[Music] Heat. Heat. Good evening everyone. Um it is Monday, April 28th, last Monday in April and this is a um study session of the Minnotonka City Council. We'll go around and introduce ourselves starting with Miranda. Yeah. Miranda Domin, assistant city manager. Mike Funk, city manager. Kizzy Kley, ward four. City council members Rebecca Shack. W two. Brad Whome mayor. W three. Paty Foster Bolton. W Dub Calbert, city council at large. Seat A. Paige Sullivan, old architects and engineers. John McNamer, old architects and engineers. Kevin Fox, fire chief. Derek Mezer, deputy chief, Mitanka Fire. Julie Wishnack, community. Aaron Nelson, finance director. Scott Borman, police chief. Kelly OD, recreation director. Aaron Morris, assistant fire chief. Sarissa Faulk, senior management coordinator. Eric Nelson, city attorney. Will Manchester, public works director, and Kevin Ringhoffer, resident. Oh, good evening everyone. And there's one other person. Oh, excuse me. Kimberly Wilburn. There she is. She's got her hand raised. Ma'am, uh Kimberly Wilburn, uh city council at large. Thank you, council member. Good to see you. You're kind of small on the screen, but you're there. So, um let's see. We'll call this meeting to order and we've done the introduction. So, um, business items. Uh, Mike. Yeah. Thank you, Brad. Uh, getting the council. As you noticed, you'll see all of our directors and other staff here tonight, not because they're not only interested in the fire conversation, but also here to hear the survey results. So, we're planning on at least time-wise hoping that our fire discussion tonight goes for about an hour and a half, which then leaves us an hour for the remainder of the meeting for Peter Leman to go through the community survey and then also the business survey. So that's kind of our uh sequence of here this evening, but again our directors and other staff are again interested in the fire conversation, but also here to hear the results of the community survey. So that's why you see a lot of our staff here this evening. So with that, I really want to get us kicked over to Chief Fox and Assistant Chief Mezer. Uh as you saw in your packet, I think as I've chatted with all of you today on the phone, tonight is is informational. It's mainly anformational evening uh here tonight. And we'll turn it over again to our friends at in the police department and W architects to really go through first off the the station analysis and you that was contained in your staff report. So you have some good information about the work that's been done on that front and then we'll talk about service level objectives and those do do go hand inand uh there's a nexus between those two and as I mentioned tonight is really just a high level first blush at this information and as I've communicated with uh Darren Nelson our finance director at Chief Fox and the chief assistant chief metro tonight's again the first night of this because as we look at the larger capital improvement needs of the city certainly we've talked about the fire ations here this evening. Rewind the clock about this time last year. Uh Mr. OD was here with the consultants on our recck facilities. So you had a report uh outlining the needs for the Willist Williston, the marsh, the community center, and Glenn Lake. And so Kelly will be back next study session in May to reh highlight that information. So that way you'll have fire information tonight. In May, you'll also then receive a refresh on the community wreck facilities. And then that's going to propel us into again as I referenced Mr. Nelson and I working on that financial management plan because at some point you're going to be asking and you should be asking what does this all mean? How do we fund it? When do we fund it? When can this all happen? And that's what we'll start to really map out in the May study session and gearing up for that. So tonight, again, moreformational. Uh a lot for you to consider as we go through um the presentation. And so with that, mayor and council, I'd like to really just kick it over to Chief Fox and have him introduce or reintroduce. They've already introduced themselves. Um again, our our friends over at World Architect. So with that, Chief Fox. Thanks, Mike. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Um yeah, so this evening we have two different presentations for you and we'll get into the fire station uh needs assessment here shortly. Uh just a reminder so in 2024 we engaged with W architects and engineering to take a look at our fire stations uh to really take a high level look at at what can we do with these facilities to accommodate kind of the plans we've set forth in our public safety master plan. So they worked on that uh all of 2024 and wrapped it up at the end of the year and so they're here tonight for that. Uh before I turn it over to to John McNamera and Paige Sullivan with Wald u I'm gonna have my deputy chief Derek Mezer just kind of give an overview of the fire stations because it's really easy for us to talk about the fire station say station two station three but that doesn't mean as much to somebody who's not as familiar with it. So he's going to go over kind of uh what stations are what where they're located and what are some of the key areas that they serve. So, as uh we go through the needs assessment, you'll have a better frame of reference as to what particular station we're talking about. So, with that, I'd like to turn it over to Derek and and he'll get started. All right. Thanks, Chief Fox. Uh good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Derek Mezer, deputy fire chief again. Uh so, tonight we'll look at the satellite fire stations that we have. So, we'll start with I is not controlled here. here. There we go. Oh, perfect. So, we'll start with fire station two. It's at 1815 Hopkins Crossroads. So, station two is located in Ward 2 and it's close in proximity to the Ridgedale area. Um, it's also close to a lot of the Hopkins School District, including Hopkins High School, North Junior High, and Tanglin Elementary. It's right on the northeast side of town there. So, it's constructed in 1976. Uh there was some additions over the years or renovations. Uh in the early 2000s there was a classroom added to the south side of the building uh as along with a kitchen and bay room remodel uh in 2018. So uh this is currently a double deep pullth through bay as well u as a call back fire station. So when we call back our paid on call firefighters, they'll respond to the station and their apparatus is staffed there. as part of our public safety master plan in the city gate study. It identified us trying to attempt or uh staffing this as much as possible. It does not accommodate 24-hour staffing currently. Um but during 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. we'll rotate a truck there when our staffing permits to cover that area. All right. And then this does not have exhaust capture, which is something that we've installed in some of the fire stations that capture the diesel exhaust coming from the trucks or the big tubes if you ever see those hanging down from the ceilings. And then the gear lockers are also stored in the apparatus bay. So, a couple photos of what that looks like. So, on the left side here, you'll see the apparatus bay and then the renovated day room and then the classroom addition. Moving on to fire station three. So, fire station 3 is located in W one. It's on our southeast end of the city. Uh, it's close to the Opus area. Um, as you can see, located on Roland Road there. Um, it's also close in proximity to the future light rail station that will be coming, uh, as well as Glenn Lake Elementary. There's several parks in that area of the city as well that it services along with Shady Oak Beach and then the United Health Group campus in that Opus area. It was constructed in 1987. Um, renovations in 2019 as part of the plans to build the central fire station. um we needed to move out of our station one and occupy a few other stations while that construction was occurring. So station three was identified as one of those stations. So there was some dorm rooms added so that we could occupy it 24 hours a day. And uh currently there's two to three firefighter staff there 247. Um it is a double deep apparatus bay which means you could stack two fire trucks front to back. Um but it is not a pullthrough bay. So we have to back into that. If you're familiar with that area, it's sort of built into that hill right there. Um and again the gear lockers are located on the apparatus bay. Some photographs of that station. So on the left side you see the apparatus bay. Um there is a meeting room in the lower area which has been converted from a training room since it's been occupied 24 hours a day along with a watch room and day room kitchen on the upstairs which is also where the dorm rooms are located. You'll notice these next couple fire stations look very similar in design to fire station 3. So, moving on to fire station 4 is located in Ward 4. Uh, it's close in proximity to Minnitanka High School. Uh, several elementary schools in that area of the city. Uh, Purgatory Park in the Seven High Shopping Center. This is constructed in ' 86. Uh again, double deep bays and this one does through does have drive-thru bays, so we're able to uh pull our apparatus into that station without having to back them up. Um it does not have exhaust capture and the gear lockers are located on the apparatus bay. And the reason why I note that is that um that's it's as we do this ongoing analysis um we're looking at industry best standards and especially reviewing upcoming OSHA standards as best practices as far as where we ska store our equipment. uh and more and more and as you see in is featured at station one is we have a separate room for turnout gear with a separate HVAC system that will pull any offging uh chemicals from the gear and extract that from the building. So you can see again on the left side is the apparatus bay watch room the day room and classroom. So moving on to station five. This is located on our northwest area of the city on Weisetta Boulevard just off of Carlson Parkway. Uh located in Ward three. It's close to the Cargill campus. Uh also close in proximity to the Ridgedale area. Um close to the Graves Bay Marina and then the Carlson Towers. It was constructed in ' 91 and this was also part of that uh renovations when we were planning on moving in moving out of station one during construction. Uh so that would we could staff that 24 hours a day as well. Um this station does not have pullthrough bays. Um it is used as a call back response station, but this is the station we plan on staffing 24 hours a day in September as part of the additional staffing coming this year. And then uh there are four dorm rooms for overnight staffing. Uh this does have exhaust capture from our uh from our the exhaust from our trucks and gear lockers are also on the apparatus bay. Uh, one thing I'll note for both the station 3 and five update as far as the additions for the uh, dorm rooms added in 2019 is that there are more of a temporary measure designed to move out of our station one and then move back in. Um, so although that it is construction, there's drywall and framing up u, some of the HVAC for a long-term solution wouldn't necessarily have gone into that as well. And look at some of the photographs there. So talking about the facility assessment of each of these. So this comes from I apologize for the small font. It may be difficult to read but we'll provide this. So this comes from our citygate study and on the left hand side you'll see what the assessment grading scale is. Um it goes from excellent, good, fair, and poor. And on the right side you'll see what the citygate study uh analyzed each one of these fire stations to be. So you can see fire station one, it was a brand new facility when this was completed. Um it was rated as excellent. Fire station two uh was rated as fair, fire station three poor, fire station four fair, fire station five in good condition. So then they graded this and and put into the study as far as a priority list. They used that assessment as part of their priority priority list um along with several other factors to determine in what order we should replace these stations or address these stations. So you can see listed out on the right uh the capital improvement or replacement priority. Um going from uh top to bottom you can see station two was listed as the number one priority with station three, four and five following that is two, three and four. With that does anybody have any questions? Council questions looking at the looking at our satellite stations. Any thoughts come to mind? All right. Okay. So with that then I will turn it over to John if you can exit out. We'll get their presentation pulled up. You know as we look I mean the question that I have is um clearly you know all these stations were built at a different time when the view of what was necessary for um adequate fire stations was dramatically different. I mean, exhaust capture, um, isolation of turnout gear, you know, all those things didn't really exist when these stations were built. Um, and frankly, none of the sites are particularly large, you know, so you when you think about, okay, pullthrough stations and things like that, well, we'd have to acquire property and that's not necessarily impossible, but but yeah, it's just, um, you know, why do we have, you know, we have four satellite stations? They look nice. Um but it's clear that they're by and large um you know half of them are you know got poor ratings and um and the remainder have meaningful shortcomings. So it's a it's an important issue. It's a challenging issue and uh not with easy solutions. Yeah. Um very similar to our station original station one you know when these stations were built it was built at a time when the fire department was a was a volunteer paid on call fire department. I think there was um u four administrative full-time staff that worked out of station one always the rest of the fire department was all volunteer or paid on call and and so all of the facilities were designed around that model at the time and and it worked very well for for many years. But now as the uh fire service is evolving and our fire department is is changing that you know the the needs we have out of these stations are changing along with it too. So all right with that I'll turn it over to to John. Thank you. Any other comments or I mean my only com most of my comments really have to do with things that I aren't really you know in the purview of of fire per se because it has to do with land acquisition and funding mechanisms and you know um you know but the one of my questions earlier had been what's the priority and that that gave us the priority of you know because we can't do them all at the same time for a variety of reasons. So that was helpful. Great. Any anything else? I don't want to cut anybody off. Paula. Yeah, just a couple quick questions. Um I spoke with with uh Mike about this this morning. And I was just wondering what is I mean are there other things that can be done besides I mean what are we looking at? Are there you know 24-hour staffing? Is that a mustdo? Um you know are there other ways that you know we can look at this. Maybe looking at peak time staffing for satellites in the meantime. you know, kind of just hoping that, you know, we can look at just right now. It just seems like it's, you know, all of these stations have to be um upgraded and, you know, probably they eventually can, but you know, we really just spent $30 million on station one and are still barely into a 20 30year bond for that. So, this is going to be a really tough thing to try to finance when we have other needs. as well. So, I just hope that, you know, we can look at some other potential options or a way to get to where we need um kind of on an interim basis um while we figure out funding to kind of pay for this and as well as you know the the many other things that we you know kind of also are doing as a city. And I I don't know that I have the answers. I just hope that we can you know kind of look around at um you know think about some other ways to approach this. So because obviously we can't replace all of these at once. It may not even be in five years. It may be looking at a 10 20 year I don't know um outlook. And so you know what can we do in the meantime I guess. And then I I do always do such a good job of missing the person on the screen. So, um, Kimberly, if you have anything, feel free. I'm not calling on you. I just wanted to make sure that I didn't ignore you. Um, I do have a question, but I think you can wait until after. Okay. All right. Then we'll turn it back to you. Thanks. Thanks, council members. Uh, mayor and council, again, thanks for having us tonight. It's really great to kind of walk through what we've been working on on over the last year. And certainly there's a lot of information here to digest as it relates to not only the staffing study, but as Kevin brought us in to kind of think through what does that look like at each of these stations. Uh whether that's can they be modified was one of our charges to look at. And so you'll see some solutions related to that or in that instance where it isn't really practical or it doesn't seem like it's going to meet the needs of the city long term. We also have some dialogue in here related to some of those uh replacement dialogue. So, I'm not going to go through some of the front-end stuff. Uh Derrick did a great job of kind of talking through uh where the stations are located at uh what you when they were built and some of those types of things. And so, I think we'll start just with a big overview of each of the stations, what we discovered during the programming side of things and our walkthroughs and what some of the challenges might be as we look at each of these locations. And so this is an aerial view of station two on the north side. You can see the site uh as mayor you had mentioned or somebody had mentioned that they're all fairly small sites. Um and you know much of what we do with fire stations today is different than what we did you know even 10 years ago. Uh not let alone 20 years ago. And so it's it's no big surprise that uh some of these stations don't have some of the best practices that uh we designed into station one. Uh so you can see that the building kind of sits nicely at the corner there. There are a couple of parking areas on site for uh the crews when they show up here. Uh and so what we really started to look at was um what does the building look like? It has had some modifications to add a training space, uh some locker space and a better day room in there. But uh as was mentioned, there are no sleeping rooms at the station. And so our biggest challenge here was with such an oddly configured building, what could we do in order to accomplish some level of on-site uh sleeping space in the building. And so we went through a programming exercise uh and again the this