[0:26] okay everybody ready to go

[0:33] well good evening everyone and welcome to the D city council meeting it is Tuesday January 21st 2025 it is 7:01

[0:40] p.m. and um if you were here in the audience you heard director benot talk

[0:46] about how we're continuing to do meetings in a hybrid sort of form folks may be uh watching or participating in

[0:52] the meeting or planning on participating in the meeting by watching the meeting on cable TV or on

[0:58] youtube.com/ TV and we've got a couple opportunities for people to call in this evening both with

[1:04] respect to public comment and just a reminder if you if you want to address the Council on a matter of concern to

[1:09] you or inquire about a particular matter uh it can't be one uh it can't be an item that's on the agenda this evening

[1:15] or scheduled for a future public hearing and you'll have three minutes um and that's advice to everybody listening

[1:22] online as well and you'll get that yellow warning light when you got 30 seconds left and you should be thinking

[1:27] about wrapping up your comments at that point in time there's also a public hearing matter tonight One Singular

[1:32] public hearing matter and folks can certainly testify uh in that matter that

[1:38] are either here in the chambers or um participating remotely so having

[1:43] provided that information let me call the meeting to order and ask our cler Sharon Allison to call the role council member Agy here council member Jackson

[1:50] here council member Pierce here council member Risser here mayor huin here next is the Pledge of

[1:58] Allegiance Pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it

[2:05] stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for

[2:13] all thanks everyone um we have got a meeting agenda

[2:19] in front of us that's been published uh in advance of the meeting as required and uh is there anyone on the

[2:25] council or from a staff standpoint that wishes to modify the meeting agenda any form or fashion all right is there a

[2:31] motion to approve the meeting agenda as published so moved second member Jackson moves member Pierce second the adoption

[2:37] of the meeting agenda is published uh any further discussion all those in favor of adoption the meeting agenda is

[2:42] published say I I I opposed carried and now we are at Community comment folks so

[2:47] again a reminder uh we we're happy to listen to concerns that you have uh and

[2:54] uh it can't be an item that's on the agenda this evening or scheduled for a future public hearing let's look first

[2:59] into the audience to see if there's anybody with us that wishes to come and testify uh or comment from a public

[3:07] standpoint I know that we've got a couple of folks here uh I think from

[3:13] um Project Earth I think yeah and and uh usually we have people

[3:20] give their first names and last names if you guys don't feel comfortable giving your full name that's that's fine too uh

[3:27] or your home address but I think just let folks know you're from Project Earth and tell us your first names and and

[3:33] then let us know what you're concerned about thank you thank you um good evening mayor and council members my

[3:39] name is Olivia wman Cryder I am a student at udana high school and a co-leader of Project Earth overc

[3:44] consumption is a real issue and unwanted clothing represents 6% of municipal waste even 85% of donated clothes still

[3:52] end up in landfills the reduction of that municipal waste is one sector goal of edina's climate action plan and

[3:59] clothing use is an important part of that so I would encourage everyone to come to the clothing swap hosted by Project Earth at udina high school on

[4:05] February 22nd we believe it will be an excellent opportunity to bring the community together and strive towards

[4:11] Meeting those goals set by the climate action plan especially the diversion of recoverable materials so thank you for

[4:17] all you do supporting the development of Edina into a more sustainable place my name is Alexander I'm a freshman at

[4:23] Adina high school and a member of the environmental Club Project Earth in my 14 and a half years of life I've seen

[4:29] seen Summers get hotter and less and less snowfall seeing the changes that surrounded me I joined Project Earth as

[4:35] soon as I could at Project Earth I learned about the Adina climate action plan I was immediately drawn by the

[4:41] climate health and safety section as someone who suffers from asthma I wanted to see what udina was doing to work with

[4:47] air quality I learned that they wanted to plant more pollinator Gardens and reduce the use of fossil

[4:53] fuels we inv invite all Edina residents to visit Edina Better Together to learn

[4:59] more about the sections of the climate plan and find a section that interests you to learn about the climate plan and

[5:04] a festive atmosphere join Project Earth and many other organizations at the Earth Day Festival

[5:11] in Weber Park in Morningside on April 27th our club also encouraged the Dina School Board to apply for two new

[5:18] electric school buses through the Environmental Protection Agency EPA we are expecting to find out if the grant

[5:24] was approved any day now air quality would improve and youth can breathe clean air not dirty diesel exhaust

[5:32] participating in Project Earth makes me wonder where we will be in 2030 in order for the best future for me and my

[5:38] classmates please take action now thank you mayor and council members yes thank you both for being here and that closing

[5:45] swap maybe we could get that up one more time on the screen and I make sure everybody knows that's uh February

[5:52] 22nd and that's been that's turned into just a tremendous event with a lot of

[5:57] participation so uh thank you for participating in the sponsorship of it

[6:02] and I'm pleased to see that everything's going well at that project Earth at the at the school that there's still how

[6:08] many how many students are in Project Earth now participating um we have

[6:14] probably like 10 or so like regular members who are really committed um but

[6:19] we try to do events and stuff that are more far-reaching throughout the school as well okay good good to know thanks

[6:24] for being here this evening thank you so much thank you

[6:30] anyone else in the audience wishes to uh Express a matter of concern to the council yes sir come on up

[6:36] and give us your name and address thank you mayor uh thank you council members I

[6:41] appreciate uh um giving me the opportunity uh I am the my name is Bobby

[6:47] Cura and I am the um um Outreach coordinator for the Council of Hindu

[6:54] Hindus of North America and uh we want to first of all uh um let you know want to thank uh

[7:03] thank you guys there was an incident at the SV Temple which is in Idina and uh we appreciate uh the police

[7:12] uh that helped us with the uh joint statement uh we just uh want you guys to

[7:18] know that there are Hindus that are part of Minnesota that call ourselves home uh

[7:26] we might have come from different parts of the world um and we we either work

[7:31] here or we worship here and uh we appreciate uh whatever um help we got we

[7:38] just want uh to point out that this is not only our place where our kids go to

[7:45] school are are born you know uh we are not born here most of us but our kids

[7:51] were born and we I don't I don't live in Adina but I worship in Adina um and but

[7:59] my friend does um we just uh want to make sure that extra vigilance is placed

[8:06] uh so that none of that in not none of that incident ever happens again we are a peaceful community we want to make

[8:13] sure that all religions are respected by everyone we respect every religion we respect every um aspect of it and I

[8:21] appreciate your time um anything you guys could do to keep it Vigilant we'll keep an open eye as well I am not being

[8:29] asked by the temple to say anything I just came as a citizen

[8:34] that um and as member of kona and we want to make sure that anything we can

[8:39] do to help as well is a is there so thank you very much I appreciate it and

[8:45] um yeah thank you Mr CIA for coming in that was very uh kind to you to come in and express your your gratitude for some

[8:52] incident that apparently occurred down there thank you sir yeah thank you and um I know I've got uh had an email from

[9:00] uh M ready who was one of the founders of SV Temple who wanted to get together too so I'll I'll try to make sure I get

[9:06] together with him and we appreciate your comments regarding uh uh your religion and other religions as well thank you

[9:12] very much yeah it's a it's a it's a prevalent attitude in our community I think so yes we want to respect

[9:18] everybody and their and their respect and their religions yes okay thank you for being here thank you anyone else in

[9:25] the audience wish to address a council on a matter of concern turn to

[9:32] them good evening very cold evening is warming up that's good um Janie Weston

[9:38] 6136 Brookview Avenue my comment is on the open public comment at the beginning

[9:44] of the meetings please leave it exactly the way it is do not move it to the end

[9:49] of the meeting uh some meetings go past midnight and I've been there how many

[9:55] people can hold out that long or can are able to

[10:01] TimeWise um public comment is just that it is public and

[10:08] often case in point tonight the um high

[10:14] school kids and um the other gentleman

[10:19] here they are giving information and messages not just to you but it's to

[10:25] anyone in the city that cares to watch the meeting whether they're here online

[10:31] watching it live or watching it tomorrow or later this week and there's often

[10:36] very important information that is shared at public comment and it needs to

[10:42] be at the beginning of the meeting please do not mess with this it works

[10:50] well now even though sometimes you get some comments that are

[10:57] antagonistic don't make you feel very good or other people sitting here but

[11:03] that's what democracy is and we need to keep it the way it is thank you thank you m won we're going to address this

[11:10] issue I think on the 5th of February we're trying to get her some more or fourth of February excuse me

[11:16] we're going to try to gather some more information you I should look at the calendar that first Tuesday in uh

[11:22] February um anyone else okay

[11:29] uh let's turn now to the folks that might be listening in and or watching in a different way I don't have any callers

[11:36] at this time okay um our practices that our city manager responds to the

[11:44] inquiries that were made or comments that were made at the prior meeting uh we do that a little bit more um closely

[11:50] in time to the uh meeting that's held uh usually there's something posted on the city website by the end of the that week

[11:57] in which a meeting is held um but you also follow up and let us know at this meeting whether there's

[12:03] anything you needed to comment on manager Neil um Mr Mayor members of council we did not have any questions at

[12:10] the last uh council meeting to respond to okay very good uh Len let's move on to the um uh

[12:19] consent agenda is there anyone on the council that wishes to remove an item from the consent

[12:24] agenda is there a motion to approve the items on the consent agenda so moved a second all right we got a

[12:31] motion a second to approve the items on the consent agenda a single motion uh there's about a dozen of them here to

[12:36] deal with um any further discussion all those in favor of adopting the items on

[12:42] the set forth on the consent agenda and a single motion say I I I oppos carried

[12:47] uh items on the consent agenda are all approved 6.1 through 6.12 um and now we've got a special

[12:55] recognition and presentation it's a it's a here where we haven't had to worry

[13:00] about salt as much as normal but nonetheless uh salt and salt in our

[13:07] natural streams and waterways is something that we're all concerned about and so there is a uh winter salt week

[13:15] that comes this time of the year and uh we've got Jessica

[13:29] with reading the proclamation and then I'll I'll turn to uh Jessica and uh Su

[13:34] Nissen the proclamation reads as follows winter salt week January 27th through the 31st

[13:40] 2025 whereas the city of Edina relies on deicing salt as part of its winter maintenance program to maintain safe and

[13:47] accessible roadways and whereas all of the salt applied to roadways ends up in our fresh

[13:52] water and whereas chloride contamination from deicing salt has been found in lakes streams and groundwater D is n

[13:59] Creek and many ha Creek watersheds and across the state and whereas reducing overuse of deicing salt reduces damage

[14:07] to infrastructure and property protects freshwater resources and reduces harm to aquatic plants and

[14:13] animals and whereas it is crucial to raise awareness among residents businesses and local government agencies

[14:19] about the responsible use of deicing salt to protect both Public Safety and long-term health of our freshwater

[14:25] resources and whereas winter salt week provides an opportunity to educate our community about the responsible use of

[14:32] deicing salt including environmental considerations and effective application methods and whereas the residents of

[14:38] Idan can contribute to deicing salt pollution red reduction efforts by locally by learning about smart smart

[14:45] salting PR practices that's smart salting practices engaged in safe winter driving hiring trained service providers

[14:52] and participating in the low salt no salt Minnesota program and whereas the

[14:58] city is committed to promoting a sustainable approach to Winter maintenance for the benefit of present and future Generations now therefore we

[15:05] the city council of the city of Edina hereby proclaimed January 27th through the 31st 2025 as winter salt week in the

[15:12] city of Edina and urge all residents businesses and City departments to take part in activities and initiatives that

[15:19] promote the responsible use of deicing salt and encourage the adoption of winter maintenance strategies which

[15:25] maintain safety while reducing environmental harm is there a motion you would adopt the proclamation regarding

[15:30] winter salt week so moved second second member Jackson moves member U seconds

[15:35] the adoption of the Proclamation on winter ass salt week designating January 27th through the 31st 2025 as winter ass

[15:43] salt week in the city of viina any further discussion all those in favor of adoption of the Proclamation say I I I

[15:49] opposed carried the proclamation is adopted uh Miss Wilson I'll I'm going to

[15:55] hand this to you and Miss niss and then eager to hear the comments what that you

[16:01] have

[16:48] thank you for recognizing winter salt week a week that brings together organizations and agencies across the

[16:53] country to elevate the conversations around winter salt pollution and reduction Solutions the week features

[16:59] daily live streams from ecologists Public Works staff and policy makers a smart salting for Community leaders

[17:05] workshop on Friday hosted by the Minnesota Pollution Control agency several local action- Day events

[17:11] including chloride water sampling events art exhibitions and workshops and a pause and pavement event on Friday

[17:17] afternoon at Weber Park where pet parents can learn how to evaluate petfriendly deicing packaging claims and

[17:23] reduce overuse of salt to protect people and pets uh lastly the support from City

[17:29] continues Beyond next week through the low salt no salt Minnesota program where people can get customized support for

[17:34] reducing overuse of salt at their property without compromising safety and sunis has a few words as well all right

[17:42] thanks M Wilson mayor council my name is Sue Nissen and my address is 4408 West 58

[17:50] Street um so first I want to thank you last year was the first year of winter

[17:56] salt week and Edina Pro claimed it winter salt week and we were the first city thank you and followed up this year

[18:03] and this event has been so well received Nationwide I mean there's a real need to

[18:10] get the message out and on a personal note I've been a water Steward now for

[18:16] 10 years and salt has been my cause and getting that message out isn't always

[18:22] easy and so the weight of the voice of the city is important that you

[18:29] acknowledge it and I just really personally appreciate this support so I want to thank you for that yeah thank

[18:37] yeah you know and I want to tell you that the value of Minnesota of this salt

[18:42] week is that Minnesota are going to are there we're going to hear firsthand from experts people that know about the

[18:48] growing problem and they know about the solution because my experience is that

[18:54] citizens and I talk to a lot of them um they are shocked to hear that salts

[19:00] don't break down we are used to our pollutants just somehow separating and going away and that isn't what happens

[19:07] with salts and then the next thing they ask me is well what product can we use instead because there's always another

[19:14] product right there is not another product we have the salts that's what we

[19:19] need to use in cases where they are called for we just have got to use less of them and the answer I say is we've

[19:27] got to have different process processes on how to use the salt and then I lose people because they don't understand

[19:33] that and in order to get this change made they've got to have hope that this

[19:39] change can happen and that's part of what winter salt week is going to do I

[19:44] am so excited to have these experts talking about problems and solutions and

[19:50] ways and they're they know they work in operations they work in management they work in design they work in policy they

[19:58] know how these changes can be made and still maintain safety salt and safety

[20:05] are not necessarily like this we've just come to believe that and I just want to

[20:12] call out just Jess Wilson because she's one of our Minnesota policy experts and

[20:19] she's one of the people that is making coming up with ways that policy can reduce salt use there's a lot of other

[20:25] ways besides policy so there is a large large body of work to draw from in

[20:32] minnesotans should take good heart with that that we have options we just need

[20:38] to get on them and get going and to have our community believe that so we can

[20:44] make the changes is really important and I want to say one more shout out to Adina and that's at 50th in France

[20:51] because if you want to see best practices working you go up and shop at

[20:56] 50th in France and walk around the side walks out of the out there and you can see clearly where Adina maintains that

[21:03] area and where other people do and I am sure it's safe up there I have no doubt

[21:09] so anyway we have a pathway to Chloride reduction I hope you'll sign up for some

[21:15] of the seminars and I hope you'll encourage other people you know to sign up um in the end it's a chemical you

[21:23] know and it's going to do what it's going to do I use the spoon you know how many gallons of water this permanently

[21:29] pollutes right thank you okay thank you for your time tonight yeah Miss nson thank you

[21:36] thank you for your uh persistence your diligence on this effort I mean without you and other residents of Edina several

[21:43] years ago now coming to us and saying I think we should be looking at uh uh the the level of use of our deicing salt and

[21:50] we I think we've reduced it Jessica you probably a percentage we're down what 30% of what we used to use uh in deing

[21:58] and uh those efforts are in large part due to these residents that like yourself that um picked up on the need

[22:05] to do this and it's now legislative time I me to the extent we have a legislative session this year um I I suspect you'll

[22:12] be back over there doing some of the work that you do so well so in the advocacy work yeah okay well good luck

[22:19] with that you thank you very much okay and I just wanted to Echo um the

[22:24] effectiveness of the communication campaign I think we talked I'm going to say four years ago yeah and um I still

[22:33] have the water cup and when you told me the size of the

[22:39] driveway I only needed to use one of those no more than you said one of those

[22:45] and I thought well there's no way that's the case and I still have I still use

[22:50] that cup and that year I bought a bag of salt and I I would go through that bag

[22:58] every year and get a new bag or maybe even two bags I'm still using the same

[23:03] bag and it's been three years just using that one little cup so very effective

[23:09] communication campaign I still talk about it to this day so congratulations

[23:14] on definitely making a difference in this space thank you thank you very much yeah thanks member Pierce all right

[23:21] thanks m n y thank you M Wilson all right

[23:26] um we've got one other in this special recognitions and presentations portion of the agenda and that is to give uh

[23:35] have our city engineer uh engineering director Chad Milner give us an update on the Rosland Park pedestrian

[23:41] bridge and so we're uh all the year to have this I think because this is

[23:46] something we've been working on for some period of time and um the council picked out they had three

[23:53] good choices for design and uh oh there got it snow kich was uh

[24:02] instrumental in uh presenting something that resonated with the majority of the council and and now we're going to talk

[24:08] about how we're going to get it done I think a little bit tonight so yeah director Milner thanks mayor members of council we're going to give you an

[24:14] update tonight on the rosin Park pedestrian bridge seems like your Rosland Park theme here for the evening considering what you talked about at the

[24:20] work session so tonight we have our project team we have Ryan Evans here from Bolton and mink engineering Jim

[24:26] marer is are on that team also and then snow cry Lake Architects Matt's here this evening and axel and Brad have

[24:33] also been helping out with that team as we work through this very interesting project um I want to make a note that

[24:39] all the graphics and layouts are draft at this point so you're going to see some stuff they may change so don't hold

[24:45] us to anything you see on the graphics here this evening take a step back in 23 and 24 we

[24:51] were in front of the residents and in front of you many many times um getting to that point where June of last year

[24:58] year we hired the architect and since that time the architect and engineer has been working on this project uh to

[25:05] replace that pedestrian brid you see in the bottom right hand corner that's been hit twice in 22 was repaired functions

[25:11] but it only has steps and we can do a much better job there of of having a nice iconic Bridge there on that

[25:19] location so we'll hand it over to Matt now to discuss a little bit of the layouts and some of the architectural

[25:24] features of the structure itself thanks Chad uh so I'm just going to walk through

[25:30] really briefly where we're at with can we reintroduce yourself to yes sorry Matthew kryx no krylic Architects thank

[25:36] you uh so what we're looking at right now is the plan uh to the South uh or

[25:42] bottom of your sheet is Roslin Park and that is where uh we have the ramp that

[25:47] really comes into a a landing uh and drops off yeah where the Red Dot is

[25:54] Thanks Jen uh and then on the residential side uh the high part of that ramp is adjacent to the freeway so

[26:01] that you're further up from the traffic and then as you move down um the dash line is representative of the future um

[26:07] sound wall that will be in place so we are trying to coordinate with um that Future Sound wall as

[26:13] well so uh this is looking uh eastbound on Highway 62 uh as we had talked before

[26:22] um there's been a lot of resolution I think there's still this sort of General character that we presented when we were um pursuing the project the competition

[26:29] uh the entire bridge is clad in a in a wood product and I'll talk a little bit more about that momentarily uh these are

[26:35] wood slats that are attached to a steel truss bridge and so really trying to

[26:41] create a very sort of simple iconic moment as you're moving um from one side to the other and then we have a view

[26:47] looking um back um this is where you can see as I was describing on the neighborhood side

[26:53] um where the bridge is up higher we're using that wood screening again adjacent to the highway it then returns down uh

[27:00] on the slope adjacent to the sound wall as you enter Rosen parked this is

[27:06] what there's these small models here um we can leave behind as well uh if you'd like but this is a moment where there's

[27:13] an Overlook that happens over Rosland it's sort of a just a moment to stop there's a what we're looking at is a

[27:19] built-in bench that would occur there as well just really a moment of pause there's really a pretty spectacular view

[27:24] uh at that location and you'll see um there are uh later in the presentation we are exploring two options for stairs

