[music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] Good evening. Today is February 23rd and this is a me regular meeting of the Minnotonka City Council. Those who are able, please join us in standing for the pledge. 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. Before we get into our agenda, just make note that um at the beginning of this year, we implemented a new method for taking public comment. So, if you intend to provide public comment at any point during the meeting, whether that is on item eight or um later on in the meeting, we have signup cards out in the lobby. Please fill out a signup card. Um it's important that you include your name and either your address or a indication of whether or not you live in Minnotonka. And those are the people we'll be hearing from during the meeting. >> [clears throat] >> excuse me. During the meeting, all public comment is limited to 3 minutes and we do have a timer. So, keep that in mind as you prepare um any comments that you'd like to share. Uh Miss Larson, would you please call roll? >> Wilbert >> here. >> Calbert here. Raley >> here. >> Kley >> here. Foster Bolton >> here. >> Shaq >> here. Uh we have approval of the agenda and Miss Domen. >> Thank you, mayor. There is no agenda for this council meeting. Thank you. Excellent. I would take uh Council Member Calbertt. >> I move approval of the agenda. >> And Council Member Romey, >> I'll second. >> I have a motion by Council Member Calvert, a second by Council Member Romey. Miss Larson, please call role. >> Wilburn, >> yes. >> Calbert, >> yes. >> Romeley, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shaq, >> yes. Motion carries. Item number five is approval of the minutes. And we have one set of minutes. February 2nd, 2026 regular meeting minutes. Council member Calvert. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um I gave a few um changes to Miss Domen this morning and um with that, I move approval of the minutes as uh amended there. Council member Foster Bolton. >> I'll second. >> I have a motion by Council Member Calvert, a second by Council Member Foster Bolton. Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Wilurn, >> yes. >> Calbert, >> yes. >> Raley, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Pastor Bolton, >> yes. >> Shaq, >> yes. Motion carries. Item number six, special matters 6A is strategic plan quarter 4 and year uh of the year report. And Miss Saraki, you've got that. >> Yes. Thank you, Mayor and Council. So, I am here to present the strategic plan quarter 4 end of year report. Um, staff recommends a motion to accept the report and four votes are needed. Here is just a reminder what the plan looks like. Quarter 4 ended December 20 or December 31st and staff in January submitted their quarterly updates. the top two levels. We have six strategic priorities and 18 desired outcomes. In your report, you did see um quarterly updates for the top two levels. The bottom level has 71 action steps and those updates are not included in your report, but you can see those updates on the community dashboard. And we have six strategic priorities. They are financial strength, safe and healthy community, sustainability, resilience, and natural environment, livable and wellplanned development, infrastructure and asset management, and community inclusiveness. And next to each of those strategic priorities are the team leads. So for 2025, this is the overall summary. 22 at the time of the quarterly updates, 22 action steps were still on track, four had some disruption and 74 were fully completed, which means we were at 89% progress to reach 100% all um of the 71 action steps had to be completed. So for the remainder of this presentation, I'm just going to give a few accomplishments for each strategic priority and share or and show you a couple of the performance metrics for financial strength. Moody's affirmed the city's AAA bond bond rating. They established an agreement with Tyler Technologies for priority based budgeting and we are currently in stage two of the three stage rollout. They completed a utility rate analysis with a consultant and submitted a $5.33 million state bonding request for fire station number two reconstruction. And the city was awarded 22 grants in 2025. And for the performance metrics that I'm going to show is just how the grants that we applied for not only awarded but what we applied for how they aligned with our strategic priorities. The ones I will point out is six aligned with safe or 16 for 2025 which is the green aligned with safe and healthy community. eight aligned with infrastructure asset management and then another larger one was eight aligned with sustainability resil resilience and natural environment for safe and healthy community. They implemented public safety master plan service delivery models. This included deployment of the drone as first responder initiative and established a real time operations center. They submitted renovation plans for the retail detective space at RichDom Mall. And with the Opus area redevelopment, they held regular meetings with Metro Transit and had a finalization of substation lease agreement and 85% of fire de of the fire department personnel completed training on mental health related calls. And here is their fire and EMS response for 2025. And you can see throughout the year that it did decline. For um police department engagement engagements in the Opus area, they held 26 community engagements with the 430 participants. Sustainability, resilience, and natural environment. They continued implementing the climate action and adaptation plan by engaging 1,800 community members through 17 initiatives reaching almost 11,000 event attendees. They distributed resilient Minnotonka flyers to more than 400 400 attendees resulting in over 65 program applications. They sold and planted 1,063 trees and organizer rain garden maintenance workshop. They hosted the second everything electric exhibit at the fire and city open house and they secured 35,000 in total funding for the water efficiency grant program. couple of their metrics here. It shows the residential per capita per capita water use. The target is to have that be 75 gallons per person per day or less. And in 2025, it was 68.9 gallons. And for home energy squad visits, the target for by 2028 is to have 1,130 energy squad visits. And in 2025, we are already up to a,027 livable and well planned development. They evaluated new affordable home home ownership, which was man manufactured homes. Um, zoning ordinance updates are in progress with staff participating relevant workshops. They launched initiatives such as thriving Thursdays and strengthen relationships with corporations. They produce a video future with a major corporate executive. They engage culturally diverse businesses through targeted outreach and resource connections. And they have a final design of Opus Trail wayfinding pro project in public space with the request for a qualifications currently advised for park planning. at in 2025 they had 5,000 or Minnetonka has 5,930 businesses and um we have not lost any large corporate businesses in 2025 and then with the business surveys or business survey that they conducted 98% of Matonka um business owners surveyed the business climate as positively and with affordable units constructed In Minnotonka, the goal is to have 100 affordable units constructed by 2028 and in 2025 we have 43. Um for infrastructure and asset management, um the utility replacement project needs and future long-term utility replacements are in progress. Cornation of um 2026 and 2027 citywide payment projects are underway. Correation of trail construction along Minute Tonka Boulevard is in progress. Planning the construction of the regional trail with three rivers park district for 2027 is currently happening and work is continuing with Henipin County for Excelsier Boulevard Trail project west of County Road 101. Um, we since 2024, 1,378 households are within 1/4 of a mile of newly constructed trails. And we're hoping to get up to 2,000 by 2028. And with the citywide payment condition index, the target is to maintain a PCI equal to or greater than 80. And in 2025, we were at 80.5. And lastly, for community inclusiveness, this group organized cultural festivals celebrating diverse heritage through food, music, and performances, hosted sensory friendly spaces at several events. provided provided programming with a diversity, equity, inclusion lens and initiative research into survey consultants and best practices for community feedback. In 2025, they held one lactation space and five sensory rooms at external citywide events. And for Marsh memberships, which was a focus of the strategic priority, um the goal was to hit 6,750 memberships by 2028. And you can see we already exceeded that target um in quarter 2 of 2025. And this is just a reminder that we do have our community dashboard. And so if you click into one of these strategic priorities, you can further see more performance metrics and you can see the action steps and what the progress looks for each action step. And coming up in 2026, 2026 is the second year of the 2025 through 2027 strategic plan. Um, we will continue making progress towards the 18 desired outcomes with our annual action steps. And as always, we revisit performance metrics and targets and make sure they are the correct ones we are measuring. Again, staff recommends a motion to accept the report and four votes are needed. And with that, I will pass it back to you, Mayor Shack. >> Thank you, Miss Saki. This is a lot of good work and thank you for stepping up and making uh presenting the report in short notice. Well done. Um council, any questions regarding the report? Council member Calvert. Thank you, Mayor. I talked to Miss Domen earlier uh today about strategic priority number one that the uh there was some mention about delay the ER with the ERP being delayed um sort of how that would um extend the data migration for the Tyler project product. >> Thank you mayor and council member Calbertt. I did speak with finance director Darren Nelson and we don't think it's going to impact the priority based budgeting. They're on two separate softwares and we don't see a direct impact. Any other questions? Any comments? Council member Calbertt, this is a great document and I really encourage people um that are curious about, you know, where our focus lies to go to the website and click around and read all of these wonderful um action steps because we do, you know, we care about the environment. We care about public safety. We care about the quality of life and the action steps and our progress toward it is really well documented and um it helps us all keep on track and keep focused on the things that people have told us are important to them in the community. So um I think it's a good way to learn about what we're doing in the city and if there's something that you feel is missing you can always let us know and we can start working on that uh when we redo our strategic plan. Any other comments? I'll just make a brief comment. I agree with council member Calvert. I will say, you know, our values are really reflected in our strategic plan and then in correspondingly um implemented by staff. I think this is a very deliberate exercise that ensures that we're all held accountable to doing and um and following up on the things that we say are important to us. So, really appreciate that. So, we're looking for a motion to accept the report. Council member Wilburn. >> I move we accept the report. >> And I have a motion by Council Member Wilburn and a second. >> I'll second. >> Second by Council Member Foster Bolton. Uh, Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Wilbur, >> yes. >> Calbert, >> yes. >> Rome, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shack, >> yes. Motion carries. All right, moving on to uh item number seven, reports from city manager and council member Miss Domen. Thank you, mayor and councel. I do have a few things this evening for you. First, last Thursday we celebrated our employees with our annual employee recognition event. It's a really fun day celebrating with everybody. Our public works individuals came in after being on the streets since 2 a.m. plowing. So, it was wonderful to have everybody there. And we want to thank our council for coming and helping celebrate with us and all of our employees who make Minnetonka a special place for everyone. And then as a reminder, this Wednesday, February 25th, is Mayor Shaq's state of the city. It'll be held downstairs of this building in our community center. It'll begin at 400 p.m. with a social hour, and the program will go from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. And then there are two upcoming neighborhood meetings for council's attention. So, tomorrow night, Tuesday, February 24th, Quick Trip will host a meeting to present a concept plan for the redevelopment of the properties near the Highway 169 Minnetonka Boulevard interchange. The affected properties, including the current Sinclair Station and several adjacent residential lots. The meeting will begin at 6 p.m. in the mini haha room here at the community center. Planning Commission consideration of the concept plan has not yet been scheduled. That is the first one. The second one is Thursday night. We have a busy nightly weeks this week. So, Thursday night, February 26, representatives from Opus will hold a neighborhood meeting to discuss the subdivision of the former Opus headquarters property and the demolition of the building at 10380 Bren Road West. The meeting will begin at 6:00 p.m. in the Shady Oak room here at the community center. The ordinance introduction for this project is on tonight's agenda and a public hearing is scheduled for the March 5th planning commission meeting. Copies of the neighborhood notices have been provided this evening. And so with that, mayor, I turn it back to you. >> Thank you, Miss Domen, and thank you also for stepping in in short notice to uh as acting city manager tonight. All right. Council Council Member Foster Bolton. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um this last Thursday I went and stood in um for our mayor to uh the press conference for the cities for safe and stable communities coalition. Um, and the mayors from Hopkins, Brooklyn Center, Golden Valley, Brooklyn Park, Eden and Eden Prairie all spoke, but there were a bunch of other um, mayors from the region and other representatives from the cities. And I just wanted to kind of go over what they talked about a little bit. Um the they the coalition leaders called for the assurance that the excess 2,000 plus federal agents leave immediately as promised. Um the scale of metro surge operation metro surge created serious disruption not only in Minneapolis and St. Paul as we know but in communities like Hopkins, Minnotonka, Aiden Prairie and throughout the region. Um second, the focus was on the ongoing consequences. The impacts are not ab abstract. Um cities are seeing business losses, rising food and rental assistance needs and school disruptions driven by fear and instability. Um these economic and social effects will not end when the surge ends. Um another central concern was trust. is trust. And um it talked about actions taken without local coordination have strained community confidence in government and complicated the work of local law enforcement. And we can see that I think um because we're being attacked by our own government and it's it you can I can feel the distrust in all government and it's it's it's subtle but it's um it's a it's it's affecting all of us and um cities just can't function effectively when residents feel unsafe going to work, school or seeking help. Um, our commitment to rebuild the relationship between residents and local law enforcement through transparency and accountability was another of the key themes. And again, I mean, I think that the Minnetonka police force and the police forces throughout the metro area and Minneapolis have worked so hard in in um rebuilding trust with the residents and this has just destroyed that work. And so um the focus was on um regaining that trust and um then the final was the legislative priorities and they were very straightforward. Securing mun municipal aid to stabilize local economies, support affected residents and businesses and repair the damage done to community trust. Um, just as important, the coalition is advocating for clear guard rails and accountability to prevent similar overreach in the future. Um, and I think that the point too was that the cities are not standing still, that we're working