detailed program is also in the study report that was in your packet. But just generally speaking, what we did was we looked at uh what the existing space utilization was. So that station just for conversation purpose is about 5,400 square feet in size. So it's a fairly small station. Uh as was mentioned, it does have two apparatus bays in there. Right now it is a drive-thru uh bay, but the apparatus bays are are smaller than what we would design today. Apparatus has gotten bigger over the years. Uh some of the bigger deficiencies in here are really related to having proper decontamination space in here. uh having any sort of training or fitness space at this facility is just doesn't exist. And so we really kind of went through and uh there are two columns in here. One is okay, what if we do have to renovate this and add on to it because it's just not practical to rebuild it right now. And then we looked at a hypothetical program as to what should we be looking at for uh deployment at this location. And so the square footages for that kind of vary between uh roughly about 6,500 square feet to get some sleeping space in there uh and uh a few other features in there or if you were to look at doing a replacement at this location, we'd need roughly about 13,400 square ft in order to do that. And so what then we decided that we needed to do was kind of look at how would we go about doing both an addition renovation or a new construction. Uh yeah. So if you'll notice on the screen here, um we've got some additions to this building and then some renovations. Um so as Derek kind of went through, um the apparatus bay does split uh the building in two. Um, so we've got uh kind of the plan would be to have some um maintenance area, a gear wash and gear storage um off of the southern end there. And then all of our living space up to the north. So living space would be an addition. Uh we can fit about three dorm rooms and a toilet shower room um off to the north here and then also a shift office. Um and then the station already does have a really nice uh kitchen dining day room area. Um so there would be just minor modifications there. Um unfortunately with that apparatus bay right in the middle um it really is kind of the worst case scenario for um decontamination and for you know separating of the hazards. Um folks would have to go from the dorm room side you know over to the uh locker room side and vice versa. Um so it's really kind of crossing paths quite a bit. Um looking at the site um as you know we've talked about it is an L-shaped site. So, uh, and the existing building is kind of right in the the center there. So, it does make, um, any modifications pretty difficult. Um, expansion to the north is what we found, um, to be able to maintain the drive-through apparatus base. Uh, we are looking at doing an expansion to the north there. If you were to do additions, um, you then would still have access to your parking areas on either side. Um, we did also look at the possibility of tearing down and starting at this location. So, uh you are again still able to keep parking on both sides there for the firefighters. Um we are still able to get the drive-through apparatus bay. Um and then we're able to get kind of you know our our green zone of the clean living spaces. Um yellow zone which is the warm um decontamination and support spaces and then the red zone which is the apparatus space. Um so just some general comments um about the about station two. So this station uh the additions here we are only able to get three dorm rooms at this location. So it does not meet the five that are um expected or targeted for the long-term buildout. Um the remodel also does not meet the decontamination um standards that we you know have set at the uh station one and that are looking to be uh set in the future. Um so we just don't have the space to accommodate all of that. Um it does not accommodate the gear storage. Uh gear would have to remain on that apparatus bay floor unfortunately. Um, and then, you know, we, as we've kind of talked about, since it does not meet the five, uh, bunk rooms that would be the long-term buildout, this would really just be a 10-year band-aid. Um, so it would not really be suitable for longer than that. Um, then we also did want to comment to that this station um, and how we've laid it out does not include any fitness area or training gathering space. Um, and it's the most disjointed since we have that apparat right in the middle. Um so the next station to talk about is station three. Um and I think one of the things to note on this one that uh was talked about earlier was this one is built into a hillside. So it does not have the capability of having a drive-thru facility there. And any sort of expansion on the site is going to be somewhat impractical given the hill and the location. There's an odd existing rightway that would probably have to be cleaned up if we were going to continue to expand on this site. And through our conversations uh with the fire department, we just really said this is if we're looking at this particular station, this would be a good candidate for a replacement station. The reinvestment at this site is probably not uh worth doing. And so as you look at kind of the layout of it, I think what um with this station, this was remodeled as part of the 2019 project. So there are some sleeping rooms in there, but as mentioned, this was a down and dirty project in order to get people out of the current station and into this station while we did construction here. So, a lot of the improvements there were done uh as inexpensively as possible because we really just was this was being considered as a as a temporary uh solution there. So, if this station is going to continue to to uh be kept in operation even on a temporary basis, there are probably some things that you may want to continue to do to maintain this facility. Um and so programmatically we didn't put together a program for additions and renovations just because of uh that um discussion we had. But really what we were looking at was for this particular building. Looking at a station that would be a little under 15,000 square feet, which is pretty typical for a a station at this at this size. and looking at the uh types of things that we need to put in there for sleeping rooms, day room space, decon space, locker space, uh and a little bit of training space in here. And so this was one of the stations that we had talked about that if this one was going to get rebuilt, this would be a prime candidate also for some additional training space to kind of supplement what uh is happening here at station one. And so if the station is going to get rebuilt, having enough sight space for that type of work uh and training stuff would be important to consider uh as the city moves forward with that. Um so with this station, we know that, you know, there it's really just not suitable for rebuilding. Um the remodeling that was done there, as I said, was similar to what uh was done uh previously. And again, the idea that if we were looking for an alternate site, you know, the current sites are pretty small, so having a larger site uh to be able to handle some of the future stuff would be important. Uh as we look at station 4, uh again, as was noted, this is a little bit bigger site. It's a triangular shaped site that does allow for a drive-thru apparatus bay, which is uh kind of the ideal way we'd like to see this, but there are some similar limitations as far as uh the building itself. Uh and um that but with this particular site, you could do an addition on it. So, what we did look at uh was, you know, what could we do to the station as far as renovations and additions. Uh this is one of the stations that was not renovated to have sleeping rooms in it as part of the 2019 project. So uh in addition to making some of the other modifications, we would likely have to do uh some additional work uh with this building. Uh so programmatically for this building, we did put a program together that looked at what it would look like to do an addition renovation. And so the existing station is roughly about 8,200 square feet. If we were to do uh additions and renovations, we would get to roughly about 11,000 square feet to it. Uh and if we were looking at replacing the station, we'd be a little under 13,500 square ft in order to accommodate the needs for uh fire operations. So layout for this uh we would look at bringing the living space uh down to the main level um in what is currently a training room space. So, we would put a shift office down there, um kitchen and dining room space, and the day room space at this level, uh with also a modification to two existing toilet rooms to get an accessible toilet room down here. Um and then on the upper level, we would look at um doing our five dorm rooms up there um along with some locker or some uh toilet shower rooms as well. Uh we would then also um in this option, we would look at doing an addition to accommodate your turnout gear. um some of that decontamination space, the fitness space um and the SCBA and tool room. We also then did look at a second option um really much the same as the first with the um living support space on the lower level and the um actual dorm room and toilet showers on the upper level. Um but then this would bring um a renovation to an existing apparatus bay uh where you could have your toilet shop or your turnout gear room. Um, so getting that turnout gear off the apparatus bay floor. Uh, you have your decon space, fitness space, um, and then other support spaces for the apparatus bay. And then you would do a separate addition that would just be an apparatus bay addition. So looking at the site, um, this is how the addition kind of lays out. So again, it's a tight site. Um, but this this would uh be fairly um easy to add a apparatus bay there to the southeast side. um and maintain that drive-through bay. Um really the modifications to this building would need um to modernize the mechanical systems. Uh John kind of mentioned that that there hasn't been work done here. So we would need to update the mechanical systems and the exterior envelope. And since so lastly, station five and again you probably hearing some of the similar things with each of these. The big difference with station five is due to its proximity to the freeway and the off-ramp there. It's a little bit tighter site, so there is not a drive-thru capability at this location. Uh, and that particular location makes it a little bit challenging getting in and out of that uh site. There are some water issues um in and around the building just due to the grading and stuff like that uh in this area. But again, it is feasible to add on to this, similar to the conversation that we were talking about for station 4. Um, this station does have those added sleeping rooms on the upstairs that were done in 2019. So, um, there are some existing sleeping rooms here. There are four of them up there. Uh, but similar to station 4, uh, some of the other amenities don't exist in the station uh, today. And so we did the the program and space needs for station five are identical to what we had talked about at station 4. Uh just for um brevity. I'm not going to go through that all that much, but the um solutions for the station again are going to be pretty similar to what we talked about for station 4. Again, I I won't get into the um small details because it's really just the same with, you know, living support on the lower level, dorm rooms on the upper level, and then option one would be an expansion of your apparatus support space, and option two would be renovation to an existing apparatus bay for the apparatus support and then a new addition of an apparatus bay. Um the site again very very tight at this location. We are not able to get the through as John said. Um but we are still able to, you know, at least fit another apparatus bay on here. Um it's just it's going to be very difficult for um the vehicles to uh navigate the site because it's going to be even tighter um and circulation is going to just get more difficult. And then again at this uh location, we would need to look at um modernizing the mechanical systems and uh works on some exterior envelope issues. And so part of uh the discussion that we had with the fire department was also to work through some cost ranges for conversation uh and budgeting purposes. And so we started to look at each of the stations individually as to what additions and renovations would cost for each of those uh utilizing uh cost per square foot numbers that are in in alignment with what we're seeing for similar size facilities uh out there for fire departments. And so looking at station two uh if we were to look at doing that addition on the north side that we had shown you uh that's roughly about 1,800 square ft. Uh we're projecting a construction cost for that uh anywhere from about 1.4 million to about 1.6 million. And then we would still uh uh anticipate doing some interior modifications to the building too to try to pick up some of those uh ancillary um projects on the inside. So we have uh roughly about a million and a half to a million eight for some renovation work in there giving us a total project cost of roughly about 2.1 million to 2.5 million and that's total project cost. So that includes fees, testing contingencies, planning contingencies because we're really early in the process right now. So the idea is to give the council a range to understand what uh a project like this would cost. Uh currently in the market, uh new construction for fire stations is running between $450 to $500 a square foot. Um and so if we apply those programmatic numbers that we had had in there at 13,350 square ft, we would be looking at a construction cost between 6 million and 6.7 million or a total project cost between about 8.1 and 9 million to replace uh station two. The one thing to note, these are budgetary numbers based on current calendar year. So, as we know, it's a bit volatile out there right now. I will say the construction market is a little flat right now, but it's likely to continue to increase over time. So, the industry standard is anywhere from four to 5% annually for construction inflation. And so, as you kind of talk about where these projects land, we would need to consider those inflationary numbers uh to get out to the year uh that each of these would be done. As you look at station three, uh, as discussed, we aren't, uh, anticipating additions and renovations here. So, looking at a station that's roughly about 14,800 square ft, you'd be looking at a total project cost of around 8.9 million all the way up to 10 million for that uh, replacement. Uh and then looking at uh station four and five because they are so similar as far as um their size goes and the types of additions and renovations. We just lump both of those together. So for station four and five, we'd be looking at additions and renovation costs of around 4 million to 4.6 million and then new construction for uh a station that uh or for option two. So we had those two options there. One of them had stuff inside. One of them just had an apparatus bay would be between about 4.2 million to right around 5 million. Uh and then for new construction we would be looking at a station around 13,400 square ft. So again roughly about 8.1 to $9 million for that. And so because we always anticipate people ask those questions. We did put a slide in here that kind of totals it all up. And so if we look at the totals, round it to about the nearest half a million. If we were to look at doing additions and renovation, and this line item includes new construction for station 3, it'd be a total for all of the stations between 19 and 22.5 million. And if they were all to be new uh construction, it'd be between 33 and a half to $37 million for all of the stations. So, so that is our presentation today as to the study. Like I said, there's a lot more detail in the actual report. Uh, but certainly we would enter entertain any questions the council might have. Great. Thank you. Council questions. Rebecca. Thanks, Brad. Um, if I'm remembering correctly of when we received the the original study, there was some conversation about kind of location. Do we have is there opportunity for centralizing particular if I'm was that on the north end maybe in the Richdale area um and consolidating? I mean, is that not an option or is that an option and is that something we're thinking about? Yeah, that's yeah. So, uh the study showed that overall our stations are actually in the most optimal locations as far as response goes. And we'll talk a little bit more about that in our service level objectives. Um, but we did kind of on our end contemplate the the concept of consolidating stations two and five on the north into a more central into one station in a in a central location. And as we move through these projects, that is still an option we could look at. Um what this didn't show too is part especially with station three and if we consolidated is any type of land acquisition and to consolidate on the north end of the city we'd want to move more towards the center towards the Redale area and you know what might be available up there is is yet to be seen. So there is but we have explored that and and would consider that an option moving forward too if we needed to. Kimberly, I know you had a question. Did um is this a good time or do or do you want to save it yet? No, this is a good time. Um so for station two, I have two questions and I'll get them together. So for station two, was it determined um at full staffing that we need both both of those parking lots or would it be possible to expand into part one of the parking lots? And my other question is I guess it's station three was the station that was um decided that it wasn't the this the location wasn't really suitable. Um was it cons did you consider putting in a twostory building on that site at all or will the site just not work for the needs? Yes, thank you. So, to answer your first question in regards to station two, uh we do not need both those parking lots. Um so, what you saw tonight was just an example of what we could do. There's there's potentially more options as to how a station might lay out on that. So, we could potentially incorporate uh one of those parking areas into a new building. the uh the house on the north side of the station does pose uh some challenges. I I don't know how much the neighbor would appreciate if if we move a fire station, you know, 15 ft next to their house or not, but um we do have the property there and have some options. So, yes, we could do something potentially with the parking areas. Uh, in regards to station three, and John can jump in too, but the the site in general because of the sloping and the hill, that station, if you've seen it, is actually built into the hill. And so there's not a lot of room to move any further south. And so, uh, due to the size and it's got a very small parking area and a very small apron out front for the trucks to pull