[27:31] which uh will come up this location is where one of those would occur this particular rendering is not showing the

[27:37] stair in it and so this is looking at that uh same um location uh yeah where

[27:44] the Red Dot is that's where that Overlook was and then you're coming down and eventually this touches grade and

[27:50] just becomes um an on-site sidewalk essentially that's ramping up to the

[27:56] bridge um the products are pretty straightforward I think the the structure itself is a relatively typical

[28:02] steel structure but we are playing with the shape of that it's caned it's curved so um there's things that are a little

[28:09] different from what you're used to seeing on a sort of standard uh mot bridge but then we are using this

[28:15] product which is a thermally modified wood so it's taking Ash other um Woods

[28:21] that generally uh don't have that sort of stability that a cedar would have and by thermally modifying it you get you

[28:28] know sometimes a 30 40y year life on these that uh really stand the test of time they weather over time so

[28:35] ultimately what you're seeing to the far left is where this weathered wood will

[28:40] um eventually get to and you know within about a year or two it'll get to that and then there's really no maintenance

[28:46] required um after that unless you wanted to maintain that natural wood but I think we really love the way in which

[28:53] this weathers to this um almost like a silver uh tone and then you still get

[28:59] the textural quality of the wood that comes through and then using a really simple steel mesh that is for safety

[29:05] reasons obviously uh in the areas that that's required I'm uh I'm Ryan Evans with

[29:12] boltman mink the bridge engineer on the project a little different take than the architect here but uh I just want to

[29:18] give a brief overview of some of the more challenging elements Brian would you give us your full name too please

[29:23] Ryan Evans yeah thanks for the record uh want to give a brief overview of some of the more challenging elements

[29:30] associated with uh creating this aesthetic we're going for here um a big element is the outward can uh and the

[29:37] vshape of the railings our railing needs to provide fall protection for people it needs to

[29:43] screen objects from dropping down onto the highway and in this case it also needs to serve as an attachment for our

[29:50] arborwood elements all this all this has to come together in a way that can be readily

[29:56] fabricated uh assembled and maintained as cost effectively as possible and needs to be configured in a way that

[30:02] doesn't pose a threat to traffic during uh routine degradation or even

[30:07] maintenance in the future when you're going to maintain these products that they don't fall into the traveled way um

[30:13] since we're over Highway 62 mot is going to have heavy involvement and ultimately we'll have to review and approve of our

[30:20] Concepts here the trust segment which is what's shown on the left here over the over the highway will also have

[30:27] significant atypical loads associated with it due to this outward can of the trust members

[30:33] there as well as challenging um fabrication elements and delivery and

[30:39] and shipping to the site um all all at least above and beyond what a normal pedestrian trust Bridge would

[30:46] have um these various items uh make accurate cost estimating upfront very

[30:52] challenging and engaging with a trust fabricator and contractors during the design phase will help

[30:59] UM Vet the fabricate fabricability of these Concepts as well as provide cost

[31:04] reduction strategies and help value engineer and and make some critical decisions in the early in the design

[31:10] phase such that we can make sure we're staying within budget but ultimately getting this very unique uh awesome

[31:17] looking Bridge added to the metro area so I'll step back and just give you a few other points so on these

[31:24] renderings we want to make sure the user experience is being accounted for and

[31:29] meets legal requirements for railing Heights for railing strength like Ryan mentioned um mindat has a spacing the

[31:36] 4x4 in openings over the highway we got to account for all that stuff on this graphic on the left you can see that

[31:42] future noise wall we're thinking about how that ties into that residential area again some views from the users there's

[31:48] that Lookout in the bottom corner where people are taking pictures and how is that going to interact how can you see through that mesh and that Arbor wood

[31:55] and what's the spacing and the size of that wood and how is it connected are a lot of things that we're trying to answer right now we did make a change to

[32:02] push the ramp on the North side closer to the noise wall so you didn't experience traffic when you're down next

[32:08] to Highway 62 so here you saw the two different things that we looked at we've been looking at different alignments

[32:13] different scenarios of spacings and all those kind of things here's what Matt me me mentioned earlier the lookout there

[32:20] on the Le hand side just with the ramp without stairs and then on the right hand side there is the stairs so we're

[32:27] looking at possibility of stairs because we heard that from the public where they wanted us to consider and we're doing it

[32:32] on this side on the rosin Park and on the residential side I'm concerned that there's going to be some budget

[32:37] challenges here and the stairs may or may not fit within the budgets and we got to figure out which elements we want to keep so just make a note that we're

[32:44] studying that and trying to figure out exactly what those costs could be and again some renderings these are great

[32:49] renderings of with and without those stairs so on the left hand side is that Lookout over the park facing south then

[32:55] you have that stair feature there which really adds a lot to it but what's the cost to have that feature as part of the

[33:02] project where are we we're here tonight give you another update we want to hire a bridge fabricator so that's what Ryan

[33:08] had mentioned with the can of the steel trust it's it's a unique feature that we just have a hard time estimating and how

[33:13] do all those connection points uh work to get the arbor word connected so we're going to go out and do get bids for a

[33:21] fabricator to bring them online to help us estimate and finish the plans and they would get the contract to supply

[33:27] that steel trust Bridge however we finish that design at that time so that we think that's the next step versus

[33:33] trying to design and spec out everything to 100% And then we got to do change orders with a fabricator so this is the

[33:39] rough schedule of hiring that fabricator will'll be coming back to you probably in March late February then all the

[33:45] different percent plans that we have to go in front of MOT they haven't seen it yet that's really the next steps here once we get a fabricator online to see

[33:52] how we do that still want to open bids early 2026 and build it in 202 six we

[33:58] have a $6 million budget and we're trying to stay within that budget uh with all the renderings you saw and all

[34:03] the features that we've shared here's again that view from the south Lookout and any one of us would be

[34:10] happy to answer any questions that you may have at this point that's an extraordinary uh

[34:15] elevation there it's really um tells me that we headed in a

[34:20] really nice direction to have uh to be able to not just deal with function but form as well was really important and we

[34:27] had the we're ended up with something really special so thanks to your architectual firm for the good work they did member Jackson yes thank you Mr

[34:34] Mayor so you said at 30% you'll start talking to mindat is it worthwhile

[34:39] having an informal conversation just so that they know this is happening and they can send up any red flags before we

[34:46] spend any money on it they know it's coming they know there's a bridge coming they know that we want to install a bridge a new bridge and they know

[34:53] there's uh architectural differences with this one compared to some other bridges in the Metro that next step is

[34:58] really with the mindat bridge structural guys they want to know how it's placed how it's built how those pieces are

[35:04] going to be attached so it's really the structural piece that we review with mind to get that final approval and will

[35:09] that be at that 30% y okay they need more detail than what we got right now okay terrific thank you thank you member

[35:14] Pierce uh thanks Mr Mayor just curious um I I definitely like the design and I

[35:21] actually love the stairs too uh but you talked about challenges there um can you

[35:28] give like a some relative idea of the cost increase to do those uh I don't

[35:36] think we know yet because the interesting piece is the caned right here this 10 degree can is

[35:43] really the a little bit of an unknown for a steel trust Bridge it's not a common thing that you see in in steel

[35:51] trusts so it's really hard to estimate the actual cost of this okay to to take

[35:56] the next step and then estimate the cost of the stair so that's why we need to get that fabricator on board okay and

[36:01] see what that premium is to go from a 90° to a 10° can in the structure so

[36:07] there's an option of maybe we would rather have stairs versus the can but then we' work with mat team to make sure

[36:14] it still meets that architectural look that you've seen in the graphic so it's it's those trade-offs and we're not quite there and able to estimate it okay

[36:22] thank you any estimate on the time taken uh needed for construction

[36:28] um when they start in 2026 you said they'll be done in 2026 but correct yeah I mean it's I think it's three months

[36:35] three four months in that range we want them in and out but it has to happen during the summer and and lead time for

[36:41] the fabrication of the steel trust too will be a a big element but that can usually start early especially if we get

[36:47] a fabricator on board early right we might pre-order that bridge once we know Mr KCK is that um that mesh is that a

[36:54] looks like like a stainless steel mesh or it's it's a stainless steel mesh so it's it's really transparent um we've

[37:00] used this on guard rails a lot because it allows for you know it hits all of the code requirements but it's also

[37:06] stainless steel so not that we need to worry about are the salt folks still here we don't have to worry about that

[37:12] in this city which is great um but it will help ni aesthetic effect to it over a freeway yeah I think that's that's

[37:18] what we like about it because um you know it's I mean it's beautiful up close but it's also um uh it will allow those

[37:26] wood slots to be seen kind of from both sides and not necessarily compete with it very good remember sir um regarding

[37:34] the wood slats uh if I heard you correctly they will last for about 40 years and then need to be replaced no

[37:41] they don't need to be replaced so I'll let me maybe restate that a little bit so the process we've used this um we

[37:48] used this out at the treetop Trail um on all of the benches and different areas um we just um finished if if you

[37:55] actually want to see this up close Graco Park which is on the Mississippi River

[38:00] um there's a park structure there that is completely clad in this product and it's actually the same sort of color

[38:06] palette um that you can see so this um I can't get into the science of it but

[38:12] basically I think you know they're essentially like baking the wood right so it's thermally being modified so the

[38:18] actual structure of the wood itself is changing so it's getting rid of all that moisture and it also doesn't accept

[38:23] moisture so unlike a sort of untreated wood that over time would um rot because

[38:29] moisture is being brought in and out this just naturally or unnaturally resists it um through that process so

[38:37] how long will it last before it needs to be replaced the so it's possible that you

[38:45] might need to replace like a slat or two but there's this will have close to the

[38:50] longevity of the bridge itself right it really you really shouldn't have to replace the wood unless there was damage

[38:56] to it it should be the same length of time as if we were using metal the same as

[39:01] concrete or metal that would be different but there would be if if we were to use metal right if there was a

[39:07] painted metal there's going to be maintenance on that over time this because it's natural wood and we're letting it go to that Natural State you

[39:13] know it will show like all wood over time it it's sort of a patina if you will but um it won't wouldn't be like a

[39:21] painted aluminum or a painted steel that would have to be repainted over time or a stained wood that would have to be

[39:27] Stained it's um it can be left alone there was other options where it could be stained and we didn't want to have to

[39:33] do that over and over again so this was the one that had the longest life lifespan and we want to ensure that we

[39:38] can have access when we need to do some aidance to it but we want a product that last a long time thank you council

[39:45] member U thank you Mr Mayor some of the visuals made it kind of hard to tell but

[39:51] how seethrough will it be and I'm thinking of a couple of situations right

[39:58] um like seeing the highway underneath but also if you're going up one side and

[40:03] you have your one kid and the stroller and the other one that likes to run ahead are you able to keep that line of

[40:09] sight for safety purposes no it's it's a great question um I'm just looking at these wood slots behind you trying to

[40:15] see if I can explain it through those but it it won't quite work um definitely as you moving I mean it's it's what

[40:22] makes this really Dynamic right as you move around um and are looking at the the woods depending on sort of your

[40:28] location to those slats it will become a more opaque but it's you know as you're

[40:34] moving through it yeah I mean these are actually pretty good where you can still see it's it's generally transparent I

[40:40] think we have a 4 in spacing is where we're at with the wood itself right now 8 in8 inch eight inches so um It's

[40:47] relatively transparent I mean there there's moments obviously As you move sort of further away and if you're at a

[40:52] sort of acute angle to it it'll it'll appear more opaque um but generally for

[40:58] the concerns that you're bringing up you're going to be able to see around wonderful thank you good thank

[41:05] you gentlemen yeah thanks thanks for the update thanks all right we've got

[41:12] um one public hearing matter this evening we're moving on now from the U

[41:18] uh the um portion of the agenda that we've been in with special presentations

[41:25] and now we're on the public hearings we got I mentioned one matter there and that is the um resolution 20 25-11 which

[41:33] is a potential approval of the preliminary and final platin resolution 2025109910

[41:58] familiar with as back last November November 6 the city council passed a

[42:04] resolution resolution 20 24- 90 that

[42:09] approved the acquisition of one of the parcels that were're looking at this evening and also placed a conservation

[42:16] easement over that site that's good for 99 years that resolution also bypassed

[42:22] the statutory requirement for Planning Commission review on the acquisition and

[42:28] disposal of property that resolution has been included in your packet also that

[42:34] same night on November 6th the council passed resolution

[42:57] the action this evening is just for the subdivision those other decisions had already been made so it's just the

[43:03] replat of the properties so here's a look at the site it's up in the Northwest Quadrant of the

[43:11] city just south of Mir Lake it's zoned R1 single dwelling unit

[43:17] district there's a look at the three sites involved note that the one site 5235 is

[43:24] a vacant lot the home at 6012 is located right along the lot

[43:31] line here's a look at an aerial you can see the site is vacant and heavily

[43:38] wooded here's a look at uh the site from the street from Highwood from

[43:45] Highwood also want to point out that there's some steep slopes with this site

[43:50] you can see the Contours through this area here that have made this site uh difficult to develop over time

[43:57] it had been held in common ownership with the property to the west but has recently been

[44:03] sold so again here's a look at the existing lots and the proposal here is to

[44:10] essentially shift lot lines so from the original lot the lot to the West would

[44:18] receive this area here that steep slope area the lot to the South would obtain

[44:26] this area here and the easement that we're asking to be vacated this evening is in the uh hash

[44:34] line here it's our standard drainage and utility easement located along lot lines

[44:39] there's no utilities within that within that easement new uh new easements would be

[44:46] established along the new lot lines so here's a look at the resulting replat of

[44:53] these three lots the two lots are getting larger and the The Outlaw that the city is obtaining uh is reduced

[45:00] inside in size and becomes unbuildable so again the purpose of that request uh

[45:05] was to establish that conservation easement over the outlot it can't be used for Park purposes Trails structures

[45:13] can't be built that this is all language within the existing easement um and then also to vacate that

[45:19] utility easement to and establish the new ones with the replat the Planning Commission reviewed the plat and did

[45:26] recommend and approval of the replat so the the ask this evening is that you

[45:32] adopt resolution 2025 vacating that easement and adopt resolution

[45:38] 20251 which establishes the replat with and the uh property owner the applicant

[45:44] is here to answer any questions and staff can answer questions as well I think this was something that you

[45:50] discussed with us before that that this would be the next step for us would be based on what you described before what

[45:57] the replatting would involve so two issues to address then right the approved replatting and then the

[46:03] vacation of the utility easement that's all that's in front of us this evening that's correct okay questions for director Teague member Risser um it's

[46:12] been really challenging following this and I did listen to the Planning

[46:17] Commission um and one of the things that they noted or they asked is why did this

[46:24] go before Council before it it came to us and the response they got was because

[46:32] the applicant wanted assurances that it would be approved could you elaborate on

[46:38] how often we take this route and the

[46:44] legitimacy of it yeah this is definitely a unique circumstance we talked a little bit uh in November and in April when it

[46:51] was first discussed about somewhat similar situation where the city purchased an outlaw and established an

[46:58] easement over it U but in this case um before officially shifting those lot

[47:06] lines the applicant wanted some assurances as to whether this idea was acceptable by the city council so those

[47:12] decisions were made um the assessment agreements the establishment of the easement this last step is just the

[47:20] shifting of the lot lines this is definitely a unique a unique circumstance okay personally and and I

[47:26] went back and listened to that meeting um I also listened to the meeting that

[47:32] happened back in April where the idea was first um pitched to us so it came to

[47:37] council two times um before it went to the Planning Commission and this is a

[47:42] land use issue and I'm kicking myself because I know it was a subdivision I

[47:48] knew that in April I had a lot going on I had surgery the next day and I should

[47:54] have said wait a minute we're asking for a subdivision this needs to go before planning before it comes to us and so we

[48:02] as a body did not have the um feedback from the Planning Commission before we

[48:09] were asked to make a decision about it and um and so we and we as a body did

[48:16] not get to hear from the public um there was no public hearing about it and so I

[48:24] think had I known and should have known I've served on the Planning Commission I

[48:30] should have realized that this was not the way to go that it had to go before planning before it came to us and I

[48:36] didn't catch that and I wish I did because if I had caught that I would

[48:42] have said something I don't know if it would have changed the vote but I have a lot of concerns about this development

[48:48] including the cost um including the way

[48:54] um the expenses being divided up with the neighbors um and none of that was

[49:02] something and and the other thing too is this whole idea that they wanted assurances that it would be approved how

[49:08] frequently do we offer this Pathway to

[49:14] developers that they can bypass planning go to city council get a read and and I

[49:20] I feel like our feedback was not informed so I you know this is really

[49:26] concerning to me I think there was an understanding

[49:32] that that the lot lines needed to be shifted um in order to accommodate that

[49:38] with part of the property going to the west and part of it to the South true but this whole idea this

[49:45] bundle of ideas to create a conservation easement we don't have a conservation easement program um to do it on a site

[49:53] that is. 21 acres in size when um and one commissioner noted the size

[50:01] of the smallest conservation easements that he could find were 8 Acres um we

[50:06] don't have any standards in place and if this is going to sort of set the um bar

[50:12] for how we're going to do conservation easements we're talking about over $600,000 an acre for the city to

[50:19] purchase land to create a conservation easement and and then there were concerns at the Planning Commission that

[50:26] the public was n going to have access to this space so it wasn't really necessarily a public benefit um and I'm

[50:33] I'm sitting here thinking about our budget all the time that's gone into it this is the fourth meeting for this

[50:41] particular um proposal and um you know terms that were

[50:48] used one person said this seemed like a pet project another person wondered why it was advancing and um if we're going

[50:56] to open this up to this site this is not

[51:01] the only wooded site on residential property um where someone might want to

[51:06] get $150,000 from the city um and I I feel

[51:11] like there's so much going on here we're setting precedent that was a concern at the Planning Commission um and so I just

[51:20] the way we're doing things is very concerning to me and I want to say that

[51:25] and I'll I'll stop there and let um other people ask

[51:31] questions yeah I think it's necessary based on the comments you made um is

[51:36] there a cost to the city for this the city would purchase the outlaw

[51:42] a is shown on the screen for $150,000 per the assessment agreement

[51:47] that the council approved back in November the city would be reimbursed plus interest yeah so the the at the end

[51:54] of the day there's no net there's no net cost to the city correct we we're if we look at the big picture of this thing

[52:00] what we had was several neighbors that came that wanted to preserve a piece of property in their neighborhood in a natural state we willing to buy it and

[52:08] pay for it and the methodology we used was something that we had done once before in the 20 years I've been

[52:14] involved so it is indeed a unique circumstance but it it's it's the

[52:19] neighbors that are paying for this that's correct to keep that in a natural state with a conservation easement for

[52:25] the benefit of the the community overall and there's no cost to the city that's right and the city then owns that

[52:33] site and the city owns the site yeah and they're paying for it correct

[52:39] right and we've already approved all that correct all we're doing tonight is doing the replatting and vacating that

[52:46] utility ement that runs along the new property line that's correct right others have comments or

[52:55] questions uh um this is a public hearing matter um I think we've got one of the

[53:02] uh neighbors available for comment or questions if necessary uh because this is a public

[53:08] hearing matter I'm going to now open it up for potential public testimony uh you'll have three minutes to testify

[53:14] regarding this matter if you wish to testify

[53:33] Jim GRS 5513 Parkplace I wish to call to your

[53:38] attention chapter 429 of Minnesota statutes on special assessments and the

[53:44] Minnesota League of City special assessment toolkit I quote from the toolkit special assessments are a charge

[53:51] imposed on properties for a particular Improvement that benefits the owners of

[53:56] the selected properties they are to quote again they are a levy a city uses

[54:02] to finance or partially finance a particular public Improvement

[54:07] program there is a special benefit test that must be followed according to leag of cities in the case of this property

[54:15] there is no improvement that will be constructed as part of this

[54:21] financing this appears to be a case where the property owner seeks low interest financing the city might

[54:27] provide the financing would pay for land acquisition and not for improvements please show me in statute

[54:33] where this is allowed this should not proceed it appears the requirements of the law for

[54:39] special assessments do not fit the request before you

[54:45] tonight per Minnesota data Practices Act please provide me a copy of the written

[54:52] legal opinion on which you are lying relying for this to proceed thank you thank you

[55:00] Mr GRS anyone else in the audience wish to

[55:12] testify Lori grz 5513 Park Place I wanted to give my opinion on this

[55:18] project tonight because I've never had the opportunity to give an opinion to