together, speaking with one voice, and pressing for the resources and policies needed to restore stability and move our communities forward. Thanks. Thank you, Council Member Foster Bolton, and thank you for standing in for me at that important event. Um, Council, Council Member Calbertt, thank you, Mayor. Um, I just have a few things. One is I, uh, most of us attended the employee recognition lunchon, and I just when you go, I I literally cry every time. it. I am so proud of our staff. The the nominations for various awards just help us learn about the amazing work, the talent, the devotion, and really sort of the inspirational work that people do. And it's not just our, you know, hero first responders who really, you know, do amazing things, but staff in every um department do amazing work. And I just want to say how humbling and moving, um, it was to be there. So, uh, it was I was very happy to at least be able to serve cake and I will do it every year that I can. Um I also wanted to it's it's kind of a convergence of almost every religious um tradition with Ramadan, Lunar New Year, Ash Wednesday last week. There's a Jewish holiday that happened as well. So, I just want to wish everyone that's celebrating Ramadan an easy fast and a a meaningful fast and um pe happy new year to those celebrating the Asian New Year and to those entering um the Christian holidays. I just hope it's a it's a wonderful healing joyous time. And um I also wanted uh folks to know that I attended a Zoom meeting with a a group of elected officials. Um, we had asked for some information about election protection and election security and plans for the 2020 six election because um with uh Operation Metro Surge and some of the statements made by um federal officials including the um president. Um there is there there is an anticipated need for um just vigilance and perhaps a change there may be changes in procedure and so on and so forth and just making sure that um the ballot is protected and that our polling places are protected and who can protect it. And I'm not there's not time to get into it here, but it was very illuminating and um the Secretary of State's office is very hard at work um investigating and exploring some of the um uh legal implications of any um changes that may be occurring around election time. So, um, I was really glad I was there and, um, you know, I see a lot of people, uh, out in the audience tonight that have been expressing their care and concern for their neighbors and I am so grateful and it also makes me very proud to, um, be a city council member in Minnetonka and a Minnetonka resident. And there are some things that people are asking for, things that we all wish could happen. Um, and I really want to direct you to two places. One is the city website. If you search immigration resources, there are questions about, you know, people have been asking us to pass certain ordinances that ultimately are uninforceable. I' we've been asked to have study sessions with the city attorney on some of these issues like not masking or enforcing, you know, traffic laws with federal agents. And we the our local law enforcement does not have legal authority to do that. And so some of the answers are right there uh on our website. Um I wish it were different. Um I would contact your federal legislators. They they need to change the federal laws to effectuate that. Um and the other place is to go to the League of Minnesota Cities which has um a report on the impacts of um Operation Metro Surge on U municipalities throughout the state and has some really detailed information on all of that. So I just wanted it's it's a lot of reading but it is very illuminating and it will help you understand sort of the situation that um municipal municipalities are grappling with with our very limited authority and our enormous responsibility to keep everyone safe. And I just want you to know I did take an oath to the constitution which I take extremely seriously. So did every all of our public safety um officers and um I think it's really important to know that I I think we've all been exploring every way that we can be supportive and I'm sorry I didn't get to some of those emails, but I will be responding to you um before the end of the week. >> Thank you, Council Member Calbertt. Council member Romey. Thank you, mayor. Um, just seconding the employee lunchon. That was a fantastic event. Really appreciated the chance to brush up on my waitressing skills that got me through college. So, that was uh kind of dusting off those. Um, I was also on a second version of that meeting, the Zoom regarding uh with the Secretary of State officials. So uh you know rest assured there are plans being made um you know kind of foreseeing into uh the future towards November you know what we can be doing to um kind of secure elections. So, just so you know that folks, uh, both, you know, kind of at the state legislative level, um, county level, you know, are are working on that and I will obviously continue to kind of try to stay a breast of that and and know what's going on and pass that on to constituents in W 3 and others who are interested. Um, I was also at a meeting with our state legislators and community housing advocates uh both in the city and uh you know kind of in the area. I appreciated their comments. We were talking about pending bills uh that are coming before the state legislature on uh housing diversity. And so it was a a very productive conversation and a a good chance to share perspective and views as we go forward on uh affordable housing and all sorts of housing creation in Minnotonka and throughout the state, which is uh you know something that certainly is top of mind for people, staff and uh counselors that my fellow colleagues on the city council. um regarding uh what it looks like many of you are here tonight to discuss um ICE resolutions or or kind of the impacts of the of operation metro surge. I was also on a zoom um last week uh consisting of city electeds who are dealing with this um from around the state kind of sharing information um things that we can you know what others are doing you know just trying to get ideas because it is a difficult situation that we're all grappling with um I don't think it's any secret that I for the last three meetings have been calling for a resolution andor ordinances and for exploration of those um despite the difficulty ies. I feel strongly that there is should be a resolution that um goes out uh over the names of all the city councilors um that expresses our solidarity with our community in this time. Um our expectations for due process um observing of the constitution and um and just you know legal norms and humane policing um law enforcement. I don't want to say policing because that's not been true in the in the case of our our Minnotonka Police Department, but um and then so that was one thing I have called for um and then the other thing has been ordinances. Some have said they're not enforcable um that they are performative or they're symbolic and that may be so in some or even most cases. For me, I feel like it's a marker um to kind of put a our flag in the stand for community standards uh again for observing due process and constitutional rights and humane and responsible law enforcement and immigration enforcement in our communities. And it also set sets a standard in my view for future accountability. Um, so it may not be enforceable now, but it could be something that could be used for accountability in the future and also to address any type of situation similar to this in the future. Um, you know, I think everybody here on this day has been doing a lot personally and um, in their individual capacities. I think, you know, we all have and everybody cares about this. we have differing opinions about, you know, kind of the the efficacy of of either a resolution, a citywide resolution or ordinances. Um, I will continue to call for that and push for those things. And um I appreciate uh those of you out there in the audience and in the community who have been doing so much um to organize to provide mutual aid to help um alert and protect our neighbors um who you know regardless of their status and deliver food to people who are too scared to leave their homes or have been uh or go to school. So I thank you for all of your work. I ask you as we consider these things um and other items on the agenda tonight um to listen with your head as well as with your heart and um and think about some of the long-term consequences as I'm also thinking about what my fellow my colleagues on this day think about resolutions and ordinances. We may not agree on on them, but I think we can all uh agree that people of good faith can have different approaches to this. So, thank you for coming and for being here and um and uh that's all I have for my report. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Romey. Anybody else? Okay, not tonight. All right. Well, I've got a few things. First, I want to um reiterate about the employee lunch. Really incredible to see the hard work that our dedicated employees put in. Um you know, and nobody's getting rich off public service. And so it's really impressive the commitment that they're making. I I uh specifically want to shout out um the Spirit of Minnotonka award winner which is kind of like the premier award in the city and that went to Delane Wetland of public works and she is the support in public works and we're just really proud of the work that she's done there and she's props that sorry Will but she props that whole department up. I think he'll agree even though he's he's in charge over there. Um sometimes the people at the front desk do the heavy lift. So really excited about that. Um also want to mention the state of the city. Miss Domen brought it up, but we're doing a a pretty timely event this year. So it'll start off with some good cheer. The Rotary is going to be there fundraising. They'll have refreshments and some wine and beer. This year we're testing out a little happy hour for purchase with um fundraising for benefiting the Rotary and all the good organizations they support. And then we'll have a little taste of um pizza from around the city that come in and try that. Check out some of our um cool restaurants that are helping us put this program on. And we're going to have a really cool panel of some of our nonprofit partners in the city. and I'm going to have an opportunity to speak with the directors of a his house who helps with us with our homeless outreach um the sojourer project which is a uh domestic abuse shelter here in Minnitanka and relate counseling services who does counseling um across the uh spectrum but particularly focused on children. So I think it's a really timely event. I think it'll spread a lot of awareness for the good work that these organizations do. If you can't be there on Wednesday, I'd encourage you. It'll it'll be rebroadcast several times, probably more times than I'm comfortable with on our public access. So, um, spread the word. You know, I I don't have any illusions of thinking that our most vulnerable are going to sit down and watch me talk for 45 minutes, but as those of you who are allies to um folks who are in particular need, I think it's important that people understand the resources we have in the community so that the that word can be spread out um across those who need the the worthy services that are provided. Finally, I'll wrap up by um and this will be a lengthy wrap-up, but I just want to give an update on the work of the Cities for Safe and Stable Communities Coalition. Um as many of you know, you know, there was a small group of us that stood this coalition up. It was started at about five cities that were meeting kind of informally and it has now grown to um at last count 24ish cities. Um, we're continuing to do work on accountability and verification as council member Foster Bolton said, you know, the if are the representations that we're hearing from the federal government, are they following through on the things related to um unwinding the surge and some of the promises that were made that we we want to make sure we have some accountability on that. And then we're really focusing on rebuilding and repairing communities, business actu impacts, food and rental assistance consequences, the impact to the cities itself of financial cost of addressing this. You know, one of the big and I would say it's not very glamorous, but one of the things that we need to do is collect data to understand really the financial impact so that we can start making not only cities but organizations and school districts and people who have had a real cost to this uh making them whole. In addition to that and the press conference was held specifically at the kickoff of the legislative session in order to send some messaging to our state leaders. Um in addition to that, the coalition met with Senator Smith last week. I was a part of that. Um she's been particularly helpful in in uh looking at some of those accountability measures and kind of helping us get real information about what's happening in our city and around the communities. We're meeting with Governor Walls this week where we've got some other state and federal uh meetings scheduled. I met with Representative um Morrison last week to talk about a lot of the consequences, what's gone on, and what we could possibly get help with. Um, from a federal level, it's been challenging in the sense of, you know, um, there's a lot of people who would who like to do good work for us and have um, been hampered in by some of the politics of it, but that doesn't mean we're going to stop trying to be creative. Um the the commission or excuse me the coalition meets at least once a week as a group and then we break off you know all of us council members and and suburban mayors are part-time. We do these jobs part-time and so we the one other benefit of the coalition is that we're able to get to all these meetings by kind of dividing and conquering and everybody's boosting each other up. So I'm really grateful for that. I want to reiterate a little bit. I'm so happy for the engagement. I I know I've responded to hundreds and maybe [clears throat] thousands of emails at this point. I'm trying really hard to stay caught up. Doesn't mean some might not be falling through the cracks, but I'm doing the best I can. I don't have a staff member that responds to emails. It's just me. Um and uh so I I appreciate the reaching out. I will say that, you know, I'm I'm an attorney. That's what I do. and and I feel really it's really important that if you pass a law that you can enforce that law. And so I'm you know I'm I'm torn I understand some cities have passed some ordinances that sound good on paper that aren't really enforcable. Um and what my concern about doing that and it's not apathy or the lack of appetite or the lack of courage to do it. It's really um I I'll give you just a quick example. I watched a video. You know, Minneapolis has an ordinance related to staging in their parks. And I watched a video where um some ICE folks were staging in the park and some res well-meaning residents were out in the park telling them and it's illegal. They have to leave. It's illegal. Well, it's illegal under Minneapolis ordinance. But preeemption, the fact that federal law can tell a city what they can or cannot p do means that it is legal. And so it's putting these vulnerable residents who don't have bulletproof vests on, who don't have weapons, in a position where they're where they're in an argument with somebody with weapons, with vests, with masks, and I just am not in a position as mayor where I want to put our residents in a vulnerable position like that where they're confronting somebody about a law that we can't enforce. And so while I get that the symbolism is important, I think the safety of our residents is preempts that from my opinion and I totally agree with council member Rome that um I think reasonable minds can disagree on this, but I just it it's come up so much over the past several weeks that it's something I felt it was important to kind of speak out about in a public setting. So, with that, unless there's any other council members that have anything they want to say, we're going to move on to item eight, which is citizens wishing to discuss matters not on the agenda. And um as I mentioned, we have these cards that folks have filled out. And I just want to let there's some people that filled out cards regarding specifically the eviction moratorum or in that topic and that'll happen those those that public comment will happen when we get