[Music] [Music] [Music] good evening everyone um tonight is Monday October 7th 2024 this is a regular meeting of the minaka city council I will call this meeting to order and ask you to stand and join me in 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 um Miss Jansen lson Larsson do on I knew I got it's no longer M England i m Larson I apologize I forgot to write that down would you please call Ro and you can call me whatever you want Foster Walton here Shaq here Wilburn here calber here ra here kley here weome here next item is approval of the agenda and it appears we have an agenda um Mr Funk uh thank you mayor good evening members of the council do have an agenda for your consideration this evening and as related to item 9A which is council chambers lighting and control replacement project uh staff is recommending that this item be removed from the agenda and we'll bring this back at a future date with additional information I just had a number of uh questions from various council members today and there's no timing uh related to this project so staff will just like a few extra weeks to pull together additional information then we'll bring it back to you at a later date great so that I turn back to you thank you appreciate it um council is there a motion council member r I'll make a motion to adopt the addendum and and the and the agenda thank you and a second Council M Calbert I'll second thank you mayor all right we've got a motion by Council m r and a second by Council M Calbert Ms Larson would you please call roll Foster Bolton yes sha yes Wilburn yes Calbert yes ra yes kley yes where some yes motion carries next item is approval of minutes and we have the September 23rd 2024 regular meeting minutes Council B Calbert thank you mayor I'll make the motion to approve the September 23rd 2024 regular meeting minutes thank you and is there a second council member Foster Bolton I'll second all right got a motion by council member Calbert and a second by council member Foster Bolton Miss Larson please call roll Foster Bolton yes Shaq yes Wilburn yes Calbert yes ra yes kley yes weome yes motion carries item six is special matters and we have a guest tonight um from Exel energy to uh give us a report on um the activities of uh Exel energy in the city of motanka so miss Swanson please uh join us great welcome thank you they can make that Podium go down a little lower if that's better too I think down there we go there we go okay I can see you now all right great thank you you can hear me now as well we can we can great well um good evening mayor and City Council Members um as the mayor mentioned I was invited to come here tonight to talk a little bit about who I am how I work with uh the city and to talk about things that are going on in the city of metana and I'm going to kind of focus on things that have to do with reliability for the community and our customers um but first I want to talk a little bit about my role with the company um I am a community relations manager that is my title we have nine community relations managers in Minnesota um we each have our own Geographic service territory so I cover the Southwest Metro and that Southwest Metro goes all the way west to Hamburg South to Jordan North to Robinsdale and East to St Louis Park so there's a lot of different sizes of towns and cities and a lot of different cultures um in the area that I cover so the primary purpose of a community relations manager is to work with local governments and Community leaders on issues ranging from negotiating franchise agreements facilitating permit approvals for Generation transmission or distribution projects and resolving customer issues those are just a few of the types of things that we might work on so we like to advocate for positive outcomes that work well for both our cities and Excel Energy we know at times we are in disagreement with some things between the city and Excel but one of the roles again the responsibilities that I have is to see if we can come to an agreeable solution because at the end of the day we're going to be Ser we're we're your excuse me we're your electric provider and we want to have a good relationship with the city going forward so I've worked with City staff on a number of different issues when the customer calls the city on on Excel Energy issue rather than calling our customer service line the city tends to contact me those issues might range from frequent outage complaints to damaging property during our restoration activities tree trimming uh graffiti on our equipment in the community um complaints on Transformer locations and so on so um I work with with the city staff to resolve these issues and most of the time I personally follow up with the customer in terms of what the resolution will be I also want to mention that community relations managers have small budgets which we use to sponsor events activities organizations that are important to our communities for example I sponsored the kondik dog Derby around Lake minetonka in the past other types of events that we've sponsored in the southwest Metro could be things like concerts in the Parks date of the city addresses City festivals Etc and we're also a resource responding to requests from cities regarding having Excel Energy present at vehicle fairs City open houses Home Improvement and safety fairs so if there's any interest in terms of sponsorships donations or Excel coming to one of those types of events that I spoke about to please contact me moving on to what we have going on in the city we have a number of projects underway in minetonka we've just completed a transmission rebuild in the city and the second one is currently in the permitting process that will also impact the city these rebuilds will improve reliability as the old structures and Old Wire are being replaced by new equipment there's many other actions underway in the city to improve the reliability of our system we're installing numerous devices on our system across our communities including the city of minetonka which will improve reliability we have installed and will be installed what's called tripsaver devices which will automatically restore momentary outages within a few seconds instead of waiting for someone to arrive and assess so that is a situation where maybe a a light tree branch is touching the line this device will allow it to um only have a momentary outage and not a sustained outage but if for example it's a tree that's actually laying on a line um that will still require a crew to come and and assess the corrections another type of device we're installing is called fisser which stands for fault location isolation service restoration so in short it reduces the initial number of impacted customers to a fraction of a historical outage and results in Faster restoration to the remaining affected customers and it does this all automatically by the following first of all the device identifies the area where the issue is that caused the outage so that's the fault location or the FL in fisser it isolates the area in question which is the i in fisser and then it restores the customers that are not in the affected area and that's the service restoration part of fisser so all of these devices that I've just talked about will not only limit the number of customers impacted by sustained outages but will also result in avoiding in avoiding sustained outages so we continue to upgrade our infrastructure in other ways annually such as replacing power PS replacing underground cable refurbishing our distribution feeders and upgrading our substations other actions we're taking that will increase reliability to our customers includes plans to do some targeted undergrounding of overhead lines in minona starting in 2025 and tree trimming is currently underway in the city and about 47 miles of tree trimming is expected to be completed in 2025 so this is all I had planned to share for the evening I hope this information was helpful in terms of understanding my role at Excel how I work with the city and give you a little bit of information in terms of the ongoing work we have in the city to to make sure our customers and our our communities um have reliable power well thank you Miss Swanson if it's okay I'm going ask my fellow council members if they have any questions for you and um and if they don't I may be able to come up with one or two but um sure anyway council members any questions regarding um XL Energy Council M Foster Bolton so cuz I I've been getting a lot of calls I mean obviously it's it's just been a stormy summer and I know it's just going to get worse but all of the calls have been about their frustration with the customer service at EXL okay so they're just like you know they're sort of at the end of the rope and it's it's not just it's like a few just in my w alone so I I just wonder how we can like cuz I'm not sure that would be that's appropriate for my role to be sort of a customer service center for you so um and I didn't get your name Michelle Swanson maybe I didn't say it either so that that might be my issue um what I would say to that is is that you know ideally we want our customers to call the customer service number because by doing that it tracks a process proc I mean we can tell when the call came in we can tell who got it you know we can we can document the process as it moves through in terms of people being frustrated um but are they frustrated because the duration or the frequency or maybe it doesn't matter but I would recommend I mean I know that I've worked on some frequent outage complaints that were sent to some of you City Council Members they were forwarded to me by the city and I kind of just work directly with the people who ultimately who would get involved if they would have called the 800 number to expedite and address their concern for outages um but again I mean I would be re very interested in hearing what specifically the frustration was with our customer service area so I can take that back to our company well I I can remember they were not getting anywhere they were on the line for a long long time and then not you know just not getting any response and you know kept trying kept trying kept trying and then and again that's the thing is that it was just like people were like I don't know what else to do so I'm going to call you and um you know and one of them was a she was an older woman so she you know her son had to come and then her daughter came and it was um she just wasn't having any luck okay okay I can take that back and and there are different ways you don't have to call customer service if it's reporting an outage you don't have to call customer service you can do that by text maybe that's not well known that might be another option and I can certainly provide additional information on how to report outages to City staff and maybe that is something you'd want to put on your website for example but I don't know if those customers were calling at the time where we had a couple hundred thousand people out and it was just hard to get in but I will certainly take that message back to our customer service area and then also um sorry exact and there's certain areas in the in the city too that are affected more it seems like and I I don't know to be honest but this is the another call that I've gotten like it was just like our area seems to be affected more than you know two blocks down like every time there's a storm if if there's a strong wind this okay okay thank you so it's like you know certain areas that right and and I get that question a lot like I will have a customer tell me that their power always goes out and their neighbors across the street their lights are always on and that could be due to several different things first of all they they could be on different feeders and one feeder was impacted and the other was not um vegetation has a lot to do with outages it's our number one cause of outages um and it's certainly the number one yet it is the number one cause of outages in the Metro West so vegetation has a lot to do with that as well but again um in working with City staff you know we've gotten some of these complaints and what we've ended up doing we have our area engineering looking at an like a customer that's complaining of frequent outages and they then they've been able to they look at the reliability history and they say hey this is a good candidate for the tripsaver that I just spoke about or maybe this needs to have targeted tree trimming outside of our normal tree trimming process so um you know again we can kind of if we've got the address we can look into that more fully and see if there's additional things that we can do c Shack thank you mayor along those same lines you know I've had several people this particularly this summer contact means hey we've submitted to excel regarding some trees that look precarious in our area and we we feel like they could get ahead of this and prevent an outage and we've submitted three times we haven't heard back or you know nothing has happened or both um and and it feels inefficient because then what I do is I reach out to Mr Funk Mr Funk reaches out to Mr Manchester Mr Manchester reaches out to somebody on his staff and here we are you know we've spent a couple hours on this to try to get ahead of it and so is there I mean is there a reason cuz it seems to me we wouldn't even have to be talking about some of these outages if we were getting respon I mean nobody knows what's going on in their neighborhood better than the people that live there I know that more than you know my colleagues and I council members more than anybody else and so there seems to be some efficiency into listening to those folks and can we is there a staffing issue or is it just is is there something we can do to help make this not such a to be frank wa you know waste of time to try to get this help right right um what I would say is we have a lot of people who call in and say we think there's a tree that's that's going to cause an outage etc etc and I just think it takes time to kind of get through all of those I know when I get a call like that or if I get an email passed from the city the first thing I do is to contact my veg management people and say can we check this out and again we have a lot of them and then we also kind of look at when is the last time we trimmed in this area and kind of balance if we haven't been there for a while maybe that starts to go up a little bit but I would say it's just the numbers in terms of just how many of these we need to check out quite frankly and we want to keep people trimming the trees and not divert them so we've got a couple of people who will go out and assess when we get these kind of complaints but you know unfortunately I think that's probably the reason why it's been taking so long I guess my followup to that I mean to to be blunt would be it sounds like there's not enough resources you know if you can pass along to the people who make those decisions you know maybe there's not enough resources to manage manage that and um I I empathize with the job that you have and I you know I don't mean to be so blunt but um if if response isn't happening then maybe there's not enough people to do the work I will take that back it's fair criticism thank you um council member Wilburn so I do have a question but this just occurred to me from this discussion could there perhaps be a system where uh that allowed people to submit photos so that your people could look and see what people are talking about and sort of assess the severity you know that's that's a very interesting question I mean I think when people call into our customer service line they're just saying hey there's a tree a tree on 8th Avenue Etc and I don't know um and I think you can also report these issues via email but I'm not certain that you can upload an attachment so I don't know the answer to that question but that's a really good idea and I will take that back but that's a really good idea okay and my question so I just today was saw a Facebook post and it wasn't someone in in minetonka um but someone that was expressing frustration that Excel had come out and trimmed some trees and and damaged their property um in in the process and there the and their neighbor and Excel was refusing to take responsibility and again I know it's a Facebook post we don't we don't know the how truthful that was and but I'm I'm just wondering like what the procedure is if if someone calls you and says hey you you've caused damage what what happens after that well if someone does that then we'll go back to the tree triming crew or maybe it was a crew that wasn't doing tree trimming maybe it was uh they were addressing some outage and they cause rage in the ruds in the yard Etc so we would go back to our department who are involved and basically find investigate where we there what did we do what was the damage and then make plans to restore that um you know in more I guess severe cases people could actually file a claim but typically people don't need to do that going through kind of our investigation process should be adequate other question questions Council M Calbert and Council ra next this might be a little bit this is sort of in a totally different vein but since I was on the Planning Commission um which is quite some time now almost eight years um there was you know we've been very proud of our adoption of solar Gardens and um we were you know uh fully subscribed 100 % solar and it was it's been in many national news stories in Minnesota is no exception that electric companies um are kind of seem to be slow walking the actual construction and you know even in the case of minaka our solar Gardens to my knowledge are not fully built out yet and so I was just wondering you know when we go and we talk talk to our constituents and we're telling them you know it's an investment but we're going to save because we're going to save this much uh electricity and it's good for the environment but and and you know we're telling people in meetings that we're fully subscribed and you know the solar Gardens haven't been built out it it's a very uncomfortable feeling as a city council member so I was wondering if you had any information about um the speed at which these solar Gardens are being built so that we truly can be fully subscribed uh and that other cities that are trying to do the right thing for the environment will as well are these new community solar Gardens that you're referring to I'm sorry are these new community solar Gardens that you're referring to no they existing solar Gardens yeah I mean we signed a contract and but the solar Gardens are still apparently in the process of being built so we subscribed and we're not getting the power and Excel you know is raising rates on the city but you know they're also not giving us the things that you know we have subscription for right um you know I can't answer that I mean I think it would be useful if maybe I can talk to City staff in terms of um what solar Gardens they are their names and I can do some internal review and then get back to City staff on that but I do not know the answer to that I mean it's a huge priority for several of us up here um because the environment is hugely important to us and you know I don't like being made to be inadvertently untruthful to my constituents when I'm bragging about how great our city is because we've done the right thing and fully subscribed and we're not in control on the other end and that's really excels job to get that done for us Council M ra yes thank you mayor uh following up on that first of all thank you for your work we appreciate your work in our community and um the sponsorships and things like that you it's really important we obviously want to be you know good partners with uh Excel and and other uh Power providers having said that um to follow up on on council member Calvert's comments um I'd like to swing back around to express uh a comment regarding uh excel's request that was approved by the Public Utilities Commission um which essentially punished uh minona and cities like us who were early adopters of community solar um you know by raising rates to by you know essentially reneging on your contract with us um which is costing motanka to the tune of $100,000 a year that we had you know long-term done long-term planning around and other communities are even worse but we were you know the reason that Minnetonka and this region Minnesota is the largest community solar system in the country and early adopters like minona are part of the reason for that and now to have us being you know basically from my seat you know Excel reneged um on your word and and so we're having to pay the price for that so not only are we you know I I'm not sure I don't know the issue about subscription to community solar Gardens but I'm really disappointed um in that and you know it kind of makes me wonder because I'm all the time saying signed up sign up for solar connect you know before this I've been on um windsource since 2007 and I am constantly anybody who knows me any public meeting I will stand up and say that and now I have to wonder how trustworthy um you know am I doing the right thing because if they're doing to that to us as a city as a company I do have to wonder especially in an era when I know that um wind and solar are now less expensive than fossil fuel so um I guess that's my comment I know again that this isn't something that you personally can do but I'm hoping by bringing this out in a public forum that we can bring this to the attention of others at Excel who can perhaps answer these questions as to why this is necessary and why they you know essentially reneged on their contract and their word thank you well I'll just make a comment that that is still a legal proceeding right it's still going on I believe it's it's going to the court of appeals and I am not a legal person to comment um the Pu um approved this believing that the main reason is that non subscribers were starting to pay a lot of money for people who are actually subscribing and that was the main reason um I think why the P determined that you've got lowincome people you've got nonsubscribers that are essentially subsidizing