full street reconstruction, including a wide sidewalk and trail like we did towards Hopkins on Blake, bike lanes, and then we got water systems and all that is scheduled for construction in 2027. >> And we're working with the Interlocking Country Club because they own a big portion of that property adjacent to that project. We're making steady progress on this non-motorized uh system of ours and that's good to see. That franchise fee has really been helpful on that. >> I don't know if you have any supplemental comment but >> no. Yeah, the franchise fee has been very helpful and I'll I'll also add that staff does look for uh external opportunities for funding. We look for we try to apply for as many grants as we can such as the safe streets and roads for all grant. We've also been successful in acquiring safe routes to school grants through the state of Minnesota. Uh so we're constantly looking for supplemental sources of funding so we can continue uh continue to expand our multimmodal network and the PAX fund typically provides that required match. That's why we we're so successful in getting those dollars is because we have a dedicated funding source we can use as a match with those those grants. Oh >> terrific. All right. Well, thank you for that report. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Director Milner, too. Um, all right. That concludes the special recognitions and presentations portion of the agenda. We're going to turn to public hearings. We've got two public hearing related matters this evening. And um, uh, one Addison Lewis has our community development coordinator. And on that matter, he's suggesting that we leave the hearing open until noon on Sunday, July 27th, and continue the action to the August 6th, 2025 city council meeting. And on the other matter, I think Director Milner has that and he's thinking that we could potentially take action yet this evening on that matter. But first, we'll go to Addison Lewis, our community development coordinator, to uh talk about this particular public hearing and the proposed um subdivision and variances, potential variances at 316 Madison Avenue. >> All right. Good evening, mayor, members of council. Um, this is a request for subdivision with variances at 316 Madison Avenue. Uh, the subject property is located in the President's Neighborhood in the R1 zoning district in Northwest Edina. Uh, the property currently contains a single family home uh with a detached garage. The applicant is proposing to subdivide the property into two lots for the purpose of constructing a new home on the southern lot. Uh the applicant, Homes Within Reach, is a nonprofit community-based organization that creates and preserves affordable home ownership opportunities for working households in suburban Henipin County. Uh they are a partner organization of the city for our affordable ownership preservation program. They help families earning less than 80% area median income to become homeowners by acquiring, remodeling, and selling properties through a community land trust model. This means that the clients they work with purchase the home and lease the land at a nominal fee which reduces the mortgage down payment and closing costs. Um so that would be the case with um both the proposed home and the existing home that's on this property. Um they would both be sold to incomequalified buyers and they would lease the land from homes within reach uh to ensure that the property remains affordable long in the long term. Um so with the proposal it involves the following requests. Uh so preliminary and final plat to replplat the property into two lots. A variance to allow lot area of 5,988 ft and 64 ft where 9,000 ft is required. Variance to allow lot width of 45.96 ft for both lots where 75 ft is required and a variance to allow lot depth of 130.27 feet uh for one of the lots where 130.57 feet is required. Um, so here's a look at the property as it is today. So the home, the white home there on the right is the existing home on 316 Madison. And then the proposed home would be constructed just to the left of that uh in that space there. There's just another look from the other side from the front and then a photo from the rear of the property from the alley. Um, so here's the proposed survey showing how they could um fit a new home on on the southern lot without the need for any variances. Again, there's the existing home on the northern lot there. Um, again, the dimensions of the lot would be about 46 ft wide by 130 ft deep. They've also provided some elevations showing what the what the new home would look like. Though, I will just note that kind of the design of the new home isn't really within the scope of what we're considering here tonight. It's really just the the plat and also uh those variances to the dimensions of the lot. Um so here's a table that shows you those standards for lot area, lot width and depth. Um and how lot one and lot two of the proposed plat uh compared to those standards. So again, the minimum uh lot area is 9,000 square ft. Um and so both lot one and lot two would require variances at 64 ft and 5,988 ft. Um the minimum lot width again 75 ft. Um both lots would be 45.96 feet uh in width. And then uh for lot depth the the default standard is actually 120 ft. However um if the median of all lots within 500 ft is greater than that then the standard becomes the median. So in this case it's 130.57 ft. Uh you see that lot one uh is just over that and then lot two is just under. So that requires a variance as well. So Minnesota statutes in section 3698 of the Dina zoning ordinance require uh that a variance shall not be granted unless the following findings are made. Uh the variance would be in harmony with the general purposes and intent of the ordinance. The variance would be consistent with the comprehensive plan. Uh there are practical difficulties in complying with the ordinance. The term practical difficulties means the following. Uh, one, the property owner proposes to use the property in a reasonable manner not permitted by the zoning ordinance. Two, the plight of the land owner is due to circumstances unique to the property not created by the landowner. And three, the variance, if granted, will not alter the essential character of the locality. Um, so I've provided some analysis in the staff report, but I'll just give you kind of a brief overview of the staff findings here. Um, so first, the lots in the neighborhood were platted prior to Edina's existing standards for lot area width and depth. Um, all of the lots in the original West Minneapolis uh Heights Plat were approximately 130 ft deep by 46 ft wide, which is what's being proposed here by the applicant. Um, the property was originally platted as two lots and then combined. Um, so the proposed plat would reestablish the original lot sizes. 12 of the 18 other properties on the block have approximately the same dimensions as those being proposed. Um so the minimum lot standards um do not reflect the existing characteristics of the neighborhood. So you can see all the lots in blue again 12 out of the 18 um other properties on this block um are approximately the same dimensions again 46 by 130 give or take a foot here um as what's being proposed. Uh the request would also advance the following comprehensive plan goals. Um so from the land use chapter goal one is encourage infill and redevelopment that optimizes use of city infrastructure complement community character and respond to needs at all stages of life. And then in the housing chapter goal two is encourage the development and maintenance of a range of housing options affordable to residents at all income levels and life stages. Promote owner occupied units over rental units when providing affordable housing. Uh and then goal four, support the development of a wide range of housing options to meet the diverse needs of and preferences of the existing and future dining community, retain and expand housing ownership options while also supporting a balance between ownership and rental households. Um so on June 25th, the planning commission uh voted unanimously 90 to recommend approval of the requested subdivision and variances. Um, so tonight staff recommendation is to hold the public hearing and then uh close the public hearing at noon on Sunday, July 27th, 2025 and continue action to the August 6th meeting. Um, and then when we come back on August 6th, staff would be recommending approval of the subdivision and variances subject to the conditions on the screen. Um, and in your staff report. And with that, be happy to take any questions. I think the applicant is here. Maybe not. They're not here this evening. You're not here. Okay. I was going to ask you that. Uh questions for Mr. Lewis. Is this a is this a a for sale proposition? Are they going to or they retain the are they going to retain the land and sell the house or sell the whole thing? >> Homes within reach retains the land and they're so they're just selling the structure which makes it more affordable to the buyer. >> And if you have more questions on that, maybe um Stephanie Hawinson could answer more of that. All right. Um, other questions from council members at this point in time? Yes, council member Jackson. >> Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, with the um conditions um that you listed, are those those were staff recommended conditions or did the planning commission add any um conditions when they reviewed this? >> Those were the staff um recommended conditions? The planning commission did not add any conditions. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yep. >> Other questions at this point in time for Mr. Mr. Lewis. Okay. All right. Let's um we don't have anybody here from the applicant. Uh let's treat this as it is a public hearing and open it up for public testimony. And if there's anyone here that wishes to testify regarding this matter, you'll have three minutes. And um you'll get a yellow light when you'll have 30 seconds left to wrap up your comments. and please feel free to come forward and comment with with respect to this matter. >> Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Steve Brown. I live at 5528 Halifax Avenue. I'm here tonight to support this project. I urge you to vote to support this project at your August 6th meeting. Uh when I testified at the planning commission, I started by saying I thought this was a slam dunk. The ensuing thoughtful conversation showed me that that was not true, but it was a good thoughtful discussion. For that reason, I'm going to list what I believe are the five most compelling reasons for you to support this project. First, this lotslit request is similar to other lot uh split requests that you've previously approved. You did so because the majority of the neighboring lots were of similar size. In this case, twothirds of the neighboring lots are similar in size. And you saw the slide 12 out of 18. So this is very consistent with what you previously have approved. Second, all the lots in this neighborhood, and you saw a very good map that I hadn't seen before, were originally plotted with approximately the same dimensions. Ironically, you could make the argument that this project supports the original character of this neighborhood. This project is consistent with the comprehensive plan housing goals, especially those for affordable ownership housing. Fourth, the developer homes within reach is well known to you. They're doing a number of different projects in Adina already. They have a strong track record track track record for effective partnership with the city and they are doing permanently affordable ownership homes projects throughout the city and I I think everyone seems to be very pleased with the work that's being done. Uh I'm doing work with them for Habitat for Humanity and those projects seem to be going very well and they're certainly selling. Uh, fifth, many studies have shown that the city needs more affordable ownership housing. This project is a great way to take one more step forward in satisfying that need. So, for these five reasons, I urge you to support this project tonight, and I hope you'll vote in favor uh of this project at your August 6 meeting. Thank you very much for listening. >> Yes. Thank you, Mr. Brown. Anyone else wish to uh testify regarding this matter? Seeing no one coming forward and hearing nothing, I'll turn to Director Benrod. See if we have anybody online who wishes to testify. >> We do not, sir. >> All right. Okay. Did the comments from Mr. Brown precipitate any uh questions from council members? member >> RER since director Hawinson is here um just a real quick summary of why we can be assured that this project will be an affordable project just basic for the community. Uh, Homes Within Reach, um, mayor, council members, homes within reach, that is their mission. That is what they do. They don't, um, create market rate housing. Uh, it is a community land trust by charter. So, they own the land beneath the home and then they enter into a 99-year ground lease with the buyer of the home. There's a formula within the ground lease that dictates how much the subsequent sale can be for to keep the homes um actually increasingly affordable over time. >> Thank you. That's all I really wanted. Appreciate that. >> Good. Thank you. Thanks for being with us, Miss Hawinson. Um all right. Well, the staff is recommending that we close the public hearing in this matter at noon on Sunday, July 27th, 2025 and continue the action to the August 6, 2025 city council meeting. Is there a motion to that effect by one of my colleagues? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Member Jackson moves member Pierce seconds the adoption of the motion as stated to close the public hearing in this matter at noon on July 27th, 2025 and continue the action to the August 6, 2025 city council meeting. Any further discussion? All those in favor of adoption of the motion as stated, say I. >> I. >> I. Opposed. Carried. Motion's adopted. This matter will be taken up again on August 6, 2025 at our regular city council meeting. People can certainly call or write in and provide information through the city website uh until Sunday, the end of business, end of the day on Sunday, July 27, 2025. And the next public hearing matter, uh, Chad Milner, our our engineering director, has this matter and that is a potential vacation of a rightaway easement at 4015 Inglewood Avenue. Turn now to Director Milner. >> Thank you, mayor, members of council. Yes, it is located at Kelvin Christian School in the Morningside neighborhood. So, this is the request. These are the ex existing easements we're requesting to vacate as part of the Morningside flood infrastructure project. We created we moved some pipes around and we created new easements. They've already dedicated the new easements and they're filed with the county. So, this was the promise that if we worked through that agreement, we would ask to vacate these existing easements. So, these are clear and free. We don't need them. We have no concerns vacating them. Uh, like I mentioned, the new ones are already filed with the county and the private utility companies have no concerns. So, and we also didn't receive any comments on better together as part of our public engagement. So, we are recommending that we vacate these easements and approve resolution 2025-56. I'd be happy to stand for any questions. >> Questions for Director Milner on this matter? >> Nothing but silence from the council. We'll stand by. Stand by. Um, this is a public hearing matter. I'm going to open it up for public testimony. Is there anyone in the audience who wishes to testify regarding this proposed vacation? >> All right. Hearing nothing. Seeing no one coming forward. Do we have anybody online? >> We do not yet have anyone online, but because there is a brief delay in the broadcast, I would recommend we wait about one minute before moving forward. That gives people time to call in if they're still trying to uh to punch in all of those numbers. My clock shows that it's 8:51. So, I will come back to you at 852 or when I have a caller, whichever's first. >> Very good. Thank you. It is now 8:52 and I still don't have a caller, so I think it's safe to move forward with your agenda. >> Thank you, Director Benroat. Uh, Director Milner has recommended that we adopt by resolution the vacation of the rightway easement at 4015 Englewood Avenue in Edina. Um, is there a motion to close the public hearing in this matter? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Member Jackson moves. Member Pierce seconds a motion to close the public hearing in this matter. Uh any further discussion on that matter. All those in favor of closing the public hearing say I. >> I. >> I. Opposed. Carried. >> Uh the public hearing is closed and the motion as I uh indicated is to approve resolution 2025-56 which would vacate the rightway easement at 4015 Inglewood Avenue. Is there a motion to that effect? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Member Jackson moves. Member Pier seconds the adoption of resolution 2025-56 which vacates the right ofway easement at 4015 Englewood Avenue. Any further discussion? All those in favor of adoption of resolution 2025-56 say I. >> I. >> I. Opposed. Carried. Resolution 2025-56 is adopted. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Director Milner. And then um we're moving past matters that we previously handled with the the Moody Family Foundations. And we're moving on now to um a portion of the agenda that involves a comprehensive potential comprehensive plan amendment preliminary platinum site plan uh at 5516 Vernon Avenue. And director Teague has this matter. >> Oh, the Oh, yeah. The CH Park matter. >> The revised edition. The revised agenda has 9.1 next. >> Yeah, I'm looking at the wrong agenda. Um, okay. We got the Chon Park. Excuse me. I got three agendas going here. Um, yeah, we're picking up on um we're we're picking up on receiving the pet petition for stop signs in the Chon Park neighborhood. That was uh 9.1. And I want to go back to um on the copy I've got here, the petition for stop signs in Chan Park neighborhood was item 6.17. Is this a revised agenda? >> Okay. All right. All right. So, next we've got the uh So, I was looking at the wrong agenda. My Excuse me. Uh the petition for stop signs in the Chow Park neighborhood. Thank you um clerk Allison for making that that rapid change in the uh uh in the agenda. Um so typically would just accept the petition and then refer it to engineering for discussion. Um, but we have um a suggestion that um from the neighborhood that we should just act on this matter. And I'm wondering if we should we could have your input. I mean, their their argument is with the petition that you've looked at this several times and come to the conclusion that what they're recommending isn't consistent with what would drive the data. And as we heard upstairs, um, they're talking about the lived experience maybe being different different than the data driven experience. And so I think getting your thoughts on on accepting the petition, which we will do, and referring it as opposed to acting on it tonight would be important for this council to consider. >> U, so thank you, mayor. Um, as part of what was submitted, um, there's a table that's a summary of requests for stop signs at these four intersections. Uh in that table you can see of the four that are requested um there's one that was last reviewed in 2021 or last the last request we had was 2021 and there's another one um 57th and Zenith where the last request we had was 2014. Um so there are others that uh we did receive requests for this year that we denied. Uh however, for those older requests, we would really like the opportunity to go back and review sighteline conditions, review changes, potential changes in traffic volumes that may um may result in different outcomes than what we previously have recommended. >> Thoughts from council members on Yes. >> Agnu, >> thank you. Um and thank you for all the work that you've done on this to date. I know that there has been a lot of a lot of review and a lot of moving parts. Um, this is one of those projects that I I want to see move forward in some shape or fashion. Um, I think that there's a lot of input from the community that they want to see the stop signs there. Um, I think we had some good discussion up in the workg group of really honoring the lived experiences of those within our community and and understanding that. Um, and so I, speaking to the rest of the council, I'm very comfortable if we want to, you know, direct staff to come back and and give us the the refined proposal of where these stop signs should go. Um, one of the intersections wanted all four, whereas the other three it was two. Um, so some of that, I won't even say negotiation or just like refinement of what is the ultimate plan, I think makes sense to have staff go back and re-evaluate. But I want to also say that I really do support stop signs for um this neighborhood and so want to see rather than a you know no change is recommended. I want to see what is the recommended treatment um that hopefully will include stop signs. Um so that's where my head's at right now. >> Okay. Thank you. Others other thoughts? Council member Jackson. >> Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So in their petition they said there have been 14 requests since 2014. You're telling me that there were two and then several this year. Please explain the difference. >> Apologies. So uh I'm of the four intersections that where they this petition is requesting stop signs. At one of those intersections the last request we received was in 2014. At one of those intersections the last request we received was in 2021. Um, but between all four intersections, we that's where that 14 requests in total in the last 10 years. That's where that came from. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, I think I understand that. But I I'll say, you know, when I ran in 2020, I got a a pretty stern talking to about this neighborhood and how dangerous it is. If they've requested 14 times in the last 11 years, I think this is something that needs to be done. That's a pretty significant data. I I know that the traffic data doesn't support it, but I want to see this happen. And I think, you know, member Agnu's idea of refining it is a good one, but I want some stop signs there because these people are different over time and yet the complaint is the same that that the neighbors understand it, but that it's a other outsiders use the neighborhood and it's unsafe. partly because it's near Minneapolis with has a different pattern of stop signs and and everything than we do, but also just they're unfamiliar with the neighborhood. So, it's a safety concern. It's been a safety concern for a long time, and I want to see something happen. Um, and I'd like to see something maybe at our next meeting where you come forward and say this is the configuration that will help the most. But even, you know, I I think that we need to act on this. >> Member, excuse me, member Risser, >> I agree with both U. Members Agnu and member Jackson and particularly was pleased to hear the um request that this be brought back at our next meeting because I think uh time is really important. It's summer. A lot of changes have happened with France Avenue and we need to do something. So, thank you, >> Council Member Pierce. >> Uh, thanks, Mr. Mayor. So, I I agree with my colleagues. Um, I think one of the points that um in particular that you made, Member Jackson, different people, same outcome. I mean, that that's I I like that. That's definitely a uh data point uh whenever that is the case. Um I think we should take action. However, we do have to be process honoring. And so upstairs I talked about we were applying a standard and that standard is saying likely no action or limited action. So, I think we actually have to change both things. Um, so that when another community comes forward with a similar challenge, then we're not going back and applying a different standard. Um, and then in this neighborhood for whatever reason, and there are valid reasons, lots of emails, right? We walk the community. All of those are valid reasons. Uh, but we do have to make sure we're able to consistently apply a standard. So if when you come back, I think we need to at least try to have some view of how we are going to think about applying um in this case a a different standard perhaps than um what state statute or or what the state standard is in these cases. And I'd actually like to hear both of those things. >> So Oh, go ahead. Um, yeah. So, go ahead and then we'll go to council member Jackson. >> I think we have to be careful. Uh, I have a license in engineering to put forward recommendations to you and I've talked about these things might be less safe to add stop signs. So, I got a concern that I might be requesting or putting in stuff that's less safe because now you have controls and people think the other's stopping and they're not. And the industry says this is not a safer method to do it. So, I have concerns with that. Um, there has been examples where council has override our professional opinion and told us just to put stop signs in. I feel like this may be the case because I don't think we're going to come back and recommend side or uh stop stop signs in this case to speak to come up with a different standard. That's not happening and in a couple weeks or something. That's a long-term process that we have to review industry standards, see what other methods might be used, some of those things. So, I don't think we can just come back next meeting in August and have that process figured out for you. That's a long-term thing that we would have to look at. So, um I guess from my standpoint, I don't think we're going to get to recommending sidewalk or stop signs. And if the council really wants to do it, I think they got to direct us to do that like we did on we had one on Kellogg. Mayor, you remember that? You just directed us to do it. Still don't like that stop sign because I think there's also a cost and a maintenance to all these sign. If we start putting them up in every intersection, your budget is going to be much different with sign maintenance and operations. So, we got to keep that in mind, too. So, just some comments, >> council member Pierce, then we'll go back to council member Jackson. Um, >> it's a good discussion. >> So, again, I was trying to help. Um, I think it's a we I think the last thing we want to do is to set a precedent that we're doing another one off. And so to whatever extent and if that means in our work plan we're going to say all right perhaps we're going to do these stop signs as a oneoff but in our work plan we're going to look at the standard we're going to come back um at the appropriate time and say this is how we are now going to use a standard to judge safety um in eina when it comes to stop signs right are however you want to word that. I think we need both of those things. If we don't have that, we are just going to continue to perhaps get oneoffs. Um, and while petitions are part of the the democratic process, I I I just don't know that that should be if if a neighborhood does 300 petitions, they get what they what they believe is the best thing to do. Um, and so in those cases, I'd like for us to uh refine whatever the outcome is for this, but then put forth a plan in place to assess that um if that standard needs to be different in Edina and then let us make the call on whether yes, we want that to be the new standard for our city. To me, that's a better position for you for u you guys to be for staff to be in in the long run as opposed to just doing a one-off. >> Yep. I was just making sure term probably the standard maybe with the cap we could have our professional people we've hired that are looking at safety and transportation and all this stuff that they could review this process with us over the next eight months while we work on that CMAP project. So, >> council member Jackson. Um yeah, so I think you may have answered my question and that is the council can always override this but in terms of a standard just sort of if we're going to do that um if there are standards for an appeal or to us the appeal to us and and the standards that we would look at are standards for a variance. So, we've got the rule, we've got the recommendation, but I have to say going back to 2014, 14 requests, there's something wrong here. And I don't know how we resolve that. But I think it needs it's it's been the experience of this neighborhood that this is these are dangerous intersections and they're frightened. Their K kids are getting scared when they're out um walking around because strangers come through and they come through fast. And um and I just I we have to it's not going away. Um and so if we had a standard for uh you know either variance, appeal, whatever you want to say, but if to help us guide if we don't agree with that, what are the three factors that we should look at? Um something like that. And so in your research um regardless of how we decide this that might be sort of not changing the safety standards but these indisha um if you want to override us you should consider these things. I don't know. >> Thank you. Member Jackson council member >> to build off of what member Jackson was just saying too and I I think director Milner you kind of mentioned this and I'm I don't want to put you on the spot to answer this right now. So, I'm saying when you come back, if you could also provide a little bit more information around what you had said previously around it potentially being less safe to introduce stop signs into these intersections. I want to dig into that and understand that a little bit more. Um, so if you could come prepared to help educate me and and the rest of the council, I think that would be helpful. >> Okay. >> Yeah. For for me, I I get the fact that you don't want to make a recommendation relative to what the neighbors are proposing based on the standards that you have as an engineer. So, we don't we don't want to have you modify those standards to accommodate a lived experience, but for us, it may be a different decision. >> Yep. >> And and so you put forth your best decision, but but I don't think any of us want we understand you can't come back in two weeks. That makes some sense, but we don't want to we don't want you to come back in two months either. I mean, I think if we had a month to think about this, that should be enough time. Uh, and I think I I think we're going to find that the the council is going to be sensitive to the lived experience over there that a lot of us have experienced that have walked over there over the years in the neighborhood and experienced from being over there visiting people. I I just think that I think they're on the right track here, but uh I'm also sensitive and differential to the standards that you apply all of you both of you apply as professionals. So, let's let's receive I'd say I'd say let's receive the petition for the stop signs from the Chow Park neighborhood and uh forward it to staff for consideration and report back to us um in a month, the second meeting in August. >> I would I would frame that a couple weeks later so we have the opportunity to go in front of the traffic safety committee in August. >> Okay. Timing wise, we do that first. We'd understand that too. >> Meeting September traffic beneficial if we can do that. >> First meeting in September. >> Okay. >> First meeting in September. >> We'll bring back something. >> Motion would be to receive the petition for stop signs uh in the Chow Park neighborhood from the Chow Park neighborhood itself. Forward it to the engineering department for consideration and reconsider the matter or consider the matter at the first meeting in September which is uh September 2nd. 2025. Is there a motion to that effect? >> So moved. >> Jackson moves. >> Second. Member >> Pierce seconds the motion as stated. Any further discussion? All those in favor of adoption of the motion as stated say I. >> I. >> I. Opposed. Carried. Motion's adopted. Now we'll move on to Director Teague. I found the right uh thanks to member Pierce and digging a little bit here. I found my third or fourth agenda here. So go ahead. >> All right. Thank you, mayor. Members of council, this is the project uh located on Vernon Avenue. The proposal is to tear down the existing single family home on the site and build two duplexes. You held a public hearing on June 17th. There was um there's been a large amount of feedback on better together. Um close to 80 responses. Most were opposed. some of the issues that have been cited and same that cited at the public hearing in relation to concerns over traffic uh too much density setting a precedent uh um protecting the existing character of the neighborhood. There were several that were in favor um that would this would provide missing middle not necessarily in the affordable uh affordable housing sense but provide some alternative housing uh for Edina. They believe that it fits the neighborhood and traffic they didn't see as an issue, especially being located on an arterial roadway. The specific request this evening is for a comprehensive plan amendment to reguide the site from low density residential to low density attached residential. There's a reasonzoning and site plan. The reasonzoning is from R1 to PRD2. the project would be code compliant with the PRD2 standards and there's also an ordinance amendment for the reszoning. This is one that the city council has complete discretion to approve or deny. So, we've provided resolutions to that effect, both approval and denial in your packet. The planning commission vote on this one was six to two for approval. because of the comprehensive plan amendment. This does take four votes of the city council to pass. So with that, we would um staff again and the planning commission are recommending approval. We would recommend that you divide this into three separate motions. The first would be for the comprehensive plan amendment. The second would be for the reszoning and site plan and then the third for the ordinance amendment. and we would suggest that if the first two items pass that you would wave second reading of the ordinance amendment. The development team is here to answer any questions that you may have. They've provided some additional information um that was requested at the last city council meeting in regard to some of their projects and they're uh here to answer any questions you may have on that. So with that, I'll turn it over to the city council for your discussion and decision. And the staff recommendation was >> for approval also. >> For approval also. Uh Mr. Crockett, Mr. Fletcher, Mr. Kennedy, thanks for being here. Your whole team. Um missing one of you here from the agenda. So my apologies. Uh let's go to member Risser. >> Um I do have questions for staff and if we could get the zoning map up so we can see what we're looking at um on better together. And then this also came up in the public hearing. It was noted that what we're doing is creating a situation where we have one single parcel changed from R1 to R2 and it would be surrounded entirely by R1. And as a city council person and also somebody who has seen similar projects like this um and I'm thinking about the key site, you know, where we talked about this situation with zoning where you have one little parcel surrounded by different uses. I think that's really troubling. And we're being asked to change our comprehensive plan for this specific scenario. Okay. And for me, that is a really big deal. Okay. Um, as I've done reading on some of the problems with this situation, one of the things that comes up is that if you're going to do this kind of zoning, um, you need to make the case that there is a public benefit. And the public benefit that we have been told is that it's bringing in more town homes. Okay? Um, these are going to be expensive town homes in the million-doll range. There's going to be four of them clustered together along a county minor arterial. And it really makes me think of the Valley View situation where we have four expensive town homes. They've been on the market for 405 days and only recently this month has one of them actually been occupied. So I do have questions about whether this is a prudent financial decision or investment. The other thing though is we are removing a home that was sold for in the low $500,000 and that is considered to be affordable, much more affordable. And as we look at our comprehensive plan, as we look at the goals that Met Council has set for us, um maintaining naturally occurring affordable housing is one of those goals. And so swapping out a rare example of this and bringing in market rate houses that are in the million-doll range is problematic. Another I think detriment to the public, we've heard about heritage oak trees that are going to have to be removed from the site. Uh I think this opens the door for past projects that have been rejected, including the most recent Keys site proposal and also Grand View Lane. remember there was that argument that um a developer wanted to change R2 to R3 and we talked about how you know it shouldn't just be done for that one site it should be an area that is studied it should be an area of change there should be some kind of study involved and what we're going to do in this situation and I want you know people to envision that parcel right below Highland School, just that one single parcel is going to be filled with the um cross-hatching that represents R2 and it's just going to stand alone. Um I don't think this is a prudent way of doing development. I do think it sheds a lot of doubt on our process and especially as we have been consistently trying to find ways to create more affordable housing projects. This is not the way to go and um yes it is large enough that it would um allow for two double dwelling units. However, there are parcels in the area that are 15,000 square feet. So you could uh build and be within the specific requirements to put in one double dwelling unit. And so as I think about this and I think about just bringing in that one tiny little spot of R2, I am very concerned about that. And I want to apologize to the neighbors because when I was just a resident um not even a candidate, I was very concerned about how zoning was being done and you know seeing things in my neighborhood like a oneacre site to the west of Kellogg and then you cross the street you went past a building and there was a 27 acre site and staff was combining those sites and saying that a 1.27 acre site existed and that was used to justify advancing a project that would have put 13 units on a27 acre triangularly shaped lot. That didn't happen. But what we ended up with on an 11,000 square foot lot, not even big enough for one double dwelling unit were two double dwelling units. And it's in the commercial zone. It's not even in the residential. It's not residentially zoned. So there shouldn't be residential use on the first floor or the basement. And so when I first saw this project, I was thinking, "Oh my goodness, it meets the standards. It doesn't require any variances or anything like that." But the big picture is it doesn't. It requires this huge act on our part to amend our comprehensive plan. And as you look at the rest of this zoning map, you know, just think about all these areas, these larger parcels and it really opens up, it's not just about this little situation, but it is creating a precedent. Okay? And yes, I realize that doesn't mean we're obligated to do it elsewhere, but it is a precedent, you know, and so looking in other parts of Edina, could there be three double dwelling units? Could there be, you know, and and what we've heard I I really appreciated uh you know, how we had the lot division before us and we were talking about neighborhood character and we were talking about affordability and consistency and all those really great things. And I think to be fair, we need to be consistent in how we're looking at this. So I I do have a lot of concerns about you know the compreh and you know this could be when we do the comprehensive plan and if you go through and you read it and you look at the goals for land use and everything it talks about how um units per acre should not be the only measure used to determine whether a certain development is appropriate for a site or a neighborhood. It should also be about F. It should be about the size and uh just how it compares to the neighborhood character. I've said a lot. I'm going to stop, but those are my high level concerns. >> Thank you, Member Risser. Um, does anyone else It seems to me that there's an inference that member Risser is going to vote not to approve a comprehensive plan amendment. Let me ask uh Director Teague again. Um is this is it would a decision to reszone the property be consistent with the city's comprehensive plan >> as as the site is currently designated. It would not it requires the comprehensive plan amendment for the site. >> That's why we're talking about making the amendment. >> Right. Are others thinking that this doesn't meet the standards for a comprehensive plan amendment because we need a four-fifth vote? Okay, let's just go to comments from other council members and and um anyone care to lead off? >> Member Jackson. So, at the League of Minnesota Cities conference, we I talked with the League's Hob housing lobbyist, and we've been working a lot at the capital to retain our power to affect zoning. And I think it's really important to remember that the whole purpose of zoning is about the health and safety of the community. Okay? In all of the discussion and all of the complaints, I have not heard anything that indicated this this would not be a safe or healthy development. So everything else after that to me is very secondary. It's about health and safety and that's why we have the power of zoning so that we have sufficient sewer capacity so that there the air can move so that the streets aren't overwhelmed with trucks where it's a residential neighborhood. things like that. And so at the very basic level, it meets health and safety requirements. And that's why we have zoning laws, period, end of sentence. And then we use those for a lot of reasons on top of that, but that's why we have them. Every study that we have done since 2015 on housing in this city has called for a variety of housing. And it isn't just affordable versus expensive. its choices and that is what is the fundamental basis of our housing chapter and our comprehensive plan. So while technically this particular parcel doesn't fit with our comprehensive plan, it very much fits with the housing chapter in the comprehensive plan and with the con subsequent housing task force study that was done. And so for that reason and for that reason alone, I would approve it. But then we also look at Vernon Vernon is not a single family street. It has condominiums. It has town homes. It has duplexes and it has single family homes. It is a street with a lot of variety. It's a county highway. This isn't a little culde-sac and it's not going to change the nature of a culde-sac. This is a county highway. It fits very well with the variety of housing that's on Vernon. And then finally, we had a study done uh with the students at the Humphrey Institute looking at the climate issues and that they recommended as their number one recommendation to increase density along Vernon so that we can encourage bus service to come back to this area. Um we're I'm I'm told that Mr. Mr. Lewis told us at the question before that Metro Transit's going to bring back um commuter buses um at certain times, but there are people who live on Vernon now who don't drive. And so they would like to be able to take they used to be able to take the bus, they can't take the bus anymore. And if we can look at this in the future, we're coming up with a new comprehensive plan. And this is something I would advocate that all of Vernon be