Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. All [Music] right. Well, I will call us to order. Uh, tonight is Monday, September 15, 2025. This is a study session of the Minnitankka City Council and we will um do a roll by going around the room um including everyone. So Miranda, you get to start. >> Miranda Dominus, assistant city manager. >> Eric Nelson, city attorney. >> Mike Funk, city manager. >> Kimberly Wilurn at large. >> Rebecca Shackward too. Brad Worome, mayor. >> Paula Rome, w three. >> W four. >> Deb Calbert, atlarge, seat. A >> Davy, recreation superintendent. >> Kelly OD, recreation director. >> Jace Alexander, DEI supervisor. >> Susan Thomas, city planner. >> Julie Rashan, community development director. >> Peter Leman, public opinion researcher. >> Kevin Ringhoffer, resident. >> All right. Well, welcome everyone. Um, let's see. We have an U Mike. We've got an addendum to the um to the agenda. Did we miss anybody? No. >> Let me take a quick look. >> I think it's just a correction as I if I >> Yeah, it was like a chart was in the wrong place or something. >> Oh, yeah. Thank you. Um, >> all right. Sorry to put you on the spot. >> No. Yeah. Thank you, mayor. So, we don't approve agendas and study sessions, but yes, there is an agenda. Thanks for pointing that out. Um, and I think as noted by the agenda, there was a chart that we wanted to make sure was identified for the right location. So, >> all right. Thank for that. >> So, that takes us right away to the business items. And, uh, the first business item is youth programming and opportunities. And that's you. Very good. Mike, kick it off for us, please. >> Yeah, thank you, mayor. Uh, council, good evening. >> So, uh, this was something that was teed up by council for a study session to talk about youth programming and opportunities. Uh, we have a different number of staff members that will be presenting tonight. Uh, so we'll I think we'll kick it off with Kelly OD and Davey is also here from recreation. Miranda the Damon will be speaking as well as Jason Alexander. So, it's kind of a three threeperson u perhaps fourperson tag team on really kind of highlighting what was in the staff report. Council again, you expressed interest in understanding more about the city's um programming uh we'll talk about employment here this evening and certainly uh with the work of our partnerships with Hopkins High School and the city of Hopkins, our ACE programming. So, I think either Jason or Randy will speak to that as well. Then we have some questions for you at the end. So again, mainly a presentation here this evening by staff and if I can uh mayor turn it over to Kelly and kind of kick us off. >> Let's go. Thank you, Mike. Good evening, mayor and council. Um so the agenda tonight, as Mike said, uh you know, myself and Ann will kind of talk a little bit about some of the recreational opportunities that we have for youth and teens in our community. We'll then move into the employment. As you are well aware, we hire uh a lot of different uh positions here, especially in recreation, seasonal and part-time positions, many of which are uh youth. Uh and then Miranda and Jace will get into some of the non-recreation programs and partnerships that we have here in the community. Next slide. Uh so this does relate to our strategic plan. Uh the strategic plan includes um one of the priorities is community inclusiveness. Um and then under the that um priority, we do have a strategy, a key strategy that says we will create and expand equitable opportunities for accessing programs, services, and facilities. So, this really does tie right into what we're talking about tonight. Uh one of the metrics we do have on this one is um program registrations by season. We have a lot of different metrics within our uh department, including our um program registration, but one of them is programs by season. So, we will be tracking that uh over the next three years. That's a a metric from 2025 through 2027. All right. The wreck opportunities. So, as a department, we typically see about 20 to 25,000 registrations every year. So, program registrations from a swim lesson to an adult sports team. We have senior programming and really everything in between. um about half of those registrations. Last year in 2024, we had 11,000 registrations that were specific to youth and teen programs. Um those are broken down into a number of different categories. I think there's probably about 20 to 25. I did highlight a few of those. Um but we have a wide variety of programs for the youth and teens in our community. Um some examples would be our aquatics program. So we had over 800 people register for pro aquatic programming last year. That could be anywhere from uh a three or fouryear-old who's kind of in a parent child class or up to a teen who's in maybe a more competitive or trying to get into a competitive swim class. Uh arts, music, and dance 300 participants. Hop kids sports. So that's a partnership with the Hopkins School District. We have uh a number of different partnerships with different uh associations uh andor school districts in the area. Uh Hopkins School District is one that we have a very good partnership with. So that Hopkins Sports had almost 500 registrations. Skating lessons over at the rink. Um we had 1,600 registrations last year, which is a huge number. Again, those start from age three and four when they're trying to to stand on skates all the way up to figure skating and when they're actually getting into hockey and and or just like love skating. So those a lot of these programs, although um they're not necessarily geared for a specific age, we have multiple different age groups within like the aquatics or martial arts. We have um not only youth but teen and sometimes even have adult programming within those a lot of camps and clinics. Many of those are in the summer. And then we have a huge tennis lesson program over at the Willis Center. So we had over 5,000 registrations in our tennis program. Again, ages four all the way up to 17 and even above that. So many of those classes are registration classes. So you register and it's a set given time. Maybe it's a four-week or a six week program. Uh you sign up and that's what it is. In addition to that, we have a number of youth and teen that also enjoy our facilities. So maybe they don't want to be tied to a set in, you know, Mondays at 4:30. So, uh, we do have memberships at many of our facilities. The first one, uh, being that we have student memberships at the Willis Center in Marsh. We average about 75 per month across both facilities. And that number's actually grown quite a bit. I think more of them are over at the Willis Center. We're seeing a few more, but uh, it's still a relatively low number at the Marsh. Um, but we also have household memberships that include youth and teens. So, between the two facilities, we have,00 memberships at the Marsh and Williston. Like I said, that includes then any children, anybody under 21 in the household. So, we we see I would bet probably about 5,000 youth and teens that are active members of those facilities. And last would be Shady Oak Beach. Uh, this past season we sold 3,400 passes to the beach, uh, which is a big number. My guess is about twothirds of those are youth and teens with another third being the adults who who enjoy coming to supervise their their children when they when they can. We'll go to the next slide. Kind of moving into employment. Uh as I mentioned before, many people in the city and in the area their first job is with recreation. We uh hire probably about 350 part-time and seasonal staff members per calendar year. Um which is quite a bit. Um we don't go out and look specifically for teens or adults, but a lot of times the recreation programs are the ones that uh teens apply for. Um some of them include the beach. We hire about a hundred people at the beach every year, including lifeguards, uh concession stand attendants, and then folks at the front gate. Uh all of our facilities have um staff members, the Wilson Center, the Marsh, the Ice Arena, Grace Bay Marina, uh a number of different positions within those facilities including attendance, childc care supervisors, building supervisors and instructors. And then we have a number of programming staff members. So um we have parks program, park adventures program, which is like the playgrounds program. So uh we have uh families who utilize that. We may have 30 to 40 kids that go to a park in the summer. Uh we then have a number of staff members, probably four to six per park. Uh they would be some of our programming staff. So we've got a number of different positions. Uh I think this is a great opportunity for um youth. My first job was in parks and recreation, too. I was mowing grass and coaching baseball and softball and things like that. And so we see a lot of uh kids, a lot of youth that their first job is with the city. And and I think that's really important. Um it it's challenging and important. I should say it's challenging for both them um and and for us I think so. But um overall I think uh we really enjoy working with uh you know the young adults. I think it's a good opportunity for them. Um and I think you know a lot of times whether it's working in a park or working at subway sometimes they they choose to be outdoors and be with us. So we really uh value the their employment here. I think I'm going to turn it over to Miranda. Is that correct? >> Yep. I'm the next one. So, moving kind of off of recreation, um, we have opportunities in the administrative side of all that we do on recreation or on use. So, full-time internships. So, we have full-time internships and we also have the ACE program. So, our full-time internships are generally those who are in college, uh, maybe just out of college, um, looking maybe more in the specialized careers. And so, this last summer, um, we hosted 12 interns. So we had three in DEI, two in assessing, one in police, two or three in civil engineering, three in GIS, and then one in recreation, if I got that right. Um, and we actually have a full-blown internship program. So in 2018, we created an internship program which then put all interns on the same pay scale across the board. Um, it also, um, there's some criteria that they have to hit throughout the year. So instead of having interns come in and almost treat them like a seasonal, there's also education opportunities involved in this. There's networking involved in this. And so they go through the course of their internship mostly from May when they get out of college through kind of the end of August when they go back to college. Um these interns go through a um a mentorship program. We have individuals who are nons supervisors to be a mentors like Sarissa Faulk is a mentor for some of these interns for example. Um they do monthly activities where some of the directors will come and speak about their departments and what they do and learn more cross- departmental um different opportunities that they have and at the end of summer they do a presentation in the council chambers for all staff to come to about their project that they did the projects that they did over the summer. I went to the presentation this year and I felt very inadequate sitting in the crowd because these interns have so much talent. Some of these GIS interns created full-blown dashboards. They created maps. One of them created a 3D map of the marsh where you can like go into rooms and it has all the blueprints. It is their talent is wild. And so um it's really great to go to that at the end of the summer and hear from all of them. one of them was really funny and I learned that he's the comedy chair at the University of Minnesota and so it's really fun to also learn about their um hobbies and activities outside of their daily um desires as well. So we do have an internship of again more of that um graduate undergraduate level um and there's generally 12 to 15 here in the summer and so they do real work, they get real projects, they get real good life experience and then they leave with a certificate signed by Mike that they can use in their portfolios as they move forward as well. So we have that program going on and then we also have our ACE program which I'm going to have Jace talk about. >> All right. So yeah, so A stands for uh advancing careers and employment. So you have to have some kind of barrier to access to participate. Um whether that's socioeconomics, gender, um uh language, maybe your first gen, um race, anything um that's a barrier. And so for that one um that's a paid summer internship and this paired with professional development. So they're here. Um on Tuesdays they go to Hopkins and they do a PD for a couple hours and then they come over here and so that's all uh there's lots of different elements to that and we're actually working on revamping some of it. But um like how do you write an email? What does office etiquette look like? Um who would you go to for this? All that kind of stuff. So they get opportunity to do some really cool stuff. They get to go to the capital. They got to meet with with folks. Um and so that that's been a really cool program. And I think uh for our side, Mitaka side specifically, we had a pretty big jump. Um from the year I started, we had one ace intern and this year we um we had eight spots um that people that locked in, but then two actually ended up not being able to participate. But one to six was pretty good. So we're excited about that. And I'm I'm uh trying to bend the ear of other departments that might be open and interested. I know I talked to like Jeff Dulac and it because I think that would be a great one. um and talking to HR. So I think we're only going to continue to grow that. We did have this year more applicants than spots. Um so good problem to have and trying to think about how can we expand where it makes sense. Um and so we had uh so I had three DEI interns for the ACE program and then I had two full-time interns um that that were college level. And so, uh, we had that. We had somebody in community development admin, the public works, and the, uh, we were supposed to have one for PD, but, I think those two fell off. Um, but we have one for wreck and and fire. And the Sebastian over there on the right for fire, he, uh, he now wants to be a firefighter. And so, again, a path he, you know, it's just a great opportunity to try something out um, and see if if that's where your passion lies. So, that's that's been exciting to to see and we're hoping to continue to just uh expand on that. One thing one other thing I'll say is again for my two DEI internship spots, I had like about I think like 85 people apply. And so some of my um I think I narrowed it down to about like 10ish people that I that I interviewed and then if you didn't get it from there I I sent them links to the ACE program. So, one of the ACE interns for Hopkins, uh, I believe his name was Ayas, he he originally applied with me, but was able to get an opportunity through ACE. So, again, trying to think about when and where we can make those connections and those pathways for students. >> Absolutely. And if there's a lot of passion behind this, if you don't know, I, Kelly, and Susan Thomas were all interns. So, the three of us served on a panel for these interns, and there's many more in the city as you go throughout the comm as an organization. There's a lot of us who started in these chairs. And so it's fun to kind of come full circle as well. >> And one final thing too is thinking about just how we're being as inclusive as possible. And so we did have two students um from Lionsgate this summer that were interns. So that was really cool to see. And so I I did like a autism 101 training for anyone who was a supervisor. Just things to keep in mind, things to know how you can be supportive, how you can accommodate. Um and that we got good feedback on that. And so again, thinking about how inclusive can we be? Are we thinking about everyone? Um, what are we doing? So, yeah. >> Is that mostly for high school students? Um, the ACE or is it both? >> You could be I think it's 15 to 24. >> Okay. >> Mhm. Thank you. >> So, you could also be in college. Yeah. >> Okay. And then um so last year uh we were working I was working with PD um because we did have Olivia Washington here with JCP. And so with that program, lots of lots of cities have a student MAC or or student multicultural advisor group. And so I was helping them kind of get that started and doing some of the facilitation for that. So that was another youth opportunity. Um, and we're hoping to continue to to build on that this year. I know they've got they have some leadership changes that happened at Hopkins and so I think uh Kar and I have a meeting early October to see like what what could this look like? how can we continue um specifically hitting on students that that are interested in this and and looking at some of those affinity groups as well that might want to partake in this and this is a picture of students that were able to come from Hopkins High School and uh they're walking them through kind of use of force with that big screen and they got to try it out and so that was a really great place to foster dialogue because some of the students shot right away and they were like and so it's just a good back and forth with officers to say like well why did you do that, right? And then here's what happens on the flip side for us if if that's how it goes. And and so really eye opening, I think, on both sides for them to just kind of see what that's like. Um and again, is this somewhere that you can see yourself? Is this a role you see yourself in? Uh kind of a thing. And then we've got our youth advisory board that we share with Hopkins. Um now, I will say this is uh an area where I'm hoping to dig in a little bit more. um because Hopkins mostly runs it for us inside of the depot. Uh and the last time I checked it's mostly students from Hopkins High School that are on it. So working with trying to make those connections with uh students in Minnetonka uh to see if we can get that going and and now that I've got some help with seeing like when where we can show up to some of those meetings and and get their feedback, think about the things that they want to do. Um and as we think about partnerships