Good evening. I'll call this meeting to order. Tonight is June 8th. This is a me regular meeting of the Minnitonka city council. I'd ask all of all of you who are able to please stand and join us for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Miss Larson, please call roll. Calbertt >> here, >> Romey >> here, >> Kley >> here, >> Foster Bolton here, >> Maxwell >> here, >> Wilburn >> here, >> Shaq >> here. Thank you. Um, before we get started, I just want to note that we do have a very full agenda tonight and so we've got a few ground rules that we've implemented and that we will follow in tonight's meeting. Um, first of all, if you are here to speak on item eight, you um can fill out a note card in the back of the room indicating that you're here for that and we will take comment. Um, also I will be taking comment tonight. We have a public hearing, of course. We'll take comment on that item 13A. Uh we'll also be taking comments on 14B and 14E. Um we do not take comments on concept plan reviews here at the council level. Those happen at the planning commission. Those of you that intend to to make comments on any item, again, fill out one of these little cards, put them in the box. staff will um bring those to me so that we can get everybody queued up. I would remind you that we ask that comments be limited to three minutes and we'll we will um stop you then regarding the items 14 B and E. I'm going to ask everybody to keep their comments to two minutes if they can and we will um end the comment period at 3 minutes. We'll still have the three minute timer. So with that, moving along, we have approve item four, approval of the agenda and Mr. Funk, we have an agenda. Yes. Thank you, mayor. Good evening, council. A couple items for your consideration on tonight's agenda. First is related to item 6E, which is the ebike policy student presentation. Uh this item is proposed to be added to the agenda, so it was not originally part of the packet that went out last Thursday. item materials are attached to the agenda and and we'll have have a presentation this evening from the Minnetonka Vantage public policy students and they will present their ebike policy recommendation. So that'll be item 6E edition. And then moving on to item 10D which is the proposed assessed clean energy special assessment for 12501 Whitewater Drive. There are two suggested changes to section 2.06 06 of the resolution really clarifying a couple things. One is the finance period rather than 30 years in the original resolution, it is 29 years. And then the second item uh because of the one-year less time frame changes the acrual date to January 1st, 2027. The other item for your consideration this evening is item 14B related to short-term rental ordinance. Two uh mentions on this item. Uh first, council member Raley requested that two documents pertaining to Tonka Bay's shortterm rental ordinance be provided to the council. Both documents have been attached to this item. And then second, additional comments have been received since last Thursday through Minnetonka matters. As you know, mayor and council, a packet goes out on Thursday. So there's been comments received after last week's publication. Those are also attached in your agenda. And then last related to item 14 C is a concept plan for Quick Trip at 9800 and 9820 Minnitonka Boulevard, 3119 F Street, and 3112 Gizmo Lane and 31 3100 Gizmo Lane. So again, neighborhood feedback has been received after publication of the packet since th since last Thursday and those have been attached to this agenda item. So the recommended action from staff is a motion to add item 6E to the agenda and then approve the agend agenda as amended. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Funk. Council, I would take a motion to approve the agenda as amended. Council member Calbertt. Thank you, Mayor. I make the motion to approve the agenda as amended. >> Council member Maxwell. >> I second. >> I have a motion by Council Member Calbertt, a second by Council Member Maxwell, and Miss Larson. Please call RO. >> Calbert. Yes. >> Romey, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Maxwell, >> yes. >> Wilburn, >> yes. >> Shaq, >> yes. Motion carries. Item five is approval of the minutes. And we have three sets of minutes. 5A, the April 20th, 2026 study session minutes, April 11th, 2026 study sess session minutes, and excuse me, May 11th, 2026 study session minutes, and May 18th, 2026 regular meeting minutes. Council member Calvert. Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to move approval of the April 20th, 2026 study session minutes, the May 11th, 2026 study session minutes, and the May 18th, 2026 regular meeting minutes. Council member Romey. >> I will second. >> Thank you. I have a motion by Council Member Calvert, a second by Council Member Romey. Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Calbertt, >> yes. >> Rome, >> yes. Kley, >> yes. >> Maxwell, >> yes. Wilurn, >> yes. >> Shaq, >> yes. Motion carries. On to item six, which is special matters. And we have our first special matter is Representative Patty Achim. I'm not sure I see her here. Um, now, Council Member Achim was on the coun or excuse me, Representative Achim was on the council when we started at 6:30. So, I hope she knew. Perhaps she didn't know our meeting start at 6:00. So, we will um table that item. Do I need a motion to table that to come back or can we skip it? Mr. Nelson? >> Yep. Uh Mayor, you you can move on to the next item and you can come back. So, I think you can skip it. >> When and if uh Representative Aim arrives, we'll slot her in as appropriate. So, um another friendly face. We have item 6B which is uh Red Cross Blood Drive on June 30th at the Minnitankka Community Center and we have former mayor Brad Wearsome here to present to us about this. Mayor Wearsome. >> Greetings um Mayor Sha Council members um Mr. Funk and staff. Good to see you all. Good to be back. I'm not usually I'm not used to being on this side of the deis, but um I think I'll muddle through. Um as um is on the screen um um one of the things former mayors try to do is try to stay busy. And um one of the things that I've uh done is I've um I'm now on the board of the um and pardon my grally voice. It's uh I think it's allergies. Knock on wood. I hope it's not a cold, but that started today. But anyway, um um I am now on the board of the Twin Cities Red Cross. And you know, the Red Cross has blood drives throughout the region, uh many many each year, but the board um uh handles or um sponsors two blood drives each year. And and one is right around Christmas, right around the December holidays, and one is right around the Fourth of July because um blood blood need is great. it never ends and um donors are more scarce at those times of year. So the blood the the Twin Cities Red Cross um board of directors sponsors two blood drives and uh this the next one is on June 30th. It's going to be here at the Mitaka Community Center and I'll tell you a little bit about what's going on with that. Um you know first of all a little bit about um blood donation. Um the need for blood is continuous and relentless. And an amazing thing is that um blood is required in the United States every two seconds. So I did the I did the arithmetic on that and uh there are 86,400 seconds in each day. And so that means um uh the need for blood there is 43,000 um units a day. It's remarkable and the Red Cross provides a significant portion of that. The other factor is that 62% of people are capable of donating blood um from health and perspective. Not not everyone can, but only 3% do. And so the need is real. It's significant. And the thing um in my years of public service, one of the things that I always focused on was if if I could do something that would save a life, that was something I really wanted to do. And being a blood donor saves lives. So um there are some QR codes here and uh some information. Um and I really hope that people will sign up for the blood drive. And uh the Red Cross does a kind of a nice job of of bribing uh people to come into um everyone who donates will get a um a pass to Valley Valley Fair. And also the there's a graphic uh there's a Looney Tunes Red Cross graphic that you might have seen in the packet. Um, and there's a t-shirt featuring that. And so, everyone will get a t-shirt. And I think there will be some other um, they do a nice job. So, I think there will be some other uh, bling and trinkets around for uh, for people who come in and donate. So, again, that date is June 30th. The time is 11 to 5 p.m. here at the community center. And um uh the other thing is that um um if you can't donate blood and not everyone can um there are other ways to support the Red Cross. Um they are always looking for volunteers um and that can be um relief for um natural disasters or um other many other things. And then they um it it takes money to make things run. So if you want to donate financially um you can go to redcross.org org um and make contributions there. So um this is a really worthwhile cause. I'm excited that it's going to be in Minnetonka. It's great to see you. I wish my voice was working better tonight, but great to see you all. And if you have any questions, I'll take them, but other than that, I'm I'll move on. >> Thank you so much, Mayor Whisam. Any questions, council? >> We're great to see. >> Council member Romey, >> can we make a party of it? Bring a group of friends. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. and the QR codes um and I can get you um some flyers uh with uh the QR codes on it that will take you right to the site where you can um sign up for this particular drive. So I'll I'll get those to staff. >> All right. Well, you make a very compelling argument and if saving a life isn't good enough, hopefully a free ticket to Valley Fair is. >> Hopefully that puts it over the top. >> Thanks so much. >> Thank you so much. And I I don't think you need to be a Minnitonka resident to sign up. So, bring your friends and family, get them signed up, and hopefully we fill every slot they have available. >> Oh, thank you, Mayor. >> Don't go anywhere. Council member Kley has a question. Go ahead. >> I did I did have one question for you. What age? Cuz I'm thinking like the kids. >> Um, yeah, I think I think you need to be I think 14. >> 17. Is it 17? I I I have that information in my phone. I I'll double check. Um >> Okay. Julia is 17, so she just made it. All right. Sorry. Thank you. >> Okay. Well, thank you. >> Excellent. All right. Well, good. That's That's such a worthy uh event. All right. Item 6C is the LGBTQ plus Pride Month Proclamation, and I have asked Council Member Wilburn to please read that today. All right. Whereas the month of June is celebrated as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer pride month, commemorating the historic 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City and the first Pride march in June 1970. And whereas Pride Month brings awareness to historic and present- day discrimination, harassment, and violence towards individuals who identify as LGBTQ plus. And whereas Pride Month affirms the dignity, equal rights, and visibility of individuals who identify as LGBTQ plus, builds community, and celebrates sexual identity, diversity, and gender variance. And whereas LGBTQ plus people have made and continue to make great and lasting contributions that strengthen the fabric of society. And whereas all people deserve to live with dignity and respect free from fear and violence and protected against discrimination regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation. And whereas celebrating influences awareness and provides support and advocacy for the LGBTQ plus community and is an opportunity to take action and engage in dialogue to strengthen alliances, build acceptance, and advance equal rights. Now, therefore, be it resolved that this Minnotonka City Council does hereby proclaim the month of June as LGBTQ plus pride month in the city of Minnitanka. Thank you, Council Member Wilburn. 6D is the monarch and pollinator awareness awareness month and participation in mayor's monarch pledge and we have a proclamation for that as well. And I've asked council member Rome to please read that proclamation. >> Thank you, mayor. Um, let's see. Whereas more than 85% of flowering plants on Earth, including wild and cultivated species, require the assistance of animal pollinators in order to produce seeds. And whereas globally, pollinators, are in decline due to pressures, including habitat loss, climate change, and increased use of chemicals. And whereas the monarch butterfly is an iconic North American pollinator whose eastern population has been reduced by at least 90% since 1996 and has been designated for federal protection as a threatened species. And whereas the United States Department of Agriculture and the US Fish and Wildlife Service have declared the monarch to be a priority species for conservation because healthy monarch habitat be benefits a wide variety of other species. And whereas individuals and communities can help to save the monarch butterfly and other pollinators by planting native host and nectar plants and taking other steps to provide healthy habitat in yards, rights of way, and open spaces. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Minnitonka City Council hereby proclaims July 2026th as the 10th annual Monarch and Pollinator Awareness Month in the city of Minnotonka. And I'll just if I can add a few things. Minnetonka has some great programs that um helps residents uh plant and purchase uh pollinator plants. That's how I got my start with my native garden. So, highly recommend that uh you know if you have an at all an interest in that um that can be super helpful. And to all the residents who have contacted me in the last month or two to say please sign the mayor's monarch pledge. This is I believe our 10th year of doing so. So, um well done uh in terms of past councils and staff in terms of uh recognizing and being pretty far ahead of the curve on this issue. >> Thank you, Council Member Romey. All right. So, here's what we're going to do. We're going to take item 6E first if that's okay. We'll come back to 6A. Um, you guys are in for a treat on this one. I had a sneak peek on the ebike policy student presentation from the Vantage program and I'm going to invite the group up along with their teacher advisor Kim Mian to give a brief introduction about what the students worked on here. Well, good evening council members and mayor Shaq. It's great to see you again. Um, so just a brief little overview. Minnetonka has a program called Vantage. It's our advanced professionalism studies program. We have a multitude of different strands that students can choose and the one that we are a part of and presenting on our issue tonight is the public policy strand. What? Oh, okay. Maybe. Okay. Um, my name's Owen Beckers. And if we can go to the next How do I go to the next slide? >> You should be able to There's a keyboard and a mouse underneath. >> Oh, perfect. >> That can and you can manage your slides with that, I think. >> So, either try the arrow button on the keyboard if >> I can. >> There we go. It's up. >> Oh, there we go. Okay, perfect. >> There we go. Oh, there. >> Yep. >> He just went backwards. Gra, I thought you hit that one. I just >> Are we stuck? >> Oh, maybe this is up or down. I don't know. >> Sorry. Technical difficulties. >> There you go. >> Amazing. Thank you so much. >> All righty. >> The arrow might not be working again. >> Page down. Try down. >> Down does not work either. >> Page. >> Page down. I think that's how we ended up. >> So, it's up >> so far. And >> no, there's no >> It's up there. >> Julie, can or can one of you manage? >> Okay. >> So, just slides back. >> Just nod to staff and they'll they'll move the slides for you. >> Perfect. >> So, we'll go back to back to slide two, right? >> Yes. >> Sorry about that. >> No, you're all good. >> You got a real good taste of what it's like to be in one of these meetings. >> Perfect. Thank you so much, staff. I appreciate it. All right. Like I said, my name is Owen Beckers. This is Graham Woodard, Natalia Eureo. And then unfortunately, our other partner, um, Lou Verhost, was not able to make it tonight. So, please bear with us as we try to work through some of her slides. All right, next slide, please. >> So, we wanted to go over some problems with current legislation right now and cities are having trouble with. So, here are the major concerns that are coming up for local policy makers and enforcers regarding ebikes. So, the first one, there are major safety concerns as trauma reports a surge of ebike and scooter injuries. Um, one Star Tribune article includes a story of a 14-year-old who passed away from a brain injury after an ebike accident. And that's just one of the many injuries that trauma centers have been seeing. The second is major policy gaps. So illegal emotos are being sold and written as if they were legal emot clear identification of these emotos. The legality of them becomes extremely inconsistent. Finally, local governments are scrambling without state guidance to and cities are struggling to respond to shifts in inconsistently in state legislation which therefore they're being forced to come up with their own policy and regulations which is where our presentation comes in. So, a couple of the key stakeholders we identified are students, parents, law enforcement, and legislators. We wanted to go over a few bills currently going through the Minnesota State Legislature. So, the first one is Senate File 3236, which would require ebike riders under 18 to wear helmets approved by the Commissioner of Public Safety and adding a penalty for violations. House File 3785 redefineses motor vehicles to include battery operated electric motorcycles. And then this will also limit e- motors to a top speed of 20 m an hour and put a license to ride them. And then the final one is House File 2859, which is also Senate File 3280, which authorizes local governments like Minnetonka to adopt ordinances that set maximum speed limits for ebikes within business districts with a standard fine of $60 for violation split between the local government's general fund and the state's active transportation account. So for some quick injury statistics we can see that uh this data um has youth adolescence and adults category. Now this data was drawn from 140 hospitals in the Minnesota hospital association. Uh they accounted for 514 people that were discharged with ebike related injuries. So some facts about these uh discharges is that 52% of or 52 uh% of these crashes h happened in isolation which means that the biker was just riding on a trail or a street and collided with maybe a tree or fell down. And we also uh found out that with uh only 14% were motor vehicle and were motor vehicle on bike crashes and in total there were uh around there in total there were 22 deaths of these 514 people. >> And then one thing that I just wanted to highlight quickly with um with regarding the legislation, the session has concluded. So some of those different things move past. Um, so that's all on the revisor's website if you are interested in kind of seeing what the state did this past session. Um, so here's a highintensity areas map that um, we kind of made. We found three key points where we saw a lot of ebike crashes or different um, altercations with police department members. This was all gathered again through different Minnotonka student testimonials and a Minnotonka police department panel that we had come to our Vantage class a um, a month or two ago. So the first one is the Minnotonka target which is on Highway 101 and Highway 7. There was a lot of reports that MHS and MME students um after school went there on ebikes and there was a lot of different collisions with um customers cars in the parking lots and all those different kind of things that police were called out to. The second was Highway 7. This was highly um highlighted by different parents in the district that we saw cuz they would find you know different students riding ebikes on the side of Highway 7 which is obviously really dangerous and can cause a multitude of different injuries and collisions. And then the last one is Minnotonka Middle School East and Minnotonka Middle School West. We saw a lot with again kids getting out of school early um as the primary users of ebikes are in those kind of middle school ages or just about high school freshman, high school sophomores. Next slide, please. Thank you. >> So, our group proposed a required 4-hour permit class um focusing on education first. And so this course will be provided by schools and community education centers and will focus on road safety and ebike regulations. And once the students complete the course, they will receive basically like an ID so that police officers can identify them because that was also another issue we found. Police officers don't know how old the children are riding the ebikes and so they can't really enforce anything if you don't know the true age because kids usually don't have an ID under 16. So this would give them sort of an ID that police officers can identify them, but they also need to complete the permit course and become more educated on road regulations. So for our permit course, we have uh constructed a four module permit course that we kind of got the inspiration from I learn to boat where it is a completely online uh experience where you would approximately receive a 45minute video and an interactive content with a 15minute sort of test or exam at the end of each module making sure you were able to comprehend all the information. And this would be communicated through the DMV and school ages 15 and above would be uh or ages uh 15 and above would be able to take this course. >> So we'll just go over quickly what the modules would look like. So the first module is on what ebikes really are and how they work and then the laws of the road. And so we would go through a visual guide of the different classes one, two, and three ebikes and then talking about the rules of the road. And then the assessment would be a match the bike to the law interactive quiz. The second module is on the speed gap, visualizing why a car driver sees a pedestrian but misses an ebike going a lot faster and then talking about helmets and lights regarding ebikes. And then that assessment would be a gear track drag and drop exercise. Module three is tactical riding. So focusing on predictability and passing, basically the passing protocol and then um mastering the intersection. And then this would conclude with a video scenario analysis. And then module four is just community responsibility and what it means to have the permit and then how that would work if you had an interaction with a law official. And this would come with a final exam of a 25 question cumulative and then you must pass with 80% in order to get your permit identification. >> So sorry if we could skip over this slide real quick. Thank you so much. And then here's our one kind of on the budget of different things. Um so the platform development to create these kind of training resources, excuse me, would be around $5,000 to $10,000. Um, and just for a quick reference point, this was all kind of gathered um, from what like the different boating license kind of stuff is. So, this is kind of our general um, comparison. So, then localized content creation, bring awareness is going to be roughly $3,000. The course fee, which would be a onetime fee for the student or parent, would be $29.95 to $34.95. And then one thing that um, we really wanted to highlight was the different economic turn on return on investment, especially for different community partners. Um, specifically, one thing that our partner, Lou Verhost, um, really kind of emphasized was that we could have a possible local business simulation with having a 15% off safety gear discount, um, at different local, um, you know, it could be a Target, it could be um, a bike store just to kind of again increase or decrease those injury statistics and increase safety among those riders. And then, of course, this brings some changes to law enforcement. So, the first and second offense would be pretty much the same. And if there is no permit or they were not following the amended city code which we'll present later um there would be a written citation with no fine. And something important that we want to highlight is that this would be a um copy sent to the guardian as well as a physical copy that are given to the students so they can kind of understand and grasp the reality of the um offense that they've done. And then our third offense would be very similar to our first and second, except we would include a $50 fine on no permit and then not following city code just to kind of enforce the consequence after we have two sort of learning phases. And then other options that we included that would be possible for police discretion would be call guardian, the parent or guardian to take back the bike and then also increase the amount of the fine to $100 uh based on the uh fence. All righty. And then here's our suggested new and amended city code. So again, the old kind of version was that you must be 15, you cannot modify an ebike to bypass the speed limit control. Um you must alert pedestrians and of course wear a helmet. All these things are amazing and we're just um adding in that having a certified permit um which is collected through community education classes um and approaching pedestrians and alerting pedestrians in a respectful and timely manner. We really wanted to highlight that timely manner part. And then they must always have the certified permit while operating an ebike as defined by the municipal ordinance. And then here are our references. And thank you so much. We really appreciate being here. >> Excellent. I'm going to let have everyone give a round of applause for these students. Just a just a quick overview for the audience. These this group was selected amongst um four teams, right? And they were the panel judging and selecting were included uh Chief Bourboom, a representative from the middle school and myself at um in during the class presentations and all the groups did excellent. we really kind of were splitting hairs and picking the winner, but um this group did a great job and their understanding of local government far surpassed anything that I certainly could have comprehended at your age. So, thank you so much for coming. Very impressive and actually have some work product that we can we can mull over here at the city. So, thanks again. >> Thank you. Okay, so we're going to go back up to item 6A, which is a presentation, legislative recap from Representative Patty Achim. Come on up, Patty. I should say, Representative Achim, thank you for coming and we're really glad to have you. Well, it's my pleasure to be here and um I guess I picked a really poor meeting to be late. Um, I didn't realize that that meeting time had gone to 68 or 6 PM. So, my apologies. I um I appreciate being here and for the opportunity to meet my actual board member. So, congratulations on your new role and um happy to be here with you tonight. I know you have a full agenda, so I don't want to take much of your time, but I just wanted to stop by and um thank the council and the city for the partnership with at the legislature and to maybe just go over a couple of highle things that um that passed this year. One of the biggest one of the most important to me was um some stability funding for HCMC to ensure that our safety net hospital will remain open. the impacts um would be disastrous for um HCMC to close for just a number of reasons. And so was glad we were able to um work that out in a you know very um closely divided legislature in both the House and the Senate. And so the fact that we were able to um come up with that was um impressive. Now, um there's I I can imagine there is more work that will be done on that front, but um glad we were able to at least take the pressure off in the short term. Um the other that I think is worthy is passing of the office of the inspector general. Uh I think we all know the impacts of fraud that we have faced here in Minnesota. And so to have an independent uh office of inspector general to help in identifying, preventing um prosecuting in in any type of fraud. Of course, um $1 of fraud is too much. And so ensuring that we are addressing it in a um a comprehensive way will be important to all of us going forward. And then the last of the top my top three is um we passed a really robust um capital investment bill and which included a project for Minnotonka with your transition from um part-time uh fire to um full-time fire department and expansion of um the uh cross >> county 73 yeah um fire station. So really happy that we were able to get that done. Uh there is clearly more work that needs to happen and that we will continue to work on going forward. Um but happy to be able to get that across. And I will maybe just also say in in short that um again in our very closely divided um legislature, not only were we