I text about 45 minutes. >> All right. Ready? Great. Calling to order the August 5th, 2026 meeting of the Long Lake City Council. It is 6:30 p.m. All council members are present this evening with the exception of Council Member Dyk. He'll probably be pulling in here in about five or 10 minutes. He's just coming from another event across other side of the city. So, item two is to uh pledge allegiance. Please join me in the >> flag of the United States of America. Okay. Item uh three is mayor's comments new news meeting review and updates. So, it's been very busy the last couple weeks in Long Lake. We're kind of in the heart of the summer now. A lot of great events going on that I just want to recap and and shout out give some shout outs to. Uh, Buckhorn Days was last Saturday on the 25th sponsored by the Long Lake Area Chamber of Commerce and and the Ornal Lions as well. Thanks to all those that put on a great event that day was there. I know several council members were there as well. Was a little bit on the hot side where we can't control the weather with some great music. Um, some some uh food and beverages. Uh, allstar wrestling or sometime wrestling event was there. That's always a second annual deal there and uh interesting to see that and the costumes they wear and all that. Uh so that was a great event. Uh appreciate all those that made that event happen. On Monday, just a couple of days ago, we um many of the council members were also at the Shoreline Fire Department's inaugural pinning ceremony. This is where they they um all firefighters were sort of pinned as being officially members of the department. They also had some promotions as well. Recognize those in leadership positions. I spoke there. The mayor of Ornal spoke as well as well as a member of the firefighter leadership. And it's great to see all come together after years of trying to you know we get the the jointly operated fire department put together. Great event. recent brand spanking new uniforms and patches and new logos on their trucks and and things like that. So really great event and our families were there and and we all thank them on behalf of our councils and the community for ser firefighters serving our community as they do. Last night was night annual event uh across the country really um where uh communities got together to uh talk about safety issues, have first responders show up in their neighborhoods. So, Wise Police uh where it was the M Lake here and then Shoreline Fire as well. And uh I went around to several events in neighborhoods in about eight different spots and visited uh neighbors and talked about safety and other events going or other city topics. City staff joined as well. So, we appreciated that. I know you got some good feedback and it's amazing how many committee members know you as well just either talking to you on the both of you on the phone or come in here to city hall to chit chat with you. So it's fun to see uh people acknowledge our staff as well and the great work that that you do. So that was last night. Uh we were not supposed to have a council meeting last night but uh first Tuesday of the month and that was pushed back tonight because of 199. And then uh coming up this Saturday is corn days uh at the church of St. George 8:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Again, a great annual event. There'll be a parade there as well sponsored by Long Lake Area Chan Lake Area Chamber of Commerce. I think the gentleman standing out in the lobby right now, Marty Schneider, organized this. So, thanks to Marty. Marty's been very busy here the last week or two organizing two great events as well as the Church of St. George. So, please come out to that event on Saturday and the parade um starts at 11. It used to start at noon, but a couple years ago, which got pushed back to 11. So, don't be late for the parade. So, lots going on Lake. Great. uh just a really a sign of our great uh small town here and having those types of events in this town. All righty and council member Dybeck has joined us now. So welcome council member Dyk. >> With that we'll move on item four which is to approve this evening's agenda. Entertain a motion on that. >> I'll make a motion to approve the agenda. >> All right. Motion and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I oppose. Motion carries unanimously. Item five, open correspondence. Open correspondence is an item on the agenda in which the public may address the city council. No formal action is taken by the city council and comments are limited to 5 minutes or less. And open correspondence comment comments may also be emailed to city staff by noon on the date of the meeting. So if you wish to approach for open comments this evening, please do so. is ask that you state your name and address. >> Honorable mayor, members of the council, city5 Avenue. So, I just want to stay on top of this topic because as you do your plants and the roads and stuff like that, I want to make sure you don't waste any time getting down the road that we people are not going to be wanting to go down with you object to. So, I just want to say a short bit about uh it's been floated out to me that there's a notion that uh curb and gutter causes person's home to flood. I simply can't imagine that would be true. Uh for one thing, we certainly would have heard about that over the past hundred years um on Lake View Avenue. Um and would have been solved long ago. So, I want to go back in time. Back when I moved in, my insurance had said flood zone. I'm in a flood zone, which seems odd to me because I'm like the highest point in Long Lake, maybe the second highest. Um, fast forward a couple more years, I'm standing in my backyard with Marv Worer, the great Marv Worer. I'm looking at 2003 in my deck, and he's telling me I got to go down 42 in. And uh, if I do it, he wants to come and see it because he wants to see if there's water at that level. want to see if there's clay or what there is. Um, so I agreed to do that. I borrow a post hole digger from Tim Hen and I started digging. I got about a foot and I said, "No, I'm not doing this." So anyway, fast forward a few more years. Uh, Donnie Gaspar, the uh, nephew of Ella Gaspar, who owned my home originally, moved to a retirement facility in Maple in Maple Plane in 1980s. took over. There was neglect in the house. The house flooded. It flooded due to the high water table. There was damage down below there. So, you know, I have a stump pump. Everyone has a stump pump up here. Everyone uh over on this side of Brown Road that has curvy gutter has some pump. And I don't want that to be mistaken. And I hope that Mr. Whister can perhaps counter what I have to say if he feels differently. Uh the one other thing I want two other things, three other things I want to say is corn data. Uh last uh meeting you guys were talking about uh using the Long Lake Fire Department uh truck and council member newcomer questioned the vehicle reading Long Lake Fire Department and Mr. Divec and Council Member Davec respond with you can't change history. I love you for that because that's exactly what I'm trying to say about Lake View Avenue. the last historic spot we have in Long Lake, aside from a couple of places down here in town. >> Um, and also what may be appropriate for the watershed district is on the 4th of July is riding my bike around down in the city dressed as Paul River shouting that the British are coming and no cars in the parking lot, no one on the street. I noticed it is just complete concrete and asphalt and it was a mini heat island. So I saw his plans for the city in the future. And I also have one other comment about that. Janette had mentioned a couple of months ago. I think you said that gravel driveways are banned in Long Lake now. People like myself are grandfathered in with uh hard cover concerns that everybody has these days and runoff and all that sort of stuff. I hope to see reconsider uh maybe change that a bit and go a little bit softer. >> Thank you. Brian next. Yes, sir. >> Mayor, Council, Marty Schneider, 1176 West Boulevard on behalf of the chamber and the oral Lions. Really here to thank you all of you for a wonderful Cornday Corday's experience, right? Depending who we're talking to. It really, I think, was uh emblematic of a great collaboration. in the city. Amanda Janette for the first time ever had a booth at Corn Days which was really um just nice for the community. Uh >> you mean about corn days? >> Buckorn days, excuse me. Um also um the waters association was there, the rowing club was there, three Rivers Park District. So, uh, just a a great afternoon, uh, topped off by, of course, some good music and wrestling and Councilwoman Quali very much involved in the planning for once again Buckorn Day. So, thank you again for all the uh, cooperation on the city level. Really meant a lot to, I think, not only us, but everyone. And then as you mentioned before, Mayor Miner, coming up here in two days, Saturday the 8th, parade will start at 11:00 a.m. for corn days. And we have a really wonderful representation from the uh fire department, the Shore View Fire Department, Shore Line Fire Department, all new. And uh spoke with the chief. Uh they're going to have every unit in the parade. I know that there's kind of a cooperative uh effort between some of the members from Oro uh council or fire district planning uh committee as well as Long Lake. So I think it'll be a wonderful day and wonderful experience. So again, we just really wanted to express our thanks for supporting both of us. Thank you. >> Thank you, Martin. Thanks for all you've done with both those great events >> and the others comment. Come on up, sir. Hi, my name is Richard Ger and 1948 Westetta number 119 and it briefly a comment maybe a question or two of concern um the motorized vehicles on the sidewalk I don't know how you can enforce that um so there you know 57 residences in our building. And so I'm speaking on behalf of the walk-in group to some degree. Um, I've only had one near miss flyby uh recently over in front of the gym and um a teenager maybe middle school um and you know you're supposed to slow down and you know announce your passing on the right and he yelled in my ear as he went by and I said you know you're using as a game and he said you can't talk to me like that well so up he went but I thought we were on around two days ago, a day before yesterday, and two girls on on an e an e scooter at least. Um they were on um they were on the fog line. They weren't on the trail that goes from from Weisetta down to number six. So which h is is post that has no motorized vehicles, right? To the degree you all do that in the city, I'm not sure. Um, so with that, I don't know what Oronor does or Waya, you know, here we are in the middle. I can't imagine how you would enforce it. Um, the young kid yesterday going at least 20 miles an hour in front of our vets office over on the street on his way down to the rooster. Um, so that's my comment. But it's it's an issue, I've got to say, particularly for, you know, those of us walking, you know, I mean, I'm in my 80s and some of us walking with different forms of issues um out on