to that agenda item item 14C I think it is. Um and in the meantime we're just going to take comments from folks who want to speak about items that we're not talking about elsewhere on the agenda tonight. And this is um a opportunity for folks to be heard. It is not a public comment. It's just comments from the audience. So we will not take any action tonight and that is just our council policy. It has nothing to do with what anybody here is here to talk about. Um we will take note of your comments and um if it's a specific something specific we can address with staff, we'll do that at a later time. Um, if it's just a general comment for us as council, we'll take note and it may or may not come up later. So, um, I've got the cards of the folks who some of them don't reference what they want to talk about. I'm going to assume that they're going to talk on this agenda item. And so, we will start with um, Angie Heightsman. And after an an excuse me, after Angie, I have Kathy Gotkin. And after Kathy, I have Sarah Elmine. So, Angie, one last thing. So, we will we do have a timer there. We're limited to three minutes. Again, we'll I'll cut you off at 3 minutes. So, just be cognizant of your time. >> Okay. So, this is my best auctioneering time. Uh, thanks to all of you here for the opportunity to speak. I'm Angie Heitzman, resident of Ward One. As a resident of Minnetonka and a retired child psychologist, I want to express deep concerns within our community for the trauma that has been and is continuing to be experienced by the children in our community. This includes, of course, children of immigrants and those of color and their classmates and friends who know too well what is happening to these families and worry it could happen to their own. Just last week, my soon to be four-year-old granddaughter out of the blue looked at me and said, "Grandma, there are bad people out there doing bad things." It just kind of broke my heart at that age that, you know, she's thinking about this. I think we all know children's mental health crisis has increased substantially during the pandemic and now with what's happened with ICE, it's gotten even worse. Um, the need for children's mental health services and trauma services in particular has skyrocketed. The problem is not just increased need, but also lack of service providers, fewer people entering the helping professions, and there's not that many of us who want to work with kids. Um, ridiculously long weight list, stretching of school-based mental health services, lack of awareness on behalf of parents and caregivers on what and when they could should seek help. Continued stigma around acceptance of mental health concerns in themselves or in their children. difficulty identifying concerns in their children and the stigma around seeking services in the first place. We know that um persons of color and immigrant communities are much less likely to seek services. Um cities can help with public education and stigma reduction efforts using partnerships with local nonprofits, religious communities, schools, county and state governments. I I know from talking to some of you that there are um local partnerships with nonprofits, including mental health providers, but I don't really understand what that's involving or what the goals are to help with the kids in our community. As a high information individual, um I think that if I don't have awareness of what's happening that most people have no clue what's happening in that regard. um schools have been left to fill the gaps in community based services and they are completely stretched. They were stretched beforehand. So part of what I'm wondering is whether there's a way to reach out to schools and develop partnerships with nonprofit schools, everybody, and seeing how we can brainstorm and better engage each other in in creating better circumstances for our kids. An example of things that can be done are creating spaces for tween and teens where they can gather for belonging, support, and information about mental health. I don't pretend to have all the answers. Um, but I know that you are an important part of the lives of our children and I hope we can step up the game to work with our children and I appreciate the embedded social workers and work with the police department on those issues. Thank you. >> Thank you very much, Miss Heitzman. We have Kathy Gotkin, Sarah Almine, and then Jonathan Kent. So Kathy, hi there. I'm Kathy Gotkin, board four with Kissy. And um I think you knew what I was going to talk about tonight because you've sort of answered a lot of the questions. But if St. Paul can make an ordinance saying no masks. You have to have your badge visible. I don't see any reason why we can't. It's just a misdemeanor. It's just you pull them over or whatever and you you give them the ticket. I mean, I don't see why I have to reiterate that. [laughter] It just seems so simple. And I know you're a lawyer and you explained why, but um ICE is still very much on our streets and I've always gone by the saying, you don't listen to what they say, you watch what they're doing. And they have just changed their tactics. They're dressing different. They're getting different cars. They're driving BMWs now. Um I mean, these guys must love it. But, uh, no, it's it's critical that our police department pull over these cars that are so blacked out in the windshield. It's got to be illegal. It it it really has to be. It's It's illegal to have your front window blacked out in Minnesota. Um, I can't see when I'm monitoring at the school. Who are these people in this car? You know, should I blow the whistle or what should I do? So, we need to get going on that. when they have the wrong license plate or no license plate, they get pulled over just like I would. They don't get any special privileges just because they're federal. And um also the cameras, I think you mentioned I talked to you once about the cameras that we have on the city streets. Um I'm trying to get a lot into this three minutes. Um I'd like to know what kind of cameras they are. Are they that flock or whatever? How long are we keeping the information that's gathered on that? Do we release it to anybody without a warrant? Um, and the drone activity. We've had so many drones lately. Um, I don't know. I mean, I print it out so I could re read it. um if we can if is there a place to call when we see a ton of drones flying around to see if they are Minnetonka drones to see if um we can find out what's happening. Why are these drones flying all over the place? Um and I know you can't answer anything tonight and at the one meeting that we had Friday, you said to talk to the chief and I see him back there. I won't talk to him tonight but [laughter] but um a lot of these are his questions. um that need to be answered. I'd like to see Minnetonka the all of you come out. It's the messaging that we don't have. It's like I always say about the Democrats, they don't have the messaging. You know, they only knew how to message. Well, Minnitanka needs to learn how to message. Get out there and tell the people that aren't here tonight, that aren't watching it on the replay, you're doing this stuff. You believe in the people. You thank them for what they're doing. They don't hear that. you know, they don't >> Thank you, Miss Scott. Can uh we do have some >> Oh, we that you're over 11 seconds. >> Okay. >> Um we do have some answers for you. If you email me, we can get you some real data on a few things that you've asked for. So, yes. >> Thank you. >> Uh Sarah Mean followed by Jonathan Kent followed by Jonath or excuse me, Mike Mien. Hi, I'm back again. It's nice to see you all. Uh, my name is Sarah Elaine and I've been a Minnetonka resident in Ward 4 since 2018. Um, as I mentioned last month, my family goes back to the mid 1960s here. So, we are all in. I'm here once again tonight speaking on behalf of both my immediate neighbors and the larger community. Um, and actually going to build onto what Kathy was talking about messaging a little bit. Uh last month I stood here and I asked all of you on the city council and the city staff to be both loud and then even louder in support of and in advocacy for efforts to protect all of us immigrant and otherwise from unconstitutional and inhumane activities by ICE. I want to talk a little more about that ask this evening. I imagine many of you are familiar with the book on tyranny by historian Timothy Snyder which is a guide book for protecting and preserving democracy. I actually have it here and it's sitting outside where I'm running a book group on that same topic um out in the lobby. So if any of you want to join later, we can talk about that book more. Um, in the book, Snider lays out 20 lessons and the first of which is do not obey in advance. And it can often be reframed as silence is complicity. Silence on the part of any of us, individual or city, is an endorsement of ISIS's actions. I casually browsed the city website again this afternoon, and well, I don't feel like you've fully embraced that part about being loud just yet. The page is lovely and polite. This is not the time for polite. This is not the time for polite. I also visited the city Facebook page and there have been just five posts since December 1st that mentioned the metro surge. The most recent Minnetonka memos are essentially devoid of information related to the surge. So, how are you communicating? How are you informing the residents of Minnotonka that you have their backs? How are you reassuring constituents that are loyal to them? You can do better. I want to love the city. I really do. My family and I live and work and learn and play here. We have beloved neighbors here. We pay taxes here. We volunteer here. We plan to retire here. We are here for the long haul. We want to love the city and to feel confident that this city loves us and our immigrant neighbors in return. But the near silence is not reassuring. We are asking you to pass ordinances and make proclamations of po opposing ICE. Are they enforcable? Maybe not. I'll be the first to admit that. I know your attorney advised you to take the safe path, but that was advice, not an order, and your attorney was doing your attorney's job. We're living in the upside down. So, I am asking you to take a risk. I know it feels risky to be loud. Spotlights are scary. And none of you expected to be grappling with what my seven-year-old daughter calls an uppercase ICE problem when you chose to run for public office or to serve in public capacity. But here we are and I'm asking you. >> Thank you, Miss Alman. >> Thank you. >> All right, Jonathan Kent followed by Mike Vian. >> Hi, council. Thanks for hearing my comments. Uh I'm at 14513 Moonlight Hill Road, Ward 4. And uh um this is my first city council meeting since the election. So uh congratulation congratulations to you all. And um I think as is shown in this meeting and from what I've observed uh uh following along to um news and emails, I think you all are doing uh the best that you can and do want to start by saying I appreciate uh what you're doing. Uh can't be easy, especially in these times, pretty unprecedented. So, uh I'll probably say some things that you might not agree with and then just want to lead with uh you have you have a tough job. So, um I think hopefully we can all uh and I think we are doing it. Um but it's a it's an ongoing process. So um anyway uh uh related to what the first speaker mentioned and actually uh the uh previous speaker uh I am concerned about um well any number of things with ISIS presence in the state and so I want to focus on two things. One um I would echo calling for at least a proposal and public discussion of having face covering um face coverings be um limited. Uh I I think if you look at what uh for by uh for for law enforcement uh to have um uh limitations to when they can wear face coverings if you look at the ordinance and maybe you have uh that St. Paul passed um there are exceptions. So I think there is nuance there. Um I would also go so far as to say and I don't mean to imply that uh anyone else is uh believing this but we have to be careful about a slippery slope. you know, we we have uh a bill of rights and amendments that are being grossly violated at the uh that are enumerated in our constitution. So, just because that that is happening by force, um we're not uh I don't think anyone is proposing that we uh just give up on those uh principles and those uh legal um uh th those things that are legally enshrined. And I realize it's a pretty extreme example, but um you have to draw the line somewhere. So I think at least having a public discussion and having a vote and even if that vote ultimately is a no at least we can say to the rest of the state and really the country and world this is how Minnitonka feels. Um and uh I would also add and I don't know if this is being discussed enough that on a practical level what's happening in the counties uh with the sheriffs and uh in their offices and not just them but who is being um uh uh who is being basically being asked to be uh handed over to uh by ICE. That whole process I think is not being talked about enough and I don't know frankly what at the city level can be done but to the extent that you can talk with our state reps you're in conversation uh maybe even with the governor's office even at the federal level I'm deeply worried about uh how much is being handed over especially behind closed doors and I realize that's probably not so much in our purview but if you can at all use your power uh as located with your networks and and and all that that would be wonderful. Thank you for listening. [snorts] >> Thank you, Mr. Kent. Mike Mian. >> Hello everyone. Um, most of you might know me or I'm sure you've seen many of my emails and communications. So, I won't take my whole three minutes and waste your time. Um, but what I do want to do is formally invite all of you to visit Gatewood School. It's in two miles from here in our community and it's suffering. The staff is like a shell shocked war zone to walk into and speak with. Um, there are dozens of students who have not been to school since December. They don't think you care about them. They have never seen any of you. They've not heard from any of you that I know of and I've asked many times. And I spoke with the superintendent after a meeting with uh Mayor Shaq and the city manager on Friday and she says, "Please come. I don't she has no idea why you wouldn't have already reached out to her and come. The principal would like you to come. Alex Faulner will be coming to the school very soon and visiting with the kids. I didn't have to ask him. if you reached out and asked me if he could come. We need you. We need you to show your support. There is nothing stopping you from doing that. You can come. You can talk to the people there. You can tell the children you care about them. That's all I'm asking of you to do. I would really appreciate if you contacted me or told me or contacted the school. I will help you to introductions, whatever you need. But we need you to be there. We need you to show that you care, to make it felt in our hearts. That's what I need from you. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Man. Uh that that uh is the end of the comments that we had on item eight. So, moving on to item nine and we have bids and purchases and we have none. Item 10, which is the consent agenda, items requiring a majority of vote. Items are placed on the consent agenda that are considered routine and the council can approve them in a single vote. We'll read those items and if anybody wants to comment on them or have them pulled for any reason, you can do so um before we vote. We have item 10A, Henipin County Autotheft Collaboration or excuse collaboration cooperative agreement. Uh item 10B, resolution approving the state of Minnesota Internet Crimes Against Children Joint Powers Agreement. Anybody want to pull either of those items? If not, I would take a motion. Uh, Council Member Kley, >> I just have a quick quick comment on um item B. Go for it and then you can make the motion if you'd like. >> Okay. I just want to say, you know, I appreciate anything that we can do to keep children safe. Um, you know, I know that the internet kids have access to the internet and I know um, you know, just having a young person and um, daughter or whatever and young nieces and nephews um, they tend to be on the internet and you know, you can't really control what's happening on the internet. So, anything that we can do as a city, as our police officers, take trainings and get educated and um you know, set up things or what, however they do it, um you know, I really appreciate it. So, I just want to um thank our city um police officers for being able to um take this training and get the support um from this program. So, >> excellent. And then I will make the um the consent um item to approve consent item A and B. And I have a motion by council member Kley and a second by Go ahead, council member uh Keller. You have >> second. Thank you. Uh okay, I'll I'm all out of sorts here. I have a motion by Council Member Kley and a second by Council Member Calvert. Miss Larson, would you please call roll? Wilburn, >> yes. >> Calbert, >> yes. >> Romeley, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shaq, >> yes. Motion carries. Uh, item 11, which is consent agenda items requiring five votes, and we have none. Uh, on to item 12, which is introduction of ordinances. 