[55:23] the Council on this back in I think it was in April last

[55:29] year when this was first proposed member Jackson said oh it's an

[55:34] oak Savannah this is beautiful it's a great opportunity for the city and I

[55:40] thought to myself okay you better go take a look at this to see what the great opportunity is for the benefit of

[55:47] the city so I dragged my husband with me and went over there and took a look I

[55:53] saw a bunch of dead trees laying on a piece of land with other trees in there

[56:01] a lot of scrub a lot of brush I'm guessing probably what it was used for

[56:07] Neighbors let their dogs run in there so my first thought was you know I don't

[56:12] see this as a benefit but it does remind me of another property that I saw one

[56:18] time 59 Knob Hill next door to the mayor's

[56:25] house there was a piece of property there about the same size it was a

[56:31] little larger but the back end of it of the property was in the pond and so it

[56:38] was about the same size scrubby trees really steep slope on it public is going

[56:46] to think it's not buildable and it sat unbuildable for years but then a

[56:53] developer came in bought it for 2 $50,000 built a big house on it this

[57:01] year in property taxes they paid over $222,000 next year they'll be paying on

[57:08] an assessed value of 1.7 million what's the benefit to the public

[57:15] on this property I don't see any benefit we should let somebody try to

[57:22] build on that if they want to the homeowner in the back has already purchased it for

[57:28] $300,000 he wants more property for the back of his yard a neighbor on the other

[57:34] side wants a piece of it so what's left over oh let's have the city buy it and

[57:42] we'll call it a benefit and then we'll get low interest rate and we'll pay them back sounds like

[57:50] a good deal for those Property Owners yes for taxpayers

[57:56] no there isn't going to be anything in there that the taxpayers can use there's not going to be benches or anything so I

[58:04] kept thinking there's no benefit to the public and I see the benefit to the

[58:10] homeowners there and you know it's a three he paid 300,000 for the lot so if

[58:17] he hadn't bought it somebody else might have bought it for 300 so then what kind

[58:23] of a house would they build perhaps the neighbors didn't want to have a house in

[58:28] there that might have you wrap up your comments you're overtime okay okay well

[58:33] I think that the process has been Rong and there's no benefit to the public and

[58:38] if you honor this people are not going to be happy thank

[58:48] you H um Andrew Carter 6012 Pine Grove Road I'm the owner of the property

[58:54] question and just I guess level said everybody you know the previous owner of the house

[59:01] to the northwest of myself um now owned by the benets also owned the empty lot

[59:06] um and when you know her goal for owning that empty lot for nearly 40 years was to keep it a green space so when she

[59:12] passed away um roughly four and a half years ago maybe three and a half years ago um the neighborhood aligned and said

[59:20] hey we want to represent this woman and try to keep this space green and and I I

[59:27] was the one that ended up purchasing a lot while it was for sale for about 9 months all of the neighbors tried to

[59:33] think of a way to kind of purchase it together and then split it and share it um and we couldn't figure out a great

[59:40] way to do it so we did use um the Oak Lane kind of process as a template I'll

[59:46] agree with with council member rer a bit here where the building commission last

[59:51] week what came out of that was you know maybe we need to just have a process process a better process for something

[59:57] like that so I do agree with that this process has been very long like you all know um but really we're we're trying to

[1:00:04] preserve Green Space and in a first string suburb there's not a home run okay there isn't an 8 acre tract that is

[1:00:11] an opportunity we're not in Lakeville or Farmington where we have you know a 40 acre plot that we can turn green we've got to hit singles as a community right

[1:00:18] we've got to do bits and pieces and by the way you know the neighbors that are part of this we are the public so you

[1:00:25] know directly yes the land is there can that land move no can the wildlife within that land move yes Hawks Eagles

[1:00:31] owls deer raccoons coyote or two um they roam everywhere turkeys so the natural

[1:00:40] space does benefit everybody and I don't I I think not wanting more green space

[1:00:46] and going you know wishing something against the climate action PL to me just doesn't make sense um so again the goal

[1:00:53] is to keep it green space like uh U director Teague mentioned my current

[1:01:00] property is 5T from the property line that's not to code anymore um so I'd

[1:01:05] like to bump that out just to get it within code I think that's a smart thing to do same with Mr Bennetts on the

[1:01:11] vacant lot there is a fence there's a retaining wall that pre C built by bumping that out now that's in code and

[1:01:18] then what's left right is unbuildable so can it be an address anymore I don't think so so this was kind of one of the

[1:01:24] solutions is how do we keep it green how do we keep the city from you know you're not buying it you're financing it we're

[1:01:31] gifting you this land um to keep it green really for you know a long long

[1:01:36] time so that's kind of level set everybody that's where we're we're

[1:01:41] coming from to emphasize that last point I understand that the neighbors are paying for the property and donating

[1:01:48] donating it to the city correct all right thank you Mr Carter thank you

[1:02:03] hello again well swap microphones um Janie Weston 6136 Brookview um I was

[1:02:09] here at that November meeting when this was on the agenda before and kind had

[1:02:16] this is off it felt very off to me um the resulting size of this outlot

[1:02:24] a which is what the city would have as a conservation easement would be

[1:02:31] 9,453 square ft less than half 48% of its original size after it split into

[1:02:39] three parts with two of the parts essentially absorbed by the neighboring owners and I can understand why the

[1:02:46] neighboring owners are interested in um expanding on their property they have

[1:02:51] good reasons for it but hanpen county has a conservation easement program and

[1:02:57] I know this because I looked into what this is regarding my father's minaka

[1:03:03] home property two years ago his property was

[1:03:09] 58.2% larger than 5235 West Highwood

[1:03:15] Drive the lot or the idea at that time was to split off roughly half of its

[1:03:27] uh to about half to uh

[1:03:32] 16,9 75 Square ft so 0.39

[1:03:39] Acres um and it would become a hopen County Conservation easement piece of

[1:03:46] land in perpetuity the same idea this was to assure preservation of the trees

[1:03:54] wildlife in general before he moved out of his house he was a hundred years old

[1:04:00] the discussion did not go very far with the person from the county because I quickly learned that the required

[1:04:06] minimum size for a conservation easement is much larger it's acres of land a

[1:04:14] fraction of an acre just plain didn't qualify that was end of discussion The

[1:04:20] Outlaw a property size for 5235 West Highwood after splitting it is

[1:04:28] 9,453 square ft that is only 0.217 Acres obviously henpen County

[1:04:36] would never accept it as a conservation easement due to its very small size why

[1:04:42] in the world is this okay for a Dina to take on with that status it doesn't make

[1:04:49] sense I don't agree with the city taking it on to be responsible for the

[1:04:55] inevitable Buckthorn that would end up propagating in there uh the city's

[1:05:01] having enough difficulty keeping up with what's even in our parks and spending a

[1:05:06] lot of money on that now um and also removing any other

[1:05:11] invasive species that become problematic which will happen if it is

[1:05:17] not allowed for the neighbors to use it or help manage it in cahoots with the

[1:05:24] city so um it also doesn't provide any tax revenue when the city owns it right now

[1:05:32] we've had a lot of screaming about how everyone's taxes are going up um the process has

[1:05:39] flawed and you're over your three minutes I guess member Jackson has reminded me okay yeah you want to wrap

[1:05:45] up your comments please um the equivalent size of this outlaw piece of

[1:05:51] property is the same size within three

[1:05:56] feet of a 70 foot by 135 foot lot that is

[1:06:05] buildable that a a decent house can be put on something like that yeah thank

[1:06:10] you thank you you go over quite a bit it's off yeah thank

[1:06:16] you anybody else all right let's check see if we

[1:06:22] have anybody online that wants to testify I do not have any

[1:06:28] callers okay um anybody else in the

[1:06:33] audience all right is there a motion to close the public Hearing in this matter sove second member agno moves and member

[1:06:41] Jackson seconds the closing of the public Hearing in this matter any further discussion with regard to that particular motion all those in favor of

[1:06:47] closing the public hearing say I I I opposed carried the public Hearing in

[1:06:53] this matter is closed couple of questions came up that I wrote

[1:06:59] down uh one was uh I think asked the question really how were how were we

[1:07:05] able to use a special assessment methodology with respect to this particular uh

[1:07:11] property I don't know if that's a attorney Kendall question or um staff

[1:07:19] question oh mayor I can answer that excuse me um apparently the neighbors

[1:07:25] felt there was benefit to their properties because they agreed to the special assessments and wave any challenge to the special benefit test so

[1:07:32] they must have felt that there was special benefit to their properties and they've agreed to pay those assessments

[1:07:37] accordingly right and then with respect to the city does a city require a

[1:07:43] minimum lot size for use of a conservation

[1:07:48] easement no I I'm not sure if that question is for me but I'm not aware of any um ordinance or other that requires

[1:07:56] a minimum lot size for the city I'm not familiar with the henen County's program but the city does not have a similar

[1:08:02] requirement and we're under our rules not henen County rules is that correct correct they're under our ordinance

[1:08:08] that's correct and it becomes a non-conforming lot and that's the reason that we put it in The Outlaw status that

[1:08:13] it's not buildable right as part of the sub and to that issue I would say that um having

[1:08:20] been out there on the site I think well they did have it listed for a while the trustee had it listed that of the

[1:08:26] executor and they did you did have one potential buyer uh but then when he put

[1:08:31] the lot on put the house uh brought you the site plan with the house configured on the on the lot he he didn't meet any

[1:08:38] requirements as I recall right there would have been a number of variances required and then the cutting into the

[1:08:44] steep slopes was an issue as well member Jackson you may have some other things that you want to address here I've got a

[1:08:51] couple more but no please go ahead well I guess I was thinking with hopen County you know there were 1.3 million people

[1:08:57] in henpen county and the administration of every estate wanting to donate some

[1:09:03] land I think would be unwieldy in a hurry this we're a much smaller unit than the county is and I think that has

[1:09:10] more to do with the administration of a conservation easement than it does to do with any sort of legal requirements they

[1:09:17] just would probably get lots of requests for little itty bitty pieces of land and

[1:09:23] that would be prohibitively expensive for the county what I was going to point out was too I think I've been involved

[1:09:29] in matters on the council where we've done conservation easements along some of the lakes that are maybe 25 50 ft

[1:09:36] wide that run the the width of a lot and so it's just a very narrow strip that becomes a conservation

[1:09:42] easement and here we've got a 0. 21 uh Acres piece of property that's and and

[1:09:49] um this Wester may be writing her per square footage calculations I don't know but regardless I think it's 2 One Acres

[1:09:56] um anyone here to member rer go ahead you comment um just to follow up on uh

[1:10:05] the idea that the residents have waved all applicable assessment procedural

[1:10:10] requirements that the state has I didn't realize that residents could just say I

[1:10:17] wave these requirements and they could go away because if the state requires them I would think you know you couldn't

[1:10:24] necessarily do that especially when it comes to special assessment because that would be a workaround so that you could

[1:10:30] obtain a financing mechanism um so I I guess I find that a

[1:10:36] little puzzling but then I'm not an attorney so did you have a com another comment

[1:10:43] member Jackson well I guess the the right goes to the people who are being asked to pay the money so if they are

[1:10:49] not going to sue to challenge it then nobody has standing to challenge it so

[1:10:55] um that's that's how that works so it it really is people who are paying the assessment are the ones protected by the

[1:11:00] law so they said we like this this is a public benefit so there's nobody to sue

[1:11:07] because they're the ones who are being protected I I want to go back member rer

[1:11:12] go ahead U but with special assessments yes it's the people who are being assessed but it's open to the public as

[1:11:19] a whole and so I don't think it's necessarily just limited to

[1:11:26] those who are being assessed you might have other people who would want to weigh in on this um particularly as we

[1:11:34] don't have a conservation easement program I could imagine that there might be residents in Idina who might want to

[1:11:40] say hey maybe we shouldn't be doing this director te I want to go back to

[1:11:46] this issue that member Risser raised early on was that why didn't just go to the planning or why didn't have to go to planning and and the way the the way the

[1:11:54] assertion was made was that that it was that people wanted to come here first because they thought they'd get the deal

[1:12:00] done here but that wasn't really what happened they wanted to you had explained it I think in a in a good way

[1:12:06] that they before they went too far with this idea they wanted a little bit more

[1:12:11] information which could only come from the council that's correct yeah and was this a matter that by

[1:12:20] necessity would have had to go to the Planning Commission first just the just the pl the decision whether to do um

[1:12:28] purchase property that's a decision of the city council it really the purview of the Planning Commission is just the

[1:12:36] plat member Pierce um uh so one of the questions I have

[1:12:43] we've um already given um some levels of approval on this

[1:12:51] and so the question I have is if the

[1:12:56] resolutions uh fail today what legal Jeopardy is the city in given that we've

[1:13:03] given some prior

[1:13:08] approvals well you I I can't speak for the individuals who have already agreed to all these

[1:13:16] conditions and and acted in Reliance on that but you'd have to basically unwind the

[1:13:22] whole Arrangement uh this is just the last step the council did previously approve back in November all of these

[1:13:28] actions except for the plat which is kind of a formality because you've already agreed to purchase the land and

[1:13:34] place the conservation easement on that land so this has just designated the land that's that's subject to all those

[1:13:40] agreements so it would be a major unwinding process and I imagine all the individuals who've spent all this time

[1:13:47] and money working on it would uh have objection to that would have an objection to that is that what you said

[1:13:53] is that the last thing you said um okay thank you and then from a process

[1:14:03] standpoint what process would have led us to have this

[1:14:10] level of conversation earlier in the process than

[1:14:17] tonight at the last step and I know given the public hearing having that earlier certainly would have raised some

[1:14:24] issues but just from a process standpoint well I mean I think there

[1:14:29] were quite a number of conversations about it but the the the issue is that I

[1:14:34] don't think the neighbors wanted to replat this land and redraw the boundary lines until they were fairly certain

[1:14:41] that it was going to be approved because otherwise they would have you know a lot a lot that was unbuildable they wouldn't

[1:14:47] be able to use it for other purposes so I mean I think it was reasonable for them to seek some indication of how it

[1:14:54] was going to go before they applied to replat the land the only the only thing that happened was it looked for at some

[1:15:02] point like this could be done like an administrative lot split and then it turned out it had to be done through a

[1:15:07] replatting process which had to go to the Planning Commission so you know ideally maybe that would have happened

[1:15:12] earlier but either way I think the individuals the applicants would have wanted some indication on whether this

[1:15:18] was going to go forward because they would not have applied to replat that land unless they had some high

[1:15:25] confidence that this was actually going to be approved the conservation easement and all the the assessments all those

[1:15:31] other pieces would have to be approved before they would want to replant the land right

[1:15:39] rememberer if you go back and you look at the packet for November 6th um

[1:15:44] there's nothing about platting or replatting it's using just a basic lot

[1:15:49] line adjustment in order to make this happen and um when I looked at the pack

[1:15:55] ET and read that I did contact the city and asked you know can we actually do

[1:16:01] this when I look at code it looks like we have to Plat it and so and I got a response that said you may be right and

[1:16:07] so it was really late in the process I think

[1:16:12] um where it changed and then oh we have to do the platting and so I am really

[1:16:17] confused by all of this because I don't know if from the get-go the idea was um

[1:16:25] construct the process so that it can go before Council before it goes to

[1:16:31] planning um if it had from the very beginning been done in a way where

[1:16:37] platting was involved um our statutes require it to go to planning first and

[1:16:43] then to go to council um so by doing it this way it was possible

[1:16:51] for the applicant to um get a read on how Council was feeling but again

[1:16:56] Council was not informed by Concepts that um Planning Commission raised and

[1:17:02] you can say you know this all that um the Planning Commission is responsible for is just the plat and only the plat

[1:17:09] alone and that the Planning Commission makes decisions about subdividing land

[1:17:14] apart from the context in which it's being asked and I have a really hard time believing that thank you I think he

[1:17:23] was referring to this particular circumstance is that correct director

[1:17:28] T that's correct with the the Planning Commission needs to make a recommendation on the plat those other

[1:17:36] those other actions were are decisions of the city council and at least as I mentioned earlier I had a recollection

[1:17:42] that we had discussed the point that it would have to be replatted at one point in time uh because uh I remember that um

[1:17:51] Mr Carter wanted to be in compliance on his back uh rear lot setback line so

[1:17:58] seems to me that we had talked about the fact that we'd be doing some replanting I don't know if we knew about the

[1:18:04] vacation of the easement at that point in time but I think we we knew about replatting I don't know if others have that recollection do you remember that

[1:18:11] yes yeah that's my recollection that we did talk about the fact that it did there still was one more step after

[1:18:17] those actions remember egno has a thought thank you and I I've been kind of quiet on this one because

[1:18:25] I have felt kind of all along like this is kind of I don't know if I'll say weird but interesting it's a it's one of

[1:18:31] those unique situations that we sometimes are faced as a council and that means that it's going to be

[1:18:39] difficult to make a decision and I personally am trying not

[1:18:45] to over fixate on the process like yes there is always room for process

[1:18:50] Improvement but as a city it it's also reasonable that we don't have

[1:18:58] a well ironed out process for something that doesn't come up very often so it's

[1:19:04] not an excuse but it's also like a an Roi on investing into new processes and

[1:19:10] so I I do appreciate kind of the position that we're in as a city and

[1:19:15] trying to navigate okay this is a newer idea or a different idea how do we

[1:19:21] accommodate it and so then as I try and kind of step away from the process side

[1:19:27] of it I just look at like what what are we doing here what what is the impact

[1:19:33] and who is this benefiting and I think that that was also some of the concerns of of people in the community of wanting

[1:19:38] to know what is the benefit to the community of being able to do this and

[1:19:44] for me the reason that I ended up supporting it is and I mean you know in previous discussions when we had voted

[1:19:50] on it um was really thinking about the tree canopy and I think it was right in the midst of all those other discussions

[1:19:57] that we were having of how important that is to us as a community and tonight we had um members from the high school

[1:20:04] come in and talk about the climate action plan and the importance of that and on the other hand right I always

[1:20:12] have in the back of my mind some of our other priorities as City such as affordable and attainable housing and

[1:20:18] looking at you know where is their opportunity to add in incrementally more housing into our community that it isn't

[1:20:25] there today so when I was kind of balancing those two in my mind and again just kind of going through my own

[1:20:31] process here Green Space versus is this something where we could add one

[1:20:38] additional incremental unit of housing a house specifically and the testimony that we

[1:20:44] had heard is that it's a very difficult lot to build on um due to the changes in

[1:20:51] elevation and um all of the other factors of just the the shape and the

[1:20:56] format of the lot and so even if it were buildable I don't think it would be an

[1:21:02] affordable house it would be something that would be very costly to put in there and so in balancing those two I

[1:21:08] felt I felt for me I did see benefit to our community given the priority of the

[1:21:14] climate action plan and our focus on the tree canopy to say yes this makes sense

[1:21:21] I think especially knowing that there is no cost to us as a City and so that's just a little bit of my thought process

[1:21:27] and I know that um manager Neil also maybe wanted to respond but I did want to just to get it out there for us to

[1:21:33] continue um having the conversation I wanted to make a motion um to adopt

[1:21:41] resolution um number 2025 d11

[1:21:46] and 2025 d10 right very good is there a second to that motion

[1:21:52] second discussion uh Mr Mayor I just wanted to affirm that

[1:21:58] that council member agnu I think got it made it a very succinct U statement

[1:22:03] about about the overall nature of this of this transaction when we did this for the first time on oaklane in

[1:22:11] 2020 or 2021 we create we had to create a process and and we thought it was

[1:22:18] creative it it it it allowed the the addition of new public land into the

[1:22:24] city uh that was being paid for by all the property private property owners around it so uh I I honestly thought at the end

[1:22:31] of that process that we did a good thing uh but I didn't think we'd do it again right and uh here just a few years later

[1:22:38] we have another opportunity to do it again and I think it is it probably would be wise for us now that we've done

[1:22:44] this I've never done it before in many years now we've done it twice in about 5 years it's probably time that we should

[1:22:50] develop some sort of procedure and protocol if people want to do this more in the future cuz preserving those those uh forested

[1:22:57] Lots like this or forested areas uh we do see is is supporting many of the values in our comprehensive plan and our

[1:23:04] climate action plan thank you I'm going turn back to member rer who may have had