out. and the site's just not conducive to really any type of of construction of a new facility there. Other other questions? I mean, yeah, go ahead. If even if we did use one of those parking lots, would that affect the price? Uh, at this point in time, our numbers are based on gross square footage of the building, and so those numbers probably wouldn't change. Um, and so I think some of the things that we had talked about that would still need to be explored is kind of the positioning of the drive-through apparatus base because that was kind of an important piece of this uh, which would then probably help us you if we didn't have parking on that north side. So there's a couple of different configurations, but just for you know conversation purposes, we just kind of focused on square footage and would that square footage fit somewhere on that site. So, and other questions? Yeah. I mean, it's not it's it's not really for Wald or even for the fire chief. I mean, my my questions really are, you know, it's been a long time since we tried to acquire property for something like this. When we did fire when we did the new fire station one, it was already city property. And so I I'm a little curious, you know, sort of what the obstacles might be for land acquisition. There there seems to be places that might be um viable. You know, there's a lot of commercial properties that are, you know, vacant or becoming vacant. And it seems like there might be some, but I just don't know. It seems like it would be complicated and hard and potentially extremely expensive. So, it would be yet another expense. And the and then a a comment would be that I talked to to uh Mike this morning at length about you know funding mechanisms and you know to uh Paula's point about you know having a lot of needs sort of looking at our big needs like the marsh and and public safety just sort of dividing and conquering um between possibly sales tax if we can get that over the the hump and um bonding um and you you know I think there's a way forward if we if we phase it in which we have to um but I really am curious about the land acquisition challenges and sort of if Do we have any ideas about the cost involved in that? Sort of what's involved, you know, how one goes about casting about looking for those properties. So that's those are rhetorical questions I'll take to look. Well, I don't think they're forwald or the the fire chief, but for tonight, but they're questions that will need to be tackled. But but those are things that I'm curious about. Yeah. All right. I think I would just add Brad real quick that even though we haven't gone through that in depth identifying potential sites that right that's a phase down the road if you will in terms of further evaluating where we're going to ultimately go I think before we decide on sites it's are we thinking renovation or new construction it's new construction certainly site acquisition or site sighting is part of that conversation so very good points and I think that's is a part of the process. So, council, any other comments or questions anyone wants to make? You know, I'm I guess I got a comment. I guess I'm kind of blown away. Um I'm almost speechless like with the price of these, you know, fire stations and how much it's going to cost with so many different needs in our city. Um, and I'm just thinking about like I mean if we don't start addressing these fire stations, how long do we have with the growth of our city? Um, you know, with new residents coming and yeah, how much time do we have to put off? Like that's what I'm thinking about. like is this something that we we need to be addressing now or is this something that we can pause for a little bit? And if we did pause, how much time do you think will our city outrow the fire stations that we have right now? Like that's kind of what I'm thinking about like Yeah. You know, cuz I'm I'm like I'm almost speechless. I'm like stuck in my seat right now. Like I'm like frozen right now. Yeah. And if for I know some of you are are newer on the council, so maybe weren't here when we did station one. Um a good frame of reference for that from when we decided to do a new station to the time we moved in was over almost four years I believe. So it's it's quite a lengthy process to to do a new facility from you know and that starts from the you first you have to do the the financing on how you're going to do that and then there's design phases and construction and yeah so it's it's quite a lengthy process. I think that's a good point. Do you consider this kind of the first starting place somewhat? We had your first Well, you got to raise the question. Right. The first time we were exposed to potential renovations or new construction was our fire master plan. That was a year ago. And so now a year later we've done station analysis and a chief's point. Even if today you said, "Yeah, let's move forward with something." We're still a few years away from actually turning her. And so it is a lengthy process. And that's why we start having these conversations today because of the need. I would say more of the critical need and turn to the chief to question is more about the staffing. So if you look at our facilities, yes, they're 40 years old, 40 45 years old, which doesn't sound that old to me anymore. No, no. Just like just like they were yesterday. So they're 40 years old and they're again I think we've already expressed this 40 years ago is much different than we are today. And more of the critical need is around the staffing level, how we're going to staff these stations. Yes, there's the the critical safety elements of today's providing safety protections to our firefighters in terms of the exhaust and the chemicals and having that separation like we've done in station one. But it's more about the staffing side of things as we now added full-time staffing and we're going to continue to add more full-time staffing and having the facilities to match that need. Feel free to jump in. No, thank thanks Mike. Um yeah, you know, and with our service level objectives that we're going to present to you, everything kind of ties into that. So, as we come forward with budgetary requests, whether it's staffing, whether it's uh new trucks or fire stations, it all feeds in to the service level objectives, which you as a council set because you get to set the level of standard that we're going to provide. And then everything we do kind of orbits those service level objectives. So um that not only gives you the ability to to directly see that the impacts that we're having on those whether we're hiring those people or buying equipment. You can see are we trending in the in the right way? Are we are we meeting those hitting those goal post goalposts that we set? And uh it makes it a lot easier then to ask the questions and to see if we're not achieving those those objectives that you know do we have to do something different. So it all kind of ties right into that and fire stations are are just a portion of it. Yeah. And then the last thing I would say is I guess if you take a step back from this whole exercise it's a planning exercise and when we did the when we first embarked on the public safety master plan it was to be forward thinking. It was about positioning the city for success long term. And so we're not at a critical need where something has to be done. So we're in a position of we have the time to study this to do it right and it is a planning exercise for long-term future of the city. And so I think as a council and frankly as a staff I think this is the exciting time because we get a chance to plan and look at what is Maton public safety look like for decades to come. Other other comments council. Um, I've got a few. Um, now if my or Kimberly, do you have any more? I don't want to ignore you. Okay. Okay, we're good. Um, so, um, you know, as I recall when we started planning with for station one, that was before we we did our public safety master plan. Mhm. And and I think the thinking was, and correct me chief if I'm wrong, we thought that we could do the city with one centrallylo stateofthe-art um facility, which we built and we we really felt that the satellites were not going to be that, correct me if I'm wrong, were not going to be that necessary. And then we did the public safety master plan and we realized nope we need we we we not only need we need more than station one but we need all four of our satellite stations. And then I also recall that um particularly the Roland road station. Um we felt that that might be there might be a better location for that given the growth of the city and the the dynamics of opus. So you know there's there's a lot of things and and things change over you know actually you want to say over time but not over not that much time and um and technology changes and um and medical information changes you learn more and you learn more about the risks and the risks you have to mitigate and and then ch and then training has changed so dramatically and um and I think that's part of the challenge with our our paid on call that that you know it's tough to recruit firefighters fighters, but it's also tough to keep them because I think that the amount of training that's required make people who maybe were enthusiastic at start realize, boy, this is a bigger commitment than I wanted to make and so so it's it's tougher to get them and it's tougher to keep them because not everybody can handle the degree of expertise and training required. So all those so that's the world we're existing in. Those are the kind of the uncontrollables but the realities that we have to deal with. And then and then I think you know we're going to learn we're going to talk about response times and things. I mean and um you know these these are the challenges that we face. I mean we we say how critically important public safety is and this is where the rubber meets the road and these are these are tough calls, tough decisions that we're going to have to make. But a couple of things that I would add is in each case for these satellite stations, we said our our our land is constrained and that's a constraint, but is um should we be should we be should we be satisfied with that? Should we say, you know what, for some of these stations, we're going to need more land or we're going to have to figure out how to get it if that means relocate and buy different land. Okay, that's that's one thing. I mean, let's let's design for to be as good as we can be at least in a maybe in a couple of stations. Maybe we can't do that everywhere, but if we have land restrictions, I mean, when we looked at station two, I kind of kept thinking that L-shaped lot, you know, have we talked to that property owner next door? Do they really need that? Would that would they like to move to another part of the city? Maybe a little farther away from a fire station. um probably wouldn't help their insurance, but you know, I mean, and we don't want to be we're not here to problem solve, but we are here to think critically about okay, if we're designing and we're designing for the long term, what do we really need? Let's not let's kind of take the blinders off and then and then when we get the get the projected cost of it, then maybe we start trimming around the corners as we had to have to rather than limiting ourselves um and not consider optimal solutions because we're afraid of the cost. I think clearly we care about the cost, but I think we have to think expansively and if there are ways to get some more land near or maybe we have to relocate a station um to make it more optimal. We wouldn't build a station into a hill um if we were doing it today. So, you know, maybe we have to take the blinders off a little bit because because it's public safety. I mean, if we're talking about maybe an ice rink, okay, maybe we could, you know, it'd be a little different, but this is public safety. So I think we have to go in with that attitude that what do we have to do to get it right? So couple of thoughts to chew on but I mean I think this is a great start. Anything else anyone? But it is daunting Ky. I totally I get it and they're big numbers. They're big numbers and it's not like that's the only thing that we're going to consider. All right. So with that I'll turn it back chief or Mike. Okay, chief. Perfect. Thank you. Um, thank you. And we'll move on to our service level objectives. Paige and John, thank you very much for being here tonight. Thank you. And with that, I'm going to bring up Assistant Chief Aaron Morris, who's going to walk us through our service level objectives. So, in our council uh staff report, we did pose a couple of questions in there as we discuss this tonight and and Aaron will bring those up again. But, uh, as as he kind of goes through this, think about those questions because again, um, everything we do really orbits around these objectives. So, um, this is what ultimately in the long term is going to help us make some of these budgetary decisions. It's going to help it helps us with uh when we're looking at what equipment do we buy, how many people do we need to hire um and where do we place those people as we talk about the fire stations, you know, how do we optim most optimally deploy our resources to help meet these standards. So, it's really an important piece to what we do and and also can long-term tie into our overall accreditation process that we're uh currently going through. So, with that, I will turn it over to Aaron and he can uh go through this presentation and we'll have questions at the end again. Yep. Welcome, Chief Morris. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and council members. Appreciate it. Uh so with our service level objectives um in the staff report we have two requests for council um for direction. First, how do the proposed service level objectives uh with council expectations meet or excuse me align with the council expectations? And are there areas where you like to see higher or lower benchmarks? And then two, does the city council support the proposed service level objectives um as outlined by the fire department? And are there additional priorities or changes that you would like to see? So the center for fire accreditation international or the center for public safety excellence defines benchmark as a quality performance standard or a target from which performance can be judged. Our service level objectives aim to establish benchmarks for our department's consistent provision of our emergency services. A little bit of a historical context for you. Uh in 2022, as mentioned earlier, Citygate was hired to provide a facility and staff recommendations um those were based on department staffing um and call volume in 2022. That report stated, as kind of was already mentioned, the fivefire stations in the city of Antaka were prudently located around the city. And Citygate believed the department could meet service level objectives if all five fire stations were permanently staffed 24/7. So the public safety master plan was designed to meet the city gates recommendations and the department's approach to the public safety master plan has been both deliberate and intentional and focused on kind of the totality of operations as mentioned earlier including staffing stations and our equipment. So this is an outcomebased plan uh that's designed to be nimble and flexible. Uh 2025 is our second year of the public safety master plan as outlined. Um and we truly appreciate the significant investments you've already made in public safety to date. So with the investments, um I'll show you something basically a timeline of our staffing and what we've done with the additional investment. So initially when we started out in 2022, we just had station one staffed entirely by paid on call. The map or the graphic you see in the green is areas that we can travel to in a fivem minute travel time from station one. In September of 2022, we added nine additional career firefighters and we staff station three 24 hours a day, covering one and three. A year later in July 2023, we added three more firefighters which reinforced our staffing and allowed for us to cover uh vacation days, sick days, um etc. A year later in July 20 24 last year, we added three additional career firefighters which allowed us to staff rescue one out of station one with paid on call involvement. So that allowed us to do two stage two engines and one rescue covering the city. So, three trucks with paid out call participation. Coming up in July, actually September, uh once we get those firefighters on boarded, we're going to add nine more career firefighters this year and we'll be able to staff station five in that blue area. This will give us three to four engine companies with paid on call participation. And then ultimately, ideally, we'd like to get all five fire stations staffed covering the entire city of Minnitonka within a fivem minute uh drive time, which is critical to why we need the five fire stations. We can look at consolidation, but that will affect drive time. In the city study, they identify the fiveminute drive time as prudent. This is rooted in industry best practices. Uh, NFPA 1710 actually calls for a 4-minute drive time from all fire stations, but due to the challenging geography of Minnetonka with the creek and the freeways and uh uh Grace Bay, etc., it is virtually impossible to get anywhere in four minutes time. So, they suggested adding additional minute of travel time to get us with the five minute time frame uh for our service level objectives. each of our five stations uh divided up uh we looked at the probability of our major hazards in each of those. So those hazards include structure fires, vegetation fires, EMS calls, hazardous materials and technical rescue incidents as well as marine or water incidents. And virtually all the five station districts are virtually the same with EMS calls being our highest probability. Structure fires, technical rescue and water inc incidents being moderate level risk uh and probability wise and vegetation and hazardous materials incidents being a low risk for us in each of the five districts. So the reason we're here tonight service level objectives. So what we've defined as staff as our service level objective for structure fires and this is bas based on the 90th percentile or 90% of the time we want our first arriving truck to arrive at your front door within 6 minutes of 20 seconds of you calling 911. The arrival of the full effective response force and I'll explain a little bit more about that in a second is within 11 and a half minutes. And the full effective response force based on NFPA 1710 is 17 firefighters. A little bit of task math and I apologize the screen is covered up in the room. Uh but we need one firefighter to take command. We need a couple firefighters at the hydrant and the truck to establish water supply. We need two firefighters to put initial tack line in place. Two more to put a backup line for their safety and additional fire uh attack. Two more on deck or as a rapid intervention team