we also were able to protect and prevent things from being rolled back that were important advancements that we had taken in issues maybe for example paid family medical leave. And also um I will because the issue of affordable housing is such an important one um maybe just mention that um preventing um the re the zoning reform bill which didn't ensure um affordability um preventing that from passing was something that I'm I'm glad we did. I do want to continue to work on affordable housing and I really want to commend the city of Minnotonka for the really dedicated work and the leadership role you all um present here in um how cities can address affordable housing. So with that, I know you guys have a full agenda. I want you to know that my door is always open. I um certainly want to partner with the city in whatever ways can be helpful and um so you know how to reach me. >> Well, thank you so much Representative Aum. Don't go anywhere. I want to I want to personally thank you on behalf of myself, council, and city staff for what a champion you are for the city of Minnitonka at the state and we're so grateful to have you there and your accessibility and your advocacy for the city is we we appreciate it so so much. I will um open the floor to my colleagues here. If council, if you have anything brief, you any questions or anything you comments you'd like to make, now is the time. Council member Calbertt, we are very lucky to have you there. It was a pleasure to serve with you for however brief a time it was up here. And I think it's so important that you brought that city experience to the state legislature because you really do understand what the municipalities need and certainly what Mitanka needs. Um and you know these are very challenging times in government in general and uh it has been quite a year for all of us. So I'm just very grateful that you didn't go anywhere that you're still there. Please don't go anywhere. Please stay there. You're doing a wonderful job and we're very lucky to have you there. Thanks. I appreciate that. >> Great. All right. Thank you, Representative Achim. And we will not be strangers. And just in before I go, I just wanted to commend the students and what a um great topic that you chose and I was taking notes. So, um so anyway, well done. We'll continue to work on all of that city and um state government. So, great. Thank you. Have a good rest of your meeting. >> Thank you. Thank you. Okay, moving on. Item seven, reports from city manager and council members, Mr. Funk. >> Uh, thank you, mayor and council. Four items for you this evening. First, uh, this last week was our first farmers market. Uh, we had 870 people visit the first week compared to 587 a year ago. Uh, so really an uptick this this last year. So really give a shout out to our rec director Kelly OD and his staff for their coordination of the farmers market. We have 28 vendors which I also think is a high uh as well. We do get a little feedback that you know it is over at the marsh and you can adjust it over there but we have uh moved the farmers market around the parking lot to a different location. So the traffic flow is a lot better and we received a lot of really positive feedback with that reconfiguration. So it is busy over there on Tuesdays which is a good thing. the vendors are liking it and we had a good showing and hope for that to continue the rest of the summer. And then uh moving on to my second item uh a week ago Saturday was our mountain bike opener and this marked the trail's fth anniversary and so our appreciation again to the Minnesota off-road cyclists uh which is Mor. They hosted this event and we had 75 riders participate in that. So it was a a good day for it and really thankful for our partnership with Mor and for all of our users of the trail. Uh then want to shift gears to then highway 12 or 394. As we know there is a lot of construction. It is construction season. Important to note that starting Wednesday, which is June 10th, so this Wednesday through Sunday, June 14th, the westbound I394 entrance to the northbound I494 will be closed. Uh so there will be some signs and folks will have to do the loop-de-loop around the clover leaf and just watch for that. There's a lot of backups and some confusion, I'm sure, happening, but we make note of it here. More information can be found on Mandot's website and as well as ours. Uh, and then last, just want to mention that our next meeting is next Monday, June 15th, which is a study session. And then the following Monday is the next regular meeting on Monday, June 22nd. So, with that, Mayor and Council, turn it back to you. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Funk. Councel, Council Member Calbertt. Thank you, Mayor. I'm just very grateful that uh former mayor Brad woram was talking about um the blood drive. Um there was a blood drive. I work for the city of St. Paul actually and there was a blood drive there um in the last few weeks and there is a critical need. It's not just that it's all the time. There's actually a shortage right now and um blood products do expire. So, please try to make that um that event on June 30th. And um I just wanted to mention um there have been some disturbing events that have happened at Hopkins High School in recent weeks um and months. So, since January 1st, there have been three separate incidences of anti-semitic and homophobic graffiti um including swastikas. um three different occasions uh in written in the bathrooms at um Hopkins High School. And there was also a really horrific um social media post depicting um an African-American student um uh with a knee on his neck um with uh racist and uh sexualized um comments. And apparently that is not a crime. Um the vandalism however is a crime. Um the school district uh has been reluctant to release the names of students if they know who they are. I know that some some families believe they know um who uh you know committed these acts. And I just want to say we have some new leadership coming into the schools at um Hopkins schools and um school districts out here in the west metro are separate units of government. The city doesn't have jurisdiction over them and they h they don't have jurisdiction over us. However, I am very um I'm very much looking forward to working with the new um principal at the high school and the incoming superintendent to um help realize um part of our mission vision here in Minnotonka, which is to be a welcoming community for everyone, to be inclusive and accepting. And um I think the school district has some, you know, serious work to do. And I hope that um you know I hope we can strengthen our partnership because I know it's important to both the school district and to us. So I just wanted to mention that um because there really is no place for that in this community and I condemn it in the strongest terms and um I pro I will probably be contacting our wonderful state rep because I do think that there is some work to be done on legislation. Um there is no reason that uh students in our schools should be subjected to bullying that is basically terroristic in nature um with no consequence. And I know that um we hold our first amendment rights very dear um but um hate speech is not free speech. So, um I think you know I would love to partner with students and parents and um you know all sorts of elected and appointed officials to work on that issue. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Council Member Calbertt. Anybody else? Council member Romey. Uh thanks. Uh now to move on to something totally different. Um, I was at an event uh in Opus uh two weeks ago and it was the opening of a new business uh Stratus uh which is a 3D printing company which does huge amount of work including this lovely uh 3D printed uh name tag which I have on today and just going to be a wonderful partner for our community, a new member of our business community and our regular community. um had the chance to talk with them about possibly even speaking of schools doing some partnerships for internships and things like that um on their you know kind of at their lower lower level entry level assembly line. So looking forward to doing that and then I guess I will let the mayor talk about our newest uh uh u senior living facility in no in W three uh which is something that a lot of people have been waiting for for a long time. Um we have Ter Luma which is a memory care facility that opens uh opened uh just last week. It had the ribbon cutting and it's going to have uh 40 units for memory care. It's kind of the first of its kind in Minnetonka. So really proud of that providing some uh great care. We have another facility opening opening in the near future um English Rose, but this is uh the first of its kind in Minnetonka and it's going to be right alongside a um larger complex that's going to be an active over 55 unit that is opening uh I believe this fall. So um it'll be a great transition facility um if needed for those memory care. And it's a beautiful, beautiful uh kind of development and really proud to have it in Ward 3 and to be able to offer this kind of care um option for our residents. Thank you, Council Member Romey. Council, anybody else? Okay. I will just very briefly um comment on a couple of things happening particularly the last couple weeks. So today at the regional council of mayors meeting, we heard from the state demographer very interesting presentation about population in Minnesota and really nationally um and trends that I think will help inform us that information as we get started in the next year on our 2050 comp plan. Also we received some a presentation about data centers kind of demystifying some of the you know the the issues and then reinforcing some of the other issues that was very useful and I think that will also inform us in decision- making in the future. And speaking of as we uh the zoning code workg group continues to meet and making really good progress. I'm so impressed having joined that workg group midway midstream. really impressed with the work that's being done by the group and by the consultant. And so the community can look forward to later this year being having an opportunity to review and comment on provide feedback on uh potential new zoning code as uh that's a that's a very big project. And then finally, I do I think we've kind of stopped talking about over the last couple months the work that the city's done with the coalition for safe and stable communities. We are com continuing to talk about how that work will evolve. That's the coalition that the city had a leadership role in forming coming uh through operation metro surge. We are talking about how we can leverage the work that we've already put in and creating that group to make sure that we have a strong um stable group of communities together and ready to mobilize should there be other issues whether that's natural disasters or other governmental issues or things related to elections that we need to address. So that's still happening behind the scenes. All right, I think that covers item seven. Item, we're on to item eight, and this is citizens wishing to discuss matters not on the agenda. I have four cards. If anybody intends to speak on this item, they should quickly go fill out a card and bring it to staff. Here, I'm going to start with a fun uh update from a business in our community. Yoga 6. The Weisetta West Metro Chamber is here to tell us about an award that was presented to Sarah Dedle, the owner of Yoga 6. So, come on up and introduce yourselves. Hello, mayor, council members. My name is Judy Johnson and I'm the president of the Wisada West Metro Chamber and we're very excited to be here tonight to recognize one of our business uh members and also an important business in the community. Uh I just want to thank council members too who've been engaged with us for the last few years as we've started a new partnership with the city. So thank you to the staff for that. I appreciate it. And with that um I want to turn it over to Sarah Kelar who is one of our awesome members. She's also a member of our board of directors. She's the owner of Business and Estate Adviserss and she actually is the sponsor and creator of our exceptional service award of excellence. She'll talk a little bit about that program and then we'll introduce the uh recipient tonight. So Sarah, >> thank you. >> Thank you. Good evening, mayor, council members, staff, ladies and gentlemen. Uh it is my honor to be here tonight. It's my honor to be here tonight to recognize a business in your community that has been awarded the exceptional service award. We started the exceptional service award about 18 years ago uh recognizing a chamber member uh just a little plug. If you get great service from a business around here, nominate them. Anyone can nominate them. And when you go to the chamber's website, the Weisetta Metro Chamber, if you don't see the business listed, let us know anyway and we will go talk to the business about joining the chamber because it is that exceptional service and that those strong businesses that increase our community and our uh standard of living and our comfort and our respect for one another. Um, tonight it is my pleasure to recognize Yoga 6 Minnetonka as the recipient of this award. Um, they're more than a fitness studio. It's a place where people of all experience levels feel welcomed, comfortable, and supported. And what sets them apart is the commitment to exceptional service. From the minute you walk in their doors, you're greeted with openness. You feel warm and you feel welcome. We had numerous nominations. One in particular was talking about they were just peppering them with questions about classes and schedules and pricing and the team said, "Well, why don't you and your daughter come for a joint class? Just check it out." Next thing you know, they've got a long-term member. Those are the kinds of experiences that build that trust, loyalty, and community. And this just does not happen by accident. It reflects a culture of intentionality that was created by the leadership of Sarah Deedle and her team. And with that, I would like to congratulate you on receiving the exceptional service award for you and your team at Yoga 6. Thank you. Say thank you for what you do for our community. >> Thank you, Sarah. >> And if I may, mayor, if we could just turn it over to Sarah to just talk briefly about her business. Um, her story is pretty great. And >> yeah, Sarah Deedle, the the recipient. And then she's got a great tribe here which just speaks again uh to the wonderful community that she's assembled. So we'll be brief because we know you've got a lot on your agenda and I think mayor you've agreed to take a picture with us. So thank you for your time. Of >> course. Thank you so much. >> Congratulations. >> Thank you. I'm Sarah Deedle. I am so proud and honored to serve our community. When I set out to open a yoga studio 3 years ago, I specifically honed in on Minnotonka because I saw the need here. And don't let our strip mall location fool you. at 101 and 7. We are a community center and we serve everyone in the area and we are honored to do that. And we started off because we thought that people could really benefit from moving and being together. But the reality is my team here is with me because they're wonderful people and we just care for everyone. And this award means so much to us because we work so hard to care for people. and being a small business owner and we talk about the needs in our community and the economic crisis and Operation Metro Surge was really hard for us to navigate and to be honored and be the recipient of this. It means it means the world to all of us. It it proves why we show up for work and why we do what we do every day. So, thank you to the city and thank you to the council and mayor. Thank you for this recognition and the West Metro Chamber is a wonderful organization. Thank you. Great. Well, >> so so mayor, if you wouldn't mind stepping down. And then Sarah, if you want to come back up and then we also have Anna Scampmp, who is our, uh, manager of communications and events at the chamber, and she might be able to take a photo. Um, she's baking a a little extra something over there today. So, um, uh, and again, thank you on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce for all of your support, and um, we just love celebrating your business community. >> Excellent. Well, congratulations. Thanks for the work you do. I'll come down quickly. Just gonna tell the next three people get ready. Kathy Van Horn will be next. Joel Stone will follow her and Ke Kevin Ringhofer will follow him. We'll be on the end. >> Oh, here. Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. Perfect. Thank you. >> Great. Thank you. >> Congratulations. All right, Kathy Van Horn, you're up. Hi, council and mayor and everyone. Um, I'm Kathy Van Horn and that's going to be a hard act to follow as I get up here. Um, but I wanted to um and I didn't realize that this was going to be so busy either, but I just wanted to um put this out before you because I live on Marryiam Road and Mariam Road is a very small road. It was like um you it's a narrow road and the why I'm even bringing this up is that we have two group homes on our street that are across the street and one house from each other. I know that uh we had been working last year a little bit um with the legislature to pass that there would be enough space between um homes so that there isn't a being a campus being built of these group homes. I have nothing I'm not saying anything about the group homes. I'm not saying anything about any of the services that they provide. I'm just saying that um our road um has two on them very very close together. Um on May 5th, the um the owners of the group homes, Stone Crest Living, had um a meeting with some of the community with some of the residents on Miam Road um and had reached out kind of a get to know us kind of a meeting. And I specifically asked um the owner of Stone Crest Living if he was trying to purchase any more homes on Marryiam Road. And I said, I realize there's a moratorum until the end of 2027 to get licenses. Um, and so I I said, yep, I I know that that's happening, but if you are you planning, so say the moratorium is done. The answer was if there is a need and a home available, yes, I will buy another home on Mariam Road. as well as I said then it's like you're building a campus and um uh and the response was well it's better for our business if we have our resources close together. Our road was named after an elderly woman who um would be turning in her grave if she found out they changed it to Stone Crest Living Parkway. you know, I'm just like I'm like I I feel like I'm I want to get ahead of it because if it if it you know, if nothing happens then I feel very very vulnerable. I know other people are talking about issues that are, you know, impacting everybody, but I bet my three minutes is up. Anyways, I I want to know how to go forward is what I need. >> Thank you so much. I I neglected to mention earlier we as you know we don't take action on this at this >> I know but I just wanted to let you know that that is however just some guidance. >> Absolutely. Okay. >> Thank you very much. Thank you for coming and if we can try to get the clock running that would be excellent. All right. Next we have Joel Stone. Mr. Stone. Uh, mayor, city council, and staff, thank you for your public service. My name is Joel Stone, 6930 Grazeway Boulevard. About 10 days ago, I attended a planning commission meeting and public comment time supported use of the projector. And I noticed that the uh ebike presentation, they were allowed the use of um a PowerPoint. And um I would like to request from this moment forward, 7 pm today, um that during public comments we could use a projector. A picture is worth a thousand words. And it really conveys complicated the ideas. It makes for promotes fairness, uh better idea transfer and just better governance. Um, it's 2026 and you know asking for the paper projector. No viruses can be introduced but I'd like to further go that we could use powerpoints just like the ebike presentation did. It'd be nice if we could send a PowerPoint in and they could just virus check and then put up in the screens for people at home and people here can see photos and what what we're talking about. And you know, we burn the 3 minutes really quick trying to describe a picture, but if you put a picture up, we just um talk about that picture in a few seconds and get that idea across. So, I'd like to respectfully request that we can do both paper starting tonight and powerpoints going forward. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Stone. And again, we don't make any decisions at this section, but um your comments are are noted. All right. Uh Mr. Ringhoffer, come on up. Good evening, mayor and council. I'm Kevin Ringhoffer, 2200 Indian Road West, and a part of the the Minnotonka Community Housing Team. I'm here to inquire about the status of uh changing the pre-eviction notice and lengthening the pre-eviction notice beyond the two weeks to at least 30 days. Um, there still is an urgent need. I got uh some new information last week that one agency uh stopped their applications or suspended taking applications for rental assistance on June 3rd for the month because they had that many applications that they wanted to make sure that they wouldn't exhaust their funds before they got through that 50. They may start it up later uh in the month, but it just kind of stresses that there still is a significant need. Um, also heard that from uh the end of April, like April 21st through the end of May, that more than a dozen Minnetonka families received rental or similar assistance during that time period. So, there still is is that kind of need. I know things aren't quite as evident in terms of metro surge, but there's still activity happening with ICE and the effects of what happened during Metro Surge and even now is still being felt uh is still being felt by by residents. So, there's still a need. Uh so, I just ask you to for some urgency and kind of extending the pre-eviction notice to 30 days. And again, I'd advocate that you do that temporarily if you don't want to make the change permanently and then study and decide if you want to do it permanently. But if you could do something more quickly, I think that would just serve more people and more Minnotonka residents. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Ringhoffer. >> All right. On to item nine, bids and purchases. We have none. Item 10 is the con consent agenda item. consent agenda items requiring a majority vote. These are items that are considered routine in nature and we are able to pass them in one vote. I'll read the items and if anybody would like anything pulled from this for further discussion, please speak up and we will do that. We have consent agenda item 10A, a resolution for the 2026 sanitary sewer lining project. 10B, resolution authorizing performance measurement reporting program. 10 C, 12-month extension of approvals for the Hidden Valley third edition, a two lot subdivision at 16515 Hidden Valley Road, 10D property assessed clean energy pace special assessment for 12501 Whitewater Drive. Council is uh or anybody in the audience wishing to pull any of these items? Not seeing any. I would take a motion on this. Council member Calvert. Thank you, Mayor. I move approval of consent agenda items 10 A, 10 B, 10 C, and 10 D. Council member Romey. I'll second. I have a motion by Council Member Calvert, a second by Council Member Romey. Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Calbertt, >> yes. >> Rome, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Maxwell, >> yes. Wilurn, >> yes. >> Shaq, >> yes. Motion carries. Uh, item 11, consent agenda item, and these are items requiring five votes. Again, if anybody wishes to discuss these items further, they can ask for the the item to be pulled. Otherwise, we can approve them in one vote. Item 11 A is a CIP amendment for an additional sauna at the Shady Oak Beach. 11B is an agreement with Excel Energy for the Excelsure Boulevard improvement project. Anybody wish to pull either of these items? Not seeing any. I take a motion. Council member Romey. Thank you, mayor. I'll make the motion to authorize the mayor and city manager to execute an agreement with Excel Energy subject to non-material changes as approved by the city engineer and city attorney in the amount of 6,541,5457 for the Excelsier Boulevard improvement project number 27305. And I am um make this other motion to amend the 2026 2030 capital improvements program CIP to account for additional overhead burial costs and an additional cost participation for uh purchasing participation grant from Henipin County. If I can get the next screen. Um, and I will make the motion to amend the 2026 20 to 2020 30 CIP to reallocate $55,000 of the $180 thou,000 of funding from the lifeguard building winterization to cover the purchase of a sauna. Thank you and really happy about that one. So, we'll second. Council member Maxwell. >> I second. >> Thank you. I have a motion by council member Rome, a second by council member Maxwell. Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Calbert, >> yes. >> Romey, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Maxwell, >> yes. Wilurn, >> yes. >> Shaq, >> yes. Motion carries. Item 12, introduction of ordinances. And we have none. Item 13, public hearings. 