the sidewalk. I don't know how you deal with it, but it it's it ain't going away, I'm sure. So, >> yeah, we'll ask the staff pass those concerns on to our police department. Why is that a police department? Just to be clear, you're you're where's the area that you said was where was posted? No motorized vehicles. Sorry. Are you talking about the park? >> Well, the signage is posted. I'm just talking about the signage. It's posted over on Brown between Wisetta and >> that's I know. So, that's not quite. >> You know, we've been here two and a half years now. We moved in. I don't really am not familiar with the law enforcement of the two mates and communities, but I, you know, I see their their their police vehicles, you know, in our neighborhood as well. So, to the degree you guys trade trade, you know, coverage, but I can't imagine how it would be enforceable because you all don't have licenses for be for bicycles or anything with you. I think it's becoming clear that it is um we need to see some state law changes in order to provide the enforcement agencies with the tools necessary to be able to conduct enforcement. And I I think I think that's what we're >> as we're seeing the prevalence of you know ebikes and motorized scooters and such. >> I think I I I >> I don't think I'm overstepping to say I think police departments, especially for local communities, would agree that more state law changes and >> um regulations of those particular items. >> Sure. >> Um would help them in their jobs >> um as they're trying to conduct enforcement and being mindful of pedestrian safety. So, I think we need to see some change at the state law level >> and uh I couldn't encourage anyone enough um or more to feel free to reach out to their local legislators and suggest that >> um because you know their job is to listen to their to their constituents. So, >> yeah, we we've been lobbying for that too as a city and a lot of we work with a lot of Lake Minneson area. really affected the whole lake area and even the metro area with part of the ebikes and that sort of thing. So there was some some a law that was passed this session that was more about helmets but it's it's definitely an issue and you're not the first person. >> I mean the two girls over on Brown they didn't have helmets but you know that's family values that's up to them but to the degree we have you know for example M Brazil is coming to talk in our in our building the other you know coming up soon. She has four kids. So I will mention that to our walking group. I mean literally ask her to go to the state because it's a safety issue, isn't it? It really is for the rest of us. >> If they could help provide the tools for our local law enforcement, it would make a real big difference, I think, out there. >> Thank you very Thank you, Richard. >> I just love it. >> I love having your community here. Thank you. All right. Anyone else comments? Okay. With that then we and no other submitted email open correspondence I'm assuming. >> Okay. All right. Then we'll move on to item number six consent agenda. We have items A through F on the consent agenda this evening, including Cornday's 5K run and walk for Saturday. Special event permits for farmhouse live outdoor music recital on August 30th. And um a item F is accepting bids uh for our 2026 sanitary lining uh sanitary lining project authorization advertising for BIS. I'll make a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda. >> Second. >> All right. Motion and a second. Any further discussion? All right. All those in favor? >> I opposed. Mo motion passes unanimously. Consent is approved. Thank you. Okay. Then we'll move on to regular business. Item seven. Items starting with 7A. a group contract with uh Hinson. I was from Anderson Associates Incorporated to provide city engineering services. That's a random. >> Thank you. Um so if council recall at the last work session that we had, I invited um the engineering firm of Hawkins and Anderson Associates to present to council a little bit about their firm and specifically about um Steve who would be our proposed engineer. And after feedback from council tonight, I'm proposing that council approves entering into a contract with the city engineering city engineering services Hawinson Anderson and associates effective immediately and also to authorize the mayor and myself to execute this agreement subject to final revisions by myself and our city attorney formally designating Hawinson Anderson as our engineer going forward. All right. I know we Yeah, we talked about this a lot at the last meeting and got a presentation from Ainson and a couple staff members. So, that was that was appreciative and informative. >> They are Steve is with us. Um, one thing I should mention that I just noticed in my report um Hawkins and Anderson would begin engineering as I mentioned effective immediately on future projects. I have talked to WSB and we will continue working with WSB on existing projects to make sure that those are finalized um smoothly and those projects off the top of my head include um the sewer lining project which was as you saw in tonight's consent items were going out for bid on that again. So we are going to be sewer lining um of phase one of that project. So WSJ will continue assisting us with that and they will be assisting us with any other um um current engineering projects that are that they're working on and then Hawinson Anderson will be um picking up from this point forward. >> Some questions for me. The only question I had is what I recommend. >> Um, as as council member Cwley mentioned, we are going to make sure that the contract states that we have ownership of any documentation that is created on our behalf. Is that correct? Um, I did actually mention it to Steve prior to the meeting and he said that is extremely common, but we will make sure that it gets included in the contract before executing. Okay. Does our contract with uh for engineering with WSD run until a certain date or how or we end it whenever we want? >> Well, actually was in next at the next meeting, you will actually be signing a contract with WSB because they realized recently that we are not under contract with them. That that was overlooked in the last few years. Um, and so they've been asking me recently to make sure that we do get a contract signed >> for planning. >> Well, we don't we don't have an we don't have a contract at all. So, >> but I mean we're so at the next >> at the at the next meeting, you're going to actually sign a contract that states that they will be doing engineering as needed and that will cover um those future those projects that I was mentioning. >> Sewer lining. >> The sewer lining. Um I believe they might be helping us with a little bit of lead service completion um and some existing building projects. So that you will see an engineering contract from them that states that it's on as an on you know as needed basis. Um as we also mentioned in a work session we may need them a little bit for some comp planning situation. So that that contract would cover that and then there will be a second contract that will um cover continuing planning service with WSB. >> And I note that this one is terminable by either party for with 30 days notice. So >> yeah, and I've made sure that um our city attorney Johns is aware of the situation and has reviewed both contracts. He is on vacation this week and so that is why you you're not able to see them. simultaneously because he had not had a chance to make some final revisions on the WLC contract and I explained to him that I would um feel comfortable bringing that to the next meeting once we make sure that it's it's ready for signature. So tonight we will just be approving um entering into the contract for feature services within Anderson and >> All right. Thank you. Any other questions for staff or or Steve is here? Entertain a motion on this one. >> I'll make a motion to approve entering into a contract for city engineering services with Hawinson Anderson Associates, Inc. effective immediately to authorize the mayor and city administrator to execute the agreement subject to any final revisions by staff and the city attorney and formally designate Hawkins and Anderson Associates, Inc. as the Long Lake City engineer upon full execution of the agreement. >> I can second that motion. >> Thank you. Motion and a second. Any further discussion? All right. All those in favor? I >> opposed. Motion carries unanimously. All right. Thank Thanks for coming, Steve. Okay. We will move on to item 7B, presentation of draft downtown Long Lake storm water study by Minhawk Creek wershed district. James Whisker, district administrator. >> Welcome, James. >> Um, I was going to I was just going to let council know that tonight we have the Minhaha Creek wershed. They were presenting us with a Long Lake Creek implementation plan. I have met with Mr. Whisker um earlier last week. I think which day it was probably last week um where he met with myself. >> Yeah. >> He met with myself and um our public works director Sean Girk um presented us with this information which both Sean and I are extremely excited for him to presenting to council tonight. And so I welcome James to show you what we what he has. >> Thank you minor council members. Uh thanks for having the watershed district here. Great to be here with you all again. As a reminder, I think just introducing user administrator for the Miners District. I'm joined this evening by our board president, Terry White, who's right behind me and board manager, Janice Schaefer, and uh our director of projects, Michael H. So, you got some detailed questions around projects um be sure to some of those. We've also been fortunate mentioned we had some staff connections last week. We've had a couple different other connection points offline in prep for tonight. Mayor Miner and Council Member Dires were gracious with their time to dig in and get up to speed and I just wanted to say on the front end, thank you. We appreciate your time and the questions that you brought to those meetings and your engagement. For tonight's briefing to council, we really got three objectives. First, I want to leave everybody with hopefully a clear understanding of the history and the background for the Long Lake creeks wershed itself and the partnership among the three cities Madina Oil and Long Lake as well as the Long Lake Waters Association and the Wershed District. Second, I want to frame how the downtown Long Lake storm water study which is in your packet. I brought some hard copies for everybody, how that study fits into that broader restoration strategy um alongside work that's underway in some of those other communities which is which is outlined in the long road mapap and then third and final we'll introduce the findings and some of the recommendations of the study I thought before we uh jump in and get going it might be useful to just set the table in terms of what to expect for tonight I've broken the presentation a couple different chapters so we can pause along the way if we need to we've used this briefing structure with staff um some good positive feedback um about the value in taking