that program um again you know I understand the city's position I can't say anything to um change your mind and I don't want to change your mind I'll just I just wanted to recap in terms of that was the main reason why the pricing got changed because nonsubscribers were starting to pay you know6 seven 8 a month and the Pu believed that that was starting to get in the range that was too large but again it's a legal proceeding and I probably can't say anything beyond that because I don't know anything beyond that I'd just like to respond and follow up on that I appreciate that at the other hand that's excel's choice to make those rate increases and put that on the back of lower income people again when to time when um green energy is less expensive than fossil so that doesn't really fly with me um so just I'll say that thank you yeah thank you fair enough um anyone else perhaps some Miss Swanson a little bit more than you bargain for tonight but I wanted to uh it comes it comes from the territory um and I know that um I mean you're not unlike a council member in that um we're in the customer service business and uh when our customers call we have to respond and you're hearing hearing part of part of that and I just I had a couple of things that I wanted to raise too um you know there's been you laid out some you know some significant transmission changes that are occurring in motanka and and it's the classic thing and and the city faces it too um but we get questions from our from um our constituents and we call City staff and and um and those and those questions come from all over and okay um and as the city manager told me um we get about 300 plus permits per year for construction projects in public right of way I think that number is about right and so um for staff to inform Council about every little project that affects a roadway or you know that's that's an an inappropriate and inordinate burden at the same time you know is there a good way to dimensionalize these things for for example the transmission lines along Highway 101 I received numerous questions what's going on and and I like to be able to say I know what's going on I think I know what's going on but I don't really know so I just like you know if there are major projects if we could coordinate communication so that we can be a bit more proactive with our residents I think we would all benefit from that because um you know there there have been some large projects and one was totally unrelated to excel but there was a lot of work being done on um fiber optic cable this Summer that affected a lot of right of way in a lot of neighborhoods and you know you get those questions and well what's happening and who's doing it and we don't have the answers that's that's really frustrating so again that one has nothing to do with Exel but it's it's an example of if there are big projects affecting a lot of people if there could be some more proactive communication from the providers to the city so that we can you know and then we'll trust our communication staff to to assess okay is this something that we have to inform people broadly of I think that would be helpful as as a customer service provider essentially that would be helpful to me and I think it would be helpful to the rest of my council members as well so just a thought suggestion and as you go forward maybe there's some ways that um we can dimensionalize those projects and share information yeah and just as as an example the last transmission rebuild project we had a fact sheet um and maybe you know coordinating with the city that fact sheet should go on your website or maybe that information is communicated other ways that the city's Communications Department but we do have a fact sheet for the rebuild project that just got done and we'll have a onepage fact sheet for the upcoming project for the transmission project we like one pagers okay great all right well thanks that's all we have thank you very much for being here today and and I appreciate that um you know the the question on the solar guns you and I have had Fairly uh lengthy conversations on that separately and I and I appreciate you're uh I'm willing to u to listen to us and and provide Fe so thank you so much yeah thank you have a nice evening all right um that was special matters um item seven is reports from city manager and council members so Mr Funk ex thank you let me turn my mic on excuse me thank you uh good evening again mayor and councel got a couple things to report on here this evening one just want to give a shout out to not only our natural resources staff but also our friends of men Parks there's a lot of activity going on in the month of October so plenty of Park work to be done there are is focus in the upcoming weekends on Big Willow Meadow Park Shady Oak gillams Field Park Boulder Creek Park so again a huge um a huge shout out to the volunteers and to all those that love our parks and love our Park system it's a great relationship we have with the friends of motanka parks and so if there are volunteers or or residents interested in working on any of those Parks look to our website and come and look at removing some Buck forn yet this fall our next meeting is not till later in October but I do want to mention the Burwell spectacular Spooktacular is coming up uh that is on Friday October 25th from 5:00 to 7:30 at the Burwell house grounds that address is 13209 East McGinty Road free parking is available at St David's family center also on Plymouth Road and many of you know it's a great event and our Recreation staff does a great job facilitating games and crafts and performances uh we do have the fire department there with our inflatable slide so lots of activity coming up and invite all of our families and friends here in minona to join us here in a couple weeks also want to make note uh that our multi Multicultural advisory committee uh is being formed and applications are now being accepted so anyone that's interested can go to our City's website and sign up the Multicultural advisory committee is something that Chief bour has recently talked about which will be an Engaged group of minaka resid and Community organizers who meet monthly with the minaka police department and our Personnel to discuss topics that are important to our community and to the department the goal of this committee is to work with again the police department to strengthen police community relations in an effort to better and understand our diverse Community needs it's really a component of the joint Community Police partnership so it's a new new form partnership and we're excited to get that off the ground next I want to talk a little bit about uh again a word that we often use around here at The City Is our commitment to Excellence and often you hear me report on different um staff um accomplishments I do want to give a shout out to our GIS staff that works in our public works department they did a recent presentation at the state GIS Lis conference about how we the City built our city hydrant maintenance program uh as you know Council we've done a number of dashboards in the last couple years regarding our transparency everything from housing to policing and yes even our hydrant maintenance program so it's gotten some good attention and a thanks to our staff for their efforts and got recognized for presentation that they gave to uh a lot of utilities across the state um also want to mention then we do have a braver Angels Workshop coming up and that is depolarizing within that is uh this week Wednesday October 13th at 1:00 to 3:30 p.m. at the mitaka community center uh with that this is a free presentation so anyone can come and learn about how we all can be more aware of our interpolation and so join our braver Angels team who is a National Organization looking to Foster more productive political conversations uh as we enter that political season so I I think some of our council members have been uh in braver Angel training it's a great training we've done some of that uh coming up also with staff and so would encourage anyone in the community to attend also another Workshop is managing buckthorne so I just mentioned uh upcoming volunteer uh work in our part we do have a managing Buckthorn Workshop coming up so thanks to our natural resources staff again that is on October 9th from 6:30 to 8:30 pm. here at the minaka community center uh staff will be sharing tips that will save uh homeowners time and money as they tackle that invasive plant on their property uh they'll if people do sign up there will be online learning materials provided before that inperson session and then last uh one of our exciting uh events of the the year is the Fire Department open house that is tomorrow night October 8th from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. so certainly members of the community can join our fire department at this open house this is an annual event and we get lots of folk folks usually a couple thousand every year come and it's uh interacting with our police department and our fire department staff there's ride a fire truck that's always a big hit with the younger younger kids we have hot dogs as I mentioned uh people can also register to vote there are native plant gr plant seed packets there's inflatable sides cocoa all sorts of fun events so activities so encourage anyone from the community to come out and join us it should be a nice evening for it and with that Council I'll turn it back over to you thank you um thank you Mr Funk council members uh what do you have to report tonight council member Foster Bolton well I just to um add to Mr funk's comment about um Buckthorn removal I went on um a volunteer thing on Saturday morning with friends at them inaka Park and I had never done that before um I had pulled garlic mustard which is just pulling and it's it's an interesting at least for me when I went I was like oh my gosh it's like so daunting you it was so much stuff but by the end you know it's like oh my gosh it looks like you clean house you know when you spring cleaning or something it was just very cool so and I mean I again I learned a lot about buckthorne and you know kind of the differences of what to chop I mean I would just get rid of everything if it were me but um so it's a it was good lesson you know I'd just be like because it's not easy that stuff does not want to come up um but they were so good and and actually and um the friends of the minanga parks were they did a great job of saying you know we work with the city and like just kind of like um it just felt like such a partnership um you know and so easy to sign all the waivers and stuff I brought a friend and it took five minutes and we were out doing our thing so it was great great thank you council member um council member Wilburn so continuing the Buckthorn conversation uh I'm going to be uh removing Buckthorn with the friends tomorrow at uh Evergreen V Victoria Evergreen for some reason it didn't make it on the city website sign up so it's tomorrow at 4: come on out and and and pull some Buckthorn i' it's become kind of my tradition I ever since I was elected I've gone to that Park and and pulled Buckthorn with the friends so um it's a lot of fun and it's it's amazing the amount as uh council member Foster Bolton was saying the amount that that can be cleared in in just a couple hours is is really amazing to see thank you um Council M Calbert thank you mayor um so first of all I'd like to wish happy 83rd birthday to my dad it's his 83rd birthday and it was super fun because I moved him here about a year ago with my mom and got to celebrate together which was great and I also want to wish uh shanat TOA our good New Year to those who celebrate uh Russia Shana and um that means good New Year and there are many PE many Jewish people right now that it's not it's already not a good new year so we just say a better New Year and I want to extend my thanks to the minaka police who have been supporting the Jewish Community during High holy days and other times um it shouldn't be necessary to have police protection just to worship but we do and um it's a stain on our society that it is necessary um a man was arrested at Temple Israel uh who who had a gun um and and he had been calling in terroristic threats for some time um and former council member sheppy son was uh had his bar mitzvah there just within days of that incident and it's just no laughing matter um what is going on in our country the Jewish population is 2.4% of the US population and they are the victims of 6 8% of all religious-based hate crimes so uh it's not a great time so I'm just I I say this because this is supposed to be a joyous and reflective time for the Jewish Community today is a time of terrible morning it marks a terrible event the largest Slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust A year ago today and it precipitated Untold suffering on the entire region in the Middle East and uh so one of the things that Jews do at this time of year is we pray for peace that is what I was doing in my services this week and um the other thing that we do this is a time of reflection and we try to start the new year with a clean late and make amends for all of our shortcomings to the people that we have fallen short so falling short with constituent City staff our friends our family um my elected and appointed colleagues so um I I ask forgiveness for any of the shortcomings that I have so that we can all start our year on with a clean slate but I also ask my neighbors to help us resist the rise of bigotry and hate in our country which just with the Jewish Community has caused a 100,000 incidents of harassment threats intimidation assault and other violence to the Jewish community in our country in the last year so I today I speak for my community within our community and I also want to thank the menaka police and uh I'm sure our cooperating police agencies for responding to a little Scare at minona high school recently it turned out to be nothing um but uh we had a large police presence there um and it just showed the importance of collaboration between the schools and our First Responders in law enforcement and the importance of uh planning to prevent event tragedies at our schools so uh I just want to commend um our Police Department for being such consumate professionals and keeping our children safe because children are our future and they deserve to go to school fear free um and um I just think it's a wonderful thing that we were able to deploy people in such an organized and useful fashion without any negative happening that day that was lucky and just you a good drill thank goodness it was just a drill so with that I just want to say happy happy New Year to um all those who celebrate and even if you don't I have to say it's the one perk of being Jewish to get a second bite at the happy New Year Apple thank you council member Calbert and uh Council excuse me council member sha and sorry thank you mayor um I too wanted to uh Express to council member Calbert and the rest of the folks in the community shanat Tova and or as council member Calbert told me via text maybe but just a better year um there's a lot of suffering in the world and a lot of hate and I know that weighs heavy on all of us and um you know we're with you in spirit and can appreciate um the sentiment also to folks yam kapor is on Saturday and may everyone have an easy fast so um thank you for your words council member Calbert uh they're very meaningful I'll also say that uh I started work very early this morning which gave me time to go for a run and enjoy the beautiful day and there are big stacks of Buckthorn in Big Willow Park and it is very impressive and not only are the friends and staff who help do the cutting and treating of those areas appreciated but um the Public Works folks who will come and remove the stacks of Buckthorn later in the upcoming weeks are really appreciated as well it makes such a difference in um the beauty of the park to have all that weedy green gone so thank you thank council member sha council member ra you've waited long enough thank you mayor um Echo the the words of the my colleagues um on on Happy Jewish New Year and uh Happy New Year to all who are celebrating and even those of us who aren't I always uh take it to heart as a way to as a time to make amends as well and to ask forgiveness um from those around me so I I appreciate that tradition very much and uh like to have uh adopt it as one of my own um on another lighter note I would like to do a little bit of Show and Tell um this is a lovely bird housee that I purchased at The Landings uh senior craft and Artisan Fair several weeks ago it was on Saturday however and it's beautiful it's a little bluebird house um and it was I I I love a bargain $112 um so I just wanted to say that anybody can go to The Landing year round you don't have to wait for next year's craft fair um you know there's a it's a beautiful building kind of by Trader Joe's the old dicks um you know up near Hopkins Crossroad there's a beautiful Trail um you know Outlook over a pond there but um I got you know this and several other gifts that I've already given way including a beautiful bracelet for my mom who's going through chemotherapy right now and it brought joy to her day so I want to thank the seniors for that um I think it's really interesting The Artisans and craft people split their uh revenues with the city and it's run by a board of volunteers so it's all volunteer run um they split their revenues with the city to help uh with operations uh for the building and um I heard from multiple vendors there um the Crafts People how much this means for them that this is a really meaningful activity um for them to both create the works that are sold but also to be running this organization that is doing this and in fact uh City representatives from all around the region come because this is a rather unique offering that we provide to our senior residents but all of our residents and so you know kudos to the staff and the senior services staff who are helping run this as well as uh you know to all of the vendors and the organization that that keep it going and I just encourage uh people to support it by going there and maybe doing some early Christmas shopping while it's so beautiful right now in the fall um on another note uh the mayor and I attended the sensible land use Coalition meeting a few weeks ago it was an interesting uh discussion by uh state representative Larry craft and Daniel Lightfoot of the league of Minnesota cities uh touching on on issues regarding um uh um housing affordability in our region and I think it's an important discussion look forward to um learning more and continuing that discussion um also I forgot to wear my pin but I wanted to thank uh staff especially the election staff and our voting judges our election judges I uh voted early absentee uh just last week and so as we all know we can uh vote early absentee right now either in person or by mail early direct voting I believe begins October 18th so you're putting it right into the um machine just like you would on Election Day and then of course um those happen here at City Hall and then election day uh will be at your polling place um so uh I'm hoping that our election staff or or somebody from staff will talk about um kind of our election system here um there's a lot of Miss and disinformation out about right now about um election security and I just want to say that election we we obviously do have very secure elections in our country and that begins right here at the local level I'm really proud and you know just grateful for the work that our election staff does and our election judges and you know I think we we need to celebrate that and keep that in mind and then just lastly the braver Angels event um the depolarizing from within or within Workshop is something that I attended um at my first braver Angels Workshop several years ago and it's just one of a number of fantastic um events workshops uh discussions that they have so really hope that folks in the community will take the time to attend that this Thursday or next Thursday the 13th thank you mayor thank you coun m anyone else Council M kley thank you mayor I just want to say um although I didn't attend service our church service on Sunday I did watch it last night online and I got a chance to see um the mayor um attend um Grace Apostolic church and then um Chief Scott borom and then also um Jay and I just want to say how proud I was to see our staff at our church um they were celebrating their um 12 12th year anniversary in minetonka and I was just so proud of my sister I was at a different Church in Minneapolis with my daughter and my sister was sending me text messages and she was like you should have been here and um it was just good to see um last night and I just want to tell them thank you for attending and um I'll I'll let the mayor say what he needs to say I'm sure he's he's going to talk about his what his role there but I just want to say thank you for attending and it just made me proud and I just know that um Bishop Johnson and um the members at Grace Apostolic I really appreciate it to see um staff there so thank you on a Sunday too so very good are there are there any other Council comments I've got a I've got a few and um uh first of all I just want to comment about the importance of this date um you know what happened in Israel a year ago today um was such a horrible Act of hatred hatred and um and violence and terrorism and um you know A lot's happened since then but my heart goes out to the nation of Israel and to um everyone who has been touched by that that horror of that event and uh and clearly there have been many Horrors in the middle of Middle East uh since that time and I just want to say one that um you know hate has no place in our city and our society and I want to do everything in my power to to ensure that uh we care about one another that we're um a welcoming City and that we're a loving City that we care about um our fellow human beings and so um I I want I will never forget October 7th it's uh um we we have to remember um the horror that occurred there and um and and and and demonstrate that we care by resolving personally that we will not lower ourselves to the level of of of hating in in such a divided time of demonstrating hate or inappropriate um thoughts regarding somebody we disagree with there's nothing wrong with disagreeing with me I mean as my wife will tell you I am often wrong and um and you know we um so I want our community to be to be a loving community and to be an accepting community and it it disturbs me when I did the arith IC on um on um the amount of violence and hatred that occurs toward Jewish people in our society um a Jewish person is 28 times more likely that's my arithmetic 2. 