at a higher density level so that we can have that bus service and help reduce our vehicle miles traveled in the city, which is one of my top priorities is to address climate change. So, we've been outside, back of my throat's been burning all week. I think everybody else here can say that their throat has been burning because of the forest fires. Climate change is real. We have to address that. And one of the most important ways we're going to address that is to reduce vehicle miles traveled. So, we're going to have four beautiful new homes. I went and visited these developers um one of their homes they're building in Edina. They build a very high quality product. So, it'll be a nice house. No question about health and safety with this building. The studies all back it up that we've been doing for 10 years now. Uh it looks to the future and to the future of our city both for climate reasons and for housing variety reasons. And so I strongly support this. >> All right. Good. Thank you for those comments. Uh Council Member Pierce. >> Uh thank you, Mr. Mayor and um Council Member Jackson. Uh you covered I think all of the points that I was going to make. Um and so I I so I do have two questions though. Well, maybe one statement and then one question for the developers. Um, I actually live in the neighborhood and so when I walk uh my dog, I walk behind where this house is cuz I I walk my dog through Highlands, right? And so I'm just around the corner from where this uh property is. Um, and so I I do think it's a good project um for many of the reasons that member Jackson gave. Uh but one question for the developers, the when you guys were here before, we talked about price point and so um can you speak to price point because I do think that in Eidina we are um our median home value in six or so years is projected to be a little over a million dollars. Um, and so the question I have is like I think this could be a slam dunk depending on uh what the price point is that you're targeting for these. I don't know that that would change the way I would vote. Um, however, I am curious uh what your price point is going to be. Thank you. How's everybody doing? >> Hey, good evening. Energy might be a little low. I'm usually in bed by like 8:30, so I'm trying to stay awake right now. Um, but great question as far as the price point, you know. >> Can you give us your name too to please? >> Rashad. >> Rashad Kennedy Properties. >> Thank you, Mr. Kennedy. >> Yes, sir. Yeah, thank you. Um, as far as the question to the price point, >> you know, right now we are targeting around that million. um price point. You know, originally coming into it, we were hoping to be lower than that, quite a bit lower than that, but as we start developing the plans, um engaging with our trade professionals, excavation, concrete, lumber yards, things of that nature, engineers, um you know, slowly start creeping up. Um you know, our goal is to stay under uh you know, at the same time, you know, we want to be honest about kind of where prices are at. Um you know, tears, things changing quickly. Um, so that's basically where we're at, um, and what we're aiming to do and as far as being under that price point as well. >> Y, >> thank you, gentlemen. >> Just you go ahead and sit down and we'll stand by. We'll go back to conversation here. >> Thank you. >> Um, and thank you for for other council members and their thoughts on this project. Um, I know that with this project I was um, initially I think pretty excited about it and I know that we've had some conversations and and some of the aspects of it that were most exciting to me were um, incrementally increasing density, especially along this corridor in particular. Um, as well as what the initial price point was going to be. um when we saw this last time now um and you just kind of reflected on it too um price point is a bit higher um I think I don't remember exactly it was like the 700 800 range I think previously um which I mean that could potentially be you know 25 to 30% increase right that we're looking at for a price point um I think there are some other changes that I'm not necessarily excited about and one of those is we increase the overall size and I'm looking at um kind of the treecape, right? We we see the number of trees that will be removed for this project. And so I say all of that to say it's not a perfect project. Um but I don't know how many perfect projects we get as a city council, right? We're always needing to weigh the pros and the cons and what are the benefits and what are what are some of the aspects that we don't like. Um, so for me, one of the aspects that I don't like is the number of of trees, some of those larger trees that we'll be losing. Um, that's also been a priority as we've been looking at um just our overall tree canopy and what are we doing to combat the climate change and all of that. Um, I don't love the price point. I I do wish it were closer to I don't even know if I would say affordable, maybe more attainable, especially in any Dina with where we're at right now with um as member Pierce was saying, the average going to be towards a million in just a handful of years. Um and at the same time, I also think though what what else would I want to see on this site, right? And I I think you know it is always important for us to consider today there is a one single um house there. Um it was for sale and someone bought it and the developer bought it and I I do support um the continued evolution of of the land and what we're doing with the property across the community. Um, and so then when I look at that one and I I think member Risser might have made this comment like potentially it could be two units there or is it going to be what we're looking at right now is four units. And when I think about all of the other aspects or the concerns that I've heard from the neighborhood, um, I don't think that there's a meaningful difference in two units compared to four units when we think about um, incrementally increasing density. I think that that is a goal that I have because of climate change and because of the affordability of housing and all these other factors that we also have said are a priority for the community. Um, and so I know I'm kind of like going back and forth and everyone's like, how's she going to vote? Um, like I said, this isn't a perfect project, but I don't know that we're ever going to get perfection out of the projects that come before us. Um, I do support um, you know, continued redevelopment. I do support um bringing in additional units of housing. I really wish there were a lower price point. We've talked about that. Um that would be the one thing that I think as member Pierce was saying would make this a slam dunk for me. Um but that's that's where my thoughts are at right now. >> Thank you. um everything that we've had uh in terms of testimony coming in from the public whether it's um through better together or here in person. um all of these I would say legitimate concerns uh that people have and and worries that they have about traffic and property values and and um all all very understandable and I think important for all of us and I think we just we do this on a regular basis because of how this council is constructed and the people that are on it are sensitive to those those concerns and for us Then it's a our responsibility is to kind of embrace those concerns but also think about whether or not um they should be worrying so much to be I guess would be one way to put it because of our experience that we have up here and and when I think about people worrying about property values uh potential dimmonition of property values because you're going to have a four-unit townhouse project next to a single family neighborhood actually covering in terms of lot uh coverage about the same as what they cover to on Goya Lane. I mean they kind of match up from a density standpoint. Um so that got me thinking about well we put I think eight town houses over behind Wells Fargo right next to single family homes right next to them. In fact, we took out an old apartment building that was there and those sold for probably around a million. Yeah. And uh and I even had one neighbor call me and say, "My, hey, my house went down in value because you put those town houses in there." No, I don't think it does. I think a property continues to go up in value in Edina. And I think that nobody has a a concern should have a concern about whether their property values are going to be going down because this project could potentially be approved. So what about this this uh zoning issue? Um I think we've gotten comfortable with the notion that despite the assertions that it's spot zoning, it's not really spot zoning. Um the city has broad discretion I think to proceed with the resoning unless there's no rational basis for the decision and I think the the planning commission by a vast majority vote and the staff has have convinced me at least that there's there is a rational basis for the decision to reszone to amend the comprehensive plan um and and adopt the recommendations that both staff is recommending and and that uh the planning commission recommended with their significant majority. So, you know, you it's it's not easy going in a common direction formed by different points of view, but we do the best we can. And when I think about that, and I remember Egnar raised a really good point that somebody bought that house, but it's I'm reminded it was for sale, I think, for two years before uh these gentlemen came along with this idea of putting in town houses along Vernon Avenue. And I don't agree that it's surrounded by single family homes. There's a school behind it with a parking lot and a and a playground. And there's a single family home to the east of it that is is supportive of the project. Doesn't want to change the zoning on their property. And it's Vernon to the south. So it's not surrounded by single family homes. It's on a collector street. It's a quarter of a mile from multif family dwellings. One of them has probably 400 units in it. And there's it's a it's you know probably a quarter mile from Jerry's grocery store in that commercial district. So as you march west on Vernon Avenue and you think about places where you could add a little more density without affecting the lives of people and really impacting traffic. I mean that that street is designed to handle much more traffic than it handles. It seems like a perfect opportunity to increase density in in a gentle sort of way, in a very very gentle sort of way. And so I'm in favor of it, too. And I I I understand the worries of the people that are in the neighborhood and the broader neighborhood. It's not precedent setting. We're going to look at each one of these situations when it comes before us. And and I've been doing this long enough and the rest of us have too know that zoning is by no means static. You know, it's not the ten commandments. I mean, things change in in towns. Circumstances change, needs change. The classic example of that is the waters. Assisted living home down behind the fire station on Tracy. That was a thousand feet from any single family home. And people fought that like crazy. And it's an integral part of our community now, an important part. And that was an all all in an R1 zone. but we reszoned it to accommodate the needs of people in our town that needed to be in an assisted living facility. And now I understand it's it accommodates some of the people from that very neighborhood that were opposed to it in the first place. So, um I I think this is an appropriate use, a really good use for this piece of property that can accommodate those four townhouse units as recommended by staff and is recommended by the planning commission and um understanding the concerns of the of the people that surround it. I I still think based on the experience that we have here that everything is going to be okay and everything's going to be good and it's going to fit right in the neighborhood and they're going to be great neighbors and people will love having them there. So, I'm going to be supportive of it as well. Um, member Jackson and member Risser. >> Yeah, I have a quick question um for Mr. Teague. When the planning commission, the two commissioners who voted no, I was under the belief that they voted no because it was not dense enough. They wanted more density than this project. >> Yes, that was that was that was part of it. >> Okay. Thank you. >> And and then if I remember this, the other part of it, they talked a lot about um if we go through our comp plan process, thinking that there would be actually more density planned for in that area. And the question was, should we wait for that or not? And so if I if you want to come in on that. Yeah, >> that's right. And this is an area this whole corridor is an area that the planning commission you remember they they put together areas that they want to look at as part of the comprehensive plan in a small area study. And this is one of those areas that we'll be looking at when we update the comprehensive plan in a few years. >> Member >> um just to be clear, I did not say it was surrounded by single family homes. I said it was surrounded by R1 zoning which is what schools are in. Um but since the topic of spot zoning has come up is my understanding you know reading um different references to what justifies spot zoning. You look at the case um in Rochester where there was a request to reszone to zone to R4 but there was R4 zoning surrounding that lot and here we don't have any R2 and I think the point that was just made about the planning commission and those members who were concerned that it wasn't dense enough when you go back to the first sketch plan when we first heard this, it wasn't just this parcel, it was the other parcel right next to it that was going to be reszoned along with it. So, it was a larger area of land. And the whole idea about comprehensive plans is so that you can have, you know, orderly planned zoning. And when you do things in a way where you're just going parcel by parcel and particularly in this case where you know we are going to be asking the Met Council to revise our comprehensive plan and you know we have already surpassed the amount of market rate housing that the Met Council has tasked us to produce. we have soared beyond that and we are not getting close to the amount of affordable housing that we need. So I think I think that's important to recognize. I also think it's important to think about public trust um and how people look at zoning. Um, and you know, I started going through language in the comprehensive plan and how preserving existing residential character is a priority. Okay. Um, and how the city needs to balance the desire for larger homes with state-of-the-art features um, with the interest of neighbors. Um, and there's all this nuanced language that is there. And what we are doing by just taking this one single piece of property, I mean, it's just one single lot and actually going through a comprehensive plan amendment and then reszoning it, I think, is really extreme. In the Rochester case, they were able to add 49 apartments. And I mean here we're talking four town homes. Um it's not like that's the public benefit. And you think about the other issues there as well. And I think this is really an unfortunate precedent. I want to underscore when I said one double dwelling unit. This lot is large enough for one double for two double dwelling units. But there are a lot of parcels in the neighborhood that could be um that are sized that are large enough that they could handle one double dwelling unit. And so I I just and as you look look at that zoning map, this is going to be just that one parcel standing alone um marked for R2. And you look at all of Edina. You don't see that anywhere else. Okay? So, I just I don't see how this makes sense. Thank you, >> Council Member Jackson. >> First of all, I'd like to clarify that the Met Council did not task us to build market rate housing. I believe you're thinking of the study that was done for the housing task force that talked about uh what different types of housing might be built in our city. The Met Council did at no point in time told us the number of houses that we could build um that were market rate. Um it was from the Maxfield study. Uh there was a certain number um of market rate versus affordable, but it was not the Met Council. Um and I think that when we look at this map, we're looking backwards. We're looking historically. And if we're going to look forward, I think that if we deny this comprehensive plan change, this will be a lost opportunity because I think looking forward, the planning commission is going to be looking at Vernon, but this lot will have a new building on it and that won't be up for change for probably 50 years, maybe more. So we're going to freeze this in time with the standards from 2018 or before when we know that this is something the planning commission wants to see change. So I think it would be a lost opportunity to simply look backwards and freeze this period this housing in time. Unfortunately, you know, it'd be great if there was a brand new comprehensive plan and they just come forward said this is all should be dense. So this is a little it's an anomaly with our timing cycle but I think it is uh looking to the future as opposed to looking backwards. Anything else? Okay. I think in the Rochester case the court decided that the city had broad discretion in proceeding with reszoning. Um so that was not determined to be spot zoning. Um all right. So, we've got three actions that uh the uh staff has requested us to consider. The first one would be the approval of the comprehensive plan amendment and that requires a four-fifth vote. Is there a motion to um approve the U amendment to the comprehensive plan to provide for this particular project? >> So, moved. >> Second. Right. We got a motion and a second to approve a comprehensive plan amendment to reguide 5516 Vernon Avenue from lowdensity residential to low density attached residential. Um, any further discussion? All those in favor of adoption resolution favor of approving the comprehensive plan amendment to reguide 5516 Vernon Avenue from lowdensity residential to low density attached residential. Say I. I. I. Opposed. Name. carried. Uh comprehensive plan amendment is approved. Uh next is the reszoning and the preliminary plat and site plan for 5516 Vernon Avenue that requires a single majority vote. Um is there a motion to adopt the um resoning preliminary platin site plan for 5516 Vernon Avenue? >> So moved. >> Second. Get a motion and second to adopt the resoning preliminary platin site plan for 5516 Vernon Avenue. Any further discussion? All those in favor of adopting the resoning preliminary platin site plan for 5516 Vernon Avenue say I. >> I. >> I. Opposed. >> Hearried. The resoning preliminary platin site plan for 5516 Vernon Avenue is approved. Um, and is there a um waiver of the second reading of ordinance number 2025-08? >> So moved. >> There a second. Mr. Teague, do you want to talk about that a little bit again? >> Yes. So it um with an ordinance amendment that goes along with the reasonzoning in order to wave second reading, you need four votes. Otherwise, it could it could pass on a majority vote, but we would have to come back for second reading. >> Okay. And that's on resolution 2025-47. >> Or is that or 20250? >> Yes, that's the ordinance 202508. >> Okay. >> And and why are we recommending that? I apologize. So, >> it doesn't have to come back in front of us again to to approve it. Approve the ordinance change on second reading. Let me find that one. Okay, hold on a minute. So, the ordinance would amend the city zoning map from R1 single dwelling unit district to PRD2 >> plan residential district 2 for 5516 Vernon Avenue and if we wave second reading on that. >> Um, >> so did when we >> wouldn't have to deal with it again. >> We voted the motion was for the reasonzoning. >> Yeah. I don't remember a motion to pass the ordinance. >> No, that that's right. The reszoning dealt with 2025-47. >> Yeah. So, this is a motion. This is a new one. >> This is a motion to pass the ordinance change and wave second reading. >> That's correct. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. I was looking at 202547. So, ordinance 202508 would be an ordinance amending the city zoning map from R1 single dwelling unit district to PRD2 plan residential district 2 for 5516 Vernon Avenue and potential waiver of second reading. Um, is there a motion to that effect? >> So moved. >> Jackson moves second. Member Pier seconds the adoption of uh an ordinance 20 ordinance 202508 which would amend the city zoning map from R1 to single dwelling unit district to PRD plan residential district 2 for 5516 Vernon Avenue with a waiver of second reading. Any further discussion? All those in favor of adoption of ordinance 20 258 with waiver of second reading say I. >> I. >> I opposed. Name >> carried. Ordinance 202508 with a waiver of second reading is approved. I think those are the three actions you wanted us to take. >> That is Thank you. >> All right. Thank you gentlemen. Thank you. >> Get some good advice on that project now and what it should what it should be. Yeah. Listen to member Pierce. He's got he's he's been thinking about this. Okay, here's another meaty project or meaty issue to discuss here. Resolution 2025-45 which would approve the adoption of a property tax abatement and providing for the sale of up to 8.985 million in general obligation tax abatement bonds and our finance director Ptow has this along with Nick Anhut from ELERS and um talked about this in June and it is It has a lot of aspects to it and it'll be looking forward to the conversation. >> I can just use this click. Can I pretend? Okay, it works. Good evening, mayor and council member. How are you guys doing? >> Great. Uh just to reiterate, yes, we did meet in June 17th. Um and so with a little bit of refresher, tax abatement bonds allow cities to fund public improvements through general obligation bonds uh subject to a public hearing and a city council a city resolution approval. We had the public hearing started on June 17th and we held and we opened public hearing for that purpose. The public hearing closed on July 5th. Comments were received on our community engagement platform, Better Together, Edina, and it is also included in your council packet for reference. So, the purpose of tonight's meeting is for council to take action on approving resolution 2025 45 for the adoption of property tax abatement and provide for the sale of up to 8.985 in general obligation tax abatement bonds. However, tonight's action will give staff the authority to fund the project with bonding. What that doesn't what that is saying is that it just gives us the authority to fund it with bond. We can work on the fine-tuning the amount um before we do the issuance of bond and Nick will provide more information on that in his presentation later on. But I just wanted to recap as well. Uh a little bit of background on the aquatic center. I showed this slide before. The aquatic center opened in 1958 and it has gone multiple it has undergone multiple updates. Significant issues include electrical failures, corrosion and operational challenges. Design work for the repairs has been ongoing with temporary fixes implemented and the project required a new pump house structure to house the necessary equipment at this uh center. Major electrical failures occurred in 2021 with interim repairs that staff completed uh and design and assessment work continued through 2022 and 2025. The city did pursue state bonding but was unsuccessful. Uh therefore we are proposing this project which is a 8.9 million for a new pump house which is why we're here tonight. So with that being said I will flip it over to Nick. Thank you Nick. Thank you. >> Thank you, Director Tall. >> Mr. Anut, welcome. >> Thank you, Mayor, members of the council. Uh Nick Anne Hut from Ellers and Associates. >> I can't think of anybody we'd rather see at 10:00 at night than you. >> I don't doubt it. >> Thank you for the >> to talk about tax abatement on top of it. What a bonus. >> That's right. So, really, the question before the council tonight is whether or not to pursue bonding for this project. Uh as we've we've reiterated in the public hearing and as well as past presentations uh the authority for the city to issue debt for certain projects rests with uh what is written in the statutes and the various powers that are provided there. Um the statutes do allow the city to issue debt for a project like this but it needs to go through a certain process or procedure uh which we're suggesting as tax abatement. Um, so subject to a public hearing process and approval of a city resolution to establish an abatement, a city council can issue debt for a public improvement project like the pump house that P just mentioned as long as it is in an amount equal to the sum of tax abatements from designated properties uh within that resolution. Um, abatement allows a city to allocate uh taxes generated from certain properties uh that are designated and use them for a purpose uh that serves a a public purpose. Uh you need to identify the properties by parcel and the amount of taxes that are generated from uh those parcels need to meet or exceed the amount that you intend to levy to pay for that public improvement. It is not uh a special taxing district. Uh the properties that are included within the abatement are not taxed any differently from any other properties or any other like properties within the city of Edina. Uh there it is a special levy that gets spread over the entire tax base. But you need to essentially prove that you have the capacity to be able to pay for the approvement by adopting the abatement. Um, and in adopting an abatement, council also needs to find that it expects that the benefits of the project to at least equal or exceed the costs incurred uh in paying for it. And it needs to meet a certain uh set of criteria adopted within the statutes of which there are there are many but two examples. it only needs to meet one of them is that uh the public improvement will provide or help acquire or construct public facilities uh or the abatement will help finance or provide public infrastructure both of which fit the criteria for this project. Abatements have certain limitations. It can only last for a term of up to 20-year maximum and the designated properties that are included within the abatement cannot also be within a tax increment financing district for the length of time that it is outstanding. In addition, there is a cap put in place on the amount that a city can adopt for all of the abatements that are outstanding. The city has currently none. Uh but if the city were to adopt multiple abatements for multiple different projects, you would have a limitation on how much that could be. And that limitation is based on the size of the tax base that you represent. Um and just for illustrative purposes, we do have the existing tax capacity for the city of Edina. If you were to um pursue this abatement, uh we do anticipate that it would be about $900,000. That is the area uh of properties that are represented on the map. And as you can see, the annual limitation is well in excess of that at $21 million. So this by itself would not put you up against that limit, but be advised that the abatement would last for the length of time that the bonds are outstanding and you'd have to weigh that uh when you consider other potential financing for projects in the future. As P mentioned, the purpose of this financing is to provide the funds necessary to provide the new pump house structure for the aquatic center. In looking at the the annual operating budget of the aquatic center and given the amount the size of this project, uh we do not anticipate that there would be other uh resources or revenue generated from this facility that would be able to pay back this uh the amount of debt that is necessary for this project. And so that's why we are pursuing this abatement and the use of levy funds to uh be able to provide its repayment. An additional note to add is that the facility is used uh by the public. It is available for the public. It is a governmental facility. Um but it is also used by qualified 501c3 organizations uh for various swimming events and uh uh clubs. As we mentioned in the public hearing, the abatement area that is proposed is 328 parcels, residential parcels that are right adjacent to the facility and neighboring uh this amenity and do have a direct nexus or benefit from uh having this amenity nearby. Um and this area was also selected because it does not expect to overlap with any current or future tiff uh requirements or tiff districts going off into the future. uh it does represent a sufficient amount of existing current city of Edina taxes in the amount of approximately $93,000 that will be more than sufficient to re repay the amount of bonding that is uh being pursued. And so with that, uh, the consideration this evening is for the council to adopt a resolution to approve establishing a property tax abatement for a term of up to 15 years in order to provide the potential funding for the aquatic center project and adopt the required uh findings that I mentioned that it serves a public purpose uh providing a public facility and public infrastructure within the city of Edina. Um, this resolution by itself does not authorize an actual bond issuance. Um, typically in the process, we would come back before the council and seek approval at the time that we're ready to move ahead with the finite bonding amount that's necessary for the project. We hope to do that in the near future after getting a little bit more information about the potential construction costs. Right now, what we're talking about is an estimate. Um, and we would uh plan that there would be a subsequent action from the city council to go ahead and move forward with the bonding when we've determined what that appropriate amount and funding plan will be. But this does give this resolution would give the council the authority to consider debt in the future for this project without having to pursue an alternative like a referendum or some other type of action. So, uh, be happy to address any questions that the council has. Um, but we're certainly recommending that you do move forward if you are in consideration of this project to adopt the tax abatement at this time. >> Thanks, Mr. An Hut. >> Um, member Pierce. >> Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Um, so I I just have a a couple of questions on the the construct that we're using. So um so the first question from an abatement perspective, we have the outlined area. Um and you could bring that up and then the statement that you made is that that those parcels benefit from the aquatic center. And so I want to understand why this area if the aquatic center is used more broadly in Edina. Um so there must be and then you talked about um overlapping with the tiff district and so I just want to understand that first question. So why this area specifically if this is a a asset that's used broadly by Dina and it's also to a certain extent a regional asset as well. That's question one. >> Thank you council member Pierce Mayor members of the council. Um, in discussion with staff, the primary consideration was that TIFF question where we did not believe that there would be any potential future overlap with the need to use or establish a new tiff district within the area adopted for this abatement. So that was the prime consideration. And then the second consideration was that yes, it did appear that it met the criteria for being a an area within the city that definitely benefited from this amenity. I think the council could make an argument that as a public resource, the entire city benefits from this facility. Um, but our primary consideration was that tiff question. U, we did discuss looking at some commercial areas that are not too far away as well. Uh, however, the potential that there might be some need for redevelopment or some other use of that tax increment tool in the future. An unknown and not a sure thing. Um but we felt like this was a safe bet in terms of the area that could provide the mathematical equivalent of the taxes necessary okay >> to meet the fine. Okay. So, um then two things. One was the tiff overlap that you talked about. Two, we needed to ensure that there were enough there's enough funding to cover the cost of the the upgrades as well. Those are the two primary. Is that fair? >> That is that is exactly it. >> That's exactly it. Okay. Okay. And then my second question is I think is still a construct question. So, and I'll maybe I'll say it this way. So, we have a pie that's our property tax pie. And I think essentially what we're doing is we're saying we need to take a slice of that existing pie and we're going to earmark those funds to be used on this asset. We're not generating more, right? We're just allocating a sliver of that and we're using this um we're what slide is this? We're using this um outline these parcels these 328 parcels to represent that. >> I I think that's true. >> I would frame it a different way. >> Please please frame it. >> We don't have any expectation that this would take away resources that you need to levy for other services. the pie that you're describing, and I want to be very clear, the expectation is that we're going to need to increase the levy in order to pay back the bonds for this project. So, the pie is a larger pie than you're dealing with right now compared to your 2025 budget. And we are going to take a slice of from that and we are proving that there is existing tax capacity that can do that. The abatement statute requires we designate properties that are contributing to the tax base that will will meet that requirement. Um, but it is not a we're not peeling anything away from your potential budget. In fact, the opposite. We're going to need to actually increase the levy to repay these bonds. >> And so why do you say we need to increase the levy to pay back the bonds? Well, I should say you that is a decision up for the council whether or not you need to increase the levy. But if you do not increase the levy and then we and we add a $900,000 financial obligation, you're going to need to balance that budget somehow and peel back from the budget in in some capacity. >> And we could do that with levy or we could do that with other public money. But but it's hard to judge the direct impact because this the pie is going to increase as well, right? And we know this just because that's what happens to our tax base every year. But yeah, um okay. So then um it it so it would have been I I maybe would have internalized it slightly differently and perhaps we did this um if we were saying the project comes forward, we need to do these upgrades. We went out there, we looked at the uh the asset, we walked through all of the changes we needed to make. And manager Neil, you said, "We need to do this." And so, we're going to take this, we're going to rep prioritize our CIP, and we're going to put this into the budget, and we need to fund that. and then you would have come forward and said our tax levy is now going to go up by 2% to cover this and then we would have voted on the tax levy. Right? So that's kind of that that's what I think we're essentially saying you are. But I think it's important to recognize that because this is a recreation enterprise, you don't have the city council doesn't have the authority just to increase the levy. That's why that's why we're looking at this as a as a vehicle to get at the levy increase. >> Yeah. Got it. Yeah. So that that's uh that's good. And then um and then what I would say and this is why I was pushing on we have to increase the levy. I don't know that the position I set on our target for our levy changes because of this. I feel like we're making a priority to say this needs to get done. And so, yeah, we would look at how do we absorb this um versus just assuming nope, we can just add $900,000 or million dollars of of property tax revenue to cover it. And so, I would still have the both of those things for me would still be true. I'd want them still to both be true and then have that conversation. Yep. >> Um, and so I just wanted to make sure I understood the the construct on on those three points. >> Jackson. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, we had a lot of emails from people and I wanted to uh start with a financial question. While we have identified these neighborhoods to comply with the statute, the burden of paying the taxes for these bonds will be felt across all tax taxable properties in the city. Correct. These homes aren't going to be carrying the weight of that by themselves. Everybody will all taxable properties will have to will be covering the cost of these bonds. Correct, >> member Jackson. That that is correct. And that's the uh previous slide I had mentioned it's not a special taxing district. It doesn't it doesn't impact these properties in any way different from others. Um and that is because you in order to repay these bonds you will have to adopt an abatement levy and that abatement levy will be added to all your special levies that are adopted at the end of the year through your truth and taxation process and they are all summed together and spread over the entirety of the tax base. So the the what we're doing right now is really a capacity issue. We're we're identifying that the council says that yes, we can designate these properties, include them within an abatement. We do have the capacity to be able to do it. Now, how you manage that levy increase on it. This does not tell you how to do that in any way, shape, or form. That's up to the council to through your normal budgeting process to figure out what is your priorities. Um, but you are at the onset before you have the authority to bond identifying that there is existing tax capacity tax base within the community to be able to absorb uh this cost. >> Thank you. I figure if we say it three or four different ways, the exact same thing, it'll sink in um just to alleviate some of those fears that were out there. Now, I have some uh facilities and parks questions for you guys. Um the LA we've heard from a lot a lot of different perspectives and um one of them is well why did you build all these other things and not fix the pump room in years past and I think the last big improvement was we determined 2011 it was built with the surfing pool. Is that correct? uh mayor and council member Jackson, the flow rider was around the 2011202 time period and then the uh tower slides are around that 2016 2017 period. So roughly that eight nine years ago. >> Okay. >> Um and when you're interested >> two park and rec directors ago actually, right? >> Yeah. Like six knee surgeries versions. So yeah, I >> mean I I would love to be able to go back in time and like figure out exactly what the things were, but we've had difficulty finding uh reports on that. And um I wasn't on council then, so I am not responsible for those decisions. I just want to make that clear. And so there's a lot of would a should a coulda in in the conversations but tell me a little bit director Veter about the operations of the pool and why it was once profitable and it's not profitable now. >> Okay. Uh that's a great question mayor council member Jackson. Um you know we do look historically at what our revenues and expenses are annually. Um one of the things that was a a great deviation to our operating budget. I guess a couple of things is one um if you recall during the 2020 season um we did not operate under the co pandemic. Um a number of communities didn't a number did um our view at that time that was kind of a marker for us I guess you could say on this journey um were the complications with how we were going to manage through that with our staffing and ensuring a safe and continued environment. um beginning on the 2021 season was when we truly realized on that date and timeline um the the major failures that occurred. So starting with the 2021 season, we actually had to refund one 12th of all of our revenue um on season passes because we were closed for those eight days. Um and a closure or an expected revenue week for the aquatic center is around $100,000. We think about roughly 12 weeks, a $1.2 million budget. Um and kind of two deviations have really um had a a great trajectory for us faster than we feel with the amenities we have we can capture revenue back on the consistency and what our user amenities and one is um the cost of our seasonal staffing. I had mentioned when I had first arrived in 20 2019 2020, one of the first things we looked at was um at that time there was talk of a $15 minimum wage and we wanted to look at a disruption report. Like if we had to go to that, how great would that impact our operations? Well, we didn't have to worry about a mandate to do that. the market, the changes through the pandemic, hiring crunches, um, our labor pool took that away from us and accelerated that greatly. So, we went from that sub5 to now that 16 to$19 lifeguard wage, that um, $18 to $22 lifeguard instructor wage, right? So, the marketplace and the competition has accelerated our staffing costs, which is one of our greatest um, expenditures on an annual basis, right? if you take off energy and everything else, it's our staffing costs. And that's one thing that we we really want to try to create the best um environment for our staff and recruit really talented people. Um we are not NASA, we are not brain surgery, but when you're looking at lifeguarding and safety at an aquatic center, you don't want to mess up. Um we pride ourselves on um having a great staff, talented, we want to compensate them accordingly. Um the other deviation in our expenditures is as these repairs are needed, as we're making these incremental ones, um because there isn't a um a CIP mechanism to pay for those, we've been paying for all these repairs out of our operating costs. So when we talk about having to replace three VFDs or an electrical panel um when a pump goes down, we've been absorbing that cost into our operations. So those are kind of the two key delineators that we've had kind of since that 2021 um failure. >> So do you anticipate that if we make these repairs we would break even at the pool? >> Um that I'd have to look back at those things. I think we're going to get closer. Our goal is to always try to break even, right? Um I think we will have to look at what price increases are based on our amenities. Um, we do feel sometimes we're at top of market and we're trying to be very careful on how we can introduce new revenues without trying to price someone out. Um, whether that's on the daily, whether that's um on different events we do. Um, it's one thing that we also do with groups. We've gotten a lot of feedback on group use. Um, groups are great because they show up when there's bad weather. Uh, when the kids club comes, they're going to come kind of rain or shine. Um, where other people stay home. So, we really want to try to balance between the season pass, our daily fee, our groups. And um one thing we're trying to capture as well is like um if the season pass is too high, we're starting to offer the five and 10 group daily admission packets to try to get you enticed to buy more through that um through that process. So, always looking at the price price adjustment, try to catch up on that. Um, we've kind of taken a more gradual try to catch up to some of the peak staffing costs that have gone up faster than we can adjust to in a two-year budget cycle. >> Okay. Thank you. And then I have a question for Mr. Atton. Director, >> good evening. >> Good evening. Thank you. So, we have a pool built in 1958. This equipment, I think some of it probably goes back to 1958. How can we as a city with these assets that we have, these facilities we have, start planning so that we know we're going to have to replace things