some time to just get grounded in the history build some shared understanding of where the partners have been over several years, many years. Um where we are now and where we can go in the future working together before we then launch into some of the details of the capital improvement projects that improve storm water quality here inside the city along. I just wanted to be clear, we're not looking for commitments or decisions tonight. This is really information, background, grounding, and um I think if there's direction to move forward exploring some of the next steps for the projects that are outlined in the study, we'd work with staff and I think interested in being back in front of council yet before the end of the year outlining how we might be able to move forward some of this work together. So hopefully that makes good sense and gives you some plan for tonight. All right. So, I wanted to start with the broadest possible context before we drill down into the details in terms of the water quality and the partnership history surrounding Long Lake. Um, a great place to start seems to be the Long Lake Waters Association meeting from last fall. I think it was September, October of 2025. Great turnout that night from residents. There were lots of leaders there, staff from all three cities. Uh, really house. During the meeting, um, our staff got asked real specifically, what is Minhah Creek Wershed District's plan to restore Long Lake? Everything else that I walk through tonight hopefully is an answer to that question. So, to begin with, it's important to remind everybody here and and at home that are going to watch online, uh, work didn't just start last year. The wershed district worked in partnership with member communities or long lakes madina all the way back in the 90s to implement regional storm water projects. There's two north of the lake, one on county road 6, one on deer hill and oral madina. There's Nelson lakeside ponds. Those were built in the 90s with Long Lake. There were some shoreline restoration projects around the lake and there's even a chemical treatment conducted in the lake called an alum dosing to address excess moving forward is built on solid foundation and we're not starting from scratch. mandate from the federal clean water agencies more clearly defined the the size of the problem in Long Lake and some of the other affiliated waters. The ones that are cross-hatched here on your screen ended up on what's called the impaired waters list. These are water bodies in the state of Minnesota that don't meet clean water standards. and the pollution control agency completed this total maximum uh daily load um study which I'll talk about in just a minute. Um in making that diagnosis of the lakes impaired and what to do about it, they looked at historic data and this graph really shows some of that data. It's a graph of water quality or nutrient concentration over time going all the way back to the 90s. And the yellow line in the middle are the state standards for a lake like long list. So you can see there's a lot of dots above the line and in general long lakes doesn't meet water quality standards. Um that's true all the way back to the 90s. Water quality was quite poor not meeting standards. But you can see there's still quite a lot of variability year to year which is is normal. In 1996, for a few years, the lake started meeting state standards. That was actually the result of um that chemical allenum treatment that was done that I mentioned on the former slide. This was done in conjunction with those other landscape projects that lasted those good water quality years last approximately 36 months after which the the water quality really reverted back to levels that then didn't meet the state standard. So again, here you can see quite a lot of variability year to year. In our premeating that we had with Mayor Miner, he asked a great question um about the some of the years around 2021 2023 um when the lake intermittently met standard kind of 2018 to 2023. When we we did take a closer look at that um and a few things to note on this chart since we're so data driven. I want to start with the science first. These numbers are averages across the whole season. Um, and that's important because in Long Lake, what we observe is when you have a really wet spring, you can have poor water quality in the spring from algo blooms that are driven by runoff. If you have a really hot dry summer, you can actually have poor water quality and algo blooms in the fall driven from things coming from a lot of that variation in the season. Um, and so if you have both of those things happening at the same time, you might have really poor water quality. If you have a good spring and a poor summer, it might average out a little bit. So these are aggregate numbers. Um the second in terms of the mayor's question, you can see the average annual water quality in 2018 actually met state standards. Um you I think you been asking about how the cart management and lake management efforts related to from lake response and that was several years before I think the based on long lake waters records and ours that cart management started in earnest in the lake. 2021 to 2023. Um, and so while removing part uh no doubt is a good thing and good for water quality, um, I don't think in this instance is directly correlated to what we're seeing is just a seasonal lake response question. >> When you look at like the wet spring, you tend to correlate with other particular better quality. It's a great question, Council Member Feldman. Unfortunately, the answer is it depends. Um, the we run into this a lot. You know, lakes are driven by a lot of different characteristics. What you would call their morphometry, which is how big is the lake and how deep is the lake? That's a big factor. Um, how large is the wershed area? So the lake area to waterership ratio you can imagine if you got a really small lake and the massive land you're bringing to it that's going to have an influence on how nutrient rich that lake is. So you can draw some correlations uh you know across seasons and across water bodies but this is really down to um individual lake individual context. Um so you might see some similarities but it's hard to draw direct parallels because there's so many other factors that are involved besides just temperature and rain. Yeah, I think so. Um, I think, you know, basically just wanted to point out there's a lot of variation, but if you I didn't put a line on here, but if you you squint and you look left to right, I think you can see the compounding effect of those landscape projects and projects in the 90s over time. Water quality has shown low incremental trends of improvement, but we still don't meet state standards. And so, the important takeaway from looking back at that is From our perspective, we need a clear, prioritized, measurable action plan to drive the lake towards meeting state standards that we can implement through coordinated efforts as partners. And the 2014 CMDL that the state delivered really gave us that first step towards developing that plan because it established target for how much pollution needed to be reduced from the landscape that met. would see Long Lake water quality actually meet state standards and and respond favorably. It also translated those state standards into measurable obligations. And so this is true of every city in our wershed. We've got obligations to the state to remove a certain amount of pollution coming off of the landscape. And those obligations for cities are based on contributions based on the size of the land area. How big is the land in the city and what's the concentration of pollution that might be running off the landscape? And so that's a product of land use. In the two years following the publication of the long lake impairment from the PMDL um we're very fortunate that the long lake waters association formed to improve those water bodies throughout the whole state of water and I remember attending actually an early meeting I think where the PCA was invited to present to residents on the designation and these aortions of reduction and really that awareness and then resulting advocacy from Long Lake Waters ultimately led to an initiative among the three cities um to coordinate and cooperate to address this problem and form this intergovernmental resolution that was passed to make progress on the TMDL and I point all this out because water management in Minnesota we've chosen a really complex way of doing it cities the states the wershed we want to make sure that there's there's role clarity but at this point in time we weren't actually invited the the the resolution of partnership. It was really great to see the city stepping up and saying we're going to work together on this and Long Lake Waters champion water quality improvement. Following the establishment of Long Lake Waters, the passage of that resolution, the CMDL, several years of park management, um it's clear that everybody, all the different views are on the same page in terms of what the objective is. Let's clean up Long Lake, let's improve water quality. At that point in time, there really wasn't a plan, an overarching strategy to say who should do what, when, where, and how money and to produce what results that could help everybody coordinate. And so after being approached for help, we secured state grant funding um and uh did a wershed diagnostic. And really what that work did is it used field measurements. We went out into different parts of the waterershed and we captured flow moving through streams and we measured in those streams and we're able to identify the sources of nutrients, the sources of pollution. And we broke the geography down into smaller water sheds, these management units, and that helped us begin identifying the location of potential projects that could produce the the reduction that are needed. So you can see here north of Long Lake, you get that yellow area. That's what you would call the direct drainage. That's the area that is Long Lake. So then you have these other peripheral wershed like holy name and wool belt about 3,000 acres across Orno Madina that drains through big tributaries and west of Long Lake you've got about 500 acres of downtown of the city um that drain into Long Lake. So we broke the whole wershed into these different tributaries and figured out what's coming from each one so we could locate projects that would make a difference. All that work ultimately became this Long Lake Creek Road. Um this document here, this road map identified priorities, project sequence and responsibilities among the partners and it was developed in close coordination with the three cities and the Long Lake Waters Association later rolled out to city council. It translated all that science into an action plan or a road mapap that everybody could follow. Um I wanted to mention here we've talked about this offline. Um when we developed this road map several years ago, we didn't have the organizational capacity to lead all the implementation. So we developed a road map and we sort of handed it to cities as a as a gift. Um and the we discussed in the road map roles