to protect the firefighters that are actually interior fighting the fire. Two more to do search. Two more to do security to secure utilities or provide support. Two more for ventilation. Two more for uh safety and division supervis supervision totaling 17 total firefighters on scene within 11 and a half minutes. And again that is rooted in 1710 National Fire Protection Association. Oh. Oh, there it is. When it comes to EMS calls, uh, we want our first arriving unit to arrive in six minutes. Blame it on mic. All right. Kimberly's moving around. Yeah, just floating on the screen. Amazing. Uh, so 90% of the time or 90 percentile when our first arriving apparatus to arrive within six minutes. Those first arriving EMTs are going to be able to do a rapid scene size up, take command, assess the need for additional resources and administer the patient care uh needs based on state and local protocols. And the reason six minutes is critical is as mentioned earlier every minute in cardiac arrest the survival rate is reduced by approximately 7 to 10%. Uh so we need to get uh there um quickly. One thing to note uh the national average for cardiac arrest survival is between 3 and 4%. in the Twin Cities metro area because of the bundle of care that we offer, it's double that and it's between 8 to 10% and some of our new techniques that we're learning from studies at HCMC and so on and so forth are actually leading to better survival. So, we're proud to say that we are uh first in the nation in cardiac arrest survival. Excellent. So, kind of where have we been and where have we got to in the past couple years with the additional staffing? Uh for overall response, this is just every single call we have in the city. In 2023, we had approximately 5,700 calls. Same with 2024, we dropped from 11 and a half minutes from 911 to arrival for all calls. Uh first arriving engine from 11 and a half minutes to 11 minutes 6 seconds. Uh and that was based primarily on staffing another station. As we staff a third station, we expect a continued decrease. Likewise with EMS calls, uh the 90th percentile of call response 10 and a half minutes in 2023 down to 10 minutes and 7 seconds uh first quarter for 2025. When it comes to technical rescue and hazardous materials incidents, uh we've divided them up into lowrisk or high-risisk incidents. For a lowrisk incident uh or a high-risisk incident, the first arriving again is six and six minutes and 20 seconds. Uh when it bifurcation is when we get to the effective response force uh for a low-risk incident uh which on the technical rescue side would be basically a entrapment in a vehicle um or um on a hazardous material is a hit gas line or power line down call. Uh we want six firefighters um arriving as part of that effective response force. In terms of high-risisk incidents, again, 6 minutes 20 seconds. There's a reoccurring theme here. Um with the effective response force of 10 firefighters arriving 10 minutes and 20 seconds. The high-risisk incidents are going to be technical rescues or major hazardous materials incidents that may require state resources or specialized equipment. Uh vegetation fires uh again first arriving 6 minutes 20 seconds. Arrival of the effective response force which is eight total firefighters which includes two engines and a brush truck would be approximately 10 minutes and 20 seconds. Water incidents. Uh, first I'd like to note that the primary response to emergencies involving water in the state of Minnesota belong to involved to the sheriff's department. So, Henipin County Water Patrol is in charge of primary response. Minnitanka fire supplements uh their response and my keep in mind that water patrol could be as far away as Champlain on the river or downtown Minneapolis or out on the west side of Lake Minnetonka depending on when the call comes in. So, we want um our first arriving unit to arrive in eight minutes, a little bit slower than other responses, but we all we have to trailer all of our boats to the launch. Uh so, we need the extra time to hook up the trailer and pull the trailer. Uh what we like to deploy rescue operations 3 minutes after arrival. some of the forces that could affect our response that we've seen already and could continue to come up in the future. OSHA mandates u I know earlier they mentioned a lot about the diesel capture exhaust systems and separating clean from dirty areas in the station. We also have OSHA mandates in terms of two in two out for safety. Uh there's a new OSHA standard uh that was announced a year and a half ago, an emergency response standard that will drastically uh change the uh fire service if it's enacted. It's still in the rule making phase. Uh simultaneous or overlapping calls. It's huge for us. uh we've trended anywhere from 20% to up to 37% in the first quarter of 2025 where these calls have come out when there's additional call for service at the same time. Our organizational changes with recruitment retention both career and paid on call and then change and mutual aid availability. Right now, we rely very heavily for the effective response force on our mutual aid resources and our neighboring cities and everyone's getting busier and they may not be able to support that response. So again, ultimately the city council is going to set the service level objectives for the fire department through general and capital budgets. question we have for you tonight is how do you pro how do the proposed service level objectives align with your expectations and are the there areas where you'd like to see higher or lower benchmarks and does the council support these service level objectives are there additional priorities or changes that you would like us to consider right that's you can leave that that's thank you chief I mean um that's a that's a mouthful and I'll just make a couple of quick comments then I want to hear from what fellow council members. But first of all, as I was reading this this packet, I was just kind of overwhelmed with and and appreciative of all the work that you do and what you do in a very short period of time. And I mean that I mean that is that is very it's very impressive. And clearly we know that seconds matter and you know that seconds matter. And obviously um um you know we'd like the the shortest um response times possible just as you would. But one of the things when I talked to Mike um I said what's the context? Because I mean read reading the report initially and say well 6 minutes and 20 seconds is that good bad or or mediocre? And I think your report did a good job of showing where we are and you know if um if you uh if you can get to all those places in five minutes I mean you're basically giving yourself a minute and 20 seconds to do to do a lot of stuff and I don't have an appreciation for all the stuff that you have to do. So I want I want to thank you all for what you do and and for the level I mean I the thing that just impressed me so much is the level of coordination and training it takes so that every individual when you have your effective response force of 17 individuals. They're there. They know what to do. They each have a job. They get to it. They work with each other. You do it safely and you and you get it done. And that's um that's extremely impressive. And so I I couldn't help but be impressed with all that you do as I read um as I read the report. Um, but I appreciate you're providing the kind of the benchmark of where we where we are because um without that then I'm sitting here think well gee you know I'd really like it to be no minutes in 10 seconds you know but we we know that that's impossible not realistic but um uh but your report was really good and it providing that context puts us in a position perhaps to answer these challen challenging questions. So with that council Rebecca, thanks Brad. Um so can we go back to that screen with the response times that we've our historical? Yeah. Um I maybe this is a longer term question slashstrategy because I think I mean I had the same experience Brad had. I shared with Mike. I'm like yeah great. I mean if you're telling us that's where they should be. you know, it was hard without this context. I think one thing that would help be helpful as we're making budgetary decisions and going forward and this is is really identifying, okay, with bringing on nine more staff or whatever, this is where we anticipate we'll go in the next 12 months. So we can see and of course those are going to be estimates but so we can kind of see how that direct impact because this is compelling. I mean 30 seconds is a long time 33 seconds is a very you know a long time in context. So to be able to understand and for us to be able to say yeah that this is where that money is going and bringing us closer to those response time goals. Yeah, you're you're exactly right. And one of the things we're doing is setting up the dashboard that uh you as a city council will have access to. So you'll have real time data that shows where our response times at, you know, our our effective firefighting response force. And when the consultants did the report, um our numbers that we're proposing are actually a little bit higher than the national standards. And uh part of that reason is, as I said, even with all of our fire stations staffed, due to our road system, we can only be so good. Um cuz our our our streets do prohibit us somewhat. We are the land of 10,000 culde-sacs. So, um we are prohibited a little bit as far as how fast we can get to a location. So, we've adjusted those numbers accordingly and we can adjust them more to we we can adjust them to whatever as a city we feel uh is a reasonable service level to provide. But uh you're right, we we should be able to show as we add staffing and make changes to fire stations. We should be able to show how those changes or those things that we're implementing are paying off towards these uh service level objectives, which is why I said at the beginning kind of everything orbits around this. And if we can't meet these, then we have to look at what what are we doing wrong? What do we need to to pivot and make some some changes? And you know, these are some of them are longer term goals. These are not objectives that we can necessarily achieve overnight. You know, they're they're long term. Uh part of it is staffing. part of of it is looking at where our busiest areas are and putting our for our resources as close to those areas as as we can to to maximize that. So there's a lot of lot of moving pieces to it. But great I just had a quick question. Are these overall response times um are they the effective response time or initial? That is the initial first arriving unit 90% of the time. Okay. So, Okay. So, that's the initial response. Yep. Yep. So, right now we're at 11:06 and our goal is to be 620. Yeah. So, we're we're about double where we should be. And uh when Aaron was showing you that map that shows the five minute um response time, you can see how our coverage of the city within that response time increases dramatically for every station that we staff up. Um the consultant believed in their report that if we were to staff all five stations, we would have about about 95% uh coverage of the city within that five minute range. will never hit 100%. But we can get we can get pretty close. Right now with just our station three on the south end and our station one uh staffed were covering about 60 just over 60% of the city uh within that five minute which then is reflected in our response times. And with Ridgedale, for example, being one of our busiest areas and that we don't staff up there 24 hours a day, um that drives up those overall numbers because of a large portion of our call volume is that Ridgedale area. Other questions, Deb? So thinking holistically, I mean you were talking about some of the pressures that affect response times and some of it it has to do with I mean EMS calls are going up. As I remember police go does a lot of initial EM response and it's moving to fire. So, there's that. And then, um, you know, we've had these ongoing discussions with, um, our friends at the county. Um and so to to me, you know, what if if the county does not sort of rise to the occasion and improve their response times and we have these overlapping calls or we have staff on I mean how is that going to is that part of your calculation or I'm just wondering how those pressures are going to drive the numbers because if you're getting more EM calls. Um you're more likely to have the overlapping calls and of course staffing will help but you'll still have that additional pressure of more calls. Yeah. So right now we have a minimum of two trucks on duty. Uh with with our paid on call we at certain hours are able to go up to three trucks. So, um, to your point, for every call we have takes a truck dedicated to that or a crew dedicated to that. And so, if 30% of our calls are overlapping, that means over a third of the time we have two or more trucks tied up. Well, if we only have two trucks on duty, then we we have no uh resources available other than to call people in. And then when we do that, that increases that response time dramatically. So, uh, being able to staff additional res or have additional resources on duty helps to ensure that we have resources available for any calls that come in. So, it's not it's not just about always the five minute response time. Sometimes it's just about having resources available for that next call that comes in. And uh you to your point with the EMS um that's part of kind of our long-term plan too. Um as we look out over these last three to four years in this public safety master plan is really taking a look at those those staffing challenges and the staff that we're going to bring on is really to focus on what does that staff look like long term. It it might be uh paramedics uh that would ride on our engines, for example, that are going to be able to provide some of those advanced life support functions before an ambulance can get there. That's one of the things we'll have to evaluate as we go through. And Kimberly, I know you had a question. So, I'm doing better at doing that with looking. Yes, I think so. Um so, you partially answered my question. Um, I was initially going to ask with, you know, given our spaghetti uh thrown at the wall road uh pattern if that was um contributing to to if if it if the six and a half minutes was reasonable given that and um if there was a a national benchmark to compare to. But so my question now is um I keep hearing that this five minute mark and then all the all the report are six to six and a half minutes. So is that extra minute minute and a half coming from the time the call comes in to 911 to the time it's dispatch or So what's what's the difference from getting from five to six or six and a half minutes? Yeah. So uh the five minute is the actual drive time. The overall response is from the time somebody calls 911. Uh there's national standards for everything. So the call processing time on the dispatch side, the the 90th percentile for them is to process that call and have it pushed out in 90 seconds. And then there's a portion that we call turnout time. And that's the time from the moment dispatch notifies us of the call to the time we pull out of the station. That's our turnout time. And for medicals, the national standard for that is 90 seconds for or or 60 seconds for medicals, 90 seconds for fire calls because we have to put more equipment on before they roll out. So then you add all of those numbers up and that's then what puts you into that overall response time uh realm of of around that six and a half minutes. Thank you. Um I I'm just going to do a process check thing because I'm really going to try and keep things moving. So um we've got we're going to do this till 7:30. So if there's any more questions, if you have a question, please get them in and then we'll try and wrap up at 7:30 so we can move on with the rest of our program. Anyone? Paula, this um and I'm sorry if this is an old question or as somebody who's a more recent council member. Um so when we do EMS calls, because it looks like by far that's the most common. I mean I think we had 12 fires last year in 2023, something like that. I don't know how many we have, but it was a pretty low number compared to all of the EMS. and and if I recall correctly and it just sounds like you the issues we all we had two engines or x number of engines and so and you were talking about paramedics riding along on engines. Is there any thought given that we have so many EMS calls of having kind of smaller or do we already have that and I'm just not aware? Yeah, we do currently run u a smaller vehicle when we have it staffed. Um, that's always the great debate, you know, is do do you run a smaller apparatus versus a larger apparatus? And the reason we run primarily engines to to even EMS calls is we got to bring all of the equipment with us all the time because if a fire comes in and our crews are out, let's say they're out on an EMS call, they're clearing, they they get a structure fire, they're the closest unit to that structure fire, they need the personnel, the equipment, the resources needed to engage in that event when they're the first arriving. Now, the more units you have on duty gives us more flexibility to try to do some things with more of a smaller rapid response vehicle for those. But with limited resources right now, especially if we only have two vehicles on duty, sometimes three. It's very difficult to run in a smaller apparatus and run the risk. And we've seen it with our rescue where they'll show up to a fire first cuz they were the closest and they can't really do much. They have no water, they have no hose, they have no no rescue equipment. So, they have to then wait till the larger truck arrives to be able to uh engage in those firefighting activities. So, but again, as we expand, it does give us the flexibility to to look at some of those other options. But I'm assuming as staffing levels increase, like you said, when you say as we progress, hopefully that would give more options. Yes. For that, especially given, like I said, the overwhelming majority of calls seem to be and that's something we constantly evaluate. Okay. All right. Well, we're pretty close to anyone any anyone have a last question? Otherwise, I'll I'll I want thank you for for being here and uh anyone are we supposed to answer these questions? Yes. Answer the questions. Yes, we are. Okay. So, let's let's uh let's do that. Throw those questions up there again. So, we've got them. Okay. You know, so you know, the the first one on expectations um on these um these uh response times um comments council on on that? Yeah, Rebecca. I support these. I think they're good. I think we should include some kind of reference or you know if we're going to publish this or or have it laid out um that that's a phase in because if you know if I'm a resident and I'm looking at this I'm like our goal is 620 and we're at 11:06 what's going on? So you know some kind of language that finesses