[1:23:09] a comment here in discussion I am wondering where you know the $150,000 is coming from also I think

[1:23:17] there is going to be expense and there was note that we may need to put a fence

[1:23:22] all around this site um you know and I I think um resident

[1:23:28] Weston had a good point about you know there is going to be some maintenance

[1:23:33] that is going to be necessary we do have a lot of areas around Edina that are not being maintained and I think about the

[1:23:39] city property that is along Valley View and all of the Buckthorn that is in there and um so I just the idea that

[1:23:50] there's absolutely zero cost to this I think is hard to believe the other thing

[1:23:55] is that we are talking about a part of Edina where we have a very rich Lush tree canopy and are we prepared you know

[1:24:03] to do this kind of special assessment agreement throughout Edina um and maybe

[1:24:08] Target some of the areas Ina that have really meager tree canopies but you know

[1:24:15] perhaps have lots where you might even have smaller you know if we're going to go for 0 21 would we go for

[1:24:22] 0.1 um how smaller we willing to go so there's there's that um but I think I

[1:24:28] pretty much clarified where I am right now um so thank you thank you member rer

[1:24:35] um member Jackson yes I'd like to just clarify um it's my understanding that a conservation easement means you're

[1:24:42] setting it aside and there's no maintenance there's no structure it just

[1:24:48] it it is Left To Nature is that correct manager Neil yes okay thank you yeah no

[1:24:53] trails no Trails no fences no Buckthorn removal nothing it's just left in in

[1:25:00] Nature's hands and we're getting a nice piece of property that somebody else was paying

[1:25:06] for that's right because they want to donate it okay we get a motion a second any further discussion yes me member

[1:25:14] appears um I so I I appreciate the the conversation I um so just from a an

[1:25:21] additional perspective I don't I actually don't like when we

[1:25:27] have issues that come before us and I personally feel like we are doing

[1:25:34] something that maybe we shouldn't be doing like maybe we should have followed a more I don't know upfront process more

[1:25:42] thorough process we don't have a process for it uh as manag Neil said um and so

[1:25:48] whenever we're in those situations it's different to me to for us to have a debate on on whether we think something

[1:25:56] is the right thing for the community or should it be five stories versus four stories those types of discussions

[1:26:04] because we're having those within a construct of we know what the variances

[1:26:09] are we know what the ordinance says and then we're having a discussion within

[1:26:16] that context and so when I looked at this originally I was excited about it I

[1:26:22] thought well yeah this this makes um and then when there are challenges to

[1:26:29] are there aspects of this that are legal do we have the right to do some of this

[1:26:36] I get uncomfortable when we then have to have a conversation about it and so I

[1:26:43] would prefer in cases where those things are in

[1:26:48] question um more um

[1:26:55] clear Direction on it um and I I don't really I don't feel that way with some

[1:27:01] of these questions um and there's often times I shouldn't say often times there have been times when we get the answer

[1:27:09] of well you know it's to your discretion if you want to do what you can um I

[1:27:15] don't like making decisions when that is the case I prefer to have

[1:27:23] more direct clear lines from a legal

[1:27:29] perspective um and so I would have asked to actually

[1:27:36] have attorney Kendall go back take these questions and bring back all right

[1:27:44] legally here's what you have the discretion to do I would have prefer to have that versus just having the

[1:27:51] discussion on the the DS and then take up the the motion with that Clarity um

[1:27:58] and I'm just being transparent it would make me feel better with uh taking a

[1:28:04] decision um in that regard and you can argue um that yep member

[1:28:12] Pierce you should have asked these questions um but in all honesty I wasn't

[1:28:18] even thinking about it from a procedural standpoint until today when the question

[1:28:24] came up um and so that's kind of how I I feel about it I don't I don't know what

[1:28:31] that that means for the motion um I don't know if we have to make a decision

[1:28:37] on this tonight or not we got a motion of a second on the table right right right right so that that's where I am

[1:28:44] right now yeah so what what were the let me ask you what were the issues that were raised that were legal in nature

[1:28:51] that you don't think you got a sufficient answer from from Kendall because it's often a situation where we

[1:28:57] can't anticipate everything that might come up respect to a legal inquiry and we ask for an opinion from him and

[1:29:03] that's why he's here to answer these questions that may come up in the course of a of a meeting so what yeah I think

[1:29:12] that you don't feel settled on and I I um you know it could be in the delivery

[1:29:21] I don't know for the process maybe the process of the it could be that

[1:29:30] um and we've covered the fact that we don't really have a process for this and

[1:29:37] so that doesn't to your point mean in cases where there isn't an established process

[1:29:43] then we can't take a decision because we certainly can um and so I'm not I'm not

[1:29:48] suggesting that um so I

[1:29:54] yeah okay so um let's step back back a little bit on

[1:30:01] this process issue the reason that we handled it the way we did handle it is because it didn't require a public

[1:30:07] hearing on the initial aspects of this is that is that

[1:30:12] correct that's that's correct the part that needs the public hearing is the plat yeah so when we head we get to the

[1:30:19] plat phase and I think usually when we vacate a public utility easement it requires a public hearing that's correct

[1:30:26] so we got to the point where public hearing was necessary on those two particular issues but I suppose if we

[1:30:31] want to create a process in the future where we have a public hearing up front we could do that yeah and we did talk a

[1:30:39] little bit about that at Planning Commission with the zoning ordinance update that's that's coming we thought

[1:30:44] this would be a good process to add in to that amend to those code changes on

[1:30:49] on the plat and the easement is that what you said okay

[1:30:55] that's why we're having a public hearing because both of those actions require a public hearing but what we did before

[1:31:01] didn't we didn't do anything wrong but I don't I I get what you're saying you don't like to sit up here and

[1:31:07] feel like we might have done something that was here regular right but I can also tell you that I've

[1:31:14] had very experienced people in the past tell me oh it it doesn't apply to this

[1:31:20] situation so never mind um any further discussion member

[1:31:26] rer um it's odd that we have a project that has been basically divided up so

[1:31:33] that parts of it are presented to us at one point and we're asked to weigh

[1:31:39] in and then later the part with the public hearing comes up and I really don't think that that's something that

[1:31:47] is necessarily great policy and I really also think in terms of you know we're

[1:31:53] having a discussion about the budget and how do we reduce costs and all of that and I really think it makes very little

[1:32:00] sense to to do it this way and I would hope that we don't do it this way in the

[1:32:06] future and you know dividing up a project we should get it all at once so we can view it

[1:32:12] comprehensively and you know if it's if there's any part of it that's supposed to go to the Planning Commission first

[1:32:19] it needs to go to the Planning Commission so that we can make the best informed decision possible I think

[1:32:27] that's just really basic yeah I think director T can raise

[1:32:32] this issue with the Planning Commission as they work on um some of the zoning code work

[1:32:39] modifications that they're suggesting okay any further discussion oh member Pierce anything um

[1:32:48] further yeah I yeah it's I don't think so I as I stated originally I thought

[1:32:56] when this was first brought to us I thought it was a a great idea so I'm just trying to wrestle

[1:33:02] with why I feel the way I feel now when I still think this is a a good idea but

[1:33:11] I you know I suppose that's that's what being up here is about right you have to

[1:33:17] take a decision and support that decision um and as I've said before like I like to be able to sit across

[1:33:24] the table from someone and explain why I voted the way I did and

[1:33:30] feel good about that remember Jackson so I I don't know

[1:33:35] if this would be helpful for the discussion or not but I'm going to say it anyways I always think about what's the public benefit being served

[1:33:41] ultimately you know we are here for health and safety of the the members of our community um if we're going to

[1:33:47] subdivide a lot into something that's small uh we want to make sure we're not looking at overcrowding this is not

[1:33:53] situation where we're going to have a lot so small that's going to be overcrowded um I don't see any health

[1:34:00] and safety issues in doing this um I don't really know why I assume that's

[1:34:05] why the uh Planning Commission looks at um platting to see if it's in consistent with the overall plan of the city so I I

[1:34:12] just think about what's the public benefit being served here we're preserving the tree canopy um and it's

[1:34:18] in the neighbors are all in favor of it and they're paying for it so I I just kind of think about you who benefits and

[1:34:24] who would be harmed by doing this I don't see harm to anybody um and I see a lot of benefits so that's that's how I

[1:34:31] make my decision yeah I think it that's

[1:34:36] helpful um so back to the issues that you raised member Pierce and and some of

[1:34:41] the comments that manager Neil made and all I think triggered out of member U's comments

[1:34:47] about we used a process that was kind of customized to the situation and it's a

[1:34:54] Rarity as manager NE Neil said that we've had this happen happen twice in years I've been doing this um somewhat

[1:35:02] close together I guess if you want to think about that in terms of five years so we had this unique process that we

[1:35:07] used but it was an appropriate process uh and it does make me think

[1:35:13] about what the County engineer now retired at canopen County told me one time he said Jim don't ever let a

[1:35:20] concern about process you know or if you use the unique

[1:35:26] process don't let that concern cause you to kill a good

[1:35:32] project don't ever let process kill a good project so I've always had that in the

[1:35:38] back of my head too and so here in this situation we Ed something that was a little bit unique U well actually quite

[1:35:44] unique and quite creative to be able to look at this issue and see if it made

[1:35:50] sense and um I think the process was uh not only creative but it was solid

[1:35:57] myself and um I think it's a good project it's a

[1:36:02] good it's a good notion I intend to support it so got a motion a second in front of us any further discussion all

[1:36:09] those in favor of adoption resolution 20251 and 202-10 say I I I opposed name

[1:36:18] motion motions carry both resolution 20251 approving the preliminary and Final plat and resolution 20251 vacating

[1:36:26] the public utilities when are approved thank

[1:36:38] you

[1:36:46] okay let's move on now that takes care of the public hearing portion of the

[1:36:52] agenda and now we we got some donations that we need to uh and my computer isn't letting me

[1:36:58] bring up that resolution

[1:37:04] is yeah I've got a I've got a gray screen I tap on it it it goes to color

[1:37:11] and it's showing me nothing okay that would be thankful helpful thank

[1:37:18] you all right we've got uh motion 20 25-13 accepting donations on behalf of

[1:37:23] the city uh is there a motion to adopt resolution 20253 so moved I second got a motion by

[1:37:30] member Jackson second by member EGU to adopt resolution 20253 uh any further discussion all

[1:37:37] those in favor of adoption of resolution 2025 13 say I I I opposed carried uh

[1:37:43] we've got one donation this reporting period it's uh it's Aurora on France to

[1:37:48] the Adina Senior Center a $250 gift for a coffee for coffee for the coffee cart

[1:37:54] thank you member EGU for that

[1:38:00] assistance oh no and now we have um Andrew cipion with us

[1:38:06] um he's got a work plan initiative he wants to modify

[1:38:24] do you both want one um no we can share we're good um thank you mayor members of

[1:38:29] council uh I'm joined here uh today by uh commissioner Grant Wright from the Transportation Commission um he's going

[1:38:36] to talk about the initiative that he led uh as part of last year's work plan uh related to Traffic Safety infrastructure

[1:38:42] research and recommendations so with that I'll turn it over to Grant thank you sepion commissioner welcome thank

[1:38:50] you uh Grant Wright first time speaking with you all thanks for the opportunity I really appreciate it been on the

[1:38:55] commission for almost two years now and uh for our 2024 work plan uh we had one

[1:39:00] item that you all charged us with uh was traffic safety infrastructure research and

[1:39:06] recommendations um so me down arrow thank you uh so we we ended up uh taking a

[1:39:14] look at uh what other cities were doing and and came up with some really good ideas and reinforcement for what Edina

[1:39:20] is already doing excited to report on this uh to you tonight uh before we do that I want to play a little game it's

[1:39:27] two truths and a lie uh so uh you can decide which one is the LIE hold your

[1:39:33] responses and we'll we'll come back to this at the end of it but first one is I live in Southwest Edina near Brar Golf

[1:39:39] Course uh second little factoid is that I have young kids who are often out and about on our neighborhood streets and

[1:39:46] enjoy uh you know being a part of the community and then the third is uh that I never exceed the speed

[1:39:55] limit we'll come back to this later uh so what did we do as part of uh

[1:40:00] this work plan item we went out and talked to uh people who are working in Richfield Minneapolis and did research

[1:40:06] in St Paul city of Bloomington online uh to find out what they were doing around traffic calming and keeping their their

[1:40:13] cities and their streets uh safe um and why why did we do this why is it so

[1:40:18] important well you see each year uh when we do the um every time we do the uh uh

[1:40:24] the quality of life survey it comes back as something that uh Traffic Safety is incredibly important to uh the residents

[1:40:31] of udina um sitting in our uh uh commission meetings we hear regularly

[1:40:37] and Community comment from people about their concerns about safety uh in on our

[1:40:42] streets and uh people blowing through stop signs and and whatnot uh we see in the open-ended um responses in the

[1:40:49] quality of life survey people voicing these same concerns it's a reality it's

[1:40:54] uh I'm sure you know as members of council and uh City staff and the uh traffic uh uh committee that meets as

[1:41:03] well we're all hearing this from the community on the regular uh so it should be no shock that this is something that

[1:41:09] the commission was interested in learning more about what other cities are doing so in speaking with all these

[1:41:15] cities it's all detailed in the report provided so I'm not going to you know go through that in detail you have that to read but U the macro uh Tak ways what

[1:41:24] more could we do is three things one is the city did a great job a few years ago

[1:41:30] rolling out the new uh Drive 25 campaign uh and lowering the speed limit is a

[1:41:35] smart move to make and good effort was put into it at the time um it seems that

[1:41:40] some of the M momentum may have been lost over the last couple years around communication uh around Drive 25 think

[1:41:47] about the fact that we have new drivers coming they're getting their licenses all the time on the roads or we have new

[1:41:52] people moving to the community where from other places that may have uh higher speed limits there's attrition on

[1:41:58] our roadways all the time we need to continue to remind people that this is something that we have embraced as a

[1:42:05] community it's important to us there's a reason why we did this we need to make sure that everybody is taking the time

[1:42:10] and slowing down and being very thoughtful uh drivers also what came out

[1:42:16] of our um uh research here was uh the community engagement aspect of this in

[1:42:22] all the different uh in Richfield and Minneapolis especially they're intaking a lot of input and they're having a lot

[1:42:28] of dialogue they they have the police go out and uh you know speak with residents and do the education part of it

[1:42:34] communication will not fix everything I'm in Communications it's part of my work I know that it's it can't do

[1:42:41] everything it is part of the solution so what else what else can be done uh piloting quick build Traffic cming

[1:42:49] Solutions the real you know permanent Solutions are very expensive but these uh quick build Solutions a lot of the

[1:42:55] cities are experimenting with these and they can be executed in intersections for you know hundreds or low thousands

[1:43:02] of dollars uh in order to to see how the community is going to react to these

[1:43:08] different solutions that that are out there and see what's worth really investing in who's going to pay for that

[1:43:14] well you know hundreds or low thousands of dollars there are plenty of uh Grant programs uh I'm sure many which the city

[1:43:21] has looked at at one point in time or the other but um as part of the report that we provided we provided a whole

[1:43:27] list of everything that we could find that the city we think should and continue to be looking at to fund uh

[1:43:35] these efforts um and then so what do we mean by uh quick build Solutions just to

[1:43:40] make sure we're all on the same page speed humps it's probably the most common thing that we hear as a commission from people is hey can you

[1:43:47] lay down some speed humps like people are really ripping through here um we really appreciate it it it doesn't seem

[1:43:53] like as a driver it doesn't seem like it's something very complicated to do um and actually like the price of these

[1:43:58] quick research that I did was not incredibly um you know astronomical um

[1:44:04] so that's the most common one others traffic circles realize that city has experimented with some of these already

[1:44:10] um and then they may not be appropriate for every intersection may not have the the space for it but continue the whole

[1:44:16] the macro thrust here is like to continue to look at this stuff and where can we do this stuff or maybe if a

[1:44:21] traffic circle won't work is it a four-way stop that you could experiment with um especially in like a straight

[1:44:27] shot like on 70th 66 when you can really I know you can get going if you you

[1:44:33] don't watch yourself there um curb extensions or bump outs you know it's paint on on the on the asphalt it's

[1:44:41] these ballards um plastic devices you can put in experiment with it see see

[1:44:46] where where this is going to help where it's not going to make a difference take them out then um it's a lowcost

[1:44:52] alternative uh the city has done some of this the the point is to do more uh same

[1:44:57] with pedestrian Refuge Islands um incredibly effective ways to give people confidence to be able to uh cross the

[1:45:04] street and then narrowing Lanes this a big part of the city strategy already so uh you know Kudos there um but uh

[1:45:11] another you know back to 7 70th think about uh opportunities for chicanes to kind of like slow the traffic so that

[1:45:18] you have to kind of navigate uh some things side benefit is that it can

[1:45:23] create these uh dedicated bike Lanes uh you know if you're all into that the uh

[1:45:28] number our uh chair of our commission Andy Lewis came and I believe spoke about that uh a few weeks ago and then

[1:45:35] Dynamic speed display signs I've seen a few of these out there in our community they're great they let me know when I

[1:45:41] need to slow things down so um you know probably on the more expensive side of all the different uh quick build

[1:45:47] Solutions we've offered here but an important one to mention and that other cities are using the stuff comes without

[1:45:54] tradeoffs right um what are the big ones I think elephant in the room probably is snow removal these will definitely make

[1:46:01] it harder to you know be the best city out there in Minnesota like pretty much

[1:46:07] are at snow removal so Kudos like we're we're at the top for we get rated top in quality of life survey and whatnot for

[1:46:14] snow removal could we balance that do we need to be the top City at snow removal

[1:46:21] and can we balance that with putting some of these other quick build Solutions in place that um you know what

[1:46:26] good is a perfectly plowed Street if it's not a good Street a safe Street for seniors or uh young kids to walk across

[1:46:33] right I think that's the macro point there and then uh cost so that that would come up as a a potential tradeoff

[1:46:39] but again there are a lot of different Grant programs to apply to and uh a lot

[1:46:45] of these quick build Solutions can be uh relatively cheap on the cost side of things so back to the game uh first uh

[1:46:53] item was uh I live in Southwest Edina uh near the Brar Golf Course was that a

[1:46:59] truth or a lie truth truth you got it there you go and I have young kids who

[1:47:04] play in the community out in the streets also a truth and then officer

[1:47:10] close your ears uh do I never exceed the speed limit uh I I'll say it's alive but

[1:47:18] you know what the reason why we're here is to help people make good decisions I

[1:47:24] need help as a driver making good decisions I need to like continue to be reminded about the speed limit uh I need

[1:47:31] uh quick build Solutions in my way to make sure that I'm recognizing I need to

[1:47:36] slow down um I think all of us in the community are really looking for help uh

[1:47:42] to slow things down out there so please direct staff uh on behalf of the commission I want to convey to continue

[1:47:49] to U invest in the drive 25 campaign and community engagement there pilot quick

[1:47:54] build Solutions and review these additional Grant programs who got lined in the report for implementation so with

[1:48:00] that hand it over to Mr skion yeah thank you commissioner excellent

[1:48:09] presentation so the uh Traffic Safety improvements uh the city implements in a

[1:48:15] number of different ways um the three listed on the screen here are the primary ways that we Implement traffic calming improvements as part of capital

[1:48:22] Improvement projects so this is roadway reconstructions or projects that are funded by the Pax fund um some of these

[1:48:28] come as a result from Traffic Safety requests that are submitted uh to staff from residents or members of the

[1:48:33] community um and some of these improvements are implemented as a result of petitions that are submitted to city

[1:48:39] council um implementation of traffic calming strategies are currently Guided by uh the manual and uniform traffic

[1:48:45] control devices by our own local traffic management policies uh and by City staff's technical uh knowledge and

[1:48:53] judgment um Traffic Safety improvements in general support goals within our comprehensive plan within our living

[1:48:58] streets plan and our climate action plan uh as Grant mentioned the city has used a number of traffic calming strategies

[1:49:04] in the past but with varying degrees of regularity um you can see here some of

[1:49:10] the strategies using din include curb extensions in the South cornelian neighborhood traffic circles that we

[1:49:15] have in Creek null neighborhood uh and refuge Islands which you can see an example here uh in the Southdale

[1:49:21] neighborhood um other strategies like delineators and speed bumps we often get