68 divided by 2.4 comes out to 28 times more likely to experience a um a hateful um U any form of hate or anti-Semitism um any form of bias than is any other member of our society I mean that's a sobering number and we have a large Jewish population in our community and I want every member of that um of the Jewish community in our city to feel feel welcome and to feel safe in our community and I really appreciate the chief and the work that our police department has done to provide s security at these synagogues but it is disturbing to me that one segment of our society can be targeted to the the degree they have been so I just want to stand in solidarity with uh with members of the Jewish community and and tell all residents and all um all people who live in minaton that uh we we care for them and they're welcome here and we have their backs and and I'm proud of the work that we're doing there um the second thing I want to talk about is um um I had an opportunity to attend um a Minesota meeting today and this was put on by the Minneapolis Chamber and it was to talk about the importance of of water in our state and in our identity and in our well-being and um I sat at the same table as the mayor of Woodbury and um they are in Woodbury they are struggling with um with posos in their water as is much of the East Metro and there's part of me that that says well boy I'm glad we don't have that problem here and I'm glad we don't but it's not woodberry's problem it's not the East Metro problem it's our problem and what can happen there can happen anywhere and and it the meeting was talking specifically about what we can do in terms of keeping water safe and it is a tremendous resource that we in the midwest have and we in particular in Minnesota have the Land of 10,000 plus Lakes um we need to value our resources and I want to just encourage everyone to do everything that we can to be mindful of that abundant but scarce resource that we have um in Minnesota so that was a very interesting and profitable meeting um a couple other things and a lot of things got mentioned already tonight I do want to thank the friends of minetonka parks for the great work that they do and I will say that tomorrow I am uh walking with uh Mary Hammond Hamill um through um Meadow Park to show me all of the improvements that have been made there in terms of Buckthorn removal and uh and she keeps me posted we kind of take an annual walk now I need to do better be more like my fellow council members and not just walk and look at the good work being done but put put some gloves on to get out there and remove some Buckthorn as well but but I am very appreciative of the work that um people who care about our environment who care about our parks and the friends of Lone Lake Park and the work that they do with staff is um is so valued and and worthwhile so I wanted to mention that and I think that's enough um from Council Members tonight so we'll we'll move on to the next item but uh thank you for bearing with us we had lot to talk about tonight so the next item is Citizens wishing to discuss matters not on the agenda and is there anyone here who would like to report something to the city council this is an open mic opportunity and if you have something you'd like to share please come forward state your name and address and let us know um and we will follow up on that we won't take action tonight is there anyone all right seeing no one will move on next item is bids and purchases and we only have one tonight we had two but now um item 9 a formul 9B is bids for the water treatment plant number 16 variable frequency drive replacement project and Mr Manchester I believe that's you it is Mayor thank you good evening mayor and Council uh before you tonight our bids for the Water Treatment Plant 16 uh vftd replacement project um the project proposes to replace electrical drives switchboards and a number of components uh related to the system uh for for our pumping operations on August 26 2024 Council ordered the improvements accepted the plans and specs and authorized the ad for bids for the project uh the proposed improvements specifically include replacing two electrical switchboards and variable frequency drives for four high service pumps three backwash pumps and two well pumps it also includes a new scada control panel which controls and monitors our system as well uh just to keep uh the operations going bids were opened electronic Al on September 26 2024 we did receive five bids for the project the low bidder Premier Electric Corporation has satisfactory completed projects similar in minaka there is a range in the bids uh like we see in a lot of projects we do typically call the low bidder and we did on this project as well just to make sure their numbers are okay and they don't have any concerns before we bring that to you which we did and they they were comfortable with their numbers as well so I did want to mention that um if the recommended actions are approved by Council construction would be expected to start um in the spring and be completed before the peak season and so with that I'll turn it back to the mayor I'll keep it short with three uh recommendations a motion to award the contract uh for the wastewater treatment plant number 16 vfd replacement project to Premier Electric Corporation in the amount of $459,500 a motion to authorize our Deputy Public Works director to expend the allocated funds for the project costs without further Council approv approval provided the cost do not exceed the budget of 650,000 and then finally a motion to amend uh the 2025 to 2029 CIP for the wastewater treatment 16 vfd replacement project number 2594 to authorize the deputy Public Works director to um approve project related work orders in 24 2024 primarily to get equipment ordered so with that I'll turn it back to mayor councel for any questions all right U thank you Mr Manchester councel any questions for Mr Manchester an important project is oh yes um Council M Foster Bolton sorry and I know you mentioned this but but and I talked to Mike a little bit about it but really it's so much lower than the next bid I mean and you know when you do home projects you always are told don't accept the lowest bid because they're going to do shotty work or whatever and I mean I get it we've done work with them before but I mean like seriously I I was just like shocked and what can I mean I know you said that you did the checks and stuff like that but how do we know really yeah good question um council member Foster Bolton mayor and Council we you know there's a number of factors that go into bids and so this time of year other times a year I mean contractors depending on the amount of work they have you know they throw different numbers at projects since we have worked with them often in the past we don't have concerns you know they did confirm that everything was in their bid and we you know we'd certainly hold them to that that's why we call them and so um you know the loss would certainly be theirs at this point but they were comfortable so we don't have the concern and so I don't think it'll be an issue but we did talk to them very good Council any other questions or a motion Council M Wilburn um I move approval of the recommended actions as uh uh read by uh Mr Manchester very good that works for me is there a second coun M sha thank you mayor I'll second all right we've got a motion by council member Wilburn and a second by Council M Shaq um Miss Larsson please call roll Foster Bolton yes sha yes Wilburn yes Calbert yes ra yes kley yes weome yes motion carries um let's see next item is consent agenda but I'm gonna I have to say something just before then because uh Council M rley did such a nice job of covering um my um attendance and the chief's attendance at um Grace Apostolic church yesterday but I I want to say that Grace um Apostolic Church celebrated their 12th anniversary and uh they're a church that's located on Lake Street Extension just off uh just west of shady o Road and just off of Highway 7 and um the city and the police department in particular have a very uh positive and collaborative relationship with Bishop David Johnson and uh we were invited to uh this celebration yesterday and I just want to say that I was honored to be there and uh they they were wonderful hosts and um and I um in my I I I just jumped over it and I forgot so I apologize and I wanted to comment on that so I hope they'll forgive my breach of uh um protocol and allow me now to uh say that we are at item 10 and I'm confident the City attorney May mention to me something later but we'll uh we'll we'll we'll we'll roll that we did not amend the agenda so my apologies but um item 10 um 10A or 10 is the consent agenda items and these are typically routine we um it's my job to read them into the record and then we will handle them all in one vote unless an item is pulled and if someone want from the audience or on the council wants to pull an it and we can do that otherwise we will just move through this after it's been read into the record so item 10A is a resolution appointing election judges and absentee ballot board for the November 5th 2024 state general election councelor Calbert I don't want to pull it but I do want to make a brief comment and that is to thank the people that are acting as election judges and absentee bot board these are not easy times to be even volunteer elections officials so thank you thank you thank you in addition to the people that are in our Parks doing that wonderful work this is really the work of democracy and I think it it Bears recognition so and I'm happy to make the motion appointing the election judges an absentee ballot board for the November 5th 2024 state general election very thank you councilor coward and councelor ra uh yes I'd like to actually pull this item and um ask a few questions or a question of Staff if I may and again um this is following up on my previous comments also thanking uh election staff and volunteers but yes I would like to pull all right and since we have no other items in item 10 um councelor um go go ahead thank you mayor um I would just like to ask the staff again kind of following up on my earlier um comments uh regarding kind of the election process and the security measures so that we can assure our residents that you know this is a secure process on our end and you know I personally believe going up from there but it it starts here uh Mr Funk yeah excuse me thank you mayor council membery and Council I would defer to our assistant city manager Miranda Daman uh Miss damond does supervise our city clerk's office whose office is resp responsible for all of our election activity uh Miss damond is her area of expertise and so I would ask Miss damond to comment on just election security thank you Miss do yeah Council or mayor and council member mey uh Kelsey Larsson behind me is a senior election specialist so I'll take a hit at it and then she can obviously help too if there's more specific questions she's more in the world than I am um but of course election security has been a Forefront topic of Elections the last few years especially um I'm proud to say that Minnesota has consistently been a national leader um in voter turnout election reform and ballot security that's something that the state has taken very seriously and have done me many measures um historically and continue to do to make sure that our ballots are safe so there are many measures in place to ensure a safe and secure election here in Minnesota um we do rely on paper ballots it's a Cornerstone of our elections we don't we're not an electric electronic voting you get a paper ballot you go through a process those paper ballots are curried to the county um they and there's no handing There's No Going through different systems electronically everything is done through paper ballots um there's also um the reviewed by the city the county and then ultimately those results go up to the state level so there's lots of processes in place to ensure security along the way testing equipment all of our equipment goes through numerous testing exercises they're doing it this week so miss larsson's been testing all the equipment this week they also have a public accuracy test which they do then test equipment and the public is welcome to come and view those um accuracy tests as well those are required all of this is required by law to do and making sure that the public is able to access those events in view the testing live um with the staff and the election judges and then I would recommend anyone with questions or concerns to visit the office of Secretary of State's website they have a really great page um um that can more more information can be found I know they have um staff who only focus on security and they just have a really great fnq on there um that answer a lot of security questions so if you have any more specific questions I can help answer them or Miss Larson as well no uh thank you Miss dman um domen uh I I I will share that uh link certainly in in my communications with residents and I thank you for sharing that and for the information um kind of starting from the ground up here in minona so thank you thank you anything else on this item I'll add a quick comment that I was at a meeting u c go ahead I'm sorry I was just going to make a quick comment um just that I had the opportunity to serve as an election judge um last year outside of motanka but um and to see the see how well the system works from that side and again we um just Echo every everything and thanking the uh our our election judges and absentee ballot board and also our staff that works diligently to make sure that we are um putting or holding free and fair elections thank you councilor Wilburn and um yeah I wanted to thank our election staff and our team and I had the opportunity to be in a meeting with Secretary of State Simon um a couple of weeks ago and you know we he talked at length about election security and I I can say with confidence we do elections well in Minnesota and minona is at the top of the list in terms of how well we do elections and I'm not I'm not just trying to be a homer here and uh and uh vote for the home team I mean I really do believe that we do an outstanding job with elections and we work hard to make sure that our elections are free and fair and I absolutely believe that they are so um it's an important topic and um and um I think our secretary of state is very diligent and I think that the training that is provided to um election officials um is outstanding and I'm just pleased that we do local elections at the the meeting I was at um a number of Mayors said to me that well you know we've just let we just let the county handle it for us and you know I'm I'm somebody who has spent time at the capital talking about the importance of local control and elections are so fundamental to democracy why would we want to give that up so I'm proud of what we do I think we do it right in minaka and um I'm very proud of our election staff so with that would somebody like to make a motion council member mey perhaps thank not to call on you that's un thank you mayor yes oh oh that's right excuse me I'll second thank you I apologize we're jumping ahead here so a motion by council member Calbert and a second by council member melee Ms Larson please call roll Foster Bolton yes sha yes Wilburn yes Calbert yes ra yes kley yes weome yes motion carries that brings us to item 12 introduction of ordinances and 12a is items relating to cannabis Miss wishnack lucky you thank you mayor and council members this is a little bit complicated but a lot of the ability for cities to regulate in the Cannabis uh world is controlled by the state so you'll see some of that information in our presentation tonight we're going to talk about the registration process at the city level for a retail business Susan's going to jump in at some point and talk about zoning and what that means where businesses can be located and then finally we'll end on cannabis use in public spaces which is a little bit different than the first two subjects but we thought we'll take care of it all at once we've already introduced that ordinance but it's been a while so we'll have you look at it one more time just to make sure we're on the same page so in the and again the title of what section we're dealing with is at the top so this is the registration portion of the ordinance that's being presented to you that would be enforced by the Community Development Department all retail businesses must be registered and the applications have to be submitted through the director registration would be issued if the business satisfies state law requirements and also complies with the zoning portion of the code the police department would conduct annual compliance checks and then those failures would go to Community Development our department and then that would be shared with the office of cannabis man management so it's not unlike what we do for tobacco or alcohol compliance it just would add another layer to what businesses would be checked the community development director May suspend or reinstate registration as provided by state law again there's not a lot of uh room there for the city to regulate or uh suspend licenses but there is a little bit um there are some of this on the left left hand side talks about discretionary components that the city can choose to do or not to do and on the right side it indicates what the city at least in the proposed ordinance has done so you are allowed to allow the county to do registration in this case we we're choosing the city option as the registration Authority you can make it administrative or Council approval or denial whatever the case is um we have put in the ordinance that it's an administrative function um and there is a little discretion in approval of approval or denial of the registration fees are just the maximum allowed under law it's not Revenue generating there's a lot of um costs that are involved not only in reviewing a registration but also with uh compliance after the business is operating there is new reg registration required with a new location and then no notice is required if an immediate threat uh or health of health or safety occurs for instance if they're selling products that uh create a health issue we can immediately require them to uh stop or suspend their operations um for other kinds of things that would be effective after the office of cannabis management completes its investigation so there may be issues that aren't immediate but need to be uh figured out and investigated we cannot as a city be lower than one store or retail location for 12,500 people and so in that case we would have five this does not in include what we're terming and this was uh I'm going to call us the trio so the City attorney uh Susan as the assistant city planner myself went through and tried to figure out some of these issues we do have a lot of what I would call secondary retailers um and they're selling low potency hemp products so best one I can think of is the low potency um gummies right you might have a business it's a gas station and they're selling gummies that's not the primary use of the business so we're calling them in the ordinance a secondary retailer so that maximum of five is not for those secondary businesses but five is for what we would call a primary cannabis business and um we haven't had discussions of having a municipal store so we're uh not including that at this time so there are location standards uh that are included right now the way the ordinance is set up um registrations would be issued in the ordinance in the order they were received except there would be preference given to the planned I 394 District there's some talk in the um staff report about why that is ridgell being a regional center we have a lot of business components in that area there's a concentration of commercial uses generally that area is further away from other households or single family households um rather than a neighborhood district U neighborhood area that where you have a smaller commercial area however we do have language in there that if the council doesn't want a direct retailers to this area that can certainly be removed from the ordinance again remember I 394 district is pretty much end to end along 394 a lot of us think about it just as rale but there's a lot of commercial property in the area that isn't in the rale proper uh area finally this is about buffers so I want to make clear about this retail locations would not be permitted Within a, F feet of schools or within 500 ft of any attraction within a public park that is used by miners buffers would not be applied to daycares or other residential care facility we were thinking through how this would work and we could not imagine uh a time where we would know every daycare or every residential care facility in the city the city doesn't regulate those uses so there's not a process or procedure for us to monitor those businesses so it could be that all of a sudden you have a daycare pop up somewhere um and then you didn't know about it and now we have some kind of standard for buffering from those uses um and so who who gets preference you know the the business with the Cannabis or or the daycare so I think we arrived at that fairly quickly after some initial analysis trying to figure out how to do that um and finally buffers would not be for industrial type businesses these are licensed by the state of Minnesota but they wouldn't be uh registered by city so I.E think of manufacturing so if you're