as well, I'm trying to see if I can work with Vantage at Minnitankka High School and right now if they can there's some students that maybe want to help us do like a a youth advisory recruiting video. So like with a little clip 30 30 to 90 seconds on what that would look like since we have these open spots uh across different boards and commissions. So um that's something that we're working on. Then we've got the student election judges program. Um, so another opportunity for students to to get engaged and again with Vantage and with the schools in general trying to think about what opportunities do we have, where can we collaborate, where can I support them, where can they support us um to see where we can go from there. I just kind of hit off a little. I got ahead of myself, but um again, I think they're they're really open to it. And so I I've been able to get a lot of traction with Hopkins High School. um more so than Minnetonka. So, I'm hoping that this this will give us opportunity. I know uh they have a lot of programs like this and um at first I think there was like uh some misconceptions about like being in competition almost with one another, but our internships don't run at the same time and so once we've kind of fleshed that out, it seems much more open and so excited to kind of see where where it can go from there. >> Anything else? I would say too with Jace coming on board in the last two years um spends spends a lot of time in all of our departments not only just admin but all the departments across the board and how can we better cross collaborate on um if he's going into the schools what other information can we get while we're there? How can we better use one person going into the having one connection that funnels through the organization as well just to create a better communication flow too. It's not duplicating work. So trying really hard on Jason's Jason and Karin are two people trying to work across eight departments but they do a really good job of uh filtering the information and feedback and uh growing from there. So and a lot of if you don't know us Jayce was a prior teacher and so having Jace with those connections too bring a lot of students in as well and then having those personal relationships really broadens the scope for all of us. So, it's been a really fun summer and um it was a full house if you didn't walk around and so um most most of our internships are done now and most of these programs are over but as we get for the election we will have another 30 to 40 election judges of students coming through as well which is always a fun collaboration. So that is all we had for council. If you have any comments or questions for Jason and I and or Kelly and Ann as well. >> One more thing on just the business bullet. Um, one thing with ACE, I think one of the things as we're looking at building out the program too is is working with local businesses that might want to take uh an intern on so that those talks are happening right now. So, that could give us more opportunities to get more youth in the door into these different businesses within our cities across Hopkins. >> Great. So council um well thank you very much for the presentations and I I kind of look at the three of you as you know um success stories on the opportunities that internships represent um because people you know get familiar with the city they realize there's opportunities there and those opportunities can turn into uh real careers. I think that's that's exciting. I mean that's uh I think that's what young people really need to need that expo exposure and I think it's really a positive all the way around and I know that for staff internships are not like okay well you just get a you just get a student in and you have to go do a bunch of work I mean it's it takes a lot of planning it takes a lot of your time and a lot of personal involvement so thank you for that because it's a it's um I mean I I remember in my uh in my career when I have somebody new come on board. I mean onboarding somebody is a lot of work. I mean you know it and so and with internships you you're doing that a lot and you're doing it repeatedly. So um I appreciate the all the good effort you're putting in on that but council comments or questions. Rebecca, >> all of it's so impressive and I, you know, I was aware of a lot of it and the I thought the packet was really great, but the thing that you pointed out about um partnering with Lionsgate students and then doing particular training for the people, you know, the accommodations and stuff, I mean, how incredible is that? And I think it's a testament to the broad view that you have on on the role and the role of the city. And I'm just I'm so grateful that you're reminding us of all the ways that we can work to involve community members regardless of kind of where they're at. So thank you. Really cool. >> Yeah. Um just again echoing I had student interns when I was uh working in university and uh I just know how much of work work it is to you know just get the program up and running much less actually doing the supervising. So thank you for that and I just think I'm really impressed that you know you've built it up so far so quickly. So that's really nice. um had a a question or a comment and a question as somebody I really appreciate the the kind of autism training for um the city staff. I hope at some point as the mom of somebody who's on the spectrum of that would be great to have that training available to our Minnitonka businesses as well. um you know as kind of working with our if we especially start working with other businesses. Um so just just uh a thought of that and um one question are these internships primarily aimed at um youth from Minnotonka and Hopkins are the college level ones as well or are we opening it up to >> Yeah, it's it's open. Okay. >> I think when and correct me if I'm wrong because I wasn't here when it first started. I think when it first started there was like a big focus on trying to make sure you you lived in the area that was the preference. Um but I mean as we're recruiting from Hopkins schools we know like people are coming from all over Matonka High School as well. So um so yeah know it is open. Um >> okay >> and for I think the only the only barrier potential barrier there is can you drive or do you have a car? Can someone get you there? Um, but we did have a couple students who don't drive but were able to get dropped off like on Tuesdays at Hopkins and then they catch a ride with other interns over here or whatever the case may be. So, so far we've been able to work it out but yeah, no, it is open. >> Okay, great. Thank you, >> Kizzy. >> Thank you, Mayor. I had a couple questions and I talked to Mike Mike about this earlier today. Um, I really commend this program. It's a amazing program. I mean, I think it's really good and I'm really happy that um we are doing this this program in our city and um it's working um because it's it is important for children to have um their first jobs in recreation and to participate and learn skills because as you know when you're doing internships you get skills. Um, however, I did have, you know, I talked to Mike about this and I want Mike to kind of talk about how we got there, but I did, um, make a comment about, you know, every, and I'm not going to keep a secret about it, but, um, I was really trying to get my daughter involved in intern program, internship, jobs, or whatever. And I really had a very, very difficult time. For two years, I've been asking about how to get my daughter a job. And it felt like um no one really wanted to say what the real deal was about um why she wasn't able to, you know, get a position within our city. And Mike finally said it today, which I don't know why why it took so long, but um I appreciate that he did say it. However, there is a concern for me um that I said to Mike, if the chief's son can work here and any other staff members can work here, I feel like then you should not say council children cannot work for the city. Um, I know that this was something prior to us, um, being on a council, maybe, you know, something happened where other council members felt that city staff um, children could not work for the in these programs or whatever. However, um, there's barriers for well, for me, I don't know about anybody else. I'm speaking for me, but my daughter fit all those criterias. and I just felt like it was just very difficult. But not only that, um, so that that was kind of sad to hear today, but I understand why it was done. But again, if other if staff children can work here, family members, I don't see no different from city council. Matter of fact, I feel like it's um Chief Scott's son works for the city and to me, he has leadership here and he works for that. He works in the city. Council members, we're part-time. We we're we're not as connected. But so that's one thing. So I'm not going to keep talking about it because that's said and done. But I I do want you all to think about that. Um, I want the council to think about that, um, because I think it's very unfair. So, that's that. Um, and then there's some questions I had about the program. Um, um, Paula just asked one of the questions about was the program targeted for Minnotonka students and Hopkins students. Um, I wanted to know about the demographics. Um, that's important to me. um around race. Um um I asked what cities does does the children live in which that was the question that already was asked and how many of these children um were chosen for the different jobs and what categories. You kind of talked about that a little bit. Um yeah, I just kind of really want to know the demographic of the kids. And then also, um the advanced program, you said that 15 to 24, how many children were actually high school students and how many was college students? Guess I would want to know that. >> Um sorry. >> And then that was pretty much it. I know with the Vantage program, I had one comment about the Vantage program. The Vantage program, it's a really good program. I was serving on the board there and have been to some of the meetings and actually some of the children had did some um internship for me for my nonprofit business and it's really an excellent program and so that's a really good idea to partner u with the Vantage program. However, I sometimes um when I was door knocking last year, there was parents who had a problem with the Vantage program because the Vantage program was strictly for kids who was advanced students and it kind of discriminated against kids with um who was not advanced. And so, um that was a concern. So, I would want to know if we did partner with that program, how do we make sure that um that program we're take we're getting students from all walks of life and not just advanced students. So, >> yes, that's it. Thank you. >> All right. And I know if you have answers now or if you want to follow up on those, but >> I can get the full I don't have the full report. I can but I can reach out to them and get it. Um, as far as like the the full demographics, pretty I think we're pretty diverse overall. Um, and then same thing for for high school students. I can speak at least for for us. Um, we had four four who were like and mostly seniors um in that program. uh Sebastian I think I think he was like one or two years outside of of high school. Um and his brother served on our DEI commission. Um so again building those connections has been has been fun to see. Um but to your point about Vantage too like this program is kind of new to me and figuring out what that looks like. And then as we think about Hopkins too, um I think it's kind of exciting because we can kind of if they're open to it, build out whatever relationship we want. I think Vantage might be a little more tricky because they're already like solidified. Not that we can't make changes, but I'm really excited to meet with Hopkins principles and see like what we can do and what they're open to. Um so more more to come on that, but I can definitely get you I'll I'll ask their youth connector at Hopkins that holds all that data for the demographic data and I can get that to you. >> Yeah. And can we have more of this information in our um um packet about youth program because we I didn't see this information there. >> Correct. So this is the presentation and so after every study session the presentations we do post those on our website. >> Okay. >> So they are available. >> Okay. Can can someone like email those out to us? >> Yeah. >> All right. Thanks. >> Other questions council members? >> Mayor F. I forgot to mention one thing that Julie reminded me of is we do also use for the others is Americanore and green corps members are often frequenting through our organization as well. So as another outside business um we do often partner with green corpore and americanore which I failed to mention. So >> can I just ask? >> Yes, go ahead. >> Has there ever been any thought and just for some reason this came to me because my husband did this. He worked for the city of Dallas as a co-op student. Do you guys ever is there like co-oping? Do you know what that is? Co-oping is when students work like a year of their college or outside of college and they actually go to work >> at the city. I don't know. There's a >> We haven't actually look into it though. >> It's kind of like Americanore or something like that, but they usually get college credit for it. Like Northeastern University does it all over the country. Most of their students have it. and my husband had it did for Dallas and civil engineering for the city and public works. And so anyway, just >> I I do know on that our in our police department, our social worker, we just reviewed a contract recently that she's going to be partnering with the city or the Mano State University and the students that need to have an internship more of an unpaid internship through social work would be based here in the city with our police department. >> Yeah. So >> in terms of you know community colleges and things like that smaller universities it would be in terms of our DEI mission >> could be a way to help you know people who don't have as much access that >> thanks >> council any other any other college deb >> I'm just interested in terms of where the outreach is for the college student how you know who where we where are we posting the internships and so forth. How are we reaching out? >> Sure. So through ACE um we send a lot of stuff to the schools um to the high schools and then some of it um we we've used our DI commission like hey put this everywhere or tell people about it. Um and we've been working with we work with our communications team to to get it pretty much anywhere and everywhere we can. I would say for uh for colleges again as we as we're looking at like trying to add and build and uh on ACE. I think that that would be a a more targeted new kind of avenue. It does it's not that it doesn't get there, but as I said, one of our interns happened to get to it because he applied for my full-time DPI internship, right? And so thinking about those pathways, I think is going to be is going to be good and interesting. I think again as we continue to expand um that can really change what that looks like. I think the AES program in particular is is great for everyone. And as we're thinking about like our high schoolers who are maybe trying to figure out like what am I going to do? I'm not exactly sure yet. I haven't even got to that point where I'm declaring anything or taking generals or anything. That's that's kind of a cool element of it. So, um I'm not sure where it will go, but that's kind of where we've started mostly at the high schools uh both high schools. And then from there, it's kind of like any other activities we've got going on. I know we've talked about it at like some of our events and stuff where we put like a flyer um but they usually go pretty quick and I know we also talked about it at um there was a event we did the name of it escaping me right now um where we tabled uh for the LGBTQ IA plus community and so we we also had like flyers there about kind of all of our internships but again just trying anywhere we go kind of just trying to talk about it share about it >> but in terms of college outreach where are we reaching out to the community I I was really intrigued by the the k the young people that you were talking about that were so good at the GIS and the you know where those where are those folks coming from? Are they coming from technical colleges from university? I'm just wondering >> really good question. I was also again astonished sitting in the room because someone's like I'm going to be a junior at Vanderbilt and I'm going to be a senior at what was one of the other ones? >> One's going to Northwestern >> British Columbia North. I mean, it it was pretty crazy where these these students were going to school. Um, I think a lot of them come home for the summers, so I think they do a Google search of civil engineering internships. Um, so we post on the League of Minnesota C's website. We post on Indeed, we post um on LinkedIn, um, a whole wide variety of all of our normal avenues. Um, our talent acquisition specialist also does a lot of tableabling. So, she goes to a lot of colleges. She does a lot of career fairs. She does a lot of tableabling and events. Our police department goes to Alexandria Tech and does tableling at Alexandria's Tech's career fair. So, uh, Katie, you'll see her at the University of Minnesota. You'll see her at St. Thomas. You'll see her um in person at many events that she can get to. Um, and then just kind of our normal avenues. >> We have at in St. Paul, we have handshake schools. So when we have, you know, there's just when we post certain things, it just automatically, you know, that's where it's going to go. But I was just wondering because >> boy, it sounds like you got some great ones and that's really that just must be really fun for the people working with them. >> So it and my other question was, so they do a project and how do they arrive at that project? Is it something that they come up with on their do they work with their their mentor to come up with it or how does that work? >> I can take that one. >> Yeah. >> So I had five. So um uh yeah. No, so my so the full-time interns