and responsibility to achieve the load reductions. And I just wanted to pull a few things from page three of the executive summary. Cities in sort of agreed by virtue of working on this to have the responsibility to implement projects and best practices on the landscape and we've noted that um given all the other issues and resource constraints that then the pace and the scale of implementation would be largely driven by the communities. The district was here really the technical resource for partners uh lead on retrofitting regional storm water facilities and talk about that in a minute and it's at the heart of the downtown storm water study and when the timing was appropriate a funding source for um in lake management and Long Lake Waters was at the table too. We had a role identified for them um with the charge of building community capacity and support for the capital improvement plan. So that's the background that kind of history um and in talking offline it seemed to be valuable because a lot of people have been asking what have we been doing where are we how much progress we made so next I want to outline what's actually in the road map and the status of the work that's being delivered so everybody knows where we sit and I think that'll give you context for what we're proposing in downtown and how it flops out against work in Madina and so take a quick breath if there's any initial questions history and then I'll move you into what we're what the strategies are. >> Questions for James? >> Yeah. Um the subwaterhed map that you showed um if you can show that again. So the downtown area there that's not just Long Lake, >> right? >> Right. That that that there's a significant portion of that orno. Um, correct. Greenwich. >> Yeah. So, what you call downtown and some might think, oh, that's that's all Long Lake, but a combination of Long Lake Nor. >> It's a good point. >> Yeah, we've got the city boundaries on there, but that's kind of hard to read. So, those are those dash lines and you guys know the city boundaries. North of that white dash line is obviously Orno. Some of that drainage comes south through some highways that are further to the eastaster. way through Long Lake and into Long Lake. >> Okay, there questions for this point. >> Good to keep going. >> All right, I guess we can keep moving. >> Um, so what's in the road map? Well, first of all, it wasn't a collection of sort of random projects scattered across the shed. It really outlined a sequence strategy. The first priority that we had outlined was let's capture the phosphorus on a regional scale um before it reaches streams and lakes through regional infrastructure. These are big storm water projects essentially storm water management projects we've seen in other locations. They provide the greatest measurable and sustainable reductions um and they create the foundation for a lot of the other work that might be dispersed across the landscape over time. The road map called for us to invest existing regional facilities. I mentioned there's two on the north and there's two to the west um in the city of Long. That's been good common sense practice for the district and other subwatererships where we've worked with cities and whenever we're working on a comprehensive approach because we want to look at well what are our existing assets that are on existing public land that are maybe nearing the end of useful life that might require maintenance investment. How could those be improved and renewed with new science and technology work better than before? Just a good place to start. The second layer uh really focused on landscape restoration. These are more dispersed projects. These could be things like wetland restorations. So changing ponded elevations and wetlands, stabilizing eroded channels and ravines. There's some of those to the north and spelled woods. um and integrating that sort of work into development or redevelopment or infrastructure investment that's being done by public agencies. And so these are important but we recognized in the road map um these are going to be driven by opportunities. So if a land owner is working on a subdivision and we've identified a wetland restoration like we did up name, let's work with community development staff and the developer to see if the project can happen through development. Um but these namely aren't you know large scale public capital investments. They're opportunity driven and that's why we identify different regions on the map. The next phase and sequence of work is really restoring upstream shallow lake. So there's a number of lakes upstream um various depths but a lot of them are shallow and these don't meet standards. So they have dirty water and that water comes downream and enters long. So they both cleaning up locally, but they're part of what's driving issues down in long copper. So improving their ecology reduces the nutrient loading coming from upstream before it ever hits long. And then finally, there's work to be done inside the lake itself to address internal loading. Um, I wanted to really underline this because it's become an important part of the conversation with the community and want to reinforce here like having other um we really internal management is needed probably another Allen building inside the lake the sediments that are in the lake are nutrient rich because of all the phosphorus that they've accumulated over years and when it gets hot and dry oxygen down there those nutrients come out from lake bottom and that contributes to also too the question for us isn't whether we should do it or not it's the timing and um I think one of the things that we've realized over time as a community water resource practitioners is you really want to turn off the source as much as you can from outside the lake and time that work with when you Allen so that you get the most durable benefit out of those investments that are inside the lake if possible. So that's really the sequence that was the strategy and coming out of the road map uh we'd identified um the next step. He said, "Let's work on county road fix and let's look at the storm water in downtown Long." >> How was that funded? The the pond water that was fixed. >> Yeah. How was that fun? >> Perfect. >> Looks like you knew what was coming. >> So, um, since we've completed the road map, that's really what we've been focused on. We said, let's get started. So, um, County Road 6 is a regional storm water pond that the watershed district has over from back in the 90s. So, we had an ownership over it. Um, some land rights. And this project, this is a before picture. I asked for a nice clean looking grown picture, but we don't have one yet. Um, the pond has been expanded in size and we put in a filter bench. This is like new technology where when that water comes up, it spills over into an area of sand that has drain tile underneath it and it's taking out more fine particulate and a higher chunk of those nutrients. So the retrofit here gets us an additional 40 pounds of benefit and that's about 40% of the target from this part of the wershed from Oro. In terms of the funding for this project, this was um a combination of district maintenance funds and district capital funs. This was solely funded um by the district and there's some context here as to why that is um that I probably won't get into. The next area that we said we should uh look at aligning and investing in implementation planning is downtown Long Lake and that's the basis of the study. Um and one of the reasons for that is even though uh that downtown area which is a combination of Long Lake and Council member Dick mentioned even though it's a relatively small area about 500 plus acres give or take relative to the 3,000 that comes from the north um it has some of the highest concentrations per unit area of anywhere in the wershed and that's just a product of land use. So in one hand you've got area low concentrations and in the other area you've got small area high concentrations and so we know we need to look at the regional facilities in downtown Long Lake as well and that was the basis for again storm water in parallel with that the watershed district's been having active conversations with the city of Madina around that upstream those shallow lakes and ravine stabilizations we've begun early on that shallow lake work. Um had preliminary conversations with folks like Ducks Unlimited that do this type of ecological restoration around Swamp Lake and we're discussing with Madina their capital budget through this year's budget program. Um I understand they have around 170,000 allocated and we're discussing how much more might be needed over time to try and undertake this rapid shallow lake work over the next 36 to 48 months. We're also monitoring um discharge that's coming in and around the Spring Hill golf course. We call that the Tamar Drive area wetland. And we're monitoring a series of wetlands so we can understand are there nutrients that are coming out of the golf course or nutrients that are being produced by nearby wetlands. So we look at concentrations across the gradient that might reveal another landscape based project that we need to complete in order. some of the upstream work and then that work combined would get get us towards um Allan dosing the lake and that's one of the questions that we heard last year from uh the community meeting with Long Lake Waters is what's the minimum viable sequence of project that gets us um positioned to see the lake start to meet state standards and what how do we coordinate on those projects to leverage outside dollars from state and I met with council member D get asked, you know, how are we measuring progress? Um, and this is one way of how we might think about the projects making progress. On the left, I'm going to try and keep this pretty simple to a lot of charts, but on the left, around 700 pounds of reductions that will be needed for the lake to meet state standards. That's broken into three rough categories. We've got the wershed load coming from the landscape from upstream lakes a reduction needed there by using our standard and then the internal load. This graph shows um based on monitoring data model the estimated progress we think each will make. County road 6 has done monitoring it to see how well it's performing with downtown Welt. Um we believe we could get over 50% of the reduction needed. those shallow lake projects if we get those new state standards those are going to be highly effective in reducing the burden on long lake and sending clean water downstream and then Allen built in as well inside long lake so this isn't all of the projects that need to be done in this wershed um this is a near-term implementation strategy that gets us the most return on coordinated investment we're estimating the suite of projects 7 75% progress towards those reduction targets. It's across all sources and it's across all three cities and it gets us to a point where we believe we do those things in the Allen thing that we do in Long. It's a great question. It's not how much comes in. This is how much reduction is. So you can kind of think about it as like the diet for the lake. You got to take 700 pounds away in order for the lake to meet state standards and these are the sources of reduction that you're trying to target. >> So like the internal that is the current estimated load in the lake. >> Yeah. The way it's the way >> that's how much we have to take out >> doesn't mean that you won't have internal loading and it doesn't mean that you won't still have water loading. TMDL literally is total maximum daily how much pollution you can send to a water body and have it standard. So this is saying that you know these are the actual reductions that are needed to hit that total maximum. it gets confusing because of the way that they term everything. So, we covered background, we covered kind of shortterm near-term strategy for projects across district. I think the storm water study and what's in it and what it means for questions about chapter the last chapter. Um, not a question, but um, I was with some people today who uh, know people at Spring Hill and uh, I mentioned yesterday that I'd heard a rumor that they were going to shut it down to rebuild, you know, the golf course and uh, apparently they're they as of last week they they are shut down and they're planning to to I guess do a full rebuild or or partial rebuild. So I I would just suggest maybe contacting them to see what that plan is. I don't know what it is, but something's happening there. So um it would be, you know, good for you to be involved in in that process. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> How it impacts the lake. at a minimum minimum if they're literally shut down and doing a project like golf courses and I'm assuming they're doing a great question. Yes, the wershed district in addition to our capital investments and policy work, we do run a pering or regulatory program. Um we wershed districts don't have any control over land. So the decisions about how land is used are really with the city and that's why partnership is so important um because it's land and water. Um and so typically planning, zoning, conditional use, all that stuff comes through the city. When the use is determined and the project's moving forward, they then have to get wershed permits to make sure that they're managing for environmental issues. And often times there's overlap with things on that. things like um we do issue permits for grading and erosion control to make sure that sites stabilize properly wetland impact and wetland protection um and wetland buffers and set storm water management and flood plan alteration to make sure that we're not sending larger volumes of water downream by displacing the pering over we've had good luck working with the We had a great partnership with what was the bur I think they rebranded the crooked water. They reigned all the poles and we were able to integrate um around four acres of wetland creation into that course on the grading plan. It's been a good case study for how we can work together when there is an active investment being made in a way that's maybe good result but get better environmental outcomes at the same time. I mean last week James I think just just to highlight you indicated that your organization monitors you know inputs from various areas and that was one of the ones that you were you know areas of the lake that you're monitoring out in the Spring Hill area in addition to other areas. So point that out for those that may not be aware >> you should have unfortunately to get good monitoring data you don't need otherwise the But this year has been pretty rough. Um we have we got a big rainfall not too long ago. We worry that our team when it rains like that it hasn't been raining on it but they're out there in the rain and so we should have results that just a snapshot time that we got for the season. I know there's been discussion around the east side because we're not exactly sure what moving water break point is in the golf course but we have historic monitor from the east as well but we'll be able to look at that and start to make some ded >> um another great question council member newcomer. Um we're monitoring for total phosphorus um kind of sediment for the actual particles. We're usually measuring for nitrogen temperature measurements. The wershed district hasn't made it business to get into contaminants and ecos management practice to deal with those in the water. We've done chloride monitoring and things like that. The reason that's important in context here is nitrogen is just as important as phosphorus especially when you're talking about harmful. This is a growing trend in the watered even though it's unfortunate Cedar Lake Bay. We're seeing um algorithms and they're driven by multiple variables, not just phosphorus. You know, phosphorus is the primary limiting factor in freshwater systems. You want to control it, but once phosphorus isn't limiting, if you got high nitrogen that's coming in from somewhere, um that can actually exacerbate harmful A lot of the ones that produce toxins need that nitrogen to do really well. And nitrogen cycling changes if the temperature is algae does better in warm water. We've been having hotter drier summers and warmer winters over time. We've seen an average winter nighttime temperatures in the last 50 years of four degrees. So these are things that probably aren't going away. It's a great question because it's many different things that are acting on what you see when you go out into the lake isn't just a result of phosphorus, but that is the thing that we're trying to manage for. >> All right, I guess you can move on to the best part. >> You're asking all all the right questions. So that's where we've been. Um that's the work that we've done together uh to create the shared road map for success and that's the context obviously in which this study sits. Everybody's got a cop. Does anybody want a copy a big hard copy to look through while we go through it. >> Yeah, after we completed that road map, we're working on 106. Next logical question for us based on regarding what might implementation look like in the city of Long Lake. Um we secured $150,000 in state grant funding that followed from the road map. Um in coordination with the former city manag um we've ultimately carried this project forward in close partnership with with Amanda this year and I'm going to walk you through the structure and the highlights. I'm not here to give you d post by page run through. You've hopefully had a chance to look through it or scan through it in your packet. And like I said, we're more than happy to come back and details and talk how things might move forward. So I'm going to orient you to how we laid the document out for you all the public. So inside on page one before we get into individual projects we tried to lay out this page where number everything that you need is on page one. why are we're doing this, how it fits in the road map, the projects that are recommended, the benefits that they provide, costs, and what we think should happen next to try and advance these projects for. Ultimately, as part of the storm water study, we started with 20 potential ideas of projects around the city. So, this is more like a storm water planning exercise than it was looking at project. Those 20 projects window down to about 10 or 11. Um, >> I have one more here. >> So, we took 20 projects, window those down to 10 or 11. And where we've landed on the front end of the study, we didn't give you all these yet draft is five that have made it into the kind of the above the fold. Two of those five are recommended for implementation. One is uh man told me we need to rear highway. um retrofitting that pond to expand it raise the outlet structure makes that perform better because it takes quite a bit of drainage from the south and to the west and then Nelson Lakeside Park those ponds that we built in the 90s there's three other projects that are listed in the feasibility study park there's some around Brook Park channel Daniel Street reconstruction and greenway which I can talk about. Those two projects are recommendations for you to carry forward as you see fit and if you can as part of the urban planning recommendations. One is integrating ravine stabilization into a park. One is if and when you ever reconstruct Daniel Street. Find to um for somewhere between to million. Um some of the costs that are in there include are baked in. We mentioned this as we chatted offline. For example, the Nelson ponds are in need of maintenance. maintance for those ponds might be somewhere around half a million dollars. So there's an opportunity to leverage those maintenance dollars into that project cost improve the park and expand water quality benefit. So that's one of the things that I mentioned earlation to those projects of the full downtown um the Nimot Pond and the Nelson Lakeside Pond were sort of above the fold here where those other ones um being listed on the lower portion of the page. We've also integrated we've also recommended just broadly that as the city works through redevelopment, we just talked about Springfield Golf Course. If you're seeing redevelopment, if you have infrastructure projects, um those are opportunities to not only just meet regulatory requirements go go above and beyond and coordinating through planning and community development as well as engineering on public infrastructure projects is something that longersh as good practice moving forward and Amanda introduced this to you today forward. Um the document then moves into these talk sheets. So there's a little drawing of each idea for the project and then some details behind it and I think what I'll do is I'll cover I'll try to cover these quickly and then we'll take discussion questions. Um these cut sheets identify the major project elements and then the details follow this is the highway pond. So this is again just to our south um south of city hall across the street. There's over 400 acres of area drains through this pond and we're estimating that retrofitting again raising the outlet control structure um changing the permanent pool elevation doing some grading if we could get infiltration out of there with some testing we could get even more benefit. But doing those things that we could get um between 17 and 30 pounds of additional benefit for around 800 and $850,000 if we were going to This is what we would recommend starting with is giving staff direction to work with us to go connect with um mind look at site control start thinking about capital budgeting how we could chase grant dollars costs all before we would ever get into design you know some of those early >> who responsibility for maintenance of this was that Ming >> um it's a great question councelor so unknown One of the things that we got asked that question off >> is MDOT property. Our engineers contacted Mindot through the process and um their their response which I'm we need to run to the ground up is we're not sure that pond's ours and you can work on it. That's true. When I've approached Minda and other communities to do work on their land, they usually have an interest in, you know, reserving those rights. But I think it's the way that it's in the right way and their maintenance obligation