manufacturing widgets you're in an industrial park area if you're manufacturing cannabis you're manufacturing cannabis we don't see it any different in the ordinance the only thing that's different is that the state of Minnesota would then uh have a license for that activity if you feel differently so we put a note in the staff report if you feel differently about these buffers and daycares and other facilities we can talk about that um you can also talk about applying buffers to Industrial properties as well so I'm going to let Susan jump in here she's going to talk about ordinances and the kind of that model ordinance that was put out for the city to have some guidance for this uh proposed ordinance thanks Julie mayor and council members there are actually 13 different types of cannabis businesses that will be licensed by the state and generally all of those businesses could be accommodated in one or more of the zoning districts that we have in our our community um but staff is proposing a few zoning language amendments to be more specific in in our zoning ordinance or just be more clear quite frankly so the first change is to our residential district under our current language agricultural uses are allowed as a primary and permitted use within the R1 District your single household residential district and we're suggesting that the ordinance be amended to specifically prohibit commercial cultivation of cannabis as a permitted agricultural use in the residential district Now by state law you can um grow cannabis for your personal use on your personal property but this language would prohibit someone from buying a lot in motanka and using it for the commercial production of cannabis the second change is that cannabis retail businesses the registration ordinance that Julie was just talking about um retail businesses would be allowed as permitted uses in all of our existing commercial districts so that would be the p district B2 B3 subject to the registration ordinance in other words in theory retail businesses would be allowed in any commercial area in practice there would be five locations allowed in the city the Third change then is that within the industrial district cannabis retail businesses would be allowed as accessory or conditional uses depending on the size the physical size of that retail business relative to the size of the building um again subject to the retail registration ordinance and our current ordinance allows for retail in industrial districts in that same manner accessory or conditional relative to um the size of the business and then the final change is simply allowing testing facilities as a permitted use within the industrial district not calling out cannabis testing facilities just adding that phrase um testing facilities along with warehousing storage manufacturing processing and research uses that are already allowed in the district for items other than um cannabis um just want to emphasize again that um unlike retail uses these more industrial uses do not require registration under the ordinance but do require licensing um through the state uh just like all other uses in our industrial district these what we're calling more industrial cannabis uses would be subject certainly to our nuisance ordinances and everything else that's already in the code so if you have all that in your heads now let's move to a different subject matter ma U matter it is the cannabis use in public places so again we already introduced this ordinance and talked to you about I think we also had a study session about this about where the use would be allowed and just to be really in a summary form uh cannabis use would not be allowed within 50 ft of a city maintained athletic facility Park shelter or other park building also it would not be allowed within 50 ft of an outdoor entertainment facility when the facility is in use uh I'm going to use Amphitheater as a an example of that also you would not be able to use it on any part of the property with a city operated building other than a typical park building including the City Campus buildings you would not be able to do it around the city campus um just so you know that we just have a sidebar here talking about smoking and vaping um there's also no smoking and vaping 50 ft from a public publicly operated transit station or within 25 ft of a bus stop and again on any City prop Park property including Trails within Park property okay I'll let that sit in set in for a minute um when a location Falls within the scope of not allowed in any manner and no smoking Provisions um the most restrictive applies so if you have kind of a situation where you have both issues going on the more restrictive um regulation applies also use would not be re regulated on Trails outside of public parks or streets and privately owned property generally access ible to the public so for instance um Bennett Park a good example we don't own Bennett Park we're not the city does not own that Park they would have to come up with their own use um that they wanted to have within their park but we would not control that as a city similarly if you think about some of the larger Trail systems that are not in a park 101 Plymouth road again we're not proposing uh regulating the use on those Trails if they're within a park yes um that would be prohibited so we do have a few things for you um in terms of actions uh tonight is really about introducing the ordinances a reminder for the council typically what we want from you is a list of things either that you want change or you want more information about or things you just don't understand or May we weren't as complete as we could have been in our staff report so if we have at least some information and Direction on that um tonight's not the final night then secondly you'd have to refer the zoning ordinance Amendment to the Planning Commission we forgot there's a small small section that needs to go to parkboard too so if you could just add that in when you're ready to make a motion that a small portion would have to be reviewed by the park board and then the last last thing I'll say just so you know uh the information about the proposed ordinances is out on minetonka matters it has been pushed to the subscribers of that particular project page so anybody watching uh cannabis over the last year uh will get already got an email about these ordinances people are allowed to comment on any parts of the ordinances for a period of about 2 weeks because we do want to bring this back to you at the end of the month so hopefully um that wasn't too confusing we tried to make it as simple as possible uh with that mayor I'll turn it back to you and for any questions you may have great thank you Miss wishnack um Council questions that come to mind questions that I mean Miss wishnack perhaps can answer tonight or that we want to forward to the um to the Planning Commission for further uh and staff for further consideration council member sha thank you mayor I'll work backwards because I'm keeping this item I sort of taking not but I keep it in my head um so as it relates to the public use piece and I I think I've mentioned this before perhaps I'm in the minority but you know what I would really like to see is as much Nexus with how we treat smoking and or alcohol use within um public facilities Parks Amphitheater I think the more nuan regulation we have for each use I think the I think the more difficult it is to enforce and more confusing it is for residents and so you know I my preference is to maybe see the cons I don't know if there's a chart or something where it can kind of say well this is at the amphitheater during music in the park could you have a beer but not a THC drink and does you know so those types of of things and I and I know there's Nuance there um otherwise you know I think that piece of it we've talked quite a bit about and and um I disagree I think I'm probably in the minority regarding the use say as a you know um if alcohol is being served possibility of adding the use of THC or cannabis um but that's not a hill I'm going to die on um in regards to the zoning I do think that Pro pretty much makes sense I think it does bring up conversations that we've had in the past about other uses again and geographical restrictions but um you know I think the the cat's already out of the bag as it relates to these secondary retailers so I'm very comfortable with the fact that that hasn't seemed to be a problem over the course of the past several years that say you know I seeing like I told Mike this morning hair salons selling some kind of you know whatever um just that they'll have to register which makes sense the one thing this is probably not going to come as a shock I my heckles are up a little bit on the 394 District piece so I'd like to hear what the Planning Commission thinks about that you know I'm I'm sensitive particularly you know there's Neighbors in that area people who live there who are very sensitive to kind of what's going on you know if I think about five retailers oh you got one at West Bridge maybe you have one in the M by Total Wine you have one Ridge Haven you have one inside rale and it just seems like a lot of concentration even if it's spread out across the zone so I I don't feel real comfortable with it and but I'm I'm really going to rely on Insight from the Planning Commission on that one so those are kind of my questions slash thoughts but the one thing I want to say is the meticulous nature of the staff report and the ordinance is really appreciated I think it makes so much sense that we get this done right and we're going to have to amend it but knowing how difficult it is to make decisions on amending these things I'm really glad we're doing it trying to do it correctly upfront and I really appreciate the work that staff's put in on that thank you council member sha are there other comments or questions comments um council member ra City oh excuse me mayor mayor and members of the council I just wanted to clarify something with respect to that PID provision that would not go to the Planning Commission because it's not a zoning regulation the buffers the distance requirements are not in the zoning ordinance they're in the registration ordinance which is not a zoning provision we could perhaps ask the Planning Commission but this isn't a zoning ordinance it's not going to follow that process the registration won't the other thing about that PID reference is just to clarify that is really just about timing it's about processing we have a limit of five for the non-secondary retailers no limit on the SE secondary retailers but for all others there's a limit of five and we expect that we could receive more than five applications so that provision in the registration ordinance is all about how are we going to process these are we going to process and and what we've said is we're going to take them first come first served with the exception that if you're in that PID District you go to the top so we may have received three applications they're not in the PID District we get an application that comes in in that's in PID it goes to the top of that list as we're going down so it doesn't we could also get the first 10 applications that that are received are not in the PID and all of them end up being issued the all five end up being issued outside the PID District it's it's a prioritization provision so I just wanted to clarify that thank you Miss heiny all right um other uh issues you'd like to raise council members uh Council membery hi sorry just uh thank you mayor a quick uh comment and and question um I want to kind of agree with council member sha that my concern would be that if um applications to the PID uh automatically get bumped up with a limit you could have six seven 8 n and 10 come in for the PID and then knock out all of the other ones so maybe we you know we could still preference it but set you know think about how if we want to be in a situation where we could potentially have all five in the PID I I Echo uh council member Sha's concern about that potential situation um and then my question would be is I just wanted to confirm my reading is that applications must be reviewed within 30 days um is that correct that is correct yes okay thank you um mayor and council member ofe that that is a state law so and I think we're used to 60 days in a land use manner but we have to change our gears on this one 30 days very good other uh concerns uh Council or questions or comments council member Wilburn so I have a few um I won't not as many as I I made Mr Funk listen to but so um so the um if we if you recall when we voted on to put a moratorium um so that we could sort of look at the state law and make sure that everything was as it should be um there was uh someone who who spoke who was concerned that um there was a like a pre-registration um system with the state and they were concerned that they would lose sort of their that they would be at a disadvantage um and I can't I can't remember the parameters but like certain individuals had preference for getting social Equity social Equity that's it um so is there any consideration when we're when we're doing our preferences you know our our ranking um for social Equity candidates so mayor M wish thank you uh council members uh the social Equity application process has occurred so those people are in waiting for cities to have ordinances to go ahead with their business plan what we talked about during the moratorium is if the city doesn't adopt it before the end of the year there's really no advance um ability for those applicants to find spaces so that's why we were so kind of set on getting this done in the fall so that there would be a couple of months before all applicants would be able to get out to different sites so by if if everything goes as planned I think we have this on October 28th um for final adoption we'll get through the Planning Commission uh hopefully get through the parkboard and then be able to get back to you that'll be 2 months in advance of other people so the social Equity applicants are reviewed by the state not by the city but that advanced two months is really what I think we were trying to get to okay so to advantage of time basically to to make sure I understand this so if we if we get this done by October 28th was that what you said that was the goal yes yeah if we get this done by October 28th then those social Equity applicants if there are any in motanka will have a chance to apply prior to others any other kind of applicate okay um then my other question on the um yes on the application process was it says that if if someone applies and then and don't meet the criteria then you go to the next person on list and invite them to reapply and I just wondering um administratively is there a reason why they have to reapply or could you just hold on to applications and contact the next person and make sure that nothing has changed as opposed to a full reapplication mayor and council member Wilburn let us think about that issue let me uh talk to the team and maybe vet that a little bit for your next report thank you um then moving on for the um I don't remember which section it's um when you talk about not being not allowing use within Parks um that have an amenity that were children frequent so does that mean that use would be allowed in our Reserves in say that again so we have we have parks and reserves oh preserves preserves sorry it's no no no I was I was with you okay preserves got it preserves yep um and so the there are you know preserves that we have that don't have any playground equipment or you know um so I'm wondering the way this is written it sounds to me like there's currently not a right let me let me try to answer your question then if I need help from Karine I will call on her um this I think that let's just say you have a preserve and there's a constant um youth programming event that takes place at The Preserve that that would qualify as somewhere where minors are regularly um partaking in a program or something like that we don't have that probably right now but it could happen but I would say uh generally I don't see it happening it just could I mean that is a possibility Kine do I have that right so there's two different aspects of the when we're talking about Parks um the 50 ft of specified facilities what the ordinance says is outdoor swimming beaches playgrounds other outdoor facilities used for sports or Athletics a park shelter a warming house a refreshment stand or a public restroom those are the specific facilities they're identified in the ordinance wouldn't matter whether it was located in a park or in a preserve I believe the preserves our Parks right they're Parks they're just a different category of parks so that's how that would apply then the buffer which is in the in the other um in the registration ordinance that's a buffer that the state law allows us to have from Park facilities where miners I don't have the language in memorized used um but that it would be similar it would be similar facilities um but it's any park facility where miners are typically present so those are the two different Provisions public use deals with parks and then the registration has a buffer from certain facilities so it's where it's being consumed versus where it's being sold right this is the sold and then this is the use yeah so now I'm wondering if like there might because I'm confused so I think there might be some confusion about like if you said if there's going to be an event uh at a pumpkin carving event in one of our preserves that like then does that mean there's no cannabis use while that event is going on but after they're gone it can so I don't know if there's a way to but make that clear well I what I would say is with respect to so the the part that's in the registration ordinance the public does not need to worry about the staff determines are you going is it within the buffer if it's within the buffer they are not going to be registered they are not going to be operating in the city the issue about use in public spaces um as I said those are very specific facilities um and it's you know Park shelters warming houses they're very specific people shouldn't be confused about that um and then state law not in this ordinance state law has its own provision um that says you can't smoke within a certain dis where miners are present so it doesn't they could be present anywhere in the city you can't be smoking near them and that's a state law regulation not ours okay um I think the council member will burn well let's write about that a little bit more I think I can sense that there's a little bit of confusion so I've written it down maybe for the next staff report to be a little clear yes um and then finally so this is more I had a question I had for for Mr funk that's not specific to the city but just I'm thinking that it might be something that our residents are wondering about as far as state ordinance um what are the rules as far as employers allowing or or um not allowing uh employees to be at work under the influence and and what I guess recourse would a resident have if they had an interaction with someone that they think is under the influence while they're doing business [Laughter] mayor and council member Wilburn and this is how I answered with council member Wilburn when it comes to um employee use I mean I I broke it down probably in two different categories one is we have control here with our city employees and so for the city of minaka we have a a robust Personnel policy when it comes to drug alcohol um provision and so that policy has been already modified that already recognizes cannabis use in that so if an employee is deemed Under the Influence we have a whole set of Provisions that that really kick into place to address that for entities outside of the city of minaka we do not have purview over that and I think the what council member Wilburn and I discussed earlier for example is like a daycare facility who has workers that might be under the influence and certainly it would be up to those organizations to have their own Personnel policies as do as do we I can't speak to um like for example the child care center they're licensed by the state of Minnesota and I I can't speak to what the state has for requirements in terms of employee issues but certainly we would encourage any organization uh private or public to review their own policies to ensure their workers are free of any type of drugs or alcohol okay last one I promise um just could you remind us for the um public use what is the is it's it's a misdemeanor if someone or what what's Petty misdemeanor okay thank you okay thank you other uh comments Council M Calbert um I'll just I'll try to be very very brief um I just I thought the comments that council member sha made were were very uh cogent and um just thinking about trying to keep it simple and sort of in alignment with existing substances that people use one of the things that you know aside of uh there's a Community member that talked to me at length um in several conversations but didn't want to write the city and there were two concerns one was um just the exposure uh both uh sort of societally and also physically to secondhand smoke um because it's different if it's in edible or you're you know if it's a drinkable if it's an edible you're you're not going to affect someone standing next to you but when people are smoking that that's something different and you know kids can smell it and they can be influenced by that so it was both the societal influence and also the exposure to secondhand smoke and so thinking about the way we treat tobacco smoke you know just trying to keep what we do in alignment with that so I appreciate the state statute on not smoking in front of kids so that should allay their Fe fears there but also to council member Sha's point I think you know if we if we make it too complicated we start running into confusion and also enforceability issues and also sort of plausible deniability issues I didn't know because it's confusing and so trying to keep it in alignment with the way that we do treat alcohol makes some sense to me the only difference is there are fields sobriety test