12A, which is an ordinance adopting a major amendment to the existing master development plan for 10350 and 10380 Bren Road West. And Miss Thomas, is that you? >> Yes. Thank you, Mayor Shack, and council members. Uh, this Bren Road property is just over, uh, 13 acres in size. It was developed over the course of 10 years with the first Southerntherly building being constructed in 1998 uh together with the parking lot and the parking deck was just one uh level of parking. And then in 2007, the northerly of the two buildings and that parking lot and parking deck were constructed and it was at that time that a master development plan was adopted for the whole site. the property owner is intending to uh sell the property but has found that office use of the entire site just really doesn't align with market demand uh anymore. And so the owner has uh proposed to subdivide uh the property into two lots and demolish that northerly building which is uh considered obsolete for a typical office user. it was constructed for a specific technology user. So the proposal requires uh this plat approval to subdivide the lot as well as an amendment to the existing master development plan essentially um creating two lots and uh removing that northerly building from the plan. Master development plans can only be done by ordinance, which is why we're here this evening for the ordinance introduction. Uh, so staff does recommend, and I realize I jumped forward off that page before, we do recommend that the council uh make a motion to introduce the ordinance. This would then go to the planning commission for their consideration coming back to the council at a future date and uh four votes are needed for that introduction. We turn it back to the mayor. Thank you, Miss Thomas. Council, any questions about this? This is just an introduction of ordinance. The public hearing would happen at the planning commission. Correct. >> Correct. The public hearing mayor will be held March 5th at uh the planning commission. >> All right. If there aren't any questions, any comments? Otherwise, we can make the motion to introduce the ordinance. Council member Romey. >> Thank you, Mayor. I will make the motion to introduce the ordinance and refer it to the planning commission. >> Thank you. And a second by Council Member Kley. I second. I have a motion by council member Romeley and a second by council member Kley. Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Wilurn, >> yes. >> Calbert, >> yes. >> Raley, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shaq, >> yes. Motion carries. >> All right, we are on to public hearings. Item number 1313A is an on sale wine and on sale 3.2% 2% malt beverage liquor license for Coyotto Ridgedale LLC doing business as Coyotto Su Sushi uh at 12977 Ridgedale Drive. And Miss Wishnack, is this you? >> Yes, it is, mayor. Thank you. Um mayor and council members, this is a change of use. Uh if you knew the former restaurant in that space, Tommo, which was uh pretty popular um with the city here in terms of uh the food items, they unfortunately had to close and were replaced uh by the new restaurant Kyoto Sushi. And uh they're applying for a beer and wine license. Basically, that's what the 3.2 malt beverage liquor license stands for. And um as is typical in the process of review, this is simply the first time you'll be hearing this. You'll open the public hearing and continue it till March 23rd. At that time, you'll be presented with background information and a recommendation on whether or not the liquor license should be issu issued. Excuse me. Uh mayor, with that, we'll turn it back to you for any action or questions, and I'm happy to answer. Thank you, Miss Wishnack. Council, any questions? Uh uh Council Member Kelver, go ahead. >> Actually, I don't have a question. I I just hope that the wine includes sake. I will just say that. Okay. [laughter] All right. Uh looks like you've got an affirmative from Miss Wishnack on that. Any other comments or anything else? I will just make a very brief comment which is you know it's remarkable how quickly um we're able to fill some of the vacancies in the Ridgel area and that doesn't go for every mall area in the metro. So I I feel eternally grateful for that every time we unfortunately see a business leave. So this is another positive. Um, so at this point we need a motion to continue the public hearing until March 23rd for final consideration. And council member Calvert, thank you. As a person who put herself through college working at a sushi bar, I am super excited to make this mo motion to introduce the ordinance and refer it to the planning commission. And I'll take a second. Council member Foster. >> I'll second. >> All right. Mayor, if I may. >> Yes. Uh, this would be a motion to continue the public hearing. >> Oh, >> rather [clears throat] than refer to the plane commission because >> Sorry, I was >> that was the last >> I was on the last one. Sorry. >> No motion to continue the public hearing until March 23rd, 2026 for final consideration. >> Thank you. I'll second. >> Excellent. So, we have a motion by council member Calvert, a second by council member Foster Bolton. Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Wilburn, >> yes. >> Calbert, >> yes. Romey, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shaq, >> yes. Motion carries. Thank you. All right. On to item 14, which is other business. And I have uh 14A, which is a transfer of tax increment pooling to the affordable housing trust fund. Miss Wishnack. [snorts] Thank you, Mayor. a little bit more time on what you're doing here, which is uh taking some money from your tax increment districts, which is called pooling money, and transferring it more permanently into the housing trust fund uh that the city has, and my slides are not in there. Um can someone just navigate to them? Thank you. Um Susan will help me out. Uh if you remember, and I can do this off the top of my head because we've lived live lived through it a number of times. Um what happened is you had special legislation uh about 2 and a half years ago where the legislature allowed the city to use all their t tax increment pooling funds for the purposes of affordable housing. And that's very loosely defined in the statute in terms of what the city can use. And if you remember, some of the uses we've had in the past are um things like um if you remember the town homes behind Cedar Hills, if you remember some of the um uh new unit construction, [snorts] a lot of that was out of the affordable housing trust fund. How are we doing on slides? >> You don't see them anywhere. You know what? It might be under the EDA slides. So, I could save this for later, too. But nonetheless, how about if we here, how about if we do this? We'll we'll do a more um in-depth with the EDA. How how about that? Um but in general, um is it in the EDA? >> Okay. >> Okay. Hang on. Just give me a second. I want to show you a couple of slides. >> No problem. This is good stuff. So, we're we're prepared to wait. Take your time. Get your get your >> Thank you. >> presentation. We're good. And don't go back. Thank you for all the help there. Excellent. And just pan down a few slides for me. Bravo. And now I just need the keyboard back so I can run my own show here. All right. Perfect. Okay. So the balances is this is really what I wanted to make sure you understood. So the balances in these various tiff districts. Um the one being the largest, Boulevard Gardens has 3.7 million. Um just under 7.8 million sitting in it. Applewood Point has 194,000. Shady Oak has 15,000. Glenn Haven has 774,000. Marsh Run has 218. And Dominion in the Opus area is about 180,000. So, if you add all of the tip pooling funds up, that's a a total of $5.1 million. And so, all of that can be then transferred over to um the affordable housing trust fund. Now, there will be an additional transfer. So, I'm just kind of projecting for you. You'll have one more action related to this legislation um that would um at the end of the year true up all of the costs uh under that legislation. Um, so really the action that we're asking for you is to adopt that resolution approving uh the tax increment pooling transfer to the affordable housing trust fund. It does need four votes later on tonight. These slides go with the EDA, but you'll also do it again as the Econite Development Authority as well. Sorry for the mix up on the slides, mayor. We appreciate it. >> Oh, quick work on getting us right on track, so don't don't worry about it. Well done. >> Thank you very much. All right. So, council, any questions about this? Council member Romey. Thank you, Mayor. I have a question and a comment. First, I'll do the comment. Um, I know Miss Wishnack was instrumental in piloting a program and getting legislation passed at the state legislature that allowed Minnotonka is one of the first cities, if not the first city, to use poolled TIFF funding. And we won't get into the, you know, the weeds on that, but basically it's a a vehicle that allows us to use uh financing from developments for affordable housing. And um so being able to do that and and use this to uh transfer this type of of developer funding, you know, city financing in order to use this specifically for affordable housing is huge. It's been a huge help to affordable housing creation in Minnotonka and it's one of the reasons that right now we have over 30% of all uh multi-ousing units in Minnetonka rentals are affordable. Um so we are hitting it on the park um in that regard and and our housing staff and Miss Wishnack have a lot to do with that. So first of all I wanted to thank them for that. Um secondly, my question is um you noted something that there's been loose restrictions on that. Could you just elaborate on that just a little bit more? >> Sure. So typically when you're using um Thank you. Sorry, Council Member Very if I may mayor answer the question. Thank you. Um typically when you have tip increment tax increment pooling funds, there are stipulations. So maybe there's a certain percentage of affordable housing that you have to use. Maybe it's 60% area median income or maybe it's 50%. These funds basically say for any type of affordable housing. Now, if you recall the project, um I think it was Dorne's Elcott project, we were able to even get 40% area median income, but again, if you follow the regular TIFF laws that are on the books today for pooling and expending pooling funds, that isn't allowed. Um, and so this special legislation allowed not only Minnitonka, but St. Louis Park and Richfield to do this very same thing. So, um, we're pretty excited because it makes us a lot more nimble when we're dealing with development requests and it allows us to diversify the type of affordability that we're putting in the city. Just one more question. Go ahead. >> Um, thank you, mayor. Um, what are we looking at in terms of ranges of AMI of housing? Is there a range that you know I understand it's more flexible but within any range or what is our rest any restrictions in that regard? >> Uh mayor and council member I do believe it calls out at least 80% AMI and below for ownership housing or for rental housing excuse me and then it has a higher percentage. I'm not remembering off the top of my head. Is it 120 maybe? >> Don't quote me on the last figure but um it's a little bit higher amount when you're doing ownership housing. >> Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Miss Wishnack, I'm going to ask you a question. I didn't prep for, but I know you got it because I think we have an audience here tonight that might be interested in a little more depth on this. Um, can you just for our edification remind us of some of the unique projects that we've used the affordable housing trust fund for that we would not have been able to do with tiff traditional tiff pooling money. >> Sure. Uh, thanks mayor for the question because I think it does um help people understand how important it was to get the legislation. We've used it for rental assistance. Um, we've used it for the Pathways to Home ownership program, which is a significant large down payment assistance, se up to $75,000 per home, uh, for ownership products. We've used it for the rehab project that I talked about in the Cedar Hills area. Um, the rehab project, by the way, if you don't recall, was over a million dollars where reinvestment into town homes were done, making them more sustainable and also more affordable for the people that were living there at 30% area median income. Some of the lowest income uh groups we have in the city. That rehab project was really probably the most excellent example of using those funds. I mentioned Elcott where we were able to diversify the type. We often get stuck in that 60% AMI because of state laws that apply to TIFF. 60 or 50 depending on which um TIFF law you use. But what's happening is if you pigeon hole kind of all the units in the same uh AMI, it does not do anything for diversity and addressing people who make all different types of incomes in the community. So I think the ability to go outside of those typical parameters was really and and that happened at Elcott in a big way. We've also done a couple 80% we're we're missing that in the rental side. 80% units we just don't have a lot of. So it's really helped us on that. I could go on for days so I'll stop there. Mayor, thank you. Thank you. I one I'm going to pitch I think and correct me if I'm wrong but homelessness program. >> How did I forget that right? Yes, you're right. That was um >> originally. >> Yeah, the inception of it came from this fund um to pilot the homelessness intervention project. Yeah, I don't know why I didn't mention that. Thank you. >> That's okay. No, there's a lot of good stuff there. Thank you. All right, council. Any other questions or I'll take comments otherwise we will take a motion to uh adopt the resolution. Council member Calvert, I just want to reiterate some of the accolades that um or just emphasize the accolades that Council Member Rome was talking about. And I just think it's um we've been it's not just lucky that we have the ability to have an affordable housing trust fund. It really is um again one of the reasons why I cry at the employee recognition launch. We have amazing staff that are incredibly creative and go to the legislature and advocate for things that not just they don't just make the the city a better place to live, they make it a place that some people who normally couldn't live here could have a really wonderful quality of life. So, uh I just I just wanted to mention that. Thank you, Council Member Calbertt. All right. Somebody >> just want to make the >> Yes, Council Member Wilburn, please do. >> All right. I move that we adopt the resolution accepting pool tax increment from tax increment financing districts within the city of Minnotonka for the affordable housing trust fund. >> Thank you. And a second. Council member Foster Bolton. >> I'll second. Thank you. I have a motion by council member Wilburn and a second by council member Foster Bolton. Miss Larson, please call roll. Wilurn. >> Yes. Calbert, >> yes. >> For me, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shaq, >> yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Um, okay. Now, moving on to 14B, which is uh homes within reach repair forgivable loan program. Miss Wishnack, it is your show tonight. >> We'll keep going. Right. Thank you, Mayor. Um, I do have slides on this. I know I do. All right. Uh basically the council had a discussion about a another uh repair program for the homes within reach homes or the the affordable housing land trust. So um in 2020 or 2001 we started this partnership. Uh so it's been 25 years of of doing this work. We were the first city to to make that happen in suburban