um you know they kind of get here ahead of the group and again as we're thinking about flushing this out I I kind of like the idea of using them as like my lead interns because they're here Monday through Friday. So it gives them a chance at leadership as well with the ACE interns which is cool. Um so they they really enjoyed that. And then um looking >> okay um and then outside of that. So and then I kind of asked them like what are you interested in? What what's your passion? What is it? And so I have like kind of a list as you can imagine of things that I need to get done, but then I kind of try to cater it to what are you interested in. And what's been really cool um at least for me is that I've had interns who like are interested in law. And so um working with admin like the legal department will meet with them or let them go to court with them one day or whatever the case may be. I have I had one who was interested in being a city manager one day and so he was able to meet with Mike and Miranda and kind of talk through like what does that look like? >> Does he still >> right? I was like so that's a no for me but I love that for you. Um >> so there's just it's really cool because you can kind of make it you know what you want it to be. And so like I one of my full-time interns his thing was applying for grants for us and so he applied to like the Minnesota Historical Society and we're waiting to hear back for that on this trying to revamp this timeline out here. the other one was really interested and the kind the cool thing about it is she got to bounce around a little bit because at first she was like oh I really want to talk about um financial well-being for everyone what does that look like and so I was like I don't know what does that look like reach out what's community ed doing what's what are they doing so she she kind of ran into some dead ends and she was like oh I kind of feel like they're already doing this I was like okay well now what do you want to do and she's like well maybe we could do something like here like at the city what would that look like and so she kind of got to play with it and she kind of ended up going down this path of thinking about like how do we just reach out in general? And so she got to work with John in communications a lot thinking about um Peach Jar and like how are we getting are we getting this information to parents and whatnot that we want um outside of like the Minnotaka memo. How else are we getting to people? And so that's where so she kind of took that path to get there. Um but there's just there's so many different avenues you can take. Um there's a lot of flexibility built into the structure. So that was a long-winded way. I think I answer I hope I answered your question. >> What's Peach Jar? Can you explain? >> Oh, yeah. Um, and so that's my understanding of PR is it's kind of like a app that you can like send information out to to the schools with or like so like if you're partnering with schools um and they're sending something out, it'll go out with that for you. So like, oh, we want to send our we're having this Hispanic Latino event. Can we send it through Peach Jar? So not only that are the people that get the Manitaka memo seeing it, but uh like families that are obviously engaged in school are going to see it pop up. So they're getting it more than once. And then also, you know, we're trying to think about what barriers are there for people to show up or to know what's going on. So, if you don't get the Minnatonka memo, maybe you live in multif family housing, they don't pass it out to every single mailbox. Here's another way that you might be able to access it because it's coming with all your other kids stuff like through your email. So, that's we're kind of we've been playing with that and she was able to kind of make some posters and things like that. Um, so yeah, there's there's a lot. Andrew was able to kind of give us a look at thinking about sensory rooms and what could we add or what could we do different or what would be good. So there was there's really something for everybody. >> Wow. >> Thanks J. >> Very cool. >> Any other questions? >> One more question. Um do you all do like um technical college like Henipin Tech, Normandelle, um MCTC, any of those schools? Do you reach out to any of those schools? Yeah, I think Katie actually goes to >> um >> which one? Northwestern maybe. Which one did she >> I thought I thought it was uh MCTC. >> Yeah, MCTC. Yeah, we go and table at those events as well. >> Yep. >> That's good. >> And I just I we through this ACE program. Um there were folks here who were just like learning about it. I feel like Chamber of Commerce. I'm not Don't quote me on that. But then I had people stay after from uh a couple community colleges to ask like what could that look like for internships. And so I think again looking at this as an opportunity to really kind of build that out is is exciting to to think about. So I I don't have anyone coming on for this fall because it was too soon, but thinking about spring or even next fall. Um I think we definitely there's definitely opportunities to working with those community colleges to see what we can do. >> Yeah, that's good. I'm hoping that um Hopkins can do the same thing, repeat um what we're doing here if they're not doing some of the programming this way and then you know as we continue to build on I think this is a really excellent program um for all students. But it's really good to see. So thanks Mike. >> Yeah, just real quick. So thank thank you mayor and council. I think you're hopefully getting a full flavor for um how we as a city value youth and how we really try to incorporate youth into what we're doing. And I would say that's also reflection on your values as a council because you support the budgets that support this programming. And so even as we talk about budgets, whether it's the 12 interns or the ACE program and Miranda can speak to the ACE program because we do have grants and I think city Hopkins has been instrumental in getting grants. So there's some grants that help pay for the ACE program. The 12 interns are out of the city's budget. And so as I talk to my own colleague, my co I call my colleagues in other cities, we have a robust internship program. Again, I think Miranda mentioned going back to 2018 where the city uh made a conscious decision to invest in uh helping youth develop uh in their career paths and not every city does this. And so I think it does speak to our values here in Minnetonka. Really trying to help youth where we can. Um the budgets, yeah, I think we'd love for them to go further. Um, I think Miranda and I have talked about like for example in the city of Adina has a fellow program and instead of the call an intern just more of a a beefed up internship program where the city of Dina has fellows and they're like a I think Paul a one or two year type employment for um students that are going into public administration and getting more exposure more depth into uh city administration or or management. And so I think with personally I'd love to see us expand in that direction too, but it it takes more financial commitment. And so I mean that's always tough as well as we look to not only do what we're doing here, but try to build on that as well. And then last thing, mayor and council, I just go back to K's comment just so you're aware what Kizzy and I were talking about is in terms of um our employee policies or employment manual or employee handbook as we call it, it does allow for employees um uh children of employees to work at the city. Uh that there was a restriction on that uh number of years ago. We ended up lifting that ban, if you will, kind of around the time of COVID because we were having a really difficult time hiring kids to fill positions, um, lifeguards and some of the summer workers that Kelly spoke to. And so we we needed kids and so we had we knew employees that had kids that were available and so we we lifted that and so uh council member Kley's correct that you know we like for chief boardroom his son has worked uh in public works for the last couple years and there's probably a couple other examples out there as well separate to that uh there is actually in city code so it's section 205.005 O5 where uh so it's a city code provision where family members of council so it's not just children so it' be spouse children mother-in-law father-in-law stepchildren kind of there's a whole definition in there on what family is that per city code are not allowed to work at the city and I think I don't know the whole history of that um when that dates back I I think there were something prompted that many years ago perhaps conflicts of interest. Um, I do think there's probably some power differential in that in terms of if you ever have to discipline and how a family member of a council member might come into play for something like a discipline or a termination and things can get really kind of mucky um in that regard. So, I think there's reasons why that's probably in place, but here I just want to give you that background. Um, >> and and I think I mean to me the risk is um you know the um hiring family members of council members potentially smacks of corruption which is not popular in government. That's certainly something that I don't want to identify with. So I I I agree that it's it's it's challenging but so you know I think that um any any change would have to be carefully considered. I would agree with that, but I also think it's it's pretty mucky when you hire family members, but then city staff. So, I don't see it really as being too much of a difference. >> It's a power differential. >> It's it's just a power. We We hold the purse strings for the entire city. It makes it very different >> to me. And Yeah. So, well, we're not going to resolve that tonight, but I appreciate I appreciate the explanation. And, you know, the only general comment I want to close with is um well, one question I had was, do we do anything with placement offices at different colleges and universities when we're when we're doing things in terms of recruiting for internships? I don't know if that's an appropriate spot or not, but it was a question that I had. And then, because I remember being a student and the placement office was I I did spend some time there. you always want looking for that job. So anyway, it might be it might be a right place to go. Um but then you know I'm I'm impressed with all the programs we've got and all that we're doing and um but I also think we've heard some kind of intriguing things um that are being done in other cities. And that's what I that's what I'd like to um you know encourage is that okay let's look to our sister cities and other cities and maybe talk to our you know National League of Cities connections or the league or whatever. Um anything we can do to bolster that because clearly um young people need jobs and we need young people to be interested in city government. So, there's probably a sweet spot there. And I'm not saying we're not doing enough or anything like that, but I' i'd say that if there's some opportunities for us to bolster our efforts there, um that's probably certainly is in the public's interest and makes um you know, it it's consistent with our commitment to excellence and and finding new and creative ways of doing things. So, just just a general comment, >> not a critique. And it and something that I was kicking around because this is not something that I would want city staff to do because it's just too much to undertake. But having been to National League of Cities and seeing cities that send uh youth delegations, you know, I I think that might be too too much for for our hardworking staff. But my children participated in Minnesota youth and uh government. Um and it it you know it's state government that they you know so they're either legislators or supreme court justices or and and I feel like it might be you know if we can partner with the right folks it might be great to do municipal government. And I mean we do these wonderful um simulations when we do citizens academy and um you know maybe there's some way that we can partner with other cities so that it's not just on us but just work with other cities to sort of shop it around, share it, but have that kind of experience where you know they they they learn about all of the departments and what they do. And then we do you know there is a simulation but it's not all on Mitaka to do it and just expose them to that have them come to some meetings um s sort of expand the whole idea of of um citizens academy um somehow and I just know that it's difficult because kids are so so busy right now um but I just think it might be something to consider something. >> That's a good idea. >> Sounds good. >> All right. Any anything else? Because we do have more things on the issue. >> I think just the one thing for the ACE program to council member Kley uh and council to think about. Uh I think as we continue to partner >> that opens up more opportunities and correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding was like for example like your daughter could work with the ACE program if she was placed in Hopkins. Well, not in Minnetonka. So >> she actually did get a job in Hopkins. >> Oh yeah. Look at that. >> Oh, she did >> for the win. Um, but just just just things we can think about and as we continue to partner with more people that that then opens up more doors. >> Yeah. >> Great. Thank you. All right. So, we're going to move we're going to move on if um everyone's ready for that. Um >> the um item 3B on the agenda is the um see the agenda is the zoning rewrite update. And we have our zoning and housing folks and um um reports from Susan. But Mike, do you want to kick it off or should I hand to Susan? >> Yeah, I think we'll probably just kick it right over to either uh Julie or Susan. Susan's going to take it. Uh >> I'll do some opening. >> All right. So, we'll kick it over to Julie for some opening comments, but yeah, let's just go right to Julie. >> Awesome. All right. Uh I think we'll take about 15 20 minutes to do a presentation to you about what's been going on. It's been a busy last week that we've had. We've been meeting with the staff. We've been talking to our surveyor. We have been talking to the work group. We have been online. I don't know. We've been doing a lot of things. So, uh it feels like we have some momentum going. So, we thought it was a good time for a check-in. We did promise you every quarter to update you on what's going on. Now, as a reminder, the mayor and council member Wburn are the appointed folks from the council that go to the meeting. So, those are your liaison of sorts. So, I'm sure they'll chime in too if they have some information to share with you from our meeting last week. So, with that, Susan, this is really your show. So, I'm just going to pipe in when needed. >> All right. Well, I'm going to turn it over to you pretty quickly here. >> Oh, is it? Oh, it's already the survey. Sorry. >> Um, just we wanted to give you an update also on So, we're doing all of this zoning work looking at our zoning ordinance, but as I'm sure all of you are aware, there's all of these other things swirling um zoning related at the state legislature. So, for the last two years, if you're not aware, um for the last two years, there has been legislation proposed um called different things, uh zoning reform, housing now, um all sorts of things, um that have um been premised upon trying to create more affordable uh housing within um the state. But much of that legislation specifically thinks that it can happen um through zoning reform only and that because communities are not doing enough to create um affordable housing, the state should preempt local zoning control to ensure that it happens. And um our our view is different um as as planners and and Julie has been at the state legislature. Whenever I can't find her, it's because she's at the legislature um testifying about something. But Julie had this idea about three months ago that um maybe we just don't know everything that cities are doing. And so she suggested to planning staff um that we should call the uh community development directors, the planners of the 65 largest cities in the state of Minnesota to ask uh what what they are doing. Oh wow. And um >> so for those of us that are more introverted, that was quite a heavy lift, but we got through it. And we do think it's important to share the results with you. Um, and we will also share these results with the 65 communities that we engaged with. >> Yeah. And I mean, I think the other thing that we were thinking about is going through the zoning work kind of trying to figure out what cities were doing the most. So, um, what kinds of changes were they making and we wanted to know that as we moved into some of the rewriting of Minnitonka's code. So, it kind of was a dual purpose. wanted to find out what was really happening and then help us with kind of what's happening here locally. So, it kind of addressed both issues at the same time, which was uh oh, what am I doing wrong? >> Oh, goodness. >> Continue without Google. Okay, thank you. >> I know. Another lovely dashboard. Uh Kendall in the office, she loves doing these dashboards, but I love them because they're really easy to read and so hopefully you appreciate them, too. but all the planners um and housing staff did help with this effort. So we had 63 of 65 cities respond and so it's the highest population cities in the metro area. So there's 10 and some cities that are in the metro area. Um we chose the 65 because that kind of was the break point where you saw those smaller cities under 10,000 after 65. So we we made a conscious decision we just do the largest cities. Um after that uh we had asked them and we wanted it to be easy because we wanted them to respond and we also wanted it to be easy to understand if you're a consumer of the information. So the first thing we asked and and sorry for the mayor and for council member Wilburn, you already heard this so I'm just going to repeat. You can tune out if you want and um I'll try to say something new. >> You know me well enough. It takes at least two times >> maybe. Okay. Um, so the question was, is your city considering an update to