and I people are just, you know, the the emails I've been getting have been pretty heart-rending on, you know, because I like to plan ahead of time in my personal budget. I know there's going to be an expense coming up. I start planning, you know, maybe 10 years in advance, right? Save up enough money for something that's going to come up. How is we as a city can we work on having funds to repair or replace our lovely facilities because they're falling apart. We can't stop it. They're going to age. They're going to need to be replaced. How can this be zero to 8.9 million dollars um planning wise? And then I want to talk about the $ 8.9 million. So do you have any uh I talked to um Lindstöm, a town of Lindstöm, they actually for their uh depreciation every year, the asset depreciation, put money aside so that when a replacement comes up, they have money to do that. Have we ever talked about that for facilities or do you have any um uh in your professional experience um seen that done? >> Um yeah, I mean the funding mechanism I can't really speak to. Uh member Jackson, um I can say that I have looked at what you know what we consider like a burn rate, right? Uh what do we need to set aside every year for you know making our facilities whole? um it's it's closer to 10 or 12 million dollars and that would really you know over a period of 10 to 15 years start bringing us back to that baseline level right so I think that's a pretty substantial amount of money every year considering what our you know capital improvement plan sets aside just for these you know facilities to be maintained it's it's usually between million and a half$2 million annually so it greatly exceeds that I think that's our biggest challenge um you know we are kind of you know with the age of our facilities we're really stuck in a reactive state at this point in time. And that's what you're seeing with some of these large costs is um it's tough to be proactive when we're constantly putting out fires for, you know, things were built in the 1950s, 1960s. You know, our our engineering staff are going through some of these things with infrastructure, you know, throughout the years and they're finally starting to see some of that, you know, long-term planning, long-term financial goals pay off with these things. So, I can't answer you, you know, what the funding mechanism is. So I can say that you know every building campus you know I guess government struggles with these things because the needs greatly outweigh what's available for funds. And so we're doing our best to try and get ahead of some of these things. I know um at a past meeting we talked about you know the software we use to project out what we need for our you know um uh asset preservation needs or our building needs annually and that that's where I kind of came up with that 10 to12 million was looking at it you know trying to look at that 10 to 15 year outly of that. Um does that answer your question? >> It does absolutely and then I have a follow-up question. I got out the CIP. We had $4 million for 2025 for the pump room replacement and we're looking at 8.9. >> Yeah. That's a huge jump, more than double. >> What's this cause of that huge jump in in cost? >> Yeah. And I we actually uh Perry and I have some slides later on that can kind of describe some of those things and show you where those are at. So um I'm happy to go into that either now or we can wait until we get to the second half of this presentation. We we struggled a bit about do we want you to do we want you to uh to consider first doing the project or not or do the financing or not. >> Yeah. >> So we we've sort of hit on the financing piece first. Uh but we knew we were going to have to answer questions about the the project kind of intermittently and then probably at the end come back and and take those three actions. So it's what do you we're happy to do this. >> Those are my questions. They're on the table. Um and that's uh the comments will come later and I I'll let my uh fellow members ask questions. Thank you >> so looking at this really expensive repair or upgrade. What else could be on the docket for the next for the future? You know, are we going to be hearing that the tiles are all falling off the pool and we need I mean, what what other major costs could we be looking at? >> Uh, you know, we have many needs uh there and I think, you know, Perry uh can probably answer some of these questions a little bit better about some of the the long-term master planning for that building. Um, we've really concentrated on the equipment in the filter room. There is some minor repair work that we need to do into the pools and the structures themselves that was code dictated, but also some plan maintenance that we're taking advantage of. Um, I think, you know, with any type of system like this, you're going to have maintenance needs for slides that's going to happen annually, by annually, whether it's painting or or mechanical equipment for those um the Wave Rider and then some of the other pool um systems. Um, the mechanical electrical equipment that manages all the filtration will be brand new. U, but then you still have to address, you know, any of the needs inside of like the changing house, the concession stands, and some of those user amenities at some point as well. >> Um, I'm just trying to get a handle on, you know, like the classic first car I had, right? 350 bucks and then I it started dying on me and somebody said, "Oh, just put in a new transmission." But then I took it to an auto shop to find out what the value is of the car and they told me it had the value of a used Kleenex and if it would start I could leave. And what I'm getting at is we're asking we're being asked to make a really really big investment and I don't know the structural integrity of the pool. I don't know high level there's no kind of analysis of what it means to put that money into that asset because I I mean I don't really know how great it I mean what the state is and I when I went to the League of Minnesota cities I my goal was to talk to as many people as I could about their pools and you know when I mentioned the figure we were talking for the pump room. The response was sort of like, well, maybe you need to just build a whole new pool, >> you know, and so that was there. Or if you're going to invest that much money, maybe you want to step back and talk about making it an enclosed facility so that it can be used all year long. And so I mean it was really responding to the reality that this is a huge chunk of change and maybe we need to pause and really think about you know what does this investment actually mean and I feel like I I don't have the context that I need in order to vote in an informed way because I I don't know is the pool going to start I I don't know structurally what what I'm dealing with and it's an old pool so I'm wrestling with that >> I don't I don't think that I have any specific questions. I think we talked a little bit too about like how does this process work last time. I know I was new to it. Um I I'm supportive of us using this strategy. I I don't know that there's a perfect strategy for us to use, but I I think if we decide that we want to continue to maintain the aquatic center, we need to make this investment. Um, and so I I treat it as an asset. I I I want us to talk about all of the other questions that my fellow council members have. Um, but in general, I I do think that this is important um piece of infrastructure that we have within the community that I want to continue to invest in and and maintain. So no direct questions. >> Thanks for I really wrestle with this one. I think it's really a difficult situation. Member Russer raised some interesting questions. What else do we have to do over there? you know, it's it's already losing $300,000 a year. And um just I'll back up and I'll say years ago, we had a young guy in the city council and he said, "Well, but if a if a enterprise doesn't capture at least 85% of its cost, we should think about shutting it down." I said, "Well, you you better start thinking about closing down Bremaar Ice Arena then." At the time, you know, I said, "Is that what you want to do?" One of the biggest hockey programs in the country and the people have decided in our town that these are the things that they think are important to be doing and and and helping our kids out and having a great ice facility and they're willing to subsidize it. It doesn't mean that everything we operate has to make money uh or we're not going to operate it. But somewhere in there is this tension that I'm feeling that it's a it's a it's It looks like it's a $9 million problem, but we don't even really know how big the problem is because we haven't got any bids. And we got to go about this process, as I understand it, in a awkward sort of way because it's a an abatement process. So instead of having an RFP where we get a bid and we know how much it's going to cost to fix it and then deciding if we want to borrow the money to fix it, we're kind of shooting in the dark. So I mean, what if we shoot low and now it's and with interest it's $12 million. And so what does he got? 22,000 households in the dine. Is that worth 50 bucks a household a year? Um maybe. Yeah, maybe. But still, um this whole notion of have we figured this out the right way? I mean, I think about the golf course. You know, the golf course you made money for years just like the pool. Then it stopped making money and we went through this year-long analysis of trying to decide what to do. Might take might have taken two years. And we decided to go from 27 holes to 18 holes and do and rebuild the range and make all these other investments, change around the par three, the exact course, make some modifications over there. And now we're make we're netting over a million dollars a year instead of losing a couple hundred thousand bucks a year. I'm not saying we need that same sort of turnaround story on the pool, but I to member Risser's point. I'd I'd like to have enough information. So I feel like I'm making a reason decision. All All we got today was this email saying, "Well, 80% 86% of the season passholders are a diner residents." All this is really helpful information, but it it it begs the broader question of the analysis. And now here we are at the 11th hour. We feel like we're in a pinch. We're pinched here because you're saying, "Well, I don't know if I can keep this thing running or not." And it might be it might go down next year like it did for that one month. We could try to hold this thing together another year while we analyze the whole thing. And that has its own inherent risks. Or you say, you know, we might have to just shut the pool down. And then that has a lot of risks associated with it, too, because we could see what happened during COVID. Our business went down and we haven't recaptured all that business yet. So, I I really feel like it just feels really awkward to try to figure out what's the best thing to do here. I don't know what to do. And Mr. can say, "Yeah, all we're asking you to do is authorize us to go find out what it would cost to do it, but you part of this whole process tonight is authorizing the issuance of a contract with somebody." So, it's not just saying tonight that we get we we're going to see what happens next. We're going to say, "Okay, maybe we'll maybe we'll fund this and borrow the money to do it uh once we know how much it costs." But we got a contract sitting here too on whether to do the project or not. So to me it's you want to be making the best decision you can for your taxpayers and they might say hey mayor don't worry about it. 50 bucks a month we can we can deal with that for certain number of years to make sure this pool stays in existence. But the whole not knowing what else it needs to me kind of begs the whole question of what what does our town want to do? What what people in our town want to do? I don't know. I usually have a better sense of things than this right now. I just feel like I'm in limbo land. I don't know what to do. >> Uh mayor and council, one thing that we could do now is uh Derek guy Derek and I could go over the slides that we um had prepared for the um agenda item. uh uh I think two more from now when we talk specifically about what's in the project. I think that may um has a chance to give you a little bit more clarity or at least additional information that you can consider this evening if you'd like. >> We were going to give it later. We could give it now for you. >> Yeah, I think anything any additional information will be helpful. I think >> I would suggest now. I think some of the questions you're you're starting to surface here are going to be answered in this presentation. So again, Dererick and I'll both give this to you um about that uh item that is on your upcoming one. So again, I think you've seen this before. Again, this is the timeline of where the project's been since that 2021 failure. Um, I think you've you've seen this before. The one item that I'll focus on next is just that February 2024 uh work session that we had when we did talk to you about this in a little bit greater detail. Uh, if you recall, um, maybe you didn't recall. I always say if it's been longer than 30 days, we should remind you. You have a lot that crosses your screen. So, we're going to remind you tonight. Uh in February 2024, we talked about some horizon level planning. That evening, we talked to you about the aquatic center, the golf course operations, and then um an additional item that evening. Um but we talked to you about this kind of being in two distinct kind of areas. The first was to um work on the pump and the filter room edition and that was the uh equipment replacement and at the same time looking at this project as an opportunity for additional user amenities potentially that could bring additional revenue to the site. Uh we also talked about some long-term facility upgrades and expansions um to meet the additional level of our user expectations, address some of our operational challenges. Um, and that wasn't something we were proposing at that time, nor are we this evening, but it is kind of on our horizon. I've been getting a lot of um, inquiries as well um, about, you know, who does use the aquatic center, how do they feel about the aquatic center? Uh, this was last season's uh, user uh, survey that we put out try to gauge satisfaction and how we are doing um, related to some of our operations. Um the one we always want to ensure are the two bookends that I call them uh on the left is how they our patrons feel about our staff. Um and they rate them very highly. On the other side of the equation, I mentioned it before with um we want to ensure everyone that comes in the door exits the door. Um and that is the safety that you feel at the aquatic center. That is a huge component of our training and our discipline at that site is your safety. The ones in the middle are where we need the work, right? Um that is where we did see some lower marks related to not enough family changing areas, where our locker rooms were, those types of things. Uh the two in the shaded box were the ones that we could have the potential to address through this project. The first portion of that and that is um seating and furniture and shade. Uh shade is a big thing for our users. Uh, mayor, you had mentioned we had um provided some information to you, but also a lot of residents have contacted about who uses the aquatic center and again we are sometimes at a data disadvantage um on how we are structurally set up. Um, but we do know for the 2024 season unique credit card transactions at the site. So if a credit card was used once um that is 76% ED residents. So they may have used it multiple times which would increase your dinina resident usage. That percentage could go up. When it comes to season passes, those we do track by where you live. Uh and it's been um from 2024 season and to date through the 2025 season, we're in that 85 86% Edina residents are using a season pass. Now again, that makes up anywhere from 28 to 35% of our revenue. The others are concessions, building, rental, and the other vast one which is a very hard gauge of what to get data on is daily admissions. Because for daily admissions, we do not track residency status. Obviously, we have kids come, they pay with cash, people still use cash. It would slow down our check-in process. And when we think about dailies, um, we don't know the exact resident status of that. But if you kind of correlate with who's using a credit card, that number kind of tells you whereabouts that is. We do often hear a lot of you Dina residents use daily fees because they have a lot of other activities and they're doing the math. You know, how many times do I want to break even on a season pass versus buying a daily fee, which is why we're now offering those five and 10 punch pass packets as well to get people more interested in that commitment. They have athletics activities, um the arts that they're involved in. So, that's a little bit of a look into who's actually using the aquatic center. If recall this, this is when we kind of talked about those horizon loving projects like what what is out there? What are we thinking? We've got the um checkbox around um the pump and filter room and the shade structure. That's what we kind of talked about. That's what we needed to focus on first. If we recall, the rest of it was kind of that horizon level. What does that visioning of the site look like? Um, we hear a lot about a compressed um, eating area, queuing lines at concessions, the one small window that you're selling the slushies and the pizza out of, right? Um, as well as ADA access, how do we bring in um, additional shade, additional restroom opportunities for people? Um, council member Rissard to answer your question specifically, what is on the horizon in future CIP years? you would see maybe a visioning for this but you would also see you know down the line we will have um investments on those slide towers u we would have investments on zero play on the horizon as well as well as what expands for user amenities so as you see future cip you would look to see how does that roll in as um Mr. Rotten had said, you know, we're always trying to bring in, you know, those items as they come down that 5, 10, 15, 20 year time frame. >> On that point, um, this is helpful, but I'm sitting here and I'm thinking about the era in which we exist. And not to get too heavy deep and meaningful, but um we're looking at rocky waters, you know, with federal cutbacks and all kinds of things and people maybe not having as much access to healthcare. And I mean, there's a lot on my mind and including um our emergency responders and the need to fund them. And I keep thinking, I really liked what member Jackson said, you know, planning a budget and knowing there's an expense coming up. And I look at this and I look at all these and I think about all these other things, just core safety issues, another fire station, all of that. And so it's it's hard to see this and to sort of absorb the idea that we're talking about a really huge investment, you know, in a period of time that is kind of rattling. So I'm being totally honest here. >> So we look back at that, we kind of had that two phases approach, right? is we needed to um look at the pump and filter room. What what is required of the now as well as looking what does this look like into the future, right? We called it horizon level, right? Is looking out at that sunset is where where could we be? Where do we want to be? Let's be creative and look long term. Um so we kind of broke into those two pieces. Um from there um that that detail level of what we um are focused on. Now Dererick's going to come and and talk a little bit more about what's specific on that um related to that filter room and the opportunity for user enhancements that you'll see is really around um that number one thing about shade seating is having uh rentable reservable shade areas as well on this site. And he'll talk about how those were um alternatives in this project um that could be considered in a later date. Um, and I can answer any of those questions, but Dererick's going to walk you through the rest of the filter room and how that project structure has been set up as kind of looking at this as all of the items and not looking at them separately tonight. >> You go back to that prior slide before Mr. Rotten comes up. This is interesting to me because it shows I'll back up a second. I was just thinking about backward time. remember Jackson says, "Well, I wasn't on the council when this happened or that happened when we decided to do the flow rider or the or the pirate ship and the zipline." And Ed McCola was the guy who ran the pool back then and he was, you know, it was profitable and and he would say, "Well, we need to do this and add this amenity to keep us ahead of the game with respect to the competition." And it seemed like he was right. you know, we would always we we'd spend some money and we'd added an amenity and business was good. And and what I see here is that you got some really great ideas on how to make this pool better. And I don't know if this maximizes us and puts us at the top of class for competition for public pools or not, but that's at least something to get excited about is that if you had a plan that wasn't so long, so prolonged. I mean, think of like the golf course. I mean, we came up with a plan and we we implemented the plan and and we got something sooner rather than later. It took a little while for it to grow out. We don't have that problem here, but in a way, it seems to me like it might be better to consider, well, how do we make the aquatic center the best aquatic center public amenity that's in the metro? And the pump house becomes a part of an overall strategy to create the best amenity that we can so that we capture a lot of business and do some revenue forecasting. I you know because when I look at that I think those are some good ideas because when I look