Henipin County and it just kind of parlayed into having I think we're at 63 homes now in the program. And so early on you had talked about um doing a a program to help home homeowners with repairs, maintenance issues, that sort of thing. And and the EDA also discussed the program. Um, we had done that for the first round with leftover community development block grant money. And as you recall, it kind of had some stiff parameters to that. Again, I'm talking about lots of um regulatory aspects of these monies, but this that particular one does maximize the AMI or the um average area median income to um 80%. And so that was maybe throwing out some people that couldn't participate in the program. and they might have been at that income to buy the house, but they maybe have grown in their income and could no longer um apply for the program. So, based on our analysis, there were about 14 out of Oh, it's 67. Thank you. 14 out of the 67 homes that would meet the criteria and they're eligible to participate. And the and the monies come from what you just did, affordable housing trust fund. Make that connection. and uh the total would be 140,000 uh with an estimate of 10,000 per household. The eligibility that would be required um there had been no permit activity in the property and no city repair programs access in the past. And as you know from the last time we talked about this at your study session, we went through all of the 67 properties and we looked at their permit history and participation. and you got kind of a sense of that. Um, they also would have to have an income of less than 120% of the area median income. And it's pretty easy math right now. 120% for one person. You can see off to the side, it's about 112,000, two person, 127, and so on. Um, so it just depends on how many people per household and that income that corresponds on the right hand side. If you're confused about where that comes from, it's from the Metropolitan Council. Uh those numbers are published every year in April and we follow the same um rules for household income calculations as they do for the metropolitan programs. So again, the funding would be up to 10,000 um for eligible home repairs and then it would be a forgivable loan. So, as you know, with most of our programs, if it is a forgivable loan, there's a period of time um in which it it does get forgiven. Um and then if you do approve it, staff would prepare all the loan documents that are necessary and and then contact the eligible household. We would do this program internally. So, we did the last one internally as well. And the reason we did that is um just the use of the funds and the kind of ease of getting the person through the process just isn't as complicated and staff can handle the 14 household maybe not if they came in at the same time but you know that they struggle in over time and so I think we can handle this in-house and we don't have to apply any administrative fees or anything like that. So, we would recommend that you approve the guidelines uh for the new or I I would say the renewed program of the repair for homes within reach homes and that money coming transferring that from the affordable housing trust fund. With that, mayor, I'll turn it back to you for any questions. Thank you, council. Any questions? Talked a lot about this. Council member Rome, you had a question or council member Raquel. >> Just a real quick one. Um thank you, mayor. Uh we're it's a forgivable loan. Is it like some of our other programs where there's a a requirement to stay in the home for a certain amount of time? What is our >> I was just Thank you, uh, Council Member Mley, I was just going to check this to make sure I had the right number. Can I look it up and I'll be right back with you. >> In the meantime, Council Member Calvert. >> Yeah. So uh in the last chart you showed uh having to do with 120% AMI. So a family of I mean my understanding is that the AMI is a give or take 100,000 give or take but if you have a family of four the income limit is is about 160 150 and some change right? Is that a question? >> Yeah. I mean, I'm just uh So, I'm just wondering, you know, how we arrive at Yeah, that 160 for family of four. >> Mayor, I guess >> um and council member Calbert. So, again, these calculations come directly from the Metropolitan Council. I guess I don't know all the methodology behind it, but um there is a certain acceptable level of what people will pay for affordable in these categories and it's a certain percentage of their income and then you apply the >> that that's good enough for me. Is that good enough? >> Y >> from a different source. I didn't create it right. >> Okay. And are you ready for us, Miss Wishnneck, on that other one? >> Okay. >> You interrupted her. >> No, because we went back and forth about it. So I don't want to give you the r the wrong answer. We talked about it during our study session. So just one second. Let's just pause for just a second that way. Thank you. >> Uh thank you very much. The asset limits I'm looking through that was 25,000 just so you know that too. The this will be in your homes within reach forgivable forgivable loan program summary. And then the repayment of the loans are not required if all the required inspections have been completed and approved and city staff signs a completion certificate within 6 months of the funds being dispersed. If an inspection and permits are not required, the applicant must submit evidence of the project's completion. For example, invoices for the project before and after photos. So, let's just say somebody had a grading problem, like they're having water in their basement, they need to regrade it. Grading for a certain amount isn't requiring a permit, but if they have the verification that it was done and they turn in all of those, uh, the loan would be forgiven at that time. So, it's not like the forgivable loan for the down payment, which is over time. It would be based on completion and compliance. Thank you. Uh, council council member Romey, did you have a followup then? No. Okay. All right. Well, we'll go to council member Kley, then council member Foster Bolton. Council member Kley, >> I had a comment. I don't know if you're open. >> Any other questions? >> Otherwise, I think we can we can turn to comments. So, it doesn't look like any other questions. Okay. Council member Kley, >> I just want to make a comment in regards to the program. Um, you know, I know that, you know, you see $10,000 uh forgivable, but when you think about the expenses that some of these homes come with, you know, I can speak to it because I live in one of these homes, and I usually say this, but over the time, I've been there for 17 years, but over the time I've had to put in well over $20,000 into this home, you know, um I remember the first time needing a new roof, you know, that was over $5,000 our, you know, then we had the plumbing problem the first time $2,800 that had a special um I had like a abatement or something on my property taxes because I couldn't afford it at the time. I remember having to pay in my taxes increased because of that and I didn't understand the programs and how it worked. So then again, another plumbing problem that wasn't fixed the first time. So that was another over $6,000, you know, and then most recently needing to get a furnace put in. That was over $11,000. So, you know, um when you think about, you know, the $10,000 and the cost that these homes come with, cuz a lot of times they're really old homes. My home was built in 1967. And I know a lot of us in Minnetonka have that same problem with their homes, but I'm just saying for a person to a family to move in Minnetonka through affordable housing program um and expected to keep up these homes that's already old. And a lot of times first generational home owners um folks who probably never owned a home like myself or my mother who didn't own a home. So then you move into these home not really understanding um the issues that come with these homes and then expected to pay these this type of um money to keep the upkeep of these homes are very expensive. And so um I really um hope that tonight we can approve this. But I also want to just say, you know, for the program that we had before, you know, I really appreciate that program and I really appreciate the mayor um Brad before um mentioning that we should increase the um the amount of the funding because you just heard me go over the 17 years expenses that I had just to maintain the home that I live in. And so I know others have had some of the same experience. And I even had heard of a horror story in Minneapolis where this is a program similar to this but it's called it's a different name but it's pretty much the same program but their whole foundation was bad and that person could not get out that loan um and had to deal with the foundation of the house and so I just you know hope that we can understand why we approved the program in the past and hopefully we'll get it approved tonight. So thank you. Thank you, Council Member Kley. Council member Foster Bolton. >> Well, um I was going to say I really appreciate this and like I said that um we have a home. we live by homes within reach and I you know know that they um just can't afford to and it's again the same story like it's not the foundation or sewage or it's just run down and this would be a perfect opportunity for them. Um and so I really appreciate that that the number was increased. Um, that's what I was going to say. >> Thank you. Uh, any council, anything else? All right. I would take a motion to adopt the resolution approving the guidelines for homes within reach repair [gasps] forgivable loan program and transferring the funds to the affordable housing tr from the affordable housing trust fund of the city of Mitaka to the program. Council member Kley. >> I make the motion to approve the program. >> And council member Foster Bolton. >> I'll second. >> We've got a motion by Council Member Kley. A second by Council Member Foster Bolton. Uh Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Wilbert, >> yes. >> Calbert, >> yes. >> Rome, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shaq, >> yes. Motion carries. All right. Um on to item 14C, which is a resolution calling on the state of Minnesota to implement a temporary eviction moratorum. Um and we're going to shift away. We're going to shift to Mr. Nilson on this one. >> Thank you, Mayor Shack. Council members, at your last study session meeting earlier this month, uh you provided some direction to staff to bring forward a resolution for consideration tonight uh that would call on the state of Minnesota uh presumably through the governor to implement a temporary eviction moratorum. Uh state law addresses the eviction process in detail in Minnesota statutes chapter 504b. That's the large chapter that is the is essentially the landlord tenant chapter of state law. And while cities don't have the authority at the local level to pause or prohibit evictions, there is very limited authority uh uh showing that the state does. And if you recall that occurred uh when Governor Walls during the pandemic implemented an eviction moratorum by executive order during a declared peaceime emergency uh related to the pandemic. Um, if you recall the terms of that eviction moratorum, it was it was focused on evictions based on non-payment of rent. There were exceptions provided that allowed for evictions to still proceed on other grounds uh related to public safety at the premises uh where significant property damage occurred uh where the landlord or the landlord's family needed to move into the property for any reason. uh and so it was focused on non-payment of rent. Um to the import one really important point is that an eviction moratorum uh does not and would not because there is no authority to do so even at the state level relieve tenants of their legal obligation to pay rent ultimately. So rent does occur during the pendency of an eviction moratorum and then uh is due when that uh uh moratorium is lifted. Um there are several cities that have adopted resolutions addressing this topic. Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Roseville. And the draft before you for consideration is largely based on uh one that the Roseville City Council adopted. Uh council asked staff to bring this forward for consideration. We did tee it up for you tonight with a motion to adopt the resolution. uh acknowledging that there are a lot of timing issues associated with both this issue and some of the other issues related to uh the current federal activity and operation metro surge. So this does allow you tonight if it is the will of the body to adopt the resolution. So with that I can stand for any questions. >> Thank you Mr. Nelson. Uh council any questions? Council member Wilburn. Um, so one of the arguments I've heard against uh a an eviction moratorum is that a state of emergency would have to be declared and that would potentially open up uh uh to be having federal troops sent into Minnesota. Is that an accurate >> Mr. Nelson, >> Mayor Shack, uh, Council Member Wilurn. So, state law, it's in Minnesota statutes, uh, section 12.31, chapter 12.31, addresses the governor's the state's declaration of an of an emergency. Um, it it distinguishes between a national essentially a national security emergency and a peace time emergency. And the section on peace time emergencies does list grounds on which that can be declared. So uh when it was declared during the pandemic, the governor used the provision that uh noted that an act of nature could serve as the basis to declare an emergency. In looking at the grounds myself, I think it is likely that the only one that could arguably apply here would be a civil disturbance. And so, um, w with that, I would leave it up to the the the judgment of the body whether they they think or believe that that could invite, uh, federal intervention in some in some way. Uh, but but but again, in order to call the emergency, uh, you you would, you know, the governor would ultimately still need to fall back on those those authorized grounds. >> Thank you, Mr. Nelson. Uh, council council member Calvert. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, for some for many weeks now um since the surge and you know the recognition that um you know people have been unable to earn a living um and yet they are sheltering in their homes which they might lose because they can't pay their rent. Um we've been talking about this for a long time and um one of the things that I have done is contact my legislators because um just as many of us if not all of us on the deis in a previous meeting committed to um funding our rental assistance program as things unfold and you know people are in need uh to keep a roof over their heads. Um, one of the things that I have talked about with folks is the need for um, housing assistance almost on and above the, you know, even even if there were an eviction moratorum, the financial help is still needed. And with um sort of the double whammy of people not being able to um earn a living and then um the sort of punitive measure of pulling back on some housing and SNAP benefit programs because of alleged fraud um in those programs um people are really hurting. So, I'm just wondering if anybody on staff has been in communication with our legislators or even the governor's office about um any [snorts] kind of plans or legislation in the works, not just for eviction moratorum, but for um money towards rental assistance and um sort of how fast that might be able to happen. and you know cuz I really feel no matter what that's that's the other book end to this effort. >> Mr. Nelson or Miss Wishnack, do you have any Mr. Nelson? >> She's pointing at you. >> Um Mayor Shack, I think this might be one of those instances uh where where uh uh if if Mike Funk, the city manager, was here, you could probably address the the most recent communications there. I I uh I would probably be out of turn. I'm I'm not up to date on the the most current conversation, but uh you know there there are peer cities u speaking you know from Minneapolis last week who uh um passed a some uh I think it was a million dollars uh to go to the county for rental assistance support in that regard. Uh I presume those same conversations are happening uh at that magnitude or more at the state level as well. Thank you, Miss Wishnock. >> Um, the only thing Thank you for giving me a moment to thank Mr. Nielsen. Um, I think that, uh, all of the groups that are meeting about housing are talking about these very same things. So, I do think it's getting some attention. U, I know we have a housing work group that meets regularly about the needs that uh, we identify. Um, you know, I don't want to lose fact uh, track of the fact that we have funds available. So, I don't want people in the audience. So don't if you have someone in need or you know someone in need I want them make sure they let a know and a then funnels them to the appropriate place. Our money sits with his house which is the organization that disperses uh Minnotonka only funds but if there are funds in different places is the first stop for those monies and then move on to his house if uh we're having someone fall through the gap. So I don't want to leave anybody with the impression that there's no money right now. there is absolute money uh available in Minnetonka. So, thank you. >> And you know, I'm going to take the unique opportunity in Mr. Funk's absence because I do have just a little bit of information on this from the coalition's perspective. I mean, this is certainly something that we're talking to all of our legislators about. Um we will, you know, uh I'm not sure that there has been a opportunity for an audience with the governor and we we do have that this week on Wednesday. So that'll be on our topic of conversation. I think there is a realism perspective of what the the composition of the legislature is this year. And so even from a coalition standpoint, I think we're um realistic about what our expectations are. But this is an ask that's coming certainly from, you know, the 24 communities that are a part of the coalition. I don't think we've been promised anything. Well, I know we haven't been promised anything, so I can that's what I can weigh in. Um, but people we are talking and people are listening as far as that can get us. Um, other questions. Council, Council Member Romey, >> thank you. Um, I just wanted to revisit um with Mr. Nelson again um just to make sure that I'm understanding correctly in that there is my understanding tenuous very tenuous legal grounds right now to declare a state of emergency that really the only avenue to do so is declare a state of civil unrest that's really the only viable option right now is that correct >> then >> Mr. Nelson. >> Thank you. Uh, Mayor Shack, Council Member, Council Member Romeli, in looking uh at the bases to declare a peaceime emergency, uh, yes, I believe that a civil disturbance is likely the only potentially viable basis to declare. >> Thank you. That confirms kind of some of my conversations with the judges and lawyers on this topic as well. And so can you also clarify and just I just want to reiterate so we all are on the same page that if Governor Walls took that step and declared a state of emergency based on a state of civil unrest then that does definitely open the door for potential federal action by agents potentially even military. Not saying that it would happen, but it legally opens the door to do so. Am I correct in that? >> Mr. Nelson, go ahead. Mayor Shack, Council Member Romey, I I I'm a little bit reticent to go that far to say it that stridenly. Um I think um anytime a a emergency declaration is made whether at the state level or the local level based on civil unrest that there is the potential for interventions from other levels of government or other jurisdictions. uh because uh the one of the premise for a an emergency declaration is that your local resources are insufficient to to address the declared emergency and so you need help. So by its own action, the nature of the action is sort of opening yourself up to to potential interventions. >> All right. Thank you. Thank you for any other questions, Council Member Kley. I just had to make a comment and >> we're going to hold on comments for now. Thank you. Um, any other questions? Okay, I have one question. Um, I think it's for Miss Wishnack, but anybody can take it. Going back to CO and the eviction moratorum. You know, my concern is that people will have relief from moratorum and won't pursue the rental assistance and there'll be kind of a delay. I mean, do we have any uh experience with, you know, was it people coming then maybe and asking for 6 months worth of rental relief in a month because there was a moratorum and then now they're it it ends and now they're facing eviction but they have this piled up rent or were people still do we know staying on top of it on a month-to-month basis despite the moratorum? Ma'am um mayor and and council members uh during co it was everything it was anywhere in between. I think it really depended on the situation and we had people in all those categories. I think what's um important here and I think the way we're trying to keep the pulse on it is we're talking to property managers directly every week. Um, we're talking to some of the largest apartment owners all the way down to maybe a 40unit building. And and the things we're talking about with them is how many people are you having for evictions for nonpayment. And we're not talking about if they're being evicted for other reasons. there could be ext extenuating circumstances, but um it's important for us to keep in contact so that we can say, hey, if you've got 10, 12, 14 people that are doing it for non-payment, we need to be intervening in those situations. And um I would say that I we haven't run into a building manager that hasn't been telling us that information. So, we feel like we have a really good pulse on what's happening now. I think we're in a delay a little bit like you know maybe they made last month's payment and and now next month's is maybe kind of looming and maybe that's going to be a challenge. So I think some of this is a little bit delayed or people had a little bit of savings and then you know maybe later on they're going to run into some trouble. So right now um we're not hearing huge eviction numbers um and we know what huge eviction numbers look like from COVID um time. So, I feel like we have a good pulse, but it does we have to check with these people all the time. Um, and it's five to six calls a week where we're sitting down and talking to these property managers. So, we'll continue to do that and try to be the intervening party. Um, so that people one understand they have assistance and that property managers want to get paid, right? So, they're going to use these programs to help get paid and that's their incentive. So, um, they've been very open with us and and helping identify when there are issues. So, hopefully that's helping. >> Thank you, Miss Wishnack. All right. I Where did you have another question, Council Member Rome? Sure. >> Came to mind as you were talking. um if if is there anything um foreseen for landlord relief talking about that because I know that after COVID not only did you have a wave of evictions because people had a crude non-payment of rent and so they were eventually evicted anyway. Um, sometimes what happened is they were evicted. The landlords also didn't get paid for that and then we had a lot of some foreclosures and issues with that which then had the knock-on effect of raising rents if they didn't go under. Um, the remaining landlords then had to raise rents to get whole again. Um, I mean, am I am I correct in in in that assessment? And do we see foresee something like that happening again if there was an eviction moratorum? >> Miss Wishnack, >> I I think mayor and council member Rome, I think you're kind of prognosing a future issue and and I do see it. I mean, I do see the market tighten already. Even before this situation happened, it was already we were starting to see rents um stabilize a lot more in this community which had seen pretty significant growth in terms of rent rates over the last 5 years since co. So I do think some of that um tempering of rents and then evictions and all of that do fold into the bottom line and then are they you know do they have enough coverage to handle some of those ups and down? I would I mean I would tell you that people are pretty smart who own these buildings and can weather a lot of storms. This one's different. This one is a little bit more unpredictable. Um I would say CO was pretty unpredictable because we didn't know the length of time this would continue for and that was years um of kind of ups and downs and people not paying rent. So it it was a very long period of time. If you think about what's happening here, it can continue, but it it is it isn't we're not at the two-year mark where some of this um what you're talking about happened. >> Um just but then also in COVID there was landlord, you know, either PPP or there was specific um landlord assistance at that time which at this point we don't have in place >> currently. Is that correct? >> Right. >> Yeah. Mayor and Council Member Meley, the only thing I would say that came much later though and and so it was quite delayed and so some of these things um >> Got it. >> Yeah. >> I'm just trying to compare and contrast. Yep. Thank you. Okay. Well, this isn't technically public hearing, but we did promise some of our commenters that they would have an opportunity to speak. So, we'll hear from them and then council, any follow-up questions we'll address and then we'll get to your comments. So, council member Kley, I haven't forgotten about you. All right. So, we're going to start with Ken Kevin Ringhoffer and then we will follow uh him with Shannon Andre. So, Mr. Ringhaer, please come on up. Good evening, Mayor and Councel. Um, thank you for the opportunity to speak. Um, just thinking I find it kind of interesting that we're talking about that something that we do could kind of uh initiate civil unrest to bring in federal resources when it's the federal resources that are the cause of the civil unrest. Um, just something to think about. I'm in favor of doing uh the moratorum with a rental assistance and calling on the the state to adopt calling on you to adopt that resolution. I would also like to spend most of my time talking about changing the pre-eviction notice uh that we have. Uh the current pre-eviction notice is 14 days. Um that's just not enough. It's hardly enough in regular times and certainly during these times it's certainly uh not enough. From what I'm hearing, it's taking 2 and 1 half to 3 weeks for people to get their rental assistance, which is getting close to the landlord being able to file eviction proceedings. So, um, we need that. Maybe there's opportunities to streamline the process that can make it go more quickly. Uh, that would be that would be great, but it seems like we really do do need to look at kind of increasing that pre-eviction notice. And that's something that I think that I think you can do. Uh, another piece of this is um, I hear that we're doing a lot to get information to the landlords so they they know what they can do if they're running into issues with rent. I think we need to consider also getting that information to the tenants as well. Um I mean a lot is going on. We don't know the relationship between tenants and landlords. Um a tenant may not feel good about not being able to pay their rent or for a lot of other circumstances. They may want to avoid the landlord and not be maybe as compliant as if they were compliant. They might get the rental assistance and get the process going faster. But that's just not the situation um that I think we're living in. So, if we can do things to streamline that process, that would be great. Um, we're also hearing about uh that once this process kind of starts um that there's late fees. You don't have to be very late on your rent. And so, here we are looking to be able to provide people with help, but they're incurring late fees um almost immediately. So, um, I think by the city increasing its pre-eviction notice along with rental assistance will give Minnetonka residents the time and resources that they need to stay in their home regardless of what's happened at at the state level. Um I might also suggest that maybe in terms of looking at the resolution from the standpoint of an eviction moratorum maybe the request is to the state that they also uh re increase the pre- eviction notice minimum time beyond 14 days to 60 days. >> Thank you Mr. Ringhoffer. Uh, Shannon Andre. >> Hi everyone. Um, my name is Shannon Andre and I am here also to talk in support of the resolution calling on the state of Minnesota to implement a temporary eviction moratorum. I understand all the um the reasons not to do so that were brought up, but I think that this um motion is this resolution is important to all of our residents to know that the city of Minnotonka um is thinking of them and has their back. Um it might be performative in nature, but sometimes we need to see that leaders are willing to take actions on our behalf. um when we cannot do it ourselves. Um and I also just wanted to say that I agree with the eviction expansion, the notice expansion. Um everything that Kevin outlined is um exactly why we need this, not only temporarily, but um permanently at least expanding it to 30 days. Um this system as we all know is not easy to navigate for the most educated among us and who um experience English as our first language. Imagine the people who are now facing eviction and have already had that notice put up on their door. Um Henipin County started putting them up. the sheriff's department. These are people who may not We know the people that are being targeted by federal agents and they most of them English is not their first language. I went to our city's website which I think is a resource most of these families would not go to and I could not find a way to access help for rental assistance. So, that needs to change. And also recognizing that families need a lot more time to get this help. It's not easy, even though um we may think it's obvious who to turn to. And I just wanted to quickly say that um affordable housing, I appreciated that it's part of the strategic plan, but if we look at um 80% of the median income in Minnotonka, I just did a quick calculation, that is over $96,000. That is double what a starting teacher makes in this area. So, when we're talking about affordable housing and making rent every month, we need to think about the people this is impacting. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Anderson. All right. So, council, well, I'm going to ask Mr. Nelson, one question um as a followup to those comments, which is does do we have the authority to modify the pre-eviction notice requirements from what's laid out in state statute? So, uh, Mayor Shack, uh, so as I stated, the, um, the eviction process is almost entirely, uh, directed by state law, but there is little spaces that cities have found fit to regulate and have some authority to regulate, and that is one of them. Um the uh statute I was just looking it up so I could cite it but the stat in Minnesota statutes 504b.321 subdivision 1A 1A A6 uh it talks about the content of the pre-eviction filing notice and the and the state requirement is 14 days. But that statement that the state requires to be put on the notices does include an additional caveat that some local governments may have an eviction notice period longer than 14 days. Uh and um uh when I worked at the city of Minneapolis, they adopted a 30-day pre-eviction filing notice maybe 2 three years ago. Um uh and I believe other states or excuse me, other cities uh may have followed suit. And as a followup to that, you know, if this council wanted to explore that, that would take the ordinance the um introducing an ordinance and then, you know, drafting it, introducing it, and then certain amount of time has to pass before we can adopt it. Is that correct, >> Mayor Shack? That's correct. Legislative processes like civil litigation uh do take time and so we have a defined process with introduction uh staff time to develop a staff report that provides you sufficient information the draft ordinance and then um the subsequent uh uh consideration of the ordinance at a subsequent meeting by the council with the effective date then uh 30 days out from publication. >> Right. Thank you. Miss Wishnack, you had something to add. just to add uh you know in our uh discussions uh mayor and council in the past you've talked about this very issue at your housing updates every year that we have in July um and I think as Mr. Neielson and I I have talked in the past it's it's been there's been some litigation about these pre-eviction notice requirements and and I can't remember if you can answer this Eric about the time frame. So some there have been some problems with the length of time that cities are adopting. So, can you provide any more information on that as we discussed? >> Mayor Shack, uh um to to Miss Miss Wishnack's question, I you know, I'd like to refresh my memory on some of the lawsuits um that may have occurred around pre-eviction filing notices. Uh the state provision that I cited, of course, doesn't include a a lot of parameters around how far a city could go. I think um uh that if the the period was too long such that it created uh conflicts with state law, for example, the concept of a of a a um month-to-month tenency, which uh which is something that would be allowed by state law, uh that there could create some issues there that we might have some, you know, some legal considerations to play out there. So, uh, you know, I think I think if extending the pre-eviction filing notice is something the council is interested in, um, that it would be at that point we could look at the at the legal history there and the lawsuit history and perhaps there is sort of a sweet spot. uh a spot that makes sense in the real practical real real world, which is what everybody's concerned about, in order for um uh tenants to be able to use that pre-eviction filing notice in order to avail themselves of uh rental assistance, which is the real benefit of it. >> Thank you, Mr. Nelson. Okay, council. Any more questions? Otherwise, let's get on to comments. Uh looks like we got a couple more questions. Council member Foster Bolton. Um yeah, one of the I wanted to ask Miss Wishnack. So you talked about you know speaking with the um aart landlords and and then the question was how do you reach the tenants and >> right >> I know you have an answer for that. >> I do miss Go ahead. >> Thank you for opening the door. Um, Council Member Foster Bolton, um, I didn't mean to say that we don't talk to residents. That's not the point. Um, and in fact, we have created a special um, communication in various uh, translatable languages for people to read about anything frankly that the city has help for or actually events and different things that. So it's not just about assistance, but it's about being inclusive in terms of if you're a renter in this city that you feel part of the community. So we've worked on that over the last two years, but it's really helped because what's happened is our readership has increased quite a bit and we know this from email, right? Your click rates and you can tell if people are actually opening them and looking at them. We've given you some of the stats about that. So I do believe that we are hitting some people that way. The other way we're doing it is, you know, direct outreach. And so we are having conversations, one-on-one conversations. Um people will call for help. They they'll just call the city or maybe a friend is calling the city for help, that sort of thing. And we get um introduced to somebody who's in need that way. And so there's a lot of one-on-one. Um our social worker is very busy in this area in terms of uh helping people through processes to acquire assistance. So there's lots of ways this is getting through to tenants and to residents and so I don't want to leave the impression that we just talked to landlords cuz that's not accurate. So thank you for that. >> Go ahead. >> Um and the late fees were also talked about and can we help with late fees in terms of wish? >> Um mayor and council member Foster Bolton I think it depends on the program. So, I would say our our money is a little bit more um flexible as we talked about before. Uh some of the other programs for rental assistance may not be that way. So, um I could see a path where that would help. >> Thank you. Uh Council Member Calbertt, did you have a question? >> Yeah, I did. I mean, we were talking a little bit about um um the um pre-eviction notice period and we don't we don't talk about it ne we don't talk about it in this resolution. Um and it is something that state statute allows us to modify to a certain extent. But is that something that we might add to is that something we could add to the proposed resolution um to just because really we're just encouraging people at the state and the governor namely um to consider this. Um so I mean it's a it's basically a suggestion. So, I'm wondering if if we could add that as a provision, >> Mr. Nelson, >> Mayor Shack, uh, Council Member Calbertt. Uh, yes, you could. In the absence of a of a local regulation that goes further, the evictions are are are uh directed by state law, and state law has a 14-day pre-eviction filing notice period. Uh and so uh if if part of the effort here would be to urge the state legislature to consider an increase in that period for uniformity across the state, that's certainly something that you could do. >> Thank you. All right, council. What do we think about this? And um let's let's try to dig in and get through make some decisions here. So I think we wanted to hear more information. We wanted to understand what it would look like and now I think you know we have a decision to make on if this is something we want to pursue or not. >> So council member Calvert thank you. So here's the thing different resolutions are different. Some are more performative than others. And I think sometimes when we say performative, it's that there there may be unintended consequences. We want a certain thing to happen. We want a certain communication out there because we feel a certain way and we are really passionate about it. But there are unintended consequences. The mayor talked about some of them like when we're talking about not using park property for staging. um ICE operations for instance in this particular case it I really truly feel I mean everyone in here wants to do the right thing. We are desperate to do the right thing. We are angry and um feel that urgency to do something. I also feel like the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And I have to say that opening up these extremely vulnerable communities to more federal action by putting forward a resolution declaring uh basically an emergency to effectuate an eviction moratorum might do at least as much harm as good. And I am extremely concerned about that. And I do I I wish so many things were different. I wish that, you know, if if an ICE car doesn't have license plates that they would actually stop for a cop that was trying to write them a ticket and maybe even pay the ticket. They're not going to. And I don't know that this is going to I just I'm not convinced. I I'm not sure how I would vote on this because I don't want to put pressure on a situation that doesn't actually fix something, which is why I'm more focused on providing immediate rental relief, which is really what people need. And so my my personal focus has been on immediate mental relief. and the the the comments about, you know, making information more obvious are are well taken. And I just so people know, I have a loved one in my family that I have been navigating the social services system here in Minnesota for a year and a year before that in another state. And it is it is literally hell. It is how I spend many hours of my day. And so I am very cognizant of the difficulties. And yes, I'm very well educated and I can tell you that with all the cuts to social services, it's really really difficult. So I know more about it than some people uh might think and I'm more sympathetic to the intentions here than some people might think. But I I just put it out there because I want us to be if we proceed with this, go in with open eyes that um it may have a paradoxical effect and not really actually protect the people that we're trying to protect and that is my greatest concern. [sighs] Comments. Council member Kley. Thank you, Mayor. um kind of I'm kind of feeling like council member um Calvert um in some what she stated. One of my concerns, I talked about this before, one of my concerns is you know we put this moratorum in place if it gets approved and you know then people even if they can or can't their rent is not paid they decide they can't pay the rent or um don't have access to the money however it may be but the rent is not being paid then the moratorium is lifted um and the landlords are still able to evict folks out even if our city had the funds to pay folks rent and keep them in their place at that time. What I've seen and heard about in the past where um landlords were still evicting folks out. So, it's like your rent is paid, but then who keeps the landlord from deciding, well, you know, you haven't paid your rent for 6 months or you haven't paid your rent for 3 months, and then all of a sudden, um, you know, they're evicted. Um, I stated this I think the last time we spoke, I don't know if it was at study session or council meeting. I had a friend who, this is during COVID time, but her rent was got behind like $10,000 and the landlord suffered from that. And not saying that I, you know, don't understand what happened, but at the time when her rent was paid, the landlord kicked her out, evicted her like that really happened. You know, I had a situation with my daughter in Minneapolis. Same thing. Her rent had got behind. Her rent got paid. She ended up having to really take this landlord to court because there was some other things going on. Luckily, she won her case because I had did housing mediation. So, I was I was able to help her navigate that. But her landlord tried to do the same thing. Her landlord tried to evict her out. So my concern is not so much of the moratorum, but it's like you put the moratorium in place and what you know folks was saying like it's performative. Is it really going to work? Like I don't think it does. And that's just my opinion about it. I really don't think it works. But because we want to do something and want to show that we care. I mean I definitely care because like I explained earlier, you know, I come from a low-inccome um background. Like I I've been low income pretty much my whole life and I have friends who low income. I just talked about my daughter like I really don't see where this is helpful and I did talk to a friend of mine from Minneapolis who owns um two homes. one of her homes. She said, I said, you know, I talked to her about the moratorium that Minneapolis had done, and I said, well, how does this impact your second house where you have a renter? What will you do if your renter doesn't pay rent? And she said, "Well, Kizzy, you know, me and my husband could kind of eat that price of maybe if the person didn't pay the rent for three or four months, um, we basically we'll have to pay it ourselves and we'll look at it as if we if we sell our house in the future, then we'll make up that money for in the future. But what if someone's not in the position to sell their house in the future? what if someone actually lose their house before they can sell it. So, you know, that was another aspect that I hadn't even thought about, but you know, I have been looking at this from different aspects and having different conversations from different people. But, um, I just want to bring that attention to folks that's in the audience. Um, you know, to think about, yeah, this this sounds like something that will work, but it's it's just temporarily. It's like putting a band-aid on something because soon as that moratorum is up, a landlord could still say, you know what, you haven't paid my rent for 3 months, you haven't paid your rent for 6 months, and yeah, they paid it up, but now you need to leave. So to me, it needs to be more advocating for, okay, if we're going to do this, then now how do we stop folks from landlords from putting a person out afterward? So that would be my question for the city attorney. Can we do something like that? Is there something we can put in place to say, okay, if the rent is paid, then you can't put someone out. So, that would be my question for not only our city, but Minneapolis and any other city. Can we prevent that? >> Mr. Nelson, >> Mayor Shack, uh, Council Member Kley, again, just I know I've said this a couple times already, but the eviction process is heavily regulated at the state level. So local city um space to operate in that is very limited. Um it sounds like and it and I would need ultimately more information. It's probably a longer conversation, but it sounds like you're referring to considering some sort of restriction or regulation around lease non-renewal perhaps. So if rent is paid, that is no longer a basis for eviction for a landlord. But landlords can still non-renew uh for often for any reason. And so it sounds like maybe that's what you're getting at. But that would be a further discussion. Thank you. All right. Other comments, council. So just a reminder, what we're really considering is are we supporting a resolution to ask the governor to implement a temporary eviction moratorum. So, it's a, you know, it's a a a ask to the governor to do something. Council member Romey, >> thank you, mayor. I'm really struggling with uh this question and I think you know people, a few of you in the audience who know me know that I care deeply about housing and affordable housing and I've been working on this. Um so I started by looking for some data and also talking to some of our community partners that we're working with in the housing space. And um so in terms of data kind of what I found is that um 60 about 60 families were helped with rental assistance in the previous fiscal year. um in the fiscal year that started um in October for at least one of our partners, they've helped 29 families. So, it's ahead of pace, but it's not exploding yet. And as Miss Wishnack said is we don't know what's going to happen this month, but at least right now, um there's still funding available in and I'm talking specifically about Minnotonka um households. And so that gave me a little bit of of pause and I realize um you know they also have unrestricted funds that are also available for Minnetonka residents at this point. Um so that gave me you know a data point. Um, the other really interesting thing that I found in my conversations with several of these leaders is that two out of three of them were not in favor of this eviction moratorum. Um, so >> who is that? >> I'm not going to say who. No, no. I'm see what what level who who at as a category of people >> higher level staff at housing organizations that the city works with. Um and they are not necessarily in favor of this. In fact, they have deep reservations about it. um somewhat based on their experiences after COVID journeying and after COVID and kind of what Miss Wishnack pointed to is the fact that um there was you know waves of of evictions that happened afterwards. Um and then also um rents went up because landlords had to make themselves whole after going without rents for um months. um the ones that didn't go under like Kazy's friends uh might be or council member Klay's friends uh are in risk of doing um others after and I know several people who have uh rental uh properties in Minneapolis after being burned after COVID they became much more picky deliberative about who they rented to. Um, so one of my concerns is that um things like requiring documentation, we might actually tend to hurt and uh hurt some of the people that we want to help in the future because landlords having gotten burnt um by this, you know, may just decide they're going to be a little bit more discriminating in their view of who they're going to rent to. Um, so [sighs and gasps] those I mean that is that that is the position that we're in. So, I have to say I'm I'm leaning towards council member Calvert's position that um you know we are much better to look at targeted assistance uh to people rather than kind of some of the risks that she outlined in terms of of opening our ourselves up to potential um you know reinsertion of of federal agencies. Um, and then some of these unintended knock-on effects. I think we all want to do, you know, these things and help people. And, you know, we think this would be a quick fix. And, you know, I just worry about doing more harm than good. Um, not only in the, you know, in the medium and long term on this. And I'm just hoping that we can find different ways uh to do this because as again the legal basis for doing this is tenuous at best for the governor doing this as tenuous at best and then the other issues with this and I think that we can find a better way um to do this quicker through we just transferred $5 million of affordable housing funding from our poolled which we have used for rental assistance in the past. I've even talked to some of um these housing leaders about, you know, potentially maybe they could be forgivable or um instead of grants being zero interest loans. Um just whatever we can do to kind of