I think there's a design perspective that's really useful I mean there's there's zoning and there's there's ordinance right there's math but I think uh just some common sense about parking circulation or uh uh the you know the fit of a building or the the fit in the community the scale of a building so um I'm hoping I would bring that excellent.

well I learned serving with some really smart thoughtful people in click um that I needed to listen I needed to listen to even though I would go into something and say oh well the Lowry Hill uh or the lowy avenue bridge is is super important and I would go into it think because I we review we've got a book this thick review all these I go into it thinking this or that and I'm just using Lowry Bridge as an example but after listening to my colleagues I would feel something different sometimes and I I it was an epiphany that I could um change my mind about something.

I I think important thing is just running a good a good solid public process you know and standing by it um you know making sure all the stakeholders are involved and and they're being listened to...you want people to walk out of there feeling like hey at least I was I was listened to I I was respected I was being heard you know that doesn't happen all the time but uh you know that part is important.

I since I have been more of an IT person for the last however many years of my time here I don't have anything that you would strictly call call land use experience um but the the kind of Confluence as I mentioned between being on a bike for so much of the time and kind of paying attention to all of that environment that people are out there talking and how to improve it and combine that with the transit gives me at least some level of familiarity it's but it's not direct experience.

the environment is so uh important and we have done things like we just approved the climate action adaptation plan um there there's nothing there's nothing to do with sustainability climate environment we have a huge tree die off that's a Statewide challenge that maybe you know I think it's going to be hard with our new legislature but you know just finding resources to replenish the tree canopy support our cap and also there's been a lot of talk even tonight on uh CNN there was a posos another uh P story it's becoming a bigger big and bigger thing.

Mike and I talked about it today about the failure of Exel to respond to the residents and stuff and to um it's it just happens so much in this city it seems like that we've become their service center their customer service center and we have like we can do as much as we can do we we still don't have any power to like I feel helpless right and we need to talk about that like somehow gain a little bit of holding excel's feet to the fire.

if they're going to pass the work on to us um we want to be able to collect a fee for doing the work they either need to they either need to take control and provide the service or allow cities to add a franchise fee that can't just be a pass through like their other franchise fees are so that you know let's let's have a policy that reflects the work that cities are doing because we are not alone this is not a minetonka problem this is a problem in virtually every city and then you look at California and you know where they're burning you know the burning half the state down due to um due to issues with power lines and so forth and and we need accountability with these monopolies.

I was kind of looking for things that wouldn't cost money this session aside from bonding I don't think it's going to be highly unlikely so um you know I was kind of looking for things that wouldn't cost money.

I've seen too many cities that put together big policy documents and hand them you know and try and talk to all of them and they speak in paragraphs and Pages rather than in bullet points and I think that if we can do a one-pager and we can have a profitable conversation and make our key points on each of these we're going to be way ahead.

March 21st is a Friday I'm hoping that's trying to cement that in if we can for a Friday to do a coun a retreat just Friday or just Friday okay and what what are you anticipating the hours of that whatever works for the council whatever works we don't have a consultant hired yet so we would have to find a consultant for that day don't have topics picked out yet we first were just trying to find a date get something held on a calendar.

I was just so Mike and I talked about um like having a process for the open time because I I had said you know like I'm not some of my things didn't get the three votes and I'm like like it's fair like I'm not going to you know try and add push for that now um but if there's time it might be something you know there might be something that I want to use those open times for but like having maybe I don't know like a sign up or something so people know ahead of time what you're going to discuss so people people can be prepared to discuss it and then have people have like a time limit in mind of Y of their present so like you know you get minutes to add some structure to the open time yes.

there there is a sense of partisanship that has been sort of infiltrating the campaign certainly and some of the positions that people are taking and um this this sort of gets to what we're trying to say um and so I'm not going to beat a dead horse but I also feel like it's it it really doesn't sort of get at the the pressures that I think um are having an effect on the discourse the materials that are shared um the sort of special interests that are um putting pressure on on the way we talk about things.

I just will say like I think it's kind of a chicken or an egg sort of a thing like for me my politics are informed by my values not the other way around so like I come in with my beliefs and that leads me to certain groups or organizations but that's I mean I can't think of a single decision where part of my decision making process was what would this party think of it or what would another party think of it so I mean think I think we are nonpartisan.

I really applaud you for these shared values and I'd say that not just to butter your bread but I I oh yeah we've heard that before it's okay to have your bread butter once in a while I say that because I serve on the Minnesota city manager association board so mcma board we have monthly meetings and I hear from colleagues of mine from across the state the board does hears from City councils that are you know really challenging some really challenging Dynamics and probably some level of dysfunction and it's not naive to think that it's you know there's good and bad councils out there but I think what this does for you because I hear those stories and you hear how how some councils don't work well together you do and I I really say that in sincerity that I think this for you is a is a legacy for you for this Council or you you're you're signaling to constituents to your residents how you operate as a council what are the values important to you.

one of the things that I just wanted to mention is you know in my role in my job at work I do a lot you know I I have to deal with compensation and salary compression a lot and so I looked at the the numbers a little bit from that perspective to see um if what we were considering was going to relieve the salary compression for some of our directors and the people below them enough to really um make us competitive for hiring say for Karin's job since she's leaving or say uh Chief Bor boom and and jobs like that and sort of what it would do for the people below.

an important ceiling for us is uh was the levy increase you know for us to if we were to give the city manager an increase greater than Levy increase we're essentially being inflationary um beyond beyond our our Levy.

it was really easy when I met with them uh they put thought into it and U when I went into it wasn't wasn't sure what what the how the conversation was going to go but they clearly put thought into it and used data too and that was where I was going to be my position was using the data and uh that's my blue energy is using the data and and we quickly like when they when they um mentioned what the offer looked like I was like yep that's exactly where I was hoping we would land and as they would say both sides are happy I think we're good.

there's 30 of them I haven't looked at that yet but we have five days to go over 11 they're pretty brief the comments are pretty brief yeah.

is it clear do you have other these are good questions it's clear that it's not totally clear but we we will be it will be clear when we we need to be clear yes.