at that other bar graph about where we're really good on the really important stuff they like the people that work there and they feel really safe. And how's the facility? So, so how's the weight line at the concession stand? Not the greatest, you know. What's the how the how's the seating? How the umbrellas? Yeah, they're okay, you know. Um, so have you given some big picture thought where you move sooner rather than later? >> We have not looked at moving sooner than later because to us it's really about the tolerance for the investment. And um you know if if there's comfort level around tonight, I think we can continue that planning and long-term view of that and bring that back. Again, we we talked about that as a horizon. We know we have these immediate needs now fully recognizing that there are a lot of pressures on you as a council that you have to decide. But for us, we want to ensure that when we get the opportunity to speak with you, you know that we have a vision for the aquatic center and we want to be nimble that we could go faster um depending on the pace that you're you're comfortable with. >> If you came with that broader vision, would it have some financial projections attached to it? Yes, we would do that. >> No, >> because it would impact how we manage groups, how we manage concessions, what we look at from um um you know additional miscellaneous revenues there. Um we are really limited by our concession stand now, right? We talk about that window, but um there are opportunities to do other things on the site for concessions and uh drinkware where you can split those up, shorten queue lines, get people to go faster. online ordering, text ordering. There's a bunch of different variety of things that you can um vision through this, but it's tough to do that. I always say in that 17 by 15 window um to do that right now. >> Well, here we are. I mean, when I look at your timeline, I'm thinking I wish we would had this discussion on a broad basis in 2021. Here, it feels like we're doing a band-aid. for doing a $7 million band-aid in a way. I mean, it's it's something that's going to be there for a long time. I know that, but it does doesn't have the same sort of feel to it to me as planning for the future of the pool. It's a critical component of it >> because we don't have a pool without >> Yeah, we don't have a pool without it, >> right? It doesn't matter what your your vision is if you don't have >> this particular thing fixed. Enough >> said. We'll hear about the pump room. I'm an infrastructure guy. I like infrastructure, but >> well, let's talk infrastructure then. Uh so, as uh Mr. Better said, you know, I'm here to talk mainly to you, Mr. Mayor, and members of the council about uh what's actually included in this project portion of it. Right. So, this first slide we're looking at here, this is just a quick refresher. Um this is a 3D um representation of the new pump room. It's highlighting, you know, we're putting new pump apparatuses in there. Uh we would replace the electrical supply lines and distribution center. This is what's been causing us so many headaches these last three or four years. Um the water displacement surge tanks. This is that code issue that we've brought up in the past where the existing surge tanks um are too small for the size of our pool. This is what's really driving the need for a new building. Um it's actually also what's uh limiting us from just going in and replacing parts and pieces of equipment within that building. So, at a certain point, it would trigger a code review and they would make us, you know, replace these surge tanks at that point. Anyways, um it also includes new water treatment systems. Obviously, we want new filters, uh clean water to make sure that everybody's healthy and safe that's using the pool. Um and then, you know, we're talking about state building mechanical energy codes. So, we would, you know, be designing this pool to meet those new energy codes that we have, right? Um it it currently uh has some of those amenities but it doesn't have all that uh the new technology will bring. And then you know the the big thing at the end there and and uh Mr. Veter mentioned this but it's that new filter space. It's going to create some opportunities really uh up above that we can add some user amenities in these spaces and I'll get into that here in a couple minutes but those are those alternates that we talked about. You know how do we make some improvements to you know the shade structures? How do we make improvements to the seating? you know, visible uh usable area for people. So, um this next slide is a couple of the concepts. We've shown this to you in the past. Um and we're labeling these as alternate A and alternate B. You can kind of see two isometric views of this. Um alternate A is what has been known as kind of a a a structure or cabanas above the mechanical room, above the pool room. So, that's added space by building this structure that we would be gaining. Um, we're listing it as an alternative is because we don't need to build that structure. You know, we we'd like to build it because it could be used as rentable reservable space, you know, for people to come in. And that's that that uh amenity that that generating amenity that we talked about. Um, but it's not a necessity that we have to build that structure. Um, alternate B is the replacement of an existing shade structure there. So, um, every day families line up to get these, you know, uh, seats that are kind of, you know, some of the prime seats at the pool edge underneath that existing structure. Um, unfortunately, we have to remove it because the supply lines for the pool run directly underneath there. So, we need to remove it so we can get access to them for some of the construction methods there. Um, so just two kind of quick isometric views. The the A is obviously something that's added. The B is more of a replacement of an existing asset that we have. Um on this next slide, this is also another view of that. But what we're showing in alternate B is actually um solar panels. We we are uh planning on implementing photovalic panels on top of that to help with energy loads, reduce some of the energy costs of the pools, but it also kind of aligns with our conservation and sustainability plan. Um the structure would be paid for by the project, but the solar panels and photovalic would be paid for through the conservation sustainability plan. So we've got a dedicated funding source for that. Um, moving on, you know, this is where we kind of start talking about some of the budget, right? So, this is something >> how do the solar panels help you? >> Uh, well, two things. They lower energy cost, right? So, that that would pick up some of the energy load of the pool during those seasons. >> But how much? >> Uh, the cost for them is about >> No, not the cost. What's the benefit? >> Oh, I'm sorry. It's it's about 25 kVs. So, it's maybe a quarter of the pool energy use. You know, these these filters. >> Yeah. quarter of your pool's energy use out of this solar array. >> Yeah, that's an approximate value, but yeah, it kind of es and flows with the sun and clouds, >> right? >> Um, so I'm sorry, moving on here to the I guess the the construction cost progression. So, we talked a little bit about this um you know, how did this increase so much, right? So, this first estimate that we looked at, this is that that uh June of 2022 estimate, right? That's at 50% schematic design, right? So, this is not a fully fleshed project. This is just the ideas. Um we have about 2.8 million in construction costs at that time. Um $560ome thousand dollars of soft cost. So this is engineers, architects, design team members. Um the contingency was being included in that 2.8. Uh and we were at 3.3. Uh you could fast forward uh two and a half years. Remember we took that pause when we weren't successful with state bonding. We took an opportunity to kind of flesh the design out a little bit more. That's when some of that master planning and visioning that Perry mentioned before happened. Uh we were at 4 point 44 $4.3 million. Um at that time our soft costs came down a little bit because we had spent some of that money in the design process already. Um the contingency though we increased that to to cover some unknowns as we were starting to flush this out and you know kind of play this out a little bit and we're at 5.3. Right. So that was late 2024. As of May of 2025, um we have uh a little more of a solid idea of this and the reason I say that is because we've engaged with a local general contractor HNU Construction. Um they have been uh hired to do pre-construction work and part of that pre-construction work was really to put numbers to the actual design, right? It's it's reached a point where they can go out and start collecting bids from some of their, you know, resources in the field, whether it's mechanical, electrical, um any of the other, you know, contractors and trades. and they put it at $5.8 million. Um, that increase in cost between the two of them, as I mentioned before, was we just we realized we had to deal with the pool drains at that point in time. Uh, but in addition to that, the material costs have increased just tremendously for these things. Um, those next couple of lines that we're going to get to is the soft costs, right? So, some of those soft costs, um, of that 1.59 million, um, $847,000 of that is design. We've already spent about a half a million of the design money on this. So, it's an additional 340 some thousand. Uh an owner's representative to manage this because of capacity with our own internal staff is about 170,000. Um 170 is for testing and survey and things like that that have to happen during a construction project. Um and then we have about $375,000 in there for miscellaneous FFN and amenities. Right. So, this is buying um new things for the uh pool shade areas and things like that. So, we've got some money tucked away in there to cover those costs. We have a new building. You're obviously going to have to outfit it with new equipment, too. And then about $58,000 in utility costs, right? So, that's uh coming in with new uh water lines and some of the underground work that has to happen in that area. And then we kind of have the the two numbers that we have some play with, right? There's uh $650,000 in contingency costs that we're carrying. You know, that's not money that we are, you know, have to spend. We hope we don't have to spend any of it, but we have to carry some money for unknowns and unforeseen things. And then the big one is this tariff contingency. This is something that we've uh, you know, been seeing across the board in construction projects. We have vendors that are trying to tack tariffs on to projects that are already in place. Um, and we're trying to prevent, you know, some of those unknowns that we don't have at this time. So, we're we're assuming that there's going to be some type of tariff uh downfall and we're trying to cover those costs. So, as you can see, that's where the total comes in at $8.98 million. So, if we look at it, you know, from a a different standpoint, um the bulk of that cost obviously down there at the bottom is the filter room, right? That's the addition. The soft costs about a million and a half. And then the next four charts that you have up there, there's a contingency and tariff contingency. We hope we don't spend any of that money, right? That that's something where at the end of the day, we might be able to reduce our project budget down and not have that large of a project budget ultimately if we run into, you know, some favorable conditions out there. And then there's next two up that alternate A and alternate B. Those are two things that we'd like to come back to the council um you know, in August when we have a guaranteed maximum price through the bidding process and say, would you like to accept these? we have the option to not accept them and then we would still be able to do the filter room. We'd still have usable space in both of those locations but we wouldn't have the shaded areas right and we wouldn't have that photovailic system that we mentioned before too. So I think what we're looking for is you know talking about some decision timeline stuff. So, back in July 15th, you know, we we talked about approval of the property tax abatement. Today, actually, um you know, on August 6th, we're planning on coming back to the council and talk about, you know, those alternates. You know, can we do the project budget and project as it is and include these alternates? And then we'd also look to approve the guaranteed maximum price. And that's really what come back to to the contractor HNU to say here is a change order at this time for the amount of the construction contract guaranteed maximum price of we're hoping $5.8 million that they said it might come in lower than that. We might have a favorable bidding environment over the next two or three weeks and be able to um you know reduce that number and that's kind of where we're at with the decision timeline on it. So I have one last slide I was going to stop though before I moved on. I have any questions from this? >> Go ahead. Traction. >> Um, so two things on the solar panels when we get farther into this, if we approve going forward, I'd like to see um sort of, you know, it used to be when you talked about solar panels, how many years would it take to pay them off? So that analysis financially approximately, you know, it costs as much. would take 50 years to pay back on energy savings or 10 years something like that. Um and then the other is a um uh some revenue from the rental space what what that would be and um yeah so those are my requests as we move forward if we move forward tonight. So >> uh the first part of it I can gather for you. Yes. The the payback period the second half of it I think that's question. >> Yeah. Other questions? >> Okay. I'm looking at better together and I'm looking at the page on the abatement and one of the questions is will the bonds funded with tax abatement also pay for other improvements and the response is no. The tax abatement will only be used to pay for a new pump house and systems to keep the aquatic center operational. And I it's late so you know but it it sounds like when you go back to those slides where you you were saying option A or option B or yeah alternate B alternate A um is that the pump house in the systems? >> Option A and option B are not the pump house for the systems. They're opportunity spaces that we we looked at this to take advantage of. >> Okay. And here's where I get because this is a lot of money and we're hearing from um residents and um you know just having a straight answer and it just it kind of depends on where you're looking what you're you know what may or may not be and that that does make me uncomfortable just in terms of trans I think some of the consideration behind those two though are that we have to take down something if we're going to do this project and so do we want to replace that or not >> and the other is taking advantage of an opportunity that's integral to the project itself. Right. That's the the rentable commandments. That's correct. >> True. It's just in terms of being straight with residents and I can see the replacement that makes sense. But um and and I think people are looking at this and they're they're thinking about well I'm going to so to the point that um this isn't for you Mr. for it's more for manager Neil I think point that member Pierce raised early on I think is that um and we've had this conversation uh we had it last year we worked on the budget we deferred some things like Lewis Park now fortunately we got a $3.4 million surplus we're going to talk about what to do with that I would think this this might enter into that conversation in terms at least in part Um, has staff thought at all about what we thinking about the parameters that we've we've we've talked to you about the budget for next year. You given any thought to what we we probably can't do if we do this? I I think in our current budget models, we're factoring in the debt service uh that would uh that we'd have to bear in order to do this project. >> Maybe the better question would have been, are there things that you think we can't do that are in the capital improvement plan, for example, because we we would choose to make this decision tonight to take care of something that we own? Well, this is this the funding vehicle for this is bringing in money outside of the typical CIP levy or other revenue sources. So, this should not impact other projects that are currently scheduled to be uh funded. Is that am I answering that question? >> Well, it's still taxpayer money. So, I mean, it's $93,000 a year that our taxpayers are going to have to pay. over the life of the debt. >> Yes. >> Coming from somewhere. >> Right. This is a tax levy in if we decide to go that direction. That's right. >> So that's why I say if we tell you not to if we tell you to stay within certain parameters on the levy, does that potentially affect other things that we might otherwise have been determined to do or >> For sure. For sure. Yeah. There's a lot of things we I'm on the operating side and capital side given the parameters to stay under the 10% level >> and I get I get the sense from the council that they're willing to look at that >> analyze rate. >> So Jackson, >> thank you Mr. Mayor. I'm looking at this resolution that's before us and it's a resolution relating to a tax abatement terra hearing and general obligation tax abatement bonds granting the abatement and approving the issuance of the bonds. So would we be voting tonight to issue bonds? >> No. >> Okay. Help help me understand that if you would please, Mr. the uh the abatement resolution before you is is offering essentially the preliminary authorization to be able to issue bonds. So I >> it makes us eligible but it doesn't authorize. >> Yeah, we have not engaged the market at all >> to bid out the financing for this project. Typically in our process, once you've moved ahead and approved a project and actually got the construction numbers for the actual bonding amount, we do come before you with a it's usually a resolution that packages it together with what other bonding needs are going to be moving ahead with that financing. council does approve how those bonds will be placed in the market, whether it's through a competitive bidding process or negotiating with a particular underwriter or some other kind of mechanism. And then ultimately we come back yet again after that bidding is that financing bidding is complete and present the the results of that sale and a resolution is adopted by the council choosing to accept the terms of that financing and lock in um the the debt that's been authorized. So, we do anticipate there would be at least two more times before um we get to that stage that you've actually reviewed financing proposals and authorize the issuance of the bonds to close on an actual transaction. >> Okay. Thank you. >> I don't see what I don't see what you're saying how how what you're saying is consistent with 4.01. >> Yeah. The issuance of the bonds in the aggregate amount principal amount not exceeding 8.9 85 million for the purpose of financing the project is hereby approved. >> I think the bond attorney was drafting it in the authorization that the uh council would have the authority on behalf of the city to approve bonds for this project. Again, there is no authorization to put forward a security behind those bonds. There's no award to a specific entity for the placement of those bonds or anything in that resolution that we would normally see within a an actual award of sale resolution for a bond transaction. So, does this resolution provide for you to go to market to see what the rates are? >> No, no, it >> doesn't actually, >> even though it looks like it does. >> I mean, that's the way I read that first sentence and and I and I I still take it that if you came back and said, "Yeah, we can deal do we can do do this deal with company X at 3% interest," we could still say no. >> Oh, absolutely. And I think you'd had the opportunity >> decide not to issue the bonds. >> Correct. >> The cost was too high. Or >> what about the other part of it here where um uh I think it Mr. Rotten and Director Veter are asking us to authorize the uh entering into a contract with HGA for amount not to exceed 8 95. Well, that's the that the the design contract, but not we're not awarding a construction contract with this tonight. >> Yeah. So, if you remember, um you know, we we talked about we're proceeding with design contract, but that would be HGA. We've already um authorized them to take the design to a certain point. This is just the construction administration. That's the actual, you know, work throughout the construction project. Um we're also asking to proceed the contract through Tegra. They're our owner's representative for this project. We have a master services agreement with them. Uh they're working with us on a number of projects throughout the city already. Um that is a portion of the contracts that we're asking to approve and then we're notifying you that we'll be back in August with a what's considered a construction change order technically with uh HNU Construction. Um we signed a contract with them just basically allowing them to go out to bid. It was a zero dollar value contract uh back in June that came through part of the consent agenda and we identified that time that we would come back in August at a later date with what that guaranteed maximum price is. This is the similar process that we uh followed for fire station number two. If you remember, we started the design and and um I guess we engaged with our general contractor early on um throughout the design process, made sure that we had the design right, we had the needs of the department, right, and then we came back at a later date and it was a very large change order that that we essentially signed. And that that's uh a common practice in the