for alcohol and there is not for any kind of THC that you know acts as some kind of psychoactive chemical so it's it's a little bit it's it's a little bit different but I just think it makes it a lot easier both for public and for enforcement to try to keep it in alignment with existing the way we treat existing substances that are controlled Miss heiney so just with respect to parks there is a lot of um similarity between this ordinance and how it's treating any use and the um smoking so we don't allow smoking within 50 ft of the various facilities we can't it would be it it's a bigger job to try to bring all of them in and treat them the same way because our ordinances prohibit any alcohol anywhere in a park unless you have obtained a permit we do allow smoking in the Parks without permits and I don't know if the council wants to go to a place where you trying to bring alcohol and tobacco into the same place but this is treating the cannabis use more like smoking or tobacco use I should say so I think that includes two okay thank you other comments from Council Members or questions issues anyone council member Foster Bolton I think um it mine got answered but back to the social Equity piece um so so right now because of um Council Wilburn suggestion if the if a person wants to wants to register who's on the social equity and they're not in the PID they're going to be put aside I'm sorry I I guess I I'm sorry I forgot or something so there's nothing in the ordinance itself that specifically calls out social Equity applicants or prioritizes them there is a a practical um potential for social Equity applicants to get their foot in the door sooner because once we adopt the ordinance the moratorium will go away social Equity applicants have the ability under the state law to get preapproval of their licenses and they would be able to seek that preapproval so they have a foot in the door but there's nothing in the ordinance that specifically calls them out or gives them priority okay thanks um Mr Funk yeah thank you mayor and Council I'll make this brief just want to go back to I think it's already been mentioned but I think it's worth repeating so we will I think to council member Sha's point and others that have been made bring back a a chart or graph that shows the differences between where alcohol is allowed not allowed where regular I say regular if it's called regular anymore regular tobacco nicotine type tobacco can be smoked and not smoked and then certainly tonight's conversation regarding cannabis we'll try to lay that out in a more succinct way but I think as already articulated just keeping in mind that it it will be hard to keep it consistent between all three of those uses because as noted by City attorney heiney alcohol is not allowed anywhere in city property public property without out a license and or permit and an example of that would be like at a park shelter so someone could apply for a liquor license at a park shelter if they're having a a family gathering uh a celebration or whatever it may be that's kind of when we see those instances of alcohol in a park situation so we would not this ordinance doesn't call allow for permitting for cannabis use uh for example so that's where there's going to be a distinct difference between alcohol use and cannabis use because again right now alcohol is not allowed anywhere unless by permit what this ordinance does I think as Miss winck put up on here is really reflective excuse me of our tobacco um allowances and restrictions on regular tobacco use so this more mirrors again tobacco usage in the city so we're trying to be more consistent with tobacco harder to do with alcohol but again I think just keeping that in mind as we bring this back as we can kind of refined refine where we want uses and where we don't want uses I would also um point out mayor and Council that we do have Chief borom in the audience in case you have any questions regarding enforcement because I think often times no matter the language that is approved with the final ordinance just the just the challenges perhaps in enforcing that so I I do want to make sure that if you have any questions on enforcement Chief Bor room is here as well so thank you thank you Mr Funk other uh questions or comments from the council I'm Council kley I guess I guess I do have a question on public use um when I know when I was um campaigning this summer someone had asked me about and and I don't think this um information covers what this person asked me but I I'm just going to ask it anyway but he asked me about um using at like apartment buildings for um owned like owned um Town Homes like if a person owns their property and they were smoking on their balony um who would enforce that um and then he said something about there was like some cities that put ordinance in place um that they could not smoke on their back ones because the smoke carried over to other folks space which impacted them and so I'm just curious about that will our um ordinance if we put one in place cover something like that if it's privately owned property Miss wishnack thank you mayor and council member kley uh there are a lot of different rules at play here so in multif Family Properties and I'm just going to talk generally uh there is a Prohibition on under the indoor Clean Air Act that people cannot smoke in in uh shared spaces so for instance if you have um an outdo outdoor patio and that's considered a shared space that would not be allowed um I should say like a screen porch or something like that um in their individual units you have to check with each management so there is there are rules for each Management in the case I think you said town home depends on what your HOA regulations are so there's a couple of different things at play and I would not uh attempt to make a statement about all multiple family property I would only say that the indoor Clean Air Act does cover some of that uh and prohibit smoke any type of smoking whether it be cannabis or or um vaping or um cigarette smoking in shared spaces so that's um that's the law today that will continue to be the law the rest of it is managed by the uh company that owns it or manages the building and then if you're in town homes HOA regulations would apply so it just depends sorry couldn't be more specific than that okay and I have one more question I guess this one kind of um also um is similar to that one like when you're in apartment buildings say for instance you're outside and you're not inside the apartment building but like I'll just use min tah Heights for example and they're smoking on the property um then would that be like an enforcement um criminal enforcement if someone's smoking on the property and someone makes a police call and um they're on the property miss wishnack or Miss heiny I'm I'm reading body language here go ahead k no um so it might be best for us to sort of bring back a description of what the state law Provisions are state law requires landlords to ban smoking in the multif family units outside of the unit itself um I would have to check the law I believe that the landlord could allow it outside but if the landlord prohibited it outside and the person was violating that this city is not going to enforce that because we won't um uh we wouldn't have the ability to enforce it it wouldn't be a crime so um but if it's in a location where where the Clean Indoor Air Act applies the city could enforce that um and it is smoking is banned in any place where tobacco smoke is banned restaurants Etc and Miss wishnack just want to add to what Karan said in the August 23rd Memo from last year a lot of this information is contained in that report so if you need a little bit of a refresher about the indoor uh clean indoor act um or any of these other state regulations that apply to smoking that's in that report so we'll bring that back again when we we do a report um to help you kind of purse through all these different laws and regulations but um if you want to look at it right away the the report from that date I think I have it linked in the packet thank you Council anything else I do I I do understand the indoor um rule I'm just talking about the out outside like not the Clean Air Act that don't that's not right outside mayor and council member C I think it just depends on the the building rules so if it's a multif family dwelling and they have a uh what they would call a smoke free building and property then you could not do it again as K mentioned it it wouldn't be something the city would enforce that's a property management issue if the smoking was going on inside the building yes that could be considered clean air Indoor Air Act violation so just depends on how they're managing their property okay um I don't know I I guess I would like and I know we can't do it now but I guess I would like to talk a little bit more about like some education around that with the apartment people because to me like um it's it's very limited on where people can smoke I mean because we got the park regulation and you know the facility regulation and um you know as we you know approve this I know people are going to be smoking and they're probably going to be smoking on property and I just don't want to continue to increase um you know calls around folks smoking outside their building or smoking on the property you know smoking near the properties you know we we've getting like folks complaining about folks walking up the street so I don't want to start to get an increasing cause around you know people just smoking marijuana walking down the street or close to the property um because I don't know I just I just see it as an increase um I see it as a it going to be a pro I see it as going to be a problem in the future I don't see this as going to be a good thing for our city even though um it's um all the the state of Minnesota's um moved to um approved cannabis and people are you know and people do it now but I don't see it as a good thing and um I just see it as more of a problem and it's going to to me probably increase more of a problem of calls and complaints and even discrimination I can see this just being a big deal so I don't know hopefully it won't but that's just my thought process thank you cber kley um anything else from anyone okay a couple of well couple of quick comments and a um and then a kind of a ticklish uh um question um legal question that I will um direct to the City attorney and and I'm confident my question does not have any good answer but I'm going to raise it anyway but um in terms of what's been said tonight um I I agree that anywhere we can get consistency makes sense but I also think that um you know I I think uh smoking is different than alcohol consumption and one question I have is could we just prohibit cannabis use in our Parks like we do alcohol is there any reason we could not do that so that's one question you have the ability to prohibit it anywhere in parks that would make it somewhat different than the way you're treating tobacco right so we just need direction from the Council on where you want to go with that right and I think I think think most of the similarities exist with the way we treat tobacco but where there's consistency with the way we treat alcohol is that tobacco is not an intoxicant it's a psychoactive substance but it is not an intoxicant and so treating intoxicants uh I could see us saying okay it's we're going to treat it just like smoking except in the Parks because we prohibit use of intoxicants in the park and cannabis is an intoxicant so therefore I could to me I could live with that consistency let's just keep it out of the parks simpler easier and let's just treat it like alcohol um The Only Exception I'd say is I can't see us licensing a party where you're going to allow people to use um a cannabis the way we might with um with alcohol so that's that's one perspective then um but I think um you know that being consistent in terms of distances for example 50 ft um the the issues that are on the screen right before as cannabis use in public places I would ask kind of the rhetorical question is what's the difference between a bus stop and a publicly operated transit station I mean it's different form of Transit but it's Transit why not be consistent you know I'd say 50 feet I'm kind of I'm kind of happy with bigger buffers um anyway um and so then the question on when we go to sale we go to 500 foot or a th000 foot buffers you know what's wrong with a, 2500 feet can how big H how much latitude do we have in making our our buffers bigger that's you don't have to answer that question now I'm just curious about that one thing I would like before this comes back to better understand that is have a radius drawn around the um um ridgell common Park to see if we were going to put a restriction of 500 or th000 ft um around any public park um how would that impact businesses in Ridgedale because it could be quite prejudicial depending on what we did there and um it's a we didn't always have a park at Ridgedale but now that we do um and then um you know just generally I'm uh I understand some of the concerns that Council sha raised but when I think about the the amount of Commerce and the concentration of um um alcohol of liquor stores um you know in ter particularly in terms of volume I think the significant majority of alcohol is sold in the Ridgedale area so having a concentration within the Ridgedale area makes sense and I think that's not just W two I think it's also Ward three and I don't know if we extend to other Wards as well but I think you know I'm you know on the one hand I mean I will be very honest I am not a fan of the Cannabis law I think it's a bad law I I'm sorry that we've got it but you know what we believe I believe in the rule of law and so I'm you know I'm going to support the law because I believe in the rule of law um so if it's the law of the land it's the law of the land and we have to live accordingly so but um you know I think if I wanted to really reduce cannabis use which I think would be generally in the public interest keeping away from the mo the busiest commercial area in the city probably makes more sense than concentrating things there but from a practical perspective I think that um the p district has a lot of logic and so I after thinking about thinking about the pros and cons I tend to agree with staff that it's the most logical place for us to have those businesses located so then my kind of stump the band tricky question is and um Miss heiney correct me if my understanding of state law is incorrect but we are required to have one dispensary for every 12,500 residents and so that gives us five because we have slightly over 50,000 people in our city however I've heard that the measurement of that is not done on a city by City basis but on a county basis so my thought is that I think I think henen County has roughly one and a quarter million people in hban county and if my arithmetic is correct that says that there if the limit of a hundred if there are 100 dispensaries in hanen County but not in minona we legally are not required to have any dispensaries in our city because the quota would be met by other communities most likely Minneapolis but perhaps others is my interpretation uh or my recollection of that law is that um that the that the measurement of um the one in 12,500 residents is really a County number and not a city number so we might be able to get away with fewer than five dispensaries so and you don't have to answer that tonight if you don't have the answer I mean it's a stump the band question a little bit no uh the only thing I haven't checked is whether this particular provision was amended ended in um in the 2024 SE session I can check that but what the statute says is a local government unit that issues registrations can limit and it the 12,500 applies to the local government unit that is issuing the registrations if you defer and do not have the city issue the registrations but you turn it over to henpen County H then the limit will apply for the county but there are individual cities within the county that are you know doing their own registrations right you will not control so right it it will apply to the county if the county is doing the registrations it applies to the city if the city is doing the reg you question that clarification is helpful and and being an advocate of local control that probably flies in the face of my uh my publicly stated position so um and your other question was about distances that 1,000 ft from a school is the maximum that's allowed by state law 500 from a park is the maximum that's okay not a not from a park from a park facility that where children are likely to be present that 500 distance is uh dictated by stay law very good well I want to I want to thank staff um you know the staff recommendations I felt were generally as restrictive as the law as written allows and I I want to just generally say I'm supportive of that um I think that we should exercise the level of control we have available to us and I think that the staff recommendation does that um you know I would be interested in the um you know as this comes back you know the consideration of you know as far as the parks go Are we more interested in treating uh cannabis like we would treat tobacco in the Parks and allowed use except in specific areas or would we prefer um to have an outright prohibition like we have for alcohol in the Parks and I think that's a a worthwhile question for the council and perhaps um um our advisory commissions to consider whether it be the park board or the Planning Commission um other than that I think um I appreciate the good work that's been done on this and uh you know this a challenging one it's not it's not fun but um it's it's what we do and whether we like the law or not we uh um um we we have to uphold it so miss wishnack I will end there uh I just want to make sure mayor and Council were all on the same page so I want to make sure I just kind of go over everything that I heard I'm stting my references not the council's references so I'll just summarize and then when I'm done maybe if I missed something you can let me know so um and I'll go subject by subject uh we'll do the um registration I really didn't hear anything on registration except for the PID itself and and whether or not that was uh an acceptable kind of preferential uh notation that will go to the Planning Commission even though it's in the rent uh registration portion of the ordinance uh the other thing on that I heard uh applications order process how does that all work and be clear about that and reapplying for a registration application I think I have most of uh what you said on registration um also clarification on a, or 500 and what that does in the maps I go along with that but again I didn't hear any major issues with that just kind of understanding and information on the zoning ordinance piece I heard basically nothing um that needs work so I think I we probably have consensus at least what ordinance were showing the Planning Commission public use was all over the place so um we're going to have to I'm going to go back and read what you talked about at your study session the last time because that's how we got to this version of of the ordinance um we're going to make you some better charts though and compare some things for you um and I think Mar as you said maybe just some whether or not you want to outright um prohibited in Parks is probably the question at hand but um some of that 50 and 25 foot has to do with state law so uh we'll go back and reiterate why we chose those things but and and that clarification I think would be all that's necessary if it's state law let's not waste our time on it let's move on okay so I think I know it was a lot of discussion but that's what I distilled down from it so hopefully I was right but did I forget anything you often are Council anything to add um on M win's uh summary thank you very much okay I'm going to do something that everyone will agree with we're going to take a break right now so we'll take uh we'll we'll come back in in five to seven minutes and uh we'll get started again so thank you all are you g to make the motion before break or no oh for in do that or can we just take a break I don't care doesn't matter oh introd oh yeah excuse me we should introduce the ordinance before yes well let's do that and then we're going to take a break I'm sorry um Council for Calbert thank you mayor I'd like to make the motion to introduce the ordinances on cannabis and refer the zoning ordinance Amendment the Planning Commission Sarah second and park board and the park park board Council Wilburn I will second oh all right and then so we've got a motion by councilor Calbert and a second by councilor Wilburn um and we're referring the ordinance of the Planning Commission and the park board um Miss LaRon please call roll Foster Bolton yes sha yes Wilburn yes Calbert yes ra yes kley yes we have some yes motion carries we're not going to take a motion on taking a break we're just going to take a break all right that was a little longer than five minutes but we'll get started so um next item on the agenda after items relating to cannabis is item 13 public hearings and we have two tonight and the first is the on the um 13 TOA is the Community Development block grant program Consolidated annual performance and evaluation report for the year 2023 and Miss wishnack that's your report thank you mayor and council members this is uh a report and a public hearing on the Community Development block grant program it is an annual performance report that we have to prepare in certain cases and so if you weren't aware before 2018 minetonka was an entitlement City and we directly received those funds after that we went to the county and Consolidated our pool of resources um but during that time uh we did get some paybacks and some um money uh back from clients and customers and that accumulated balance was about 219,000 that could be used for other purposes and in November of 2020 so four years ago the council directed staff to provide a new program a new grant program for folks that owned uh through the hennipen uh Land Trust West henpen Land Trust