[1:49:26] requests for these and have discussion about these um but we've never uh practiced using them on a permanent

[1:49:32] basis uh snow plowing impact has primarily been the rationale for that

[1:49:37] however adjacent cities like Richfield and Minneapolis as you can see here Richfield has used delineators on 69th

[1:49:43] Street as part of an on Street pedestrian facility and this picture obviously is taken during the winter uh

[1:49:49] and then in the City of Minneapolis you have an example here of a permanent speed bump on Irving

[1:49:55] Avenue uh our transportation division has a initiative on its work plan right now to review existing local traffic

[1:50:02] management policies for consistency with industry best practices and City goals uh what staff is recommending uh kind of

[1:50:09] to support the transportation commission's work is that we amend that initiative to include an analysis of

[1:50:15] these traffic cing strategies and to develop a guide that would support the city in consistent implementation of

[1:50:22] these approved strategies um staff recommends that that work then be reviewed by the Transportation

[1:50:27] Commission and by our Traffic Safety Committee before it is presented to city council and with that we'll stand for

[1:50:34] any questions are you looking for a motion from from us to have you amend your work

[1:50:41] plan correct okay all right yeah let me turn to my colleagues here and see if somebody has a question or a

[1:50:50] comment member Pierce yeah lead us off please thank you um nice presentation I

[1:50:59] definitely appreciate that um so I I have maybe two

[1:51:04] questions in terms of the calming the quick

[1:51:09] builds um are those are those things that and you I think you gave an example

[1:51:15] of this those are things that we could set up and use those say during the summer months and then

[1:51:23] take those things down in preparation for winter like something like the circle

[1:51:30] that seemed like rubber to me and a makeshift sign kind of thing correct so

[1:51:35] an example I'll turn to this slide from Grant's presentation so this is an example of a temporary curb extension in

[1:51:41] a neighborhood um on the left or on one side you can see the delineators used on the other side you just see um pav or

[1:51:48] pavement markings um we did actually conduct a trial like this in the South cornelian neighborhood at the

[1:51:54] intersection of 72nd and uh Cornelia Drive uh that's the top image here um

[1:52:01] after following that uh demonstration project we did end up installing permanent curb extension so that's an

[1:52:07] example where we piloted a demonstration project and then used it to inform a permanent Improvement and where where I

[1:52:15] was going with that is we get lots of I'll say lots of emails um when you know

[1:52:22] people are asking us to test traffic to see if people are speeding through their

[1:52:28] neighborhoods or not stopping at the stop signs and then process-wise we will

[1:52:33] go study that and then we'll make a recommendation and so the question from

[1:52:39] a process standpoint if we thought any of these quick bills could be something

[1:52:45] that we could do for a period of time is that part of our process to where we might say all right let's put the

[1:52:52] traffic Circle up to slow traffic down on this particular Street in this neighborhood and leave it there you know

[1:52:59] for the four months of the summer and then pull it back out for

[1:53:05] winter do we is that part of the way we might consider thinking about those we

[1:53:12] could we don't have like a formal process so uh I just brought two back from a conference city of Rochester and

[1:53:19] City of Minneapolis have more of a formal process to do these tests we've done them once in a while when they seem

[1:53:25] to make sense or there's a grant associated with it um I think with Andrew suggesting is let's look at all

[1:53:31] those processes and see if we make it more formal in that regard and then one

[1:53:37] other caveat is some of our streets the municipal state aid streets we can't do some of this so there's still

[1:53:42] regulations that there's certain streets that we can't do some of this because of the jurisdiction so it just seems like

[1:53:49] we might be able to uh be a little bit more or even more resident Focus if we're

[1:53:56] able to say yeah we can put a speed bump out there but we can only do it for this period of time for safety reasons and

[1:54:03] then we have to remove it for snow um and so looking at that as a kind of a

[1:54:09] process um augmenting a process or process change there I think would make

[1:54:14] a lot of sense and then the other thing is um awareness like that's huge um I was

[1:54:21] talking to to a police officer and um she said when when they're doing traffic

[1:54:30] uh speed checks that people will be flying by and it's 25 M mph Zone and

[1:54:38] then when she pulls them over they don't realize Oh I thought it was still 40 or

[1:54:45] I thought it was 30 um and so I think to your point I think the awareness piece is really huge

[1:54:53] even for me um just to remember yeah this if I don't see another stop sign

[1:55:00] another um speed limit posted then is 25

[1:55:06] right and so I think we could definitely do that um even more so I appreciate you

[1:55:12] looking into this because we do get um a lot of requests from neighborhoods on um

[1:55:19] um trying to improve traffic patterns within the neighbor neighborhood so thank

[1:55:25] youno thank you and commissioner Wright thank you for an amazing presentation I was reminded that you work in

[1:55:32] Communications that was it was really good thank you um also as we are going through this this is more anecdotal but

[1:55:39] you you said speed humps and I always thought that like speed humps was one of the like bubbler versus like drinking

[1:55:45] fountain kind of things but they're actually different like a speed hump I

[1:55:50] googled this is like around 10 to 12 feet long and then a speed bump is like

[1:55:56] the quick one so thank you I learned during your presentation I'm definitely

[1:56:01] supportive of this I like looking into it um I remember actually when I was when I was outd door knocking um what

[1:56:08] stood out to me is I'd gotten some complaints about the 25 mph speed cuz people felt like they weren't able to

[1:56:14] get to where they wanted to go as quickly um but I love it and I love um

[1:56:20] continuing to share the the word about it um my car has one of those features where it like reads the speed um markers

[1:56:29] and it like tells me on my Dash which I love because otherwise I would forget as well um but thank you for the continued

[1:56:37] kind of focus and coming back with a a pivot um and I definitely support it so thank

[1:56:42] you member Jackson yes thank you Mr Mayor so thank you commissioner this was I concur with my peers that this was a

[1:56:49] great presentation um two things I would be interested in um finding out as you

[1:56:55] work on this is whether some of these changes could be seasonal so I know with a snow plows if the speed humps could be

[1:57:02] put in and taken out um but then the second part of that is how much staff

[1:57:07] time would it take to do something like that and what would the the ongoing cost be but I'm I'm really interested I love

[1:57:14] the fact that um you know a lot of the pictures you had were summer pictures and I think when we can take the snow

[1:57:21] plow out of the equation um that might be able to get a safety when more kids would be out on their bikes for instance

[1:57:28] um and so seasonality and staff time to implement are two things I'd like to

[1:57:35] hear from you thank you Ember rer um thank you for your

[1:57:42] presentation and um one way to calm U

[1:57:48] traffic is by Street murals and so they're flat and you've got all these brightly

[1:57:54] colored areas and I know there's at least one in Minneapolis and so that was one thing I didn't see but I thought

[1:58:00] that might be a you know possibility because it wouldn't interfere with the plows the other thing is I really do

[1:58:07] appreciate the 25 M hour speed limit and true story summer day I was going down

[1:58:14] Woodale a kid on roller blades came out right in front of my car and there was a

[1:58:21] tennis ball he was going after with a hockey stick and it was just like out of one of those movies and if I had been

[1:58:27] going faster I don't know I mean it would have been horrible so uh it it

[1:58:34] really is important and I think you know but for that speed limit which I was following um who knows what the outcome

[1:58:41] of that would have been so I think your work is really important I appreciate it and thank you for the

[1:58:47] presentation thank you uh commissioner Jackson recalls I mean member Jackson call something else yes thank you if you

[1:58:54] can start with 49th Street in White Oaks um that would be a great place to start

[1:59:00] because they're desperate for being able to walk safely on in the neighborhood there no sidewalks on 49th Street so

[1:59:06] that's my plug for 49th Street we had uh last week at the tab a

[1:59:12] presentation by Ethan FY from Minneapolis City Minneapolis who's in charge of their Vision zero work that

[1:59:19] they're doing and so I I I would you had the city Minneapolis logo on the screen

[1:59:25] I assume that you've been visiting with him uh it was 6 months ago I can't remember his name honestly but it could

[1:59:32] be somebody in in a similar Department that you connected me with yeah he's a he's a guy you want to talk to and uh

[1:59:40] and be would be more than happy to assist you as I'm assuming the council is going to approve this modification of

[1:59:45] your work plan uh but he's a he would be a wonderful resource for you he used to be on the tab as a non motorized rep and

[1:59:54] now he sits uh you know with full-time employment over at the City of Minneapolis as their non-motorized

[1:59:59] person has worked on this Vision zero strategy over there so and to the point

[2:00:05] you're making commissioner about grants you know the a little over halfway through that iig funding now and so I'm

[2:00:11] sure there's still and and the and the US do there strong emphasis around Vision zero trying to reduce traffic

[2:00:18] deaths which which have gone down nationally um and this calming is a critical part of that so I commend you

[2:00:24] for that work um and then just a little a little knit for you I had a I had a

[2:00:32] resident call me and say this isn't I'm not picking on you or the city but when I get off to cross town at Valley View

[2:00:39] just west of the hospital I turn right on Valley View and I'm not going to get this exactly right but it says 25 he

[2:00:47] goes down a little further it says 30 he goes down a little further it says 25 and then he goes Donald fer says 30 so

[2:00:53] there's some inconsistency on the signage over there maybe somebody could look at it on Valley View As you move

[2:00:58] towards France Avenue kind of behind uh where my office is at 6,800 France take

[2:01:05] take a look at that yeah certainly there are there are some places in the city where we have what we call Gateway signs

[2:01:11] that as soon as you enter the city tell you speed limit is 25 unless posted otherwise but then sometimes you're

[2:01:17] entering on a street that is actually 30 so in those cases sometimes you do have those two signs that kind of convey two

[2:01:23] separate but yeah well he may not be reading all all the information on the first sign okay uh so is there a motion to um

[2:01:32] amend the um work plan for the din Transportation Commission to permit the calming work that they want to do so

[2:01:39] move second sorry the change is actually to the transportation division's work plan not the transportation

[2:01:44] Transportation division work plan okay all right you you even wanted us to approve that all right I thought you get

[2:01:50] enough direction from the commissioner itself all right we have understanding the change in the motion that staff

[2:01:56] directed not commission directed so move we got a second from second from second from Member Jackson uh member Pierce is

[2:02:04] the move or any further discussion all those in favor of adoption of the motion as requested stay as recommended say I I

[2:02:10] I I opposed carried uh the recommended motion is approved thank you for being

[2:02:16] here both of you all right um

[2:02:26] now we're going to go to a sketch plan review on uh 5100 Eden Avenue and

[2:02:31] Addison Lewis Our Community Development coordinator has this matter and this is a um address affectionately

[2:02:39] known as the building on stilts over by the hilltop

[2:02:55] all right Mr L welcome and thank you look forward to your presentation thank you good evening mayor and councel um so

[2:03:00] the Opus group has submitted a sketch plan proposal at 5100 Eden Avenue and just for those in the audience who are

[2:03:06] watching uh from home uh a sketch plan proposal is not a formal development application it's an opportunity for a

[2:03:12] land owner or a developer to uh propose an idea for a project and receive non-binding feedback from the Planning

[2:03:19] Commission and city council uh no action is taken on a sketch plan so the purpose of tonight is really just to have a

[2:03:25] discussion that might inform a future development application um as I said the subject

[2:03:31] property is 5100 even Eden Avenue uh you may recall that this property received preliminary PUD approval in 20123 for a

[2:03:39] sstory 136 unit apartment building uh the new proposal is to

[2:03:44] construct a five-story 112,000 ft office building that would potentially include commercial and uh or retail user on the

[2:03:52] ground floor um Opus has also indicated that uh they would relocate their headquarters from minona to this site

[2:03:59] and occupy a portion of the office building the proposal would involve uh

[2:04:06] demolition of the existing office building that was constructed in 1968 that building is approximately 38,000

[2:04:12] ft² so it's about onethird of the size of the proposed building uh these are just some photos

[2:04:19] of the site as it is today uh from the Arcadia Avenue side this is another look from the Eden

[2:04:25] Avenue side and the current zoning on the

[2:04:32] property is planned office district one the applicants have proposed a rezoning to plan commercial District 2 that would

[2:04:38] allow for the ground floor commercial or retail user uh that wouldn't be allowed under the planned office District you

[2:04:45] can see that a lot of the surrounding property in the ground View District is already zoned plan commercial District 2

[2:04:53] uh the site is guided mixed use Center on the future land use map of the comprehensive plan um these are mixed

[2:05:00] use districts that are intended to serve areas larger than just the surrounding neighborhood um 50th in France and the

[2:05:06] Grand View District are the only two areas in our comprehensive plan that have this designation and they're really

[2:05:12] envisioned to be about a 5050 split between residential and Commercial

[2:05:19] uses and in 2012 12 the city completed the Grand View District development framework and in terms of land use that

[2:05:27] plan states that uh the plan emphasizes a mixed use sub area between Vernon Eden

[2:05:32] Highway 100 and the rail Corridor uh that's kind of that that orange area that you see on the screen that's

[2:05:37] identified as mixed use Center uh the plan goes on to say that Arcadia is seen as a more residential street with a

[2:05:44] range of condo apartments and multi-level townhouse types mixed use and Office Buildings are anticipated and

[2:05:50] may be oriented to Vernon and or south towards Eden and Our Lady of Grace

[2:05:56] Fields um so here's just another rendering of what's depicted or envisioned for the site you can see it's

[2:06:02] uh kind of two to three story tow houses along Arcadia with taller multif family or Office Buildings located or oriented

[2:06:09] closer to the highway and and Eden Avenue um in 2016 the city also

[2:06:15] completed the Grand View District transportation study um that plan envisioned a new front Road along the

[2:06:22] east side of this property it's not likely that that would happen anytime soon but it's just something that could

[2:06:27] happen in the future and that you should be aware of um so here is a rendering of what's

[2:06:33] being proposed again it's a fivestory office building approximately 112,000 Square ft uh here's a look at their site plan

[2:06:41] showing um the ground floor uses so uh you can see they're showing some type of active commercial use on the corner but

[2:06:47] it's yet to be determined exactly what that would be um you see there is a an outdoor Terrace on the south side of of

[2:06:54] the building for that user that um looks over the corner pocket park uh there

[2:06:59] would be two vehicular accesses um just as there is today one off of Arcadia one

[2:07:05] off of Eden Avenue um this is just another site plan that

[2:07:11] shows the set setbacks for the proposed building so uh the building on the the

[2:07:16] west side on on the Arcadia Avenue side would be about 20 ft set back on the North Side about 6 ft about 15 1/2 ft on

[2:07:25] the east side and then along the Eden a side at its closest point you see that corner there is about 3 feet um I want

[2:07:33] to note here too that um along the Eden a side we have about 30 ft from the

[2:07:38] property line to the to the street on the Arcadia side there's only about 5T

[2:07:44] from the property line to the street um in fact we only have about 40 ft of R ofo there from this property line to our

[2:07:51] property on the public work site it's about 40 ft wide so just something to keep in mind as you think about the

[2:07:56] building massing orientation on the site uh there would be two below grade

[2:08:03] parking decks they're showing a total of about 300 parking stalls which should be enough based on the uh size of the

[2:08:09] proposed building the applicants have indicated that they intend to comply with the city's parking ordinance but uh

[2:08:15] there would also be an update to the traffic and parking study as part of a formal application

[2:08:22] um this is a look at just some of the upper level floor PL so on the left is the second level you see there would be

[2:08:27] an amenity area and then an outdoor kind of rooftop Terrace there over the top of the first

[2:08:33] level and then the fourth and fifth level floor plans

[2:08:38] there um so uh this request would likely involve uh resoning

[2:08:44] from PL office District 1 to plan commercial District 2 or PUD uh it would

[2:08:49] require variances or flexibility through a PUD from uh likely from Building height floor area ratio and building and

[2:08:56] parking setbacks uh it would also require a replat to consolidate the seven Parcels into one uh as well as

[2:09:03] site plan review um and then once we got a formal application with um you know

[2:09:08] more detailed plans it's possible that there would be other requests as well um just a reminder here of our

[2:09:15] pyramided discretion so with a rezoning the city is operating you know legislative capacity so city has

[2:09:22] complete discretion uh with variances the city is acting in a quasi judicial fashion so still have some discretion

[2:09:29] but less so than with a rezoning um this is just the compliance

[2:09:34] table that was included in the staff report so just kind of shows how the proposed project compares to the

[2:09:39] standards of the current zoning of planned office district one the proposed zoning of planed commercial District 2

[2:09:47] as well as the Pud that was approved in 2023 for the 13 six unit apartment

[2:09:53] building uh and you can see there the items in Bow are for the the things that where flexibility would be requested so

[2:09:59] with the setbacks the building height and floor area ratio and then for other things as I said like the first floor

[2:10:05] Building height building materials first floor transparency um those are kind of TBD until we get uh more detailed

[2:10:12] plans um this slide is just included kind of give you some context of other developments in the Grand View area that

[2:10:19] have either been approved or are are existing today that have um are the same

[2:10:24] height or more or um same floor area ratio or more as the proposed

[2:10:30] project and then I wanted to note here too that the property is located within a quarter mile of metr Transit bus route

[2:10:37] 46 uh which does have 7 day a week service and uh provides connections to

[2:10:42] other important um Transit routes throughout the region including the future e-line brt the orange line brt

[2:10:50] dline brt and the blue line LRT um so with that I'd be happy to take

[2:10:56] any questions otherwise the development team is here to to say a few words tonight as well sure let me uh check

[2:11:02] with my colleagues here and see if anybody has any additional questions for for you at this point in time uh I think

[2:11:08] member Jackson wants to ask you a question or has a comment uh yes thank you Mr Mayor so um if you could go back

[2:11:16] to the Chart about the different zoning classifications um

[2:11:21] it looks like if this were to be zoned PCD 2 it would need quite a few

[2:11:27] variances is that correct that is correct yep okay um yeah that was my

[2:11:33] question thank you other question yes member U thank you uh this might be for you or might be

[2:11:41] for um director Teague but I understand that this is a replacement for the

[2:11:49] project that we had initially looked looked at um I think it said in 2023 for the same site um but would you be able

[2:11:57] to also provide just kind of a status on the property to the north as well as

[2:12:04] the property to the West on current

[2:12:10] happenings just to kind of like ground Us in the overall development of this

[2:12:17] area so the property to the West referring to the the former the public work site yep so I know you all are

[2:12:23] discussing that as an HRA of of what to do that with that um we had a project that actually here I had shown on

[2:12:32] here in the middle on the top there was the 86 unit senior co-op with restaurant

[2:12:39] and and um public park so it's kind of to be determined I guess what it's going

[2:12:44] to be it's Zone industrial but I I don't think it's going to end up being Industrial in the long term um as far as

[2:12:50] the property to the north that's the The Hilltop Restaurant um there's other kind

[2:12:56] of commercial businesses north of there and and to the West um I don't know that

[2:13:02] we've gotten any other development interest kind of to the north um so not

[2:13:07] sure what the future holds for those properties okay thank you anything to

[2:13:12] add director teag uh no just to reiterate again we haven't received any

[2:13:18] development interests in those properties to the north okay thank

[2:13:24] you my other questions will be for the applicant so that concludes that thank

[2:13:30] you M Jackson yes thank you Mr Mayor the other question I had was in the

[2:13:35] transportation plan would this layout preclude that um Street parallel to

[2:13:41] Highway 100 or there still be room for that there'd still be room for it oh

[2:13:48] okay great we talked about that earlier okay thank you would you go back to that compliance

[2:13:54] table please I think member Jackson started on an interesting pathway here was it is it a staff preference on pcd2

[2:14:02] as opposed to PUD or is it a developer preference the

[2:14:08] applicants have proposed uh resoning to pcd2 um ultimately it's up to them what

[2:14:14] they request um if we go that route and variances are

[2:14:20] need needed you know as I said with our um pyramid of discretion when we're

[2:14:26] looking at those variances we have less discretion we have to apply that statutory criteria so those variances

[2:14:31] would have to meet that justification um the city has alternatively used the Pud process where

[2:14:38] you have a bit more discretion to approve projects that in you know you feel meet the goals of the comprehensive

[2:14:44] plan so that's where I thought you all could give a little feedback I know there's maybe some differing opinions on using PUD versus rezoning to PCD and

[2:14:52] using variances but that's just something to think about is that you know it'll ultimately be up to the

[2:14:57] applicant to demonstrate that um those variances meet that criteria for a