your zoning ordinance or maybe you're in the process of or have you recently updated your zoning ordinance in the last three years? And of the 63 respondents, 45 actually answered yes, 13 were no, and five were in the consideration stage. And then the second part of that question was specifically have have there or is your city considering changes to zoning code that result in additional housing construction or the creation of affordable housing. There uh we had 50 cities say that they had updated or are updating um changes that would provide additional housing stimulation uh in their communities. that um probably was the most surprising thing and we asked this question of our own staff and our work group uh last week. You know, what did you find surprising about what you saw here? And this is one of the things people pointed to um that so many cities, 70% and then if you add in the 12% considering you have 82% of the cities actually thinking or have done something about this. I know none of this is statistically significant, so just ignore everything I just said. >> 63 out of 65 is a good participation. >> Actually, thank you. Yes, we were happy about that. Um, the other thing that was surprising to us is the population size did not correlate to what they were doing. So, that didn't impact whether or not they were doing the zoning update. Uh, we were surprised because we thought, uh, bigger city, more staff equals action on their zoning code. That is actually not what we saw in the survey results. The subset of cities that weren't considering changes um were doing other things. I'll talk about that later. Uh and a group of cities um were what was I saying here? What was this point? Group of cities that are updating or recently updating are not doing changes that would actually impact. That's the no answer. So 18% said no, they weren't doing that. The second question is what were the items that you thought as a city official were most impactful in this housing zoning discourse. So the number one thing was diversity and housing type. That is the number one thing people were changing in the ordinances. And of course that allowed for ADUs or other kinds of housing. Maybe it's a twin home, maybe it's town homes, etc. So they people were by and large changing that. That was the number one answer. The second thing is addressing zoning district restrictions. So people were changing lot sizes. They were doing flexibility in the types of zoning districts they have and then adjusting setbacks. The third thing they were doing is reducing parking. A mana did this a number of years ago. That's not something in our new code probably will we will adjust too much. So we already kind of tackled that issue. And then the fourth one that people mentioned was the incentives for affordability. So that definitely was important to the cities we talked to. Then the third question is how would you rate the response to change? So as you proposed all these zoning changes, you know, how was the community acceptance? Were you having trouble? Was it a lot of difficulty or not? You can see on the chart um it actually wasn't that difficult. You had a few cities answer maybe sevens or eights. That's what I would say. Maybe they had hard uh time getting things approved. Maybe they had contentious public hearings about zoning changes. Whatever that may be, that might be in this end, but that was only uh four of those cities that answered uh that it was a little more difficult. This is also an interesting question. Uh does your city have a policy or an ordinance that requires affordable housing in new development? And when you look at the number of cities, it's only actually 13 cities. There's um we had some discussion last week. Why is it kind of this west metro uh area that has it? Well, you think about where housing prices are way high and what's happening in our housing market as opposed to maybe the east metro. uh they haven't had the pressures maybe that we have had uh in Minnetonka or Eden Prairie or some of the other suburbs that see kind of rising housing costs. So those are the cities that have adopted um inclusionary housing or some kind of affordable housing policy. Um when I was showing this to Mike, Mike said, how how many people does that represent? how many how much population which was a good ad because when you add it up it's about a 1.3 million um in population that you're representing uh with that those kinds of inclusionary policies. 41% of the metro area population has some kind of policy included in their city. Um, some of the cities we talked to didn't actually have formal requirements for this, but they were actively asking for money through either the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency, Met Council, their counties that they're in, um, or other types of doing tax increment financing or all of the above. So, it wasn't like they weren't doing anything for affordable housing. It was that they had different avenues, um, in addition to um, other zoning things that they were doing. Um the only other thing when I get to the bottom here uh the last question was we wanted to have some context about regionally how many people are working on this issue and if you asked how many staff people are working on it about 300 just over 300 people. If you asked how many elected officials that's another 300. So um together about 600 people having this conversation really is what's reflected in this survey and then um we tried to identify like how many in population and then how many staff people that you that they reported and then uh just some of the conclusions which I've kind of gone over here so I don't think I'll go too much into this um but hopefully you found that helpful. I I we we felt it was really helpful to do it and kind of get some of these questions off our off our list of things that just kept, you know, making people spin a little bit when we talked about housing and and zoning that connection. So, um I will where are we at in the PowerPoint? Any questions about that section? >> I just Yeah, it's a I just have a quick question. Um, first of all, I love love the data and this that's been really good about and also the um, Leatherman survey as well. Um, with the affordable housing policies, I know overall there wasn't didn't seem to be a correlation on what size cities were doing their zoning code. Same thing with affordable housing policy. >> I would say um, the if you can bigger cities on the heat map. Yeah, it's more um this west phenomena. I would say a little bit north, but mostly this west metro where you've seen the most pressure on property value uh and and housing sale price, >> but anything on the population size of the city? >> No. >> So, we're seeing smaller cities do it as well. >> Well, if you look west of the lake, that's us. Um and then to the north, you'll see Plymouth. And then to the east of that, what's that town right there? >> Golden Valley. >> Is it Golden Valley? Okay. Sorry. >> And even Hopkins where you have some I mean you have a lot of affordable rental in Hopkins. They still have a policy that addresses housing in general um and what they expect as a city. So we counted them uh because they address it. So >> very interesting. >> Does that help? Yep. Can you just >> Yeah, >> I was just wondering if as part of that survey um there's any data on how they're hitting their numbers say from that council in terms of affordable housing creation >> that actually the whether or not people are meeting their goals is actually on a different dashboard um and that I can send you all the link but there's a whole regional dashboard that compiles the data. doesn't do it. H you can probably get it city by city. Um but the compilation is in the metro council database. >> I was wondering if there's any correlation between some of the data you collected here and like number of staff or you know some of these the >> how much effort goes into achieving the goal >> and well what's the effort and then are they actually >> what's the production? Yeah. >> What what is it actually? you're further than I am on that, but >> I didn't know if that was >> I'm going to present this at the Metro Cities forum just so that people can see what the data is showing. Um, again, I think a lot of people thought nothing was going on with zoning, but there was just I think that was we always just heard, oh, that city or this city. We wanted to know the whole picture. And I think what um hopefully after that forum, we'll get some more brainstorming and ideas. >> Great. Thank God for doing this. >> You know, just just a quick comment if I may. You know, um I I think yeah, I agree with Paul. I like looking for correlations, but you know, one of the you know, we've really done well on affordable housing through a lot of effort in our affordable housing policy and all that sort of thing. But it's probably not lost on me that well having a light rail line kind of go through your community has certainly had an enormous impact on the production of housing and affordable housing. And so, you know, I think separating, you know, as we kind of talk about and compare maybe um to other parts of the metro and so forth, clearly bearing that in mind is something that needs to be factored in. >> Correct. I agree. Where are we headed, Susan? Well, now um put this on. Having looked more regionally just what people are doing in terms of affordable housing, we're going to pivot and talk about our um zoning update. Just as a reminder, we started back in the end of February. We had to kick off meetings with a staff workg group that has about 25 um members on it from all departments uh in the city and then a community workg group that has 10 uh participants. Our consultant zone co was in for those meetings and it was just really a brainstorming session about what is working well with our code. Um what do different departments see as pinch points and kind of where do we want to go from there? And so there's just been a lot of thought up until this point and now we're getting really um we're getting started. Um public engagement uh has been we've had general public engagement um throughout the whole just on all of our uh different types of media. So um this is probably hard to see but the Minnetonka memo there was an article as part of the kickoff mailed to 29,000 people. We have Facebook followers and Instagram followers. So, we've had some updates on that. Um, we have over 1,300 subscribers to our planning commission packet. So, we're sending out information generally through through these um methods, but we've had three public engagement activities uh this summer and they served three different purposes. So, the first was at Summerfest. I saw several of you on that um hot and steamy day. We had a tent um over by the um all of the children's activities. I will admit I was one of those interns that started 24 years ago and this was my first summerfest ever and my mind was blown about how many people and uh how how uh popular >> how popular it was. And so there were 6,000 people absolutely that walked by our tent. Obviously, we didn't engage with all of those, but the purpose of this activity was just visibility to get people to to maybe look our way and see that we are indeed looking at our zoning ordinance. So, that was the purpose. We did ask some questions of people could engage with what did they think about lot sizes, building types in their neighborhoods, things that they would like to walk to from their neighborhood. I don't have that poster. Um the highest ranking things that people want to walk to are parks, trails, and breweries. Um >> in that order. >> Yes. For me. >> So that was our our first uh public engagement. Really that was again about visibility. Then the second was a survey on Minnotonka matters and the purpose of that was really to get the pulse of the community to understand who is interested in this. Um maybe why are they interested in this? Um the data was really less important because we knew it was not going to be statistically accurate. We knew these were going to be self- selectors to take this survey. but to see who was really engaged right off the start. Um, and we had 70 respondents. Um Peter Leman of of Leatherman will talk about why this is not a good survey, but um >> the statistically >> statistically accurate again for the purpose that we had it to see who is it interested >> and kind of what sides of the story are they coming on? um this was good and what we did find was that people that were engaged held very strong views on one side or the other of of this. Um so people were asked a series of questions. There were some visual prompts and so I apologize the packet that you received was just the responses but people weren't just asked a question and asked to respond in case you didn't take the survey. there was a a visual to each question so you could um kind of get a picture they got a picture and all of the houses except for a few from my own city um were from taken from the city of Minnitanka. >> Um this does not represent our uh population in terms of demographics. Uh 95% of the people who took the survey were property owners, 5% were renters. The majority were over 55 years in age. Um, and the majority lived at single family homes. But we asked them questions about how you would describe your home. Again, that's the the graph on the left. Everybody lives in a single family home. But then we asked them, where should different styles of homes be allowed in our community. And this was what was actually surprising to me from this um survey was that a majority of people felt that duplexes and twin homes should be allowed in any residential district. Um we actually heard some folks at our um community work group say the houses that are being built in my neighborhood are so big that if it was two houses and not one and it was the same size, I wouldn't care. So I think maybe that's where some of that is coming from. Then we asked the same questions about uh with those houses getting uh more units in them. So triplexes, quads, town homes, row homes. Uh and again people started feeling less comfortable the the more units we had. Then we had a third public engagement uh which was um why Peter Leman is here this evening to talk about that. and I'll just let him >> get into it. >> All right. >> Turn this up, too. >> There you go. >> Perfect. >> Well, first off, research is research. So, as long as you realize what the different types of research is, >> some is qualitative, some is quantitative, and as long as you understand what the research represents, you know, I think it's interesting the demographics you put up. I'm not surprised. They're going to be single family. They're going to be over the age of 55 and they're going to hold strong opinions. That's who responds in self- selected surveys. It's not surprising. I think it is surprising though how they come together. Going back to the previous one, I'm dying to know the two cities who didn't respond to you. >> I'm not telling you. >> Tell me offline. We don't want to say it publicly. >> They're probably going to respond and then we'll have them. Don't worry. We just have to get something out. No, I thought it was really and you know I will say over as I look at that >> heat map of who what cities the commonelli I see in the research I do is those communities have the same thing you have here and that's a concern on life cycle housing and when you talk about life cycle housing the starting point is affordable housing however you define it because folks are worried about a place for their kids to live That is what they have in common is those are all communities that people love to live in. They want their kids there and then they want a place to land when they need to downsize, what have you. >> So, uh, for this survey, it's a much smaller survey, most are, than your community survey. Uh, and so we spoke with 300 randomly selected residents across the community. 300 sample uh, projectable to plus or minus 5.8% 8% average interview time was 5 minutes. Very short survey for your surveys. Um yeah, interviews were conducted back in July. And just to put up some demographics, nothing um you know, all of them in line with what we see in your community surveys and census information, cell phoneon households were 60%, landline only nine, and both landline and cell phone 31%. A typical resident's been here for about 11 years. uh you do have 25% that have been here for over 20. If we look at at the makeup of the housing uh different than the the qualitative survey, 61% were single family homeowners. Uh then we had apartment uh dwellers at 16% and 18% indicated a townhouse or condo. Uh one in four indicated that they were renters. Uh homeowners 70 uh 3% 2% refused. Um, and then the average, the median comes in at over $500,000. The typical single family home self-assessed value. If we look at ethn ethnicity, just under 3/4 were white, 9% each African-American and AsianPacific Islander, and Hispanic Latino, 6%. And you can see the geographic distribution by ward with 27% in ward one, 25% in wards two and three, and 23% in ward four. 21% were 18 to 34 year olds. Well, we have 44% over the age of 55. And then women outnumbered men by 5% in this sample. First off, if we went through the we went through this list and asked, are there too many, not enough, or about the right amount of six different housing options? It's set up like a stoplight. Red stop, uh, green, more, uh, yellow, about the right amount. You can see, too. And if we take the plus or minus 5.8%. The single family homes and the apartments and condominiums are actually a perfect bell curve. Um you have equal amounts uh within the margin of error saying too many versus too few on those. The other four items and we gave definitions you know everybody you know accessory accessory dwelling unit. Uh 5% of people are going to know what you're talking about. Uh, so we talked about a small dwelling located on the same lot as a single family home either inside the home or in a separate building. You have to give it just not the acronym so they knew what they were responding to. Uh, we have 40% indicating uh too few unac dwelling units, 43% duplex twin homes, 50% triplex quads, 35% town homes or row homes. And so if you look at that's where the difference comes with too many too much is where folks want the focus to be as you look at afford uh housing options in the community. How committed are they to staying in the city? Um they're very committed uh not surprisingly uh if you look at all the quality of life research we've done for you uh folks want to be here. 81% say they're either very or somewhat committed. uh 10% that not to or not at all has nothing to do with the city of Minnesota of Minnitankka. It has everything to do with the weather in Minnesota. Uh is when folks talk about not to or not at all committed. If we look at the types of housing options they would consider in the future. Now this is where you're doing a tradeoff. Okay? If you're already in a single family home, if you're going to downsize, you're going to be looking for something else. If you're in a apartment or condo, you're going to be looking for a single family home. So, the single family home, not surprisingly, eight out of 10 uh see that as a housing option in the future. Like I said, apartment they want to move up uh if they want to downsize. Uh then a townhouse or row home, apartments or condominiums, duplex or twin homes, then the ADUs, and then the triplexes or quads. We asked folks if they were aware and I want to read these things for so everybody knows the context. We told them the city current Minnotonka currently requires new multi-unit developments to include some affordable housing. Were you aware of this requirement? 