that. Yeah. Okay. Other other comments? I agree and I mean I I think there's nobody that knows better what it takes to get to um better benchmarks than the chief and so I defer to their professional um expertise and um so I I agree and I agree with what um Rebecca is saying as well. I just that I mean I'm always a more data person. So the you know things that help me understand how it's going to work um and why I mean I think it it does two things. It helps set the benchmarks and it also helps people understand why we're raising the levy to pay for firefighters so it kills two birds with one stone. And um does the council support um the service levels for the fire department additional priorities? I mean, I think we're going I honestly I think we're going as fast as we can. I think we kind of understand what we're trying to aim for here. And um you know we're always gulping hard and trying to you know like I like I said when we were walking in praying to the finance gods for you know money to rain down from heaven. So other comments. I also support I also support the service level um objectives. Um I mean they laid it out. You see the numbers going down. I mean you can't deny that. So um I support it. And then um I think when we do I mean if we get to the place where we're um approving the budget and you know I think that's going to be very important to lay out to residents. Why? I mean because I was on next door and all you hear is about you know the taxes and you should stay off next door. I know that you know avoid next door. Life is better. Trust me on that. So yeah, Peter will tell you that later. But yeah, I support it. Evidence speaks for it for itself. So I mean Kimberly, do you have a comment? Yep. Yep. Just real quick and I'll just um let you guys know I I can't see any of the slides so but I did find the questions in the packet so I can answer. Um so yes um just quickly yes I agree with the benchmarks and yes I agree with the service. Very good. Anyone else have any comments? No passing. I agree as well. And the one thing that when I was going over this this weekend and I heard fire engines it it brought a whole new thinking to hearing fire engines appreciation and appreciation. And I mean I think it's important that we really let the public know too because it's absolutely it changed the way I you know like wow what goes into this is incredible and I appreciate it. Thank you. So to to wrap up on this I mean again thank you. Um and I think that the the issue of context is is really important. I I think um Rebecca summed it up well when you know our we've got a six minute and 20 second first arrival objective and that that that sounds good that makes sense but we are at 11 minutes you know why is that help us understand that and you know these problems could solved if if we had unlimited funds you could solve these problems much more quickly but we don't have that and uh and you know this is a tough thing I think for a council when you're when you're dealing with potentially saving human lives and you're talking money, if you had more money, you'd save more lives. I mean, and so it almost puts uh you know, a dollar value on a human life, which we don't want to do. But at we have the practical reality of what we're doing. We want we want top-notch public safety. We have to set those we have to set those objectives. Um but but the funds are you know the the the public's um ability to deal with those um is um is limited. But the more information to Paty's point, the more information that we can provide and the more transparency we can how we're evaluating this and going about it, I think will help our case. Uh because I think this work is critically important. Um, I agree with these objectives and, you know, I think we have to explain, you know, why we've got them and and um and how we're going to get there. So, thank you very much. Anything else? You know, you know, just real quick if I could, Brad, I not to jump in at the You're good. I just say again, thank you to the council, mayor and counsel for your support of our staff. I think when we started, you know, I rewind the clock when we um embarked upon the public safety master plan because I'll use the word position again and it was all about positioning the city because rewind the clock a couple years ago, we knew through our community survey and we'll talk about that here in a second that our our public safety professionals both police and fire get really high remarks or highly valued. But now we're actually transitioning into what does that mean really in terms of these service level objectives. So part of part of the public safety master plan and positioning for the future was to evaluate all that to put these benchmarks in place. So then we as a city and you as a council can um look at our constituents and be able to express thank you to our constituents for supporting all of us in in these investments because I think as you heard from our chiefs today is it's all about what are those outcomes? We're buying outcomes and what outcomes do we want to buy? And so I think what you're seeing is that decrease in response times. we're going to further to see those decrease in response times. You see the work that they do behind the scenes of putting schedules together and making sure we've got the right people during the right shifts when the calls are happening so we can have the right response with the right resources. And so again, real credit to our chiefs as we continue to have this conversation about that long-term positioning. So appreciate your support council. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you. Great. Great to see you tonight. All right, quick process check. Does anyone want a fivem minute break? Okay, we're going to take a five minute break and then uh we will jump into our community survey. Let's see. Are we ready? Okay. Should I have Oh, yeah. You should. Yeah. That's all they can say. All right. Let's see. Who we waiting? Well, that's what you saw comments on like why don't you do it? Like it's so easy to teach, you know. That's what I was thinking. Find the Oh, we're solid green now. Okay. Okay. There's all right. We will we will start again. So, I will I will kick it over to Sarissa for the this introduction. And uh uh welcome everyone. Thanks, Mayor. Um we have Peter Leatherman here, which I believe you all have met. He's with the Morris Leatherman Company and he has conducted our survey for 20 plus years. Um just to give a brief timeline of the community survey, we started the discussion with the leadership team in January and then we brought um our themes and that you guys were also able to weigh in on themes during the February study session. And then after that study session, we brought those those themes back to leadership and then we drafted questions and Peter finalized the questions for us and he conducted the survey I believe in March for three weeks and then he will provide the results tonight and then you will have to uh accept the survey results in the merit scoring at the I think the May 19th council meeting. Very good. And before I pass it over to Peter, click here. Um, as Peter's going through the results, these are the questions we have for you. Um, does the city council have any questions? And then are there any results that the council wishes to further discuss or consider for a future study session? Peter, welcome. We're turned on. It's a pleasure to be back with you. And tonight, it's a twofer. We're doing the residents first and then we'll talk about the business community. Um, so once again, this is a shortened presentation. If we went through all the questions on the survey, we'd be here for a long time. So, kind of the the highlevel look at the city, how things compare historically. And then um council had a few questions that we added in that were new. So we decided to include those in so you could see the feedback from the community. Uh just to review with everybody what we did. We talked with 400 randomly selected residents across the community. Interviews were conducted between March 11th and the 31st. Average interview time was 24 minutes. I always look to see how many people are on the phone for over an hour of their own valition. This time it was 11%. Uh so 40 43 people on the phone for over an hour. You've probably heard from a lot of those uh 43 people. Uh but once again, my voters are they are not paid by the interview. Uh they're paid by the hour. So it doesn't matter if they do one or two. Um they're supposed to if the person wants to expound, they can expound. Uh non-response rate was 6 and a half% uh projectable to plus or minus 5%. And then putting up the demographics, 59% cell phone only, 11% it shrunk by 1% this time, land line only, and then 30% had both landline and cell phone. Um, some of the key demographics that we track in the survey uh to validate the sample against updated census information. Uh, but then to look at differences uh you know, households with children versus households with seniors, those sorts of things. Um so first off residential longevity 20 28% have been in the city for 5 years or less while 26% have been in the city for over 20 years. Uh the typical resident has been in the community just short of 10 years now. Um so you do have a growing segment of newbies what I would call in that under fiveyear category. We saw kind of a not surprisingly in 202122 kind of slow down the transition uh with the pandemic kind of halted people moving. Uh it's picked up. It'll be curious to see what happens in the coming years uh with interest rates and everything that you hear about uh economic wise. Households with seniors and households with children were equal 28%. 26% indicated they were renters. uh we asked the home value. Uh the m uh plurality of folks had homes valued at over 450,000. So I think the first thing I would say uh for next year's survey is we adjust the home prices. We we push them up. So we want equal sections within the within the categories at this point in time. Yeah. Our median house price is over 500 now. So So when the high is over is below our median, that probably needs to go up. We need to bring it up in order for people to fall into categories for next time. Continuing with the demographics, 26% are 18 to 34 year olds while 39% are over the age of 55. Typical residents about 47 years old. 73% were white, 10% African-American, six uh 7% Asian, se 6% Hispanic, and then 4% indicated multi-racial. women outnumbered men by 5% in the sample. And then the wards, uh, nobody knows what ward they live in. Uh, we know what ward they live in, uh, from the list we draw. And so we code it. We don't ask people or it' be probably 10% of people could tell us what ward. Uh, so the wards are established based on registered voters within the wards. Any questions on demographics or methodology? You know, just just one question. And it's it's probably not really on methodology, but did we do any when we have people that are newbies, for lack of a better term, do we know where they came from? We have not asked historically. Okay. Um that might be something to consider. Like fast growing communities um like I think of like Woodbury in the '9s would ask, "What city did you move from?" Right? Um, so that might be something to think about for future survey just to see where the migration is coming from into the community. Well, I think it's interesting for a community like ours that is increasingly diversifying. Y and there's also kind of the the um central city flight that we're seeing in a lot of communities. So, it might be interesting to see if that is affecting our growth as a community. So, it just note and move on. But I but it's something I'm curious about. Yeah. Yeah. Couple open-endeds. First off, what do they like most about the city? It it is and it still remains the small town values in the community is what they resonate to. It's the friendly people. It's the schools, the lake, the housing neighborhood, safe trails. Then we get the suburban response of location. Then we go back to quiet and peaceful trees and nature, parks, open spaces, city services, shopping, recreation facilities. It has always been the case here that they what they value in Minnitankka is the small town attributes as opposed to the suburban. Nobody said city council. I mean, nobody that was the second. They could say many things. We just code the first. Mr. Mayor, very good. What's the most serious issue facing the community? Um it did come down. It was about 30% last year. Uh but leading the list still is high taxes and that continues to be um the big issue across the state of Minnesota. I I see it in every city survey, every school district survey, every statewide survey. Uh basically since 2022 is a growing concern on property taxes kind of back to where we were in the late 90s uh with the taxpayers league when they rose up in Minnesota. Uh and then lack of sidewalks. That is the second year in a row now that it's been double digits. Um so two data points a trend does not make you need a third one. But I would say that it is a very vocal um minority, but it is double digits now that are bringing up lack of sidewalks as a serious issue. I I would I would hypothesize too that the the work we've done to add trails has elevated the awareness and so therefore that number had we not added all those trails lack of sidewalks would be probably lower because people moved here for what it was not for what they hope it to be uh potentially and and you you do have I mean it's it's a metrowide concern when you talk about pedestrian safety also as a part of it coming in the mix too as it should be. Yep. Uh down at the bottom though, the nothings, you've always had this large booster core that this is Nirvana in Minnitaka and it remains uh one in three people see absolutely and you'll be surprised as a council there's no issues here. Um it's perfect. So I mean that's basically triple quadruple you know typically we're right now we're about 9 10%. It's coming back. People are starting to become more positive about things. uh you know 2020 that nothing the norm was about 5%. We just found everything that we disliked. Um and it's come back. We're you know about 9 10% now. Uh but you've always had a large large group of the booster core in your community. Overall evaluation of quality of life um 98%. Uh what we have seen on this one it's starting to come back. The norm before the pandemic was 90%. We slipped down to 80% in 2122. Um we're coming back up about 85%. Um but the shift has kind of stabilized now with what we see and the excellent down a little bit the shift to good. But what you don't have is a lot of communities have shifted from good to only fair. Okay. So it's still overwhelmingly 98%. I mean that is at the top of the mark. Um so the goal will be you know that excellent rating the norm right now is 12%. Okay so you're still three times higher than the norm but the discussion and you know as you do strategic planning and everything and we see we've really never see you know some select issues come in that need to be fixed in the community. Um it's not about fixing it's about uh enhancing enthusiasm. How do you move person a person from a good to an excellent rating? That's that's the key always. Um, and it's much easier to do. If somebody's unfavorable, conversion from unfavorable to favorable is much more difficult. It's much easier to build a person's enthusiasm. How welcoming is the community? Uh, very stable. 98% and you can see, you know, that the very welcoming aspect has varied anywhere between 55 and 64% each survey within the plus or minus 5%. though a majority of people uh select the very welcoming category. How would they rate Minnetonka on four uh aspects? Um it's overwhelmingly positive, but I noted when I was here last year, we did have that shift from good to excellent. Um it's still favorable, but the good to excellent and it they kind of it they really stabilize. So welcoming community for all 87% unchanged from last year. The excellent rating 29% the high was in 23 at 60%. Treating all residents with respect it was 86 last time it's now up to 89. Treating all residents fairly 81 to 90. Res service to residents of all backgrounds was 92 89. So you do have about 10% that are saying only fair or poor. Very few poor. It's mainly only fair. Um but I think once again the goal should be to try to get back to the 2022 levels where folks are saying uh it's excellent not just good realizing as I always say the caveat on Minnesota it's hard to get motans to say anything's excellent. That's true. The priority uh for the city to create a diverse and inclusive and fair community. Uh this time around 72% indicate that it's either a high or moderate 28% not to or not at all. Um you can see it's been very st the high priority between 20 and 25%. It's very static. The shift has been in the moderate to low and part of it becomes when they view prior prioritization it's the other things that could be a priority. uh you're pitting this against parks or streets and all of those sorts of things. Um so, you know, this is going to fluctuate. If you go back two years ago, we had 28 or 30% in the low category. Um it's 28% now. So, this this one really varies and it really varies with the issues of the current year when you think about how uh residents would prioritize this. City services overall, it's just a sea of blue. Um, and even, you know, the one going back many years ago, uh, the pavement repair and patching, um, that caused all sorts of I learned about mill and overlay. Never heard about it before. Uh, with when John Gu was city manager and the survey results, I think you had about 40% unfavorable on that survey and the city create started the mill and overlay process. Um, that 89 to 12 is just outstanding. Um it's not 100. We allow rounding between 99 and 101. Um but the norm people have not been as hostile about street repair in the last two years because we haven't had horrible winters. Um so in bad winter time you get that be about a 45% unfavorable. The last two winters it's been about 35%. You still get the potholes people are still but that that 12% unfavorable is the lowest we have in the last three years. overall assessment of value of city services and keep in mind that city taxes were the most serious issue by 22%. Um when the rubber hits the road though and they think about the city services they receive and the taxes they pay it's an 88-10 value proposition. Um, so once again, I can still think my taxes are high, but if the quality of services are exceed that level, I rate the value positively. Keep in mind, 22% off the top of the head said the most serious issue is high taxes. Only 10% rated the value poorly. Do they support a tax increase to maintain city services? This really now is is set. um everything that's happened in the economy, everybody knows now that it costs more to provide the same thing. So, a property tax increase to maintain city services, 80% favor, 14% opposed. Keep in mind, 22% said the most serious issue was high property taxes. Only a third of them, actually a third of them switched over and said, "Yeah, I would support to maintain services." Um, but you still what we see in all our statewides is the maintenance piece 70 to 80%. If you ask a property tax increase to improve or enhance, it goes to about 25%. That's where folks are at. I will support to maintain the enhancements. There'll be resistance to prioritization of a property tax increase. Um, once again, I always feel bad. This this chart is so unhelpful to council. Um, you know, I'd love to come in and say 70%. This is where folks want to focus. 