construction industry. It's, you know, called a CM and then you do a a guaranteed maximum price after the design is finalized. So everybody has a little bit of the CM is construction manager at risk. so that they have some, you know, risk on their end to make sure that they're matching that guaranteed maximum price, provided that the project doesn't go out of scope or scale on our behalf. >> Okay. >> And then the final part is we're asking to wave building permit fees for this. This is this is pretty standard to what we do to most city projects like this. So the first request uh from a motion standpoint is to deals with resolution proposed resolution 2025-45 for the adoption of a property tax abatement and the issuance of general obligation tax abatement bonds which Mr. Anut has helped explain. Um is there anyone who cares to make that motion? >> I'll make that motion. A second. >> We got a motion to adopt resolution 2025-45 by member Jackson, second by member Agnu to adopt for the adoption of a property tax abatement strategy and the issuance of general obligation tax abatement bonds relative to the Adina pool. Any further discussion? Yeah, I I want to go on record of saying I see this as we have a pool or we don't have a pool at this point that if we close it for two years to go to a referendum and everything. I I think if we made the decision to not go forward with this, our council chambers would be filled with parents, angry parents, um in in huge numbers. And I don't like the way the headline would look. City council votes to close the pool. Um, and I think that's where we're at with the state of this facility. I don't like this. Um, we'll apply what I call the Pierce rule to look at if we're going to raise the taxes, raise expending here, we have to take something away there. Um, and we'll we'll have that rigorous analysis later, but I I don't think I would enjoy this job very much if we close the Dina pool. >> Member Pierce, thank you. Member Jackson comment. Thank you, Member Jackson. Um, yeah. I >> just a single word of wisdom at 11:08. >> Yeah. >> I I don't know if it's because it's 11:08 or what, but um like sitting here now when we started the meeting, I kind of felt like this was a no-brainer to me. And now sitting here, I'm not sure it is. And I don't know. The challenge for me is I don't know what I would ask for to get there because it seems like spending the 9 million doesn't really get us to a point where we have this gem of an asset in Edina. and like I kind of want that um but I don't know how to fund that. And so then I do you do the bare minimum and try to leverage the revenue that you generate to then grow into whatever that vision is. We can't do that because if we don't do some of the amenity upgrades, we probably aren't going to generate the revenue. We won't continue to generate the revenue. Um, and so I Yeah, I don't know. This is a tough one. Um, and just to be clear on this, the motion that's on the floor really is us just saying, "Yes, let's let's keep moving forward to figure out what we're going to do and how much it's going to cost." And I'm like, I'm I'm okay with continuing, but I really don't know how to give direction on what I would expect to see that would make me feel like this is a good investment. So, um, that's not very helpful, but >> but that's how I feel. >> Remember, >> this is a hard one. And I mean, the Adana Aquatic Center, I took my kids there. I um understand that it is a facility that people use and love. It's also open 10 weeks and three days during the year. And for me, I keep looking at that $93,676 figure for the next 15 years. And that's getting pretty close to what fire chief Slamama needs to fund all those firefighters if he doesn't get the safer grant. And I know that we're committed to keeping the levy under two figures. Um, I don't necessarily agree with that, but I feel like when we have these isolated decisions, and I know that we can decide not to move forward, but I I feel like we're just sort of kicking the can down the road and that this particular method of financing and this figure is too big. And I just it's really hard. And it's it's hard because it's it's like, you know, you're saying we're not going to take that trip that we've been talking about for a long time because we've got to replace the roof on the house or something like that. But um and I will probably get some nasty emails. I But I I'm having a real challenging time with this. Plus, you know, I see the changes that need to be made in order to make it profitable, but then at the same time, you know, what about the foundation of the pool? What about other things that I don't know about? And so, that's where I am. And I know it's getting late. >> Thanks, member. Your pearls of wisdom. >> I'm ready to vote. >> Uh, for me, this conversation has been really valuable. I think it's helped lift some of the clouds for me and some of the uncertainty both with respect to the comment that member Pierce just made about and uh affirmed by member Agnu that we're we're just taking the next step here in the analysis. But I think more fundamentally what's been worrying me is that we've got some budget parameters that we've asked staff to look at and then we get something like this that comes along. And I think member Pierce put it well. He said this doesn't change the landscape in terms of what we're what we're requesting from a council standpoint of our staff to um be mindful of our citizens capacity for paying property tax. So I think that's important and I I like that common view of it and um I think we'll figure that out how to how to do this. So, we got, you know, who knows what that asset is worth on the balance sheet. What do we have a I mean, >> I'm sure we have a valuation for it for insurance purposes, but >> 50 $60 million assets, >> replacing it, replacement cost would be something of that nature. >> Um, yeah, any more, it might be more than that. So, I'm going to support going to this next step with the understanding that this is all part of the big tax picture that we have to look at. The budget picture, I guess, is a better way to put it. Um, so I'm comfortable moving forward to the next step. Probably authorizing those design services, too, so we can keep the ball moving. Um, Jackson, you're on a you're on a run here. You want to move this one too? >> Already. >> Oh, you already have. >> Was it second? >> I lost I lost my train of thought. I lost my uh memory. Somewhere between 11:10, 11:14. Got a motion to second and we've had some comment. Yeah, that's right. Thank you. Um Okay. So, um any further discussion? All those in favor of adopting resolution 2025-45 for the adoption of a property tax abatement and issuance of general obligation tax abatement bonds relative to the adana pool say I. >> I. >> I opposed. >> Carried. Resolution 2025-45 is approved. Um then let's go jump to 9.5 which is the um approval for purchase and award of contracts for construction administration. >> This the one that you wanted us to take up next. >> Yes, it is. >> This involves the HGA and the Tegra. >> That's correct. >> From a design standpoint. >> Okay. The um the header on the motion it says approve the request for purchase and award of contracts for construction administration construction and owners representation with HCA Integra. Um this is what you're talking about in terms of the design elements of it. That's all the further we're going at this point in time. >> Well, we we've finished the design. So really this is for us to manage their contract throughout the construction period, right? and then TGER would be providing those services to help um the project move along throughout the construction period. >> Okay, thank you for that. >> And the request to purchase nomenclature is our standard >> Yeah. >> standard nomenclature for this. >> So the motion would be to approve a request for purchase and award of contracts for construction administration construction and owners representation with HGA and Tegra with a project budget overall of 8.988 million. Is there a motion to that effect? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Member Agnu moves. Member Jackson seconds the motion as stated. Any further discussion? >> Yeah, I Yes. Go ahead. I don't I guess I don't understand that. Um so are are we saying that we have you've done the design and are we approving by approving this resolution are we approving the project are we essentially saying yep we agree let's replace the pump room and then alternative A slashB. Let's spend the $9 million. >> We will come back to you with the construction contract which is the bulk of that in August and then you would have the opportunity to vote on that at that time. Right? So that that would be part of either consent agenda or we would bring it back in the same form. Um and that's when we would also talk about those alternates that we mentioned and council will have an opportunity to weigh in on both of those overall project cost as well as that. You can always at that time say no, we don't want to move forward with this project. >> But what this project involves is the but it does involve the expenditure of funds and the Tegra agreement would be at 174,000 approximately and there's no there's no defining what the HGA amount is or is it by the hour? >> No, that's it's it will be by the hour build that way, but it's about $340,000. We've already spent um on design thus far with HGA uh close to a half million dollars on this. That's throughout the iterations over the last two and a half, three years. And that's on par for uh a construction project of this nature. That that cost is >> we're not approving the construction budget, right? >> Okay. I just Good question. >> Yeah. I I don't know. sitting here tonight again. I'm not sure if we go through the process and you come back and ask for approval of what we've loosely described today. I don't know that I would approve that project. >> So, if if you're asking about the owner's representative costs as well as the construction administrative costs, if we didn't move forward with the project, we would not have to spend those funds. We've spent some funds to date um on both of those and there would be shutdown costs but we wouldn't have to you know spend any of the funds or um in either of those because it is build by the hour as they're doing the work. >> Yeah. No, I so I just being really transparent. I >> I don't know if I would spend the money spend the $9 million to do what you've described today. So, this resolution is saying, "Let's keep going." Like I said before, let's refine whatever words you choose to put in there. But if we go through that and you come back with the same thing, just a different number, I don't know that I today I guess I wouldn't be comfortable because I'm just not sure that's the right thing to do. And so you're asking us to just be comfortable with that ambiguity. You'll come back with the project. Yeah. That defines here's what we're going to spend it on. >> Yep. >> Are you thinking that it should be more expensive based on the conversation we've had? >> That could be. >> Yeah. I I don't know, Mayor. Yeah. I'm just not sure. >> Yeah. This is just more ambiguity that than I've dealt with in a while. So, I don't know. And it's a big price tag. >> Yeah. >> I think I thought member Jackson kind of hit nail on the head when you know you said either we have a pool or we don't have a pool. >> Precisely. >> Yeah. I at noon when I met with manager Neil, I was kind of prepared to take our chances on bailing wire and duct tape for another year while we analyzed the whole thing. >> Right. >> But if it goes down, >> we're out of season and then we've got all these folks we've disappointed. We've got contracts probably with swim clubs and everything else. and um >> feel like we got at an awkward spot here. >> Yeah, I it feels like an awkward spot. And I like you're not asking No one is asking us to choose between public safety and a pool. Nobody is saying that, but it kind of feels like that. And so obviously we're not I I would assume we're not going to say, "Yeah, we can do without, you know, EMS resources." So I think we're going to be in a situation where we're going to do both. I'm still going to say, well, we need to be under 10%. >> Yeah. >> But then we're not seeing a picture of, well, these are the puts and takes to get there. We won't see that till third week of August. >> August 20th. August 19th. >> August 19th. Um, and so like sitting here today, I get all right. You're asking us to just let you spend more money to figure out what to do. >> Okay. You know, one option, you know, as Director Miller pointed out, is we we can pull these two contracts from this request and we can present all three of these at once. So, we can present the guaranteed maximum price, the owner's representative contract as well as the add a design uh contract administration all at once at one package so you can review all of it together along with those alternates if that would, you know, make you feel more comfortable. So, it allow us to progress and continue on with the project. Sure. >> Yeah. and we would get bids back in, you know, the interimm and then, like I said before, we'd be back in August with uh an overall picture of what those costs are. >> I don't think that's your I don't think that's your point though, is it? >> No. When you come back in August, it'll be the 19th, right? >> Right. >> Yeah. >> So, what we had on here was coming back August 6th. >> They're coming back August 6th. >> Okay. And so maybe my question would be to manager Neil. Um can we try and cascade these in a different order and what are the implications of that of one when do we find out about the grant um for EMS um fire? Um two, can we have the conversation on budget on August 19th? um prior and then maybe push this one to either directly after I leave that to you, right? Um but at least give us the ability to stack rank this against everything else that we're considering. Have a rough percentage because I still don't think that we've even gotten the swag of we're at currently at 9.7% or currently we're at 13%. to really know where we're at. Is it possible to just rearrange some of the order on this but still try and keep it tight so that we can appe like alleviate some of these concerns that we have um and validate that we are comfortable or maybe the alternative is hey we actually have found a way >> to say we want to spend 10 million instead to really make it a best-in-class and it because I think that there are some things that we're even asking like are we leaving things on on the table by just doing this part of it. Um, and then maybe that also provides a little bit additional time too to think through some of those like different package scenarios. Um, with a potential viewpoint on return on investment or how we think it'll improve the overall experience for users to think about how we're driving additional usage, which maybe is asking a lot. um but between now and maybe the first meeting of September, but maybe that's an ask that will help alleviate some of this concern. >> I think we you know we'll have that discussion about what the impact of the the pool um of the pool approvals that are necessary for that project to come together uh for that 19th August 19th. We have some things that are in a queue that we we just we are waiting for to be able to complete our budget proposal for you. Um I can tell you we are we are going to hit the target that you gave me. We are going to hit the target. It'll be under that target that you gave me. So um but in terms of when we could do that we might be able to do all of that on the 19th. We'll have that we'll have that discussion. Another aspect of that we haven't thought about. Jackson had her budget and CIP with us or with her um you know there might be some things in the CIP that we can look look at deferring too. We haven't even looked at that yet that are set for 2026 as part of this the part of this goal to achieve some reasonable budgetary increase. So there's many things to think about is all the point I was trying to make. I I think what member Agnu framed and granted you may do a different sequencing, but I think the my takeaway was that would get me out of feeling like I am going to be making a decision on spending $9 million and I don't know if I have $9 million to spend, Right. And so I think some kind of sequencing would address that. And then the question of should I spend nine or should it really be 15? You're going to bring that back too at that time. And I'm just making that number up. But but you are right. You we talked about is this are we just doing the pump and alternate A and B? And I thought you mentioned that there could be some other things that we could do to raise generate more revenue. Maybe there's not. And if that's the case, that's fine. I'm not asking to spend 15 million. I'm saying you're going to have time to ground on exactly what you need to spend. >> Never get a park and recctor's hope hopes up for for something like this. >> I didn't mean to do that. Hopes hopes dashed. That's not my point. You're going to take some time to figure out and confirm or refine this is what this project is. Here's what it's going to cost and we're going to have the time to be able to say, "Yep, we have >> Yep. >> Yes, we can afford that." >> Yes. >> Yeah. Mayor, council, uh, Council Member Pierce, I just want to also set expectations that we've been truly focused on this first portion of it. Y >> and the rest we talked about Horizon. So, what we can put together is probably going to be a very rough magnitude, very loose. Um, it's going to be a leap of faith, I think, for both of us to discuss that, but we will come back with something for you. >> Yeah, I that's good for me. >> I'm ready to vote. >> Yeah, I'm glad we had that discussion. Um, all right. All right, we've got a motion and a second with respect to um approving the request for purchase and award of contracts for construction administration uh construction and owners representation with HCA Integra with a project budget of 8.988 million. Uh any further discussion? All those in favor of adoption of the motion as stated say I. >> I opposed. >> Nay. >> Carried. that approval is made. Um, now let's loop back on the agenda to a ma matter that manager Neil has, and that is the uh potential allocation of 2024 unassigned general fund balance, which is our surplus. Another way of saying our surplus. >> Thank you, your honor. Uh yes, you received the the 2024 uh independent audit um at our previous meeting. Uh it is our custom to ask the council to accept that audit and you made that action. It's also our custom here to allocate the uh unassigned uh general fund fund balance. Uh we do that every year. uh are we have a policy that says we will put it into our um into our construction fund so that it can be distributed via the the standard kind of CIP uh analytical process that involves staff and council. Um but you always have and I think almost every year we bring to you sort of a special project that uh that exists maybe outside of that regular CIP process for some reason or another. Uh and we have two of those this year that we would propose uh using this uh using these u unassigned fund balance dollars for one is to restore funding re restore funding to the um to the Lewis Park uh park shelter. So it was in the CIP at 900,000 and we're proposing to use 900,000 of the 3,129427. That's the unassigned fund balance. Uh, and the other one is to allocate money into uh into a new budget, a project budget for the quiet zones analysis. Uh, and I've talked to to director Milner about that as well. Um, while this was in the uh while this was uh in the council packet, uh I did receive uh an idea from uh council member Jackson to take the balance and instead of allocating that balance back into the construction fund to be distributed by separate action of the council that we consider that the council consider allocating it directly to this project, uh the the pool project, the aquatic center project, and bring down uh bring down the the amount that we could potentially borrow if we go forward with that project. So, it'd be 1.9 million, so almost $2 million. That would take off off of the 8.9 million. So, that would require an amendment to the to the action that's in front of you tonight. Thoughts from council members based on the conversation we just finished and uh understanding we've got about a surplus of $3.1 million to work with in terms of how to assign those funds or reserve them for now. What are people's thoughts? >> So, thank you, Mr. Mayor. um for the the Lewis Park and the quiet zones. Um I we've had conversation about those and so I'm I'm definitely supportive of both of those. I like the idea of potentially allocating this towards the aquatic center as well just given like the depth of conversation that we had. I also question almost again going back to the order of operations of should we table the remaining component of that decision until after we look at the broader um kind of budget conversation that we're going to have in August. And why I'm saying it like that is one I think part of us is still kind of questioning are we moving forward with this and what would be the implications then if we allocate it towards this project but decide not to do it. Um, and then on the other hand, what is the direct impact that it makes to the potential levy if we're taking it from one bucket of infrastruct? Like, I just don't know if that actually changes it or if it kind of keeps it the same. And if so, should we just wait until after? So, that's kind of where my questions are at. So, Council Member Agnu, members of council, if you took this action and assigned allocated these dollars to this project budget and you decide not to do the project budget, we'd bring a a new action before you to allocate it directly into the construction fund, which is our standard policy. Um, and your second question, we haven't done the math on what this would do to the to