44% were, 56% were not. Now on any awareness question, your universe is never 100%. for the election coming up this November. If I do a poll the week before, twothirds will even know that there's an election this November. Um, so your universe is never that, but a growing awareness that it is in place. Uh, you know, you could probably push it to 15 uh or maybe 20 points. What about do you think this requirement is a good idea? Twothirds indicated is a good idea. uh the bad idea only 23% not a lot of intensity but if we look at intensity it's 4:1 good idea versus bad idea this is very different in my the 31st year of doing this in the '9s affordable housing was a naughty word you didn't say affordable housing it has much different different connotations today than it did 30 years ago what about the the we said the city could add an affordable housing requirement to new single family home developments. Um that actually has the majority 60% indicating they support 31% opposed. Uh intensity pretty equal a little bit of 2:1 good idea bad idea. Um but there's not a strong feeling on this. We then asked, we told folks, due to Minnotonka's long history of residential development, single family home lot sizes in Minnetonka vary between less than a tenth of an acre or about 4,000 square ft to 7 acres. Were you aware of this? Only 40% were aware of the disparity in the size of the lot sizes across the city. We told folks and we got a little >> they needed a tutorial. Yeah, a little city ease. You're not school district ease. It's actually much more understandable to education. Uh, but we told folks the majority of property in Minnetonka is currently zoned R1. The R1 city ordinance requires newly created lots to be a minimum of a half acre or 22,000 square ft. Would you support or oppose the city reducing this lot size? You have a majority, a small majority, but 53% indicate that they support equal amount strong support to strong opposition. Now, we followed up with the the supporters. So, the 53% on the right hand chart that's they're asked that should it apply to the whole city or certain areas. So, if they're thinking about changing the minimum lot size, um the preference is amongst supporters, a majority, 53% that it applied to certain iteries and not the city as a whole. We talked about smaller scale scale commercial areas and we gave them some examples. We talked about the Glen Lake commercial area. Uh the Hopkins Crossroads Cedar or I'm sorry, uh smaller scale commercial areas include businesses such as coffee shops, dry cleaners, or restaurants. Overall, do you think smaller scale commercial areas are a good idea? Absolutely. Uh 75% indicate that they think it's a good idea. Only 21% say it's a bad idea. uh about five to one strong strongly good idea versus bad idea strongly. Do you think that the smaller scale commercial areas should be located near to residential homes? Once again, a majority 58% feel that's the case. 32% opposed. Equal distribution on strong support versus strong opposed. Now on this on all of these, you do have limited awareness at this point in time. So the intensity will grow on both sides as the discussion as you approach changes. Basically if they go outside of where folks support levels are and what they prioritize at this point in time. Do they currently walk or bike to smaller commercial areas in Minnetonka? 44% say that they do. And how likely would they be to walk or bike to a small commercial area if it was located near your home? Now, keep in mind, 44% already say they do. So, they're already the behaviors already in place. Uh 62% indicate that they would do that. Uh 36% say they are not at all likely. I looked at the 44% that say they already do and not surprisingly, they're in the 62%. So you're building on approximately 15% >> onto people that are already doing the behavior. Uh adding this into their behavior. It always there's a discount too because it'll depend what's at the smaller commercial area. Is it an eighth of a mile versus 3/4 of a mile? All of those things come into play. But I think you could easily say that you would be approaching over half the community that would do walk or bike to a smaller commercial area if something was close to their home at this point in time. >> All right, that's >> we'll stop for questions. >> You want to ask questions on that or come back together? Okay. >> Then we'll go back to the presentation. Mayor, >> if you want to take questions, is that okay? >> Yeah. >> Okay. I saw in the packet that you also talked about the ages of the people that were supportive. You don't want to go over that? >> Oh, your executive summary. >> Oh, with the individual groups. >> Yeah. And you >> Yeah, I could I could talk about Is there a specific one? Well, just that I noticed that the that it seemed like younger people generally were more supportive of >> um reducing the setbacks and also reducing the lot sizes. >> It seemed to me that >> 100%. Yeah. Just to paint a broad brush with instead of going through individually. Yes. Uh the demog the key demographics in support of the changes the commonality was they were younger residents. um if they lived in a single family home already, it was on the under 450,000. The opponent's not surprising, it over the age of 55, more often single family uh homeowners over the price point of 450,000. So there's there's a generational uh you know position on good idea versus bad idea. >> Yeah. So, how does that fit in with the whole idea of the um older generation who wants to downsize in the city and the older generation that wants to have their kids live here? I mean, that seems different, doesn't it? >> It it is the definition and that those folks have been around for all my 30 years of research where affordable housing wasn't the p, you know, and that's why I mean this has changed. I mean, we did it years ago where we would pause in the in the list, do you support more affordable housing, less affordable housing? You know, too much, too little, about the right amount. And then we would say, would you support more housing at a price point defined by the Met Council? And that would vary every year. You know, I think back in the day it was like 180,000. It's probably 350 now >> for a single family. for a single single family home. The difference in attitudes and opinions when you attach affordable housing to a price point was always very different. >> The younger generation, they're together. >> The older generation still separating it. And so still that conversation to bring folks along to understand is to talk about price point specifically and you don't have the >> the >> confusion the the individual attitudes and opinions on affordable housing. You're re you're >> stereotype >> the stereotype. >> Exactly. >> Does that >> other questions? Um Paula >> Yeah. I just have one. I was having a little trouble wrapping my uh head around the setbacks and how you could you >> the R1 zoning. >> No, just the setbacks the 10 foot to what is it 10? >> Well, that was different than this. >> Are you talking about the qualitative survey? >> The quality? >> Yeah, that was the other survey. >> Oh. >> Or are you talking about his survey? I thought it was on this. Okay, great. I'm sorry. I had it under the wrong heading. Sorry about that. >> We can talk about that though later. >> Okay. I had a I had a question about um the commercial areas um because we have these smaller commercial areas. So I'm just do you do you think that people were sort of understanding are we talking about the existing smaller commercial areas? I'm I'm just wondering how people are we sort of suggesting that we might be developing other small commercial areas. Extending >> extending >> or extending extending >> extending. >> Yep. >> Do you think they understood that >> from this survey? Yes. Okay. They were given the paragraph describing what they were. >> Do you think they're a good idea? Do you think they should be located near residential homes? Are Yeah, absolutely. And I had another question because I couldn't I couldn't figure out how we would get it done, but I think it's on page 34 of the the whole packet, but it's like page three of the survey question 18. I think 19 maybe. Um, and it says the city could add an affordable housing requirement to new single family home developments. >> Yeah. >> And I I mean it's not so much a question for you as how would we do that? >> Speak speak up. Can't hear you. >> How would we do that? >> How would how would we do? Yeah. >> Yeah. you would just I mean you would the theory was and I think we were >> mixing a few things with this survey because we wanted to know >> some awareness things you about the affordable housing requirements the city how aware were people I mean >> that was lower than I would I would have liked I would have thought more people would have understood that that is a requirement today but that's okay that just tells us brand awareness and you know how people are um educated about the city we have to do more to to tell them what we're up I would say then the second part of that where you you could amend your policy and include single family housing developments of a certain size. And so that that's a pretty easy change for you to do. Not easy to execute, but it's easy to change. And so what's the tolerance for that? Do people think that's a good idea? Do they think it's not necessary? You know, what is the And that that was the vibe we were trying to get from the survey. Yeah, I I think that the survey, the questions that we came up with. Staff had some nebulous questions. Peter >> helped us say them correctly, but it it was just about um getting this sense. We didn't have answers to any of these questions. We wanted to get a sense of what people were thinking. And I think that's why we did the survey now before there's any generated standards information because we want people to think about it more holistically and then get in and that's why the work group got the results so they understood where people kind of stood in the community about the various issues that um Peter surveyed them about. >> Paty has a question. So to the commercial areas and the awareness. So what I'm thinking about like right within walking distance I have the you know >> no pizza and ice cream is available on foot in this question. >> Okay. But the thing about that is that that that that's a commercial area but that's not the same commercial area as say the commercial area in Glen Lake. Mhm. >> And so that's the other piece like how big are we talking when we're talking about small commercial areas, >> right? >> I think you gave them Glen Lake as an example. >> Yeah, we gave them we gave them >> described the neighborhood >> neighborhood types that we were talking about. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. We talked about the Glen Lake commercial area. um the County Road 101, Minnetonka Boulevard intersection, Hopkins Crossroads, Cedar Lake intersection, >> and then we said these smaller scale commercial areas typically include businesses such as coffee shops, dry cleaners, or restaurants. >> Yeah, I I mean that I did get that part, but my part my area is way smaller. I mean, like, wouldn't you agree that that area >> is is way smaller and we had some issues about that when the Mills Church project came along, you know? I'm just saying that that's that's a commercial area >> and I mean >> I think we're trying to get the sensitivity about >> how much more do people want, right? So like should we be taking more time to think about areas that could convert to commercial in already existing neighborhoods or should we >> maybe pull back from that idea? You know, try trying to figure out what people are thinking. How strong are they supporting that idea? >> Um, >> oh, I'm sorry. I was going to say I think the survey shows they're already doing it if it is close. >> What's the potential if you extend the policy and do more? >> I would say it's limited. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Okay. >> Um, and if I if I may, I think when I think of smallcale commercial, yes, you can think of it as geographical scale, but I also think Target is not smallcale commercial. No, >> a coffee shop is smallcale commercial and so it's it's the scaling of the business also, not just the geography. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Riddale versus Glenway. for us. >> My one of my questions had to do and I talked with Mike about it a little bit this morning is we do have the the qualitative >> and the quantitative >> and some of the questions that we asked that we it it seems like some of those questions are we going to be doing questions that are more quantitative about the same questions we're asking in a more qualitative way. And then if we're not, how are how are we rethinking? How should we be thinking about putting it putting that all together in terms of what we're finding out because it's it's useful. It's not not useful, but it's very >> it's contradictory and it's >> and it's very different. It's it is qualitative and quantitative. I don't think you'll we talked about this last week in the work group and we also talked about it at the staff work group that some of these things are so nuanced that um a lot of us talked about video >> instead of pictures instead of still imagery. So we talked about that at the work group >> to help people visualize a change so that we can get a more definitive answer >> um that that people feel more like okay I get what they're asking and they can answer the question. So, >> so like you're walking down the street correct with a 10 foot set >> 10 versus 20 with AI you can do anything you know right >> and if I could add to that it was a staff member not not a planner who suggested that idea but then also we have as you know a variety of neighborhoods in Minnetonka no neighborhood is exactly like no it's neighboring neighborhood >> and so to actually do those videos in Minnotonka neighborhoods to say here's a neighborhood that has 18,000 square foot lots and 20 foot setbacks and do that walk and then here's a neighborhood. >> How are we feeling? How did does this feel good? >> Here's a neighborhood that's >> person >> 30,000 square foot lots and 50 foot setbacks but all in Minnitonka so that there's you know some some context. >> It's not some other geog jurisdiction or anything like that that you're not showing pictures from the east coast. I mean that stuff drives me >> over them. Well, it seemed like when we um the more that you kind of broke it down by wards and age, then you had folks saying no. Um the old like the older generation, right? >> Oh, yeah. But uh I'm wondering if you um do the visual like the pictures and the setbacks and things and as you increase the amount of folks that you're surveying, wouldn't that seem that we would like especially because we have an aging population here. Wouldn't it likely increase the fact that folks would say they don't want these homes in their neighborhoods or their wards area because it seems like when you break it down by the wards, folks didn't want the diverse housing. >> Well, I think I don't to I think you make a good point, but I don't think we'd go back to having Peter back in to get opinions. Yeah. >> So, what we would do now is whatever the work group decides they want to do as far as changes, and that'll, by the way, that that's going to take a while. This is not tomorrow. >> Yeah. >> Um, >> but that kind of response from the community has to be developed and we won't necessarily know what they're in or, you know, if they want to answer the demographic information, they can, but they're not they're not required to. So, >> yeah. If I if I could I think this survey shows there's a willingness in the community for the discussion. >> Yeah. >> There's not a reflexive no. >> There's actually majority support along the way whether it's affordable housing requirement, changing the minimum lot sizes. Um so that kind of opens up the discussion for what it looks like and to your point to define what it looks like. realizing you don't you're not up against a majority in opposition. Now the specifics might grow opposition. Um what it probably will do though I is as it breaks down is you will have opinions intensify. Mhm. >> I don't see a 20point shift if you start defining this, you know, from support to opposition, but you'll have more strong support and you'll have more strong opposition. That's what will happen with it. But the community is amendable to this discussion and at this point awareness is limited. >> So that's also an opportunity to share with the community. >> Rebecca, excuse me, Kimberly, go ahead. I was just going to say in the our table in the workg group uh we discussed a little bit about if we want more >> input from um apartment dwellers like if if because that you know that that would be like