or homes Within Reach and it was specifically a grant program for people who needed repairs to their homes and the amount was about $7500 per home could be eligible 24 homes actually took advantage of the grant program and were and did benefit from that program and um I think what's interesting about this report is you'll see on the next slide that it looks like we helped two homes but actually we helped 24 homes because of the reporting period it's just a little bit off so uh when I get to that I'll um remind you that how many we totally help but for this report the official report it would be two so there was a balance of 43,000 uh which remained in the fund that was unspent that expired on September 30th um just a note over those four years we sent many reminders and lots of information and reminders also to the folks at homes Within Reach that this money was available um because those funds were not spent they do have to be remitted back to HUD so that has to occur and then um submitting this report too has to go along with those funds um so for the year that we're reporting on which is 20 23 almost $116,000 uh was spent for rehabilitation 50% of the assisted home owners were people of color and of all the families that were assisted they were all below the 80% Ami household income so the public comment period ran from September 19 through October 3rd we actually didn't receive any comments on this report so for the city council you'll have to open the public hearing and take any public input that is available to you tonight and then if we do receive any comments those also have to be included in the report back to Hut with that mayor I'll turn it back to you for any questions great thank you Miss wishnack Council any questions on the Community Development block block grant report from miss winck any questions um one quick one um do you think there's anything more we could have done we hate to give money back is there anything more we could have done in your view to um to get that money spent mayor and council members um if I thought we could have we we would definitely would have I think um communicating directly by phone to people calling people to if we ran into people that were coming through our other programs like our rehab loan programs uh we were often referring them if they were homes within reach home sometimes people were ready for projects and sometimes they weren't I think that's sometimes a challenge with Home Improvement projects people just sometimes delay and delay and then sometimes it's just too late so I think definitely there was awareness and I was happy to have been able to reach that many homes but um yeah of course you want to spend all the money if you can all right well thank thank you and there was no critique in my question I just thought if um there might have been something that we could have done differently but anyway thank you for that um so um no questions from Council so I will take this opportunity to open the public hearing and is there anyone who would like to comment um on this matter anyone in the audience I know we don't have any Callins tonight is there anyone all right seeing no one I will clo close a public hearing and ask Council for comments or motion councilor Calbert I have no comments so I would like to make the motion to um adopt the resolution concerning the community uh uh development blockr Consolidated annual performance and evaluation report for 2023 thank you is there a second councilor kley I'll second all right we've got a motion by council member Calbert and a second by council member kley Miss Larson please call r foster Bolton yes sha yes Wilburn yes Calbert yes ra yes kley yes weome yes motion carries so item 13B is um our second public hearing item and it is the um 13B is the use of the community investment fund to finance renovation of the Arena rank B Refrigeration Improvement project and Mr Manchester that is your report it is uh good evening again mayor and Council so before use the use of community investment fund to refinance or excuse me to finance renovation of the ice rink uh B refrigeration system I did want to introduce a couple other team members that are here Mr John Heckman Kevin moss and Darren Nelson are here with us tonight working on this as well so the ice um Arena rank B Refrigeration improvements uh proposes to install a new ammonia Refrigeration system to rink B and it replaces the existing R22 refrigerant and Refrigeration equipment as it's expended its useful life um funding from the project is proposed from the community investment fund which requires two public hearings at least 30 days apart tonight which would be the first uh the existing refrigeration system was installed in 20 uh 2003 and uses a combination of glycol and R22 refrigerant uh the US EPA banned the produ ction and import of the refrigerant um January 1st of 2020 so you know at this point a refrigerant is not as available as well as it's banned by the EPA um the use of it so it's tougher to get and it's certainly more expensive so uh we're working on replacing our systems which is part of the requirement and that's why we're here tonight so the proposed improvements include installation of a new ammonia system for rink B including the demo of the R22 system as well as HVAC wiring uh electrical um systems and then a new structure to support the system so the system would include a new ammonia dispersion tank it would have a detection system with alarms to make certain that system was safe uh just to maintain the operation and that would have dialers as well to alert anyone of any type of um alarm or leak or anything that could potentially occur so we'll make sure the system is safe um we would look at a bid alternate to be included with the project that would look at some components of software and coordinating this system uh with other systems as well at the city um if the project uh anticipation the schedule would look at a three-month construction so it would be over the summer in 2025 as proposed uh there are some lead times with this equipment so it's potentially around six months it would need to be ordered later this year uh to meet that schedule the iser rink does provide a large portion of ice time uh for the city it is used by minetonka and Hopkins community primarily the lake minetonka Figure Skating club Youth Hockey Association um as well as boys and girls uh programs for minaka and Hopkins high schools and so with that I'll keep it short and I'll turn it back to the mayor and council with uh three recommendations tonight uh the first being to open the public hearing and accept any comments uh continue the public hearing to November 18th and then order the improvements accept the plans and specifications and then authorize an ad for bid for the project which would come back uh at the next meeting so with that I'll turn it back to the mayor any questions thanks thank you Mr Manchester um Council any questions for Mr Manchester regarding this Refrigeration project Council R uh thank you mayor I don't have a specific question regarding the refrigeration project I do have a question SL comment perhaps for the manager of the hockey uh or of the ice ring and the arena which would be or staff um which would be is the I and this is appropo of some other conversations we've had about Community facilities um namely is is uh is the ice a paid amenity that our residents have to pay for to access or is it freely accessible to anybody walking in uh good question Mr Heckman welcome good to see you well thank you very much we don't get yet very many Council meetings so it's it up you may may that's right that's right uh thank you Mary wome and counil M Ramy council members it is a PID Amit me um almost all of our program all of our programs do require fee whether it is ice rental to our community user groups as will mentioned already or it could be just for public skate could be our Le in a Skate Program anything of the such so even a public skate session does have a minimal fee thank you yep are there go go ahead well let we'll do the qu we'll finish the Finish questions and then we'll can I finish yes you you may absolutely right now wa so um just to follow up on that again appropo of other discussions we've had on facilities um I I would just like to kind of make that public comment that you know for our Ice Arena we you know it's not something that anybody can walk in like a park and use and I would ask that we keep that in mind considering our other community facilities like the marsh and Williston um so just make that comment and end it there all right make Capital Investments and those things um we hope that they operationally break even even though the ice arena is not doing so right now we're hoping this capital investment helps so that it can make it so and uh you know hopefully we will take the same approach with the community facilities were uh considering investing in in later Years thank you all right I'm going to dial it back a little bit before I take other Council comments any any more questions because we do have a public hearing so I think before we make comments we want to have the benefit of anyone in the audience who wants to comment so I will open the public hearing and ask if there's anyone here who would like to comment on this issue and I'm not seeing anybody but because I I'll ask again because I should um would anyone like to comment on this matter if not I will close a public hearing and bring it back to the council for comments so Council Wilber and I anticipate that you may have a comment how did you know um so sort of along the lines of of what council member Ral was uh speaking of um I know we've had in the past some people who have objected to us spending money on things like the ice rank um and I think it's it's a bigger conversation than what we what we're going to have just tonight but um what is our what's our our strategy as a city what um as far far as investing in community programs and Facilities um like so for instance I don't play pickle ball um and I would I would Hazard a guess that more people in minona don't play pickle ball then do play pickle ball yet the people that do play pickle ball really value the facilities um and I I think it adds value to our city to offer programs that maybe not everybody uses but makes the city attractive um because we do provide so many different services and so that that is my opinion that I I think it's worthwhile for us to invest in in things like the ice rink which may not make money um you know we are always hopeful that we can get to a place where we make money but I think there is still value in providing these Services throughout throughout the city and including the ice rink the marsh Williston Shady Oak Beach etc etc so that's it thank thank you Council rurn are there are there other comments um I will I will add that I agree with what my council members my fellow council members have said you know um I don't think there's anybody in the city who uses all of the facilities and all of the programs that the City offers and some of our programs are totally free of charge and many of our programs require either a nominal charge or more than a nominal charge I mean I spend a lot of time at City Hall and you should see all of the seniors who come in here and participate in free exercise programs but they also participate in field trips and um and uh lectures that where they have to pay a speaker and so forth and that's what makes a community a community and we talk about community building and um you know it's resources like the ier rinks that we have available for people who want to free skate for hockey teams now I'll admit that if if we were in Atlanta for example um maybe you know um we wouldn't have as many hockey ranks in our community but hockey is a big deal in Minnesota and it's it's important to offer amenities that make our city attractive so I think um and this Improvement I would love it if we didn't need to change refrigeration systems but we do and we have to stay uh up with the technology and um and I think that our investment in a rink is consistent with the values of our community even though not every family has a kid who plays hockey or figure skates it's an important amenity to our community so I'm supportive of this and agree with what my my fellow council members have said and that's part of what we do um as as a council is we determine the policies that reflect the values of our community and enrich the the experiences of our residents so I can go on and on but I won't um if someone would like to make a motion that'd be great CB wurn um so we already opened the so I make the motion to continue the public hearing to November 18th 2024 do I make the third one as well right and uh to order the improvements accept the plans and specifications and authorize the ad advertisement for a bid for ice arena rink B Refrigeration Improvement project and is there a second council member ra I'll second the motion all right we've got a motion by council member Wilburn and a second by council member R Ms Larson please call roll Foster Bolton yes sha yes Wilburn yes Calbert yes ra yes kley yes weome yes motion carries thank you thank you all for being here tonight for sticking around for so long appreciate that um item 14b is Minnesota housing loans programs Miss wishnack did I miss one oh excuse me excuse me uh I didn't mean to jump over um I apologize um 14b my my my my eyes are kind of um um never mind um item 14b is 14a excuse me a is everyone's favorite topic Recycling and Organics contract discussion 2025 to 2027 Mr Manchester you're still up obviously it's time for me to be done I was hoping you missed me but thanks I appreciate it evening again uh we'll kind of run through a presentation I did want to introduce Daren Ellingson he's here our operations manager and then Matt Herman is here also from Republic as well he doesn't plan to speak but certainly here for questions if anything comes up so just to kind of talk about some background um in December of 2021 the city city entered into an agreement with Republic uh for organized recycling curbside and so we at that time uh had a contract for 22 to 24 uh earlier in that year staff had reviewed multiple options for Organics at the time as well and council at that time decided to have organ ganics uh be be funneled I guess through the garbage haulers at that time there's a couple different options but opted uh to use the garbage service to meet the requirements of henan County and so at this time uh the Republic Services contract is set to expire at the end of 24 and so we're looking at uh what to do with the next cycle uh just some background and info on recycling residential curbside pickup is mixed recycles recyclables uh paper cartons glass plastic and Metal um as part of the recycling we also have the 24-hour drop off center at Public Works uh which has a number of containers to be Ser we service seven days a week as well as um there's additional containers around the holidays uh we also have an Organics um container there as well um for that type of drop off staff at this time did negotiate um for council's consideration tonight certainly uh the next three-year cycle 25 to 27 and so that's what we're here to talk about um we did look at an RFP process which is certainly an option still but based on the negotiation we did get a price uh we'd like to talk to you about which we think is very reasonable and so that's why we're here uh the cities of Maple Grove and Plymouth have recently done a similar path as well um just regarding collection rates um so Republic is proposing um an increase of about 5.2% to 25 uh and this is just the recycling piece of it and then a 4.5% increase over the next two years is kind of their offer at this time in Pre in the previous contract we did get charged additional for contamination as well as additional dumpsters and or excuse me containers and they did uh take that out so there would be no additional charge for that that would be included at this point uh regarding Organics as I mentioned before there is the County ordinance state law um in January 24 residents were required um an Organics fee regardless of participation so this is handled through the garbage hauler um there's a service there's a range on you know depending on your hauler certainly the price can vary um at this point uh Republic has proposed an option for organized Organics recycling collection that we could uh include with our recycling collection uh it would be a variable schedule uh based on participation uh the city would need to add uh this service through their billing and so something we'd certainly have to work with Finance on it would uh come off of their garbage haulers and the city would pick up that piece if Council does choose to move forward um and then we would work with the garbage haulers and a Communications plan certainly if that change were to be made um as mentioned the cost is variable based on participation we did discuss this with Republic uh quite a bit certainly there's an economy of scale on some things in this case uh there's stops that would require be required based on the participation so it changes um that level and so that's why there is an increase as the partic participation increases uh we did look at a number of comparable cities certainly that's the reason we're here tonight when we looked at the prices other cities are getting or current prices we did call all these cities to confirm this uh this is kind of an overview of of where we would fall if we were to move forward or Council decides to move forward with it and it it does vary you know depends on certainly when contracts were put into place um who the contract is with I mean there's a number of factors that play into this now the estimated cost in 2025 would certainly change um if Council were to choose to go forward organized Organics um adding that as well as inflation um we would potentially be projecting a $350 to5 we would come back with Council if they so choose with a contract at a future meeting uh right now the current cost per month is 733 um which includes everything includes leaf and brush drop uh organic excuse me just recycling leaf and brush and then the recycling center if Council were to decide to add Organics we would look at a change of you know 10 or 11 to$ 122 in that range the city would need to bill um that would include curbside recycling uh curbside Organics 24-hour recycling center and drop off and then the leaf and brush drop as well and we would need to bring that back to council um with a contract through Republic if they so choose to go that that route uh there would be Communications certainly that would be needed as part of this process um if the garbage haulers would no longer participate in the Organics collection we would certainly have to promote that or or communicate that there'd be a number of channels uh we would do we have talked with Plymouth and Maple Grove to understand what they did when they made the change so we'd certainly use a similar process or what works best for us of course um we would come back likely in November early December um with a contract if you were to choose to move forward at this point and then we would have a Communications plan as well on how things would proceed moving forward so our recommended action tonight would be to direct staff to proceed with the contract negotiations for 25 to 27 um and include um or organized um curbside excuse me curbside organic recycling collection with uh the curbside recycling so I'll turn it back to the mayor and Council for any questions or discussion thanks all right well we'll start with questions does anyone have any questions um from Will's um Mr Manchester's report on this topic CC R thank you mayor um can you confirm uh Mr Manchester what the conditions of this extension are my understanding is is this is extended with on the basis of not doing an RFP to other potential biders is that correct uh council member R Council mayor that is correct we would propose to extend the contract for three years and not do an RFP at this point certainly would be an option for Council if they wanted to consider an RFP very followup go ahead yeah and am I also correct in understanding that basically the main reason that we staff is suggesting that is because Republic will not um kind of hold to those prices if we do an RFP so basically they're saying they're yeah there's a little bit of black meal going on um council member melee uh Council and mayor they did offer this price um based on their current setup I mean they certainly could come in with this price in RP they haven't said they wouldn't uh but they said you know this is the price they're offering certainly they'd look at other factors if an RFP would go out but that's where they left it so yes this is the current price all right thank you I'll hold for now all right any other comments or questions rather council member Calbert thank you mayor on page um three of the supplemental background information there's a there's a chart um of all the cities and their Recycling and their contractor and it's just so interesting because you know they're saying we're getting a heck of a deal and I read the report I I had trouble hearing what you were saying but for instance Plymouth their recycling is is would be less expensive so it's not it's not an across theboard pricing so I just you know we may be getting somewhat of a better deal but just seems a little bit I I really am still having a a trouble understanding that sliding price range based on numbers is that is that ref is that what this reflects uh council member Calbert mayor and Council it does the prices are different when we asked the same question certainly when we talked with Republic you know it depends on the number of residents um how the city's set up there's certainly other factors that go into it and it sounded like the the more people that participated the price went up not down which seems a little counterintuitive correct on the uh organic piece of it uh the price does show to go up based on participation um we ask the same question because that just seems I mean that that is just a terrible way to get people to