[2:15:03] variance okay all right um I think just standby from a staff standpoint your

[2:15:10] presentation was thorough and then you've you've told the applicants they've got 10 minutes or so I think to

[2:15:15] make their presentation and we've got several of them here that have been patiently waiting

[2:15:22] Mr manand and Mr Lan yes good I'll let you Mr manand

[2:15:27] identify who's with you here yes I will uh good evening uh Mr Mayor and members of council uh my name is Nick manand

[2:15:32] with Opus development it's great to see you all again uh on a site that we're all very familiar with I'm joined by uh

[2:15:38] Matthew axan and Bob lokan from ESG Architects um as as you heard in the presentation um a site that you're all

[2:15:45] familiar with we went through the process on the uh multif family market rate Apartment project and uh we're very

[2:15:50] excited tonight to be looking at a different use on the site looking at a multi-tenant spec office building um we

[2:15:57] are here to uh solicit all your feedback uh hear your comments and answer any questions you have um I was going to

[2:16:02] turn it over to uh Matt and Bob to just give a little more information in addition to the presentation that you

[2:16:08] already heard so I'll let that take it away you've got a you've got a slide deck too that you want I think we're using the same slide deck so we'll

[2:16:15] probably jump to our image oh I missed that I'm sure did sorry

[2:16:21] we'll we'll jump well I'll I'll start while they're figuring that out so uh good evening mayor and council members

[2:16:28] um uh the staff report was thorough we don't have much to add um I'm just going to uh briefly talk about why we're

[2:16:34] excited about this new use as opposed to residential we think this uh site is

[2:16:39] uniquely suited to office development it's it's adjacency to Highway 100 um

[2:16:46] makes it slightly less suited to to housing the the noise and the the air

[2:16:51] quality issues that come with being located to highways are affect less uh

[2:16:57] an office use where windows are typically not operable um secondly an office use can benefit from uh high

[2:17:03] visibility from Highway 100 and and given the the recent residential

[2:17:09] development in this area and what we probably all anticipate will be more residential development in the future we

[2:17:15] think balancing that with an office use which puts uh 300 or so

[2:17:21] um occupants uh daytime users in the area who can also be U patronizes of the

[2:17:27] local businesses uh we think it's just going to make this a much more vibrant um uh mixed use node um in the future

[2:17:35] and I'm going to turn it over to Matt who's going to highlight just a couple of um uh design features that we'd like

[2:17:42] to talk about and he's also going to I think maybe work in um some of the anecdotal feedback that we heard from

[2:17:48] the Planning Commission last week all right right thank you Mr Walkin yes thank you Bob thank you Council um yeah

[2:17:55] I'm just going to really quickly talk about a couple of things if you hadn't um had a chance to to listen in on the

[2:18:01] uh Planning Commission but kind of starting off just general building orientation and massing um we did an

[2:18:07] East West orientation knowing that that's the the best um General kind of

[2:18:12] placement related to sustainability so that was kind of the key factor um the other thing that we've we've been

[2:18:17] planning for and have learned a little bit with the with the the mission is that really active use along Arcadia is

[2:18:24] going to be really important so things that we're kind of adjusting um in real time and um we're really excited

[2:18:30] eventually to show you some some beautiful pictures of is is really what we're going to be doing along what is uh

[2:18:36] a c and e um as noted on this master plan to really create paracity and

[2:18:42] activity um along that along that sidewalk you know creating multiple entry zones creating um outdoor spaces

[2:18:49] for respit for not only the people of the building but for pedestrians and passerbys and then really looking at um

[2:18:56] the pocket park at b as an opportunity to create a really nice buffer between

[2:19:01] um what is a relatively active street with with cars kind of zipping through that that roundabout you could use those

[2:19:07] traffic slowing measures uh maybe a little bit more here but um and then really once we create that buffer

[2:19:13] creating uh more public space for the community um and then engaging that with the architecture in a unique way

[2:19:22] thank you I think with that we're open to feedback questions comments all right um folks have

[2:19:28] questions here at this point in time yeah M member Pierce go ahead um

[2:19:35] thank you Mr Mayor so on the North

[2:19:42] side um there we go yeah good that's helpful

[2:19:48] so the conversation about the frontage road

[2:19:55] um can you just give some context to what you think might happen with that

[2:20:01] because before we had talked about making some changes

[2:20:14] there sure and and maybe director mner can speak to this better than I can but um so right now there is a a frontage

[2:20:21] road there along the north side of the building that's kind of the I don't know the off ramp the extended off ramp that

[2:20:27] gets you access onto Arcadia Avenue if you were coming from Highway 100 southbound um and then so this Grand

[2:20:34] View District transportation study invisioned that going away and sort of this new Frontage row that would be more

[2:20:40] like a local Street going in along the east side and then you can kind of see here to that there would still be a road

[2:20:46] connecting that frontage road with Arcadia Avenue okay and you

[2:20:52] said that's unlikely to happen anytime soon I think that might have been an

[2:20:57] actual quote Yeah that that new Frontage Road along the east side okay just based

[2:21:03] on my discussion with Milner sounds like it's unlikely to happen for for a while

[2:21:08] it's a long-term vision for the district and Eden Avenue Bridge would have to most likely be replaced to make that

[2:21:16] happen so it's another big infrastructure replacement that's those longterm Vision but this would still be

[2:21:23] allowed per their sketch plan okay well that's good um and then

[2:21:30] [Music] activation if go back to um maybe the deps what you're for oh

[2:21:39] there you go back that one yeah that one that one um and so you talked about

[2:21:45] the pocket park on B and so if we're on

[2:21:53] Acadia describe what you're thinking about activation because that is

[2:21:58] something that actually we were excited about with the other proposal um kind of

[2:22:03] thinking about the what our vision was for the public work site and how that those two sites might um

[2:22:12] complement each other sure I can start and Matt can add anything uh we're very excited about this you know the experience today as you come either down

[2:22:19] Eden or down Arcadia is is a five six almost six foot retaining wall um it's not very pedestrian friendly um someone

[2:22:26] one of the Planning Commission members even said you almost feel trapped between the cars and the retaining wall with the roundabout and everyone kind of

[2:22:32] zipping by so what we're looking at is how can we have um this pocket park be

[2:22:38] at you know we have a lot of grade change from from a down to e is about 16

[2:22:43] 17 18 ft so how can we have this pocket park be at a grade that um is at the

[2:22:49] same grade as a sidewalk so that really it's this larger area that extends and what we're exploring and and looking at

[2:22:55] is you know possibly even looking and I think you guys can see my cursor but um you know possibly even bringing the

[2:23:01] sidewalk in board a bit how can we have um a sidewalk that um isn't right up

[2:23:07] against that roundabout so that when you're walking out at the experience isn't Cars going by you know one or two

[2:23:12] feet away we've got the space there that we could we could Meander it through uh maintain those 10- foot sidewalks and

[2:23:18] then the actual programming of the space I think similar to our housing proposal we're excited to continue to talk to all

[2:23:24] of you and and see how we can program that in a way that is inviting to the public it's a open green space but it's

[2:23:30] also a path where people are traveling through to create a much safer environment as you come down eaten or

[2:23:36] down Arcadia and so down Arcadia where you've got office

[2:23:42] commercial um are you thinking of yeah so activation a through E I

[2:23:51] guess what are are you just thinking C to e just retail um really it's

[2:23:58] activating you know that's really our primary uh public realm facing facade is that Arcadia facade and really it's

[2:24:03] activating this is this is a very preliminary um site plan that we've we've done a lot of work on already that

[2:24:09] we're excited to share um you know this this space here is call it 15 or 16 feet

[2:24:14] above the grade or you know the the the um the elevation of the roundabout so how do we activate that a way that

[2:24:20] really um you know works from all the way from the North Senate side up on Arcadia all the way down so I think Bob

[2:24:28] or Matt had mentioned different access points along this landscape Terrace on the side so this doesn't do a great job

[2:24:34] and obviously we'll have better uh images in our official submitt but how do we landscape this in a way that the

[2:24:40] sidewalk comes down the hill but we also have these terorist Landscapes that provide access up and into the retail to

[2:24:47] the office and really create a connection between the building in the streetcape okay um and then the the only

[2:24:55] other as comment when you look at the number of

[2:25:02] variances that you might need I actually when I went through

[2:25:07] this I actually I actually like the idea but I

[2:25:15] am kind of putting it in the context of there's an office building there now

[2:25:20] that I probably look at three times a day driving through there um but what I

[2:25:27] want to make sure I'm not doing is comparing the number of variances you

[2:25:34] might need to the fact that that building needs to be redone and kind of

[2:25:41] um letting that factor into um how lenient I might be on um approving a

[2:25:48] variance um and so I that's the one thing that that I that

[2:25:54] gives me pause I guess thinking about all the variances that um might need to be approved for this um I don't really

[2:26:02] have a question in that uh but just to give you that that feedback yes very helpful um we we are

[2:26:10] open to the discussion PCD felt like the right direction uh we did hear from the

[2:26:15] Planning Commission that that was the direction they preferred I I won't speak for all of the Planning Commission members but we did hear that um from a

[2:26:22] handful of them uh we recognize there are a handful of variances um the zoning I know there's conversations about

[2:26:28] zoning in general and how that's being looked at the current zoning um if you were to follow that without any

[2:26:35] variances you'd be left with a very very small unfunctional building that we we simply wouldn't be able to move forward

[2:26:41] with thank you member U thank you Mr Mayor if we

[2:26:47] could go back to kind of the overall visual I want to understand um where is

[2:26:53] the entrance for pedestrians yes so this is something we are again very excited

[2:26:59] to share our new images with which we have um the main drop off is occurring

[2:27:06] here for um vehicles but we are uh looking at a very um significant

[2:27:12] celebrated pedestrian entrance kind of right here so it doesn't show it well here this is again an old site plan if I

[2:27:19] jump to the 3D image you can imagine uh and I know it's killing these guys that we don't have architecture here to share

[2:27:25] uh it's very blocky and it's it's not showing you know it's really just a straight wall it won't be that so you

[2:27:30] would have a a um vehicular entrance here and then there would be a a celebrated you know entry to the

[2:27:37] building which is of course important for a multi-tenant office building um so that would occur um somewhere in this

[2:27:43] area again we have some grade challenges but the idea is um you know we would have multiple access points there's

[2:27:49] likely to be an arcade similar to what you see here that probably runs the full length of Arcadia so that there's a

[2:27:56] walkway that would be elevated with multiple access points that um is not

[2:28:01] shown here so you know you wouldn't be able to just come in here with stairs obviously you'd have you need to be ADA

[2:28:07] Compliant things like that so we're looking at how do we have this kind of full arcade along again Arcadia um that

[2:28:14] has multiple access points okay thank you um the visual is killing me too so I'm with you on that

[2:28:20] um what are you thinking about for the the office commercial site yeah um we

[2:28:27] would love um we we would love to see a restaurant user if if the market is

[2:28:33] there for that um we want to keep the ultimate flexibility of commercial space

[2:28:39] if you will so um you know I I call it it could be a bank it could be a retail store it could be um it could be a

[2:28:46] restaurant um just keeping that flexibility to see what the market really shows us what would this allow

[2:28:53] for if it were a restaurant from a seating capacity because I I would assume you'd have to cut out a fair

[2:28:59] amount of that for kitchen and everything yeah that's a good question I may need to follow up on I mean you'd

[2:29:05] probably I think in our latest plan call it a 6,500 foot restaurant would be the largest that you could be um I don't

[2:29:13] know a 6,500 ft for both combined dining room and kitchen is a is a significant

[2:29:20] restaurant it's very large don't we can follow up with that okay

[2:29:27] that would be helpful thank you

[2:29:33] um so I think for me and I might have more feedback after um I don't know if I

[2:29:41] have a direct question but what I'm looking at the compliance table um and

[2:29:47] this visual here um kind of going back and forth with between the two and there's so many pages apart so I'm scrolling

[2:29:53] but it's a lot of setback variants um and so that immediately jumps out to me

[2:29:59] and and partially it could be because of the visual that we're looking at where it's a straight wall um and it feels

[2:30:06] like it's right there um that to me is concerning so what I want to see is

[2:30:14] aligning to the pcd2 setback variances or setback requirements that are listed

[2:30:20] here in the table um and with that I would personally have more appetite for

[2:30:27] height to still give you the the number of um the amount of office space that

[2:30:34] you need um but I I don't want it to feel so imposing um so that's request number one

[2:30:43] and then just generally looking at this it feels like you're substantially overp

[2:30:49] parked um so I'd want to before we were to pursue any further on that part of it

[2:30:55] I'd want to understand a little bit more about the data that because this is your company right um multiple companies so

[2:31:02] we will occupy about 30% of the space um I would say that market Standard for

[2:31:07] Suburban office is probably close to 4 per thousand and we're at about 3 per thousand so um we actually feel we're

[2:31:13] underp parked for the office need that we'll have here um recognize that we're going more and more away from um

[2:31:20] everybody driving to work um but consistently across a lot of what we've seen three per thousand would be the

[2:31:27] absolute minimum that we could get on we could get comfortable so I I would be curious to see the statistics for your

[2:31:34] headquarters in minona um give me you know data points

[2:31:40] as best as you can collect it over the last as far back as you can do it um

[2:31:46] because even though you're just 30% 30% is probably the largest that would be in

[2:31:51] there or are you thinking there would be another larger yeah there could be another larger tenant we we would occupy call it roughly 30,000 ft and on our

[2:31:58] count we have call it 105 employees and we typically average anywhere from 90 to

[2:32:04] 90ish cars per day and then we obviously have guest parking on top of that so we we have verified for our use we would

[2:32:11] need three per thousand and consistently as we've worked on in other markets and

[2:32:16] have already received unsolicited feedback from uh PS that would be interested uh all of them have said they

[2:32:22] would require 3 per thousand for parking and that needs to be on site so we did explore there is a city ramp is there an

[2:32:29] opportunity there it's it's unfortunately just not quite close enough is that because of financing or because that's like the actual

[2:32:36] utilization of parking that they're seeing util utilization and market demand financing may require it as well

[2:32:43] but that's separate from this with what I was saying that this is market demand of what tenants require

[2:32:52] I'd be happy to have a further conversation about that at some point but we don't need to do that here um

[2:32:57] okay I think that's it for now good thank you for now uh member Jackson yes

[2:33:03] thank you Mr Mayor so I have specific things and a big thing I'm trying to decide I'm gonna

[2:33:10] just feed off of what member agnu said um I would love to see this narrower and taller um this setback and I don't know

[2:33:18] how this compares to the avador um along Arcadia seems really really close and um

[2:33:25] I understand that this is a good site for commercial and not for residential

[2:33:30] but the hope of having this be mixed use it's kind of sad that it that it won't

[2:33:36] be residential in any respect I'll just say that the dream for this area was to

[2:33:41] have a lot of sort of mixed use um with the hopes that these buildings could be built as mixed use um but

[2:33:50] tell me uh so there are two things one is narrower and taller and then also a

[2:33:57] setback um from the first story um and because it just feels like really big

[2:34:04] building where you know what we were thinking of were Town Homes dramatically different from that kind of neighborhood

[2:34:11] feel makes it feel much more urban um but not in a mixed juice Urban sort of

[2:34:16] way sure very helpful feedback we did hear a little of that from Planning Commission as well and we are looking at

[2:34:22] how the building steps and possibly uh feedback we heard from Planning Commission was actually that they would

[2:34:27] prefer that we push the building East and get to even I don't remember the number they said but have an even closer

[2:34:33] you know um have a variance for an even uh closer lot line or zero lot line even I believe is what we heard so uh we are

[2:34:40] exploring that option as well on the East I'm sorry on the east side to step back off Arcadia um understand the

[2:34:47] feedback on taller and skinnier um office plates have to be efficient and

[2:34:52] it's really hard to go skinny and Tall um a lot of these groups have specific

[2:34:58] needs and we're we're trying to get as as narrow and as small as we can it's really hard to build an office building

[2:35:04] with a plate smaller than 25,000 ft 24 is about where we're at um we're we will

[2:35:10] definitely take that feedback and try to skinny it up as much as we can um it's

[2:35:15] candidly it's going to be very hard for us to adhere to the setbacks of pcd2 yeah I mean anecdotally um a large

[2:35:24] portion of the office buildings that are suffering low occupancy in in downtown business districts are older buildings

[2:35:32] with smaller floor plates okay so and I just have a quick kind of design um

[2:35:37] element related to related to the kind of perception of height um so one of the things that we're studying right now and

[2:35:45] again what we're excited to show you is we're looking at sort of this what we're calling the dock or this like element

[2:35:50] that kind of comes out we're actually thinking from a design kind of motif and story is that that actually is kind of

[2:35:56] cut into the building itself so that only if we go back to the floor plan our idea is that really only that gray

[2:36:03] section you're kind of seeing at top here can you see this my cursor is that's the portion of aesthetically that

[2:36:09] actually touches the ground and the rest is sort of this dock element kind of penetrating through at a much smaller

[2:36:14] single story scale so that was again one of the comments that we heard from the commission and we're starting to study

[2:36:20] that and we're really excited about that c element kind of being what you're you as a pedestrian are perceiving versus

[2:36:27] the the five story building okay yeah that's helpful because and then when you were talking about having an arcade

[2:36:33] running along Arcadia um for another building that I saw a presentation on in

[2:36:38] in another context they were talking about having a glass hallway and um if

[2:36:43] you could see the people coming back and forth it would have that more intimacy than a brick wall

[2:36:50] yeah absolutely that entire entire Arcadia facade behind the arcade is

[2:36:55] likely going to be nearly 100% glass so okay great so then my my big picture

[2:37:01] question is if this is going to be opuses uh corporate headquarters what is the message that

[2:37:07] you want to say as a developer in in this building so I'm driving by I see the

[2:37:14] opus sign what what am I going to think about Opus when I see the building um

[2:37:19] that or go inside it sure yeah uh good question well we uh had a design charet

[2:37:25] if you will last week that was very exciting it was it was a lot of fun to think about what this skin could look

[2:37:31] like again um nobody was excited about this this is blocking diagram so uh we

[2:37:36] recognize this is our our corporate headquarters um this is an important building for us it's an important

[2:37:41] building for the Dina um Opus has a ton of history in the Grand View neighborhood we're really excited to

[2:37:47] make this building pop and really you know jump off the page and I I said jewelbox last week and um I I was

[2:37:54] careful saying that but I really think that is what this is this is a great opportunity to be a gateway to the

[2:38:00] district and and have a really unique um cool building that we're really excited

[2:38:05] about um you know it's a site that again we were fully approved for apartments and uh just couldn't move forward and um

[2:38:11] just couldn't get away from it I I as council member Pierce said drive by four or five times a day and I think it just

[2:38:17] was ingrained in my head like we have to do something and we like it so much that we want to move our headquarters here so

[2:38:23] we're really excited about it we're really excited to get these design images pulled together so that we can start to share those and get even more

[2:38:29] feedback on what the skin looks like because we recognize this is just a blocking diag okay right um and I do

[2:38:34] like the nod to the building on stilts um on the highway 100 side that's that's really that jumps out as a a lovely

[2:38:42] Memorial um so that's cool um so yeah I'm I think that if you

[2:38:47] can engineer the feeling as you walk along a Cadia that it's not um that has

[2:38:54] a sense of human scale that's really important for me at sketch plan it's all about what's it like moving around the

[2:39:00] space um and um so you know you've talked about the the plaza in the South

[2:39:06] and it feels like this will move around pretty nicely um I'm sure you've talked

[2:39:12] with Mr Milner about that but that on ramp to Highway 100 will be going away um and so just kind of thinking about

[2:39:18] the track traffic flow and and how that would impact um but yeah it's exciting thank you thank you

[2:39:26] rememberer um if we could go back to the image that you have that shows yeah um I

[2:39:33] did watch the Planning Commission and I do want to say I like the fact that this

[2:39:39] is office and Commercial and I know this is the mixed use area but we have had so many purely residential buildings go in

[2:39:46] that I think this provides balance that is really very much needed um I like the

[2:39:52] idea of you talking about it as a ship um and I also really appreciate the

[2:39:58] complexity of this particular site because it does dip down and I do walk

[2:40:04] along the sidewalk um it does feel very intimidating with that massive stone

[2:40:10] wall and I do look forward to seeing the um next phase where you show us the