29% say streets, 26% say parks and trails, 25% say police and fire, 12% say another service. Uh, only 5% say no, I don't want a property tax increase, and 4% are unsure. So, it really there there's no clear prioritization, and there hasn't been for many years on this one. you would really have to go back to the time when the the street repair was an issue where that would come out uh with a majority of people saying that's the uh place for prioritization. This was a new question we added. Uh this was really interesting. Um we asked folks uh a series of six questions and asked about the funding of capital improvements and we asked folks would you prefer a sales tax, a property tax or neither? The first thing I think to focus on is the neither. Okay, you have a majority support. The lowest amount of support you have is for renovations to Williston. It's still 66% supporting it. So, upgrades to the fire station, 77%. Uh, parks to Opus area, 75. Renovations to the community center, uh, 69. Uh, renovations to Willis, 68. renovations to marsh 66, expansion of trail 75. Um, so you have strong majorities supporting all of it. They're differentiating on what the funding source should be. You have majority on parks to opus being funded by the sales tax. Uh 50% you hit on the expansion of trails and then and on the upgrade of fire stations. I don't know quite what to make of it. tips towards a property tax versus a sales tax. Uh 3740 on that, but you have a mandate to do something on all six items. The preference is the funding source uh is where the debate is. Now, we did follow up and we told people if you knew that 54% of funding from a local option sales tax would come from residents outside the city. Does they're like, "Let's do it." Yep. Does that make you much more likely, somewhat more likely, less likely, or no difference? 67% said it made them somewhat or much more likely to support a local sales tax. Now, keep in mind, if you look at where the sales tax is, it's anywhere between 37 and 55, and now we have 67% saying this tips it. Uh what you do is you basically it's about half of all the people that say property taxes in this say this makes me very much uh much more or somewhat more likely to support the sales tax option. And that's the powerful argument. We've worked on local sales tax in Richfield, Golden Valley, Bloomington. This is the major messaging on a sales tax on why it makes sense to do it and it has a very similar impact with your residents. Now the key is just to get the legislature in order. Uh a problem in mit problems in Minnetonka I should probably should say not problems in Minnetonka. Um they could say major minor or not a problem. Uh you can see 66% said the storage of uh uh garbage and recycling cans not a problem. 65% on street night parking. 71% of the short-term rentals that we put on there. Um those that see it as major problems. These are probably the folks that you've heard from. Um it's 5% of the storage of uh C cans, 9% on street parking, and 6% short-term rentals. So it really is it's probably a very vocal group. uh but it's not expansive of the city as a whole. Ebikes, another issue. And this one there's not a lot of concern, but those that are concerned are very intensely concerned. Um first off, 26% said they had an ebike in their household. Um and we asked, do you have concerns about the use of ebikes? 16% said they did. of the 16% 84% said it is a very or somewhat serious issue. Um so if you take 85% of 16% it's about one in eight people see this as a major issue. The rest don't see a problem at all. Importance for the city to take action on. Um this has been pretty stable now over the past uh few surveys. uh you know some some trading of positions in the top five. What leads the list this year is energy cons conservation, water conservation, reducing waste 75% or higher drop down to 2/3 on climate change and storm water management and the expanding the transit options has always been a 50/50 proposition as a as residents have seen as a priority. It tips now to a majority saying it's not that important. uh especially, you know, they're not pitting it against each other, the the other options, um but expanding transit options, and we've seen this really in the metro area surveys we've done, uh a growing lack of interest, uh of transit options. Uh a lot of it, you know, we might see as people are forced to go back to the office um that that might change. Um because, you know, the immediate problem I'm sitting in traffic, we have to do something about it. Um so it'll be interesting to track over the next couple years. Concerns about residential lawn care. a little more concern um than we saw in the previous issues uh for lawn chemicals, but that that goes back to uh water conservation and improving storm water management as a priority. Um so 59% uh were either very or somewhat concerned on lawn chemicals. Leaf blowers not as much. Send this slide to just so you know, a few of us know him. He's a good guy, but he doesn't like leaf blowers. doesn't like leave Florida. And and they and they've done and they're doing it right in Portland, just so you know. Are they banned in Portland? I don't know. They are. They are. Okay. They don't believe in individual liberty in Portland, but they do believe in banning leaf blowers. How do they How do they get rid of the leaves? Electric. Electric. Electric. Electric, which work really great. I have electric, but it still makes noise. It does. Not as much. Oh, it's not as much noise. Okay. All right. I wear earplugs anyway. That's good. That's good for three or four emails a year. Just so you know, uh program for teenagers um overall 68%. But this becomes an awareness issue, you know, and is it impacting them? Um keeping in mind you have 28% of households um indicating that they have children. So I looked and pulled out households with children. It's a smaller N. So we have approximatelyund roughly 120 in the sample. So the margin of error, but it goes up to about a third of households with children saying too few programs for teenagers. Input to zoning and development decisions. I mean, you've always been high, but it's interesting. You've got this d 75% 86% 73% back up to 88%. So whatever you do in in the even years, you have more people saying no. Uh but no controversial projects that is there. Do you only do controversial projects in even years? Is it okay? Um it's not an issue this year whatsoever. Uh job of the city staff. Uh first off, 36% indicate that they've had quite a lot or some firsthand contact with city staff. Uh last year it was 84% favorable. This time 90% favorable. That's a statistically significant shift. Um and just you know so it's a 90-9 ratio 10 to1 uh just right at the top when it comes to rating a staff of any public uh entity. And it kind of bears out when you get into the specifics. 41% have had contact with city hall. Um, of that 41% asking them uh customer service dimensions, 95% ease of reaching help, 87% courtesy, efficiency, 90% 94% professionalism. Keeping in mind the threshold is 80% uh in public sector customer service uh just off and then that's what relates back then to the overarching rating of 90% favorable. And then finally, where are folks getting their information? the Minnitanka memo and now it did drop but two years ago we decided to look at the brand of the Minnitankka so we we broke out the Minnitankka memo and city newsletter so they had to specifically name the Minnitankka memo so 42 you combine it it's 56% of people saying that it's their primary source of information it's the only newsletter that has a majority of people saying that it is their primary source of information, a majority at flat 56. We drop down to the website and then we get down into social media, word of mouth, local newspaper. The one thing that you have been protected it in is by having such a strong newsletter. What other communities have faced as local newspapers have disappeared, what's happened is the grapevine has exploded. Um there are school districts specifically um that the number one source of information is the grapevine now. Um the newspaper disappeared and a whole bunch of especially old guys who used to read the paper, they now just gossip. Um and that's why we see the the the growth of the grapevine. But having that strong newsletter here has has really insulated you from the growth of the grapevine. It's not saying if we'd get down and ask people, do you rely on informal discussions? You would have a lot of people saying it, but it's not the first thing they're going to when they're getting information from the city. So, that I believe is the last slide for the residential survey. All right. Well, council, any any further questions for Kimberly? Yes, ma'am. Excuse me. Yes, I do. Um so and I may have asked this last year but I don't remember what the answer was if they did it. Um when you look at and I know the numbers are small um but for example when you look at the the people that say um the city isn't w is isn't very welcoming or not welcoming at all. Is there the ability to look at the demographics of the people answering that answering to the negative? Um and then somewhat I mean because it's slightly tongue and cheek but not completely um when we see some of the the services that have the larger number of complaints and again I know the numbers are not that big but is there is there a way to say to say um look at the the people that complain about snow plowing and and not breaking anonymity but but share with uh with Quill. Hey, um somebody on such and so street says you're doing a crappy job of of removing the snow. Like just to pinpoint the areas where people are dissatisfied. Yeah, I I think I believe you did ask that last year and we did last year and I can run the data again this year. I specifically the snow plowing because we go down to the ward level and so last year when we looked at the snow plowing there were no differences between the warts. I mean obviously that's large areas but there were no differences. Um I believe I looked at ethnicity no background that I believe I looked at e the ethnicity uh but I did not look this up. I will look at that and and uh follow up with the staff. Kimberly, anything else? You're good. You're good. Anyone else? De um you know the the most dangerous question on earth about trash collection organized trash. Literally the most dangerous question ever. So that's question 75. So it seems like they're shifting. It's still a little bit clear as mud. And I can I remember I think the first year I was on the council there was like 80% like favorable attitude towards organized trash, but 85% of those people opposed giving up their own collector. So, so I I was wondering if you could break that one down for us because it it's, you know, it's getting to be more of a you you you I I will say you're one of few communities that actually had a majority. It's a a a scant majority, margin of error. It's 5344. What's really interesting to me on this question is the lack of intensity. Yeah. only 18% strongly favored or strongly opposed and it was equal 10% to 8%. Um I it kind of was always this 4055 opposition. So you've kind of switched it but in that strong support strong opposition there was much more of the strong than the soft. So I think there is a softening to the opposition and like a willingness to have a conversation. But you know once again it's plus or minus 5%. It's a coin flip issue. If you you know if you talk about it you'll have 10% of the community and 8% of the community in the council meetings. You know, we followed up and you know, so with the opponents and we said, "Would you still oppose changing the trash collection if it meant lower costs?" 45% said yes. 45% said no. Would you still oppose changing the trash collection if it meant fewer garbage trucks on streets, which could reduce street maintenance? 59% said they would still oppose. So, it's interesting. the cost proposition may had more people. I mean it's you know if anybody cares it's a push question but I have it their initial reaction there was no you know values in the question once we know if they support or oppose we could try to nudge them to see um the maintenance street maintenance it's it's the cost factor so if you look at the cost factor you can drop down your opposition it's about 30% in the community you're not going to budge um the question would be you know in some other cities is if that have gone through and done people support until you don't choose their hauler. Um, but it's it's not you don't have an oppos, you know, a majority opposition. I think Eric's contract says that we're not going to go to organizing. He took the job on that condition. I think that was that was a that was a noteworthy condition. Although municipal politics, I'm I'm I'm I I I've worked out the perfect response to that question though when people write me because I tell them I said, "Well, it's interesting. Um I um I don't have the problems you uh define because my neighborhood does have organized um uh collection because we have a homeowners association. So my recommendation to you is the city's not going to do it, but if you want to organize your neighbors, you could get the same benefits and we wouldn't be forced to impose something that people don't want." So go have at it, but I'm not doing it for you. And I would say that I just wanted to make a comment that I found the questions on page 12, which are about um recycling and organic waste. I thought those were really informative and they're they're helpful. And you know, I think we need to see that because it really talks about multifamily housing or certain housing conditions and why they're not participating. And I feel like that is a nut we might be able to crack now that we sort of have the reason. Yeah. So, thank you for asking those questions. That was really helpful. All right. Anything else, council? Otherwise, we've got another survey to go through, but I don't want to cut anybody off. If we can ask the second question. All right. Organized garbage collection. Yeah. Is there anything that you'd like? I thought we were doing that, but I just want to make sure we're clear on if there's looking for direction from council to staff. If there's anything in the presentation or you touched on some things that we weren't presented tonight that you would like to bring back for a future study session, that would be helpful. I think it informs some of the discussions for the study sessions that we have coming up, but I don't for me there's nothing new. Just for me, um, picking up on what Deb said and some of the other, um, priorities in terms of, uh, climate action and conservation, I thought those, um, answers were interesting and might, um, inform kind of our our future study sessions or just kind of what what we're looking at doing for sustainability and our climate action planning. um you know or maybe that's something that staff can use when they present on that for us as potential future stops. And then I think from my perspective to future I mean the whole cannabis thing is you know TBD we don't really have any information or any experience on it and I think you know um I think there's there's a certain amount of frustration at different levels for different reasons given the uncertainty from the state but but I think that's going to be something that we're going to want to look into in the future. Not that it's going to necessarily be actionable, but I do think the laws will get tweaked. And so I think having some knowledge about what's what's happening and how how it's what people's attitudes are toward it in the city as it gets implemented, I think will be instructive. The the only other question that I had was on page four with question 28 about what changes or improvements would be needed um in a particular service to be rated excellent or good. And when we talk about like better development decisions like what's better more less none you know kind you know yeah and so more than I agree with so yeah so I I that one I don't know I wish I could I wish I could kind drill down on that and figure out what better is. Now, it is 21% of the N is 147. So, they they they had to be in that group. So, it's 28%. Yeah. 28 people. 28 people in that group. 