13A, updates to the council policy 8.3, the plant pest program. And um Miss Yetka has that item. I do. Good evening, mayor and councel. Um, this item is as stated is an update that we're proposing to council policy 8.3, which was the plant pest program. So, I'll talk a little bit more about that and see if I can get this to work. So, what we're asking for tonight is to hold a public hearing. This does require a public hearing and that hearing has been uh noticed in the paper. Um, and then adopt a resolution that updates the policy as we talk about here. So, as far as relatability to your strategic plan, um this relates to the sustainability, resilience, and natural environment priority, um especially desired outcome 3.2, which is to protect, manage, and enhance the natural environment. So, we we think this helps achieve that. So, it goes without saying, as I know that you uh hear a lot about, we have a a lot of canopy in Minnotonka. So, we have a very high canopy cover. You'll hear some numbers between 50 and 60% canopy. It really depends on the source, but basically the bottom line is we have a lot of trees, which is a makes for a really healthy community. Um, we also have some challenges with those and climate change. Um, obviously as we've developed, we've changed the nature of that canopy. We also have some pests and disease. Um, and we've had them for decades. However, we still have a higher urban canopy and we've also been able to sustain that through some of the actions that we've taken. Um, I'm going to talk about three P tree pests and disease that are in this policy. One is Dutch elm disease. Dutch elm disease is a disease that's spread by beetles. It's a fungal disease. It's been around since the 70s and 80s. You may remember in Minneapolis and St. Paul, they had to take down the the big grand elm trees. Um it's a disease that's been around for a long time. We really considered endemic in our community. Um but we also have been um selectively removing trees to help prevent the spread of that disease. Another disease that we talk about often is oakwilt. And as you know oaks are kind of an iconic um Minnetonka tree species. And there is unfortunately an oakwilt disease that spread through root grafts and also through beetles. and it can be prevented by treating trees, but it is something that we do pay attention to because oaks are really sort of part of that old growth forest that we have. It primarily uh is really um uh it's an issue with red oaks. Um all oaks can get it, but red oaks are really susceptible. And then I probably don't need to tell you how important emerald ashbor has been in our community. Um we have tens of thousands of ash trees. Emerald ashbor is an insect. It was introduced from Asia and it is really taken its toll on our community forest. We are now at the point where minnotanka and the west metro is considered generally infested. It's a designation by the department of egg and it means the insects here it is spread and there's unfortunately really nothing we can do about it at this point. So jumping back in time a little bit, I just want to give a little bit of background on this policy that we have. Um, in 2003, the Minnesota legislature authorized cities to regulate what they what they call a plant pest. Pest, a plant pest is a disease or insect that can spread and cause harm to the economy, to the environment, and human health. So those three uh in the diseases and insects that I talked about really do constitute a plant pest. And so in 20 2003, the state regulated or authorized cities to regulate that. In 2018, the city council adopted a section in our nuisance policy called uh plant pest control. It's um ordinance section 840 and it again authorizes us as a city to declare a diseased or infested tree a nuisance. That means we can take some action on that. Um and sort of uh corresponding to that se ordinance section, the council also adopted C p council policy 8.3 which really describes the implementation of how we manage these diseases and pests. And so it's really sort of about that implementation. It helps under staff understand what we're focusing on. It also helps the community understand what we're focusing on. And so that's what we're here to talk about tonight is just the council policy 8.3. we don't uh we don't need to address the ordinance itself. Now, the really two main goals of that policy um are to one manage or limit the spread of an insect or disease. Um the other is to really reduce the risk that comes from these trees that are dead or dying. Um especially um from a city's perspective, we're concerned about the public. So, if it's on a road or if it's a trail, that's where we really want to make sure we're paying attention to any risk and minimizing the risk from these trees that are dying. Um, just to give you a little bit of understanding of what this looks like from an implementation standpoint and what we as staff actually do. Um, because it's a new it's a considered a nuisance. Um, we go through what's called a nuisance abatement process. So, I'm sure you've seen trees, especially now ash trees that get marked with an orange ring. That means that tree has been marked to be removed. It doesn't always mean it's it's infected or it's diseased. It could be another reason, but often times that's what it means. If that tree is marked on public property or in the right of way, which is owned by the the private land owner, but the city has an interest in it, the city actually removes that tree and and the city pays for it. And that's part of the original policy that was adopted back in 2018. If that tree is on public or on private property, it is the p private land owner's responsibility. So the city can mark that tree, but we can actually require uh removal of that tree. Either the property owner pays for it or they can go through an assessment. So the city can actually take action and assess that back to the property owner. So that's kind of what it looks like when you see one of those trees marked with that orange ring. Um just to give you a little bit of background on what we're talking about in terms of numbers, this is kind of some interesting data. Um we looked back in the past five years and is if you look at the top table, those are the removals due to pest and disease for Dutch elm. Um it's been fairly stable from 2021 to 2025. We did have an uptick in uh 2025 primarily due to what we think is wetter conditions. It was something that happened all over in the metro, not just here. Um but oak milk disease, as you can see, has been fairly consistent in terms of num trees that we have been marking for removal. And then as you can see, EAB infested trees or ash trees blows everything out of the water. It's really where we're focusing a lot of our time and energy on right now. And so, um, I did provide some of the costs, as you can see, with each of those, um, for each of those years, which does constitute a little less than half of our overall forestry budget. Um, so it's a significant part of our resource, and that's primarily just money that goes to contractors to remove trees. That doesn't include um, staff. We do have some public works staff will do that will do tree removal and we have the uh institutional community work crew that will also do some tree removal. So these aren't all of the costs, but that's a gives you a flavor for how much we're spending. Um and then I just wanted to put in the replanting efforts because it's really important to mitigate the loss of these trees through our tree sale and how we what we plant on public property. Um, we're we're also we're trying to kind of mitigate that loss from these pests and disease. So, I want to talk about the updates that are being proposed. I'm going to walk through the policy itself in the different sections. Where you see the uh orange triangle, that's the change that we're proposing. So, the policy itself starts with fiscal responsibility. And as I kind of laid out in the implementation, if a tree is on private property, it's the property owner's responsibility to cover those costs. if it's on public property or if it's in the right ofway, the city has been covering those costs. One thing that the policy has been silent on that we get asked a lot is about stump grinding. Um, as you can imagine, if you take down a tree, most people understand that it means either removing limbs or cutting it all the way to the ground. And that's usually what's done to manage a pest or a disease. However, stump grinding really doesn't play a role in that. And so, a lot of property owners want the city to to pay for that. Um, in practice, we have not. We have said that's on the property owner's responsibility because it technically is the property owner's land in the right ofway, but it's been silent on that. So, we're just hoping to have that clarification in the policy. So, I'm going to walk through the three different um diseases and and and pests. Um, Dutch elm disease. So, as I said, Dutch elm disease is endemic in our community. It's been here for a long time. It continues to persist. Um, it's, you know, removal is not going to slow or eliminate Dutch elm disease. We still have Dutch elm disease, but we also still have elm. So, it kind of gives you a sense of it's sort of really part of our community now, unfortunately. Um, but what we're trying to do is because of the emerald ashbor and the burden that's placing and to clarify for property owners, we're not proposing anymore to just automatically mark and require removal for any tree that has Dutch elm. It really isn't based in a lot of science anymore. Um, and so what we're doing is trying to um reallocate our resources and refocus on risk trees and that's really what's most important. So, we just want to clarify that removal of trees that have Dutch elm on private property isn't something that's always going to be required by city by the city. Um, but we really are going to focus on those trees that pose a risk to the public. So, trees along streets and trees along trails that are on private property. We can still mark a tree that's on private property. It's still the property owner's responsibility, but we just want to focus most of our energy in that in that arena. Emerald ashbor. Um, as I mentioned, we are generally infested. We can't stop the spread. It's it's really too late. If a tree is not treated or if it's um if it's been treated, it's safe. If it hasn't been treated, most likely it already has emerald ashbor insect in it or it soon will. Um, we're in the peak right now for probably the next 3 to 5 years and then we'll start to see a decline. But we will lose almost all of our ash trees. So, there really is no point in having any kind of sanitation or control measures anymore. So, we're proposing to take those out of the policy. Um, it really doesn't have any bearing on um spread of the insect by limiting our scouting and removal to certain times of the year. So, we're proposing to take that out as well. And then like Dutch elm, we're proposing to really clarify that we're focusing on trees that pose a risk to the public. And so, we may not always require removal on private property unless it's unless it's posing a p a risk to that public. And then similar with oakwilt, um oakwilt is been again is kind of endemic in our community. It's been around for a long time. It primarily only affects red elk, red oaks. Um we again are proposing to put our time and energy into educating people on preserving their oaks and treating them um and not spending a lot of time on forcing removal where it may not be necessary. If you have an oak tree that is adjacent to a lot of other oaks, it could be beneficial to require the removal on private property, but that kind of that judgment takes place in the field with our our expert staff. Um, so again, we're proposing to really focus on trees that are posing a risk to the public. Um, removal dates for in infected oaks, it really um we're following industry standards. Science says April 1st was what what it said in the policy. Really, it doesn't apply. It's really February 1st, so we want to kind of move that up. And then firewood. There's a lot of information on firewood handling, which was probably too much information to have in a policy. We always provide that information when we're enforcing removals. Um, but we just want to clarify that firewood should be covered until um July 1st, not July 4th. And again, it's just aligning it with um expert advice and the uh agency standards that we have. So, what do other cities do? Um, so we have obviously the cities around us, Plymouth, Eden Prairie, St. Louis Park, even in Bloomington. Um, it's worth saying these cities do not have the canopy cover we have. Um, for instance, St. Louis Park is a much more urban community. Um, in general, Emerald Ashbbor is obviously not just affecting us. It's affecting all of the communities. And so really, other communities are turn are are pivoting more to what we're doing. We're saying we're not enforcing removal on private property anymore. It's not about containing it. It's just about focusing on risk and mitigating those hazards to the public. As far as Dutch el and Oakwield, other cities are still generally requiring removal on private property if not, you know, if marked by staff. Um, but again, they have very different community and canopy makeups. And so, because of the burden of ash that we have, we really we can't be everywhere all at once. We need to sort of allocate our resources wisely. So we're choosing to say and and we feel like the the science does support the fact that these diseases and are really endemic. We're not changing the trajectory of these diseases. We're not early stages. So we're putting we're choosing to put our resources into the um ma managing the risk that we have to the public. So you know again we're at the height of the infestation. These updates are really reflecting that shift in time and resources and it's certainly post EAB kind of like post pandemic. We can reassess when we get there and see where we're at. I just want to point out some resources for residents. It's not always all bad news. Um the city does allow for assessment. So, if a tree is marked uh for removal on private property and it's the cost of the property owner um to remove, we do have an assessment process we they can make use of um to help defay those costs upfront. We also offer oak preservation grants to anybody who wants to treat their oaks um that really is effective in preventing oak wilt. So, we encourage people to do that. We've been recipients of some state funded grants that have helped defay costs for them ash trees and ash removal. So, we're excited about that and we hope more will be coming down the pipeline. And then Henman County also has an asht tree removal program. So, many people may not uh re may not be aware of this, but they have a grant program that can help property owners who qualify to actually remove ash trees from their property. And then we have the annual tree sale. So, we see that as a way of really um replacing what's lost from these diseases and pests. And so, we're, you know, are hopeful that that's going to continue. and it and we have a lot of interest in that every year. And then lastly, I want to point out the state law. Our straight state tree law publication is a publication we hand out to a lot of property owners. If a tree is between two property owners and there's a dispute between two property or own owners, this publication does help people na people h sorry navigate that process of dealing with a you know another property owner that may have a situation that they want them to deal with related to a a tree or a dead tree. Typically the city does not get involved in those private property disputes. So with that, um, again, the recommendation is to hold the Pepic hearing and then adopt the resolution approving changes to policy 8.3 regarding the plant pest program. And I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Miss Yetka. Council, any questions? Council member Calbertt, I just have one and I'm not sure how appropriate is. Um, so our focus right now is on emerald ashbor, oak welt, and Dutch elm. And in my travels in our city, I'm also noticing some kind of uh pine issues. So, a lot of our pines seem to be affected, and I was wondering if pine beetle blight or something else seems to be affecting our pine trees, and if so, how will that fit into this? >> Um, that's a good question, Council Member Calbert. Um, I haven't heard that pine pine um I'm not even familiar with what that There's pine beetle blight and I'm not sure that that's what it is. I'm just noticing that there are a lot of specifically pine trees that are sick or dead. >> Right. And and I don't know if these trees are adjacent to roads or sidewalks. They're we often in the spring we'll see issues with snow and salt getting sort of thrown on pine pine trees. They're very susceptible to that. So that may be what's happening. I haven't heard of any other type of common disease that's coming and or is more prevalent in Minnetonka related to pines. So that's good news. Anybody else council questions? Okay. Well, we might have you back. Thank you, Miss Yaka. All right. I'm going to open the public hearing. Um, I don't have anybody who has signed up to speak on this, but because it is noticed as a public hearing, I will keep the floor open and offer anybody who wants to speak on this item. Last call. Not seeing anybody, I will close the public hearing and bring it back to council for uh discussion on this. Anybody? Otherwise, we can approve it. Council member, >> I was just going to say it I mean it makes sense to me these are I mean you know we're trying to base our activities on science and you know what makes sense with our limited resources and I'm glad that we have some resources from Henipin County and elsewhere. But um you know if if they're going to die anyway. The only thing that I would say is that I know that eventually and even even over the past few years um with especially Emerald Ashbbor people have I'm sure they've contacted all of us about um dead trees and you know sort of demanding that neighbors take them down, do this or do that. There's a church in my neighborhood that has four dead ash trees that I'm sure that they would, you know, love some help to replace. So, um, but, uh, we only have so much money. So, so this this makes a lot of sense to me and I just encourage everyone um to uh access the resources that we have because we do have tree replacement and there are resources to help you take your trees down or afford to take your trees down. All right. Anybody else? Otherwise, I would take a motion. Council member Maxwell. >> Um I move uh adoption of the resolution approving changes to council policy 8.3 regarding the plant pest program. >> Thank you and a second. Council member Wilburn. I'll second. I have a motion by council member Maxwell. Second by council member Wilburn. Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Calbert. >> Yes. >> Rome. >> Yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Maxwell, >> yes. Wilurn, >> yes. check. >> Yes. Motion carries. On item 14, other business. Um here's what we're going to do just for a process. Let's do item 14A and then we'll take a 5m minute break and come back for the rest of the agenda. So, um, next up is 14A concept plan review for Cooper Hawk, an on sale intoxicating an offsale liquor establishment in the Ridgedale Mall area. And um, Miss Wishnack, are you presenting this? >> Yes. Thank you, Mayor and Council members. Uh this is a we sometimes do this when we get liquor licenses because we kind of want to touch base with the council before uh the business goes through the more arduous process of applying for a a full liquor license. So that's why we're here tonight. So the concept as you described mayor when you introed it is the um an on sale intoxicating restaurant license and an offsale wine shop. and they don't describe exactly where in the Ridgel area that they would be going. Um, but there's vacancies. You might be able to guess where maybe some of these places might end up. Um, for reference, you currently have 11 off sale locations. And if you looked at the list, you can see that the list does not include like our uh breweries that sell uh beer and growlers, that sort of thing. So, um, in a number of years ago, I think it was 2010, the city council updated the policy regarding liquor licenses and specifically off sale liquor license. So, that's what's excerpt on your screen. So, that you can see the thinking at the time is the city council at that time determined 12 off sale locations were adequate to serve the city of Minnotonka residents. And uh basically that you have as your sole discretion to decide whether or not you want to issue more. And even if the number falls below 12, you also kind of had that in your minds or at least the people sitting in your chairs at the time thought about um you don't necessarily need to approve uh any more establishments. some of the conditions by which at that time the policy considered is there a distinctive specialty service that is being offered by this business. A second option would be is it a complimentary part of a business that would add positively to the experiencing experience of living and working in the city and then finally it's part could it be part of a village center that wasn't currently served. So all of those factors were kind of like the decision-making points at which the council wanted to consider as they talked about more offsell licenses. So the idea tonight is really to just hear from uh the people who are interested. The representatives from uh Cooper Hawk are here tonight. Maybe talk about your general reaction to the concept and really about how that city policy is feeling with what this concept is describing. provide that feedback to the business owner and then if the applicant or the business owner wants to proceed, they do have to go through the official liquor applications and I know you know this but the public might not. There's two additional hearings that are required for them to actually get and obtain approval. So there's a lot of process involved and if it's a restaurant too, there's a conditional use permit that would have to accompany it as well which has its own set of public hearings. So, with that, mayor, um again, I'll turn it back to you and then we'll have questions later. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Washock. Okay, I will um well, first of all, we'll bring the we'll bring the the folks from Cooper's Hawk up and then we'll deal with any questions we might have. So, come on up. Introduce yourselves. Give us your name and address. Thank you, Mayor, members of council staff. My name is Daniel Christians, uh, legal counsel for Cooper Hawk, um, with Madigan Doll Harland in Minneapolis, and I'm with Jennifer Lucina, who's a senior development management manager for Cooper Hawk. Um, I am here to answer any of the legal questions um, for this concept plan review, which we hope u will eventually come to Minnetonka. U, Miss Lina has much more exciting uh, information to present. Um, I did want to make one clarification, not so much a correction that's in the background report, um, where it kind of in paragraph two, um, where it states, uh, on sale liquor licenses may only be issued to hotels, restaurants, and clubs, not to offsell liquor stores. That is correct. Um, we don't believe an ordinance amendment would take place or would be required in this situation because the concept plan that they're looking at would have the common vegetable with two separate entrances where the restaurant would be one address essentially. Wine shop, not a total liquor store would be the separate address. So, it's going to have the state required barriers and the wine shop would be the exclusive offsale premises from uh 348412 subdivision 14 which is similar to the concept that was approved or the way in which um I believe it is top 10 liquors formally winesai now forked um much different food concept plan here but that's that's the way in which that was approved prior so with that I will turn it over to Miss Lina here for much more exciting information. >> Thank you so much. Um, we did have a >> Yeah, we'll go ahead and operate that for you. >> Oh, lovely. Thank you. >> All right. Just tell us when. >> Um, I think you can uh Perfect. Thank you so much. Um, good evening everyone. My name is Jennifer Lucina. I'm the manager of development entitlements for Cooper Hawk Winery and Restaurant. I'd like to start by saying thank you so much for your time. Um, I realize that there's a lot of business to attend to, so I do appreciate the time that you're taking right now to hear about our concept. Um, I'm not sure if anyone here is familiar with our brand. Uh, so I'd like to move through our presentation to introduce to you who Cooper Hawk is, what we do, and how we are different. And if you have any questions, please feel free to ask. Um, can you go back one slide? Yeah, there we go. Sorry. So, I'd like to start out with our food. Um, Cooper Hawk is a unique dining experience in that we are a restaurant, but we also have a few added benefits um that you'll find out through the presentation. Um, you'll find that Cooper Hawk uh we have a very extensive menu from our scratch kitchen. There's something for everyone, appetizers, salad sandwiches. We also have entre such as parmesan crusted chicken, yokki carbonara, and filet man. We offer multiple selections that are sure to satisfy anyone's tastes. We also offer an additional brunch menu on Saturday, Sunday mornings. Um, we have daily chef recommendations that change every month. Um, we have an extensive gluten-free menu, which I am so thankful that we have. Um, what a great option to have. Um, we also have a private dining menu, catering program as well, and we're constantly updating our menu selections so that we stay current and give our guests a wide variety of options. Um, I did send along our menus for your review. Excuse me. Um, in the next slide, our wine. Along with our extensive menu, we offer our own proprietary brand of wine. Cooper Hawk makes their own wine and that is the wine we would be selling in our retail area. Um, our wine is what sets us apart from all our other restaurants. We have over 60 varieties of wine. Um, typical Cabernet Svenon, Chardonnay, those kinds of items. Um, we also offer uh varietals that are blended such as Cabernet Infendel or our Barrel Reserve which is a five a blend of five different grapes. Um, we also offer our wine of the month club membership. This membership depending on the option chosen includes a specially curated bottle of wine every month that's exclusively available to wine club members. Um, we have over 850,000 wine club members making us the largest wine of the month club in the world. Uh, next slide, please. Our Napa style tasting room. So, as you enter our Cooper Hawk, you'll walk into our Napa style tasting room. This is where all the magic happens. On any given day, you'll find groups of people enjoying one of our wine tasting offerings, which are there are multiple um options to choose from. We have a variety, a sweet, and a lux. And throughout that tasting, our knowledgeable tasting room attendants give a bit of a wine education with every pour. Um, with each taste, there's tasting notes such as acidity, body, and then tidbits on the grape varietals used and, uh, the particular wine and the region that it comes from, and always some fun facts sprinkled in. We find that this experience is the first step in creating community, which is one of our company values. The relationship and connections made in the tasting room lead to many other experiences available in our gu for our guests to enjoy. As if wine tastings aren't enough, this space also provides retail area filled with specially curated wine related gifts such as glasswware, wine decanters, amongst many other options that will extend your experience beyond the restaurant. Um, founded in 2005 by our CEO, Tim McHenry, we're sailing into our 21st year of business. Um I'm proud to say that I've been with the company for 18 years. So um it's kind of very special to me as well. Um we've not only been we've not only expanded the number of locations, but we've expanded the number of additional experiences for our wine club members and our guests to enjoy. Along with their monthly bottle of wine, as a member, you're offered other opportunities to expand your benefits such as monthly themed wine club dinners in the restaurant. There's celebrity chef events, wine trips around the world. We recently added a exclusive wine uh Cooper Hawk Virgin cruise to the mix. So, it was a four-day cruise that wine club members were able to um go and wine and dine with our CEO and all of our leadership team were there as well. Um as a company, we're constantly finding new ways to expand and create community. We realize that not everybody can take a trip to Napa or to France. So that we want to bring that experience to our guests. Next slide. Thanks. Um this here's a quick snapshot of our numbers. It's been a thrill to update these slides as we expand. And I like to highlight the the ones that I like the best, which are uh over 600 wine awards earned earned through various wine competitions. Um 76 locations. We have um three picolabuka which is our additional concept that we're working on. It's a a Roman style pizza concept. Um excuse me. And the 850,000 wine club members which I think is speaks for itself. Next slide. Thank you. Um as you can see highlighted here is a few accolades achieved by Cooper Hawk and my personal one is the first one which is SAG ARA. Um we've been partnering with them since 2018. uh as of late, we're we're uh partnering with them to build and run their green room. So all the actors that come in, they go through the green room, and then they um come on out after they're either presenting or um receiving an award. Uh so we have a lot of pictures with celebrities drinking Cooper Hawk wine. Um our positive impact. I love this. This is my favorite actual slide. Um, the ways we positively impact the community are highlighted here. Not only does each location contribute on average $1.2 million a year in annual taxes, we also employ 120 to 150 new team members. Um, we partner with local vendors and contribute to local charities and charitable events. Another way we we would create community is by commissioning local artists to create pieces that bring the vibe of the community into the design of the building. Sometimes we'll do a a mural on the outside. Sometimes it'll be a mural on the inside or a piece of artwork that really makes when you walk in, if you're fun Minnetonka, you know that you're in Minnetonka walking into our restaurant. Um we do truly want to become part of the communities that we enter. Um, each average unit uh grosses $11 million a year in annual sales. And as you can see, we plan on hosting our guests during typical restaurant hours. So, nothing too late. We're closed by, you know, 9 or 10 o'clock at night. Company growth. Uh, currently we have 76 high volume locations in 14 states. And as you can see, that number will change rapidly with the additions of Colorado, South Carolina, Nevada, and now Minnesota. We have a location that we're currently designing for Woodbury. Um, and along with this presentation, I've added onto the end of it the floor plan and some of the renderings of the exterior of that specific elevation for Woodbury. And we realize that the city of Minnotonka limits the amount of offsale retailers and currently, as I understand it, there's one left uh to issue. and we're essentially here this evening just to introduce the concept to you and in hopes that we'll be considered as a welcome addition to the community. Um we'd love to be able to confidently understand that we can secure the appropriate licenses to come in to uh join the community of Minnitonka. Thank you again for your time. I appreciate it. >> Thank you very much. Don't go anywhere. We may have some questions for you. So council, any questions before we kind of talk about answer our questions? Oh, yeah. Thanks. >> I I just want to triple check. So, your um wine off sale area is just wine. There's no >> other alcohol. Okay. It's just wine. We have sparkling wine. We also have a non-alcoholic wine that we offer as well. >> Excellent. >> So, it's more like a what you would see as a a gift shop tasting at a at a if you went to a winery in Napa. >> Yes. Yeah. What we want to do is be able to supply our wine of the month for our members. So, the idea would be they would come in um to grab their wine of the month and then either leave or they would enjoy their wine with their meal and their family at the at the restaurant. >> Great. >> Okay. Well, we don't have any questions now, but we'll call you back up if we do. Thank you so much. >> Yep. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> And then, Miss Wishnack, do you have questions? Okay, here we go. Um, so council, we need to kind of I think the the biggest task here is the offsale liquor component to understand is there an appetite in the Ridgel area to designate potentially designate that last remaining liquor license for a concept like this. >> Council member Maxwell. Hey, I have a a question probably for staff. Is wineside still open as offsale or did that change? Squishnack. Thank you, mayor and council uh council member Maxwell. Um that transition happened uh a number let's see it's it could be two years ago already. Uh Fork moved in in that place and there was a lot of discussion at the time how that was that going to transition. Originally, it was owned by the same owner and that was important to the city, but they were able to work through it. Forkked is owned separately from Top 10 Liquors, >> but we still have that >> off sale uh Top 10 Liquors in that same building, the Bonaventure building. Right. >> Mayor, if I may add, >> you have an on sale for for you have an off sale for the top 10. Same that you would be asking for here. you don't you've never um in the history at least in my 20 years here you've never talked about having on sale parameters. So you haven't talked about on sale like on location like a restaurant maximum. So for with liquor if that makes sense. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Council member Romey. >> Yeah. Thank you. I just um just to follow up on that. So we we're not looking at limiting like having a restaurant there. Our main question then would be whether we would have the off sale. Is that what we're really getting at here? >> Miss Wishnack. >> Thank you, Mayor and uh council members. It really is about this kind of policy interpretation and trying to get some feedback from you all whether or not you're comfortable going to 12. Do you think it meets one of the A through C's on this list here? Um you know it is in Ridgdale. We do have, as Council Member Maxwell said, we had a previous kind of version of this. Um, again, just trying to check in with you, get your pulse as to whether or not you um think there's some validity of going forward at least. Thank you. >> I'm not seeing folks jump to speak on this. I I'll give my I've given this quite a bit of thought and I will say you know even more so I you know I had wineside and top 10 were kind of sold to us as a pretty cool concept. It didn't work out. It is what it is. That was a different concept in the sense of it came with a full-blown liquor store attached to it. Um, you know, this is quite different than that. And this is I'd say, you know, I certainly what they were looking to do with Wineside and top 10 was really pump up sales directly into it seemed like into the the liquor store. I mean, this these seem more complimentary and and very wine focused obviously um and and more gift oriented in in how it presents with the glassear. And so I I have quite I'm I'm fairly comfortable with this as a concept. I you know I I'm not sure how many people would go there exclusively. They're certainly very targeted customer because they're only offering their their own wine. And so I feel okay about it. I think, you know, this is a destination. I think the Ridgel area is the place for destinations like this. Um there is, you know, an appeal to the um vineyard experience, kind of what you get when you go to a tasting room in a at a vineyard. and have the gift shop there. So, um I think this is unique enough and and doesn't scratch the same itch as the all the other liquor offerings in the Ridgale area. Council member Wilburn. Um yeah, I would pretty much agree. I would say like if we were talking about just offsale liquor, if you ask me, do we need another location in the Richell area? No, we don't. Um, but I also am not can't off the top of my head think of anywhere in Minnetonka that is is lacking that. Um, so I would say yes, I think that the concept is unique enough and um with it being just a a wine only and really focused on their their wine and and um working with the restaurant, I I I would feel comfortable. Yeah, >> I'll go with >> I'll go with uh council member Romey first. >> Oh, thank you, mayor. Um, yeah, I'm echoing everything everybody else has said. The other thing that was appealing or interesting to me is this, you know, idea of creating community by, you know, doing some of the wine club and the dinners that it sounds like, you know, there's almost a even, you know, some of the travel or who knows and then bringing in um, you know, kind of local talent and um, in terms of artists, but so I think, you know, I like this this focus on community building. I I think this could be something different that um I don't see really uh necessarily um happening elsewhere in Minnotonka. >> Council member Calbert. Thank you, Mayor. You know, I I think about wineside and sort of when it when it happened and sort of, you know, there have been a lot of downward pressures on the restaurant industry and I I you know, I have concerns about that now as well. Um, but it's uh, you know, I agree that it's it's this this feels very niche to me and that I think I think that can be a good thing and it could also be a drawback, but I can't think of a reason not to try it. And, you know, we have vacancies in the uh, Ridgedale area that um, you know, we we could fill. Um, it's a very specific demographic. I agree about the community building. Um, so I can't think of a reason not to do it. And that's, you know, to me, um, it feels so niche that I was, uh, a little reluctant. But on the other hand, um, you know, the food looks great. Um, the, uh, examples of architecture and so forth that they presented, it's looks like a very lovely experience. And um you know I I always felt that our dining options were limited here for many years. And um it we we seem to be getting a bigger variety with um Elbow Deeon and some of the other um options that we're getting in Minnetonka. So this seems like a another option. I don't see um a reason not to um because it is just wine and I lived in Santa Barbara for 12 years which is wine country and it really is you know if you're if you're a wine connoisseur or you're just you know someone that drinks wine that's what you drink and um this is the kind of place that you'd like to go to. Council member Kley. Thank you. there. Um I also um think think this is a unique um establishment and um I like the concept. Um I think it for me um I like the idea of presenting employment. I mean um the 120 I don't know if you have that many in at that location if you you know created in Richdale but um I like that idea. I mean folks need employment and then also um a little a little bit of concern about you know the upscale it seems like a upscale restaurant. So, um I would be concerned a little bit about um price point for, you know, people being able to, you know, you want it to be welcoming and community, but um you know, I know a lot of young people go to Richdale to hang out and is this a place where um one can young people go there and afford it and then two um just making sure that young people are not getting access to wine. um I would be concerned about that and um other than that I mean I really like the idea of the concept and it being a nice place. So uh council member Maxwell I agree I don't have too much unique to add over what the other council members said but I think it does fit that category A offering a distinctive specialty service in this case it's a unique enough concept that we haven't seen in other areas of the city. I also feel afraid if we can do up to 12 and we've got one. Is there something that I'm hoping for I want to save it for? Or if we use it for this, we can't just and there's nothing else that I feel like we need to save it for. So, I'm uh in support of this concept moving forward to a full proposal. >> Excellent. Well, Miss Wishnack, I think you have what you need. >> I do indeed. Thank you, mayor and council members. Uh just a note, the next step in the process is that full application. We'll go ahead and uh do hearings when necessary. Thank you for the feedback. >> Excellent. Thank you and good luck and and hopefully we'll see you back here again and a more formal way. All right, we're going to take a 5m minute break. We're going to come back here just before um 7:55 and get through the rest of our agenda. All right, we're going to get started again. All right, next the next item on the agenda. Item 10, no, sorry, 14B. and Miss Wishack. >> Thank you, Mayor and Council. Uh again, this is a a draft ordinance for your consideration about the short-term rentals. Uh just a forecast for what we'll need is adopting the ordinance requires four votes. On the right hand side of the screen, I just have a snippet of what the actual changes are. Um but I'll go through that a little bit closer in detail later on the presentation. I do want to kind of show the path of how we ended up where we did today. So, we're going to reflect back and then show you where we're headed. Um, the rental registry itself started in 2024 and prior to that, there weren't actually any specific ordinances relating to rental properties. For reference, we have about 10,000 rental properties in the city at the moment. There are currently 24 short-term rentals in the city that are registered under this rental registry program and there is a notation on the registry today that says do you rent it for less than 30 day 30 days or less and so we know that by that checking that box that's how uh folks have self-identified the short-term rentals. We did uh present you with rental research at the March 2nd meeting. It was a study session. We kind of went in depth about all the different things in different ordinances and different cities and different options the council had. And so, um, basically under that scenario, a short-term rental is a property where a person owns property owner rents all or part of a home to guests for less than 30 days. Kind of consistent with kind of our question on the rental registration. Am I sounding okay? I'm sorry, Mike. You were looking at me. I'm not very loud. Okay. Maybe in the back they can. That's usually not my problem. But so when you look at me, I think something's wrong. Okay. How about that? Is that better? All right. Uh council concerns. At that time, you talked about investorowned properties. is we had discussions about impact on values, impact on access to housing stock for ownership and then safety and absentee landlords. At that time, the council didn't express consensus on a total ban on short-term rentals, but they were interested in exploring other regulatory options. So, that's what you were doing at that time. and then you provide a direction to draft an ordinance and we would see it again which we did on April 27th and we had a draft ready for you and at that draft it was more about licensing right we had licensing as the premise we would do short-term rentals as a specific license just a clarification we weren't thinking about licensing all types of rentals just short-term and uh it would require that no owner or applicant could own or have an interest in more than one licensed short-term rental. Um, and the council discussed their concerns. You had concerns about that and how violations would be addressed. You talked about homestead status and if regulations should be licensed or just registration. when you came through that meeting, uh the consensus at that point was to change the introduction of the ordinance uh to allow only homestead short-term rentals and then require them to be registered with the city. And that's what this updated draft amendment does. I do want to share some feedback with you, things that happened in the interim. So, you adopted that. We opened the Minnetonka matters page the very next day to show the public uh what was being proposed. And on May 13th, we had a virtual meeting with those who are actually registered owners of short-term so we could tell them what the draft ordinance said. And if you want to watch the meeting, it's posted on the Minnitanka Matters website. You can um review what was said and what the discussion was. But generally uh to let you know, seven people did attend the meeting and the comments that they shared related to really the benefits that guests bring about local spending, talking about supplemental income for current owners and then the reasons why people stay at short-term rentals. And overall there was a concern about homesteading requirement but acknowledged that there were concerns that there are concerns that they knew about corporate investorowned properties. Then we headed to the planning commission. That's where the official public hearing was held. So commissioners did ask a variety of questions. They talked about access accessory dwelling units or ADUs talking about that they could be rented as long as the property owner resides at the primary residence or ADU. Um that code section is already in the city code. So it was just reminding maybe people hadn't referenced that recently but there that has always been in the code since ADUs were um amended a number of years ago. no properties in in this ordinance or draft would be grandfathered in. So there was some confusion and and the planning commission does deal with grandfathering or existing nonconformities on a pretty regular basis. So I think this being in the rental registry section of the code was a little bit confusing. So, we want to make sure that folks knew that there is no such thing as grandfathering. When you have a um a situation where there's somebody who can't prove that they're homesteaded, they wouldn't be able to get a registration. So, that's how the ordinance work and that's an annual action. So, we went through that with the planning commission. Um, the next one was about property management services and that would be prohibited for short-term rentals and then would not be prohibited. Excuse me, I said that wrong. My apologies. And then short-term rental registration would be required and renewed annually. Um, just like all rentals in the city. So again, putting the two and two together with short-term and long-term rentals. There were six individuals who appeared at the public hearing. Uh there were people who spoke in support of it. Uh they expressed negative impacts to their neighborhood, concerns that they had about safety and nuisances relating to short-term rentals. A number of folks uh expressed concerns about the impact of uh short-term rentals on their investments and their ability as owners to sell. There were some that spoke in opposition. They indicated that regulation was necessary but restricting it to just homesteaded status would be serving or function as a near ban. It also is limiting and penalizes responsible owners who are not homesteading their properties. Additionally, someone noted that short-term rentals fill a housing gap within the city. And finally, some indicated professional management can help mitigate some of the concerns that were expressed. So, in the end, we asked the planning commission not for a formal recommendation again because this doesn't act as a zoning ordinance or a zoning provision. Um, their role was to hold the public hearing, but we asked them to provide you feedback at least that you would have some information from them about their opinions. And so, we kind of put them in two buckets. one was the advantages of the proposed ordinance that you see tonight and then the drawbacks that they saw. So one of the things they mentioned is uh the first thing was ensuring a stakeholder in the neighborhood to address problems was attractive to them. Also protecting ownership and existing residents about the quality of light that they're experiencing. Homesteading, one of the commissioners said it was an elegant solution verbatim. And then uh the next one was it does not prevent someone from renting out a home longterm. So they they recognize that um there is still rental happening in a longer term situation and that can happen throughout the community. And so maybe just a kind of a recognition I would say of that. The next issue they mentioned was it does not rely solely on property management which could change over time. And then finally, it maintains resident ownership opportunities. On the drawback side, they could only think of one drawback, and that was about perceiving as not being businessfriendly because if you're doing this type of uh short-term rental, it typically is a business venture and and maybe that was being perceived. Um, and if that's the concern, then the Homestead Plus one could be considered. Um and but that plus one shouldn't be in a commercial area was one of the commissioner's opinions. We also did have public comment on the Menitaka matters page. I believe you have two more that were in the change memo tonight and most of the feedback I would say and I can I don't want I hate generalizing people's comments because everybody has a very specific issue and so I don't want to discount individuals and what they wrote but I would say most of the feedback did support some type of short-term rental regulation and the primary disagreement if you read some of the ones that did didn't support it really was focused on that homestead requirement ment. Um, so the next step, so if you do approve this ordinance tonight, uh, we would go ahead and, uh, we talked about in our last couple of meetings, we talked about some futuristic, uh, adoption date and that was really to understand that these are businesses and that people have to transition to allow them to kind of unroll what they were doing, especially in the non-homesteaded situation. And by the way, I think somebody asked me um what the numbers were. So, 24 um short-term rentals in the city and 14 of those did not have an address that lined up with the um short-term rentals. So, I would say about 14 out of 24 if you were looking for that information. Um we would do kind of a mid check-in. So, that's 6 months between, you know, June and January. So, right in the middle, we kind of said, you know, we need to remind people outreach again. you know, we've already done some of the initial outreach and the letter uh letters to the owners, but we'd have to outline those compliance dates again and check in uh with those folks to remind them. And then January 1st would be the implementation uh that is being proposed. Again, very short for a pretty large issue, pretty short ordinance changes. Again, you're not changing any requirements for registration. That would stay the same. they would register as usual. The only thing you would check in addition to all the other things that we do is um you would check for the homesteading um in this ordinance. So with that, mayor, I will turn it back to you for any questions. I'd be happy to answer. Um and I'll leave it at that. >> Thank you, Miss Wishnack. Um, you know, we've talked a lot about this, but we've honed in on this language here. Questions first. Council member Kley, go ahead. Thank you, Mayor. My question would be um what would happen to the 14 that's not homestead? Um what's going to happen with that since it can't be grandfathered in? >> Miss Wishnack. Thank you, Mayor and Council Member Kley and council members. this uh would prevent them from renting as a short-term rental. They could uh probably transfer to a long-term rental if they cho so choose. Uh however, if they don't have a homestead, when they register next year, there would be no uh registration issued to them. >> Okay. >> Thank you, Council Member Wilburn. Um, of the 14 non-h homesteaded properties, are any of those uh considered private equity LLC, any of any of the the ownership that people are concerned about? >> Miss Wishnack, >> Mayor and Council Wilbo Wilburn, let me reference my list again. I can come back to you with that answer. Thank you, Mayor. >> Okay. In the meantime, um, Council Member Maxwell. >> Yeah. Could you um remind me of the definition of a homesteaded property, homestead status, and how that relates to owner occupied? I've a lot of the uh resident feedback was around owner occupied. I just want to make sure we all understand what those verbiage mean and what exactly this means in this ordinance. >> Miss Wishnack. >> Thank you, mayor and council members. Um there is no city definition for homesteading because it's a state statute. So uh when somebody applies to have homesteading in the city of Minnotonka, they fill out the paperwork on Henipin County's uh website and there's uh homesteading requirements that are there. Uh but if you read the statute, there's lots of language and and requirements. Um, but it does talk about um, and I don't want to get too detailed here unless we have more questions, but there is reference to um, primary residence and that sort of thing in the homesteading statute. And so there's lots of things that tie to maybe somebody's personal income taxes, etc. And um, so that's homesteading, basic homesteading. You have to live in your home for a period of time, 183 days, something like that. Um, but there's a ton of um other regulations. So, there's that. Now, you said owner occupied. Um, that one's a little looser to me. And I say that because there's actually not an owner occupied, per se definition. Um, I think we all know it kind of means, you know, you're in the house. If you are the owner, you live in the house. So, I mean that that's a really basic um concept, but uh it's less I guess in my opinion it's not as detailed as a homestead. Um having owner occupied property um then people would you would have to find compliance somehow, right? If you use those words or maybe you would want to make a definition. And so if you're headed that route, I would encourage you to actually define what you mean when you say owner occupied because just having someone own be an owner and occupy the property, that's not enough, I don't think, for enforcement reasons. So I'll leave it at that and we can talk more about that as we go through the conversation. >> Thank you, >> Council Member Romey. Thank you, Mayor. Um, thanks for that answer. Um, just two followups. Uh, and thank you for the question, Council Member Maxwell. Um, could first of all, two two-parter. Um, are there ever ever any times that we know because I know that Henipin County then enforces this um, homestead requirement. Um, but my understanding is is that Minnitonka used to do that. So that you know, we do have some um, expertise or you know, knowledge of this. Are there ever any times where there is not an individual owner where a partnership or um some other entity owns a home and can homestead it? Miss Wishnack. Uh thank you, Mayor and Council Member Romey. Um I think I think it's best to say if you look at the Henipin County regulation and it kind of gives you a list, you have to meet one of the conditions. I I actually have a slide about this. Can you pull that up, Susan? Um, I wasn't sure where the discussion was headed, so I had a predetermined slide that showed this. Um, Henipin County has a list of conditions, and we're going to get to it in a second. And I think that's important to address your specific question. No pressure. Excuse me. >> Sorry. There we go. The extra slides. Thank you. And go to the second slide. There you go. All right. So, on the Henipin County um there we go. On the Henipin County side, if you have yes to any of these statements, you own a property as a Minnesota resident. You own the property in your own name, not a business entity. Okay? you live in a property year round or you or your property co-own co-owner have a social security number or an individual tax ID number or your relative lives in the property. It must be your child, grandchild, sibling, parent, etc. Again, the key word here is any of those to be qualified for homestead. I would encourage you not only to rely on that kind of website uh I would call it more uh public friendly um language. Uh there is so much in the state law that talks I just excerpt one section of statute 273 that talks about some of the homesteading and kind of the classifications of um how they do that. So to answer your specific question, um I think that the business entities wouldn't apply. The only exception I think would be in a trustee situation, which isn't an actual LLC, but it is a different entity um than a private owner, if that's helpful in a trust. In a trust. Um okay. Yeah, that sounds like that could be an issue. um potentially I guess this is coming up because a couple of um residents contacted me and um talked about properties in in a neighborhood that one of whom has which has been on the market. The owners are not in there living in the home. It's on the market and yet it's and and it's listed as homesteaded on, you know, Henipin County Records and yet the owners are not living there and renting it out as an STR, as a short-term rental. And then another one um in the same neighborhood in which the uh owner purchased it but has never lived in it, has been um renovating it, and it is also claiming homestead status. and my neighbor understands that or my uh the resident in my neighborhood understands that that the owner told her that he is planning to rent it out as on Verbbo. Um so I guess my question would be you know that's what brought this to mind. Um you know what is the re you know first of all are they homesteaded legally? you know, would these people be able to go to Henipin County then and say, you know, what just kind of what pe what's the situation here? >> Miss Wishnack. >> Yeah, thank you. Uh, Mayor and Council Member Maly, I think I mean it's really like the enforcement of homesteading, right? >> I think is where you're headed. And I think that, and I've done this before, if there's information that the city has that is contrary to what we see on, let's say, the Henipin County website and it says homesteading, but I know the person isn't homesteaded. I mean, they're not living there. I'm talking to them and they're communicating from a different location, right? And but I don't want to assume I know their situation. I don't want to assume I know that they haven't lived there for the days that they're required to. So, I don't ever make that opinion myself. I share that information with the county, as do other staff members uh that run into that situation. So, if we notice that there's a homestead on a property, but we're dealing with them and they're not living there or there indications that they're not living there, we will report that to the county. >> All right. Thank you. And um I guess one more, like I said, my second followup. Yeah, hold on one sec. It looks like Mr. Nelson wants to weigh in on that. Mr. Nelson, go ahead. >> Thank you, Mayor. Council member Riley, and and and um Julie stated it well. I was trying to find the enforcement provision in state law and the and the homesteading statutes are kind of a a morass that maybe you don't even want to fall into, but um but there are enforcement provisions. I know, and I will probably not get this right, but I did look at them some time ago. Uh for example, when there is a sale or a transfer of property or other qualifying events, there is a requirement in state law that they update the homestead status be either, you know, changed, altered, updated within 30 days. Um there are also for uh penalties provided for, you know, uh having a fraudulent homestead status or and um that can include uh payment of the the tax rate that you would have been subject to. um uh monetary penalties and I think potential prosecution as a misdemeanor, which would be, you know, the maximum penalties of of up to a year in jail and a $3,000 fine. >> All right. Thank you. And is there anything precluding us um from doing both the uh you know, homestead requirement and just saying owner occupied like some of the other you know, cities do in order to just kind of make it clear. >> Mr. Nelson, take this one. >> Sure. Mayor, Council Member Mory, I think to me that that almost seems redundant because I think homestead status uh means primary residence and owner occupancy means occupying your residence. So, it's all sort of somewhat one and the same. Um again from from an enforcement perspective uh staff you know would would want something that is fairly easily uh objectifiably ver you know verifiable without too much of a resource intensive nature and having a a a filing to start with and point to an application is something that can can do that well. >> Thank you. do that. I think that answers some of our residents uh you know kind of questions on this. All right, council. Other questions? Mayor, I do have an answer for the question before. Okay, go ahead, Miss Wishnack. >> Thank you. Uh it is we have six five, excuse me, LLC's out of 14 that are nonhomestead. Five of the 14 of the 24 if that makes sense. 