[2:40:17] arcade and I like the play of arcade Ka you know an arcade along Arcadia um that's sweet uh and you know I think

[2:40:25] member Jackson mentioned the reference to the building that is there right now the building on stilts and you know as

[2:40:31] someone who used to be an architectural historian um I feel like you're ticking all the boxes and you're really creating

[2:40:40] something that is going to be functional but also a showcase for your business

[2:40:45] and so I am really very excited by it I do really appreciate how you've got this

[2:40:52] um single story jutting out and I think that does really create a greater sense

[2:40:59] of it being um human scale and it'll contrast so magnificently with what is

[2:41:06] there right now um if we could go back to the table with the variances and yeah you're going to have

[2:41:13] to get variances for this and I think what would be helpful is to show the

[2:41:18] present building and what the setbacks are right now um because I do think it

[2:41:23] probably is non-compliant with you know and you're noing and I think that is true um I like the fact that you're

[2:41:30] going for PCD too I do think we overuse PUD and well you could say if you go for

[2:41:38] PUD all of these variance requests will be built in but there's got to be a give

[2:41:44] to get and I think that's going to be kind of a challenge the other thing is

[2:41:49] the way we do PUD here we bake the actual site plan into the zoning

[2:41:55] creating a proprietary zoning and so when we talk about that pyramid of discretion we can't just talk about the

[2:42:01] green level and the yellow level we got to go all the way to the top to the red and I get very concerned when we're

[2:42:08] mixing all of the colors and voting on them in one Fell Swoop and then we're committed to a specific site plan so I

[2:42:17] there's a lot that I really do appreciate and then if we could go back

[2:42:23] to the overall view where we see the street yeah or that one there um and

[2:42:31] this I I really do appreciate where you're putting the entrances the fact

[2:42:37] that you're doing the trash where you are it's off of Eden that just makes so much more sense um I do think you have

[2:42:44] to have just the way it's functioning you have to have two entrances um it would be Wonder F if we figured out this

[2:42:50] Frontage Road and there was a way for you to come in and then have the entrance off of the frontage road but

[2:42:55] that's not going to happen um the one to the north so I think you know given the complexity

[2:43:03] of the space you are really presenting something that

[2:43:08] is very much suited to the site I like the wider sidewalks I think that'll work

[2:43:16] really well um so I don't really I I

[2:43:21] appreciate the fact that the market is driving the number of parking spaces so

[2:43:27] I really don't have any kind of huge suggestion to

[2:43:34] make thank you thank you for the comments you could just you could leave

[2:43:39] it on this um site plan slide for now

[2:43:46] um over the years when people have asked me what do I think would be the best use of this site at

[2:43:54] 5100 I've always said either corporate headquarters or medical office so uh I

[2:44:00] joined member Risser in saying that I think it's really when I was when I heard you were thinking about it as your

[2:44:06] corporate headquarters and moving from minnona and coming into the town where the family lived you know and still

[2:44:13] family members live it's it's pretty exciting so as your partners we want to

[2:44:18] get it right and um we get to work on this together and um I joined my colleagues I

[2:44:25] guess uh in saying the the only point I really worry about from

[2:44:30] U proximity to the building and the sidewalk and is where you across a drive a in that northwest corner where you've

[2:44:37] got like three to five feet of setback so I I would join other folks even the Planning Commission say you know to me

[2:44:43] shove it as far east as you can and uh I understand your floor plate argument in

[2:44:48] ter in terms of you you designed it at 5 ft for a purpose if you thought it would have been better for you to go taller I

[2:44:54] think you would have realized you probably had that flexibility because we talked about that in the last project we

[2:45:00] did yeah you remember that and and you convinced me that otherwise you know

[2:45:05] because that was my first preference there too um if you go then to the um

[2:45:11] the blocking photo yeah the blocking elevation um understand that it's

[2:45:16] blocking you know and I know that you working with ESG will come up with a

[2:45:23] beautiful design because it's just going to be your Corporate Home and you want you want to be proud of it and you want

[2:45:29] people in the town to be proud of it and it's going to be a wonderful addition to the community so

[2:45:36] um I would say just make sure that you don't get too linear on that Arcadia

[2:45:43] Avenue side you know that you've got things moving in and out and and maybe

[2:45:48] even think about about um thinking about this with some of the

[2:45:54] southill design guidelines I think it's at 65 ft people still feel like they

[2:45:59] they're it's not a sheer wall so if you could even give some thought to uh

[2:46:04] Podium you know at the 65 ft Mark move move the plates a little bit further

[2:46:10] east so even if they candle levered over the plates that were below

[2:46:16] it might be a thought of making people feel like the building isn't right on top of them if you if you

[2:46:23] if you understand what I'm saying there and I think if you look at those design experience guidelines for the Salt Hill district you find that as a as a

[2:46:30] recommendation at 65 ft is my recollection I think another element that we're studying as as a way to make

[2:46:36] that not feel as AER potentially is that maybe we introduce all all of our like exterior balconies or Terrace levels for

[2:46:43] the office portion along Arcadia as well on that elevation to create again more repri more push and pull in the building

[2:46:50] and then create more activity along as well uh and then go back to the other

[2:46:55] site plan would you I wanted to ask you so you talked about uh a main pedestrian

[2:47:00] entrance on Arcadia I thought that was a great idea so then I'm I'm coming in either from the south or the North and

[2:47:06] I'm going to turn in and and drop somebody at the covered entrance is really what it is and then uh where am I

[2:47:15] going next am I going in that drive a that where it says 26 feet or where am I going you could make your way kind of

[2:47:22] southbound and down out otherwise you could do a loop if you went down the 26

[2:47:27] then yeah do a donut and back out on our C if you wanted so you're going to have some flexibility on on the dryve ISS in

[2:47:33] there then on getting out yeah it's all two-way traffic on those they're wide enough to or or getting in I guess you

[2:47:40] could come in off Eden and and go up to the north and come across and drop them across away from the drop off or the

[2:47:46] main entrance that's covered okay office users once once they've been

[2:47:51] there a couple times and they know where their spot is is they're going to find the the path of lease resistance based on their commute AG they're going to

[2:47:57] know what what side they come in and they're never going to change yeah some interesting uh traffic movements in there

[2:48:03] internally um

[2:48:09] so that's about all I've got I I think the idea of uh of lowering that South

[2:48:15] corner you know getting rid of that that wall uh and trying to bring it down to grade

[2:48:21] a little bit is a nice nice idea match it up better better with the roundabout

[2:48:26] and and maybe pulling that sidewalk back in a little bit tighter or having a spots where people can

[2:48:32] sit having that little pocket park making the most out of that pocket park we'll see more from you on that too I'm

[2:48:38] sure um I'm not so concerned about uh pedestrians crossing the drive aisle it

[2:48:43] happens all the time it happens up at Hilltop it happens up by the funeral home you know I mean it's just just to

[2:48:49] way it is if I'm at Target I'm crossing a drive AIS pretty significant Drive

[2:48:54] aisle so uh I think people will learn how to be careful there and drivers will as well watching for pedestrians it

[2:49:01] doesn't seem like there's any pedestrian visibility problem there uh I think regardless of the direction the vehicle

[2:49:07] moving they're going to see people on the sidewalk there um and that's about

[2:49:13] all I've got for now too I you know I I I get it I prefer taller skinnier but

[2:49:19] you as you said Mr manand Skinny up as much as you can uh keeping in mind what

[2:49:25] what you need to produce these days for an office building to to make it habitable and make people want to be

[2:49:31] there um and I'm sure there will be companies that want to be there where you're occupying a significant portion

[2:49:37] of it as your corporate headquarters so we look forward to the next phase

[2:49:42] anybody else that prompt anything from anybody else thank you so follow on M Jackson yeah the one thing that I see

[2:49:49] the where the Bike Room is um just to make sure that bike access you're not

[2:49:55] too conflicted with the um with the cars that's already moved um we've got a better spot we we we're trying to

[2:50:02] celebrate that a little more have have a little better spot so yes that'll be relocated all right terrific thank you

[2:50:08] okay good thank you gentlemen thank you thank you appreciate the

[2:50:16] comments all right now we're going to move on uh member U has um talked about

[2:50:22] this I think briefly before and said she was going to come back with something and as as staff to look at some

[2:50:28] ordinances on um uh this issue of inhumanely bred

[2:50:33] animals from some other jurisdictions and um I'm going to turn now to member U to introduce the topic yes thank you

[2:50:40] very much uh so this actually was initiated a few months ago when I had a

[2:50:45] resident reach out to me um really really just sharing the perspective of

[2:50:52] growing concerns um of the sale of dogs and cats

[2:50:57] from commercial breeding facilities where animals are often kept in inhumane

[2:51:03] conditions um with inadequate vet care um socialization and kind of exercise

[2:51:09] all those necessary components for the healthiness of animals um so I looked

[2:51:15] into it a little bit more did did some research tried to understand that topic um and in some ways like it can be hard

[2:51:23] to find some data um but the ASPCA said that approximately 9200 animals are

[2:51:28] euthanized annually um and so this is me wanting to within the city

[2:51:37] of Vina um kind of take action to prevent um inhumanely bred animals from

[2:51:46] being sold Within in the city of Edina um I will say this isn't something

[2:51:52] that's necessarily like a huge concern of mine this isn't a we have a problem

[2:51:58] and we're we're trying to address that problem within the city it explicitly um

[2:52:04] but I the more that I studied there was a a case just a couple of months ago I think it was late last year in Beltrami

[2:52:10] County um so Northern Minnesota and there was a lot of news articles about it and it's just it's

[2:52:17] really sad and it's really terrible and so the idea was if there's something that we could do within the city um that

[2:52:24] would help prevent this from happening um wanted to look at that so that's when

[2:52:31] I reached out to to Scott Neil um and we came up with the ordinance as it is drafted um so I'm happy to to talk any

[2:52:38] more about it um answer any questions um but also happy to kind of hand it over

[2:52:45] to U manager Neil for kind of advice on next steps thank you council member agnu and

[2:52:51] members of council uh this particular ordinance is one that was drafted by our City attorney he looked at a couple

[2:52:58] other communities that had similar ordinances but uh uh kind of adapted

[2:53:03] them to fit uh to fit what what you see tonight if you do uh wish to take an

[2:53:09] action on this tonight of course you can uh it would be first reading and if you do and we would schedule a second

[2:53:15] reading uh for your February 4th uh council

[2:53:22] meeting well I can't get it up on my screen my whole screen was black and now I can't I got that back but now I can't

[2:53:29] even get the ordinance on my screen so and remember M Jackson's

[2:53:35] having a problem too I am um but I do scen black yeah for some reason the Wii

[2:53:42] after certain number of minutes dies what doesn't die it kind of resets so you have to rec

[2:53:49] I scroll it says it's connected um anyways I have a question about the

[2:53:55] content um and that it's more about the operation um would this encour would the

[2:54:00] city have to hire someone to enforce this or um what kind of cost would this

[2:54:06] uh generate we uh council member Jackson members of council we would not hire additional staff for this uh for this

[2:54:13] ordinance we would use existing staff that are here it's hard for me to estimate how many um how many hours

[2:54:21] would be devoted to this because we don't really think there's much of a problem at the moment uh but we do have

[2:54:28] uh we do have an animal control officer we do have public health functions so between the two of those that's how we

[2:54:34] would enforce this in the future okay and um currently we don't really have any pet stores I think in din there's

[2:54:41] none at the mall so um we allow pet stores

[2:54:48] yes they'd be allowed in the commercial zoning districts okay um

[2:54:54] so this is more preventative almost than anything else yes I think that's right

[2:55:00] yeah and really the intention here is you know even to say if there were to be a pet store that they have to follow the

[2:55:06] like very specific regulations to ensure that they're kind of

[2:55:12] humanely operating so sort of like the um I can't think of the term but in

[2:55:17] manufact facturing the chain of custody that uh the every step a piece of food that you eat is is documented so that

[2:55:25] you know that it it hasn't been um uh tampered with along the way so it's different because obviously this is

[2:55:31] these are pets and not food um but it is a USDA license okay um so that is kind

[2:55:36] of the official governing body okay well um I'm sorry no I'm finished thank you

[2:55:43] okay um what's the definition of commercial kennel

[2:55:48] and breeding facility I mean do we allow do we allow

[2:55:55] those we do I believe I don't have it in front of me but I believe it's if you

[2:56:01] hold more than three dogs we do have some commercial kennels we're just not

[2:56:07] aware of them selling we we have some commercial kennels now

[2:56:23] yeah that so a veterinarian that boards dogs would be a commercial kennel or maybe there's a commercial kennel down

[2:56:30] on 70th in Kill I've seen some dogs I believe there is down there yes and to

[2:56:36] clarify it pet stores are allowed in the PCD 2 and three districts not the pcd1

[2:56:45] district and do we allow breeding facility

[2:56:51] to I don't know how we would distinguish that from a kenel Kendall can you distinguish

[2:57:00] between a well mayor I did commercial kennel and a breeding facility I did use the definition of commercial kennel from

[2:57:07] the uh ordinance and it it is defined as a place with more than three dogs uh let

[2:57:13] me see if I can find where I found the definition for breeding facility

[2:57:27] that may have come from one of the other ordinances that I looked at I don't think that's defined in existing city

[2:57:40] ordinance I do know that there's I did an internet search and I think there there is a business in Idina that

[2:57:49] um sells dogs that theyve bred I don't know that they breed them on site they may breed them somewhere else and then

[2:57:56] sell them through that website

[2:58:27] so if if we think of a commercial I'm looking at D subsection

[2:58:32] 818 D commercial kennel shall display a

[2:58:39] notice in a conspicuous Place honored within 3 feet of each animal's kennel cage and or enclosure identifies the

[2:58:45] name of the source from which the animal was obtained in the sources contact

[2:58:50] information so it makes me think if a commercial kennel includes people

[2:58:56] that maintain a facility that takes care of pets when somebody's out of town for example for a week that mean they've got

[2:59:04] to display a sign every time they rent a space to a family that displays where

[2:59:11] the dog came from it came from the Jones family over on on the particular Street

[2:59:21] yeah I think it probably would require that I mean for for boarding facilities I mean they they could just put the name

[2:59:28] of the dog and the family that's boarding the dog there but why why would they need to do that though I if you're

[2:59:34] at a boarding kennel you're not selling pets and so this is saying it's

[2:59:42] the sell of inhumanely bred animals it's not

[2:59:49] boarding yeah this is designed to prevent sale of yeah

[2:59:55] animals so if you have a boarding kennel you would not need to do

[3:00:03] that I don't there's no I don't know there's any value in doing

[3:00:13] that so I had the questions around um yeah go ahead ask remember

[3:00:20] Jackson it asked the operational side of it um and so you answered that the other

[3:00:26] question I had when I read through this I

[3:00:32] thought the first question was what are we really trying to accomplish with this

[3:00:38] um I definitely don't have any issue with the premise of the concern of

[3:00:45] inhumanely bred animals but then I wondered if we don't if we don't have any uh businesses

[3:00:54] today that do this in Idina this felt a little bit more like

[3:01:01] we should maybe be doing something from an awareness standpoint as well because

[3:01:06] I think that might actually yield more value for our community at this point in

[3:01:12] time um if there was some awareness to say like for us we purchased our dog

[3:01:21] from a kennel in near St Cloud and so you get the

[3:01:27] whole here's who the parents are here's where they came from this is how you

[3:01:33] know they were raised and breed and so

[3:01:39] you kind of get the whole um I don't know what you call it I want to say

[3:01:44] blockchain blockchain genetic blockchain yeah yeah so you get all of that um but

[3:01:52] it was kind of word of mouth when we said we were looking for pet and someone say well you be careful what kenel you

[3:01:58] get them from because they could be bred inhumanely or too many times or whatever um and so I

[3:02:06] do think from an awareness standpoint there could be something as a city um

[3:02:11] that will be more valuable for us to talk through to make people aware of in

[3:02:17] addition to having this on the as an ordinance uh member Pierce members of

[3:02:23] council if if you adapt this and put it into play there's a Communications plan that would go with it to talk to the

[3:02:30] community about what what it is why we're doing it how does it work

[3:02:39] yeah you know I like to read it several times here now and

[3:02:45] and um you read it in preparation too but uh for me as a old tactile Guy having a

[3:02:53] piece of paper in front of me is nice thank you thank you clerk

[3:02:58] Allison when my computer wasn't functioning um I like the language after the first

[3:03:06] two sentences in the first paragraph sub paragraph a where you where I would think you could almost start out saying

[3:03:13] the city council seeks to discourage the inhumane breeding of animals by limiting their profitability through sale the

[3:03:19] commercial Cals limiting commercial CS from engaging a collaborative that that part I wasn't sure about the value of

[3:03:26] the first two sentences um but I do like you know what it what the what we're getting to member

[3:03:32] Pierce says what's the purpose well B has one of the purposes and um C and D

[3:03:38] as well um and and E of course provides the

[3:03:44] penalty for operating and violation of the ordinance

[3:03:56] um so but remember like agnu likes the way

[3:04:01] it's worded in its entirety I'm comfortable with that I guess uh at

[3:04:07] least for a first reading basis we got to come back and approve second reading and it gives us a chance of maybe think

[3:04:12] about it a little bit more and the and the structure of it M rer I concur the one um question I

[3:04:21] have is if the penalties referenced um make sense for all of the violations

[3:04:26] because it says upon first um you know violation they shall

[3:04:32] be guilty of a petty misdemeanor and I don't know if that would adequately address somebody you

[3:04:40] know buying from I mean maybe it would but to your point this is just the first meeting or reading of this and we can

[3:04:47] think about that yeah that's a good point are there more in section 8.3 other than Petty misdemeanor um upon the

[3:04:54] second conviction guilty of a misdemeanor and so it it ramps up but if

[3:05:00] that First Act is you know should marit a response greater than a petty

[3:05:05] misdemeanor we might want to think about that oh that might want to you might want to beef that up a little bit and go

[3:05:12] to a higher level well mayor there's also a sentence in there about uh the first each

[3:05:19] subsequent violation of certain sections shall be a misdemeanor so if you wanted to make the first violation of this

[3:05:25] section A misdemeanor you could do that as well

[3:05:33] okay well we've had a a pretty good little discussion on this issue I you

[3:05:38] know I'm comfortable if we read this on or pass it on a first reading basis and

[3:05:43] then maybe refine it a little bit for for second reading is that okay member

[3:05:50] Egan abolutely you want you want to move the matter so moved second member U

[3:05:56] moves member here seconds the adoption of ordinance proposed ordinance

[3:06:01] 20251 and ordinance amending chapter 8 article 3 of the Aden city code concerning the sale of inhumanely breed

[3:06:07] animals breed animals on a first reading basis um as I said a motion and a second

[3:06:15] to that effect is there any further discussion um all those in favor of the adoption of

[3:06:20] the motion is St say I I I opposed carried okay let's

[3:06:27] um I I can probably hang on to this can't I I can fiddle around with this

[3:06:33] one all right very good um that's our workload tonight for the

[3:06:40] most part we've got some things to uh report out on manager Neil uh your

[3:06:45] comments thank you honor got a number of things to report on tonight uh first is I want to give you uh I I told you

[3:06:52] earlier in January that this evening I'd give you a status report on on our progress to identify um contractions

[3:07:01] that we would make in our 2025 budget uh and I'm ready to do that tonight uh we

[3:07:06] have went through a process at the at the staff level to identify enough uh uh

[3:07:14] savings that we could uh meet the the requirement of the

[3:07:19] 8.44 uh Levy increase that was that went from 2024 to 2025 that required us to

[3:07:26] reduce $545,000 in general fund spending and and we have identified uh uh a number of

[3:07:34] of uh reductions that we can make uh we're putting those reductions into the form of a council action into the form

[3:07:41] specifically as an amendment a formal council Amendment to the 2025 City budget and we'll be presenting those to

[3:07:48] you at your February 4th meeting uh the savings come through kind of vacancy placement savings that we know we're

[3:07:54] going to have in in 2025 uh we also reclassified some

[3:08:00] equipment purchases into different capital accounts rather than paying cash for them we've reduced some Professional

[3:08:06] Services um and we've really take taken what I would say as a broad-based approach to uh how we do this um with

[3:08:14] with kind of pursuing our values as an organization and not just just a straight kind of across theboard