but we know it would reduce the borrowing which would reduce the the debt service, right? >> Annual debt service. um we just it's not an idea that we evaluated before we brought it to you. So we can we can certainly do that an analysis between now and the next council meeting >> because I I think the question then is the way I'm understanding it out of the gate is I'm just going to round for to two million for fun. Is it are we looking at 2 million then reduction from our budget that we're looking at in 2026? >> No. that would be related to this going into the construction pool or like how should I think about that first option the default that we are going to be doing this >> compared then to this alternative option >> right so it doesn't this decision doesn't defund some other projects right because it's surplus dollars from the previous year and by definition is not assigned to any particular project >> so So I understand that but we I think we had said that kind of the default of what happens to the surplus is it goes into this construction pool >> right >> and so help me understand how that construction pool is used >> and if it would be directly used in 2026 or because kind of that's how I'm comparing right if we used it for the aquatic center we're now then spreading it over 15 years by reducing the amount that we would be bonding for and the repayment amount for that term or are we talking about actually reducing by that amount in 2026 as a part of the construction fund? >> Uh, Miss Lens, do you have something you want to say here for this? >> I was just going to recommend that maybe we table this particular item because we don't have to make a decision on this right now and we can look at it in that broader context. >> Sure, we can do that. Can we still make a decision on the other two so that we can move forward on quiet zone analysis? >> You can. >> Okay. >> And you can even allocate this money to the construction fund and if we do the project, you can reallocate it to the to the project fund. Right. So, um it is do it. What we would typically do with this money is we would have special projects and then we'd put the balance of it into the construction fund. The construction fund is used to fund the various CIP projects that are in the capital improvement plan uh that are developed typically by staff and approved by council. >> Member Russer. >> Um just thinking back to the budget and what got cut and I'm just want to say I am so happy that Lewis Park is getting funded. That really means a lot to me and so I want to acknowledge that. The other item that got cut was six firefighter par paramedics. And um one of the people who spoke during community comment mentioned these unassigned general fund and sort of made a reference to maybe we could use the money for safety staffing and and I think that was what was implied there. So, um I did manager Neil did say it cannot be used because it's a one-time >> No, I said I wouldn't recommend it because you would recommend it. >> It's a one-time revenue taking on paying for an ongoing operating expense >> and and yet I am concerned about the staffing levels and just the seriousness of that and getting money ASAP um so we can start looking to hire more firefighter paramedics. I would expect that based on the action we took in terms of applying for that grant and agreeing to hire those firefighters that you've built that into the budget you intend to propose to us. >> That's true. That's right. >> Okay. So yeah, one of the questions I think member Agnu had was you answered and that was if if we decided to do the quiet zone study and build the new park building at park shelter building at Lewis and put the rest of it in the construction fund. We can get it back out of there if we decide we want to use it for something else. >> Well, it's a good place to park it where you get some interest income off of it, I guess. Um, >> so member Egnum, would you want to make a motion to that effect? So >> move there. Second. We got a motion by member Agna, second by member Pierce to um with respect to the 2024 general fund unassigned fund balance uh spending $900,000 on the Lewis Park shelter building project and allocating an additional $250,000 of those funds to the project budget to complete the necessary planning studies uh to enable the city to pursue a quiet zones for atgrade rail crossings of Edina streets and put the balance of the funds into the construction fund uh on a temporary basis. That's the motion. Any discussion? All those in favor of adoption of the motion as stated say I. >> I. I. Opposed. Carried. Okay. You guys sure you don't want to have a two meetings in July? Okay, really quick. I'll try to make this quick. Um, hi again. >> Yeah. Oh, yeah. We gota wait for that. Sorry. >> You want to introduce the item first? the highway 100 one. >> I didn't know if the mayor had introduced this item or if you want us to get started. >> 9.6. Correct. >> Yeah, it's a different title here. Is that >> What do you have? This is resolution 2025-44. >> Yeah. And our tit the title on our agenda says approving the adoption of the city's 5-year street reconstruction plan and providing for the sale of >> correct. >> Correct. >> That one. >> Okay. That's not what the screen says. >> It's not what the screen says. We were ahead of you on your introduction, so sorry about that. >> So that's But that's not what the screen says. That's But it's the same thing. >> Yes. >> Got it. Okay. And it says project funding update >> because it ties into the bonds we want. We're >> actually looking for some action here. >> Yeah. >> All right. Go ahead. >> All right. So, this is in regards to the street reconstruction plan uh bond, which allows the city council to seek authorization for bonds to fund street projects subject to a public hearing process in a 30-day reverse referendum, which Nick and Hut from Ellers will touch on a little bit. At our last council meeting on June 17th, a public hearing was held for the Vernon Avenue and Highway 100 interchange for the city funded portion of the project with the close of public hearing on Saturday, July 5th of 2025. Again, tonight's meeting purpose is for council to take action on approving resolution 202544 for the adoption of the city's 5-year street reconstruction plan and authorizing the issuance of general obligation street reconstruction bonds for the project. With me tonight is Chad Milner, our engineering director, which will he will prepared he is prepared to give a project update on the budget. Chad, >> thank you, Paul. So, yeah, quick update, funding update, really. Here's the goals. We talk about this every bi-weekly meeting we have with the public. Uh, these have been the goals stated for many years now with this project. And again, this is the project that's in full construction right now. So, getting to what we really want to talk about tonight. When I was in front of you on April 16th of this year at the contract award, we provided that second row or that second column with our estimated funding sources and I highlighted city bonding, Centennial Lakes, TIFF, and the state bonding request and said we were looking at three million for state bonding or city bonding. And recall at the council retreat, we're at four million. So that number keeps coming down to reduce those debt levy numbers. We brought in utility funds, packs, and electrical. Centennial Lakes at the time was 250,000. We heard from the council you wanted to maximize that as much as possible. And then state bonding requests, we got zero uh this year, similar to last year. So, we got zero on that. So, the budget at the time was 11 million 11.3 million of part of that project was our share of it. So, tonight we wanted to make some adjustments to those numbers. We wanted to request city bonding for 2.25 25 million. Uh maximize the use of the cash balance of the Centennial Lakes TIFF district and bring in 1.5 million. So an increase of 1.25. And then I'm going to note a project increase. So creating a half a million dollar of contingency for the budget and increasing that to approximately 11.8 million for the funding of our side because we've seen some unknowns. And one of the examples is driving steel piles for the abupments for the bridge. They were supposed to go down 55 ft. Some of them, almost all of them were going 100 feet. So that's double the steel we needed and the operations to pay for it. So we would like to create just a half a million dollar contingency to cover some of these things we're finding within the project. So with that, I'll hand it over to Nick and he can explain the bond portion. What am I doing? I'll do this. >> Thank you uh mayor, members of the council. So very similar action to what we talked about the tax abatement. As the project stands right now, a city council in Minnesota cannot authorize debt for a similar type of project unless you go through one of the proceedings uh that is designated within chapter 475 of uh Minnesota statutes, which is to hold a public hearing on the issuance of street reconstruction plan bonds. One of the reasons you don't have to do this for your normal street reconstruction activities locally, is that you go through a an assessment process. Uh the statutes similarly allow for an exemption of this type of uh proceeding if you are already going through and assigning assessments to repay the debt associated with your street reconstruction needs. Um so because there are no assessments tied to this project, the council doesn't have authority unless we go through the proceedings. We held a public hearing on June 17th to consider the issuance of up to $3 million of street reconstruction plan bonds. These would be general obligation bonds to the city repaid from a debt levy uh that would go towards funding the project as Chad mentioned. Um the resolution prepared this evening uh authorizes the issuance of those bonds and opens up a 30-day reverse referendum period or a 30-day period for potential residents. uh if at least 5% of the turnout in the last general election choose to come forward, they can sign a petition to make the matter subject to a citywide referendum. If no one does come forward with a valid petition uh within that 30-day period, then the council is given the authority to choose to issue debt for the project uh that was discussed in the public hearing. So, we already went through that the hearing uh designated up to 3 million in bonds. Um, as the resolution has been amended uh after that public hearing to reflect the amount that Chad just mentioned, reducing the potential bonding to $2.25 million in general obligation bonds to fund the completion of this project. Uh, passage of the resolution will start this 30-day petition period today. Uh, and it would expire on August 14th in 2025. And if there is no valid petition filed within that period, there would be a subsequent council action to anticipate issuing the bonds in coordination with the potential aquatic center project later on this year. So happy to address any questions of the council, but this is just a continuation of the effort and the discussions that we had last month. >> Questions for Mr. Anne Hut? Yes. All right, let's get this work done. Um, so the resolution 202544 asks for the adoption of the city's 5-year street reconstruction plan and authorizing the issuance of the general obligation street reconstruction bonds. Is that motion framed the way you want it framed? >> Yes. >> Okay. So, is there a motion to that effect from council members? >> So, moved. >> Second. >> Member Jackson moves. Member Pier seconds the approval of resolution 2025-44 uh for the adoption of the city's 5-year street reconstruction plan and authorizing the issuance of general obligation street reconstruction bonds. Any further discussion on that matter? All those in favor of approving resolution 2025-44 as stated, say I. >> I. >> I. >> Opposed, carried. >> Motion's approved. >> And we'll now moved on. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Um resolution 2025-59 would accept donations on behalf of the city of Vina. Uh is there a motion to adopt that resolution? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Jackson moves. Member Pierce seconds the adoption of resolution 2025-59 which accepts donations on behalf of the city of Vina for this particular reporting period. Uh any further discussion? All those in favor of adoption of resolution 2025-59 say I. >> I. >> I. Opposed carried. Resolution 2025-59 accepting donations on behalf of the city of Vana is adopted. And a couple of things worth noting in here. all the names of the donors and or or you know individuals or organizations will be put on the website. Uh Susan Bush Naring $3,200 for a memorial bench at the senior center. That was a very generous gift. Uh and then the crime prevention fund. Uh several different donations to the police department for various programs including uh some related to K9. Um other things that uh were deemed a necessity over at the police department. Chief, thanks for providing that information to the crime fund and good that they respond the way they do. And then just a quick note on the aquatic center. There was a $13,000 gift of diving boards from our own Jeff Hugget from the uh Dina Housing Foundation, Jeff Hugget and Diane Linquist. $13,000 for diving board. >> Jeff is an accomplished diver. >> Oh. >> Mhm. >> Huh. Well, I hope he got the kind he wanted put in. All right. The kind he likes. Uh so that's it. We got uh uh some other donors as well that all the folks your generosity is appreciated regardless of the amount. Um so that's done. And um let's see what's next here. Oh, we've got a couple of uh appointments to talk about. One is um the resolution 2025-60 which would support the board reappointment of Larry Olsen to the 9mm Creek wershed district. And I think um council member Jackson, you wanted to talk a little bit about this one. >> Well, I I just wanted to highlight this. I didn't want it on um consent agenda because I'm so proud of the number of Edina citizens who step up and serve on boards um across our region as well as in our city. And Larry has been an outstanding advocate for clean water and and works diligently on our Nine Mile Creek wershed and I'm thank him for for volunteering to do this and I'm proud that he's going to do it the put his name forward to do it again. >> Yeah. All right. Good. Thank you uh for that. And do you want to move the matter? >> I will. >> Member Jackson moves. >> I second. Member Agnes seconds the approval of resolution 2025-60 which supports the reappoint of Larry Olsen to the Nine Mail Creek wershed district board. Any further discussion? All those in favor of adoption of the resolution say I. >> I. >> I. Opposed carried. Um resolution 2025 is -60 is adopted supporting the reappointment of Larry Olsen to the NM Creek Wershed District Board. And then U. Member Jackson, next up is the 2025 student commission appointments. You've worked diligently on this over the years and we look forward to your comments here as well. >> Yes. So this year I was joined by member Pierce and um Yes. And Walter Flores was our administrator. Um once again so impressed with the kids in this town and every single one of the kids we interviewed would have made an outstanding commissioner. So they made the decision very difficult. Um and before I read the names, member Pierce, do you have any comments? >> Uh yeah, I just just briefly um thanks to my colleagues for allowing me the opportunity to uh participate. Um and I agree with member Jackson. um everyone who um interviewed. It's just amazing when you think about the depth of uh thinking a lot of kids are doing about bettering their community. Um and it's just a wonder to it's wonderful to see that. So, thank you. >> And uh we we really do value their voices. So, with that, I would set forward the following student commissioners for Arts and Culture Commission. Alvie Bazar Boua, Julia Peterson for the Community Health Commission, Adita UPal and Aditi Gandhi for the Energy and Environment Commission, Xander Taisho and Genevie Genevie Lassig for the Heritage Preservation Commission, Matthew Wybe and Olivia Duplexus for Parks and Rec Parks and Recreation Commission, Sulleman Sed and Anna Harrington. for the planning commission, Aditi Ja and Leonor just and for the transportation commission, Auggie Lassig and Logan Bracken. >> Right. Member Jackson moves that slate of folks, young people for the uh uh various boards and commissions designated and member Pierce seconds. >> Y >> any further discussion? All those in favor of adopting the slate of student commissioners with a term starting uh September 1, 2025 and ending September 1, 2026 uh as as named by council member Jackson. Say I >> I >> I opposed carried. >> Uh that slate of students uh student members of those boards and commissions is adopted. >> And now we are at manager Neil. >> Thank you, your honor. comments. >> Members of council, I've just got a quick couple of quick updates for you. >> Uh, one, just to, we talked about this earlier tonight, but we'll be ready to give you a a pretty solid um budget forecast and budget presentation at the August 19th meeting. We'll continue to work on the the pool aspects of that to see if we can't coordinate those better, too. Um, one item that was uh tentatively scheduled for tonight that I pushed because I think it's going to generate a a complicated conversation is around the Pamela Park tree gift. So, we do have that pushed to the uh August um 6th council meeting and uh folk both the folks involved in it who are neighbors were both informed of that. So they know that um utility franchise fees. Uh we were getting ready to bring uh the utility franchise fees to you um for I think we were targeting this meeting. Uh but as we were getting ready to put it to bed, uh we got a request from XL Energy to have some input and they shared their input and they shared some data with us uh that caused us to make some some potential amendments to the uh to the ordinances. We do want to share those with you and we have those tenatively scheduled for August 3rd as well. And that's all I've got for you. Thanks. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um, council member want to lead us off on council comments? >> Yeah, absolutely. Um, it's been a minute since we've all been together. Um, in the month of July, we only have the one meeting because we're off for the the 4th of July. Um, and I I usually go to the parade. I missed it this year. Uh, my family went, my husband and my daughters went. Um, but I wasn't sure what the bathroom situation would be like and it was like 95 degrees that day. So, I hope everyone else really enjoyed it. Um, but at 9 months pregnant, I did not want to uh participate in that. Um, but I will be there next year. Um, but between now and the next meeting, I probably will have a baby. So, I will, uh, not be at the August 6th meeting most likely. So, um, some of these decisions that we have in front of us, uh, will not be there for, but I will be back for our big budget discussion. Um, I think that's that's it. Thank you. >> Interesting news. Thank you, Member Pierce. >> Yeah, that's that's impressive. just missing there's still one meeting and bringing a human being into the world. That's awesome. Um, and I have nothing to top that. So, Jackson, >> well, we had the League of Minnesota Cities conference. Lots to talk about, but the one thing I am going to talk two things. One is um speaking of utilities, we had a conversation about right ofway and I know a lot of people with US internet are upset about their um yards being chewed up yet again and they recommended that when we do um utility um franchise agreements that you spend some time talking about how can we coordinate not ripping up people's yards multiple times um with streets and then with um utilities. Sometimes it's unavoidable, but it's that's the time to have the conversation. Um, and then, um, they had an idea to build, uh, community and have a name the snowplow contest, which I love that, and also maybe name the street sweeper, which I'm everybody's excited about as snowplows. So, I want to throw that idea out there just as something fun that I learned. >> Thank you, member. I want to thank um taxpayers for the support for sending me to DUTH and to the conference. Um but I want to close before midnight and I'm super tired and I will give my report on that meeting next um session. >> I'm with you. I was I have I still haven't reported out on the uh US Conference of Mayors meeting June 19th through the 22nd down in Tampa uh because we haven't been together as member Agnu pointed out. Uh but let's hold off on that till the next meeting. That's it for me. Um oh other than to confirm that the Fourth of July parade was just terrific despite the heat. people had a wonderful time and the Adina dash beforehand uh to to to determine uh of the 200 runners who was the fastest kid who was the fastest adult female and who was the fastest adult male and a 30-some guy named Charlie was the fastest adult male. He and a young guy duled it out coming down the finished you know the last block or so. Uh I think he beat a 19-year-old and then the youngest kid um I think his name was Daniel. He was 10. Uh and then the young woman who won the adult woman's race um just moved here from Sydney, Australia, Nenah. And Nina and her husband and her two kids just love Edina. And we're really happy then to win a gold medal on top of it at the Adina Dash. So that's a good report. Uh, a good way to end the meeting, I think, talking about our our three residents, uh, Daniel, Charlie, and and Nina. Uh, anything further? All right. Is there a motion to adjurnn? >> Some moved. >> Second. >> Got a motion by member Agnu, second by member Jackson to adjourn this meeting of the United City Council at 11:59 p.m. on this 15th day of July, 2025. Any discussion? All those in favor of of uh what are we doing? Ajourning. Say I. >> I. >> I. >> I. All those in favor of German say I. I. Opposed. We're adjourned. [Applause]