create assistance in the short terms, a bridge to some of these longer term solutions. I'm just worried that the um resolution is not the solution that we we think it will be or or that we really need. Thank you, [sighs] C. Council member Wilbur. Um, yeah. So, I like everyone else am struggling. Um, I was the one that actually pushed to get this on our agenda. um because I felt it's a conversation that we needed to have as a council um and to to sort of come to a an agreement as a council on on where we stand on this. Um and I know like this is just about the eviction moratorum just about petitioning the governor um to implement an eviction moratorum. I am concerned with um with our rental assistance that we aren't reaching everyone that is in need and that if if um it turns out to be a prolonged problem more than several months that then funding will start to be a problem. Um, so I guess I don't know if we can I think considering changing the the uh pre-eviction period is is something worth doing. Obviously, we can't make that happen tonight. So, um, yeah, that's kind of where I am. >> Council member Foster Bolton. >> Thank you, Mary. This is really quick cuz anything um I agree with council member Calbertt. Um and the the the when um you talked about we have to know that the residents have to know that we have their back. Um and a moratorum would be saying we have your back. And I and I do think we need to reach out more. But I feel like if if they don't know about rental assistance, how are they going to know about moratoriums? I mean, you know what I mean? Like we we have to get the word out for sure. But we do have their backs. I mean, um I I feel like we do and I feel like we'll be the first people to release more money as as needed um when it when it comes up. And and I I agree. I worry too. But um I think we'll find it. And so I I I think that's the Oh, and the other thing is is I would love to do this um if it was suggesting to extend the pre-eviction notice. I'm very much interested in that. And um I wish we did have a way to streamline that. doesn't sound like we do, but um so I would have a tendency to um not adopt the resolution. That's it. >> Thank you, council. Um I'm I'm not going to reiterate everything that was said. I think this is a terribly difficult decision. I think it it appears to be something that we could do. Of course, hey, don't kick them out, right? I think something we can really do is make sure their rents get paid. so that they don't face eviction in the first place. And so I'm a little hot under the collar for the reason that Council Member Foster Bolton indicated, which is we have their backs by putting money aside for them. We literally have money that we are we have designated for people in this situation. And if that isn't covering our residents, I just I'm not sure what is. Um, I also think that there are communities around us that have opportunities to do better. And the reason I would support the resolution, if I were to, frankly, would be in support of our neighboring communities that don't have rental assistance programs. But I can say that this is something we haven't been able to coalesce around from the coalition perspective because there's a lot of varying positions and and um concerns about this in other communities. So I'm hardressed to take a stance on behalf of a different community who doesn't think that this is the right fit for their community. So, I want to try to be very resolute in how we address this, which is how do we keep our residents in their homes and if they're faced with a financial crisis, we want to make sure we can provide a way to keep them in our home in their homes. I hear you though that that the concern is that residents don't know about this. So that's a call to action for us um to make sure I think I think staff has done a tremendous job um and we will continue to explore options for or opportunities to communicate. Um you know some of that is word of mouth because I what I will tell you and I think council member Kley has experienced this to a certain extent. We all have. We are government and vulnerable people aren't necessarily going to reach out to one of us, anybody in this room, right? And that's that's here working um or the so we're really really relying on, you know, like I mentioned earlier, the reason part of this program for the state of the city is so important is because we need the folks who are out in the community who are safe people, not government because we're government to spread the word. So, we are part of what we're doing in our communication, in our videos, in our Facebook posts, is helping people understand that if you run into a person in need, they don't want to talk to me. They want to talk to a safe person. Not that I'm not safe, but the perception is, right, I'm an elected official, probably one of the safer people here, but um I perception's everything, right? So, we have to be a team. I don't want to be an adversary with with the community members who I think we all have the same goals. And so the reason I am so passionate about this is because I want to do the right thing in the right way. And I'm just not sure that a resolution here is going to do that. And it's going to result in people getting behind in rent in a way that we may not be able to help them get out of as this escal if it escalates. So I, you know, I support my fellow council members here and I think that um nothing is permanent, right? So things may change. We may make different decisions. You know, if we feel that we are being too pressed, that we don't have the resources to continue to fund the um rental assistance. I will note that I don't think we have transferred money over there in over a year, maybe about a year. So this is not something that we're burning through. So we we feel comfortable in the pace at which we're funding that and I think it's going to be a little while before we start to feel a panic on it. So um thank you again for the affordable housing trust fund and I think this isn't this is a put a pin in it type of a situation but right now I just don't think it's the best solution for our most vulnerable residents. I I can support and I think we can talk about and and we can address with Mr. Funk two things. One is, you know, is there an opportunity to lobby at the legislature for um the pre-eviction notice timing and providing some additional timing on that if that's something we want to do. And do we, you know, after we look at the case law and understand what the the traps are, you know, do we want to consider expanding that as well from a local level? That does require public input. I just want everybody to understand, you know, and public input will happen from both perspectives. who certainly um have a lot of and you know the big landlords I think none of us are overly concerned about their ability to float certain things but there are some pretty small landlords in our city who provide meaningful housing that we would we will probably hear from because you know some of these things will impact their ability to continue to own properties and so I am sensitive to you know not everybody is a behemoth hedge fund you know I some of these people are people who happen to get married and still hang on to a townhouse or something like that. So anyway, enough from me on this. We're going to um take a motion. [sighs and gasps] Do we probably to decline to adopt the resolution or take take a motion to adopt it and vote it down? How do we deal with that? Mr. Nelson, >> Mayor Shack, I I think um technically the motion is to, you know, um not not adopt, deny, decline to adopt the resolution. I think that appropriately describes the tenor of the discussion. >> Thank you. Okay. So, it's going to take a little gusto for somebody to make that motion. >> So, it's to decline to adopt the resolution. >> So, I make a motion. Oops. >> Go ahead. I'll make a motion to decline to adopt the resolution. >> I've got a motion by council member Foster Bolton, a second by council member Romey. >> I'll second. >> Okay. Motion by council member Foster Bolton, a second by council member Romey. Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Wilburn, >> yes. >> Calbertt, >> yes. Rome, >> yes. Kley, >> yes. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shaq, >> yes. Motion carries. And again, thank you everybody. I mean, I think everybody's on on the right track and, you know, these are really hard decisions to make and we're up here trying to do the best we can in these continued unprecedented times. So, really appreciate your engagement, your um concern for our community. Okay, we've got a little bit of procedural hoop jumping we're going to do here. We are going I'm going to take a motion to recess this meeting. Uh, so moved. >> A motion by council member Calbertt. Sec. >> Yes, I'll second. >> Second by council member Foster Bolton. Uh, Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Wilburn. >> Uh, yes. >> Calbert, [laughter] >> yes. Romey, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shaq, >> yes. Motion carries. So, we are recessed from the regular council meeting. We'll readjourn that simply to um open it back up in a little while to address an issue that we need to talk about in close session. So nothing more substantive uh for public purposes is going to happen at the regular city council meeting tonight. We do however before we do that so that some of our staff can go home and we can turn our recording off. We are going to um call to order a meeting of the economic development authority. This is Monday, February 23rd. This is a meeting of the economic development authority and um Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Wilburn >> here. >> Calbert here. >> Rome >> here. >> Kley here. Foster Bolton >> here. Check >> here. Um, we have item number three with 3A which is approval of the agenda. And Miss Wishnack, I believe we have an an agenda. There was uh, Mayor, I'm sorry, President and Commissioners, there was a an addendum uh for a document that needs to be signed for a consent. Um, I'll explain it further when we get to that agenda item. Thank you. Thank you. So, do we have a motion to approve the agenda with that agenda? Council member Fost or excuse me, Commissioner Foster Bolton. >> I make a motion to add item 5C to the agenda and approve the agenda as amended. >> And Commissioner Calbert. Thank you, M. President. I second. Uh we have a motion by Commissioner Foster Bolton, a second by Commissioner Calvert. Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Wilburn. Yes. >> Calbert. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Kley. >> Yes. >> Foster Bolton. >> Yes. >> Shaq. >> Yes. Motion carries. >> All right. For item 44A, which is approval of the January 12th, 2026 EDA minutes. Any comments or a motion? Uh, Commissioner Wilburn. >> I move approval of the January 12th, 2026 EDA meeting minutes. and a second. >> I second. Uh uh, excuse me. Thank you, Commissioner Cal or Commissioner Calvert. So, I have a motion by Commissioner Wilburn, second by Commissioner Calvert. Uh, Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Wilburn, >> yes. >> Calvert, >> yes. >> Rome, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shaq, >> yes. Motion carries. Um item 55 5A is the transfer of tax increment fin increment pooling to the affordable housing trust fund. Miss Wishnack. Uh nothing further on this item. I think I got through but I needed to at the council meeting. So with that, mayor, uh just a motion to adopt the resolution. Thank you, Miss Wishnack. We got a uh council member Foster Bolton. Uh, I make the motion to adopt the resolution transferring poolled tax increment from tax increment financing districts in the city of Minnitankka for affordable housing purposes. >> Thank you. Commissioner Kley, >> I second. I have a motion by Commissioner Foster Bolton, a second by Commissioner Kley. Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Wilurn, >> yes. >> Calbert, >> yes. >> Raley, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shack, >> yes. Motion carries. Item 5B, homes within reach repair for forgivable loan program. Miss Wishnack. >> No further comments. Uh, President, thank you. Uh, Commissioner Kley. Thank you, Mayor. I make the motion to adopt the resolution approving guidelines for the homes within reach repair forgivable loan program and accepting the transfer of funds from the affordable housing trust fund for of the city of Minnitonka to the program. >> Thank you. Uh, Commissioner Celver, a second. Thank you. I have a motion by Commissioner Kley, a second by Commissioner Calbertt. Miss Larson, please please call roll. Wilburn, >> yes. Calbert, >> yes. >> Rome, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shaq, >> yes. Motion carries. Um, I have item 5C, which is Marsh 3 collateral assignment, and that's with Doran Companies LLC. Miss Wishnack. Thank you. uh president and commissioners, this is an assignment uh for collateral uh with the bank uh named as Ridian Credit Union. [snorts] And so when there's a financing agency involved, occasionally they'll ask for the tax increment note to be assigned to the bank. That is what's happening in this transaction. Um it is required that the Econite Development Authority approve any of those collateral assignments. So with that, we would recommend that you adopt the resolution. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Wishnack. Any questions or a motion? Commissioner Calbertt. Thank you, Madame President. I make the motion to adopt the resolution approving a collateral assignment of the contract for private redevelopment with Marsh Run 3 LLC and the Vidian Credit Union. >> Council member Wilbur. Second, Commissioner. I apologize again. Thank you. I have a motion by Commissioner Calbert, a second by Commissioner Wilburn. Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Wilburn, >> yes. >> Calbert, >> yes. >> Romeley, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shack, >> yes. Motion carries. Item six is adjournment. >> Commissioner Wilburn, >> I move adjournment. >> Second. I have a motion by Commissioner Wilburn, a second by Commissioner Kelbert. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion carries. We are adjourned of the EDA. We will reconvene the city council meeting. Uh and um with that, we will address item 14 D. And Mr. Nelson, you're going to help me with this. >> Sure. Uh, Mayor Shack, council members, the uh pres overriding presumption of the open meeting laws that public business is conducted in public open meetings, but there are certain exceptions that allow the council at its discretion to go into close session to discuss. One of those uh based upon a proper motion is to uh develop or consider offers or counter offers for the purchase of uh real property and that is Minnesota statutes 13D.05 05 subdivision 3C. So there are various requirements for uh the conduct of a close session uh which staff will uh appropriately follow up on. But assuming the motion uh uh at the council's discretion is read as it's presented on the slide, you would meet the first requirements of uh the the law in order to go into close session. >> Thank you, Mr. Nelson. >> Oh, sorry, Mayor. I apologize. one there and um the motion as as drafted references the Gray's Bay room. We would go into close session in the mini haha room. So that should be made clear. >> Mention that. Thank you. Um so we need a motion as as outlined on the screen um modifying Grab Bay for Minihaha. And then the last thing, Mr. Nilson, will we come back in to close the meeting and reconvene or how do we handle that? >> That That's correct. Marshack, I think you already indicated for the public that there is likely no public action to be taken, but the council would return uh to adjourn the this meeting at the conclusion of the close session. >> Thank you. All right. I'm looking for a motion. Council member Calvert. Thank you, Madam President. I make the motion to convene in the mini haha room for a close session pursuant to the Minnesota statute section 13D.05 subsection 3C to consider an offer or counter offer to purchase real property located at 16809 State Highway 7. Thank you. And a second. Council member Kley. >> I second. >> All right. I have a motion from council member Calbertt. A second from council member Kley. Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Wilbur, >> yes. >> Calbert, >> yes. >> Raley, >> yes. Kley, >> yes. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shaq, >> yes. Motion carries. We will reconvene in close session in the mini haha room in a couple minutes. >> [music]