[3:08:19] reduction for everybody so we'll talk more about those and I'll have that on the agenda for the for the February 4th

[3:08:26] uh council meeting um at the same time we've also been preparing uh for the

[3:08:31] 2026 2027 budget process uh we're going to start preparing you for that process

[3:08:36] as well uh and you know that staff are are all working on uh kind of

[3:08:42] educational presentations about service level and how to uh how to of parse

[3:08:47] service levels within a particular service uh we plan to present some of that information to you uh at our at our

[3:08:54] work session on February 4th and then a special work session on February 6th so we'll be spending a lot of time getting

[3:09:00] that ready for you um we've had a discussion here previously on a possible

[3:09:08] pilot project for Community comment um I know you've received some comment uh not

[3:09:13] in favor of this but uh but we could I could if you wish uh prepare you a a

[3:09:21] pilot project with some policies and procedures and protocol around um around

[3:09:27] Community comment if you wish to change it then at least you've got something tangible that you can uh like or dislike

[3:09:34] um but I would like to put that in front of you at also at your February 4th meeting unless there's unless council is

[3:09:40] not interested in doing that um final uh final thing that I have for you tonight

[3:09:47] is just to celebrate a couple of anniversaries uh Ari lens our new assistant uh city manager is not here

[3:09:53] tonight uh but she will complete uh one year of service tomorrow um on the other

[3:10:00] end of that Continuum is Jennifer benat who completed 25 years of service on

[3:10:05] January 3rd so congratulations [Applause]

[3:10:11] Jen speech no spee no speech okay no no speech for her thanks for the

[3:10:16] opportunity yeah that's all I have for you tonight thank you good information thank you uh member

[3:10:24] rer um since it was just brought up and looking for feedback about whether we

[3:10:30] talk about changing Community comments um at our next council meeting um I had

[3:10:37] the thought that maybe what we want to do is pitch that question in our quality of life survey that goes out every two

[3:10:43] years and find out what the community thinks about doing that before we take action so just a suggestion there um but

[3:10:52] what I was going to talk about before you mentioned that was the plastic free

[3:10:58] challenge that's coming up in February and we are participating in that there is a kickoff meeting or a educational

[3:11:05] meeting February 1st um at the Idina library and it's really kind of relevant

[3:11:11] and very sort of exciting to learn we can learn from Gabriella R Roso um the

[3:11:19] green Corps member here and um I'm G to try to do my best I'm really kind of

[3:11:26] interested in learning about the Plastics that I'm probably not even aware of but that's all I have thank you

[3:11:33] thank you M Jackson thank you Mr Mayor so on Sunday

[3:11:39] at evening my doorbell rang hello this is the city of Vina and we have a water

[3:11:44] man break in the middle of your street and so so you're not going to have water for 6 hours so I wanted to it really uh

[3:11:53] raised the awareness of the services that the city gives and how grateful I

[3:11:58] am that people were out in the cold fixing water M Break um it took a long time I wasn't able to wash my hands all

[3:12:06] night so I kept have the snack and then you like Sticky Fingers and so you

[3:12:12] expect to turn on the faucet and the water to come out and so I am my heightened awareness of how grateful I

[3:12:19] am that we have water that's portable and turns on from a tap um when you

[3:12:25] don't have it you really miss it and and I wanted to have a shout out to the city of udina employees who were out on

[3:12:31] Sunday in the cold fixing that that was really a big deal um and then it made me

[3:12:37] think we were upstairs talking about the art center and and some of the park facilities and recently um our very own

[3:12:45] Tracy Peterson Tracy Peterson who is the assistant director of recreation and Facilities got an award from her

[3:12:53] professional association the Minnesota Recreation and park Association it she got the Clinton e

[3:12:58] French award which is the highest award possible for Park um and recreation

[3:13:05] facility directors and so I'm super proud of her for getting that um and it just shows the high quality of employees

[3:13:12] that we have in the city so Kudos all around to everybody who's doing a good job and and thanks for fixing the water

[3:13:19] man thank you um member

[3:13:24] Pierce just a comment um the community comment piece that you talked about you

[3:13:31] mentioned just now um I so I didn't think that we were doing that and so I

[3:13:38] may have just misremembered the conversation that we had

[3:13:44] um I and so I think what I would say is if we are going to look at um a

[3:13:52] proposal um I would be in favor

[3:13:57] of making changes that increase the amount of community comment right um so

[3:14:05] that we got more feedback we got more Community engagement um I don't know

[3:14:10] that I would would be in favor of doing something that um would be less

[3:14:17] um less engaging maybe I'd put it that way um and so other than that I I don't

[3:14:25] have any additional oh no I did one other thing I um wanted to commend the

[3:14:32] city staff and so the leadership um going through the budget

[3:14:37] conversation right that's been very taxing I think for all of us for the

[3:14:44] past few months um and so I do appreciate appreciate that for

[3:14:49] 2025 um you and staff have gone through and you'll be recommending a proposal

[3:14:55] there um and I think the process that you've talked about utilizing for 2026

[3:15:01] is a good process the question I have is did you want to say anything about um

[3:15:08] what you're thinking in terms of community engagement for the 2026 piece

[3:15:17] I I'm not ready to do that tonight actually um we we've got some more discussion in house about how we want to

[3:15:24] approach the public around it uh we did talk a little bit about uh simulating

[3:15:30] the same kind of community task force that the school district is is looking at so we are uh studying that right now

[3:15:37] to see how that would fit within our own time frame and organization so that's a POS that's a possibility it's one one

[3:15:43] place to start it would have some advantages that um uh you know our one

[3:15:49] population could see that both of its primary you know City and school are working are working along the same lines

[3:15:56] and using some similar strategies so that might be the best way to go okay and that was it I just wanted you to to

[3:16:03] share that you were thinking about uh ways that uh might be beneficial for us

[3:16:10] to get um Community involvement in that um and with that that's all I had thank

[3:16:17] you member egno nothing from you this week just trying to stay warm yeah

[3:16:23] thanks um couple of things for me to cover and um one of them relates to this issue of

[3:16:31] what we've been talking about up here this U Community comment and um I as you know I was at the US Conference of Mayor

[3:16:38] winter meeting over the weekend and I had a chance to see some of our colleagues that are nearby Bloomington

[3:16:44] Eden Prairie Burnsville um and asked them about the type of

[3:16:49] process they use for Community comment and um uh we talked about Eden Prairie they

[3:16:56] do theirs at 6:30 at night off camera spend a half an hour or 20 minutes and

[3:17:02] answer people's questions but record it uh Bloomington used to do it I think

[3:17:07] like we do it now they said they went to a process where they do it out of

[3:17:13] Chambers in a separate room like the community room on audio only not

[3:17:20] recorded and they they're getting a different kind of participation from people they're getting more people

[3:17:26] coming because they feel comfortable not being on TV you know there may be some people that feel totally comfortable but

[3:17:33] they're getting more people now that are coming with neighborhood issues that want to visit with the council in an

[3:17:38] informal way and have a actual conversation back and forth as opposed to just intaking information and saying

[3:17:44] we'll get back to you with an answer and then uh Burnsville uses a variation

[3:17:52] of what we do um but the mayor meets with the people beforehand and get they

[3:17:58] get a list of people who want to engage in commune comment and what they want to

[3:18:03] talk about and what questions do they have for staff so they can direct them to the appropriate staff person and kind of do it on in the moment so those are

[3:18:11] just a few ways that other cities are are um Eng in community comment and

[3:18:18] we'll talk more about it on the 5th of February I guess so we had something of quite uh a

[3:18:27] significant nature occur in our community last night Willard AA passed away long time he down a coach uh eight

[3:18:34] state championships I think and I I Scott got a long text message from Casey

[3:18:41] Hinson and uh I thought it would be appropriate to read that and we asked Jennifer to find a few pH photos of of

[3:18:48] Coach Ike um we got that wonderful bronze statue of him out in front of the Brer

[3:18:54] Ice Arena and um yeah look at

[3:19:00] that had him up on the on the screen last night and so here's a note to Scott Neil

[3:19:07] from um from Casey Hinson and he sent to

[3:19:13] Scott what he had been sending to people that he knew would want to know that coach AA had passed away it's with a

[3:19:20] very heavy heart that we let you know that our legendary leader coach AA passed away last night at 10:35 p.m. at

[3:19:26] the age of 92 it's impossible to think about a hockey without thinking about

[3:19:32] coache we were all so blessed to have his presence each year at the AA cup uh

[3:19:38] event last year that's a golfing event that the hockey veterans have for

[3:19:43] raising funds for the hockey program the stories coach would tell are legendary

[3:19:49] and always wondered how he could retain that knowledge one year I asked him Coach how do you remember all those details his answer was I do a little

[3:19:56] preparing the week before that says a lot about Coach Ike details mattered and he cared enough to

[3:20:02] prepare so he could be at his best We Will Cherish All the memories we had with Coach Ike certainly a legend on the

[3:20:08] ice but also off a true Ranger and one that shared so many valuable lessons

[3:20:14] with those around him I thought i' share the words from the plaque near the coach Ike statue statue uh at Brar Ward coach

[3:20:23] Ike aola after coach Ike's playing career ended he became the heart and soul of Adina hockey as he forged an

[3:20:30] illustrious 33-year High School coaching career players would flood to outdoor

[3:20:35] rinks and skate on frozen ponds in order to practice until the construction of Brar arena in

[3:20:41] 1965 Ike helped create a tradition of Adina hockey and worked with ad Hockey

[3:20:47] Association to build one of the greatest hockey programs in the United States it was every player's dream to compete for

[3:20:54] one of uh one of his teams and play for the Hornets famous for his iconic houndtooth

[3:21:00] hat Ike was modest when speaking of his coaching record he said I never coached a goal or

[3:21:06] prevented one either all the credit for our success belongs to the kids oik emphasized the fundamentals of

[3:21:13] hockey and was a disciplinary with a firm and fair manner in a firm Fair manner the gentlemanly mentor often said

[3:21:19] you have to be humble in Victory and gracious in defeat it was eel's way

[3:21:25] every season many former Adina hockey players have returned to the community and volunteered to help support sustain

[3:21:30] and pass on the ad hockey tradition EV high school three time three-time state champion Minnesota

[3:21:37] State High School record holder in most career games uh in a tournament 12 most wins 10 shutouts Five played for the

[3:21:45] Michigan Wolverines two ties two-time national uh NCAA National Champion uh

[3:21:52] all tournament team twice uh first team All-American West Team USA olympic

[3:21:58] silver medalist 1956 in Cortina Italy US national team 57 589 High School record

[3:22:05] of 616 wins 149 losses and 38 ties 19 state tournament appearances

[3:22:13] Minnesota State High School League records most state championships eight most most state finals 10 most wins 38

[3:22:19] Hall of Fame United States Hockey Association University of Michigan H uh Hall of Fame Minnesota High School

[3:22:26] coaches Hall of Fame National High School sports Hall of Fame Minnesota state coaches association Hall of Fame

[3:22:32] and he di a High School athletic hocky uh hall of fame um when more details become

[3:22:39] available regarding coach a service uh Casey said he'd passed them on and um

[3:22:47] we will as well I'm sure so coach Ike uh and family uh we wish you the best and

[3:22:53] uh the next part of your your post-early living and uh for his family you have

[3:23:00] all of our best we're so grateful that you a part of our community thank

[3:23:05] you and then I wanted to report out a little bit on that meeting I described that I went to a US Conference of Mayors

[3:23:12] um on Friday we had the the we had a really uh great morning uh plenary

[3:23:18] session the first person we had was uh and these folks are this was our last public appearance for many of them uh

[3:23:25] Surgeon General vivc Murthy had some really interesting observations around mental health and he had he had just a a

[3:23:32] great quote about the the dangers of you know social media and what it's doing to our kids he said there they live in a

[3:23:39] world now where they need to matter in a world of constant

[3:23:45] comparison now I thought that was really quite apropo uh to what we're seeing our

[3:23:50] kids facing as they you know it was it's tough enough in life when you're a kid to um wonder how you compare to other

[3:23:58] people or thinking you don't compare well what do you what what are you good for what do you how do you matter uh but

[3:24:05] now in the world uh kids live in uh this need to matter in a world of constant comparison is really really difficult he

[3:24:12] talked about the r causes of what he has observed over time as serving a surgeon is the um um um the what do you called

[3:24:21] the Triad uh the wrong Triad that's being followed that's Fame wealth and

[3:24:26] power uh when uh and they become the root cause of unhappiness because he said what people should be seeking is

[3:24:33] the Triad of fulfillment which is the building of relationships uh the commitment of

[3:24:38] service and the commitment of purpose those should all be the cores of every pillar uh of of pillar core pillars of

[3:24:45] every Community which I think we would uh concur with that so the question for him at the end of the day was what kind

[3:24:51] of a Nation do we want to be uh and sent us off with the message that I think we

[3:24:56] follow quite well here and that is to make Community your goal put people first then we had Pete Buddha judge who

[3:25:04] uh you know the outgoing us do secretary uh talked about the bilateral

[3:25:09] infrast or the bilateral the B bipartisan infrastructure act uh so you

[3:25:15] know that was a 1.2 trillion act we've got 72,000 projects funded uh in hundreds of

[3:25:22] cities and counties across the country 207,000 road projects 12,300 Bridge

[3:25:28] projects 1500 airports are undergoing some form of renovation and he said the

[3:25:34] transportation system represents the trajectory of us as a country he had some other interesting things to to

[3:25:39] comment on as well uh and but emphasize that local government local government

[3:25:45] acting in the public interest is needed now more than ever and and and local government local leaders in government

[3:25:52] Mayors and City councils can help sort fact from fiction reality from speculation and

[3:25:57] accusation and that we are far better off together offline and that one person

[3:26:02] can get more done uh from a city council standpoint meeting at the grocery store than some person sitting in their

[3:26:09] basement on a keyboard so um and emphasized again this importance

[3:26:17] of partnership with local leaders and um that we're living in a world created by local leaders and the Salvation must

[3:26:24] come from local leaders as well so those were some of the key and then and then at the noon plenary we had uh President

[3:26:31] Biden which was his last public appearance and uh that was wonderful to

[3:26:37] have him there as well I went to several sessions several different days on housing related issues because we're

[3:26:42] working on that as a part of the association of mlc uh so that was important to get that

[3:26:48] information um on on on Saturday we had uh another

[3:26:54] good opening session uh the mayor of uh leave Ukraine was there which is a city

[3:27:01] of about a million people and talked about the resilience of the ukrainians uh Target we had uh Target's

[3:27:07] a corporate sponsor for us Conference of Mayors so it was nice to visit with the target folks that were there for the

[3:27:13] morning plener um and then uh we heard uh more on housing uh at that particular

[3:27:19] plenary as well and then went on to uh other meetings during the day including

[3:27:24] uh the use of AI to build public trust and connection uh that was an interesting session um uh C you know the

[3:27:32] how are we going to keep climate work going now we're going to we're out of the Paris climate Accords uh there's a strategy session for Mayors around how

[3:27:40] to keep our climate work going um there was a session I didn't get to but it was I'm sure it was interesting about how to

[3:27:45] talk about the future which all of us are thinking about and then the afternoon plenary session had some

[3:27:51] awards on um environmental health and childhood obesity and there's some things that we should be uh doing there

[3:27:58] as well we had a bunch of West Point Cadets there with Dr Frank lent who's a pollster and I'll I'll share those

[3:28:05] slides that he um created that deal with um the the trust

[3:28:11] in local government and then um uh we had the session of about how some of the uh

[3:28:18] bipartisan infrastructure act grants are transforming communities uh we had a session at the

[3:28:24] end of the day on Saturday that I attended on combating anti-Semitism islamophobia and other forms of hate and

[3:28:31] extremism and here tonight we heard from the gentleman from the Hindu temple on that very topic um and then uh various

[3:28:40] groups had meetings on on Saturday night you know that you work till 5:30 or so and then at 6:30 say the buses are

[3:28:46] leaving on Saturday night we ended up at the um residence of the Spanish ambassador to the United States uh and

[3:28:52] then on Friday I also had that session that I ran as the chair of the Transportation Commission or the trans

[3:28:57] standing committee on transportation and uh we had Paulie trottenberg there the under secretary

[3:29:02] the deputy secretary for us do uh who gave her kind of observations over the

[3:29:08] four years of the of the iig or the bipartisan infrastructure law as they

[3:29:13] call it um we have then reports out from our various Vice chairs on on Intermodal

[3:29:20] on Amtrak we had the um CEO of Amtrak there Steven Gardner who talked about

[3:29:25] the fact that Amtrak's business since the Congress has invested in them in the Northeast quarter is up

[3:29:32] 25% uh also report outs on on Transit and then uh some strategies about what's

[3:29:38] ahead in fact that's what we talked about on Sunday we had a they cut the meeting short because of the weather on Sunday we were done by noon uh actually

[3:29:46] late morning uh and that we had we had they had all the um standing chairs uh

[3:29:52] as part of a plenary session and a panel to talk about what were some of the things that we were expecting to see in

[3:29:58] the next uh uh session and then uh we got a chance to talk a little bit about the um reauthorization of the surface

[3:30:05] Transportation Act which takes place by September 30th of 2026 and some of the

[3:30:10] things that we're going to work on there in terms of localism more pressure on local streets because of the change behavior of people how they work how

[3:30:17] they shop um and then also uh we talked a little bit about what we expect to be some pressure on transit systems and

[3:30:24] when you think about uh the need for Transit and getting past this period

[3:30:29] where we had concerns about public safety and Public Health on public transportation systems including TR

[3:30:34] mostly Transit um you think about 90 plus perc of our GDP being produced in 3% of our

[3:30:42] land mass uh you better have an effective Transit System uh to be able to make sure that our

[3:30:48] economy flourishes so that's kind of a summary report of the things that I was involved in um at the uh session and uh

[3:30:57] we got a leadership meeting the end of February and um that's kind of what

[3:31:03] happened in as I say in a summary form at the US Conference of Mayors meeting

[3:31:08] in DC and of course there were a lot of um uh activities around the inauguration

[3:31:14] going on in the hotel we we were uh we were at that was where all the Florida Republicans were gathering and they had

[3:31:20] a big event on Saturday night it was kind of interesting to see all the people all dressed up in different ways

[3:31:26] and some had caps on and some didn't and some had Tuxedos and some didn't anyway

[3:31:33] uh it was an interesting time to be in Washington that's it for me um so you

[3:31:40] learn went to a lot of spoke a lot about housing um I'd be interested in hearing

[3:31:46] more in depth whether it's uh by email or at maybe an HRA meeting if you had

[3:31:52] just a brief outline you know whether it's we're doing the same thing that other people are doing or ideas that you

[3:31:57] got because I think we're always looking for um you know I think I think normalizing what we're doing right I

[3:32:03] think that's that's a great point and I think one of the things I'm waiting for now is them to produce all of the

[3:32:10] Powerpoints that were there because uh Harvard was there with presenting on on their housing studies that they done

[3:32:16] around the country the Pew trust was there talking about some of the things that are going on you know it made me

[3:32:21] think a little bit about what we did over at the residence in uh on that conversion on that hotel property they

[3:32:27] said what's happening now with a lot of the office buildings around the country is that they're being converted into um

[3:32:33] uh housing but because of the way the plumbing runs of course they don't they can't have in a you know so it's

[3:32:38] dormatory style end up you know to accommodate um maybe it's folks that are

[3:32:44] coming out of homelessness that that need a a shelter all the way to 30% of your immedient income and they're

[3:32:50] creating uh dormatory style housing out of some of these apartment buildings where they can have a bathroom every

[3:32:56] floor and they can expand off of that existing Plumbing uh in those bathrooms to create additional stalls and then

[3:33:03] also bathing capacity so that was something I you know that we haven't seen of anything of around here yet but

[3:33:11] uh we may be seen that in some parts of the community too not our community necessarily but others that uh are

[3:33:17] around the Metro but I'll as soon as I get all that information pulled together I'll I'll send it out great thank you

[3:33:25] okay um all right is there a motion to adjourn so moved second member Jackson

[3:33:33] moves and member U seconds we adjourn the meeting of the ad city council this 21st day of January 2025 it is

[3:33:42] 10:34 p.m. uh any further discussion all those in favor of adjournment say I I I oppos

[3:33:50] carried city council stands adjourned this 21st day of January 2025