24 total, 14 are non-h homestead, five are LLC's. Thank you. That is helpful. Okay, here's what we're going to do. So, just to be just as a reminder from the purposes of kind of process, the public hearing was held in this that was handled by the planning commission. So, this isn't technically a public hearing, but what we're going to do is we're going to take comment and we're going to try to be as efficient as possible. I've got I don't know half dozen more or more cards here. Look, seven or eight cards. And we're going to have our three minute timer set. I would be um very grateful if you could try to keep it to two minutes and we'll cut you off at the three minutes. Okay? And um we'll take I what I can assure you I I know this for a fact is that most if not all of us did watch the planning commission meeting and we have been receiving all the communication both through email and as posted in the packet. So do your best not to be too redundant. Although I I know there are some points you're wishing to hit home. So uh we'll give you that opportunity. Um, I'm going to have people line up in in threes essentially. So, we're going to start by with Janine Hornig and then following her will be Andy Loose and following him will be Mark Henny. So, if you all three kind of come up so you're queued up so we're not taking a ton of time. Um, Miss Hornig, please come on up. All right, not seeing that person. I'll put it we'll try again later. Uh Mr. Loose, why don't you start? And then third in the queue is um some of the times the writing's hard to read. Ivy Niveik will be third. Good evening, Mr. Loose. >> Good evening, Mayor Shaq, council members, staff. Thank you very much. And I'll be brief. Um, Andy Loose, 16922 Graze Bay Boulevard. I moved uh into the neighborhood almost exactly a year ago all the way from Bloomington, Minnesota. I work at the airport, so I switched my 8-minute commute to a 30 minute uh drudgery on 494. I did that because I wanted to have the lake experience over here on Grace Bay where the houses are all this close together and all that. Okay. So, I moved in. Everything was going great. Uh the place immediately to my west I discovered was a short-term rental. Um the trouble spot for me, just two quick things, is the unpredictable nature of these things. You just don't know where you're going to get. It's a crapshoot. Uh most recently this past weekend, the folks came in on Saturday night, like at midnight, trailer doors from the U-Haul or whatever, banging around and all that. Woke me up Saturday night. not such a huge deal, but these things are um almost ruining my experience being on the lake because um every second or third weekend then there's going to be this different behavior with the moving in moving out process and then that during the week with the different folks that are there. Granted, if it's a family, maybe it's a little better, but if it's just a group of young people, it's noisier. And I've seen this in other areas as well, not just this uh property right next door to me. Um, so the unpredictable nature is number one. The the second thing that's very personal to me is um I fly for the big airline in town here and it's good that I'm rested when I go to work. And yeah, there's a one-off once in a while with a siren or a barking dog or something, but if it's every fourth or fifth day with noise for something like this, which to me is avoidable by strengthening the language in this ordinance, I'd greatly appreciate it. And thank you so much for your time tonight. >> Thank you, Mr. Henny. And then Ivy Niveik, and following um her will be Joel Stone. So, Mr. Henny, go ahead. Uh good evening uh madame mayor and city council members. My name is Mark Haney. I'm a 32-year resident of of Minnetonka. I live on Wellington Circle in Minnesota or excuse me in Minnetonka with my wife and daughters. I'm here today to encourage you to pass uh the short-term rental ordinance um and including uh the important provision that SDRs be limited to homestead properties. I want to make clear that, you know, our comments today or my comments today are about the 30 days, those that are under 30 days. I have many wonderful neighbors who are part of our communities that have rented long-term uh houses for years. They are part of our community like everyone else. And uh we love them dearly. So, uh that it is limited to that. But we should be clear about what's happening here. This is bigger uh part of a bigger pattern. uh private equity and corporate investors are reaching into every corner of American life that families and communities care about and finding ways to extract profits. Youth sports, veterary care, healthcare, daycare, uh the pattern is always the same. They buy in, they raise prices, they cut what they can, and they walk away with all the profits. Now, Airbnb, VRBO, and the investors who use them are doing the same things to our neighbors neighborhoods with short-term rentals, which could be better described as mini hotels. Residents built uh this community. We moved to communities that were zoned for residential purposes. We paid taxes. We've kept up our homes, made beautiful neighborhoods, supported the schools, made safe neighborhoods for children, and looked out for our neighbors. Outside investors want to cash in on that work and leave us holding the risks and the costs. This is about privatizing profits and socializing the risks and losses. It's a terrible bargain and it's a deal we don't have to accept. I have three principal concerns. safety and quality of life. The short-term renters are passing through. They're on vacation. They do not know their neighbors, and they often don't act like neighbors. Parking, noise, speeding, late night parties, destruction of properties. When owners live a city away or state away or on the coasts, there's nobody to call when things go wrong, and they do go wrong. Property upkeep. Investor owners cut costs to maximize returns. lawn, snow, repairs, appearance, safety, background checks. The whole block pays for the lower property values. Every home converted to a short-term rental is one less home for a Minnitonka family to buy or rent for the long term. Prices go up, property taxes go up, young families and long-term residents get pushed out. The homestead requirement is a key piece. When the operator actually lives in the home, their interest interests line up with the neighborhoods. They screen their guests. They keep the place up. They answer the door when there's a problem. This is the difference between a neighborhood and an absentee landlord cashing checks from out of state. Please pass this ordinance. Thank you. >> Thank you. All right, Miss Nivic and then Mr. Stone and then Mr. Ringhoffer. Welcome. Hi. Hey. Okay. Um, thank you for letting me chat today. Uh, I actually just found out about this a couple hours ago, so I had to put all my notes on my phone as I didn't have as much time to prepare as probably most people did. Um, but I'm here. Uh, I absolutely think that part of the ordinance is really great. I think the homesteading part is something that's unnecessary in uh, in my opinion. I actually do I am one of the homesteaded owners here in Minnetonka. So, I have a short-term rental and um I'm very active in it. I, you know, still clean my own Airbnb typically most of the time. Um and I'm active in just uh vetting who's going to stay in my property because it is my primary residence. But when I travel or I'm out of town, uh it's obviously a lovely opportunity to be able to rent it out. But anyway, with that being said, um I just wanted to say I've been running um short-term rentals for 12 years. I've never owned more than one. Uh most of the investors in the neighborhoods are actually your neighbors. As you as we found out, there's only five that are LLC's. So typically it is somebody who you know is doing it for the benefit of maybe offsetting their mortgage or people who have the ADUs which again also need to be owner occupied for those to be on the same lot. Um but anyway the cities that have outlawed this have uh much less expensive homes that easily turn a profit and the land value in Minnotonka simply does not allow for a saturated STR market. as we've established, there's only 24 here out of 23,515 homes in the state or sorry, in the city. Um, so with that being said, um, the few of us that are offering a home to traveling families are offering a service that is not readily available to rent. Um, typically for families who are coming into town for like a wedding or a graduation, which is who I've rented to the last two weekends. So, it's been families that are here celebrating a wedding, families who are here celebrating um one of them was a uh a white coat graduation. But anyway, with that being said, um I just uh oh, the other thing that I've done is midterm rentals. And I don't know if this is going to affect that or not, but midterm rentals are typically 30 days or more, but less than, you know, a six-month rental. Um and I've done that for insurance housing. So people who are displaced out of their Minnitonka homes that want to stay in the same school district maybe for their kids or near their jobs. Um so it's important to me that you know that would not change. Um and so anyway uh the typically the nationwide investors that have invested are uh have caused massive imbalances. That's in places like Seattle and Los Angeles, not really here in Minnetonka. Uh I have uh sorry I'm going to skip ahead to a couple of mine. So, um, also wanted to bring up what would be the alternative for people who do need an entire home like with a kitchen cuz they're traveling with children or a yard for pets, that type of thing. So, anyway, my suggestions are just that there would be a 3-day minimum on all reservations. That helps um rule out parties or people who are going to just rent the property for one night. um hire or do what Inenver Grove Heights has done which is higher property taxes with a special tax code for STR which would be um >> I'm gonna interrupt you miss we're we're past the three >> okay thank you >> thank you very much >> thanks >> okay next up is Joel Stone Kevin Ringhoffer to follow him and Holly Godfrey after that Mr. stone and I understand they're ready for your slides there. >> Yes, mayor, city council and staff, I have to apologize. I was misinformed. Staff informed me at the break that they're happy to run a PowerPoint. So, thank you for that. Um, this is my backyard, but this is not my people. This is people guests of the short-term rental next door. There are five guests in my backyard from the short-term rental and one dog. Why do they migrate over to my backyard? Because the owner's short-term rental dock is decrepit and dangerous. One guest fell between the dock panels and cut up his leg. Would the STR guest tell grandma to board a kayak over rocks and decrepit docks? No. They'll venture it over my backyard where it's safe. Guests don't care about behaving neighborly. They will be gone in a few days. What do they care? Uh long-term neighbors generally would not behave like this to a neighbor. Um next slide. Um, here's a typical VBO and Airbnb guest in Minnitonka short-term rental. They're a couple that raised their kids in the metro area. They're retired, moved south. They have grown adult children and grandchildren that are still in the area. They don't want to get a hotel. They want to get a place to gather. Next, they arrive. Typical uh stay is they arrive on Sunday. They stock up on food and alcohol Monday. They invite friends over on Tuesday from their former neighborhood. They invite the kids and grandkids over on Wednesday. They invite the old co-workers over to party on Thursday. Invite everybody back to party all weekend and time to go on home on Sunday when a new group arrives and rinse and repeat all summer long. Um, internet platforms like Airbnb and VRBO screen guests. That's false. They require a photo ID, but only for the one person, the buyer. There's no background checks, no employment verification, no criminal checks. If a guest is banned by Airbnb or Vio for um having trouble or parties or damage, they just have a different email and they make a different email and their spouse or their parents book for them. Um here's my neighbor's um maybe move it up a little bit. My neighbor as a short-term rental. You can see in the upper right corner the fence needs a lot of pit chip paint. The railing has about oh maybe a foot and a foot and a half underneath the rope there that a little kid can fall four feet panels falling off concrete blocks in the bottom right sitting around. Next slide. Um here's a short-term that brought gas caddies and gas cans, seven gas cans to fuel all their illegal number of boats and write it with an open flame a couple feet away. Um, here's the green light. Green area is where they're allowed to park their boats. The red, everything in red, they're parking them illegally, but they don't care. LMCD comes out. By the time they come out, the guests are gone. Um, grandfather allowance. This would not be fair for all residents. Um, oh, the grandfather one. Oh, >> I have seven. >> Okay, that's fine. Um, some claim that residential nuisance laws are adequate, but they're really not because these people aren't violating the laws. They're it's the frequency. It's every night, party after party. They're just having noise. They're having fun. And um they're not breaking the law. It's just the every night. They're not working. They're not going to school. They're on vacation. Um, thank you very much. >> Thank you, Mr. Stone. All right, Mr. Ringhoffer, followed by Holly Godfrey and um Janine Hornne, >> Mayor and City Council. Um thank you for the opportunity to speak again, Kevin Ringhoffer, 2200 Indian Road West. Uh I'm speaking in favor of the proposed Homesteadon only uh short-term rental ordinance. Uh investor-owned short-term rentals are a commercial endeavor. Um and its primary purpose is making money which seems to be starkly different than the families or individuals who are live living and choose to live in a residential neighborhood because they want to live there or they want to be part of the of the neighborhood. Uh there may be something in the zoning code rewrite that's in process that may have some recommendations, further recommendations for for short-term rentals. I think they could probably even be limited farther than just the just the homestead requirement. uh and maybe some in terms of where short-term rentals should be located. Maybe it's more suited for a commercial a commercial area. At this point, the homestead only uh short-term rental makes sense. It's also consistent with the other Lake Minnotonka uh area cities. Uh and then finally, as uh one of the speakers pointed out before me, allowing an investorowned short-term rental takes a home away from a family and an individual who's wanting to live in Minnetonka. And secondarily, it only usually puts upward pressure on home prices, which we don't need in Minnotonka. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Ringhoffer. Holly Godfrey, followed by Janine Hornick. >> Hi, I'm Holly Godfrey. I live at 3509 Lilac Lane in Minnotonka. Um, everybody's pretty much covered all the points that I was going to make, so I'll shorten it up really quick here. Um, I ask that you adopt the ordinance to limit the STRs to the homesteader only. Um, I'm concerned about the impact of having investorowned um, STRs and there's not too many now maybe, but I think the idea is getting ahead of this and and having our ordinances in place before this becomes, you know, the hot spot. Um, I'm concerned that the investorowned um, uh, STRs, they don't really have the connection to the community. I don't think that they're going to be interested in community building, uh, supporting a neighborhood. Um, their motivation is to make money. That's that's what businesses do. Um, I'm also concerned about the pressure, the changes in um, availability of this housing um, for young families. My neighborhood is very desirable. It has the um the old stock that uh is spoken about a lot in the comprehensive plans, the the older homes that uh young families can afford and they are the ones who are continuing my neighborhood to grow and change. Um and I think that pretty much covers it from everybody else's, you know, comments as well. So, thank you. >> Thank you very much. Uh Janine Hornick. No. Still not here. All right. >> I missed the part about getting a card. I must >> Come on up. Come on up. Make it quick. >> Say, please give us your name and and your address. >> My name is Katherine Johnson. I am a homeowner in Ward 4. I live on Williston Road. Uh, I strongly encourage the city council to pass the proposed ordinance limiting short-term rentals to homesteaded properties. The core issue is simple. Investors who buy Minnotonka homes to operate as short-term rentals have no stake in the well-being of our community. They extract income from our neighborhoods and they leave the costs to Minnotonka residents and taxpayers. The proposed homestead requirement is sensible, a balanced safeguard. It preserves the homeowner's right to rent space in a home they actually live in while preventing the conversion of residential properties into commercial mini hotels run by absentee landlords for party houses. The proposed ordinance is simple, straightforward, and in particular easy and inexpensive to enforce. Passing this ordinance does not preclude making small adjustments to it in the future if a critical need for such a change arises. It's better to make good progress now rather than wait for a perfect solution to appear. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you, >> Mayor Council. >> All right, council. So, we've talked a lot about this and, you know, happy to consider anything any input that people want to add. So, floor is yours. Council member Maxwell. Uh, yeah. Oh, sorry. We have talked a lot about this. Um, one comment that I made at the study session that I'll make here again because I haven't heard it mentioned is that with this um requirement to have homestead for residents who say lived here, raised their family here, they live here in the summers on the lake when it's nice and then they homestead in a different state with different taxes and they're gone for the winters. Those people I feel have a vested interest in the community. They have the right to um use their I I feel should have the right to use their property uh while they're gone to house people instead of being empty for that part of the year. So that's something that I feel this ordinance as it's written misses. It pre prevents that type of use. Um so that's one thing I haven't heard uh uh talked about here. Um, and then the other thing, um, I think this really comes down to, do we want to use housing stock in neighborhoods, uh, as businesses? Uh, and I generally it sounds like, at least the neighbors that we've heard to tonight, and the majority of the emails and com uh, comments we've received is that the answer to that is no. So, those are the two things that I'm trying to balance as I uh, consider this ordinance today. >> Thank you, Council Member Maxwell. Who would like to go next? Council member Romey. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, first of all, I just want to um comment and follow up on on Council Member Maxwell's comment, which is well taken. Um, I would note though that, you know, nonhomesteaded long-term renters like say snowbirds who are gone for more than 6 months of the year um are still free. And in fact, I've heard from residents who um have people that they know who do this who rent out for over 30 days but still don't do a short-term rental. And those people tend to be, you know, more responsible. It's just like a friend of mine who went um on sbatical and left and they were gone for 9 months and they let out their home for you know 9 months or eight months. So they didn't do it they didn't need to do an STR. So, this isn't really, you know, pro pre precluding people from being able to do that. There are ways to do that. There's traveling nurses, there's traveling professionals, there's all sorts of ways to do midterm rentals, as has been noted. Um, so that would not preclude just because they can't do a short-term rental. Um, I guess, you know, those are things that I've heard from residents and that's already happening in Minnotonka. Um, so my comment would be I think a lot of neighbors have already brought this up in residents that this is essentially a mini hotel which is a commercial use and we already regulate commercial activity in our residential areas. We don't allow hotels, we don't allow event centers. Um, there's all sorts of things, you know, similar to that that we, you know, we don't allow. um we don't allow retail um businesses. We don't allow even you know auto body repair shops. We in fact regulate um auto body repair shops and tire centers even when they're proximate to our residential areas. So I think this is a common sense thing and it's not just as I think one of the neighbors brought up during the planning commission meeting. This isn't just um you know kind of an in investor private equity LLC although there is that um a lot of these folks may live elsewhere on the 11 like for example in the 11 out of 14 Mitaka Lake Minnotonka bordering cities that don't allow non-investor or investor short-term rentals. They ban them either altogether or they ban all but homestead renters. So they maybe live in a community like Mound for example and then they buy in Minnetonka where they do allow STRs, investor STRs and you know for all the reasons that we've talked about those can be problematic. I think we had one person come up here who said I live in my home and I do an STR and I take care of it. That's great. That's exactly what we want. Um and you know so this ordinance would not preclude that. What we are trying to prelude is investors of any type coming in and basically making money off of, you know, kind of a residential area in a commercial business sense. Um, that is far different from residents who own and occupy their own homes renting it out to for a few months a year. Maybe at some point we want to, you know, like some some communities around Lake Minnetonka, um, you know, kind of maximize the number of of days per year that even homesteaders can do it. That's something we can look at later on. But for now, I think, um, you know, kind of doing kind of following and being consistent. There's a reason that so many other uh, communities around Lake Minnetonka have done this and not just around Lake Minnetonka, Prior Lake, Edina, Bloomington, St. Lewis Park, Inenver Grove Heights, more and more cities in the last few years have started to regulate or ban altogether short-term rentals because of the issues that they have brought to communities, including taking away long-term owned or rental uh units and home homes uh off the market, which again, as a resident noted, creates upward pressure uh on home prices and rents and then obviously also translate can translate into higher property taxes. We've seen that certainly in uh neighborhoods in in W three. So I think for those reasons um you know I I I remain in favor of this ordinance. I you know think that uh it seems to me that the the main you know the overwhelming amount of comments that I have had have been supportive of this ordinance and supportive of the homesteadon only provision in it. So for those reasons and all the reasons that have been mentioned and um the fact that we do I want to you know congratulate staff for all the research they've done I believe um the planning commission did for being proactive and and looking ahead on this and not waiting for it to be a problem as it was has been in min in Weisetta. I think this is a good um kind of balanced approach that um keeps keeps uh you know the neighborhoods for our neighbors. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Rome. Council member Calbertt. Thank you, Mayor. Um, a couple of things. So, I I think, you know, we live in a world where where I feel it's important to hold two truths simultaneously sometimes, and I am in that space. So, um I also know that um I know how comments work and um you know sometimes the people that know uh comment and so they're they're of a particular uh frame of mind. That said, we we got a few comments that they weren't they weren't against the regulation per se, but they called into question um some of the reasoning. And I I think particularly first of all, I know of people that rem that were remodeling their homes and they just needed to get out of their house and be somewhere where it wasn't dust and construction 24/7. um people that do have medical situations or you know the birth of a grandchild um or you know some family uh event or situation um that need a place to stay. So, I think those are all really legitimate. And there was one um person who did provide feedback that is a retiree that said that her short-term rental has allowed her to invest in remodeling her home and to stay in her home and to manage the increase in property taxes and um you know live live in her property long term. So, I think that they're and these are short-term rentals. So, um, so there's that. And I just wanted to um I I'm sort of in an ambivalent space. I'm I you know, I understand why people are for it. And then I also I feel like maybe we're getting ahead of a problem. It's one of those things that um it isn't really that much of a problem except for a few people that have expressed it. Um so it's not like an overwhelming, you know, citywide issue, but I wanted to ask uh Council Member Maxwell if she could say the your second the second thing that you said. So, the first thing had to do with I think like the snowbirds and I I I couldn't hear you very well and I just wanted to make sure I heard you council member. >> Uh the second thing I said was do we want to use housing stock in neighborhood family neighborhoods as sites of business >> as >> as businesses? Council member Kley or Wilburn, either one of you. Go ahead. >> Yeah. I So, similar to council council member Maxwell, my thoughts was I'm just concerned about the nine people that are non-h homestead but not a private equity that would not be able to continue to have short-term rentals. And I realize there may be other options, but you know, we don't we don't know people's situations. there may be a reason why they prefer short-term rentals um as opposed to trying to have longer uh longer rentals in the properties and we are we would be taking that option away from you know it might be someone who who lives in Minnetonka 180 days out of the year um and that's not enough to be homesteaded but they're Minnetonka residents um so that really is my main concern Um, also the the like as the as the one lady said, like she rents when she's out of town. So, a lot of these short-term rent, even though they're owner occupied, the owner is not necessarily on site while the rental is taking place. So, while hopefully they're doing a a a good job of vetting um because it's their house and they care about it, they're not there to take care of problems that are happening, which is what which is one of the one of the main concerns that people are are are bringing forth. Um, and I think we also need to maybe uh do some education with people on like what what is uh we have noise noise ordinances and some other things in place that people may not be aware. So like some of the time some people may actually be violating ordinances when you know our the one resident was saying well they're not breaking any laws. They might be. So um that's sort of where I am. Thank you, Council Member Wil. Council member Kley, go ahead. >> I guess I do have one question. Um, when we talked about like the mid I guess 6 months where someone's gone for like 6 months, is there something that we could put in place where we could have um, you know, owners who do leave for 6 months out of the year? Um, do we have something like that in place? Miss Wishnack, >> the six month uh mayor and council member Klay, six months would be allowed under the ordinance. So you can do that today with with or without this ordinance. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> Well, then I support it. >> Okay. Um well, I'll weigh in a little bit. I mean I I think the sentiment there's you know I I certainly recognize the acute nature for if this is a problem in your next to you it's a problem right and I I really appreciate that and that issue is proven in multiple occasions here I and and I'll be frank I think there's an appetite to support this ordinance and I and I am fairly apathetic about it but I also support my council members who are supportive of the ordinance. Um, I do take a little bit of issue with the implication that anybody who is renting out as a short-term rental is just trying to make a buck and that in and that in uh passing this ordinance won't affect real people, real individuals with real life circumstances. You know, one of the comments that stuck out to me was a family that's kind of finishing up raising their family in North Dakota and is has some kids, adult kids in the metro and some um minor kids it sounds like still in North Dakota. They inherited a property property in Minnetonka that they love and very much want to keep and they intend they've been using it as a short-term rental when they're not there. And then when they're here to visit their kids in the metro, they they stay in that home. They will be prohibited under this ordinance from continuing to rent that out as a short-term rental. And it sounds like the way they're using it would not allow them to use midterm rentals or um and so what they indicated at least in their comments was that they would probably have to let that property go and that they would have to have to sell it. And it's unfortunate because I think these are people prepared to make an investment in our community and need a creative solution to kind of get over this hump. And I only mention this because I think there's a certain vilification of anybody who might want be in this situation where they're using this as a financial solution to get them over a certain period of time. And um I just don't think that's necessarily what we have going on for a lot of folks here in Minnetonka. And so I at least want to acknowledge to those folks that I see you I recognize that this decision is without is not without impact for that type of individual. Um the obviously the balance to that is it is not without impact to Mr. Stone who or Mr. or loose who are living living next to a vacation home and even probably the best tenants well when on vacation are less conscientious than maybe somebody who has to go to work in the morning. I I certainly recognize that as well. So um we have an opportunity as always when we pass a new ordinance to pay attention to it, monitor it. Um, we are p we are working on a new zoning code and if we see this is something that we need to continue to work on, we certainly can. But I think this is an opportunity to maybe try something and see how it goes. But again, doing that will impact real people with real life financial circumstances and I certainly recognize that. So that those are my comments. Um, I would uh, council member Wilbur, >> can I just ask another real quick question of Miss Wishnack because I'm not completely sure the way you answered council member Kley's question got. So, let me >> Okay, >> let me ask a different question. Um, and I think we asked this last time and the answer was no, but is there a way to allow nonhomesteaded people to do short-term rentals but exclude um LLC's or or private equity owners? >> Miss Wishnack, >> U. Mayor and Council Wilburn, I'm taking in your question. Um, you can't homestead LLC anyway. So, it's kind of a self-fulfilling, right? >> She's trying to ask kind of hit that um snowbird issue where they can't be homesteaded here. They're deeply invested. M that's a that's a tougher I think that's >> but exclude the the LLC's which no you know none of us want that >> which you're doing right so this organ does absolutely exclude them but it also excludes other people >> correct and I think um >> that would take some more time to digest and and make a new ordinance if that's really what you wanted to do so I'm I'm sorry I can't do that on the fly. Yep. >> Council me Council Member Romey. >> Um again, just to reiterate, um you know, investor LLC's don't have to be just private equity. Um those aren't the only problematic. An investor can be a homeowner, somebody who who lives in Mound and buys a second home in Minnetonka and then uses it, leases it out as a party house. So, this isn't just a private equity issue. Um and again in terms of the snowbirds who are um seven months uh in Florida or Texas where they don't have to pay income taxes and then come back here and use our amenities for four or five months of the year and take advantage of the state income taxes that pay for many of the infrastructure and improvements in Minnotonka. they are free to rent midterm for three 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 months. Um, so I just want to reiterate that so that's clear that this would not preclude this ordinance would re would not preclude people converting. You know, we're not asking people to take a bath in terms of their investment. But I don't and and so they can convert to a long-term rental, they can sell. But I would ask, are we as a city interested in basically subsidizing or supporting commercial uses of residential property in Minnotonka? or should they convert to long-term rentals or selling which will benefit the community in terms of long-term housing and community cohesion. These are the people who are going to be volunteering for our boards and commissions on our school boards on our PTAs and doing all the things that make Minnotonka a terrific place to live for families. So that would be, you know, kind of my comment um and rejoinder to that that I would ask um my fellow council members to take into consideration. All right. Well, we've got do we have any followup? So those of you or us that it's it's time to make a decision. So, we would I I think we start probably with a motion. Council member Romey, >> I'll make a motion to adopt the ordinance. >> And do we have a second? Council member Kley. >> I second. I have a motion by Council Member Romey and a second by Council Member Kley. Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Calbertt, >> I'm going to vote yes. And I just want to acknowledge that I very much agree with uh Mayor Shaq's comments. Thank you. >> Rome, >> yes. >> Copley, >> yes. >> Maxwell, >> yes. >> Wilburn, >> yes. >> Shaq, >> yes. Motion carries. All right. Thank you, council, for sticking with us there. Item 14 C, concept plan for quick trip at 1900 and 9820 Minnitonka Boulevard, 3119F Street, 3112 Gizmo Lane, and 31000 Gizmo Lane. And Miss Thomas, this is you. >> Uh, yes. Thank you, Mayor Shack, and council members. And I'm not going to repeat all of those uh addresses, but this site is located generally in the northwest uh quadrant of the Minnitanka Boulevard, 169 interchange. It is comprised of this existing Sinclair gas station and then four existing uh single dwellings. The lots that are located on Minnitonka Boulevard proper are actually both zoned uh commercial. Even though one is an existing single family home, they're guided in the 2040 comp plan for commercial use. the um single family homes uh to the north. Part of this uh site design are zoned R1, which is low density residential, but they're actually guided for mixed use, as is uh all of the properties to the north here. Mixed use, as you know, doesn't mean a mix of uses has to go on the site, but rather that a variety of different uses may be appropriate uh for the site. The QuickTrip concept plan uh contemplates removing all of those existing buildings and constructing a roughly 7,000 square foot uh quickrip convenience store. Uh and then uh gas pumps to the west. Vehicle access on the concept is shown from both Minnitonka Boulevard and F Street uh to the west. I would note that this concept plan does not include a car wash. Uh the applicant has also indicated that the site is such that it would not um accommodate semi- type uh deliveries to the property. As the council is aware, when there is a large or what staff would consider significant redevelopment, a project contemplated, city staff always recommends that a potential developer go through this two-phase process. The first being the concept plan review, which is intended really as a feedback process, an opportunity for residents, for property owners, the commission, uh this body to provide feedback and comments to the potential developer. Um, I don't have specific answers to specific questions about setbacks in storm water and trees at this point um because detailed plans haven't been um submitted. It's purely conceptual. It's really your comments or I would say your questions posed as comments that are most useful uh during this phase because it's those comments uh getting a sense of what the council is thinking that really help inform um future plans and decisions. So to that end, QuickTrip hosted a neighborhood meeting back in February. It was attended by uh 17 people from the area. The group did express a variety of concerns, all really related to potential impact of the use on their neighborhood. Those concerns included things like traffic, the drive aisle locations, buffering from property lines, and hours of operation, and with those hours, things like lights, noise, etc. The planning commission uh then considered the concept on May 28th. members of the public again expressed uh similar concerns from their neighborhood meeting. Um the commission generally commented also on traffic implications, traffic conditions already on Minnetonka Boulevard and how this would be impactful um or not, the overall size of the store and then the use adjacency uh to residences. Two commissioners actually indicated that their concerns were such that they did not think that this concept should move forward to a formal review. Other commissioners were interested in seeing what QuickTrip would uh do with the comments that they received as part of a formal review. So this evening, uh, both quickrip res representatives and city staff are looking for council feedback and kind of answers to three questions. Um, is there merit to the concept such that it should proceed to a formal development review? If yes, why? If not, why? And what would make the concept better? I recognize that I skipped over this uh so I will go back to it if you'll uh indulge me. If this concept plan were to proceed in the future to a formal review, would likely come back to both the planning commission and this body for first or reszoning from residential to commercial for those um properties off of F Street and Gizmo would require under the current zoning ordinance a conditional use permit for an auto related use. I can't off the top of my head uh determine if what we have in the the draft zoning ordinance right now. It would also require site and building plan review for construction of a a commercial building. So again, looking for your feedback uh this evening and I will turn it back to the mayor. >> Thank you, Miss Thomas. Uh council, any questions? >> Uh council member Wilburn. Just a quick one, I'm not sure I heard you. Um, did did you say that the concept review wouldn't allow for semi-re deliveries or just or the current property? >> Miss Thomas, you uh mayor and council member Wilburn. And this may be a better question for um the quickrip representative, but it was indicated that the site is such that um large semis couldn't physically um deliver to this site. Um, a question was raised at the planning commission of kind of sizes of vehicles that would be coming and going and I just wanted to point that out this evening. >> Council member Kley, I guess um you're saying that um a large semi-truck could not deliver, but could a large semi-truck get gas there? I mean, like >> that's my question. Miss Thomas, >> uh, Mayor Shack and Council Member Kley, Miss Wishnack was whispering at me that that was also what they said. That correct, a semiuk could not gas up here unlike larger quick trips that you may see uh in further out uh areas of Minnesota. >> Council member Calvert. So gas has to be delivered. It doesn't magically appear in the tanks and they usually come on semis. So um that is something that I am thinking about. Um so that's question number one. Question number two has to do with the fact that it is very close to um Minihaha Creek and um I'm wondering if staff can talk a little bit about um what what agencies would be involved and what sort of involvement would they have in some any kind of environmental review or uh you know commentary or approval of this project. Miss Wishnack, >> I'll just start with the um semis because I think we talked about this quite a bit as staff. Um the semis can deliver gas. there's enough room for that to happen. But for a a full semi bay, um they would have to have more, if you can point out, Susan, the kind of white area, this is just for cars. So if they would have a semi area for gas um uh filling, that would be a whole another area. And so they just don't physically have enough room. So the field for filling is just not there. Um filling the actual gas tanks below ground. Yes, they can get in there for that. Obviously, they would have to have that. Hopefully that helps clarify that. And then do you want to answer the >> Yeah, again I would just add the quick drip representatives are here this evening. They can tell you how um this this would work. Um again, if there's support for the concept to move forward to a formal review. Um in terms of uh who would be reviewing this proposal, um a proposal like this that's within the Shoreland District, this is about this site is about 200 ft um from uh the creek and so it does fall within the shoreland district. It's also on Minnotonka Boulevard. So typically the county, the watershed district and the DNR would have um an opportunity to comment on the project. They do not have um land use approvals. That uh comes back to to this body. Okay. I have a few couple questions. Um the first and I I gave Mr. Funka heads up on this. So hopefully you have it handy. But um I am aware personally that the holiday or the gas station in Minnitanka Mills which happens to be a holiday has some specific um conditions related to overhead speakers um light use and maybe even hours. Do you have a summary of what those conditions are? Uh, Mayor Shaq, yes, Mr. Funk also uh gave me a heads up about that. So, I did put together a slide just in case this came up. I I put maybe more on it than um was necessary. But, so looking at the existing Holiday Station, which most of us still call Glenn's even though it's not Glenn's anymore. Um, the Sinclair station as it exists, and Quick Trip. And so, this just gives you some dimensional type standards. But at the bottom, um, Glenn's onetop actually predated the zoning ordinance. So, it wasn't until 1995 when they wanted to do some improvements that they got a conditional use permit. And those conditions involved trash enclosures, snow removal plans, that site illumination plan um, that you were talking about, and then some landscape plans. In 2000 then what had been a liquor store on the site to the east was actually converted into a car wash and that does limit hours of operation. Um the car wash doesn't limit it. The city limits the hours of operation per the conditional use permit on the car wash. We require that the doors be closed. There can be no outside vacuums anywhere on the site. There can be no outside speakers on the site. So, um, yes. >> Thank you. My second question, and this is maybe an unlucky coincidence, but on Friday night, where I was driving westbound on Minnetonka Boulevard under the 169 and happened to get caught up in a situation where a um a gas tanker semi was was headed east. Now, so this is a different situation. Coming off southbound from 169, coming off and heading left east, and I suspect because of the mess that's at Louisiana, I couldn't figure out where it was headed, but I whatever. Um, and it had to reposition several times to make that left in order to make that left successfully and caused some what looked to me like some dangerous maneuvers. Um, who determines if that's like viable? Is does the state I mean do we do a traffic study? Um, does the state weigh in on whether this is a viable location to be exiting the freeway and with a certain size to anchor? And I see Mr. Manchester queued up to answer this. >> Shaq, I I'll just start uh and then Mr. Manchester, I apologize for jumping in. Well, um, if uh this were to come forward for a formal um review, certainly there would have to be a traffic study, uh, a site design study. Um the county would have to be involved in that study as it pertains to Minnotonka Boulevard and access points uh there. But then I'll turn it over to uh Will to talk about um county road projects and the actual interchange itself. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, Mayor Shack and Council. Um Miss Thomas Andrew, generally when something like that happens, you know, if there's an intersection design, the county and the state would weigh in. They actually have turning templates that they run as part of the design just to make sure those vehicles can make it. We haven't received a lot of calls in the past of people not being able to make that. So maybe this was an isolated incident. The county is actually looking at a project here um upcoming. You know, they're kind of in St. Louis Park right now and they're working their way toward us. Um we're looking at adding some dollars in the CIP for our portion coming up. It's a few years out, but this section is in the books and at that time, you know, I'd certainly look at it more. Obviously, we'd want to make sure if something like this project were to move forward, we'd make sure that if modifications were made, that could be part of the application, but we haven't gotten that concerned. I hopefully that was just an isolated incident, but certainly something we'd look at. Thank you. Okay, council. Any other questions otherwise? We'll have the folks from Quick Trip come on up. All right. And please just give us your name. Welcome. >> Thank you, mayor and councilman members. Uh Lisa Watson, uh Lacrosse, Wisconsin. And so appreciate the opportunity to speak with you this evening. And a lot of people ask why this location. And I think this came up a little bit in planning and zoning, but really when we look at sites, we look at first, Minnotonka does not have a quick trip. We would like to be in the city of Minnetonka and contribute to Minnotonka. So, we're looking for opportunities in communities that we are not in. Um, secondly, this is along a corridor in a traffic pattern that has traffic. And when driving this corridor in this area, there were for sale signs in front of this property and the house next to it. And so, we look at that opportunity. Um, Quick Trip starts by that process and then we kind of work into what's the zoning, what's the guided land use, have phone calls with the city to say is this a possibility. So, that's what has brought us here today. Um it's consistent with the city's comprehensive plan and yes resoning would happen on those uh three back houses but we felt this is a good opportunity in this area especially with there's highdensity housing very close to this location two matter of fact right in this neighborhood one down I believe on Oakidge Road um in that area but also just for the community itself. Um again, this site has been off and on for sale for 3 plus years. Um so this was an opportunity that we looked at. We feel it would be overall improvement. Uh and when talking with the city that had been considered before for future development um due to the guided comprehensive plan, it sits along a major freeway corridor. Um one of the things we look for is providing an increased tax base. And so this redevelopment of this would provide a significant uh increased tax base for this area. We also provide 25 full-time part-time jobs. Um usually the split is 4060, but we offer a livable competitive wage in our stores. Um many sea stores do not. And so Quick Trip provides a live not only a livable competitive wage but also opportunity to grow within our company. Many of our co-workers have their careers with lifetime or with um QuickTrip of 20 plus years in our stores which is actually very unheard of. Our turnover is the lowest in the sea store business at 34%. The industry standard is 100%. And so we're very proud of the fact that we provide actually career opportunities in people to move not only from store to store but even could move if they wanted to move to Lacrosse or move to a distribution center they could do that. Um they also receive profit sharing. It is different again from any sea store model. Quicktrip puts away 40% off the top of their profits to give back to every co-orker whether full-time or part-time. And so there's an invested commitment to our stores and the service that they provide. Um I kind of call it the cheers of the neighborhoods and our communities where those co-workers get to know those people who come in that store every day and are fully committed to helping our co-workers. We have many stories and I could give you guys lots of examples where co-workers um will help elderly people with groceries out to their car. They will clean up puke in a mom's car from a kid who just got sick. They will fill a tire. They will change a tire. They will do many, many tasks above and beyond that you are not going to find in another sea store brand. Um and then providing insurance options, health care, pet insurance, um sick leave, many other benefits. Um we provide goods and services within a walkable safe distance. I noticed in this uh community in this area um this would be in walkable distance for a lot of those uh residents in that neighborhood. Um and we promote sustainability. We can add chargers. We do things with graywater. There's different things that we provide. We provide bike racks. We provide a lot of different um processes within our own organization to promote sustainability. And we promote and support community involvement. One of the things you'll see, and you may or may not have heard, is we give back significantly to our communities. That's from everything from supporting local events, fundraisers, um giving back to our food shelves. We don't throw away food. We give it to our uh our local food community partners who need potentially food. So, there's lots of opportunity there. This is a map and it came up in planning commission of well we don't need another sea store or we don't need another we have grocery stores again not within walkable distance and not every parent or person wants to go to a cub to a large big box an Aldi even or a Target to pick up a simple thing of butter a simple thing of milk I have a sick child at night. Um, there could be lots of reasons that people may visit our store later in the day and forgot eggs to make something. So, it is a solution and is within walkable distance. The only other thing I'll point out is we are family-owned business. We are from the Midwest. We have operated since 1965. We started in farming communities. Our founder was a farmer. um he drove truck and we have operated we celebrated 60 years two years ago. So we are very proud of the fact that we are one of the very few companies who can say they are still familyowned. We operate in eight Midwest states. We employ more than 38,000 co-workers. Um the other thing that makes us different is we use vertical integration. What that means is we make it, we ship it, we sell it. And the benefit of that is it's a cost benefit to the customer because we can control all the costs in Lacrosse. Um we are able to reduce the costs to the customer. And it has proven when eggs were very expensive. We were selling eggs for 99 cents a dozen. And so bananas 29, potatoes $1.99 a bag. So there's many things that we can provide that a lot of the big boxes cannot match our pricing. And then 50% of our sales is food. Many people think are we're gas stations, so fuel is our our big driver, but actually 50% of our sales is food because of our hot spot. And because we can go places that maybe a Taco Bell or McDonald's or a Chick-fil-A or some of those others will not go, we provide food options that are grab and go and take and bake. Um, again, we talked about the site plan. This is concept. We can do a lot of different things with the site plan. This is more for visual as as um the staff has said we can change this based on conditions and based on things that the feedback that we hear. Um the biggest thing I want to point out is we are willing to put barriers, lots of landscaping above and beyond what is currently there. So that's usually the biggest change is our aesthetic of our site and what we provide in protecting the neighborhood and protecting the neighbors around it. um including offering different things to the different neighbors. Um we also talked about landscaping lighting. We keep our light pollution on the site. Um we also provide cameras safety wise. We do things differently. Our sta our store is staffed. We have cameras around the store and outside. And there are many things from a safety. There's multiple people on. The other thing that has come up is safety obviously of fuel. Our tanks are doublewalled with a sensor in between both walls that are constantly monitored by someone in Lacrosse. Our tanks are inspected monthly by a fuel technician from our team and then annually we have a thirdparty vendor who inspects our tanks. And then again, this is just a site. There can be lots more landscaping. This is just a rendering to show potentially what it could look like. Um this I just wanted to show we have increased our grocery offering significantly in our stores. Um this is a larger ger area. Um this shows a hot spot with a larger hotspot area and we added produce islands because that was one of the biggest requests that many of our communities asked for. They literally had no fresh fruit or veggie options and so we went to a larger produce island. and I can answer any other questions that you might have. >> Thank you very much, council. Any questions? Okay, I'm not seeing any. We if we do, we'll have you come back up, but thank you for comprehensive >> presentation. Okay. So, um, somebody's going to put the screen up with our charge here. And the questions really are, is there merit to the concept to proceed to a formal development review? If yes, why? And or what would make the concept better? So, if you want to provide your insight kind of directed to to those questions, we'll get that to staff. then um then the develop or the quick trip folks can decide what to do with it. And just as a reminder to the audience, the public meeting on this was at the planning commission. We don't take public comment at the council level for concept plans, but we did review what was provided to us via email and also the comments that were made at the planning commission. Council member Kley. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um I would say it is a merit um to um this development and the reason why is um it's a tax base. Um it provides employment and also the um you know the site to me is rough looking and it would be nice to improve that area. I know that the residents, you know, have a lot of concerns around the lighting and um traffic and um the trucks. You know, I I do have concerns about the trucks and then um what Mayor Shaq just stated about the semi-truck. I really have concerns, but um I really think that it it would be beneficial for our city to have this gas station. Um, and you know, it provides food. Sometimes at night time, I promise you, sometimes I'll be like, "Wow, we don't have any place you can go grab quick food." I mean, if just want a night snack or or something like that. I don't know what time this gas station will be open cuz most of our gas stations kind of close early in Minnetonka, I noticed. So, I don't know if this is going to be like a 24h hour I and I'm sure residents will have concern around that piece. Um, but I do think it would benefit, you know, the space at least make the gas station that we have currently um probably it would be much better than that. So, that's my thoughts on it. >> Thank you, Council Member Kley. Council member Maxwell. When I was a kid, we had seven people in my family. My mom used to send me on my bike to the quick trip to get milk and I put seven gallons of milk in the trailer and bike back up the hill. So, I I hear you. It's that walkable and families can benefit potentially from having something close. I guess there's things within a couple of miles of here, but for people who live in these apartments there, it certainly is convenient to have something in this space and clearly a gas station use is acceptable in this space since that's what's existing in at least the southern portion of this uh this plan. Um so I think as a concept that that piece is is okay. Um, but I have sort of the same comment I had on the short-term rentals is do we want to take housing and convert it into a business, particularly a gas station or convenience store in this case. Um, so I don't know that I need this answered right now from staff, but what is the ex condition of the existing homes in this are these things that are condemned or would be torn down anyway, or is it is this really affordable housing stock that would we would be losing to put in something of this um size? So, I'd be interested in seeing something smaller, reducing from 16 um gas station fillup areas down to eight, more in line with the scale of other um gas stations in this area. Um potentially decreasing slightly the footprint so that we could also decrease the amount of imperous surface this close to the creek. I'm thinking about salt runoff into the creek in the winter uh for snow removal. Um, so those are the things that I think would make it make it better. Slightly smaller scale. I'd want to understand this the um, uh, water storage. Um, what's the condition of the existing homes and do we really want to trade housing for uh, for gas station? So, I'd be interested in seeing a con, uh, a proposal if it considered those aspects. >> Thank you, Council Member Maxwell. Uh, Council Member Calvert. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, so first I want to say I I do very much appreciate many things about the business model. I'd appreciate it more if it was full-time jobs and not part-time jobs. I'd love to know if they provide health insurance for people since that is kind of a a huge thing in our society right now that um you know livable wages still don't pay for health care if you're if you're employer doesn't provide it for you. So um uh I love the emphasis on the produce and the grocery options and the price points, the job creation. um con you know in theory the improvement of a of a relatively derelict property that everyone knows something commercial is going to go there. There is already a gas station there you know so it you know if in on a certain level I I understand why the company is targeting that current property. Um, I do think that I I share all of the current concerns that uh, Council Member Maxwell expressed and I watched the um, planning commission meeting and they expressed the same um, concerns. I mean, there's at least one home that would need a lot of work um to retain it for affordable housing. The other homes in the neighborhood look, they look fine. Um but they're they're really affordable housing. And I mean, we have been, you know, turning ourselves into pretzels, considering ADUs because we need housing. We just passed a short-term rental ordinance because we need long-term housing. So, I'm deeply uncomfortable with losing um three single family home properties, even if those are not the homes that stay on the properties. Um I think the scale um of the proposal is just it's just um out of proportion to the property. So currently that little gas station which was probably built in the 40s or 50s or maybe the 60s has two gas pumps. We're talking 16 gas pumps and a lot of imperous surface. So, getting rid of some of the imperous surface, getting rid of I mean, it would be a very I mean, for me to be comfortable with it, it would be very scaled down from what it is. Um, I also listened very carefully to the planning commissioners talking about where the other quick trips are in the west metro. So, um, I'm not familiar with them, but I know there's one in Plymouth and it's on a four-lane road. This is a two-lane road. Um, and it is a traffic nightmare at peak time and the traffic there is is already pretty complicated. And I also listened to the residents um on F Street um which is a a very it's really just a little country lane dead end talk about as it's currently configured it would be most likely that people would exit onto uh F Street and then onto Minnotonka Boulevard. And there are people that live there and that would be you know at peak time a lot of traffic. So, um, uh, the presenter talked about EV chargers. That would be a selling point. I think a much scaled down version of what was proposed would be um, what I would consider acceptable there. I would really like to not lose the single family homes there. And um and I'm a little conflicted about whether to encourage proceeding to a formal um development review unless those things can be accommodated because um I don't want to make the company go through a lot of work um to get shot down. I want that, you know, if they do this, I'd want it to go in. I'd want it to succeed. I I would want the neighbors to feel that that they were good neighbors. and all of the things that we were talking about in terms of lighting and sort of scale of the sign and um uh just the circulation and all the things the the garbage the delivery times so that you have when you have the big trucks delivering gas it's not at 4 in the morning when everybody in the neighborhood's trying to sleep. Um I love the idea of extra landscaping. We're famous for being a Tree City USA. Um, that whole site could use a little sprucing up. So, that would be a good selling point. And I don't want the company to think that I'm, you know, I'm I'm very pro business and I really love the business model and I think that it does provide convenience for the neighbors. So there are things that are uh you know I love the 40% um uh that the company uh invests in the in their workers um and the opportunity to grow in the company and uh the wages that they pay which I'd love to know more about. Um but I do have concerns just about the site and the loss of uh naturally occurring affordable housing. Thank you, Council Member Calbertt. Anybody else want to weigh in on this? Council member Romey. >> Thank you. Um I think just based on our charge right now, is there merit for a concept to proceed to a form of development review? I think there is. um with some caveats and um you know I do like that you know this provides uh food um 50% of sales coming from food is is is something um worth considering and for somebody whose husband hates Cub and Target and will not go into them which leaves me to have to do it. Um it's really nice. Um I use my holiday store all the time um which is nearby to go up and and get the things accepted is much more expensive than going to those um you know kind of big box stores unfortunately. Um so you know I I do like you know the fact that you know the pricing on their food offerings seems to be um more competitive and that can help people who are you know lower incomes and you know kind of looking for you know that sort of thing and needing that sort of thing and especially people who aren't in you know don't have cars who may be in that multi-unit building and you know need to have more walkability. So I understand that. So I think for that reason, yes, the caveat is and I do understand neighborhood concerns and I really empathize with them. So therefore, um, you know, some of my comments would be I would love to see kind of a comparative. Right now we're saying this is huge. I'd like to see where this fits into the panorama of all of the other uh convenience stores and gas stations that are in the city. How much bigger is this? you know, and um you know, how does it compare? And you know, I understand from watching the planning commission meeting that the stores range from 5,000 to 9,000 and this is coming in at about 7,000. Now, I understand from the planning commission that this is partly because they use a much larger kitchen than your standard, you know, because they're making scratch food on site. So, I think we need to take that into consideration is that this isn't, you know, just this huge store and gas station. Part of this is because they're using a commercial kitchen where they're making scratch um food and and bringing in ingredients. So, I think that's worth taking into consideration. Nonetheless, I would like to see, you know, how this this lines up. And I wouldn't mind seeing this, you know, maybe go a little bit smaller in terms of the number of gas pumps and in in in terms of, you know, the overall footprint if possible. Um, that would be a big plus uh for me looking at this forward going forward. The other things that um kind of footprint-wise, I I I would like to see if it's at all possible to go forward without using all four of the residential sites. My understanding is is that the company has already bought these sites. So, it's not like the city, you know, could necessarily own or buy them and then turn them into, you know, these would be resold um if we don't go forward with this project. At least that's my understanding. Um so, it's not like we can take these back now and turn them into affordable housing. Um you know, they could be sold, maybe they could be turned into a multi-unit building, but maybe not. So, we don't know what would happen if we deny this. So that's my concern there. >> No, we're not taking public comment. We'll have you leave the meeting, but we're not taking public comments. >> Okay, I could be wrong on that. So, let's leave that there. >> That's a purchase agreement. So, let's leave that there. I appreciate your your input there. Um, basically, I would like to see that there is not um I don't like the parking being right next to the residential. I'm I'm not wild about that. So, there's a parking area that would be kind of even if there's buffering, maybe if there is no buffering. Um, the other concerns I had would be the traffic study. I have the same concerns already expressed about the exit on F Street. I don't know if this could be, you know, mitigated by exit and entrance um both being on Minnitonka Boulevard. Um perhaps I'm also would be interested in finding out how this could fit into a future Henipin County project to improve that road. You know, what is foreseen by the the county? Um there are safety concerns. Um you know, concerns about narrowness of road. Is this something that's going to be addressed within the next few years? Um I would like to see a security more on a security asurances. Again, the better separation and buffering um from the residential areas. again this slightly um at least slightly smaller size. So it would be bringing it more into line while still being a viable business model. Um in terms of sustainability um I'm going to go on record as I always do. I would prefer to see this with a solar ready roof. This would be a perfect site for solar. um you know would want to see minimized turf grass that needs pesticide use um to you know address some of the concerns about um permeable surfaces and such. I would love to see a gray water if this goes forward a graywater reuse for this. Um, and then EV chargers. Again, I would like to see at least two if this if this goes forward. And again, this could, you know, benefit people both in the neighborhood, but also people in those uh multi-unit buildings, which I'm not sure if they have residential charges, chargers there. So, I would like to have more information on that. So, lots of caveats. Um, a lot of, you know, wanting to would want to see work with the community. Um but we have seen these concerns in other projects with you know light pollution with noise pollution and things like that and we have been able to work um you know intensively with developers and developments where in the end this hasn't been a problem. I'm not saying that's the case here but I think you know there's enough merit for this concept to proceed forward as it's a mixeduse um site in our in our uh comprehensive plan. So, it does foresee mixed use being a multitude of uses on this site and that's how it's zoned. >> Thank you, Council Member Romey. Council member Wilburn. Um, I would also agree that there's merit to proceed and um I won't spend a lot of time. I'll just say that I echo the comments uh by council members Maxwell and Calbertt. >> Thank you. Okay. Um I you know I'm I'm pretty torn on this because I have the reservations. I mean the scale of the project compared to what is there is a concern for me and the loss of the naturally occurring affordable housing that seems to be at least three of those viable to continue in perpetuity in some form. Um that said I'm a realist as well. Um, I recognize I mean I love Quick Trip. I I would like a quick Quick Trip in this community. We often joke that Quick Trip is my brother-in-law's favorite restaurant. Um but uh but you know the SCA to to we're very realistic that a quick trip is not equal to the Sinclair and that that said um the options for that site are fairly limited because there is environmental cleanup that would be required I'm sure if um this is no longer probably if it's a trip, but if certainly if it's no longer a gas station and so that is a reality it appears that this site and the site to the west have kind of seen their useful life and so I am sensitive to you know if not this what um but that doesn't mean this is it you know I I I often think what I what I can tell you with a almost 100% degree of certainty that this will not become a park which is often what people wish for these type of parcels. Um so I think the comment about if there's an opportunity to bring the scale down I would feel much better about it. Um the representative commented about buffering and landscaping and I think that you know I in projects where the developer can get neighborhood buy in or work with the neighbors directly or the projects that are easier to get across the finish line. So, you know, if there's any nexus there to get something that everybody can live with, I that is e that makes these things easier for us. Um those are the things I mean obviously I think quick trip would have to be prepared to um accept some conditions much like holiday on on in Minnetonka Mills had to do because of their adjacency to residential housing and frankly to the creek. So, those are the things, you know, I I'm I'm torn in the comments because I always feel terribly about sending a developer on what may feel like a wild goose chase to spend a lot of money to see if they can thread the needle. So, I'm not sure. I mean, certainly there'll be h some hard conversations, I'm sure, to see if this is something that can can get close enough to something that we could make happen. So, clear as mud, I know. I think there I think we would like to see something be able to work, but it feels like it might be far off from that. particularly. I mean, the housing piece is just very hard for me when we look at what it takes for the city to produce three cuz I'm going to call it three cuz the one property um three naturally for occurring affordable housing units um owner occupied or owner you know it it costs us a lot of money to do that and so I am sensitive to that as well. Sorry we couldn't give you more clarity. I'm not sure you're surprised by the hand ringing either. So, all right, we will move on from this. Thank you for coming and and certainly if there's another spot in Minnetonka, we're all ears as well. and and to the neighbors, thank you all for coming and for your communication to us, your investment in um of time into making sure that your perspectives are heard and I assure you we we do hear you. All right. So, council, I'm going to ask a question here moving on. So, we've got three items left and I don't have a great sense on we've been a little verbose so far. Um, if people feel that we can get through these three items quickly, if we have a lot that we want to address for staff, then I would suggest that I don't have any cards regarding item 14E. I'm not sure. I'm sure we have one person in the audience who's interested in this who will be at the meeting that we move it to if we do move it. Um, is anybody here interested in spending time uh listening to us talk about the encampment policy? Raise your hand. There's one person leaving who might he's not even interested. Okay. Okay. So, we have the choice to move this to July 13th or we can hustle through these next three items. We want to give the endeavor development its due time, but what do people think? I think um I think item uh 14F is kind of lowhanging fruit. I don't think that's hugely controversial personally. And um I think we can probably get through the encampment policy, but I won't die on that high hill if you would rather >> looking at you. If you're committed to um moving it along, then we're committed to getting just getting it through it. Okay. Um one other Okay. So, we're going to move on because we got to do 14D one way or another. So 14D, concept plan for Endeavor Development at 170 Bren Road West and adjacent properties. And Miss Thomas, this is you as well. Yes. Thank you again, uh, Mayor Shack. Again, we're looking for your feedback to the applicant on this concept. No formal action uh taken this evening. This site, which staff has always referred to and uh as the Boston Scientific Site, is about 24 acres. Um this is a still shot taken from a drone video of of the area. You can sign see um see the Boston Scientific Site uh circled in red. This is looking southwest to northeast over the uh Opus area. It's comprised again of four lots. It contains an existing uh 224,000 square foot building and parking lots. uh construction began in the mid 90s and then there were additions to both the buildings and the lots over time. The concept plan contemplates removal of that building uh and those lots and then construction of a 273,000 uh 273,000 square foot building uh roughly. the specific design of that building and the tenants have not been identified uh at this time. I would note that just as it is in um throughout the community, whenever a tenant build is proposed, those tenants are reviewed by planning staff to ensure consistency with allowed uses in the zoning ordinance and in uh opus proper with the AUR that you recently adopted. Just throw that out there. though tenants have not been identified. If something were to move to a formal review or something goes into existing buildings, that's just common practice for city staff to review those uses. Um, Endeavor did host a neighborhood meeting uh several weeks ago. It was attended just by three uh area property owners and tenants. The primary concerns uh addressed traffic. Uh some concern about existing trough traffic in the Opus area. Some of which is just ongoing, some of which um the uh commenters noted may be just a part of construction activity. So trucks not knowing exactly where they're going, but concerned that this type of use would just increase or add similar traffic. The planning commission then considered this on May uh 14th. There were no public commenters then. Uh commissioners uh generally talked about um there being merit for something of this type to proceed. It's really repurposing of an existing industrial site in in what is really the most industrial remaining area uh of uh the opus development. it continues a mixed use rather than that pendulum swinging maybe too far towards residential um uh continuing more of a mixed use in the area. They also felt that there would be good proximity to transit for potential employees at this site. They did note that any future proposal should really take site design into careful consideration giving ex given the existing topography. If you've been out to the site, it's quite rolling. Uh especially uh on the back side of the site. Um trees obviously, uh storm water, consideration of sustainability, uh features and appropriate green spaces still being um on the site given what is just really the green nature uh of Opus. So this evening, as we just did, we are um hoping to get your feedback if this were to proceed to a formal application. Right now, all that would be required given the existing use on the site, given the zoning of the site, the comp plan would be site and building plan review um for this building. So with that, I would turn it back to the mayor. >> Thank you, Miss Thomas. Council, any questions about this? Uh, council member Wilburn. >> Um, so I have a question about the the our tax base. So what happens when you have like the Boston Scientific building that is sitting empty as far as as what what the owner is required to play pay in taxes and what happens if you have a building that's tenant occupied that is not completely full or or empty etc. Miss Wishnack. Thank you. Um I wish I had uh the finance director here. He probably could be more complete in his answer, but uh I'll take a stab at it. Um typically when you have buildings like this and they're unoccupied for longer periods of time, sometimes they will appeal their uh values and appeal them all the way for numbers of years as you know. And so that does happen. Um I would say in a new construction uh a lot of times the taxes are lagging, right? So you don't actually see the full value for usually two cycles of the taxes because sometimes you have like just partial value with the foundation maybe is in by the time taxes roll for the next year and then you get a full value the following year. So I think it uh it sometimes depends and it's not always based on occupancy. It's usually based on what structure is actually in the ground at that time when they're they're doing the assessment. Hopefully that helps. Any other questions? Okay. Um, so we have the endeavor folks from Endeavor here. Come on up. Tell us what you'd like us to know. Welcome. Thanks for hanging in there. you probably have a lower threshold of intensity than the last item. So, >> yeah. Well, Mayor Shack, council members, thank you again for your patience and for working through it with me and waiting for me to come up here. We very much appreciate the opportunity to present the concept to you and get your feedback on it. Um, so, as Miss Thomas has mentioned, Endeavor Development is proposing to demolish the existing Boston Scientific building when Boston Scientific moves out at the end of the year. And then we would proceed with the redevelopment of the site into a single industrial building. So endeavor development is as noted here under agreement to purchase the building. We're doing geotechnical, environmental, and survey all kinds of I guess we would term that due diligence to make sure we can build what we hoping to build. Uh and we're collecting feedback right now with the intention of proceeding with a formal planning application later this summer. So we're the largest industrial developer in the Twin Cities. We in the last five years, we've done roughly 25 projects here in the Twin Cities, De Moine, and then in Milwaukee. And most recently, a project you would know of ours most likely would be also in Opus Park, the former American Family Insurance campus right on Highway 62 in 169. That's technically in Eden Prairie, though it is served by Minnetonka Utilities. So, sewer, water, roads. Um, so I think the next slide. Yep. So, this is the concept we're proposing. As Miss Thomas noted, there's a ton of challenges with this site in terms of topography, the rolling grade going from north to south, as well as the the light rail crossing behind the site, sort of splitting this property into two sets of parcels. There's parcels on both the sort of south and I guess west side of the tracks and then the east side of the tracks as well. What we're proposing is a speculative project. We don't have a tenant in mind, so we're we're trying to be as flexible as we can. So, we're showing basically a big box, but also with we're proposing a 32 foot tall clear height, which is kind of the the gold standard in what's being built for industrial properties around the metro, as well as some parking in the front for vehicle parking, and some uh a truck cord and trailer parking in the rear. I would say that Minnetonka doesn't have much of this type of product at all because it's a more mature market. There just isn't really any new industrial development in and around Minnotonka over the last few years. I think you guys knowing Minnatonki you know that so most of the work that we've done historically has been a little further out whether that is sort of the the farther reaches of Eden Prairie or Shakabe Rogers Maple Grove Endeavor's largest project and one that you would probably know is our Arbor Lakes project. So right up next to the Arbor Lakes Shopping Center uh will you actually jump past this one and we'll come right back to it. Thank you. Yeah, so Arbor Lakes Business Park Maple Grove that's been built out over the last 8 to 10 years. Uh we're on building 9. Um actually mostly at least it to Boston Scientific right up along the uh 694 494 intersection there. But I guess what I what I want to do and what we're trying to illustrate here is that the industrial product and the I guess business park product that we're building is very different than maybe what you perceive or would historically have perceived industrial to look like. Most everything looks more like a two-story office building. Now it's grander in scale, bigger, but we've done things like two glass on on two stories, dark paint to sort of simulate or mimic additional glass stone or wood paneling to sort of provide a little warmer feel than your traditional sort of concrete box. Um, I mentioned the Opus uh the Nexus project here at Opus Park. We just completed that. That one is a great example of kind of what we would envision happening here in another part of Opus Park. And I guess the other thing I would I would say as well, we're it's speculative at this point. We've got pretty good interest in the site. We would expect hopefully to have uh some users to announce certainly uh by the time we finish construction, but if not before then. Uh, and most of the users we see now are are much bigger hybrid, particularly in a site like Opus Park where access and truck traffic doesn't really doesn't really work as well as it might and something up a little further up off the freeway. So, we would see and expect a higher finish of office or lab or something very similar to kind of what is already existing in the building, but in a a more modern form than maybe something that's been a little bit of a Frankenstein over the years. So, uh, I don't know if I have any other this this slide is one of the most recent projects we built. We started this in Fidley earlier this spring. It's going up. It's another one that's got very good interest, but as you can see, this is maybe a simpler form. It's pre-cast concrete glass on corners along the front to provide some natural light. We typically include what we would call clear story windows around the top of the building to let light in particularly from >> And what kind of tenants are you getting? And what kind of tenants are you getting >> in some of the other buildings? Yeah. So, uh the nexus one is the one I'll start with here right up on 62. We have two smaller buildings. They total 175,000 square feet. One is the headquarters for a group called HM Craig. They're a kind of distributor of generators and redundant power supplies, electrical supplies, but that is roughly 30,000 ft of office and then a warehouse and some light assembly functions. The adjacent building has a split between a group called business incentives or BAW. They have just some straight warehouse space. And then the other half of it is a b a basketball and volleyball training facility. So, it's kind of a variety of uses. When you go up to Arbor Lakes, there are we probably have a dozen tenants there, but they they run the gamut from true warehouse to headquarters facilities, you know, to warehouses, showrooms. We've got Boston Scientific has a tenant, as I mentioned. There's a group called MSI, which is a stone and tile distributor that has a huge showroom, but also a warehouse component and office component. We've got a group called NextTurn, which is a medtech. Uh they they both again that's their headquarters, their US headquarters. So they have roughly 20,000 square feet of office and then some lab and a little bit of warehouse but mostly assembly and lab space. It's it's kind of hard to pin down exactly what's going to get there. I guess what I'm trying to illustrate is just the variety of the uses. Traditionally, I think there was, you know, warehouse was where you stored all your product, office was where you did your business, and then retail was where you sold your product to your customers. A lot of that is kind of being wrapped up. It's becoming much more of a hybrid product. And what makes these types of buildings so attractive is because of the clear height, because of the space they can kind of effectively fit all of those functions in a single place. And part of what we've been successful at, maybe more so than some of our competitors, is finding sites that are more infill, kind of like Opus Park. So, it's closer to your your labor. It's got better transit access, frankly, and it's a better fit for some of those hybrid types uses than just going up and getting a warehouse or having a bunch of Amazon vans circling around. That's that's not typical for our our projects. >> Sorry, that was a little verbose. I'm >> No, that was really helpful cuz those were my questions. So, that really helped me visualize what what you would do here. Um, council, any other questions? Okay, great. Thank you so much. and we'll get right to giving you our feedback. >> Thank you for your time. >> All right, same same charge here. So, we'll just get started and we've got these three questions and do your best to um streamline your comments, council member Calvert. So um I will say there is merit um uh I and what would make it better? So why is it good? It's close to light rail as the gentleman just said. Um you know it's it's sort of close to a worker base and a communities. Um, and I think that the, you know, there's adequate space. Um, it would be, uh, a use that would be useful instead of a vacant building. Um, I think it would contribute to our tax base. Um, what would make it better? I do I do understand and I heard the planning commissioner talk about you know it's people that do this kind of development want to maximize this space and so it just seems like every available square ines building and imperous surface and I would like to get a little further away from the road. Um, I would love to see tree preservation and