and I'm not sure that it's going to be as easy as them. We're able to just do the work. >> The point of that project is it's not just a maintenance. The second page just layers in details. You got the drainage area map, the project benefits, that cost that I mentioned was broken down. some optional elements as we go through design things out or value engineer out if you need to. Um, and there's some implementation steps. So each cut sheet we've outlined, these are things that we think we could do together with the city to figure out if the project has before you jump into just a design contract. Those are some of the things that I just mentioned. If Mindot uh acknowledges that they are responsible for maintenance, then might there be an opportunity to use that maintenance budget to apply towards a redevelopment of that pond like you're like you're talking about for Nelson for example of of making it something bigger and better um or better anyway. Um so that they could be sharing the cost sharing that as well maybe. >> Yeah, that's a great question. Council member, I think, you know, the way you branded, yes, it's possible. Um, probable. We'll find out. Um, we've done work with the the state, regional agencies, local communities in the past just south of Highway 12. We were able to work on an old council wastewater treatment pond. We were able to leverage dollars to do clean up there. My experience with I've looked at this over town over by um they always want to make sure that if they ever come back through and do another highway project that they've got the rights to meet their regulatory obligations and so if we're going to be investing in their um you know I'm not sure that they'd invest dollars um without being able to reserve those future rights and that would all be part of the conversation and the negotiations but I think it's possible we have that is probably one of the first steps is to send those off to those conversations and come back to you with here's what we've heard here's what the infiltration results say here's what the plan >> can I clarify one thing it's important to know that the now it's not serving it's not serving the need for us as a community right now it's not designed to do that so what we what this project would do is it would design to work better for our need right It's simply it's there's you know purposes we would be asking to have it replicated you know our city kind of our need and so it's right now the pond doesn't you know it's not serving a value it's not that I mean that's not maintaining a pond that's causing a problem it's not it wasn't designed for our >> it wasn't designed originally collect >> yes >> phosphorus >> correct it was run off I believe Indust position with regard to the sound wall has always been that they don't conduct maintenance unless there's a public safety hazard. So I wonder if their position on that pond would be the same. >> How about the public safety of the gate? >> So we would be looking at taking something that's there >> um and trying to retrofit it to our need to create functionality for our So it doesn't sound like that's something that they would >> not speculating. I mean we've worked in partnership with the right person to align. We have to go have that. I think we should have that conversation here tonight framing all this and asking the council, are you interested in staff taking some of these next exploratory steps to bring that information back to figure out if you've got a viable project. >> So I think you're asking all the right questions. I don't have all the answers. Um I'll skip through the next project. This is the Nelson Woodside Park Restoration. Um this is the second project that we would recommend taking those implementation steps on briefly or you and this isn't shown on the picture. This is what could be down in there are two storm water ponds. Those were built in the 90s. They're on city land. I believe the city acquired that and a long time ago land and water conservation funding which is a federal grants that do not which restricts has deep restrictions around what you can and can't do without water management is one of the things you can do um but those are ponds that we have over and are responsible for maintaining but they're actually on city properties um we have maintained those in the past mentioned council direct we own about 20 to 25 storm water facilities across 29 and they're on a rotation where we've inspected them when they fill up and when they need to be maintained. These ones both need to be maintained. The main pond uh to the north and to the west needs more maintenance than the other one, but you'd want to go in there and do it in the same time anyway. Um we maintaining those expanding their footprint um is something that we're suggesting and it could put those maintenance dollars that we have to better use than just cleaning the ponds out. There's also um closer to the road where the main stream channel comes in right now there's a city owned storm water facility inside the park too um drainage and talking to public works really doesn't work hasn't been maintained and has a lot of challenges associated we would suggest expanding the two ponds that we maintain eliminating that filter system >> which do you maintain Okay. You would recommend James we just >> All right question there. Thanks. >> So would you in terms of it seems like there's a lot here based on the price tag. Um, could you do it? Could you stage it? Um, in terms of just having the ponds >> and kind of and you have a question I had, how did many haha wershed district get responsibility for the maintenance of the ponds? How did that work? >> Must have been through negotiators. Um, it's a great question. I don't know the answers to that. I don't have the history on it. In every community where we're doing projects, um, as you go through the design and the bid at the construction, we negotiate what are the built elements, the water elements, who's responsible for maintenance long term. And so we really have taken a daily approach across communities. And so we've done recent park projects in Hopkins with Cottageville, Ardan Park, won some national awards recently in the D. did a ecologically based park out in Victoria that manage and treat storm water and each one um is subject to negotiation and I'm assuming that's the way it worked back in the 90s and we simply put the maintenance obligation for it to your other question I mean yeah in terms of strategy for implementation any project where you've got limited resources and you've got different goals the public creation as well as cleaning the water. You want to look at implementation as well as economy scales. It's cheaper to do it today versus cost money as well as what your goals are. So I think phasing the implementation definitely would definitely be possible for something like this. The way that the concept might be a really smart thing to do. >> Yeah. And you know, we talked about like OGO bureau zago last night for Ice Unite and they're very tuned into what's going on in our community and and some residents have had looked at this already and we're very excited about the concept of a path, you know, bridge coming from their the complex to to take to get down to the park easier. you know, maybe there's cost sharing, you know, options for that, too. With some of those things like we talked about for the we talk about the we talk about, you know, and I talked last week, the the storm water um project is is the priority, but then, you know, path improvements and bridge improvements and things like that, maybe some other options for that. >> And in all the conversations leading up today with city staff and finance background and council member, we we recogize different and we work within you know what constraints are looking at state dollars again I wanted to be really clear we're not here looking for a signature on the dotted line part of the conversation these are things that we think are opportunities um these are the ones that we think should go first in this um and we're looking for general interest and appetite for long-term partnerships to start taking the necessary moving forward together. Um obviously part of that is always money. So that would be some of the work in the next step in parallel with tech. How could this come to fruition? And so those be part of the conversation we carry forward. >> Question when you say um partnership um so it would be a money partnership. sharing resources that everybody contributes um but in terms of engineering um managing the project who would be involved with that. >> Yeah, that's a great question and and council member I think what's really important in the district's model isn't always I want to be careful negotiators and I don't negotiate against myself in front of my board chair but um >> yeah we'd be looking for financial But we're not here looking for the city to bear the cost. It's about ownership. It's so important to us that the city values the work, understands why it's needed and wants to participate. Um historically when we did the work and maybe it's just the way it was come even during my tenure and we want to do a project and we're just trying to move it forward on our own and it's sort of off over here. One of the approaches that we've taken with our bow division is recognizing water creates identity. Currently here in Long Lake with the lake organizing the central identity for several communities and we see land and water needing to be planned together and we do our best work when cities are at the table and want invested in it. um that doesn't always have to be price in terms of the project management. Those those are the things I think we really bring to the table that's often an asset for the city of many other priorities. Um you might have uh your staff working on other things. Some communities have you know we're working in Minneapolis. Their priorities right now are not our water quality projects. You're asking us to design new project management construction administration essentially. the project. Um, so those are things that we're certainly willing to bring to the >> curious how that all works. >> Yeah. >> When you drill down on >> Great question. Did I answer it? >> You did. >> I like the part where you said um, you know, the city wouldn't be the sole uh, solely responsible for the project. Estimate the project cost. We're not here to sell a project for everything. It's really about this is how we see these projects for long-term sustainability in the community for the shared goal of the lake and how they fit in that broader strategy with work that we have to go off and do with potentially how all that come together. Um we're actively having those conversations. We met with Oro last week um about starting to begin capital budgeting and funding planning. Um we've been invited to go to their city council budget season to start these discussions of when the projects are found or when needed where going to be. We're having those conversations with another position to do a regional special purpose focus unit. are all working toward the same goal. Those are the those are the two and