participate yeah and just my just to clarify further our understanding is there's a number of stops that are required with the particip patient and so there's definitely more time involved you know if you're at 10% versus 20% if you're stopping at a whole number of homes there's definitely more time involved and costs that go with that um and then just just to understand so in in full disclosure as part of my question I left Republic because they were only picking up my garbage when it seemed to be convenient to pick it up for some months it was sort of an ongoing thing and then when I called to talk to the customer service they weren't very nice about it so um so I went to another vendor so basically we're going to cut out all the other vendors that that frankly had better service all along and are significantly cheaper and this is just for this is not just for Organics it's for Organics and recycling so if we if help me understand if we do this Contra contract without an RFP are we are cutting out the other vendors from those activities and and uh or is it that residents will be paying for that service to Republic and whatever other service they've contracted what sure council member C to clarify we the city would take on the or is proposed to take on the Organics piece and So based on that participation chart that would be the the fee that we would the city uh pay Republic for the Organics piece um the individual gar garbage haulers we would work with them similar to what Plymouth and Maple Grove have done to take that organic piece off of their garbage bill and so there would be a change based on what we're seeing there would be a decrease I mean certainly we can't guarantee what the garbage haulers would do but uh there would be a decrease in the Organics cost from what we're seeing which is why we're proposing to move forward at this time based on the price I mean we could certainly go out to the RFP we did analyze this a lot to be honest we take it very seriously um the price that we're getting uh seems very good to us and that's why we're proposing it tonight you know the the other cities around us did Plymouth get 475 yes um we're not in Maple Grove the same uh we got a lower rate on our increase per year so there's other factors that go into it but uh we wouldn't recommend it to you if we didn't think it was a really good deal to be honest and I I understand it takes away um the RFP if we do an RFP we would need to take uh the lowest bid at that time and you know there's no guarantee on what we could get it could certainly change that way so that that's some of the risk involved but that's why we're recommending it thank you very good ccil member Foster Bolton and we could revisit this in three years like all of this would go away we could uh C member C yes in three years uh it'd be another it would only be good for three years certainly but then we'd have to go through all the process of recharging the garbage haulers they would have to recharge like the the price would be redispensing cor yeah there would be another another cycle and we could choose at that time to do an RFB or we could look at another extension are there other other questions Council or oh Council BG Cy kley thank you that's okay it's it's getting late I about to say I'm tired too so I get it pardon me cber kley thank you I I was gonna say I didn't see um Southwest um hauler up here um and just was wondering do you have their prices and fees and um yeah yeah council member cley and Council we don't have it on here we could certainly get that though if it's something you would like to see that's who I use so that's why I was curious I noticed it like oh they're not there but um just curious about like making sure that we compare all the prices versus um just some of them because Southwest um hauler actually is cheaper than Republic um and so I'm wondering um how much is there Organics and I haven't looked at my bill lately so um I'm just wondering about that because I don't think we're going to be able to make a clear decision without Southwest pricing yeah I don't I don't have it here tonight I don't know if Mr Elling since talked to them at all or not but CC mey I can say on an individual uh level that it's $6 a month all right do we um have any other questions or um Council uh comments on this uh counc BR Wilburn so um I have some reservations as and sort of what uh uh Council remember calber was was alluding to um when uh when Republic bought Randy the the transition was not smooth um and there were lots of complaints and um personally my my bill went up significantly um to the to the point I had yeah I had you know I had alert I had a a ceiling I had Auto pay but a ceiling on the amount and like every month I would get an alert that the the amount I was being charged was over what my limit had been set at um and it was not communicated well that any of this increase had to do with the with the uh recyc or the the Organics fee that was required by the by the county um at least I didn't see commit a at all so it I just I have reservations about signing a three-year contract where you know what are what what are our options if service is not what we would like it to be Cc or um Mr Funk yeah thank you mayor and Council I would just point out a couple things this is a really good conversation I think in my again my conversation with you today this this is the kind of the philosophical approach for the city of of what's the best approach and what kind of risk is the city willing to take maybe two things I would point out to you what staff is recommending if you were comfortable with proceeding with a contract part of the part of that contract provision of termination Clauses would need to be visited and so we want to negotiate that too with the contractor so while we're suggesting a contract would be extended for three years based on the pricing that's before you we want to look at certain types of termination Clauses so if there is underperformance or if there are concerns with how the service is being provided that we have some sort of out between now and three years so that way we're locked in for three years but then have certainly out Provisions in those termination language so we would want to certainly evaluate that very closely in bringing that contract back to you so I give you that point and then second and maybe Mr Manchester can speak to this a little bit on the screen in front of you what staff has provided is a summary of again comparables to other cities what you'll notice in that contractor uh column is you see Republic listed quite frequently through there so when you look at how many companies are available to do this size and scope of work there aren't a lot of players in this space so you're going to see Republic you're going to see waste management and perhaps there are one or two others um and that's a and so just want to point that out as well is that uh if we go out for an RFP certainly that risk is there and then looking at what type who would actually then put in for that type of in a proposal like this council member Ro oop excuse me council member sha go ahead I'm sorry thank you mayor um you know I appreciate the comments of my council members and my instinct initially when I read the packet was gosh it it feels a little bit like we're over the barrel however and I will um acknowledge there's a resident in my house that is not a big fan of Republic either has transitioned to a different carrier as well so he may disagree with my position on this but you know we look we we work really hard to want and we talk a lot about fees that are residents are paying and trying to keep those down as much as possible and we also talk about where can we find efficiencies and so my instinct is there is you know this is a collectively particular L when we look at the Organics and the recycling together this is a a competitive probably as low of a rate as we can get um and so you know part of me says let's do the work let's get the RFP but there's not efficiency in that and so my M much you know much to my closely related residents dismay I would probably say this makes the most sense and what I will say I mean we put a lot of utilities through the ringer today but I have not had a problem with recycling the recycling has been consistent it's clear that Republic has the capacity to do the recycling tell you we did recycling in stou when we lived in St Louis Park and that did not go well then that was organized obviously recycling as well and and so I've experienced bad service and in that inconsistency and we would get demerits a lot but um so my inclination is to go forward with this let's make the decision let's move on let's get it the contract but I'm it's not a hill I'm going to die on so that's my opinion C member Foster Bolton you look your body language looks like you want to say something well I was going to agree just because I think that if we asked the residents they would all say take the deal because they would look at the price and they and most of yeah they might they might hate Republic I mean we don't like them either but but it's the best price and like you said we try to council member ra thank you mayor um first of all staff thank you for doing all this work I understand that you're kind of fulfilling your fiduciary responsibility basically to get us the lowest price so you know hats off thank you to that um I also understand efficiency argument I am concerned about being over a barrel for one thing but also preferencing and giving this outright to Republic to the potential detriment to other local companies um I'm worried about or concerned about the continued existence of of local companies like Southwest uh or um South Suburban and the monopolization by a company like Republic um I am concerned that what happens so often in these cases is that one company will drive out the competition and then raise its prices years three years down the line because they're the only game in town at that point because they've driven out the competition so to me I get it lowest price is important but it it isn't everything and you also have to take a longer term View and you know I am concerned about knocking out our other local family-owned uh you know Regional competition um maybe they don't have the capacity um but I'm concerned about not letting them get a shot at that and you know if Republic wants to ding us on that for doing that well I guess shame on them are there other comments celor Calbert thank you mayor um I'm pretty I I feel like I'm very much in alignment with uh council member Sha's comments I I and I also really I hear what council member ra is saying you know the thing is we do hear from our residents about fees and I have two new residents who are closely related to me that you know moved five minutes from my house and live in minaka and our in sticker shock over the price of utilities and other things here in Minnesota and so you know I feel a little bit better if we can drive a hard bargain on the right to terminate I do understand what council member R is saying because we need an option to terminate too and if we do eliminate the competition then it becomes exceedingly difficult and then we are over a barrel and so I think she has a point but I also feel like you know when we're raising the levy and so is everybody else and um you know we hear a lot about inflation and you know we'll be hearing from our residents and Excel told us that they're raising their rates and so on and so on I do feel like we need to take an opportunity to reduce rates I also do feel like we have we sort of have a gun to our head so don't really like the way this is unfolding and it makes me feel deeply uncomfortable which is why I really respect what council member Ra was saying but I also agree there are efficiencies here we have a you know we have that divide in the city where what 88% of residents or 85% of residents want organized trash but nobody wants to give up their trash collector and so this is a way to organize at least part of that and maybe reduce some of the truck traffic maybe even though I'm sticking with my vendor for the trash cuz Southwest has been Johnny on the spot every time it's trash day so um you know maybe maybe we try it and we see how it goes and honestly we need I want really clear parameters in the contract about termination um because you know they haven't always met the bar anyone else okay um you get my two cents too um minetonka doeses not have organized collection and regular trash hauling is the Lion Share of the business as I understand things so whatever decision we make on Recycling and Organics I don't think it's going to be a diff differen maker on the survival or failure of anyone who happens to be in this business I don't know that for a fact that's my that's my personal opinion we're not talking about organized collection here we're talking about Recycling and Organics um I I agree with the the um I I agree with what council member sha said and also the fact that you know um costs are going up and I believe that staff has done a pretty good job of um negotiating as good a deal as we're probably going to get from Republic or from anyone and I want to be mindful of cost because cost is important to our residents um but also our Recycling and Organics are important to our residents and you know the the question is why do costs go up when more people participate well it's because there's going to be more trash and more stops and and all of the things that drive the cost up of picking Organics up everyone's paying understand everyone if we only have % of people participating 100% of people are paying and they have 10% pickup but if they have 20% pickup well their costs are probably almost doubl at least their variable costs so that's why we see a rising schedule I'm I'm comfortable with that so I think getting the best deal we can for three years with with reasonable termination commitment makes a lot of sense um I will say that the transition from ry's to Republic was uncomfortable for probably a lot of us sitting up here and a lot of our residents but things have really improved and I'll tell you what as somebody who's been in business for a long time mergers and Acquisitions are brutal and some just plain fail and I don't think we're there with Republic I think um and we and the city does a lot of business with Republic I mean they handle our recycling they they they um at City I mean we they do more than just pick up for our residents so I think some economies of scale on recycling and Organics makes sense um recycling is just such a challenging area these days because what happens to recycling is it really recycled does it re where does it go is a is a question that I've got but but I think going for some efficiency here um it's not a it's not a permanent uh decision it's a three-year decision um if we if we've made a mistake between a a termination and a three-year um length of contract we can look to Republic to earn earn our trust and earn our business um I really believe that have improved a lot since since the ry's acquisition first took place so I'm supportive of Staff recommendation and uh so with that I I know we probably have kind of a a mixed bag here but if someone would like to make a motion I will uh or has any other comments um we'll take a motion anyone ccor Calbert thank you mayor I'd like to make the motion to uh let see it's not really direct oh yeah so I'd like to direct staff to proceed with contract negotiations for the 2025 through 2027 City organized curbside recycling with republic services including Organics recycling collection so from a process perspective should we just treat this like a motion and see how we how we stack up or um is there a consensus among council members or or or our counter opinions because we really we really don't have an action do we or or do uh mayor and Council I would advise that to continue with the direction that you're on you have a motion to directing staff I think that just helped staff make it clear on what we're going to do okay so we've got a motion by councilor Cal is there a second I'll second council member Foster Bolton I'll second all right we've got a motion by council member Calbert and a second by council member Foster Bolton Miss Larson please call roll Foster Bolton yes sha yes Wilburn yes Calbert yes r no kley yes weome yes motion carries so um C or Mr Funk EXC thank you mayor Worman Council I would just maybe add that you know thank you for your direction uh you heard we heard your comments tonight all very valid we I think as staff knew this would be the conversation you had here this evening because it's it's there's no right or wrong in this it's just really what you're most comfortable with and with all the reasons you've already mentioned what we'll do is pre your direction uh continue to work with Republic Service and bring back a contract for your approval and it's even at that time when we bring back a contract if you have some level of uncomfortability with that contract where we don't feel like termination Provisions are um to our benefit then we also could still proceed with an RFP so that still isn't off the table so I think that we're to continue with negotiations bring back a deal that is beneficial for the city and if not we can also proceed to an RFP at that time we might have to look at timing because our contract ends the end of this year and so if we were to go on RFP at a later time we'd have to work with Republic on some sort of bridge between that and and uh when the RFP process plays out thank you thank you Mr Funk um all right so let's see we've got we we've we've done this one we can go on to the next one after trying to get there earlier um item 14b is Minnesota housing loans programs and miss wishnack that is your thank you report thank you mayor and council members uh this is just a uh some additional funding for the two programs that have had a lot of success the welcome to minetonka program which is a down payment assistance program which is providing loans up to $50,000 and then the enhancement program which is a low interest interest loan up to 15,000 for eligible home repairs and as you know the H Lev is approved every year and if you don't know we track exactly what you said you were going to spend the money on if that changes over the year then you have to amend that and and reallocate those funds currently though you have about $500,000 sitting in the fund balance of the H liby that is uh designated for uh home rehab or home down payment programs Additionally the EIP that you just adopted Ed does talk about 100,000 more being allocated in 2025 for the two programs so staff is recommending that the city council authorize already allocated funds um to CE which is our provider of these Zone programs 200 for the welcome to minetonka down payment and then 100 for the motanka home enhancement there also are some um changes to the guidelines and so you'll see some of that paperwork in the back of the packet that talk about the guidelines and just minor changes you can see the interest rate changing to zero um 10% of the purchase price um with a maximum of $50,000 for the loan amount um the home buyer contribution too we've dropped that from 25 to 1% of the purchase price uh has to be the borrowers own funds and this is because there's other man ing funds out there and so we're finding kind of friction with that particular issue um and then again home value is about 400,000 10% of the purchase price would be like 40,000 and then the home buyer would be responsible for a minimum of 4,000 so we just provided an example for you how that would work um we got some of these changes from Cee as they work with buyers and and working on different issues that they're coming up with so we do this every year with them we go through the guidelines and try to figure out whether or not there are adjustments we hate to adjust it too much because um you know you're dealing with a set of loan applicants in one year and then you're changing the requirements in the next year so we don't like to do it a lot but I think these were um definitely issues that they were faced with that we needed to approve um no changes are proposed for the rehab program and with that mayor uh we are recommending approval of that authorization so any questions you may have I'll take those at this time great thank you Miss wishnack um Council any questions for Miss wishnack um or any comments or a motion coun um as soon as they they pop up the recommendation where'd that go there there we go I uh move that we adopt the resolutions of approve to approve the authorization of $300,000 from the existing balance and the H ly fund to the welcome to motanka and motanka home enhancement programs is there is there a second Council sha thank you mayor I'll second all right and and does anyone have any comments I want to make we kind of rush to that quickly um so we've got a motion by council member over and a second by council member sha um I'm just going to quickly comment I was impressed with the staff report and the simplification of the programs and I think those are big improvements so just want to go on the record saying that Miss Lon would you please call roll Foster Bolton yes sha yes Wilburn yes Calbert yes ra yes kley yes weome yes motion carries item 14 C is items concerning his house foundation services and miss wishnack you are still up thank you mayor and council members this is the contract for his house which is our homelessness prevention and provider uh when folks are entering homelessness in July of 2022 the city council approved a contract with um his house foundation and at that time it was a 2-year pilot program that you established and since then they've helped 24 households and um really what the money goes toward is financial assistance to do casework they they do temporary housing which is as you know in a hotel typically in the area so that people still can get to work into school and all of the things that they're used to doing and then sometimes it's F first month rent deposits on new housing for the person they're helping um the um stats on actual residents there's 59 menona residents and 34 of those are