29. So, yeah, that's and itive. Yeah. And to your to your point, Council, it's It's going to be in the eye of the beholder on that one. Yeah. And and I think that happens. I mean, you look at when we when we have things come forward to the council, I mean, not that many people show up. Um but but people do, but people, you know, when it's their neighborhood, they get cranked up. And so, you ask a question like that and if they didn't like something that happened nearby or whatever, you're going to get numbers about like the ones you got. Yeah. I I would go back though and key then on the chart about the ability to have input into zoning decisions and you being at 88%. That's overcoming some cities have issues with residents not being able to differentiate having your say and having your way. Right. I like that. So your folks you you have almost 90% saying I'm able to provide input. they're not holding the decision against you um like in other communities. And and and I would say I I agree with that in my experience and I've been doing this for a while. People expect to be heard. They'd like to be agreed with. But if they feel they've been heard and not agreed with, they they can handle that. They respect that. If they feel you haven't been listening and don't care, then you get in trouble. Yes. So that's I mean that's I think that's the important thing. If people feel heard, even if they don't like the decision, like they can live with it nine times out of 10. Sorry, just one more follow-up question because I liked how you did the comparison with different communities. How do we compare in terms of our like those priorities, those uh conservation? Um you've always you've always been a sea of greens out here. Okay. So, that's a big concern compared to other communities, those conservation. Absolutely. Yes. You've always been a very environmentally focused community. I I think it goes back to the values of the lake and nature and trees and all of those things. Um you've always you know going back historically, right? Um yeah, you're you're you're the greenest city in Henipin County. Okay, great. Good to know. Thank you. Anything else everyone? And we need to move on. Can I just make one last comment on the was it the most concern the biggest concern is sidewalks. We had a conversation with Paula earlier about that and I guess the clock last year again I think Peter mentioned it was the number one issue in last year's survey and so you as a council I think we spent two study sessions talking about our sidewalk and trails plan. We look at our funding sources and at this point we decided to keep things as is. So we're not looking to increase the franchise fees which ultimately pays for our trails and sidewalks. The reason I mentioned that is your number one it's our number one issue and I shared with staff earlier today that the meeting that we I had with uh the Hopkins school district last week. Um mayor I hadn't shared this with you yet. Um so last Friday there was a meeting with school district. So quarterly the the school district calls a meeting just like Minnetonka does where it's the school district officials and then they invite the mayors and city administrators or managers in from the cities that are certain that district boundaries. So for Hopkins it's Minnetonka Hopkins Golden Valley and Prairie. Yep. Um, and one of the things that the school mentioned was they've with their budget shortfall. All school districts are dealing with pretty significant budget shortfalls. Hopkins school district is dealing with a $7 million shortfall. One of the ways that they're addressing it is changing their busing policy. And so if so, they've changed their policy that a student or family that lives within two miles of one of their facilities will no longer receive busing. And so I think I shared in the staff. I shared with Paula earlier. I think that will put some more strain on our trail and sidewalk plan as there might be neighborhoods turning to the city to look for further installation of sidewalks. Interesting. Yeah. Provide more safe routes to school. Safe routes to school. So I think we already are feeling some pressure on our our trail plan and I am talking with where's Will? Who's Will? I think the updated numbers uh on our park and trail plan was it 80 million this slash in the current CIP now it's up to 100 million. So I mean just cost estimates and inflation just pressures on our current plan I think let alone looking at potential pressures coming from from some neighborhood. So we just double our levy next year we solve it. So I just share that with you as we look at at sidewalks in our upcoming state. Um, sorry my that just brought to mind kind of a question that I had for a future, you know, like zoning or whatever because I know that we have requirements for, you know, commercial multifamilies for sidewalks, but it came to mind, it was something I thought about with Minnitankka Flats last week. You know, are is there any thought of of maybe including that for new home developments? um you know I can understand reasons they there might or might not be but you know you you can know um it's in the code that you can require them. I think there's a balancing act as you've always probably you know thought about is how much maintenance and then what is the bang for the buck is there enough sidewalks in the vicinity of the development especially a three lot subdivision or two lot subdivision sometimes um the installation doesn't make sense because it doesn't go anywhere right um so I think um it's a balance but you have the authority in the zoning code today that's not that's not holding you back I didn't know if it was an R1 thing that we could No, it's it's absolutely there. Okay. Anyway, just thinking of anything that we can do to help help achieve those goals and especially now. Wow. Council, anything else? Did you get the answers you need? I did. Yeah. Thank you, council. Hopefully I I think I shared with all of you today that very overall I think it's really good results, a slight improvement from last year's survey and you'll see this as Sarissa mentioned coming back to you for acceptance at the council meeting and we do use this for our merit program and so this gets created out and we'll share that. Great. Thank you. Good. So 2025 business survey start with Julie. Oh Julie, excuse me. Just a reminder of how we got here. Um it's an it's not an every year thing that we're checking in with businesses. Uh and so the last time we did a b business survey was in 2021. As you remember what was happening at that time we were coming out of the pandemic. There was all kinds of you know just turmoil in the business world and trying to figure out how people are going to get back on their feet. And so that was done with a different company. Um I would say if you ever want to refer back to it, it's all on our b business page. You can find any of the studies or the reports um that we're referring to. But I think that what it just didn't have the methodology that um Peter brings to the uh survey um process and I think that's what we were looking for some more um quality data that we could rely on and look for trends over years. So that's first we didn't use Peter, we were trying to use a different firm to see what else we could find. um we came back to Peter saying we need a little bit more um data point kind of uh survey. So that's why we have him here and we worked on questions that reflected the previous survey but not exactly on all fronts. So with that Peter I'll turn it to you. Super. Um yeah and to that point there's it's not even on the common questions you can't do an applesto apples comparison um simply because of methodology um and then also the the timing 2021 in the business world was um obviously very uh chaotic. Um so you know this is we're planting our flag in the ground for the survey results and the business community. This sets the baseline. Um there are some like I shared when I presented at the um economic development uh commission um and the chamber um just out of curiosity you know when you own your own survey company you can do surveys and so we did a metrowwide business survey um about 20 questions uh just so I could set some norms um and I'll share some of those in the survey also uh so the method oh we just always remember to remind them what the questions are before Okay. So, just take those in. All right. Got them right here. And then go ahead. Perfect. Uh the this uh survey was done pre uh prior to the residential survey uh January 16th through February 12th. Uh this was also 400 uh owners and chief decision makers plus or minus 5%. Average interview time was 17 minutes. Non-response rate was 5 a.5%. keep the on this one about 80 some odd percent were done by in uh appointment. Obviously you just don't call up a business owner and I want to spend 20 25 30 minutes on the phone with you. Um so a lot of them were done by appointment. I think unfortunately it's important to put an asterisk by the date because we've had liberation day on April 2nd. Um, what it's interesting though, I will share what we're seeing in research with surveys coming off right now from school districts and cities since April 2nd is not a big increase in economic insecurity in in what in economic insecurity. Um, that's what this is. Uh I'm gonna do another state do two statewides in Maine where I'll have a better view uh across the state. Uh but I'm not seeing a spike. Um the only thing you know I was talking to a couple other uh pollsters about this and one of them suggested and it's interesting. I need to think about it. Um what you see in the stock market yo-yoing is an unrealized loss. Um, and so it might not have the impact that we saw in 23 and 24 because everybody was going to the grocery store. Everybody was filling up their tank with gas. They were feeling the economy day by day, week by week. Um, so maybe we're not going to get the jump in economic insecurity. Maybe we will. Who knows where the market goes. Um, so it's just interesting. This is a snapshot before a little more tumultuous time, shall we say. So, um, we for the purpose of just put up a couple demographics, you know, paired this down also for council. Um, you know, and I think the first thing that jumps off with your business community is the stability of it. Uh, 43% have been in the city of Minnetonka for over 20 years. uh only 21% have been here for 10 years or less. Now, part of this is stunted by the pandemic. You don't have the business growth um that that you know you you had 20 years ago or the the turnover. Um so, this probably is going to evolve if you do the survey again in three, four, five years. Um, also, uh, with the demographics, 53% male, 46% female, 1% non non-binary. Uh, I want to put this up just for the, uh, business, the the building owner versus the tenant. Um, because it does impact a question later on about uh, sustainability uh, uh, measures that the business has undertook. So just so you keep in mind basically half of the folks uh are own the business the building they're in 44% are tenants. So an overall assessment of Peter I'm sorry the demographics u the type of businesses in terms of race was 18% non-white I believe was the final number. I Yes. I added it up. You did? Okay. 18% 18%. Yep. Okay, an overall rating of the business climate, 98% rate it favorable. In the metro area business survey I did this spring, uh the excellent rating was 22% across the metro. You're at 48% excellent, that enthusiastic rating. Um, so folks, it but I think it goes back to when you've been I almost have a majority of businesses that have been around for 20 years, there's a stability in the business. Um, and so the the climate overwhelmingly favorable. Is there something the city could do to improve the business climate? 74% say no. Um, the highest is 7% saying lower taxes. uh in the metro area survey it was about 25% of folks saying lower taxes. So it's not the concern in the business community. This is top of the mind. They can tell us anything. Um and what else? Tax incentives more redevelopment. Just probably the right kind of redevelopment that they agree with. That's true. Are are they optimistic about the future? Absolutely. uh 95% are either very or somewhat but a flat majority 58% say they're very optimistic about the future of their business issues for the business. We went through and uh multiple issues and said is this a very serious somewhat serious not too serious or not at all serious issue. Um the two major issues are the macro um the cost of doing business 74% with 38% saying very serious and then the general economic conditions 82% uh has as the greatest level 32% very serious. The amount of city taxes as a top of the mind. What could you do to fix it? What didn't come up when you ask it specifically? 64% and then everything else falls off. What's the most serious issue facing their business? This one I put up the metro area just so you can see some comparisons on the key issues. First off, inflation, cost of living, half of what we see in the metro survey, 16%. The cost of doing business uh 10%. The workforce shortage at 7%. high taxes 16% 9% or 7% 9% lower. Um and then you know lack of customers, high rent supply chain, lack of profits. Um you have a higher group of scatter because you got a lot of idiosyncratic responses base per business, you know, whether you're lawn care or you know all those sorts of things. But the nothings, go back to your booster core in the community survey. It was 31% 26% of businesses see no problem. That's three times the number in the metro area survey. So on all of these, it's either it's le it's more than half a concern that you see across the metro and in the booster core triple workforce on the quality and the quantity. they don't have any concerns. Now, I would love to have the data point from 21 to do the comparison because in 21 when we did business surveys, especially the quantity of workforce going back to 21 was a major issue. If it was, it's been resolved. 8 uh 94% on quality, 94% on quantity. Sustainability related actions. Now this one they could first tell us if they've undertaken it and if they have not undertaken it do they have a plan to do it or no plan to do it. Building energy audit 42% have there's nobody planning to do it. Now keep in mind 51% of the businesses own the building. The rest are tenants. Okay. So that cuts the number. Waste reduction reuse 34% had energy efficiency upgrades 33% had organics collection 16 water efficiency 15 EV charging stations 1% with 6% indicating that they had plans and this is what you so people they've either done it or they don't have plans to do it. When you look at though, it's basically everybody saying no plan. They're renters. They're tenants of the building. Um, that's what's driving it up with 44% of the sample being tenants. City government on attitudes and responsiveness, 98% on the quality of city services, 100%. 1% said only fair. It was three. I had to round up to the one%. We'll let it go. Have they had contact with the city during the past year? 23% indicated they had 97% satisfaction. And like I said when I presented it to the chamber to the economic development commission, this goes back to the input on zoning. There's no way that 97% of people that talked to you got the answer they wanted. Going back, they were at least heard. Um, and so that the threshold on satisfaction on this one is 80%. The overall value of city services, it basically mirrors the residents and what they see. Even if there are concerns on taxes, the city services trump 80 uh 84 94 80 uh 88% positive, only 3% were only fair, and 9% were unsure. Local sales tax. This one I had no idea what to expect. Um and 61% of businesses thought that it was a good idea. Now, this was not tied to any sort of specific development. This was just in concept. So the devil would be in the details when you put out a proposal a local sales tax but first the legislature would have to get on board but there's not interestingly on this one I expected more intensity also you have very limited intensity on this question the business programs and services offered by the city um first off we asked if they were have heard or seen so here's built in this isn't just all experience um with the service. Um so what's showing is those that said they've heard or seen about the program or service. Um and then the rating of the service. Um so I think you know in looking at this the opportunities for some of them are for growth. Um but then also refinement and moving people from only fair to good in the in in in some of these um you know if you're going to target something the Thrive Minnotonka newsletter expanding um the amount of information in there uh because you're going to see if it's the next one we'll talk about sources of information at the end areas uh for the city to focus on that that would benefit their business. So they could say it should be a great focus, somewhat of a focus, little or no focus. Uh there are a four items, I'm sorry, five items that hit double digits or a majority. Investing in redevelopment key is going to be in what the redevelopment is, but redevelopment 64%. Retaining and growing existing businesses. Um so as a as a priority, it's just second at 33% but add in some it goes to 83%. take care of what you have. Um, low interest loans, better training for workers, the recruiting for new business 60%. So, the the priority is a focus on the existing. Um, there's still a priority in, you know, bringing in the next group of businesses. Uh, but make sure you take care of what's here. And then we drop into below majorities, building traffic infrastructure. Once again, is this going to be impacted when we go back to normal? Uh, development of workforce housing, improving communication, collaborative work safe spaces, and sustainability efforts. Communication, how informed are they about city government? Your folks, I didn't put up the metro area. I should have. The metro area on this one is 59%. Your folks are highly informed. Part of it is longevity in the community. I mean, when you have that number of pe businesses in business for over 20 years, um they have built-in communication networks, whether they're not getting the city newsletter, council or chamber, what have you. 77% indicate they're very or somewhat informed. And how are they getting the Thrive newsletter, emails from the city, and the city website? The city dominates the communication that's network for local businesses. Um if you look at it uh for the preferred source you know do they want print do they want electronic um even the Minnotonka newsletter keep in mind you had a large number of pe of business owners and managers who are residents also um 10% talk about the Minnitankka newsletter um it basically divides 5050 on print versus electronic as a preference so I mean here I'll just go right to the questions overall. All right. Well, thank you. So, um, any results, council, that surprised you from the business survey? I I was so fascinated by the level of support for sales tax. I just thought it was that was fascinating. I found it interesting. Yeah. I I can't help but wonder and I mean this would be we ask no questions on it but if a business has concerns and we saw it when you bring up property taxes business owners see it as a way to perhaps alleviate property taxes by the 54% from outside the community uh funding these projects. Um that would be a hypothesis, but this is you're the first I didn't put that in the Metro widesh survey uh the local option sales tax, but I was equally surprised by that. Other other surprises. Anyone? I didn't I was pleased to see that um even though there wasn't a lot of sustainability actions where there was less than hope for because of the whole tenant issue as you said nonetheless there was interest there as something that they thought the city should focus on. Yes, it was still you had almost a majority saying it's it's something to focus on. Yeah. But it's one of those it's just a level of priority for a business at this point in time. and then the differentiation on ownership versus rent. But they seem to think it was something we should, you know, they would like to see us focus on. So that was good, too. Y I actually was surprised that 44% had done an audit. I didn't think it would be that high. Um so that number surprised me. It was higher than I expected. Yeah, I thought, you know, I thought the 2021, I recall, I didn't go back and review it, but was a little lukewarm. I had been a little disappointed in the results then and I feel much more positive about these results. It really was reassuring to know because you you have a gauge. You rarely hear from business owners as a council member or not in the same frequency as you hear from residents. And so this was really helpful and this format it's it's nice to see the similar format to our residents. Can I go ahead? I'm sorry. I was going to say I I do have this is about 20 years ago, but I do have a control group comparison on this. The city of Fidley did a business survey and the council wanted the survey mailed to everybody, every business owner because they wanted to say we asked for your input, the random sample. But within it was roughly 2,000 businesses back then. Uh we randomly selected 400 that we had to hear from and we had to club them over the head in order I mean we ended up doing it by phone at some point because you only get about a 20% return rate and then you have to but when you ran the random sample against everybody who mailed in the survey the random sample the the the the big was about 15 points more negative because what motiv motivated you to respond. Yes. Is you had an issue. Yeah. And I think that that cuz that was a self- selected the last one. We nailed that one. Yeah. And and so you just tend to hear from people with you know that and that's the problem with self- selection. You also have it sometimes I've run into it a lot with school districts where groups try to win surveys. Like if we're asking about do you support a hockey arena for the school district? If you run that survey, every hockey association parents going to fill out the survey and all of a sudden 90% of people support $100 a year to for and it's so you know it's kind of that methodology problem. So it just tends to be really negative or people try groups try to win a survey. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you're making that distinction because um yeah, I mean I I think I can't tell you over the years um we would talk about this telephone survey and there were a handful of residents, one in particular, I won't name her name, um who just said, "Well, you know, you're you're so out of it. I mean, telephone surveys are so p and um and you know, I tried, you know, you should be doing this online because that's that's the way the world is now and everything." said, "No, you don't." And I think we talked about it a bit. You you don't understand that when uh when you a c when a audience self- selects, it's much more biased. I mean, you you kind of elbow your way in with by doing on the phone. And I think that's good because it's much more random. And I think that's that's really positive. And then to the point that Rebecca made, I mean, I think I give our our community development uh team um because I think the Thrive newsletter and the awareness that has grown with some of the activity with the programs, the overt programs that we've we've had, I think that's done a lot for the city's image um in the minds of of businesses because they're aware of those things and and we're doing a lot more things now than we were five or 10 years ago. Yep. And and they're going to be aware of it because so many were around 10 years ago. So they knew what it was and they could see the addition. One takeway. I had a a mayor a mayor's meeting today and and Tim Busy was there and he was talking about the Bloomington Hatch program. That I think there there are some innovative ideas that are being done in some cities. So further conversation on that is coming. Anything other anything else council? Uh, not for number one, but I Kizzy has something. Okay. For So, Kizzy has something. I don't have anything for number one, but I do, as we kind of go through the questions, I do have something. Okay. Well, go. Is it number two? If you if it is, go for it. I'll just talk about it. Um, I know that I heard Judy Julie say that um there's 18% um non white. She added it up because that was my question I talked to Mike about earlier today. But I wanted to know do you have the gender um of the demographics and the ethnicity of the demographics. So I would like to know that. And then um one of the things that I had questions about um with programming and suggestions around the last question basically the programming and policy. Um I would like to know about the businesses. Do any of these businesses um partner with the schools? Because this goes back to us not having I'm feeling like there's not I know we're doing programming for youth. We have a ACE program and I know I talked to Mike about this earlier, but I really want to see if there's a way where we can really partner with some of the businesses in our um city to make sure that we're supporting youth, especially as we continue to increase and diversify our city. Um because I feel like from what Mike was talking to me about, I know we'll have I'll have a conversation with Miranda later, but just making sure that we're using all the resources in our city to make sure we're helping kids along the way um with um employment um and with some of the comments around workforce making sure better training and all those things. To me, all of that kind of ties together. So just making sure that we can continue to support youth. So I would like to see that maybe on a study session um so that we can talk about it deeper and I know we're going to be talking about it for programming and youth and all of that but um I think that would be um important that we discuss that. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Yep. Go ahead. I was I was going to say it was interesting on and the the demographics are all they're laid out in the survey. So if we but when you talk about because we followed up what sort of skills are missing and competencies for the workforce. Um the chart's not up there but it really is not technical skills. It's life skills the business owners are seeing. It's organization, teamwork, time management. those sorts of things is what people uh the business owners or managers were saying or something to target. So perfect for youth, right? 100%. Yes. Other questions? Um so just on number two, um one of the things that struck me is who answered the survey. So it was the people in charge of the company. So it was the the executives. So their answers on things like transit and transportation, housing and child care were overwhelmingly positive. And my thought process was I wonder what their employees think. Like I wonder and so I think it might be too much for us to crack that nut, but I would be so interested to know the difference between the executive perception and the employee perception. So that that was one thing that really um struck me and um I would say that another thing something that struck me for the last question has to do with a comment that you heard at the economic development advisory commission from or you might have been gone gone already. Um, one of the commissioners is in the nonprofit world and the nonprofit world is cratering, but they provide extremely important services to our residents and there really aren't other entities in government that that provide some of those services. And so viewing them as businesses and maybe having a more aggressive um because we do so well in general, you know, getting the word out about things like Thrive and um even like like the emergency funding and some of the programs that we have, making sure that our nonprofits know that they're available to them as well. and maybe including nonprofits um as businesses or finding a way to incorporate specifically nonprofits in Minnetonka, not just for-profit businesses because I think that they're going to have an exceptionally challenging next few years and we really need need to support them and partner with them. And I agree with with Kizy just in terms of, you know, looking at the challenges that our residents are going to be facing with the drying up of federal dollars and uh social safety net programs. How can we partner with these businesses and nonprofits to kind of plug some of the holes that we're all concerned about uh developing in the next uh coming months and years? They may um on the randomized survey, you do not exclude nonprofits. Nonprofit. Oh, yeah. Thank I was we excluded religious organizations. So, churches were taken out. Nonprofits were included. Okay. So, they they could come up in the survey so that it's not an automatic you're out if you're nonprofit. So, that I just want to make sure that was clear. Yep. The second thing is um because of that comment at EDAC, we are doing some followup um just some interviewing with nonprofits the city works with or in the community, not all nonprofits in Metro. Yeah, we're doing the ones that impact city stuff. And so, uh, we'll bring that back in, uh, Mike and I talked about, um, during the EI EIP discussion, we can talk about that because that's where we talk about programs and different things like that. So, we can I do think that nonprofits and for-profit businesses sort of face different challenges. And I'm wondering, you know, if there might be questions we could ask and maybe differentiate a little bit sort of how nonprofits are experiencing things here in Minnetonka and how for-profit businesses are experiencing. I just think it there there's a difference. It's it's sort of like like having ERPs that serve business that really don't fit government. It's the same kind of thing that it's just a slightly different operation. But um I'm not exactly sure what the difference would be, but those are the thoughts that occurred to me. And I'm done talking other thoughts. And what I noticed is most of the people their workforce aren't working from home, right? Yeah. And so they're working how do and I I'd like to know how they're getting here and um obviously cars. But like if we, you know, had mass transit out here, would they use that more? Would that would would that would that be something that would attract more people or you know something about making it cheaper and easier and less um you know carbon footprinty kind of thing. This 67% said they just wanted to use their car. this but yeah this is but also with the whole partnering with you know nonprofits and young people and you know the future is not car I mean I know it is but you know how can we figure that out that just to make it because because Minnitonka is far away from the city we did ask folks uh were they aware of Southwest light rail uh 69% said they that's scheduled to start open, you know, in 2027. Pushing that number out. Um, do you think Southwest Light Rail will be an asset to your business? 41% said yes, 38% said no, and 22% had no idea. Now, part of it is geographic. If I'm in Ridgedale, Southwest light rail is not going to matter to me. Um the point goes back to uh Cber Calbert on these are employers. Employees might have a very different answer especially when we're talking transportation, child care, housing, right? They're only going to raise it if they hear it from their employees as an issue. Right. I I I I agree with that. And I think, you know, doing some some deeper diving on that, you know, in terms of trying to get, you know, and it depends. I mean, if you're, you know, if your small business is three people, you're pretty closely connected to those employees. If you, you know, if you're the CEO of a a company that employs 300 people, you may not have um you may not have as good a sense, you know, firsthand knowledge. But the other thing is that I I think for a lot of this stuff um you know the business community was very supportive of Southwest Light Rail um and you know in its con concept stages and so forth. Clearly you know the the delays have not helped things. The um the challenges that um mass transit in the metro area is facing has not has not been helpful you know and the press has not been helpful. But but you know I think I think that's that's coming around. But one of the things um Metroransit's doing a microtransit um trial that involves Minnetonka and for us when you think about Rdale and all the people that go there um you know if you if we have a solution to the last you know the last mile or two and can get people from um from some of our u you know mass transit options you know to um ridge the impact may be pretty significant and and I do recall a long time ago there was an article in the Wall Street Journal Um that was a a book review about um about the New York subway system that um you know was built 100 years ago and and the theor the the dividing lines in New York were very similar to what you had here that people people who were close to the line favored it and people who were um away from it, you know, weren't weren't very interested. But the post analysis was that it was a rising tide that raised all the boats. it drove um economic development in New York for the region, not just for the places on the line. And I think, you know, I think that's something it's going to take a long time for us to draw that conclusion, but I really do think that having an effective transit system lifts everybody up. I read the book. It was probably Did I paraphrase? Yeah. Yeah. Very well. I mean, yeah, it it was a fascinating read and and basically it's going to take 75 100 years. Yeah. In order for an evaluation. I mean, we probably because this where people live now is based on transit work and everything and you can't retrofit it in. It's one of those things you build it and expand on it like New York. Yeah, it was a fascinating read. But a true evaluation, you you're not going to know until people start changing their behaviors, where they build, where they live, where they work, and everything. But I think that microtransit and that last mile in question is really, really critical for a city like Minnetonka. I mean, we only have one station. We have one and a half stations. I mean, we share one with with, you know, top gets the half. That's a half. you know, Eden Prairie has four, you know, and um and so light rail, I think, is important for Mitaka, but but I think we're going to have to extend that. Yeah. Any other other Let's see. Did we get to everything? Um anything else that you want to um comment on question two or uh programs? The only thing I heard on the EIP is just kind of following up on the nonprofits. um the youth is not totally within the EIP. So I'm not sure where that all fits in, but um so those are the two things I heard at least that need follow. Yeah. Yeah. Um anything else? Just the sustainability piece if there's anything that we can do. Well, I think on that um this is informative to the commission's work and I believe that they would take that information as they develop their next year's um plan in terms of their outreach. They are so focused on residents right now. Um which is great that they're getting a lot of impact that way. But I think we need to remind them on the business side that people are kind of uh looking for data and information and programs for sustainability. So I think that's at least a lesson here about what is out there for businesses. And so that's all going through the sustainability commission in terms of outreach to businesses or program. We just got the data. So I'm just telling who that goes through. Yeah, absolutely. I mean we use it pretty much everywhere. I mean we're always looking at this data to develop our plans. I guess I got one more comment. I guess um I don't know where this falls at, but one of the things is um how do we support more businesses of um color like you know so that's one of the things I want to talk about and I don't know if that's part of a study session too but how do we and try to increase that number because it is a low still a low number when I look at others 18% is low too okay uh statewide 12% of businesses are owned by BIPAC uh people of color. Um so we're higher than the state average in terms of who is surveyed. I think what I hear you saying though maybe dive in a little bit more on the services just to you know I'm just curious how can how we can support them and just continue to grow you know in our city. So well and I think to benchmarking it versus I mean you you look at our demographics from a population perspective and then our development um in terms of our bipok ownership of businesses and I mean it sounds like you know it's pretty it's pretty similar. So I think to me that's a success but but I think understanding what benchmarks we should be looking at um so that we're not overdeveloped but we're not really underdeveloped given our population. I think that's important data for us to consider as we look at those uh as the metrics on those. We're not going to be the same as you know the city of Minneapolis. Minneapolis. Well, but I mean but but you look but I mean you look at you look at the numbers there too. But I mean you know how how does Minneapolis do you know in terms of the proportion of its population um versus the number of um of bipac owned businesses in Minneapolis. And then okay now let's compare Mitanka on the same measure. You might find that relative to Minneapolis, we're overdeveloped on BIPO businesses. I'm not and I'm not saying we should be satisfied with that, but but again, let's have that context so we know what we know what we're looking at. Do we know Minneapolis? I I'd have to look at the data on that. I'd be kind of curious as a person. I did. I didn't include Minneapolis and St. Paul in the metro survey that I did, right? because it well I don't include them but I do it for the norms for the suburbs either because it just brings it's different can you compare to other cities then or like like eating per I could I could look at the metro because I did ask ethnicity on the that 400 sample that I did this spring off the top of my head I cannot remember what it was in the seven county metro excluding Minneapolis and St. But I could follow up and Ky for the EIP, we'll bring you back the demographics on open to business and for elevate. We'll give you the who's using those programs and who's being helped. All right. Any anything else now? Because if we end now, we will be ending on time. When's the last time you did that? So, um but if I don't want to cut anybody off if there's It's just me. Study session. Yeah, study session um is the last item and um we've got let's see on my last page here um Mike I'll I'll just turn it over to you but um our May study session topics. Yeah, thank uh thank you uh Brad and council. So yeah, May 12th is our next study session. We have two items on the agenda. I alluded to one of those earlier that uh Kelly will be back and do a refresh on the facilities and then it'll be a lot of the Darren and Mike budget kickoff presentation as we as we launch into our 2026 budget. And so it's it's all about budget. So it's uh capital improvements and budgets. I'm sorry, not capital, direct capital and budgets. And then in June uh that's when we turn our attention to June 16th is the CIP. And then as Julie just alluded to the EIP that evening. So more budget conversation. And then in June we'll have a 30-minut open time. So that'll be in June. And then one more month out in July we'll have a usually our all housing study session. So Julie will have a housing update. And then to some of K's questions here this evening, youth programming and opportunities. So Kelly will be part of that conversation as well. So that's coming up on the docket. And as you know council, this is your study session time. So, as always, if there's any changes, you want to move something up or down off the list, you just have to direct that to staff. Anything else? Anyone? I want to thank staff for sitting through all this. I mean, we had to, so you had to, but um it's good. It was good to have you all here. So, so thank you. And um we'll call it a call it a night.