I've been up here for a really long time I think. So there's three others I said they were below the fold. I'm going to stop and just see if there's other questions and discussion otherwise you have all the information. >> So was it the other one? Go ahead. >> I was going to say I think it's exciting to I'm just looking at the pounds per dollar in some of these tracks. I see first you talked about I mean the first one's double the second So it's cool to see that there are projects that are a lot more per dollar starting away at and one thing is you know you look at the total dollar for small cities right so just really understand what kind of grant money and how these partnerships are going to come together just the reality a little can't build but I think there's appetite to contribute if there's a team that wants to play their game that would be >> that's great to hear and yeah I mean we do this in with all of our community funding strategies um so we have variety of tools of strategies outside wheat we've provided shortterm five year financing Victoria where they wanted elements project and we're providing that no interest um so there's contribution and then there's like the public financing tools and those are the things that make a fun what your plan is for funding the project while you work Those are the next steps that we would work on. >> So in an ideal world, when when would these two projects, you know, occur? Maybe you're thinking 29 or 30 from last week or change question. I think partnership money per um we've got partnership sounds like uh I think we to site control in we need to talk about site control and then there's funding that that depending on who you're working with and how resource constraint we are could take six months to take 18 months because you got to have the money together once we're there um and you can you know feel confident in starting a design design construction over Mike I 24 months 12 months for construction. So it is conceivable that you get through this work in three years. Um I mentioned it yesterday talking about it kind of a blue sky scenario and not rates. So you know doing both of these projects in parallel is possible. Doing these projects in parallel with the ones in the diner is possible but we have to put together a plan. And that's why I think starting with the one makes the most sense. moving part >> that seems like such delightfully low hanging fruit performance per dollar. Can we actually talk about this at our meeting? Um my vision that I would bring to council for that we're not in the design phase right now but my vision for that specific um you would be looking at functionality I would like to get that on functional as a priority. >> I think that that would be something right now, you know, right away that we could financially start. >> Yeah. >> And I also think that it'd be really good for our residents to start seeing that we do care as a community. Now, granted, yes, they're across the street and maybe not understand that will impact the weight, but um I don't want to financially product that can have amazing results. So that's it's a no-brainer. We work together and try to see if something was in writing then it's >> I was concerned because I don't think I don't even think people visit. And it's always when you're like this specific area is an area in the future had to add aesthetic but let's get it functional. do what we can financially occupational hazard. I just learned you can't employ the services. Yes. >> And the funny thing is is the reality for folks who have walked that sidewalk, we have a pretty darn good view out of it at our front door. And actually, that's really the best place to see the highway, >> which is not really, you know, people don't go to an overlook to see cars moving by in the background or the, [laughter] >> you know, or the trains. So I think those would be really safe eliminations with a focus on function which just enables the project to >> 35 pound per million >> right council I did on our budget today during our work session I mentioned that you would some of the reasons I put things that I personally think is a wonderful a wonderful asset to the city of Long Lake and I think a partnership with the water is long overdue and I think that's something that I prioritize and so I am already starting to figure out what we can do to get added in our budget. I have a question for you and um is this any where does this water come from that's in this um I'm going to call the high mind property is that coming from Hberrook. Is it it comes from Hobberg? Because I know that that was an issue and I think when I first joined the council, u Midhaha wershed district came to a meeting and there was money and they were going to get grants to fix park. >> Yeah. Okay, great question. I think you asked the same question last time I was here. Um the the money that we got for the downtown study was really about go back all the way to those maps first. You should look at the original storm water management inside downtown Lake as we built the road map with big funds and went back and we'd like money for the city of Long Lake to do a project. was really poor. We've turned it into looking at Brook. So, this is the same work. >> Oh, okay. >> But then in addition to going the highway from Homebrook, is isn't there also runoff from Highway 12 that goes into there? I'm assuming as well. Okay. So, yeah, hands in that connection too when it comes to that. >> You can kind of take a closer look at how large is your geography just where exactly. >> I think these are are good plans and and I know we're not talking about funding right now, but I can't help um but think about um you know cost and and what our contribution would be. Um, and I and after we talked yesterday, I I feel I I I really would like this partnership to be Orno and Long Lake and in New York Creek District and Madina um and and and Mindana but but funding wise I think about if there's an improvement and you talked yesterday it's hard to get a city to pay for a project in another city. I think you said um >> yeah it can be hard but um if we are doing work that's going to improve the quality of Long Lake to the benefit of Oro then I think that they ought to you know participate in that cost even if the work is just is being done in this case uh in the city of Long Lake or in a Mindot uh uh pond that that isn't part of lake. Um I think there should be sort of this collective um you know you're basically saying water flow downhill. >> Yeah people, >> right? >> Exactly here in Massachusetts, >> you know, and I said this yesterday, too. You know, you you've already done the county road six project happen to be in Orno. They they happen to not have to pay any of that. I I just think that they should have skin in the game because we're trying to improve the lake quality, right? the water quality and and that's to their benefit as it is to ours and and I just would like to see um not that we're going to try to fund you know that you're going to fund part of it we're going to fund part of it I'd like to see or fund part of it too but um I don't know how difficult that might be but I think like and earlier when I was talking about your subwater district that showed downtown they've got hard cover who in that subwater subwater that district that you showed, right? You know, with whatever's uh north of Wetta Boulevard, you know, that's that's all um you once you get west of of uh Zago and um for the bank uh and so so they're contributing to that too. So, and it happens that water happens to be then coming through the Nelson like I said park fond and and so why not have them participate in that? That might be for another a discussion for another day. And I just I just would like to see this not just be well we have the cons that we have to try to improve which I completely agree with. Um and we have to put our part of that bill and then you know you'll you'll contribute whatever you know you might plan to do. But I just feel like oral should be part of. So do you have more projects in or you know >> Yeah, but there's not a big project is done in or right now >> and uh yeah and I know that this is something you said earlier that Long Lake that long downtown district has the high concentration small smaller area but higher concentration whereas like on the north side of of Long Lake which is Orno um it's smaller concentration but there's more area. So if you look at absolute numbers of, you know, when you're measuring >> pounds of phosphorus or whatever, >> you know, you're probably getting still a lot of of pollutants coming in from. So I don't want there to be this perception like, oh, here's where the problem is because it's a high concentration. Yeah. But there is lower concentrations in other areas, but much bigger areas. So >> So I mean, I don't know what the absolute numbers would be, but you know what I mean. I mean uh so so we have a just a small part of the lake shore but uh but a high concentration and we have a big part of the lake shore and a lower concentration. So >> um there's really two different issues as you aggregate amount of phosphorus whatever coming into the lake and multiplied by >> yeah but then the question is what's the effectiveness per project? Yeah. Now, maybe the county road fix project is going to deals with that uh in in a large part. Um you know, and uh but they're still and then all the upstream stuff like you were talking about that Madina's u addressing which is great. I think that's um sounds like they're working to to uh try to fix improve that situation for their own benefit and that would also benefit Long Lake. um I mean the the lake itself um so anyway I just would like to see kind of a I don't know partnership among the want to get a word in advis he's absolutely right that's a great grasp on like exactly how it's working in terms of concentration and the science tells us where to put the projects and then there's these public policy questions across communities and with the wershed which is taking dollars from 29 cities Minneapolis and Madina and Victoria and able to be here as a partner and there's this question that you're raising which I think is a legitimate question of what are the sources of funding to address the shared objectives and if the best project is located and that's the one that we have. I think that's a fair question to raise. I hear you. Um I think it's a good conversation to have with the city of Orville and we're committed to carrying that conversation forward. We chatted yesterday about we make the rounds um introducing these concepts. A lot of background to get people off the street. You're dealing with police, fire, you're dealing with road improvements with budget water, you know, maybe we're trying to get everybody on a But later this year, what we want to do, I think, is get um get council members and staff together from those meetings and ask them. We're going to keep working on it now and then. And I just want to let you know we heard you and we're going to carry that forward. >> So, how was um the county road fix? You may have already answered this question, but how what was the funding