the population of people who maybe would like to have a single family home or like to have like to have home home ownership but maybe have not had the opportunity yet. Um, and then I'm wondering also if we want if we want to talk to people who like work in Minnetonka that would like to live in Minnitanka that maybe again have not so far have the opportunity to do so and and see what their opinions would be. >> All good thoughts. Thank you, >> Rebecca. Um, first of all, I mean the the data again is so helpful and I in this manner in through a formal survey is just so valuable and I think we're learning a great lesson from this although you know there's a cost associated with it but to have it not be self- selected really >> um is helpful to understand where the community really sits. My I I'm wondering just as we're analyzing this and and maybe you've already looked at this. I'm wondering if some of the resistance is coming because I reflected on why Ward 2 had some resistance and is it really the areas of the city that have seen development pressure recently and that's being reflected. If you look at the Plymouth Road projects, you look at the apartments >> everything did you say Julie? >> Ridgedale everything at Ridgale. So I I I suspect that's part of what we're seeing that it's not even a demographic issue. It's just what >> people's experience of what they're >> development fatigue. >> Well, and just to comment on that too, I mean, yeah, I think there is some development fatigue in certain parts of Ward three, two, and certain parts of ward one. And you could also see when we saw the size of the four wards, I mean, you know, where where is the disparity and clearly with all the apartments being built in ward one, you know, the population is up there relative to the other wards. And so, yeah, I I think that when you've had a lot of roads closed and you've had a lot of orange cones and a lot of construction, um there is there is a level of fatigue. And we've certainly seen that in the conversation regarding um >> um things over with marsh one, two, and three. So those are those are things that affect affect opinions. There's no question about that. >> And I think too I you know as we move through the next six months, it we have to continue to engage and and try to figure out meaningful ways to pe for people to feel like they know what's going on. What are we posting? What information are we posting? But also to remember, you know, we have 15,000 single family lots. We have 9,000 apartment or renter dwellings. We have 4,000 town home or condominium dwellers. So, there's there's a whole um a whole difference in how you present data to all these different groups. And I I think Susan and I will continue to brainstorm from what we heard uh to make sure that we're making those meaning meaningful um points of connection with the community because it it is hard to describe this to all those groups of folks. And don't forget about businesses and don't forget, you know, there's just a lot of people in this mix when you talk about zoning. So it's not just one audience. Well, and I think the dichotomy of um we in apartments, we have people living in apartments who are aspirational and want to live in in in different types of housing as you know they're younger and you know most of us probably lived in an apartment at some point in our lives when that was the type of housing available. But then there's also a lot of people who um are looking at apartments from an opportunistic perspective that they they are looking to downsize. So the motivations are, you know, in the opposite direction in some ways, but are, you know, and they're there for very different reasons, but they're but they're there. And uh to kind of homogenize all that together, you kind of miss you can miss the story. >> And you know, some of the things that I've been thinking, I look at my my some of the young people in my life, not all of them, they don't want to they don't want to move hard. they don't want to maintain a single family home. You know, there's just a different >> anymore. There there's a different, you know, there's there's that kind of there's that kind of stuff, too. But the thing that really was sort of kicking around my mind is thinking about some of the more controversial projects that have come up recently, including um Mills Church. Many of the people that expressed some opposition to that um proposal were in general in favor of affordable housing. And I hate to use the term nimi, but it I do wonder, you know, if when people respond to a scientific survey, if it's if it's hypothetical and they're not thinking it's going to be in their neighborhood that the change is going to be somewhere else in the city, if they're like, "Yeah, it's a, you know, yeah, I believe in it. I believe in this conceptually." And then if it comes to their neighborhood and we're start starting to subdivide um because I even think that I can't remember I forget the name of the Glenn something or other um it by chastic it that the one house >> and we just subdivided it and it was just a little bit under >> um >> the the lot size because of the the rightway. I mean it's it's that you know because because of the right of way they lost >> the lot size and there was opposition >> and I don't know that they'd really notice it that much honestly you know once once it was built but it's that kind of thing where you know conceptually it sounds fine in a survey and then when it comes to your neighborhood not so much doubts, >> which was the telling question, >> right, >> with the >> Peter the question where you asked them if it was citywide or >> in certain areas >> certain areas are not in my neighborhood. True. >> We we we've tested the nimi factor before. Uh just like do you support more trails? >> Yes. >> Just not true. >> Do you support a trail alongside your house? You typically you'll have about 30 to 35% that will admit that they're okay. No, I don't. I want them elsewhere. Um, so the altruism is Yeah. is is somewhere they're self-aware enough to know that. But so I always discount to me the nimi factor is always approximately a third who support something in concept but they just don't want it next door >> in reality. >> In reality things always sound really good. So, >> mayor, we only have like 10 more slides. So, >> Oh, you do have more 10 more slides. Okay, let's let's keep moving. I was going to I was going to wrap I was going to wrap up with a discussion question. So, let's uh >> Can we quickly go through this? >> Yeah, let's do it. >> Okay. Just want to give you an update on what the workg groupoups have been doing. Um so, that was our public engagement. Um and as a reminder for everybody in the room and those may who may listen online um all of the properties in the city of Minnitankka development on those properties is really governed by two things. First is the comprehensive guide plan as you know that is a visionary document. You look at it every 10 years. We update it every 10 years. We look forward to what um development we aspire to have. It outlines our goals. And so when you hear the phrase low density, that comes from the comprehensive guide plan. The zoning ordinance then are the regulations for development to help us achieve those goals. So those are the rules and regulations, the granular detail, whereas the comprehensive guide plan is the larger. So the phrase lowdensity residential is from the comp guide plan. zoning would be like R1 is the zoning district and I apologize these are my same slides from the um community work group but I thought it would be important to measure or mention. So the community work group and the staff work group got together last week on Wednesday um separate meetings but we talked about our current zoning districts and then the land uses that we allow in those zoning districts. the existing ordinance. We have 14 general zoning districts, R1, R1A, R1 PURD, which has not been used since the 1970s, but it's still in the ordinance. So, we have seven or 14 of those. Then, three sight specific districts, which are the PID along 394 and the PUD. So, every time you see a PUD development come before you, it's not R1, R4, R, whatever. it's very specific to what's being proposed and that PUD becomes the regulations. So in draft for discussion purposes um the consultant and planning staff um have come up with some draft districts um that really consolidate um what we have right now going from those 14 or 13 or whatever that double number was down to four general districts. So just low density residential which would correspond to the comp guide plan. >> So people wouldn't get confused. >> So people wouldn't get confused. >> No, it that's not necessarily the case. But um simply >> to simplify medium density, high density residential and then a series of village center districts. Again, this hearkens back to if you were here for the 2030 comp plan, which was the comp plan, not the last one, but the one before. We really focused on these commercial nodes that we have throughout our community and um throwing some out there. Glen Lake, the Mills 101 and Minnotonka Boulevard, um Seven High, Ridgedale, um >> and developing zoning standards or districts for those different village centers. Essentially, the thought is a caribou coffee at Ridgedale >> is different than a caribou coffee in Glen Lake. >> And maybe we shouldn't have the same standards that apply to caribou coffee everywhere in our community. >> Um, I like the nodding >> over there. >> They like caribou coffee. >> They like carbo coffee, maybe. >> Um, and so the workg groups got together. They thought about those districts. Um we had great conversation at both the staff level and um the community workg group. They talked about those districts and then they talked about what kind of uses should be allowed in those districts, what kind of land uses, residential, commercial. Um and we heard great feedback on things that people thought were appropriate. We heard great feedback on what the heck is an assembly use. >> That was the most confusing thing. >> Me as a planner knew what it was. She knew it was >> as a planner. I just know that an assembly use is where people come together. It's a church, it's a school, it's a synagogue. But other people, even on city staff in a different department, thought somebody was assembling widgets or thought that people were getting an area where people could get together to assemble for protests. So, those were great conversations because one of our fundamental goals, now I'm getting sidetracked, this is not on my note. >> That's okay. um fundamental goals of this rewrite even if no standard is changed is that we have a document that anyone can read and understand >> even if they don't have a master's degree in planning that people should know what they can do on their property. Um and so >> so anyways changing >> we're changing that we're changing home occupation to or we're suggesting homebased business you know so that we're using a vernacular that everyone can use anyway. So, great conversation. My takeaways from this were both highle takeaways. Staff and the community workg groupoups suggested um the draft zoning district seemed reasonable and again more intuitive with our comp plan. By law, the comp plan and the zoning ordinance need to correspond to each other. Um that ADUs or accessory dwelling units and duplexes seemed reasonable as permitted uses in lowdensity residential districts. um that nonresidential uses should be allowed just as accessory uses in apartment buildings. For example, we had great conversation about daycarees um a daycare in the first level of an apartment building for the use of the people in the apartment building or or others. Why would that not be a corresponding type use? We don't allow that right now in our um code. um coffee shops in the lower level of of apartment buildings. Um there was suggestion that some uses that currently have to go through a planning commission and city council process that staff should be allowed to approve those so long as they meet conditions that are outlined in the ordinance. and staff regularly we keep track of whenever the planning commission approves a variance we say g we need to change this because every front porch gets a variance why are we having people go through a process and spend money >> just to get this approval and time and your time >> and so thinking through what are things that you all regularly approve on the consent agenda um and clearly defining in code what can be approved and what can't see people still have the opportunity then to come to you if they don't uh agree with staff's decision but um really again about improving the code making it more effective making it more efficient for everyone because all of our properties are impacted by it and then um again getting new definitions and minotaa specific if we're going to use photos they should be mitanka specific. Um, we should use very plain language. We should use charts instead of words when that works. Just making something that's more user friendly. >> Then finally, this was the the heavier lift was to talk about lot standards. So, we talked about what can be done on properties, but now let's talk about the properties themselves. Um, right now our lot standards, which are I think of as very objectively measured things, so building height, setbacks, lot width, lot area, those are weirdly in two completely different sections of our ordinance. Some of them are in the zoning ordinance, some of them are in the subdivision ordinance. I think that they should probably be all in the same place so we're not having to point people. Again, it should be a document that everyone can use. Um and what are we saying? We were the draft again for purposes of discussion um sets out some of these standards and the intent really is to reduce again conflicts between the comp plan and the zoning ordinance. Julie, did you want to ask your quiz question? >> Oh, it's late. That's all right. >> Um and uh >> no test tonight, please. >> No test. They don't want a test. >> They don't want a test. Um, so to correspond those two to support the goals for increased housing options and then to establish again those standards and village centers that are in context to the village center. Um, the work groups talked about this. >> Good. Thank you. >> Sorry, I had to get a selfie and it cut off my head. Um took that one. >> In general, um the work groups did suggest that these standards are more technical and we're going to have to require some more technical consideration like how does this impact snow plowing? How, you know, lot widths? Um or now we have more driveways potentially. Um how does this impact impervious surface? Those types of things need to be studied um by more technical um folks. And but people didn't seem twitchy or uncomfortable about lowering the standards. Um not not halfing them, not anything like that, but um >> seeing some reduction in in some of those standards, whether it's lot width, um buildable area, lot area, setbacks, um just accommodating for some reduction. So, our next steps are um we're going to synthesize everything that we heard from the workg groupoups um from some staff notes and we're going to check in with you, which is what we've done here, and then um get back with our consultant. All of the other city staff, their to-dos are all of the other things in the zoning ordinance that don't have to do with lots and uses. I'm thinking about um natural resources protections, parking, signs, all of that other stuff that also impacts property use that those experts need to start thinking about their sections of the code. We've already told them they have to be plain language, so they're going to be changed. Um but whether or not there are some standards in there that are um bothersome um to them. and our consultant then is going to take all of that at some point and get some language on paper um for us to start to um react to. >> Um now >> we won't see that >> we won't see that for probably six months from now. If you'll recall when we started this process, we were hopeful that by basically this time next year, fall next year, there would be um public hearings and public meetings at planning commission and city council level to consider an actual um document. So, we're still very early. We have nothing um no language on paper. We're just still in the the thinking stage. >> And that's all that I have. >> Now, we're done. >> Yeah. >> All right. Sorry, mayor. >> Well, no, that's good. Well, you know, I mean, this very um instructive and um council, any comments? No, our discussion questions. I'm going to read them all because I think we can I think we can deal with them all together. Um does the council have um any general observations or comments related to public engagement activities to date? One. Two, does the council have any general comments on the zoning calibration work? Two. And three, does the council have any comments or direction on the timeline? So, any council any comments? >> Um, I'll I'll start. Um I would just say as regards um public engagement, I mean I think we're doing a good job engaging and I think I think just um the kind of data that we got from things like like Summerfest, like we're learning sort of what what people are understanding or like how we might have to tweak what we're presenting to get better information. So, I I trust you. I mean, you already said, you know, you're thinking about it and um I think there are ways of getting better data and um I I would say, you know, we heard from um council member uh Wilburn about reaching out to people um in multifamily >> um communities. Um so and I think that would be valuable data. Um and I almost I mean you know the diff however we need to get to different populations of people also thinking about um because so so much of the time it's the older people that are responding um just getting finding ways to get more response from people that are under say 45 also um because they're the future and they're people with kids and you know they're the families that we want to populate our schools with. Um does the council have general comments on the zoning calibration work? It it seems to make sense. I mean I'm still sort of w it's very different. Um so yeah, I think so. I I have some questions that I'll ask offline about things that I wasn't understanding or that I think it would be helpful for us to understand as we're looking at this like um maximum versus minimum setbacks and what the build to line. >> Yeah. So those are like very technical and I was finding it I you know I think it would be helpful for us to understand that a little bit. um more um but um I think the zoning calibration work it it seems to work from from what I can see so far. I have to think about it some more and um I actually like the timeline. I I I I I'm hoping that the U mayor can stay engaged since he's on the the working group pass the time. Sorry, mayor, I don't want to let you go quite yet. Um so, but I mean there's just so much institutional knowledge there. I want to make sure we get this right. I'm not in an all fired hurry. I think it's more important to get it right than do it fast. And I think that it takes a lot of thought. We'll have to chew on a lot. Um the community will have to chew on it. So I actually like that that it's it's a long timeline. And I and you know, you described some of the things that we really even didn't get to like the business community and other um parts of the community that we haven't really >> talked about yet. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Thank Thanks, Deb. Um Rebecca, >> thank you. Um, I won't repeat. I I largely agree with what Deb said, but I think, you know, I think back to the road show that you and Lauren did. Um and I think everywhere really good that go back to that because we're you know at the mall at basketball games >> and maybe there's an opportunity for interns in this work too to really be b you know bold in approaching people rather than just table waiting. Yeah, because >> people do, you know, my my sister would walk up to the table. I shared with you the personality of my sister and she would get involved, but you know, my other sister would just walk right past and never really So, some people really need to be asked. And I think that's important because um if we're only hearing from the people who want to be heard from, we're not getting the accurate reflection of what the what the temperature is. I agree on the timing. I mean, I don't have any questions about the substance because I think it's still vague enough that but the timing we you don't want it to be this thing that never ends. But also, you want people to be aware that it's deliberate that there are multiple opportunities for them to be involved at kind of each stage. And that again is something that's pretty new for us is to get input. Um, well, we do it sometimes, but to really get input many times along the way in a very concrete way. So, Um, I would hate to miss out on doing that by speeding it up. I think it makes sense and I agree. I think um, keeping as much as we can keep the continuity on the work group going is is great. So, if there are commissioners that are falling on, you know, terms are expiring or whatever, if we can keep them around, that would be really great. >> That happened with Lee. Lee's not the chair anywhere, but he's still serving. >> Excellent for the evening. >> Thank you, Rebecca. Any any other comments, council? >> I guess I guess I have a um question. Um >> is there any way to include students like high school students in the survey question? Like maybe and I know that you know um >> this is for city questions not um zone. I forget the name of the company. I'm sorry. >> Zone co. Yes. Mhm. >> But like if we could ask students who are like high school like seniors, you know, maybe asking them about their future far as coming back to Minnetonka because I think that also would help kind of um shape like our development, our housing development because some people kind of have in their mind that they're leaving and they're not coming back because I know um Kelly Morrison was talking about um when I spoke with her she was talking about there was a increase of folks who was moving from Minnesota going to other places in particular we were talking about people moving down south but and mind you we don't have to worry about that demographic as much u because these usually your black and brown folks moving back down south where they came from um most of the times but just thinking about students going off to college are they going to be returning back and are they going to be looking for the affordable housing and so it would be nice to maybe try to capture um survey and questions from >> high school in our work group with the staff we did talk about youth engagement not just high school but any young adult maybe is the better term that I used >> yeah I think that I can't remember what staff table um it was but they talked about um they use the phrase the residents of tomorrow >> you know the residents of the future and um getting a sense of what They Yes. So at the high schools, maybe at the junior highs where youth gather, you know, it's at the Williston, it's at places where youth gather. Yeah, I think that's a good >> good idea. Question. >> Yeah. >> And then as far as the timeline, I think >> for me it's the slower because if you rush things, you you know, you'll miss opportunities. So, if we could, you know, take our time and just continue to um use the groups and try to be consistent with the folks that's there and encourage folks to stay >> because if you start changing a lot, >> yep, >> people are kind of tend to get lost um and what's happening. And so adding new people on and kind of phase phasing folks out and then bringing new people on is >> there's no escape hatch. Yeah, it's going to be >> you're staying m you're stay >> it's going to be a little more difficult I think so >> um thank you for that um anything any other comments council Paula >> yeah thank you um thank you mayor I I'm not going to repeat uh kind of all the comments on engagement calibration work and timeline um that have already been said um I would like to get a sense of for council input on certain issues like I talked with Mike this morning about you know one particular issue that I don't think I'm going to bring up now because it's kind of detailed about ADUs and how we're dealing with that. So how like if we have some reaction to this like I had something and I wanted to bring it to attention or had question what is our timeline >> for bringing that up somehow and to whom >> I guess you know I don't want to sit here and spend 15 minutes talking about ADUs and garages and detached and things like that that you know here but is there a a a channel for us to >> Well I think that's what the council members, the mayor and council member Wilburn are for. It's to reflect anything that the council has discussed. So if you had comments or things that you want, that is the group to tell so that we because we will dive into that stuff. We will say here's the idea for ADUs and this is how the ordinance is going to work. But the problem uh with the timeline is the council gets updates every quarter >> and you are the final arbiter at the end. >> The work group is doing the work. >> Okay. So we it's it's not really a but you have to share that with your >> Okay. We we do it through our >> leazison. Okay. Thank you. >> Otherwise I think it's going to get too like then we got seven people telling us what they're >> too many directions. >> Too many directions. So if if you tell one of the uh council members that will help us funnel the information. I think that would be my hope. >> Um okay. >> Now that doesn't mean when you when you meet like this that you can't mention things and if the majority of the council think that's a then we'll go back to the work group with it. But I want to use the work group as the sounding board for all of the so that you get the final product in the end. But if there are certain issues you're passionate about then I would share that >> passionate about just that I see issues but I don't I don't need to do that now. I guess the only other comment and question on I see a lot of and I think the engagement is great. Um, I'm hoping that there's a chance also as we go through this to educate them in terms of maybe doing a little bit of leadership and turning in terms of shaping in terms of smart density kind of issues that I'm sure you're you know far more knowledgeable about than I am uh regarding you know smart growth and smart density. How do we if those are things that we're interested in, how can we present that, educate people about that, help shape that understanding of, you know, not only the residents of the tomorrow, the you know, what do we want the city of tomorrow to to look like? >> You know, we did something like that. That's an interesting point. We did that. I don't know if some of you remember we did a what did the city look like 50 years ago when we >> you know and we did this kind of montage. Do you remember this Rebecca? I don't know if it was on the planning commission that you were but it was very helpful for people to understand okay we are changing and we have changed >> so don't think that we're not going to so that that it opened their eyeballs a little bit about what >> how to think about this look at what's happened the last 50 years now what's going to happen in the next 50 you know so I like I like your point about education I'm not sure I would call it smart density to the public but >> and when I I get what you're saying. I get what you're saying. >> Or what other cities are doing that look like ours that are innovating in and what we feel are or what you know some people would say are are good ways to go forward to I don't I think >> yeah I'm just careful about the language we understand. >> Yeah. And I think that >> I I agree absolutely with the education piece. I think we want to get some more things flushed out with the workg groups because as a staff person I I want to give my um professional opinion but I don't want to influence necessarily the discussion of that work group. And so if I Yeah. If I were to >> if I were to advocate strongly for something called um smart density, but but the work group itself um that wasn't something that they agreed with. I guess I just don't want to influence their conversation. >> I'm not sure if I'm >> I think it's educating versus influencing. >> Okay. Yeah. Yeah. What agreed. Yeah. Little little Yeah. Got to walk that line. >> Okay. Good point. Thanks, >> council members. Anything else? Um, I've got a couple. Um, what a shock. Pardon me. Go ahead. >> I'm sorry to jump in. So, you go last. Just want to go back to um >> Paul's question about can you so as a council member just to reiterate council you can communicate like Paul you can talk to Brad or to Kimberly but just cautious meeting there oneonone conversations but you can't build a coalition of more making sure you're aware of >> you can as mentioned express those express your thoughts and ideas through on the >> Oh, yes. The disclaimer >> always good. >> The disclaimer. >> All right. Well, sorry. Thank you, Mayor. >> No, no, that's good. Well, thank you. And you know, this is helpful and you know, I've seen this now the second time and I'm still wrapping my arms around it. I mean, there there's a lot here. Um, so I'll just make a couple of observations. I mean, I think, you know, I I think the um on the public engagement piece to me that's intriguing is, you know, there's there's kind of a there's a a bit of a dichotomy. And so, um you know, we're an aging population. I mean, 65 and over is what 25% of our population. That's um that's that's that's not insignificant. But I also think, you know, we have to we have to deal with that. But we have to be future oriented in how we build our city too. So, you know, I think there's there's an aspect of okay, maybe we have to segment our data a little bit and look at it a little differently be based upon the um you know, whether you're coming or going, if you will. Um to to be to be >> I will not say that either either. >> As somebody as somebody in that in that in that um in that, you know, white-haired group, I can I can make observations like that. Um but um you know so I think you know being mindful of of the kind of the edge segmentation and the perspectives of the group I think is important. Um, one of the things that I really like to to see is um, you know, as somebody who's been actively involved in fighting against state preeemption of cities, the idea of finding more ways to administratively approve things in cities to simplify the process because I've met with housing first. I've met with a lot of these, you know, preeemption advocates and they say, "Well, the reason we do this is because it's so it's so hard to get stuff done and it takes so long." And I think if we can be one of those cities that is proactively saying we're not against pro preeemption or we're not we're not against simplifying and streamlining processes, but we are against preeemption because our city is distinctive and we want to continue to be distinctive. But there's a lot of things that we can do better, more intelligently, s simpler, and maybe take some of the power of their argument that they're going to continue to bring to the legislature and say, you know, we are really on the same page. We we support housing. We support affordable housing. We need more housing. We have the same goals. We have different approaches for getting there. And if we can make those approaches more similar without preempting the authority of residents and cities, that's a positive thing. So I think um I think that's really an encouraging piece and and I and I you know I really like the whole simplification of >> the types of designations we have. Yes. >> Um, you know, I mean, our zoning code has grown incrementally, and when you grow incrementally, it it may be a lot less strategic than you want it to be. And so, you you make these incremental improvements or we well, that was a bad way to do it. And so, we fix that, but we don't erase the old code. We just add to the code, and it gets difficult and more complex. And I appreciate the fact that we're taking a step back and saying, okay, strategically, what do we need to do and how can we simplify the process, make it more logical and more sensible for our residents and these are real improvements that's going to make, frankly, life in Minnetonka better for a lot of people and for the people who want to develop here. So, that's the one comment. And then the last the last comment is um I talked to Mike a bit and I know he he'd shared some of the things that he'd heard on we were talking about the setbacks and you know my appreciation that people have a hard time visualizing you know what we're talking about. we may know or we may not know but in act like we know um but but you know I think anything we can do to help people visualize is better and I would encourage us is there I mean I like the idea of you know I I mentioned Mike maybe we need to do a bus tour to show what these different things look like >> but or maybe there's technology >> that might be next year's bus tour >> or or or maybe maybe there's technology maybe there's a way to do that with virtual reality or whatever ever to, you know, so people can really see what the differences are and be discerning because they've seen it in Minnetonka neighborhoods. I mean, I think I I think the the more the easy the more we can help people visualize what we're talking about, the better job we're going to be. So that's >> and I think it's so important when we're talking about a 10-ft setback and we still want to maintain a boulevard feel that gets real hard >> and we want to make sure you know that people understand the give and take if we do that right >> for instance. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. No, I I I've been thinking >> so I think I mean I think I think we're on the right track. I'm good with the timetable. Um I don't disagree with Ky. I mean, I think I'd rather make these changes um slowly um rather than too fast. I think too fast will really be a problem. Um but I think the timet that you've laid out um makes good sense. >> So, >> more work to do, Susan. And I do think like all of the technical stuff that was in here that like what I was referring to before because if I I mean those are the kinds of things we really need to understand to make sure we're making it good. So the education piece applies to us too. >> True. >> You're our focus group. >> All right. Staff, did you get what you needed from us? >> Absolutely. >> Okay. >> We'll be back in a couple months. You didn't skip anything or miss anything or >> No, but we'll be back and give you another update, tell you what we've been working on. >> All right, the next item is um 30 minutes of open time and conference debrief. Um so Mike, I think you've got handouts. >> Can we can we take a like quick? >> We can take we could take a quick break. Let's do that. Let's take five the convening opportunity or a location for convening so those people know where to go. >> Yeah. >> You know, I mean I mean it's almost like maybe it's another workforce center in Minnetonka or something like that. I mean I've I you know there's there's I think there was one in St. Louis Park and there's one in Bloomington and so forth. Well, are you saying we need that in Minnetonka or are we saying we need something totally different than that? Well, I was thinking about something different, but um I don't know. I think you all mentioned Mike and Julie, I don't know if Julie saw it, but I think y'all went to a hub in Brooklyn Park, a new building in Brooklyn Park, and they kind of created something similar to that where it was like a hub where um they have businesses um >> incubator. Yeah, it's Yeah, it's like an incubator and and it's been happening in other cities and so I've been hearing about them. um haven't really visited one, but I know that they're doing it because I get invited to these open, especially in North Minneapolis, they're always doing something, but they already have the building there. >> Like Emerge has a um Emerge has like this technology. They bought a old library and it's it's really nice building and you go there there's computers and bit they have folks coming in um chambers of commerce NDC's >> if anything you want to know about type business opportunities Minneapolis have it like yeah >> they definitely have it so I go there I tend to go to those events so >> that's kind of what I'm thinking um but also those buildings also do resource fairs there it's not because I've already done one for the state like I literally went there and did a resource fair for their community in Minneapolis. >> So, um it's being done. Um but I was thinking more of a like that >> Brooklyn Park I kind of envisioned when Mike was telling me about it and I was like our picture is really nice. I kind of just put I painted my own picture in my head. So that's kind of what I was thinking for something like out here. But I know that that takes money. But in the meantime, we can do a resource fair on like Mills Church lot or our city lot or somewhere. I mean, like we could do something like that and like pop-up events. >> Well, we we do a we do a farmers market. So, you know, I mean, theoretically, you know, you could say take that model. I mean, it's easy to say and hard to do. We know how to do a a farmers market. we don't necessarily know how to do one of these, but I think I think I think you know pursuing that and looking at ways of doing it. But again, it does take resources that you just don't snap your fingers and have happen. But I think continuing to talk about and and see what types of opportunities are may make sense. And there's >> there's probably a lot of I mean there's probably a lot of organizations that like to come to Minnetonka, you know, for that type of purpose. So >> local businesses, too. Yeah. Will donate a lot of times. They they do a lot of donating um to those type of events to help partner and put those kind of events on. >> All right, Mike, do you have any comments? >> Well, I would say like for maybe just to maybe reframe it if you want to play along with me for a second. Reframing it as rather than >> let me ask it this way. What what's the desired outcome? So, I think of the policy question for the council is what what what are you trying to achieve by doing this? So that's an idea and it's a really good idea, but what would that accomplish? So I think it would be helpful to understand what you want to try to accomplish. Then we can really kind of frame up what's the desired outcome. Then we can wrap around what are some what are some ways to get there? Maybe it's a fair, maybe it's something else. >> So I I would encourage us or encourage or maybe ask the question back of what what do you what are you looking for um in doing something like that? I think for me it's just a place where people can go to be able to um have support around businesses and employment opportunities. So um and resources I don't know if that's >> Do you think resources are lacking? >> Do I think resources are lack Yeah, some Yeah, I do some in some areas not all. Yeah. >> So are we If I could just ask kind of following up on that, are we looking to create more opportunities or just making sure people know and have access to the ones that exist? Because, you know, >> do you want to recreate wheels or are we looking to use the wheels? >> Use the wheels that we have already. and how best, you know, is a one-time resource fair better than communicating ways to connect with what's over there because I really appreciate all the different ways that the different um >> departments in the city have different things like, you know, there's tax and all that, >> but I do I like your idea about packaging because maybe we can do a bit, you know, because you kind of have to look in different places to get all those. and what what the common denominator is for a lot of these folks is that they're falling on economic hard times. I mean that's the end of the day or they need a job. So maybe a first step >> um would be and I'm not asking staff to do this. This is where organizations can do this as well or volunteers um is you know the council members who are really interested in this is start you know by putting together a list with links that's kind of consolidated where people can easily find You know, so there is a link from the homepage on our website where there is a link from every um issue of the Minnotonka memo. There is, you know, for those of us who do newsletters, there's a link from every one of our newsletters. Are you, you know, are you are you needing help, you know, resources? Just making sometimes it's not creating more resources, it's creating better access and knowledge about what's already there if that makes sense. >> Yeah. No, I think that's a good point because I mean I think a lot of what we're talking about or talking around exists and how can we how can we bring that together with a bit more of a Minnetonka focus but I do think a lot I think the county is doing a lot of the things that that are being requested here but sometime maybe they're not as physically evident in our city. They're not physically evident and it's it's not that accessible. I'm, you know, certainly for the things that I'm talking about, >> it's almost impossible to say that it's not accessible is an understatement. So, um, yeah, I mean, I that's what I I mean, >> yeah. No, I'm just No, I think he Yeah, I think it's a really good really really good suggestion >> because I don't know how, you know, do you have a resource center that is, you know, staffed by whom? Um, you know, are all these representatives going to bring people to staff these centers? Are we going to ask eventually Minnotonka taxpayers to staff? >> I know. I hear what you're saying. >> So, I I mean, I'm just trying to think. >> No. And and yeah, and we we need I mean eventually >> and and a more clear picture of exactly what we're asking for, what we want to do. >> But I I think it's a good Go ahead, Julie. That's a good >> um just a we just got done with the EIP, so >> you can always amend it. Um but I think that is the place where something like this goes. Um feels a little mushy to me because I'm not quite following exactly what you're about everybody is saying. >> Um but that to me is the right place. If you have an idea for a program or a offering of the city, that's where it should go and then we figure out the details of how to execute, right? >> So, I don't know how to handle that, Mike. So, but that's where it should go. >> Can't be just a one-off. And >> to Julie's point, I to say it another way is when looking at either it's the EIP or like our strategic plan. Part of our framing up a strategic plan is to make sure we're all in sync with what we want to do. And so if there I say desired outcome to strengthen perhaps strengthen accessibility to services, >> seems like that might fall as a potential strategic goal of trying to make resources more readily available or something to that effect. And then then we can operationalize it through some >> action steps. But I think it's something we can revisit again. And I think as we frame up next year, some goals for next year and and reframing up our desired outcomes and we can look at our EIP if there's something in there about resources and how we best um package if you will package our resources in a way that it's accessible and more knowledgeable for residents, >> right? And and just to kind of summarize quickly, I mean, we are anticipating um a growing need for services as other programs around the from different levels of government and nonprofits are are diminished. And so, how do we react to that to um in a in a way that is focused on our residents? And so, that's more of a problem statement than it is a solution. But but you know elevating that concern I think is is kind of what we're talking about here. I don't think we're solving it here >> and and um and I think so that's a first step >> and being mindful of time. We have to get to Paula. So >> Paula, you've got an issue a budget related issue and um >> very quick um this was just kind of grew out of our recent discussions. I already talked to Mike about it. Um see So, um, you know, just kind of reflecting on on kind of, uh, the recent timeline and our budget discussions, and this would be going forward, not for this year, anything like that. Um, more questions for staff on making sure we discuss this, maybe getting timelines, not only for the budget process, but for council input and feedback on it. And, um, maybe potentially, you know, a little bit more time with like the EIP and CIP if we're going to really, you know, provide meaningful input back on it because if you know, I don't not sure that four days is really kind of adequate time like we need, you know, if it was one thing if that was the first bite of the apple, but if you know really we need to provide meaningful feedback, um maybe, you know, consider how that might happen and if four days is really enough time to go through the full EIP and CIP and provide meaningful feedback. I mean, personally for me, I would appreciate more time because really a lot of times that first time when we get presented with things, there's a lot that comes out that maybe isn't um easily digestible in that four days when you're getting through, you know, four or 500 pages of stuff. And and so, you know, perhaps a few more days, weeks, whatever. to do that. Just kind of rethink the, you know, timeline or reflect and see if there's anything that could be adjusted. Um, and then the other thing that I I kind of spoke with Mike about recently was it was one thing to understand kind of the levy budget and the, you know, 59 million that we're spending on that, which is sometimes changed by grants and other things. But, um, then we've got the bigger budget. It's kind of like that's this and then you got the big hundred million dollar budget of the whole city. And for me, maybe other people have a better handle on it than I do, but I'm not necessarily understanding very well how those pieces Sorry for the visual work together. And so, you know, I'm focus I've been focusing on that 60 million and not really necessarily understand how the pieces go together. So you know things like um special revenue funds is that >> well no not special revenue funds more the overall budget and statement of activities what they you know what businesses call a statement of activities which for you know governments is sources expenditures and change not just related to the levy and that budget that $60 million budget but related to the overall hundred million dollar budget that the city has overall and and where the levy and that related budget fits into that. You know, we've got the, you know, 40 funds. I don't that that may be really too wonky for most people, but um, you know, certainly in in terms of at least a high level kind of picture of of that in terms of so we understand, you know, when somebody says to me, well, you know, I can explain to them, well, $60 million that's, you know, basically the mostly the levy. Um, and that's what we're, you know, what we're spending on that. We're also spending >> Well, you know, I think, you know, >> or is that important? I guess that's my question. >> Well, no, I I think I mean, anytime the city spends money, it's important. And, um, and while it's not all tax dollars, um, it's still expenditures and, you know, I mean, I think about, you know, our development fees. I mean, you know, to development fees in in in Minnetonka when you're building a, you know, hundred million dollar project are significant. Well, you know, that's part of that 40 million outside the the 60 million. So, there's and you know, and and I'm selling passes to, you know, Shady Oak Lake and and you know, all there's a lot of sources of money and we're in a lot of businesses and, you know, those businesses are, you know, I mean, are are sustained through those fees. Yeah. So, I I think getting the whole picture and um and understanding the the you know, sources and uses of funds is really what you're you're you're looking for. And I think that's a reasonable ask. I mean, and Darren could probably maybe, you know, maybe maybe a little tutorial on that would be good for the council or and and you might argue that well, we do that, but but I think, you know, maybe getting um you know, because Yeah, I I do. I I mean I understand the question you know okay six our levy 60 million but we spend hundred million okay how's that work where's it come from and what are we spending it on I think is a legitimate question >> yeah it is and Paul and I had I thought good conversation on on what she was sharing and I I'll connect with Darren I think we got some ideas on how we can >> hopefully not add the presentations but certainly again talk about re repackaging it some of the slides that really kind of illustrate it in a way that's more readily or more easily understandable, not just for council, of course, but certainly residents. It's >> it is there's a lot of moving parts to our budget as we all know and it's it's complex. There's 40 different funds and >> we spend eight months at it and there's a lot of things happening, but I think there's some ways that we can enhance our some of our slides to to illustrate that. Well, I think yeah, I think if we maybe take a step back, um, you know, I mean, one of the things that has been, you know, I haven't always been successful at it, but as being an elected person in Minnetonka, I mean, I think the most daunting task any of us have is we tax our residents. We are taking their money. And I want them to feel that they're getting a good buy. Um, so having them understand where our money comes from and where it goes to is is I think is important. And I think that that doesn't have to be overly complex, but I think we get close to it. We start talking about enterpris enter enterprise funds and these different sources we got and you know we got all these different fund balances and I'll I'll be I' I've been doing this for over 20 years and that still confuses me some. But if I if I simply say okay we have tax money we have tax revenue it goes here here and you know we have capital and we have um operations and then okay and then we have all of these other things that the city charges for and that's where this money goes and whether we talk call about enterprise funds or not I think I think there are ways that we could pictorially simplify it and I think that would make our residents feel better not they're not going to say they're undertaxed but they're going to feel better about how we go about things because we do things in a very buttoned up and sophisticated way, but I think sometimes it gets hard to explain. So, I think we can talk about that. We >> get there. >> Yeah. Is there anything else before we wrap it up? We have to talk about next month. >> Yeah. Thank you. Uh ready to move on. Um C mayor and council. So, these are last quarter. So October uh just so you're aware October 27th next study session Miranda and I will be out. We'll be at a conference um that that night. So opus we have a Julie and Darren uh will be kind of we'll be here that night leading that conversation. So, we'll talk a little bit about opus, next steps on opus because if you recall, we we as a city did receive 725,000 for planning and that is going to start to get underway. So, we want to update the council on where that is going and timelines with that. And then Darren will be here with Will Manchester to talk about the infrastructure, the rate studies and asset management. Uh and so going back to budget, just again one of the one of the many moving parts of our budget is enterprise funds. And so uh will Manchester along with our consultant and Darren are working on evaluating our current assets. So our water pipes, sewer pipes, the condition of those and then really looking at long-term planning for financing improvements to those systems. So that is coming forward. So that will be a a conversation in October, November. Then we do have coming back to you is the general fund. And so you will have an opportunity to look at uh the general fund as well as the CIP, EIP. That'll be brief, but then we'll really want to spend more of the bulk of our time on our enterprise fund. So really October is kind of setting the stage for November with our enterprise funds where we'll we'll talk deeper into the utility funds, utility rates, water, sewer, storm, garbage, recycling, um >> fun times, >> Marsh, Williston, >> all ice arenas, all that kind of stuff. In November, we do have 30 minute open time slotted there. And then December, as as you know, it's our annual kind of more the planning planning meeting for 2026. So all the activity listed up there >> and Mike Shady Oak will do on >> Oh, and Shady Oak. Uh thank you. So, uh there was just real quickly and it's in your email inbox. Uh there's an article and appreciate Dr. Wilburn pointing this out. There is an article in I think this week's or this might in fact been yesterday's or today's Minnesota Business >> Journal on on Shady on the Shady Oak LRT station. >> Okay. >> And so the the article I would say is a little skewed in in what's happening. Um the staff is planning the staff Minnetonka staff has been working with Hopkins staff. Um, this goes back to actually a 2015 2016 visioning plan. When rewind the clock over 10 years ago, both cities got together and looked at that whole light rail area. City of Minnitonka abuts that property. So, there's a visioning plan done at that time. Over the last 10 years, our staff, Hopkins staff, you know, we connect from time to time on on that. Uh most recently uh city of Hopkins wanted to take a little deeper dive on whether that plan is relevant, whether it needs to be modified. So City of Hopkins took a lead role on that. Our staff has been included. >> The plan is being updated more so because of Hopkins because our our side of the equation's we're kind of along for the ride. I would say a little bit. >> It's on the planning commission agenda. >> It's on the planning commission agenda this week. It's coming and we're planning to bring that I think if we have time on November on the November just to give you you as a council an update on that as well. >> Yeah. >> But anyways, there's an article out there that's in your email. It kind of paints a little bit narrative on different narrative on really what's happening. >> All right. >> Sensational. >> Sensationalizing. >> Okay. All good. Are we are we done? >> So that's it. Yes. Thank you. >> Thank you all. >> Thanks.