minors approximately 68,000 or almost 70,000 has been used uh roughly 131,000 remains so when considering this extension this additional 2-year agreement with his house um we're not asking for any more money for that program the money is sitting there we just need to reup the contract um just so you know there hasn't been any interruption in service since July they know that we were working on the contract and getting it on your agenda so um they've been very easy to work with on that front and continue to provide services to people um the only other thing that I want to mention here is IC did previously administer the rental assistance program uh for the city and this started during the pandemic and so all of that money that was issued to that organization through the pandemic and post pandemic has been utiliz so that money has run out the uh city council originally approved uh an additional 50,000 in rental assistance through the H lby that has not been spent yet we haven't placed it with an organization we're proposing to place it with his house just because of some of the interactions that they have with people um either that are housing insecure or they're dealing with some other kind of housing issue with the uh person they're dealing with and and it just seems a little bit closer I think I answered this last time um I think council member Calbert asked uh people not go to ICA anymore no they still go to I they still get their services um we are always we always have been our rent assistance has been the um organization of Last Resort so to speak it's a safety net for when the county monies doesn't don't come through or when the state money for rental assistance didn't come through we've never been the prime AR place where people go to get rent assistance it's just a safeguard in case they're not able to get it anywhere else so um I think we talked about that enough last time but I just wanted to offer that again to um the city so with that uh staff is recommending approval of the resolution for extension and uh of that contract with his house and the additional rental assistance there's also an agreement with his house for that specific service with that mayor I'll turn it back to you thank you Miss wishnack Council any questions for staff on this one anyone Council M kley thank you mayor I just had um question I had asked um city manager about it earlier I know that this is for um temporary um emergency assistance um for um making sure folks are not um I guess left homeless or um evicted out of their house however you want to say it but I had to asked him about how many folks are actually have his house helped get into permanent housing I know they do it through coordinated access but do you have a number of folks that's been helped with permanent housing um through the relationship with his house and coordinated access Miss wishnack mayor and council member kley um I think we covered this a little bit our housing update but we haven't been able to fully track where people end up sometimes uh you know where the person ends up and they can anecdotally tell us that you know a person has been placed in housing and was successful in getting into coordinated entry um however we don't have good stats on that sometimes people leave the program and the assistance and you might never uh run across them again there's no requirement for them to check back in with his house um and frankly there's not a really good way to do that um I've shared that with his house um if there's any possibility of how to give you a sense of that um she's thinking about how to handle that question but uh at this time we don't have any good numbers on where they end up in their final housing situation okay so how long do folks tend to stay in a hotel like um I I I mean I worked for coordinated access so I know that there's a way to track how many folks got housing um his house should be able to say this is how many folks got housing because they get approv the application and they say okay here's a apartment for you now they may turn it down and say they don't want the apartment and so maybe they reject it but there is a way to track how many folks actually move from a hotel into a home and so I would like to see that more more um concrete information on how many folks are actually getting housing because to me this is like putting a Band-Aid on a situation if you can't get people into permanent housing like to continue to put people into hotels for whatever reason yes it it solves the emergency of them not being on the street or them not not losing their place but if we're putting people in hotels and they're standing there for a long period of time and we don't have any way of tracking that to me I just think it's a waste of money and so I would prefer to see like how many people are actually getting into permanent housing Miss wishnack thank you mayor and counil M kley I think um I think I agree with you in terms of the coordinated entry and the tracking of that that's very much available the problem that you have in this program is that not everybody chooses to enter coordinated entry I'll give you an example there's somebody who is um uh living out of their B and they choose to live in their van and a campsite uh was coordinated for them to live they chose not to enter the coordinated entry but there was an ability to help them at least with food and some clothing needs and uh get them to at least a temporary site for them to stay so that would be a case where they don't enter the coordinated entry but there was an emergency assistance provided to that person so that that can happen where you don't enter the coordinated entry and so you wouldn't have that data and you wouldn't know where that person ended up so that case was still active and that somebody were tracking and continuing to meet with and seeing if we can get to permanent housing but um at this point that's not the wishes of the customer so I think it's um it sounds easy it's not as easy uh when we're dealing with different situations council member R yes thank you mayor um I just have a question is this in your opinion kind of partly because there are requirements in terms of shelter stay before you can you know be considered for more permanent Housing Solutions and so that some people especially those with family um you know children may be U reluctant to enter the coordinated system is that kind of any part of the problem here and so or is that are we you know I understand and agree with council member cley's concern about tracking this but I also given what you just said in the example that you just gave is that you know it occurred to me looking through the staff report is that there were kind of requirements for both individuals and families to stay in a shelter before they could even be considered right and uh mayor in council member R and in this situation um shelter is considered the hotel that's why we did it the way we have been doing it because what we didn't want to happen is people having to relocate themselves to a shelter which is primarily in Minneapolis um that's the shelter system that people would typically enter so that's why we did this program so that they could avoid that they meet the requirements for coordinated entry when they're in a hotel stay so that's how we're we're getting through that process however I would say that just not everybody is in the state of mind that that's the next step so there's maybe drug issues maybe there's mental health issues maybe there's um there's a lot of different factors going on with the people that are being helped their their immediate solution is and oh I'm going to go through the coordinated entry and we're going to get to an apartment that's not always where people are at so sometimes you have to be um you know the people that provide these Services just have to be checking in constantly and trying to get them to the eventual goal which is absolutely permanent housing but that's not where everybody starts so it takes a while and um takes time C calber thank you mayor so you know Martha Brandon um is in minetonka family collaborative with me which is a group of nonprofits run through minetonka public schools that supports children and families at risk for many different things whether it's food insecurity housing insecurity job insecurity you name it grief counseling uh tutoring I mean everything under the sun it's such a wonderful group of people and that's where I met Mary and that's when I connected Mary with um Miss wishnack and other people because there there was a family in experiencing housing insecurity during the terrible it was terribly hot and very smoky from the Canadian wild fires and it just was unhealthy for them to be lit living basically I think behind a a gas station and so in talking to Martha who who is the head of his house and runs this program um the the problem out here in the West Metro as as Miss wishnack Miss wishnack was trying to explain the problem with living in the West Metro is that if you wanted to get into these formal housing programs s especially for families that had children in schools here their jobs might you know they might even have a job it just you know they might have some like medical uh expense crisis or something they would have to go down town pull the kids out of school be downtown and live in a shelter downtown to even get into the program and so the whole point of this pilot with his house was to create conditions where individuals and families could stay out here where they live and not have to relocate several times just to get into a housing program and still access those permanent housing programs and so that is literally the reason that we were doing this so in my opinion while I completely understand the concern around you know the tracking and you know trying to get people into permanent housing I completely respectfully disagree that it's a waste of money because when you're experiencing a housing crisis and you need a roof over your head especially in Minnesota where we have real weather this isn't Santa Barbara um you know people need and I have people in my in my life that experience all kinds of insecurities and it it's a struggle for family members sometimes to assist them so I just you know I I think in my opinion I think especially since we are the the agency of Last Resort there are other homelessness programs or housing insecurity programs through the county and the state I think this is a great use of our money um to keep a roof over people's heads and I think Martha's done a great job um spearheading this pilot and getting really fabulous results because we have helped a lot of families out here and and individuals great any any other comments um Council M Wilburn so just really quick I also agree that this is is a worthwhile program and and I'm in favor of uh extending it I have had conversations with uh commissioner Edon about this County requirement of of having to stay in shelter and and the no shelters being and um just a brief conversation and intend to have more conversations because I think that's something that we need to get changed at the county level so then maybe These funds can go to something else to to to help uh uh people in need um and just my other comment is I know as at a at a study session um it was decided that uh we wanted to have a a written policy that but not as so I would like to at some future maybe a future study session like actually see the written policy for how what how this city deals with homelessness I realize this is part of it but like the whole the whole plan um and then also then it could be part of the report like what happens if if we spend all of the all of the funds for his house and there's still people in need so but we don't have to do that tonight uh mayor though I will just give you at least a time frame so it was the encampment policy that we talked about at the stud session in July so we haven't quite gotten the full encampment policy completed I'm sure that'll be in the next couple of months um we're scheduled we always we do two housing updates to a year so on one of those occasions we'll go ahead and bring that back to you so thank you thank you councelor kley I I did um ask a question about how long do the folks stay in the hotel I don't think that question was yes answered Miss wishnack I forgot to answer sorry Marin sorry C my quickly um typically I hear anywhere from a week to a couple of weeks is a normal stay so um it can be up to 3 weeks that's usually past 3 weeks um they they try to find more permanent Solutions um but I would say 1 to 3 weeks is a normal range of of time before they're making another adjustment wherever that may be okay so I don't know it does prop a lot of questions for me because I live this life like this is not something that staff can say to me council members can say to me this is something I've lived my lived experience and so I know how this work I've worked in this area I lived this this experience my son has lived this experience I know how this work and so I I I keep saying this and I'm going keep hammering it at home because I worked at emerge and we poured a lot of money into clients and people and sometimes they just couldn't get there and I just want to be careful that because it is a pilot program it's a new program and maybe folks just don't really get the program and how this stuff really works but I just want to make sure that we're just not pouring money into a program and we're not folks are not ending up with housing because it could become a cycle these same folks coming back using the money well we there's a um policy that that they can't use it again but they don't get into permanent housing the goal is always to get people into permanent housing if they choose to and I know some folks choose not to I did an intern at Simpson housing I know they do that because of mental health whatever reason but I just want to make sure that we're not just spending money or wasting money as I call it to do this and then people don't get into housing so that's that's just what I'm trying to get at making sure people are really getting into housing and somehow we need to track it some type of way there's a way you can track it thank you councilor kley um anyone anything else for anyone councilor OB so I'm just and maybe it would be helpful if we if and maybe not tonight but if we knew like what the procedure what happens after someone is placed in a hotel does his house still have communication with them or are they you know are they passed off to someone else so like to C council member cley's Point like why don't we know what's happening and and I'll comment if I may because I mean I I agree with what council member kley says you know clearly we want to get um people into permanent housing that's that's the goal but um and you know compared to larger cities we don't have an enormous homeless problem but we do have a homeless problem and people do get evicted from Apartments um and from places to live in minona and if you get evicted you don't have a place to turn you're homeless so we have a homeless issue and it's so complex I mean I was in three meetings last week or the week before kind of mush us together pardon me um and we talked about homelessness and all or talked about housing and homelessness and all of those and in everyone we talked about mental health and the challenges associated with the difficulty of getting people in safe permanent housing and and the issue is complex and no two circumstances are exactly the same and so you know I'm going to take a step back I mean I agree of with most of what's been said tonight about the desirability of tracking the the importance of um of getting people into a permanent housing um it's not a straight path I don't think for anyone but the key is I'm very pleased that we have this program to help homeless minona family and I think it's an important program um I I dis differ with coun kley in that I don't want to spend too much money on temporary housing when the goal is permanent housing on the other hand I don't think we're wasting our money if we're taking somebody who would be on the street and putting them into into temporary housing and safe temporary housing so you know I think we have I I think that as we work on programs we want to have programs that you know cover as many people as possible everybody and we can solve the problem if it was that simple the problem might be solved I think it's complex and every circumstance is different and I'm pleased that we've got a program that recognizes doesn't stick our head in the stand and says you know we're minat Tonka we don't have a h um we don't have a homelessness problem you know um that's not the that's not the way it is in our city no it is the way it is in our city every you know and and uh you know I'm glad that we're doing something about it and I think we as a council can decide are we doing enough is there more that we could be doing but I think this program um I I fully support the extension because I I think it's really important for the residents of our community and it makes it makes everybody um I mean without housing people don't have a chance and we like to believe that minona is a city where people have a chance and we have to make sure that they have housing so that's that's my little speech I'm sorry but um if someone like to make a motion I'll I'll take a motion Council M Shack thank you mayor I will make the motion to approve the resolutions as it relates to his house the contract and the rental assistance program thank you is is there a second councilor Calbert thank you may all right we've got a motion by Council M Shack and a second by Council Calbert Miss LaRon please call r foster Bolton yes Shaq yes Wilburn yes Cal yes ra yes kley yes weome yes motion carries we're getting there folks but we're not done yet um so item 14d is a closed meeting to discuss labor negotiation strategies pursuant to Minnesota statutes section 13d .03 so I am going to be looking for a motion to close the public he public meeting Accord you know pursuant to Minnesota state statutes 13 d03 sub uh sub chapter 1B to consider strategy for labor negotiations for law enforcement labor Services local 442 police officers is there a motion Council M Wilburn so move is there a second council member kley make a second so we've got a motion by council member Wilburn and a second by council member kley Miss uh Miss LaRon please call roll Foster Bolton yes sha yes Wilber yes Calbert yes R yes kley yes weome yes motion carries so I have to say this um the time and place of the closed meeting um will be and I will say um I'm going to give us five minutes it will be at 10:20 p.m. on October 7th 2024 um and uh we will convene in close session at the mini haha room and then I will inform you that that at the conclusion of the closed meeting no other regular meeting no regular business of the city will be discussed and the regular meeting will be adjourned but don't think you're totally off the hook because there will be an economic development Authority meeting which we will convene here and we will try to make that happen as quickly as possible so with that let's go to the mini haha room and uh we've got uh we've got three minutes to get there Mike we good are we ready to go more okay so um item uh let's see um item 15 is um appointments and reappointments we have none and item 16 is adjournment is there a motion to adjourn in in a second counc okay we got a motion by Council m wurn a second by councelor all in favor say I we are adjourned but we and now we will turn turn around and I will remind everyone that it is still Monday October 7th 2024 this is a meeting of the um city of minaka Economic Development Authority I will call this meeting to order and Miss Larsson would you please call R Wilburn here Calbert here ra here kley here Foster Bolton here sha here here oh we some okay here I am here it's okay it's what's his name over there um I'm not I'm not sensitive um I messed up your name earlier okay we're good okay uh next item after roll call is approval of the agenda and um um m is wishnack you no changes no changes so we need a motion Council or commissioner Calbert thank than you Mr President I move approval of the agenda commissioner Wilburn second all right we've got a a motion by commissioner Calvary to Second by commissioner Wilburn um miss miss miss Larsson please call roll Wilburn oh yes Wilburn yes calber yes ra yes kley yes Foster Bolton yes sha yes weome yes yes motion carries item four is approval of minutes and we have one set of minutes the September 23 2024 Eda minutes is there a motion commissioner sha thank you I move approval of the minutes is there a second commissioner Foster Bolton I second okay we got a motion by commissioner sha and a second by commissioner Foster Bolton um Miss Larsson please call roll Wilburn yes Calbert yes ra yes kley yes f Bolton yes Shaq yes weome yes motion carries item five is business items and it should be familiar it is 5A is motanka housing loan programs Miss wishnack thank you uh president and Commissioners this is the same report as you had before at your city council meeting I think just to explain why the Eda has to also approve is because um you're using HRA Levy funds to do these programs so that's why you have a double duty of city council and Eda approval with that I'll turn it back to you for any questions okay thank you misss wishnack um Council any questions on the things that we've already approved all right um with that then is there a motion commissioner Wilburn I move that we adopt the resolutions uh pertaining to the motanka housing loan programs and is there a second commissioner Calbert thank you Mr President I second all right we've got a motion by commissioner Wilbur a second by commissioner Calbert M Larson please call roll Wilburn yes Calbert yes R yes kley yes Foster Bolton yes Shaq yes weome yes motion carries item six is adjournment is there a motion commissioner Wilburn I move adjournment is there a second commissioner Calbert I second okay we've got a motion by commissioner Wilburn a second by commissioner calber all in favor say I I we are adjourned we did it we did e [Music]