um formula for that? >> Um relatively unusual, which is what council we almost never do that. We're usually getting grant dollars from the state. We're getting local department. There was a context at the time in terms of the receptiveness of the council wanting to work with us. Um it was hard enough to go through council present and get a res for us to do that project on land that we had for and we knew that community demand was there for clean water and so we made a strategic and we chose to do the project and finish the project so that we could show progress. >> All right. >> Does the district have any money left? you've got you've got some resources that you can bring to the table. >> I had a question about the I mean I know there's a lot of hard cover in the industrial area. How much of that is pollution necessarily in particular from the industry versus organics that are in street? >> Yeah, it's a great question. It's really a product of a land use not the building. This is when you have hard cover. You know, if you think about what roof materials are made of concrete as that break down and you got more miles that attaching the sediment and then flowing into storm water. It's not from industry per how effective is street sweeping and helping some of those. >> It's all about it's all about timing um and locations. There's a variety of studies that the county is interested in that lake others a best practice. So there are things that you can that you can do as a city to enhance what you're you know what you're already deal with in your current capabilities. There's different types of equipment, timing of the year, frequency, those different things can make a significant difference. Those are just operational. We're doing more street sweeping than we used because we have Yeah. Our public works director loves driving that around and sweeping >> [laughter] >> do right along. >> Yeah, I'm sure we can work something out, right? Right. Any other questions for James? >> No, it's like James, fantastic presentation. A very complicated subject that people have different opinions are confused on and you simplified it very well. >> Between yourself and the presentation that helped a lot to understand a complex problem and I was really glad to hear you say at the very end that you know, in the future. I think you're doing this presentation for Oro and for us to get all the players in one room at one time to brainstorm and allow you to feel these questions at one time instead of repeating it. I would look forward to seeing that in the future. >> Fantastic. >> Yeah. Before the end of the year. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, the longer we stretch it out, the more presentations you have to do repetitively. >> Get the players in a room. just convinced me. >> I Well, it's a good presentation. If you do it once and effectively, that would be Yeah. And if this thing gets legs, and I hope it does, and and and starts moving forward. We talked yesterday about maybe having a committee of uh representatives, elected officials and staff from each of the cities and and and the and the water district, you know, to sort of, you know, need on a semi-regular basis to sort of monitor how things are going and and communicate that back to our cities. >> That's right. We we found again, we try to stay our work because we work with 29 communities in the township um to what the needs are. We found great effect that other jurisdiction complexity 27 miles county park and car you got to get the same thing in Minneapolis the city board and it helps to have staff and policy makers in policy makers are making decisions about the money and the direction of the city work so we're doing a lot of and the council briefings right now to get everybody grounded because if you do get everybody together you want to make sure that to your point we're not going through all the back you want to get into decision so we're doing that right now and I do think at some point it would be helpful to have um you know whether it's committee or taskons from the respective council staff get together and say look this is where we're at work Well, I would start small. That's just because it seems sometimes if it's too grandiose um you can't find the funding. >> That's why we're making capital. >> Yeah. >> Up on All right. So, I'm not looking for a a motion here for state direction from the council to support the project specifically starting with the mind pond project for third term. I believe >> I would concur with that. >> Okay. Yeah, I agree. I think there consensus on that from the council that would like staff to pursue this opportunity and further research the options and costs of the project. All right, I think we got we got direction. >> Okay, >> fantastic. And thank goodness and thank you all leave waters association. Thanks for your partnership on this as well with all of us and uh and the members and That one just ran out, but hope you heard me. And district as well. >> All right. Thank you, James. Okay. So, do eight other business around the day here comes from a newcomer. Enjoy the summer. So, looking forward to this weekend in the parade and candy. >> Yeah. >> Good. >> Great. All right, Council Member Feldman. >> Uh, nothing. I was just gonna was gonna mention the pinning, but you already did that. So, it was exciting to see the fire department off and running and, uh, it's been a long road, but got there. >> Sure was. And great equipment. Great job by the fire board with working on some of those details and getting them the new uniforms and all that kind of thing. It look great. Council Dick, >> are we still taking down ash trees? >> Um, we're done for the season. We have exceeded our budget. >> So, um, >> I don't know if you saw this article in the Laker Pioneer, but it said DNR offering 1.7 million in grants to address emerald emerald ashbor impacts. So, is that something we could apply for? >> Charlie, you sent me a um a information on a grant and I was actually just bring it after Sean was speaking. I will verify if that's the same. >> It's a I'll leave this with you, but um it's a DNR grant. This is open applications open August 3rd for the 20 2026 protect community forest grant. >> Okay. It might have been the one that you that you had sent me. Um we were just actually mentioning I believe that today's staff meeting >> had come up. So >> it closes September 14th. So >> here I subscribe. >> Hey good edition. Oh, the lake >> all right. I gave a lot of updates at the beginning, so nothing else for me as this this weekend long week of events and >> nothing for me. >> Um, I just wanted to let council and the residents know that this week our public works director met with the Minnesota Department of Health to assess our technology vulnerability after um cyber attack that had happened to some of our neighboring communities. I am proud to announce that that we are not we do not have any vulnerabilities at this time um because of the regularity of changing our password. Sean did mention this because he never can remember his password to change it. Nevertheless, we um they they were happy to to let us know that we were not we did not we were not vulnerable to this attack. So, I was um pleased hear that. And yes, Buckorn Days was a wonderful event. Um Janet and I attended, we had a booth and we're already talking about opportunities for um next year. We also attended 19 last night, which was wonderful to get to talk to the residents. I think we probably had the most walk-in voters today that we've had so far because I think they saw Janette and like, "Oh, I got to go see her." Um so yes, it was a wonderful night and then the pinning ceremony. Um, Monday was really cool and they did a pushin of engine 11. >> So, I'd never seen that before. So, that was a treat to watch. And then we'll see everyone this Saturday at corn. >> Yeah, >> that's you're working on getting some candy. >> I'm going tomorrow. Yes, I have have a plan. >> Great. All right. And the healthy candy, right? >> That's not what I'm think. >> Well, the fire department is buying a lot of candy, too. Yes. So now I am I am respecting the fact that we're completely separate. >> All right. >> And so Long Lake will be buying our own candy as not to intrude on their budget. >> One of the things you can never have enough of that we'll be getting our own candy tomorrow. >> So what's the plan for how we're going to >> um Yes. So, just to clarify, our shoreline, >> our two representatives from our shoreline board, yourself and um Mayor Keenheim, >> will be riding with the Shoreline Fire Department. He's thinking a boat. He's like, "Do they want to be visible?" I said, "Yeah, they want to be visible." See, maybe on a boat. >> I thought it was going to be engine 11 or something. >> Well, he said that was an option. So, if you would like that, that's an option. >> Um >> I think the boat would be >> I think the boat would be kind of cool. >> Like I said, it's That's up to you. So, the two of you will be will be representing our shoreline boards. Um, and then any council members and myself will be participating. We will be walking the parade to wear our walking shoes. Um, and one of our this year, one of our public works vehicles will be in the parade. I sent the banner with Sean today. So, to be getting that ready and then Janette will be here administering early voting. And did we uh is the pseuda baker going to be used or >> um we've decided not to use the pseuda baker this year. Um as Ryan mentioned, yes, it is historical and so forth. However, I thought this was a good opportunity to showcase our public works, one of our public works vehicles and >> yes, I don't know what I don't know what it's going to be. So, I'm um >> I'm kind of giving Sean full rain and he will be joining us. So, I think I thought it was a great opportunity for him um to participate with us. So, we're really trying to get city staff to be together. So, we will have a public works vehicle. I don't know which one it is. >> It's the front end loader. I'm going to be really sad I'm missing the bucket. So, I was like, I I don't know about the bucket. >> The bucket can help. >> Okay. I'm hearing we're compasses though from her >> and there's not that much The budget is small. We've got a wed that will be our plan for corn days. >> Great. Again, the weather looks to be perfect by the way and not so Janette. Once again, Ste will be here administering further. >> Yeah. Thanks for holding on the portly. >> Anything else, Janette? >> Minnesota primary election day next Tuesday. The election judges are very excited. Uh they'll be here earlier than when the polls open and close, but uh polls are open 7 am to 8:00 PM. We'll probably be getting your start to the day around 6:00 a.m. with me just a little bit before that. And uh we'll be here all day and they can't wait to welcome everyone. So that'll be fun. >> Great. That's all you do with that. All right. And our next meeting is going to be on uh Tuesday, August 18th, 13 days from today. All right. And last call. Anything else? All right. If there's no objection, I'll join the meeting by general consent. Hearing none means adjourn at 8:19 p.m.