landscaping because even though this is a sort of industrial building, the area is actually very treelined and verdant and I and there's a school right there. There's an apartment building just over the bluff. Um, so that would make it better. I also want to be very careful about grading just for the purposes of parking trucks in back of the building. I don't like the idea of that. So, just trying to uh find a way to honor the natural topography there. Um, and it's definitely to me too close to the road on on one corner. Um, I also um do want to be mindful of the traffic because there is a school there and people do live in the area. Um, and uh, so I I do have concerns about truck traffic and whatnot, but um, I definitely think that there's merit for a concept to proceed. >> Thank you, Council Member Calbertt. Council member Wilburn. >> Um, yes, I also agree that there's merit to proceed. Um I'm always kind of sad when like a building can't be preserved even though the Boston scientific building is not particularly lovely to look at. Um but I I I do understand um that you know the the reality is that sometimes things have to you have to demolish. Um I just as many sustainable practices as as can be implemented. So, um, even from the the demolition, can materials be recycled? Um, can, uh, oh, still still council member Rome's saying, can we can we put solar on the rooftop? Um, you know, what's storm water handling all all of the all of the u as to again. So, just to be as sustainable as possible and as environmentally friendly as possible would be my request. >> Great. Thank you, Council Member Maxwell. Yeah, my my first job was at American Medical Systems at this building. Um, so I I worked there for three years. I'm very familiar with the site and I would say that topography is not conducive to a large block like this. Um, so as a as a single large block, I would say no, do not proceed. it would the the retaining walls would have to be two stories high to get this to fit. So, if anything, two separate buildings on different grades may be more appropriate for this site, but I do not think it's appropriate to have one giant building on this site. Um, other than that, um, in the Opus area, we've had, uh, some housing redevelopments where we've required when they have a, um, first story is, uh, parking garage and then there's residences above, we've made them put public art murals on the that, uh, street facing side. And I would like to see something here that is more reflective of the identity of Minnetonka and the Opus area. This is not farmland in Fidley or a what had been a quarry. That's big flat land in uh Maple Grove. And I think this needs to have um those higher quality finishings for this area that is it's also home for people. It's not just industrial area in this neighborhood. So I would want to see that um if if uh this kind of uh were to proceed. Um I would like to see solar on the roof if there's going to be a giant flat building. That's something that for me would be essentially non-negotiable and I'd like to understand the um water and utility usage of this eventually what would be this site and not to exceed what is currently there. I think lab use, manufacturing use, office use absolutely makes sense here on some scale but not on this uh scale and I and I ideally some trail access uh as well. Thank you. Okay. Nothing. Okay. Council member Romey. >> Thank you. I'll echo what's mostly been said. Um there is merit. We need this type of business. Um this type of uh building this structure in the city. It fits the purpose um for you know the comp plan and the designated use for this area. Um, I appreciate from watching the planning commission that they were going to use recycle recycle the concrete on site saving a lot of emissions and I appreciated that. Um, I I do I do appreciate the designs. I prefer the uh Nexus or the Arbor Lakes Business Park over the Fidley. You know, something more attractive if possible reflecting um the city. Um, but even more important for me is, you know, trying to minimize the grading. I am not going to pretend to tell you your business and how much you can get on that site. I defer to Commissioner Maxwell that she may know this better, but I would, you know, want to make sure that we're minimizing, you know, kind of grading and and sight disturbance in terms of the the, you know, kind of slopes in the topography. Um and again the solar ready roof if not actual solar um EV charging stations just all the sustainable landscaping storm water possibly used for irrigation as other um projects have um distance and landscape buffering especially um you know kind of separating from the school and obviously the traffic concerns with that and the water use. I would just reiterate all those things. I will say, you know, I am also sad that we can't reuse a building. My husband um is a commercial building and uh in commercial building and uh oversaw the repurposing of an old Costco into the Laughler building in St. Louis Park. It's won a ton of awards. So, I know this can be done. However, um that's not our job here. And so, um you know, I would say yes, let's go forward on this. Thank you, Council Member Romey. Uh, Council Member Kley, nothing. Okay. Um, I will weigh in briefly. I agree with a lot of that's been said as far as how it fits on the site from a grading perspective. You know, I understand the concerns. I think staff would sort through that. Um, so I would defer on that. I think, you know, it's important to me and I think important to the success of the Opus area to continue to have a variety of uses. Frankly, think that if you know, if this were a housing project, part of the issue is if we have all the same use, traffic patterns are all the same. And having I mean, Opus was intended to operate with these different uses. So, I'm not overly concerned about the traffic piece. Um, I would like to see it to be attractive. I like the public art suggestion. I want to see make sure that the site interacts with and and I'm sure this is something staff would require, but the natural features, the trails, how we're using uh how how people are using the Opus Park area on bike and on foot. really important that this site contributes to that and not take away from it to me. Um, and then I think we're all sensitive to what I I believe we're calling high resource use. Um, I would suggest again what we're seeing in opus is housing. I suspect that this type of use that um that Endeavor has explained would be less resource intensive potentially than a six story apartment building. I don't know that for sure. Um so those are kind of my comments. I I do think this is the right project for this site. All right, staff, you have what you need on this. Great. maybe made this one a little easier for you. Hopefully. Moving on. Believe it or not, continuing to have some little hiccups with the iPad. All right. Uh 14E, which is we're we'll just crack this encampment policy. Sorry, Miss Kuzzman. We're we're almost there. All right. Um 14E, Miss Wishnack. >> Thank you, uh mayor and council members. I'll go through my slides a little bit faster because you have seen most of this before and because we don't have any public watching I don't maybe online I don't know um but we'll we'll breeze through this uh this is just the history you talked about in your July uh 24 study session there was some um you know expressed some interest but there wasn't cohesiveness I think about what it should say exactly and so we came back that next year and talked about it again and that I think at that point we got a better sense of where the council was headed in terms of what they expected. So to help you it's in the policy book that you have adopted various policies about various things that you want to respond to. Um and it's really to address those guidelines in the instances where the city may um have a potential encampment and it would be on all city- owned properties and any public rights of way. It would also supplement any existing policies that we have or programs um or other procedures. And the initial response, it really does follow our existing procedures for the homeless intervention, which we've gone over many times. The city will partner with those to assist uh at the encampment if it should ever arise and ensure they receive the assistance that they need. That is the main goal that the council wanted to hit on. And then the partner organizations and the police, they will also take time to document what's going on and what happened at each stage um and also provide the resources that folks need. So um there are some documentation processes that we outline in the policy. We talk about individual receiving assistance and working with these organizations like his house etc. And then we would begin documentation and we'd outline the procedure and all the necessary information. We also would look at health and safety issues depending on where it is or how it's set up. Um there could be other uh code violation issues. I think of heating um is a one that often causes problems, fires uh or even harms uh folks that are in the encampment. uh and then uh we will use our reporter tool. This report then is reviewed by the city manager and the city manager has to approve before we actually proceed into an enforcement procedure. And so what would have to be in the report? the location, the site, the summary of outreach that has been completed to date, the summary of police calls the city has received, any public safety concerns that have been heard, photographs or drone uh photos of the site, and then any explanation of how the enforcement actions will take place and the next steps. this policy, and we talked about this a lot at your last study session, is is really to aid and and to help people. It's not to criminalize those experiencing homelessness. Enforcement options do have to be considered at some point. And I think we've all seen this play out in various cities. Any enforcement measures that have um that will be implemented, it only happens after the city manager looks at it and approves it. And then and only then can you then move into the 72-hour uh window. And after that 72-hour window, then the if an individual or many individuals remain in violation and no accommodation can be found from the service provider or if the individual refuses. This does happen. Um but no criminal case shall be filed. However, the officers have to enforce the city ordinance as a last resort. And if there aren't any shelters or beds available, say a hotel room, which is what we usually do with folks, um they would not be penalized for that. After 72 hours, the site is then cleaned. Personal belongings are taken. Uh will we as a city will take reasonable steps to safeguard that their personal items are taken care of in their absence. and then we would look work with local providers uh to hopefully get them back with their items. So that that's the goal, but there's a period of time that we would hold them. Um again, prioritizing enforcement in sensitive areas such as parks, schools, and near city infrastructure. So th those are areas where maybe we have a little bit more to think about. We also showed this last year when we talked about property ownership because I think everybody thinks well it's always city property. It's not always city property. You could have this happen on someone's private property. It could happen on county owned property or another agency think parking ramps um owned by Mindot or andor Metroransit. So, we kind of have a a a chart here that includes the city's regulations and things that deal with um camping and public rights way and on parks and then we move into other scenarios which could involve other agencies. So, um I just want to maybe make that clear and we'll just walk through one example and then we'll be done with the presentation. So, step one is staff is notified of a possible encampment at say the city water treatment plant, which is right down the the street from where we are. Um, the officer that goes out sees four tents and leaves the resources at that point. So, they're telling them already that, hey, there's help for you. There's places for you to go. Um, please let us know. Then the officer calls the service provider and not notifies the city social worker. And that does take sometimes a couple of days depending on the situation, but they then start that documentation process. Case management actually occurs and that happens over a number of days at a temporary shelter or a location is identified, but perhaps just one individual leaves the encampment. All but one, I should say, leaves and and utilizes the resources. So because there's one person remaining, the documentation proc process continues and then the city manager has a report to review and the enforcement actions are identified in the report and then they decide the city manager decides on the next step. If action is taken by the city manager, the officer does inform the encampment or this one person remaining in this case, they have 72 hours to vacate. So it's not that you start there, that's where you end. So I think a lot of people, well, you have 72 hours. No, look at all the steps that are happening before the 72-hour notice is happening. And that that point of sign is posted and the service provider and the city social worker would continue to provide information throughout this period of time. So it's not like we just post it and then we walk away. We're we're still trying to get them to take the city's services. And at the end of the 72-hour period, the site is cleared. And then, as I explained, we would collect their personal property and keep it for one week. And then we would document how the process happened, how did the site get cleaned up, what happened to the items, and where they ended up. And then we would um determine the encampment is closed. So with all of that description, that's really what the encampment policy entails. Again, we have not, and I want to make this clear for the public, we have not had an encampment in Minnetonka. Uh we have occasional solicitors at rights of way and that sort of thing. And by the way, they are reached out to. There are lots of uh things happening with folks that do that. But there hasn't been an encampment that the city has had. But instead of waiting, you know, for that day to happen, we wanted to make sure we had something to address it in advance. With that, mayor, I'll turn it back for any questions. >> Thank you, Miss Wishnack. Very useful presentation, very helpful in understanding this. Uh, council questions. Council member Calvert. Thank you. So the you know at the very end of the scenario it says the site is cleared and uh the officer documents the encampment status. What I think the question is where's the person? >> So I mean I think that's what people have been asking us is you know what happens. uh Mayor Shaq and council member Calbertt and council members. I mean I think they could land a different a couple of different ways. One the person could have left at that point on their own and just disappeared. That does happen. Um in fact we see that sometimes when we go back to somebody's reported somebody and then by the time we get there which is usually within I I would say my experience is about a half a day. Um sometimes it takes up to a day for them to be reached out to but um so sometimes they leave. Second scenario would be they don't leave um and then the officer has to ask them to leave the encampment and so if they don't leave they um refuse to leave then there would be intervention at that point it could be uh temporary arrest um it could be any of those ticketing that sort of thing those are the extreme circumstances but I think it depends on what happens you know another scenario could be the person leaves for a while and then leaves for a while and then comes back later. So that could happen too and then kind of you almost have to but again if it's just one person then it's not considered an encampment at that point. Um and that's usually when we just work with that individual indivi um to hopefully to get them some help. So does that help at all? Okay council any other questions? I think, you know, we talked about this a lot over the last couple years and really put a lot of time and effort into how we structured this. So, we didn't kind of sat on ice for a little while, but I I think it's prudent to approve a policy. So, are we prepared to do that or people have comments they'd like to make? Council member Maxwell, >> I have one thing which is sort of a semantic thing. I would like to see the language be cleared and not cleaned or cleaned up because that just comes with the connotation that something is automatically dirty. And I just don't like that language used in the with the context of people. So if it means the same thing in this case, just please change the wording to say cleared. Other than that, I'm in support of this. >> Mayor, I think we can add that. I think we interchange the words here. So I think we just have to be consistent and use the word Sure. >> cleared. Thank you. Okay, Council Member Romey, >> thank you. Um, I agreed. I was going to, um, kind of make the same comment. So, thank you, uh, Commissioner Maxwell. Um, I just want to applaud staff and, you know, having gotten into the weeds a little bit recently on on kind of housing issues and and how we handle, you know, part of that is how we are handling um, cases where people are housing insecure or on the verge of homelessness. So, I think this is, you know, a really um thoughtful policy and and just applaud staff for this and also, you know, kind of taking this, you know, human- centered approach where, you know, our first inclination and our first, you know, all of our attempts are aimed at helping people, you know, secure housing even while realizing that we have to, you know, at some point strike a balance and, you know, kind of take enforcement actions. um you know kind of for public safety and security and and for other reasons. And so you know I would be um in support of this again like so many other policies that we um enact you know hopefully we revisit this and continue to revisit this you know on at least an annual basis so that we can see you know again we're doing something proactively here which I applaud. Um, but you know, kind of revisiting it will help us, you know, make any necessary tweaks that may come in the future. So, I am in favor. >> Council member Calbertt. Thank you, Mayor. I do agree with um everything that's that's been said. Um, I want to make sure that people that are listening, we got some comments some months ago about this and I just want to assure people that are listening, we do not have an encampment problem. Our community development director said, "We have we have not had encampments. This is proactive, forwardlooking in case conditions arise that would encourage encampments." And I will say that our city really does a wonderful job being proactive on uh preventing homelessness and that is what we do. So, we have a homelessness program um to help people avoid um becoming homeless. And if they are or they are on the verge um we have services um through his house, our police department, the embedded social worker and other resources. And so, um I think that this is a complement to that. And I also do agree that we should um you know the the road to hell is often paved with good intentions and there may be something in here that we're just not anticipating um as an unintended consequence. And so I do think it's worth revisiting at some point, maybe during our housing, you know, our big housing bonanza presentation just to make sure that um you know it's working the way we want it to and hopefully there's absolutely nothing to report which would be the best case scenario. That's all I've got. Okay. Well, I would be looking for a motion to adopt the policy with um the change from the word cleaned to cleared with that correction. Council member Wilburn, >> I move adoption of the draft encampment policy with the changes indicated. >> And a second. Council member Maxwell. >> I'll second. >> All right. I have a motion by council member Wilburn and a second by council member Maxwell. Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Calbertt, >> yes. >> Rome, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Maxwell, >> yes. >> Wilburn, >> yes. >> Shack, >> yes. Motion carries. And finally, uh, item 14F, the 18-day early voting option for in-person voting at city hall. And Miss Kuzzman, thank you so much for hanging in there with us. Um, you have the floor. >> Good evening. Thank you for waiting for me to be the last one. And I also wanted to thank uh two of the head judges for being here and hanging out with us through the whole evening. That was very sweet of them. I told them twice, maybe three times to go home and rest and I' I'd call them in the morning, but they hung in there. So, thank you. Um, so today I'm here to talk about a new state law that allows municipalities that currently administer absentee voting to opt into 18 days of in-person voting rather than the full 46. So to be very clear, this is only for in-person voting at city hall. Okay. So what we're going to talk about first is the current process and then what the proposed change would be. So, for the current process, the uh there's 46 days of in-person voting, and you can vote by mail through all 46 days before election day, and then you also can come into city hall and vote by the mail ballot process. So, a lot of people come in during that time and they say, "Why can't I put my ballot in the tabulator?" So, that process is the mail ballot process. It's just being administered currently here at city hall. So, that is how it's happening. Early voting is a new term. So, for a long time, people interchanged early voting with absentee voting. This is a new thing. Early voting is now the 18 days prior to election day. Um, it used to be called direct balloting, and that is just there's just some differences administratively. There will be a different form, but that will still stay. So, those 18 days before election day is when most people come in and they want to be voting. So, what we're proposing as a change is the voting by mail will continue for 46 days. Staff will continue to assist those voters with absentee ballots. If they come in and they want an application, we will hand them to them. Most do it online and get it sent to their home, but if they need any help at all, we will be here to help them. They can drop off their ballot in the mail or they can drop it off here with us at city hall. And then early voting will kick in 18 days before election day. And then that is where we help the majority of our voters. So about 70 to 90% of the folks that vote in person in Minnetonka, they come in during those 18 days. So the next chart shows that um it shows a lot of the numbers. The first column is where I want to bring your attention to. So the that's the 46 to 19 days before. This is only in person numbers. This is not mail ballots that are sent to Henipin County. That is not um election day numbers because election day in Minnetonka still is the number one way people come in and vote. So we feel strongly that that we can support these people that come in. Um you know in 2018 for reference 218 voters came in in the state primary in 2022. 145 voters came in. We feel very strongly that we can help them during those 18 days. And then the next chart is um this has to do with municipal elections. This is even lower people that come in during those last those 46 to 19 days. Unfortunately, legislation doesn't allow for odd-year elections at this time, but we do welcome um any support pursuing this change in the next few years in the next session. Henipin County gave us some Q&As's to help with frequently asked questions. Uh the top three that they saw was can a city choose to do 18 days of in-person voting for the primary election and the full 46 um during the general election. That answer is yes as long as you it's an election cycle. So you have to pick at the beginning. So you don't you can't pick mid midterm. You have to pick at the beginning of the primary and you have to give I think it's what is it 14 weeks 14 weeks prior notice. Um, so we uh we would pick that and we would let Henipin County know our decision before the primary. The second most asked question is does this affect any of our healthc care voting facilities which it does not or any pop-up voting facilities which it does not. And then the third question is can they drop off their ballots still at city hall and that is yes absolutely they can. The benefits that we see doing this is there's no reduction in the ability or access for people to vote 46 days prior to election day. We will continue to uh help people submit their ballot their applications online and we will uh get their return ballots via mail and have them dropped off to us here at city hall. This also reduces staffing costs during low volume periods because we do staff um election judges. They come in and there's some days where they don't see too many people. Um so that would bring down that that cost of those election judges. Historically th that turnout is low and it also will give us additional time for training and preparation for election day which is our largest turnout. It will provide more time for resources for election judge training and election day readiness. It allows staff uh time to increase and improve voter education and outreach. And it also gives us um more efficient and effective absentee voting and election day operations. So, there are some options um for you to consider you. We could do 18 days of in-person absentee for primary and general elections. We could do it for all. Um we do suggest excluding the presidential generals because of the volume. So, during that volume time, I would not want to go 18 days. I think I think 46 would make more sense. Uh the second one would be to do 18 days of in-person absentee for primaries only or to stay the way it is and keep it at 46 days for all elections. And our recommend our recommended action would be to approve 18 days of inperson early voting for primary and general elections excluding the presidential generals. And with that I take any questions or comments. Thank you. >> Thank you Miss Kousman. Council, any questions on this? No. Okay. Well, then let's go into comments. Anybody staff is recommending, you know, going to the 18 days except for the general presidential? Uh, council member Romey. >> Um, yeah, just very quickly, I think this strikes a very good balance and um still provides access, plenty of access. And the only thing that's changing is for the primaries and the non-presidential generals would be, you know, going to that 18 days for putting it into your tab to the tabulator. That's really the only change we're talking about. So, I think it makes perfect sense. I'll be voting for it. >> Council member Maxwell. >> Yeah, I agree. I've been an election judge here since 2018 and a a lead judge and the city does a great job of putting on elections and I feel like this is a great balance of uh good use of city funds uh while maintaining uh voter access. So, I'm in support of this. >> Excellent. Council member Calvert, we've always had the best uh election staff in the state to the point where our former clerk became the head of elections at the Secretary of State's office. So, I defer to your expertise. I'm also on the uh League of Minnesota Cities Election Task Force and um this is the kind of thing that they are also promoting just for for all the reasons that you state. So, seems like it is um striking a perfect balance and um I'm assuming we could change our minds in the future if it did not work out. So, all good. Great. Well, it sounds like we've got some consensus. I want to acknowledge our uh two folks here. Thank you for being here and thank you for the work that you do and we really appreciate it and hopefully we can make your life a little easier. Um, so I would take a motion and council member Romey, I will make the motion as soon as it appears um to adopt the authorized Oh, there it is. Um, to authorize implementation, my iPad died. Sorry. Um, implementation of 18 days inerson early voting at city hall for primary and general elections with the exception of presidential general elections which would stay the full 46 days. Excellent. and a second. Council member Maxwell. >> I'll second the motion. >> So I have a motion by council member Romey, a second by council member Maxwell. Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Calbert, >> yes. >> Rome, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Maxwell, >> yes. >> Wilurn, >> yes. Shaq, >> yes. Motion carries. Item 15, appointments and reappointments. We have none. Item 16, adjournment. Council member Wilburn, >> I move adjournment. Council member Kelbert. >> Second. >> I have a motion by Council Member Wilbur, a second by Council Member Calbertt. All in favor say I. I. >> Motion carries. Thank you everybody. Thank you staff for hanging in there. I'm glad we got through all of it.